The Real History Of Northern Lights, Written By The Guys Who Did It

[Sanjuro]

Let me follow up with some visual aids. No doubt everyone would agree this _isn't_ a Type I/Sativa leaf :

View attachment 19060101

Please note the serrations on this leaf and I think everyone would agree the structure is a "wee bit" different :

View attachment 19060102

This is the first Type I/Sativa pheno I fertilized, don't have a pic of the staminant plant:

View attachment 19060103

Which led to this:

View attachment 19060104

I _always_ have to explain this next pic, for those dickheads who diagnose a plant without knowing the _environment_.it was in. In this instance, the tent temp was 40 degrees F and the RH was 90+%:

View attachment 19060106

Working with this side of the pheno led to my understanding that low _odor_ was dominant trait of this side of the mix, as it balanced the strong odor of the Type II/Indica. My _guess_ is this is what NL Seattle Greg used to balance out the stink of Steve Murphy's "stinky Indica".

The Type I/Sativa side of things has evolved into this, taken today:

View attachment 19060108

But guess what? This shit _smells_ and I don't know how that evolved?!?!?!?

To answer part of your question, suffice it to say the Type I/Sativa has been the most variable. Afaic, working that side was worth it :

View attachment 19060109

I'll get into the Type II/Indica side of things, which has been my favorite, if you're still interested:

View attachment 19060110

You have interesting NL project going on man

How do you do your seed projects with it?

Do you use some kind of open pollination or mixed pollen from many males? or do you find something that you like and use only those?

Do you keep the sativa leaning seed lines separated or is it all mixed together?

Maybe you talked about it all in the thread but i didn't go through all the posts



I wanted to do similar thing with the mns ortega. To find some nice old heirlooms and create separate lines but the afgahni side of that line was very disappointing for me. i was hoping to find better quality and so i threw away most of them without growing them a second time

I still have three ortega females going, i’m thinking of getting rid of the only afghan leaning i kept cause it gives me allergic reactions (hands start itching like hell when i handle it and it worsens my atopic skin problems, makes my allergy towards cats much worse too) and i have some pollen in the freezer from a pink stemmed sativa leaning plant. apparently the mexican in the nl5 hawaiian. I should have kept the male longer but i was more into the afghani side of the line



Nice project keep it going

 

[right]

May I ask what any of you mns cats think of Ortega. ( The strain not the man)?

 

[Sanjuro]

May I ask what any of you mns cats think of Ortega. ( The strain not the man)?

MNS Ortega, nl5 x nl1

Like i wrote in my earlier post i wasn’t very impressed with most of the plants i found. i think i got about 75 seedlings out of 98 seeds. i culled a lot of plants w/o flowering them because of low veg resin and most of the plants i bloomed had sandy small resin heads and average potency. Few stronger ones but a lot of sub par stuff.

I didn’t find all the types people were showing at MNS forum before they updated the site and alot of photos got lost but i saw quite a bit still and most of what i saw was not on my good-level. sub par especially many of the different afghani types

Not much pine in the line, at least not on the plants i got, one of two plants had mild pine juniper notes but you couldn’t detect it on dried flowers at all basically. many growers are reporting similar findings

So you have to have some luck on your side to find gems in that line in a pack or two

Get them at the auction to save some money if you want to try the line.I wouldn’t buy too many packs for the regular price you see at seed shops, but that’s just me, others may feel differently. i think all my ortega packs cost me under 25 euros/dollars a piece

 

[CharlesU Farley]

The Type II/Indica variant of NL has been my most favorite to both grow and consume but there are definitely drawbacks. This side of the NL ancestry, at least for me in the basement environment, is _very_ prone to botrytis. Never had a problem in the upstairs closet because I could more or less control the temp/humidity.

That's not the case in the basement tents.

When you have leaves this size blocking airflow, it's not difficult to understand why botrytis might be a problem :

Through much trial and error, my solution was a solution of khco3, canola oil and Dawn soap. Through successive generations, one thing happened to simple astound me. Colored buds!

