Spoke to Todd about the Durban he’s pushing last week. I have many of the same concerns expressed here, and Todd did little to allay them. He claimed that the Durban was made (I say made not bred) by Frank, but is not the same as Frank’s A or B lines. It was “acquired” from Holland. And that’s about all he could say. Couldn’t give a bloom period, or terpene profile description, or a generational description (F1, IBL, etc.)
Hate to say it, but it all came off as another HT huckster shucking bullshit to the stoner masses. All from that wonderfully authentic center of cannabis culture, Beverly Hills, Calif.
There’s still a couple of private breeders working the originaI Rosenthal/Frank lines. Mendel and Big Sur come to mind. But I think for most folks looking for 70-80s style Durban, its best to go back to source lines offered by Ace, Cannabiogen and Tropical Seeds, and work your own line. Or get the Dutch Passion version of DP and accept the fact that it has some skunk in it but still reflects many Durban qualities. -b420
$20 a seed? That was the price of a lid back in the early 1970s. And those lids were full of free genetics. Viable landrace seeds from Mexico, Colombia and SE Asia. Toddy McFraudy… what a shyster. Were that I had a lid of old skunk weed now. A lot of it was seedless. There were always seeds in some lots of local grown weed when a male was left in the grow plot. Or one of them hermed after the males were culled. People did not know much about herms or genetics back then. No one really cared if there were a few seeds in a bag of weed either. Seeds were free and they usually got tossed out with the stems!
I know this isn’t really a spot for this question but do any of you pro genetics guys know what strain is grown in Jamaica and bricked up? I buy the occasional bit of “yardie” weed which is block weed imported from Jamaica but they just call it high grade weed. An I’ll be honest I always used to think high grade my backside but I’m growing out one of those bagseeds(it went fem) and the buds look so frosty has a lovely smell but I obviously don’t wanna keep throwing bagseed in hoping they come out fine thanks
Educated guess but I think its brick weed because of how its treated after harvest, Im sure your seeds will grow FIRE and with proper drying and curing, you will have modern day looking bag appeal as well.
Oh 100% man it’s looking real nice an juicy smells far better than what I buy the stuff isn’t bad in brick form so having unsquashed weed with like you say a proper cure the flavour and everything should be amazing.
Yes Brick Weed traditionally was the best way for smuggling mass amounts into the states and elsewhere. 85% of the genetics I grew early in life were from bricks ranging from Oaxacan to the Brazilian and more. When it was good, those seeds were often like 10x more potent when fully grown out to maturity - problem was most were equatorial types that flowered for months on end and required intensive lighting indoors where they could finish…
Everything changed in this around the early 90’s and throughout this decade due to the massive hybridization with the wide leaf types that took place all over the world, especially in Mexico due to cartel demands for higher productivity and profitability. Those small farmers by mass lost heirloom stock in this mix up even though they may have gained a little more change due to the increasing yields and ability to grow more than just a seasonal crop. And this led to the bricks of hybrids and a really interesting time for the grower that struck these new seeds unlike the typical tiny seeds we had became accustom with in the imported bricks. Sadly the majority were crushed due to impact, more so than with the traditional unhybridized types and the typical bb size seeds. But the survivors, well I have yet to see consistency in the hybrids of even the worked lines today, but those old bricks of hybrid from the early 90’s were true hybrids from true breeding stock which will be very hard to find in any import in this day and age. Jamaica has plenty of infused fields and the hippies there brought more than just the wide leaf types…
Blessings to you and your journey into the unknown…
For the most part I would say no, but the Hippy Slayer I was running and bred with do produce some very foul skunky plants. I also just picked up a new cut from Bodhi he calls American Super Skunk, which I don’t recall the background info on but the cut it’s self is hands down skunk smelling and puts off more smell in veg then some plants do being finished. Can’t wait to get that one to the flower room to see what happens. [I’ll get info later as to the exact parentage]
I wouldn’t say the breeders of Skunk are unknown, in fact my brother Duke Diamond has all sorts of stories to share from Skunks home land of Virginia and those roots go way back in his family. There are those that also claim it came from PA, but we know better where it started. I will credit PA for at one time having some of the best Skunk grown outdoors, but we are talking pre 80s, and that shit has been gone for ages.
As for Northern Lights, I remember the first time I smoked/heard of it was in the Triangle area in 79 when I moved there which was a few years prior to it being released by Nevil at the first company. There is no question as to whom or I should say what area it came from, and it certainly was not the Dutch. That said I’ve not seen too many over there trying to take claim at least not back in those days and I just don’t follow the hype train that is today’s market.
Don’t get me wrong, I had/have mad respect for Everything Nevil added to the history of cannabis. He was certainly in my eyes the true pioneer and put it all out there on front street for everyone to see, and OMG when we were able to order his genetics through High Times back in the early 80’s it was a game changer. Back in those days unless you were connected by family you weren’t growing the killer Indicas which we as indoor growers love so much today.
While credit is also being given lets not all forget what Jack Herer did to help revive Sensi while Nevil was there in the 90’s. More gifts from Cali but Sensi’s name is all over it. I bet most here have no clue the history those two made together and the collaborating those two did.
