Original source seeds from the 70's: Yes I have some

[Big Sur]

Wow! 130 strains. Grow 6 strains each year...... you’ll be finished in 21 years. I’ve really enjoyed reading this thread. Great job on keeping your seeds stored. I recently revived 30 year old seeds and achieved better than 60% germination rate. Kept my seeds in the fridge though instead of the freezer. Again, great read BigSur. Salute!

Well, actually I have grown over 50 of the strains in my seed collection, so that shaves the years down to 13 or so more years growing 6 strains a year. I can increase the strain count per year, as my brother can also grow 4 strains a year. So it could be done in 8 years, if I lay off doing more trades (very unlikely not gonna happen).

 

[Pyr0]

And this is the book that got me to start freezing seeds in 1977. Marijuana Potency. It was published the same year as the Sinsemilla book. I could afford this one. It was $5 new. In '77 we finally started getting good published information about Cannabis. I bought the companion book for this recently called Marijuana Chemistry by Starks for $18 online, new.

ahh that's the book I bought on my first visit to the US back in 1980, I misplaced it between house moves over the years and never could even remember the name of it. Great book at the time.
Thanks

 

[Big Sur]

If you ever find a connection for some worthy Brazilians, I need to know about it.

I will let you know if I find anything.

Have you tried anything from the Brazilian Seed Company? It seems that what they have are mostly hybrids though. Brazilian Haze, Brazilian Lemon and Super Brazil for example. I have a line on some Mekanika Haze, from Plantformers said to be a cut of Orange Pecco and related to Manga Rosa.

 

[Big Sur]

ahh that's the book I bought on my first visit to the US back in 1980, I misplaced it between house moves over the years and never could even remember the name of it. Great book at the time.
Thanks

As I posted above, I got the Marijuana Chemistry book and it is actually an updated version of Marijuana Potency with about 30 pages of updates at the back of the book. I got a new copy for $18 shipped ($25 list price).

 

[Big Sur]

I ran this Manipuri from RSC and had to abandon the grow, but north of 40N she’s ready in January, so not really viable choice at this latitude. You’d have to put her in a heated greenhouse with supplemental lighting to enjoy some bud. But this was the only concern of people who grew her. Otherwise great smoke supposedly.

I am planning a light dep force bloom of the Manipuri next April (after sizing up under lights in winter in 20/4 cycles) to see if I can rotate the harvest to the end of summer here. We shall see how that goes. I was going to do that with my Colombian Golds and Vietnam Blacks this year, but it has been too damn cold here this spring. 38 deg F again last night! So I will force the 'lombos and 'nams to bloom in June to move the harvest time up to October (or so I hope). I may have to move them indoors and finish them under HPS lights, but that is OK. I am not gorilla growing here any more, its now all legal growing and expanded under medical license and permits issued from the state.

 

[CannaFish]

Nice score on the Manipuri! I've been eyeing that one for awhile.

Is this the Colombo Gold you are growing?...

My landrace/heirloom MJ seed catalog (cont.):

Seed pack #10
A- 3 stars
Bricked Gold
Colombia, likely from the lowlands
August, 1977
$45/oz.
The standard in narcotic bricked/sweat cured brown-gold lowland Colombian weed. Full of seeds, over 200 per oz.

Very downy narcotic buzz to this stuff. Whacky and stony, very high in couch lock, makes you want to slide onto the floor and pass out.

 

[Big Sur]

No, #10 in my strain list here is lowland narco weed. That is likely Colombian Red. That tends to be really narcotic, probably from the high amount of myrcene in it. Or it is high in CBD. Puts me under the table.

The ones I am growing now are from the Colombian light gold seeds from 1978. More likely Santa Marta standard Colombian gold.

Seed pack #12
A+ 4 stars
Light gold brick...

They have super skinny leaves. Pure sativa, obviously. Slow germinating, slow to get going, but they are doing good now. I have four that germinated and have true leaves now. We shall see what they do here in the greenhouses. Reminds, me, I have to bring them inside tonight. So damn cold here at night this late in the season is weird. I have had a fire going in the wood stove today. 59 F. was the high today? WTF? ITS MAY!

 

[Graytail]

I will let you know if I find anything.

