i have been checking for malawi gold availability almost a year if not more by now and it just isn't showing up and ALL of their strains are going out of stock at every seedbank much like the many thai & cambodian crosses from spice brothers did about 5 or so years ago. it would really be sad to see this breeder disappear because his lemony malawi gold is one of the coolest & rarest trippy IBL sativas and could only give hybrid vigor when bred with all of the sativas based on asian & south american IBLs. it's especially disheartening after having all 5 of my mekong haze pure cambodian sativas crap out on me. haze is getting harder to find, breeders are dropping sativas like flies. many breeders that DO offer sativas are sketchy to rolling the dice at best too. i had just as much with compact but lemony & trippy burmese beans too. i'm 0 for 2 at attempts for pure a=IBL Asian sativas. the stretchy thai full moons i'm trying to sex have some indica pollution in them already. i'd like to have created a trippy & lemony burmese x malawi gold after working lowryders for smallest couchlock free male breeders. something like auto lemon skunk & apollo 11 could start the ballk rolling with a 15" trippy "indica" with a neutral couchlock balance. if any of the 4 UFOs i dropped proves skunky, i'll probably pull it as it's enough of a pain dealing with low odor strains. i haven't liked dealing with the funkiest named strains i've grown including nirvana's whit castle, manadala's hashberry & tiny but extra funky flumpy's lowdown mystery. there's nothing like opening your door to a skunk stampede. even if i have no immediate plans to grow it out, i'd like to grab some malawi gold for posterity if it ever gets re-released. i've heard seedsman's MG is pure schwag and rumors of reeferman being kind of sketchy despite having some of the most interesting sativas on paper. sativa seeds is starting to look like the last place to get decent sativa genes. i can say that "their" haze 19 skunk (sold under the nirvana badge just as one of nirvana's old strains is called el dorado or vice versus at satriva seeds. they're sister companies) looks much more sativa & hence hazy than high quality seeds' one which not onlky has broader indica looking leaves, but also more couchlock than the actual skunk #1 pheno i smoked around '02 that was playful & euphoric with a fair, but not overwhelming amount of couchlock! haze trippiness is way more apparent in HQS' offering though as it should be when crossing 75% sat Sk1 with 90% 4x IBL haze. i think that strain could be more visual than the pure haze i just smoked a few hours ago, but that smooth toking shit had no couchlock going on at all, but wasn't racy either and had a true sativa high. even if it were to preserve haze, haze x malawi gold would be outstanding. oh please don't let that strain go extinct! if you have it, send some beans to sativa seeds to preserve it. if nirvana breeders are reading this, save malawi gold while you still can. it's about the purest IBL left. lemon is a cool flavor too. long ago i thought MG lemon meets kali mist crushed red pepper would be tasty, but racy & paranoid aren't complementary. SAVE MALAWI GOLD!
I read over at icmag that the breeder died. I don't know if what I read is true, but Afropips is no longer doing business. I've read the latter in several different places. Ah, that's too bad. What happened? Did they germinate? I have not tried them yet. I do have a Durban Poison going. She's getting flipped to 12/12 tomorrow.
