Thanks for asking. Without derailing the thread, my comment was more about the elites not being very special rather than any specific comment about FJ. So far I’ve flowered and sampled his:
Chem D
Chem 91 (Skunk VA)
Giesel
Skunktek Sour Diesel
Triangle Kush
Bubba (Orgnkid)
And currently flowering but haven’t sampled his:
Tahoe
Legend
Irene
SR-71
Out of that first list, the only two I thought lived up to the hype were the TK and Chem 91, neither of which I grew particularly well. The Bubba is reminiscent of all the things you hear about Bubba, except that FJ’s cut actually isn’t very slow in veg - it’s just not very potent. You can read my comments about the Chem D here: Chem D Discussion - #985 by nube and also see a lot of pics of my two grows of it in that same thread. Giesel was mediocre smoke though beautiful and super small buds in flower, and Bunktek had neither sour nor loud anything and basically zero effects (for me and some others who tried it).
Tahoe is looking great and is a very resilient, low maintenance, easy to grow plant. Legend is an outstanding plant so far, very vigorous and very productive in flower, but I can’t say how it smokes. To me it looks like a cross of an OG and Chem91skva that is greater than the sum of its parts. SR-71 has me scratching my head wondering why anyone would keep this plant: it’s not vigorous, it has terrible flowering characteristics, has almost no smell, but maybe the smoke is incredible? We’ll see.
See above! It’s also always possible I didn’t grow them well, or they didn’t like my environment, or they just don’t work for my endocannabinoid system. However, what I’ve mentioned above is mostly echoed by friends who have also grown the same cuts or tried my flower.
My takeaway is that it’s good to get a baseline education for what these old hype strains bring to the table so you know what you like and dislike and can guide your seed popping in the future. But, just like big fish stories, these elite’s reputations may have been artificially inflated over time. I’ve found significantly better representations of what these cuts bring to the table in freebie packs of bodhi seeds; some were enjoyable to me and some were not. I never felt like most of those seed plants were elite. Had I known they had similar desirable attributes people wanted, I would have kept and shared cuts.
But what I’m learning by trying these clones is that truly remarkable smoke can be found in lots of places, and you don’t need to spend a lot of money or chase the so-called “elites” to do it. Just plant more seeds.
