🧬Old School CA Strains, Genetic Diversity, and Medicinal Cultivars, with Maddfarmer

12:33PM Jan 28, 2025

Speakers:

Jordan River

Keywords:

AC Infinity

grow tents

cloud rays

cloud forge

grow advice

breeding advice

modern gene pool

medicinal cultivars

Oklahoma regulations

cannabis industry

quality control

old school strains

purple weed

gene pool

poly hybridization

Greetings, listeners of the growcast universe, Jordan River here back with more grow cast, and I've gone mad today. We have mad farmer back on the line. I know you guys love deep diving with an old school breeder such as himself. This is a dope episode. We cover everything from how the industry has changed to growing advice and breeding advice and the modern gene pool and so much more. I know you'll love it, but before we jump into it with Mad farmer, shout out to AC infinity, baby. AC infinity.com. Code growcast One five to get your savings and keep the lights on. Here at growcast, we appreciate your support, and we love AC infinity. They make the best grow tents around extra thick poles. They've got nice, durable, thick siding. Now they have the new side ports. People have been asking for those in AC infinity list. And plus, they've got everything else you need to grow. They've got lights and pots and fans, and they're oscillating fans. The cloud rays system. Check out their humidifiers. The cloud Forge. How nice is your humidifier? Maybe it's time to replace that. The cloud rays are my favorite oscillators on the market, and of course, their cloud Line series, what they got it all started with all those years ago when we were partners with AC infinity, all they made were those inline fans, and they're the best in the game. So shout out to the entire AC infinity suite. They've got everything you need to get growing from fans to tents delights, code, growcast one five works at AC infinity.com. You support us, and you're getting some badass, durable grow gear while you're doing it. So thank you to all you listeners using code grow cast one five, and thank you to AC infinity. All right, let's get into it with mad. Thank you for listening and enjoy the show. You Jordan, hello podcast listeners. You are now listening to grow cast. I'm your host, Jordan River, and I want to thank you for tuning in again today. Before we get started, as always, I urge you to share this show, subscribe, make sure that you're following us. We're on Spotify, or wherever we get your podcasts, and turn someone on to growing tell someone about growcast. It's the way that you can help us out the most growcast podcast.com see everything there, the seeds, the classes, the Membership Special. Thank you to the members. Oh, we've got a good one today. Everybody. If you haven't heard his older episodes, be sure to search for the older ones on Spotify or wherever you listen, or dig around in the archives. If you're a member, we have a legendary breeder from back in the day. He's an old man. Now his birthday is coming up. We got a mad farmer on the line. What's up? Man, what is going on? Jordan, how you doing brother? How have you been doing

good? Doing good. Can't complain. Get to see our daughter for Christmas this year, which is always a bright spot for me, so I'm really looking forward to that. And yes, I do turn 50 years old on Saturday. So,

you know, I was, I said it to you, and you laughed at it, but I actually kind of meant to, you know, 50 is not that old anymore. Man, you're just getting started. You're just getting started. Brother,

I wish I was just getting started.

Well, listen, we'd love to hear from you. I'm really excited to talk about some old school stories today. Talk about some grow advice today. Just really shoot the shit and get into with Mad farmer. So it's gonna be a good one. But first, Matt, what's been going on with your brand? What's been going on with your property, getting your grow up and running, all the struggles in Oklahoma. Just give the audience a little update on that. Yeah,

we're slowly moving forward, getting things done. Finally, have had some good progress. We've decided to go ahead and add another transformer for power when we don't have any hiccups, and we're prepared for anything. Where we're at, where we're located, is really in the sticks, and everything that we have done comes down from Oklahoma City, which is about a two and a half hour drive. So the process has been slow, but we feel like we've got a good foothold. And, you know, we have a lot of direct contact with Omma. We've been through two inspections pass, both with flying colors. You know, we've been, we've been ready to go since we got here, but God, there's so many guidelines here and so many hoops you have to jump through, and it's such a an upfront commitment that you got to stay on top of everything. You got to make sure it's what you really want to do, because it's, you know, it's serious, serious business to be in. And Industries has grown so much and it's changed. I just sometimes I don't even recognize it anymore.

So true. Man, many aspects from, you know, the growing side, which we're going to get into, but also just how the markets are. Like Oklahoma has gone through talk about a boom and bust. Man, it's crazy. Like, if, if people are talking to me about, hey, thinking about moving to Oklahoma for the cannabis industry, like. Make sure you're caught up on what's happened down here. There's like a moratorium on licenses. They're shutting down licenses. They're inspecting everyone's grow looking for any little thing. They even came out to your place, right? Even though you're not even running anything. They're like checking on you out here.

They were out here twice already. First time they came out, they wanted to make sure we weren't operating, which clearly we weren't. And second time they came out was to make sure that we were advancing in in the construction. And then the Jesus, all of a sudden,

fast enough you're moving too slow, yeah, we're not bringing in the tax

revenue. Then the third one was this, this floodplain, which, like, I was like, What the hell you guys are letting me know this now? And so I got, I had a phone call, and then literally, two days later, I had the floodplain guy here taking pictures. And like, yeah, like, I would pick a spot that would flood, yeah, that would be a great idea. So basically, was just another inspection and another fee is all it was. So it's way different than what we're used to in California. I mean, California had its own regulations, and when it switched from med to rec, you know, things changed a little bit, but good lord, it's just here. It's almost like they're trying to sabotage it without everybody knowing. You know that that's what they're doing. And the fees have increased so much. And I wouldn't advise anybody, anybody who wants to get into the industry to start in the state,

it's just, I can't argue with that. Man, I really can't. You know, it's

below the median line as far as success goes. And gets kind of sad, because, you know, the people here, they want to see what, you know, what all this amazing, great weed that's all over the place they want to see that they deserve to see that. And the state is just making it so fucking difficult that a lot of people have just said, You know what, I'm I'm just, I'm gonna do it somewhere else. And they, they bail. And you've had this, you know, in the beginning, when it was kind of like, Wild Wild West, yeah, it seemed like, wow, that's gonna be the place to go, because regulations aren't gonna be stiff. And all of a sudden, regulations became stiff. They put a moratorium on licenses so people that were basically giving back their licenses, they weren't releasing those, those licenses again. So, yeah, you've, you know, you've had a lot of people just kind of fall out because they can't keep up. They raise the the fees on every fucking permit that they're that they're letting out

