Dutch Passion Seed Company

Introduction

Dutch Passion are one of the world’s oldest cannabis seedbanks and one of the few remaining original seed companies.  We offer our customers a variety of original classic cannabis varieties as well as some of the very best new varieties, many of these are available in regular as well as feminized seeds. We began our work in the 1970’s and were formally established as a seedbank in 1987.

Our success has been built on 3 important principles. Firstly, we collect and breed the best cannabis genetics to allow the self-sufficient cannabis grower the chance to grow the very best quality cannabis for themselves.

Secondly, we continue to pioneer innovation.  We invented feminized seed in the 1990’s and more recently we have set the highest standards with feminized autoflowering seeds.  Dutch Passion has never been afraid to overturn conventional thinking in order to offer better seeds.

Thirdly, we offer our customers the best levels of customer service.  We have remained in business over several decades by providing seeds of the highest quality and reliability and have millions of satisfied customers.  If for any reason at all you are not satisfied with our seeds then contact us and we will make things right.

Our seed collection has never been stronger than it is today.  We remain the first choice seed supplier to many recreational and medical cannabis growers because of our focus on quality seeds and our safe trustworthy customer service.

Best seedbank

Dutch Passion Values

Ever since the beginning we have realized that great customer service is nothing without the best quality seeds.  Our many years in business has allowed us to build an unrivaled network of the best cannabis breeders and cannabis professionals.  Every one of our varieties is carefully selected and produced to the highest possible standards. Many of our varieties have won numerous prizes and are regarded as some of the best varieties ever created.  Strains such as our original White Widow, Blueberry, Skunk #11, Power Plant and Mazar have become famous varieties and household names.  Many of the new seed banks base their own varieties on Dutch Passion original genetics.

Our legendary varieties are still as popular now as they were in the 1980’s and 1990’s, many of them are available in regular seeds as well as feminized.   Everything we do is focussed on providing our customers with consistent and high-performance cannabis seeds, and we stock around 50 different varieties.

If we find a top quality new variety we will introduce this into our collection, sometimes at the expense of a less popular existing variety.  This way we maintain a competitive selection of top performing best selling genetics.  Any new variety has to be really good to make it into our catalogue, and such is our confidence in our new varieties that they are grown in live internet grow diaries by customers before they go on public sale.  Very few seed banks offer this level of openness towards their new varieties, we hope it demonstrates the belief we have in our ability to deliver the very best genetics, the finest quality and the most consistent seed performance levels available.

Dutch Passion Seed Company

Brand Promise

Buying from Dutch Passion means buying with confidence from an established leader in the business.  Many of our customers have trusted Dutch Passion to supply their seeds for many years and continue to buy from us knowing that we are here to help them in the unlikely event of an issue with our seeds.  We don’t get many unhappy customers, perhaps one complaint per week from the many thousands of seeds we sell.  That is pretty good for any business, but we are striving to improve further if we can.  Customers can contact us by email, phone, skype or via one of the internet forums.  We are always here to help and support our customers.

Dutch Passion’s goal is to remain a trusted partner for the self sufficient recreational and medical grower. This success is down to the great varieties we have created and the service and support we offer our customers, many of whom trust us enough to become repeat buyers.  Some of these growers have grown the full Dutch Passion seed collection and have become connoisseur growers with a full appreciation and understanding of the subtle differences between the many great varieties we offer.

The Early Years

Dutch Passion seed company was established formally in Amsterdam in 1987, but the real beginnings date back to 1972 when Dutch Passion founder, Henk van Dalen, began growing cannabis in Holland for his own needs.  Henk had the benefit of studying Biology for 6 years at Amsterdam University from 1970 - 1976. During this time Henk also took classes in Pharmacology and studied the effects of psychedelics and other drugs.  Henk complemented his formal academic training with extensive reading and studying and soon became one of the first recognized cannabis breeders.

