Guide to Buying Marijuana Seeds

The legalization of cannabis in Canada has opened up many doors for people who want to smoke, ingest, or grow marijuana. If you have thought about growing your own marijuana plants, you’ll need to buy marijuana seeds first.

Growing cannabis might require more maintenance and money than you might think. New growers should take some time to learn about different cannabis seeds and the type of plants they grow into. This blog post will take you through everything you need to know about buying marijuana seeds and how to produce plants that you can harvest and use later.

Can I grow marijuana in Canada?

In most provinces, yes. Most households can have up to four marijuana plants growing at one time. However, residents of Manitoba and Quebec are prohibited from growing marijuana in the privacy of their own home. Provinces are still adding and altering cannabis laws, so these policies could change.

It may be easier to purchase a marijuana plant that has already started growing, but they aren’t as accessible as a tomato plant or a bouquet of flowers. If you want to grow marijuana at home, you will have to buy marijuana seeds.

Where can I buy marijuana seeds in Canada?

The accessibility of marijuana seeds depends on where you live. Check your local liquor store or cannabis retailer for seeds first. If there isn’t a store close to home that has seeds available (or the store doesn’t have the strain of seed that you want,) you can also buy seeds from retailers online. Online stores will usually have a larger selection of products, so you can choose the strain of cannabis that you want to harvest and use later.

Marijuana Seed Terminology

There truly is a science to growing any type of plant, including cannabis. As you start to shop around for seeds, you might see some unfamiliar terms and wonder whether you want to spend the extra money buying feminized or auto seeds.

Let’s break these terms down.

Why are some seeds “feminized?”

It won’t be long before you start to see advertisements for “feminized” seeds. What does that mean? Why does your seed have to be feminine?

You don’t need to purchase feminized seeds, but if you’re looking to plant some seeds and smoke the results, you’ll might not get much use out of non-feminized seeds.

There are two types of cannabis plants: male and female. Just like humans, male plants will produce seed pods that can be used to produce more plants. Female seeds will produce buds, which turn into flowers. Yes, we said “bud.” This is the part of the plant that you harvest, and later smoke.

Male plants won’t produce buds.

If your only purpose for buying seeds is to harvest buds, you will need to buy female seeds. Plus, female plants tend to have higher amounts of THC, CBD, and other important cannabinoids than male plants. We like the sound of that.

Much like humans, it’s hard to tell whether a plant is going to be male or female when you are just looking at the seed. No one wants to spend $20 on a seed that they can’t smoke later. So many seed producers will “feminize” their seeds. They can guarantee that all of the seeds are female and will produce bud.

If you plan on plant more cannabis throughout the year and don’t want to keep spending money on seeds, it might be worth it to buy a mix of male and female seeds. Otherwise, get feminized seeds. Even though the odds are 50/50, you might feel a little cheated if you spend weeks harvesting a plant only to find out that you won’t be able to smoke it.

What are “autoflowering” seeds?

Cannabis, like other species of plants and animals, has had to adapt to its environment in order to thrive. Throughout history, you can find cannabis that has grown all over the world. Different environments may provide different growing conditions for plants, including hours of sunlight, temperature, or levels of precipitation.

In some parts of the world, these growing conditions included many hours of sunlight. Cannabis strains that grew in these areas thrived on specific hours of sunlight each day.

These strains include cannabis indica and cannabis sativa, the two main types of strains that we consume.

Growers often have to mimic that environment by shining lights on their plants all day and all night until their plants reach a certain maturity, and then remember to change their lights to a different schedule. This may eliminate the possibility of growing plants outdoors, limits growing seasons, and requires growers to buy specific lights or grow boxes for their plants.

But did you know there was a third variety? (And no, we don’t mean hybrid.)

Luckily, not all areas of the world have been able to offer these growing conditions and other strains have had to adapt. Certain strains that grew up in northern parts of the world learned to grow with limited hours of sunlight. They evolved and learned how to flower with age (rather than with different periods of sunlight.)

This type of cannabis is called cannabis ruderalis. It’s more commonly known as “autoflowering” cannabis.

Autoflowering cannabis seeds aren’t just flexible with sunlight hours; they’re extremely resilient plants. It’s hard for growers to “screw up” after they plant these seeds.

Seed producers have been able to mix autoflowering plants with popular strains and produce dominant indicas and sativas that do not need specific light cycles to grow. These seeds are often marketed to new growers who may not have the experience or the time to maintain their plants.

“Autoflowering” seeds are a lot easier to grow and they produce flowers fast. Growers can expect to see their plants flowering within a few weeks of germination.

There is one drawback to autoflowering seeds. Typically, these seeds will contain a high amount of CBD and lower amounts of THC. When seed producers breed an indica with an ruderalis, the resulting hybrid won’t have the same amount of chemical compounds as the indica that you know and love.