i only got one mekong to crack it's shell and drop dead. the onlt thingi can think of is that my room was too cold causing bad germination rates all around. normally i get close to 100% but i'm 0 for 2 on asian IBL sativas, burmese being the other one i had zero luck with. it's really starting to get scary at how fast sativas are just fucking disappearing! you can't neville's original haze anymore, most of the IBLs are extinct and a couple breeders that deal in sativas are sketchy at that. once they're gone, you can't get them back. i so wanted to get afropips' malawi gold as it's one of just a couple IBLs left. otherwise, anyone growing sativas isn't sharing them. the best bet for a trusty sativa nowadays is probably nirvana's sativa line, sativa seeds. i'm getting light on some leaf trim from a couple recently transplanted thai based full moons that just do not want to just show their sex. i have 3 URBAN poisons (25% northern lights) getting ready to go in the peat pots i just soaked earlier and once their tiny seeded mixed sativa finally rooted, it took off like a mofo. the nirvana branded haze 19 skunk looked way more sativa than high quality seeds' version which had more stone to it than some 1995 skunk #1 in it despite supposing to be even more sativa. i guess now is a good time to finally get my thumb out of my ass and get to growing for real as i really want to preserve what's left of the best high in the world you can get. it wasn't devastatingly potent, but my taste of 8 miles high was the best buzz i've ever gotten out of an indoor strain, except possibly pure durban which i had taste & smoking it all up too quick issues with. if worse comes to worse, i'll just lay down money on a high priced strain that isn't shabby like metal haze or destroyer if senor garcia isn't around anymore. i really wanted to get 100% IBL genes though. it's kind of sad that the very thing that would have prevented indicrap from ever taking over, ruderalis, a sativa, is now being used to create the smallest strains ever and had it been possible to keep the true sativa high without degrading it's buzz in small plans as indicrap has done to EVERYTHING. had someone come up with a 4 foot tall columbian gold, no one would ever have to get stoned again.
I'll be sure to give my first Mekong Haze seed a warm start. Afropips Durban Poison was supposed to be really good as well. Ace Seeds has some interesting sativas. No IBLs though, not for sale. 8 Miles High is on my short list to grow. The holy grail. EDIT: Here's a more recent picture of that Durban Poison. She's a week into 12/12 and stretching.
if you were to not like 8 miles high i would be totally surprised! as compact as durban is supposed to be, i was surprised to see my 1st female stretch maybe even more than haze skunk despite having a full 25% northern lights, but at least that one sexes early. i think i should just devote one grow to a giant IBL SCROG when i have more bud than i can smoke for a while as these refusing to sex full moons are starting to annoy me especially after giving them center stage & a transplant. there are a few sativas at sativa seeds i'm interested in. their oaxican el dorado might be the closest thing i ever get to real columbian gold again and i bet that full moon smokes like a mofo if you cater to her every peep & sprout her in 50 gallon drums. i'd like to put some clones of that outdoors and train it to the ground some day if only i could find a secluded spot. you know what i've noticed about modern life? everwhere you go... there's someone else! if you do get so much as a start from mekong haze, definitely let me know about that as it was the strain that replaced malawi in my dream skunk #1... malawi gold, burmese & C99, but now that i've tried cindy, she can onlt get 2nd best status for being so jumpy without any psychoactivity. if someone can get some more compact sativa leaning lowryders, 18" hindu kush x AK47 looks promising, then the high end (read non SOG growers) that used to grow large hybrids might be growing 5" tall sativas while the cash crop scene gets miniaturized until everyone just starts doing 6 times a year shop light grows in their closets. the cost of beans starts being a factor though with small yielding plants. now i imagine something like [(hindu kush x ak47) x 8 miles high] x [(hindu kush x ak47) x mekong haze] with some selective breeding for size & THC profile there's a really interesting sounding auto i can't remember the name of that's supposed to have a trippy high. perhaps that straight crossed & selected with mekong would be the route to making satives doable indoors once & for all. i'll have more to say about hopefully both phenos of 8 miles high by spring as i've given that an instant replay when