You’ve noticed that Growing Marijuana Perfectly reviews and recommends marijuana seeds from only a few of the hundreds of marijuana seeds companies that sell cannabis seeds, and you probably wonder why.
Some people wonder if we’re like all the other marijuana magazines–they’re bribed by advertising to say good things about marijuana seeds and grow gear.
We don’t accept bribes or advertising. Our recommendations are solely based on investigation and testing.
We’re the only marijuana magazine that’s a consortium of real growers just like you.
Our motivation for doing this magazine is to make your marijuana growing as fun, rewarding, and profitable as possible.
We know what it feels like to buy marijuana seeds and discover they’re hermies, or otherwise inferior. What a waste of time, electricity, water, nutrients, risk, and effort!
When we warn that most marijuana seeds companies aren’t worth your money, we have evidence.
Our method of investigating marijuana seed companies includes asking the world’s most successful, serious connoisseur and craft marijuana growers about their experiences with seed companies and breeders.
We constantly study seed company websites, online reviews and discussion forums.
If a seed company appears to be selling superior genetics, we contact them with the following questions:
- Are your seeds available worldwide?
- Do you do your own breeding?
- If you don’t do your own breeding, how do you control and ensure the quality and professionalism of your breeders?
- How do you know for sure your seeds are fantastic and grow out to be what you say they are?
- If you sell autoflowering and/or feminized marijuana strains, what process do you use to create the feminized or autoflowering trait?
- How do you test your seeds to ensure 100% germination rate, freshness, and phenotype consistency?
- Are you making knockoff strains or are you doing original breeding so no other breeder has the strains you have?
- Are you buying any of your seeds bulk from Spain, the UK or other low-end industrial seed sellers?
- Do your strains ever go hermie and if so, under what conditions?
- What details can you provide us about yourself and your company so growers have faith that your seeds are worth the money and they should grow your strains instead of those from other breeders?
These questions are the same ones you should ask any seed breeder before you give them your money.
We can tell from the response (or non-response) to these questions whether a breeder is legit enough for us to take the time to test-grow their seeds.
Legit cannabis seeds breeders quickly respond to queries and provide documentary information proving they do their own breeding of reliable, exceptionally high-quality connoisseur seeds and strains.
Legit seed breeders want media exposure; bad seed sellers don’t want us looking at what they’re doing.
So when we contact a breeder and they don’t get back to us, or they get back with pathetically weak information and refuse to send test seeds, we assume they’re scammers.
For example, we contacted the seed company Ethos because it brags about elite strains. They refused to answer any questions, which was no surprise, given that they’ve been called out as scammers repeatedly.
Except in the rarest of cases, we NEVER recommend seed strains we haven’t grown for at least two seasons.
Sad to say, the level of evasion, dishonesty and scamming in the marijuana seeds industry has never been higher than it is right now.
You see Instagrams, YouTube videos, websites from “breeders,” but then find their poetic claims of gooey buds and tasty strains unravel when they can’t explain how they bred the strain or how to grow it.
Seed companies show seductively gorgeous bud photos for strains in their promotions, but when we ask for alternative photos or grew the pictured strains ourselves, the flowers weren’t anywhere near as attractive and in some cases look nothing like the photos!
Our photo editor looked at the coded digitalized photo information for a breeder’s website photo that was supposedly a “Haze” strain– the photo was actually of a completely different strain, not Haze. Worse yet, the photo had been pirated.
We also discovered that scammers are using Instagram to run their scams.
For example, Instagram scammers cloned and slightly altered the authentic logo and other features of one of the world’s best cannabis seed breeders, Humboldt Seed Company, to sell bogus seeds via Instagram.
Because Humboldt Seed Company is making the most unique and tasty strains in North America, a scam company calling themselves Humboldt Seed Organization was created to poach some of their popularity.
It’s disgusting.
Further, new marijuana seeds companies are springing up like weeds.
They’re buying junk seeds bulk from companies like Seedsman and Tiger One, and then repackaging the seeds with new names.
You notice those sites never explain how they bred their strains.
Many of these clowns don’t even grow marijuana. They’re just scammers trying to get rich off of marijuana growers.
The Death of the Dutch Marijuana Seeds Industry
Decades ago, there were only a couple dozen commercial marijuana seed breeders worldwide, all based in The Netherlands.
Some of these seed banks were run by cannabis revolutionaries who risked prison to ship heritage strains worldwide at a time when marijuana growing and seeds were nowhere legal.
Guys like Neville, the famous Haze man who started the earliest by-mail cannabis seeds bank–he was relentlessly hunted down by a worldwide police conspiracy for the “crime” of selling mail order cannabis seeds to grateful buyers.
