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I wrote an article on the History of Haze a while back, here it is in full:
Haze's roots and Sam the Skunkman
Haze has a somewhat clouded history, to say the least. The accepted story is that it has it's roots in the work of the Haze Bros in Corralitos, near Santa Cruz in central California between 1970 and 1975. The Haze Bros grew out many of the finest sativas from imported seeds from Colombia, Mexico, Thailand and South India and hybridised them. Robert Connell Clarke explains the origins of Haze in his 'Origins of the Species' article published in Issue 60 of Cannabis Culture magazine:
“The Original Haze is a late-maturing variety from Central California and was almost always grown in greenhouses, allowing it to finish in December or January. Original Haze was always connoisseur stash, and even in the 1970s it sold for as much as $200 an ounce. Original Haze is a pure sativa stabilised hybrid arising from crossing all of the best females with a male of a different imported sativa variety each year. Starting with Colombian/Mexican hybrids grown from seeds from the first crop, a South Indian male plant was used as a pollen source the second year, and a Thai male plant was used the third year. Depending on which year Haze seeds were collected, they resembled either Colombian, South Indian of Thai plants. Original Haze varies in taste from citrus Thai notes through the gamut of sativa highlights to the deep spicy purple Colombian flavour most common in Dutch Haze cultivars.”
The exact cultivars grown by the Haze Bros are unknown, but the Colombians are said to include Highland Gold and Wacky Weed, the South Indian originated in the Kerala region. The selection of the Colombian and Mexican plants being based on which of them would mature under glass at Santa Cruz's latitude (36.9N). The Haze Bros were sensimilla growers and sold the various phenotypes of Haze under names such as Purple Haze, Silver Blue Haze and Lime Green Haze, the purple batches fetching upto $500 an ounce according to Sam the Skunkman.
The Bros were growers not breeders and never worked their hybrids into a consistent seedline, this happened later when one of their Santa Cruz neighbours and cannabis collaborators, Sam the Skunkman worked with their seed to produce the Haze seedline we know today. Sam explained a little about the process in a post at icmag.com in 2008:
“Original Haze was fairly consistant as F1's but by the time it was f5 and above it segregated out into many different related lines. I have not worked Original Haze as much as tried to save it, I collected as much seed as I could in the early 70's grew them and did free pollinations and did minimal selection to ensure I saved as many genes as I could. That was in the 70's & 80's now I have clones for the last 20 years. My Original Haze is not done being worked on that is why I tell people to use it as breeding materials.”
Haze genetics were brought to a worldwide audience in 1984 when Sam the Skunkman moved to Holland, taking the Haze genes with him and thus introducing them to the commercial cannabis seed business. In his handwritten Cultivator's Choice seed catalogue #4 from fall 1985, Sam lists Haze as #10 in his line-up of ten strains:
“Original Haze Sativa Pure, (Selfed)
All sativa but is an inconsistent hybrid. 10% are spectacular, 75% good, 10% poor. Truly superior sweet taste. High incredibly clear and up energy. Height 2-3m. Yield: 100-300gm. Harvest: December (flowers 3 months for quality). Will not mature outdoors in Holland or Northern California. Haze is Cultivator's Choice's personal favourite.”
At this point Sam didn't offer any Haze hybrids, however Haze doesn't work very well indoors under lights so it was inevitable that hybrids would be made to allow indoor growers to experience a part of the Haze genetics.
Neville and the hybridisation of Haze
At the same time as Sam was bringing a handful of the best American genetics to Holland, a young Dutch/Australian man called Neville Schoenmakers was raking in huge piles of cash dollars through his company The Seed Bank. Neville had placed an ad in High Times in 1984 and immediately the envelopes stuffed with dollar bills began arriving by the sackload. According to Steven Hager's 'Inside Cannabis Castle' article published in High Times in March 1987:
“In the last year his company supplied $500,000 worth of seeds to 15,000 American growers. If you smoked high-quality marijuana sometime in the last three years, chances are the buds were grown with Neville's stock.”
Neville collected as many seeds as he could from a myriad of sources and grew them out in search of breeding plants. He purchased an old Victorian house located near the German border which he named 'The Cannabis Castle' and converted the lower two floors into sophisticated growing facilities, the gardens being filled with greenhouses. Neville obtained Haze seeds and from these he grew three plants which he called A, B and C; A and C were males, B was a female.
The Haze controversy begins at this point and revolves around the origin of the Haze seeds that Neville grew his three Haze plants from, Sam the Skunkman insists that Neville obtained his Haze seeds from him after he arrived in Holland; on the other hand, Neville told the story of obtaining the seeds from a guy in New York who had an old seed collection and the seeds were from Haze Bros stock circa 1969.
Sam posted on icmag on 25th February 2008:
“It is absurd that Neville said he got 1969 O Haze seeds from the Haze Bros.
#1 Neville first traveled to USA in 86 or 87 at the earliest, the main Haze Brother, R was gone, retired in Mexico by 82 he did not come back for 10 years. He was the one that created O Haze. The second Haze Brother J quit growing O Haze about 1980 and only grew Skunk #1 after that, until he became a reborn christian, then he quit growing, and anyway recently he told me he never met Neville and he certainly did not sell any Haze seeds to him or anyone else ever.
#2 The Haze Bros had a falling out in the late 70's and stopped talking to one another, for certain they did not sell seeds as the Haze Bros to anyone, it is ridiculous as well as impossible.
Lets be honest Neville got the seeds from me, but he had promised me that he would not make pure Haze and sell them as such, I told him it was fine to make Haze hybrids with other varieties that were not mine.
He broke his word and started selling Haze pure and hybrids with my varieties, and I stopped working with him.
Maybe he lied to avoid the problems that accompany breaking your word? I can not say, but I know Neville did not meet the Haze Bros and did not get any O Haze seeds from them. Both the Haze Bros were close friends of mine and both were close neighbors for years, J lived a few hundred meters from my house until he departed to Mexico.”
