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Clone only Albert Walker is a phenomenal, indica leaning, and fairly rare clone from the Pacific Northwest that’s thought to be descended from a very rare (possibly extinct) African Skunk landrace sativa - that I’ve most often heard it said was either Nigerian or Congolese - crossed with U Dub, but possibly another American Indica from the Emerald Triangle. Whatever its origins, it’s a beloved plant, as much for its unique, electric lemon forward and skunk terps as it is for its calming, euphoric relaxation without any hint of couch lock. An excellent evening smoke for after work or for a barbecue and blunts party with friends and loved ones over the weekend. Not great for a late night smoke before bed or a treatment for insomnia as it’s only slightly indica dominant, but it shines for binging your favorite show or getting lost in a video game. While I personally prefer sativas for social occasions, this is a good choice for those who can’t handle sativas or just don’t enjoy having no control over their imaginations, which is the main reason that some people get so paranoid when smoking a really heady sativa hybrid or heirloom topical / sub-tropical pure sativa. Most people don’t realize this, but believe it or not, sativas actually have anti-anxiety and antidepressant effects. But their intense, mind quaking abilities do indeed lead to an often uncontrollable burst of imagination overload. Creatives love sativas precisely for these thought trains that can lead anywhere, giving them incredible depths of inspirational energy. But for those people that aren’t used to smoking cannabis very frequently, or tend to avoid sativas for fear of panic attacks or induced anxiety, don’t realize that the heady high sativas bring on - racy or clean - lead one’s own mind to overflow with incredible imaginative energy - something abundant in children, but that has been suppressed as we grow older; as we become adults. The raw creative energy can’t really be controlled, which is why it can be so exceptionally valuable to writers with a block, or musicians who’ve allowed the mathematical nature of music to unconsciously give their creative abilities too much structure. While this boundless creative energy that sativas let loose upon their minds can’t be controlled in the traditional sense, it can be directed to commingle with conscious thought and to take on the hybrid duality of conscious thought, as well as unconscious imagination. One who is unaware of these things, and who often allow their minds to go to a negative place when getting high. Whether it be a deeply personal sense of shame for wanting to experience something pleasurable and desirable, the voices of so many people telling them that drugs are for losers, or claiming they’ll fry their brains, or perhaps they are so afraid of breaking the law, of the authorities, and of being punished. Unbounded imagination combined with negative emotions and thoughts is a recipe for disaster. It’s no wonder that people associate sativas with intense anxiety. What else could such an endless amount of imaginative energy, unintentionally pushed to imagine images of law enforcement agents hiding in the rose garden, about to burst through the doors and windows, or of causing themselves irreversible brain damage, or of losing their freedom - of serving jail time, which is, for most of the population, something they’ve only imagined or seen mostly inaccurate depictions on TV. Albert Walker, that like most hybrids lies basically in the middle of the pack: either 50/50 sativa/indica, or 60/40 - 65/40 in either direction, but particularly those that lean indica, are excellent for those who really can’t stand the couch lock that can be caused by more heavily indica leaning cultivars or even pure indicas like Moroccan Hashplant, Sinai, Syrian, Lebanese Gold, Iraqi, Iranian, Uzbek, Hindu Kush, Pakistani Chitral, Pakistani Black, and almost all other Pakistani cannabis plants, with only a handful of sativas from the country, or one of too many Afghani varieties to name, almost all of them pure, indica hashplants, like Balkh HP, Lemon Balkh, Afghani Black, and the mystery Afghan landrace that would eventually be come to be known as Northern Lights #1. They can’t stand couchlock but also can’t handle the intense mind high of even sativa dominant hybrids like Tangie, Clementine, Pineapple Express, Tropicana Cherry, Tropicana Cookies, Sour Dubb, Silver Pearl, Silver Kush, Stardawg, Green Crack, Cheetah Piss, Dirty Sprite, Gelonade, Lemon Skunk, Blood Orange, Candyland, Pineapple Upside Down Cake, Golden Pineapple, Strawberry Cough, AK-47, Jack The Ripper, Chernobyl, Agent Orange, Jillybean, Vortex, Mimosa, Wedding Crasher, Pink Lemonaid, Starfighter, Bruce Banner, Bay 11, XJ-13, Candy Jack, Pineapple Jack, Orange Velvet, Orange Daiquiri, Limoncello, Pine Rosa, Jelly Rancher, Golden Goat, Light of Jah, Schrom, Ed Rosenthal Super Bud, Lemonheads, Sour Diesel, ECSD, NYCD, or very nearly pure sativas, with only 15% or less indica genetics, such as Acapulco Gold, Modern Durban Poison, Chocolope, Cinderella 99, Pineapple Fields, Big Sur Holy Weed, Kali Mist, Lambsbread, Amnesia Haze, Cannalope Haze, Mango Haze, Neville’s Haze, Super Silver Haze, SSSDH, NL5/Haze, A5 Haze / Cuban Black Haze / NYC Haze / Piff, and most other Haze hybrids, or pure equatorial and sub-tropical sativas like the Haze Brother’s 1969 Original Haze aka O Haze, Tom Hill Haze aka Positronics Haze 19, Old Timer’s Haze, Panama Red, Panama Gold, Honduran, Santa Marta Colombian Gold, Colombian Punta Rojo, Colombian Mango Biche, Brazilian Back Bay, Chocolate Thai, Pineapple Thai, Juicy Fruit Thai, Destroyer, Malana Cream, Kerala Gold, Nepalese Annapurna, Watermelon Hashplant, Laotian, Vietnamese Black, Vietnamese Silver Tip, Burmese, Filipino, Zamal, New Caledonian, Papua New Guinea, Congolese Black, Banghi Haze, Ethiopian, Kilimanjaro, Kwazulu, Malawi Gold, Lesotho, Zambian, Nigerian, Angola Red, Pure Durban Poison, Maui Wowie, Kaua’i Electric, Kona Gold, or one of so many less well known Hawaiian Sativas, virtually all native Mexican cultivars Highland Oaxacan Gold, Oaxacan Negra, Guerrero, Michoacán, Purple Zacatecas, Chiapas, Mexican Red Hair, or King’s Breath aka Blue Mountain Good Good aka Jamaican Longtime, etc. JJ from Top Dawg has bred a phenomenal sativa leaning plant using the clone only Albert Walker x his extremely well regarded Sour Diesel Bx4, Sour Albert, which is truly the very best of both worlds.

