If you occasionally enjoy a bit of cannabis odds are you’ve run into some buds with seeds in them! Because whether your cannabis comes from a dispensary or your own back yard, there can always be seeds.

The question that most people will ask upon discovering a seed in their baggy is whether or not it can actually produce a big healthy cannabis plant. And who doesn’t like free seeds? Especially if your cannabis seeds came from a particularly good bag of buds! So what should you do with bagseeds or random seeds in your otherwise seedless grow?

That’s a lot of free seeds! Unfortunately growing out these seeds will probably give you more buds that look like this!

In short, a lot of these seeds are perfectly viable and will definitely turn into a plant! There are, however, plenty of drawbacks to using seeds that you’ve found in buds, so this might not always be the best idea. If you’re aiming to grow a nice crop it’s usually best to simply buy cannabis seeds from a reputable breeder.

How To Tell If Cannabis Seeds Are Viable

The first thing to do is to look at the buds the cannabis seeds came from. Because cannabis seeds and buds can be dried and cured in more or less the same way, this will usually tell you a lot. If your buds aren’t fully dry, the seeds will likely need to dry for a while longer. It is generally a good idea to cure your seeds for a month or two as this will increase the amount of seeds that will germinate.

Buds can mature at a different pace than seeds, so it is also possible that the seeds are not fully developed yet. Take a close look at your cannabis seeds before planting them to save yourself some disappointment.

Mature cannabis seeds are usually dark and will often have a pattern of dots and stripes.

Well developed cannabis seeds are rigid and tough enough to squeeze without breaking. If you squeeze a seed and it breaks this is a telltale sign that the seed hasn’t ripened completely. Another clear sign of development is the color. Cannabis seeds often become darker as they mature, this means that seeds with a lighter color are likely underdeveloped. You can also check the seeds for lines, dots or other marks. Not all strains of cannabis have markings on their seeds, but the ones that do only have them when they’re ripe!

So Why Do People Even Buy Cannabis Seeds?

Most growers set out to grow the best buds they can, so they don’t want seeds in them! Buds that contain a lot of cannabis seeds contain less THC, look less appealing and don’t grind well. Nevermind the apetite-ruining experience of finding out you’ve rolled a joint with a seed in it!

Watch out when stuffing a pipe with seeded bud!

If you stumble upon some seeds while going through your bud one of two things happened: the bud got pollinated or it pollinated itself. Both of these scenarios could spell trouble for your cannabis seeds.

Cross Pollination

If your buds have been pollinated this usually wasn’t on purpose, making it very unclear “who the father is”. If outdoor cannabis plants suddenly start producing seeds you don’t know where the pollen came from and what cross was created. There’s an off chance your neighbour will have a prized father plant pollinating the neighbourhood, but this is usually not the case. Especially when you consider the amount of industrial hemp grown in rural areas around the world, the odds of crossing a commercial strain with something unsmokable can be quite high. Using seeds from outdoor plants means flying blind in terms of genetics!

Growing industrial hemp means you’re looking for very different traits than we are, crossing with the strain in the picture above probably won’t give you the best buds!

Hermaphrodites

A cannabis plant can only self-pollinate by becoming a hermaphrodite, which means that the same plant produces both male and female flowers. While seeds from hermaphrodites have a clear genetic background, they are apparently more prone to become a hermaphrodite!

Finding hermaphrodite flowers in your buds won’t make you happy, fortunately this bud is salvageable!

So if you’re looking to grow some great buds you should probably avoid these cannabis seeds altogether. If your seeds came from a hermaphroditic cannabis plant, odds are they will produce more hermaphrodites. This could lead seeded buds in this plant and other plants around it and ultimately harming THC production.

You Get What You Pay For!

With all of these things taken into consideration, it really depends on the goal of your grow. For people that simply want “a plant” for fun, without the intention of growing a nice crop, it obviously doesn’t matter what kind of seeds are used. But if you’re looking to harvest some great buds it really pays off to buy quality seeds from a reputable breeder. Regardless of your style of gardening, we wish you the best of luck growing and are obviously always eager to supply you with high quality cannabis seeds!