Canadian Romulan vs American Romulan

[CanadaDank]

After much research and talking to the right people, it would seem the commonly agreed story of the history of Romulan is incorrect for two main reasons.
First Reason:
The story goes that Mendo Joe bred Romulan and eventually moved to Vancouver Island where he switched names where he went by the name Romulan Joe. This can not be correct. The biggest reason for this is Mendo Joe was an older dude who was part of Sacred Seeds and was breeding Skunk and Rom in the late 70’s. Let’s pretend he was 20 when he was doing this breeding (he was probably older as he was a gifted breeder who prob had a fair bit of experience at that point with the plant). If he was 20 in 1979 when Romulan was bred (I’ve also read 1971 but I tend to agree with 79) then he would be 58 years old. This is a lowball.
The real Romulan Joe is a young guy, prob in his late 30’s to early 40’s. My friend met Rom Joe through Mark Emery in the 2000’s I believe and he said him and Rom Joe were around the same age. My friend is in his late 30’s to early 40’s although I forget the exact year. The ages of those two Joes are at least 20 years apart, but prob closer to 30. I know Vancouver Island is a nice place but you don’t lose 20-30 years when you move there! I have also heard rumour that Mendo Joe is dead although I haven’t been able to confirm that. Rom Joe is definitely alive and well though. The age gap between these two guys is the first reason.
Second Reason:
I have a group of buddies throughout Canada and we all chat together quite frequently. We are the only group I know of that has both the original Canadian Romulan cut (the one Reeferman, TGA Subcool and Mark Emery hold) as well as the original American cut. From seeing them both and hearing about their terp profiles, it would appear almost for sure that they are different plants. The Canadian Romulan has very skinny leaves and grows little tiny buds while the American does have somewhat skinny leaves it grows more like an Afghani with fatter buds. I think the biggest differentiation is in the terp profile.
Folks say the Mendo Joe Romulan smells like blueberries and pineapple amongst other things; the Romulan Joe Romulan is said to be more spicy and peppery without those fruity notes the American is known for. This is the second reason.
Friends of mine will be doing a side by side grow of both plants to see once and for all whether they are the same or different. Based on the above info I fully expect them to be different but the proof is in the pudding. When that has happened I will report back with side by side grow shots to show the necessary proof as well as reviews of each one.
If anyone has an opinion on this matter I would be very interested in hearing it, especially any current information about Mendo Joe’s whereabouts.
If you agree or disagree, that’s cool. Let’s just try to keep things civil because I’ve seen people get pretty pissed off when their version of events comes into question regarding big name cuts like these.

 

[Limeygreen]

I recall hearing awhile back that there were two romulans in Canada, not sure if this relates to American and Canadian, one is the peppery one you speak of and the other is grape romulan. If memory serves me right Reeferman had grape romulan as well, but I cannot recall about the pepper romulan. Since his forums aren't around I have to try and remember from memory what was said so I could be way off, but I believe the grape romulan was more indica in effect vs the peppery more sativa in effect, I've only had the pepper romulan in the mid-late 2000's and I found it to be body can get stuck but not couchlock, mind goes but very stony and easy to get lost in thoughts forgetting what is going on or talking about.

 

[CanadaDank]

I recall hearing awhile back that there were two romulans in Canada, not sure if this relates to American and Canadian, one is the peppery one you speak of and the other is grape romulan. If memory serves me right Reeferman had grape romulan as well, but I cannot recall about the pepper romulan. Since his forums aren't around I have to try and remember from memory what was said so I could be way off, but I believe the grape romulan was more indica in effect vs the peppery more sativa in effect, I've only had the pepper romulan in the mid-late 2000's and I found it to be body can get stuck but not couchlock, mind goes but very stony and easy to get lost in thoughts forgetting what is going on or talking about.

Nice man! The grapey one is indeed a Reeferman cross, Grape Romulan. Neither of those are related to the American Romulan tho. It would seem Grape Romulan is what OG Raskalbred with to make White Romulan although I can’t verify that.

 

[Mikell]

Nice place? Nice?

"Oh, she was a 'nice' girl, we just didn't jive."

I'll remember that.

Poked a few people, maybe they'll chime in. I have no idea personally, not much of a head for lore.

 

[CanadaDank]

I'd say the real thing to consider with romulan is federation, and next generations seed version.

How can you sort or verify anything that hasn't been seen in decades. I've been trolling internet cannabis forms since the early 2000s I've never seen anyone show the real deal romulan, same goes for g13. I have never seen a verified image of g13.

Because the right people have verified them. Both cuts are very legit.

 

[CanadaDank]

Nice place? Nice?

"Oh, she was a 'nice' girl, we just didn't jive."

I'll remember that.

Poked a few people, maybe they'll chime in. I have no idea personally, not much of a head for lore.