Meh. I don’t understand the hype at all surrounding White Truffle. It’s a very hard-hitting indica with almost instant couch lock effects. I guess some people are into that, and if you want to go to sleep, it’s ideal, but personally, I don’t smoke to go to sleep. I smoke to get high and experience creative, euphoric, mood boosting effects. White truffle crosses just seem to muddy the high that those cultivars it’s crossed with had. It’s not as bad as cookie genetics, which I can’t stand for several reasons (It thens out, quite a lot of people feel this way about Girl Scout Cookies), but, I don’t find anything appealing about White Truffle. People who smoke to go to sleep certainly find that it works, although this is not something you’d want to do every night. Cannabis suppresses REM sleep and thus prevents sleep cycles from completing as intended. This really messes with your brain - not in a permanent sense - but temporarily, you will feel more tired and like you didn’t really sleep. REM sleep is also theorized to be the time when most short term memories are transferred to long term memory. Suppressing REM sleep could have definite consequences on your ability to remember certain things. While some people experience short term forgetfulness while high, this aspect of REM sleep suppression could be another reason why cannabis can affect memory. It also suppresses the recollection of your dreams, since the majority of people only recall dreams experienced during REM sleep, when dreams are at their most vivid. Indeed people usually report feeling like they were awake in their dream when they wake up from REM sleep. Scientists thought that we only dreamed during REM sleep for over a century, because of this aspect of REM dreams - both because the majority of people only recall the vivid dreams experienced during REM sleep, and because during REM sleep, one’s brain waves are intense and erratic - as though they were awake. They thought these patterns were caused by dreams. The patterns, however, turned out to be caused by dreams that seemed to be occurring while awake due to their vividness, because they mimicked the waking state. Indeed, we dream almost the entire time we’re asleep, but only a small percentage of the population recalls their dreams outside of REM sleep. The rare people that are proficient at lucid dreaming - or who have lucid dreams as a side effect of another medical condition - will tell you that they know we are constantly dreaming while we’re asleep. For example, some patients with constant, chronic, 24/7 pain, become able to lucid dream every night, because they cannot feel pain in their dreams. Those that become aware of this, often eventually stop waking up upon becoming aware in their dreams, and are thus able to lucid dream every time they go to sleep as a side effect of their intractable pain. In fact, it becomes automatic for most people in this rare position, and they soon experience lucid dreams anytime they’re asleep. Most people think lucid dreaming every night like this is a positive thing, especially since many people try for years to be able to lucid dream. However, few people are actually successful, or successful at more than just occasionally becoming lucid - which usually forces most people to wake up. However, these pain patients who lucid dream constantly, and without the ability to control it, would likely tell you it’s certainly fascinating, at first, but gets old. And can even become a serious problem if their lucid dream memories begin to bleed over into their waking memories, and they become unable to differentiate between the two, which has been documented to occur among this small proportion of the population.

The first few most “helpful” reviews bemoan the fact that Santa Marta Colombian Gold, an infamously phenomenal equatorial Colombian landrace cultivar that, alongside two other equatorial Colombian sativas - Colombia Punta Roja & the rare Chocolate Colombian phenotype of Wacky Weed, an heirloom Colombian sativa that was popular as early as 1953 in NYC (apparently it was one of the only options for cannabis smokers in the US before the 1960s, at least on the East Coast, & the Beat Generation’s pre-60s experiences smoking ‘tea,’ were almost all of this once ubiquitous cultivar that today is believed to be extinct in the US, & quite possibly everywhere else as well - the Colombian landrace plant that eventually became Wacky Weed is unknown, although many believe it’s simply a variety of Colombian Lowland or just Colombian - the most common landrace cultivar in Colombia), were bred together by The Haze Brothers in Santa Cruz in 1969, creating the mostly unworked F1 seeds of O Haze or Original Haze. A lot of people incorrectly believe (including apparently Leafly itself, which is unsurprising considering that there is a great deal of misinformation on Leafly which is a shame) that Haze has Mexican, Colombian, Thai, & Indian genetics. But it doesn’t, and it never did. O Haze is a cross of three equatorial Colombian sativas & like