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Train

pipeline

Cannabotanist
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Thats great Calle, have some Freisland M39 going out as well! Heard that is a great line!Glad you are going to get some seeds made, you will find some special ones in that. I like to pollinate early up to pencil eraser, and leave the rest grow seedless, so you can taste it better for selections. You don't need that many seeds in my opinion when doing small scale breeding. Although if its a champion perfect phenotype, may want more seeds on those, but could always do that the next year if needed using seed from those plants to find the plants.
 

Calle Minogue

Brother of the COB
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acespicoli

Well-known member
That looks legit! Where did that PR come from?
The picture is from greenthumb the details are the red/orange hairs
Interesting added fact, is Panama used to be Columbia prior the canal being cut 🤷‍♂️

What do you see, anything you like about it ?
all things aside... the real question is... how does it smoke? right :thinking:
If you look at skunk and its 2/3 sativa and 1/3 indica would we select a sativa or a indica pheno ?
SAGE, sativa afghani genetic equilibrium ?
If you use sweet skunk #1 pollen is it going to dominate everything ?

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"skunkbud" pure afghani





July 1 1978


Dope
Vintage Colombian Tasting
“R.,” Dope Connoisseur
I would to rest like a serious to begin misunderstanding this month by laying that seems to have arisen in certain quarters because of some offhand remarks about Colombian dope I made in my recent cannabis connoisseurs column.
The question was first brought to my attention by a heavy dealer—he weighs 280 pounds. He phrased his objection in this subtle and succinct fashion:
“Hey whatsa matter with your head man? You got something against Colombian dope? How come you’re always bad-rappin’ it?”
Hastily I assured my friend that I wasn’t putting down all Colombian varietals. What I was putting down was a certain kind of Colombian that is overrated, a big-volume import that is giving that country’s cannabis a bad name among some smokers, the kind that’s known in the dealing trade simply—and often contemptuously—as “commercial.” It’s usually dark and dry, like matted topsoil with a moldy humuslike taste, or sooty gray-green and yellow, dry and leafy with little pollen, less oil and not a decent dense bud to speak of. You could call it the Wonder Bread of marijuana. And in many parts of our land it’s the only Colombian dope to be had.
Which is why in this column I’m going to pay tribute to some of the finer gourmet Colombian varietals in the hopes that by expanding market awareness of them and by giving some basic consumer tips on how to spot the real thing, we may see more of these deluxe Colombians at more truly “commercial” prices.
Trying to communicate advice on tasting dope raises difficult metaphysical problems that food and wine tasters don’t face. Unlike fine wine, which we taste first with a physiological sense mechanism and then evaluate with our consciousness, marijuana is “tasted” meaningfully only with the consciousness, and yet it can change the very consciousness tasting it in the testing process.
Nevertheless, I would argue from experiential evidence (i.e., a lot of smoking dope while looking at it, smelling and feeling it) that there are some generalizations that can be made. In fact when it comes to gourmet Colombian varietals I believe they can be divided into three color groups not unlike the reds, whites and rosés of wine, with particular psychoactive properties or “personalities” that correspond to the colors.
.K. KsiIib~
For Colombian the color typology consists of lights, darks and reds (reds are the rosés of Colombian). Let’s take the lights first. At their finest they are the champagnes of Colombian marijuana. At their finest in fact they have the pale gleaming color of fine champagne, a peppery spicy dry taste with the tingle of Blanc de Blanc’s Brut and a high that can only be described as the quintessence of effervescence.
Gourmet Colombian can be divided into three groups—lights, darks and reds—each with particular personalities.
But one must beware, because not all fine light Colombians are real “gold” or “blond” and not even your dope dealer knows for sure. Ever since the mid Seventies when the first rush of Santa Marta gold peaked there has been a lot of, shall we say, vin ordinaire being sold as gold when in fact it has been merely bleached blond by overlong exposure to the sun or the use of some artificial lightener. People still buy this fool’s gold on the basis of color alone and it’s made getting good gold—the real thing—a much more chancy proposition. One thing to look for in dealing with light pot is the furriness of the buds or clumps. The beauty of genuine gold is the furry luster of the pollen that clings to the flowers and seed bracts.
A problem people have with light Colombian is that they continue to chase after memories of a certain kind of gold. It’s worth taking note of a new and promising development in the light Colombian area: creme-de-menthe Colombian. The comparison to the sweet creamy mint liqueur was suggested to me by none other than the legendary Dope Taster himself during a respite from evaluating recent South American harvests on behalf of his clients.
“Good gold is hard to find,” the pro taster remarked; but he said, crushing a few fat buds, “Look at these buds—creme de menthe.”
And in fact each plump dense resinous bud was a fat frappe of creamy green and yellow flowers frosted over with silver and gold fur coats of pollen. In addition to leaving my finger moist with resin as I crushed and rolled a bud into a joint, the taste was extremely sweet; it was the sweetest tasting smoke I’d had in a long time, and the high was one of those buoyant tidal influxes of energy that took a long time to ebb. To keep strictly to our wine-tasting framework, one might compare this to the finest of tawny sweet dessert sauternes, the Chateau d’Yquem of Colombian dope. Let us hope this new light creme de menthe variety will be a more frequent fixture in local smokeasies.
These are dark days for the dark Colombians. Their once bright reputation has been tarnished by the dark color of most low-grade commercial weed. But let us not forget that once there were bright days for dark. The legendary “wacky weed” was a dark lowland Colombian, and anyone who has not smoked wacky weed has not smoked marijuana.
Lately, a faint echo of the mad laughter of the Whack, as it was called, can be found in a variety like Manizales black, and some other dense, moist, nearly seedless and wondrously resinous black/ green bricks can be found here and there, but in general the average dark pot is commercial at best, often left to ripen too long so that the buds grow grey and seedy, and grey pot just doesn’t do much for the grey matter from my experience.
So caution is necessary when it comes to a choice between several dark varieties. In general, if it’s not strong enough to give you that old throat-catching hitch in your breath on the first toke, pass it by, because it’s the volatile oils in the pot smoke that cause that throat-catching reflex, and if you don’t have enough oil to do that to your throat, you’re going to wind up with an energy crisis in your head.
Finally, let us look at that third and most elusive coloring, the rosé of Colombian cannabis, the reds. Many people are unable to distinguish red from the darker golds, and in fact, unlike wines, there is much more continuity along the color spectrum, many subtle graduations between red and gold.
But there’s only one way to distinguish a true red from a grass that happens to look red or red-gold in color. In fact one does not necessarily want a homogeneous red color. Your true red bud will frequently look brown, green-gold or earth color to the ordinary eye; but when the colitas are looked at with a magnifying glass in a strong light they will reveal a wonderful tapestry of flaming red highlights entwined within buds.
If it’s a true red like pun ta roja (Spanish for “red points”), those delicate red spikes you’ll see are the tips of the leaflets on the young female buds, the Jolitos of the colitas you might call them. One should not feel embarrassed about using a magnifying glass and a strong light to look at a sample bud when one is contemplating a serious purchase of a purported “red.” In fact it’s a good idea for a serious connoisseur to look at a sample bud of any color in that fashion—if dealers begin to sense that consumers know what to look for, they’ll have to make sure it’s there.
But questions of physical identity aside, it took a lady dealer friend to articulate to me the essence of the difference in consciousness between the lights and the reds. I’d expected her to extol the virtues of light Colombian, since, it was said, she always had the best available lights in town. But no, instead of rapping about golds she rhapsodized about reds.
“I don’t know why it is, or whether it has anything to do with the color,” she said, “but I’ve noticed that the reds have a spiritual quality to them that the lighter dopes don’t have. There’s something more subtle, long lasting and, well, almost religious about it. It takes you one level higher than is available to you with other Colombians. Do you know what I mean?”
Suddenly I did. I had always associated the rare lids of red I’ve come across with a kind of beneficent hypnotic effect, a contemplative trancelike state that someone more religiously inclined might well find spiritual. A punta roja high can be very trippy and meditative.
And indeed it was with almost religious reverence that she described one particular small shipment of reddish pot that passed through her hands and lungs a few years ago. “We called it The Red,” she said. “Just The Red. It was so special that people were frantic to get it. Everybody understood that from that point on there could be this red pot or that red pot, but nothing after it would be like the Red. People we know are still saving some last buds of it, but they’re afraid to smoke them up until they know for sure that The Red will be coming back again. They worship those buds.”
I don’t know much about religion, but I sure would like to be around for the Second Coming of The Red.