Lol
Yeah he’s already gotten a hold of me. A couple things I got wrong that he corrected me on.
1. Marc Emery does grow or hold cuts.
2. Reeferman never had the real Romulan cutting. Must be some Federation version. Who knows.

He also wanted me to post this link from cworld that should help clear some stuff up.

https://cannabisworld.com/index.php?topic=17203.0

 

[CanadaDank]

Man I wish you could edit posts on here. Mark Emery DOESN’T grow or hold cuts.

 

[Mikell]

I think you can edit now that you've made 50 posts.

I think the only thing Emery is concerned with holding on to is his property.

 

[CanadaDank]

These are screenshots from the link I posted a couple posts back.

 

[meizzwang]

I think most of these strains are becoming nothing more than folklore at this point.

Long time ago, I crossed a verified cut of romulan with an ibl of shiva northern lights and the offspring were all over the place, none of which were equally as nice as either parents. This doesn't mean others haven't bred nice hybrids using romulan, just my own experience....

Due to the instability of the offspring, the real deal Romulan might be an F1 polyhybrid, so it could very well be challenging to stabilize the line in seed form.

 

[CanadaDank]

Long time ago, I crossed a verified cut of romulan with an ibl of shiva northern lights and the offspring were all over the place, none of which were equally as nice as either parents. This doesn't mean others haven't bred nice hybrids using romulan, just my own experience....

Due to the instability of the offspring, the real deal Romulan might be an F1 polyhybrid, so it could very well be challenging to stabilize the line in seed form.

Nice man! Did you get it from the US or from Canada?
I’d definitely be interested to know what’s in both of them.

 

[mazar_man]

That whole Mendo Joe = romulan story was part of a big hoax post posted by nom de fleur way back in the early internet days.. All or at least most was widely accepted at yhe time to be total fairy tale bs. Unfortunately pieces of it now get quoted as fact.

 

[mazar_man]

there was no american romulan, it was developed on vancouver island and romulan was not even it’s name until late nineties, pretty sure it was called port alberni pine bud prior to it getting taken to Hemp BC. Imo any “US version is would be progeny from the many romulan seeds from Federation that crossed the border

 

[CanadaDank]

That whole Mendo Joe = romulan story was part of a big hoax post posted by nom de fleur way back in the early internet days.. All or at least most was widely accepted at yhe time to be total fairy tale bs. Unfortunately pieces of it now get quoted as fact.

Where did he first post that info? OG? I agree it’s a bs story.

 

[CanadaDank]

there was no american romulan, it was developed on vancouver island and romulan was not even it’s name until late nineties, pretty sure it was called port alberni pine bud prior to it getting taken to Hemp BC. Imo any “US version is would be progeny from the many romulan seeds from Federation that crossed the border

This is really good info!! Thank you for that post!

 

[mazar_man]

OG or CW is where I believe this was first posted. Actually consider it one of the best posts ever even if it is most/all bs. Great read and you gotta hand it to the guy.. whover wrote it really knew his canna history cuz there is little pieces of obscure truthhoods throughout.

I post this only in the name of great fiction and calling out bs:


Skunk#1 was the result of a communal breeding effort by a small clique of breeders who worked the coastal hills surounding the Bay Area. The first "skunk" plant (C.Gold x AFG unstable) was not discovered by this group but Jingles who cut the unstable line but kept this one special plant for his personal garden. This was around '69 or so. anyway, the clone made its way round the club and soon this Bay Area group decided to adopt it as a project.
With the C.Gold mom used by Jingles as well as the Haze Bros they set about trying to create a stable version of Jingles "skunk". The result would be known as Skunk#1. Columbian Gold x Acapulco Gold/Afgani There are better people around here to tell you the exact details, not the least whom is Sam_Skunkman over @ TFD. Yes it's him.

My understanding of the SK#1 breeding group is that it started very small and grew as time went by. SkMan starting out as a Jr grower in the late 60's and rising to the level of chief breeder and seedmaker for the seed co.
in the late 70's/early 80's. It was supposed to have been very difficult to join this group and a prospect would first have to be sponsered by a member of the inner circle then be required to breed out a certain number of versions of Sk#1 from both clones provided by the club as well as genetics they provided themselves. This way they assured quality control and widened the gene pool at the same time. The original unstable "model skunk"plant was a direct cross of C.Gold x Afg. But the Bay Area people soon found out how difficult it was going to be to cross a C.Gold to anything. So it was found that it was easier to cross these difficult plants to a plant that was already hybribized. Hence the Introduction of A.Gold into the mix. This also apparently added two other favorable traits. In addition to making crosses easier, high GCA has been stated by Clark as one of the goals of the breeders, the A.Gold also marginaly reduced flower time but most importent was its addition to calyx/leaf ratio. If you turn to P 248 of Mels Dlx you will find a pic of four mexican colas. Notice the two shots on the bottom are taken against the backround of Sandy W's barn. I'm almost 100% sure the plant on the lower right is A.Gold and about 90% that it's the primary A.Gold mom in Sk#1. Notice the foxtail style buds and hi C/L. Now imagine this crossed to an afgani, starting to get the picture? By the way most but not all of the Afganis were from MLW.