Have you tried anything from the Brazilian Seed Company? It seems that what they have are mostly hybrids though. Brazilian Haze, Brazilian Lemon and Super Brazil for example. I have a line on some Mekanika Haze, from Plantformers said to be a cut of Orange Pecco and related to Manga Rosa.

I ran across the company on seedfinder, but they didn't seem to exist anymore. That would/would've been a great source for original genetics. I'm a bit surprised that none of the seed vendors are interested in Brazilian, although I haven't really looked in awhile. Someone should have worked the Manga Rosa line at least, or something similar. What, all the virgin stands in that area are gone? Doesn't make sense.

 

[Big Sur]

Well, some did work Brazilian strains. Particularly Shantibaba at GHS and MrNice. Original White Widow and Black Widow are half Manga Rosa. Manga Rosa is out there, but it is rare. Oddly, other than that, Brazil strains never made an impact on California strains, and hence Holland strains. I never saw any Brazilian weed back in the day. Colombian and Mexican were the staple weed strains from Latin America. Occasionally there was Panama Red, Honduran, Venezuelan, Peruvian, but never Brazilian. Maybe in Florida? I do not know. Weed was common in Brazil dating way back to the early slave trading. Portugal was the leader in slave trading from Africa early on. The Spanish used the native American Indios as slaves early on. Mexican weed and Brazilian weed came from very different sources and were used very differently over the centuries. Mexico was the largest source of imported black market weed in the US by far over all the others. It was only surpassed after Paraquat spraying in the 1970s and Colombia took the lead. Mexico quickly regained the import market though under the cartels. But by that time growing moved out of SW Mexico to the north, and they started growing indica hybrid strains from Holland and California. I hear that they did the same in Colombia, and landrace strains died out. Maybe the same happened in Brazil?

 

[CannaFish]

Nice! I'm excited you are growing some of the old gold from the freezer. please post some pics when they get some size.

I know somebody that recently got an order of Punto Rojo from the Brasilian Seed Co. I thought the company was defunct, but apparently it's still functioning. He scored Punto Rojo from 3 or 4 different sources, it should be interesting to see how they all turn out.

 

[Big Sur]

Well, they may have gotten some old seeds from someone else that has the Brazil Seed Company beans. BSC seems to be rather nebulous in their activity. Some posted on some other sites that the Feds/DEA was contacting people back in 2011 that had bought seeds from them. ???

 

[Big Sur]

BTW, I found this information recently from a seed bank. Maybe I should switch to liquid nitrogen?

For short-term storage, seeds are dried and placed in sealed containers at 40° F or 5° C, which is common refrigerator temperature. Seeds are stored at temperatures below freezing for long-term preservation at 0° F or -18° C, which is common house appliance freezer temperature. Cryopreservation, or freezing in or over liquid nitrogen at -292° F or -180° C, is used for extremely long-term seed storage.

 

[Big Sur]

Also as I posted elsewhere here today for a guy looking for sativas and landraces, regseeds dot com has over 100 seed companies listed in his distributorship from the UK. All regular seeds, most are photos, some autos. No fems. Many are landraces and heirlooms. Many sativas as well. He has RSC, SOA, Tropical, WOS, CBG, Ace, DJ Short, Moxie, etc etc.

BSC is not listed anywhere that I have found.

 

[CannaFish]

Well, they may have gotten some old seeds from someone else that has the Brazil Seed Company beans. BSC seems to be rather nebulous in their activity. Some posted on some other sites that the Feds/DEA was contacting people back in 2011 that had bought seeds from them. ???

I agree. I remember years ago when Luis came online at the mr nice site. There were a few saying they didn't receive seeds or they came crushed and unviable. I warned my amigo about it. I think he contacted Luis directly on IG and everything went smoothly. But they haven't been grown yet. Proof is in the seed, right? They are something like 15 year old seeds.

 

[CannaFish]

Yep, I started the Lebanese too early. They've already gone to flower and terminated at about a foot high One of the Lebanese females smells amazingly sweet and is seeded from the Lebanese male.

The PuntoBiche f1s and HawaiianSpice x PuntoBiches are rising up fast at about waist high now and your Durbans are close behind. One durban male has starting to drop flowers, hopefully the females will continue to grow the full season without any hitches.

