Me grow long time!

[Big Sur]

Hello from the 4th sate to (sort of) legalize rec weed: Oregon. I was born here but matured in Central California during the hey days of weed in the later 1960s through the 1980s. I have been growing weed for over 40 years now, from lat. 33 N. to 45 N along the Pacific Coast. I lived in Big Sur briefly, on Partington Ridge in 1982 or so.  I lived on the Monterey Peninsula, in San Diego, in Los Gatos and Campbell, North Lake Tahoe, and Sonoma Co. I currently live in the Cascades in Northern Oregon.

 

[Big Sur]

I have never been 'strain hunting', per se. I have traveled all over North and Central America though, and smoked many types of local weed wherever I have gone. I also have a sizable landrace seed collection that I started in 1975 or so with bag weed seeds from Colombia, Mexico, SE Asia, and Africa. I also have early heirloom strains from Big Sur, Carmel Valley and Santa Cruz/Gilroy areas from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s. So if I want to go hunting for strains, I only have to go as far as my freezer. They are for the most part still viable. I have grown many of them and supplied them to other growers over the years with great results. Though they are all for the most part sativas, for better or worse. Sorry, they are not available for sale or trade. Nor am I affiliated with any seed companies out there.

[Dust]

Welcome on the forum man!

 

Congrtz on the legalisation and i hope you will like the place. It sounds like you have quite a nice collection in your fridge! Hope that we will see some nice pics of those ladies and your opinion on it

 

Whatever you need on the forum dont hesitate to ask to the mod team.

 

Have a good discovering of the place 

[Big Sur]

Thanks. I have news that I will be getting some landrace Lebanese seeds direct from the Bekka Valley in the next month, so that is going to be this year's project. To grow and seed them out. WHAT! Smoke seeded bud? Yes... The seeds are worth far more than the bud. Lebanese sourced seeds seem to be hard to get from seed companies (most are crossed with "Eddy's Wonder Bud," or some newer cross that I do not want). I generally avoid seed companies anyway.

 

And yes, growing weed is legal here now! Whahoo! Who would have thunk it 10, 20 or 30 years ago? And ow it will be legal in California and Nevada as well.  And in Washington they allow growing 4 plants with a doctor's Rx now , no permit or WMMP card required.

[Cannabissapean]

Big Sur,

Sorry that I had missed your introduction back in November.

Yeah, that is mighty fine that the west coast is leading the way to freedom.  Let's just hope it keeps going until we are all completely free.

I now refer to your side of the nation as the F.S.A.  The Free States of America.

 

That Bekka Valley Lebanese sounds exciting, man.  I wish you all the success you can use, and make a shatload of seeds, man.  Arjan might be interested in having some; I know I am.

[Big Sur]

No issues missing intros. I was buried here through the holidays.

 

Also you have some momentum back east, with DC, ME and MA all legalizing rec weed, and lots more states like Florida making medical MJ legal. Its weird here though. I can go all the way up and down the west coast now and even to Alaska and not get busted for having a bag of weed on me. I am still paranoid about it though. Its been illegal for so long. Legalization has some odd quirks to it as well. I was going to get a license to grow here on my property, but the hurdles, hoops and costs are so high that I decided not to. OMMP/medical here is being put onto the back shelf. In California, medical MJ is being replaced completely by rec weed.  Big companies are also already moving into Oregon and buying up grow licenses. So small growers will likely be crushed here.

[Cannabissapean]

It is unfortunate that legalization comes with all these problems.

 

I would have preferred that things went the way of decriminalization at all levels, and then leave it at that, PERIOD.  It should have become simply a NON-ISSUE, with nothing more to be said about it, but no, now the government wants to get its hands into all of our pockets with licenses and fees and taxes.  IMHO, government should not be in the business.

 

I did not know that DC, MA and ME had decriminalized rec-use.  Are they requiring tax-seals on the packages, like with cigarettes?

