e........e

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.

There are several legendary varieties of cannabis that some of the more honest members of the baby boomer generation (you literally came of age in the mid-late ‘60s & very early ‘70s … we know most of you smoked weed, at least, in your hazy, crazy college and early adult years … those of you that hypocritically lied about it to your kids while telling them to stay away from drugs didn’t do them any favors at all) recall extremely fondly, with a nostalgic twinkle in their eyes, waxing poetic about how the legendary genetics of yore got you high, filled you with energy and euphoria, were incredible in social situations, and fueled your more creative and outgoing sides (read: free love), with no stony, sleepy, or downer effects of so many modern stains (Afghani, Pakistani, Iranian, & mostly Central Asian / Himalayan Indicas wouldn’t hit the States until the mid 70s, at the earliest, and most arrived a good while later). That’s because those legendary strains were virtually all pure or occasionally crossed landrace and heirloom sativas - and, sorry to burst your bubbles, but many had total potencies of 16%-20%+ or more, up to 25% total THC, Delta-9-THC, & were more likely to be high in rarer cannabinoids like THCV, a stronger and speedier homologue of THC, being tropical sativas, with potencies just like the majority of today’s cannabis. However, there are indeed many modern hybrids that when grown well and cured properly, can have total THC homologues & analogs that give them a potency as high as 26%-30%, & even a bit higher. Legendary Mexican, Central, South American, & Caribbean Sativas like Acapulco Gold, Highland Oaxacan Gold, Jamaican, Honduran, Panama Red, Colombia Punta Rojo, Santa Marta Colombian Gold, Chocolate Colombian (aka Wacky Weed, one of three Colombian landraces crossed to make Original Haze, & was once one of the most common varietals in the US, especially in the 1950s, but is now most likely extinct), Several Hawaiian landrace Sativas, such as Maui Wowie, Big Island, & more, Several Southern Asian Sativas, particularly from Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Nepal, India, The Philippines, & several African Sativas like Angola Red, Red Congolese, Black Congolese, Ethiopian, Kilimanjaro, Nigerian, Malawi Gold, Kwazulu, Durban Poison, Coffee Gold, etc. with all manner of different names, made up the majority of strains available in the US in the 1960s and 1970s. In particular, sativas from the Americas, Hawaii, & Southern Asia (mostly due to the Korean & Vietnam Wars) tended to be the most common in the 1960s. Acapulco Gold (with a natural potency of 23%-25%), Panama Red (with a natural potency of 17%-20%), & Santa Marta Colombian Gold (with a natural potency of 16%-19%), were some of the most infamous 1960s landraces that are still available today. Panama & Colombia were one country until 1903, & Colombian Red (Columbia Punta Rojo) & Panama Red are widely considered to originate from the same or mostly the same feral landrace cannabis populations. Of the three, Panama Red is the hardest to find today, particularly because it’s extremely rare in its native Panama. However it is still available from some serious seed collectors in the US. Of these big three Mexican, Central, & South American landraces, Acapulco Gold tends to get the most attention, possibly because of its potency, & possibly because it was so much easier to get than the other two. But as someone who’s fortunate enough to have seeds of all 3 in my collection, as well as a huge library of other landrace genetics from all over the world (a massive shout out to SnowHigh Seeds, ACE, Reeferman, Dr. Greenthumb, Cannabiogen, California Connoisseur Genetics, Anesia, Bodhi, Indian Landrace Exchange, Tropical Seeds, World of Seeds, Seeds of Africa, Afropips, Khalifa Genetics, Mass Medical Seeds, & many more, including innumerable individual collectors & the many old timer hippies with some seriously amazing seed collections - all of you are legendary for your landrace and heirloom preservation efforts!), genuine Panama Red has the most phenomenal effects of the 1960s legends. Finding genuine Panama Red is fucking hard work. Of the 9 different seeds I was gifted or bought that claimed to be Panama Red, only SnowHigh, California Connoisseur, Reeferman, & Dr. Greenthumb’s were the real deal, with extra love to SnowHigh, Cali. Connoisseur, & Dr. Greenthumb for having the best representations of the original. SnowHigh’s Seeds aren’t easy to find anymore, but if you’re able to, snap