@nitt I’m sure Baudelaire will have a better answer, but as I understand it, Jim Ortega was the man who gave Nevil most of his Afghanica landraces, which have become the basis of a lot of the Dutch indicas. Nevil’s original Ortega is supposed to be one of those landraces. Nowadays Mr Nice sells either NL x NL or AfghanT x NL as Ortega, but that’s because Shanti split from Nevil and he said that the Ortega changed. This would be the old original one, brought back. So it’ll be a “kush” in the way that word was used before OG Kush came along, a strong, stinky, wild smelling Afghan indica. You had used Tuna Kush as a reference, Reeferman’s old Tuna Kush that circulated BC was exactly this kind of Hindu Kush heirloom.
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Checking in here! Learned of FDM from Og of course. Really dig the heirloom selections. Picked up the C99 mix as a great value. Glad to see that was a good choice! Going to be at least one of those when I start my winter run.
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C99 just seems to make heroic, vigorous hybrids, my Cindy Mix is beasting out compared to everything around it even mom Cindy. And the mom is a pretty fast and energetic grower herself
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Thanks for pointing that out! Those C99 and OG mixes look like some real potent smoke.
Edit: And $50 for a 2 pack of 25?! Get out of here! Ordered!
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I really like the cured buds from the OG mix, potency is about average but I also had a somewhat crowded and unpruned tent that run, so I think it’s a little on me. The flavors are great, though, I got two phenos, one more subdued, denser and maybe a little stronger, skunky OG smell, and then a looser one with some really incredible prehistoric musty funky sorta fermented lemon lime soda terps. Both real old school and interesting. Old heads light up at the smell of the lemony one. Nice daytime smoke, balanced and not a lung buster.
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That sounds amazing. I love the super funky smelling stuff so I’m looking forward to this.
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One thing I dig about the mixes is that I plant seeds and then cull a lot more freely knowing that they’re $1 apiece. I might put down six and keep one just based on vibes and it still costs the same as one $10 seed to grow them to mid veg or sexing.
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I like the logic and know that culling is the name of the game, but I’m really bad at letting go!
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Me too! I’m trying to practice and see if I make good choices with these so I feel better about doing it with more expensive seeds. Selection is truly the way
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Reeferman Was working on a red Congo line the same time Dr atomic was working on one then Dr Atomic just kind of up and vanished wish I knew what ever happened to him.He had a Dr atomic blueberry before he turned it into his Blueberry jam that was spectacular.I had a male out of that pack that was covered in resin glands.Smoked some of him just to see and caught a buzz off of it first time I ever seen anything like it and here we were back then chucking all those males to hurry up and harvest before we got caught.If I only knew back them
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@Dirt_Wizard 's got it just about right. Jim Ortega is an early cannabis pioneer from Oakland, California that traded with Nevil on the same trip to the US that Nevil made to acquire the Northern Lights strains in Seattle. Jim, who apparently was more of a collector than a breeder, passed several Afghani and Pakistani landrace strains to Nevil, including those later released by The Seedbank as Maple Leaf, Kush 4, and Garlic Bud.
Jim told Nevil the Maple Leaf was bred by a certain Maple Leaf Wilson, called maple leaf due to the fat leaflets characteristic of the strain. It’s been suggested that Maple Leaf Wilson was actually Jim, seeking to put some distance between his cultivation activities and his dealings with Nevil. Nevil later changed the name of the strain simply to Ortega.
Ortega became a foundational breeding strain for Nevil and later Sensi Seeds, which released at least two hybrids, Black Domina and Maple Leaf Indica, employing the strain. The strain is pure C. Sativa “Afghanica”, liberated from the Mazar-i-Sharif area of Afghanistan prior to the Soviet invasion in the early 90s.
In the late 90s some of Nevil’s original cache of Ortega seeds, stored in a freezer in Amsterdam, came into Ed Rosenthal’s hands, as payment on an old debt. Ed passed them on to Red at Legends Seedbank, who sent them on to me. Ed used them in a collab with Breeder Steve to produce what I believe was Spice of Life’s last hybrid release, Legends Ultimate Indica (LUI), which was Ortega x Sweet Tooth. Shantababa also received some of the same seedlot and crossed them with Northern Lights 1 to create a version of Ortega sold by Mr. Nice.
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Love these knowledge drops. Makes me wanna grow these strains that much more.
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Agreed, I love it when B comes in here and drops the provenance of his strains like that, laid out so clearly. It’s the thing (besides how long the guy has been in the game) that gives me confidence that these are the things I want to be getting that are the real link to the past, the continuity we’re all trying to untangle of genetics in the underground decades of the cannabis culture. We live in strange times for genetics and the industry, with corporatized legalization and also the shift to producing for concentrates, and I’m glad someone who knows all the old heads is putting the pieces together while there’s still time.
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Yeah wish more people were like this, not many willing to discuss their strain origins and be so transparent. But I been in this game long enough to know lot of people full of shit anyways lol.
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From the horse’s mouth (RIP), via Mr. Nice forum:
"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…
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."
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Same here, I’ve got the some c99 10 days in to flower and hungry for more!!!
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Too true, lots of talkers out there and not as many people quietly grinding for decades. That’s one thing I like about this site is finding out which breeders are the knowledgeable ones that respect both the people who came before them and their seed customers.
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Do you have any thoughts about the Ortega hybrids released by the Seed Bank under Ben Dronkers? Do you think he got the original Ortega when he bought Nevil’s genetic library? Sorry if this is a little off-topic and feel free to delete this post, I have just never gotten the real story on the Ortega indica and this is fascinating. The more I think about it, I can’t believe we haven’t seen the Ortega or Kush4 or other Jim O. strains released, do you think they’ve just always been coveted and held close as breeders?
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The Seedbank Originals was the commercial name used by Legends to sell its Ortega lines. Red sent samples of the full line to me prior to launching in hopes I’d promote the release of it and a line of mostly outdoor varieties bred by Rosenthal.
As far as I know, Ben Dronkers picked up the Jim Ortega mothers and seed stock when he bought out Nevil in the early 90s. It’s presumed that’s where their Maple Leaf Indica, Black Domina, and Shiva Shanti strains came from, but the Dronkers have always held info on their genetic sources very close to the vest.
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Thank you, great answer as always
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