So Sam says he was the source of Neville's Haze seeds, Neville says not; only Sam and Neville know the truth, so let's leave the controversy there and focus on the Haze genetics themselves!
Sam himself created a number of Haze hybrids with Haze x Skunk #1 and Haze x Keralan South Indian Sativa being the two that are most widely known and are sold by The Flying Dutchmen as Fuma Con Diablos and Haze Mist.
Neville had three Haze plants which he called A, B and C. A and C were males, B was a female. The Haze B female was not an impressive looking plant and didn't have a pleasant high when smoked, so it was discarded. The Haze A male had a spicy smell/taste whereas the Haze C male had a more dark earthy Chocolate Thai type smell and taste. It is thought that the A male is a Colombian dominant pheno, the C being a Thai dominant one.
In the 1988 The Seed Bank catalogue Neville writes:
"Haze is a late sativa from America, widely agreed by experts to be the best pot in the world. Very popular in the 70's, it nearly became extinct in recent years as growers switched to easier varieties. We managed to salvage a few viable seeds from the last crop grown in America and we have used them to produce some remarkable hybrids. Haze is known for an extreme, almost psychedelic spaciness. The fragrance is complex and deep with a dry flowery perfume over a base of dark leathery animal tones. When used in a hybrid it adds fascinating notes of depth and complexity to the taste, as well as a unique addition to the high. While not for everyone, the most jaded connoisseur will often find haze irresistible.”
The first Haze hybrid to appear was Haze x NL #1 f-1 hybrid, listed in the 1988 The Seed Bank Catalogue, it is unknown what parent plants made up this strain which was only sold for one year. NL #1 is/was a true-breeding Afghani so both males and females were available for breeding, perhaps Neville crossed a NL#1 male to his only Haze female (B).
Neville made a number of crosses using his two Haze males; He crossed the the Haze A male to his Northern Lights #5 and Hashplant female clones and a Skunk #1 female (#17 from seed). He also crossed the Haze C male to his G13 female clone, a Hawaiian Sativa female and a Durban Sativa female. The Hawaiian and Durban hybrids both won Cannabis Cups in the pure sativa category which gives a very strong endorsement of the breeding pedigree of the Haze C male. The G13 x Haze C male hybrid appeared in The Seed Bank catalogue in 1989 but the genetics apparently didn't combine well and the seeds were only sold for one year. The Hashplant and Skunk hybrids were never offered for sale, but the NL5 x Haze A male cross turned out to be something special, and Neville's original description in the 1989 The Seed Bank catalogue has always made me chuckle:
"HAZE X NL#5
1989 - Due to tremendous customer demand, we have spent years searching for a superb Sativa/Indica hybrid that is suited for indoor growing but still retains the unique sativa qualities in the high. The Haze X NL#5 hybrid is the result of this search. A note of warning: Adverse effects have been known to occur among inexperienced smokers, particularly when combined with alcohol. Side effects may include nausea, dizzyness, fainting and loss of bowel and bladder control. Extreme introspective behavior is considered normal."
the 1995 Sensi Seed Bank Catalogue states:
“This hybrid is the pinnacle of achievement in Cannabis breeding today. The result: an extremely potent plant with a great Sativa high. At the Harvest festivals in the early nineties this strain was already miles ahead of its competitors. Even today it has not yet been surpassed. The high yields compensate for the slightly longer flowering period. Hybrid vigour provides for lush growth, heavy bud formation and abundant resin. A true champion!”
The NL5 x Haze A seedline was to become the source of breeding plants that form the foundations of the later Haze hybrids created by Neville and Shantibaba – Super Silver Haze, Neville's Haze and Mango Haze. As it plays such an important role as a building block in the Haze story, let us familiarise ourselves with Northern Lights #5 (NL5). Steven Hager's description from his 'Inside Cannabis Castle' article published in High Times in March 1987 gives you a good idea why Neville chose it as a breeding plant:
State of the art indoor indica. Originating out of the Pacific Northwest, it is the result of many years of indoor breeding – three to four crops per year for a total of perhaps thirty to forty generations in the last ten years. The picture in Neville's catalogue is a cutting of my personal favourite, C1 #5 f1. Unfortunately, no seeds are available of the strain, only cuttings. If anyone can come up with anything more resinous than this, I'd like to see it. Does not have much taste. The breeder bred a very specific goal in mind: high resin content. He certainly succeeded. The grass is a mellow indica that gets you pleasantly stoned – almost the opposite of Afghani #1. Although there are tastier varieties, I could smoke this one all day.
Shantibaba described the NL5 cutting in an internet post at mrnice.nl in 2008:
“The origins of the NL we have been using to breed with are Afghan, worked on in America in the 80s and Holland...one of the plants that has lead to a multitude of hybrids. There is no Thai in our version it is pretty much a 100% indica plant finishes 45-55 days and is exceptionally resinous.”
An exceptionally resinous clone that represented the state of the art in indoor indica genetics is the obvious choice to hybridise a pure sativa like Haze. The great success subsequently enjoyed by the Haze x NL5 hybrids and their derivatives shows that Neville made a wise choice when he crossed Haze to the Northern Lights #5 cutting.
The Cannabis Cup
While in Holland to meet Neville and write the 'Inside Cannabis Castle' article, High Times editor Steven Hager also met up with Sam the Skunkman and came up with the idea for the Cannabis Cup after hearing Sam's tales of the harvest festivals held in California in the 1970s. Held in November 1988, the first High Times Cannabis Cup was an informal affair with only four companies – Neville's The Seed Bank, Ben Dronker's Sensi Seed Club, Super Sativa Seed Club (SSSC) and Cultivator's Choice (Sam the Skunkman). Sam won with Skunk #1 but decided he was disenchanted with the idea of competitions and retired from them. Sam sold his genetics to Neville, Ben Dronkers and Eddy Rekedder (who later founded The Flying Dutchmen Seed Company and The Cannabis College) so ensuring the genes he brought with him from the US became some of the building blocks of modern hybrids.