Henk used seeds from imported Thai and Nigerian cannabis, and started crossing these with other varieties he came across from a growing network of contacts.  His reputation grew steadily, and it was quickly apparent that the quality of weed produced from Henk’s seeds was much better than the weed being imported into Holland from Asian, Africa and other countries.  By the early 80’s Henk was offering seeds to other growers on a small scale.  Passion #1 (known as Amstel Gold in those days) was measured at 18% THC, it was regarded as on a par with the best cannabis of the time, the infamous Chitral from the Pakistani Himalayas.

This was an important time in the history of cannabis.  People were seeing that the best quality pot no longer had to be imported.  The early work done by Henk, and breeders like him, showed that with the right seeds a person could easily produce their own marijuana which would be as good, even better, than cannabis imported from the traditional cannabis-producing countries.  The ‘seeds had been sown’ and the start of the home-grown pot movement began to grow.

Henk continued his work.  He opened a Dutch Coffeeshop named “Homegrown Fantasy” in 1988. This coffeeshop was the first in Holland (therefore the first in the world) to only sell cannabis products grown and processed in Holland. Nowadays this coffeeshop is under new ownership and has nothing to do anymore with the reputation of Dutch Passion. Henk's reputation grew further when he won the High Times coffeeshop trophy for his original Haze/Skunk.  In those early days there wasn’t a ‘seedbank’ trophy so the coffeeshops were involved in bringing the work of seed companies into public view.

Eventually it was clear to Henk that recreational and medical marijuana users would, and could, routinely grow their own cannabis from seed.  Nowadays growing your own cannabis is increasingly the norm, but in the 1980’s it was radical thinking to believe that home-grown pot would be widespread.  Taking everything that Henk knew about the business of cannabis breeding he created Dutch Passion Seed Company in 1987.  His philosophy was to maintain a passion to offer the best cannabis seeds possible to his customers and that philosophy remains at the heart of Dutch Passion today.

Feminized seeds

Feminized cannabis seeds

One of Henks, and Dutch Passion’s, greatest contributions to the self-sufficient home grower was the creation of feminized seeds in the 1990’s.  For the average hobby grower feminized seed was a crucial breakthrough.  No longer did you have the headache of maintaining a permanent grow room to look after a mother plant.  Nor was it necessary to know a circle of growers that could supply cuttings.  The self sufficient home grower didn’t want the hassle and paranoia of growing more plants than necessary in order to get a few female plants. 

Our customers tell us that the main reason for growing pot is to remain self-sufficient in their medical/recreational marijuana.  They tell us that they do not want to grow more plants than necessary and therefore feminized seed is really important to them.  They also tell us that they do not want the hassle of looking after a mother plant for 52 weeks each year.  Growing from feminized seed allowed growers to reduce their energy bill since no electricity was required to grow and maintain mother plants or male plants

For these reasons the creation of feminized seed would have a huge impact on the home-grower. Three books were to play an important part in Henks cannabis breeding.  These were: Mel Frank/Ed Rosenthal`s “Marijuana Grower`s Guide” (1978) and Robert Connell Clark`s “Marijuana Botany” (1981) and Jorge Cervantes “Indoor Marijuana Horticulture” (1983).  The comments in Rosenthal’s book about female seed possibilities was especially interesting to Henk who has always looked to make marijuana growing easier and more convenient to the home grower.

The idea of feminized seed was often discussed but no-one was sure it would be possible.  Henk noticed that towards the end of its life a female cannabis plant would often produce male flowers if it was left long enough.  These flowers would produce ‘female’ pollen; the seeds produced from it would give rise to female plants.  Henk started working with this method systematically studying the cannabis plants at different stages of their life. He noted that almost all female plants had a tendency to produce small numbers of male flowers if left long enough. 

