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Afropips Malawi Gold alive and strong!
- Thread starter billyblog
- Start date
For anyone who's wondered where this strain disappeared to, it's still in existence down under in the sunny land of Oz. I did a major grow of these three seasons ago on one of the best and biggest of my grow sites.
The situation is subtropical coastal Australia at around 27 degrees latitude. The soil is red to chocolate volcanic with an overlay of rainforest loam.
I first did this strain a couple of years earlier than this and was so amazed at it's UP high, one of the brightest and most positive buzz's of all time. I've often referred to this strain as the cocaine of marijuana as it delivers a pure uplift that is clear, vibey, electric and stimulating to every activity you take on.
If you smoke this stuff late in the evening, you may not want to sleep and you're bound to awake to an energised rising the next morning as if you'd risen to a snort of coke, allowing you to bounce off your bed with energy to face the day's challenges. The clarity enables you to keep a hold of your most precious thoughts without becoming too scrambled. Really magical stuff!
When her buds are ripe and harvested, she oozes pineapple and lemon turpenes which surprisingly interpret as a rich cinnamon taste on exhale. She smokes smooth and rarely makes you cough but the high hangs in for hours upon hours. It's truly amazing how much you can accomplish on this stuff. Perhaps the highest high I've ever encountred, saying this in light of the many sativas I've trialed over the many years, including the best of the haze hybrids, kalimist, c99 and the like.
So here we go...the pic here is of the seedlings I started on my verandah before transfer to the bush site. I had around 100 to a seed tray in a format of 10 x 10. In all, I had 6 trays to plant out with a little help from a couple of freinds. This meant we had around 600 to plant out so around 200 each. Please remember that this grow was a late start to the season as I had been too busy earlier on. I started these in mid November here in Australia, so this in now early December and we'd actually lost about 11 weeks of spring before I got started.
The seedlings are about 3 weeks old here and just big enough to handle the wilds of the bush.
billy
The situation is subtropical coastal Australia at around 27 degrees latitude. The soil is red to chocolate volcanic with an overlay of rainforest loam.
I first did this strain a couple of years earlier than this and was so amazed at it's UP high, one of the brightest and most positive buzz's of all time. I've often referred to this strain as the cocaine of marijuana as it delivers a pure uplift that is clear, vibey, electric and stimulating to every activity you take on.
If you smoke this stuff late in the evening, you may not want to sleep and you're bound to awake to an energised rising the next morning as if you'd risen to a snort of coke, allowing you to bounce off your bed with energy to face the day's challenges. The clarity enables you to keep a hold of your most precious thoughts without becoming too scrambled. Really magical stuff!
When her buds are ripe and harvested, she oozes pineapple and lemon turpenes which surprisingly interpret as a rich cinnamon taste on exhale. She smokes smooth and rarely makes you cough but the high hangs in for hours upon hours. It's truly amazing how much you can accomplish on this stuff. Perhaps the highest high I've ever encountred, saying this in light of the many sativas I've trialed over the many years, including the best of the haze hybrids, kalimist, c99 and the like.
So here we go...the pic here is of the seedlings I started on my verandah before transfer to the bush site. I had around 100 to a seed tray in a format of 10 x 10. In all, I had 6 trays to plant out with a little help from a couple of freinds. This meant we had around 600 to plant out so around 200 each. Please remember that this grow was a late start to the season as I had been too busy earlier on. I started these in mid November here in Australia, so this in now early December and we'd actually lost about 11 weeks of spring before I got started.
The seedlings are about 3 weeks old here and just big enough to handle the wilds of the bush.
billy
Well, lets take you to the site...firstly, I admit this is a lousy shot but here you can just make out a couple of the seedlings in the ground, established and beginning to take off. Please ignore the tall irrelevant weed to the left. Truly this pic doesn't give any idea of the site itself but you're looking at superb rainforest loam (after heavy rains-note the water shed) which kicks in with climatic conditions to create an extravagant response in the plants....more to come....
billy
billy
A whopping subtropical storm went through inbetween shots. It brought severe flooding and around half my juvenile plants were wiped out, so I decided to start another several hundred to replace them...unfortunately, they'd be around 6 or so weeks behind the others and by this stage, weeds were becoming contestant to the new seedlings due to the rich conditions. It took a lot of trampling throughout the patch to get these blighters down and under control. This was particularly important to save the recent addition of juvenile plants from being drowned out by the rising ocean of weeds.
