How much does genetics really matter for seeds? How much of it is a scam?

Had no idea how to phrase this question, so I hope I can make my question make a little more sense here.

Cannabis seeds aren't true to their parent plant, right? The only way to get a plant true to the parent is by cloning. Yes?

I watched this video of a guy going through all the seed companies selling fake "Bruce Banner" seeds

Which leads to me to the question, which strains are real and which aren't? How much difference does strain make, if they're not true to their seeds? If I'm just being sold some nonsense with a made-up name, does it even matter which seeds I buy?

Would appreciate it if someone could explain it or perhaps link to a guide or thread about this. I feel like the more I learn about the cannabis industry, the more it just seems like a massive scam. Like cannabis nutrients being super expensive for no reason.

Genetics is huge.

If parents are short, weak, and susceptible to disease, likely their kids will have those traits passed down to them. If they are tall, strong, and resilient, likely their kids follow suit. Without selective breeding, you'll end up with a mishmash of genes, some good and some bad, some hiding behind dominant genes. In other words, you will get inconsistent and mediocre results.

For cannabis, you're just looking at a seed and won't truly know what genes will be expressed until it grows. This opacity enables hucksters. The trick is in finding reputable breeders who grow what you like. And even then, not every seed in a pack is going to be a winner.

Someday we may develop recreational heirloom cannabis. But it seems that day is yet to arrive.

GenericEnigma said:

Genetics is huge.

If parents are short, weak, and susceptible to disease, likely their kids will have those traits passed down to them. If they are tall, strong, and resilient, likely their kids follow suit. Without selective breeding, you'll end up with a mishmash of genes, some good and some bad, some hiding behind dominant genes. In other words, you will get inconsistent and mediocre results.

For cannabis, you're just looking at a seed and won't truly know what genes will be expressed until it grows. This opacity enables hucksters. The trick is in finding reputable breeders who grow what you like. And even then, not every seed in a pack is going to be a winner.

Someday we may develop recreational heirloom cannabis. But it seems that day is yet to arrive.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info!

How do I sort through seeds then? Like how do I know which are honest about their genetics? I can't just read reviews, because loads of people who don't know better ( like me) will leave reviews praising a specific seed bank. Because whatever plant they ended up with was great, even if they were maybe misled about genetics.

Like say I want Blue dream or Northern Lights. How do I sort out the bogus seeds from the "real" seeds?

Basically if your new to the game it will take a lot of reading and researching.
But that won't promise you anything, just raise your odds a bit..
The best thing is to read reviews by respectable growers, look for keywords people use to describe their results and see if they are what your looking for...
For example I go into breeders threads and type the words potent, potency etc in that thread to see which strains align with my potency requirements, I formulate a consensus and decide if it's legit enough
It's tedious, but you end up with a lot more wisdom on breeders and strains they sell..

HandyGringo said:

Thanks for the info!

How do I sort through seeds then? Like how do I know which are honest about their genetics? I can't just read reviews, because loads of people who don't know better ( like me) will leave reviews praising a specific seed bank. Because whatever plant they ended up with was great, even if they were maybe misled about genetics.

Like say I want Blue dream or Northern Lights. How do I sort out the bogus seeds from the "real" seeds?

Click to expand...

Oh man, we all feel your pain.

If you haven't, check out this area:


Sometimes old genes get lost or a strain changes but the name gets retained. Or even a couple breeders get the same cut and each chooses a close male to make seeds, but it's still never the same for either one.

A few folks bouncing around this site have a wealth of knowledge and experience of cannabis strain history. And those are the folks I heed when there are suggestions on genetics.

The seed game today is whack indeed
You gotta know what your looking for and get to the source...
I've been growing for 20 years but I took a break from buying seeds a long time ago
I got back to find out a jungle, money talks...
Took me like 12 months of reading and research before I ordered again.
Only now I'm running those new genetics (instead of running bagseeds of good outdoor bud)
Still on the fence about the results, so far my bagseed beats People Under The Stairs, Clearwater, Big Buddha, Badger Batch.. Nothing found in the packs I pop.
Running next Sin City, TruCanna and some CSI freebies...

