Watching the latest podcast by Canna Cribs, introducing Joe Sulistyo from Sproutways and saw they have Snowhigh listed as a breeder, and what a breeder.
SnowHigh
I was in contact with John many years ago and was lucky enough to get some unreal genetics from him. He also sent me this detailed document that was published in Skunk Magazine ( 2016 ) , I thought of sharing it for further background information about his breeding projects, heirlooms and landrace.
My name is Snow or SnowHigh and my seedbank of the very same name is much more than myself, it’s my family. This quest of mine started many years ago when my cousins would share “mota” from their cousins’ hauls from various states in Mexico. Mota is the name we used to signify marijuana or cannabis on the sly because you didn’t want people understanding what you were talking about. Especially in those days when the C.A.M.P. (Cock-Suckers After My Plants) helicopters were buzzing everyone’s homes and properties. It was practically a daily thing to see the chopper pilots heads when looking down on you while flying metal pigs. This gives you an idea how close they really were from the ground and us. Paranoia and people getting busted simply going down the road seemed to happen to all your friends in those days. It was a different time for growers, from guerilla growing up in small creeks and run offs, to small patches rigged with makeshift damns and drip irrigation which worked on gravity to feed small plants that were woven into the underbrush of manzanita and poison oak. Digging out blackberry patches and growing your plants in the middle just to pull off a small harvest was a treat when finished. I can say I grew hundreds of plants in those days and spent hours and days prepping and trying to find places to grow my plants. Though when it came down to it, between the rippers stealing your plants and leaving nothing behind even when the plants had barely begun flowering or the dozen or so animals like deer and rabbits that loved eating young plants. I felt like I accomplished something when I was able to pull off a few plants here and there.
In those days I was living in Northern California, born and raised in one of the most naturally beautiful spots in California. Though when I was younger I didn’t appreciate it as much as I should have. Growing mota or cannabis was a treat. I would get all kinds of varieties of Mexican. Varieties were broken down by country or state like Hawaiian and then when it came to locally grown varieties certain places were known for better weed then others. Mexican green bud, purple, red, Mexican brown, Mexican red hair “punto rojo”, multi-color, brick, slightly pressed, it came from all over and was shipped in so many interesting and creative ways which amazes me on man’s eagerness to solve problems, especially when it comes to smuggling. When it came to Mexican grass you had to smoke it to know what you got, you also needed to pack a bowl or roll a joint to know how much weed you got versus seeds. A lot of times you would get pounds or ounces and when it came down to checking it all out you would get thousands of seeds. Damn I wish I had those seeds now… haha Not all of the imported Mexican was seeded. Actually the name sin (without) semilla (seeds) was coined from growing weed without seeds. Hysterically though many people thought “sinsemilla” was some super strain of weed. Well they weren’t altogether wrong but it was just well grown weed which was grown to maturity, making the girls plump up with resins in anticipation of getting pollinated which never came. Mexican, well good Mexican would make you laugh. You could smoke several bowls of Mexican mota and you would laugh and cry so hard from the stupidest things, that shit gave you the giggles, laugh so hard you would drool on yourself…Mexican dope was happy weed and it gave great visuals, it was colorful stuff. Eating shrooms and smoking Mexican weed was a great combination, the weed would boost the colors from the fry and would also relax you so you didn’t have a bad trip. Just a smiley adventure into the universe. Man those were the daze… haha
We would also get Colombian weed, this shit was grown locally and stolen from the stash of a connoisseur our friends dad who incidentally grew out this amazing lombo from a Phototron. Colombian Green was a treat, I remember the first time smoking primo Colombian weed, and this stuff was coated in resin. You hadn’t seen this stuff before, it looked dipped in crystals, but the bright lime green shined from underneath the crystal laden coating of the bud. It was perfect and smoking that awesome looking bud for the first time out of a metal pipe. Let’s just say that I was used to taking the biggest hit I could and I would hold it in as long as I could… haha If you ever smoked “real deal lombo” you know what was coming. I choked! I literally choked so hard taking in that sweet Chiba, I blew out that hit as soon as it hit my lungs, I couldn’t hold it in. The expansion in my lungs was incredible! I hacked and wheezed and banged on my chest. I wasn’t stoned! I was annihilated and that was only one hit… I was scared at that point, man I thought to myself in that semi panicky state one gets into when they’ve bitten off more than they can chew. With some laughing coming from my friends who also hadn’t smoked this primo Colombian more than once before me were also having a hard time smoking this beast of a strain. It was awesome and within 10 minutes of regaining my senses I was able to smoke some more and even though I knew what was coming you couldn’t fight the expansion and choke from the Colombian.
