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- #81
A word about Colombian weed and strains here...
When I was smoking pot in the early 70s most of the local weed in NorCal was from Mexico, with some coming in from SE Asia and hash from coming in from the Middle East, and small lots from Panama and India. Then after the Paraquat bomb went off in Mexico in the 70s, a lot of weed started coming in from Colombia. Colombian weed was different than Mexican, and typically stronger. It was also many-colored, and typically gold. But there was also red, green, light gold, dark gold, brown, and multi-colored (green+red, green+gold, red+green+gold). Personally I liked Mexican weed better for the high, and Colombian as a rule was more stony weed than Mexican was. A lot of Colombian was downright narcotic and landed you locked into the couch or even sprawled out on the floor. A lot of it just put me to sleep. However, I found that I preferred Colombian Green or Green+Gold loose tops whenever I could find it. Colombian Green was far more rare than the gold was. It had a better high to it than standard Colombian Gold and was sometimes incredibly strong stuff (less narcotic than Colombo gold and brown, and more uppity and psychedelic).
Now there are a million and one opinions about where the gold in Colombian weed came from. My experience growing many types of seeds from there is that there were naturally green and naturally gold strains from Colombia at that time (in the 1970s). I have grown both from my seeds. They also practiced the sweat method of curing pot in Colombia (the same method was used in SE Asia). In that method they would pile up the fresh cut tops and let them cure, or compost for a few days. This cooks off the green chlorophyll and turns the tops red, gold or brown. Once the tops turned color, they would remove them from the compost pile and dry them, and leave them loose or brick them for transport. Some cheaper lowland brown and gold Colombian was bricked while fresh, stacked or piled in a heap and allowed to sweat cure in the same manner, often times during transport. Some say that the Colombians girdled their pot plants to get the gold color of the weed, but girdling plants only starves the roots and the tops of the plants then strip all the nutrients and water from the roots. At the end of the life cycle of annual plants like Cannabis, the flow of nutrients to the roots from the tops is far less important than the flow of water and nutrients from the roots to the tops. So I do not see how girdling would turn pot plants gold. My experience anyway.
If nothing else, everyone agrees that Colombian pot was usually really seedy. The crafty Colombians realized early on that seeds added to the weight, and pot was sold by weight, not by volume. More weight meant more money. So they allowed the male MJ plants to mature and flower with the females, and that assured a lot of seeds and more weight by volume. It also meant lower quality pot compared to seedless female sinsemillia, but sinsemillia was not typically available in NorCal until the late 70s. In NorCal at least, Colombian weed was basically displaced by local homegrown MJ grown in California starting around 1979. Some cheaper Mexican sinsemillia became available about that time as well, but soon that was drown out along with all the other imported weed by CA local grown seedless tops. The local weed was far better, and in the beginning, cheaper in comparison w/o all the seeds in it (we had many debates about this early on and basically the seedless pot won out).
I have read about Colombian indica weed in a lot of places, but my experience is that all the strains of land race Colombian seeds that I have are sativas (the same as with my Mexican land race seeds). No strain of Colombian that I have ever planted has had fat leaves, had the indica stink, grew short, or flowered that early. Zero. Also unlike South Mexican sativa strains which bloom about month later in September than my indicas do here in August, the Colombian strains all bloom in October at the earliest. They, like the Northern Mexican strains, bloom really late and really long. I have had several strains of Colombian show really intense purples. That may be from northern latitude sunlight though, or cooler fall temps. I have seen the same thing happen with northern Mexican strains, and several modern strains that I have grown here.
I never valued my Colombian seeds that highly. There were so damn many seeds in the lids from there that I figured everyone must have gobs of them like I do. Also they bloom so late they have been useless for me to grow in California and Oregon (they either freeze or rot outdoors in early bloom in late October). But now I know how to force them to bloom early in mid August so I can harvest them in October. So I will be growing more of these strains from my collection in the near future.
