I used NASC for several years and was generally very pleased. I was pleased to support a Minority / Women Owned Business and they were stateside so no Customs delays. Several orders were successful, no complaints.
Over a year ago, they offered an old legend in autoflower - Matanuska Thunderfuck from Royal Queen Seeds, a top tier breeder with industry leading strain stabilization methods. My wife smoked this in the 1980's when she was living in Alaska. The mere mention of the strain name sent her off... GET ME SOME!!!!
So I did, I placed an order & went straight to germination as soon as they arrived. All three seeds, done serially / not together, were duds.
Now, I'm an expert grower. Dedicated climate controlled hydroponic grow room, single plant tent grows, averaging 11-12+oz harvests per single plant grow, several personal bests over 1# per plant trimmed, cured, ready to smoke. I could write best practices for seed germination, growing, harvest / curing, etc. I know what I'm doing after 50+ years experience.
I approached NASC, really asking - do they track failed germinations? What's your methodology for identifying bad batches (and actors - there are some)? With an explanation that frankly, I didn't give a tinker's damn about the money - I was interested in assurances this shouldn't happen, and if I re-ordered that it wouldn't happen again; and asking how / if they were policing the failures.
They are not.
I donate my product to medical users in a non-legal state so I must restrict my grows to single plants with products donated to those in need. Yes, it's still illegal for me to grow a single plant, but donated medical / mercy of the court would be my plea if ever challenged legally. When a failure like this occurs, for most growers it's an inconvenience. For me, real people suffer. Some of my patients don't have the money to travel across the state line to buy from a dispensary. It's just not acceptable for my patients when this happens.
Their reply was a boilerplate questionnaire (that I had already completed online) of simple germination method questions that my practices put to shame.
Then, the real disappointment - "You're not going to like the answer, but we can't honor our germination guarantees to growers in "illegal" states."
First, cannabis is illegal everywhere federally.
Secondly, they are in Maine and will never be held liable for the backwards laws in my state.
Thirdly- it's questionable legal grey area if shipping cannabis seeds ANYWHERE is even illegal.
Finally, I really was interested in (1) how can you let this happen and (2) what are you doing to assure it doesn't happen again?
Answer - duhhh, we can't honor our germination guarantee. And we don't do anything to track failures.
They lost a customer.
Secondarily, I have historically been a somewhat happy FastBuds seeds fan. Early in my autoflower career they donated a lot of seeds for my medical patients. Although their strain stability over time has questionable, their products have generally been good. On a couple of seed ordering forays over the last year, I have noticed almost all FastBuds seeds out of stock at NASC.
Further research has revealed that FastBuds now accepts stateside orders for delivery from their stateside offices (in prior years they would not ship to the States).
I suppose I can't fault NASC for not supporting a competitor (whose product they used to carry) but it's one more "X" in the NASC column for me.
So.... if you are a grower in a non legal state, be advised they will not honor their own germination guarantees, and apparently have no methods to track or identify bad batches, seeds, or new breeders. You will be better served elsewhere.
Or if you care to contact them expressing dissatisfaction with their lack of empathy for ALL medical users / growers, regardless of location? That would be welcomed by me and others, I'm sure.
Thanks for reading.