Years later and knowing the effects of high quality grass, the astringent aroma and contraction of the olfactory system when smelling or smoking certain strains. This is a sign of top quality weed. This is a refined thing I’m talking about and you start to understand and it’s easiest when smoking a Colombian Gold variety because the high is all in the head, clear and functional, colorful and exhilarating. Nowadays you may find certain strains have this quality but in a multi poly hybrid it’s hard to tell where that quality came from other than it really makes for strong weed.
Being in the Emerald Pentagram as I call it, basically at the axis of the Emerald Triangle in California, but adjacent to those counties. The climate for growing top quality cannabis is hard to find much better environment then where I grew up and started growing weed for the first time. Mendocino has better land for growing sativas then its northern neighbor, Humboldt but also has long vast areas of dense redwoods and moisture from the coast which plagues growers with mold and the problem with having to harvest earlier because of the shorter growing season then the counties just west of them. Humboldt has more dense mountains and hills and a rugged climate which has made the growing of Afghani and Pakistani varieties, real Kush types favorable for the climate because with selective breeding these varieties can be harvested sooner and respond to light manipulation, unlike equatorial varieties who rarely get more than 13 & hours of darkness ever in their native habitats. This is not to say that their isn’t hundreds of micro climates all over Northern California which have longer seasons and don’t get coastal moisture like many do in these famous cultivating counties of the Emerald Triangle.
Growing up we would get all kinds of “Killer Green Buds” from Tahoe to Humboldt, Shasta, Trinity and of course neighboring Mendocino County. It seemed like everyone knew someone with special buds, it was a special time and the vast quantities of different strains were everywhere. Tutti-frutti, multi colored buds, Pine buds so covered in sugar crystals, you could shake the bottom of your baggie into a vial and pack bowls of leftover trichomes. Road Kill Skunks that were so foul, you would gag smelling the fresh buds but smoking her was a real treat. The greasy buds were so resinous they would constantly put out the joints that you lit. Where you could normally smoke joint after joint of some really great stuff this Roadkill Skunk only allowed you to smoke half a joint. I don’t know if it was because we were so blasted or just defeated from trying to relight the joints…haha
All of these different varieties I would collect and grow from different sources. I had all kinds of plants growing in dug out holes covered to look like trash piles, but dug into the ground I had made myself a make shift greenhouse using greenhouse green siding so the C.A.M.P choppers wouldn’t snipe out my plants. Those evil knob gobblers.
The varieties from the Mexicans I grew and others which my friends grew ranged from light yellow and green moderately narrow leafed 5 to 7 feet tall to dark green 20 to 25 feet plus huge Christmas tree structured pine tree looking monsters with 20 fingered leaves which hung from these megalith Mexicans. The bad thing about growing the Mexicans was the colors, they stood out in the summer when everything in the state of California is dead and or yellow in color. The only saving grace was the fact that many of the Mexican strains and even the longer flowering ones finished faster than many other varieties.
The “Green Bud” seeds would grow huge rounded leaves and were squat. Some grew as poles, never producing much in the way of branches but one long cola that was dripping, actually dripping resin when it got hot…It was so cool back then to see that. Some of the other “Green Bud” varieties which you’re guessing is probably Afghani, North Indian and Pakistani varieties though some were actually Mexican hash-plants or Mexican broad leafs a better classification. Some of these actually turned shades of purple, though after trimming you the consumer would never know.
We also got Panama Red which came and left briefly in the mid to late 80’s for the last time. I smoked some and I thought it was laced with acid, now I know better and acid would have been made useless if smoked. Though at the time I hadn’t experienced grass that was truly psychedelic. I was tripping hard, visuals, heart palpitations, swirling colors, it was dramatic and at one point I needed help to walk. The effects wore off after several hours but to the uninitiated smoking tripping grass like Panama Red, some African varieties or South East Asians the “high” can be too much and freak outs are not uncommon even for those experienced in other types of potent grass.