During this gilded era when the Dutch government welcomed billions of cannabis tourism dollars per year, and was tolerant of domestic marijuana grow ops supplying the country’s marijuana coffee shops, legendary Dutch seed breeders made their own seeds in Holland.
Growers worldwide traveled to Amsterdam to buy cannabis seeds and risked federal prison bringing them back home with us.
Dutch companies competed in the vaunted High Times Amsterdam Cannabis Cup, and although favoritism and backroom deals corrupted the event, Dutch seed companies had enough pride, professionalism, and competitive spirit that they worked hard to maintain and improve their legendary strains such as Bubble Gum, AK-47, Northern Lights, Durban Poison and other famous strains.
If you got a High Times Cannabis Cup judge’s pass and smoked all the buds on the competition menu in a couple of days, you were enjoying one of Europe’s greatest cities, stoned beyond words.
Unfortunately, the Dutch government turned against cannabis starting in 2001 and has viciously attacked the legal cannabis coffee shop industry, as well as Dutch domestic marijuana growers.
Some conservative members of the Amsterdam city government, for example, want to eliminate all cannabis cafes or make it so only Dutch citizens can buy weed at them.
Ignoring the fact that alcohol bars are the main cause of social decay, sexual assault, violence, vandalism and other criminality in the city’s tourist districts, braindead Dutch officials falsely claim marijuana tourism has a negative impact on Amsterdam.
Government hostility forced almost all Dutch cannabis seeds companies to move production to Spain.
This is depressing, because most Spanish breeders are industrial profiteers lacking passionate dedication to fine, connoisseur cannabis.
One big problem is that many of the bulk seed farms are outdoor operations, which means cannabis pests, viruses and diseases are easily transferred into seeds and will contaminate your grow op too.
We see seed companies openly admitting to buying bulk seeds from Spain. They even admit these seeds aren’t so good, and advises growers of a lengthy refund or replacement process when seeds go hermaphrodite, won’t germinate, or are otherwise defective.
It gives us no pleasure to say this, but growers should be aware that the majority of the most famous Dutch seed companies, including ones with big names that have won numerous Cannabis Cup awards, are now selling compromised genetics.
We feel especially obligated to call out Sensi Seeds, which used to be top-rank when its innovative, heroic founder Ben Dronkers was personally in charge of daily operations.
Now Ben is retired, and Sensi is selling blanks, charging way too much per seed, living off of their distant past reputation.
We spent a lot of money recently on some of their most-famous strains, and were hugely disappointed. Not just because their strains were mediocre at best, but because they refuse to answer customer queries.
They just don’t care anymore.
The following is one of many reviews irate growers have posted about Sensi Seeds:
“Sensi Seeds used to be the only source of old school strains, but looks like now they f’d it up! We tried several Sensi Seeds strains in recent years and their quality is not there anymore! Super Skunk was years ago a super stinky strain with fat chunky buds; now it’s a shame, tastes like hemp, not much resin & has airy buds. Skunk #1 was exact the same shit. Mother’s Finest was absolute disappointment–no Haze smell or taste, no resin, to many leaves. Juicy Fruit was not fruity or juicy. It was also like hemp. It’s sad when you need to grow your medicine, but Sensi Seeds sends you shitty seeds.”
Cannabis Seed Scammers Are Very Clever
The North American marijuana seeds industry is plagued by people we call “pollen-chuckers.”
Unlike bulk seed resellers, the pollen chuckers attempt to make their own crosses by buying what they think are legit versions of famous strains and then pollinating a few females.
Typical is the breeder we interviewed who admits to placing female plants from several strains in one grow room with a pollen-heavy male plant, blasting all the females with pollen, then creating fake strain names and descriptions for the resultant seeds.
Sketchy breeders utilize crude techniques (such as using pollen from hermie plants) to create so-called “feminized” strains. Many supposedly feminized strains themselves grow out as hermies, or male plants develop from seeds that are supposed to be feminized.
Some cannabis seeds scammers are very creative in their deviousness.
For example, Humboldt Seed Organization uses its name to steal some of the business of an amazing seed company that we highly recommend called Humboldt Seed Company.
The spam company has its misleading name, and claims to be based in Humboldt County, California.
But when you look at Humboldt Seed Organization’s website “About Us,” you find only a generic cut-and-paste essay about Humboldt County, not about the seed company, which appears to be based in Spain or the UK.
We’ve tested some of their strains and they are all garbage.
Other scam breeders buy the original AK-47 from its breeder, Dutch company Serious Seeds. Then they do cheap crosses, and sell their seeds as AK-47, AK-48, AK-49, etc.