 

acespicoli

Well-known member
Genetics: Traditional North Afghan charas cultivar
Type: Traditional landrace/pure-bred
Variety: Indica Giant
Height: 3-4 meters in natural outdoor environment in Mazar-i-Sharif.
Yield: 1.5 to 2 kg of dried flowers in natural outdoor environment
Aroma: pungent, intense terpene aroma, classic Afghan, with some sweetness
Harvest: early December to early January
Characteristics: Unusually large indica strain with classic wide leaved characteristics.

Grown around the desert towns of Balkh, Mazar-i-Sharif and Sheberghan in the far north of Afghanistan, close to the modern borders of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. This Mazar-i-Sharif strain produces the legendary hashish known as "Shirak-i-Mazar" and "Milk of Mazar". The people of these regions are a patchwork of Turkic, Tajik, Afghan and Pashtun tribes, and the history of Mazar-i-Sharif strains is likely to be equally complex. In fertile and well-irrigated soils these vigorous giants are capable of reaching 4 metres in height or more, and will produce a similarly immense yield of intensely resinous flowers. Traditionally harvested in the first half of December with the onset of the brutal Central Asian winter, Mazar-i-Sharif plants will enjoy cold conditions, including snow, and will turn a deep blood red in low temperatures. Growers favour leaving harvest as late as possible, sometimes into early January. Sieved "Milk of Mazar" garda is very resinous and so can be hand-pressed to make charas; it has a distinctively pungent, sweet aroma and a dreamily mellow high. Over-indulgence produces a mind-warping, immobilising and narcotic effect.
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acespicoli

Well-known member
Grow American.
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November 1 1980

