First seed order, beginner grower

Quit listening to people who say a certain breeder of seeds sucks, make a decision and pick what you want and begin to grow.

I love the goof that says Barney's Farm is not a good breeder, they only have like multiple strains from the last decade that have been cup winners in just about every cup.

OGEvilgenius said:

There are many good strains there. You are very caught up in BS marketing. Barney's produces largely garbage that is unworthy of any garden.

No serious gardener I've seen considers GHS or Barney's "trusted breeders".

GHS has some decent stuff.

Honestly ordering from a company that only produces feminized seed tells you all you need to know about that company (they only wanna make $).

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How the hell is Barney's Farm seeds marketed any differently then others? I would use nothing but feminized seeds, and many of Barney's Farm strains have not only been cup winners but favorites among my crowd.

Your opinion is not fact. Maybe put up a journal or a few pics of your own work before you start mouthing off about others.

ak 47 northen light everybody want kush.but growing kush is not that easy.dont worry about what strain to grow learn how to grow first .get a few under your belt.

Any comments on Sannie's Extrema fem, Kolossus fem and Hericules fem?

From the list above, Any of these should be about as easy to grow as they get, and give you great product:

DNA - Rocklock
Serious seeds -Chronic -AK47
Sensi seeds -Skunk #1 -Super Skunk
Mr. Nice: Black Widow -Afghan Skunk
Mandala: Hashberry

At least several of the others are undoubtedly also good, but some are going to be harder to grow, some may be hermie prone, and some I just don't know enough to comment.

I'd say when you're first starting, you want a non-stretchy plant with a fast finishing time. That reduces the chances for error.

Just ordered from the Attitude
For some reason Herbies would give me a failure with my CC...
6x DNA Rocklock
2x Barney's Farm Vanilla Kush
Can't wait!

thehole said:

Quit listening to people who say a certain breeder of seeds sucks, make a decision and pick what you want and begin to grow.

I love the goof that says Barney's Farm is not a good breeder, they only have like multiple strains from the last decade that have been cup winners in just about every cup.

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You might choose to listen, instead of to mock.

Some of the Amsterdam High Times cannabis cup contest winners are determined by popular vote of the "judges". A "judge" is anyone who shows up with the cash necessary to purchase a "judging" slot.

The popular vote is *highly* susceptible to marketing push by seed sellers, who know that contest wins translate into seed and coffeehouse sales (ie money in their pocket).

That's why there are two houses that dominate the contests, year in, year out. These two spend HUGE amounts of money making sure the public is smoking their stuff and voting for it. Even the High Times staff has effectively admitted this. A while back one of these two houses had two cup titles revoked when they were literally caught red-handed bribing judges to vote for their product. This particular outfit had multiple wins before and since. . .does anyone SERIOUSLY think that the time they were caught was the ONLY time they cheated?

Anyway, I'm not saying "Barney's Farm" doesn't have good strains; I'm saying that the only thing you can conclude from their many contest wins, is that the owner excels at markeging and contest gamesmanship.

Jogro said:

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All awards ceremonies are bullshit, and a Cannabis Cup doesn't make good bud any more than a Teen Choice Award makes a good movie. This is why many, many, serious and talented breeders do not waste their time with the Cups. Good genetics sell and market themselves, they don't need dubiously acquired and handed out awards.

Ordered the DNA Rocklock. Heard a lot of good about it. Ordered the Vanilla Kush because of supposed big yields and I wanted a Kush without paying 20$+ per seed (Reserva Privada & Cali connection). I would of been mad if they didn't pop or hermied...

Clankie said:

All awards ceremonies are bullshit, and a Cannabis Cup doesn't make good bud any more than a Teen Choice Award makes a good movie. This is why many, many, serious and talented breeders do not waste their time with the Cups. Good genetics sell and market themselves, they don't need dubiously acquired and handed out awards.

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The problem is that, at least until the relatively recent past, you were dealing with a relatively uneducated growing public that thought the height of sophistication in growing knowledge was reading High Times magazine. (And there are still plenty of people like that).

My take on these contests is that you simply have to take the results with a giant grain of salt. The winners *could* be great strains. . .you just shouldn't assume that they are *necessarily* great.

Empirically, if you look at the contest winners over the years, there have been many winners that have proven themselves to be great strains that have passed the test of time: Northern lights, Skunk #1, Jack Herer, Super Silver Haze, White Widow, Bubblegum, AK-47, just to name a few strains off the top of my head that have become like "household names" of cannabis.

Many serious breeders/growers don't waste their time, because entering the contest is difficult, and expensive, and they simply don't feel like they're competing on a level playing field.

One real-world problem with the contest is that it just judges the final product. So, stipulating actual legitimate judging here, the judges are looking at the best possible cured stuff made from the best possible buds of the best possible plant pheno.

Even if the buds themselves are great, that doesn't mean they someone who buys the seeds is going to be able to replicate the award winning bud at home.

EG: one recent award winning strain is notoriously hermie prone. Others are low yielding and/or hard to grow. Still others have had "line drift", and after years there can be significant differences between the genetics the strain winner is currently selling under the contest winning name, and the actual genetics that won the contest.

My first grow is White Queen i would most defiantly recommend picking up some White Queen seeds they are blowing my mind with how beautiful they are growing

Jogro said:

The problem is that, at least until the relatively recent past, you were dealing with a relatively uneducated growing public that thought the height of sophistication in growing knowledge was reading High Times magazine. (And there are still plenty of people like that).

