How do the 90s and early 2000s elites stack up to today’s hype strains?

I think when you degrade women, or have somebody with 5-6 names. I dunno how you can x something 5 times on each side and have a strain named all that stuff. It gets weird trying to keep track of this x this x infinite. And I don't wanna have something that offensive, lol some of these strains I'd like to run but I've definatly have to tell my wife a different name for a few strains that I've seen. I just can't believe or understand why somebody would name a strain of weed some of these things.


Back to the topic I'm sorry. That WW in the 90s was definatly good. And like I said the OG(SFV) I really liked. I'd second a fine selection of the older WW and OG(SFV) gene pool. If you found the right WW from 92-99 or so. And the original SFV OG. Some of the better Bluebery from 90s....DP had a good pheno around 99-02....the branchy pheno. I never found anything from Dr S except some great males that I wish I'd collected pollen from outta the first True BB released.

theJointedOne said:

This might get scoffed at but blue dream clone was game changing, from a growers perspective.

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To be honest I'm still super impressed by Santa Cruz Blue Dream if it's done well (10 weeks+). Perfect breakfast herb.

The only reason it's not more popular now-a-days is that it had its reputation ruined by fakes and knock-offs. I'm never letting go of this cut, and that's coming from someone who also grows plenty of modern elites (TK, GMO, Chem91, etc...)

I'm less interested in what people think they remember about old herb since we tend to romanticize the past.

More interesting would be someone who has an old school cultivar that they can do a side by side comparison with modern cultivars.

Otherwise we're just dealing in worthless, nostalgia tainted memories.

I think many people have rose colored glasses when remembering 90s weed.

In the 90s I smoked a lot of weed from Nth Cal, Oregon and Colorado. Skunk, Northern Lights, Blueberry, and in the 2000s lots of OG. It was good stuff, much of the focus was on bag appeal people wanted crystal “nugs” that looked good and did not fall apart as bags got carried around.

Now days top shelf weed has to raise above 100s of strains. The standards are much higher. Right now everyone and their dog is trying to make their own strain many are ok, personally I am not interested in just ok weed it's bland.

I love trying all sorts of crosses, hybrids, etc. Many are very nice but only some have the special magic that make them great. We have bigger collection of special magic then we did in the 90s. Good strain grown by a good grower. A couple I keep going back to Golden Goat, Durban Poison, BruceBanner, GSCs, Ogs, GG4, Cheese

Every generation wants to look back with rose colored glasses. I have listened to hours of the "Weed in” Viet Nam, Colombian Gold, “one hit” “kids these days”, bla bla bla. The truth is good weed has made major advancements and is much better today.

People have blinders on breeding.

A lot of resin these days is all about looking white. Thing is the stalk of the trich is white as well. It's all about the gland, and a lot of strains just go for white. Macros show trichs falling over and all tall and lanky. Not nice swollen glands and many of those.

Bud density has also fallen by the wayside. Not all across the board but a lot more.

Resistance to disease is also not bred in the states. Folks just pop beans and see which pheno gives them the meanest hard on. Canadians at least breed for resistance and early maturing. Not saying all strains today cannot preform well outside. It's mostly by chance that they do well. I also doubt they've been tested all over the country.

There is also a lot of bottle-necking with everyone wanting to work with only modern cuts. So there are a billion (exaggerating) cookies crosses or glue crosses, S1's, and so on.

I think buying weed for it's terps is likely the worst idea. I can think of a lot more performance specs I'd rather see do well.

Everytime I find a new type I like it is the same story.

Take for example Orange Cookies Wedding Cake.

Smells great, tastes great. Why? The Orange Cookies. Why does that smell great? Cali O.

I'd rather have Cali O, ya'll can keep the hype.

Weed back in the day got me HIGH and it made everything fun.

Weed today makes me dumb and useless. It's more of a lethargic stone than a creative high. I don't care about looks, thc percentage, names, etc. I care about a happy positive creative UP effect. And that's really hard to find.

All this higher standards stuff didn't reinvent the wheel so to speak.....a NEW form of weed/seeds didn't gravitate down from the heavens. The modern weed has been made-crossed outta all the early 2000 stuff from what it appears.

I've never cared about bag appear and all that dispensary stuff. If it looks like shit but was good weed then that what it was. Only commercial guys should care about bag appeal.....at least they used too. I think because we have all these labs testing all these levels and terps and all this stuff. It kinda makes some guys feel like the weed is 10x better because it's lab tested. I'm sure these medical strains are great, but just because it's lab tested doesnt make everything we see a report on terps/ THC is all "top shelf".....it all come from all the stuff us old timers nostalgize over lol

green404 said:

I think many people have rose colored glasses when remembering 90s weed.

