Sativa vs. Indica still relevant?

I must admit that one of the things about today's strains that is extrememly appealing is the appearance. Even the shittiest strain can look really good. Back in the sixties no one knew how to dry and cure their pot. When you bought it, it looked like shit in comparison to todays. It was full of seeds/twigs/leaves and dried buds but it had one trait that most of todays strains don't have: a real high ceiling or no ceiling at all. It was great to be able to smoke two or three joints and keep getting higher.
I know that alot of those strains are still out there - definitely not grown for commercial reasons but more for personal stashes. I know somebody in Amsterdam that is growing Acapulco Gold and when he has a bumper crop he'll sell an ounce for 800$US. So maybe one day the drug war will end and all these great strains will become available to the general public and you will know that we're not really full of shit.

PAX

 

In a lot of cases, you couldn't be sure about the weeds origin. However, I could trace most grass coming from south of the border I smoked from about 79 to 86 to the region, if not the field itself.

When the coumbians figured out that the gold color was largely a product of the soil and curing, they turned as much of the weed gold as possible and wrecked the market. "Commercial Columbian Gold" was once an oxymoron; "Santa Marta Gold' was the true columbian gold.

Paxman.
Your freind may honestly believe he has "pure" Acapulco Gold genes, but I'd bet my left nut he doesn't. None of the stuff in Amsterdam is a pure strain, with the possible exceptions of some indicas.

In any case, alas, I once collected seeds from the Mountains of Santa Marta-- right off of Simon Bolivar's ranch, (ledgend has it that he developed the strain) and tried to reproduce the results several times over the years, indoor and outdoor. The weed was always good, never gold, never great, and the yield sucked. The seeds I interbred quickly deginerated. The needed evvironment was lacking.
Growers learned early on that genetic degradation and the plant's amazing ability to adapt greatly hinder the development of a truly stable variety indoors. They attempt to revitaize a strain by adding genes from outside the pool.
think about how they brought the buffalo back with cow genes. they're back, but they're not the same.

So if you've smoked golds and sticks, consider yourself privledged.
You have every right to be smug about it!

 

geckopelli, you do understand that I am on your side in this don't you?

No for the controversial statement.
For any of you readers/posters under about 43-45 years old you really have no ground to stand on in this "debate". Simple fact of the matter is that you either weren't born yet or were far too young to have sampled any of the weed us old farts are referring to that was prevalent in the 60's-70's. Why get so head up about and defensive about todays strains?
I find it very humorous to have someone 20 years old tell me I am wrong about something that transpired a decade or more before you were born, especially when we are talking about subjective experiences.

No one in this thread ever said the newer genetically controlled strains aren't potent and don't have differing effects. What is being said is that the differences between strains aren't as dramatic as they were 35 years ago and that most of that has actually been bred out of the weed that predominates the market today. Not really an issue for heated debate. That would be like me arguing that the original Coca-Cola that contained coca leaf extract isn't as good as it is today with caffeine. There is and never will be any way for me to test that hypothesis so the argument is pointless.
Why not just accept the info us old fucks have to share for what it is instead of taking it as some kind of personal assault ?

About gold weed I always thought that a lot of the gold color was because often the growers would stop watering the plants for a few weeks prior to harvesting them and the plant would reuptake the chlorophyl to the growing tips and naturally turn brown/gold.
I may be wrong, but I have grown plants that I have allowed to die in the ground and ended up with gold leaf and bud.

 

I hear ya on that one brother! :cheers2:
I have had some of the stinkiest, stickiest, most gourgeous looking, smelling and tasting buds ever that were totally disapointing as far as effect goes.
Conversely I have also had some of the driest, harshest, seedy, sparse buds that looked, smelled and tasted horrid knock me on my ass!

Looks ain't everything kids. Just another example of the commercialization and marketing of the marijuana business in today's world.

 

PB Smith,

It's not a "sides" issue.

I'm just reporting what I know from my own experience, and the experience of people I've trusted with my life.

the good shit is gone; replaced by the powerful.

I know I sound concieted, but I really am an expert on this subject. Any one at the U of Florida tallahasse has smoked "K's Crop"-- my own commercial variety.

 

geckopelli- your left testicle is safe. The Acapulco Gold that he is growing has been altered slightly just so he could get better production. The strain was pure when he was growing it in southern California but when he moved to The Netherlands he tried growing it in a greenhouse and couldn't get good production out of it. I found out that he lives in Spain now so maybe he is breeding the purity back into the strain.
After reading alot of threads and posts about breeding- I realized that one of the reasons why the strains of today are so fucked is because everybody thinks - get a male and a female and you got money. It seems to me that most breeding done today is strictly for commercial reasons . I think the idea of selling a seed for 5$ plus is just too tempting. Oh well- fuck the drug war.

PAX

 

Money, get away
Get a good job with more pay
And your O.K.

Money, it's a gas
Grab that cash with both hands
And make a stash

New car, caviar, four star daydream
Think I'll buy me a football team

Money get back
I'm all right Jack
Keep your hands off my stack

Money, it's a hit
Don't give me that
Do goody good bullshit

I'm in the hi-fidelity
First class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet

Money, it's a crime
Share it fairly
But don't take a slice of my pie

Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil
Today

But if you ask for a rise
It's no surprise that they're
Giving none away

:cheers2:

 

A few of the younger crowd in this forum seem to have taken it as such, hence my response's.