Chocolate Thai was a dreamy, soaring high which like the Panama Red wasn’t seeded or rarely did one find a seed, the last time I saw quality Chocolate Thai was in 1989 which came out of San Jose, California for 75 dollars an eighth… That was crazy money for weed back then but for something exotic and special like Chocolate Thai, it sold itself.
At this point you may be thinking why is Snow talking and babbling on about his first encounters with weed. Well the weed was so good in those days and so was the LSD, the shrooms, the highs from these psychedelics put me on a personal quest to experience all the world’s plants highs. I had an extremely early introduction to psychedelic mushrooms by my lovely and cool older sister. A room full of older girls just out of high school, frying on shrooms and smoking hash with my 9 year old self, 12 years old says my sister… Either way thank you sis for helping me at such a crucial time in my life which confirmed to me that drugs can be fun and enjoyable. It made me realize growing up that all of the “Just Say No” Bull Shit was just fodder and the information wasn’t the truth. I came to formulate my own ideas with the knowledge that people control their destiny and shouldn’t follow blindly just because others say something is true.
I ended up taking a class in high school for emergency medicine and the very first night at the hospital I saved someone’s life. I got a standing ovation in the emergency room, which I was told later never happens. Apparently this person was worked on by several highly qualified paramedics and nurses before they let me do chest compressions and I brought the person back to the land of the living. It’s even more amazing knowing how long this person hadn’t been breathing before I was involved in the resuscitation. Medicine was something I never thought I would do growing up, not thinking I was smart enough and lacking confidence, which changed that night in the emergency room.
So with that inner knowledge I joined a military branch and practiced medicine at the age of 19, I was saving people’s lives and reporting to the highest ranks as one of the medical department heads, when it came to my days of duty. Quite the shift from my previous life but at that time I had to know what I was doing. It was a great feeling of fulfillment to help people and I was preferred by many to take care of them if something happened. I traveled the world, I have been to over 28 countries and even lived on a small island in a foreign country for 3 years as a medical expert in certain specialties in medicine.
During all my travels I searched the world for psychotropic plants, many were accepted in their native lands for consumption because things like alcohol or hashish were forbidden. So do as the locals do as the saying goes. Smoking harmala seeds in Hookahs in Bahrain, in the Persian Gulf. Eating the “real magical mushrooms” of Bali, openly in Indonesia at a mushroom shake, shack or bar at Kuta beach called Midnight Oil, then going bungee jumping, illegally of course for GI’s and running from “MPs” military police right after. Too many adventures and stories from getting things from one place to another to speak about in this article.
So it has come full circle I returned to California. My friends and family have experienced many things unpleasant, I myself have experienced many lifetimes of grief and pain from losing loved ones and friends, to having it all and losing it by being callus and reckless. Cannabis growing took a while to adjust too, not the actual act of growing but the air of legality. Growing in the open with nothing but a piece of paper, saying, hey, it’s cool, this is my medicine and its ok for me to grow it or my friend can grow it for me if I cannot. Once a doctor deems that you could get relief from your afflictions by using this herb.