[Big Sur]

Yes, decriminalization would be a much better route IMO as well. During the Carter years, weed was basically decriminalized, at least in California.  I smoked weed with Highway Patrol officers and judges and doctors then. No one cared. Decriminalize it and let it go... but this way they get to tax the crap out of it, and growers and sellers have to pay big license fees and be regulated. In Oregon, the list of grower requirements is very long and detailed, including having background checks, having a water right granted on the grow site, getting a MJ handling permit and paying $5,750 a year for a full grow license. The big issue here are the latest increases in testing for pesticides, mold and %content of product. There are only a few labs testing in state, and there s a bottleneck. Also the testing is expensive, especially for processed hash oil. Then... you get to compete with all the other growers in state and find a buyer. Being able to grow commercial rec weed also depends on the county that you are in; most counties in Oregon have outlawed it.  

 

 

[Big Sur]

In the last elections, Nevada, California, Maine, and Massachusetts all made rec weed legal. That was on top of the earlier list of states which legalized rec weed, including Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska and the D of C (Washington, DC). Arizona was the only state that voted down legal rec weed on the ballot.  The legality of weed varies highly by state though. Maine has the best and most open laws for what you can have and what you can grow personally. Washington state does not allow for personal rec grows. Nevada only allows for rec growing if you are farther than 25 miles from a rec MJ dispensary.  The states all tax growing and sales of rec weed differently as well. And for the time being, most banks will not deal with any MJ businesses, so its all done in cash. 

[Big Sur]

On 1/20/2017 at 10:31 AM, Cannabissapean said:

 Are they requiring tax-seals on the packages, like with cigarettes?

 

It depends on the state. In Oregon they are requiring new approved child-proof packages and certified labels for all marijuana products sold (including medical). Labels cannot have child appealing names like BubbleGum or Candy. Those strain names will have to be changed for labeling purposes to be sold in Oregon. There are no tax stamps, per se in Oregon on weed. Like liquor in this state, you can only buy rec weed in a state licensed store, so all product sold there is taxed at the 17% sales tax rate, and maybe an added 3% city or county tax as well (depends on the municipality). There is still a black market for weed  here though, and you can grow and smoke your own (4 plants per address, no limit on plant size, but we are supposed to only have 1/2 pound per residence, or one oz on your person at any time). Legally you can give away plants, seeds, clones and MJ in Oregon, but you cannot sell them unless you have a rec or medical weed sales license or have an OMMP card and sell them to another OMMP card holder, or you sell excess OMMP weed grown to a medical dispensary (but it has to be labeled, bagged and tested first).

 

They call it legal, I call it highly restricted.

[Dr3@m]

Hello everyone.

1 hour ago, Big Sur said:

They call it legal, I call it highly restricted.

 

I highly would prefer to smoke a J on the balcony, in Monterey watching the sun goes down than in other countries such as Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines and the United Arab Emirates. (Because of the "Extreme Law" on cannabis out there...I like those countries. Indonesia has got really good weed in Aceh and Bali for exemple). I've forgot Singapore !!

 

The U.S are making a clever move. Yes, who would have thunk such a change 20 years ago?...

 

The Lebanese sounds great ! Tough plant and mellow smoke. + Rare to be grown.

 

[Big Sur]

Well, Monterey has been flooding lately with all the rains. It looks like the end of the drought in California, but not in Monterey after they tore out the San Clemente dam; no more local water supply. The best sunsets in that area that I saw were in the hills in Prunedale, just north of Monterey. We would smoke many a J and watch the sunsets there at a friend's place, which we dubbed, "The Waste Station". That's because we stopped there on many trips to Berkeley and Oregon to get wasted.

[Cannabissapean]

I have heard of this never-ending battle among landowners and cities and counties there in the west over water and water-rights, such that landowners aren't allowed to build dams to collect water that runs across their land, sometimes it seams that they aren't even allowed to capture rain that fally on their land.