The same four companies contested the second Cannabis Cup the following year and Neville's The Seed Bank won a clean sweep of all the awards using the genetics purchased from Sam. Haze x South African Sativa winning the Pure Sativa Cup and Early Pearl x Skunk No.1 x Northern Lights No.5 x Haze taking the Mostly Sativa Cup. The following year saw Neville repeat the clean sweep, Haze x Hawaiian wining the pure Sativa Cup and Northern Lights #5 x Haze the Mostly Sativa Cup. Northern Lights #5 won the Pure Indica Cup.
Operation Green Merchant
The High Times article, especially the picture of Neville counting large sums of US dollars brought not only valuable publicity but also unwanted attention in the form of a DEA crackdown on the hydroponics industry, head shops and cannabis growers. Operation Green Merchant began on the 26th October 1989, the DEA in conjunction with dozens of other law enforcement agencies raided hydroponics stores in 46 states, arresting 119 people, seizing several indoor gardening shops and thousands of cannabis plants. Ray Boyd described the carnage in an article published in issue 56 of Cannabis Culture magazine:
“Store owners and employees watched in horror as gun-toting police ransacked their shops. In most cases, no charges were ever filed, but civil asset forfeitures stole millions of dollars worth of inventory from stores and individuals. One cultivation-centered pot magazine, Sensimilla Tips, went out of business, and High Times spent years recovering from the loss of its most lucrative advertisers.
In 1991, DEA agents began serving subpoenas on hydro storeowners, seeking customer addresses and other private information. Agents raided, questioned, and intimidated hundreds of people and organizations, including scientists and NASA's horticultural research facilities. By the end of 1991, Green Merchant had arrested 1,262 people, dismantled 977 indoor grows, and seized $17.5 million in assets. Dozens of people served 4 to 15 year prison terms, many with mandatory minimums that did not allow for sentence reduction.”
On June 24, 1990, Neville was arrested by the Australian authorities at the behest of the US government while visiting family in Perth. A 44-count indictment was lodged in New Orleans, charging him with the sale of marijuana seeds to undercover agents and indoor growers in the New Orleans area in 1989. Neville was detained in Australia, not charged with anything but awaiting the results of an extradition hearing. Peter Gorman explained what happened in issue 59 of Cannabis Culture magazine:
“Shoenmakers was caught on a visit to his home in Australia, but fortunately a judge with power over his being granted bond—which the DEA fought fiercely—had a wife with a heart. The wife apparently liked to smoke a little pot before sex, and suggested to her husband that if he had Shoenmakers kept in jail to be extradited to the US, his sex life would run dry. The judge saw the light, granted bail and gave Shoenmakers his passport and a 24-hour head start before notifying US authorities, who were livid when they discovered that Shoenmakers had disappeared.”
So with the help of a randy judge's wife, Neville skipped bail and fled back to Holland where he could live without fear of extradition to the US as his seed company had been fully licensed by the Dutch government, he had not broken any Dutch laws and held a Dutch passport.
The end of The Seed Bank, Sensi Seeds is born
During this period Neville sold the Cannabis Castle and his breeding plants to Ben Dronkers who owned the competing Sensi Seed Club, the new company was called Sensi Seed Bank. Neville continued to work for Sensi Seed Bank as a breeder and Northern Lights #5 x Haze won awards for Sensi in the 1990, 1993 and 1996 Cannabis Cups.
Sensi Seeds also released a Haze hybrid called Silver Haze which is a cross of Silver Pearl to Haze. Sensi's description for Silver Haze:
Although the cerebral high of the Sativa is preferred by many, indoor growers aren't too fond of this type; Sativas get very tall, take a long time to finish off and produce skimpy yields. We have spent years searching for a superb Indica/Sativa hybrid suited for indoor growing. By crossing the Haze, the most powerful Sativa in the world, to a non-dominant Indica we managed to get the height and flowering time of the plant down to an acceptable level and still retain the unique Sativa qualities of the high.
Silver Pearl was created by pollinating the Northern Lights #5 female cutting with an Early Pearl x Skunk #1 male. Early Pearl is a cross of Early Girl x Pollyana, two Califonian cultivars brought to Holland by Sam in 1984. Early Girl was an f2 indica x sativa outdoor hybrid created in Northern California and Pollyana was a Mexican-derived strain. Neville created Early Pearl in 1987 using plants grown from the seeds purchased from Sam. Neville later inbred the line for 3 generations, resulting in Early Pearl Improved which appeared in the 1988 The Seed Bank Catalogue. Silver Pearl was also created by Neville, the male being a plant from his Early Pearl x Skunk #1 seed line which was also listed in the 1988 The Seed Bank catalogue and was described as having buds larger than either parent due to hybrid vigour; the female was the NL5 female cut. Silver Pearl won a Cannabis Cup in the Seed Company category in 1993.
After Neville moved on from Sensi Seeds, more Haze-based cultivars would appear. Jack Herer was released at the 1994 Cannabis Cup; here is Sensi's original Jack Herer description:
Jack Herer is a multiple hybrid, the result of many years of selective breeding, combining 3 of the strongest marijuana varieties known to man. Even though we are regularly put under pressure by obsessed growers to give pedigree details, I'm afraid that just as with the Coca Cola recipe this Sensi variety will have to remain a secret. This variety produces so much resin that even the branches bristle with stalked glands. This strain was presented at the High Times Cannabis Cup in honour of Jack Herer, one of America's greatest Cannabis activists and author of The Emperor Wears No Clothes. High Times Magazine: "The bud was heavy with crystals and resin; the high was immediate and cerebral. An excellent strain".