I feel ya. I have every single Skunk and Skunk cross that Nevil made, Sensi had, Mr Nice currently has and no one I have tried to date produces what I would call Skunk. Oh it’s in there for sure and in some of the crosses you get that “Old School” flavor but the shit we had back in the 70/80’s isn’t what it was in there genetics.
Bodhi in my eyes right now has some of the closest things I have seen to old school skunks, but it’s been ages since we took a lot of time to sit down and discuss his work in that direction. For sure one of the busiest guy’s I know and one thing I think we can both agree on is it needs to make an appearance again. I’ll throw Duke in there as well and while I have not tried his Dominion Skunk, I know he is pretty happy with it.
Couldn’t agree more. The Durban I got from Spain a few years ago is for sure the real deal plant and it breeds very true. I crossed it to 7 strains and all but one were absolutely dominated by Durban but only in the terpens. Structure barley touched and finishing times may have changed 7 days on the sativa leaners…
I’d recommend searching for the Strain Hunters addition of Jamica trip. Lots of useful and un-useful info there depending on what side of the Arjon fence you’re on.
Bodhis RKS has a great deal more skunk in it then anything else I have grown labeled as Skunk. It’s a little piece of the bigger picture and if memory serves it was kept and grown in Sterling Washington area for several decades while continuously being open pollenated.
I have grown a few crosses with this and that Skunk 91 was the best of them all imho. I think it just may be a sign that I should get the last of the F2’s out for another generation and possibly some crosses too, maybe with this hippy slayer I have…
That reminds me of something I have forgotten in the past few years. Appalachian Skunk. I think it was from the PA/VA/WV/MD border area. Met a guy from Harrisburg, PA that had some good Appalachian skunk weed about a decade ago now. He was supposed to trade me some old beans from there from the early 80s. I lost contact with him and it never happened. Funny how skunk popped up all over the place. No one person could have developed all those strains in all those places. Northern California, Central California, Southern California, the PNW, Europe, and the Appalachian area. Biker weed, Hippie weed, Hillbilly weed, Lawyer weed, Swiss weed, Dutch weed.
I think the smell made it go extinct. It was a give away if you were growing it. For the cops or to thieves. Or if you had any of that stuff on you. Again to the cops, or to your friends that wanted to smoke it. Or at a bar where they all followed you outside and waited for you to twist one up to share. That actually happened to me more than once.
As with Haze, I’ve always subscribed to the “many fathers” theory of Skunk. It was more a breeding innovation than a strain. If you “skunked” a central American sativa with an Afghani indica, you got a more potent, 2-3x higher yielding strain that stunk of skunk. It allowed high quality weed to be reliably produced outside in 70% of the US for the first time, and created the possibility of indoor weed anywhere. Californians may have been among the first to try it and popularize it, but I have no doubt that the idea of whacking Mexi and Colombo bagseed with afi and making bank next November spread much faster than Nevil’s Skunk #1.
On that tangent, do you recall some of the early surprises like that in your breeding journey? @Baudelaire? I’ve only begun & the variation of parental trait dominance is what we’d expect from using a bunch of today’s polyhybrids, & coincidentally a DurbanP cut from a Sonoma dispensary. These chucks are still unharvested so there’ll be more surprises for me in the fall. [rubbing hands, no jesus]
Surprises come all the time. Hence the necessity of progeny testing. You think you are breeding with two parents, but just as often you are breeding with their grandparents.
I breed dogs also… and when I add new blood…i look at a males grand and great grands…cause when I breed to the male…pups tend to turnout like the g rands, great granddad…ect.
I’m still surprised all the time, and there are no real rules which is what keeps my interest peaked.Every time you think you know what’s going to happen it won’t.
Some of my best Bulldogs are exact duplicates of champion winning great grandparents…And these are mixed lines with Champion pedigrees on both sides…This is commonly seen in family lines of people too…
I have a plant that i grew out recently which I’d forgotten the strain name, but i smell AND taste skunk ( iv only smoked a couple of sample buds so far.but im pretty sure it was a/the skunk 91’ f2 from the preservation run.
Had to take it at about 60 days but it would’ve went another 10 days/2 wks ( took early to prevent mould.) and fresh froze the fat cola’s for some reason lol - jk.
Naw im gonna try making some hash with it and some trim…
The skunk taste is a nice change these days.
Good luck with hunting for a good skunk guys.
Here’s a screenshot from the catalog for reference. It sounds like all of the crosses are:
[Elite Clone Only] x (Nevile’s Haze x Original Haze)
A buddy has been looking for skunk so I pointed him toward this drop. Todd sent 5 ON Haze Mix freebies with the order, which my buddy gave to me. I figure they’re a total crap-shoot but I’d be happy to do a grow log on them if anyone is interested.
How does Mel Frank figure into all of this again? I imagine the Original Haze comes from Sam, and the Nevile’s Haze is probably via Mr. Nice. What’s Mel’s contribution?
thanks 
the stuff isn’t bad in brick form so having unsquashed weed with like you say a proper cure the flavour and everything should be amazing.
Especially the terpene part. 
[rubbing hands, no jesus]
