Within the Sixties and ’70s, humanity lastly pulled it collectively and started hybridlizing several types of hashish. Though use of the plant has been prevalent for hundreds of years, it wasn’t till this time that hashish breeders started to take marijuana’s unique expressions, the landrace cultivars, and mix them collectively. The unimaginable variety of the kinds of marijuana now we have right this moment began with the primary few hashish seed firms and hybrids they created. Skunk #1 is without doubt one of the most well known hybrids of these early days of hashish breeding. An inventive creation that fused collectively landrace hashish from totally different areas of the world, Skunk #1 is known pot.
“It’s in all the pieces,” horticulture authority Ed Rosenthal tells me throughout a current smoke session within the sunroom of his publishing headquarters and residential.
Collectively we’re touring via time again to the Eighties. I’ve introduced over a sampling of six Skunk #1 phenotypes grown by Frank at Purple Caper Seeds in his epic 2022 Skunk hunt. Frank grew out 25 totally different packs of Skunk #1 seeds, some greater than 20 years previous, on a quest for the unique taste he beloved when he first began smoking pot within the late ’80s.
“It’s been over 20 years now I haven’t had that taste,” Frank says of his quest to convey again the weed he remembers. “First I began sniffing round. I heard the excitement that everyone’s beginning to speak about Skunk once more. I’ve at all times missed it, however I haven’t tried to convey it again. It’s costly [to do], and there wasn’t a requirement. And I talked to my individuals in Canada, I talked to my individuals in Amsterdam and requested them if there have been any previous packs of their freezers.”
Finally, Frank was in a position to gather a lineup of seeds to develop fabled classics unfold throughout the centerfolds of this very journal within the ’80s and ’90s: Inexperienced Home Seeds’ Exodus Cheese, Nirvana Tremendous Skunk, Paradise Seeds Authentic Cheese (IBF), Dutch Ardour’s Skunk #1, and Skunk #1 from Sensi Seeds. Amsterdam-based seed firms like Dutch Ardour and Sensi Seeds, which acquired the Skunk genetics within the Eighties, nonetheless promote Skunk #1 seed packs to this present day.
A Marijuana Advertising Milestone
The winner of the primary Excessive Occasions Hashish Cup within the Netherlands in 1987, Skunk #1 was proliferated by a man whom hashish lore calls “Sam the Skunkman,” however whose actual identify is Dave Watson. Skunk #1 is a mixture of two South American landraces, Acapulco Gold and Colombian Gold, in addition to an Afghani. Rosenthal suspects some Thai can also be within the cross, however this has by no means been publicly acknowledged.
When this cultivar obtained into the palms of Watson at Sacred Seeds Collective in Santa Cruz, California, the genetics had been developed and stabilized via inbreeding (in hashish that usually means crossing the plant again with itself to take care of its traits in future offspring). As a part of the nice change that formed the world of hashish cultivars at the moment—the fusion of minds and marijuana from California and Amsterdam—Watson introduced Skunk #1 from California to Holland in 1985. By the late ’80s, it was in lots of seed banks all through Holland.
The phenotypes Rosenthal and I are sampling have names that sound horrible: Recent Kill, Rotten Carcass, Vomit, Burnt Rubber, Donkey Dick, and least offensively, Cheese. However they don’t have the acidic, rotten scent of a skunk’s spray or any of the opposite noxious odors their names counsel. They scent floral, some are decidedly tacky, and so they style candy. Rosenthal explains that Watson naming the pressure Skunk #1 was an try and capitalize on the recognition of a sort of hashish round within the Seventies, which truly smelled like a skunk.
“Individuals would say, ‘Is there a useless physique or a skunk or one thing round? That’s what the unique skunks smelled like. That’s why they had been referred to as skunks,” Rosenthal says. “So when [Watson] named it Skunk, I imply there’s no proper or unsuitable on this, but it surely wasn’t what the animal smelled like.”
Just lately scientists at ABSTRAX, a laboratory dedicated to terpene analysis and botanical extraction, pinpointed the origins of that skunky, gasoline-like scent and, because it seems, it comes from a category of compounds in hashish that has simply been found, risky sulfuric compounds (VSCs). The ABSTRAX research, which appeared within the American Chemical Society journal, exhibits that the skunky scent in hashish additionally is similar to the heady, pungent scent of garlic.