 

I consider the attitude against the dam-builders is extremely short-sighted.  When the pond is filled, water will flow again.  And if every land-owner constructed dams, the environment could eventually be converted to be more lush and green with multiple oases for birds and fish and other wildlife that could benefit from wetlands.

 

They could learn from Germany, where they have learned to create many dams to do exactly that.  The benefits include flood control as well as the preservation of wildlife, and even the use of the many waterfalls for local energy production or use for small mills.

[Big Sur]

Water rights here in the western US are highly varied by state. In California, water rights go back to the Hacienda days and vary greatly by when and where they were granted. Some farmers there can pump the ground dry (and have), while others have to import water from other places in the state (mainly by the California or other aqueducts). There are many building bans in California because of the lack of water. This has created a building moratorium now in places like Carmel Valley, Sonoma and Mendocino Counties. Some areas are serviced for water by dams, others by rivers, and others by underground aqueducts. Now they are building desalination plants in places where they are so low on water supply that there is no alternative (like Santa Barbara). During this latest drought, the state of California has been rescinding ancient water rights, and have been going back in time to about 100 years now. They need a state-wide plan, but they do not have one in place yet.  They have also been busting old dams there that have filled with sediment.

 

In Oregon, water rights are simple. The State of Oregon owns all water with the one exception of the Bull Run Watershed that belongs to the city of Portland. All water here is allocated by water rights granted by the local state water districts. All water here, be it river water, runoff, rain water, ponds, wells, streams, etc. is the property of the state. So no one can pump any aquifer dry or divert a stream or build a dam. Here of late they have been busting dams, and letting streams and rivers revert to natural flows. But local farmers can get pond permits and build small dams. My neighbors have done that, and my ex has 3 permitted ponds on her property. She is also on the local water board there. In Oregon there is also a lot more water. I can legally pump 1,000 gallons a day for commercial use, I can irrigate a half acre of land and I can use 5,000 gallons a day for personal use. I have an unlimited supply being here in the north Cascades though. This well will never go dry. I also have a water right to use it. And it is some of the purest water in the US. One reason I chose to buy this place 7 years ago. Many places in Oregon do not have good water or good wells, especially in Southern Oregon. Oregon has strict building limitations though, and if rural property has not been built on, you cannot build new housing or develop out here. In Washington and California, you can. 

[No_comment]

On 19.01.2017 at 11:20 AM, Big Sur said:

Thanks. I have news that I will be getting some landrace Lebanese seeds direct from the Bekka Valley in the next month, so that is going to be this year's project. To grow and seed them out. WHAT! Smoke seeded bud? Yes... The seeds are worth far more than the bud. Lebanese sourced seeds seem to be hard to get from seed companies (most are crossed with "Eddy's Wonder Bud," or some newer cross that I do not want). I generally avoid seed companies anyway.

 

And yes, growing weed is legal here now! Whahoo! Who would have thunk it 10, 20 or 30 years ago? And ow it will be legal in California and Nevada as well.  And in Washington they allow growing 4 plants with a doctor's Rx now , no permit or WMMP card required.

Why lebanese ? why not like a afgani or paki . Most lebanese plants are actually Autos and its so seeded its not smokable usually but makes some awesome hash

[Big Sur]

Red Lebanese is the best hash I have ever smoked, with the ~one~ exception if Kona Gold hash that a roommate of mine brought back from Hawaii one year. I have smoked a lot of different hashish, including Moroccan, Afghani, Israeli, Pakistani, North Indian, Lebanese Blonde, Lebanese Red, Nepalese Temple Balls, Nepalese fingers, and lots of home made hashish as well as hash oils. I have also made a lot of hash and hash oils myself. But in this case I am after a landrace strain that is stable, that has naturally high CBD and blooms and ripens early. I am also planning on crossing and seeding it, as I am getting two strains, one harvested last fall from the Bekka Valley, and another collected in the late 1990s from farther east in Lebanon (kept frozen and dry).  Once I breed them and have seeds, I will grow females for sinsemilia.  If they are unsmokable as dried tops, I will make them into hashish. It fulfills a fantasy mostly. Now that I can grow here legally, I always wanted to be able to grow real hash plants and make hash from them. Why go to Lebanon when I can grow it here?

