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Top 5 Beginner Strains For New Growers
The canna-industry has exploded over the past few years due to the legalization and decriminalization of cannabis. With the rules starting to lax more and more people are starting to think about growing their own cannabis. Seeds are legal to purchase in the US and Canada and can be sent via post without any issue. It’s a big commitment but not a hard one. If you use our grow guides a beginner can defiantly successfully grow cannabis either indoors or outdoors with any of the top 5 beginner Strains of cannabis.
The secret to success starts with a series of decisions you must make. What strain of cannabis do you want to grow and where to get it from? With many unscrupulous sellers of seeds online how do you know where to start. What kind of buzz are you looking for and do you want a strain that is easy and forgiving to grow? These are just questions you need to answer and I’ll guide you along the way to picking the absolute best beginners strains.
Believe it or not, there really are strains that are best for beginners. These strains are easy growers, less finicky than other strains. Just because these strains are great for beginner growers doesn’t mean that they are excellent strains. All 5 of the strains we recommend in this article will knock your socks off with potency.
Space to Grow
Your grow space is your playground, it’s where you’ll spend countless hours tending to your beautiful cannabis plants as they grow and mature. Setting up your grow space with grow lights, fans and carbon filters are some of the engineering challenges you’ll be up against. You can learn all about this in our Beginners guide to growing cannabis. But lets keep on topic with the top 5 beginner strains.
Your grow area is where you play god. You control the weather and environment to provide the best possible conditions for your cannabis plants. The area in which you grow your cannabis directly affects the way your plants can grow. You must understand how your plants will grow. How tall will they get, how much stretch will you experience in the flowering stage. This is important because your grow area usually has a height restriction.
If you are growing in a grow tent or closet you likely have between 60” and 80” inches of growing height. The physical thickness of your lighting takes up space as well as the safe operating distance from your plants. For example, if you were using an LED grow light with a thickness of 3 inches and a safe operating distance of 18 inches you’ve already lost 21 inches of grow height. Add the height of your pots which are generally around 6 inches tall and you are up to 27 inches of used space. If your maximum grow height is 60 inches, then you’ve only got 33 inches left for your plant’s growth. That isn’t very much space for a cannabis plant.
This means you need to choose strains to grow that are shorter on average than other cannabis strains. You may also need to invest time into training your plants to maximize the cola’s and minimize your plant’s height during the growing stage. To learn more about training your cannabis plants please read this article on growing cannabis.
The Genetics
You can do a lot of things to try and grow better cannabis. You can experiment with lighting, soils and nutrients, even light exposure and access to carbon dioxide. The list goes on and on, but the most important factor in determining the quality of your cannabis is the strain’s genetics. If you choose to work with high-grade genetics backed up by awards and hype, you’ll end up with plants that are just that much better. But remember to stick to the beginner strains that we recommend to ensure success.
One of the important issues you need to think about when choosing your strains genetics is growing space. Do you have the room for a Sativa or a strain that is Sativa dominant? Or do you have limited grow space and grow height, if this is the case an Indica-dominant plant will be the best option because of its tendency to grow smaller and shorter. Other benefits of an Indica-dominant strain are that its growth cycle is generally a few weeks shorter.
Seed banks and seed stores generally offer Sativa’s, Indica’s and hybrids which are combinations of the two genetics together. When breeders mix and play with genetics you end up with extreme new strains of cannabis. For example, by mixing Sativa and Indica in the right combination will create a plant that is short and squat while still containing a large fruity Sativa yield. The geneticists that bread this example strain focused on growing small plants that contain large cola’s, how great is that?
There is a myriad of modern-day strains because of this genetic god playing which is great news for growers. You now can grow a great variety of strains. We are focusing on the top 5 beginner strains in this article so later we’ll discuss these top strains in detail.
