David Watson – aka, Sam the Skunkman – discusses his cannabis seed collection and the importance of preserving cannabis landraces in order to be able to create advanced cannabis cultivars in this 2021 interview.
A controversial figure, Watson is widely credited with breeding Skunk #1, which in the reckoning of most experts with real experience of working at scale is the only modern high-THC cannabis hybrid that’s genuinely true-breeding.
Based on the interview, it seems Watson sold his seed collection to Bioarc Ltd, a Melbourne-headquartered corporation. Unless there’s good reason to think otherwise, it’s fair to assume that puts the collection out of reach of the rest of us for the foreseeable.
Given the collection is Watson’s, cleary it’s his call as to its future. And looking more closely at Bioarc since I first posted this piece, it’s good to see that sound people such as Rob Clarke are involved with the project.
To get cannabis back on track and redress the effects of decades of misguided policy, what’s needed is for loads of organizations, public and private, to be working on landraces and wild-type material, in as decentralized a way as possible. Projects such as Bioarc are a necessary part of this mix.
My worries after looking closer at Bioarc’s videos are that (1) the seeds were stored at 5 °C for several decades and (2) with a collection of the stated size, one organization alone will be hard-pressed to get anywhere near realizing its potential.
Reading between the lines, it appears Bioarc had plans to work on tropical germplasm in Thailand. If so, given the current Thai government’s intent, those could be up in the air.
Cautionary tales abound for situations such as this. Beyond cannabis, there are all-too-many cases of germplasm collections held by breeders or big agribusinesses being left to rot. Breeders retire or management decides the projects are not sufficiently profitable, and everything is lost.
Hard realities such as these are why there has to be a lot more cooperation if the future of cannabis is to be got right – especially international cooperation.
For an authoritative history of foundational cannabis strains such as Skunk and Afghani #1, check out this interview with Mel Frank, who recounts from firsthand experience the role Watson played in the emergence of the Dutch cannabis seed industry after relocating from southern California to Amsterdam in the 1980s.
Crucial to appreciate with respect to biodiversity and breeding is that early underground seedbanks such as Sacred Seeds or Positronics, and the indoor farmers who supplied Dutch coffeshops, were utilizing only a very small range of cultivars / strains.
Check out the coffeeshop menus and seedbank catalogues of the ’80s and early ’90s to get a sense of how everything getting grown was – and is – based on a handful of outstanding foundational cultivars such as Northern Lights, Afghani #1, Haze, and Skunk #1.
An illusion of diversity came later with the proliferation of strain names, but in very few cases do these names correspond to any actual underlying botanical reality.
Look beyond the flavour-of-the-month miasma and very rarely will you find seed lines and cuts that aren’t ultimately based on those same Dutch–American genetics of the Amsterdam heyday – particularly on cuts of Northern Lights or Skunk #1.
In their pristine original form, foundational lines of the ’80s and ’90s such as Skunk or Haze can deliver very distinctive highs – distinctive in the sense that they really stand apart from the generic foggy blandness typical of today’s dispensary cannabis and offerings from online seedbanks.
According to Dr. Reggie Gaudino, a molecular geneticist who specialises in plant phytochemistry, the key reason for this difference is that decades of breeding single-mindedly for high levels of THC have narrowed the resin profile of modern hybrids.
Ever-increasing percentages of THC not only make for a flawed and very constricting definition of potency, they come at the expense of all other components of cannabis resin – terpenoids and non-terpenoids. In other words, boosting THC has forced out or diminished thousands of phytochemicals in cannabis that we know little or nothing about, but which are very likely involved in imparting this plant’s more desirable effects.
In Europe and America, there’s a refrain you’ll hear time and again from aficionados and former tokers alike: bud these days just isn’t the same as the old-school cannabis they used to love – the cannabis that got them into toking in the first place. All agree that what’s changed most critically is the buzz. Modern stuff might look good in a plastic bag but too often doesn’t get you high so much as leave you feeling blearily flat, often from the outset. This is why, when commercial indoor production boomed in Europe around the turn of the millennium and imports of traditional cannabis dried up, many folks just gave up on cannabis altogether – not because cannabis got stronger, as is so often claimed, but because it stopped feeling good.
Get into is this topic with connoisseurs from the States and soon enough you’ll hear a name that’s come to signify everything that’s lacking about North American strains: Cookies. The brand has become a byword for weed that’s bone-dull, its product so generically generic that it’s won for itself a meme-like status in US cannabis discourse – the shorthand for pot that’s missing every essential quality that you need from pot.
The alternative is what shines through when you experience good heirlooms and landraces: a high that’s all positivity. Really, it’s as simple as that. Old-school herb is feel-good herb.
In the Heirloom section of this site, you can find absolutely authentic cannabis heirlooms such as Skunk Special, Durban Skunk, and Master Kush, all of which are from seeds we obtained ourselves in Amsterdam in 1990 and put into long-term storage. Using the original seeds, we’ve resurrected these foundational cultivars exactly as they were in the ’89/’90 season. Now, there really is no need to take my or anyone else’s word for it. You get to experience the difference for yourself.