SeedySimon
Member
Hello to all my fellow growers!
I want to greet all my fellow growers and introduce you to one of my current projects. A lesser man might have spent his last winter in the Caribbean with enjoying the beautiful beaches, snorkelling at the colourful reefs or liming in general (that's what they call "hanging out" over there). Well, not me, of course. Dutifully I climbed volcanoes and fought my way through the bush day after day in my quest for the best genetics of the islands.
Here are some impressions of St. Vincent, where they cultivate in vast plantations on the inaccessible volcanic slopes in the north of the island:
A little bit of background info: No big surprise, cannabis is deeply implemented in the laid-back local culture of the Caribbean. The biggest producers and exporters in the region are St. Vincent, Jamaica and South America, but all the smaller islands have some local production as well. Since there is a lot of smuggling going on, you can find quite a wide range of qualities on the islands. The local varieties lean very much to the sativa side and have a pleasant, not too strong up-high, but are often not grown very expertly and full of seeds. Higher grade weed is often sold under the trade name "kush", is more indica- like and often imported. The local growers are of course well aware of what is going on in the growing world and the times where you could have found local landraces that have been inbred for decades have long passed. These days, the growers experiment with the modern US- American strains and cross them with their local genetics and South American strains for a better adaption to the humid, tropical climate. Which results in a very interesting mix for me to play with
My Caribbean seed collection, sourced on 7 different islands:
I germinated a good 100 seeds of the most promising genetics:
- seeds from the experienced professional growers of St. Vincent
- a cross of a beautiful plant with pink pistils and a fast "2 month" plant I received from a rasta in Grenada, a great guy and expert grower
- another cross of the same grower between a "3 month" plant and his fast "2 month" dad
- bagseeds of a delicious Tobago local bud that brightened our last Christmas
- bagseeds of another nice local bud of Tobago (these didn't germinate though, unluckily)
And as a special... Jamaica seeds from the former Dutch seed company Hemcy BV. Special thanks to Joachim from cannapot.com for entrusting me with these old seeds! They are from a batch supposedly 13 years old, so it was a big surprise for me that I ended up with 12 healthy little plants out of 20 seeds. Seems the guys at Cannapot really know some thing about storing seeds.
The little plants, happily growing indoors in coco coir instead of volcanic earth and under a MH growth lamp as a supplement for the tropical sun:
The goal of this project is the keep clones of the most promising plants and to somewhat tame them for indoor cultivation by crossing them with my NLX line (a backcross of the oldschool Dutch NLX clone which is Northern Lights supposedly crossed with a White Widow).
Well, that's it for now, I will keep you updated once the little rascals have grown up a little bit.
I want to greet all my fellow growers and introduce you to one of my current projects. A lesser man might have spent his last winter in the Caribbean with enjoying the beautiful beaches, snorkelling at the colourful reefs or liming in general (that's what they call "hanging out" over there). Well, not me, of course. Dutifully I climbed volcanoes and fought my way through the bush day after day in my quest for the best genetics of the islands.
Here are some impressions of St. Vincent, where they cultivate in vast plantations on the inaccessible volcanic slopes in the north of the island:
A little bit of background info: No big surprise, cannabis is deeply implemented in the laid-back local culture of the Caribbean. The biggest producers and exporters in the region are St. Vincent, Jamaica and South America, but all the smaller islands have some local production as well. Since there is a lot of smuggling going on, you can find quite a wide range of qualities on the islands. The local varieties lean very much to the sativa side and have a pleasant, not too strong up-high, but are often not grown very expertly and full of seeds. Higher grade weed is often sold under the trade name "kush", is more indica- like and often imported. The local growers are of course well aware of what is going on in the growing world and the times where you could have found local landraces that have been inbred for decades have long passed. These days, the growers experiment with the modern US- American strains and cross them with their local genetics and South American strains for a better adaption to the humid, tropical climate. Which results in a very interesting mix for me to play with
My Caribbean seed collection, sourced on 7 different islands:
I germinated a good 100 seeds of the most promising genetics:
- seeds from the experienced professional growers of St. Vincent
- a cross of a beautiful plant with pink pistils and a fast "2 month" plant I received from a rasta in Grenada, a great guy and expert grower
- another cross of the same grower between a "3 month" plant and his fast "2 month" dad
- bagseeds of a delicious Tobago local bud that brightened our last Christmas
- bagseeds of another nice local bud of Tobago (these didn't germinate though, unluckily)
And as a special... Jamaica seeds from the former Dutch seed company Hemcy BV. Special thanks to Joachim from cannapot.com for entrusting me with these old seeds! They are from a batch supposedly 13 years old, so it was a big surprise for me that I ended up with 12 healthy little plants out of 20 seeds. Seems the guys at Cannapot really know some thing about storing seeds.
The little plants, happily growing indoors in coco coir instead of volcanic earth and under a MH growth lamp as a supplement for the tropical sun:
The goal of this project is the keep clones of the most promising plants and to somewhat tame them for indoor cultivation by crossing them with my NLX line (a backcross of the oldschool Dutch NLX clone which is Northern Lights supposedly crossed with a White Widow).
Well, that's it for now, I will keep you updated once the little rascals have grown up a little bit.