Farmer Green
Marijuana is now the top cash crop in California, having recently pulled ahead of various fruits, nuts and swamis. This presents a lot of California farm folk with the unenviable chore of hyping their product across the land while doing their damnedest to hide every illegal speck of the stuff.
Take the Haze brothers. For four years they’ve been captivating American potheads with what they brazenly declare to be the “finest pot grown anywhere on earth.” At the very least it merited a nomination for a HIGH TIMES “Herbie” award (see HIGH TIMES, July ’80). But can they even get a suntan toiling amidst their crop? Can they exhibit their most perfect colas in the county fair? Nope. Because pot is still illegal in California they confine their agricultural endeavors to the discreet shelter of several local greenhouses, which tend to deter both poachers and nares.
In fact, although the long growing season in the southern end of the state makes for more potent weed than can be harvested in the notorious north, the denser population down L.A. way makes discreet outdoor farming nigh unto impossible. Hence the growing popularity of reefer-under-glass.
Like any would-be star in movieland, greenhouse dope has its own press agent, Joe Haze, who stopped by the HIGH TIMES Farm Bureau recently to plug his favorite plants. Fortunately, he brought along a “Kellogg’s Snack-Pak of exotica,” as he called his primo produce, so we could show our readers what can be done with a common greenhouse and either a long season or a good lighting schedule.
Using seeds from their favorite imported smoke, the Haze brothers came out with “Purple Haze,” “Golden Haze” and a range of other colors four years ago, and have been breeding and crossbreeding subsequent generations of those botanical wonders. “The colors are a fluke,” says Haze. “We never know what color a crop will come out. One year it’s tannish brown, next year it’s greenish purple.” The Haze brothers guard their growing secrets—soil, fertilizer, nutrients, et cetera—the way a perfumer guards his formula. Everything’s a “trade secret,” except the late harvest, which is well into December, giving the flowers more time to get with it. “ ‘Blood is thicker than Haze’ is our motto,” says Joe, who adds that as a further precaution against attempted cloning, the brothers painstakingly remove every single seed from their harvested crop before marketing it in select cities.
Haze says northem-Califomia pot is upstaging his “brand,” and without justification. “The stuff they grow up there is mostly indica, but it’s harvested early to get it in before the frost,” he says. “In our county the flowers pump out resin until December, and Haze pot is from sativa seeds.” He admits that there’s nothing really sacred about geography for greenhousers, because the lighting and climate can be controlled so well indoors. “I’m amazed that greenhousing hasn’t caught on throughout the U.S. the way it has in southern California.”


 