them up. Especially those with pure original landrace genetics, or landrace genetics in the mix. Most other genetics companies Panama Red aren’t available at all anymore. Not real Panama Red. ACE & Anesia both have Panama seeds that are a cross of 3 Panamanian and Colombian landraces and are excellent, but aren’t true school Panama Red. ACE & Anesia do both have several genuine landrace beans in stock however. Panama Red is euphoric beyond description, with a long lasting, energetic, creative, vibrant, & very heady high. The best individuals have a unique citrusy, grapefruit scent and flavor on top of the earthy, spicy, herbal, flowery, and tropical fruit notes. Snowhigh’s Panama Red Deep Blue Pheno (good luck hunters!) is the best I’ve had, with red sap & brick red hairs, the former extremely rare in even genuine Panama Red genetics, but indicative of the highest quality, real deal Panama Red & Colombia Punta Rojo, the latter a good sign you have genuine Panama Red or Colombian Red. If you’re lucky enough to come across a bank with some of Snowhigh’s Panama Red or Colombia Punta Rojo genetics, regardless of the asking price, absolutely snap them up! It’s some of the best herb you’ll ever get to experience in your life. And if you one of your parents or grandparents are baby boomers, even if they’ve denied using cannabis (uh-huh … fucking sellouts), this will make their mouths water for that legendary 1960s classic cannabis they never thought they’d ever get to experience again. Much easier to find, are Mass Medical’s twice released Acapulco Gold seeds (in 2019 & 2023), & that he’ll likely release at least one more time. I’m certain they’re still available from at least a handful of US seed banks. They’re genuine, & they’re 🔥. NOW GET HUNTING!!!

I have literally no idea why, nearly 25 years after Jack Herer’s exact genetics were revealed, that there are still so many online sources - including reputable ones such as Leafly - that continue to perpetuate the myth that Shiva Skunk was one of the parents of Jack Herer, which had always been an assumption in the first place. Yet even after Nevil & Sensi Seeds revealed the precise genetics & history of the plant, there are still so much incorrect information online, as well as a significant number of people that continue to believe that Jack Herer contains Shiva Skunk. Sensi Seeds very clearly stated that Jack Herer’s heritage consisted of (Northern Lights #5 x Haze A) x (Skunk #1 x Haze C). The exact version of NL5/Haze used was the very first version of that legendary cross - Nevil’s late 1980s (Northern Lights #5 x Haze A), which produced the holy grail known as Piff aka Cuban Black Haze, as well as the S1 seeds that later produced Karma’s legendary A5 Haze, the closest living relative of either of Nevil’s tragically lost Haze A & Haze C males. The same has been confirmed by Nevil. THERE IS NO SHIVA SKUNK IN JACK HERER! Nevil spent years working hard to isolate the desirable traits, & to breed out the garbage genetics present in the Haze Brother’s legendary & unimaginably valuable, yet very genetically inconsistent Santa Cruz Original Haze aka O Haze, the 1970s F1 cross of three phenomenal, yet totally raw Colombian landrace Sativas. In its original form, O Haze seeds resulted in very high quality offspring about 50% of time, & decent offspring 25% of the time. The final 25% of its offspring occasionally had some desirable traits, but would produce total garbage plants - worthless offspring, with mostly undesirable, poor quality genetics. Genes left over from the genetics of the original landraces used to breed the O Haze. To make matters worse, the O Haze offspring all require 20-24 weeks to flower, with some traits apparent early in their development cycles, but the ultimate quality of the plants grown from O Haze seeds really only apparent after the plant had finished blooming, been harvested, dried, trimmed, cured, & the buds smoked. Whether or not the offspring was quality or not, depended almost entirely on traits that were only apparent after smoking the flower. O Haze remained totally inconsistent for nearly a decade, until Nevil spent the greater part of the late 1980s working several generations of O Haze, in order to breed the mediocre & poor quality traits that remained in its genetic profile out of Haze, selecting only the plants that expressed the most desirable qualities as parents for each subsequent filial generation. After 3-4 years of selective breeding, Nevil finally succeeded in producing two Haze males, both with very different characteristics, yet which