other equatorial sativas usually takes 20-24 weeks to flower. Except that O Haze, while containing the sought after, legendary genetics of Purple Haze, Green Haze, & Golden Haze, more often than not would produce mediocre offspring or totally garbage offspring due to all the undesirable genes that weren’t ever bred out of Original Haze. Nevil Shoenmakers, the Amsterdam based Australian expatriate & founder / owner of The Seedbank of Holland, the world’s first cannabis Seedbank, which advertised in High Times throughout the 1980s, after scoring a bundle of O Haze seeds from Sam The Skunkman, spent most of 1985-1989 concentrating the desirable genetics in the O Haze, while breeding out the garbage genes at the same time. In 1989 he successfully wrapped up his Haze breeding project with the Haze A & Haze C males. His 1989 first ever cross of (Northern Lights #5 x Haze A) became a holy grail cross virtually overnight, & S1s of the original cross would eventually be popped & hunted, with two outlier phenotypes becoming two of the most infamous plants in cannabis history. An unknown cultivator in the US popped an unknown number of S1s of Nevil’s brilliant 1989 cross, & from that population selected a truly unique & legendary plant that would become extremely popular up and down the I-95 corridor, from Miami to Maine. That legendary plant was the original cut of what growers in NYC called Bronx Golden Haze, NYC Haze, Uptown Brown, Harlem Haze, The Church or Frankie due to its overwhelming terpene profile that reeks of frankincense. Most people know her simply as The Piff. A cut of the exact same plant made its way to Southern Florida, & while the locals are totally incorrect about the plant’s origins / genetics / & alleged exclusivity to Miami. To this day many South Florida natives claim the plant is a pure haze & that it doesn’t exist outside of Miami. Except that it was even more deeply embraced in NYC & for a long time, in the late 1990s-mid 2000s, .8 gram dimes of Piff could be found fairly easily north of 110th street, & occasionally in other parts of the city. The name that is most often associated with Piff is Cuban Black Haze, since it was embraced by the Cuban expatriate community in Miami, bolstered by the misinformation that plagued the Florida cut. Years later Karma was gifted a handful of S1s of the ‘89 NL5/Haze A, & of the plants he hunted through, he selected another unique outlier phenotype as his favorite & that plant would go on to become the A5 Haze, which has been the parent of so many incredible cultivars. But stepping back to the Santa Marta Colombia Gold, it hasn’t gone anywhere or been crossed out of existence like so many other classic cultivars. Genuine SMCG beans or a clone of the plant aren’t exactly easy to come by, but the Colombian Gold hasn’t gone anywhere. I’ve grown it many times, & despite flowering for 18-20 weeks & able to reach 5-6 meters or taller in size if planted directly in high quality organic soil, it’s a truly incredible plant. The best chance to find Santa Marta Colombian Gold seeds lies in European Seedbanks, although it was released by several small US breeders, including Snowhigh, & can occasionally still be found in the US from experienced collectors & breeders. After all, Capulator used it just seven years ago to breed his most infamous creation, Miracle Alien Cookies. Otherwise known simply as The MAC. Sure, it’s not easy to find Colombia Gold. But it’s even harder to find Panama Red, Kona Gold, Kerala Gold, Puna Budder, Black African Magic, Congo Pointe Noire, Malawi Gold, Angola Red, Highland Oaxacan Gold, & many other cultivars of heirloom and landrace cannabis that still exist but aren’t going to be easy to source by any means.

Querkle is a hybrid of Purple Urkle & Space Queen bred by The Green Avengers / Subcool. Its genetics are predominantly indica, however of its 3 main phenotypes, one has extremely sativa like effects, & while its other two most common phenotypes, like its Purple Urkle parent, have the predominantly indica effects you’d expect from its genetics, they don’t cause overwhelming sedation, & no couch lock. There may be more rare phenotypes, however, of the 12 female Querkle plants that I’ve personally grown, I’ve seen two. 2/12 were a rare purple pheno with even more pronounced sativa effects than its more common phenotype with sativa effects, & 1/12 was a green plant with very balanced 50/50 hybrid like effects. These atypical effects are due to its Purple Urkle genetics. Mendocino Purps, as well as its other closely related cultivars / phenotypes in general (Purple Urkle, Grape Ape, U-Dub, The Purps, etc.) have similarly unique characteristics for indica dominant plants. Very few have phenotypes that cause couch-lock, they cause less sedation in general than other indica leaning hybrids, & they all have phenotypes with predominantly sativa like effects. While these are not unique effects, similar indica leaning plants / closely related indica leaning cultivars with similar characteristics are uncommon.