acespicoli

Well-known member
R. the dope connoisseur
View Article Pages

interview
"R." the dope connoisseur
June 1 1982 ANDY KOWL, LARRY SLOMAN
"R." the dope connoisseur
interview
BYANDY KOWL AND LARRY SLOMAN
HE'S A FOLK HERO TO MANY, A TYRANNICAL SNOB TO SOME. HE'S "R.," THE LEGENDARY, CONTROVERSIAL CANNABIS
Connoisseur, whose column in HIGH TIMES has earned him the reputation as "El Exigente" of marijuana— "The Demanding One," the last word in the delicate art of judging marijuana quality.
lb the 40 million recreational marijuana smokers in America he's a precious national resource, a combination Ralph Nader consumer champion and Craig Claiborne quality analyst.
He's single-handedly created a whole new vocabulary for articulating the subtleties of the marijuana high, he's elevated the level of taste and discernment for a whole nation of smokers, pioneered a new phenomenology of perception, bringing the insights of philosophy, psychology and physiology to bear upon the analysis of cannabis consciousness.
Controversial? You bet. His standards are uncompromisingly high (what else?), and so when he poked holes in the overblown cult of sinsemilla worship, angry domestic growers howled for his head. When he criticized the drastic decline in Colombian cannabis quality, big-time smugglers yelped in anger. When he singled out some hitherto obscure West Virginia-grown Panamanian strain for his celebrated "Dope of the Year Award," he put that state on the map and sent eager growers all over the country back to their seedbeds to try to top that pot and cop a "Herbie"—the Oscar of the marijuana world—for themselves.
When "R." speaks, smokers all over the world listen. Rhapsodic, arrogant, witty, selfmocking (yes, he's humble too, witness his classic Mark Twain-like description of the Great Smokeout between "R." and the dope-smoking chimp in Hawaii), "R.'"s prose captures the spirit of the marijuana high the way no other writer has been able to.
Think of it: America has hundreds of movie critics, scores of music critics, untold numbers of literary critics, even a plenitude of TV critics, for God's sake. And yet when it comes to marijuana, a medium which shapes both the creation and the reception of all those arts these days, there is but one voice in all the land to devote itself to the subtle mysteries ofthat medium.
We caught up with "R." in a smoke-filled room as he was in the process of tasting and analyzing certain finalists for his forthcoming "Fourth Annual Connoisseur Awards" (the coveted Herbies), and we got the rare opportunity to watch a true connoisseur at work.
HIGH TIMES: We'll respect your desire for anonymity by not asking you to reveal your identity; but how about some simple background data? How old are you?
"R.": I prefer not to give away any details that would reveal my identity. As a journalist with sources to protect I have to be extremely discreet about what I can reveal about myself. So, let's just say I'm young at heart. I'm writing about an area that very few people have access to and the people who know a lot about marijuana prefer that there be as many extra barriers to their identity as possible.
HIGH TIMES: DO you take extra precautions in terms of the law? I remember in one column you said that you never possessed more than a half ounce of marijuana at one time.
"R.": That's true. I seldom actually have more than one or two joints, and as everyone around HIGH TIMES knows I am constantly bumming joints. That's one way that I have a broad experience of the range of marijuana smoked by people. I'm constantly bumming joints from them.
HIGH TIMES: Well, have you ever dealt pot for a living?
"R.": Never dealt pot. The most I've bought at a time has been an ounce. I identify with the ounce-buying consumer out there. I am not representing big dealers; I am not representing big growers; I am representing the people who save up a little money and buy some dope to smoke on the weekend and want to know what's the very best around. And so it's important really that I don't have a financial stake in it. I only have a stake in the pleasure of it. You could look at me as a kind of Ralph Nader of the recreational smoker. A Craig Claiborne of cannabis. HIGH TIMES: Did you ever meet dealers who put you down and think they may know more because they deal in multikilos?
"R.": Not anymore. I think I now have the respect of most dealers and growers I meet. Although my column is often controversial, they realize that basically I am the last word when it comes to taste. But I did serve a difficult apprenticeship. I wanted to do this column about a year before Tom Forcade, who founded the magazine, would let me. I thought there was a real need for someone to act for marijuana the way wine connoisseurs act for wine: criticize vintages and explain the phenomenology of taste, et cetera, et cetera. I made this case to Tom.
And he agreed with it intellectually but he felt at the time that I didn't have enough experience or wisdom. So. . .1 spent a year learning from him about marijuana varieties, about being high and articulating the high. He and I had different styles. He was often cryptic and terse and would sometimes only indicate his preferences with a grunt, while I tend to be florid and profuse. HIGH TIMES: Could you elaborate a little on your apprenticeship?
"R.": Back then it was the heyday of Colombia, 1975 or 1976, and every week or so it seemed there was a new, exciting kind of Colombian that would come in. Tom would have access to it and we'd sit around and smoke it and get into little riffs about, say, how the gold Colombians differ from the red Colombians. And he'd point out physical characteristics of the grass: the resin on the seed bracts, things like that.
Tom was a great conceptualizer and I never saw him with more than a pound or two of dope hanging around for his personal use, but there are many people who say that he was also a great smuggler. And so, he had access, apparently, to a wide range of people, who had a whole spectrum of marijuana. He was different from ordinary smugglers. He saw marijuana not just as some new version of bootleg liquor that prohibition-type entrepreneurs could get rich on. He saw it as a genuine medium. The way TV, music, movies, are media. He saw marijuana like print, as a way of changing the consciousness of the country. And he used to, in some of his more grandiose moments, imagine that someone who had a sufficient control over the kind of marijuana that was coming into the United States could in some way have control over the national mood. We used to sit and talk about that. What does it mean that Colombian has replaced Mexican? I had a whole theory of how that was a key way the '60s changed to the '70s. The Mexican was the more lively, active, get-out-there-into-thestreets kind of grass. Colombian was a more lay-back-and-put-on-the-head-phonesand-space-out kind of grass. Which is, in a way, the difference between the '60s and the '70s.
HIGH TIMES: YOU actually started the column shortly before Tom died. How did he like the first few columns? Did he criticize them?
"R.": We'd argue a lot about them at first. He would go over the copy meticulously and then gradually he began to get confidence that I knew what I was doing. And I think it was the one I did on Colombian tasting, in which I developed a whole thesis about the three personalities of Colombian grass—the reds, the blonds and the dark browns—that impressed him. I compared them with the personalities of red-haired women, blondes and brunettes, among other things. He thought I was the right man for the job.
HIGH TIMES: When did you smoke your first joint?
"R.": Ah, my first joint... I was a junior in high school. Some guy who was going to school in California had brought back some dope. I think I went through at first what everyone went through back then. At first L didn't feel anything. And then I sort of tried to imagine I was feeling something. We were at this deserted beachfront and I looked around and I saw the trees. And I started seeing faces in the trees. I had seen faces in the trees before. Patterns in clouds and things like that. But these were sort of more totally real and kinetic and almost movielike. I began to think, "Hmm, this may be what being high is about.''
