13November 2023
I’m going to take a moment and explain part of the spiritual motivations that have prodded us into this line of work, and more specifically into mass production of open pollination to produce novel cultivars.
Long before we had been contracted by the corporate cannabis beast, to “breed a cup winner”, cannabis seeds were exceptionally sacred to us. See, both Lauren and I, and the entire founding group around us, was from strict mormon stock. The propaganda was thick growing up, but the word of God both in the bible and sacred books venerated all nature as holy. Outside of a cursory education in science, my entrepreneurial ass was obsessed with history and theology, through most of my years before 27. The extent of my horticultural knowledge did not extend beyond what was required by my lawn care and pest control business.
As I started growing, we paid a lot of money for seeds from Mr Nice in Europe and High Grade Seeds in Canada. Economics overlapped with sacred obligation, to prod me into breeding from the first run and forever afterwards. Nothing could have fully prepared me for the crash course in genetics I inherited from this plant; as I planted the next generation. I had grown up in a suburban home, far removed from exposure to cannabis breeding. The seeds showed me so much, as the F2 generation of Critical Mass and the F1 generations of Kona Gold hybrids expressed with class and grace, how complex, even miraculous, DNA really is. Life, when exposed in all her naked glory, astonishes and amazes, and my case was no exception as I went deeper and deeper into the mystery of breeding, one generation at a time.
I refused to clone for the first 5 years I grew, finding it to be unnatural and blasphemous. I have never attempted to justify those hard ideological lines. It was sufficient to do what I knew was right, and leave the profit seekers to their doom. I felt I was developing a relationship with nature through my dedication to the plant.
I’ve held those feelings deep, but have had to compromise, and bend, mostly to provide for our family and friends, but also to leave the pride behind. See, for those years, I refused to breed with any clone, no matter how valuable, period. I had decided, high and probably tripping in my grow room, that each seed was destined for a specific person. Cannabinoid profiles are keys to biological and spiritual locks. I held to a firm line that the plant did no wrong to any person, but that in our ignorance, we give the wrong person the wrong cultivar at the wrong time, and then that person blames the plant for inducing paranoia or some other uncomfortable state. This isn’t meant to discount the very real, “negative” experiences I had gone through myself, or the times I tried to mellow someone out with my new pure sativa hybrid and ended up talking with them until 2am instead. On the contrary, my point was to sanctify those experiences and the plant itself, by taking accountability for our shamanic and scientific ignorance when it comes to cannabis. We are walking through mysterious, misty times, and the fog is thick.
One thing I could hold onto was that the plant was good, and that every paranoia is ours to own. We should thank the plant for showing us ourselves, what we are afraid of subconsciously and consciously, and giving us the chance to openly address those things.
With those standards, it was easy to see each seed, male and female, with the same love, compassion, and commitment, as I would a person of my own species. I’m not a eugenist, I believe all genetics that have held strong to living and accomplished that great feat, own the right to self determination. So, as I don’t kill or condone killing, or advocate for human cloning besides the occasional organ, I decided I would not kill or clone cannabis plants. This opened up my breeding projects into all kinds of genetic variations that would have otherwise been culled from the family; beautiful small and large things that were unwieldy in a Provo, Utah basement but that smelled like heaven (or rotting purgatory) and smoked with power and authority. I remember a plant we dubbed the dandelion, it’s mutant structure and webbed and serrated leaves slowly but surely growing under the canopy. We left it, as plant limits weren’t a thought in an already felony grow. When she flowered, the other critical mass f2s and f1 hybrids dominated her, and as such she sat in the drying room, undervalued and humbly overlooked, until a smoke sesh required an extra nug off the trim table.
By the time the dandelion was dried and not even cured, she was requested specifically more than her small size could ever supply. This left me in this new position, where great weed was abundant, but the most valuable was the most scarce, and it changed my perspective on so many things. That grow was raided, but we kept breeding, and even though the cops took tens of thousands of seeds from the seed fridge, we had friends far from the reach of fascists, so that we could legally hunt out the dandelions once again in the future. See, growing with these spiritual conditions, taking the hard line that I wouldn’t clone, and that each seed that germinated deserved an equal spot in the garden and equal love, it created conditions of such abundance that the cops could never stamp it all out.
Now, those genetics are in more states than not, and in other countries around the world. What would have happened with those first genetics we chose as valuable, had I listened to my investor and the naysayers, and cloned out the highest potency, highest yielding plant? It would have ended then and there, no more dandelions or kona x zombie black, the cops would have genocided them all. Jah is real and good though, and His power is in the humble seed 😉
I could have learned to clone before Oklahoma, taken and bred the super high quality clones that I was offered in Oregon and elsewhere, but I’m as thankful for what I gained in my stubborn idealism as I’m frustrated by what I lost. I’ve had to bend to the great way, as such I’m thankful to have run massive clone operations, and now have a tissue culture lab to be utilizing, in the preservation and the hunt. It took me time to learn that very valuable things can be further preserved and spread, if I can be more flexible to modern methods, and the Zion Train is my first real fruit to the world under those conditions. I wouldn’t have her if I hadn’t learned to be flexible for the sake of holding onto what we love a little longer, give thanks and praise!