1973 Durban sativa (poison) "The Green Pheno"- a collective history of a South African sativa

i agree 100%. my theory is that these are land race sativa from Africa and labeled durban posion because they perhaps did not know what to call it.
I am a curious person and i have reached out to several people including the breeder and i have an up date

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The highland durban tropical an a few others preserved is supposed to be from old seeds pre skunk durban.

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Update on my findings from the breeder.
these are from his in law who was a collector and trader,
he says these are sativa from the 70s, and from south africa.
My theory is that during the 70s strains from south africa were almost all durban since they went through the port of durban. the word poison was attached to everything from cigarettes to booze, and poison was attached to anything considered bad for you.
Well as we know now with strains, we have different names for them for where they are from,
well in africa alone there are a lot of different land race stuff that at one time passed through durban.

now from what i understand is that the older the strain the less it has been messed with, ect.
none the less i have heard from the breeder and the difference in the red and green phenos are this:
red pheno has some red on the stem here and there that sometimes goes into the bud.
the green pheno does not have the red but stays green throughout veg and flower.

now the seed themselves that i popped were not from the 70s but a reproduction run from south African sativa dating in the 70s. Could be only a few local landrace strains in the area at the time.
Durban poison was found by Ed in the 70s. There where 2 phenos, one finding its way to Amsterdam, and sam the skunkman worked it, and the seed was shared, to become the durban poison we know today. this happened in the mid 80s.
I am attempting to get the real history of durban poison so we can further our education in the south african strains and perhaps unlock a secret truth of a longer flowering pheno, thats if these seeds are legit.
time will tell
I will now see if @PanchoVilla may have more info on durban, because he knows those older strains.
can you help with any info that i am missing? i know i am missing lots

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yeah i ran a sensi durban and def. seen it was cut, def. skunk or whatever.

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No you may have misunderstood me. Weed would be moved through durban, that includes swazi, transkei and rooibaard. Anything that was grown in the kwazulu natal area would be mostly referred to as Durban Poison. So it’s a cultivar from that area. Some older guys around here spoke about good durban poison back in the early 80’s and one old timer said he smoke it back in the 60’s but it’s hard to know when the name came about.

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no i know what you mean. i apologize i did not mean all african cultivators i meant the ones you had mentioned as you were right. there was mis wording on my part.
that story was told by one of the old timers on here, not word for word. but posion was attached to things that were bad. durban is the port city in where the bud/strains moved in to. yes there were many strains im sure.
yes i agree it is like the big sur holy weed name. it was strains that were passed around back then at the big surf in cali. durban posion is just a name attached to weed.
haha its all good, cause its landrace sativa and the seed lineage is from the 70s.
it could be any of the cultivars i agree
i can only say what i know about the strain i have growing. all i know is it is pure sativa from africa with the durban posion name attached.

i am sure we will all get a nice lesson in what we know about durban posion or what we thought we knew i should say.
thanks again @anon98152597 i also have contacted Ed Rosenthal since his name is attached to the info about it in one of the links above.
im waiting for him to get back to me, but im also waiting for some of the old timers on here to chime in and tell us stories of the durban posion

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The History of Durban Poison and the Origins of Cannabis | Goldleaf (shopgoldleaf.com)

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i am trying to reach out to Ed since his name is involved with Durban Posion.
Yet it is to my understanding, that there were two types of cultivators one with a long flower time and the other with a much shorter time these were crossed out to make that happen.
My title of this grow log is 1973 Durban sativa.
so I will dig deep.
I have the time since i am growing these.

I can only state what i know. i can only believe what the breeder has said. i know that south Africa does not have a land race named durban posion but the name of where the strain was found,
if you do not know most modern durban posion have been cut with skunk and or others.
the goal of this run is to try to find out
more about the green pheno, and possibly get seed but more importantly
grow and document these the best i can so others can see and possibly enjoy them.

i will post more when i find out more as i think we will be educated more on the subject, and again ask for anyone to chime in.
if you know say and if you think you know, say. so have fun and lets here some theories
on what we think we know of the cultivator the Durban poison.

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The 4 best South African cannabis strains - gevaaalik.com

ok here is a link that these could be a possible “durban poison”
time will tell if the get there. for now we will continue to find the truth

Durban Poison is a popular landrace marijuana strain that originates from the city of Durban as far back as the 14th-century. Originally it was cultivated by the Khoikhoi and San community tribes. It has a sweet, fruity flavor and causes instant mental stimulation and blissful effects.

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merry Christmas and happy new year too

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thanks man, i wish the same for you.

Herculean work is being done to get to the origin of these beans and their genetics, I would like all the people who do preservation to be like you, really amazing man. :clap::clap::slightly_smiling_face:

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This is tropicals 70’s durban. Not my picture

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This is the one tlrt have, I think different to the one tropical have. It looks to have major hermi problems.

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That’s an advertisement for a local seedbank. Malawi gold isnt even an SA strain :rofl:

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no was using it to show the description of the durban mostly. but
the durban has to be one of the landraces you had mentioned,

i beleive that if these seeds are from that time in the 70s this type of durban perhaps was wild sativa at the time.
what do you know of wild sativa in that region?
oh and durban posion is not landrace sativa as they had said. did you read?

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Ah ok but the 16 to 25% thc is BS. No ways its that strong if its the pure thing.

One problem with being a stoner is not remembering where you read or saw stuff. There’s a couple of youtube vids on the history of cannabis in SA that has some good info on it but just cant find the damn thing.

Something that might help your searching is that the local slang for weed is dagga. Including that term might help you get some hits from local SA info sources

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yes i agree on the cant remember part.
we smoke too much or too little depending how we look at it
so what do you know abot the sativas
in the region we talked about?
im looking for flower time in around 16 weeks.
i say this because as i believe this durban poison could possibly one of those landraces
even wild sativa in the area?

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Who were the San and Khoikhoi?

Image result for Khoikhoi and San community tribes

The Khoikhoi brought a new way of life to South Africa and to the San, who were hunter-gatherers as opposed to herders. This led to misunderstandings and subsequent conflict between the two groups. The Khoikhoi were the first native people to come into contact with the Dutch settlers in the mid 17th century.
This name came up in my search as well
Kwa-Zulu Natal

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I’m situated lower down the coast near the Transkei area so more familiar with that strain and its looks. Once you have some plants going I can get some people to check out the pics and help confirm but its really hard to tell if its a pure line or not from looks alone.
While the gene pool has been muddied by outside strains most of the stuff being grown today looks similar to plants from local preservation runs. The shorter flowering Transkei that you get today looks exactly the same as a “pure” line from the 60s.

Another thing to keep in mind is that cannabis was brought to SA and cultivated for many years. It’s not really just growing wild in the bush. All the landraces from around here have been bred by humans. For sure some would sprung up in the wild but its not a “natural” growing plant here. If you throw some seeds in a field you wont have more than 2 or 3 seasons of it growing by itself.

Ultimately this would just be a snapshot of specific time period as local tribes have been documented in the early 1700s doing trades in cannabis seeds and traveling up to Swaziland to get buds from there.

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@anon98152597 perfect, we shall see if these are what they are, and it rules out the wild of any jsut being in the bush, have to ask since im doing this run.
i would like them to be as pure as pure as that is the reason i am finding things out of the area.
is there any highland type strains in the area?

time will tell when i get the pictures later.
thanks again for the info.

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