How I turned to breeding cannabis. So at one point I’m bringing down cannabis to the clubs in Southern California to supply early cannabis club culture. I brought down interesting strains that would sell out quick and were not the normal varieties they had been used too. This is the early 2000’s and I got to frequently venture and check out these collectives grow houses and grow warehouses. It wasn’t unusual to see 1000 watt HPS (High Pressure Sodium) bulbs over one plant of some type of OG Kush. I asked the CEO of the collective I was supplying with herbs. Why are you growing a plant which produces so little and the reply back was this is what people want to smoke, so we grow it. Its killer smoke, the strain was called “Trapper Creek OG” some obscure OG cutting, hell at the time there was hundreds of these cuttings and 90 % of them were crap. So I told the owner of the collective, give me the strains which are your best strains but don’t grow well, I’ll improve them. So I was given 2 cuttings from the owner, one being the True OG Kush and the other the SoCal G13 cuttings. I decided long ago that I didn’t like feminizing and I have many reasons, it has its place but in typical breeding, I believe it should be left alone unless you have no other means to work with and you’re trying to save a rare or nearly lost strain or cultivar. I always heard from people, OG Kush doesn’t have any real “Kush” in it. Well I decided if I was to improve upon this line then I would have real Kush mixed with the modern Kush, so there was no question about it. So I decided a double Pakistani hybrid using 2 pure breeding lines one which was called Pine Tar Kush and the other was a Chitrali Pakistani Kush which really allowed the strains which were bred into her to allow the other strain to shine and later would add body and structure to the offspring. Growing out this combination I went about to find a suitable male to pollinate the 2 “Elite” clones, definitely heirloom by my definition and I found a male which resembled some Afghani landrace males I had seen. So I pollinated the 2 strains and placed the seeds from that work to the side for several years as I grew out many different strains of OG Kush and other varieties, recording and only growing the best plants which fit my criteria. I selected for potency above all else but the plants also needed to grow well. Many so called “Elite” cuttings didn’t pass my standards because I didn’t believe they were worth the hassle to try and improve. One of the cuttings which makes incredible smoke and its very good is the San Fernando Valley Kush (SFV). The problems are that it grows too small and has problems rooting and branching which I promised myself to improve with my breeding. As many growers know or can attest is that some plants like the OG cuttings don’t root well unless you take a very good cutting, which takes experience and a little luck. So if your cutting doesn’t root well, your plant isn’t going to grow well. So my criteria after test growing 30+ strains was potency then, yield and size which was evaluated by digging the plants up and looking at their root zone. You can’t grow big plants with roots that look like carrots.
So after my Ultimate OG Kush projects which I grew out all of the best lines I could acquire that were OG based, I settled on a few but the Skywalker OG was a favorite for potency, its one that did the trick, every single time you smoked her. Awesome stuff and another cutting we acquired through friends from the Hells Angels which came out of NorCal, they called it OG Kush and they had been growing it for 20 years plus. There is another strain which I test grew which I didn’t think passed the grade which was larfy or leafy and nothing too special, it’s called Hells Angels OG. This cutting was from SoCal and it was hype, that’s my opinion on it. I really liked the OG Kush cutting we had gotten, we lost the original cutting but we were able to pollinate it and the other selected elite cuttings during the projects with 2 True Gangster Kush males. The True Gangster Kush line was the line I created specifically to find males to breed with the best OG Kushes to make them better growing plants while retaining all that is loved about the originals. I grew out 50 plants from the True OG Kush x Pine Tar Kush x Pakistani Chitrali Kush. I grew them all the way out with the help of a now departed friend, RIP brother. We narrowed the selection from 50 plants to 17, then to 13 plants. 8 females and 5 males. Eventually the last standing were 4 of the best females and 3 of the best males, which I ended up culling another male. We pollinated these 4 females with the 2 best males while at the same time pollinating the best cuttings from all of the years of test growing. I choose these selections by looking at each of the plants root zones, examining the plants branching and giving scores like poor, moderate, great, extreme. The 3rd was stem rubs, using paper and rubbing the stems, the stinkier the better, if the plants didn’t have the aroma then my belief was that it wasn’t going to produce the terpenes and cannabinoids which result in potent cannabis. As further selection criteria I narrowed it down by examining colors in the plants. 10%, 15%, 20% color in the stems, petioles, etc. The more color versus just green the better as aesthetics please the eye and make for pretty plants plus when your growing 50 plants or more it’s hard to decide which ones to keep after you have grown them all out.
The strains which were created from this breeding project created some extremely potent breeds. Though using old tired clones I have found from this venture that they don’t produce seeds like a healthy seed line. So the following year I grew out many plants of each of the lines to make an increase using the healthy plants from the seeds I created, unfortunately a loss of the warehouse location by the owner and an unfaithful “disease” wiped out the whole warehouse plant base I was using to do the selections. Many rare and unique strains were lost. This was a setback which cost me a year or 2 of work and financially busted me for a while. Like losing thousands of dollars as fast as if they were wrapped around candies and blew out of a ripped piñata at the county fair to the waiting hands of many small children.
