As for recommendations, canāt say Iāve experience with enough breeders or strains so that I could evaluate and compare them all. Iām sure there are breeders with great genes and stuff going that Iāve got no clue about.
For example, personally always had very good outcomes and felt like the seeds are superb quality when have bought & germinated seeds from:
Humboldtās seeds ā ā ā ā
Green House Seeds ā ā ā ā
Keeperās 3rd tier:
Sensi Seeds ā ā ā
Nirvana Seeds ā ā ā
Keeperās NOT favourites:
Royal Queen Seeds ā ā (comparing RQS and OSS auto seeds for example is a no brainer, OSS autos way way more potent with less rudelaris % than the shit RQS, never been super happy with RQS seeds)
Ripper Seeds ā ā (a friend never had as bad germination % as with ripper seeds)
Breeders personally wanna try out & heard some stuff about:
ā¢ DNA genetics Seeds
ā¢ Growers Choice
Feel free to share your experiences with em breeders & banks
Currently one of my favorite less mentioned breeders is probably cannarado. Ive grown out big hunk, potato head and currently flowering out cake fruit.
Have also had some nice DNA plants. White chocolope is good if you like white widow and sativas.
Ive never tried growers choice or really heard too much about them but im always skeptical when a seed seller had a ton of vintage genetics and no info on the provenance and also skeptical when someone with auto seeds doesnt list the ruderalis plant/original auto they used to breed the auto trait into their work
Not a fan of the big euro seed sellers. Just white label stuff. White labelling per se isnāt bad but it depends on whoās making the seeds. Barneys farm, seedstockers, tastebudz - owt like that I steer clear of. Thereās decent European breeders that sell at affordable prices. No need for that bulk cack.
Ive been very pleased with Next Generation Seeds. His Island Sweet Skunk is amazing!!! Hes been a breeder in Canada for more than 2 decades and started at Federation seeds in the 90ās
I have had good experiences with Great lakes genetics and Heritage seedbank.
I plan on trying out seedheaven and hemp depot soon.
Johnny Potseed is my go to guilty pleasure. High quality and affordable.
If I was going with European breeders Fluer de mal would be in there,KC Brain,Santero,OJD Aka Connasuer,ACE, Mandala, Shantibaba would be my picks off the top of my head.
American breeders Iām interested in are Bodhi, Crickets&Cicadas, AKBB, Gold Coast Genetics, Coastal, Doc D, Professor P/Dynasty, Blackbird Preservation, Colorado Sativaās, Equilibrium genetics, Hyp3brids, Woodhorse, Boneyard, Alter at Socal seed vault, Shoreline, Jaws, Sunshine Dream, Copa, H&L, Strawberry Hill, Cannavore, Topdawg,lucky dog, Lucky 13,Homegrown natural wonders,CSI Humboldt.
In my 25 years of growth I tried a lot of commercial seed banks especially europeans.
RQS: one of the worst ever for germination rate and variety stability, both Auto and photo. I throw away also their freebies I donāt want to gift them away to some friend and waste their growing time.
However, the part of the site with suggestions and growing techniques is good.
DUTCH PASSION: not to bed, even if the most of their list doesnāt live up to their story. They have something good like Kerosene Krash and Meringue but are very very expansive (almost 30$ for 1 seed)
HUMBOLDT SEED COMPANY: it was my favourite for years even if they are very expensive. Good quality, great terps, big yield and stability. The New was their best goal, but it was on stock just for a couple of year. I loved their wood pack. In the last years (before their shocking lock by authorities) they lost completely what they built. Now they are only the ghost of what they were.
SENSI SEED: nah! They remain on the market only because of the fame of its founder, but I have never grown anything decent from their seeds
BARNEYS FARM: they have a lot of decent varieties but nothing special. Good stuff, nice crosses. Itās true that you probably wonāt be disappointed but you wonāt be ecstatic either.
DNA GENETICS: same Barneys
ANESIA SEED: Their genetics all well exceed 30% THC in the catalogue, but when tested this is never the case. Just this year I grew some of their varieties and found nothing mind-blowing. Sufficient stuff, average. They say they are the inventors of GG#4, but if that is the real GG4 I much prefer that of the other seed banks.
These are the ones that are a little better known here in Europe. In the end you can find good things, but the price never goes below 10/12 $ per seed.
For the same price I bought the winners of this yearās Emerald Cup (Heady og by Mendodops) and the winners of previous years (Green Lantern and Lamboz from Ridgeline and Whithorn Rose by Huckleberry farm)
Way back in the day sensi used to have great stuff. Their NL5xHaze was one of the best, most potent strains Iāve ever grown. Their old maple leaf indica was another good one. Jack herer was an absolute classic. Silver pearl. Super skunk. They had lots of good strains that were the building blocks for a lot of the best stuff today.
But their seeds are nothing like they used to be, and havenāt been good for a long time now. I remember reading 10-15+ years ago something about how they lost their parent stock (or something like that) and their seeds havenāt been the same since.
Even back in the day when they had some great strains you had to run their seeds in numbers. If you only ran 1 pack you might not find anything great but great stuff was in there for sure.
Iāve seen original sensible seeds selling Bruce banner and Tropicana cookies. Thatās a darkhorse and an Oni creation. Stealing names to put on inferior products is a shithouse move imo. They just sell bulk seed. Thereās far better and far more ethical breeders out there selling the real deal. Archive are in stock at attitude. Sure theyāre pricey but thatās real dosidos and real moonbow. Not some fake shit from Morocco or summat.
