Seedbank freebies: ever wonder if they are giving you what they say they are?

I am a long time customer and seed buying addict of attitude seed bank and love everything about them from their amazing selection and pricing, to their customer service.

That said I have had 3 experiences with UFO single seed freebies that has led me to believe that they occasionally get miss labeled or are simply not what they say they are. Here are my situations, let me know if I'm crazy or if I'm on to something here, thanks RIU!

i got a blue berry head band that was a feminized freely last winter that turned into a male that I fully pollinated. Is it possible that a fem seed went male, and if so does that mean it would be bad breeding stock, of did some one at the seed company simply put a reg seed in a single pack marked "fem"?

I am 7.5 weeks into flower on a single freely from THSeeds that was called darkstar in the single fem pack, but looks and is described nothing like the darkstar pics and descriptions I have read online. It does however look, smell, and grow just like the THSeeds "Critical hog". Could someone have just put the wrong seed in the bag some where and I got something different?

And lastly, today I saw a UFO at a friends place that was labeled as an auto flower but was almost 2 months old in veg with not a single flower developing on it. Could it be the strain is not a auto or that sometimes autos do that in veg?

No hate towards any seed companies or banks, I got nothing but love for these people, and not one of these mistakes has fucked anything up, I just want to know if I'm crazy or not.

Idk I sure hope not.... I've only had good luck so far with freebies. Well with A couple Boss hog by CC and bay dream mainly. The other freebies were losing phenos but they grew close enough I could tell.

The situations you describe mostly perplex me. The Darkstar could just be a weird pheno. Who knows maybe it will be awesome.

I just went through my freebie stash today and consolidated everything. 60 total beans. I really really hope they are what they say they are lol I strategically order for freebies most of the time and I got a pretty Narly stash. I guess I wouldn't put it past someone to just lie about it but in the industry we are talking about I feel it's probably more likely the new stoner intern messed up?

sometimes fems can be male.
for example,peyote purple is feminized but is labelled as regular for this reason.
and yep autos sometimes dont auto.
maybe sometimes we dont get the freebies we think,but as long as they turn out to be nice plants,you cant complain too much.

Well there are a couple of issues here.

I do think that *most* of the time the freebies are what they are claimed to be, but there are a lot of reasons why they may not live up to expectations.

I think the banks get the freebies in bulk (not individually wrapped/labelled) and I'm sure in individual cases they accidentally mislabel some.

-You'd think that breeders would only put out their best stuff as freebies to encourage more sales, but the reality is that a lot of them don't. Sometimes the "freebies" are freebies because they're second tier stock from the breeder. The beans themselves may be old stock, or less than top quality for some other reason. Sometimes they're surplus from early stages in breeding projects, or from side projects. I also think that in certain cases beans that may have been accidentally mixed together, or are of uncertain identity end up as freebies. So these might be cases where the free beans either simply aren't what they are supposed to be, or aren't the best representations of their respective lines.

-Of course lots of times even "legit" beans don't live up to the ad copy. At "best" the ad copy shows the best possible pic from the best possible pheno grown under optimal circumstances by the breeder who is expert in growing that particular line. But sometimes, the ad copy images are just lifted from other plants or other lines, or in rare cases, even other breeders!

On an "autoflower" not going auto (or "feminized" beans going male), that's not unheard of either. It could be that the bean in question is from a totally other line, mislabelled. Or it could be the breeder of the auto just didn't do a good job breeding and didn't stabilize the autoflower trait. Apparently there still are quite a number of really bad autos out there.

resinousflowers said:

maybe sometimes we dont get the freebies we think,but as long as they turn out to be nice plants,you cant complain too much.

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In general, I agree with you, but it depends a bit on your perspective/expectations.

Some people do make specific orders just to get certain freebies, and they may be more interested in the freebies than in the paid beans.

In a case like that, its basically the same as buying the strain. If your "fem" plant turns out to be male, or your auto doesn't, or you get a 12 week stretchy haze when you wanted a 7 week short kush, well I can see really being disappointed.

Some people are really limited by counts/space, and can only grow out a few, or even ONE plant at a time. If that applies, even one bad plant can be seriously problematic.

I think you are getting the real deal some companies will do it so you can try it hope you get a nice one come online and talk how great it was and buy some of your own. its just good for business so why not send out a handful of freebies?

Thanks for the responses! I think they are as labeled and it was just a creek thing that the auto didn't auto and the fem was a boy. Still not sure on the dark star that looks like a critical hog though. I'd love to go with the pheno thing here but it's just the Chog in every way described and from the company, so I see how there could have easily been a ,ix. But that's what I believe for now. We,ll see

My own experience, though limited in time scope: I've grown several freebies, and all appear to be as advertised based on descriptions, reviews, and photos. Freebies I've grown have been Pineapple Express, Delicious Cotton Candy, Seedism Big Red (it was mediocre at best, just like the reviews say), Dinafem Cheese (junk), WoS Afghan Kush x Skunk, and Delicious Fruity Chronic Juice.

My Dinafem cheese was great. I had a Fruit auto that was a male....

Real good Bubba 76 fem freebie. Watch them is what I say, trust but verify.

bluntmassa1 said:

I think you are getting the real deal some companies will do it so you can try it hope you get a nice one come online and talk how great it was and buy some of your own. its just good for business so why not send out a handful of freebies?

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Totally agree. Would you send a store a rank batch of wine for a giveaway promo if you hoped to sell your product there?

I'm a TGA fan of several strains, all because 2 freebies each of Chernobyl and Dairy Queen were both female and awesome. It looks like I've found another Lime Slurpee Chernobyl female [ way psyched ]. TH Seeds freebie A-Train impressed me so a 5 pack was purchased, along with a lot of free TH beans during an Attitude promo just a couple of months ago.

I've also dismissed ever receiving Samsara and Barney's Farm because of several crap freebies.