Cannabis Seed Banks vs Brokers: 4 Differences You Must Know

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When it comes to growing your own cannabis, investing in top quality seeds is absolutely essential. This is pretty obvious, really—can’t grow a plant without seeds, after all, and this is the case for everyone.

Whether you’re looking to grow a couple of marijuana plants in your garden to large marijuana growing farms, everyone needs to start off with a seed at some point in order to grow their plants. And you need somewhere to source these seeds.

This is where cannabis seed banks and seed brokers come into play. Seed banks and seed brokers are both companies that deal with and supply seeds to cannabis customers, however, there are subtle differences between their business plans and products.

What is a Seed Bank?

If you are thinking of buying seeds, then a cannabis seed bank is likely where you will go to try to source these seeds. Seed banks are rife throughout the world and specialize in breeding their own strains of seeds.

Seed banks breed their own seeds and strains and spend time perfecting each individual strain for specific traits.

The seed banks select for certain phenotypes and genotypes in their seeds, working to ensure that every seed gives a consistent plant once it is sown and germinated.

By this logic, one can think of a seed bank as a “farmer” for cannabis seeds. Seed banks breed their own seeds and then sell these on, either directly to their customers or otherwise to seed brokers for resale.

cannabis seed with sprout - plant cannabis seeds

What is a Seed Broker?

So, we’ve so far confirmed that seed banks breed and grow their own cannabis seeds, making them cannabis seed farmers.

However, seed brokers are a little bit different. Indeed, seed brokers instead buy in seeds from a wide variety of different seed banks and then market these seeds in their stores and websites; this makes them, in effect, the “superstores” of the cannabis seed industry.

Unlike seed banks, which grow a small range of their own seed strains, seed brokers can stock a massive number of different seed strains.

This is because they are not limited to the amount of seeds that they can grow and perfect—only to the number of seeds that they can store in their warehouses.

The Main Differences Between Seed Banks & Brokers

Seed banks and seed brokers are similar business models, however, there are a few key differences between the two. These differences may impact on which you would rather choose—a seed bank or a seed broker—to buy your next seeds from.

#1 Seed Sourcing

The primary difference between seed banks and seed brokers is where they source the seeds that they sell.

Seed banks grow their own seeds from their own stock and generally will have unique strains of their own creation.

These seed banks work actively to perfect their strains or create new strains based on specific, desired phenotypes of their cannabis crops; then, they harvest the seeds from these crops in order to sell them.

By contrast, seed brokers source their seeds from seed banks, instead of growing their own seeds!

#2 Strain Selection

In almost every scenario, seed brokers will have a wider range of seed strains available for people to buy than a seed bank will do.

This is because seed banks breed their own seeds, and so are limited to the number of strains that they can grow at any one time; by contrast, seed brokers can have a more generous amount of strains available for buyers, because they source their stock from a huge selection of different seed banks.

This means that seed brokers can have as many as one thousand or more strains available, meaning that the selection from seed brokers is far more generous.

storing cannabis seeds

#3 Seed Quality

A key difference between seed banks and seed brokers is that of the quality of the seeds they sell. Seed banks have raised the seeds themselves and know that they have used the optimal growing conditions, for the most part, to keep their customers happy.

Seed brokers by contrast typically can have lower-quality seeds, because the growers they source seeds from aren’t as worried about ensuring quality when they aren’t selling the seeds themselves.

#4 Price

Another key difference between seed banks and seed brokers is the price of the seeds that you are buying.

Typically, you will get more for your money when buying from a seed bank because there are fewer people or businesses in the supply chain needing to make a profit.

By contrast, seed brokers may have slightly higher prices; though they can generally benefit from bulk orders, seed brokers need to make a profit themselves and so often will have higher prices than the seed bank from which they sourced the seed.

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