The origins of Haze
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What's the story of Haze?
Haze is, probably, the most grown and renowned 100% sativa hybrid throughout the world. Its origins date back to the early 1970's in the region of Santa Cruz, California (USA).During this time, two brothers known as the "Haze Brothers" (R. Haze and J. Haze) cultivated and crossed different cannabis lines using seeds of the best imported sativa strains, most times offered by their friend and neighbor Sam "The Skunkman".It all began with a hybrid between a landrace sativa from Mexico and another landrace from Colombia. One year later, the best females selected from this hybrid were crossed with a landrace strain from southern India. Finally, the female offspring of this new hybrid was crossed again with a landrace male from Thailand.
Thus, Haze is a 100% Sativa hybrid of cannabis plants from Mexico, Colombia, India and Thailand. At first, the Haze wasn?t very stable and showed many different phenotypes. The most known was the famous "Purple Haze", a pheno with Colombian dominance. Purple Haze became the most powerful and beautiful Haze strain on the market, but at the same time it also became the most expensive one.Sam ?The Skunkman? took some of the seeds from the Haze Brothers to the Netherlands in 1976, being among them the Original Haze. At the beginning of the 80?s he crossed the Atlantic and finally moved to the Netherlands, where he sold his seeds under the label of Cultivator's Choice.
The Haze has a strong aroma of spices with light incensed and sandalwood undertones and a citric aftertaste provided by the genetics from Thailand. It induces a powerful, uplifting and psychedelic effect, incredibly clear, energizing and very long lasting.Being a 100% Sativa strain, it was difficult to grow indoors. The flowering period was very long (more than 16 weeks) and plants grew too vigorously, soon reaching a considerable size difficult to handle in indoor grow rooms. The Haze was then crossed with Indica strains to adapt it to indoor environments. Sam The Skunkman developed several hybrids, as for example Haze/Skunk or Indian Haze, which can be found in SeedsMan's catalogue.A young Australian-dutch called Neville Schoenmakers (at that time owner of the shop "The Seed Bank", today known as Sensi Seeds Bank) recovered some seeds of a pure Haze. He selected two excellent male plants and called them "A" and "C", and also a female named "B". Then, he also developed several crosses with some Indica strains, thus creating new Haze hybrids that had an immediate success on the market.
Haze strains
Within all these new Haze hybrids, the most remarkable one was the Northern Lights 5 x Haze, which won the first edition of the High Times Cannabis Cup back in 1988. NL#5 was probably at that time the best Indica female plant of the market. Thus, this 50% Indica - 50% Sativa hybrid is still today a very appreciated strain.Next, Neville created other strains based on the Haze, such as the legendary Silver Haze for Sensi Seeds. Soon after, along with his friend Shantibaba, he left Sensi Seeds to join Greenhouse Seeds. Sensi Seeds bred several Haze hybrids, as for example the famous variety Jack Herer, which was developed in tribute to the famous American activist (RIP).Neville and Shantibaba also made a wide outdoor selection of 1.000 NL#5/Haze plants. They chose 2 superb females and crossed them with the same Skunk/Haze male, thus creating the multi-awarded Super Silver Haze and Mango Haze. As Jack Herer, Super Silver Haze and Mango Haze are hybrids of Haze, Skunk#1 and NL#5 genetics, perhaps the three best hybrids available on the market.The Super Silver Haze had a huge success and won the High Time Cannabis Cup in 1998 and 1999. Neville then decided to create a new hybrid with more Haze traits: he then crossed his best female plant, the NL#5 x Haze "A", with his "C" Haze male, and created the famous "Neville's Haze", a 75% Haze hybrid not recommended for novice smokers due to its extreme psychedelic power.
Amnesia Haze is another famous cannabis strain based on Haze genetics, which probably came from a selection of Super Silver Haze. The breeder Soma - from Holland - kept a G13/Haze male which was found in a pack of seeds received from Neville. Only one seed sprouted, so he was lucky to get such a quality male.Neville and Shantibaba left GreenHouse Seeds in 1998 to sign up for Mr Nice Seeds, where they continued developing new Haze hybrids. For their part, GreenHouse continued breeding new Haze lines such as Arjan Haze #1, #2 and #3, Arjan Ultra Haze, NL5/Haze Mist, Strawberry Haze or the famous Super Lemon Haze.
By that time, the breeder at Ace Seeds proposed the creation of a very pure Haze strain called Old Timer?s Haze . Since this strain has never been crossed with an Indica plant it keeps a pure Sativa genepool, something highly appreciated by Sativa connoisseurs. Purple Haze by Positronics is also worth mentioning on this article, a spectacular plant with Haze dominance.
Cannabis strains with at least 50% Haze genes:
Dutch Haze, Super Haze and Brainstorm (Dutch Passion), Mako Haze (Kiwi Seeds), G13/Haze (Barney?s Farm), Cannalope Haze (DNA), La Niña (Mr Nice), DelaHaze (Paradise Seeds), Dhaze (Vulkania seeds), Nevilles Haze Hybrid (Female Seeds), Moby Dick #1, #2 and Super Silver (Dinafem), Y Griega (Medical Seeds), Super Silver Bilbao (Genehtik), Botafumeiros (Sweet Seeds), and finally Amnesika from Philosopher Seeds.The following varieties also contain a great proportion of Haze genetics: Buddha Haze (Big Buddha), Royale Haze, Cloud #9 and Super Critical Haze (Dinafem), Purple Haze #1, Claustrum and Cum Laude (Positronics Seeds), Llimonet Haze (Elite Seeds), Jack The Ripper (Subcool/TGA), Jack Flash (Sensi Seeds), Guanábana, Wombat and Santa Muerte (Blin Burn Seeds), without forgetting Easy Haze from Philosopher Seeds.
Haze genetics
name "Haze" acquired such fame that it has become a generic term to talk about high grade Cannabis Sativa hybrids, even if they don?t actually contain Haze genetics. We are talking about strains like Bangi Haze (Ace Seeds), Tasman Haze (Kiwi Seeds) or Utopia Haze (Barney's Farm).Haze has become the reference for quality Sativa hybrids in the cannabis scene, and today we can find literally tens of hybrids developed from this amazing genetics. Its intense cerebral effect and unmistakable taste have made it a true favorite among Sativa lovers.Have a nice smoke!