It’s time to learn about some more magic which can decrease the complexity of your first grow significantly. The magic comes in the form of Auto-Flowering Seeds. Imagine growing seeds that do the extra complicated work for you. These little babies do just that! There is no need to worry about changing light cycles, or deciding when to change light cycles. With Auto-Flowering seeds, the plants know when to change over to flowering and they do so without any intervention from the grower. Even more exciting is the fact that Auto-Flowering seeds are generally feminized which as well means you never get any male plants which you need to try and identify and then destroy.
Unique qualities of Auto-Flowering Plants:
- Auto-Flowering plants are ready to harvest in the shortest amount of time of any strains. The genetics in these strains has made them ready to harvest in less than 3 months, Some strains in as little as 10 weeks.
- Auto-Flowering plants don’t need a regular period of light. Most plants need their photoperiod adjusted at flowering time to 12 hours of light per day. With Autos there is no need to play around with time adjustments. You can leave your lights on full time if you want to help manage heat or run them 18 hours a day to increase growth speed. There is no need to adjust your light times to get these babies to flower.
- Auto-Flowering strains generally contain more than 1% of naturally occurring CBD. CBD makes buds relaxing with an anti-anxiety effect. This makes Auto-Flowering strains a great choice for medical cannabis patients looking for a more relaxed experience. There are also Auto-Flowering Strains that have been specifically bred for higher THC as well which provide the user with more of a psychedelic experience.
Our Top 5 Beginner strains:
Train Wreck
Getting into the nitty-gritty of Train Wrecks genetics is very interesting. It consists of Mexican Sativa, Thai Sativa and Afghani Indica making it a Sativa-dominant hybrid strain. Train Wreck affects the mind heavily, you can also expect a calm body buzz and a rush of adrenaline when you first take a hit.
 | Click Here to See More Images Of Train Wreck | Order Now |
The Afghani genetics make the plant look more like Indica, but the effects are on the heavier Sativa side. Train Wreck reminds me of pepper but a bit sweet.
Train Wreck is very popular with people that suffer from conditions such as ADHD, anxiety, stress migraines, PTSD, pain and stiff joints.
This strain is easy to grow and a low flyer, so it won’t grow too tall for your indoor or private outdoor garden. This plant produces very green flowers in just 7-weeks. A great beginner strains to get your hands wet with.
This strain is available from:
Get Prices from cropkingseeds.com (Canada/US)
NYC Diesel
Auto NYC Diesel is Advanced Seeds’ version of the famous NYC Diesel, originally a cross of 40% Mexican Sativa and 60% Afghan Indica. This strain was picked for her essence of Diesel genetics, so she’s got a sweet citrusy flavor with an outstanding aroma.
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The strain also provides higher than average yields with a THC content averaging 14%; hard to believe from a beginner strains. This is a great indoor/outdoor strain but because of its genetics can grow on the larger side. Make sure you have the room in your grow area if you are growing this plant indoors. You will likely need to Fim your plants.
Notes of citrus and fuel provide a relaxing, full-body stone. Good for indoor or outdoor growing. Compact, easy-to-grow plants yield dense, dark-green flowers in just 7 weeks maturation.
This strain is available from:
cropkingseeds.com (Canada/US)
LowFlyer
If you are an indoor grower with limited space or an outdoor grower that needs their plants to remain small for security than LowFlyer was bred for you. This strain is extremely durable and is resistant to mold and diseases. This plant barely has a vegetative stage as it only grows a few sets of leaves before it starts flowering. It can start to flower in 3 weeks from seeding time if you can believe that!
 | Click Here to See More Images of Low Flyer | Order Now |
This strain was created by mixing Mexican Ruderalis with a female Indica. This created a male offspring which was then crossbred with a female clone.
A great beginner strains for those who want to get hold of marijuana buds fast.