I think the first really ecstatic revelation I had was a year later in college. I got high and looked at the inside of a Beatles album cover. I think it's Magical Mystery Tour, the one with the women in white gowns lined up on this beautiful array of descending stairs. Suddenly there leaped into focus these red devils embracing the women from behind. Now, I guarantee you that if you get high and you look, you'll see them. They are there.
I think when I started writing I began to find that marijuana is a kind of storytelling plant. Hemp is a kind of twine. It binds things together physically. Marijuana when smoked has a way of tying phenomena together in the consciousness. Tying experiences together into a storylike form. And I began to find that, in writing, marijuana could often bring out the sort of childlike storytelling delight that is the real, or only, pleasure in writing.
HIGH TIMES: Apropos to that, how do you feel about the whole notion of recreational use of marijuana? Allen Ginsberg, for one, feels that people are almost misusing marijuana.
"R.": I once spoke with Ginsberg, and his critique of marijuana was that it leads to a kind of "subjective sensationalism." I think that he is right about that, but there is nothing wrong with sensationalism in the sense of discovering the intrinsic intensity and excitement to things. I think if you spend all of your time being blown away, saying, "Oh, wow,” then that's too passive. The question is, Is it legitimate to use marijuana for recreational purposes? I would say yes, it is. Life is short, and it's better to experience the full intense potential of things than to allow the static of civilization to anesthetize responses.
HIGH TIMES: DO you think marijuana can be abused?
"R.": I think that marijuana doesn't make smart people stupid; but on the other hand, it doesn't make stupid people smart. It can be abused in the sense that for some people it may not do any good. They may be immune to a kind of certain perceptual level or subtlety... I don't know. This may sound too snobby, but I think for some people marijuana isn't that much different than beer. It's something to get bombed or fucked up on and in that sense can be abused. But I think people deserve a break, a change of pace in their lives, and there is nothing wrong with drinking beer.
HIGH TIMES: YOU mentioned snobbery. What is the difference between a connoisseur and a snob?
"R.": Well, a snobby person would say, "Oh, I only smoke expensive sinsemilla, you know. I never smoke cheapo Mexican grass." That's a snobby attitude because it's an unreflective belief that the more expensive and cosmetically attractive the grass is the better it is. While the connoisseur would find the true subtleties and interesting rhythms in some fresh Mexican weed with a hell of a lot of seeds and a cheap price tag. It might actually be a more interesting high than some overrefined sinsemillas. HIGH TIMES: Would you get tired if you had to smoke the same pot all the time?
"R.": Oh, yes, I definitely believe that each crop of marijuana really has its own personality due to a combination of soil conditions, genetics—just as in human beings, personality results from a combination of genetics and environment. If you smoke one kind of grass, or a grass from one crop or one country even, all the time, you get too accustomed to it. There is less surprise.
I find it much better to switch.
HIGH TIMESI remember in your early columns on Hawaiian and sinse you really questioned the whole price structure.
"R.": I think when things got to be around three hundred dollars an ounce, I thought this was really ridiculous, by any standards, and maybe you would be better off going to some tropical island for the three hundred, spend it on plane fare rather than dope at that point. You could almost go to Hawaii for that much.
HIGH TIMES: Was that controversial?
"R.": Not the Hawaiian column so much. Actually, when I visited Hawaii, it turned out to be controversial. I thought I would be welcomed there. It turned out they were ready to lynch me. Then when I criticized Californian in a column I made a lot of enemies there too.
HIGH TIMES.About when was this?
"R.": Okay, well, I tasted my first sinsemilla in Hollywood in '73. And... I was quite impressed. Then we go to '78 when I wrote this column, and by that time it had become sort of too much for too little. The price was too much. The high was not that interesting. By that time I felt that things had gone too far. People were paying for cosmetics, and sinsemilla had entered a phase from being genuinely exotic and a rival to Thai and a special kind of high, to the kind of standard, commercial sinsemilla. HIGHTIMES: Getting back to that sinsemilla column. It was almost like the Emperor's New Clothes column.
"R.": I didn't say that it didn't get you high, did I? I said there was kind of a cult of sinsemilla. I try to write these columns based on stories that happen. I was at a party and someone said, "Want to smoke a joint of this Colombian?" And he passed it around and we had a good time. And then some guy who was just in from California said, "Hey, don't smoke that Colombian shit. I've got some sinsemilla." And it was as if he expected that we should all fall down and worship this idol. I called sinse the California girl, or the surfer girl, of the American pot. Kind of beautiful on the outside, enticing in many ways on the surface, but not where you first look for kind of soulful intensity. There was a certain vanilla blandness to it. Anything green and seedless from California was worshiped. There have been fabulous California varieties around. But, I thought it's better for the growers, it's better for the smokers, if people become more discriminating and not just go by looks.
HIGH TIMES: Haven't you seen a rivalry develop between Californian and Hawaiian? "R": Definitely. There is a very big rivalry and I think that Hawaiian has always been for me the peak American dope. And I've had really good Colombian but...
“I identify with the ouncebuying consumer. I am not representing big dealers.”
The lush pleasure of the high from the Puna butter, the excitement of Maui wowie, the vibrant intensity of Kauai, is unmatched by most Californians. I've smoked some good Californian but I think that to my mind there is something about California indicas that are too much like Romilar cough-syrup high. A too heavy, syrupy kind of brain-thudding, logey, kind of downer, druggery, Sominex sort of high. And actually I like to smoke it and it's not that bad. But compared with marijuana that takes you on exciting trips, this kind of knocks you out and you don't want to get knocked out.
HIGH TIMES: In all fairness, isn't there that type of dope growing in Hawaii too?
"R.": There is, but I don’t think the emphasis there is on that. In Hawaii they don’t want to be paralyzed. They want to get out and surf. Hawaii is a volcanic place. Hawaii has volcanic soil and we're talking about the kind of dope that has a sort of volcanic magic to it. While California is too laid back. Let me say this: The best Hawaiian I've smoked is better than the best Californian I've smoked.
HIGH TIMES: While we're talking about different states, let's sample some of our smorgasbord here. First let's smoke this ''Arizona climate control sinsemilla," which was grown in lava bed soil with the temperature and carbon dioxide conditions supposedly approximating Hawaii's. We had someone send this in and they said it was considered '82's best in their circles. This bud that you see here, how would you describe it?
"R.": I am not a great believer in generalizing the high from the buds, since I've seen many sort of nondescript buds give you a better high than beautiful buds. But this stuff is...very red, that’s for sure. It has that kind of embroidered look from a nice manicuring job. I don't believe in too close manicuring. I think you should get a little leaf mixed in with the buds. And some people clip it too closely.
