My girlfriends mom introduced me to a santa marta grower

[bombadil.360]

I was speaking to her about this thread yesterday... She simply replied that she is "from the city" and that all sales are from the organised gangs it would be extremely dangerous to sell anything there, so nobody does.

Likewise, the countryside is not somewhere you go for fun, it is still very dangerous out there, so not an option, but she is going to try... It is good to know that it still is around

Hola Chaos,

Things are more relaxed in Colombia than what your friend is telling you. Specially now you can grow 20 plants to your head. Organized gangs and shit like that are small potatos and very local to certain estratos in the big cities, if you stay away from those areas is all good.
You have delivery services in Medellin and Bogota and many will have variety. A friend who now lives in Barcelona was in Bogota a couple of months ago, he was staying at an ok hotel, he asked the guys at the lobby and they called a guy that showed up 20min later on a scooter with 5 different types of herb, he got a business card and all.

Medellin is pretty huge and can be scary though, specially if you are not used to that sort of city. Bogota too, I love Rolos but my peoples are all Paisas.

 

[The Hatter]

Great thread. Thank you for sharing your experience.

 

[Raho]

Hi Ricky,
Really enjoying this thread. I know it's kind of gone silent, so hoping to revive it and get an update.
Adding some questions/comments to your qoute below in BOLD

I met up with him yesterday and bought another quarter kilo from him, and gave him a weed brownie i made. I asked him your questions thereverand. Here are his answers:

1. At least a 100 years. His family has been growing since the 40's and he personally has been growing since the 80's.

If they have been growing in Santa Marta since the 40's, maybe he has so stories from his parents about the glory days from '70 to '80?
​

2. The grow season is year round and depending on strain they have 3-4 harvests a year. He gets year round rain and the soil is mountain/volcanic soil.

As others have commented, this doesn't make sense assuming they are growing heirloom sativas and letting them flower to maturity. More than likely they are harvesting prematurely. There are many reasons why they would do this. The flowers can be damaged or destroyed at any time outdoors by storms, mold, animals or pests, and they are also at risk for being ripped off. It is hard for anyone in that situation to fight the urge to chop.
If they are looking for ways to improve the quality of their product, letting the flowers fully mature is the first thing to change.
​

3. They try to seperate the males out but he grows 5 hectares of cannabis on his farm, so its thousands of plants, so they do the best they can. Some males get through their culling process. They collect and plant any seeds they find in the crops.

Even in a large field where male selection is not performed, he can run a small seed patch each "season", using only seeds from his "biggest, best smelling, most resinous females." Every grower picks a favorite plant (or 10) with "something special" that he watches throughout the grow, even when they have large fields of them.
Keep those plants back for himself and run the seeds in a small patch apart from the main crop and let a few males drop their load there. Those seeds would be used in the big crop.
Then, do it again: pick out a few (or 10) "best females and keep them for himself and use those seeds seperately in a small patch, letting the males go, etc etc.
​

4. They dont really dry. It gets cut and bricked and cures in transit, or they cure in the sun by sweating the weed in big black tarps, for a few days then bricked and sold.

I'm sure the challenge of trying to dry fresh harvest in high humidity would be serious.
Still, brown is not the color you want. Sanata Marta's top of the line product back in the day arrived at the states in bricks, and was a bright yellow/golden color. Large resin covered calyxes were visible in the nuggets.
I suspect they could increase the quality by adding a step of at least partially drying the herb before bricking it, but maybe just letting the flowers grow to maturity would change how they react to the process they currently use.
​

5. The seeds are a commodity anong the growers. They jelously guard them and will sell them amongst themselves to a certain extent but they like keeping their personal favorite genetics exclusive to the grower.

I suspect his comments about the scarcity of the seeds is to set the stage for a trading session with you.
Of course the best seeds are the ones you pick out of the flowers yourself so you know for sure the mother was fire (gold, etc.) But hopefully you have a good enough relationship that you will be able to trust him if he offers you "treasure" in a baggie Once he has modern seeds, it may impact what he has available to trade in the future.
What a dilemma.
I hate the idea of introducing dutch genetics to a special place like that, but you can be sure he's going to want them if you have 'em.
​

He told me he stole four plants from his neighbor's grow who he rented the land to, so he could get the seeds because his buddy wouldn't let him get any.

6. They use chemical and organic fertilizers. He uses a pesticide for ants. He looked at me unbelievingly when i told him i cultivate organic, and so do most people who grow med in California. On his farm they grow regular crops like yucca, and plantains and papayas, etc.

Growing and selling herb is illegal beyond 20 personal consumption plants. He lives so far out in the mountains the soldiers/police hardly come to investigate, but if they do come pull his crops he has normal crops on the rest of the farm, as a plan b.

The fact that he has a legal "plan B" crop supports my belief that they are harvesting prematurely. The crop of flowers is always in danger until the customer has it and he is paid.
​

7. They smoke it and use it to make topical medecines and oils, and poultices etc. They don't really cook with it, i gave him his first weed brownie yesterday. Over the weekend my girfriend's family had an asado (bbq with a ton of meat on the grill) and i brought a tray of brownies to give to her cousins. They had all, never tried them. They were strong, and her cousins didn't heed my warning to wait a hour before eating another one. They all got baked out of their gourds. It was pretty funny.