Well, now back to more of my Colombian strains.
When I was smoking pot in the early 70s most of the local weed in NorCal was from Mexico, with some coming in from SE Asia and hash from coming in from the Middle East, and small lots from Panama and India. Then after the Paraquat bomb went off in Mexico in the 70s, a lot of weed started coming in from Colombia. Colombian weed was different than Mexican, and typically stronger. It was also many-colored, and typically gold. But there was also red, green, light gold, dark gold, brown, and multi-colored (green+red, green+gold, red+green+gold). Personally I liked Mexican weed better for the high, and Colombian as a rule was more stony weed than Mexican was. A lot of Colombian was downright narcotic and landed you locked into the couch or even sprawled out on the floor. A lot of it just put me to sleep. However, I found that I preferred Colombian Green or Green+Gold loose tops whenever I could find it. Colombian Green was far more rare than the gold was. It had a better high to it than standard Colombian Gold and was sometimes incredibly strong stuff (less narcotic than Colombo gold and brown, and more uppity and psychedelic).
Now there are a million and one opinions about where the gold in Colombian weed came from. My experience growing many types of seeds from there is that there were naturally green and naturally gold strains from Colombia at that time (in the 1970s). I have grown both from my seeds. They also practiced the sweat method of curing pot in Colombia (the same method was used in SE Asia). In that method they would pile up the fresh cut tops and let them cure, or compost for a few days. This cooks off the green chlorophyll and turns the tops red, gold or brown. Once the tops turned color, they would remove them from the compost pile and dry them, and leave them loose or brick them for transport. Some cheaper lowland brown and gold Colombian was bricked while fresh, stacked or piled in a heap and allowed to sweat cure in the same manner, often times during transport. Some say that the Colombians girdled their pot plants to get the gold color of the weed, but girdling plants only starves the roots and the tops of the plants then strip all the nutrients and water from the roots. At the end of the life cycle of annual plants like Cannabis, the flow of nutrients to the roots from the tops is far less important than the flow of water and nutrients from the roots to the tops. So I do not see how girdling would turn pot plants gold. My experience anyway.
If nothing else, everyone agrees that Colombian pot was usually really seedy. The crafty Colombians realized early on that seeds added to the weight, and pot was sold by weight, not by volume. More weight meant more money. So they allowed the male MJ plants to mature and flower with the females, and that assured a lot of seeds and more weight by volume. It also meant lower quality pot compared to seedless female sinsemillia, but sinsemillia was not typically available in NorCal until the late 70s. In NorCal at least, Colombian weed was basically displaced by local homegrown MJ grown in California starting around 1979. Some cheaper Mexican sinsemillia became available about that time as well, but soon that was drown out along with all the other imported weed by CA local grown seedless tops. The local weed was far better, and in the beginning, cheaper in comparison w/o all the seeds in it (we had many debates about this early on and basically the seedless pot won out).
I have read about Colombian indica weed in a lot of places, but my experience is that all the strains of land race Colombian seeds that I have are sativas (the same as with my Mexican land race seeds). No strain of Colombian that I have ever planted has had fat leaves, had the indica stink, grew short, or flowered that early. Zero. Also unlike South Mexican sativa strains which bloom about month later in September than my indicas do here in August, the Colombian strains all bloom in October at the earliest. They, like the Northern Mexican strains, bloom really late and really long. I have had several strains of Colombian show really intense purples. That may be from northern latitude sunlight though, or cooler fall temps. I have seen the same thing happen with northern Mexican strains, and several modern strains that I have grown here.
I never valued my Colombian seeds that highly. There were so damn many seeds in the lids from there that I figured everyone must have gobs of them like I do. Also they bloom so late they have been useless for me to grow in California and Oregon (they either freeze or rot outdoors in early bloom in late October). But now I know how to force them to bloom early in mid August so I can harvest them in October. So I will be growing more of these strains from my collection in the near future.
Well, now back to more of my Colombian strains.
