Indica's and sativa's
Because there is large selection of marijuana seed strains offered on the internet, this can sometimes get overwhelming when trying to decide which cannabis seeds to order. Choosing is not as difficult as you may think. There are really only two sides of the marijuana family we are talking about here. Indica and sativa marijuana.
Indica marijuana
Indica's originally come from the hash producing countries of the world like Afghanistan, Morocco, and Tibet. They are short dense marijuana plants, with broad leaves and often grow a darker green. After flowering starts they will be mature in 6 to 8 weeks. The marijuana buds will be thick and dense, with flavour's and aroma's ranging from pungent skunk to sweet and fruity. The marijuana buds have little trouble maturing under the cool conditions of our northern climate. Indica cannabis buds smell stinky, you know the type that smell like bad B.O often pungent and their smoke is thick even a small toke will often induce fits of coughing. The best Indica's have a relaxing social high, which allows the person to sense and feel the environment, but does not lead to thinking or analyzing the experience.
Sativa marijuana
Sativa marijuana plants are just about the opposite of indica's. They are tall, thin marijuana plants, with much narrower leaves and grow a lighter green in color. The sativa marijuana plant grows very quickly and can reach heights of 20 feet | 6 meters in a single outdoor season. They originally come from Colombia, Mexico, Thailand and Southeast Asia. Once flowering has begun, the sativa marijuana plant can take anywhere from 10 to 16 weeks to fully mature. flavour's range from earthy to sweet and fruity. The stoned of a sativa is cerebral, up and energetic.
Hybrid marijuana plants
A hybrid marijuana seed strain is an offspring of two different marijuana varieties [have two unrelated 'true-breeding' parents]. These marijuana strains are crossbred for their growth characteristics. A hybrid is produced by the pollen from one strain of male marijuana and pollinate the female marijuana plant from another strain. For example, a sativa of a particular strain is crossed for it's height and great taste with an indica of a particular strain for it's high yield. True-breeding marijuana plants will produce true to type if reproduced from their own seeds, so different generations will share similar characteristics.
More information about indica and sativa marijuana »
Indoor or outdoor
Whether or not a marijuana seed strain can be grown outdoors depends on the length of grow season you have. All outdoor and indoor/outdoor cannabis seed varieties listed in the marijuana seeds strain list include a approximate flowering time. This is most important feature to consider and is completely influenced by the indica/sativa ratio. You want marijuana plants that will mature before the danger of frost or bad weather comes along. The more sativa that is in the mix, the longer it takes to finish [harvest]. If you have a very long growing season, most marijuana strains can be grown outdoors. These flowering periods are approximate and will vary depending on conditions. From there you go back to what you like and the descriptions of the plants.
Height
The heights listed for each marijuana seeds strain are for full sized marijuana plants. When growing indoor, we have complete control over how tall these marijuana plants get, just by how long we grow them before flowering is initiated. Artificial lights do not efficiently penetrate much more than 3 feet | 90 cm down into the garden, so it makes little sense to grow them much bigger than that. After the light schedule is changed to 12 hours on and 12 hours off, flowering will begin in about 7 to 14 days. During this time the marijuana plants will continue to grow another 6 to 14 inches | 15 cm to 35 cm and then stop. How much the marijuana plants will grow depends on the indica/|sativa ratio of the seed strain. Sativa marijuana will stretch the most. Depending on this ratio, flowering should be initiated at around 18 to 24 inches| 45 cm to 60 cm to achieve the end height of 36 inches | 90 cm. How long it will take to get this tall depends on the strain and the conditions in the garden.
Potency
All marijuana seed varieties are potent. The success of the eventual outcome will depend on your personal taste and the conditions in which the marijuana seeds/plants are grown. THC is found in the resin glands that form on the marijuana plant during the maturation process. These glands act as a shield to protect the cannabis plant from the searing heat of the sun. From our experience this is needed more in a hot, dry atmosphere, than a hot humid one. To maximize resin production drop the humidity in the room for the flowering stage, the lower the better. But no matter how much resin you induce on an indica marijuana plant it's still not going to give you the stone of a sativa marijuana plant, so it does have a lot to do with your personal taste and expectations.
Yields
All of the yields listed for the marijuana seed strains are approximate and depends a lot on how they are grown and the quality of the environment. Indoor grow lights don't penetrate down very far so it is better to grow a larger number of smaller marijuana plants to achieve the highest yield of top quality marijuana bud. Maximum yields indoors are coming from indica marijuana seeds and mostly indica marijuana hybrids, while the more sativa marijuana in the mix, the lower the yields tend to be. Our marijuana yield indoors is really limited only by the amount of light we have, not the marijuana seeds strain we choose. Given that it is a good growing environment, we would expect the yield to be about the same from any marijuana seed strain in relationship to it's indica/sativa content. It is up to us as marijuana growers to maximize our marijuana plants potential in our space. To do this we need to experiment to find out how each marijuana seed strain will respond best.
Flowering times
Flowering times are an indication of how long it will take the marijuana plant to mature indoor after flowering has been induced by changing the lights to 12 hours of darkness. This will be affected by the environment to some degree, but is pretty much fixed in the marijuana plant. Indica cannabis plants are faster flowering than sativa marijuana plants and hybrids are in relationship to the percentage of each they contain. Equally important in the process is vegetation time, or how long you grow them before flowering is induced. Sativa marijuana grows very quickly and if we wait too long to flower them they will outgrow the limits of the space and will not fill out. On the other hand, if an indica marijuana plant is not grown for long enough, the yield can be greatly reduced. In the scheduling of the process they can often both end up taking about the same amount of time to grow and mature.
