Can I grow marijuana from bag seed / street seeds? 5 Reasons to buy seeds.
For the budget grower, or in a place where you can’t legally order seeds, you’re probably wondering if you can grow marijuana from the seeds found “in the bag”. It is, hands down, the most common question I get from those considering about growing their own. The answer is yes! But…
There are a few reasons that someone looking to grow their own would want to buy seeds from a seed bank/dispensary/head shop/etc. Let me start with the positive and tell you why this will work, and then tell you the downsides, and you can weigh it out for yourself.The upsides:
- “Bag Seed” is free. Well, not really free – you bought the marijuana. Perhaps you got some seeds from someone else – OK, that was free for you. In any case, those seeds are offering themselves up. A bird in the hand, right?
- Familiarity. You will likely have tried the marijuana already (if you partook of the batch from which you have the seeds), and know whether you like it or not. In many cases, this is not the case with ordering a strain of cannabis from an online shop.
- You have nothing to lose! If the plants fail for some reason, you won’t be kicking yourself for ruining 75 bucks worth of seeds.
The downsides. In reality, a certain amount of preparation (and of course, follow-up) is needed to accomplish just about anything. If something’s worth doing, as Raoul Duke once put it, it’s worth doing right. Here are some of our thoughts on why it may be better to choose the right strain for your grow, and order some good quality, yet inexpensive, seeds:
- A frustrating start? My last “plus point” was that you have nothing to lose by using bag seed. Or do you? Your motivation to grow your own is a precious commodity! If you are planning on growing indoors, you’ll need all the usual accoutrements (grow cabinet, lights, ventilation, soil, etc.) anyway. What happens when you prepare all this but your seeds fail because…
- Bag seed may not be viable. Just because those seeds look like seeds doesn’t mean they were fully mature when harvested. This means that many of the seeds may not even sprout, or will sprout, begin growing, and then wither and die. I don’t want to paint the worst possibe picture, however! The seeds may very well sprout and thrive. In which case…
- You don’t know which strain you are growing. “Bubba’s Badass Weed” may have smoked well, but what was that plant? An indoor variety that is susceptible to pests, and not so good for an outdoor grow ? Or rather an outdoor variety that grows too tall for an indoor cabinet? How long of a flowering time should you expect? Is it a variety that takes well to fertilizers? So many variables! And…
- Bag seeds will be non-feminized, and more than likely non-autoflowering. It can be especially frustrating for beginning growers to start a grow, work at it for over a month, perhaps lose a plant or two along the way, and then nature reveals to you *drumroll* – a male plant. Yay. In fact, the additional stresses a plant usually undergoes at the hands of an greenhorn grower can actually encourage the plant to develop into a male. This is the reason many first-time growers order feminized seeds, which those bags seeds are definitely not. Even one of our favorite cheap seed varieties, WSS Skunk, offers the perfect characteristics for an indoor or outdoor grow (feminized, fairly pest-hardy, easy to maintain) for beginners, and produces a fine bud at which even connoisseurs won’t turn up their noses. And all of the above requires…
- Time. Most of us don’t have the extra time to start a grow over again because some indeterminable factor sank our battleship halfway into the game. Did you kill your plant by overfertilizing? Overwatering? Not enough light? Or were those seeds just bummers? I’m not affiliated with any seed banks/distributors, but I do know that if your seeds don’t sprout, most will send you a replacement. And with a bit of know-how, you can tailor your grow to the strain of cannabis you choose, and will produce some righteous buds.
Yes, that’s what I promote with this blog – the know-how. Read up on this site and you’ll learn a lot, or order our ebook when you get your seeds from wherever you choose, and you’ll be very glad you did when you kick back with your own home grown buds in just a few months time.
cheers
Glenn Panik
[Author and Medical Marijuana Grower Glenn Panik’s “How To Grow Cannabis At Home: A Guide To Indoor Medical Marijuana Growing”, is available on iBooks here, for the Amazon Kindle or via Smashwords here. You can also order the ‘stealth title’ of our information-packed ebook for the Kindle here. Protect your privacy!]
Cannabis Growing 
We support growing marijuana yourself. I you still looking for a seedbank which also ships to USA you should visit http://amsterdammarijuanaseeds.com/, a great place to start!
I completely agree with your points but there is a middle ground here.
For my first grow I used bag seed from some good strains knowing I would make mistakes.
I killed a few plants and had some very successful plants due in equal parts to random genetics and my noob mistakes.
Just start with lots of bag seeds, the legal amount for your area of course, and experiment away.
In one grow I was ready for the real seeds and haven’t looked back 🙂
That is a very good point. “Practicing” with bag seed is a good way to try a first grow, with no worry about “wasting” seeds. Be sure to try to germinate many seeds, as bag seed is often not fully mature, which – in my experience – often results low germination rates and produces a fair amount of “runt” plants. The grower should also be prepared to sex plants at the right time – males flower very quickly, and the pollen can spoil your grow.
IMHO, feminized seeds are optimal for a first grow, since there is no need to sort out male plants. It can be frustrating to raise a plant for over a month only to chop it down for compost right when it starts to mature! Purchased seed is also generally of a higher quality, germinating readily, growing vigorously, and displaying more predictable genetics; all of which makes for smoother sailing the first time out. best regards, GP
If you know what type of seeds to look for in your own smoke, sprouting and growing isn’t really an issue. Darker hard seeds in good condition will grow but putting in a few months time only to find out its a male would be a heartbreaker. I’ve actually had good success with bag seeds. Of the five or so times they always turned out female. Ive never actually seen a male before.I learned to grow on bagseed but after awhile I started ordering my seeds and never looked back.