Hey I have a good question . Im having a hard time deciding between ordering seeds online for my next crop or just going to harborside again.
Harborsides clones grow easily from my experience with them so far 2 weeks into flowering as of today and they are already packing on buds and resin.
Never seen\heard of anybody in person growing seeds they bought online, seen plenty of grow journals online but that compare to peoples
personal opinions. What do you guys think? Clones from a dispensary , or good fem seeds from online? Not looking to mother , just get crops in quick
I find this ironic, because in most of the country, there are no dispensaries where you can just walk out with a clone and everyone has to start from ceeds. Lots of people would kill for the ability to walk into a place like Harborside, then leisurely shop for their favorite clone from a selection of high quality strains instead of having to smuggle ceeds from Europe!
And as you probably already know, Harborside does sell ceeds too. They've got TGA, Cali Connection, and others; you don't necessarily have to order them from abroad.
To answer the question, clones are quite a bit faster, and that's the main reason to go that way.
You'll probably save a month starting from a clone you can pick up in person as compared to buying ceeds, waiting for them to get delivered, then germinating them, vegging them until they're sexually mature, sexing them, then letting them flower.
*IF* you can identify really high quality plants (especially good "clone only" ones), then clones are also a bargain. Yes, a clone costs more than a ceed, BUT you know its going to be a female, and if its a good one, you won't have to do any "pheno hunting". If you factor in the faster turnaround starting from clones, and the value of your time, the clones are well worth a few extra bucks each compared to ceeds.
The main thing is making sure you get clones of things you actually want to grow. That's not just picking a strain, but also making sure the clone is actually a good representation of the strain (ie getting it from a reputable source), and disease and pest free.
Quarantine is a good idea, but not so important if you're only growing one plant.
Me, personally, I think going into a dispensary and buying clones from them is risky. They are in the business of selling bud. So why would the sell their stock in trade, so to speak?
Most dispensaries don't grow their own buds; they just buy them wholesale then sell them to you retail. Likewise, I think many if not most of the dispensaries selling clones aren't actually creating them; again, they're retailing clones they bought wholesale from clone-makers.
The main reason they're selling you clones is because its profitable for them. If you're going to grow, you're going to grow. From a dispensary's perspective, they might as well be the one selling you a clone rather than you getting one for free from your pal, buying one off of Craig's list, or starting from ceeds you buy elsewhere. While you're there, maybe they'll sell you some buds or something else.
Another (lesser) reason they'll sell you clones is hoping that you'll later come back with a whole bunch of buds they can buy from you on the cheap then sell retail.
Next you have the dispensary employees who see your information and this may enable someone to find your location. Now let's assume one of those employees own grow gets found by the feds. You think for a moment they wouldn't use some stranger's grow location to get out of trouble?
Its not that they "wouldn't", but more likely that they "couldn't".
First of all, other than what's written on the card, what information do they have on you? Your name and address? Do they even record that at the point of sale? The dispensaries probably sell dozens of clones a week, week in week out, and see multiple times that many people buying buds. With hundreds of customers in and out of there every month why are you going to be the one whose name and address they remember?
If you're not growing at the address listed on your card, I'm not sure how anyone is going to find you. But even if you were, AND the dispensary employee had your info AND gave it to the Feds, I don't really think they'd care. The feds are after large scale commercial growers turning out pounds of weed for commercial sale, not little guys with medical cards and 3-4 plants in their closet. Those are exactly the growers the feds do NOT want to prosecute, because it creates the appearance that they're persecuting poor sick medical users, instead of big "drug dealers".
So not only is "I know the name and address of a guy who bought a clone here once" NOT going to mitigate Federal cultivation charges, its probably going to make the case officers in question laugh. They're not going to commit their scarce resources opening up an investigation over something like that; its not worth their time.
More simply, the big growers whom the Feds are after probably aren't buying clones at Harborside! The Feds are going to try and flip a caught grower UPWARDS (ie to find distributors or other large growers), not DOWNWARDS (to find some guy's closet grow).
If they really wanted to nail a bunch of small growers, the feds could simply stake out Harborside and surveil every person walking out the front door with a clone, trace their license plates, etc. They don't really need to "flip" some low paid bud-tender to do that.
For me dealing with someone on another continent means I am in no possible way a bargaining chip.
"No possible way"? I think its at least
possible that a package containing ceeds could be identified as such and lead to a criminal investigation. Absolutely, the chance of something like this happening is extremely remote, especially in a legal grow state, but its greater than zero.
A much more realistic "risk" is just that you order ceeds and end up disappointed. Maybe you'll have a lot of males, maybe a poor germination rate, maybe the final buds won't be that good or just not what you expected. One of the worst things ever is to spend 4 months training and growing some ultra-haze only to find out that its got poor flavor and low potency!