 

I am used to growing unusual landrace strains, and I am not really after the typical same old- same old- Amsterdam crossed-to-death strains. Nor am I into 40-60% THC dabbs/shatter/wax. I am after the highs that I liked the best when I was younger.  Red Leb was a high of legendary status. Also I have several Afghan and Paki dominant strain seeds that I have grown. They are also pretty common here as clones, and I can always buy them. They tend to be rather harsh to smoke though, and they tend to put me to sleep. Pure Lebanese clones are not available anywhere in these parts and hashish did not come with any seeds. After this I will be hunting for South Indian sativa Ganja. Ganja is another high of legend from 1975 that I bought a lot of and sold out in one week, and people were banging in my door to buy it MONTHS later! It was intense. I grew White Widow this year hoping to get something similar, which is most certainly is. I liked growing White Widow and I really like the high.  But I want the pure Ganja high w/o the Brazilian mix.

 

As for smoking seeded weed, that is *ALL* that we had until the late 1970s (except for hashish). You are all so spoiled now. We all had rolling trays to separate the stems and seeds from weed just to roll a joint. But as a direct consequence of that seeded bag weed, I have over 40 landrace strains frozen here that I can grow from year to year. Colombian weed was notorious for having gobs of seeds. Seeds weighed more, so farmers grew seedy weed. All the better for me,  as I have lots of Colombian landrace seeds, many of which are likely otherwise extinct now.

[No_comment]

4 hours ago, Big Sur said:

Red Lebanese is the best hash I have ever smoked, with the ~one~ exception if Kona Gold hash that a roommate of mine brought back from Hawaii one year. I have smoked a lot of different hashish, including Moroccan, Afghani, Israeli, Pakistani, North Indian, Lebanese Blonde, Lebanese Red, Nepalese Temple Balls, Nepalese fingers, and lots of home made hashish as well as hash oils. I have also made a lot of hash and hash oils myself. But in this case I am after a landrace strain that is stable, that has naturally high CBD and blooms and ripens early. I am also planning on crossing and seeding it, as I am getting two strains, one harvested last fall from the Bekka Valley, and another collected in the late 1990s from farther east in Lebanon (kept frozen and dry).  Once I breed them and have seeds, I will grow females for sinsemilia.  If they are unsmokable as dried tops, I will make them into hashish. It fulfills a fantasy mostly. Now that I can grow here legally, I always wanted to be able to grow real hash plants and make hash from them. Why go to Lebanon when I can grow it here?

 

I am used to growing unusual landrace strains, and I am not really after the typical same old- same old- Amsterdam crossed-to-death strains. Nor am I into 40-60% THC dabbs/shatter/wax. I am after the highs that I liked the best when I was younger.  Red Leb was a high of legendary status. Also I have several Afghan and Paki dominant strain seeds that I have grown. They are also pretty common here as clones, and I can always buy them. They tend to be rather harsh to smoke though, and they tend to put me to sleep. Pure Lebanese clones are not available anywhere in these parts and hashish did not come with any seeds. After this I will be hunting for South Indian sativa Ganja. Ganja is another high of legend from 1975 that I bought a lot of and sold out in one week, and people were banging in my door to buy it MONTHS later! It was intense. I grew White Widow this year hoping to get something similar, which is most certainly is. I liked growing White Widow and I really like the high.  But I want the pure Ganja high w/o the Brazilian mix.