Lineage is everything to me.

If a breeder doesn't list parents or filial generation, I get sus as fuck.

Modern weed has been polyhybridized to death. Very few are working lines out to f3 onward, much less F5 which is (debatably) where a strain starts to become stable, or further into a true IBL. The modern method seems to be hunting a good female (or buying a clone) from a hype strain, crossing it with a male from another hype strain (sometimes a good male, sometimes not) and calling it Cake Kush Candy Gas Purp OG Expresso.

This is not true for every breeder, but it is a disturbing amount of what is popular. It's not to say the weed is "bad." It's all pretty good, I just hate the ethics behind it.

If you want to have some fun, go through a weed info website, of which now there are hundreds, type in a modern hype strain, and look at the top canibanoids. It's almost always Myrcene, limonene, and Caryophyllene

Been buying seeds for 20yrs and everything was what it said. Buy from trusted breeders

It really helps if you have reference, to know one or both of the parents. I'm currently working Exodus Cheese x Blue Satellite 2.2, I have 5+ harvests of the mother and I've worked the hell out of that male with a few other moms. Because of this I had a good idea of what I would find in my F1's, with the exception of one killer 60 day straight up Blueberry I found exactly what I expected

In theory an F1 cross should produce 25% of each parent with 50% being some mix of both.

Pheno hunting is the name of the seed game.
You spend 150 on a pack for a chance....at greatness.

If you find it...
CS or STS one of 2 clones....
Then make s1 seeds

I only suggest this so that you don't lose the key traits by adding random male pollen.

Genetics is pretty much everything given optimal growing conditions . I bred angelfish for years , very nice ones . Genetics was important . When I started I got crappy fry that wouldn't grow , parents that had low spawn/fertility rates , deformed fry . When I introduced better genetics into my program the results were eye popping .


The biggest difference between fish and weed is that I could look at the parent fish and tell you exactly what they'd produce along with percentages of each type . I can't do that by looking at a seed and it's very rare to see pics of parents used to produce seeds .

The best way of knowing is just smoking something you feel is good and hope there's a seed in there haha
If not, search for the genetics at breeders or banks...
I'm smoking some Rainbow Runtz from Growers Choice (the guys at ams not the GC everyone hates lol) and it's very good overall, so I just ordered some seeds of it, easy
And if the RR is good, that means they probably have some more good strains
Just don't fall for the hype or strains with shady lineage.

Look for the reputable breeders.. or look at community grows here on rollitup and see if you like the look of something then ask for help on sourcing good seeds.
And no it’s not a total crapshoot when it comes to genetics.. do your homework and you will find what you’re after. Also cough*bodhi*cough*greatlakesgenetics*cough cough I said nothing.

Cannaventure use to be the shit back in the day...
No so much today. They have lost parent plants

If I was new to the game I would go with in house genetics. Or sunken treasure...maybe LIT.

So far barneys farms genetics have been on point for me. Wasnt really getting good results until i started using better genetics. Started with barneys farms glookies and Tropicana banana. Also grew some cali connection gsc that was the strongest smelling and most colorful plant ive grown. Also have grown out some greenhouse seed company genetics, Kongs Krush. Fast buds 420 has some great auto genetics i can attest to. Grew out their lsd25 auto and banana purple punch auto, both were fire. I did alot of research on these guys and theyve been in the business for decades. Recently im growing some sensi skunk. Also some irie genetics orange gasm. You just gotta try shit and hope you get fire.

hi iam new to growing... but i look often youtube videos like this:i dont like arijan or will buy greenhouse seeds...but franco i like very much! rip franco
from min 15:43-15:58 they say they had a fabric with 800 lights to grow, then franco (he is the head grower) say they plant 10k-20k seeds and take just 5 or 10 best individual kopies from it to make new seeds! maybe is a scam maybe not idk

Research the genealogy of strains here: https://en.seedfinder.eu/search/lineage/

I like that seedfinder exists