Interesting thread. So... let me get this right before I get it all mixed up... Mau is a said to be a trickster who is the wizard behind the curtain at Nirvana Seed Co., and he or his company is said to "steal" successful seed names, re-branding them to sell Nirvana's own copycat products with the stolen names, and one such product, Nirvana's Blackberry, may or may not be great weed, but the big story here was simply this: the Nirvana product is Not the Real Blackberry: Nirvana is using the name Blackberry and making good sales even though someone else, Shantibaba or whoever, once used that name for another unrelated strain that has since disappeared.
So buyer beware, Nirvana's Blackberry is said not to be the "original" or "real" " blackberry" cannabis strain. But it's all nothing to get upset about because the original real blackberry had no potency anyway, all it ever had going was just a nice color, sort of a gag-strain. Pretty but impotent.
It even looks like Cocojoe suspected that the evil Mau is trolling this thread in the guise of whitewidowman, trying to get unsuspecting growers to buy his highly dubious product. Whitewidowman posted on Nov 19, 2010, that he had just bought Nirvana's Blackberry, but later asserted plausible deniability, saying he was growing the plant all along and had not just ordered it (like he had said).
Posted Nov 19, 2010:
Posted Dec 20:
Posted Jan 4, 2011
Posted in reply on Jan 4:
So, you out there, Mau? Cocojoe, you got a grudge or something, and you sure whitewidowman is just a troll for Mau aka Nirvana? Well maybe but what's was all the fuss about here?
The cannabis seed business must be very competitive when it comes to the name that goes on the package. Obviously, the word blackberry is a great name for a purple cannabis strain. And great names are hard to come by. And when you find a great name and use it, resulting in sales, other breeders are bound to notice. Maybe even wish they'd used that name first. But the original strain called blackberry, the one you never heard about from years back before Nirvana brought out their Blackberry, a strain from Shantibaba or Subcool or other legendary breeder, that original strain has apparently disappeared, along with that other breeder's right to use "Blackberry" as a trademark. In order to keep your trademark, you need to keep using it. Use it or lose it. Since there is no one to complain that Nirvana's use of "blackberry" is unfair to another breeder who originally used and continues to use that name, Nirvana is totally within the rules of the common law of trademark to market and sell their strain as "Blackberry".
Before I ran across this thread, I researched this strain this year and saw that two breeders, Nirvana and Sativa Seedbank (a Nirvana-affiliated entity) sell two different versions of Blackberry seed. Nirvana's is indica-dominant and I am looking for more body there. Sativa Seedbank's is more sativa-leaning. Nirvana owns both genetics, so it would seem Nirvana won the trademark war as regards the name blackberry, whether sativa or indica-dominant.
I bought 5 Nirvana Blackberry seeds and am currently growing out two. Am looking for a pleasant high combining body and cerebral effects, not too strong, but relaxing and stimulating. Will post more in my West-Facing balcony grow for 2020 when the plants are all up and running, and will post a review later in the year. Cheers, and happy growing! Emeraldo
