Kerala Krush - Outdoor Grown

[Conradino23]

I thought some potential growers and smokers might use this report as there's very little info about this strain.

Name: Kerala Krush (Skunk #1 x Kerala)
Breeder: Flying Dutchman
Grown from: Regular seed
Grown how: Outdoor organically
Latitude: 45° N
Harvested: 21st October with 90% cloudy trichomes, some transparent and a touch of amber

Growing info: I germinated two freebie seeds with no problems by the end of May, but one plant was eaten by a cat. The other one was transplanted outdoor in late June after FIMming with success. In one month it's shown great vigour, but when it hit 3 feet vertical growth just stopped. As it's 87% sativa I was a little bit concerned, but on the other hand it started flowering by the end of August, when sativa traits became obvious: long, thin, light green leaves and lanky stem.

Unfortunately this strain is a pest magnet. The plant was eaten by every bug possible, even one top cola was lost and I had to practically trim four lower nodes (almost nothing was left there). She survived sprayed with tobacco juice, but caught mold after first October rains (although sprayed preventively with organic anti-fungal agent), so high humidity is a NO NO for this strain. This was handled by chopping off top cola, some smaller ones and spraying more with lactobacillus acidophilus, so she could have finished flowering.

In the end she was pulled after approximately 9 weeks of flowering, so quite fast for a sativa dominant strain), but yielded very little due to the problems experienced and poorly bred genetics. I believe this would be a good indoor choice if grower didn't mind low yield as the quality is there, smell is amazing and high is very nice.

Smell in early/middle flowering: Floral, zesty, lemony
Smell in late flowering and after harvest: Floral with strong lavender scent, lightly fruity with a musky udertone
Smell after drying: Cherry bubblegum (only this comes to my mind)
Smell after curing: Still don't know, but I expect this cherry scent to get even stronger
Taste: Smoked wood, sandal wood, heavy incense
High: Typical cerebral sativa, but with skunky amnesia "what whas I just thinking?" effect. Electric, uplifting, provoking big smile. This lasts around 1,5 hour up to 2 hours, but it might get better after a month or more of curing
Overall: Nice strain high wise, but with a lot of shitty traits, that make growing it quite difficult. Seeds are cheap though and if someone is interested in South Asian sativa genetics - Kerala in pure form needs 15-20 weeks to be ready - might give it a try.

Middle flowering:

Late flowering / before harvest:

Fresh bud:

 

[Organicanna]

Thanks for the review - your right in that their isn't much info out there.

Being you were kind enough to share your experience, (if you dont mind me just jumping right in) I'll give a quick summery of another recent Kerala/skunk #1 grow.

Similar start - Seeds were "freebies" but came as some type of bundle deal from I think Seedsman and were represented as "Kerala x skunk #1". FWIW .....Looked quite similar even to your pics.

I had zero issues with bugs/pests but I do allot of my own composting/teas etc and use lots of botanicals including neem, karanja, chitan etc. It was in fact a very painless and highly vigorous grow till mid flower which was delightfully commenced quite early. This was by far the first strain this season to start flowering - started early/mid Aug. Flowering was fast, heavy and prolific but I started getting some unwanted bananas popping up. Only one female Kerala/sk1 at this point (others were male). I thought perhaps an initially unnoticed nightime security light caused some stress induced herms, but others nearby seemed unaffected.

Long story short - Male flower clusters started getting prolific to the point it was impossible to snip/find them all and other strains were nearby causing concern. In spite of the fact that I couldn't actually see any early seed formations, I decided that snipping male flowers off and seeing pollen go airborne wasn't worth the risk. Harvested in early Oct and in my opinion probably 2 or 3 weeks early. Had absolutely no mold issues and have yet to find any seed so I believe the herm flowers were likely sterile .. but its still in cure jars and largely unmolested.

Interestingly, I had two strains herm on me this season (other was jungle wreck - a supposedly fast flowering indica dom but in reality a long flower sativa dom) and both were from same breeder .... In fairness -both also were coincidentally next to each other and within sight of the unnoticed security light so maybe not just another case of subpar herm prone strains but I don't know.

Still have a few beans left so may give it another try at some point. IMO it has potential to attain outdoor holy trifecta status - Early flowering, high yielding sativa dom. However, If the particular flavor of Kerala/sk1 I have is truly herm prone then its pointless.

I think your smell/smoke review is spot on - Thanks for sharing

 

[Conradino23]

I never had hermie in my life fortunately
It's interesting that your experience was different, but it all boils down to different climate or even microclimate. I have very long and hot summer, but in October there's always sudden rise of humidity, which you cannot control it. Heavy rains and wind spread mold and if the strain is not resistant enough, it will be lost. For my conditions Kerala Krush (they also call it South Indian Skunk and I believe it's exactly the same thing) is just not good enough. Interestingly I got one seed, but this must have been happened with some wind-carried pollen. I'll germinate it with other stuff next season and we're gonna see

 

[stevethumb21]

Hello conradino23

Your care and attention given to the plants can be judged by the beautiful growth you have got.

How did you made the selection of place for growing outdoors ?

 

[Conradino23]

That one was grown guerilla style in the forest, nothing fancy I'm afraid
Good soil, but minimal sun exposure!

 

[LindaBrodie]

contradino23, stumbled across this post while looking for more info about Kerala Krush. Not much out there I live in SW Oregon on the north side of a hill and, like you, had received 4 free seeds as a package deal on some other seeds. I grow outdoor under Oregon's OMMP. All four of my seeds sprouted but I don't know if there were any males: I took the first two females to show (also the two tallest, BTW) and tossed the other two.