By no means is NL5/HAZE a new strain. Perhaps new to leafly, but this cross, first made in 1989 by Australian expat & Amsterdam resident Nevil Schoenmakers, when he crossed Northern Lights #5 x his Haze A male. He’d spent much of 1985-1989 refining O Haze, breeding out the garbage genetics and concentrating the best genetics into two very different but equally excellent males which he named Haze A & Haze C. His Haze B project wasn’t working out as expected & was abandoned. Original Haze was bred by The Haze Brothers in Santa Cruz, CA in 1969. History remembers them by that name, but neither of them were expert breeders, nor were they particularly knowledgeable cannabis breeders in general & the O Haze, their cross of three excellent phenotypes of pure Colombian Sativas, while legendary, was an F1 cross and wasn’t worked at all. It produced amazing plants maybe 15%-20% of the time, decent to pretty excellent plants 25%-35% of the time, & garbage plants most of the time. Unfortunately it still took 20-24 weeks to flower, being an equatorial sativa. Usually called The Cough, at least two epic plants were found in S1 seeds of Nevil’s cross. NYC Uptown Haze aka Bronx Golden Haze aka Cuban Black Haze aka The Church aka Frankie (from its intense frankincense terpenes), but is usually just call Piff. Yes, that is where Piff originally comes from. Karma’s A5 Haze was also hunted from S1 seeds of Nevil’s cross. Sensi Seeds went on to remake the cross, & it’s most usually regarded as one of their strains. But Nevil’s version was used in several Mr. Nice crosses including Super Silver Haze, Mango Haze, G13 Haze, Skunk Haze, Afghan Haze, Haze AC, & it was potentially used in Jack Herer as well, although it’s possible Jack Herer used the Haze C male in both its mother, crossed with Northern Lights #5, as well as its father, which was definitely Skunk #1 x Haze C. Shiva Skunk was not used to breed Jack Herer. Despite misinformation that persists to this day. NL5/HAZE, usually known as Cough, is sometimes descended from Nevil’s original cross, but the Sensi Seeds version is much more common. Other breeders attempted this proven holy grail cross as well. Whatever version you smoke, it’s some of the best herb that was ever bred. Certainly the rare phenos of Nevil’s version, Cuban Black Haze / The Piff & Karma’s A5 Haze, have both more than earned their legendary status, but the more common variety is amazing as well. It’s one of the headiest smokes out there, & I don’t recommend it for amateurs or those who get anxiety from sativas. Most sativas are actually anti-anxiety & have euphoric effects that also fight depression, ADHD, & general bad moods. But smoke just a bit too much without the constitution for them and the high they provide (vs. the stoned effect of more indica dominant hybrids) is one of the most amazing feelings there is. But go easy. This one has long been known for its intense high. Even in mid-range THC versions. It’s potent regardless of its potency on paper. But THC % really isn’t as important as the industry has tried to make everyone believe. Nor is it representative of the actual “potency” of most cannabis. I’ve had 33% THC herb that didn’t hit me anywhere near as hard as a 23% landrace Acapulco Gold (one of the landrace cannabis varieties with the highest natural THC levels, mostly thanks to the hot and humid natural climate where the landrace acclimated).

Super Lemon Haze has long been one of my favorite strains both to grow & to smoke. My first pack of feminized greenhouse seeds from 2011 produced 2 phenomenal phenotypes, one of which was the best cut of Super Lemon Haze I’ve ever had. Whether homegrown or otherwise. The second, while excellent, & extremely colorful (the closeup pictures of a pink, purple, & green, trichome coated cola near the beginning of the SLH photos were take by myself, of that very plant). The third seed was a genetic dud & I didn’t even take it into flowering as it stopped completely stopped growing around 8”-10” tall. While both of the plants were excellent, & I’d somehow found them both in a 3 seed pack without the need for a pheno hunt, that first all green plant, which could grow up to 16’ outdoors, but averaged about 6’-7’ indoors, was the most incredible SLH I’ve ever had. She was intensely citric but her terpene profile made it clear that her dominant terpene wasn’t limonene as I’d assumed, but Terpinolene . Indeed limonene wasn’t even one of SLH’s top 4 terpenes, but was all the way in 5th place of her most dominant terpenes. Most of her citrus scent actually came from Terpinolene, Ocimene, & Humelene, although she does have a fair level of limonene as well, her primary terpenes are Terpinolene, Caryophyllene, Myrcene, Ocimene, Pinene, then Limonene, Humelene, Linalool, & several more at lower levels including some rare terpenes. That first plant had over 3.5% terpenes by weight which is by far the highest I’ve ever heard a SLH reaching. Most are between 1%-2% (Indeed this is the typical level for nice smelling plants across the cannabis spectrum, but some plants have as much as 6% terpenes flat weight & some unfortunately have few that they barely smell at all). Her effects were the best I’ve experienced from Super Lemon Haze as well & actually reminded me of an original Seed Bank Nevil’s Haze plant I’d had for a few years (I’d been gifted the seeds on one of my first trips to Amsterdam by a friend that worked with Shantibaba & Nevil at Mr. Nice (this was way back in 1999). More heady than any Super Lemon Haze plant I’ve had since, her high was powerfully euphoric, energizing, & inspiring. She became the first clone I maintained for almost a decade (the following year I’d flower half a pack of Ken Estes’ Bay 11 & found two purple phenos, one of which was unreal, & I kept her for almost as long). I kept the epic cut of SLH alive for a little over 7 years. Outdoors, she could reach 16’ in a 10 gallon airpot. In more humid years I’d lose up to 50% of her flowers to botrytis (SLH doesn’t have bad mold or mildew resistance, but it’s nothing special either). However, when we had a relatively warm & dry autumn, the massive tree would yield over a kilogram of flower. She was the most perfect Super Lemon Haze plant in virtually every possible way. The year before I lost my