An example of one of the strains from the Ultimate OG project, MoonWalker: Skywalker OG x True Gangster Kush has tested as high as 29.96 % THC which is incredible and when dialed in. Many of the SnowHigh Strains are 20% THC and above, though extremely high THC percentages isn’t the end all on cannabis potency. Though it’s nice to see the high test scores for my breeding work. My Thors Hammer: Apollo13 x Spacequeen x Acapulco Gold x C99 tested at 28.97 % THC which isn’t part of the OG breeding program but shows that high potency in my breeding work spans all varieties which SnowHigh has created. Analytical 360 in Washington state posts some of these results if one was inclined to look them up from growers who have submitted our strains for testing.
Aside from improving strains which have growing problems such as the OG Kush lines. Preservation of the heirloom and landrace varieties from around the world has been a concern of mine. Initially I was working with a friend trying to grow out the landraces to show people what these strains look like. The progression has lead me to conserving and preserving these rare and exotic lines. I think some points taken from my future book release “TREE OF KNOWLEDGE, HEIRLOOM, LANDRACE AND OLD FARMED LINES OF CANNABIS FROM AROUND THE WORLD” will help explain what I’m doing with these types of plants and what the differences are versus commonly found cannabis strains.
HEIRLOOM PLANTS
Heirloom plants are often thought of as old time varieties of vegetables, garden flowers or herbs that grow true from seed. That means that they are open pollinated and assuming that other cultivars are not present to cross pollinate, you could save the seeds from that cultivar every year to plant for the following year’s crop. Some cuttings would be considered heirloom and have been passed down for generations as well as some hybrids that are considered heirloom which contain old heirloom cultivars in its genetics.
HEIRLOOM CANNABIS
Heirloom Cannabis, are heirloom cultivars that have been preserved usually via open pollination or direct pollen application without cross pollinating to other cultivars. These heirloom cannabis cultivars are kept for different reasons some may grow oddly and yield very little. Some heirloom cannabis cultivars may not even ripen all at the same time and others may appear with deformities or not consistent in outward appearance. Some of these issues regarding heirloom cannabis cultivars may not be suited for large scale growing for production. Often heirloom cannabis may have a more pleasing taste and aroma over the hybrid replacements, and the finishing time may allow cultivators to harvest over a period of time instead of all at once. If grown from seed in the same area the heirloom cannabis strain can adapt to the climate and soil conditions and possibly could outperform some of the modern hybrids. Other heirlooms may adapt and acclimatize and may not produce as much as modern cannabis cultivars but may be invaluable as these strains could offer greater disease and insect resistance then modern hybrids. Heirloom cannabis strains have also been preserved for the wide range of forms, colors, aromas, tastes, potency, psychoactivity and subtle qualities.
HISTORIC VALUE
The historic value of heirloom and landrace cannabis is the fact that a strain or variety is a living piece of history which provides a link with the farmers of the past who had grown that cannabis strain. There is no other plant in human history which bridges as many societies and peoples from all its uses in medicine from ancient times to today’s relevancy in what people think as superiority in knowledge and technology. I theorize that cannabis like no other plant in history could hold some genetics which will be invaluable in the future. Heirloom and landrace cannabis strains which are open pollinated allowing a vast and diverse preservation of genetic characteristics will be lost forever unless conscious efforts are made to conserve and preserve these ancient and historic lines. Not only will the strains and varieties of the past become extinct, losing what has been lost already or could be lost very soon could be a vital cannabis strain that contains an undetected or undiscovered genetic trait. This is important to understand because it could be the key in saving thousands of human lives or stopping disease in plants from eradicating not only cannabis but all types of plants on our planet.
LANDRACE AND OLD FARMED LINES OF CANNABIS
Landrace cannabis can be defined as ancient or primitively cultivated cannabis varieties (old farmed lines) that have evolved from a wild population largely by natural processes and generally composed of heterogeneous genotypes. I will point out that even though landrace cannabis is generally heterogeneous it can be invaluable in breeding as it is less heterogeneous then most modern hybrids, which can contain hundreds if not thousands of allele combinations within the genetics line making the variety near impossible to breed true.