cindy & LSD go packing & full moon is in bondage & 50 gallon buckets. if only she'd flash some pubes i'd upgrade, that or just take a bunch of fucking cuttings for next year. in the works now, 6 x C99, one little LSD main cola, one haze skunk, 1 scrawny bagseed (sativa?) i might get a dozen seeds and a gram out of, my even scrawnier super cali haze i might get 1/2 that out of though both are gals for sure. i also have a scrawny plucked haze skunk that never took to her transplant i'm going to try and turn into a pair of clones and seee if they root better, though they're in flowering now & i'm not running any 24 hours. in the works are a sprouted onyx already in a 2 gallon as that's a stretcher & i already know it's a fem, 5 x 8 miles in 16 oz, 3 urbans in cups, 3 hasberries in pellets & 4 grapey bagseed hybrids that might have trainwreck in them. with the 4 pellets of lemon skunk, la blanca, california hash & mataro blue going into about 1 1/2 gallon color coded pots i originally intended to use when i bought my light & soil before moving & forgetting i had all that nutrition & am now just using 2 gallon poly with some drop cloth under them. i've been picking at the current grow all along and am now working on some shaded & ingrown C99 leaf along with a couple scrawny bottom budlets but am not killing anything off and have really happy cindys once they got their asses fattened. i can see onces of bud in my room still already & my breeder has finally started blowing his wad, though most of it falls on his own leaves before i can pick him up and spray his pollen. i'm going to collect some pollen in envelopes for possible use, especially in controlled breeding, in the future & because i can but found trying to knock pollen on sheets of paper didn't work as well as planned my 1st try where any pollen i did catch fell off picking the paper up. BTW i recently sampled 1/2 a gram of haze and loved it! it had a surprising amount of grapey highland thai flavor going on when i expected spicy and had an amazing high. it was lighter & more euphoric than prime columbian gold, but not quite as visual, at least in low doses. i told my provider to offer the guy prime dollar for some weight of that stuff. 8 miles high was kind of like a milder version of that with less psychoactivity, but the quality is 100% there if not the quantity. i could smoke nothing but 8 miles high the rest of my life & be happy but i'm still after a full blown trippy high & cindy is my "build a space shuttle from scratch in my back yard" go to gal. i expect urban poison to give 8 miles a run for it's money in the psychoactivity arena if not the flavor one although juniper berries sounds less threatening than the taste of licorice i know is in pure durban. haze skunk has nice visuals, but is really stony, moreso than the '97 skunk #1 i had even without the 50% haze! high quality seeds definitely used a less sativa pheno of skunk #1 than nirvana did with their H19 skunk. i really wanted more of that but got pissed with gypsy about not being able to let me change umy shipping address & having to create email accounts i don't want for every order. i bet that one was a lot closer to the haze i smoked as the leaves & stretch from that one shouted sativa. why don't you stop by the trippiest high thread i created and share your experiences. hardly anyone has experienced that apparently as the thread has tumbleweeds blowing through it by now. time to bake 1 of the last 3 hits of tonight's pruning. i think i'm going to train my C99s as there seems to be some height variation & the tall plucked colas should be easy to tie down. it should help with the yield some too i bet. i'll just be happy when i finally get through this as my 1st complete grow. it's definitely improved my patience some as the pickings are much better if you just wait a bit for them.
Picked up some WW from Dr Chronic a month or so back. He chucked in 10 afropips seeds. Grenaderm I think was the name (will double check in a moment). Can't seem to find the strain on the Afropips website mind. Anyone any experience with these? The Afropips website seems to be relatively up to date. Edit: His facebook page is very up to date indeed. Leads me to believe that they're not out of business at all? Orient
That's a recent development. The website was down last time I checked, maybe 2 months ago. On their bio page, they explain that the breeder passed away in 2008, but "his legacy lives on." I do not know if that means they are selling off old stock or they are producing fresh stock. They do not ship to the US. They have not resupplied Attitude. They do have contact info on the site. I suppose we could ask them. The fact that they have sprung back into being as a going concern is heartening.