total grower death is what they're looking I heard that they want to close 50% to 66% of their licenses, and by any means necessary. Basically, that's

exactly what I heard. I've heard that they basically want RJ Morris to come in and grow industrial cannabis, and that's what they want to fill the market with. That way they know that they're going to stay regulated. They know they're going to stay by every single code that they want, you know, and it's, it's just like, it's impossible to compete with somebody who has an endless amount of of money that they can reinvest and expand and, yeah, you know, they, they drive the prices down. And I'm not saying like, you know, oh, consumer needs to pay more on that end. That's, that's not what I'm saying. It's, it's about when you can't produce a product the way you want to produce a product, the way a consumer deserves the product, when you can't compete because they're producing them in such a mass quantity that,

yes, they're fucking up the market. Yeah. And then the other question is, are they going to be consistent and stick around a lot of time? These companies come in and they over supply the market, and it's boof, and then they're going to be dead in a few years anyways. But here's the small guy, yep, you won't survive either. It's a, it's a bizarre, it's a bizarre dichotomy. Man, so, yeah, Oklahoma is just, it's, it's looking really crazy out here, but you've been in it for a long time. Man, I mean, my God, back in the days of of California medical, yeah, talk about a difference. We were kind of talking about this off air. Talk about a difference in process. I was allowed to sell my medical homegrown to a dispensary before there was testing labs that were required to have COAs and stuff like this. You would bring in your pound. It was a pound. The guy was looking. The guy would look through it with a fucking magnifying glass, and he would look for any little thing to Terry. Her ass apart and and he was looking at the pound he was buying. He wasn't he wasn't testing a sample out of a huge fucking batch number. He was looking at the pound he was buying, and if he didn't find anything and liked the way it smelled and broke up enough, then he would step outside and smoke a bowl of it, yeah. And he would come back in and tell you if he was willing to buy it, and what he was willing to buy it for. I feel like the average person would look at that and go, that's not as safe. There's no testing, there's no this and that dude, I don't know. I think that was actually better quality control, way better quality control than we have now.

You know, it's it's comical to think, because our quality control then was the same as it is now, and for us, it was exactly the same. If I would, you know, run a pound or two pounds or whatever, to this shop, to this shop, it would always be the same. They would recognize me. They'd want to smoke a joint with me, just to, you know, I just to see what the product was because it was used. It would usually be, you know, one of a group, and then we would twist, we would burn, and then we'd bullshit, and then they that would be the inspection, and, you know, boom, it's done deal. And then off you go to the to the next and so we did that for shit, man, I don't know the longest time, and everybody seems so happy. It's like they were, they were advertising it before it was even getting there. And, you know, those are back in the days, though, when you were walking in with, like, for me, I was always carrying an ice chest. So it's like, Oh, fuck. That's not obvious. He's not going to get robbed. Thankfully, that never happened, you know. And before you'd even be out and they'd be getting it tendered out for for the dispensary, people would already be lining up. And those

were formed relationships, though, you know, like you said, there was a relationship between the the distributor and the producer. Now it's just like, Hey, show me your like, hand selected batch that you submitted for COA or like, paid a lab test, paid for a lab test, or submitted to three different labs, and pick the highest THC or over dry your product so your THC numbers come out higher because there's less water, even though it's not representative of your product. It's just a game that you cheat now, whereas back then, it was all by it was all by feel. It was done by the connoisseurs. Yeah,

and to that point alone is back then there were no tests for THC, for, you know, for CBD, it was just straight like, yeah, that really got me fucked up. I really like that. It tastes great. And then that was your test right there, that, you know, you sit down, you break one up with the shop owner, and they kind of know you or know your reputation, but they want to test it for themselves. They want, you know, I think the verification that it was clean was that they, you know, smoked it with you. So I obviously never had a problem with that. No matter where we went. That was kind of how it would go. And he just built your reputation with the handshake and and proven, proven weed, and that's what you know, kept you coming back and then for us to the dispensaries were nice, but the biggest part for us was the ability to go, what we call, basically, patients to patients and, you know, take care of individual needs. And then I have my personal doctor started asking me, Hey, you know, it's like he was the one who said, no matter what, because you had limits on your mouth and all that stuff, no matter what happens, he would always represent me in court if it ever came to that. So I felt really good about that. And then he started asking me if, you know, we could take and there was one particular patient war got started, and he was a local dentist, and so my doctor knew him, and he asked if any of you guys mind going over to his house, you know. And Danny knew, actually ended up finding out that she knew his wife and they had worked together. And so it was a, you know, it was a really cool kind of experience to where you realize this is what we're doing this for. And the poor man had, he had had a stroke, and they had him on so much shit that it was, you know, something that I had personal experience with, and we took care of him, and that was always the best feeling for us was, was on a one on one level, where you know you're making a difference for somebody. You're not just growing on the mass scale and making sure you meet your bottom line. It was getting out and meeting individuals. And I, I haven't seen that in years. I mean, when we left two. Valley, it wasn't like that any longer. And here it's kind of even worse, because now the growers don't even know the distributor, and then they definitely don't know the dispensaries on a personal level, which means they, without a doubt, don't know the consumer. So yeah, without having that, that line of being in personal contact, I think it takes away from the actual meaning of what cannabis actually stands for, at least, at least for the older generation, for those who, you know, we had to fucking hide what we did, and we had respect for it, and, you know, and we went by just kind of different rules, different policies. Clearly,

you were breaking the law. A lot of people were breaking the law to go by your own rules that you knew were just That's exactly right. I try to sum this up in one of my presentations that I've given before, which is the plant has this inherent value, like it grows from a seed, and it's got, like, all these fucking incredible properties which are inherently valuable to man. And the problem is everybody's trying to step in between you and that plant to try to scoop up some of that value. So in reality, it should either be you growing the plant so that you can grow your own, right? Not everybody can grow. So maybe there should be one person in between there, right? Like you support your local grower, or you have a caregiver, somebody caregiving for you. And then there's a plant man. There's 1012, 24, fucking 500 people in between you and this plant. There's some guy who wants to put in regulations on this, and then somebody wants to say you can't transport it, or you have to deliveries, and somebody who says, smoke inside, smoke outside, gotta go to a smoke lounge. There's all these people trying to get in between you and the plant, just to try to get some of that value. The value that the plant has equals money in the real world. They want some of that value. And at the end of the day, you don't need a bunch of people in between you and the plant. You can grow pounds from a seed, but they don't want you to know that. They want you think it's like, like, pharmaceuticals, right? No, you got to go through the hoops. You got to go through the money hoops to get to this medicine. Ah, this medicine grows from a plant. It wasn't made in a lab.