 

Better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved...sniff..sob...:iagree:


ZW :cheers2:

 

Picked up a 2009 December High Times yesterday, in the question and answer section (Ask Danko, which just replaced Jorge Cervantes' column) someone wrote in saying that they haven't smoked since the 70s but because of medical reasons is looking to grow now. He said he had a large quantity of seeds saved from back when he smoked, which he kept in pretty good shape. Danko suggested growing them out and cloning them, and mentioned how many old strains once thought extinct are getting brought back because of situations like this one, and the reader could be sitting on some cannabis DNA gold. That would be awesome.

Anyways, you want insight into why the younger crowd gets upset on this topic, I think I can sum it up: Why didn't you old farts save some seeds? Why did YOU allow it to die out? We have a lot of self-proclaimed weed connoisseurs here smug about the supposedly amazing weed they've smoked, but apparently played no part in keeping the strain alive.

At least that was my initial reaction, but I don't really care anymore. Shit happens and I'm perfectly happy with the weed we have today, so if you want to knock it, go ahead. I actually think it is an interesting topic and I hope we see some old strains emerge because of situations like the one in my HT mag. I've also done a lot more research on genetics and strain types since this thread was created, haha, I want to get my hands on some real Thai Stick dammit.

 

I know exactly what you mean xD I bought some 'thai stick' the other day and all it was was some crappy harsh bush, got me stoned nicely but just tasted like crap

I want Thai stick that I hear about in the books like Mr. Nice xD

 

:sad:
(pb_smith hangs his head in shameful regret and mutters quietly over and over; "If I only knew back then, If I only knew back then")

 

Haha PB it's all good :sifone: Can't expect for any of you to had known how things would play out.

 

Every time I tried to grow Thai, the fuckin' shit went hermaphrodite if you even looked at 'em wrong.
Granted, I didn't necessarily have what you would call a "green thumb" and scientific indoor cannabis growing techniques were still fairly esoteric in the '70s.(Hydroponics, halide grow lights, co2, etc,)


I know a cat that has killer Thai seeds from the day...

Man, I sure chucked a lot of killer 'lumbo seeds...



ZW eace:

 

(upon reading those words pb_smith goes further into a pit of regret and despair over the countless thousands of potential buds he discarded as "garbage" and begins to weep for all the great weed that could have been )

 

( WAIT! From the gloom of despair pb_smith has a spark of memory... "Could there be...did I".. hurriedly he leaps from his seat in front of his keyboard and dives into his closet looking for something as though his very existance depended on the results of this frenzied search.
Could it be...?
YES! YES! YES!...
There amongst car pink slips, birth certificates and long forgotten birthday cards and love letters was the object of his search...
a simple clear plastic container no bigger than a mini bic lighter which contained 5 seeds, glorious and wonderful magic beans, full and golden brown with a slight freckling, retrieved from an ounce of loose Thai buds that he aquired about the year 1981.
Hurray, There is a marijuana god!!!
Now pb can't wait for next spring to make it's approach.)

 

I have a personal theory (that is already being somewhat substantiated by several recent study's ) that the cannabinols in sativa strains (lower isomers delta8 and delta7) while less psychoactive than the delta9 THC,
have more therapeutic value than indicas for treating things like nausea. .
These lower isomers are present in much greater amounts in sativa.

Remember the fuckin' munchies you would get from good 'lumbo?
That's from them lower isomers!
You don't get severe munchies from todays "medicinal marijuana"...

Naps aren't as good either.

ZW

 

One thing I think that alot of you people aren't aware of is that to grow the sativas that were available in the sixties is not commercially viable. I've heard of strains taking up to sixteen weeks to mature. For myself, the last indoor grow that I had almost five yrs ago took l4 weeks for the plants to reach maturity. I worked it out that just time alone - for what I could have gotten if I had sold it, I would have made 2.62$ an hour and that doesn't include the cost of soil/electricity and so on. That's one of the reasons why these strains are 'extinct'.

PB Smith- if I had your seeds what I would do with them is try to germinate them. old seeds are hard to germinate. then if I could get the plants growing, I would sex them and then clone the shit out of females. I would give them away to every grower that I knew in hopes that someone would have great success with them- this is the only way to re-introduce a strain. But I guess you could always sell them for 10-20$/clone: they'd go like hotcakes.

PAX

 

I wish I could grow them out as they deserve, but renting and if I got too eleborate the wife would cut off my "magic beans"

I may see what I can get started and offer a healthy plant to a friend who's in a better position to care for them.

 

You are not at all wrong my friend. from another thread...

That is also why columbian was always stonier, it was harvested after it had naturally died in ground and some THC converted to other cannabanoids.

I love picking fresh bud or even leaf and quick drying it and smoking it right away. Like an hour from ground to pipe. The THC is still very fresh and the high is very psychedelic It's harsh I know but the high is totally unlike most cured weed. At least that has been my experience.