The older plants are about 3 months old here and the newbies are coming in at around 5-6 weeks.
billy
The older plants are about 3 months old here and the newbies are coming in at around 5-6 weeks.
billy
You can see they're off an running by now as my assistant gives some proportional adjustment to our perception of how big these actually are. They're still a long way off finished and are going to reach higher for the sky yet. I only wish I could show you the rest of the patch in one pic but it's impossible due to the shape of the site and the obstruction of plants.
billy
billy
Now about 5 months into the grow and we're getting some tall beasts that make us feel like dwarfs when we walk amongst them. The talest of these plants were around 4 metres tall but considering their late start to the season, they're pretty vigorous. This girl is showing deep purple stems which were not originally that prevalent in the strain though I've since changed the course of this with careful selection.
billy
billy
The buds of this rendition of Malawi Gold are looser than those of African Seeds version who no longer exist but this factor helped to get them through very heavy rain periods during the budding time and I had product at the end of the season where many local growers lost everything. Nonetheless, the buds eventually fill out to be quite big and fluffy so they pack out a zip bag really nicely.
billy
billy
You can see what I mean about them filling out. Yep, they're somewhat airy but not too bad at all. After compressing them in storage you'd never know that they hadn't been tight all the way through. These were still a few weeks off but looking really appetising. It's not until these are actually dried and broken up that you get their fully pronounced pineapple/lemonesce scents coming through. Yum!
billy
billy
Really nice bro, great outdoor, would love to do some similar, malawi gold sounds nice, love them south african sativas like durban poison, will keep an eye on this one!
1L
1L
Afropips Malawi Gold at around 5 and a half months with a late start and coming toward their end. They're a real sight for sore eyes at this stage but the paranoia factor comes into play when you enter a patch of this size. I pulled off just on 33 lb of dry manicured bud from this grow and I was in debt financially at the time, so this came as a real bonus in the nic-o-time. Certainly if I had caught the beginning of the Spring season, these girls would have been much larger beasts. As it was, the base stems had close to the diameter of a beer can. These particular girls were standing at around 3-4 meteres tall at this point but they lose a bit of height as they bend over with the weight of bud on board.
billy
billy
Now just to complete the story. It had been some 3 seasons since this crop and I hadn't grown it at all since that time until this year. I had a swag of seeds from the past and tested some but found them to be as dead as doornails. Fortunately I had a whole zip bag full of old beans so I put them all down at once hoping to find something that would germ.
Surely, I had 15 pop up and could hardly believe my luck. So 5 of these were screwy with deformity from sheer old age and I ripped 'em out to persist with the top 10.
As they came into flower, the worse scenario possible befell me. I saw female after female after female showing.....now I was starting to panic that I may not see the likes of a male and all sorts of stuff was going through my head-perhaps I should cross them out to something else that would match but what was there to equal them and a cross breed just wouldn't be the same? Then, when 9/10 had shown female and as the last plant was delaying I almost gave up, but it finally showed male...Phew! And not only a male, but an really exceptional male reeking of lemon scent like no other plant amongst the batch.
Put this male to the smoke test and he ended up smoking around twice the potency of any of the female crew as we sampled tips from across the collection. And of course I was at liberty to choose my most primo female for the job, an inky dark purple stemmed girl to compliment my breeding to this outstanding male.
All in all, Afropips Malawi Gold survives to see a new future and while I sweated over producing new beans, I'm titillated that it worked out so well and it was surely worth all the effort!
