When growing Cannabis plants, high-quality seeds are one of the most important requirements to ensure a healthy crop. It is a fact that the final yield depends on a slew of factors, which include proper watering, adequate nutrients, and optimum light of high quality.
However, at the beginning of it all, you need good genetics, and to acquire the required genetics for your Cannabis plants, you need to source cannabis seeds of the best quality. This will ensure that you get the cannabinoid and terpene profile of your preference, but you can also avoid dud seeds.
There are many factors that you would need to examine and assess while buying seeds. A few signs can indicate the seed’s worthiness and if your efforts and labor would bear fruit or not. The below mentioned are some of the factors that you need to watch out for.
Examine the color, shape, and size of your seeds
While other crops, such as food grains, vegetables, fruit, have undergone vigorous breeding procedures for centuries that have ensured a stable crop, it is not so with Cannabis. Therefore, there might be times when you sow seeds from a pack labeled as belonging to the same ‘strain’ but end up with plants that look quite different. Also, it could mean that the individual seeds you purchase from a seed bank could vary in appearance.
Due to that distinctness in appearance, some growers think that the size, color, and shape of the seed have a bearing on its quality.
However, it is not recommended to take the size or shape as a sign of its quality. Some strains naturally produce smaller seeds than others, and the same plant can even produce seeds of different sizes and shapes. It would be best to never discard a seed for being smaller or of a different shape than another one.
However, you can know a lot about a seed’s maturity and growth potential from its color and feel.
Mature cannabis seeds are typically a hard outer shell, and their color can vary from very dark (or almost black) to a light form of grey and may have tiger-like stripes. The seeds should get damaged when you firmly press them between your fingers.
On the other hand, immature seeds would be green in color and have a softer outer shell that breaks on slight pressure.
Every cannabis seed is biologically different from one another, even though they might technically belong to the same strain. Therefore, they will show different physical characteristics. You shouldn’t be fooled by the natural differences and be led into thinking that larger seeds, rounder and darker are of better quality than those that do not possess those attributes.
Can you determine the sex of cannabis seeds, judging from their appearance?
This is a question that beginner cannabis growers ask all the time. The answer to the question is a resounding no. There is no way you can tell the sex of a cannabis seed just from its looks.
There are many myths about Cannabis floating around online. One of the most popular ones is from a chart that shows five different seeds, claiming that the female seeds have a round-shaped depression at the bottom, where the seed was attached to the plant.
As explained earlier, all cannabis seeds have distinct looks, and there is no single physical trait that can indicate that the seed contains the genetics to become a male or a female plant. You can only differentiate a female cannabis plant from a male of the species by looking at its flowers when it begins to bloom.
Growing seeds from a bag
It might delight some smokers to find some cannabis seeds in their bags. They might consider themselves lucky. However, on the contrary, finding seeds in a bag could be bad for several reasons.
One reason is that it could mean that the grower messed up and an invading male accidentally pollinated their female plants. Pollinated flowers stop producing THC-containing resin, and their energy is spent producing seeds. Secondly, the weight of the seeds would have added to the bag’s overall weight, which means they got lesser weed than what they paid for.
That being said, if the strain they were growing is really prime, you might have been in luck. In this case, you could conduct the following test to see if it’s worth germinating.
Germinating all the seeds nevertheless.
The best way to test the genetic potential of a seed is to simply sow them in the soil. You wouldn’t have to wait too long to see the results. If you are a hobby home grower with time and space to spare, that option could be good enough for you. That is not feasible for commercial growers as they wouldn’t have spare time to invest in a risky project.
The float test
If you still aren’t convinced about the quality of your seeds, though you have thoroughly analyzed their appearance and strength, you could get ready for an experiment. The float test is quite easy to conduct and has two possible outcomes. Fill a drinking glass or glass jar with water for the test, and place your seeds on the water surface.
The seeds that remain floating on the surface are most likely to be of unsuitable quality and can be discarded. The ones that sink to the bottom of the container are most probably healthy and worthy of being germinated.
However, you might need to be patient when conducting the float test, as the results are not immediately apparent. You might have to wait for approximately 1–2 hours before confirming the results. Some good-quality seeds need adequate time to absorb enough water to sink.
However, bear in mind that you should only conduct this test if you are planning to germinate the seeds immediately afterward. The good seeds that sunk to the bottom of the glass will have taken in water. When water breaches the membrane of the seed, it signals to the seed that it’s time to come to life—thus activating the process of germination.
Source your seeds well
One of the most reliable ways to ensure that your seeds are of good quality is to source them from a reputable seed bank. The best seed companies pride themselves on their skills at breeding cannabis seeds and ensure that their customers receive the best seeds, exactly as they were advertised. If you find a good seed bank who have been in the market for a considerable period, they would have reputations to maintain, so delivering lesser quality seeds would only harm their standing.
Final Word
The seeds you pick for growing directly impact the quality of your harvest. Hence, you must use the tips mentioned above to ensure the quality of cannabis seeds you buy. With that being said, remember that each cannabis plant is different from the other, and the seeds they produce would be slightly different. If you want to buy high-quality seeds of strains like Blue Dream, please visit i49.