As i said earlier most of the Sacred Seeds breeding groups suffered disasters of one sort or another in the early days and in the case of Sk#1 it was the dreaded botritis cinerea, grey mold. Introduced by some of the early afgani crosses it kicked of a massive afgan genetics hunt/torture test. And while the late great Maple Leaf Wilson provided most of the genes they scowered every nook and cranny for an Afgani ;0. Many non Skunk#1 members of the Sacred Seeds who were also working on their own projects got involved.
I already spoke about Sandy W's involment and there were apparently others though the only one I am reasonably sure of was an East Bay biker/Vietnam Vet who went by the handle "Mendacino Joe", who as you can probably guess by his name he was supposed to have been one of the founders of the Trinity grow scene. Joe was working on a grape/pepper flavored mostly afgani hybrid not related to Sk#1, but he had a large collection of genetics and was a good grower and so he was included in the torture tests. The ultimate result of these tests was a special line called Skunk#18.2 (Sk#1 x Afg bx-1). It is a line that inparts incredible hardiness and pest/disease resistance on its offspring.

The Skunkman brought several kilos of these seeds with him along with his other stuff when he moved to holland in '82 in the wake of his release from prison.As far as I know he has only given these seeds to Nevil, Shanti, and Wernhard from Positronics. (ever wonder why Shiva Skunk {NL#5 x SK#1) is so resistant to spider mites?) In the wake of the Sacred Seeds bust in '82, "Mendacino Joe" moved to the Vancouver islands and changing his handle to "Romulan" Joe bringing with him some early Sk#1s or deriviteves, a line of Central Ithsmus lowland Thai that may have been purchased from the Haze Bros and of course his grape/pepper flovored indica strain, Romulan. Soon to
be a BC classic. It was these lines that Pr. Ziggy @ Federation seeds in BC was supposed to have purchased from old Joe shorly before his death, and are offered as Island Sweet Skunk, Golden Triangle Thai, and Romulan. Torture tests and "inoculations" were mostly done outdoors with special patches of extra clones in an isolated area, which were then diliberatly infected. Deseased and pest riddled local plants would be transplanted into these special gardens and then the plants were tested to destruction while the growers watched and made note of the strongest individauls. Sacred Seeds was all about division of labor.It's one of the ways they accomplished so much in so little time and they used natural selection to work in their favor. Skunk#1 first went on sale in '78 or '79. As far as I know it was the only strain that Sacred Seeds didn't give a discount on orders over 1k seeds. Seeds were 2$ a peice and people bitched about prices even back then. Especialy that no discount thing But like the Hazes (which could sellout a year ahead) SK#1 sold out every year. The seeds were sold as F1's made if I recall with a F ? fillial plant backcrossed to one of the original parents. Due to the communal nature of the project,there were many parents as each breeder included his own varietion, Skunk#1s bred from the same P1 stock but often getting to the goal a different way, for instance some variations used C.Gold on the male side. With tight control over the P1s the breeders could assure their stated goal of making true breeding stock but with the widest possible gene pool they could also be sure to achieve both high SCA and GCA. also stated goals of the project.

Now I can tell you from personal experience that exactly what constituted a "skunk" was a matter of just a little debate but they basically came down into camps which actually carried forward into the Dutch world. The "Sweet Skunk" camp, which including the SkMan, and the "Stinky Skunk" camp. In terms of modern Sk#1 the CC/TFD Skunkman bred "the Pure" is bred for more consistant plants and towards the SkMans ideal Sk#1. While the stinky side of the house would be best represented by the SeedBank/Mr Nice skunks which also have more variation in types like the earlier California skunks. I must state here that there is no right answer, its a matter of taste and a debate thats been going for on about 30 years. In '82 I came home one night and turned on the TV. Just as they went to commercial the news bimbo teased the story, "comin right up after this" police official say they got the source of the skunk. Yeah right I thought, we'd heard these claims before, always to be followed by shot of some deputies pulling three scragly plants from some poor sucker's patch. This time it was different, this time they were standing in front of a warehouse.

Sacred Seeds was busted in '82. The Skunkman was arrested and the cops were in possetion of the groups main seedmaking op. But this bunch was savey and had pre-paid bailbonds/lawyers on retainer and so SkMan was out in a matter of hours. And so began one of the greatest capers in Sacred Seeds history.

