very wrong words
words from tom hill himself were along the lines of most phenos would be better than most other lines
exact quote
1luvbigherb
Bigherb, I'm curious, have you run Tom's Haze before?
I know there are many people who like Tom's work, but from my experience I have no choice but to give his haze offering an unfavorable rating.
I disagree with your "very wrong words" statement. In fact, I would argue that finding something acceptable, not spectacular, runs in the 5-10% range. I agree with Tom that there is "hay" in the line. I cringed when I read above that most of the phenos in his Haze line "is better than most other lines." Who said that, Tom?
I've run two packs (I know, I know, it's nothing) of Tom's Haze and ended up with 11 females. Only ONE would I consider to be a plant of acceptable quality. The other 10 ranged from pure garbage to average, at best. I would say that's a far cry from "better than most" if you ask me.
I could be wrong, but it is my understanding that Tom got his Haze from Positronics. I purchased some Haze beans directly from Wernard in 1995 and found them to be OK, but nothing memorable. What was memorable were the Silver Haze and NL5xHaze beans that I bought from Sensi Seed Bank during the same trip. I found the haze hybrids to be exceptional and some of the best Haze, if not the best, that I've ever had.
Let me give a little comparison of Tom's Haze to MNS Haze hybrids since the number of beans that were run was roughly the same. First, as stated above, I found 1 of Tom's Haze to be of acceptable quality out of two packs. Remember, that's acceptable NOT exceptional! By acceptable, I mean something that is better than average and worth working more to dial it in. Second, MNS Afghan Haze had several acceptable plants and 3 that were absolute winners. Oddly enough, despite the Afghan genes, I found the smoke to be very hazey and a few to be electric in effect. Advantage to AH by a landslide. Next, the Mango Haze. This is a very similar story to the AH but substitute NL and SK for Aghan. For sake of brevity, I'll just echo the same from the AH results. Finally, the SSH. I had several different effects to the SSH ranging from stoney to hazey. The haze dominant phenos of the SSH were just in a different league compared to Tom's, major vs minor with Tom on the bottom.
I know that I'm comparing haze hybrids to something that is billed as a "pure" haze, but IMO the hybrids are just a better product all around for the typical grower. I haven't even compared the Neville's Haze which would be more fair on the lineage front, but I'm trying to make a point here. Simply put, MY experience with Tom's Haze sucked. From Joe Consumer's (me) point of view, if brand X ranges from mostly bunk with a few average plants in the mix, and brand Y, Z etc. is putting out consistantly good quality with a few absolutely exceptional plants in the bunch, who do you think is going to get my money?
Clearly, a much larger sample would need to be run to make a definitive statement, but the typical grower is only going to run a pack or two of beans when making their selections. FWIW, Tom lost my business because if I have to choose between one acceptable plant out of 20 beans or 5+ with the exceptional one mixed in, I'm going for the 5+ with the occasional exceptional plant every time.
