Cutting through the Bullshit to find the best strains

[gubblebum]

So like many things in life, the best marketed products tend to appear to be the best...

Strains such as blue dream and wedding cake are repeatedly called the best and most popular, but after research it seems the legit strains with those names are clone only.

Then, I realize the only way to find such strains is femonized seeds, but people say femonized are not as good as regular, since they're more fragile to stress.

So aside from blogs like leaflet etc and their top 10 lists. Which strains get the best real world feedback? Which are the tastiest and beat highs plus yielding? So we have a strain that officially is the highest terpines? Most importantly which breeders provide the seeds?

 

[Hook Daddy]

I think just like many other things in life people have individual tastes so there is no real answer. I tend to like sativas, and have been happy with my purchases from Ace. Golden Tiger, Malawia, and any of their Hazes are a good place to start. They can be long flowering and like to stretch, some people don’t like growing them for those reasons. I’ll let someone else recommend indica strains, although I grew some Black Domina that was good, freebie from NASC.

 

[F_T_P!]

Its a crap shoot, need to pheno hunt seeds to find what you are looking for. Lots of good seed companies and genetics to choose from, just read through the reviews on this site to get a good idea of what you want.

 

[MtRainDog]

You really have to do some research to figure out what's clone-only, and what is an actual seed line. If it's a famous strain name, it's probably a clone-only, and anyone selling seeds of it is selling something that's related or self-pollenated. And that's Ok, but it's good to know what you're getting into when you crack open that pack of seeds.

Fem beans aren't any better or worse than regs, they're just different.

 

[terpedup83]

hope you have a big knife, lots of shit to cut thru, looking through big populations of beans is all you can do, do yourself a favor if its on IG with supernatural hype surrounding it avoid it 99% not as good as the hype and the price tag will be ridiculous , lots of big name breeders cashing in on pollen chucks, best bud i ever grew was bag seed a buddy gave me, shit literally stunk up the whole block, i never purchased a pack of seeds from any breeder that remotely compared

 

[mandocat]

I have been growing stuff from Oregon green Seeds for the last 4 years, inoors and outside and they have quality genetics that turn out like the description declares! They are just word of mouth, they breed their own strains and then sell them themselves. And their prices are reasonable. I found them through a friend that has been growing for 30 years. https://oregongreenseed.com/

 

[felmaera]

If you are looking to get into breeding and want to start from scratch with open pollinations for landrace strains, there are several places you can look to find this genetic diversity, to find the children phenos with the desired level of cannabinoids or terpenes.
Therealseedcompany.com
Kiwiseeds.com
Tltseeds.com

This is a bit different from chasing the hype, and allows you to breed the way you prefer. Some breeders in the game are going for a smell or flavor profile, while other bred toward a type of effect produced, or even some bred just to improve recessive traits of the offspring, such as thicker stalk and stem structure of the children, to support more bud weight.
I hope this helps add a bit of perspective to your research, enjoy.

 

[felmaera]

I have also had success with the following breeders of regular seeds, each with a variety of strains.
AK Bean Brains
CSI Humboldt
ACE seeds
Swami Organic Seed
New420GuySeeds
Exotic Alchemy

 

[PopAndSonGrows]

Choosing a breeder & strain is the same as choosing a car make & model. Literally, the exact same.

You gravitate toward what you want, wade thru the "features" you have to have, read a bunch of reviews and pull the trigger, or not.

 

[Blutri]

I’ll give any breeder a try.

 

[PopAndSonGrows]

Having the ability to make crosses of some one else production isn’t considered breeding.
And neither is redundantly crossing phenotypically similar strains.
To make matters worse, some commercial breeders use ig and other platforms to ask elementary question about breeding, or effects.
Breeder? I doubt it because bulk seed distribution has gotten elaborate as groups work together to influence unsuspecting buyer.
Ask yourself, what tent growers needs more than a handful of seeds. Where is the profit in a seed run when it leaves nothing to smoke? The profit is in selling the seeds.
However, it doesn’t seem wise to invest in someone’s production when they are unwilling to invest in it themselves. By invest, I mean take the time and resources to grow their own products.
Cannabis breeders, just like every artists, sign their work. Those efffects, terps, and growth characteristics is the breeder’s unique signature.
Therefore, how would know what the breeder’s signature is, when you haven’t smoked his signature strain.
Without official knowledge of what to expect, there is no way to understand the legitimacy of cross.
Inexperience is why forgeries, and hacks exist. That’s because they want fool anyone except, someone who has never smoked the official bud that’s offered by the original breeder.
For real, keep believing those stories about finding 30 year old seeds that look just like the modern poly.
Not only are they unable to produce pics of the original plants, forgers don’t produce any documentation that would suggest that neither them or a family member has been in acquaintance the original breeders.
That bothers me because we had paper, pens and cameras 30 years ago. However, it’s the same story told again and again by someone or a group, who is ready to distribute those bulk seeds. My uncle, my grandfather, I found these.. they were properly stored in a refrigerator for 20 years. They will say whatever it takes t get you to buy into their marketing strategy, while at the same time trying to discredit other distributors. Because that’s all they are.
Call it hype or marketing, it’s all the same regardless of if it’s on a commercial level or a small band or tent warriors that are looking to make a quick $$$ off the countless newcomers to cannabis.
Unfortunately, some never learn. And continue to purchase their seeds from breeders who do not his own signature strain.
And most of you should know better than doing that by now.
peace

TL;DR but actually yeah, i hate to break it to ya. . .. ALL breeders use someone else's work. Noone alive today has "invented" their own weed from scratch.