An event I will call "the great rootball rescue". Skunkman, out on bail and eager to find out the condition of his grow rooms stakes out the grow to make sure the cops aren't waiting there for him. After sitting for hours he finally gets over his paranoia and makes a cursery recon and can't believe what he finds, the cops in either there arrogance or ignorance have left the place secured with only police tape. checking the grow as well as the dumpster out back the found many plants cut well above the the first node and some that had been simply pulled from their containers and tossed whole. the dumpster was also full of seeds and it was obvious that the cops had broken many seed containers but because there were so many eventually just started throwing jars out whole. the cops had left all the stuff there until morning when they could properly catolog it, including all the grow equip. Skunkman sprang into action, called a number of the un-busted members of the club and the "great rootball rescue" was under way. His friends showed up and they litteraly stripped the place of every thing usefull. Lights were sold to pay legal fees, the rootballs, including the Haze mom SkMan has to this day were nursed back to health by the people who escaped prosicution and the police were left with a distinct lack of evidence. Causing some of the cases to collapse entirly and some, like SkMan to serve greatly reduced sentances. If they'de gotten him on everything they wanted him for he'd still be there. Instead, He served less than a year and on his release he collected up his strains from his friends, including Sk#18.2 rescued from the dumpster and made his way to amsterdam were he founded Cultivators Choice seed co, named after the top award at the annual Sacred Seeds harvest fests held in Nor Cal from 67-83. A year later Skunkmans new friend aqquire a second batch of Sacred Seeds Sk#1 seeds. When Cultivators Choice went out of biz a few year later Nevil bought most of their stock. While both worked from the same set of Sk#1 females each has there own males (breeders never give up a male) selected from the only two importations of authentic Sk#1 into Holland.
The Cultivators Choice variation is the one offered by TFD as "the Pure" The SeedBank version is @ Mr Nice, Shanti's Shit is his Sk#1/Afg variation with "Pure Shit" aka pure Sk#1 upcoming. I'm sure there's more but I'm all
"skunked" out right now. Peace NdF

G13 History
The G-13 clone was discovered by a guy named Sandy Wienstien. A founding member of Sacred Seeds, Breeder of Early Girl, He also discovered the Bay Area Durban Poison clone (the same clone All dutch DP is based on). During the mid 70's Sandy W and members of the Bay Area (SK#1) group were working in cooperation on some of their afgans. A couple of the plants intro'd early into both programs brought a near fatal vunerabilty to grey mold. Both programs had to backtrack while new afgans were found to replace the culled plants, as well as beginig an extensive tourure testing program for the remaning stock. Sandy had a group of friends, growers who lived in his area (S.Ark-N Miss) One of these friends was a grower, and first year botany student who had, by shear accident, landed a job working with Carlton Turner , who ran the US gov. pot program @ U of Miss. Sandy's friends job? using the early,rather primitive tests they had at the time to test Afganica plants for THC level! As Sandy's Early Girl program in the MW and the Skunk#1 people in Cali were on a desperate search for Afganicas. Sandy enlisted his friend to send him anything "interesting". Sandy's friend sent him 23 plants in all, and to differetiate these from his regular Afgani stock, which he labeled A1, A2 etc., Sandy designated his "government" plants G1-23. None of these were used in any Sacred Seeds breeding program. Sandy saved only a very few of these G clones, among these was G-13. He was to busy and never had a chance to do anything with it, so it stayed on the shelf. But he saved it knowing it was a special plant, a "sport". In its pure form it was apparently not very pleasant smoke, tasting like lawn clippings, soaked in a mixture of urine and feces (fecal flavors are common in pure afganicas) with a lovelly aftertaste of burning tires. The shear power could not be denied however and that's what made the strain's rep. As I sayed, G-13 was a breeders plant, (see MJ Botony p70) for a description of a sport but basically it's a plant that shows benificial mutations which can be passed down to the next gen. In the case of G-13 it was a scraglly plant with lowish yields, but it had the desirable trait of massive resin production. So much so, that if you let it go to long it could supposedly choke itself. Some sativas can do this, what Shanti calls the "Widow" sport is an example, but it's very rare in an indica. It was during Nevil's 83/84 collection trips to the US that he aquired, from Sandy W the only G-13 cuttings to ever leave Sandy's garden. Nevil returned to Holland and made three crosses with G-13 @ the Seed Bank. G-13x Haze (in catolog only 1 yr, discontinued, no extent P1's) G-13x Hashplant (discontinued, currently Sensi Seeds: mr nice) G-13x Skunk#1 (last and, according to Nevil, the best of the G crosses. Nev gave Shanti the last of this stock. Shanti, after suffering alarmingly low germ rates initially from the 20 year old seeds, put them though a number of breeding cycles and you all lucky bastarts are beta testing the results.) Sandy Wienstein passed away in 1987. If you have the '88 edition of Mel's Indoor Guide, then you have Mel's wonderfull euligy to his friend.(Mel was part of the upstate NY group, which was a sattelitte of Sandy's midwest group. Mel and Co. were not breeders but the ran beta grows for Sandy's Early Girl proj. Just look pic's captioned Durban poison x Afgani in upstate NY from any of mel's books.) For those who don't have this vintage edition, just turn your copy of Mel's Deluxe MJ grow guide to the back cover. The guy in the red pendelton shirt and the long hair and shades, Thats Sandy. You owe him more than you know P.S. No more than a few weeks after Sandy's death in 1987, all of Nevil's G-13 cuttings went down, including safety clones he had kept in remote places. The plants just wilted and died, despite the best efforts made to save them. No cause was ever found As for the f2s well they cant be f2s mate becouse if you or eny one researchet things ( just stateing facts nothing personal clips as your a good guy and you know i respect you) people whould know that the last ever x of the G13 clone Nevile had ( the only g13 clone in the industry at that ) the g13/sk seeds shanti was given were f1s as they came from Nevile who used the sk male over the G13 clone before it was lost ( Sed to be the best X useing the G13 of all neviles g13 hybreeds as it exprest itself best in this x sed by nevile )so that makes what ever people are makeing and passing around far from f2s and with out knowing what to select for there takeing the line further from what it should be so maybe why there getting more sativa phinos in there generations wich are not f2s mate .
I am only talking for my self here i would never speek for shanti and as i do research things and its all there for people to work out also for them selfs if they wont to mate but im thinking few did becouse if people did they would know shanti selected us the testers to give an honest report be it good or bad on the test strains and as a collective type group help each other and shanti with these strains like they do with flowers like rose clubs or even people working together to save old wold fruiet and veggys who are scated around the world yet work together as a collective group. jesse turner still shared cuts with others[canadian,univerity of washington,ohio and cple others] but there is only one g13 and nevil owns it .now the chance to be assosiated with others on the net very slim and doubtfull with the info nom has posted clears alot up .before ya speak read and investigate i put plenty of information up in breeding forum on the closed post to support what ive said. Nom de fleur my sentiments are the same as muggles as 20 plus years here growing and im a 3rd generational my family has been in growing since before the 40's .i cant wait to enjoy and try shanti's and nevils good works till then enjoy and ill chat ya later clips more info to be considered canada's conection to miss research Did you have a relationship with Dr. Carlton Turner?s research group at the University of Mississippi?
Indeed we had cordial relationships with Dr. Turner and the Mississippi group for many years, exchanging information and keeping each other abreast of developments. As you know, after his work on Cannabis Dr. Turner went on to occupy the prestigious position of Domestic Policy Advisor to the president of the US. We used a Mexican strain supplied by Dr. Turner to grow a large supply of standardized medicinal marihuana in Ottawa for Canadian use. Climatic conditions in Mississippi and Canada are of course different - a longer, hotter, drier situation in Mississippi, and this resulted in the plants in Mississippi tending to be taller, with much more leaf fall, leaving the remaining younger leaves with higher THC content on the plants. Nevertheless, morphological and chemical characteristics tended to be comparable between the two Who directed that the Agriculture Canada Ottawa Cannabis farm be started and what was your initial mandate?

