bluntmassa1
Well-Known Member
nirvana seeds are cheaper from attitude then direct from nirvana I'll let you do the math
A pack has ten seeds and retails for what, $100? (I think Ontario seedbank had these for $75 for a while). The seedbank is paying wholesale for them, which is probably only about half the retail, or possibly even a bit less.
Meanwhile, Sub still has to develop the lines, grow and maintain the plants, make the seeds and quality control them, pack them, ship them to the retailer (which may entail confiscation or other legal risk), market them, etc. I'm not privy to the details of his business, but I don't think he's doing all these things personally, meaning he has to pay others to do at least some of the work. If there is legal risk, the pay has to reflect it. Once you factor in all the expenses, I can see him only netting $10-15 a pack, at least in initial runs.
Personally, I've got no issue with the cost. The guy has to make a living and he can ask whatever he likes for his seeds. Ultimately he doesn't decide what they're worth, the market does. If he asks more than other seeds of the same quality, he's going to have very few buyers. If they don't deliver for some other reason, same thing.
My issue is that most of the TGA strains are non-stabilized polyhybrids. That's OK, in the sense that you certainly can get excellent and unique plants from these sorts of crosses. The problem is that you may have to wade through a lot of different plants to find the ones that really represent the best quality of the "strain" (and in this case the term "strain" is used loosely!). In other words, YOU'RE the one doing the selection, not the breeder. As a secondary issue, for genetic reasons "strains" like this typically CANNOT be entirely stabilized, and even crossing plants like this with themselves will throw off a wide variety of phenotypes.
Lets say I buy a pack of ten seeds. Just by chance 1-2 of them may not germinate or make it out of seedling stage. Out of the remaining eight or nine, lets say I get five females. (And I might even get less).
With only five females to select from, I "should" have a good shot of getting one that has that "killer" phenotype. But its a gamble; with only a few females in any pack and many possible genetic variations, any given pack simply may not contain any seeds that have that great phenotype. Now, if I had the financial ability to buy a few packs, and to grow out 5-10-20 plants at once, then do the selection to find an extra special "mother" plant for cloning, I would be assured of finding that great phenotype, but that's an expensive, and somewhat labor-intensive proposition just to find one plant. From a practical standpoint, it might be easier/cheaper for me to just locate an already selected clone.
What if I'm a small personal grower, and I want to start from seed each time? Not so good. I don't want to have to pay $100 for a roll of the dice every time I buy a pack of seeds.
What if I'm limited to only a small number of plants for space or legal reasons, and I'm already growing out two or three other "keepers"? Even if the money for the seeds is no object, if I can only grow a few plants at a time, finding that "keeper" plant may not be easy or practical, and I might be committing all my spare "slots" to plants that ultimately don't turn out to be all that interesting. Again, not so good.
So, to my way of thinking, with so much great genetics out there, if I'm going to be paying $100 for a pack of ten seeds, then I want ALL of them to be potentially excellent, or at least give me something I need that I can't find elsewhere.
If I can only count on maybe 1-2 of the seeds in the pack to be excellent, then ultimately I'm paying $50 or $100 *PER SEED*, PLUS my time and labor in doing the selection to find the good phenotypes, PLUS the opportunity cost of not growing something ELSE during that same time.
Not worth it to me.
