How to Grow Cannabis 222 – Sourcing Your Genetics

In our last article, we discussed how to select the genetics or strains you want. It takes research and planning to figure out your ideal set of strains, and now we need to determine the best methods for actually acquiring those genetics.

These are in no particular order, and you shouldn’t necessarily trust one over another. Use your best judgement to source your genetics -- don’t work with people who have shady practices and behaviors.

If you were growing with us for the 100s series of How-to-Grow Cannabis, you should already have some genetics available for you to use. We’ll go over details about how to grow your own seeds in a future article, and we briefly touched upon cloning in a previous article, although we’ll go into more detail in a future article.

Should you wish to continue growing in the future, we highly recommend you start storing seeds or maintaining your own cloning facility, which we will explain in a future article.

Just because you know someone, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are the most trustworthy person to get genetics from. However, working with someone you know does have the benefit of convenience and often a lower price (if any). If you know somebody who’s a grower, it’s worth checking in with them to see if they have the genetics you want, and if they’d be willing to give you some clones.

Depending on what state you live in, nurseries, grows, or seed banks may be able to sell you clones or seeds. These nurseries typically maintain a stock of mother plants that they’re able to reliably reproduce for consistent genetics. You might think this was a guarantee of a particular strain’s genetics, but genetic studies would tell you otherwise.

However, unlike many other sources, nurseries and grow sites should be able to reliably supply you with genetics when you need it, so it helps to establish good relationships with these groups if you can.

You can purchase seeds online, and there are many websites to buy seeds from. There is no guarantee that the genetics are what the sellers claim they are, and you will have to worry about shipping concerns (depending on where you live, you could run into legal issues with shipping). Online stores have no guarantee of your desired genetics being in stock, but they do have a wider selection of genetics than a local nursery, and they offer the convenience of ordering from your own home..

You can check out Growers Network for professionals to find curated knowledge about local seed banks in your area! Apply today.