Aware of all these pitfalls and challenges, we go to great lengths to discover the best seed companies.
When we’ve sent a seed company our initial questionnaire, and gotten intelligent answers, we ask for tester seeds. Only by growing the seeds can we be sure a strain is worth growing.
Seeds cost seed companies a few pennies each. So if they refuse to send us tester seeds, we know they lack confidence in their strains and they’re miserly bastards who don’t recognize the value of having their strains written about.
We’ve received seeds from legal and illegal places all over the world. When someone refuses to send testers, we cross them off our list.
Yay! Here’s How to Get Incredible Cannabis Seeds & Strains
If you’re fortunate enough to live in California, Colorado or the few other legalized marijuana states that allow seed companies to sell seeds at licensed dispensaries and/or ship them intrastate, or where you can legally buy clones direct from clone nurseries, you have access to legit new strains from often-obscure professional breeders…and growers everywhere envy you, lol.
I realize it sounds “judgmental” and harsh to say that 95% of the seed companies are rippers, but that’s what our investigations show so far.
You may have grown some decent bud from inferior strains and seeds, but you can grow a lot better when you buy from legit companies.
So we have very good news for you. We’ve grown hundreds of strains and thousands of seeds from dozens of seed companies, and queried nearly all the seed companies listed on reseller websites, and have found reliable, incredible strains and ethical business practices from the following seed breeders:
- Serious Seeds
- Dutch Passion
- Humboldt Seed Company
- New 420 Guy
- Pure Breeding, by Kyle Breeder
If you only buy seeds from the companies we recommend, you have at least 225 killer strains to choose from. You could grow two dozen fantastic new strains a year for at least ten years, buying seeds only from these listed companies!
As of now, we’ve given you a timely warning: most marijuana seed companies are ripoffs.
You might find a marijuana seeds company that has attractive marketing, fire strain names, a charismatic dude as their front man. They might even have won a Cannabis Cup, Emerald Cup or other award. They might have a pretty Instagram or website, gnarly dreads, and talk the right talk.
But that doesn’t prove anything–here’s an extreme example of the bullshit we encounter when we try to get information and test seeds so we help you find the best strains for your grow op:
We’ve been looking into origins and recent incarnations of Gorilla Glue #4 for an article about the best strains that include GG4.
We were hopeful about a seeds website that listed several GG variations. Note: it wasn’t the website of the late Joesy Whales, or his associates, who are said to be the originators of the Gorilla Glue strain.
We sent our list of questions direct to the breeder.
This breeder presents himself online as an absolute genius who uses “colloidal silver” and other weird methods to allegedly create feminized seed strains that he told us are “beyond amazing.”
We asked about his strain origins and breeding program, especially how did he get an authentic GG4 cut and the other strains he claims to have bred it with.
We also asked for third-party test data on his strains’ genetics and cannabinoid/terpenoid percentages. He said he had all that info and would happily send it to us right away.
Two weeks later, we had received nothing from the guy.
And in the interim, we’d heard from other breeders and growers that this guy is a notorious asshole and scammer.
We called him and told him about the criticism, and asked why he hadn’t sent us the follow-up information he’d promised to send.
He responded with evasion, profanity, and threats.
“Listen, haters gonna hate, and most growers don’t give a flying fuck if my strains are the best, they just want to grow something other than bag seed,” he shouted. “If you say anything bad about my company, I know people in Vegas, and you’ll end up buried in the desert.”
Unfortunately, that kind of gangsterish approach is too common in the marijuana seeds industry, which includes Nazis and other white supremacists, motorcycle gangs, child molesters, people who’ve done time for manslaughter, and other nefarious criminals who got into the marijuana seeds black market as an easy way to make a quick buck from people who won’t file a consumer complaint.
We even encountered a seed company named after the most famous political fraudster, traitor, and liar of our time: Trump Seeds.
There’s an element of trust in a seed buyer/seed seller relationship that isn’t found in other business transactions. Remember that when you order seeds online, the seller has your address.
If the seeds suck or they don’t arrive at all, and you ask for a refund or replacement, the seller can nark you.
We’ve had threats like that; one of our team members had to move because of it.
Another problem: some cannabis seeds sites aren’t cybersecure—you start seeing credit card fraud or other financial hits soon after giving your payment info to a seeds seller.
The good news is you can be sure the seed companies we listed in the bullet points above are legit, run by intelligent, honorable people passionate about cannabis breeding who do everything possible to ensure their strains are amazing and their seeds all germinate to be the strains you purchased!
One final note: of the few companies we recommend and have tested for years, the only long-established international company whose seeds have always grown true and have never produced even one hermie is Serious Seeds.
Growing Marijuana Perfectly! 