entire stable (for the first time), I’d found a similarly massive Lemon Versace female in a full pack hunt of the first release of Lemon Versace seeds. I crossed the two by feminizing the Lemon Versace & the resulting plant was one of my best early breeding projects. I crossed the winner of that hunt to my clone only Las Vegas Lemon Skunk x my most phenomenal Tangie, & I had an absolute masterpiece for the year I had her. I’ve been trying to get my own genetics company off the ground for years, & initially planned to launch in 2019, but fate intervened in the cruelest way possible. My entire stable was lost in late 2018 due to a burst pipe that dripped water into an electric socket, causing the breaker to my nursery to trip. And just days after I had taken almost every plant I had back to clone. I’d done so since my tents were over capacity even beforehand, but after my cousin sent me her best mothers, I had no other option. I also figured it would help with breeding since my plants would all be about the same size & age. Primarily, the proximate cause of taking everting back to clone was in order the make room for all my plants plus several of the best cannabis genetics ever that my cousin from Oregon had collected & kept alive for over 25 years (she started growing in 1992). She’d been running a very lucrative clone nursery using those genetics, & with me planning to launch a seed company & her about to have twins, she’d decided to gift me the very best mothers from her garden, which she was no longer going to have time to focus on. Unfortunately, she merely said she had a big surprise for me, so when her husband showed up, towing their converted horse trailer turned hidden mobile grow room, carrying no less than 20 of her best mothers, I was ecstatic but a bit overwhelmed since I didn’t have any space for them. And I didn’t want to sacrifice my own collection of genetics, although in hindsight, that’s exactly what I should have done. But I had total faith in my abilities & no awareness of what was about to happen. So it seemed the best solution was to take the best plants I’d collected / bred in my several years of work, & the best mothers she’d collected in her 26 years of growing & selling primo clones on the West Coast, & make clones of every plant - with 2 or 3 cuttings per plant, my aeroponic cloners were totally full to capacity, with 168 healthy cuttings that represented several of the most storied cultivars in cannabis history. My cousin’s collection included the c. 1993 Blueberry F2 clone that was DJ Short’s most 🫐 smelling plant ever, the original Sour Diesel clone (that I’d sent her while living in NYC for college from 1999-2003), the original SF 2004 clone of Grand Daddy Purple that was almost neon purple and had the most crystal coasted, hairless buds I’d seen to that point, a Jack Herer cut of the 1994 HTCC winning cut, as well as a cut of the hat trick cut of Super Silver Haze that had won the HTCC in 1997, 1998, & 1999, original pre-2000 cuts of Kali Mist, NYCD, Silver Bubble, Apollo 13, & C99, a clone of original 1990s Piff / NYC Haze, one of the earliest cuts of Strawberry Cough, as well as Cherry AK-47, landrace Santa Marta Colombian Gold, Panama Red, Juicy Fruit, Pure Hawaiian Sativa, Malawi Gold, Angola Red, an incredible foxtailing Laotian that smelled like strawberries & peaches, a Highland Oaxacan Gold - one of the last known living cuts, Congo Pointe Noir - another landrace that many believe is lost but is just really rare, a cut of original, uncrossed, 14 week flowering Durban Poison, with the skinniest sativa leaves I’ve ever seen, which is such a hard plant to find (nearly every Durban Poison plant out there has indica genetics, & they’re very hard to find still totally pure- if it blooms in under 12 weeks it’s not pure Durban Poison), an amazing Vietnamese Black, & a Lebanese Blonde Hashplant. There was a clone of Big Sur Holy Weed, an original GGG Grape Stomper cutting, what I’ve heard was a legendary cut of Strawberry Banana, an original Wedding Cake (#23) clone, Rez ECSD v. 3, a HyPro cut of Super Silver Haze aka original Amnesia, a clone of Santa Cruz Blue Dream from what was supposedly the first seed hunt, an unadulterated cutting of c. 2005 LA OG Kush, the genuine and uncrossed original, as well as several of the best genetics from TGA/Subcool, including breeder’s cuts of Jack The Ripper, the Jack’s Cleaner Blueberry cut, Vortex, Chernobyl, Jillybean, Agent Orange, & Strawberry Daiquiri, and original cuts of Purple Urkle, U-Dub, Trainwreck, Cecil B. Green Crack, Appalachia, Casey Jones, C. 1991 Sam The Skunkman Skunk #1, & two versions of Santa Cruz O Haze - one Purple Haze, & one Green Haze. I spent days taking the healthiest cuttings from each plant my cousin had sent me, as well as from my own several years worth of successful hunting efforts as well as my first 4-5 breeding successes, all so that they’d all fit it my tents and I wouldn’t have to sacrifice any. But in trying so hard to keep them all, I lost them all. It took me over 16 hours before I discovered the power was off in my nursery, & it was too late for every one of those incredible, unrooted cuttings. After I lost my stable in late October 2018, I grabbed two 10 packs of Super Lemon Haze seeds, & despite hunting from a population of 17 female Super Lemon Haze plants grown from seed, while I did find some excellent phenotypes, none compared to the legendary tier keeper from that first pack I’d grown. And while the colorful pheno from that first pack had some jaw dropping bag appeal, it never grew taller than 5’ & I didn’t keep her for more than 3 cycles. I’ve had trouble finding another pheno of SLH with the same levels of intense coloration, but with a more intense terpene profile, similar to the other plant I grew from that first pack which had best in class effects & terps. She had rhe most intense lemon 🍋 / & Terpinolene Haze heavy terpene profile, I still haven’t been able to find a plant like her. Nor have I been able to find another phenotype like that first, legendary tier cut of Super Lemon Haze. Sometimes you get lucky when growing out just a few beans, & end up find better plants than you do hunting multiple entire packs of seeds. It isn’t more likely than the alternative, but it does happen.

