My Breeding Project Just Won 1st Place High Times Cup 2017

  • Thread starter Cherokey
  • Start date
  • Tagged users None
C

Cherokey

20
28
Greetings fellow breeders,

I'm a long time lurker, first time poster. Normally I shy away from cannabis forums. I'm old school enough to remember when that was sketchy. I've been growing a long time and THCFarmer has helped me a lot through the years. What a tremendous knowledge base this place can be if you take the time to learn. My sincerest respect to the master growers in here that I have learned from over the years. Thank you guys, so much. Good stuff comes from the time you dudes take to educate the masses.

Yesterday I was lucky enough to receive a 1st place award for Best Sativa Flower in the 2017 High Times Socal Harvest Cup. The strain is called LemonAid, and I am its breeder. It comes from an ultra rare heirloom cut of Super Lemon Haze x Gorilla Glue 4. Respectfully, it is NOT the Lemonaid OG from Dank Genetics. When I named the strain, I checked to see if anyone was using the name LemonAid and I saw nothing. I think it's maybe a coincidence that our names are similar. Maybe I didn't research the name enough first but my LemonAid has been around for over a year now. Dank's strain has totally different lineage (and sounds super dank, but isn't what won the cup). My cut of LemonAid is totally uncirculated and clone-only. See any cuts out there in the scene? They're not my genetics. Flowers are found in three spots in Socal and that's it. Comes from a brand called House of Charras. Which is a nod to our breeding hero and Strainhunter Franco Loja, who recently passed away.

It feels very humbling to be recognized by the scene after working so hard in the shadows. The runners up were all breeders that I heavily respect to say the least. I didn't win with someone else's genetics. I took the time over the years and learned how to breed. I bred the winning strain myself from scratch. A lot of hard work and love went into its creation. There were other breeding projects that I had less success with before this one. All of it is a labor of love to create effective medicine. To smile as we show the world an alternative to big pharma's expensive monopoly on "healthcare". As a Native American farmer, I am very connected to the healing aspects of nature and believe the purest medicine can be found quite literally in our roots.

My reason for posting this is not to gloat, because I don't care. I never actually enter the cups I win because it's not about competition for me. A shop does it to get credit for their shop. In this case, a shop in Point Loma. For me, it's more personal and artistic. It's about taking the scene past where you found it. Creating something original that is valid. I'm posting because after one day of this cup win, I am already seeing people copying my work and trying to take credit for it. I work in LA and SD, and in LA after less than a day I watched growers renaming their strains to LemonAid. Trying to pass them off as my genetics at higher tickets because of my work. Part of that is flattering really. There are so many people in this scene that dilute the true craftsmanship that happens in the industry, and so I want to set the record straight from the original breeder's perspective.

Here's the story of LemonAid:

It's a feminized cross. I don't care what the big seed guys say about feminized breeding, it's a great way to get what you want in stable form, if you know what you're doing. I've done the work, tried breeding both ways, both ways work great. LemonAid is 100% stable feminized genetics. The real magic comes from the Super Lemon Haze mom. My mentor who is a master grower and breeder, is obsessive with phenotyping. When the SLH won the HT Amsterdam cup around 2011, he bought over 120 seeds and ran all of them. It took about 2 years of serious hard work and lost money finding the keeper pheno. The one we kept was very rare and not like the others. It's short, stocky, finishes fast like an indica, yet it's more sativa when you smoke it. I won a different cannabis cup with just this SLH strain, years back before I bred the LemonAid. I won first place in the 2013 SD-Medi Cup for Best Flower. I've won every cup I've entered actually. The SLH was my bread and butter for years after the first cup win. But it didn't yield like a boss and wasn't very commercial. And later I found the gorilla glue. I loved smoking the strain, but hated how lanky and annoying it is to grow. Started thinking about terpenes and flavor profiles of the two strains together. Seemed like a really nice mix in my head. I don't just cross anything together. I started thinking about how the two genetics could compliment each other. And then I reversed the glue and pollinated the SLH. Got an elite keeper pheno that is SLH dom, but has the gassiness of the glue mixed in. Gives it a lemon candy smell and taste. Tastes like a dream. I honestly haven't cound anything better in the scene right now. I'm a proud papa.