HIGH TIMES: DO you go by stickiness at all? "R.": No. You can't. It may mean that it's fresher but I often find that pot can be too fresh. And if it's sticky it's often too fresh and the cruder and more primal THC isomers overwhelm the subtler ones.
HIGH TIMES: HOW can you keep track of what you've smoked and what you thought of it while you're smoking one type of grass after another?
"R.": People always ask me, How can you describe a high? Or smoke three different kinds of dope and still analyze it? And the only answer I can give is talent. This is something that I happen to be good at. I agree, it's difficult. Most people can't do it. But, that's why I am so valuable. I can. And so, I am able to enjoy all three highs but also separate and analyze each one. What I like about this one immediately is that it's clearly an up high. You will enjoy pacing around. If you're in good physical condition, as I am, your body will feel motivated to stretch out into a good posture and you get up and move rather than be paralyzed. It’s stuff that makes you want to dance rather than stuff that makes you want to collapse. So, I like this already. It has that going for it. But again, I think this might be the kind of stuff that's too strong. You still get too much of an immediate physical effect. It's not a balanced high. I find that too much of a speedy adrenaline physical effect no longer becomes upbeat and interesting. It becomes like being plugged into an electric socket. HIGH TIMES: What do you like best, indica or sativa? Now, I think you said you like a cross best?
"R": Well, I have always been a sativa loyalist. Indica is nice in many ways but I do think it's too much of a downer.
Indica, I think, goes direct for the auto-
nomic nervous system. Blood pressure, heartbeat, smooth muscles. Sativa is more parasympathetic. It's a more cerebral effect. I believe people smoke too much dope, though. Many people don’t really get the benefits of a little bit of pot. Smoking a whole joint of it is just pointless.
HIGH TIMES: Let's try stickless Thai, because that is becoming like a major category in the exotic markets.
"R": I think stickless Thai has really come into its own. And it's very revealing. I mean, it shows that there is an appetite for something more exotic than Californian and Hawaiian. Thai offers something special . . . otherwise, why would people go halfway across the world to get it and bring it back.
HIGH TIMES: What do you think of it?
"R.": This has that special Thai aroma. If it came all the way from Thailand, it has dried out a little. It's mellowed out a little. It's ripened in some way. You can tell it's a more subtle, exotic high.
HIGH TIMES: Didn't you once compare the process of cultivating sinsemilla to a modern chicken factory in terms of its dehumanizing effect?
"R": Well, yes, I am not sure whether this is a physiological or philosophical question, or what the actual boundaries of those are, but as most people are aware, the sinsemilla pot is grown by totally depriving female plants of any male pollen. And when the female plants ripen and form seed pods ready to receive the pollen, they go crazy when they don't get any. And they start exuding more and more resin to attract the pollen and trap it. These plants go into an ecstasy of femaleness, and it is in this female resin that the most concentrated THC is. I have a feeling that it's perhaps for that reason that sinsemilla is a more passive, quieting kind of high than seeded pot which enjoyed an active sex life. Well, that's my theory.
HIGH TIMES: YOU want to go through some hits from the past here and give us your impressions of some old favorites and fabled pot? Let's start with the most famous of all, Acapulco gold.
"R.": Yes, I think I once smoked it. I think that in the late '60s someone who really knew grass got me high once on some Acapulco gold. And it was great. Some people say Acapulco gold is myth. I believe there was great Acapulco gold. I found out that the Mexican government destroyed these peasant guerrillas who were growing the original Acapulco gold. They slaughtered them in their misguided attempts to wipe out grass traffic. And so for a long time there was no Acapulco gold. And now supposedly there is some new stuff.
HIGH TIMES: Panama red.
"R.": I really miss that the most. I hardly got to smoke any Panama red, and I think it really legitimately disappeared and some red Colombians began to be called Panama red; but I think just as there was a real Acapulco gold, a real Mowie wowie, there really was a real Panama red. And it was a special, almost kind of spiritual high. It's interesting that the grass I named Dope of the Year last year was some West Virginia grass that was grown from Panamanian seeds, and I am a great fan of Panama grass. HIGH TIMES: What was the difference between wacky weed and chiba-chiba? Was there a difference?
"R.": I have had stuff that has been called wacky weed that's been strange enough to earn that name, and yet different enough each time to make me wonder if wacky weed was a... you know, a one-time phenomenon, a really weird but interesting aberration.
Chiba was sort of on a different spectrum. It was like the champagne of clear, bubbly Colombian highs. Wacky weed was this strange, exotic jungle trip of a high. HIGH TIMES: Santa Marta gold.
“Marijuana doesn’t make smart people stupid; but on the other hand, it doesn’t make stupid people smart.”
"R.": Ah, truly, that may be one of my alltime favorites. It seemed to be around for about a year. Just long enough to make you think that would be around forever. It was a really upbeat kind of delightful high, real sociable, soaring, interesting... and suddenly it disappeared.
HIGH TIMES: HOW long do you think that lasted?
"R.": Maybe a couple of years. It seemed to get better and better for a while. That was the great thing. Each new ounce that you would come across would be more interesting. It would be blonder, you know. It would be blonder than blond. The seeds themselves were beautiful. It had luminous blond seeds... or deep brown seeds in this blond background. So really beautiful in itself. And spicy smelling and tasting. The California sinsemilla tastes like dessert, but this was like really spicy, exotic Latin food. HIGH TIMES: DO you think there is any truth to the rumor that the reason Santa Marta gold was so big in New York was that Forcade had cornered the market on Santa Marta gold?
"R.": Well, I like the story. I like the notion of it. And I am sure Tom would have loved the notion of it. And maybe he spread the notion of it. But there's no way of knowing whether it’s actually true. He certainly liked it. And yes, actually that was my first assignment from him. To do a story on Santa Marta gold as dope of the year. [Laughs] Wait a minute. Suddenly I begin to see a connection. [Laughs] But it was great grass. From a sort of totally objective point of view. There was nothing like it.
HIGH TIMES: We have noticed that the joints that you have personally rolled from buds you have bummed have been atrocious. Now, is it true that "R.," the Connoisseur, can't roll a good joint? Is there any excuse for this?
"R": Yes, to both questions. Well, no, I could roll a good joint, but it is not a high priority to me. Not every one can be a jewel. You know, everyone wants to teach me how to roll a joint. You got to roll it with one paper, or a half a paper; basically I can roll a joint well enough to get me high, so it seems to me that approaching it like the art of Japanese flower arranging, as some people do, means that you spend half the time watching this person craft a joint when you could be getting high, and it seems like life is too short to make perfect joint rolling a priority.
HIGH TIMES: Let's talk about the inherent temptations somebody in your position must always come across. I mean, on the one hand, you want to represent the average consumer, and on the other hand, when a food critic goes to a restaurant he gets incredible service.
"R": No, it's difficult, because everyone wants you to say their pot is the greatest you've ever smoked, and since I am mainly bumming joints, it’s hard for me to tell them it's no good. You always feel the pressure to say something nice in their presence, but I retain my objectivity in my columns.
