Willy Banjo Cheap but Smoking

Already several times, excellent seed strains from the small Dutch quality seed bank Magus Genetis have been introduced here: Warlock, Double Dutch and Biddy Early. They all have in common that they do have a remarkable, very specific genetic pedigree, being developed beyond the usual gene pool by using previously unentered genetic paths. The Exile strain is the fourth cornerstone of Magus Genetics` precious seed selection. After several years of testing different genetic lines, Exile was combined from 50% Warlock, 25% Northern Lights and 25% White Widow in 1999 and put onto the market in November 2000. While the components Northern Lights and White Widow are representing classic resp. neoclassic genetics in this hybrid, a good deal of genetic extravagance is brought in by Magus Genetics` own Warlock, a unique and very charismatic strain that clearly sets its stamp on Exile. Warlock`s genetic type is mostly indica, based on Skunk and Afghan genetics. At first sight, this pedigree seems to be absolutely classic, too, and even somewhat boring. Nevertheless, Warlock is a highly individual variety, obviously Gerrit has used very special genetic lines of Skunk and Afghan that all the other seed breeders have not used. Warlock has a devastating potency and an unsual, extremely strong and obtrusive aroma, nickname: The aroma bomb.

The strain`s name Exile shall of course not signalise any kind of punishment, but hint at the idea of mental escape, of temporarily being completely released from encumbering and stressing thoughts and feelings. So the message is: Exile as escape agent for mental exiles. This mental wadding effect is brought about by a mighty indica stone high of almost hypnotic dimensions which seems to wrap the brain windings in soft wadding all over.

After a long clone-growing career, the grower Ken Guru meanwhile has become an ardent grower from seed. He definitely wanted to experience how close the Exile trip would really take him to a mental exile and sowed a complete patch of 10 Exile seeds into jiffy pots which were placed into a small heated propagating house. After four days, all seeds had broken through the surface. Given a daily light regimen of 18 hours from an Osram Planta-T 600 watts, the seedlings thrived and prospered quickly. When the roots had started to grow through the meshes after a couple of days, Ken transplanted the young plants to 6 litre pots, filled with the standard grow mix from Plagron. For the first time, Ken used Jungle-Boost, a slow-release dry fertilizer that contains all the nice things that the plants need, apart from plenty of nutrients also amino acids, microorganisms and neem for example. Before starting the Exile cultivation cycle, Ken had mixed 50 litres of soil up with 500 grams of Jungle-Boost. According to the Swiss manufacturer of Jungle-Boost, their product makes the use of liquid fertilizer fully dispensable, with its slowly released nutrient depot being sufficient for both the vegetative and the flowering stage. So Ken Guru did without any liquid fertilizer, always giving the plants pure water.

In the vegetative stage, it became clear very soon that the plants branched out quite strong for a mostly indica strain, what resulted in a conical growth model with compact side-branches after some weeks. However, if Exile is exposed to merely minor or mediocre amounts of light, its internodes will stretch too much, producing less yield in the end. Because of its propensity to branch out, the grower should keep Exile clones a couple of days shorter in the vegetative stage than many other mostly indica strains, when practising the sea-of-green method (lots of plants standing very close to one another, mainly yielding one huge top cola at the main stem then). The leafs of Ken Guru`s Exile plants were rather indica typical, quite broad, but with a significantly lighter green colouration. Three and a half weeks after germination, the Exiles were exposed two 12 hours of daily light instead of 18, what caused them to produce the first flowers about eight days later. Mother nature had granted Ken Guru a majority of female plants, out of the ten plants, only four proved to be male.

In the following weeks, the six female Exile plants busily developed dense flower clusters with generous amounts of resin glands. Already after four weeks of flowering, the buds gave off an intense sweet`n spicy scent that featured an earthy pine aroma. The flower calyxes were quite small, but all the more numerous and packed very densely. The flower structure of some of the plants reminded me very much of Warlock, with roundish popcorn flower clusters, while other plants revealed a similarity rather with the Northern Lights flower structure. Both types, however, had in common that they were very compact and featured a favourable calyx-to-leaf ratio that, from bottom to the top, tended more and more towards the flower side, so that the main colas of the plants had a particularly high calyx-to-leaf ratio.