I must add my standard disclaimer here, regardless of the Boomer bullshit with Acapulco Gold, Panama Red, etc., it has been _my_ experience, through literally fucking decades of cannabis consumption, that that color has absolutely _nothing_ whatsoever to do with potency.

But damn it sure does look nice and has what dealers call, "bag appeal" .

Almost every variation of cannabis I've grown, starting with the Coptics hybrids back in the 70's up until I reverse engineered NL, has been green/gold/brown. Here are some of the color variations I've had since then:

This one has always been my favorite pic:

And that wasn't even the main cola. Here's the entire plant and I'm pretty sure I've never posted this one:

Where did the _color_ come from? I'll give you a hint, I think it was Nevil and _not_ NLSG or Steve Murphy's _work_ that resulted in this color. I have fucking _never_ seen a pic of a _verifiable_ Sensi NL that had this much color.

Here's the staminate that produced this:

If you are wondering why the plant looks so _old_, that'll be a topic for another post.

 

[CannaRed]

When you say you reversed engineered you mean you took the nl and bred separate lines that are all true to the 4 types of plants?

 

[CharlesU Farley]

When you say you reversed engineered you mean you took the nl and bred separate lines that are all true to the 4 types of plants?

I didn't breed shit. I _worked_ the NL line for decades, paid attention/observed the phenos after F5 of Sensi's NL, that was in my possession.

There were _three_ types of plants, a Type I/Sativa, the Type II/Indica, and a Type IV Hybrid.

Read the beginning of the thread.

Again, I didn't do shit. I just _observed_ the plants and they did what they did... revert back to Mama and her Daddy's.

 

[JetLife175]

I didn't breed shit. I _worked_ the NL line for decades, paid attention/observed the phenos after F5 of Sensi's NL, that was in my possession.

There were _three_ types of plants, a Type I/Sativa, the Type II/Indica, and a Type IV Hybrid.

Read the beginning of the thread.

Again, I didn't do shit. I just _observed_ the plants and they did what they did... revert back to Mama and her Daddy's.

So each of these types are isolated now or are you just observing the phenos in the NL seedling?

 

[Lester Beans]

The Type II/Indica variant of NL has been my most favorite to both grow and consume but there are definitely drawbacks. This side of the NL ancestry, at least for me in the basement environment, is _very_ prone to botrytis. Never had a problem in the upstairs closet because I could more or less control the temp/humidity.

That's not the case in the basement tents.

When you have leaves this size blocking airflow, it's not difficult to understand why botrytis might be a problem :

View attachment 19061289

Through much trial and error, my solution was a solution of khco3, canola oil and Dawn soap. Through successive generations, one thing happened to simple astound me. Colored buds!

I must add my standard disclaimer here, regardless of the Boomer bullshit with Acapulco Gold, Panama Red, etc., it has been _my_ experience, through literally fucking decades of cannabis consumption, that that color has absolutely _nothing_ whatsoever to do with potency.

But damn it sure does look nice and has what dealers call, "bag appeal" .

Almost every variation of cannabis I've grown, starting with the Coptics hybrids back in the 70's up until I reverse engineered NL, has been green/gold/brown. Here are some of the color variations I've had since then:

View attachment 19061280

View attachment 19061281

View attachment 19061282

This one has always been my favorite pic:

View attachment 19061284

And that wasn't even the main cola. Here's the entire plant and I'm pretty sure I've never posted this one:

View attachment 19061286

Where did the _color_ come from? I'll give you a hint, I think it was Nevil and _not_ NLSG or Steve Murphy's _work_ that resulted in this color. I have fucking _never_ seen a pic of a _verifiable_ Sensi NL that had this much color.

Here's the staminate that produced this:

View attachment 19061290

If you are wondering why the plant looks so _old_, that'll be a topic for another post.