each expressed concentrated, high quality desirable genetic traits of the O Haze, with little to none of the garbage genetics that were present in the genetics of the Haze Brothers’ Original Haze. These were the Haze A and Haze C males, & while both have been lost, they were both extremely crucial plants in the history of cannabis hybrids. Either one or both of the Haze A and Haze C males form the backbone of several of the greatest hybrids ever bred, including Nevil’s Diesel, Neville’s Haze, Jack Herer, Super Silver Haze, Mango Haze, Afghan Haze, Skunk Haze, G13 Haze, the Amnesia Hy-Pro cut of Super Silver Haze, & so many more vital plants in the history of cannabis breeding, and the majority of Nevil & Shantibaba’s late ‘90s-2000s breeding work for Shantibaba’s Mr. Nice Genetics used them, including arguably the very best work Mr. Nice released after Super Silver Haze & Mango Haze: the Haze AC ~ (NL5 x Haze A) x (Skunk #1 x Haze C) - (those genetics look very familiar). While the Haze AC was never released to the public, it served as the male parent in Mr. Nice’s series of crosses named after famous rock bands: The Doors, The Stones, The Cure, Pink Floyd, & U2. The Doors in particular is supposed to be a holy grail cross, consisting of Nevil’s original version of (Northern Lights #5 x Haze A) x Haze AC. It’s not an easy plant to find, although there may be some packs of unpopped seeds in collectors’ seed fridges, a few packs still available from certain European Seed Banks, & there’s definitely a clone of The Doors that’s not easy to find, but definitely pops up occasionally in the stock of some clone resellers. I last saw it for sale about 6 months ago from a US clone bank, so it’s definitely still floating around. The Super Sativa Seed Company used the Haze A and Haze C males fairly extensively, as did several other Amsterdam based breeders before the plants were lost for good.

Ecto Cooler is, at least genetically, and generally, decently sativa dominant. About 65/35. However, of its 3 most common phenotypes, only one actually has what most smokers expect a sativa dominant hybrid’s effects to be, & even that pheno has a fairly strong indica dominant second half. The other 2 most common phenos have such strongly indica influenced effects that they barely seem to be hybrids at all. The more common of the two common indica dominant phenos will give you couch lock more potent than the majority of much more indica leaning crosses, as well as a fair share of pure or nearly pure indicas. Which is why these reviews are all over the place and seem to contradict each other often. There’s several hybrids like this, with similar, apparently contradictory effect profiles relative to their genetic composition, and often in their most commonly found phenotypes. There’s a few rare phenos as well, as there are for all hybrids, although the most inbred, heavily worked, typically only found in double digit filial descendant forms, which are so consistent, their recessive, unusual, & rare phenotypes are extremely hard to find. Skunk #1 is a really good example of a heavily worked IBL, crossbred to stabilize its effects so many times, the only seeds available are ridiculously compounded IBLs - the seeds made available were already F12s or close, and that was in the 1980’s when the cultivar’s seeds were first introduced into the wild for everyone to enjoy. Now there are likely versions of Skunk #1 that are F30s or more. It’s not unusual for longtime, multigenerational farms, run by hash producing families that go back generations and generations, to make seeds every year to grow a fresh crop the next. While most of these plants are typically classified as landraces, they could easily be from seeds that represent IBLs in rhe F200s or F300s or more. In many traditional hash producing regions, certain cultivars have been used for hundreds of years. While human selection definitely drives the offspring to have mostly predictable traits, landraces also have interbred among isolated populations for hundreds or even thousands of years. All cannabis is feral. It was indisputably the first crop cultivated by humans, long before they cultivated any food crops, & were intentionally split into two main types at least over 6,000 years ago, & the many years of intentional breeding selection that divided cannabis into fiber-producing hemp cultivars, selected for their fiber strength, length, and other characteristics of hemp that make its bast fibers such a valuable resource, & into psychotropic, high-THC medicinal/drug cultivars likely happened much