“When persons are referring to the skunky/gassy scent of hashish they’re truly smelling this class of VSCs that we’re referring to within the trade as cannasulfur compounds,” explains T.J. Martin, VP of Analysis and Improvement at ABSTRAX.
“Whereas they don’t seem to be the identical an identical compounds in garlic, they’ve very comparable constructions and an eerily comparable household of VSCs. The primary distinction is that the construction of hashish VSCs include what are referred to as prenyl teams (i.e. prenyl thiol, diphenyl sulfide, and many others.) and garlic has allyl teams (i.e. allyl thiol, diallyl sulfide, and many others.).
“What makes it so fascinating is that chemically they might be totally different, however they’re additionally very comparable, and so they comply with the identical pattern. Present analysis in garlic exhibits that its VSCs could probably contribute to the cardiovascular and proposed anti-cancerous advantages present in garlic. With these households being so comparable, with only a small minor change, we had been questioning if possibly this contributes to among the medicinal advantages of hashish.”
At our sunroom smoke sesh, Rosenthal says the research exhibits Afghan Skunk (aka Afghani Skunk) had a whole lot of cannasulfurs in it.
“You’d have a bag of it, you’d open the bag, shut the bag, the room would stink, you couldn’t get the scent out of the room,” Rosenthal says of Afghan Skunk. “I haven’t seen that in 15 or 20 years.”
For Rosenthal, Skunk #1 itself is decidedly extra frequent. He says he final smoked Skunk #1, a pressure that got here out after I was nonetheless a younger little one that I’ve by no means tried till now, two months in the past. Like White Widow, it was broadly used for breeding. When Rosenthal and different hashish specialists I’ve spoken to prior to now wax nostalgic a few pressure from yesteryear, it’s normally Northern Lights #5 x Haze (aka NL #5 Haze). Northern Lights #5 is Afghani x Thai, and NL #5 Haze combines that pressure pairing with the Haze that got here out of Santa Cruz within the Sixties.
“The rationale you don’t see NL #5 Haze is as a result of it’s very tough to develop indoors as a result of it takes a lot longer,” Rosenthal says of these long-flowering equatorial sativa genetics current within the Haze household. “It takes a very long time to complete, and it’s a reasonable yield. However when you’re rising outside like in Southern California, that might be an incredible selection to develop. It has an unbelievably zonky excessive, [With NL #5 x Haze] such as you say, ‘Oh, that’s what my mind was in search of.’”
Collectively Haze, Skunk #1, and Northern Lights #5 are the primary essential kinds of hybrid hashish and, subsequently, some most influential kinds of weed of all time.
Skunk #1 in 2022
To rediscover the Skunk #1 experiences of his youth Purple Caper’s Frank gathered the seeds, together with 1996 seeds from professional grower and hashish writer Mel Frank, and grew them out at Haze Dispensary in San Jose, California.
“We procured the most effective 25 packs of Skunk that we may discover and popped them,” Frank says. “Of over 200 seeds, we discovered 70 keeper females and 20 keeper males, 90 vegetation whole. Out of these 90 vegetation, 10 males and 10 feminine keepers are remoted.”
These 10 feminine vegetation at the moment are being examined in clone and breeding initiatives in all kinds of rising environments, outside full-term, light-dep, and indoors. The ultimate vegetation Frank will use for Purple Caper’s deliberate Skunk #1 seed launch will probably be from one male and 6 females.
“The keepers we discovered are higher than anticipated,” Frank says. “These had lengthy, large colas, particularly the Donkey Dick. I imply, that plant had simply three branches. Each had a 24-inch cola, like the scale of a baseball bat virtually. The Donkey Dick was only a lovely plant. It’s been so lengthy since I’ve seen that.”
After we share amusing in regards to the ridiculous names of the Skunk phenos, Frank additional explains how breeding hashish, or on this case resurrecting a pressure from the previous, is an intensive strategy of choice. For the ultimate phases of his epic Skunk hunt, Frank will cross one male plant with six feminine vegetation with the intention of rising a further 300 phenotypes. The hope is to convey again the pressure he’s beloved and misplaced. “I wish to resurrect it, and I wish to have the flagship model of it. I don’t need anyone to have a greater Skunk,” he says.
This text seems within the August 2022 situation of Excessive Occasions. Subscribe right here.