Where are they now : 80-90's Old School Strains

What happened to the strains I grew up on ?The was chocolate thai and jamaican red hair too , occasionally some purple bud would come around but that was gone pretty quick It seems like strains now are like overbred puppy mill dog breeds .Buggatti v24 gold edition ..ill take the 69 v8 camaro... I don't want a Hybrid kaka doodle fruit loop mojito...I just want big fat alaskan big bud indica

I grew up (and grew) in the Hudson Valley NY near the Appalachian Trail and West Point. Some of the local growers I knew back then had some of the best smoke I have ever had in my 35+ years of smoking. Some had been growing the same strain for decades that was passed down from their parents ! g.I remember just 1 single week old skunk plant would reek like roadkill. The odor these days does not seem nearly as strong as back then. I remember when weed started getting really good (mid 90;"s) the seeds started to disapear unless you were getting low grade comercial. Now you wont find seeds in weed you buy
I would love to come across an actual Skunk #1 or Northern Lights or Christmas Bud or locally grown strain that been regenerated . Farmers who didn't bring seeds/clones in from an outside breeder but instead maintained their own strains year after year, Like we did in the "old days".

There has to be some out there left in dem there hills ..

Csi humboldnt recently did an open pollination of nl5, he seems pretty keen on preserving some of these older genetics. Some of the stuff u mention is just lost these days, shame to say it. But other stuff does still get worked and preserved, it’s just a case of finding a reputable breeder who shares the same sense of nostalgia. Unfortunately the skunk seems to be one of the ones that people struggle to find in the modern day.

Good luck tho!
And thanks for telling ur story.

There is some old heads around here still growing skunk #1 and northern lights.. they have been growing them for decades.. your story reminded me of this, i should go talk to an old hippy i know and see about some seeds myself.. the problem is there is so many people growing around here that the chance of their old strains could of got crossed with some cookie bullshit.. but hey if i score ill let you know..

Sensi Seeds still stock Skunk #1 and Northern Lights, in regular and feminised.

speedwell68 said:

Sensi Seeds still stock Skunk #1 and Northern Lights, in regular and feminised.

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Absolutely nothing like any of the originals though tbh, maybe from same stock originally, i grew through sensi stock for years, their nl5xhaze wasn’t even close and I ran through almost 80, not all that knowledgeable about breeding myself so I can’t explain why but I found nothing like the old clones people still have here in the U.K.

Do not buy sensi skunk#1 I was flying through packs of 25 every couple months searching, there’s nothing there, maybe 200+ sensi skunk#1 and nothing at all like those pre2000 phenos with the cheese and blues phenos, and nothing at all like the proper road kill you seek

Blue brother said:

Do not buy sensi skunk#1 I was flying through packs of 25 every couple months searching, there’s nothing there, maybe 200+ sensi skunk#1 and nothing at all like those pre2000 phenos with the cheese and blues phenos, and nothing at all like the proper road kill you seek

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By week 5 of flower allready knew what I was searching for wasn’t in that batch so I’d pop another 25, I spent a couple years searching for something that just wasn’t there anymore, I think they’ve been “bottlenecked” (hope that’s the right term), I had the odd surprise and yeah some nice smoke still but nothing like the unicorns u seek

If ur after something like nl you’ll probs find something u like in the Afghan landrace, afghani #s

Blue brother said:

Absolutely nothing like any of the originals though tbh, maybe from same stock originally, i grew through sensi stock for years, their nl5xhaze wasn’t even close and I ran through almost 80, not all that knowledgeable about breeding myself so I can’t explain why but I found nothing like the old clones people still have here in the U.K.

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I grew some Sensi NL5xHaze a couple of years ago and it was as good as the stuff I was toking on with Eagle Bill in Amsterdam years ago. These days I will only buy from Sensi and they have some pretty solid genetics IMHO, YMMV.

I got fkd off trying for Sensi skunk in all its forms, it's completely different, in fact Sensi are bang out of order calling it skunk, its crap imo.

Alot of the stank got bred out due to prohibition. Decades of clandestine punishment for growing prioritized Large yield, low smell, and "potency."

Weed can be plenty "potent" and completely lack character. Modern polyhybrids have this problem, by in large. Breeders like AK BB, Dynasty, etc, make some soulful strains imo

Allegedly the real deal holyfield sativas have little to no ceiling at all, but I've never experienced it myself.

