Fast Buds: Your Quickest Road to Best-Quality Weed
To thousands of autoflower growers around the world, Fast Buds genetics need no introduction. Odds are that you’ve already had the pleasure of growing some of their strains in your indoor or outdoor garden.
But while Fast Buds seeds are a household name for weed enthusiasts, perhaps not all of you are familiar with the history of this seed bank. And many, no doubt, will want to know the story behind their huge international success.
A Fast Track to Triumph (But No Shortcuts)
When the founders of the seed bank were just dipping their toes into the fast and dangerous waters of cannabis breeding, they didn’t spend much time pondering how to name their company. It came naturally to them as “Fast Buds” summed up everything that autoflowers meant to cannabis aficionados.
Back in 2010—when the company’s history started—autoflowers weren’t as popular as they are today. The breakthroughs in breeding were yet to happen, but one thing about autos was true then as it is true now: they were FAST. Even the first generation of autos could race through their life cycle in as little 9 as weeks from seed.
The Fast Buds founders were among the first to recognize what this speed actually meant for the cannabis seeds market. It was not just a novelty, nor a gimmick, nor a thing for amateurs and beginners. And while veteran growers initially sneered at autoflowers— because “patience is a virtue” and “good things come to those who wait”—the Fast Buds team bet on speed and won big time.
Their choice was to work exclusively with autoflowers, and, by now, they have become the world’s largest autoflowering breeder.
Your Transatlantic Connection
Another not-so-secret ingredient in Fast Buds’ enormous success was their bet on American genetics.
By 2012 when they first had their website up and running and presented their first five autoflower strains—Crystal Meth, G14, Mexican Airlines, Northern Express, and C4matic—it became clear how hard it would be to compete with all those seed banks from Holland and Spain. But Fast Buds quickly found their niche and filled it: they would focus on the US varieties that had just begun to register on growers’ radars.
Some of you may remember reading and watching all those news reports about medical dispensaries and recreational shops popping up all over the West Coast. Their top shelves
were filled with shiny glass jars that carried new and exotic-sounding names like Girl Scout Cookies, Gorilla Glue, Bruce Banner, and Blue Dream.
There was no point drooling over these names—and the eye-popping THC levels they promised—because more often than not they were “clone-only” varieties, and it was the last thing a European grower wanted to hear.
But guess what? When Fast Buds decided to relocate to Spain in 2013, they made it a point to take along all those celebrity genetics. In fact, in 2015, the company presented its own version of Girl Scout Cookies. It was feminized, it was autoflowering, and, most importantly, it was offered in seed form which made 2015 the breakthrough year for Fast Buds.
And in 2016, the team capitalized on this success by offering auto seeds of yet another US legend, Gorilla Glue. In just a couple of months, this sticky beast began to dominate bestseller lists and has since been recognized as the top-grossing autoflower ever.
From a Garage-Based Startup to a Global Company
Reminiscent of Steve Jobs’ first endeavors, Fast Buds founders began their experiments with autoflowers in their garage but quickly realized that the best place to build large-scale breeding and cultivation facilities was Barcelona, Spain.
Their multi-cultural team—with people from the USA, the UK, Spain, France, Russia, Germany, Italy, and Chile—worked hard, and in 2014, the company signed its first distribution contracts and had its seeds appear in stores (and grow rooms) all over Europe.
In 2015, it was time to meet their customers face to face as Fast Buds attended their first international cannabis event — Spannabis. After that, their booth became a permanent fixture at the world’s most important cannabis venues in countries like Italy, the Czech Republic, France, Austria, and many others.
The expansion didn’t stop with Europe, as Fast Buds opened an office in Chile and began to take part in trade shows all over Latin America. And the Toronto expo in 2017 as well as the company’s first High Times Cannabis Cup (in San Francisco) marked the beginning of its steady expansion into the northern part of the continent.
A Dozen Years and 55 Strains Later
What sets apart Fast Buds today is the company’s willingness to listen to growers. It maintains a constant flow of information between its cultivation experts and buyers of the seeds.
And the breeders have established a great practice of providing the seeds of yet unnamed new strains for test grows. Fast Buds are so confident about the quality of their genetics that everyone can follow the progress of these test runs on Growdiaries in real-time before the strain even gets released to the public.
It’s this constant feedback from the growing community that helped Fast Buds create gems like Gelato Auto with its 26% THC and that enabled the company to become the largest autoflower seed producer in the world, with more than 1000 points of sales across all continents.
LSD-25 Auto
A certain amount of courage was required when we undertook the task of crossing the legendary strain LSD.
But we challenged ourselves and weren't disappointed when we were rewarded with one of the most snowy, beautiful strains that will effortlessly and instantly slam you hard with its tremendous strength.
Mimosa Cake Auto
A fast flowering and massive producer Sativa-dominant hybrid, this strain reaches around 130cm and can yield up to 650gr/m2, rewarding growers with extremely resinous buds in 63 days.
This strain offers a strong and well-defined fruity aroma that comes along with an extreme sweetness and earthiness, and thanks to the insane 24% THC, provides a strong head buzz with and a faint yet still pleasurable corporal relaxation. A good smoke for those who are looking for both a day and nighttime effect that allows you to go through your days without feeling too euphoric or tired.
Gorilla Cookies Auto
Gorilla Cookies Auto is a true heavyweight in terms of both its yield and THC production. Gorilla Cookies Auto is a well-balanced fusion of indica and sativa genetics and reflects all the qualities a grower would expect from its GG#4 and GSC parents.
So much resin is produced that buds appear white in the latter stages of flowering. This is a reliable plant, easy to grow both indoors and outdoors.