I could write a book about Haze. About its origins, its history, how O Haze seeds take 20-24 weeks to flower, & about how the Original Haze wasn’t worked or bred very well, causing O Haze seeds to produce 25% legendary plants, 50% decent to fairly excellent plants, & unfortunately, 25% total garbage due to the fact that O Haze is an F1 cross of pure landrace sativas that maintained most of the genetics of the landraces used to breed it - a fact that was especially frustrating since it flowers for 5-6 months. O Haze could grow several different phenotypes but the sought after varieties were named for their color: Green Haze, Brown or Golden Haze, & the most rare but most sought after phenotype, Purple Haze. Several high quality Haze varieties were also a combination of these three, & most O Haze seeds would grow combination phenos that also had some of the undesirable characteristics as well. The most important thing to state right away is that Leafly is totally incorrect about there being Mexican, Thai, & South Indian Genetics in Haze. Original Haze was bred using 3 pure sativa landraces from Colombia. Haze is 100% sativa with 100% Colombian genetics. Its parents are: Santa Marta Colombia Gold, Colombian Red or Colombia Punta Rojo (nearly identical to Panama Red. Which makes sense. Colombia and Panama were the same country until 1903), & Chocolate Colombian (a phenotype of Wacky Weed - a strain that was once one of the only types of weed most people in the US could find). It was available as early as 1950 & I’ve got a first hand, confirmed account of it being available in New York in 1953. Most other infamous, early landrace cannabis didn’t arrive until the 1960s. Wacky Weed was an unfortunate name that derived from the fact that it was here in the 1950s, & people back then were generally pretty cheesy. Especially when it came to naming weed apparently. Ironically, for a strain that was once ubiquitous here, & was one of the only strains available in the US, it’s considered extinct today, & nobody has been able to identify a Colombian landrace that’s quite the same). The Haze Brothers selected some excellent phenotypes to use as the parents of Santa Cruz Original Haze, but they weren’t breeders. Not that much was known about breeding cannabis back then anyway (some accounts claim it was bred in the late 1960s, & others put its origins in the early 1970s). Regardless, the fact that Santa Cruz Original Haze aka O Haze wasn’t consistent is precisely why Nevil Schoenmakers spent most of 1985-1988 growing as many O Haze seeds as he could, over several generations, selecting for the best traits, until finally he’d succeeded in creating his infamous Haze A & Haze C males, which were his finalized high quality Haze plants, after he’d bred most of the garbage genetics out, & consolidated the plant’s most sought after traits into his the two distinctly different, but equally high quality plants. Born in Australia, Nevil moved to the Netherlands in 1976. He’d spend most of his adult life living and working in Amsterdam. Widely considered the most important figure in the history of cannabis breeding (along with David Paul Watson, aka Sam the Skunkman, who first supplied Nevil with O Haze seeds, as well as seeds of Cali Orange, & Skunk #1 in 1985), Nevil founded the first Seed Bank in the world, which was known simply as The Seed Bank, short for The Seed Bank of Holland. He was also the first to ship cannabis seeds internationally in any significant quantity (having advertised The Seed Bank’s catalogue in High Times Magazine throughout the mid-late 1980s). Most people have smoked a Haze Hybrid made from the Haze A and Haze C males. What most people consider to be pure haze are actually offspring of Nevil’s 1989 cross of (Northern Lights #5 x Haze A). He was the first to make that cross, & it produced several Holy Grail offspring, including the one-of-a-kind gem known as NYC Uptown Haze, Bronx Golden Haze, Cuban Black Haze, The Church, Frankie (From its unique & extremely pungent Frankincense like odor), The Cough, or simply The Piff. Significant numbers of S1 seeds were made from Nevil’s first batch of (NL5 x Haze), & it’s from these seeds that Karma’s legendary A5 Haze was found. Somehow a lot of people growing the Black Haze (actually a combination of Green Haze & Brown Haze genetics), both in Florida and in NYC got the idea that they were growing pure haze. Which is definitely not the case. Cuban Black Haze aka The Piff takes between 3-4 months to flower. O Haze takes 20-24 weeks. What became known as NYC Uptown Haze & Cuban Black Haze was actually popular all up and down the I-95 corridor. I first smoked it in DC in 1997 & was told it was called Cough. As well as that it was Nevil’s original cross of (Northern Lights #5 x Haze A). When I moved to NYC for college in 1999 & smoked “Bronx Goldie” as well as Piff for the first time, it was obvious that it was the same plant. Nothing else smells like it. When I visited my boy Adam at the University of Miami, he was raving about how amazing the Miami Pure Haze, as he called it, was, from the moment he picked us up at the airport. It was exactly the same as The Cough I’d had in DC & The Piff from NY. Although he insisted it was only available in Florida and that it was pure haze. That’s apparently what most people that grew Cuban Black Haze in Florida were told. And a lot of them believe it to this day. But everytime the high was identical, the flower looked the same: elongated, fairly loose buds that were dark green, with lots of brown hairs, & smaller than typical trichomes, although they coated the flowers. Most telling was the smell. That Frankincense and basement chem dankness that smelled unlike any other herb I’ve ever smoked. Haze A & Haze C have both died out, but they became two of the most important plants in cannabis breeding history. Along with Northern Lights #5 & Skunk #1, their genetics lived on in Nevil’s Diesel, Nevil’s Haze, The Cough / Piff, Jack Herer, Super Silver Haze, Mango Haze, Skunk Haze, Afghan Haze, G13 Haze, the Amnesia Hypro cut of Super Silver Haze, & many more plants bred mostly by Amsterdam based breeders like The Super Sativa Seed Company, Sensi Seeds, Flying Dutchman, Delicatessen Seeds, Mr. Nice Seedbank, Greenhouse Seedbank, Barney’s Seeds, & many others. Nevil’s Haze, Jack Herer and Super Silver Haze / Mango Haze used both of Nevil’s original Haze A & Haze C males in their genetics. (Some accounts claim Jack Herer only has Haze C genetics however). So while Nevil’s original males may be lost, their genetic lineage lives on in so many hybrids, it’s impossible to count them all.

