slowthestone

Prices have gotten silly.
$200 for 10 seeds cost the breeder just as much time and energy as their $20 for 10 strain. Not that theres many $2 seeds anymore.

If you've ever bred for seed, you know its not costing anymore than breeding for bud. Nor does it take more work to collect the seeds vs. trimming your bud for smoking.

Brokers as middlemen, thats fine I guess. But only because it costs them money to make money.

Its the breeders that are bugging me here.

Question...Indoor soil grow
Strain A - 1% THC content, tastes like burnt leaves, matures 90 days from germination.
Strain B - 20% THC content, tastes like Shangri La in a bowl, matures 90 days from germination.

Which strain used more resources to be produced? ie electric, nutrients, water, man hours?

So yeah, breeders...you folks are hosing growers...please stop.

friction2k

uhhhh...i don't follow you man

i can understand 200 for a strain to be pricey, but you get what you pay for you, you're buying a name, intel or amd, your pick man.

seems choices are very few if you live in the US in a non-med area, but then again their is great ol bagseed. dosen't matter what weed from what bag, just anything. you grow it, and it'll be more than 1% THC and taste great.

my

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johnny-0

It is so easy to paint your buds with male pollen.I always pop 5 seeds of which certainly 1 will be a male.I take the male out of the grow room and let it mature outside.Then when its pollen is ready I put it on a cotton ball and rub it on the lower buds.After 4 days I spray the pollen off with water and place them back in the grow room to finish.Ive never had the inpregnated plants infect the non-impregnated plants-so far.

GoldenNug

Producing seeds is one thing, breeding a new strain of cannabis completely another.

Again: breeders/seed distributors cheating growers is one thing; putting a higher price on the time, energy, and guarantee of quality that goes into a good seed is another thing altogether.

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Its a sad fact that the industry surrounding our favorite plant is not always honest or fair. There is a large criminal element that participates in this beautiful plant's cultivation and distribution. We have all learned to grasp this depressing fact, and deal with it as best we choose.

Unfortunately, when we get elevated above the common commerce of this flower, by entering into a cultivation endeavor, it is easy to forget the complications inherent in the black world of the weed market. Its not a very pretty world far too often.

This criminal behavior of weed's black market has spread like a plague to the people we have come to rely on to supply us with seed. I would like to put/point some blame for this at the foot of the American government, but that is another issue.

There are seed distributors out there, putting ads in weed magazines, and sometimes on websites we may frequent, that deceive us and cheat us by selling seeds that are either stolen genetics from another breeder, or inferior seeds produced from the seeds originally distributed by a breeder, or just plain inferior seeds created by an amateur and sold with a catchy strain name.

This sucks, of course.

But there are breeders who know marijuana so intimately, who grow out so many plants and so many generations, who pick each new set of breeding DNA through a lifetime's experience worth of judgment on taste, smell, growth patterns, and mutations, who travel the world in search of new breeding material, and who make sure that every seed sold with their name will grow with a vigor that out-performs any common seed you could just find.

Seriously, goto Sensi Seeds. Get some F1 seeds, any strain. Go germinate and grow them right next to any random seed you find in a bud, or make yourself deliberately.

Chances are, your seed will get its ass kicked.

This is what happened when we got real Jack Flash seeds from Sensi in amsterdam, and sprouted them alongside almost a dozen other strains we had been collecting and trading for over the last couple months.

My favorite breeder at the moment is Reeferman. I haven't even had the pleasure yet, and he is Canadian ( ), but he definitely has the dedication to originality that the breeding world needs.

Another fine example of this is DJ Short, still going strong on creating wonderful, new, exotic strains; instead of just reshuffling his incredible Blueberry with her parent genetics, like many of today's "breeders" would probably do if they stumbled upon anything halfway decent.

Which brings me to my last point...let's not even call these people "breeders" any more when they don't really deserve it.

I mean sure, you made your first seeds deliberately: you can whisper to yourself that you are a breeder as you go to sleep, but lets see you surprise all the people in your local pot community with something really new.

Many of these companies only want your cash, and they will send you crap seeds for that cash.....but don't get them confused with the real ones out there whom you and I can only aspire to be like; their seeds are well worth a couple extra bucks.