It's easy. It's easy to grow. Yeah, it's completely different, too. And like you said, everybody wants a piece of it. And nowadays, when you're trying to, you know, it's just that, if you're looking at it from a business model, your bottom line is your bottom line. And obviously, to stay in business and to be productive, you have to stay above the bottom line. And so all these people and these licenses and and everything that comes directly out of your bottom line, you know. And in the end, at the end of the day, if you're not a profitable company, then you know, you're not going to save business. And exactly, you know. And so it's, it's changed so much in the last 20 years that, especially in the last 10 years, I would say it's changed just warp speed. I mean,

like, literally at warp speed, the cultivation game has changed. Man, I mean, holy, God, I'm sure you've observed that, right?

Yeah, it's crazy to see, especially at some of the larger facilities, the level at which they're growing plants. It's it, it's just, it's just like they're just creating, you know, a textile. And what's lost in that is the passion and the love that you spend with the one on one time. I mean, because it went for us being back in the day, you know, you flip the music on, and you would just be enveloped with your plants, one at a time. Each plant got love. And you know, it just for me, that was part of the whole enjoyment was I was going through illness, and, you know, Danny was working. And, you know, so things like, things were just really I had to have something to do with my time, or I would get inside my own head and get into depression and, you know, just kind of locked up, and so I would just kind of envelop myself. I mean, Tay was fucking little, like, you know, two years old, and she had a little watering can. And I'm like, Yeah, you know kind of joining dad was, let's do this.

Yeah, absolutely. But no, like you said, it was a different game. I want to use the word you're saying when they're producing at this scale. We talk about the corporatization of cannabis, right, which, like, has its own problems, but there's a very specific word, the commoditization of cannabis. They view this as a commodity, just like you said, textile, oil, wheat, yeah, it's the same thing that happened to coffee. Coffee, beautiful and delicious and magical plant medicine, and they commoditized it. So now most of the. Coffee or drinking is like, bad for you. It's covered in pesticides and ain't grown right? There are some people who are doing it right, but it's been commoditized. That's what I worry about even more than the corporatization. Is the commoditization. Oh,

and that's what's happening now. It's like, I you know, you think, as you progress, and you know, you know, you start scientifically learning more about the plant itself, but the end result becomes better. But what I've seen is a complete backwards turn, because they're trying to do it so fast, and they think they know so much about this plant. What's what's lost in the shuffle is the intimacy that one like a home grower, carries for those plants, you know, and and the devotion that you put into them, I mean, like I could feel the vibe from my plants, and I hope when I was in there, they could feel the vibe and and we then was at the epitome of what quality is supposed to Be, and I haven't seen that quality in years like the early 2000s some of the best, best pot I've ever smoked in my life was coming from that that from the early 90s up until, you know, the early 2000s and it just was like, Man, this is what You know, really got me into, like, I just, I love pot, and then it became something that I needed in my life to keep me off of a lot of the opiates and shit that the doctors wanted to prescribe me for my disease. And it just, you know, became part of what I was every day. And I do not see that when I go into, you know, any grow facility, they just can't, because on the scale on which they're they're producing it, those plants don't get that, like, that one on one time,

yeah, you almost never see it. I mean, I It's, in fact, I have never seen it. Like the, the multi state, operator level, scale, especially, yeah, I don't know. I'm sure it's possible, like, if you know, if mad pharma gets hired as CEO of cure leaf or whatever, and we can, like, restructure from the top down with real legacy people and have, like, a real company motto and a brand identity and all that crazy I don't think they're gonna be able to do that. Man, I was saying this on the other episode that I was recently recording. There's this gap where everybody who runs these MSOs, they don't know how to grow, they know how to run a fucking business, but they don't know how to grow. And all the growers that are legacy growers are the opposite. They all have no know how to grow, but they don't know how to run a business. And there's this huge schism because of that. It's it's a shame that's

exactly how it goes. You have you these, these investors that basically know just the bottom line, so they need X amount of dollars and X amount of time, and you know, this is your product. This is what you have to work with. And when you can't see eye to eye, if you're the grower, and you can't see eye to eye because you're explaining to the investor. This is not how this works. This is this. You know, if you want a sustainable product and you want to support from your consumer, it has to be like this, and they want to cut corners, because that bottom line, you know, is the most important thing. They it just, it's a design failure, like from the get go,

because of the mentality that they have to the approach. You're absolutely right. They have too robotic of a mentality, too corporate of a mentality,

generational growers, who, who they just haven't been doing it this way. But, you know, their dad was doing it this way, or, you know, whoever was their mentor, their uncles, or whoever, they only know one way, you know. And for Danny and I, we only know one way to produce. And that that for us is never going to change. If that means that, hey, we just grow, go back to growing, you know, on a personal level, and breeding on a personal level, well, then that will just be what it is. Because one thing that I will refuse, and she's just as bad as I am, is quality over quantity, every day, every single time, because that's what's important to us. I want to, you know, I want to be able to pull a butt out of the bag and look at it like that might very well be the most beautiful but I've ever seen, and then you smoke it, it's the same in my entire life. You know, you want that every single time, or it's just it's not what it was meant for when people first started to realize that that cannabis is actually in medicine.