It is a survival mechanism built into the genetics of cannabis plants and is a way of allowing seed production to occur even if male plants are not present.  Henk still recalls his first experiment where he collected this ‘female pollen’ to pollinate some female plants.  50 seeds were later collected and germinated.  All of them went on to become female cannabis plants; it was a historic moment for Henk and Dutch Passion.  The first feminized seeds went on sale and became the talk of the cannabis community, they quickly sold out and demand increased dramatically.  The next challenge was to find ways of producing abundant quantities of ‘female pollen’ so that significant quantities of feminized seed could be produced to satisfy the growing demand.

Henk used his biology background to see how to solve the problem.  Work had been done on some vegetables such as Cucumber. Plant hormones and other less complicated ways could be found to change the morphology and plant physiology without disordering the normal female plant growth.  Research was done, improved and refined.  Eventually abundant quantities of pollen could be produced which would allow production of feminized seed meet the growing demand from the self sufficient home grower.

Today feminized seed accounts for the overwhelming majority of seeds sold.  The process of feminizing seed has been further improved and is now very reliable and consistent; most seedbanks only offer feminized seeds.  

Despite inventing feminized seed Dutch Passion still retain around a third of their varieties in regular ‘non-feminized’ seeds.  This is done particularly for those customers that like to experiment and make breeds and crosses of their own.  Dutch Passion may sell most of their seeds as feminized, but they are committed to maintaining sales of regular seeds for those customers that want them.

Autoflowers

Autoflower cannabis seeds

Autoflowering cannabis seed is an area which Dutch Passion has invested heavily in over the last few years.  Autoflower seeds grow from seedling to mature female plants in around 10 weeks, making them a fast cropping, convenient, alternative to traditional varieties.  The cannabis they produce is just as good as that from traditional varieties and it is produced in generous quantities.   

Autoflowering varieties are grown indoors under a cycle of 20 hours of light and 4 hours of dark.  They give great results in greenhouses and outdoors.  They can be grown outdoors even in the shortest of summers and Autoflower's have become some of Dutch Passions best selling and most appreciated varieties. The years from 2010 onwards have seen a notable shift towards the mainstream adoption of Autoflower seeds. The development of Autoflower genetics is an ongoing process, we expect to keep improving the current collection Autoflowers in the future.

Unlike normal feminized seeds of traditional varieties, Autoflower's will bloom automatically regardless of the light cycle.  For indoor growers this means that the light cycle can remain at 20 hours of daily light throughout the life of the Autoflower. Traditional varieties need a lighting system of 12 hours on/12 hours off in order to induce flowering.  Autoflowering varieties flower indoors based purely on their age and are normally ready to harvest 10-11 weeks after germinating. 

Medical Cannabis

Cannabis is used by millions of people to help with the symptoms and pain caused by various medical conditions. Dutch Passion recommend that medical cannabis users discuss cannabis with medical professionals who are increasingly aware of the medical benefits. Growing your own medical cannabis is the best way to get maximum quality for minimum cost.

The following information about the use of medical cannabis comes directly from the Office of Medicinal Cannabis, which is a department of the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport:

“There is sufficient reason to believe that medicinal cannabis can help in cases of:
    •    pain and muscle spasms or cramps associated with multiple sclerosis or spinal cord damage;
    •    nausea, loss of appetite, weight loss and debilitation due to cancer or AIDS;
    •    nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy or radiotherapy used in the treatment of cancer, hepatitis C or HIV infection and AIDS;
    •    chronic pain (mainly pain associated with the nervous system, for example that caused by a damaged nerve, phantom pain, facial neuralgia or chronic pain which remains after the recovery from shingles);
    •    Gilles de la Tourette syndrome;
    •    therapy-resistant glaucoma.

Patients and doctors have also reported positive effects on a range of other conditions, including Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, epilepsy, itching, migraine, rheumatism, rheumatoid arthritis, ADD and brain trauma. These positive effects still need to be confirmed by scientific research. (For more information, go to www.cannabis-med.org.)

