Breaking the post drought - the Smoke Report
Greetings 420 Enthusiasts! Today I want to make a post beginning with a smoke report to sum up the 3 strains that I grew this past season, and ending with some comment on the testing of one of the cobs I made last year which is now into it's second year of curing and I felt worth cutting open and having a bit of a 'tester' to see how she's going, the other cobs I have left sealed.
This last grow ended with 3 strains from the original 4 girls that I started with due to the unfortunately demise of the Mulanje. This post is about the Mango Sherbert that was heavily droughted, and 2 Sativa in the form of a Honduras/Panama x Purple Honduras, and a Malawi/Ethiopian x Mulanje.
The overall quality 
On recent past grows I have been fortunate enough to grow more than I need, so I am very keen to grow quality over quantity, as it gives a better high and lasts longer. At this point I feel very pleased with the quality of this harvest. I would rate the jarred bud of all 3 plants as being top shelf.
Sativa
This is the first time I have grown pure Sativa, altho I would have certainly smoked Sativa in my younger days and over the years, but back then it was never mentioned by strain name, just weed or dak or similar, so I never had an appreciation of weed in terms of species (Indica/Sativa). However, having now grown out 2 Sativa with up to 20 weeks of flowering this past season, I can appreciate how the resulting highs last longer to what I am used to, and that's something I won't complain about.
Energetic or 'In da couch'? 
I am not sure if I have ever had an 'in da couch' experience with any strain. Sure, I've had plenty of in the couch times simply because the party happened to be around a couch at the time. But so far in life, I have found all good weed that I've tried, has been enhancing for activities, and all 3 of these strains in my experience work very nicely with actively doing things.
Declaration of usage
Before growing my own weed, I always had 'dry' periods when no weed was about, and once the drought had broken then the experience of the high/stone was often really good (i.e. if you managed to score a bag of good 'shit', otherwise a total disappointment). However, nowadays I indulge daily and all year round, usually by having several vap caps over the day. And every evening about an hour or two before sleeping I chomp into some decarbed bud, and with a bit of magnesium I sleep soundly the whole night through. I am saying all this because in my experience the main thing I want, is for the bud quality to be able to 'do the job', and the buds of these plants do. I think if someone only smokes once in a blue moon then any good bud is probably going to be a treat. These 3 strains have produced top class bud, I think some infrequent smokers might find them a bit too much.
Malawi/Ethiopian x Mulanje - Sativa
I'll cut to the chase here. This one is my favourite. All 3 do a great job, but I like the high of this strain. It is powerful, embracing, and lasts for hours, it is like there is a nice euphoria generator just purring over inside you circulating pleasantness all the way to your finger tips.
It has a distinct piney slightly limey fragrance, it is a little bit sharp but in a lovely beckoning way much like a lemon tart might be at treat time. Her buds smell very appealing, so much so I want to keep my nose in them. Her colas were long, thin and aerated, but absolutely loaded with sparkling trichomes, I thought her 'glitter' was the most picturesque of the 3 plants. As much as I like big fat colas, the thinner colas of this plant may have helped avoid the budrot tendencies of the other 2, I feel this strain adapted really well to my location and environment - a keeper!
Another exciting thing about this strain, was it's resilience and indifference to pests. Very little troubled it, and it went 20 weeks flowering! As I grow outside with limited direct sunlight and a long way south of Africa, it was amazing that this plant took all the 100+kph winds and rain that blasted the balcony, and yet she was seemingly unperturbed by it all. I am very interested to see how the seeds turn out that I made from her with the Mulanje pollen from the male I grew this year. I intend to try the seeds out this coming grow season, but these seeds will be 75% Mulanje and I have no idea what genetic expression will result. If I find that I prefer the original I grew this year, which is 50% Malawi/Ethiopian and 50% Mulanje then I still have some seeds left of those and I would grow them out the following year.
Honduras/Panama x Purple Honduras - Sativa
This is also very nice, euphoric, a soft lifting high that also lasts a wee bit longer than the hybrid strains I am familiar with. This plant grew big 'baseball bat' colas but unfortunately it was a pest and budrot magnet in all the wild weather that nature threw at the balcony. I finally chopped her at about 18 weeks of flowering, but by that stage I had already lost a lot to rot and pest damage. Viewing this practically, I probably won't grow this strain again in the near term, as for my 'balcony' environment it seems a bit too damage/pest prone for me to do it justice.
Mango Sherbert- Hybrid
I also grew this strain by the Humboldt Seed Company on my grow the previous year. It does have a slightly fruity fragrance but not particularly evident as being 'mango like' as I imagined, it also has a very slight fuel tone to her scent too. HSC rates her THC at 24% - 28%.
She was probably my favourite strain the previous year, with the Godfather OG a close second. She gives a great relaxing euphoric high, which when I compare to this year's sativas the Mango Sherbert has a bit more 'body stone' to her that perhaps adds a slight 'muddiness' to the effect compared to the sativas, and I feel the sativas high lasts a little longer. As a strain she is certainly a looker, buds laden with sticky trichomes.
The Mango Sherbert I grew this year as I have already previously noted in my journal was heavily droughted. I applied repeated cycles of 'droughting' over a 25 day period which in my opinion resulted in additional trichome production and must have resulted in some changes (hopefully benefits). I am not under any pain as such so I have been unable to determine what pain benefit there is from it. A couple of years ago I developed Shingles which was very unpleasant and for what it is worth I didn't find relief from any of the cannabis strains I had at the time.
However, the 'strength' of the Mango Sherbert is such that it too deserves to be on the top shelf.
Reviewing a Mango Sherbert cob after a year of curing
After last year's grow I used a bunch of these buds, squashing and fermenting into Mango Sherbert cobs.
Mango Sherbert Cob after curing for over a year
Last year using just over half my harvest, I made 12oz of buds into cobs. For those unfamiliar with the practice of making cobs, I'd recommend checking out this
420 thread based on Tangwena's style of cob making.
it has discussion and inputs from many others. A big shout out and thanks to
@tangwena, for sharing his experience and knowledge gained from years of living in Africa and experiencing the qualities of real well made cobs.
A few days ago I cut open one of last year's vac-sealed Mango Sherbert cobs to test it out. It has it's own funky cob smell that hints of it's promise. I had previously smoked cob, as well as vaping it, but to be honest it is a little bit challenging to do so that way because of it's sticky 'clumpy' nature, altho I imagine it would be great added to a joint for a turbo effect! This time I simply cut off a fine slice and chewed it. Somewhere around 0.1g - 0.2g. After over a year of curing the cob, it is even more aged looking in a good way. Chewing it is a little bit like chewing plasticine, but the high it gave worked very well and lasted for several hours. It is really quite amazing that the bud hasn't been decarbed as such and yet after fermenting/curing it delivers a high as if it has. Tangwena has mentioned how he prefers chewing cobs rather than smoking or vaping to avoid the unwanted impact on the lungs. When you're young with young lungs, you can of course go hell for leather with smoking, but I'm feel for me that I am better off now with either vaping or edibles so I am really encouraged by quality of the high from this cob testing, and too, the increased length of time of the high that the consumption of it brings.
Next grow I will look to grow out some of the (Malawi/Ethiopian x Mulanje) x Mulanje seeds and hopefully all going well I will make some cobs of it which should be exceptional. For anyone interested,
I did an overview of cob making in my last journal here. And here is a link to a
pictorial of my cob making in my previous journal last year.
Thanks for dropping by, wishing you all well and I hope your gardens are blooming.