 

As for smoking seeded weed, that is *ALL* that we had until the late 1970s (except for hashish). You are all so spoiled now. We all had rolling trays to separate the stems and seeds from weed just to roll a joint. But as a direct consequence of that seeded bag weed, I have over 40 landrace strains frozen here that I can grow from year to year. Colombian weed was notorious for having gobs of seeds. Seeds weighed more, so farmers grew seedy weed. All the better for me,  as I have lots of Colombian landrace seeds, many of which are likely otherwise extinct now.

Thanks for that gave me a insight on the past. Quıck questıon u ever smoke anythıng turkısh ın amerıca 

[Big Sur]

No, nothing from Turkey in California at that time. I cannot really speak for the rest of the US though. Nothing from Brazil, either. Most weed was from Mexico, Thailand, or Colombia, and starting in the late 1960s but really not until the late 1970s, California. California (mainly the Emerald Triangle) later dominated the markets here. We also got weed from Cambodia and VietNam until 1972 when the war ended, and now and then from Hawaii, Jamaica, Africa, and Panama. Only the once did I get any ganja from South India. The hash was from the places I mentioned above.

[Cannabissapean]

Frisbees are wonderful rolling trays...

 

Trying to convince StrainHunters / GreenHouse to print the round StrainHunters Logo onto a black Frisbee to sell them in the store.

I think they would sell very well...

 

 

Big Sur, it sounds like you and I were smoking much the same things back then.

 

[Big Sur]

Come to think of it I never used a frisbee as a rolling tray. Well, likely we did at some point. Some days are a bit fuzzy in my memory now. Early on I got these carved wooden trays from a friend that was in the VietNam war. He brought them back from SE Asia with him. He also sent his wife a carved wooden box with containers in it, and filled with an array of weed and hash from SE Asia. Shipped via the military, there was no customs or inspections. Cambodian Red, Nepalese fingers and temple balls, several Vietnam and Laos strains, etc. All easily obtained on the streets of Saigon. Later we used Couroc trays that were made locally in Monterey made of plastic and inlayed with art. They were collectable and trendy, and still sell for a good bit on the internet. I still have one of those. Rolling trays went out of style when sinsemilia came on the scene in the 1980s. People now do not know what they were or why you would need one. Seeded weed? What? Weed had seeds?

[Tiva_Lover]

Why would you avoid seeds from seeding companies?  Can you be more specific. 

[Cannabissapean]

LOL, exactly, LOL ^^^^

 

I think he meant that many people today no longer get seeds in their bags of weed because to the greatest extent possible, the volume growers grow sensimilla (unpollinated female buds).  Therefore, many users today who are not growers themselves might not even know that seeds could be possible within their bags of marijuana.

Oh wait, maybe that wasn't the reference you were referring to, Tiva-Lover.

 

(I re-read the entire thread.)

 

Maybe you were referring to a different post above:  Many seed companies today have crossed their seed-stock so many different ways, and seed companies have acquired the seeds of other seed companies and have crossed and re-crossed so much, that for those sources, the plants are slowly but surely becoming homogenous.  The landrace seeds from years gone by had each their distinctive flavors and characteristics, much-loved by the old-schoolers.

I think that that may be one of the reasons that Franco was so passionate about collecting landraces for his inventory.  Also, I think that this constant crossing and re-crossing may be the reason that StrainHunters has never released the landrace seeds in open-public sales, fearing that the same fate would occur to the seeds sold.  It may well be that the landrace seeds collected are or will someday become the base gene-pool for future strains.  I imagine that most every top-notch landrace seed-collection will be held very close to the chest by its owner, or if sold, they may sell at prices well above the standard strains that we buy today.

[Big Sur]

^^^ Yes, you nailed it on all counts.

