Starting with healthy seeds is important if you want a healthy plant.
You know how there’s always that older lady at the grocery store, performing a near shamanic ritual on the fruit before she buys it? Tapping, squeezing, knocking, turning? Turns out those little techniques are actually really beneficial if you know what you’re looking for. Just like when choosing a perfect avocado, you’ll need to employ some good old fashioned scrutiny when it comes to choosing marijuana seeds.
Healthy cannabis seeds have some tell tale signs that can assure you they’re ready to go and will produce a happy plant. When choosing your marijuana seeds, strain is super important for sure, but it’s not the only important thing to consider when you’re looking to start a stellar crop of your own. Chances are you’ve already dropped a decent amount of cash on the proper light, water, and grow setups- so there’s no way you would want to waste any of that on a batch of bunk seeds.
What Do Marijuana Seeds Look Like
Just like the old lady with her fruit, there are some visual tests you’ll need to apply when looking at your seeds. These will give you a general idea as to whether or not the seeds are filled with the proper genetics to give you the plants of your dream, or have defects that may prevent them from germinating in the first place.
Essentially, marijuana seeds should be small, about 2 mm long- roughly the size of a matchstick head. They should be nice and round or slightly elliptical in shape, shape is important, if you get a funky bumpy seed, it could indicate that it has some faulty genetics and won’t be worth your time to even try and germinate. Marijuana seeds should be grayish-brown/black in color with a striped or crackled pattern on the outside of the shell.
Seeds that are green or white are a bit too young, and won’t produce a viable plant. So you’ve found a couple seeds at the bottom of your baggie of nugs? Pay dirt right?? Wrong. Seeds that are found in a baggie are bad news for a few different reasons. One is that the plant was pollinated at some point, which means those precious little nugglets have far less THC in them than they should. When female cannabis plants begin to make seeds, they divert all of their attention to that process and take away necessary energy from producing THC. Not to mention that any seed found in your bag is added weight (decreasing the amount of pot you get for your buck) and because they’ve been stored improperly, it’s pretty unlikely that you’ll be able to germinate them.
That being said, if the strain you found your seed in is super dank, it never hurts to try to grow the little guy, just don’t get too invested.
What Do Marijuana Seeds Feel Like
Seeds should be round and little bit heavier than you’d expect. If you hold the little guys in some good lighting, they should have a dull sheen to them, like they were dipped in some really thin wax. This covering will help protect the seed from damage and will also feel ever so slightly gummy to the touch.
Now you’ve got your cannabis seeds in hand, give them a little squeeze. Stand down He-Man, you don’t want to crush them, but apply a small amount of pressure. Enough to squish the seed into the pads of your fingers, but not enough to snap a twig. If you’re putting effort into your squeeze, you’ve gone too far. When the seed holds firm and doesn’t crack or give, you’ve got a good one. If it crumbles or busts into oblivion- it’s no good, time to start searching for a better supplier.
If you’re still not convinced of your seeds virility, and you plan on germinating them immediately anyway, give the float test a try. It’s an easy set up, all you need is a glass of water. Pop the seed into the water and leave it for an hour or two. When you come back from whatever time devouring task you’ve chosen, see if the seed is still afloat. If it remains on top of the glass, it’s no good to you, if it’s sunk down to meet Davy Jones, you’ve got yourself some proper booty and planting is in order.