Could you explain the type 1, type 2,.etc. some folks may benefit from learning about the different types.

That beautiful Fall colored girl looks real close to the NL5 I grew back in the mid 90's.

 

[CannaRed]

I didn't breed shit. I _worked_ the NL line for decades, paid attention/observed the phenos after F5 of Sensi's NL, that was in my possession.

There were _three_ types of plants, a Type I/Sativa, the Type II/Indica, and a Type IV Hybrid.

Read the beginning of the thread.

Again, I didn't do shit. I just _observed_ the plants and they did what they did... revert back to Mama and her Daddy's.

Ok, so reversed engineered means you grew these out and saw the different phenos? You haven't separated these into separate lines?
Just looking for clarification, thanks!

 

[CharlesU Farley]

Could you explain the type 1, type 2,.etc. some folks may benefit from learning about the different types.

That beautiful Fall colored girl looks real close to the NL5 I grew back in the mid 90's.

I can't remember who originally came up the the 4 types/classifications that I use but it made perfect sense to me, so I just started using the Type designation.

Type I = Tall, thin plant and leaves, high THC, scant CBD, long flowering time, equatorial in origin. What most people consider a Sativa and, these days, NLD.

Type II = Short, squat plant and thick leaves, high THC, moderate to high CBD, short flowering time, Hindu Kush origin. What most people consider Indica or BLD now.

Type III = Tall, rangy plants with narrow leaves, low-absent THC, moderate CBD, worldwide origin. What most consider hemp, used to be used for making rope. I believe Autos would fall into this class as well but other than Nevil using them back in the day, I know almost nothing about Autos, so I'm not sure. I think it's called NLH or BLH now.

Type IV = A union/combination of characteristics from Types I and II, with varying sized, shaped plants and leaves. High THC, varying CBD, and known for the term "hybrid vigor", where the combo of plants is better growing, more intense and vigorous than either individual Type I or II. I'm not sure how RC Clarke acronyms a Hybrid? (Maybe VLD for variable leaf drug?) Origin stories about who first combined them are a dime a dozen, believe who you want. I know for a fact the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church in Jamaica did Type IV's in the 70s, cause I grew 'em. Here's the proof, and those aren't NLD plants native to Jamaica :

 

[CharlesU Farley]

So each of these types are isolated now or are you just observing the phenos in the NL seedling?

Isolated each one, fairly reproducible but not homogenized or standardized as I would like. Still a lot of variability, especially on the Type I/Sativa side, since I haven't worked it as much. Took these pics today, here is a standard NL pheno that is still quite dominant in almost every seed run:

The buds on this Type IV and the Type II are prone to botrytis, so I've been working to combine the stretching/branching characteristics to produce smaller but _many_ more buds.

Here is the one Type IV/Hybrid that is almost _exactly_ what I've been working for the past couple of years:

Since this is pretty far off the OT of this thread, see here for more info if interested:

How You Can Develop Cannabis To Do What You Want

TL; DR So CRISPR?

www.icmag.com

 

[PetePrice]

Just know Matt is a solid dude. CSI, H&L, and quite a few other OG community members vouch for the guy.

On the topic of notso. He did something that his circle frowned upon and didn't take much accountability. That's the issue I believe. That's an issue between them and their circle. We can all be grown ups and understand that these things happen.

And hell if I had all this hype behind a clone drop and people got bunk or fake cuts, I would never be allowed on these boards again. We should all hold eachother to the same standard.

He is as solid as a big steaming piece of s*** ffs

 

[Wolverine97]

Could you explain the type 1, type 2,.etc. some folks may benefit from learning about the different types.

That beautiful Fall colored girl looks real close to the NL5 I grew back in the mid 90's.

