I thought all the plants I grew lacked potency. Photo and auto. I didn't have any commercially grown dispensary weed to compare it against since 2019, the same year I started growing.
People here said I may have been smoking too much and to take a break. My edibles were all kickass though, but I have never figured out how to correctly dose with edibles as I have no math comprehension skills and just wing it when making edibles.
I recently smoked some Fastbuds Mexican Airlines that had been curing for a year and got completely stoned. I live in a state in which weed is completely legal since November 2018, but recreational dispensaries have only opened in my area in the last couple of months. I have purchased two strains at one statewide dispensary and both failed to do much of anything for me. The THC content from laboratory testing is marked on the package as is harvest date and test day, though THC content listed is allowed to vary by 10%.
Basically, the commercial weed is not cured at all before it goes to market other than the time it was harvested, tested and sold maybe two weeks later. Commercial edibles don't even seem to affect me that I can notice until I ingest 20mg minimum.
I definitely lean towards a longer cure myself, but I really don't care to smoke and as far as edibles I make, I don't think the cure is as essential. I actually like the couch lock effect of 1970's weed from Mexico and Colombia or Hawaii. That was likely all sativas that probably didn't get the care in growing, harvest or any real cure before it began its trip North by smugglers but in my personal experience that was some of the best weed I ever had compared to the strains available these days.
I've heard that the old Mexican and Colombian weed, with seeds, had a THC content less than 5%, supposedly 1-4%. Yet today's commercial strains with THC tested at 18% and 23% don't do much of anything for me.
1970's weed supposedly had higher CBD levels than most weed today unless you seek out seeds with higher CBD levels. I'm curious if those high CBD levels were responsible for the effects I miss in current strains.