i had every intention of using malawi gold and/or mekong haze to breed the best indoor sativa possible without ever polluting the strain with afghanicrap using either lowryders or doc's virtually couchlock free but nearly 100% indica troublemakers based on hindu & masterkush. it had less couchlock than 75% sativa skunk #1! his gear is out of stock at doc's & gypsy's too. i've been waiting for malawi gold to come back in stock almost a year now it seems. i bet my sativa seeds' 25% northern lights urban poison won't compare to your IBL, but i still expect something decent out of it after seeing how eager it is to frost over early. i'm giving 3 or 4 of them another try for harvest 2. my 1st harvest is going to be a bit scrawny & picked over with half a dozen C99s (2 shorty & 4 sativa phenos), a single nugget top cola LSD (possibly stunted by being rootbound), a stony HQS haze skunk just starting to flower, 2 full moons that aren't flashing shit for 3 months by now and a C99 male squirting dust in quantity now though i think my gals are 80% knocked up by now. i just saw my 1st green seed in a bottom bud. i'm not sure, but i think the resin is thickening on my popcorn buds. 4 out of 5 females with an 8 miles high breeder would be perfect for next round. i'm totally pampering that crop although i think i'll take some cuttings as soon as the plants sex to get a nice SOG harvest while i'm quickly burning through my ounce or two of C99 and 1/4 of rock hard LSD. i need to read my marijuana horticulture guide to see when a seeded bud is mature enough to harvest. that plant is just not getting any bigger since before being transplanted to a nutrient rich 2 gallon. i do think that's the closest to harvest i have. i'd do it now if i knew the seeds would be viable. my scrawny little super cali haze is looking adorable. it's like a sparkling dark green little flower. if you could just plant a seed and get a bunch of those in 30 days, WOW! it seems to have taken root deeper in it's cup after i raised it as it looks quite healthy despite it's tiny size. i can't wait to see what C99 does to that miniature tree (when not stunted) when i test it's maybe dozen beans. it's like a 4" tall bud plant. i need to take a picture of it. i'd love that to be my front lawn... then again, sticky feet? no thanks.
i just checked their website and it seems to be up and working and it also seems like you can still buy from them.
to paraphrase an old poem "gather ye haze buds while ye may" it's hard to preserve sativas even when you try though. i'm 0 for 15 with burmese & cambodian mekong haze attempts. if people start patronizing sativa seeds more for their goods, they might seek to add new strains to their collection. all these great sativas are nearly extinct except in small grows that aren't sharing beans or in watered down attempts to preserve them burmese highland (tutti fruity) thai lowland (spicy) thai kerala (india) panama red columbian gold acapulco gold malawi gold vietnamese blackseed and with the passing of afropips, a lot of african IBLs are going to be lost. this is so fucking sad. i like haze a lot, but it's not as trippy as good extinct columbian gold. even if it came from brick seed, sativa seeds' oaxican has potential as i've gotten alot of acceptable buzzes off brick after the indicrap infestation of the 80s. i wish i still had the reasonably trippy high grade brick bagseed i called panama red. it had razor thin leaves and stretched like a mofo. with proper care, it would have been bitchin'. another sativa i called spicy might have been kali mist or something related and i'm sure the bagseed i called columbian gold or the purple haze one weren't shabby either. i'd still rather smoke mexican brick before stony cash crap any day. high & stoned are two entirely different things, one is fun, and the other sucks rotten eggs out of a dead skunk's (pun intended) ass.
world of seeds claims they have 75% columbian gold feminized beans for $30 for 3. if no one else checks their gear out, i will. i'd work something nice up before i diluted that any further if it's for real. i'd bet it's at least as good as haze if not better if it is real gold. my shopping lists for a sativa shootout if i ever found a location or build a big scrog table & got a couple more lights would include: sativa seeds full moon (thai) el dorado (oaxican) urban poison (25% NL5) actually, pollinating that with speedy C99 should tame some NL stone effects while bringing size down too if not maintaining a full trippy high. i'll have to save some C99 pollen to try that as i'm about to switch over to 8 mile high pollen flyovers to see what that does to auto minis THC profiles. world of seeds columbian gold & any afropips still on the shelf somewhere i see some malawi C99 on the shelf at docs and will grab some power malawi as there are worse things to cross it with than real durban poison. i will treat those beans with much respect if there are any left. i have more than enough C99 going on already but that would be a killer strain for someone to look