HIGH TIMES: Have you ever had any really serious, tempting offers to abuse your position and endorse a certain kind of pot? "R.": Well, it's a position that can't really be abused because everything depends on the judgment of the individual ounce buyer when he's making his choice. The only way you can tell whether you want to buy grass is to taste it yourself. My function is to encourage people to be more sensitive and receptive in their taste of grass, not to push any particular variety.
We can move on this Guerrero gold. HIGH TIMES: Yes. A seeded Mexican. It is not a seedless.
"R": It's a little stale so it's hard to tell. A little bit too stale. Tastes a little like primo Colombian rather than something that is genuinely gold in the sense of taste, and it's not a particularly golden look.
Gold is a much abused term. There's a lot of "fool's gold," which is stuff that is gold colored but doesn't get you high, and then there is stuff like this that's called "gold," but I'll be damned if I can see a single gold facet to any part of this plant. So I have to say it’s disappointing. It's got some force to it. It's got some zip to it. But not particularly interesting.
HIGH TIMES: DO you really feel there is no noise, no interference now? Isn’t this different from wine tasting? With wine tasting you take maybe a little sip and you spit it out. You don't even drink it. And here you consume a pretty good amount of different varieties of cannabis.
"R.": It is different from wine tasting. It’s more difficult. It requires someone of a greater discriminating talent, intelligence and sensory perceptiveness. And I am your man. What can I say?
HIGH TIMES: We've been meaning to talk to you about this: Are you apprenticing someone now? Don't you feel it's almost your duty to find an apprentice at this point in your career?
"R": Well, what's in it for me?
HIGH TIMES: Maybe you could find someone who could bring you samples, find them at parties—
"R": Well, you know, I hardly ever turn down an invitation to a party. So...
HIGH TIMES: Someone could roll your joints for you?
"R": If someone wanted to volunteer, you know... But I would probably distrust that person.
HIGH TIMES: Let's take this a little further. Are there "R." groupies?
"R.": Well, I think that is something that probably we had better not discuss.
HIGH TIMES: DO people ever pressure you to have good pot?
"R.": Yes. That's another annoying thing. I am always expected to have better pot than anyone, and usually I do, but when you are dealing with growers fresh out of Humboldt County with eight different kinds of purple, you really can't be expected to match that. So, yes, that’s a burden, but I try to bear it as lightly as possible.
HIGH TIMES: AS "R." you've traveled a little bit under the auspices of HIGH TIMES. YOU got to go to Hawaii. I know you had some amusing anecdotes. I think particularly of the time you had a smoke-off with a chimp. "R.": Yes, I think this is one of the great moments in the history of Western civilization. Just to depict the scene for those who weren't there: It was a dope-smoking contest in Hawaii featuring a chimp who not only smoked joints but harvested grass and rolled his own. And there I was with a paper bag over my head to preserve my anonymity, sitting across the table from the chimp. It was a big interspecies smoke-out. I felt I was standing up for human consciousness as opposed to that of a vicious primate who tried to psyche me out before the contest by biting me. Then when the contest started, what the chimp would do was take one long puff and smoke an entire joint from beginning to end, hold in all of the smoke and then blow it out his ears. When I saw that I knew it was like John Henry versus the Steam Engine. I would never be able to top the chimp at sheer quantity.
But see, I am against transferring this drinking ethic—how much you can drink— to how much you can smoke. I think that's a mistake. You know how people boast, "Man, I smoked eight joints and really got so ripped." What people should be able to boast is that they took one puff of some really good stuff and went on a whole fascinating trip just from that. You shouldn't need more than three puffs of grass at a time to experience the personality of a high. More than that and you lose the subtleties.
HIGH TIMES: Okay, why don't we try this sample from Humboldt County?
"R.": Yes, let's take on a Humboldt product. The label here says "Humboldt County greenhouse sensi... one of 1982’s best." Hmmm... could be cured better. This one bud is all that's left. A lot of greedy pigs around here.
HIGH TIMES: We have a HIGH TIMES paper over there. Maybe just the right size.
"R.": Okay. Actually, I like this. What is it made of?
HIGH TIMES: Rice.
"R.": Well, here's a little joint of Humboldt County and it’s old, but wow. It has that skunky odor that people brag about. I've had skunkier, sweatier smelling stuff. This is dry by now. It's clearly been around for a while, but it's got that characteristic fragrance. The odor begins to become really intoxicating. I do have sort of a revisionist theory about California grass. I feel now that the odor itself is psychoactive and that inhaling it can get you high in some way like poppers. Although I hate poppers. You do get a hearty rush from smelling this skunky stuff. Now, let's see the taste. This is a really badly rolled joint. Certainly wouldn't want to defend this. I mean, it's pathetic. But wait, it draws. Well, this is not bad. You can tell... you can tell like a real difference in the indica high. It's got a certain serenity to it. I like it. It's got an emotional quality to it. That sounds like a paradox, but it's like a powerful, reptile brain level stimulation. HIGH TIMES: YOU may be right. Fire it up— "R": Yeah. This is clearly different from the other grasses we have been smoking. Clearly an indica. Maybe I've been too harsh on indica. Or, maybe, after all the sativa you need an indica. It's often good to smoke another grass. You get the contrast. HIGH TIMES: Nice hearty taste to it.
continued on page 39
"R.": Yes. I like this. It's got a kind of windswept, coastal rainswept beach... a powerful California redwood forest feel to it. HIGH TIMES: We have talked about different types of smoke representing different decades. We talked about the Mexican '60s, the Colombian '70s, and now we see sinsemilla... well, basically, a domestic market. Is it really truly the dominant market of the '80s?
"R.": I think the rise in domestic certainly has been sensational. It's grown in almost every state in the nation. American farmers triumphing—and what else can you say but give them credit for growing under all the harassment that they get for the brave pioneering agriculture they are doing? The smartest thing for the U.S. government would be to recognize what a great export crop it has available.
HIGH TIMES: Great export?
"R.": Yes, I think Europe would go wild over U.S. sinse. It's important to realize that marijuana has only been prohibited in this country for a small fraction of the country's history. It has only been prohibited for forty-five years, since 1937. So it's an aberration, as stupid as the prohibition of alcohol, but one that hasn't been sensibly brought to a halt and reversed the way prohibition was. And so the whole scene of relationships between grower, dealer and smoker is distorted by a pathetic prohibition mentality.
HIGH TIMES: What do you say to people who tell you that what you're doing is encouraging greater marijuana use?
"R.": Actually, I encourage people to smoke less. I'm helping people to be more discriminating, to be able to enjoy to the fullest the value of the single puff. Smoke less, enjoy more. Get higher in a more interesting way.
I don't think that that's hurting people. I think it's helping them. If they are going to smoke, they might as well learn to smoke something that will encourage them to use their minds, expand their awareness, take them on a more interesting, enlightening journey than something that will jumble up their minds. □