 

[CanadaDank]

This appears to be the best version of the origin of Romulan I’ve seen.
My buddy who is close friends with Visioncreator and knows Romulan Joe and says Joe acquired it at a hydro shop. So Joe did not breed it but did spread the genetics.
He confirms these details as being pretty accurate.
So there you have it. Whatever is floating around the states being referred to as 79 Romulan is definitely not the original Romulan. Maybe a version from Federation seeds or the Romberry as it’s supposed to smell like Blueberry. I would be interested in finding out what the US cut is though.

 

[CanadaDank]

OG or CW is where I believe this was first posted. Actually consider it one of the best posts ever even if it is most/all bs. Great read and you gotta hand it to the guy.. whover wrote it really knew his canna history cuz there is little pieces of obscure truthhoods throughout.

I post this only in the name of great fiction and calling out bs:


Skunk#1 was the result of a communal breeding effort by a small clique of breeders who worked the coastal hills surounding the Bay Area. The first "skunk" plant (C.Gold x AFG unstable) was not discovered by this group but Jingles who cut the unstable line but kept this one special plant for his personal garden. This was around '69 or so. anyway, the clone made its way round the club and soon this Bay Area group decided to adopt it as a project.
With the C.Gold mom used by Jingles as well as the Haze Bros they set about trying to create a stable version of Jingles "skunk". The result would be known as Skunk#1. Columbian Gold x Acapulco Gold/Afgani There are better people around here to tell you the exact details, not the least whom is Sam_Skunkman over @ TFD. Yes it's him.