for a malawi that's already started to shrink with some insurance against indicrap from enegetic C99. it looks like pokernaut is breeding for africa in the world cup. will be testing lemon skunks, whites, auto AK-47s & other promising dwarves for crossing with those pips with the planning of getting rid of the licorice flavor. if 14" auto lemon skunk isn't stoney, it would be a good way to preserve more malawai flavor while taming size & flowering time. lemon is a good goal and there are plenty of citrust strains out there. lemony & trippy apollo 11 would only hurt by adding some couchlock. super cali haze seems like a natural strain to test in breeding a malawi for practicality. power malawi x malawi C99 would offer awesome F2 phenos when backcrossed. power malawi x mekong haze would be scary IBL mutt archiving if you could get the mekong to root. power malawi x thai or oaxican has great potential to preserve what's left of the IBLs. pure malawi gold would be worth it's weight in namesake about now. the $74 malawi minis should be of interest to anyone looking for something to cross with super cali haze etc. it's too expensive for me, but i'd love to have this, but in the long run, it's better to start with pure IBL and then improve through careful selection including testing males. starting over without hashish genes & even more compact autos can really do a lot for preserving getting high and maybe start it's popularity indoors finally. even if one had to give up 10% or so of potency to preserve the quality of trippy sativa highs in 5 foot tall or less autos it would be worth it because there's getting fucking high, and everything else that just gets you lower & lower. it's time for some post power plant 2.0 it doesn't taste like peanut butter, but it doesn't get you stoned either
Afroman sadly passed away on the 1st of September 2008 at the age of 43 years. After decades working with the cannabis plant, James may have passed away but his legacy lives on.
well said honor the last of his gear everyone. i really should get that malawi durban while i can. i really hope some well connected breeder get's someone's malawi gold cuttings and keeps the line alive with backcrossing or crossing with a sativa dominant lowryder. i'd name a strain afronaut or something in his honor if i had the genes. that the public heard less about his awesome gear than disgusting tasting diesel is sad.
when i was in the south carribean i picked up a sack from some local dude it was brown and full of seeds but i got so much and now i now what your thinken brown dirt weed NO not at all this weed was great it was for sure some old style sativa(it was really dank) and the high was not at all like the new strains so collected the seeds and brought them back to my home now these seeds were not used to northern hemisphere climate at all i tried to germ them here as soon as i got back needless to say it was to cold and i killed them i kick myself every day.
NEVER judge bagseed by the bud it came from unless it's well cared for. there are sooooooo many things you can do to fuck a plant up to the point it's no longer recognizable dirt weed - that same dusty brown headache inducing kind of shit you got... grown by someone just throwing seeds in piss poor sandy/clay soil with few nutrients and poor watering brick - there's so much that can go wrong there... THC degredation from the heat, chemical reactions from breakdown, fermenting of the weed, rot, mold etc. harvest it too late - ruining the THC profile as it degrades to stony canniboids like CBD & CBN grow in too much heat - again... you get THC degredation too cold - you get stunted anemic plants that can't gather enough light to fatten up and so on. genes are only 1/2 the battle. you can make generic schwag seeds smoke better than the best in the world just by treating the scwag right & abusing the prizewinners i feel your pain though. i wasted ALL of my 20+ bagseed varieties in the early 90s and had everything from half a dozen DIFFERENT mexican sativas including 3 trippier ones i called (panama) red, (columbian) gold & purple (haze) as well as just two beans of some awesome shit i called spicy that tasted like old school kali mist to a flat out roadkill skunk (before the OG kushes etc). i stressed all 40 of my beans under a couple shoplights picking them over for daily leaflet trim topping, but i was getting so much better smoke from it than you can ever buy on the street unless your street is fucking rodeo drive! LOL i wish i still had all those genes. *sigh* it's OK though, there are plenty of good strains that smoke like sativas you can do indoors like C99, haze skunk, 8 miles high, LSD, urban poison &super cali haze etc. it's nice too when you KNOW the genetics in your strains for breeding purposes
great reading through this thread, I have seen afropips.com as alive and well with new breeders promoting seeds through a local forum. I also heard that there are afropips seeds up for grabs in competitions. I am a new user but catching on quick. I want some of these seeds.