Just wanted to get this up here so the origins of our strains can be traced back. It was really cool reading about the origin of the glue, for example, on the forums. So I'm doing the same with this humble offering to the cannabis universe.

The grow that produced the LemonAid is going down as I type this, so it will be hard to find this strain soon. I have another breeding project that is finished now, but we didn't finish in time for the cup, but it's just as good as the LemonAid. Frostiest cookies I've seen in a while. I'm calling it One Tough Cookie (forum x Ogre). Maybe a shop will enter it next year.

I want to give a shout out to all the breeders I've learned from. Especially my mentor in the industry. Who taught me so much, and changed my life forever. I used to wear a suit and tie in the software industry. Hating my existence. Now I've helped epileptic kids stop their seizures with non-psychoactive CBD products of our own creation. I've been a part of grassroots political, legal, and social change much like my hippy parents before me. Thanks for reading.
 
Freshone

Freshone

1,620
263
So are you releasing seeds?Or is this just must buy at a dispo?I grew in Escondido for years before moving and I knew of a few holding super lemon haze in Anza,Riverside,ocotillo,San Diego areas,I wonder if it's the same cut?
Congrats on the win.
 
C

Cherokey

20
28
Pics or it didnt happen
So are you releasing seeds?Or is this just must buy at a dispo?I grew in Escondido for years before moving and I knew of a few holding super lemon haze in Anza,Riverside,ocotillo,San Diego areas,I wonder if it's the same cut?
Congrats on the win.

No, sorry I don't have seeds to release. It was a small personal project and the run was too limited for that to make sense. I'm not a seed company, although I would love to be a part of one. I found the pheno I wanted and ditched the others. It exists as a clone-only cut and is uncirculated. That being said, I don't intend to hoard the cut. I watched my Bullrider friends do that back in the day in SD, and now we lost a legendary strain forever. LemonAid is good medicine and should be out there, and not just as expensive flowers for people to buy. But I don't want just anybody to have it. Worked hard for it. I do want to gift it to the scene in the right ways. This scene has helped me so much, I couldn't be more stoked to give something back that people like. I'm slowly figuring out the best way to do that. Not in any hurry. Would love to work with some established breeders and get it crossed into some unique seeds. I don't have the facility for that now.

The cut of SLH I have, it's doubtful it's the same pheno as the one you have. It was selected after a long process of buying pack after pack of SLH from Greenhouse Seeds. So many epic phenotypes came out of that process. Most of the SLH phenos are tall late finishing sativas. Good yield. Almost like how Blue Dream grows, just a touch smaller. The pheno that we kept was the runt of the litter. The one most growers would ditch in favor of the bigger plants that yield more. This is where I learned from a quality breeder. You give it a shot. That runt pheno ended up being the best medicine ever for me and my terminally ill father. For the scene at large, the bag appeal is ridiculous. Any old school San Diego guys remember the Godzuki? Legendary Bullrider hybrid. It's really close to that strain. Terps are almost identical and we've been trying to bring that flavor back for years in SD. Anyway, SLH is circulated in seed form, so there are thousands of super dank phenos out there. Our pheno we only shared with a small crew of loyal hoarders hehe, so it's likely different.
 
C

Cherokey

20
28
What does one get for winning that? Always been curious.

A pat on the back and maybe some fist bumps? Or is it well worth it

Open one's hand and take a look at one's palm. That's what you get bro. The first cup I won, I do remember the shop that entered my stuff got a little bit of cash, and then flowers of all the strains that didn't win. The best stuff you get from something like this is all internal. Just enough recognition that makes you want to keep working in such a tough industry.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom