B
british_hempire
Guest
I'd have to dig up some research to get the dates, but from memory, the last time authentic Thai sticks were exported was 82-83. My memory is a little clearer on the Mexican situation, they had lost almost all of their original genes by 1980 because there was a huge DEA case in 79-82 where they bust the biggest druglord in Mexico, the head of the Sinaloa cartel. I have a few pages of notes about it, but basically, the DEA had been so successful at wiping out the traditional Marijuana cultivation that the Sinaloa cartel had sunk millions into setting up two new, huge and sophisticated irrigated grows in remote parts, one was in the Sinaloa desert where nothing would grow unless irrigated. The mere fact that they had to go to those lengths to carry on cultivating shows you that what was there before that was destroyed. So if you want authentic Mexican genes these days you need something that was collected prior to 1980 or you have to get off the beaten track in Mexico and hope to get lucky like Bodhi did in Zipolite last year.
The same things that happened in Mexico also happened in Thailand - the govt with US help destroyed so much of the cultivation (and figures of deaths of farmers are in the 30-50 THOUSAND range) that by the early 80s, the govt of Thaksin Shinawatra could claim to have stopped all largescale cultivation. Some did continue but only in the north and west near the borders where criminal gangs have control, mirroring what happened in Sinaloa.
So if we are talking true Thai genes, I think they have to have been collected before 1980 to be authentic.
On the hermie thing, I've grown maybe 100 'Thai' plants from seeds, and I expect they were all from the 90s apart from one lot I know was collected in 1988 by a friend on honeymoon. I reckon the breakdown of percentages ran something along these lines - 80% hermies or freaks, 15% females, 5% males. Of the 80% wierdos, maybe half hermied early on when they had just shown sex, but the other half hermied after a few weeks in flower, some as late as 14-16 weeks of a 18-20 week cycle. I've seen a 'Thai' female at 16 weeks suddenly grow a male branch out of the top of her cola, I've seen a female at 12 weeks suddenly grow yellow single stamen male flowers out of the ends of her calyxes overnight.
I think this is all down to the disruption and chaos of the 80s and 90s in Thailand, when they were machine-gunning poor farmers and burning villages that farmed the weed. People just didn't find the same problems with wierd retarded plants in the original Thai genepool because the farmers had studiously and carefully maintained their lines.
Hempy mate, you have been lucky with your Thais, but I think that is down to you having access to much older Thai stock than most of us. I would love to see someone do a side-by-side with an original Thai collected by the Diggers in the late 60s while Australia was still in Vietnam fighting with the Yanks and a modern Thai line collected from recent exports. I expect they would be broadly similar to a degree but would have large differences too, primarily, the modern one would be a mess requiring a ton of selection pressure to find anything worthwhile. It took me several years and a lot of wasted efforts to finally find a suitable Thai female to breed with, the two reasons that it took so long were firstly, the large number of plants that were retards in some way and never even made it to flower and secondly most of the females turned ladyboy at some point in flowering.
) He is the source of a number of rare sativa strains which are on the market. His Uncle was the original keeper of OMS, but passed it on to him in the 70s. He in turn passed it on to many locally and internationally.
Very interesting and pungent aroma, similar to Mango Haze with overtones of rotting meat - phew! - and some strong cerebral smoke too. So is this Skunk1 or did Nevil breed some Afghan T or something into it? I think it would be a great match for one of your pure sativas, to add that little extra zing that hits the high notes in the upper stratosphere, because all the bass notes are there.
, both of them are ok, but the BW was pronunced dead on recovery.