Yeah, that's right. I'm gonna jump around a little bit here. But on that note, of like those Lifetime Achievement buds, what do you look back fond Leon man, I want to talk about Humboldt strains, old school. What are old school? To me, right? A lot of people, is old school. Are older things like Acapulco gold and stuff like that. To me, all right? And totally see I was I missed that wave. To me, what's old school is exactly what you described earlier, early, 2000s to mid, 2000s strains, you know, getting California cat piss to Chicago from California when I finally moved out there in 2010 seeing a lot of like GDP and pot

Oh, gold. I don't

see pot of gold anymore. Dude, like that one gone. Who remember? Please write me if you remember pot oak. And I don't think it was pot of gold. Mad farmer, I believe it was Pot o gold. Yeah, it

was the flying blood Flying Dutchman, pot of gold. Yeah, it, it grew a lot, like a, like a real chunky skunk. It had a real, you know, that kind of, not quite minty, but kind of that effervescent green bug thing going on. Yeah, that was a good one. I remember we were in the Bay Area, and we were at a dispensary. I can't remember what we were doing and who were in there, because we had a friend of ours who would deliver, like, a few 1000 cuts at a time. I think we're going to enter something. And we stopped in there and and the top shelf for the day was, was pot of gold. And then, like, No fucking way. And I'm getting in on some of that. And so yeah, and that was when they brown bagged it, too. Man, like, literally, you know, choose what you want, the amount, and brown bag it. And those, those, those are the fun, fond memories of it,

good stuff, man, what do you look back on most fondly? Or another thing I like to ask is, was there anything back then that you remember really liking but you never got a chance to work with it? Yeah, that's another way I like to ask it.

Blue Dot. Blue Dot, and true bubble gum. Those were two that I hear a lot of claims. And a lot of people say, yeah, that this is that, but those imprinted on me so much that I will never forget them. I know exactly what they are, and I still haven't experienced them since probably, like 2000 maybe 2001

you'd still be able to pick it out of a lineup. Is what you're saying, no

doubt. Oh yeah, blue dot. With blue.is something that you're, you're, uh, your senses just, they just understand it. So blue.of the original bubble gum, was another one, and there was another one going around back then, and I only got to experience that a couple of times, called cotton candy. And it was, it didn't really taste or smell like cotton candy, although it was sweet, it was just the inhale was so expansive, it was nuts. And, I mean, it just really, really gap you. So I, you know, all of those from from the early disco days were, were special.

I never saw the blue dot that one. I must have missed that one. Yeah, but I certainly saw the bubble gum, for sure. The Bubble

gum, bubble gum, man, I was one of those when it first kind of hit, the hit the marketplace was, oh, wow, that's that's quite unique. And, and, yeah. So that one was a favorite. And another one that came a little later was Green Crack. I love that one.

Oh yeah, I grew some green crack and a Green Crack cross, yeah, people go crazy for that Green Crack. The effects aren't my personal favorite. Mad farmer. Everybody I knew loved it, but when I smoked Green Crack, it's a little too cerebral for me. That's it. Really, yeah, I like, really, like body, not so racy strains, usually, but the Green Crack, yeah, the Green Crack got me fired up in a cracker jack that I grew, which is Jack Herrera, which also gets me like crazy.

You know what? That's another one, right there. Jack Herrera was classic with those lemony Terps that you'd find in particular, finos that just were like, man, that's definitely Jack.

Yeah, there's a cracker jack, which was the Green Crack bike Jack. I'll never forget that one. That one got huge, huge green, beautiful buds. That one was great. And then I also grew a green candy, which is a Green Crack crossed to something I didn't know the lineage. I wasn't even popping seeds at the time. I was growing, what flats of cuts that I could get? Yeah, but that, that green candy, I remember, it didn't have the most potent high, but the smell I had never smelled weed so sweet in all my years smoking as a kid, and then in all my years growing and humble, it was so fucking sweet. It just smelled like nectar and candy. It was, it was really wild. Shout out to green candy,

actually, another one that I. I really liked back in the day was the original AK 47 that was, that was another good one. That

is a fucking good call. I smoked some AK 47 in Amsterdam when I was, like, 16. Just got way too high. Dude, like, way too high. I didn't see it as much in NorCal. I'm sure, I'm sure people were growing it out there. But I remember, like getting young Jordan, getting too stoned on the AK, good call. AK, 47

and there's so, there's so, there's so many from back in the day. And it's, you know, it's when you started for me. Anyways, I started to realize how expansive profile term profiles, you know, the specifics of it, and getting into the details, and getting involved in the in the why and what I what do I like so much about this plant? And how can I get this plant to exhibit those traits dominantly and to really bring that out of a of a plant. And there were certain ones the purples were obviously, you know, where we really gravitated towards, yeah, that's where I felt like, this is my game right here, you know, and, and I'm gonna master this shit. And so we went that course, and then just had medicinal value unlike anything else. I mean, you know, there's strains that are more more potent, obviously, but as far as a well rounded buzz and the ability to take away, like the sweats or nausea, and then, you know, like the withdrawals, if you had withdrawals from opiates, from from the doctors and shit, it was very special. So forever for me, those will hold that, that one solid spot in my heart, yeah, going way back

you were ahead of your time, to be honest, the purple weed, you know, became like the weed. And now, now, you know what I mean, like, you were hunting stuff back then. And now there's so many crosses,

yeah? Now, if it's not purple, like, people kind of freaked out little bit, well, it doesn't have any color. And

what is this stuff? What is this? Yeah, exactly.

And I'm like, man, you're missing out. You know, times

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How do you feel about the gene pool that we're working with today? I'm a little bit torn on it, because when you have so much poly hybridization, you're bound to lose those things that you love. But at the same time, I feel that it's easy to breed, and I'm happy to see more breeders. So it's a bit bitter sweet. But how do you feel about this, like constant poly hybridization that's occurring right now, deepening and some people say muddling the gene pool?