Agreed on the plant with the nice purple fade. That looks very much like the NL I grew in the early 2000's, minus the colors. Mine were all straight green, had several pheno's ranging in growth and nose/flavor/effect. There were two phenos I would dearly love to grow again; a taller more sativa influenced plant that smelled and tasted of pure lemon (I still think about that one a lot) with a nice hybrid type high. The other was a short squat (like the pic) fairly dense hindu type plant, that was the best night time medicine I have had in my life. Great earthy, kush type flavor, and just a hammer of a stone. Nobody could stay awake after smoking that one.

 

[Wolverine97]

You have interesting NL project going on man

How do you do your seed projects with it?

Do you use some kind of open pollination or mixed pollen from many males? or do you find something that you like and use only those?

Do you keep the sativa leaning seed lines separated or is it all mixed together?

Maybe you talked about it all in the thread but i didn't go through all the posts



I wanted to do similar thing with the mns ortega. To find some nice old heirlooms and create separate lines but the afgahni side of that line was very disappointing for me. i was hoping to find better quality and so i threw away most of them without growing them a second time

I still have three ortega females going, i’m thinking of getting rid of the only afghan leaning i kept cause it gives me allergic reactions (hands start itching like hell when i handle it and it worsens my atopic skin problems, makes my allergy towards cats much worse too) and i have some pollen in the freezer from a pink stemmed sativa leaning plant. apparently the mexican in the nl5 hawaiian. I should have kept the male longer but i was more into the afghani side of the line



Nice project keep it going

This is sending me down memory lane... something I hadn't thought of in years. When I grew NL about 25 years ago, my favorite pheno (short Hindu type) gave me that same kind of allergic reaction when my arms brushed the branches. It's the only cannabis plant I can recall that had that effect on me. It was a phenomenal plant, low yielding but such heavy narcotic smoke.

I've bought quite a few different NL lines the past several years, but haven't got into any of them yet. Soon come.

 

[midwestkid]

who has the best NL5 these days?

 

[CharlesU Farley]

who has the best NL5 these days?

There is absolutely no _verifiable_, numbered version of NL available, _anywhere_... unless you want to believe tall tales, myths, legends and/or outright marketing lies.

NL #5 was a singular _plant_, not seeds, that Nevil possessed and was unable to clone. He used that singular plant for breeding, lost it when he got busted and could _never_ retrieve it.

I'm still trying to source NL 3.14, hear it smells exactly like pie.

 

[Countryboy]

That long, narrow leaf structure I've never seen, except for on the Type I/Sativa variant that I identified and played around with for a little while:

View attachment 18995358

And every time I post this pic, I have to give the environmental conditions, so I don't get watering/fertilizer advice from Millennials, the temp inside the tent when this pic was taken was around 38° F and the relative humidity was 80+ percent as well.

This is the leaf structure on the standard Sensi NL that I haven't worked into a specific Type dominance:

View attachment 18995361

Here's the leaf structure on the Type II /Indica side of things:

View attachment 18995362


We've all been guilty of excessive love! But one thing Sensi's late '90s release of Northern Lights is always giving me is rock, solid stability. I've had one branch of one plant go hermie on me, and that was after a long power outage and 30° temps, with absolutely no light or heat.

Hell for the next grow or two, I did every damn thing I could to try to _induce_ hermies. At the time I was still in the 2 x 5 closet, and I absolutely loved having _guaranteed_ females. Didn't work out for me, couldn't induce it to do shit. So those 20 or 30 c's were my only experience with hermies.


The closest I get to the single stalk variation is the staminate plant on the far right, in the pic above. I know in the early to mid '70s, Sensi sold NL2 as the base version of Northern Lights and then switched over to the #5 x #2 version that Nevil worked so well. It provided the stability and uniformity for multiple generations, with very little phenotypic variation.

I can definitely tell you what the #1, the so-called "purest" Indica _didn't_ look like, and that's this:

View attachment 18995367

Wrong leaf structure, it's not even indicative of a Type II/Indica _dominant_ plant.