earlier, & was done multiple times in several different regions. If farming and plant cultivation the associated settlement founding that led to what we call cities as well as civilization in general occurred about 12,000 years ago, primarily with food crops, cannabis cultivation was happening much earlier than that, although stands were likely left to their own devices for the majority of their 3-7 month lifecycles, depending on the cultivar, since people weren’t settling down so often yet. & we’re still primarily nomadic. They likely planted several stands of cannabis along their migration routes since they weren’t always sure where they’d be when it was harvest time. They also carried and smoked cannabis with them as they followed wild herds, tossing the seeds aside. Thanks to these and similar practices, cannabis spread to every corner of the globe, where the climate and ecosystem caused the many different geographically isolated types of cannabis to adapt over the millennia, giving us the abundance of distinct varietals and cultivars our modern hybrids are bred from. Although the short-sighted human attempts to eradicate cannabis completely in the 20th century led to the total annihilation of over 70% of all cannabis cultivars worldwide- and in Europe and North America specifically, caused the total destruction of almost all local landrace cultivars. There’s only 4-5 definitive American landraces left, & a couple are extremely rare, found only on a single mountain or island. European cannabis fared slightly better but not much, with the exception of Ruderalis, which isn’t very appealing to anyone on its own, considered a weed in the regions it’s naturally found in, & was thus mostly spared this genocide. While there are likely still a few examples left of wild cannabis in the forests of Northern China, where scientists only recently definitively determined is the region that cannabis originally came from, after centuries of the belief that cannabis evolved in the Himalayan lowlands, due to the overwhelming prevalence of traditional hash producing and consuming countries and communities in the region. But mysterious, potential, original stands of wild cannabis are still only hypothetical. That’s how long humans and cannabis have shared a common destiny - long enough that all the different landraces of cannabis in the world are feral, & descended from cultivated varieties for so long that some landraces were getting close to becoming their own independent species of flowering plant, unable to produce viable offspring with other cannabis cultivars. But fortunately for all the diverse hybrids in the world, none ever quite reached that point - at least not any that have been discovered to date.

Las Vegas Lemon Skunk is one of the most exceptional sativa leaning hybrid cultivars in the modern spectrum of cannabis that is relatively widespread and fairly easy to find. I wanted to point out a mistake in the most recommended review on Leafly for Lemon Skunk. The review indicates that the name for the cultivar should be changed because it has almost a totally limonene dominant scent and flavor, but that it has no skunk flavor, and thus should have its name changed. Yes, Lemon Skunk has one of the most limonene dominant terpene profiles of all cultivars readily available in the market, which actually makes Lemon Skunk (70/30 sativa dominant) one of the best cultivars for breeding Lemon and sativa leaning effects into new cultivars. The reason Lemon Skunk is called Lemon Skunk is because it is a very rare genotype of Skunk #1 that was discovered in the early 2000s in Las Vegas from a pack of Sam the Skunkman Skunk #1. Other rare Skunk #1 genotypes with higher than average limonene concentrations have been found, but none like the Skunk #1 Las Vegas Lemon Skunk cut, which went on to become its own unique seeded cultivar (Lemon Skunk), by DNA Genetics by working with the clone only Las Vegas Lemon Skunk. Thus, it doesn’t matter that Lemon Skunk has hardly any skunk terpenes, the name comes from the origin of this extremely rare and crucial cultivar, which has gone on to be the parent to some of the most well known 🍋 strains in the history of cannabis breeding, and continues to be a crucial cultivar - both for the breeding of new cultivars and for its own numerous merits. The considerations that go into the naming of any particular cultivar are many and diverse, and do not always come from the terpene profile of a cultivar alone, but as Lemon Skunk shows, can also be representative of its origins, and not merely it’s general characteristics.