Hawaiian Haze is an absolutely phenomenal, extremely sativa leaning hybrid. The cross is actually (Pure Hawaiian Sativa Landrace x Nevil’s Haze), which makes her 90%+ sativa dominant depending on the phenotype of Nevil’s Haze that was used. Soaring head high with clean, clear uplifting euphoria, providing loads of creative inspiration & plenty of energy to express that creativity. One of the best wake and bake hybrids I’ve ever had, after The Piff, XJ-13, Jack Herer & several other Jack Herer crosses, Durban Poisan, & Green Crack. This isht is better than coffee! Pungent Mango & Pineapple scents tell me Myrcene is the dominant terpene in Hawaiian Haze, along with pine, spice, & pepper from Pinene & Caryophyllene, as well as a fair amount of Terpinolene citrus & classic Haze. Of the two pure Hawaiian Sativas I’ve had, one had a seriously loud Mango stank - the loudest Mango bud I’ve ever had - more than the best cuts of Green Crack & Pincher’s Creek combined. If you’re fortunate enough to have some original Cosmic Wisdom beans of this strain, just be warned that she’s a 12-14 week bloomer, which is actually faster than I would expect considering her genetics. Consequently she’s not the easiest plant to grow, although like most heavily sativa dominant cultivars or pure sativas she’s not a heavy feeder. Just be sure to read up on long flowering varieties before popping any seeds, since longer flowering plants require a slightly different approach than most 7-10 week hybrids that most growers these days are accustomed to growing. I absolutely recommend growing her in pre-loaded, water only organic soil in order to maximize her yield, terps, & trichomes. In general longer flowering or more finicky varieties of cannabis are best grown organically, since aside from all the obvious benefits, giving the plant control over her exact nutritional needs will prevent many of the potential issues that can arise when flowering longer blooming sativas or more finicky cultivars - which tend to be “finicky,” because they’re extremely sensitive to overfeeding, & it’s really easy to overfeed pure or nearly pure sativas. As well as plenty of other more even hybrids. In fact, most “difficult” or “expert” level plants have been designated as such because it’s so easy to overfeed and/or overwater them. Cannabis grows remarkably well in properly amended soils with plenty of microbial life & mycorrhiza. Cannabis grew just fine when it was wild in prehistoric times, & nearly all feral cannabis that eventually adapted to its environment & developed into landraces do just fine without any human intervention whatsoever. Of course indoors you’ll need to do some work unless she’s both growing in amended, water only Organic Soil, & has an automated watering system in place. In which case some light training, cleaning up of the lower branches, lollipopping, & Pruning are really all you’ll need to do. Cannabis can certainly be very demanding of your time & energy, & a very high maintenance plant to cultivate, but depending on your grow methods & techniques, it definitely doesn’t have to be. Indeed many plants do best grown Organically with an automated watering system & minimal contact. Although there are definitely some varieties that are quite demanding as well. Hawaiian Haze, & indeed nearly all long flowering sativas don’t fall into that category. They require patience more than anything. Almost every grower I’ve taught or helped coach pulls at least one or two of their first harvests too early, often skipping the final weeks of ripening when most cannabis plants out on the majority of their weight & increase their density significantly.

Apples & Bananas isn’t a cookies strain. This complex cross was first introduced in late 2019 by the rebranded 2nd incarnation of Compound Genetics, after the initial Compound Genetics, founded by Tiger Trees on the business side & Jeff WyEast on the breeding, went defunct after the two parted ways (I’m not one to gossip or talk crap, but basically WyEast discovered that TT was cooking the books & being dishonest about several things, so the initial Compound collapsed, & Jeff founded WyEast Farms, making excellent use of the Jet Fuel Gelato, The Menthol, & other bangers he’d worked with or bred for the original company). The new Compound Genetics was formed in 2019 a & was granted the rights to use some of the original companies plants. Most crucially the Crane City Cannabis bred Jet Fuel Gelato & the Jeff Wyeast bred Menthol. But none of that has anything to do with Apples & Bananas. One of the earliest & most complex projects by the new Compound, Apples & Bananas is (((Platnium Cookies & Granddaddy Purple) x Blue Power) x Gelatti). A genetic powerhouse, she spread slowly through the cannabis community but by 2023 had achieved saturation, & with the best clone companies still distributing the Compound cut of Apples & Bananas, she found her way into many gardens, of both excellent buyers and growers alike. Compound has produced many complex and killer genetics since its relaunch, including two lines based on Apples & Bananas. A&B doesn’t have much banana in its terpene profile. It is particularly heavy in Linalool however, which can give some cuts a lavender scent, or combined with other terpenes, produce the scents of some darker fruits. The terpene profile is dominated by Caryophyllene, with high levels of limonene, linalool, & myrcene among others. She has an overall terpene profile that’s dominated by tree fruits, apples, pears, pepper, some skunk, some spice, a bit of citrus & sometimes grape or some darker fruits. She’s a potent smoke that leans slightly indica, but with very even effects that will become more indica the more she’s smoked. Initially she provides a lovely arousal, inspires creativity, & makes you feel happy and giggly. Smoke too much & you’ll risk getting sedated, stoned, & might just pass out. But in smaller amounts, or smoked slowly over time she has beautiful middle of the road effects and excellent medicinal properties that help deal with pain, ADD, depression, anxiety, & inflammation. The buds are beautiful, with an incredible bag appeal. They are a beautiful mix of purples, reds, pinks, blues, & greens when grown properly, & when dried and cured well, her terpene profile is one of the best of recent years. Already the parent of several excellent crosses, Compound & other breeders have made phenomenal use of her killer genetic makeup.