Check out the AK Bean Brains thread, he has some great classic 80s/90s strains. He actually has Chocolate Thai now too, as does Swami, Hazeman, and Snow High (all have Drawoh's Choc Thai, quite a testament to the genetics)-those are all good places to look for classic strains, and landrace plants. Snow High has legit Panama Red and Punto Rojo if you like red hair strains. Proseeds, a UK seedbank, has some of the best Original Haze/Tom Hill Haze reproductions around, if you want some of the most legit old school sativas, it doesn't get better than that.

speedwell68 said:

Sensi Seeds still stock Skunk #1 and Northern Lights, in regular and feminised.

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Thanks for the input. I would love to see the family tree on those seeds. Where they in-bred with their own parents or where they crossbred down the line at some point. I would guess they are "imitations" from in-house strains that are similar . Maybe I will email them and find out.

Rurumo said:

Proseeds, a UK seedbank, has some of the best Original Haze/Tom Hill Haze reproductions around, if you want some of the most legit old school sativas, it doesn't get better than that.

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TOM HILL !! wow now that brings back some memories. One of the first farmers that I know of growing MASSIVE plants in Northern Cali .

In MY OPINION finding these strains will come down to coming across some old school growers who keept it "in the family" so to speak. Ones that live off the beaten path and never brought in retail clones,plants or seeds into their genetics. A grower who reads these forums for grow tips and information rather then keep up to date with the new exoctic overbred puppy mill strain to hit the streets.

Well op for skunk1 try skunk special female seeds its red hair pissy skunk like the old days for nl try nirvanas or try seedstockers they got nl2 x nl5 from bcseeds seedstock bc seeds got it from nevil before sensi even existed as for jamican or thai kwik seeds got plenty and also double jam thats a pure jamican cross of lambsbread and bluemountain sensi isnt good for skunk any more imo but there hindu kush is still superb however too

I still want to believe that some of them are locked away in freezers of old-heads and will make re-appearances as “bucket-list” projects. As my user name suggests, I’m personally interested in this idea.

conor c said:

Well op for skunk1 try skunk special female seeds its red hair pissy skunk like the old days for nl try nirvanas or try seedstockers they got nl2 x nl5 from bcseeds seedstock bc seeds got it from nevil before sensi even existed as for jamican or thai kwik seeds got plenty and also double jam thats a pure jamican cross of lambsbread and bluemountain sensi isnt good for skunk any more imo but there hindu kush is still superb however too

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I forgot to mention Kwikseeds, I noticed he's been adding lots of great classic strains and not just landraces, like the new stock of Tom Hill X18 and Deep Chunk, both of which I'd love to pick up sometime.

speedwell68 said:

I grew some Sensi NL5xHaze a couple of years ago and it was as good as the stuff I was toking on with Eagle Bill in Amsterdam years ago. These days I will only buy from Sensi and they have some pretty solid genetics IMHO, YMMV.

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How many years ago though, I’m a young lad and been smoking the same pheno and xs of this and her brother since almost 20 years ago and she’s older than that still. Maybe you smoked some of the commercial stuff that got further worked for shorter flowering time and big yields (which sensi did) bu What’s in sensi packs is nothing like the stock we experienced

I’m not slating sensi at all, they’ve just fallen into the same trap that many profiteers of heirloom genes did. That’s why there’s nowt left

Blue brother said:

How many years ago though, I’m a young lad and been smoking the same pheno and xs of this and her brother since almost 20 years ago and she’s older than that still. Maybe you smoked some of the commercial stuff that got further worked for shorter flowering time and big yields (which sensi did) bu What’s in sensi packs is nothing like the stock we experienced

I’m not slating sensi at all, they’ve just fallen into the same trap that many profiteers of heirloom genes did. That’s why there’s nowt left

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May I ask if you're cultivating the same way as they did back in the day? Is there a chance the difference is in the somewhat in the method, not (entirely) the genetics?

Not challenging your knowledge or skill, genuinely curious.

You’re not going to find real skunk or real blueberry. Multiple threads here before about both. Too many pollen chuckers have preceded you.

hotrodharley said:

You’re not going to find real skunk or real blueberry. Multiple threads here before about both. Too many pollen chuckers have preceded you.

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Hey, someone has to try.

Fortune favors the bold!