Kind of early to start fall bloomers, IMO. I usually start seeds on May 1 here. Most of my friends here do that as well. I am starting some beans now as I want to test grow some long and late bloomers like Colombian Gold and Vietnam Black and force them to start blooming in May. Then maybe they will be ripe by September. Otherwise they finish in late November or early December, way too late here to be outside, even in a greenhouse.

 

[Big Sur]

I put a 9 watt light out in the GH in April and early May and leave it on 24/7 to keep the boys and girls from flowering early. After they size up I will force bloom some of them to get an early (or earlier) harvest.

 

[Dude Stoneder]

BTW, I found this information recently from a seed bank. Maybe I should switch to liquid nitrogen?

For short-term storage, seeds are dried and placed in sealed containers at 40° F or 5° C, which is common refrigerator temperature. Seeds are stored at temperatures below freezing for long-term preservation at 0° F or -18° C, which is common house appliance freezer temperature. Cryopreservation, or freezing in or over liquid nitrogen at -292° F or -180° C, is used for extremely long-term seed storage.

Interesting post for sure. I share your passion for old school genetics. I’ve also wondered about the best methods for long term seed storage. I recently had great success at resurrecting 30 year old seeds. I had 60% germination rate using regular sprouting protocols. I’m sure the germination rate would’ve been greater if I had used techniques like scarification. I always stored my seeds in the refrigerator. I had read in the past that long term storage in the freezer would eventually be detrimental to a seeds health. I believe that opinion came from Cervantes. Either way, I can confirm that I’ve had success with long term storage using refrigerator temperatures. To be clear, I’m not doubting the validity of freezer storage methods, I just had a choice to make and I chose refrigerator. Double bagged in ziplocks and then sealed in Tupperware. I used no desiccant.

As far as using liquid nitrogen for long term storage.... it is likely effective but maintaining a cryogenic cooling system for decades seems challenging and expensive....even for a Seedbank.

Love this thread. You’re one cool cat BigSur. Thanks for putting this one in motion.

 

[Big Sur]

Yes, in the books by George Van Patten (Cervantes has come out of the closet on his videos about his real name now), Ed Rosenthal and several others, they say that freezing seeds is detrimental. That is still the paradigm for whatever reason. However those claims are not based on any empirical evidence or experiments, or the likes of my results. Or the fact that Cannabis grows wild in many areas in the world where they get hard frost in winter months. Like say, Nebraska or Kazakhstan. As for refrigerator temps, that is a good way to store them ~if~ they are kept very dry. No need for liquid nitrogen in my experience. 0 deg F. freezers have done just fine (both defrost and no defrost).

As for this thread, many here and on other sites think I am making all of this stuff up. Both the fact that I have these seeds (of which are now only 1/4 of my collection) and that they can be frozen for long term viability. Its both amusing and annoying. Of course, the seed companies do not want people to know that seeds can be stored safely and easilly for long periods of time. So I guess its an economic thing and we are a thorn in their side. Never mind the likes of us having the old genetics that are otherwise nearly extinct now. I get a lot of requests from seed companies for my genetics. Imagine that?

Also the other paradigm prevails about Amsterdam genetics being oh so much better from Arjan & Co. I get that line all the time. Even my oldest brother who had Nevil's seed catalogs going all the way back in the early 1980s. He still insists that Amsterdam genetics are the best of the best. He sent me an email a few months ago saying that. Then as now, I was growing my landrace strains. In the early 1980s I could not fathom paying $5 for a single seed, plus shipping. Seeds were free in bag weed so I thought it was insane. Also Nevil's strains were all from local strains available as bag weed in Northern California at that time. Skunk, so called Haze (any number of available Mexican or Colombian strains), California Orange, etc. I also had seeds from local Big Sur grows, Thai sticks, Hawaiian and African weed. More recently I have grown landrace and heirloom seeds from places like Lebanon, South Africa, India and North Africa. Yes many are wild "bushweed" and landraces and some of them are hay. They are not indica or OG hybrids which account for 80% of the local stuff sold here. But I was and still am not after couch lock and brain freeze weed. I like high terpene strains. I like high THCv weed. I also like high CBC weed. And Kona Gold. Whatever is in Kona Gold, I like that. Not sure what it is yet. I traded for a cache of Kona Gold seeds on the Big Island recently. Old school. The weed I first smoked back in the day and still like to smoke. Sativas! Why the world has gone over to the dark side of OG Kush I do not know.