While Sensi say the exact lineage is a closely-guarded secret, it is accepted that Jack Herer is a 3-way hybrid of Skunk #1, Northern Lights #5 and Haze. The precise lineage is probably Haze x [Northern Lights #5 x (Northern Lights #5 x Skunk #1)] which suggests that Sensi began by selecting a male from their NL5 x SK1 seedline (AKA Shiva Skunk) and backcrossing him to the NL5 female cutting. As Sensi purchased Neville's breeding plants, they had both the Haze A and C males, so it is likely that they then chose a female NL5 x (NL5xSK1) plant and pollinated it with one of the Haze males to create Jack Herer., this would make Jack 50% Haze, 37.5% NL5 and 12.5% SK1. This gives Jack Herer a similar composition to Super Silver Haze and Mango Haze which are 50% Haze, 25% NL5 and 25% SK1.
Jack Herer is an unstable hybrid and therefore plants grown from seed tend to be quite varied. However, the quality of the phenotypes within the line is generally excellent and many people have selected long term keepers. Sensi Seeds have written new, several paragraph long, detailed descriptions of their strains for their 2008 catalogue, here is an extract from the Jack Herer entry that gives a good description of the phenotypical variation:
Plants from seed show favourable variation, due to Jack Herer’s complex background and delicate balance right at the cusp of Sativa and Indica. Enhanced features from both sides of the family are strongly evident and are expressed in different combinations, allowing growers to select mother plants tailored to their circumstances and tastes.
Three of Jack’s four main phenotypes are heavily Sativa-influenced while the fourth has a growth pattern leaning towards Indica - fast-flowering and relatively compact with a dense, expansive, rounded bud structure that’s suited to cash-cropping. Jack’s Sativa phenotypes can also produce a good per-metre or per-plant yield when cultivated skilfully, though it is rare for these crops to be sold commercially. Most growers who have watched their succulent, super-sized calyxes swell and mature will be hesitant to sell such buds, and the best Jack Herer is often passed around a select circle of friends - an example of one of those things that money just can’t buy.
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and if that is the case, the number of Jack Herer-derived seed lines available from a number of seedbanks is strong testimony to the success of Sensi's original. Nirvana and Black Label have produced straight-up copies, Dutch breeder Sannie has released a much worked f5 version he calls Sannie's Jack.Somahas used Jack Herer genes in his Reclining Buddha, Somango, Kahuna and Amethyst Bud seed lines. Female Seeds, World of Seeds and Sweet Seeds have all released feminised hybrids containing Jack Herer genes.
Sensi Seeds themselves sell two Jack Herer-derived seedlines – Jack Flash and Mother's Finest. Jack Flash is probably a cross of a Super Skunk to a Haze dominant pheno of Jack Herer, or perhaps a Superskunk x Haze male was used to pollinate a Jack Herer female. Sensi's description of Jack Flash gives a good description of the strain but does not clearly state it's exact lineage:
Jack Herer’s sublime gene-pool has been refined, with desired traits reinforced largely through back-crossing. Over multiple generations, our favourite Herer mother was infused with a precise blend of Super Skunk and Haze, undergoing rigorous selection and testing at every stage.
Jack Flash is the triumphant outcome of that program — inbred with the bulk and vigour of her Afghani-Skunk ancestors without sacrificing any of Herer’s sumptuous Haze high. In isolating this particular balance of traits, the four common phenotypes of Jack Herer are reduced to two recurring forms in Jack Flash, representing the contrasting sides of her heritage. The Indica form is compact enough for SOG, with rapid and highly distinctive bud development. Calyxes swell to outrageous sizes, piling atop each other to form resin-saturated ropes which build into multi-point crowns on terminal buds.
Mother's Finest is not a Jack Herer hybrid, rather it is a worked derivative selected towards the Haze side of it's lineage, as explained in Sensi Seeds' description:
Another incredible hybrid with roots in the Jack Herer breeding program, this next-generation Sativa is one of Sensi’s more recent creations. Upon release, Mother's Finest was an instant hit, winning first place for Sativa at the 2002 Cannabis Cup just a few months later. Mother's Finest is more a Hazey offshoot of the Herer line than a direct Jack-descendant. However, just like Jack Flash, Mother's Finest is best understood as a purposeful fine-tuning of Jack Herer’s multi-faceted gene pool.
The Greenhouse Years - Super Silver Haze, Mango Haze and Neville's Haze
Despite their current claims to have been an established seed company since 1985, the history of Arjan Roskam's Greenhouse dates back to the 10th of August 1992 when he opened his first coffeeshop Greenhouse Tolstraat in Amsterdam's Old South. A second shop called Greenhouse Namaste opened on the Waterlooplein on the 21st of April 1995 and around the same time Arjan teamed up with Australian breeder Shantibaba (Scott Blakey). They launched Greenhouse Seeds in time for the 1995 Cannabis Cup, the strains were bred by Shantibaba and included famous names like White Widow, White Rhino, Great White Shark and El Nino. Greenhouse won multiple cups with these Shantibaba-bred strains, dominating the High Times Cannabis Cup in the same way Neville had in the early years of the event.
A third coffeeshop called Greenhouse Centrum opened on the 1st of June 1997 on Oudezijds Voorburgwal in the Red Light District and after retiring from full-time breeding Neville became a co-owner of this shop with Arjan.Neville and Shantibaba began working together on breeding projects and each chose a female from a large crop of over 1000 NL5 x Haze A plants, the female Neville chose became the female half of Super Silver Haze (SSH), whereas Shantibaba's choice became the mother of Mango Haze. Shantibaba explained the selections in two posts on the mrnice.nl forum in April 2007:
“SSH is just one of those seed F1s that you are guaranteed of finding something great in every packet. Of course it is a small sample but you should have no problems. Consider this, to find the SSH female parent it took Nev over 1000 seeds flowered out over several years. Then doing the progeny test, which ultimately is the only true test of breeding, took alot of us several attempts to be sure the selection was true . This strain has had alot of breeding work over alot of years and it is not for no reason that it is so close to so many people worldwide.”