My understanding of the SK#1 breeding group is that it started very small and grew as time went by. SkMan starting out as a Jr grower in the late 60's and rising to the level of chief breeder and seedmaker for the seed co.
in the late 70's/early 80's. It was supposed to have been very difficult to join this group and a prospect would first have to be sponsered by a member of the inner circle then be required to breed out a certain number of versions of Sk#1 from both clones provided by the club as well as genetics they provided themselves. This way they assured quality control and widened the gene pool at the same time. The original unstable "model skunk"plant was a direct cross of C.Gold x Afg. But the Bay Area people soon found out how difficult it was going to be to cross a C.Gold to anything. So it was found that it was easier to cross these difficult plants to a plant that was already hybribized. Hence the Introduction of A.Gold into the mix. This also apparently added two other favorable traits. In addition to making crosses easier, high GCA has been stated by Clark as one of the goals of the breeders, the A.Gold also marginaly reduced flower time but most importent was its addition to calyx/leaf ratio. If you turn to P 248 of Mels Dlx you will find a pic of four mexican colas. Notice the two shots on the bottom are taken against the backround of Sandy W's barn. I'm almost 100% sure the plant on the lower right is A.Gold and about 90% that it's the primary A.Gold mom in Sk#1. Notice the foxtail style buds and hi C/L. Now imagine this crossed to an afgani, starting to get the picture? By the way most but not all of the Afganis were from MLW.

As i said earlier most of the Sacred Seeds breeding groups suffered disasters of one sort or another in the early days and in the case of Sk#1 it was the dreaded botritis cinerea, grey mold. Introduced by some of the early afgani crosses it kicked of a massive afgan genetics hunt/torture test. And while the late great Maple Leaf Wilson provided most of the genes they scowered every nook and cranny for an Afgani ;0. Many non Skunk#1 members of the Sacred Seeds who were also working on their own projects got involved.
I already spoke about Sandy W's involment and there were apparently others though the only one I am reasonably sure of was an East Bay biker/Vietnam Vet who went by the handle "Mendacino Joe", who as you can probably guess by his name he was supposed to have been one of the founders of the Trinity grow scene. Joe was working on a grape/pepper flavored mostly afgani hybrid not related to Sk#1, but he had a large collection of genetics and was a good grower and so he was included in the torture tests. The ultimate result of these tests was a special line called Skunk#18.2 (Sk#1 x Afg bx-1). It is a line that inparts incredible hardiness and pest/disease resistance on its offspring.

The Skunkman brought several kilos of these seeds with him along with his other stuff when he moved to holland in '82 in the wake of his release from prison.As far as I know he has only given these seeds to Nevil, Shanti, and Wernhard from Positronics. (ever wonder why Shiva Skunk {NL#5 x SK#1) is so resistant to spider mites?) In the wake of the Sacred Seeds bust in '82, "Mendacino Joe" moved to the Vancouver islands and changing his handle to "Romulan" Joe bringing with him some early Sk#1s or deriviteves, a line of Central Ithsmus lowland Thai that may have been purchased from the Haze Bros and of course his grape/pepper flovored indica strain, Romulan. Soon to
be a BC classic. It was these lines that Pr. Ziggy @ Federation seeds in BC was supposed to have purchased from old Joe shorly before his death, and are offered as Island Sweet Skunk, Golden Triangle Thai, and Romulan. Torture tests and "inoculations" were mostly done outdoors with special patches of extra clones in an isolated area, which were then diliberatly infected. Deseased and pest riddled local plants would be transplanted into these special gardens and then the plants were tested to destruction while the growers watched and made note of the strongest individauls. Sacred Seeds was all about division of labor.It's one of the ways they accomplished so much in so little time and they used natural selection to work in their favor. Skunk#1 first went on sale in '78 or '79. As far as I know it was the only strain that Sacred Seeds didn't give a discount on orders over 1k seeds. Seeds were 2$ a peice and people bitched about prices even back then. Especialy that no discount thing But like the Hazes (which could sellout a year ahead) SK#1 sold out every year. The seeds were sold as F1's made if I recall with a F ? fillial plant backcrossed to one of the original parents. Due to the communal nature of the project,there were many parents as each breeder included his own varietion, Skunk#1s bred from the same P1 stock but often getting to the goal a different way, for instance some variations used C.Gold on the male side. With tight control over the P1s the breeders could assure their stated goal of making true breeding stock but with the widest possible gene pool they could also be sure to achieve both high SCA and GCA. also stated goals of the project.

Now I can tell you from personal experience that exactly what constituted a "skunk" was a matter of just a little debate but they basically came down into camps which actually carried forward into the Dutch world. The "Sweet Skunk" camp, which including the SkMan, and the "Stinky Skunk" camp. In terms of modern Sk#1 the CC/TFD Skunkman bred "the Pure" is bred for more consistant plants and towards the SkMans ideal Sk#1. While the stinky side of the house would be best represented by the SeedBank/Mr Nice skunks which also have more variation in types like the earlier California skunks. I must state here that there is no right answer, its a matter of taste and a debate thats been going for on about 30 years. In '82 I came home one night and turned on the TV. Just as they went to commercial the news bimbo teased the story, "comin right up after this" police official say they got the source of the skunk. Yeah right I thought, we'd heard these claims before, always to be followed by shot of some deputies pulling three scragly plants from some poor sucker's patch. This time it was different, this time they were standing in front of a warehouse.