 

As a rule I do not sell my seeds. I let my family have them and clones to grow though. I have also supplied a few of my landrace seeds over the years to local west coat growers, and some to a limited number of people in Europe doing test runs. I also traded a lot of pollen from my male runs 2 years to some local growers to make crosses with. The results of growing from my seeds early on in the 1970s were stunning, mainly from the fact that they were grown into female-only sinsemillia instead of being seeded, like bag weed was. Later on those same seeds were less regarded by growers that I supplied seeds to, because they were expecting Amsterdam cross results. It was the same with my ex in Southern Oregon. I grew bang-up landrace sativa sinsemillia there, but she wanted couch-lock indica. So I made a lot of bud into hashish to sate her wants. Landraces are not all about drop dead 20%+ THC results though. They  are more about subtle qualities of the high with variable cannabinols, and variable terpenes. That said, I do have some landraces from Colombia and Africa that are very potent.   

 

 

[Big Sur]

As for my not buying seeds, another factor to that said above is that many seed companies are selling junk seeds (some seed companies outright lie), or sell seeds that are weird crosses that are basically failures. "Free" seeds are typically of these types. You can pollinate a female and get masses of seeds. The better crosses are usually few and far between. Cannabis has a huge bank of genetics, and it adapts rapidly to local environments that it is grown in. Cannabis will also do gene switching and express different phenotypes over time and in different environments. This is not just an issue with modern strains of Cannabis grown for marijuana, but has been noted when growing hemp worldwide, and described as doing so as early as several centuries ago.

 

As mentioned above, there is a lot of in-breeding being done, as well attempts to out-breed. Say, for example you have some landrace plants that you have grown for several generations. As a result of their tendency to adapt rapidly to local growing conditions, they will drift genetically. To try to keep the strain up in performance and quality, breeders try to make new crosses adding other genes to maintain or increase vigor and potency. Another factor adding to this is that there is a pool of modern strains out there now that are all basically derived from the same original strains. As a result of this breeding practice, the strains are melding into one generic type.

 

Also there has been an unintentional genetic drift (or several drifts) as the result of growing only females and culling males, as well as producing feminized seeds. These two factors have resulted in a genetic pre-disposition of these seeds to produce a higher number of females. Also there is a tendency for strains to produce larger numbers of herms. Also self crossed herms were used to produce many modern strains, many quite by accident. An example of this is ChemDog (later spelled ChemDawg, even the names drift!). ChemDog is a self cross of Dog Bud, a chance male flower that created a few seeds in an otherwise all female grow. Chem Dog is a parent of OG Kush and many Diesel strains, and the group of them are in so many strains out there now it is insane. So the herm gene is in them all as well. Wild strains also herm though, and even landrace strains that I have will herm. But the tendency is lower in wild and landrace strains. The tendency to produce males and females in landrace strains is basically 50:50. The tendency to produce males and females in modern strains is more like 40:60 male to females. This is according to Clarke in his book, Marijuana Botany.

[Big Sur]

One other point I will make about modern crossed strains vs landrace strains here: I grow and breed with the intent of retaining landrace genetics, rather than crossing for highly concentrated THC, which is what 90% of what breeders have seemed to be after over the last 40 years or so. With the exception of strains like GDP and California Orange, its all about THC. THC is only one of 40 or 50 known cannabinols, and there is a huge array of other psychotropic and medicinal cannabinols available in the genetics of landrace strains that seems to have been bread out in what I will call the "Amsterdam strains."  Terpenes are another variable that seem to get lost in breeding, though there are strains that retain flavors, and again GDP and California Orange were seemingly bread with that intent. GirlScout Cookies is another with mint flavor, which I believe is derived from a landrace Oaxaca strain, as Oaxacan weed tended to have a string mint flavor. I grew some of my Oaxaca seeds 20 some odd years ago in NorCal and the girls were so minty in flavor that I could not smoke it. Other people liked it though. I believe that the mint terpene was intentionally bred into the weed grown there over centuries because in 16th century New Spain going forward, Indios and rural cultures grew weed to brew in tea and drink. So from that perspective, a mint flavor would be desirable to make the tea more palatable.