“The reason I went on with MH and Nev went on with the SSH was personal taste differences. The majority of people we gave both to taste initially went for the SSH and therefore it was named and its history is written. But my choice was MH and for any of you
I wrote an article on the History of Haze a while back, here it is in full:
Haze's roots and Sam the Skunkman
Haze has a somewhat clouded history, to say the least. The accepted story is that it has it's roots in the work of the Haze Bros in Corralitos, near Santa Cruz in central California between 1970 and 1975. The Haze Bros grew out many of the finest sativas from imported seeds from Colombia, Mexico, Thailand and South India and hybridised them. Robert Connell Clarke explains the origins of Haze in his 'Origins of the Species' article published in Issue 60 of Cannabis Culture magazine:
“The Original Haze is a late-maturing variety from Central California and was almost always grown in greenhouses, allowing it to finish in December or January. Original Haze was always connoisseur stash, and even in the 1970s it sold for as much as $200 an ounce. Original Haze is a pure sativa stabilised hybrid arising from crossing all of the best females with a male of a different imported sativa variety each year. Starting with Colombian/Mexican hybrids grown from seeds from the first crop, a South Indian male plant was used as a pollen source the second year, and a Thai male plant was used the third year. Depending on which year Haze seeds were collected, they resembled either Colombian, South Indian of Thai plants. Original Haze varies in taste from citrus Thai notes through the gamut of sativa highlights to the deep spicy purple Colombian flavour most common in Dutch Haze cultivars.”
The exact cultivars grown by the Haze Bros are unknown, but the Colombians are said to include Highland Gold and Wacky Weed, the South Indian originated in the Kerala region. The selection of the Colombian and Mexican plants being based on which of them would mature under glass at Santa Cruz's latitude (36.9N). The Haze Bros were sensimilla growers and sold the various phenotypes of Haze under names such as Purple Haze, Silver Blue Haze and Lime Green Haze, the purple batches fetching upto $500 an ounce according to Sam the Skunkman.
The Bros were growers not breeders and never worked their hybrids into a consistent seedline, this happened later when one of their Santa Cruz neighbours and cannabis collaborators, Sam the Skunkman worked with their seed to produce the Haze seedline we know today. Sam explained a little about the process in a post at icmag.com in 2008:
“Original Haze was fairly consistant as F1's but by the time it was f5 and above it segregated out into many different related lines. I have not worked Original Haze as much as tried to save it, I collected as much seed as I could in the early 70's grew them and did free pollinations and did minimal selection to ensure I saved as many genes as I could. That was in the 70's & 80's now I have clones for the last 20 years. My Original Haze is not done being worked on that is why I tell people to use it as breeding materials.”
Haze genetics were brought to a worldwide audience in 1984 when Sam the Skunkman moved to Holland, taking the Haze genes with him and thus introducing them to the commercial cannabis seed business. In his handwritten Cultivator's Choice seed catalogue #4 from fall 1985, Sam lists Haze as #10 in his line-up of ten strains:
“Original Haze Sativa Pure, (Selfed)
All sativa but is an inconsistent hybrid. 10% are spectacular, 75% good, 10% poor. Truly superior sweet taste. High incredibly clear and up energy. Height 2-3m. Yield: 100-300gm. Harvest: December (flowers 3 months for quality). Will not mature outdoors in Holland or Northern California. Haze is Cultivator's Choice's personal favourite.”
At this point Sam didn't offer any Haze hybrids, however Haze doesn't work very well indoors under lights so it was inevitable that hybrids would be made to allow indoor growers to experience a part of the Haze genetics.
Neville and the hybridisation of Haze
At the same time as Sam was bringing a handful of the best American genetics to Holland, a young Dutch/Australian man called Neville Schoenmakers was raking in huge piles of cash dollars through his company The Seed Bank. Neville had placed an ad in High Times in 1984 and immediately the envelopes stuffed with dollar bills began arriving by the sackload. According to Steven Hager's 'Inside Cannabis Castle' article published in High Times in March 1987:
“In the last year his company supplied $500,000 worth of seeds to 15,000 American growers. If you smoked high-quality marijuana sometime in the last three years, chances are the buds were grown with Neville's stock.”
Neville collected as many seeds as he could from a myriad of sources and grew them out in search of breeding plants. He purchased an old Victorian house located near the German border which he named 'The Cannabis Castle' and converted the lower two floors into sophisticated growing facilities, the gardens being filled with greenhouses. Neville obtained Haze seeds and from these he grew three plants which he called A, B and C; A and C were males, B was a female.
The Haze controversy begins at this point and revolves around the origin of the Haze seeds that Neville grew his three Haze plants from, Sam the Skunkman insists that Neville obtained his Haze seeds from him after he arrived in Holland; on the other hand, Neville told the story of obtaining the seeds from a guy in New York who had an old seed collection and the seeds were from Haze Bros stock circa 1969.
Sam posted on icmag on 25th February 2008:
“It is absurd that Neville said he got 1969 O Haze seeds from the Haze Bros.
#1 Neville first traveled to USA in 86 or 87 at the earliest, the main Haze Brother, R was gone, retired in Mexico by 82 he did not come back for 10 years. He was the one that created O Haze. The second Haze Brother J quit growing O Haze about 1980 and only grew Skunk #1 after that, until he became a reborn christian, then he quit growing, and anyway recently he told me he never met Neville and he certainly did not sell any Haze seeds to him or anyone else ever.
#2 The Haze Bros had a falling out in the late 70's and stopped talking to one another, for certain they did not sell seeds as the Haze Bros to anyone, it is ridiculous as well as impossible.
Lets be honest Neville got the seeds from me, but he had promised me that he would not make pure Haze and sell them as such, I told him it was fine to make Haze hybrids with other varieties that were not mine.
He broke his word and started selling Haze pure and hybrids with my varieties, and I stopped working with him.
Maybe he lied to avoid the problems that accompany breaking your word? I can not say, but I know Neville did not meet the Haze Bros and did not get any O Haze seeds from them. Both the Haze Bros were close friends of mine and both were close neighbors for years, J lived a few hundred meters from my house until he departed to Mexico.”