Also in terms of growth habits, the plants became homogeneous, four ladies had almost the same height (74-80 cm), while there were two ones that overtopped their colleagues by 15-20 cm. The smallest plant of the first group was an exception to any other of the plants, because it grew like a pure indica, with very little side-branching and an enormously broad and fat main cola. Between day 61 and day 66 of flowering, all Exile ladies had reached maturity, what corresponded well to the official flowering period of 60-67 days as stated by Magus Genetics. Indeed the Exile plants had grown excellently without any liquid fertililzer (only the stimulant Bud XL was applied, beginning from the sixth week of flowering), the dry Jungle-Booster depot fertilizer had supplied the plants with everything they needed through the whole cultivation cycle, so this product could also keep its promise.

Although the scent of the Exile plants had not fully reached the incredible dimensions of Warlock, it was still impressive and heavily present in the growing chamber. In the course of the harvest process, a lot of resinous leaf material accumulated. As expected, the single plant yields turned out to be very well, with 23 to 30 grams, they were located in the medium to upper category of plants grown from seed with a moderate time of vegetative growth.

Then it was time for Ken Guru to start the mental journey into his inner exile. The Exile bud kind of knocked him down with a big wadding hammer, the effect was highly sedative and really took him to a mental nirvana for a while. According to Gerrit from Magus Genetics, this very narcotic effect also has a big medicinal potential. He knows people who successfully use Exile as medicine against insomnia or muscle spasms caused e.g. by multiple sclerosis. But not only the effect, also the aroma was very strong. The breeder has managed to bring about the sweet`n spicy pine aroma in both the living and dried buds. So Ken Guru`s Exile tasted exactly like it smelled, very delicious and complex. Gerrit has noted that this pine aroma might be weaker when growing Exile on coco instead of soil. However, further observations will have to prove this single case impression.

Exile another big winner from the breeding chambers of Magus Genetics.

Green Born Identity G.B.I.

.: Strain Exile
.: Pedigree 50% Warlock, 25% Northern Lights, 25% White Widow
.: Genetic type Mostly Indica
.: Vegetative stage here: 24 days
.: Flowering stage here: 61 to 66 days
.: Medium Plagron standard grow mix with Jungle-Boost depot fertilizer
.: pH not measured
.: EC not measured
.: Light 600 W HPS Osram Planta-T
.: Temperature night: 18 C/day: 24-28 C
.: Air humidity max. 60 % during flowering
.: Watering by hand
.: Stimulants Bud XL (House & Garden) beginning from week sixth of flowering
.: Height 74-95 cm
.: Yield 23 to 30 grams

Biddy Early - A fresh breeze of superior outdoor genetics

Over night she became the covert shooting star of the High Times Cannabis Cup 2003. Totally unknown to the seed market before, Biddy Early scored a great coup at first go: It was the only outdoor-grown weed in the sativa category, and as such it took second place, leaving many high-bred indoor strains behind. The Biddy Early`s extreme citrus aroma and suprisingly strong potency hit the judges by surprise. It was the first outdoor variety released by Magus Genetics, and a big success story right from the start. Gerrit, the breeder of Magus Genetics, must have had the right touch when choosing the genetics for Biddy Early. Let`s see what is behind the name: As mother plant, Gerrit used Early Skunk (Skunk #1 x Early Pearl), an old outdoor classic from Sensi Seeds. Not quite a revolutionary genetic input for creating a new outdoor strain, but for sure a very solid hybridization partner with good open field performance properties. And such an outdoor-adapted variety was needed, since the father of Biddy Early is Warlock (Skunk x Afghan), a popular indoor strain from Magus Genetics that delivers a real aroma bomb with a very high THC content, imparting above average outdoor potency and much aroma complexity to the Biddy. The outcome is an outdoor variety with charismatic attributes and solid mold resistance that blows a fresh breeze into the landscape of outdoor genetics. According to Magus Genetics, Biddy Early can also be grown indoors with good results, however, it can prove hard or even impossible to keep mother plants in the vegetative state over a longer period of time, here the outdoor genetics take their toll sooner or later. Left uncut, the Biddy grows in to a christmas tree shape, reaching a height of 1.8 to 2 meters. Supplied with enough light, she exhibits very compact shoots with short internodes, what also makes her a highly suitable balcony strain.