Blue Lobster 🦞 is a banger of a strain, bred by Compound, she’s a slightly Indica leaning cross of (Apples & Bananas x Eye Candy). Her parents are two of the most outstanding plants of recent years, from Compound’s own brilliant Apples & Bananas breeder’s cut, to 707 Seed Bank’s phenomenal Eye Candy (Thin Mints GSC x Kush Cleaner). I’m not usually a big fan of Girl Scout Cookies hybrids, except that every single cultivar in the Kush Cleaner line are excellent. The Super Boof had the most amazing smell this year, hands down. The Boof smells so unique, delectable, & flat out amazing, I can’t even begin to describe it. It’s got the best terpene profile I’ve smelled in years. But the Blue Lobster 🦞 is no slouch when it comes to her terps. Just as unique, she doesn’t smell like any other herb out there. She boasts an extremely dank, one-of-a-kind, rubber, gas, & strong, sweet, dark fruit, which is definitely the loudest component of the terpenes, without drowning out the other elements. A mostly purple and blue fruit salad of tree fruits, passion fruit, figs, plums, grape, peach, blackberry, blueberries, & just a hint of Terpinolene citrus, that’s so dank, it hangs around like a poltergeist, haunting Blue Lobster 🦞 flowers wherever they go. She’s definitely got some rare terpenes in her profile, & a fair amount of Linalool, Terpinolene, Myrcene, Pinene, Ocimene, Humelene, some Menthol, & at least a few that I can’t identify; they’re either fairly rare & unusual terpenes, or are present in unusually high concentrations in the Blue Lobster 🦞 . All her unique terpenes, & the exotic scents they combine to produce, give Blue Lobster 🦞 the second best unique terpene profile of the year. If the Super Boof had dropped in any other year, The Lobster 🦞 would have the win easily, but the Boof is probably my favorite totally unique cannabis terp profile since the Purple Urkle c. 2003 in LA. Oh man that shit smelled 🤤. Her medium sized, chunky, & soft buds are cloaked in a furry coat that’s just an abundant mass of trichomes so thick, it almost hides the brilliantly colorful calyxs beneath. Blue Lobster buds are blue, purple, pink, & green. It’s not even close - from her very own, unique, beyond top shelf terpene profile and loud stench, to her dankest of the dank intense coat of resin glands, Blue Lobster 🦞 is my sure fire pick for the absolute best bag appeal of 2023. Such an incredible expression of her extremely sexy genetics. The high is prime as hell with both indica and sativa effects. She leans indica, but mildly, & while she relaxes, it isn’t heavy or sedating, while spreading euphoric waves of giddy happiness through mind and body alike. I feel both stress free, relaxed, extremely creative and motivated to express that creativity, & my overbearing, constant intractable pain is decently under control. Her effects last a few hours too. Not a super long high, but definitely a good hour and a bit longer than average. Which eventually mellows out into a chill, happy, still mentally active, late afternoon or early evening video game, classic anime, or some electronic beats and echo chamber vibe. This is some G-Stoned, Kruder & Dorfmeister listening herb right here. Compound also made the reverse cross, a more even 50/50 hybrid cross of (Eye Candy x Apples & Bananas), creating an extremely limited release they named Facade. She smells nothing like Blue Lobster 🦞. It’s so wild how that happens. Even with the same phenotypes - even with the exact same parent plants (when making feminized seeds, which most Compound Seeds are). Facade is visually similar & had an amazing high as well, although it’s a bit more energetic and heady. The drop was one of Compound’s most limited in years, so I wouldn’t hold out too much hope of ever getting to smoke Facade, but stranger things have happened. It’s not a big deal though. The Blue Lobster 🦞 is one of Compounds best cultivars since Apples & Bananas herself. Compound Genetics absolutely slayed after launching in 2017 with Jeff WyEast in charge of their breeding, at least for their first few lines, with the launch of their first incarnation, followed by their debut line of regular seeds bred using Capulator’s Legend Orange Apricot F2 (Legend OG x (Orange Juice x Apricot Helix)) male. It featured some absolutely brilliant cultivars including Glazed Apricot Gelato, Purple Apricot, Harambe’s Hope, Flavor Crystals, Blue Apricot Sherbet, White Apricot Sherbet, Smiley Face, & Ice Cream Man (Jet Fuel Gelato x Legend Orange Apricot F2). Their second line was feminized, & used the now infamous Crane City Cannabis masterpiece Jet Fuel Gelato. Durban Julep, Malibu Mirage, Gummiez, Mango Juice, Double Deja Vu, Grape Gasoline, Geleteria, Horchata, High Society, Manic Flavor, Mount Hood Magic Durban, Vanilla Ice, The Leopard, Refined Taste, First Class Funk, & Marshmallow OG among several others. Their third drop was an Oregon Only local release of crosses with Açaí Berry Geleto, which were very hard to get outside of connected channels. Not long after this drop, Jeff WyEast left the Compound to found WyEast Farms, & Compound dropped off the map for a year and a half or so before reappearing with new management. It is this second incarnation of Compound Genetics that had bred so many truly epic cultivars - although they’re mostly based upon plants from Compound’s first few lines: Jet Fuel Gelato, Legend Orange Apricot F2, Horchata, Grape Gasoline, & The Menthol, which Jeff WyEast was working on when he left the company. While so many of their classic gems from the first two lines are truly remarkable, they’re known more for their more recent creations, including Jokerz, Pavé, Gastro Pop, Medellin, Apples & Bananas, Khalifa Mints, Glitter Bomb, Baby Yoda, La Bomba, Red Bullz, OC Oranges, Polar Pop, Rose Gold Runtz, Puffinz, Fish Scale, Stay Puft, Jet Puft, A.B. Parfait, Animorph Mints, Supreme Diesel, Pastries, Compound Z, Total Eclipse, White Rainbow, Rainbow Pavé, & Exotic, to name just a few of their fast selling new seed releases since starting the company up again.