-the man with the golden nug

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southpaw

I think it also depends on which seedbank you buy from like canada vs. europe.

penguin

The expenses are in space, time, security, and manpower. Developing and stabilizing a cultivar requires maintaining many tens of plants of breeding stock, growing out thousands of plants, tracking phenotypes through multiple test crosses, etc. And then there's the time and money spent scouring the planet for the new genetics that go into the most interesting new varieties. Like any drug development, it takes a lot of R&D. As they say in the pharmaceutical industry, "the first pill costs a half a billion dollars, everything after that is free." And after all that time and money, the breeders know that they are going to be competing with the "generic" producers that inbreed and hybridize the genetics they developed, and then undercut them on price. The breeders have to make their money while they can.

Commercial scale seed production is relatively low cost but not free.

Price isn't directly based on cost anyway, it's based on demand. Seed banks charge whatever the market will bear. And you usually get what you pay for.


penguin

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Xgone.

I totally agree with Penguin and others on this one. Penguin made a great analogy with the pharm. industry. It's a nearly identical situation.

Straight up - you get what you pay for (usually).

To me stable genetics that produce A+ bud is priceless.

Because I don't have the time, patience or facility to grow seeded generation after generation I dont have a problem paying for designer genes.

I just paid $16/seed for 20 rez sourD ibl seeds and it's irrelevant because I'll have the cultivar as long as a choose and pounds of sour diesel from flowering out the plants from seed...

$320 doesn't sound too bad for the genetics that'll produce pounds of best bud you'll find at the party.




is really expensive and you can't just pull an amazing strain outta a hat.

I don't really see what your logic is.

Seldom does the price of manufacturing detirmine the price of a good in a market like this. It's supply and demand at its most basic level. Reservoir, for example sells sour diesel IBL for $160usd. He can't keep them on the shelf...he's selling tons of the beans.

Why lower the price on something that's so highly demanded? He's already has a demand surplus and the demand is definitely inelastic. If you can afford $100 beans, you can probably afford $200 beans too - yanno? That is to say with change in price, demand would likely be largely unaffected.

With designer beans, like many luxury goods, theres often an increase in demand as result of high prices. when you search seed distributor websites, you may subconsciously make the association that the expensive beans are the best cuz they cost the most.

At the same time, breeders should charge higher prices for better genetics. I know, if I was rez, and I was the breeder of sourD, I'd charge $160 for the beans too - why charge the same as someone who sells an inferior product?

So I guess what I'm saying is to quit bitching, because no one's forcing you to buy the beans. If you don't think they're worth it then don't buy em, but don't hate because they're making a good living. Why shouldn't they for taking that risk?

Breeding cannabis is really illegal and usually requires lots of plants - maybe you haven't heard the saying "I don't do felonies for free".

Anyways, I'm not trying to flame you, but you shouldn't be telling dudes how to run their businesses unless you're prepared to do it better than them and spend years and tons of dough selecting for killer stable lines and genetics only to slang the beans for $2.

edit - lol. penguin; only read half your post @ first. Funny you discussed the cost being detirimed by S&D too.

DLA

I know for me when I see something I need and the price can not, does not reflect the true value...I study it and build my own. I'm not going to breed seeds too. My selection and variety would suck.

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Sometimes people never say anything for fear of being judged.
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90% of our communication is unspoken.

OldBasilisk

Once legalization comes around, the real money would be in selling sensi herb itself - this would allow the breeder to monopolize a strain they've painstakingly developed; not put it at risk of genetics scammers.

But, there are actually quite a few great lines of for 2$/seed. Just look around - SK#1, Mexican Sativa, Mandala's lineup, etc.

They aren't 'designer genes' but solid stock nonetheless.

Gr0wer

First I must say this is a very interesting thread.

You guys really mentioned almost all facts that are to say about this subject.

I would only add the fact that this people (breeders) live of the seed breeding and strain designing. They need to put the food on the table for them selfs and for their family. You have to keep in mind that MJ growing is illegal in almost all country's world wide and that means our market is smaller compared to other markets that brings two things: less growers and less breeders.

There is only place for so much breeders in the world and we growers like to connect to growing community's (just like this forum ) and we share our experience with different seed banks. That means that only the best breeders stay with us for a number of years. Just like Xenon said they work by the supply&demand rule and that gives us consumers the opportunity to buy where we choose best and with that change the prices.

So all we need to do is stick to itch other and we will stick to the best...

Gr0

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