I grew them in pots until they sexed in early June, then planted into raised beds. I have sun issues due to my altitude and aspect but both Keralas started blooming early August. We had a hot, dry summer with several weeks of 'red sun' due to wildfire smoke in the area. Both had the typical Sativa appearance and more stretch than Blue Dream but they were healthy and fast-growing. Kerala Krush kept a yellow cast to her leaves all through her life, no matter how much or how little I fed her! She never got as dark as my Blue Dream and never even approached the dark green of my Sour Kush, Royal Cheese and White Rhino!

We had very heavy rain in September, set some records in places, and Kerala suffered under the weight of her buds and the water. We had to prop several cracked branches; on Blue Dream, too. At this point, they were lagging behind in maturity compared to my other varieties but were starting to look pretty tasty. The rain stopped at the end of the month and all through October was dry and cool/cold. By this time, none of my plants are getting more than a couple hours of direct sunlight due to the hillside and trees. We had already harvested the other plants except for a few experimental buds on Blue Dream and Kerala. We had taken a few of Kerala's biggest buds in the middle of September to slow the damage and left everything else until Oct. 9. We had had a couple of overnight frosts by then but nothing that seemed to affect the buds. We finally took everything when the first real freeze hit.

Kerala Krush never molded or rotted and was never bothered by any bugs: birds, lady bugs, spiders and other predators keep things pretty much under control. I was really paranoid about the aphids on my corn but the farmer ants kept them right there on the corn, nowhere else. Pretty cool!! I don't like insecticides because of the native bee population. We have a deer problem here but none of the cannabis was touched except for some experimental nibbles. My tomatoes, though!! Terrible!! Kerala was not fully mature--I think I read somewhere that she likes a November harvest--but is still a sweet, smooth, heady smoke. You're right on about her taste and ours is a creative stone. I think I can do better with this strain, mostly in hastening maturity, now that I've had some practice.

We liked her basic Sativa appearance and habits so much I took a start for a mother plant in August. She's a fast grower and I've had to prune her back severely 5 times since August. She reached a little over 7 feet tall in the garden. I don't have a lot of space so I've kept her about 2 1/2 feet tall in the greenhouse. She still looks awful yellow next to the Royal Cheese mother I kept. :-D We have great hopes for her and she's in our 'favorites' list. Despite the stresses she suffered through weather and my ignorance, she remained vigorous and never hermied that I could see. No seeds during trim, anyway. I didn't know much about pruning last year and could have done her better service; this year will much better as far as her overall characteristics, I think. If I could figure out how to upload photos, I'd show some pics! I'll get it eventually.

Thanks for the informative write-up. You, too, organicanna. Maybe some of us home-growers can beat out the big boys in acclimatizing this strain to new regions.

 

[LindaBrodie]

Yay! Figured out how to do it!! Kerala Krush is in the foreground next to the picket fence. I'll sort through some bud porn and see what I have of her harvest photos...........................................

Pic was taken in July--that's Blue Dream behind it. See the yellowish-leaves on Kerala? You can just see a snippet of Cheese on the right edge.

 

[Conradino23]

It's interesting that you're another person, who harvested too early. In my case the problem was humidity and crappy pheno. I think you got luckier with your seeds as my female never got that tall. I guess picking a right mother is crucial with this strain. Probably need to buy 20 regular seeds and go from there. As far as maturity is concerned mine was ready in the end of October, but that depends on your latitude. Also I never get frost in October or November, and this year winter's been pretty non-existent. I'll go with other strains this year as I need something a little bit more resilient (I actually had a success with Tangerine Dream). I was thinking about Train Wreck, Chem Dawg, Orient Express, Malawi Gold and Bangi Haze.

The only advantage of Kerala Krush is this very uplifting and heady high, which gets really amazing after couple of months curing. Great old school feeling. Thx for sharing your experience and nice growing

 

[LindaBrodie]

You would probably love Trainwreck; we do. It's also on our 'favorites' list. I've got some seeds popping open right now for this yummy strain. We couldn't find seeds or clones in time to grow it last year but we grew it the year before. My garden was cramped and too close to the house that year but Trainwreck turned in a star performance, nonetheless. She matured by the first week of October and was the most prolific individual plant we had. Great smoke, a very tasty, enjoyable experience. She's also an Oregon native so should do very well for you at your more northern latitude. I'm really eager to see how she does this year with my improved arrangements.

We're calling our garden the World Garden this year as we're growing strains from everywhere: USA, Spain, Africa, India, S. America, the UK, the Netherlands; plus two strains developed right here in the Illinois Valley where I live. There are limits under OMMP on how many plants I can grow so some strains might only have one representative by harvest. Oh, well. The more variety, the better.

Good luck and keep us updated.

 

[LindaBrodie]

I stand corrected on Trainwreck, at least partially. I had read a couple of information pages on Trainwreck which said it was developed in Hood River, OR (Lat. 45 degrees). There are several strains, more than I thought, and at least one older strain was developed in Humboldt County, CA. I guess it depends on which strain you have, yeah? The one I have is the Oregon strain........................I'm at about 42 degrees Lat., by the way.

 

[LindaBrodie]

Can't help it. Here's last year's garden in September.

 

[cornbread329]

If you are looking for a new sativa to grow try Liberty Haze from Barneys Farm. Huge colas, a very unique smell similar to Super Silver Haze but with an added scent. Flavor was very nice and got better the longer it cured. The effect made me want to do something productive, so It would make a great creative smoke. The plant was the strongest plant I've ever grown. My other plants I bent so I could tie them down, The Liberty wouldn't bend at all. Ended up at 6 and half feet tall after cutting about 20 inches off the tops in July. Very productive plant, I"m currently using it for breeding with a few other strains.

 

[Conradino23]

Thx for the tip man, but for this season I'm kinda sorted with selection