I look forward to getting those comments streaming in once again, when folk respond to this exotic smoke with, "WTF, I'm sooo high."
billy
Surely, I had 15 pop up and could hardly believe my luck. So 5 of these were screwy with deformity from sheer old age and I ripped 'em out to persist with the top 10.
As they came into flower, the worse scenario possible befell me. I saw female after female after female showing.....now I was starting to panic that I may not see the likes of a male and all sorts of stuff was going through my head-perhaps I should cross them out to something else that would match but what was there to equal them and a cross breed just wouldn't be the same? Then, when 9/10 had shown female and as the last plant was delaying I almost gave up, but it finally showed male...Phew! And not only a male, but an really exceptional male reeking of lemon scent like no other plant amongst the batch.
Put this male to the smoke test and he ended up smoking around twice the potency of any of the female crew as we sampled tips from across the collection. And of course I was at liberty to choose my most primo female for the job, an inky dark purple stemmed girl to compliment my breeding to this outstanding male.
All in all, Afropips Malawi Gold survives to see a new future and while I sweated over producing new beans, I'm titillated that it worked out so well and it was surely worth all the effort!
I look forward to getting those comments streaming in once again, when folk respond to this exotic smoke with, "WTF, I'm sooo high."
billy
Thanx guys,
Hey Rinse,
I did African Seeds version of Malawi Gold many years ago. The difference, well, the old African Seeds version delivered a notably more complex high that scrambled your head so that you couldn't function-perhaps one man's medicine vs another man's poison. Further, they didn't taste nearly so good, it was a lot hotter to smoke and didn't produce nearly the resin, nor did it have the intensity of upness to it's HIGH. Also, their version was prone to setbacks in growth as they were entering the budding phase so that they would not recover nearly so easily. Yield wise, they were probably similar in the final outcome but all in all, Afropips version shines out head and shoulders above IMHO. Despite what people may have thought of Jim, he was really onto something when he released this strain onto the market and I see it really stands as a legacy from the man now that he's passed on (may he RIP).
I haven't tried ACE's version yet but from my experience with their Golden Tiger, which is a cross of their Malawi with a Meo Thai, it appears that she's not in the same league. After it's initially intense high, she lets you down with an indica like stone that lays me out with a heavy thud everytime. That's certainly not the Thai factor in there creating that effect, so I gather their standard Malawi, while reputedly being dreadfully potent (as is their Golden Tiger), doesn't bear a lot of resemblence to Afropips version either. But if you simply want your head ripped off and hammered into the mud after an exhilarating rocket ride, Golden Tiger's one to try for sure. I can only imagine their Malawi must be a real shocker!
billy
Hey Rinse,
I did African Seeds version of Malawi Gold many years ago. The difference, well, the old African Seeds version delivered a notably more complex high that scrambled your head so that you couldn't function-perhaps one man's medicine vs another man's poison. Further, they didn't taste nearly so good, it was a lot hotter to smoke and didn't produce nearly the resin, nor did it have the intensity of upness to it's HIGH. Also, their version was prone to setbacks in growth as they were entering the budding phase so that they would not recover nearly so easily. Yield wise, they were probably similar in the final outcome but all in all, Afropips version shines out head and shoulders above IMHO. Despite what people may have thought of Jim, he was really onto something when he released this strain onto the market and I see it really stands as a legacy from the man now that he's passed on (may he RIP).
I haven't tried ACE's version yet but from my experience with their Golden Tiger, which is a cross of their Malawi with a Meo Thai, it appears that she's not in the same league. After it's initially intense high, she lets you down with an indica like stone that lays me out with a heavy thud everytime. That's certainly not the Thai factor in there creating that effect, so I gather their standard Malawi, while reputedly being dreadfully potent (as is their Golden Tiger), doesn't bear a lot of resemblence to Afropips version either. But if you simply want your head ripped off and hammered into the mud after an exhilarating rocket ride, Golden Tiger's one to try for sure. I can only imagine their Malawi must be a real shocker!
billy
Very nice Billy...
OP
OP