So Sam says he was the source of Neville's Haze seeds, Neville says not; only Sam and Neville know the truth, so let's leave the controversy there and focus on the Haze genetics themselves!
Sam himself created a number of Haze hybrids with Haze x Skunk #1 and Haze x Keralan South Indian Sativa being the two that are most widely known and are sold by The Flying Dutchmen as Fuma Con Diablos and Haze Mist.
Neville had three Haze plants which he called A, B and C. A and C were males, B was a female. The Haze B female was not an impressive looking plant and didn't have a pleasant high when smoked, so it was discarded. The Haze A male had a spicy smell/taste whereas the Haze C male had a more dark earthy Chocolate Thai type smell and taste. It is thought that the A male is a Colombian dominant pheno, the C being a Thai dominant one.
In the 1988 The Seed Bank catalogue Neville writes:
"Haze is a late sativa from America, widely agreed by experts to be the best pot in the world. Very popular in the 70's, it nearly became extinct in recent years as growers switched to easier varieties. We managed to salvage a few viable seeds from the last crop grown in America and we have used them to produce some remarkable hybrids. Haze is known for an extreme, almost psychedelic spaciness. The fragrance is complex and deep with a dry flowery perfume over a base of dark leathery animal tones. When used in a hybrid it adds fascinating notes of depth and complexity to the taste, as well as a unique addition to the high. While not for everyone, the most jaded connoisseur will often find haze irresistible.”
The first Haze hybrid to appear was Haze x NL #1 f-1 hybrid, listed in the 1988 The Seed Bank Catalogue, it is unknown what parent plants made up this strain which was only sold for one year. NL #1 is/was a true-breeding Afghani so both males and females were available for breeding, perhaps Neville crossed a NL#1 male to his only Haze female (B).
Neville made a number of crosses using his two Haze males; He crossed the the Haze A male to his Northern Lights #5 and Hashplant female clones and a Skunk #1 female (#17 from seed). He also crossed the Haze C male to his G13 female clone, a Hawaiian Sativa female and a Durban Sativa female. The Hawaiian and Durban hybrids both won Cannabis Cups in the pure sativa category which gives a very strong endorsement of the breeding pedigree of the Haze C male. The G13 x Haze C male hybrid appeared in The Seed Bank catalogue in 1989 but the genetics apparently didn't combine well and the seeds were only sold for one year. The Hashplant and Skunk hybrids were never offered for sale, but the NL5 x Haze A male cross turned out to be something special, and Neville's original description in the 1989 The Seed Bank catalogue has always made me chuckle:
"HAZE X NL#5
1989 - Due to tremendous customer demand, we have spent years searching for a superb Sativa/Indica hybrid that is suited for indoor growing but still retains the unique sativa qualities in the high. The Haze X NL#5 hybrid is the result of this search. A note of warning: Adverse effects have been known to occur among inexperienced smokers, particularly when combined with alcohol. Side effects may include nausea, dizzyness, fainting and loss of bowel and bladder control. Extreme introspective behavior is considered normal."
the 1995 Sensi Seed Bank Catalogue states:
“This hybrid is the pinnacle of achievement in Cannabis breeding today. The result: an extremely potent plant with a great Sativa high. At the Harvest festivals in the early nineties this strain was already miles ahead of its competitors. Even today it has not yet been surpassed. The high yields compensate for the slightly longer flowering period. Hybrid vigour provides for lush growth, heavy bud formation and abundant resin. A true champion!”
The NL5 x Haze A seedline was to become the source of breeding plants that form the foundations of the later Haze hybrids created by Neville and Shantibaba – Super Silver Haze, Neville's Haze and Mango Haze. As it plays such an important role as a building block in the Haze story, let us familiarise ourselves with Northern Lights #5 (NL5). Steven Hager's description from his 'Inside Cannabis Castle' article published in High Times in March 1987 gives you a good idea why Neville chose it as a breeding plant:
State of the art indoor indica. Originating out of the Pacific Northwest, it is the result of many years of indoor breeding – three to four crops per year for a total of perhaps thirty to forty generations in the last ten years. The picture in Neville's catalogue is a cutting of my personal favourite, C1 #5 f1. Unfortunately, no seeds are available of the strain, only cuttings. If anyone can come up with anything more resinous than this, I'd like to see it. Does not have much taste. The breeder bred a very specific goal in mind: high resin content. He certainly succeeded. The grass is a mellow indica that gets you pleasantly stoned – almost the opposite of Afghani #1. Although there are tastier varieties, I could smoke this one all day.
Shantibaba described the NL5 cutting in an internet post at mrnice.nl in 2008:
“The origins of the NL we have been using to breed with are Afghan, worked on in America in the 80s and Holland...one of the plants that has lead to a multitude of hybrids. There is no Thai in our version it is pretty much a 100% indica plant finishes 45-55 days and is exceptionally resinous.”
An exceptionally resinous clone that represented the state of the art in indoor indica genetics is the obvious choice to hybridise a pure sativa like Haze. The great success subsequently enjoyed by the Haze x NL5 hybrids and their derivatives shows that Neville made a wise choice when he crossed Haze to the Northern Lights #5 cutting.
The Cannabis Cup
While in Holland to meet Neville and write the 'Inside Cannabis Castle' article, High Times editor Steven Hager also met up with Sam the Skunkman and came up with the idea for the Cannabis Cup after hearing Sam's tales of the harvest festivals held in California in the 1970s. Held in November 1988, the first High Times Cannabis Cup was an informal affair with only four companies – Neville's The Seed Bank, Ben Dronker's Sensi Seed Club, Super Sativa Seed Club (SSSC) and Cultivator's Choice (Sam the Skunkman). Sam won with Skunk #1 but decided he was disenchanted with the idea of competitions and retired from them. Sam sold his genetics to Neville, Ben Dronkers and Eddy Rekedder (who later founded The Flying Dutchmen Seed Company and The Cannabis College) so ensuring the genes he brought with him from the US became some of the building blocks of modern hybrids.
