A Guide to Buying Quality Cannabis Seeds to Grow at Home

How Legal are Cannabis Seeds?

Probably best to start with the elephant in the room. Legal questions about buying, shipping and owning cannabis seeds.

Simple, it really depends on the state you are in (check here).

At this point, most are mixed – meaning medicinally legal but not decriminalized for recreation.

Some states do not allow any marijuana at all, so cannabis seeds are also illegal. Others will allow medical and/or recreational marijuana.

States that allow some cannabis do not always have clear-cut regulations.

What we’ve learned is purchasing online and owning seeds isn’t going to get you in trouble. They even say that cannabis seeds are legal for “feeding the birds” if you’re into that.

If ordering internationally and they get stopped during inspection, they will just toss the seeds and send the empty package along. (your seed bank will resend if you let them know)

As of the 2018 farm bill, just THC is in the “no-friend zone” for the government. These seeds don’t exactly carry more than 0.3% of THC.

As of this writing, the main states to avoid buying at includes:

Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Wyoming

With everything we put on this site, everyone’s situation is different. So please DYOR (do your own research) to keep yourself safe.

What are the Different Types of Cannabis Seeds

The type of seed you pick determines the results you are looking for. There are hundreds of strains to decide on, mixed strengths, cannabinoid dominance, and even grow heights / yields.

We’ll leave the strength, effect and strain for another article. Check out our strains here.

We will focus on the basics, seed characteristics to grow make growing at home a fun and successful venture.

The primary types you need to learn include; Indica vs Sativa, and, standard vs feminized vs autoflowering seeds.

Regular Seeds

Regular (aka standard) seeds will grow either male or female. You have a 50% chance, just as nature intended.

No tampering or tweaking involved to make these seeds, just the purest of purebred.

If you are looking to clone, regular seeds are the only ones that grow viable clones to produce flourishing cannabis plants.

Benefits for beginners – lower prices and are more abundant. You may even find some in the buds you have. So, if a beginner doesn’t mind just tossing a bunch of seeds out there and crossing their fingers, go this way. You’ll also begin to learn how to tell the differences in male and female early on.

Benefits for experts – the fact you may end up with a male works for breeders. This is how they create hybrids and mix their favorite strains together. I swear they just wanna make new names with crazy strain mixing.

Our Preferred Vendor for Regular Seeds

Rocket Seeds

I will not buy my seeds anywhere else, Rocket Seeds has the seeds that I want and service is above the others! Speedy delivery! Also pay with PayPal!” ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Visit Rocket Seeds

Feminized Seeds ♀

Female plants produce the flower power. The cannabinoids we have all grown to love. If you’re looking for flower (♀) over pollen sacs(♂), this is the seed for you.

Feminized seeds are said to germinate a female plant 99.9% of the time. Pretty good odds if you ask us.

How’s that possible? We won’t go too deep, but…

Breeders are nifty, they force a female plant to pollinate and use that pollen to fertilize another female. Endless female seeds from there on out. Science is the diggity.

Benefits for beginners – looking just to grow some sticky-icky flowers? If yes, then these are for you. You’ll always end up with a female who produces your selected flower strain, terpenes and cannabinoids.

Benefits for experts – preferred when wanting to be certain they’ll produce flower for their customers. 99.9% is a pretty good roll of the dice. Helps to streamline the process since you don’t have to dump any after germination.

Our Preferred Vendor for Feminized Seeds

I Love Growing Marijuana – ILGM

Very discreet, secure and I have only had one germination issue and it was my own fault. Good company.” ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Visit ILGM

Autoflowering Seeds

Why so magical?

Unlike regular and feminized seeds — need different light times (aka photoperiods) during each growing phase — autoflowering seeds trigger different growth stages based on time and age. No different than us.

By utilizing the third, less known sibling of the cannabis plants, Ruderalis doesn’t have time to mess around. This plant needs to reproduce before the short summer comes to an end and the freezing sets in.

Because of this, they grow a bit quickly and don’t need the changing sunlight periods to move through the stages of growth.

Benefit to beginners – no need to worry about varying light times to kick off the stages of growth. It’s almost the set it and forget it type of strain — at least in terms of lighting. Fastest flower on the market, from seed to pipe!

Benefit to expert – give the ability to infuse the autoflowering trait into “photoperiod” strains. Great for quick, in between flowering if they need to boost their querterly product. Usually comes at the cost of yield — often less flower produced per seed.

Our Preferred Vendor for Autoflowering Seeds

I Love Growing Marijuana – ILGM

Very discreet, secure and I have only had one germination issue and it was my own fault. Good company.” ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Visit ILGM

What Makes for Good and Bad Cannabis Seeds

Similar to looking at your buds, you can identify how good a marijuana seed is by its appearance — saving you before attempting to grow marijuana and investing your time in a dud.

Germination is key, the better the seeds the better your chance sowing a beautiful marijuana plant.

Appearance & Color

Good and bad seeds are pretty easy to tell apart. Look for brown or tan seeds that indicates it’s maturity. Immature seeds will be light green, yellow, or even white. Old seeds resemble our grandparents, wrinkled and sometimes with a crack… or six.

Shape & Size

Look for larger seeds with noticeable symmetry. Signs of quality and properly matured seeds.

Small and asymmetrical seeds signal that they are immature.

Sometimes you can find a teardrop-shaped seed which is totally ok and also means that the product is worth buying — just make sure all the other characteristics are good to go.

Hardness

The seed should have a hard and solid shell with no visual damages. Immature and old seeds can be soft or easily cracked when squeezed.

Sink or Float Test

After some time, noticing old or immature seeds becomes second nature. But, If you’re worried about the age of the seeds, try the float test.

Throw some seeds in some room temperature (preferably distilled) water. Give it about an hour or so.

If it sink, you are good. If it continues to float, it still could work… but not a great chance.

Be sure not to test unless you plan to germinate the seed soon after. Water on the seed can cause mold or decay.

What Cannabis Seeds to Buy

If you’re looking to enter the world of breeding—or perhaps you want genetically strong clones—then regular seeds are the way to go.

They are also good for breeders because of how they can produce more seeds or crossbreed one strain with another to develop newer strains.

You’ll want to start off with feminized seeds if your only aim is a canopy full of colas. These seeds minimize the chances of a male turning up in the growing room to almost zero.

Having feminized seeds is good for those who do not want to waste time and effort into taking care of plants that would eventually end up as males.

Many growers value speed above all else. If you want to harvest in as little time as possible and take up smaller amount of space, autoflowering seeds fit the bill.

Autoflowering seeds are great for beginner growers because they are very easy to grow. They are also resilient plants that can withstand diseases, pests and bad weather.

Can Marijuana Seeds Go Bad?

How long your seeds will last can vary. If you take the time to keep the seeds protected from humidity and light, and provide a cool environment the center of the seed will remain dormant.

Helps make the marijuana seed last a wee bit longer.

So, how long marijuana seeds will last depends on the care you take to conserve your marijuana seeds in the correct way.

Air tight, dark jars, and placed in in the right temperature — around 39/41℃ (4/6℃).

If you are very careful marijuana seeds last you for ages (years — maybe 10 max). You can even stock up on strains to have your own collection and at the same time, remain self-sufficient throughout the year.

Lastly, old seeds aren’t gonna hurt y’all. They just won’t germinate. Quite the important step before you grow that bountiful plant.

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bethehippy

Your no-nonsense, sometimes witty, cannabis knowledgeable hippy from the Midwest, hanging around Chicago these days. Learning the ins and outs of the cannabis world while learning to blog. In hopes that our lives become a little more… relaxed.

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