Yea its an import from south east Asia but has been there long enough to start to develop a character of its own,
Likely introduced during the war and possibly from Australians ,
Some hemp prior to that but not sure the recreational stuff is from the hemp and more likely the stuff introduced during the war…
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I think @wallyduck is right. I was told png is a 1950’s Thai transplant. Re reading this thread I think I’d better grow some of these out ASAP. I had the seeds out for this moon cycle, but the Congo trip has got me so excited so i dunked Congo instead. This PNG, along with Kashmir, is what brought me to Overgrow. I remember thinking how cool it was that such rare seeds were being gifted. I wanted in on the action.
@Azure I’m getting into those PNG seeds you gave me this summer. I can’t get the picture of the buds from your auto plant out of my head. Anyone growing these plants now?
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After growing a few " auto" Sativas, I’m getting a better grasp of what makes them tick. It’s a theory of mine that autoflower Tropicals decend from Indicas, in whole or in part. The auto trait is the last remnant of the Indica introduction. I think indicas evolving in the tropics pass through different phases.
- plants flower right from birth and grow into short Indica pole plants. Massive mold issues.
Plants not at all acclimated - plants flower from birth and extend flowering a couple weeks, petioles extend, some limited branching occurs, less mold occurs, slightly acclimated
3)plants flower from birth, flowering term extends and becomes commensurate with latitude. Branches lengthen even more, petioles fully extend to carry leaves away from the main stem to improve airflow, plants stop molding. At this point, the only clue left that there is any Indica involved, is the autoflower trait. Plants almost entirely acclimated - plants lose the auto trait and become indistinguishable from other Sativas. They are now fully acclimated
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auto traits come from ruderalis,
not indica , indica plants are photo period plants the same as sativa ,
but their trigger to flower is faster , as is the flowering period too ,
they can also continue to flower when sativas are wanting to reveg …
i guess the auto trait is a reaction to the day lengths in the area they grow …
in yunnan , china , according to some who have traveled there ,
there are plants that resemble indica , like seen in afghanistan ,
and sativa plants , like seen in thailand ,
it is thought this may be one of the original places for cannabis ,
perhaps people traveling from these places took both types ,
and settled on the ones that suited the climate best ,
ie narrow leaf , long flowering in the tropical places ,
and broad leaf , shorter flowering in more temperate places ,
im sure the plants will have acclimatized to their new climates in time also …
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They definitely resemble a lot of the SE Asian Sativa in their growth habits, and in a patch it’s hard to tell the difference during veg, different smells and smoke though, probably because as @wallyduck says it’s been in png/australia to develop it’s own characteristics.
I have done a lot of outdoor growing about 30 mins from where Wally lives, and I agree about the distinction between heavy pre flowering and full bud formation. I’ve seen plants throw lots of pistils right through veg, but not flower completely until they get the shorter days. Having said that the difference between a short and long day at our location is only 2 hrs, and most plants will flower at any time of year; anything broad leaf is basically useless, because they behave like an auto, they grow to maturity and flower and you get a bud on a stick, whereas the sativa are a lot larger btt they reach maturity. I can imagine that a plant that has developed over a long enough period at the equator may develop an alternative trigger for flowering, either that or the much longer maturity time gives them sufficient time to get to a large size.
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If I can go off topic for a minute. @wallyduck or @slain have either of you ever seen a “Mullumbimby Maddness” plant. What are your thoughts about that strain. Do you think it still exists in its “true” form.
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I think we both have seen it in its various guises lol. @wallyduck I believe knows Kangativa, who was/is by all accounts the expert of growing and keeping MM.
I was given some seeds on the mid north coast, about an hour south of Mullumbimby that are supposed to be a mix of MM and another heirloom called Old Mother, but I can’t verify beyond the claims from the source and I have yet to grow them out to see. So many seeds, so little time. lol. I gotta say though that there was a lot of similar tree sized Sativa of SE Asia origin back in the day and I think MM became a bit of a marketing label and people just started calling whatever MM, so actually getting the real deal is hard to verify.
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i think it was grown up here at some point as a town at the top of the range , Kuranda ,
a few folks there seem to go from mullum way back to kuranda a lot back in the day ,
so maybe some of us had it without even knowing ,
id agree with slain it did become a bit of a marketing ploy and a lof of stuff that was labelled that may not have actually been that …
i have some seed labelled mm in my stash but i forgot who i got them off to ask about sources ,
eventually ill get to growing them …
when some of the imports arrived and were grown first time or two here , i think they outdid the results of where they hailed from , we get a pretty good look at the sun this side of the equator given the larger bulged on the bottom of the globe , that and just a new climate etc seemed to be something the plants loved ,
a lot of south east asian stuff grew here back then and was likely as good or perhaps even better than where it came from originally …
its unknown exactly what mm was , but many say a cross of colombian and thai/laos is likely …
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Hey @wallyduck @slain . I have heard some stories about the “Old Mother” plant. I would be VERY interested to hear anything you could tell me about it. I find information about these legendary plants to be very facinating ! 
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Is this what you meant,
The Earth is nearer the sun when it is summer in the southern hemisphere and winter in the northern hemisphere.