That`s why the grower Ellis D. chose for Biddy Early as balcony plant in 2004. He intended to grow only one big lady there, and therefor sowed four seeds in mid-April. All of them came out of the ground quickly, receiving proper light from a 250 W HPS. Four weeks after germination, he changed the light cycle from 18 to 12 hours in order to be able to recognize the gender of his Biddy plants. After having identified them, Ellis D. had three very homogeneous female plants at his disposal, only one plant turned out to be male. Then the pre-sexed plants had to be forced into vegetative growth again. Ellis D. cut back all females to three internodes, gave them a strong nitrogen fertilizer dose and prolonged the light cycle to 20 hours. After some time, the plants returned to vegetative growth. But although clearly being on the vegetative side again, the plants kept on exhibiting one small single female flower at every new node. These flower memory markers reminded of the previous short flowering phase and showed that the flower hormone concentration in the shoot tips had not been fully scaled down again, the tendency to flower slumbered on in the plant, being superposed by the vegetative impulse. Ellis D. gave two females to a friend and kept one plant for his balcony project.

Double Dutch - Gerrit fires his second aroma bomb

Magus Genetics, a relatively young Dutch quality seed bank, came on strong in recent years, mainly thanks to its top-seller “Warlock”, a remarkable Skunk x Afghan hybrid with outstanding quality in both the THC content and aroma. Warlock is a real "aroma bomb", producing one of the most intense cannabis scents I have ever experienced. No wonder that Gerrit, owner and breeder of Magus Genetics, makes use of Warlock’s charismatic genetics also when it comes to creating new strains such as "Double Dutch", introduced as seed strain for the first time at the High Times Cannabis Cup 2002.

Already for two years before that event, Double Dutch had been available as weed strain at the Amsterdam-based coffee shop “The Bluebird”, proving to be a very popular variety. This kind of approach was a clever and customer-orientated marketing strategy that Gerrit had already successfully practised with Warlock in the past.

At first, the variety proves itself on the market only as an end product, causing great demand for a seed supply, too. The breeder thereby gets a wide feedback upon his work by the coffee shop customers, taking their opinion into account, thus being able to finally create a seed strain that is perfect for the market and when the time has come for being introduced to the market, lots of smokers and growers have been eagerly waiting for that certain seed variety. "The seeds sell like hell then", as Gerrit puts it.

The name "Double Dutch" already indicates the fact that the strain is a combination of two Dutch strains, being a mostly indica hybrid (according to Gerrit, 60:40 to 70:30% indica/sativa) that also showcases sativa traits to a certain degree.

For creating Double Dutch, Gerrit crossed the mother strain "Warlock" (Skunk x Afghan) with a male pre-2000 "Chronic" (grown from original Serious Seeds). Until the year 2000, Serious Seeds' Chronic had leaned more towards the indica spectrum, but then Serious breeder Simon altered its genetics a little bit, this time putting more emphasis on the sativa side. But already before this genetic revision, the honey-sweet Chronic had pronounced some excellent sativa traits such as a very high calyx-to-leaf ratio and a cerebral high, at the same time being a great yielder, harvest amounts of 400-600 g/m2 were possible. A perfect breeding partner for Warlock, further improving its "only good" yield potential and attenuating its acridity.