 

acespicoli

Well-known member
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Nov 29, 2010 #12
Garlic bud came from Jim Ortega, as did Maple Leaf. You'll notice from the photo of pure Garlic from my old catalogue, how similar it is in structure to the Skunk#1. I suspect they have a common ancestry. I think of Garlic as a pre-Sam Skunk, but maybe Jim knows more.

In any case, the two crossed well together.
Further improvements may be made by putting the hybrid to Super Skunk. The latest versions will add resin and richer smells to the mix. For the lovers of Skunkoids, there is plenty of good material to play with. UK Cheese may also benifit from a cross to the Garlic line. They are all variations on a theme. Beginners stuff really, but not to be sneezed at. For many, it's where the money is. Heavy yielding, clean limbed Skunkoids make good breeding material.
N.

garlic clone v from mns
 

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acespicoli

Well-known member
AfgT and AfgS were both sisters and pure maple leaf.

The Maple Leaf came from a guy known to me as Jim Ortega. We traded seeds for a while. Not only did he supply me with Maple Leaf, but also Garlic Bud and Kush 4. The cannabis smoking world owes him a lot.

The Maple Leaf line provided me with a plant that I labeled Afghan T. This plant is the mother of Super/Ultra Skunk and also crossed well with HzC.

Kush 4, I crossed with NL2(which had the same Kush smell) and this Kush Hybrid is the foundation of todays Kush lines.

Garlic bud has also made it's presence felt and is part of todays super yielders.

Let me say one more thing about ML AfgT. This plant had exactly the same smell as Sams best SK1 but more so. It is the true Skunk archetype. I do not believe for one N.Y. minute that Afghani#1 is behind the SK1, which IMO gives credence to the Mendecino Joe story about SK1.

The world owes you a big Thank You Jim!
Let me be the first to say that I appreciate the work that you have done.
N.
If a fellow who calls himself Dogless starts talking about the origins of the Ortega lines, I'd advise you to Sit and pay attention.
N.

It may have been something that I made.
The Maple Leaf cultivar AfgT had a full sister, AfgS. She was a fruitier counterpart to AfgT.
AfgSxSK1 was narcotically strong. I remember a few occasions that as group of people smoking it would suddenly get hit with a wave of warmth and then look at me with suspicion. I was inspired to cross this with the NL2xKush4, because I could detect a hint of commonality in the phenotypes. I never did find out how that panned out.
N.

ML loves Skunk1. My nose and intuition tells me that these two are distantly related.

Funk is AfgTxSk. Is there a combo with the NL5xSk? I don't know, ask SB.
N.
I made the Juicy Fruit. It was from a Thai collected in the '90s. It wasn't a great Thai, but it did have that typical Juicy Fruit smell and flavour. I cleaned it up a little and crossed it with a few indicas. I can't remember for sure which one Sensi sold. Probably the NL5, it crossed well with pure sativas.
N.
The NL 1-8 were seed lines and most were hybrids. A couple of years after getting the seed, I went to the U.S. to get the U.S. NL5 cutting. It didn't turn out to be as good or even that similar to my NL5.
N.
 
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acespicoli

Well-known member
Genome Biol Evol. 2021 Aug; 13(8): evab130.
Published online 2021 Jun 8. doi: 10.1093/gbe/evab130

Type 1/4 (Onofri et al. 2015) comprises sequences from cultivars “Skunk #1,” “AK47,” “Chemdog91,” “CannaTsu,” “Black84,” and a hashish landrace from Afghanistan that share 749 A (Asp).

Subclade A1_THCAS comprises full-length coding sequences from THCA-producing plants such “Purple Kush,” “Skunk#1,” and “Chemdog91,” including functionally characterized THCAS (Sirikantaramas et al. 2004), “drug-type THCAS” sequences (Kojoma et al. 2006), “active THCAS” sequences (McKernan et al. 2015), and fully functional (BT) as well as nearly defective (BT0) coding sequences (Onofri et al. 2015)
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evab130f4.jpg

The total number of cannabinoid oxidocyclase genes varies considerably across cultivars. Onofri et al. (2015) amplified up to 5 (in cultivar “Haze”) different full-length fragments in chemotype I drug-type cultivars and up to 3 (in cultivars from Yunnan and Northern Russia and an inbred Afghan hashish landrace) different full-length fragments in chemotype III fiber-type cultivars.

 
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