The same four companies contested the second Cannabis Cup the following year and Neville's The Seed Bank won a clean sweep of all the awards using the genetics purchased from Sam. Haze x South African Sativa winning the Pure Sativa Cup and Early Pearl x Skunk No.1 x Northern Lights No.5 x Haze taking the Mostly Sativa Cup. The following year saw Neville repeat the clean sweep, Haze x Hawaiian wining the pure Sativa Cup and Northern Lights #5 x Haze the Mostly Sativa Cup. Northern Lights #5 won the Pure Indica Cup.
Operation Green Merchant
The High Times article, especially the picture of Neville counting large sums of US dollars brought not only valuable publicity but also unwanted attention in the form of a DEA crackdown on the hydroponics industry, head shops and cannabis growers. Operation Green Merchant began on the 26th October 1989, the DEA in conjunction with dozens of other law enforcement agencies raided hydroponics stores in 46 states, arresting 119 people, seizing several indoor gardening shops and thousands of cannabis plants. Ray Boyd described the carnage in an article published in issue 56 of Cannabis Culture magazine:
“Store owners and employees watched in horror as gun-toting police ransacked their shops. In most cases, no charges were ever filed, but civil asset forfeitures stole millions of dollars worth of inventory from stores and individuals. One cultivation-centered pot magazine, Sensimilla Tips, went out of business, and High Times spent years recovering from the loss of its most lucrative advertisers.
In 1991, DEA agents began serving subpoenas on hydro storeowners, seeking customer addresses and other private information. Agents raided, questioned, and intimidated hundreds of people and organizations, including scientists and NASA's horticultural research facilities. By the end of 1991, Green Merchant had arrested 1,262 people, dismantled 977 indoor grows, and seized $17.5 million in assets. Dozens of people served 4 to 15 year prison terms, many with mandatory minimums that did not allow for sentence reduction.”
On June 24, 1990, Neville was arrested by the Australian authorities at the behest of the US government while visiting family in Perth. A 44-count indictment was lodged in New Orleans, charging him with the sale of marijuana seeds to undercover agents and indoor growers in the New Orleans area in 1989. Neville was detained in Australia, not charged with anything but awaiting the results of an extradition hearing. Peter Gorman explained what happened in issue 59 of Cannabis Culture magazine:
“Shoenmakers was caught on a visit to his home in Australia, but fortunately a judge with power over his being granted bond—which the DEA fought fiercely—had a wife with a heart. The wife apparently liked to smoke a little pot before sex, and suggested to her husband that if he had Shoenmakers kept in jail to be extradited to the US, his sex life would run dry. The judge saw the light, granted bail and gave Shoenmakers his passport and a 24-hour head start before notifying US authorities, who were livid when they discovered that Shoenmakers had disappeared.”
So with the help of a randy judge's wife, Neville skipped bail and fled back to Holland where he could live without fear of extradition to the US as his seed company had been fully licensed by the Dutch government, he had not broken any Dutch laws and held a Dutch passport.
The end of The Seed Bank, Sensi Seeds is born
During this period Neville sold the Cannabis Castle and his breeding plants to Ben Dronkers who owned the competing Sensi Seed Club, the new company was called Sensi Seed Bank. Neville continued to work for Sensi Seed Bank as a breeder and Northern Lights #5 x Haze won awards for Sensi in the 1990, 1993 and 1996 Cannabis Cups.
Sensi Seeds also released a Haze hybrid called Silver Haze which is a cross of Silver Pearl to Haze. Sensi's description for Silver Haze:
Although the cerebral high of the Sativa is preferred by many, indoor growers aren't too fond of this type; Sativas get very tall, take a long time to finish off and produce skimpy yields. We have spent years searching for a superb Indica/Sativa hybrid suited for indoor growing. By crossing the Haze, the most powerful Sativa in the world, to a non-dominant Indica we managed to get the height and flowering time of the plant down to an acceptable level and still retain the unique Sativa qualities of the high.
Silver Pearl was created by pollinating the Northern Lights #5 female cutting with an Early Pearl x Skunk #1 male. Early Pearl is a cross of Early Girl x Pollyana, two Califonian cultivars brought to Holland by Sam in 1984. Early Girl was an f2 indica x sativa outdoor hybrid created in Northern California and Pollyana was a Mexican-derived strain. Neville created Early Pearl in 1987 using plants grown from the seeds purchased from Sam. Neville later inbred the line for 3 generations, resulting in Early Pearl Improved which appeared in the 1988 The Seed Bank Catalogue. Silver Pearl was also created by Neville, the male being a plant from his Early Pearl x Skunk #1 seed line which was also listed in the 1988 The Seed Bank catalogue and was described as having buds larger than either parent due to hybrid vigour; the female was the NL5 female cut. Silver Pearl won a Cannabis Cup in the Seed Company category in 1993.
After Neville moved on from Sensi Seeds, more Haze-based cultivars would appear. Jack Herer was released at the 1994 Cannabis Cup; here is Sensi's original Jack Herer description:
Jack Herer is a multiple hybrid, the result of many years of selective breeding, combining 3 of the strongest marijuana varieties known to man. Even though we are regularly put under pressure by obsessed growers to give pedigree details, I'm afraid that just as with the Coca Cola recipe this Sensi variety will have to remain a secret. This variety produces so much resin that even the branches bristle with stalked glands. This strain was presented at the High Times Cannabis Cup in honour of Jack Herer, one of America's greatest Cannabis activists and author of The Emperor Wears No Clothes. High Times Magazine: "The bud was heavy with crystals and resin; the high was immediate and cerebral. An excellent strain".