 

[Dude Stoneder]

Yes, in the books by George Van Patten (Cervantes has come out of the closet on his videos about his real name now), Ed Rosenthal and several others, they say that freezing seeds is detrimental. That is still the paradigm for whatever reason. However those claims are not based on any empirical evidence or experiments, or the likes of my results. Or the fact that Cannabis grows wild in many areas in the world where they get hard frost in winter months. Like say, Nebraska or Kazakhstan. As for refrigerator temps, that is a good way to store them ~if~ they are kept very dry. No need for liquid nitrogen in my experience. 0 deg F. freezers have done just fine (both defrost and no defrost).

As for this thread, many here and on other sites think I am making all of this stuff up. Both the fact that I have these seeds (of which are now only 1/4 of my collection) and that they can be frozen for long term viability. Its both amusing and annoying. Of course, the seed companies do not want people to know that seeds can be stored safely and easilly for long periods of time. So I guess its an economic thing and we are a thorn in their side. Never mind the likes of us having the old genetics that are otherwise nearly extinct now. I get a lot of requests from seed companies for my genetics. Imagine that?

Also the other paradigm prevails about Amsterdam genetics being oh so much better from Arjan & Co. I get that line all the time. Even my oldest brother who had Nevil's seed catalogs going all the way back in the early 1980s. He still insists that Amsterdam genetics are the best of the best. He sent me an email a few months ago saying that. Then as now, I was growing my landrace strains. In the early 1980s I could not fathom paying $5 for a single seed, plus shipping. Seeds were free in bag weed so I thought it was insane. Also Nevil's strains were all from local strains available as bag weed in Northern California at that time. Skunk, so called Haze (any number of available Mexican or Colombian strains), California Orange, etc. I also had seeds from local Big Sur grows, Thai sticks, Hawaiian and African weed. More recently I have grown landrace and heirloom seeds from places like Lebanon, South Africa, India and North Africa. Yes many are wild "bushweed" and landraces and some of them are hay. They are not indica or OG hybrids which account for 80% of the local stuff sold here. But I was and still am not after couch lock and brain freeze weed. I like high terpene strains. I like high THCv weed. I also like high CBC weed. And Kona Gold. Whatever is in Kona Gold, I like that. Not sure what it is yet. I traded for a cache of Kona Gold seeds on the Big Island recently. Old school. The weed I first smoked back in the day and still like to smoke. Sativas! Why the world has gone over to the dark side of OG Kush I do not know.

Yes, in the books by George Van Patten (Cervantes has come out of the closet on his videos about his real name now), Ed Rosenthal and several others, they say that freezing seeds is detrimental. That is still the paradigm for whatever reason. However those claims are not based on any empirical evidence or experiments, or the likes of my results. Or the fact that Cannabis grows wild in many areas in the world where they get hard frost in winter months. Like say, Nebraska or Kazakhstan. As for refrigerator temps, that is a good way to store them ~if~ they are kept very dry. No need for liquid nitrogen in my experience. 0 deg F. freezers have done just fine (both defrost and no defrost).

As for this thread, many here and on other sites think I am making all of this stuff up. Both the fact that I have these seeds (of which are now only 1/4 of my collection) and that they can be frozen for long term viability. Its both amusing and annoying. Of course, the seed companies do not want people to know that seeds can be stored safely and easilly for long periods of time. So I guess its an economic thing and we are a thorn in their side. Never mind the likes of us having the old genetics that are otherwise nearly extinct now. I get a lot of requests from seed companies for my genetics. Imagine that?