One of my goals in life now, at least on _this_ forum, is to put this NL numbering bullshit to rest. If Nevil couldn't get and or make a seed version of #5, then _nobody_ can. The pure pistilate dominance of his #5 was so strong, he couldn't get it to induce actual pollen that he could use, except for _one_ time. And all those seeds are gone.

People hawking specific numbers of NL haven't actually worked with the plant long enough to even realize what the general phenotypes even look like.

Hope you're not sorry you asked the question. One word/sentence responses are exceedingly rare for me, and are usually comedy related.

Love your music and hope everything is going good for you on the medical side of things!

Are those Cherniak Hashish books I see on the shelf?

 

[CannaRed]

Are those Cherniak Hashish books I see on the shelf?

They look bigger than the two I have. I guess they could have made larger versions.
But I think that could be the one from Suomi La Valle. I don't have that one yet

 

[CharlesU Farley]

This is sending me down memory lane... something I hadn't thought of in years. When I grew NL about 25 years ago, my favorite pheno (short Hindu type) gave me that same kind of allergic reaction when my arms brushed the branches. It's the only cannabis plant I can recall that had that effect on me. It was a phenomenal plant, low yielding but such heavy narcotic smoke.

Holy moly! I sometimes have the same reaction on my arms when I'm harvesting the Type II/Indica side of NL. You're the only other person I've ever known who has had that type of effect. It doesn't blister up as bad as poison ivy does but it does get rather red and angry for an hour or two.

And you are right on the money on the Type II pheno being a heavy hitter but a _very_ low yielder. That's why I know Todd McCormick's Purest Indica is purest bullshit. Nevil's description:

____________________________________

Nevil
Breeder
Aug 27, 2010
Add bookmark
#22
"It barely branches at all, almost like indican bamboo... pretty much a straight stem with almost no branching.. buds cure super dark almost black, dense and resinated.

NL1 had coarser dark green leaves, was more inclined to grow one main bud with little branching, the stem was very sturdy. It had a more narcotic high. The buds were more nugget like, The resin went yellow more quickly and the stalked glands were not as pronounced as with the NL5. It was a more Indica dominant plant.
N

_________________________________________

His Purest Indica buds don't look _anything_ close to this description.

This was a typical bud from my last harvest of the Type II side of things:

These were couch lock buds that actually drew welts on my arm.

 

[Wolverine97]

Holy moly! I sometimes have the same reaction on my arms when I'm harvesting the Type II/Indica side of NL. You're the only other person I've ever known who has had that type of effect. It doesn't blister up as bad as poison ivy does but it does get rather red and angry for an hour or two.

And you are right on the money on the Type II pheno being a heavy hitter but a _very_ low yielder. That's why I know Todd McCormick's Purest Indica is purest bullshit. Nevil's description:

____________________________________

Nevil
Breeder
Aug 27, 2010
Add bookmark
#22
"It barely branches at all, almost like indican bamboo... pretty much a straight stem with almost no branching.. buds cure super dark almost black, dense and resinated.

NL1 had coarser dark green leaves, was more inclined to grow one main bud with little branching, the stem was very sturdy. It had a more narcotic high. The buds were more nugget like, The resin went yellow more quickly and the stalked glands were not as pronounced as with the NL5. It was a more Indica dominant plant.
N

_________________________________________

His Purest Indica buds don't look _anything_ close to this description.

This was a typical bud from my last harvest of the Type II side of things:


View attachment 19125229

These were couch lock buds that actually drew welts on my arm.

Yeah it is very similar in structure to what I grew 20-25 years ago, just different colors. I still haven't found another plant that gives me that reaction. And yeah, not like poison ivy, more like "itchweed" or milk thistle but a bit milder. Side branching was very short and fairly tight to the main stalk. What's it taste like? I don't remember the smell of that one as vividly as the lemon pheno, but I remember it being earthy but not "dirty", more what I'd call a "kush" type nose.

Oh, and I have Todd's stuff too. I haven't popped any of them yet. Lately I'm more into my own stuff, exploring things I have made over the years.