It was
originally a South African landrace... decades ago (late '1970s, IIRC). Now I suppose it is what one would call a "worked line." It has been years since I read about its history, but IF I am recalling correctly, it goes something like this: Back in the '70s, Ed Rosenthal was in South Africa looking for new (to him) genetics. He found an early-finishing variety (and by that, I mean "early" for an equatorial sativa, lol) and took a bunch of seeds back to the states. When he started growing them out, he saw a wide variation in characteristics. He (in)bred them in order to choose/fix the traits that he favored. At some point, he gave a bunch of seeds from the plants that he was growing (not the original seeds, but the seeds of the offspring of the offspring of...) to Mel Frank. Mel did basically the same thing, choosing for shorter flowering times and trichome production. He ended up with two main phenotypes, IIRC. At some point, Mel gave a bunch of seeds from one of those phenotypes (the one that
wasn't his favorite
) to that @sshole Sam the Skunkman.
Now this must have been at about the time when Sam got busted in 1982, turned narc and rolled on the Haze Brothers (RiP, Sacred Seeds :sad: ) so he could quickly make bail (faster than anyone else... hours instead of days, hmm?),
go back to the grow site and retrieve his seeds / plants / equipment, and do a runner to Europe, because he ended up in Amsterdam and he ended up working the line some more - again focusing on shortening the flowering time and trying to come up with something that would flourish outdoors in the Dutch climate. IIRC, those seeds were being sold at the time by the seedbank that would later become
Sensi Seeds (one of our
sponsors *EDIT:* BtW, they still sell a version of this strain... which, oddly enough, happens to be cheaper than Dutch Passion's version - and, in terms of
Sensi Seeds' strains, quite the bargain at less than half the cost of some of their strains; those seeds are non-feminized, though (which some would consider to be a
good thing) ). I think everyone that had/sold Durban seeds around that era and later worked the line just a little bit more. I have no doubt that there was some breeding with an indica "or two" here and there, because it seems like everyone was attempting to introduce typical indica characteristics (shorter flowering times, visible resin production, et cetera). But it also appears that most everyone did attempt to retain many of the characteristics that made it a fine, sativa strain. Personally, I feel that - if you wish to find such fine sativa characteristics, you're ahead to just get a large space, add approximately ten bazillion watts' worth of strong light, and learn to live with 16-20+ week flowering times and less (IOW, non-indica) yields, lol... You can cross a rocket with a jet airplane and blast into the stratosphere - but me, I'd rather fly to the
stars . . Still, if you demand indica flowering times, Dutch Passion's Durban Poison is probably one of the better strains that you could choose.
Oh.
OOPS, lol. I wasn't aware that you two were discussing an auto-flowering version of Durban Poison. I was not even aware that such a strain existed (although, in retrospect, it doesn't surprise me, since that seems to be the trend these days). I fear that I have zero knowledge in that regard. All of the information I typed above is in reference to the "original" (so to speak) non-automatic strain. Apologies.