This strain is available from:
cropkingseeds.com (Canada/US)
Jack Herer
The exact genetics of this strain has been kept a closely guarded secret, but it’s believed that Jack Herer is a mixture of Northern Lights mixed with Shiva Skunk and Haze. It is a world renown strain noted for its clear-headed buzz with a boost of focused energy. I find that this strain puts an instant smile on my face while reducing my stress almost instantly.
 | Click Here to See More Images of Jack Herer | Order Now |
Jack Herer is a very popular day-time strain promoted by Jack Herer himself — a legendary, life-long activist and author of ‘The Hemperor Wears No Clothes,”
This strain is available from:
cropkingseeds.com (Canada/US)
CBDream
Uplifting and relaxing, this Canadian Indica-dominant strain packs a punch of high CBD and low THC for the medical cannabis grower. This beginner strains isn’t meant to get you high but to provide the beneficial medicinal benefits many people are looking for. CDB is the perfect beginner strains.
 | Click Here to See More Images of CBD Dream | Order Now |
Notes of sweet pine and citrus combine for a clear-headed and focused stone. Compact, bushy plants reach a height of 3-4 feet. Flowers mature in 8 weeks. This high-yielding variety will make an excellent addition to any garden.
This strain is available from:
cropkingseeds.com (Canada/US)
Flowering Time
Flowering time on these Auto strains can be as short as 50 days and as long as 85 days depending on the genetic makeup of the strain. Regular strains (non-auto) take between 75 and 90 days depending on how long you vegetate the plant for. Our top 5 strains contain strains that consider size limitations.
Growing Techniques
This is where the real fun begins, and you get to get your hands dirty. Learning to grow cannabis is a very hands-on experience. You don’t have to go into this blind though. There are incredibly simple and detailed grow guides available to you.
Techniques for growing cannabis can involve training which is the low-stress control over which a plant can grow. Plants can be manipulated with techniques such as tying plants down, topping, screening, fimming and mainlining. These are advanced techniques and not recommended for beginner growers. Training your plants can manipulate both the size of the plant as well as the number of colas (buds) the plant contains. Once you are experienced enough to try these techniques you will see incredible gains in the yield your plants will produce.
Strains for Growing with CFLs
Many beginners will not want to make a major investment in proper grow lights to start out and this leaves them with growing with CFLs. I really do not recommend this unless absolutely necessary. Compact Fluorescent Grow Lights do not provide the growing power needed for most strains to really thrive. It becomes and an increasing issue at flowering time, as your buds will be small and contain less THC due to the lack of light power. Growing with a CFL is possible, I’ve done it as a test and I see people on boards all the time showing off their CFL grows.
Growing with CFLs will require you to have small plants because the light generated isn’t strong enough to penetrate deep into the plant canopy. So, a plant with the genetics to be small is required. That’s possible because of genetics, there are specific strains that do not grow tall, which are perfect for this type of grow.
You are still going to need to train your plants if you are growing with Compact Fluorescent Grow Lights so that they will have more colas on a flatter plant. We’ll tell you the perfect strain for this growing situation later on in this article.
Are you Looking to get High or Stoned?
The strain you choose to grow will, of course, have a huge effect on the type of buzz you get. Are you looking to be high, stoned or somewhere in-between? Are you a daytime user that requires an alert energetic buzz or are you a night smoker looking to sleep or are you looking for pain reduction? It could even be possible to grow a low THC strain that produces high levels of CBD.
What Are CBD Strains?
CBD strains provide more medicinal value because they have been bred to contain high levels of the cannabinoid CBD. While these strains were bred for higher levels of CBD they also lowered the levels of THC with the possibility of growing strains that produce no THC at all. These pure CBD strains are known to be used in children with severe seizer disorders. CBD is known to be an extremely important medical discovery which has the ability to treat dozens of medical disorders.
How to pay for cannabis seeds online?
First off, everybody takes a breath, there’s nothing to be worried about when it comes to buying seeds online and having them shipped to your home. We’ll get into that later in the next section. We’ll show you how and why its safe; I’ve purchased all my seeds online for 5 years now and only once had an order go missing in the mail. So read on.