Well, I'm one of those. I. You know, obviously I love to see home growers creating their own lines, because nobody knows what an individual enjoys, enjoys more from their stash than than they do. So I love to see that. But you know, on a larger scale, you have poly poly by poly, poly. And then you can extend that out even further. It takes away, you know, it does it just, they call that. It's the evil aspect. When you think you're doing something different, and it turns out to to be the opposite. Is, right, you're losing a lot of what we held back in the day, like with blue dot, you don't, you can't find that any longer. That shits gone. The original, AK, the original bubble gum. Like everybody says, they have these things now. And with as much as we've traveled with, as much as, you know, we smoked from the open market and connoisseur growers, I personally still haven't seen the originals. So those are lost. They get introduced into the gene pool, and somebody pulls something out that they love, and it gets hybridized again. So, you know, the gene pool has, has grown exponentially, but you have a lot of issues in that gene pool now, you know, like hermaphroditic plants have grown, you know, just tremendously. And that's always, always been a part of of the plant, but it's become, you know, a lot larger. But what, what breeding for me was about, was being able to isolate the specifics, and now you're going to have so many recessive traits from so many poly, poly, polys. It's extremely difficult, if not impossible, because of time, space and effort to isolate specifics and then breathe that into an independent line, uniformity

is going to get harder and harder to achieve. I agree. But you know, mad farmer, humans are funny things because, and I'm guilty of this too, we'll like, whine and Crow and cry about like, Oh that. AK 47 I'm never going to get it again, but we won't preserve so then you keep it, man. So then keep it, keep it around. It's like, wow, I'm gonna pop this new one. I feel like it's almost a human condition to want the new next thing.

Yeah, it is. And that's, you know, like, with a it seemed like around 2006 the purple hit the epitome. And then from that point, speaking, just on in the Cali market, it kind of started to decline a little bit. Well for me personally and for Danny personally, they never declined. They always had a purpose. There was always a tremendous amount of love there. And so along with, like, you know, some originals, like the original Northern Lights and and AKs and the original OG, we kind of stayed in our lane, and that was our lane. And then, lo and behold, 25 years later, you're still in that lane, which is the biggest reason why, for our gene pool, for for what we we work with, it's we don't, we don't introduce anything into that gene pool. We'll maybe make something on the outside, but our working gene pool will constantly be the same, and the reason is, those are the plants that for us were the most important plants, and we've kept them and cherished them and worked them so long we know exactly what they're going to do. We know exactly what to expect. So that makes the job of breeding lines that are both traditional, but yet also exhibit some of the newer Terp profiles that people are chasing. You know the lines. You know which one's going to hold the body of the structure that you want, but you also know the ones to go that you can say, Okay, well, I'm going to keep this structure say from like the red line Clementine. I want to keep that body, that that big bonsai that produces nice, big nuggets and then kind of keeps that red licorice flavor. But I want to stretch it, you know? I want to add some tea them to it, and stretch that plant. But keep those, those candied terms. And when you're choosing just from your gene pool, it makes it really easy. Instead of saying, You know what, I'm going to take this random breeder a over here, and I'm going to introduce what I feel is best from his with this random breeder B over here, and then put them together, and yeah, it's going to produce, obviously, you know the. Has the potential to produce solid, solid weed. But for one, if you're not doing your research to find out what the lineages are from those plants, and then two, if the breeders didn't actually do the work and and detail the lineages, you don't even technically know what the fuck it was. So how are you going to replicate that? You know.

Are you kidding me? Mad? Farmer. So, like, Okay, so let's say you do, quote, do the work, and you find out that information. I feel like so much of the provenance stuff, like, aside from guys who work the same male forever, or have, like, the same stable of genetics, like you, you go back and you ask these questions, and you're relying on anecdotes and fuzzy memories. And you know what I'm saying, dude, like, even people with good intentions are gonna misremember or mix things up. And I just don't know how accurate a lot of the provenance stuff is when you're digging back through multiple people and sometimes multiple generations. Yeah,

plus you've got people that like to play the change the name of the cut game. Like, this was one time, Green Crack, and now it's like Odyssey. And I'm like, bro, do you even remember fucking Odyssey? Yeah, you ever even smoked Odyssey? So, you know, you get to that point, you're like, This is just random bullshit. I'm just making up names because this name sounds hot, or, you know, this, this is going to look better with this name or

the last one sounded bad. I don't want it to have the word fucking it. So I don't like Alaskan thunder fuck. So I'm just gonna rename it.

Another one that we had was not an Oscar thunder. Fucking I mean, fucking amazing, amazing, heavy, heavy narcotic weed. And people like don't even know what that is anymore, and it's just one of those things, yeah. And it's just like, Yeah, you know? Well, we need it. We need a more, a catchy name. And I'm like, bro, I'm not trying to get a catchy name. I'm trying to catch a buzz, you know, like, it's real simple,

and know what it is, too. I just, I don't know, I like going to the source. And it seems to me like a lot of this provenance stuff, people get caught up in it, man. People what, what they're really doing is they're trying to divert credit back onto themselves. They say, Oh, the OGS deserve the credit, by the way, I'm the OG Right, yeah. And like, that's, that's what it feels like every time. And the other thing is, here's what I here's what I really challenge audience members to go forth and use their cynicism and reason, which is, a lot of these guys get really, really heated about, hey, motherfucker, you got this story wrong and this and that. You know what a number, the number one sign of somebody who I think is lying or being untruthful. Why are you so heated? Why are you so heated? If it's the truth, if someone approaches me and says, Hey, you know something in this story was wrong because of this, this and that, I'd love to discuss it with you further, I get a totally different vibe than Hey, motherfucker, you don't know your lineage, and I'm the real king of this shit, and you're a piece of crap for for it's like, okay, so wait, why are you so mad? That's the first thing I want people to realize, which is the reason you're upset is because it's hitting home somehow.