CONSERVATION VS PRESERVATION OF HEIRLOOM CANNABIS
Conservation and preservation of cannabis should be a major concern especially in today’s world of instant gratification technology and the materialistic addiction which almost every society on earth is afflicted by these days. There are many reasons why preservation of the cannabis genus is important. A few reasons why those who have old genetic stock should conserve what they have or place them in the hands of those who are best able to continue the lines should consider what they have as genetic treasure. The implications of preserving a strain which is different than most on earth due to naive fear, forced eradication efforts, forced economic sanctions on indigenous people who have been growing this cannabis plant with its many uses from cordage, medicine, food and the list goes on.
The cannabis strains which some may have in their possession could be the last genetic source to a yet undiscovered molecule which could have great medicinal benefits at present time not understood or a genetic trait which has an immunity to fungal infections or pest infestations that could ravage world food supplies, preservation of a specific cultivar of cannabis which could be perfect for use as a food. The implications are huge to have a plant which is sometimes the only thing that will grow in the worlds harshest cultivating climates, which doesn’t need modern fertilizers and pesticides to grow. Cannabis can grow almost everywhere on earth, and it has been grown on every continent on earth except Antarctica in its present frozen state.
The other side is this, many of today’s cannabis strains are hybrids which have evolved mainly by the Dutch hybridization programs to allow cannabis to be grown indoors with lights with shorter flowering times, larger flower growth and a basic and consistent yield and ripening time. Before prohibition cannabis strains were grown outdoors under full light and consisted of mostly sativa and equatorial strains which grew large, yielded heavy and produced wonderful highs. Today’s strains consist mostly of Afghani or North Indian/Pakistani Pashtun Kush varieties which come from an area no larger than the state of Texas. The world is vast and the cannabis genetics that comprise most of the world are not being cultivated outside their country of origin. The facts are that prohibition has forced the hand to grow cannabis varieties which can be grown small to fit indoor spaces and within a short amount of time at the expense of quality and marketed so that the vast majority believes these easy growing varieties are the best which can be had. So for those who have genetic treasure in the form of cannabis, either by old clone or seeds please share with like-minded individuals so that generations can experience the joys of your strain the alternative is the loss that the world will not know.
Now in a physical sense true preservation of cannabis requires huge amounts of space, time and resources which many in today’s age are unwilling to do. The knowledge required for large population preservation is not known or taught to most plant breeders which have a skill set adapted to smaller modern cultivation. In the past or in some places like Lesotho, South Africa farmers select and remove male and female plants in their fields from large populations thus allowing future generations to reap the benefits of this selection process by allowing a preservation of genetics as well. Knowledge which is passed down in a shamanic way, which accounts for cultural implications and their natural environment, can be considered divining the hidden and controlling events. Old world shamans, have knowledge passed down for generations that has been used to develop their medicinal plants. Preserved lines don’t really have a market potential sometimes no 2 plants will be alike in the hundreds and all will have individual traits that make up a family. To clarify preservation is not the same as heirloom conservation. One to one crosses are just strain crosses and do nothing for broad preservation where thousands of plants male and females need to be used. Small open pollination of the same strain would be considered heirloom conservation which preserves some of the genetic traits as long as cross contamination is avoided. Though when modern crosses claim conservation, the only thing that is conserved is the genetics in those 2 plants, this is not preservation or true conservation. Though with depleting landrace strains and varieties which were grown just years before saving any and all of these special plants is a necessity even with low numbers. Being able to appreciate a piece of what was is better than not experiencing it at all.
EFFECTS OF CANNABIS HIGH VS STONE
I think it’s important to describe what many are experiencing when consuming cannabis. Cannabis can affect people in many ways. Cannabis can have effects differently experienced depending on route of administration as well, either by smoking which enters the blood stream directly through the lungs or from consuming orally which is metabolized by the liver having a different effect on the body even consuming the same exact cannabis strain.
Being High
I want to state there is a difference in being high versus being stoned. Being high can be classed as a state of being which is elevated, enlightened, a state of being which is greatly advanced or developed, and complex ideas that are above most people’s thoughts. Being high can be enhancement or elation, clarity of thought which can be introverted or happy and extroverted in a social setting like a party or with friends.
Part 2/2 below.