In the 90s I smoked a lot of weed from Nth Cal, Oregon and Colorado. Skunk, Northern Lights, Blueberry, and in the 2000s lots of OG. It was good stuff, much of the focus was on bag appeal people wanted crystal “nugs” that looked good and did not fall apart as bags got carried around.

Now days top shelf weed has to raise above 100s of strains. The standards are much higher. Right now everyone and their dog is trying to make their own strain many are ok, personally I am not interested in just ok weed it's bland.

I love trying all sorts of crosses, hybrids, etc. Many are very nice but only some have the special magic that make them great. We have bigger collection of special magic then we did in the 90s. Good strain grown by a good grower. A couple I keep going back to Golden Goat, Durban Poison, BruceBanner, GSCs, Ogs, GG4, Cheese

Every generation wants to look back with rose colored glasses. I have listened to hours of the "Weed in” Viet Nam, Colombian Gold, “one hit” “kids these days”, bla bla bla. The truth is good weed has made major advancements and is much better today.

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Most of those strains are 90s and/or pre 90s....Durban, Cheese, even these OGs and others listed are sourced from the ear.

I have always thought the hype about grass getting stronger, was establishments propaganda for demonizing and creating fear!

For just a dollar a day, you can save one little pothead.
Seriously, if we find perfection, it will be nothing new!

beta said:

I'm less interested in what people think they remember about old herb since we tend to romanticize the past.

More interesting would be someone who has an old school cultivar that they can do a side by side comparison with modern cultivars.

Otherwise we're just dealing in worthless, nostalgia tainted memories.

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^^^THIS!^^^


I remember just out of High School ('91 or so) getting bags of some stuff that was being called Alien Green Bud. I'm quite positive it was one of those elites that was renamed & it was being grown a few houses down from me by some folks that had just moved to town. I'm pretty sure they were blowing the house up because about every 3rd or 4th month the entire neighborhood was skunk smelling city. Getting hold of that bud was some fantastic times. It only happened right after harvest then dried up again for the 3 to 4 month wait. It was better than great weed yall. It was the best going around the area at the time.
Fast forward about 10 years later, after tech school, I started a little grow of my own. It was bag seed from some awesome mexican fluff I had purchased in Phoenix. In a QP I think I found a half dozen seeds or so (I don't recall exact details) and saved them. After I had taken a new job and got my first (way too big for me) apartment, I decided I was going to plant some seeds. From those seeds I grew 2 plants, finishing & harvesting one while the other continued growing. That first harvest I didn't even get to sample because I knew nothing about drying & curing buds and they molded in the jar. DOH! That second plant... I still wish I had that plant today. I knew nothing about making clones either. It was as potent and as tasty as anything I've had thus far.


IMO, Today's varieties are not any better than those of yesteryear. I believe we've maxed out potency and folks have realized that potency is not all the hype it's cut out to be. Now the aim is for terps, as well as potency.


The Old School cuts that have been around for 25+ years are definitely the bread & butter of the industry. More folks flock to those seed varieties than any others, from my point of view. Myself included. The fact of the matter is, Those cuts are proven. I think the real test comes down to:


Are the folks that are breeding with those Old cuts smoking the new new or are they consuming the 25+ year old nostalgic cultivars? the answer to this question should be the answer to the OPs question.

jaypopnseeds said:

I’m a huge fan of OGs and Chems. IMO, they’re the best out there and has been for a very long time. Personally though, I think a lot of 90s weed is overrated and people have rose colored glasses when they talk about it. Skunk, widow, Bubblegum, etc, I had a lot of the big time 90s strains and they were good. But they wouldn’t blow today’s stuff out of the water or anything. People like to talk about how much better movies/tv/sports used to be back in their day, well they like to do the same with weed. Except for Chem and OG, those are truly exceptional.

Of the newer stuff, really only one thing comes close, and that’s cookies. It took a while, but I have to admit that GSC is the real deal. It smells and tastes great and has an amazing high. It’s the only thing made in the last 20 years that can stack up with OG or Chem. Cross them together, and it’s particularly amazing.

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I think my experience was more about availability and tolerance.

Many yrs ago I was invited to party of friend where they claim to be preparing a mix of tie budda stick and Lebanese hash "or something" together.

I had been on spirits, but after the offering I walked outside for air and could not get off the ground for hours.
Finally come good, and done the same thing again.