Oh, my God, Jay, you know how much heat we catch. Like, Look, man, I I can't, I can't like help that we've been around this for a long, long, long, long time. You're just telling your

story. Man, we've got a

daughter is we've got a daughter working on her master's degree. That's how fucking old we are. That's how you know what I mean. That's how long we've been in this. I can't help to be have been around what market trends were in late 90s. You know, mid 90s. Fuck, I graduated high school in 92 so, you know, we it's gone on even longer than that. It's just, you start to really catch on in the late 90s. For me, you know, and it just so happens to be like, what? 25 years later, even me, I sit here and I mind blown that the knowledge that I have just accumulated by being around those who were like the source of a lot of these things, you know, to me, I hold all that stuff close and special and dear to have been through a time where I've seen the transformation of, you know, what, what, brick weed, good fucking brick weed, coming up to, like, what everybody was calling home grown. And then, like, for my dad and my mom, the best of the meat of the weed was always, they always called it sense of me. And then, just because that means seedless, yes. So, you know, I always remember that, since the MIA being the best, and then it became like, for a mile, man, it was like skunk. Nothing competed with skunk. And it was all about the skunk. And, you know, so people,

people used to call it DRO in high school, I had the worst generation, because it was like, you know, it was like early hip hop, suburban Chicago kids. So it's like, good weed was known as DRO, which is obviously short for hydro. Yeah. So funny, dude. So I didn't know what hydro was. Are you kidding me? Yeah.

And I mean, I get people come at me regularly for like, you know, the knowledge that I hold, that I try to put out there to those that are interested, the knowledge as I knew, know it, the knowledge that exactly I've gained from it, and is all of it 100% accurate? I mean, there are areas that I can't be 100% positive that is accurate, because these were as they came to me, you know. And then I do my detailed work, and I find out, okay, this, these are all accurate. And then I put that together, because that's all I have to work with. Is like, Okay, this is all accurate information.

Dude, I don't know why people get upset over another man's account. I generally think it's because they again, they feel like entitled to some level of something or or jilted, and at the end of the day, man, this plant has been around for a long time, exactly. It always just feels like when those people are yelling and screaming for attention and recognition and respect, it just always feels like, like I said, this entitlement or this, this, like undue respect that's that's deserved, I just don't get it. And, yeah, I agree. Man, this is your account. That's why my audience loves hearing from you, right? Like a lot of us don't hear about these old school stories and stuff, and we want to hear your account. It's just, it's just that simple, people get bent out of shape. It's, it's kind of funny, yeah?

And, I mean, that's, that's like, never my intent. That's just for me. This is when we, when we chat it up. It's just like, you know, this is how it came to be for us. This is, you know, we've been in some really tight fucking old school circles, and it's just, these are all the things that came in line for us and and even back then, you kind of had to separate out a lot of the bullshit. But back then, it was different, because the market didn't dictate by a name or by cut. Yes, it was the breeder beef was way different. Yeah, there was no breeder beef because back then it was like, you know, the only time you were actually been undoing parentheses. Here is reading is when you were making sure you had seed for your next season. So you were allowing a male in a big gorilla group of females. So you would always have, you know, some some seeds and some bugs, because, you know, that was what you were going to use to to grow up next year. Yeah, so that's that was, that was breeding, that that's, you know, that's for me, that's what my understanding of it was. And then you start to hear the terms, you know, the Mexican term since the media, it's the seedless bud. And then you understand, well, fuck, that's what I want. I don't want to get a pound of brick. That's really good, but it's got, like, a whole bunch of seeds, you know. And so it just kind of will start to roll, and you understand it that,

yeah, Mary Beth said the same thing. That's why weed was always seated, because you wanted the

seeds for the next year, yeah, for the next, for the next. And people learn to

separate their breeding from their their flower production. Yeah, major turn in the I agree. I don't want to let this slip by. I think we should all be grateful to be at this point in history. Is something I've pointed out before, and you mentioned it just a minute ago, which is, we're in it, like, we study alcohol prohibition and Al Capone and all that crazy shit. Like, that's that you I'm sure there's a whole college course on it, on Khan Academy or whatever, right? We literally study it, guys, we're in this now they're gonna look back on this and study it in 100 years. It's as crazy as that is,

it's nice. I mean, I fuck you know, I had so much time on my hands and just trying to prevent myself from slipping a deep, deep, deep depression, I immersed myself in cannabis. And this is pre internet. I had no fucking internet. So everything I did was like, from personal experiences, every plant that we ran was, I mean, Danny and I would go to bed at night, and she would literally fall asleep with me doing nothing but fucking talking about pot, talking about nutrient deficiencies, you can ask her. And she said that, she swears that even when she was asleep and I was still talking, she retained a lot of the shit that I was just talking about. Like, don't

take this the wrong way, mad, but that kind of sounds like a

nightmare, right? Like all these, all these, years later, I'm sitting here thinking, fuck, I didn't even know she was asleep and that was talking, you know? NPK ratios. And let me talk about calcium, yeah, what was the Krebs cycle? What? Why? What is? Why is it so important? You know, it's just like, just knowledge that I was finding I spent 1000s of dollars on, on books, not just fucking, like. Growers tells but, you know, like the fuck was

soil biology books nitrogen in soil, how a mineral behaves. You can

actually find them. I bought a book on nothing but viruses that were known in like tobacco and and then crossed over into cannabis. And like, I was researching this shit. I mean, I spent on one fucking book I ordered. The lady looked at me, and she's like, the book was over 100 something dollars. And I'm like, she's, you sure you want to order this? I'm like, Yeah, I wouldn't fucking be standing here, like, trying to hide

this book. Stupid little lady. Check me out.

You know how long it took me to find this book? Yeah, so it was like that, and that's it's where I started my extensive study and research into to what makes the cannabis plant special, not just from a personal standpoint, but when you compare it to other plants. And it was just fascinating to me. And I loved everything that I learned. And especially as I've gotten older, I try to pass some of that on. And early on, it was great, because so many people, like, wanted to hear all that. And now it's like, you know, you have a fucking four year breeder out there, you'll be arguing with them, like, bro, you're like, 33 years old. I've almost been growing weed for as long as you are in age, so I have nothing to argue with you about, like, you know what I mean? Like, I just don't, I refuse to do it and,

and this whole like, Oh, it's a waste of time. Anyways, it's horrible

waste of time. I don't I this is my story. You know what I mean? You don't have to listen to it. You don't have to to fill it. You don't have to believe it. But you know, in my mind and in my heart and in my soul, this is who I am. You know for, for, I don't know how many years now, a quarter of a century, I guess this is what I've been absorbed in is being a great husband, being a great father, and in Canada, right? You know, it just, I

mean, good time to be alive and doing that, man, let me tell you you were mentioning, though, like having the limited knowledge and like piecing together a book, here a book, there a tip from a buddy now. Oh my gosh. You, you watch the build the soil five by five series. You listen to grow cast. You grab some mad farmer seeds, and you're off to the races. You know what I mean? Like, Oh, you don't want dirt. Like, we have this other method. Check out this Youtube series that, like, breaks down. How to you know what I mean? Like, it's, it's changed so much. What did your grow look like back then? Dude, like, let's turn back the clock. I mean, were you growing with? Like, I feel like in the 90s, every time I talk to people, they're like, GH was the only cannabis, right?