My take on these contests is that you simply have to take the results with a giant grain of salt. The winners *could* be great strains. . .you just shouldn't assume that they are *necessarily* great.

Empirically, if you look at the contest winners over the years, there have been many winners that have proven themselves to be great strains that have passed the test of time: Northern lights, Skunk #1, Jack Herer, Super Silver Haze, White Widow, Bubblegum, AK-47, just to name a few strains off the top of my head that have become like "household names" of cannabis.

Many serious breeders/growers don't waste their time, because entering the contest is difficult, and expensive, and they simply don't feel like they're competing on a level playing field.

One real-world problem with the contest is that it just judges the final product. So, stipulating actual legitimate judging here, the judges are looking at the best possible cured stuff made from the best possible buds of the best possible plant pheno.

Even if the buds themselves are great, that doesn't mean they someone who buys the seeds is going to be able to replicate the award winning bud at home.

EG: one recent award winning strain is notoriously hermie prone. Others are low yielding and/or hard to grow. Still others have had "line drift", and after years there can be significant differences between the genetics the strain winner is currently selling under the contest winning name, and the actual genetics that won the contest.

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If you believe some folks who are well connected in the industry some of these guys just buy whatever the best weed they can find is at the time in Amsterdam and then enter it calling it their own.

I would never recommend Barney's Farm to anyone. And yes I am speaking specifically of BF. Purely in it for the money. I'm sure you can find a great plant in his seeds, but you can find a lot more great plants in other breeders seeds.... and you'll actually know what you're getting. And you won't be supporting a guy who seems to greatly lack in ethics.

Really any company only selling feminized seed is questionable to me, but at least some of them seem to put a bit of effort into it (Dinafem).

OGEvilgenius said:

If you believe some folks who are well connected in the industry some of these guys just buy whatever the best weed they can find is at the time in Amsterdam and then enter it calling it their own.

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Yes, that's been alleged too.

In fact, one of the High Times senior staff actually bought a bunch of top level Super Silver Haze buds, then hired actors to play breeders, enter this weed into the contest, make appearances, talk smack about their strain, etc. In a bit of deliberate irony, the name of the fake strain was "Ooki Kabuki", a reference to the bizarre Japanese theater of the same name.

The idea was basically just to tweak the egos of the real growers there, but also to sort of point out weaknesses in the contest to make it better.

You can see it documented right here, at around minute 37 in the High Times cannabis cup video. . .first the actors talking smack, then the editor in question explaining what happened and why. You'll probably have to watch the whole video to get the full context:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCpuJfSEF6o

If you do watch the whole movie, in a different segment, you'll also see exactly how the big breeders "buy" their cup wins with direct to-the-public marketing, with the High Times staff not only admitting that this happens, but kind of shrugging it off, saying eh. . .if that's what the public wants, that's what they get.

Bottom line for me is. just that:

a. In any given contest, the winning strains simply may not be the "best" ones entered, even in the contests where the judging is closed to the public.

b. Even if the buds that win are legitimately excellent in their own right, the seeds in the pack carrying that label you buy from the award-winning breeder simply may not be the same genetics as the stuff that won the contest, and

c. Even if the genetics in your pack are the same ones that won the contest, there is no guarantee that you'll be able to use them to grow the same quality weed in your setup. There can be phenotype issues, hermies, and simply a poor match between your grow setup and the strain in question

OGEvilgenius said:

I would never recommend Barney's Farm to anyone. And yes I am speaking specifically of BF. Purely in it for the money. I'm sure you can find a great plant in his s eeds, but you can find a lot more great plants in other breeders s eeds.... and you'll actually know what you're getting. And you won't be supporting a guy who seems to greatly lack in ethics.

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I've never tried anything from that house, but that's pretty much my take too.

I'm sure some of their stuff is quite good, but there are so many truly excellent ceed outfits out there now, I just don't feel the need to support either BF, or that other one, with their questionable business models.

Really any company only selling feminized s eed is questionable to me, but at least some of them seem to put a bit of effort into it (Dinafem).

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I've always wondered about this.

I think part of this is just the sellers responding to the market. There are plenty of growers who basically just want to plant the ceeds, not worry about sexing plants, etc.

Some of this may be breeders just "selfing" lines they CANNOT create ceeds for, because they lack the strain parents to do so.

Bit I think much of it is fear by the breeders that if they make regular ceeds available, buyers will either make their own ceeds, or outright "steal" the genetics.

How legitimate a fear that is is debatable, given that many if not most of these lines aren't inbred, so F1 offspring will have multiple phenotypes and may not be similar to the parents.

If they bred things properly there would be no fear at all. IBLxIBL = uniform F1 and a clusterfuck F2.

Outside of this it isn't "there" genetics. They worked preexisting genetics, but they most definitely belong to mother nature first and foremost. Most people aren't going to bother and those that do will have a hard time working against a company with an established rep, especially if they're just selling F2's at best.

However I understand why this doesn't happen. I wish I could grow thousands of plants.

was jogro copping an attitude about barney's seeds? their on my mute list. SOMEONE always cops an attitude every time i mention uninspiring LSD which has a decent enough high at the start with a very annoying creeper KO stone in the pheno i grew under a halide. it was a freakin' SEXY plant though and one that all those more concerned with pics than smoke reports would be interested in for swimsuit competitions. i prefer gals with talent myself