Will It Harm Cannabis Seeds If You Touch Them With Your Fingers?
I have found marijuana seeds in my marijuana on many occasions. I am sad to admit that for a very long time in the 1990’s I smoked brick weed that always had seeds in it. I always remember spending long amounts of time de-seeding the bammer, and would look at the pile of schwag left over after the seeds were out of it and thinking about how crappy my dealer was. I also remember back in the day when I would get the rare chronic, and would find a seed. It was practically like finding the holy grail. I would pull it out, admire it for awhile, then put it away for safe keeping.
Some of those seeds were lost very quickly, or discarded for one reason or another, likely by accident. But there was one strain that I valued above all. It was called ‘The Project.’ Loyal readers likely have read articles in which I have talked about this strain. It got it’s name from a grower that I knew growing up. He had ‘the regulars’ that he had been growing for a long time, and ‘the project’ strain that he was still trying to figure out how to grow optimally. When he got it dialed in, I am being completely honest when I say this, it was hands down the best cannabis I had ever seen.
The story goes that his friend traveled to Hawaii on a vacation, tried the strain (which was a pure sativa according to the grower I knew) while he was there, and took some seeds back with him in the late 1980’s. Like most marijuana stories like this one, who knows what is truth and what is fiction, but at the end of the day, the quality of that strain was like nothing I have ever seen, and trust me, I have seen quite a bit of marijuana in my day.
I consumed that strain for over a decade, and there was only one batch that I ever found seeds in. They weren’t the strongest looking seeds, but I remember pulling them out, putting them in a film container, and keeping them safe just in case there was anything to do with them. So when that grower quit growing that strain at the end of the 2000’s, I pulled out the seeds hoping to bring the genetics back to my group of friends and family. None of the seeds did anything. At the time I chalked it up to the seeds just weren’t developed enough, but I would later learn that I had possibly made a fatal mistake that a lot of rookies make.
Keep in mind, I made this mistake a long time ago, way before Google was on my phone to do a quick search, or before there was YouTube to where I could learn from others’ video tutorials online. The mistake was that I touched the marijuana seeds with my bare fingers. To be fair, I was pulling apart a dank nug at the time, and the seeds popped out from behind some sugar leaf so it’s not like I botched a seed extraction operation. I was young, uneducated, and also took for granted that the strain was being grown by someone else, assuming that he would always grow it.
Your fingers contain oil, and that oil transfers to the seed when you are handling it. I have heard from some growers that are very adamant that this is a wives tale, and will point to other seeds that they handle of other plants and they are fine. But I have also talked to a lot of seed geneticists that give me weird looks when I ask them if it’s bad for the seeds. The expression on their faces is like, ‘Duh? Are you an idiot?’ As if it was the stupidest question I could ever ask.
My approach to this subject is that if there is even the slightest chance that touching the cannabis seed with bare fingers is bad for the seed, why risk it? Why not be 100% sure and avoid the whole thing by getting a pair of tweezers? Obviously if you were in a situation like I was and you had already accidentally touched the seed because you didn’t expect it to be in there, then handle it as minimal as possible, throw it in a container, and hope for the best while keeping realist expectation levels.
If you want to start growing, you should download a free marijuana grow bible written by Robert Bergman. He knows a ton about seeds and cultivation, and since the book is free, you have nothing to lose. I always offer up that free resource. All top quality marijuana seeds are available at his marijuana seed shop too if you are in the market for those. Genetics are gaining in popularity as more and more people start growing, and I’d imagine if you are reading this article, you may fit into that category. For any growing related question you can also visit Robert’s marijuana support page, which is a forum that I check out quite a bit for advice and tips.