Move forward a decade, and several seasoned smokers are trying to hide in the corner of pub before freaking out, whilst I was happy as Larry.
In short, it seems to be the available strength and tolerance to strain.

Funny how grass is 10x as strong with no change in effect, or we would all be laid out.

I see Girl Scout Cookies everywhere, must be sending me a message, try me

I've got the Santa Cruz Blue dream cut

I've got the Santa Cruz Blue dream cut

beta said:

To be honest I'm still super impressed by Santa Cruz Blue Dream if it's done well (10 weeks+). Perfect breakfast herb.

The only reason it's not more popular now-a-days is that it had its reputation ruined by fakes and knock-offs. I'm never letting go of this cut, and that's coming from someone who also grows plenty of modern elites (TK, GMO, Chem91, etc...)

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here she is currently growing out in the North East ...this plant is the most generous

I still have a few select California cuts, some over 15 years old. I don't have the SC Blue Dream cut now, but I have to agree with beta, it was a beauty.

It seems like sativas that took a bit longer were more popular back in the early 2000's, like the BD and some of those excellent Jack Herer cuts (I still have the 'Jack Flash').

I wanted to add my 2c to the strain naming discussion. I personally try to name 'strains' or crosses (seed batches) with names that suggest the lineage, and save the more original names for individual plants that really stand out.

Mr. Greengenes said:

I still have a few select California cuts, some over 15 years old. I don't have the SC Blue Dream cut now, but I have to agree with beta, it was a beauty.

It seems like sativas that took a bit longer were more popular back in the early 2000's, like the BD and some of those excellent Jack Herer cuts (I still have the 'Jack Flash').

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Speaking of, I just popped 8x 2002-era Sensi Seeds Jack Herer beans and I plan on pollinating my SCBD with any males I find.

Great thread. I've grown a lot of the popular strains and yeah a few really stand out. Glue, girl scout cookies, pretty great stuff.

I think a lot of the breeding of polyhybrids is being done by amateurs nowadays. It isn't hard to get something good breeding 2 great strains. Unfortunately end result isn't everything especially for us growers who have to get them there in the meantime.

There's definitely a market for old school strains whether you were too young to experience them and curious or you just miss that old school funk.

Some weed from the 80s and 90s was just as good or better than today's elites. Black Gunji, Jamaican ( pre 88), Gainesville Green, Skunk, and Mexican, to name a few.

beta said:

I'm less interested in what people think they remember about old herb since we tend to romanticize the past.

More interesting would be someone who has an old school cultivar that they can do a side by side comparison with modern cultivars.

Otherwise we're just dealing in worthless, nostalgia tainted memories.

Click to expand...

The first great strain I grew was a cut from a friend of a friend that I got in 1989. He never told us what strain but said it came from one of the Dutch banks that advertised in the back of High Times so it was either the Super Sativa Seed Club or the Seed Bank. In retrospect the cut looked a lot like an indica leaning Northern Lights or Northern Lights crossed with Afghani. It smelled like a cross of skunk and roasting coffee beans. It was extremely pungent, extremely frosty. Two hits would get you very high, and it was hard to smoke more than four or five.

After a couple years I lost that cutting so I went back to growing bagseed. By 1994 I happened upon a Mexican bagseed line that had a great high and was almost, but not quite as strong as that cutting I had lost. I still have that bagseed line, it still has a great high and it is still almost, but not quite as strong as modern elites. This makes me think that the elites that were coming out of the SSSC and the Seed Bank were probably as strong as the modern elites.

I think a lot of the difference in potency was that in the old days the weed that was tested would have changed hands a dozen times, then get seized by the police and sit in an evidence locker for six months before it got tested. Now it is pristine samples of the best buds that are immediately rushed off to a lab.

Hey guys not to get off topic but I've started a New Outdoor Strain guide to give new updated info....and to pick up were the old strain guide left off. So any contributions from your outdoor grows would be appriciated by the community

A lot of the strains I smoked back in the day90's 2000s ; Dead , Phish, Rainbow, grower - I didnt manage to get the name of a strain, I was young and usually wasted on alchohol and psychedelics/ OH what I would do for a few of those cuts from yesteryear, things called 'hashplant' and 'haze' or 'nl'...another called 'gardener' oh and holy shit if you got some 'skunk'... but rarely anything 'specific', like today's named cuttings. Even most of the plants in my garden back in those days were known by these nick-names or monikers. 'F1'...what's that , so it's an F1? That's not telling us enough,,,we crave information, haha. Thai, hashplant, I do know one name though -AK47- and it was AMAZING, simply AHH-mazing. I know many other west MI guys who remember that one. Ahh, good ole kind bud!