Yeah, when the indoors first started, it was a trip, because you're now responsible for everything, the cycles, and you have to have an understanding of everything, and being able to come across the materials. The only thing that we had as a nutrition, you know, was like the original Alaska fish emulsion, if you wanted to stay kind of on the organic side. Nothing wrong with that, you know, and so I used a lot of that, and then it's still

good to this day. But sorry, right off the bat, though, you were growing inside, but grow tents weren't even a thing, right? Usually, like, built a fucking box at a drywall

No, that's what Danny and I talked about our first like, Mother Mother space, clone space was built from metal garage shelving that I put together and then cut sections out so it'd be an open box that I could kind of hide, and then I encompassed it in emergency blankets and like a Styrofoam insulation on the inside, and then emergency blankets to keep it nice and square and keep my temperatures regulated. So I build a lot of my own shit, and I still think to this day, the best cannabis that we've ever, ever grown came out of a 10 by 12 bedroom with the original hydro farm ballast and the original hydro farm, non air, cold fucking goods that would cover a four by four square perfectly. And so for us, that was what it was. And then we started with the Gen hydro three part. And I was like, Man, this shits just too salty, I could tell, because it always left the crust. And I just, I knew there needed to be, you know, something better had to

be, M, U, G, H, General, hydroponics. I mean, for the time, I'm sure they were, like, crushing it or whatever. But like you said, it was probably, probably slim pickings, not a lot of options early on. Yeah,

that was for us. That was it. I mean, we use a lot of the. Alaska fishing mission, if you could stand the smell. And then it became synthetic, with the the three part. And then it's like, we didn't know about organic inputs and a lot of things, I mean, because some of the things that we were finding out, you know, we didn't realize that it would cross over, like, because in farming, that's one of the techniques. It's crop rotation. They'll grow winter crop, it's just a cover crop, and then they'll go, you know, before spring actually starts, and they'll, they'll turn it over. A lot of the species like, have high nitrogen. So if they're going to plant corn, they put a high nitrogen plant over the winter that grows, and then it becomes part of the soil ecology, and then they plant their corn on top of it. And so it's kind of like crop rotation, so they're not burning out that soil from plants that say are high phosphorus or high calcium meters. So a lot

of people use those cover crops incorrectly. Well, I shouldn't say incorrectly, but, but you're right. The traditional way is to grow them when your principal crop is not in there, absolutely grow like a nitrogen fixer. You said, these are like, like, you said, these are things that pull nitrogen from the air and store them in nodules in their roots, and then kill it. That's a lot of people grow their cover crop at the same time, which is cool and can look beautiful. And I want to discourage people, but the way you described is how, like Mary Beth has said, to get the nutrients in the soil, that's

the purpose of it when you're doing especially because in the Central Valley of California, it's called the bread basket for the world, for fruits and vegetables and nuts. And so you learned a lot, because I knew a lot of Aggies. I knew a lot of people whose whose parents were, you know, second, third generation crop farmers. And, you know, early on, they were wondering why, when they were planting, you know, whether it be corn or cotton continuously in these fields without ever rotating. It that after a period of time, these entire acre plots were were becoming just completely ungrowable. And so it wasn't until they started to realize that we have to have a secondary crop that doesn't, you know, use the same nutrient as, or it's not as nutrient dependent on, say, nitrogen, because corn is a huge lover of nitrogen. So they were, they were learning that, and they were going and replanting, you know, usually was a lot of, like, it was a lot. They did a lot of rye, and they did a lot of winter barley, and they were just turning it back over, and it would sit long enough that this the soil. It would create biology in the soil itself, and and this was all trial and error. And then they learned about crop rotation, so you would see different crops being grown year round, because their main crop, whether it be like I said, cotton or corn, you know, is heavily dependent on specific nutrition. And so then they would come back with their main crop. And so cannabis

farmers learned the same thing when you had, yes, now there's so many options too. There's so many top dress options. You were growing your own top dress, yeah?

So now it's kind of, it's all, it's all kind of done for you. But we were kind of trying to use the same idea, and thankfully, like, our lines just kind of passed with the same groups. And we started doing a lot of like MAX Yield show. We did the first ever MAX Yield show in San Francisco, which was just a complete eye opening experience. We met a bunch of really cool people from Canada, and then we started using their products. And then we met the grateful dead's road manager, which is fucking really cool, because he's the owner of tech flora, yeah. And so we started being introduced to, like, a whole different line of products, right? And then we started to really see, you know, how we could diversify what we were doing with synthetics early on. And, man, as soon as we started to find out about it, it was like faux, the old three part Lucas formula. And then, you know, a lot of them became a lot less salt based. And then you started having, like the kind of crossover organic that could be still ran with other synthetic nutrients successfully. So we kind of jumped onto that. And then it it became about like stimulation of the oils and and what we could do to really ramp. Up the Terps naturally and, and, you know, just little by little, I kind of self taught. And, you know, it was all like a life experience. I mean, something that you would have to go to college, get your degree, and then go out into the field and do it. I felt like I did it all at home and trial in the air. And, and, you know, you start finding out that a lot of the shit that, like even my dad was telling me, was like, Man, that's bullshit. That's not why you do it that way, you know? And, and it's like, it's, it's shit just starts to dawn on you, and you realize, you know, wow, it's going in a whole different direction. I don't think I ever, ever saw it going like into the direction and it's gone. I mean, it's, it's, it's almost become like big tobacco was back in the 80s. You know, just, it's just gotten nuts. It really

has, man, it's unrecognizable to what you described and what a lot of people have experienced, and you just got to make your little your little part. That's what I truly believe, is carve out your little bit of change. Whether it's just your your listener to this show, and you grow your own or maybe you turn someone on to growing. That's one of the best ways to make a difference. Maybe you preserve some strains, like we were talking about before you're actively making a difference in the community, you know, just by supporting good actors and people who are good people, that's a great way to make a change on your own.

