Usually, growers, especially first-timers, tell bad cannabis seeds after germinating them the appropriate way and fail to sprout or face trouble like infestations with the marijuana seeds on their journey in cultivation.
What if I tell you that you don’t have to endure the irritation of marijuana seeds not germinating? Save your time and resources.
Besides, prevention is better than cure. Know what you are dealing with regarding the quality of your marijuana seeds. If there is a problem, eliminate it beforehand, or else you risk dealing with it at later stages when it’s more costly and imposes greater risk.
Save the quality of cannabis crops and buds, and this starts by differentiating the bad cannabis seeds from the good and only cultivating the good quality pot seeds.
Causes of bad cannabis seeds
Dud cannabis seeds.
These are marijuana seeds that never sprout, so you waste your money buying them, energy, and resources only for them not to grow.
Regular cannabis seeds.
Regular pot seeds should not be a problem if you are a breeder, but they are bud lovers’ worst nightmare. Regular marijuana seeds produce male and female plants. If you are negligent and forget to identify and weed out the males from your female bunch, they pollinate them, causing seedy buds that are low in potency.
The solution is to cultivate feminized cannabis seeds that guarantee 100% female plants in your garden, so you don’t have to deal with the males.
How to test cannabis seeds
An experienced grower may know how to distinguish between good and bad cannabis seeds by looking, feeling, smelling, or tasting. So how can a new grower in the world of cannabis tell the difference?
Looking at them
The shape and size
Healthy cannabis seeds are generally round or oval, and the size of a match stick head though some may be bigger because of the genetics of the marijuana strain. The healthy seeds are the fatter and rounder ones with a hard outside shell.
Color
Healthy pot seeds are usually dark brown with dark stripes or patches. If your pot seeds are green or white, they are likely immature. Pale seeds are generally old and unviable.
Appearance
Healthy pot seeds are shiny and attractive with a waxy sheen, while duds are pale and non-appealing to the eyes.
Cracks
Cannabis seeds are in good shape when they are free of cracks; any signs of cracks damage the weed seeds.
Mildew
Since cannabis seeds are tiny, you can only see the details with a magnifying glass. Also, the white and dusty powder is mildew, warming you the pot seeds have fungus, so it’s best not to plant them. Sometimes you don’t even need a magnifying glass; you can see the mildew coated on the seeds.
Touching them
Place the seed between two fingers and apply minimal pressure. If the seed cracks with minimal effort, it’s a non-viability sign, so it’s best not to germinate those because they are probably bad cannabis seeds.
Place them in water
Placing cannabis seeds in water induces germination, so you can only use this method when you are ready to sprout the seeds. Storing wet seeds causes them to rot.
Place warm distilled (not hot) in a container, then place the seeds for 2-3 hours. The healthy marijuana seeds usually sink while the bad ones float on water even after more hours of soaking.
Soaking the seeds for up to 24 hours causes the healthy ones to sprout, and you can see a tap root making them ready for planting.
This method is cheap, straightforward, and effective.
Age
You can never know the age of a seed by looking at it or determining at what age it was sold to you from the seed bank though very old seeds are usually pale and dusty without the waxy sheen.
If you trust the seed bank from which you pot the weed seeds, that’s a good start. Ensure not to keep the weed seeds with you for more than a year
Cannabis seeds offer the best viability rates when fresh, so instead of pushing your lick with proper storing methods, I recommend you buy cannabis seeds when you are ready to plant them.
How to buy good quality cannabis seeds
The Seed Bank from which you buy your cannabis seeds determines a lot about its quality because they are the ones that breed the pot seeds so that they can tell the difference.
We emphasize buying pot seeds from an authentic seed bank, especially those that breed the seeds in-house and offer a germination guarantee for the weed seeds they sell.
With the trustworthy seed bank, you can buy feminized cannabis seeds to save yourself the heartache of dealing with the nosy males when you cultivate the buds.
Notwithstanding, the seeds are only living things and could be dud for various reasons, but kudos if you can have most of your marijuana seeds sprouting! You are on the right track.
As we part on how to DIFFERENTIATE bad cannabis seeds from the good ones
Beyond what’s on the top of the cannabis seeds, you should know what’s on the inside. You can crack a seed from the bunch to have a precise observation; seeds that are black inside and oily with an odd smell are bad cannabis seeds.
Go the extra mile to identify the good from the bad cannabis seeds so, when you start growing; your efforts are not put to waste because the quality of the weed seeds you grow determines the quality of buds you harvest
The good thing about shopping cannabis seeds with reputable seedbanks like Seed Connect is they replace the pot seeds that fail to sprout after germinating them appropriately.