Sacred Seeds was busted in '82. The Skunkman was arrested and the cops were in possetion of the groups main seedmaking op. But this bunch was savey and had pre-paid bailbonds/lawyers on retainer and so SkMan was out in a matter of hours. And so began one of the greatest capers in Sacred Seeds history.

An event I will call "the great rootball rescue". Skunkman, out on bail and eager to find out the condition of his grow rooms stakes out the grow to make sure the cops aren't waiting there for him. After sitting for hours he finally gets over his paranoia and makes a cursery recon and can't believe what he finds, the cops in either there arrogance or ignorance have left the place secured with only police tape. checking the grow as well as the dumpster out back the found many plants cut well above the the first node and some that had been simply pulled from their containers and tossed whole. the dumpster was also full of seeds and it was obvious that the cops had broken many seed containers but because there were so many eventually just started throwing jars out whole. the cops had left all the stuff there until morning when they could properly catolog it, including all the grow equip. Skunkman sprang into action, called a number of the un-busted members of the club and the "great rootball rescue" was under way. His friends showed up and they litteraly stripped the place of every thing usefull. Lights were sold to pay legal fees, the rootballs, including the Haze mom SkMan has to this day were nursed back to health by the people who escaped prosicution and the police were left with a distinct lack of evidence. Causing some of the cases to collapse entirly and some, like SkMan to serve greatly reduced sentances. If they'de gotten him on everything they wanted him for he'd still be there. Instead, He served less than a year and on his release he collected up his strains from his friends, including Sk#18.2 rescued from the dumpster and made his way to amsterdam were he founded Cultivators Choice seed co, named after the top award at the annual Sacred Seeds harvest fests held in Nor Cal from 67-83. A year later Skunkmans new friend aqquire a second batch of Sacred Seeds Sk#1 seeds. When Cultivators Choice went out of biz a few year later Nevil bought most of their stock. While both worked from the same set of Sk#1 females each has there own males (breeders never give up a male) selected from the only two importations of authentic Sk#1 into Holland.
The Cultivators Choice variation is the one offered by TFD as "the Pure" The SeedBank version is @ Mr Nice, Shanti's Shit is his Sk#1/Afg variation with "Pure Shit" aka pure Sk#1 upcoming. I'm sure there's more but I'm all
"skunked" out right now. Peace NdF