For US Residents Please Read This: Paying for international orders using a credit, debit or pre-paid card might give you issues with the overseas approval, you may have to call your bank to approve the transaction. The seed companies we review ship safely to the US, Canada, and Europe. This has never happened to me in my experience but the seed companies I work with tell me it does happen from time to time and they are always happy to replace the missing order.
Debit or Credit Cards
How do we pay for seeds online at budsgrowguide.com? We use our credit card every time and have never had any issues with it. Purchasing online with credit cards gives you more protection because if a shipment is lost or isn’t shipped to you for some reason, they’ll actually give you your money back. It’s safe, I’ve ordered countless seeds online generally from two companies and have again never had an issue.
What About Paypal?
If you see a seed company accepting Paypal I’d actually just pass them by because they aren’t legitimate. Paypal does not allow the sale of cannabis seeds so anyone saying they are accepting payment for seeds by Paypal is likely a scammer.
Is It Safe to Send Cash?
I’ve never sent cash in the mail for anything. In my mind, that’s just like asking to get ripped off. But, I’ve heard of lots of people that do it to buy all manner of goods online so it must be possible.
I think you are looking at a high-risk transaction if you do decide to try it, just don’t get too upset if it goes missing. If you are ordering from a company that I haven’t reviewed in this article I wouldn’t send cash to them. If you see their name here then I’ve ordered from them successfully multiple times.
Precautions for Buying Cannabis Seeds Online
If this is your first time at the rodeo you’re likely very nervous about moving forward with buying seeds online. That’s ok, being worried is smart, it keeps people from doing dumb stuff!
What if My Seeds Get Stopped in the Mail?
With current customs laws in America, if a cannabis seed shipment from overseas gets caught in the mail; you don’t get put on a list, there’s no investigation. They just toss it in the garbage and move on.
This information is made by not only my personal observations but with hundreds of cannabis growers posting on forums or that I’ve talked to about the subject directly. No cases of anyone having any kind of issue ordering cannabis seeds online other than the occasional package that goes missing.
Even if your package goes missing the companies I review here will replace shipments that don’t arrive to you. So, you really have nothing to worry about as far as seeds in the mail go. If you are lucky you might get a letter from customs saying your seeds were confiscated but that’s all that will happen. Growing in a state where it is against the law is another matter, but seeds are safe.
Once again, there are no reports of someone in the US getting in trouble with the law over cannabis seeds in the mail. I encourage you to do more research if you still feel uncomfortable, but you’ll certainly figure out pretty quickly that it’s safe. People in the US have mail ordered seeds from Holland since the 1970’s and in all that time you won’t find a documented case of legal issues from cannabis seeds in the mail from overseas.
A US citizen won’t have any legal trouble for ordering cannabis seeds online from outside the country
Even if your package goes missing the companies I review here will replace shipments that don’t arrive to you. So, you really have nothing to worry about as far as seeds in the mail go. If you are lucky you might get a letter from customs saying your seeds were confiscated but that’s all that will happen. Growing in a state where it is against the law is another matter, but seeds are safe.
There is one catch to seeds by mail while receiving cannabis seeds from an international shipper is totally fine; state to state shipment of cannabis seeds is illegal. Buying seeds within the US is not a good idea though I haven’t ever heard of anyone getting nabbed for it.
Again I’ve been doing this for years and in that time have talked to hundreds of growers who order seeds online both in Canada and the US and have never heard of an issue, ever. You should think this out and do some research to make yourself feel better, you’ll find plenty of support for the safety of buying cannabis seeds online.
Good Things Take Time
Unless you pay for expedited shipping your seeds could take 3 or 4 weeks to arrive, remember they are coming by regular mail from overseas, it takes time.
I have personally spoken with hundreds if not thousands of growers over the years, and we’ve all had the same experience when it comes to ordering seeds. If you go to any online forum about growing cannabis and speak to other US growers, they will tell you the same thing. This is a very personal decision, and you need to listen to your instincts, but I believe the evidence speaks for itself!
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