I am going out to his (the grower's) farm this coming week. I will take pics of his farm/plants and get seeds. He also wants me to show him how to make edibles and oil and other goodies, so i will take pics of that as well and post updates as they take place.

I would love to hear all the details of the harvest/cure process.
How long do they flower before they chop?
Do they trim the leaves at all?
Are the flowers stripped from the stems before the "sweat"?
How long is it left in the tarps? Are the tarps in full mid-day sun?
How may people are involved in doing the harvest work for 5 hectares? How long does it take?

All the best Ricky. Hope to hear back from you in this thread soon!

 

[englishrick]

thanks for sending me the rep an reminding me of this thread..

 

[Water-]

always thought "the crip" was short for "the crippler"

 

[englishrick]

id love to see a resurgence of the crippy in seed form .. after all wasent it an increased seedline anyways ?

 

[bombadil.360]

It has been established that there's no such thing as a 'crippie' variety. And that 'crippie' is short for cryptonite aka 'kind bud', all terms coined in FL and Colombia.

 

[rickytheghost]

Hi Ricky,
Really enjoying this thread. I know it's kind of gone silent, so hoping to revive it and get an update.
Adding some questions/comments to your qoute below in BOLD



I would love to hear all the details of the harvest/cure process.
How long do they flower before they chop?
Do they trim the leaves at all?
Are the flowers stripped from the stems before the "sweat"?
How long is it left in the tarps? Are the tarps in full mid-day sun?
How may people are involved in doing the harvest work for 5 hectares? How long does it take?

All the best Ricky. Hope to hear back from you in this thread soon!

I was talking to the guy and had plans to go out to his farm but I moved and have since lost contact with him. The last time I talked to him he was near the venezuelan border(far from me). He was supposed to come back on a weekend and call me and I was supposed to take a bus and meet him and go to his farm but he never called and we have only talked like one other time since. It's a shame really because I wanted to see his farm.

 

[Raho]

sorry to hear that Ricky.
sounds like it was a great opportunity.

 

[Sforza]

Nice to read about how things are going in Colombia. I had a good time down there in the 1970s.

Santa Marta beach circa 1975:

I had my passport stolen off the beach when I turned my head for a second. Met a connection and got my passport back through him for fifty bucks or so.

Plenty of soldiers and cops on the streets of Santa Marta back then:

Getting out of dodge (Barranquilla airport, with a Panama (Colombian) hat, a wall hanging, and a bolsa.

Damn, it was fun to be young and crazy and live through it all.

 

[rickytheghost]

Those pics are awesome! It has changed a lot since you took those. I'll post some pics of santa marta next time I go (maybe towards the end of the month, have family coming to visit).

 

[Sforza]

Those pics are awesome! It has changed a lot since you took those. I'll post some pics of santa marta next time I go (maybe towards the end of the month, have family coming to visit).

Cool. Thank you. I sure it must have changed a great deal. It was the like the wild wild west back when I was there, but fun and cheap. Very warm people.

I usually stayed at the El Prado Hotel when I was in Barranquilla. I loved the architecture of that hotel and it had a really nice pool too.

I spent some time in Rodadero and Taganga too. And Minca. I always like the sound of the Finca Minca.

 

[conradino23]

Very nice thread, I enjoyed info on growing in Colombia a lot.

 

[Sforza]

Very nice thread, I enjoyed info on growing in Colombia a lot.

Have you read Red Rider's thread? He is based in Bogota.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=296772

 

[self]

Ive been on more than a couple backpacking and surf trips to Peru, Ecuador and Costa Rica over the last decade. Ive bought "creepy" a couple times, mostly in Ecuador and Costa Rica. Its definitely a stoney, creeper indica high, totally different than "Jamaican"which is usually a nice sativa, or what is known as paraguay, probably the lowest quality brick herb around.
From talking to a few dealers, it sounds like the creepy is grown under lights, either indoors, or with supplemental light outdoors to keep from flowering early. It does have more visible trichomes and fatter buds than the more traditional local sativas. More bag appeal, if you will.
That said, I very much prefer the jamaican sativa, or even the shitty paraguay to the creepy, even though the creepy is stronger and considered better, and sold at a premium to gringos.
Jamaican = great daytime smoke, colors pop, music is great, able to surf
Creepy = dry mouth, heavy scratchy red eyes, super stoney, sleepy, dumb, munchies, etc.

 

[bombadil.360]

Hello self,

Cripi is expensive for everyone in latin america, not just for gringos. I could get 1 kg of bricked traditional colombian for around $250, yet, 1 kg of cripi would go for well over $1500 easy.

Remember that cripi is simply a generic name for well grown herb and not a variety itself. I once score a colombian grown blueberry that everyone called cripi, except for the guy who bought it directly from the farm, and he did not try to correct anyone on the name, so sometimes you can find a nice uplifting cripi.

In general I agree with you in that I'd rather jamaican or traditional colombian over cripi, but I think I'd choose cripi over paraguayan.

And yes, they use supplemental lighting to help the plants veg longer and get bigger plants. You can see the lit green houses in many areas of Colombia like in the valley of Cauca.

 

[troutman]

Getting out of dodge (Barranquilla airport, with a Panama (Colombian) hat, a wall hanging, and a bolsa.

Those white pants just scream "I'm a cocaine smuggler".

 

[bestothebest]

any new updates?