Growers who want to produce high yields of especially potent marijuana may want to take their chances with “regular” seeds that may produce stronger bud.

Can I buy auto feminized seeds?

Absolutely! Growers can buy seeds that are auto, feminized, or both!

How to Pick Your Seeds

Once you start shopping for seeds, you may find yourself overwhelmed with the selection. Sure, you might want a feminized, autoflowering seed. But you still have a lot of decisions to make before you can hit “buy.”

Growers can shop for seeds based on:

Strain

If you have a particular strain that you want to grow at home, you will most likely be able to find seeds for that strain online. Since seed banks may only sell one or two seeds at a time, you can buy a variety of strains as your four house plants.

CBD and Medical Varieties

If you prefer to consume cannabis for medical purposes, you can get your preferred strains online as well. Most medical varieties have a high CBD content and may not have any THC at all. You won’t need a medical card to buy these strains, so if you are just looking for CBD-dominant strains, this might be the section for you.

Ease of Growth

Gardening isn’t everyone’s favourite hobby, but the idea of having homegrown bud in your house may change your mind about planting seeds. If this is your first time growing plants from seeds, you might want to check out strains that are easier to grow. Some strains are more delicate than others; all it takes is a high temperature or too much humidity to kill these plants. Luckily, many retailers and online seed stores have a special section where you can choose “easy to grow” seeds.

Some of the most resilient and popular cannabis strains include:

• Easy Bud: This is an autoflowering variety that has been mixed with indica strains. The user will feel toned-down effects of an indica, but most importantly, they’ll get a successful first harvest.
• Northern Lights: Although there are autoflowering varieties of Northern Lights seeds, you should be able to grow a satisfactory amount of cannabis with regular seeds. Northern Lights is a popular indica strain that grows fast and is resistant to pests and mold.
• Royal Cheese: This indica-dominant strain is well-known for its ability to grow much higher than other cannabis plants. Outside, this plant can reach a whopping two and a half meters! Growers should know that if they have nosy neighbors, this variety may be best inside. It is pungent.
• White Widow: White Widow also reaches high heights, and once you harvest your bud, you will too. This strain has been known to reach THC levels of up to 25%. It’s an indica-dominant hybrid.
• Blue Dream: We’ve suggested a lot of indicas. Sativa lovers, this one’s for you. Blue Dream is one of the easiest sativa strains to grow and also reaches high THC levels. Hydroponic growers get an especially strong yield from this strain.

How much do cannabis seeds cost?

If you have bought seeds for a vegetable garden or a flower bed before, you might be surprised at how expensive even one single cannabis seed costs. You can buy a packet of tomato seeds with the change in your pocket. One cannabis seed ranges from $7-20. You read that right. A single seed can cost double digits.

Why?

The answer has to do with supply and demand. Farmers produce and use seeds as a massive scale. Up until last year, cannabis was still criminalized. It took a lot more to produce and distribute cannabis and cannabis seeds. As more cannabis products hit the market and more companies start growing cannabis at a large scale, you’ll see the prices of seeds go down.

Until then, it’s important to germinate and plant your seeds properly. If you lose one seed, you lose 20 dollars and the chance to grow a decent amount of pot over the next few months.

How to Prepare Marijuana Seeds for Ideal Growth

Before your seeds go into the dirt, you should germinate them. This process allows them to grow a root and turn into a seedling that is ready to be transplanted. All you need to complete this process is damp paper towels, plates, and a heated room.

Marijuana seeds germinate best when they are kept in 70-90 degree heat. If you are buying seeds in the summertime or like to keep your house temperature at 72 or 73 degrees, you should be ok. Ideally, you should turn up the heat in your grow room or grow box and let your seeds germinate there.

Soak your towels in distilled water and ring them out. They should be damp, but not so damp that they leave water everywhere. Place your seeds between the wet towels. Cover the towels with a paper plate to block out light.

The seeds should crack open and grow a root within a few days, although sometimes it takes just a single day for germination. Wait at least a week before you buy another seed and try again.

Once you are ready to plant, you have a lot of choices to make. Are you going to plant your seeds indoors or outdoors? Are you going to use soil, a hydroponic system, or another substance? Make sure you have these materials ready to go so you can transplant soon after germination.

Before You Buy

There is a lot of work that goes into picking, planting, and harvesting cannabis plants. You don’t want to come all this way just to buy seeds from a scam company. When you buy seeds from a government-owned retailer, you can usually guarantee you get the product that is advertised. Before you shop online, do some research, read reviews, and verify that you are buying from a legitimate company that is truthfully producing and distributing high-quality seeds.

Want to learn more about the basics of growing weed in Canada? Check out our blog post.