While Sensi say the exact lineage is a closely-guarded secret, it is accepted that Jack Herer is a 3-way hybrid of Skunk #1, Northern Lights #5 and Haze. The precise lineage is probably Haze x [Northern Lights #5 x (Northern Lights #5 x Skunk #1)] which suggests that Sensi began by selecting a male from their NL5 x SK1 seedline (AKA Shiva Skunk) and backcrossing him to the NL5 female cutting. As Sensi purchased Neville's breeding plants, they had both the Haze A and C males, so it is likely that they then chose a female NL5 x (NL5xSK1) plant and pollinated it with one of the Haze males to create Jack Herer., this would make Jack 50% Haze, 37.5% NL5 and 12.5% SK1. This gives Jack Herer a similar composition to Super Silver Haze and Mango Haze which are 50% Haze, 25% NL5 and 25% SK1.
Jack Herer is an unstable hybrid and therefore plants grown from seed tend to be quite varied. However, the quality of the phenotypes within the line is generally excellent and many people have selected long term keepers. Sensi Seeds have written new, several paragraph long, detailed descriptions of their strains for their 2008 catalogue, here is an extract from the Jack Herer entry that gives a good description of the phenotypical variation:
Plants from seed show favourable variation, due to Jack Herer’s complex background and delicate balance right at the cusp of Sativa and Indica. Enhanced features from both sides of the family are strongly evident and are expressed in different combinations, allowing growers to select mother plants tailored to their circumstances and tastes.
Three of Jack’s four main phenotypes are heavily Sativa-influenced while the fourth has a growth pattern leaning towards Indica - fast-flowering and relatively compact with a dense, expansive, rounded bud structure that’s suited to cash-cropping. Jack’s Sativa phenotypes can also produce a good per-metre or per-plant yield when cultivated skilfully, though it is rare for these crops to be sold commercially. Most growers who have watched their succulent, super-sized calyxes swell and mature will be hesitant to sell such buds, and the best Jack Herer is often passed around a select circle of friends - an example of one of those things that money just can’t buy.
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and if that is the case, the number of Jack Herer-derived seed lines available from a number of seedbanks is strong testimony to the success of Sensi's original. Nirvana and Black Label have produced straight-up copies, Dutch breeder Sannie has released a much worked f5 version he calls Sannie's Jack.Somahas used Jack Herer genes in his Reclining Buddha, Somango, Kahuna and Amethyst Bud seed lines. Female Seeds, World of Seeds and Sweet Seeds have all released feminised hybrids containing Jack Herer genes.
Sensi Seeds themselves sell two Jack Herer-derived seedlines – Jack Flash and Mother's Finest. Jack Flash is probably a cross of a Super Skunk to a Haze dominant pheno of Jack Herer, or perhaps a Superskunk x Haze male was used to pollinate a Jack Herer female. Sensi's description of Jack Flash gives a good description of the strain but does not clearly state it's exact lineage:
Jack Herer’s sublime gene-pool has been refined, with desired traits reinforced largely through back-crossing. Over multiple generations, our favourite Herer mother was infused with a precise blend of Super Skunk and Haze, undergoing rigorous selection and testing at every stage.
Jack Flash is the triumphant outcome of that program — inbred with the bulk and vigour of her Afghani-Skunk ancestors without sacrificing any of Herer’s sumptuous Haze high. In isolating this particular balance of traits, the four common phenotypes of Jack Herer are reduced to two recurring forms in Jack Flash, representing the contrasting sides of her heritage. The Indica form is compact enough for SOG, with rapid and highly distinctive bud development. Calyxes swell to outrageous sizes, piling atop each other to form resin-saturated ropes which build into multi-point crowns on terminal buds.
Mother's Finest is not a Jack Herer hybrid, rather it is a worked derivative selected towards the Haze side of it's lineage, as explained in Sensi Seeds' description:
Another incredible hybrid with roots in the Jack Herer breeding program, this next-generation Sativa is one of Sensi’s more recent creations. Upon release, Mother's Finest was an instant hit, winning first place for Sativa at the 2002 Cannabis Cup just a few months later. Mother's Finest is more a Hazey offshoot of the Herer line than a direct Jack-descendant. However, just like Jack Flash, Mother's Finest is best understood as a purposeful fine-tuning of Jack Herer’s multi-faceted gene pool.
The Greenhouse Years - Super Silver Haze, Mango Haze and Neville's Haze
Despite their current claims to have been an established seed company since 1985, the history of Arjan Roskam's Greenhouse dates back to the 10th of August 1992 when he opened his first coffeeshop Greenhouse Tolstraat in Amsterdam's Old South. A second shop called Greenhouse Namaste opened on the Waterlooplein on the 21st of April 1995 and around the same time Arjan teamed up with Australian breeder Shantibaba (Scott Blakey). They launched Greenhouse Seeds in time for the 1995 Cannabis Cup, the strains were bred by Shantibaba and included famous names like White Widow, White Rhino, Great White Shark and El Nino. Greenhouse won multiple cups with these Shantibaba-bred strains, dominating the High Times Cannabis Cup in the same way Neville had in the early years of the event.
A third coffeeshop called Greenhouse Centrum opened on the 1st of June 1997 on Oudezijds Voorburgwal in the Red Light District and after retiring from full-time breeding Neville became a co-owner of this shop with Arjan.Neville and Shantibaba began working together on breeding projects and each chose a female from a large crop of over 1000 NL5 x Haze A plants, the female Neville chose became the female half of Super Silver Haze (SSH), whereas Shantibaba's choice became the mother of Mango Haze. Shantibaba explained the selections in two posts on the mrnice.nl forum in April 2007:
“SSH is just one of those seed F1s that you are guaranteed of finding something great in every packet. Of course it is a small sample but you should have no problems. Consider this, to find the SSH female parent it took Nev over 1000 seeds flowered out over several years. Then doing the progeny test, which ultimately is the only true test of breeding, took alot of us several attempts to be sure the selection was true . This strain has had alot of breeding work over alot of years and it is not for no reason that it is so close to so many people worldwide.”
“The reason I went on with MH and Nev went on with the SSH was personal taste differences. The majority of people we gave both to taste initially went for the SSH and therefore it was named and its history is written. But my choice was MH and for any of you