What Do Healthy Weed Seeds Look Like?

To grow high-quality cannabis, you’ll need high-quality seeds. But how do you tell which seeds will germinate into vibrant plants and which won’t? Symple Seeds is a company of cannabis seed experts, and we’re here to tell you exactly how to choose the best seeds for your next harvest. 

What Do High-Quality Weed Seeds Look Like? 

A cannabis seed’s appearance will give you the first hints about its quality. Cannabis seeds are typically about the size of the head of a match or a lentil. They should be hard, shiny, and smooth. 

Should Weed Seeds be Dark or Light?

Cannabis seeds come in varying shades of light brown. Dark brown or black weed seeds are likely old or damaged and won’t germinate as reliably. Green, beige, or white cannabis seeds are typically too young to grow successfully. 

However, each plant and each seed is unique. You might be able to germinate a cannabis plant from an immature or too-old seed, but it likely won’t produce as much flower as a plant from a reputable cannabis seed bank like Symple Seeds.

Tiger Striped Seeds

Though some cannabis seeds are solid brown, some have spots or stripes of darker brown coloration, giving them a “tiger-striped” effect. These seeds are typically more highly sought after by growers because they are aesthetically pleasing and because these stripes indicate a high-quality, mature cannabis seed that will produce a vibrant plant.

Do Good Weed Seeds Sink?

You can also perform the “float test” to check the health and quality of your cannabis seeds. The test is simple: place your seeds into a glass of room-temperature water for a couple of hours. Seeds that sink to the bottom are more likely to germinate successfully and produce a prolific plant. 

However, cannabis seed appearance and buoyancy don’t guarantee successful germination. The best way to ensure that your cannabis seeds will germinate and grow into healthy plants is to source your seeds directly from a cannabis seed retailer like Symple Seeds. We test and verify every seed in our warehouse so you can start harvesting sooner. 

How to Identify Weed Seeds

Seed quality and overall health aren’t the only things you’ll want to look out for when choosing cannabis seeds.

How to Tell if a Weed Seed is Male or Female

It is notoriously easy to cross-pollinate cannabis plants. This can be a good thing if you’re breeding a new cultivar and are trying to produce seeds, but it can be disastrous to your overall yield if you accidentally end up with a male plant in a room full of females. Is there a way to tell whether your seeds will grow into male or female plants and avoid this situation entirely?

How to Identify a Female Seed

Unfortunately for cannabis growers, the only way to tell if a weed plant is male or female is to plant it and wait for it to reach the pre-flowering stage. Female plants will develop preflowers, while male plants will begin to develop pollen sacs. It’s impossible to tell if a plant will be male or female just by looking at the seeds. 

The only way to ensure you will end up with exclusively female cannabis plants is by purchasing feminized cannabis seeds from a distributor like Symple Seeds. Our team of cannabis geneticists specifically breeds feminized seeds that will almost always produce female plants, taking some guesswork out of cultivation and ensuring you get a bountiful harvest. 

What Should a Weed Seed Look Like Before Planting?

Once you’ve chosen some feminized cannabis seeds and inspected them to ensure that they’re healthy and high-quality, you’re probably excited to get growing — but how do you know when to plant your cannabis seeds? The first step is germination. Cannabis seeds typically germinate fairly quickly within a couple of days, but depending on the seed and your growing conditions, it can take longer. 

There are two primary methods that most growers use to germinate their cannabis seeds: 

1. Loosely wrap cannabis seeds in a damp paper towel and place them in a plastic bag. 
2. Or, put your cannabis seeds directly into a small cup of soil. 

As soon as your cannabis seeds have germinated and you can see the beginnings of the plant’s first roots poking out of the seed, you can plant them in your preferred growing medium. 

Where to Source Germ-Checked Weed Seeds

If you want to skip the guesswork of evaluating cannabis seeds, your best bet is to purchase your seeds from a trusted cannabis seed distribution company like Symple Seeds. We carry germ-tested, feminized seeds in nearly every cultivar imaginable — and we can even help you design your own strain. If you already have a batch of cannabis seeds you’re trying to evaluate, we can help with that, too — we can clean, count, test, and wholesale bulk cannabis seeds that you send to us.

Symple Seeds is your one-stop shop for everything weed-seed related, from services that help you open your own cannabis seed company to wholesale seeds for your cultivation operation. We’d love to help your business grow — contact Symple Seeds today to learn more about our services and get started.