Also the other paradigm prevails about Amsterdam genetics being oh so much better from Arjan & Co. I get that line all the time. Even my oldest brother who had Nevil's seed catalogs going all the way back in the early 1980s. He still insists that Amsterdam genetics are the best of the best. He sent me an email a few months ago saying that. Then as now, I was growing my landrace strains. In the early 1980s I could not fathom paying $5 for a single seed, plus shipping. Seeds were free in bag weed so I thought it was insane. Also Nevil's strains were all from local strains available as bag weed in Northern California at that time. Skunk, so called Haze (any number of available Mexican or Colombian strains), California Orange, etc. I also had seeds from local Big Sur grows, Thai sticks, Hawaiian and African weed. More recently I have grown landrace and heirloom seeds from places like Lebanon, South Africa, India and North Africa. Yes many are wild "bushweed" and landraces and some of them are hay. They are not indica or OG hybrids which account for 80% of the local stuff sold here. But I was and still am not after couch lock and brain freeze weed. I like high terpene strains. I like high THCv weed. I also like high CBC weed. And Kona Gold. Whatever is in Kona Gold, I like that. Not sure what it is yet. I traded for a cache of Kona Gold seeds on the Big Island recently. Old school. The weed I first smoked back in the day and still like to smoke. Sativas! Why the world has gone over to the dark side of OG Kush I do not know.

So Cervantes is a Van Patton.... I’m glad he feels comfortable enough to step into the real world. As far as his assertion about freezer storage, I believe his concern revolved around prolonged freezer storage. Year after year of sub-zero storage was his concern. Compare a seed in the wild in a typical Canadian winter, five months of cold then it sprouts. Van Patten’s presumption suggested that years of sub-zero storage didn’t mimic seasonal, short term cold exposure and therefore, somehow, damaged the seed.

Personally BigSur, I neither agree nor disagree since I see your method and my method....so far.... has proved successful and adequate. Both storage approaches seem to work just fine. The main point for me now to to shine light on how important it is for folks like us to share our results. I have 30 years of refrigerator cold storage information to share and you have even longer experience with long term freezer storage. I salute you BigSur for sharing. It’s so important. Folks like us are the experimenters with this storage subject and being able to drop 30 and 40 years of results in this thread is monumental..... well, at least to me it is.

In conclusion, I agree with your brother. The old Seedbank breeds are awesome. I haven’t experienced anything close to Nevils breeds with these modern genetics. I also believe your assertion that the pre-80’s landraces are awesome. I wish I had experienced those. Now, don’t take me wrong, I’m not knocking modern breeds, but from my experience they all seem more homogeneous than I prefer. Perhaps this description parallels your statement about Kush contamination of so many breeds. I know many folks feel this same way about indicas as well.... the great contaminator. I often question the claims that seed banks make about having real Sativa landrace genes. Because then I see photos of those landrace flowers, they’re fat and thick, more like a hybrid. Again, it makes me question the validity of their claims.
I ramble..... put the pipe down Dude.

 

[Big Sur]

Did I stammer in my post here?

No need to apologize for long posts. Sadly they say that the attention span of a typical young adult now is a whopping 8 seconds. So if it does not fit in a tweet, it gets passed over. Also it seems that the internet is where most people get information now. So I get all kinds of flack like in this and other threads here on 420 about freezing seeds, not really having these old landraces that I listed here, not really having lived in California in the 60s through the 2000s, not being a stoner from 1972 on, and all that shit. No one believes the shit that we did back then. Its all science fiction to millennials.

As for the OG Kush craze, I never understood that, or any of the indicas really. Give me some old school sativas like Kona Gold, Colombian Green and Gold, Oaxacan Mint, Cambo Red, Kerala Ganja, or skinny stick Thai. The sativas of old. Sativas bloom later as a rule, and are too large for indoor growing. Indoor growing is what ruined weed strains, IMO. They took the RKS out of skunkweed. They put indica in everything to get the size down and shorten the bloom times. They also wanted more THC in weed, so they amped up and bred for high THC. But in doing that they rendered out the other cannabinoids, terpenoids and character in weed. They also put in more couch lock, as it seems that was what the market wanted. And now they wonder why the noobs to weed cannot even take one hit and not get blown over. Like you have to smoke 80% shatter or you are a pussy. Fuck that noise. I would rather smoke 2 or 3 hit 8-12% THC weed with CBC, CBD, THCv, and nice terpenes like pinene, limonene and linalool. The only place to find high levels of THCv is in South Africa landraces it seems. Also the only strain that is high in CBC that I have grown is Maui Waui Cherry Bomb. Whatever the magic is in that strain, it has the right blend of it. I like pinene, as it is lung expanding and good for asthma. It was common in high levels in landrace Colombian and SW Mexican strains.