why is it so hard to separate the fire from the mediocre? Cant anyone name 5 fire strains that are top 10 potency? Ya know spendy but GUARANTEED to be fire!?
Only if you can guarantee you will grow them exactly right. I think it was swerve who said something along the lines of 'if your first run is pretty good, the next will be dank' or something, but that is extremely accurate growing from seed. Anything remotely promising I usually give at least one further run, as I will have a better understanding of the needs of that particular cut. There's no grower on Earth who can buy a pack of seeds they've never grown before and grow them out immediately to their fullest possible potential. Furthermore, from my direct observation living in a med state, genetics don't mean shit compared to the skills of the grower. If it did, all these wank ass dispensaries wouldn't be forced to peddle extracts since all their flower is pathetically under-potent, particularly for OG and diesel genetics. I have personally grown out seeds from BC mids and from mexi brick that came out indistinguishable from the rest of my chronic, because I gave them the appropriate love and individual attention. If you want potent beans, there's so much info online that there's really no reason to be asking that question. You can also tell a lot by the genetics, if you are buying from a breeder who is trustworthy about their genetics.
That said, here's some tips on buying fire:
1) research before you buy, and I do NOT mean on the breeder's webpage, unless they have a worthwhile forum (Gage Green, Mr. Nice, etc.) where other unaffiliated growers can post.
2) If you want guaranteed fire, do not buy one bean of ten different strains, buy 10 beans of 1 well documented strain and keep the absolute motherfuckin' best one. Every parent can have a retard baby, the nice thing about plants is that you don't have to feel guilty about killing the kids you don't like. This way you can also feel confident that, whether you liked it or not, you got a fairly good experience of what said strain has to hold for you.
3) If you want stability, you should be buying seeds that are either worked to F3 or beyond or are bred from two very similar parents. F1 seeds will produce varying phenos, and depending on selection, F2s can produce even more. The opposite can also be true; I specifically selected a male Road Kill Unicorn that seemed the closest to my favorite female, and the resulting F2 beans I've popped have had two phenos from 12 beans that only differ in leaf shape, but are otherwise incredibly uniform.
That said, the most consistent purveyor of high quality genetics for me in the past few years has been bodhi (most of his crosses are F1, so they will have a good amount of variety in them; in an F1 cross you will usually get at least 1 pheno that resembles the mother, 1 that resembles the father, 1 that is a combination of the two parents, and then there will be more infrequently found phenotypes that represent the recessive genetics of both parents), followed by Sannies (although there is usually a bit more selection involved to find absolute top shelf dank, the uniformity is very good on his worked lines) but there's no beans from them on that list. I'm very interested in DNA's Sour Secret, as I think that the LA Affy and the Deez would be a great combo, to help kind of balance out the negative aspects of each parent. DNA has done some really solid work in the past, but I've heard some mixed things on some of their newer stuff, mainly relating to their OG variations. I'm also keen on JOTI, as I like the smaller breeders and have heard plenty of good things, although I have yet to grow their seeds yet myself. I'd love to do Soma's NYCD, but honestly I prefer the more diesel-y diesels and the price is slightly off putting when there are at least five or six breeders I can get top notch dank from for much less money. As far as that Tahoe goes, if you grabbed the femmes, that's just an S1 of the Tahoe cut, which you'd really have to fuck up on the intersexing process or something to go wrong with that. That's the nice thing about feminized seeds is that it is much, much easier to pick a quality female than a quality male.
As a last note, price is no indication of quality in this game. I can think of a couple different places you can spend $100+ on beans that are no better (and often slightly worse) than beans that cost between $30-$70. That's the nice thing about the smaller breeders, if its just two or three people in the whole operation (and they don't need to fly to Europe constantly on your dime) they can charge substantially less for beans that are incredibly high quality.
I plan on grabbing some Jordan Beans soonish I just dropped 300 on other stuff so I gotta chill out for a minute.