G13 History
The G-13 clone was discovered by a guy named Sandy Wienstien. A founding member of Sacred Seeds, Breeder of Early Girl, He also discovered the Bay Area Durban Poison clone (the same clone All dutch DP is based on). During the mid 70's Sandy W and members of the Bay Area (SK#1) group were working in cooperation on some of their afgans. A couple of the plants intro'd early into both programs brought a near fatal vunerabilty to grey mold. Both programs had to backtrack while new afgans were found to replace the culled plants, as well as beginig an extensive tourure testing program for the remaning stock. Sandy had a group of friends, growers who lived in his area (S.Ark-N Miss) One of these friends was a grower, and first year botany student who had, by shear accident, landed a job working with Carlton Turner , who ran the US gov. pot program @ U of Miss. Sandy's friends job? using the early,rather primitive tests they had at the time to test Afganica plants for THC level! As Sandy's Early Girl program in the MW and the Skunk#1 people in Cali were on a desperate search for Afganicas. Sandy enlisted his friend to send him anything "interesting". Sandy's friend sent him 23 plants in all, and to differetiate these from his regular Afgani stock, which he labeled A1, A2 etc., Sandy designated his "government" plants G1-23. None of these were used in any Sacred Seeds breeding program. Sandy saved only a very few of these G clones, among these was G-13. He was to busy and never had a chance to do anything with it, so it stayed on the shelf. But he saved it knowing it was a special plant, a "sport". In its pure form it was apparently not very pleasant smoke, tasting like lawn clippings, soaked in a mixture of urine and feces (fecal flavors are common in pure afganicas) with a lovelly aftertaste of burning tires. The shear power could not be denied however and that's what made the strain's rep. As I sayed, G-13 was a breeders plant, (see MJ Botony p70) for a description of a sport but basically it's a plant that shows benificial mutations which can be passed down to the next gen. In the case of G-13 it was a scraglly plant with lowish yields, but it had the desirable trait of massive resin production. So much so, that if you let it go to long it could supposedly choke itself. Some sativas can do this, what Shanti calls the "Widow" sport is an example, but it's very rare in an indica. It was during Nevil's 83/84 collection trips to the US that he aquired, from Sandy W the only G-13 cuttings to ever leave Sandy's garden. Nevil returned to Holland and made three crosses with G-13 @ the Seed Bank. G-13x Haze (in catolog only 1 yr, discontinued, no extent P1's) G-13x Hashplant (discontinued, currently Sensi Seeds: mr nice) G-13x Skunk#1 (last and, according to Nevil, the best of the G crosses. Nev gave Shanti the last of this stock. Shanti, after suffering alarmingly low germ rates initially from the 20 year old seeds, put them though a number of breeding cycles and you all lucky bastarts are beta testing the results.) Sandy Wienstein passed away in 1987. If you have the '88 edition of Mel's Indoor Guide, then you have Mel's wonderfull euligy to his friend.(Mel was part of the upstate NY group, which was a sattelitte of Sandy's midwest group. Mel and Co. were not breeders but the ran beta grows for Sandy's Early Girl proj. Just look pic's captioned Durban poison x Afgani in upstate NY from any of mel's books.) For those who don't have this vintage edition, just turn your copy of Mel's Deluxe MJ grow guide to the back cover. The guy in the red pendelton shirt and the long hair and shades, Thats Sandy. You owe him more than you know P.S. No more than a few weeks after Sandy's death in 1987, all of Nevil's G-13 cuttings went down, including safety clones he had kept in remote places. The plants just wilted and died, despite the best efforts made to save them. No cause was ever found As for the f2s well they cant be f2s mate becouse if you or eny one researchet things ( just stateing facts nothing personal clips as your a good guy and you know i respect you) people whould know that the last ever x of the G13 clone Nevile had ( the only g13 clone in the industry at that ) the g13/sk seeds shanti was given were f1s as they came from Nevile who used the sk male over the G13 clone before it was lost ( Sed to be the best X useing the G13 of all neviles g13 hybreeds as it exprest itself best in this x sed by nevile )so that makes what ever people are makeing and passing around far from f2s and with out knowing what to select for there takeing the line further from what it should be so maybe why there getting more sativa phinos in there generations wich are not f2s mate .
I am only talking for my self here i would never speek for shanti and as i do research things and its all there for people to work out also for them selfs if they wont to mate but im thinking few did becouse if people did they would know shanti selected us the testers to give an honest report be it good or bad on the test strains and as a collective type group help each other and shanti with these strains like they do with flowers like rose clubs or even people working together to save old wold fruiet and veggys who are scated around the world yet work together as a collective group. jesse turner still shared cuts with others[canadian,univerity of washington,ohio and cple others] but there is only one g13 and nevil owns it .now the chance to be assosiated with others on the net very slim and doubtfull with the info nom has posted clears alot up .before ya speak read and investigate i put plenty of information up in breeding forum on the closed post to support what ive said. Nom de fleur my sentiments are the same as muggles as 20 plus years here growing and im a 3rd generational my family has been in growing since before the 40's .i cant wait to enjoy and try shanti's and nevils good works till then enjoy and ill chat ya later clips more info to be considered canada's conection to miss research Did you have a relationship with Dr. Carlton Turner?s research group at the University of Mississippi?
Indeed we had cordial relationships with Dr. Turner and the Mississippi group for many years, exchanging information and keeping each other abreast of developments. As you know, after his work on Cannabis Dr. Turner went on to occupy the prestigious position of Domestic Policy Advisor to the president of the US. We used a Mexican strain supplied by Dr. Turner to grow a large supply of standardized medicinal marihuana in Ottawa for Canadian use. Climatic conditions in Mississippi and Canada are of course different - a longer, hotter, drier situation in Mississippi, and this resulted in the plants in Mississippi tending to be taller, with much more leaf fall, leaving the remaining younger leaves with higher THC content on the plants. Nevertheless, morphological and chemical characteristics tended to be comparable between the two Who directed that the Agriculture Canada Ottawa Cannabis farm be started and what was your initial mandate?

That’s a frigging amazing post but sadly it leaves me with more questions than answers lol.
The Mendo Joe to Rom Joe part is obv incorrect but it doesnt mean a lot of the other stuff is, esp the sacred seeds/skunk parts. I’d like to believe that stuff is real. I wonder how many “facts” I’ve read about have come directly from this post. I don’t want to derail the thread but I’m so curious about the parts about the origins of Skunk now lol. And I’ve read Maple Leaf Wilson, Sam, Sandy Weinstein and Mendo Joe we’re all members of Sacred Seeds. The genetics of the original Skunk also fascinate me. And it puts into question the story of Sam being a snitch. S Weinstein is still attributed to finding the Durban Poison I want a cut of. There is so much I want to discuss after reading that hahaha!
I agree that this might be my fav post ever. I really hope it’s not mostly bs. Sam still swears by a lot of this info. But it’s hard to know. When there is a little bit of BS it puts the whole post into question. Thanks again for posting it on this thread tho!

 

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Sacred Seeds was just Sam, no one else, Sandy was a friend of Mel Frank, Sam did not know him.

 

[CanadaDank]

Sacred Seeds was just Sam, no one else, Sandy was a friend of Mel Frank, Sam did not know him.

Yeah that is interesting to me. I was just reading the same thing according to Sams testimony. Thanks for the info.
I almost want to start a new thread for that post lol.