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Hey man, Old Mother is a large Thai/SE Asian heirloom that has been floating around in oz since the 70’s, I’ve heard that it originated from seeds from the mafia grown weed around Griffith NSW,
but I’ve also heard it was from the original Thai sticks and then grown by hippies for decades, which is feasible also, that’s probably how MM came about too. The ones that I’ve seen that are purported to be OM have been monster plants, like over 15 feet, with pretty typical SE Asian growth, super branchy but with darker smaller leaves than a lot of SE Sativa can get.
Plants like OM have sadly sort of gone out of fashion on the North Coast because of coppers in choppers 
they are hard to hide!
I have some seeds that given to me that are supposed to be OM, but you know how it goes, who really knows? You have reminded me that I should see if I can hatch them and see what they do!
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The elliptical orbit of the Earth places the Southern Hemisphere closer to the sun during its summer months than the Northern Hemisphere during its summer . This means that the summer sun in Australia is 7 to 10 percent stronger than similar latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere.
Also our Far North is within 15 degrees or less of the equator so the sun is even more intense in summer, in the states you have to get nearly to Cuba before you will find a similar latitude.
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I wonder if surface area of land is less and more water in Southern compensate for this difference
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We don’t get the super cold winter like the northern hemisphere because we are surrounded by ocean, so that separates and isolates us from the worst of the Antarctic climate, also Oz is almost the size of the US in landmass terms. We get everything here, from full on tropical rainforest climate up north to cool alpine forests in Tasmania and tens of thousands of square kilometers of barren desert in the middle. Up near where @wallyduck is, because of the altitude it’s cooler than the coast, but the sun is fierce. It’s super easy to get burnt to a crisp without realizing because you don’t necessarily feel hot. Plants love it lol.
Edit: I see what you mean, less landmass in general. A bit slow soz.
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Oz – Australia!? Soz= South Australia
Yes you fill in the gaps and makes more sense when you say it.
I bet if you where in a situation where close to equator it would feel cool like you say but if you put a metal wrench out in sun which one gets more hot? One at 2000 m or one at 200 m elevation? Vapor pressures would be different also?
Thinking cooler temperatures at higher elevation would effect how the plant behaves but do they seem to get lighter or darker?
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if you live in the tropics ,
the best place seems to be at altitude ,
the cooler nights are so refreshing , compared to the coast where its hot and humid all day and all night , this is something im sure you agree with mate …
the one thing i would change would be the proximity to the coast ,
we get drizzle from south easterlies which hampers our cannabis hobby …
when i was a kid , and suntans were more popular ,
it was said the tan one would get up here in the mountains ,
was different to the coastal tan ,
it was a deeper brown color and lasted longer ,
apparently the coastal tan would just wash off after a few showers …
folks on the coast always looked forward to receiving our produce/harvest ,
it had a repuation for being better than the stuff grown on the coast ,
maybe the cool nights , the extra bit of uv , the combo of those , what ever it was ,
it was appreciated …
when my parents moved from png ,
they moved to where i live now ,
according to them it was the closest in climate etc ,
this is supported by the fact there are some animals that live here that are only found otherwise in png too …
i appreciate your posts mate , they are informed and always accurate and detailed …
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Possibly this is true, the sun is more intense in all wavelengths so you would expect the infra red to heat the object more than at lower altitudes and further away from the equator. The closest I’ve been to our climate here is when I went to Florida; it’s not unlike SE Queensland near where I live, but it doesn’t seem to matter where I travel overseas the sky is a different shade of blue and the sun isn’t as intense as here. Everything is just a bit different down here, lol.
Well the altitude we are talking about is only about 3000 feet, so it’s about 5 degrees cooler than if you were on the coast, and it’s wet, like up to 20 feet of rain in a year in some parts, because it’s elevated and close to the coast, the southern trade winds hit the mountains and it rains, one part I lived for a while gets on average more than 200 wet days a year!! So it’s a kind of micro climate location, for example, I lived about 30 mins from @wallyduck but where I was it is all cloud rainforest and yet halfway to wallys it clears up and the country is drier gum trees and no rainforest. So the local seeds i collected in my area have the most amazing rot tolerance because of this, if they didn’t they wouldn’t survive.
Interestingly seeds from here that I have given to people stateside have shown themselves to be very cold tolerant as well. which is not what I would have expected given even in the depths of winter it does get below 15C.
The plants outdoors here can get truly massive, we fortunate to be blessed with some of the best growing climate on the planet, if only our draconian weed laws were sensible things would be perfect.
Oz = Australia
Soz = sorry. I was apologizing for only half grasping what you were saying. Have a good one!
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I understand what you mean by “draconian laws”. Years ago an older buddy of mine had a polariod picture of a 15-20 foot plant that he grew in the 1970s. This thing was HUGE. It looked a lot like Kangativa’s MM. Anyway, the cops raided his house because he was dealing from there. Luckily they did not find any pot but the search turned up that polaroid picture. He got 6 months in jail for a picture of a plant that had been gone for 30 + years. 
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Yeah, back in the dark old days having any pics was always just too risky. It’s better today but we still have helicopter search and destroy operations every year and growing is still a hazardous exercise. legalization is coming here but it’s just painfully slow.
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