At present, medicinal cannabis does not cure the disorders mentioned above, but it can relieve the symptoms associated with them. It may also enable other medication to be given at a lower dosage, and reduce their side effects. It is up to doctors to determine whether treatment with medicinal cannabis would benefit a patient, given his or her diagnosis and circumstances. In doing so, they are not limited to the list of conditions given above. A doctor will only prescribe medicinal cannabis if the standard treatments and registered medicines are not having the desired effect or are causing too many side effects.”

*This information has been literally taken from the website of the Office of Medicinal Cannabis, part of the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport: www.cannabisbureau.nl/english

As a serious company we encourage responsible use of cannabis, we advise people to read about the plant and be careful with the use of cannabis. It is not recommended to use cannabis in certain situations and some people perhaps should not use cannabis at all. We advise our customers to consult a doctor before using cannabis as a medicine, many people already do this. We advise recreational users to use cannabis with moderation.

When cannabis is used responsibly it may be world's best natural alternative for chemical drugs, alcohol and medicines.

Other Cannabis – Hemp products

In 1994 Henk opened the first Dutch Hemp Shop named “Green Lands”, selling among others hemp-textiles, hemp-clothes, hemp-burgers, hempseed oil and hempseeds. The “Hemp-burger” being one of Henk's personal creations. These hempseeds were not the same as the cannabis seeds Dutch Passion sells today. The hempseeds sold by Green Lands produced only THC-free plants. Hemp fibre is one of the strongest fibers in the world and hempseed oil from hempseeds is one of the most nutritious and healthy oils available. Nowadays 'Green Lands” no longer exists, Dutch Passion remains the real passion.

Dutch Master Award

Dutch Passion today

Dutch Passion understands the needs of the modern grower.  Our seed collection offers something for everyone.  From the very best legendary varieties with original genetics to the latest high-performance, high speed,  Autoflower varieties.  Dutch Passion believes that recreational cannabis, used responsibly and sensibly is a healthier option to the ‘legal’ alternatives of alcohol and tobacco.  When used in moderation we believe that cannabis is a safer drug than alcohol with less damaging side effects and less damage to wider society.

Dutch Passion also believes that medical cannabis is becoming increasingly accepted as a very real alternative to traditional medicines with applications in numerous areas.  Mainstream scientific evidence also backs this up and each passing year see’s more and more research into the medicinal benefits of marijuana.  It is pleasing to see many regions including Europe, North America and beyond starting to legalize the use of medicinal cannabis and it is a vindication of our passionate work into medical cannabis over the last few decades.  Today many Dutch Passion growers tell their doctors that they get genuine medical benefits from using cannabis and their doctors fully accept this.  Just a couple of decades ago this would have seemed unimaginable.  Dutch Passion believe that cannabis will become increasingly important in the coming years to the medical community.

Dutch Passion Future

Dutch Passion – the future

Dutch Passion is still focussed on one key value -  to provide the best cannabis seeds for the self sufficient recreational and medical growers. The worldwide acceptance of cannabis as a medicine and as a recreational drug seems to be growing step by step. We expect this movement to continue over the next decades and we see it as our task to provide individuals with seeds in order to provide themselves with quality cannabis.

The current difficult legal situation of cannabis in many countries puts medical and recreational consumers in a vulnerable position. Cannabis bought from dealers does not come from controlled facilities and it is uncertain what people actually buy. Until cannabis production and sales have been fully legalized and controlled just like other consumer goods we see home-growing as the only safe and reliable way to produce quality cannabis. Additionally home growing is, and will remain, a hobby activity for many people who like working with plants in their free time.

Everything we do, and all of our research, is focussed to make it easier and more convenient for the home-grower to produce championship quality cannabis themselves.  This focus was behind Dutch Passion success in the first few decades and will remain the same in the coming decades.  If you haven’t tried Dutch Passion cannabis seeds before we invite you to browse our collection.  If you have bought from Dutch Passion previously we would like to thank you for allowing us the chance to serve you.

Welcome to the world of Dutch Passion.