And see for for Danny and I, that's we're Mom and Pop, that that's how we've ever been, that's all I really want to be. And so to see that still in existence, that's my favorite thing to see is is, you know, an individual, or even a couple, that they provide their own, you know, their own weed, and you know they they gain the knowledge of personal experience. So maybe what works for them, maybe not, not so much in another garden, but what matters most is that they're doing the experiments. They're gaining the knowledge on their own, without being influenced by outside sources. You know, because what works in your garden and your environmental conditions, that's what matters. And that's, for me, that's what it's about, is the individuals who are, who are getting, you know, into this and, or have been into this, their

own medicine man, and having your own gardening journey, like you said, your own journey, yeah,

yeah. That's where that's that's where all my knowledge came from. Was right there in the 10 by 12 bedroom, and that that I built. And then once it started to become like, Okay, we need to expand, you know. And then Danny was highly involved. And then it became like, Okay, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna do this. And and then it grew from there. But I mean, everything started with a four by four space in a 10 by 12 bedroom, under a 400 watt light. And I was started to yield a half pound, three quarters of a pound, and this was under just high pressure sodium. You veg under fucking high pressure sodium.

You lived under high pressure, you slept under high pressure. And

then it's like, okay, so then we went to the 1001 I said, God damn, that's a lot of fucking like, I'm down. And then, so then we, you know, started running all six hundreds because they were more efficient. You keep, yeah, canopy. And then air cooled came out were like, Holy fuck, that changes the game and able to extract the heat. And it was just,

you know, it's been a wild ride, man, yeah. And

fuck now it's like, I would get the conversion bolt so I could run technically, a metal halide on an HPS system. And I thought that was the shit dude. I was fucking King Kong at that point, you know, I'd have the conversion bulbs in for, you know, three or four week veg. And then I'm like, All right, it's time change. And then I started to leave the conversion in for an extra week and flower and then flip and just like, experiment with shit and secret sauce.

That's fucking dope, man, it's it's crazy to see how far you've come and and I love to see people digging into your genetics. You were very generous with your genetics in our Member community multiple times. And I see people like throwing up some mad pharma gear. I'm actually about to get some to a medical patient who's looking for some mad fall here in particular. So that's,

that's what means the most. That right there is to hear people say, you'd appreciate

that I still have some deep strawberry left. So that's going to go to this medical patient, add

that right there. That's what that's all about. That's, you know, that's why we kind of opened ourselves up, because. Is we wanted to it made such a difference for me, and I wanted to share that with other people who could be experiencing, going through, dealing with similar or the same things. And you know, that's what it was all about. It was, you know, it wasn't about a strain name or anything other than, did that help you, that you know what I mean, and so that's what it was about.

I love it, man, that's what it's all about. That is what it's all about. That's a good place to wrap it up. Man. I mean, this hour flew by. Thank you for coming back on the show. Where, where can people find you? Like, if someone wants to send you a message, say thank you and that they heard you. Instagram Best Place to reach

you. Yeah, they can hit me on the Instagram. You know, this time of year, we've been handling other things. My two doctors are, one is an hour away, and then the other one's like 45 minutes away. And I do it every 28 days on one and depending on the other one, that's every 30 to 90 days. So I'm here and I'm there, and we've been trying to get back into things. So Instagram, typically is the easiest, and then soon I've noticed that people are on the Backup page. Our Backup page is just mad farmer genetics, and we only have that because my account was suspended by stupid ass Instagram. And so we got it back, and then, like, there were a lot of people that were using

DMing you on the old account. Yeah, I think it's less shadow banned, too. I think it comes up a little quicker. I made that mistake too. I shot a message to that because it popped up quickest in my it does.

It does. And because I have been shadow banned, and then so many people make fake accounts. The actual mad farmer account is the th, E, underscore mad M, A, D, D, underscore farmer. That's the actual Insta

original account, which you now have back then. That's the one that they should hit you up

on, yeah, that's the one definitely hit me up on because I forget the Mad pharma genetic side, and I know you don't even know if I get notifications from there, so hit me up on that one, and you know, we'll see what we can can do if they need help. And then I, like you just said, Jay, I love hearing you know that, hey, this one was really successful, or, Hey, this one didn't work quite so well for me. Like, is there another one? Maybe along the lines, you know this feedback is, is what it's all about.

Man, we appreciate you. Keep it up, brother. Hang in there. I know Oklahoma is crazy, and we're going to support you at grow cast. So thank you one more time for this awesome episode, and all of your episodes and

all of your help. Oh, you're always more than welcome. Jay, always awesome, man.

We appreciate you so much. We appreciate you listeners. I know you love this one that's all for now. This is the Mad farmer in Jordan River signing off, saying, Be safe out there, everybody, and please grow smarter. Bye, bye. Now you that's our show. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you to Mad farmer. I appreciate you all. And special shout out to the members. That's right. Get hundreds of hours of bonus content, plus all the old episodes, resources, member videos and so much more. It's all waiting for you at growcast podcast.com/membership that's all at growcast podcast.com, I appreciate the members so much. Your support allows me to continue to do this every day is my full time job. I am honored, and I work so hard for the members in our membership program. I'm there every single day. We'll solve any garden problem you have, you'll get members only discounts, access to our Discord, tons of extra content, you'll love it. Grow cast podcast.com/membership, thank you to all the members, find the seeds and the classes and everything else. Growcast podcast.com, thanks everybody. I appreciate you so much. I hope you're doing amazing things in your garden. Hope things are going well. Hope you're staying safe out there, and have some happy holidays, folks. We'll see you next time bye, bye. You goodbye.

And I thought that was the shit dude. I was fucking King Kong at that point. I.