Always ready to accept advice, I am open-minded. But donāt judge what you donāt knowā¦ Iāve never grown a single seed. Iām talking about my experience which simply may have been different from yours
Best Iāve ran
Csi
Founding Fathers
CannaRado
Archive
Raw
Jaws
Alien labs
Hazeman
Luposcanna Seed
G13 labs - UK days
Dna/RP - UK days
All of the disappointments ive grown have come from white label seeds. Iāve stayed mostly to reputable breeders and never been disappointed to be honest.
Honestly, even amongst all the top breeders I could mention (many already have been mentioned here)
Some of the ABSOLUTE BEST weed Iāve ever grown have been seed-chucks Iāve gotten for free from this very site, and a couple rando chucks by my buddy and by myself Iām probably biased on my own chuck, but whatever, lol
Some good choices there. @santero is def a fav of mine.
Not to be nit picky or annoying, but Strawberry Hill and Woodhorse are Canadian. Fleur de Mal is American and Hyp3rids is EU.
Seedheaven and Hempdepot are both good spots. Seedheaven was my go to for a really long time although I donāt buy seeds nearly as much as I used to. Some of the popular stuff there gets sold out super quickly these days so itās hard to snag stuff since itās not a āhidden gemā anymore. I would def recommend trying them both though (Hempdepot is based in Canada).
Iāve grown out Hyp3rids, San, Bald Monkey seeds from Seedheaven in the past and was a fan of pretty much everything.
My fav seedbank over the years has been Seedheaven but I have also ordered a bunch of stuff off JBC seeds. I donāt anymore since money is more tight these days. Johnny Potseed is also great with tons of variety.
Goose seeds is a pretty good lesser known Canadian spot. I mostly buy their house brand āFennec Geneticsā and they have some cool stuff and their prices are lower than the more āhypeā type stuff they sell.
Badd news seeds @hughdunno has some cool stuff and fair prices. I recently grew out some iceberry gary that I liked. He also recently listed a bunch of Lemon Tree crosses that look pretty cool.
@Scallywag is another great Canadian breeder with great prices although itās hard to get a hold of him because heās one busy mofo haha. I currently have some banana pudding x chem 91 and some ecto cooler x topanga going from him that I just switched to flower. Hope to get many more things next year, Iām always broke so wasnāt able to get as much as I wanted last time I grabbed some stuff
These days Iām mostly growing things from friends because people have been so nice / generous with me. I am still trying to make a dent in some purchased stuff that I have tons of in the freezer too though.
Gg4 - not theirs
Bruce banner - no theirs
Gelato - not theirs
Rozay - not theirs
Jealousy - not theirs
GSC - not theirs
Theyāre just rip off merchants. I donāt want to fall out over it but they are what they are. You like them and thatās all that counts. Iāve grown nowt but UK420 subbies pretty much the last 2 years. Iām by no means a snob. I just donāt like people confusing matters and robbing names for their wares. I fell for all that crap when I started. Lying is not okay.
OK hereās one I donāt see mentioned, and I think ALL of you guys should bookmark this:
Bob Bitchenās Chernobyl S1. You can get em direct from him or thru DC Seed Exchange (a sponsor here). This plant develops frost way sooner than anything youāve ever heard of. Low-ish yields but worth evry bit of the effort. An absolute MUST-HAVE in your seed vault and/or garden
To start off I want to applude the incentive to make a list of breeders. Itās a fantastic idea!
Not to dis you @WeedKeeper, but all the companies listed are real shit companies(exclude Sweet for autos, but their photosensitiveās are horrible)ā¦ White label crap thatās not even the correct progeny. These companies pick random crosses from a white label catalog and slap some hype name on it. Stop buying this crap. I also got into the trap in the beginning, then I got into the forums and started to realise the truth. Itās also very apperent if you ever get a chance to meet their āhead breedersā, they rarely know anything about growing, breeding or have a deep understanding of pedigrees or cannabis strain history.
What I want to say with that is that I understand the situation youāre in and I think everybody have been in that trap.
Majority of the European seed companies are this way and please do some research of the actual company. A tell tell sign is that you wonāt be able to find a person behind the label, another tell tell sign is reports that the breeder sold the company.
I think it would be way more easy to list the pro breeders in Europe that actually are good.
Now to the American breeders, weeeellā¦ There is also a lot of shit one off cookie hybrid x cookie hybrid diluted hay with zero high, that is going around. But since America has always been good with clones. With a majority of the elite clones, I think that itās less of a hit and miss then the Spanish white label stuff for example.
Here in EU I would def shout out @santero, as otherās have already done. But also the genius @VerdantGreen. If your looking into hyper commercial I recommend Karma.
In US there is @JAWS, CSI(Nspecta), C&C and High & Lonesome.
Maybe I forced my point a little. Letās not fall out. You like those pips and thatās all that counts our shag. I prefer āboutiqueā type stuff. We have our preferences and thatās that. Iāve tried sweet seeds, g13, hso, dinafem, seedstockers, TH Seeds. Best seeds Iāve grown were all wardrobe hacks from keeper selections people had made. You just do you innit.
Iām probably biased on my own chuck, but whatever, lol