 

[go go kid]

as above, it all depends on what your looking for, best strains is a little generic and a mean average of strains baught. flavour of the month stuff.
if your looking for great head stash, theres plenty of strains mentioned in "whats the best indica or sativa " threads
i personaly think that the best strains are from cuts/clones, you know, the ones that some lucky grower has in his colection, yet never puts them into the public shopping range. theres some killer cuts that beat these hybrids hands down.
its a case of who you know these days, IMO

 

[Blutri]

Isn’t that the truth.

 

[go go kid]

TL;DR but actually yeah, i hate to break it to ya. . .. ALL breeders use someone else's work. Noone alive today has "invented" their own weed from scratch.

are inbread lines not used these days? is it all copy the latest cup winners and such?. i must admit, ive not looked at seeds and whats being sold these days. and much of this thread is over my head.

 

[Blutri]

are inbread lines not used these days? is it all copy the latest cup winners and such?. i must admit, ive not looked at seeds and whats being sold these days. and much of this thread is over my head.

As you said, it’s about about who you know. Adding to that, it’s also about what you know.

 

[jdoeanon]

Think this all boils down to preference, & or what you’re going after. Some breeders go for bag appeal, some go for hash production / terp profiles, & some breed for preservation of lines (land race strains, older cultivars etc)

some examples: *not saying you can’t get bag appeal, flavor, etc from these other breeders as well.. these are just examples*

hash production / flavors - (Bloom seeds, Umami seeds)

bag appeal - (exotic genetix, solfire, lit farms)

preservation - (ak bean brains, csi humboldt, crickets & cicadas)

 

[felmaera]

are inbread lines not used these days? is it all copy the latest cup winners and such?. i must admit, ive not looked at seeds and whats being sold these days. and much of this thread is over my head.

CSI Humboldt has a few IBLs he did as preservations for the Strains.
I picked up the Pakistan Chitral Kush and '79 Xmas Bud IBLs.
He also has a few more IBLs:
UZBEKISTANI IBL
Burmese IBL
Pine Tar Kush IBL

Swamiorganicseeds has a few IBLs worth checking out and has mainly old world genetics he (Gas) has collected and bred to preserve F1 vigor as he describes it. One I Just got from him is the Nigerian Sunshine IBL.
Weedguardiansfamilytree.com is the best way to submit an order with SwamiOrganicSeed, but be aware of the lead times for them to process the orders, it's about 2-3 months but you get everything you order and freebies. You can find the reason for the delay in the appropriate thread under seedbank reviews.
Hope this helps you

 

[jdoeanon]

CSI Humboldt has a few IBLs he did as preservations for the Strains.
I picked up the Pakistan Chitral Kush and '79 Xmas Bud IBLs.
He also has a few more IBLs:
UZBEKISTANI IBL
Burmese IBL
Pine Tar Kush IBL

Swamiorganicseeds has a few IBLs worth checking out and has mainly old world genetics he (Gas) has collected and bred to preserve F1 vigor as he describes it. One I Just got from him is the Nigerian Sunshine IBL.
Weedguardiansfamilytree.com is the best way to submit an order with SwamiOrganicSeed, but be aware of the lead times for them to process the orders, it's about 2-3 months but you get everything you order and freebies. You can find the reason for the delay in the appropriate thread under seedbank reviews.
Hope this helps you

love csi, been curious about that ‘79 xmas bud. Have you flowered that or the pck yet? If so hows the smell / taste

 

[felmaera]

love csi, been curious about that ‘79 xmas bud. Have you flowered that or the pck yet? If so hows the smell / taste

Jdoeanon,
Sadly, I have not had the opportunity to crack them, just got the order back in January.
All of my tents are full at the moment in a run to finish all before June(moving date to new property).
These will be the first crack on the new property.
There's a lot of information in the CSI Humboldt Thread that may give you some nose/smoke reports, that's how I found Caleb's work.

 

[Django66]

Reality sucks! I Love Getting Money got mine.
I have a few good plants going now from Barneys Farm that look good so far. Not like the 4x mag. pictures under purple lights looked, but decent. I screw the plants up too so I'm not too hard on any breeder. When you get a tent full of mutants and hermies you change your breeder. Multiverse Beans is not a breeder, but they carry a bunch of breeder's stuff. The payment and shipping is easy and fast. I'm trying out Mephisto, Ethos and Gnome Automatics. they sent me freebies from Ace seeds and Errors. The Errors seed pack was labeled "Fruit" Auto Female. that's it. No description or fancy wine bottle label paragraph telling me how I will feel. No expectations, no let down. unless it smokes bad.
yea man Good Luck in your search.
I grew two out of eight bag seeds last summer from a 35mm film container of seeds from 1990 something. I know I got them from a delivery service in NYC. Sour Diesel? I don't remember too many names back then. Maui wowwie I thought was only in the movies. My older brother had Acapulco Gold when I stole some from him. He thought mom found it. Anyway the delivery service in NYC offered to "pay you in weed if you return a seed". I kept them. Grew them, harvested them too soon and it was good smoke. Kind and skunky but now gone forever.That's one of them. The weather was going to be drizzle and in the low 40's for the next few days when I chopped them. I should have just brought them inside if I could get them through the door. Now that I know a little more about breeding, I could shoot myself for even planting them without knowing how to preserve the genetics. I think it went about two more weeks after this picture was taken.