Does anyone have any info on who created skunk and how?

Heres the Skunk Story, Pulled from another forum, Enjoy


Skunk#1 was the result of a communal breeding effort by a small clique of breeders who worked the coastal hills surounding the Bay Area. The first "skunk" plant (C.Gold x AFG unstable) was not discovered by this group but, Jingles who cut the unstable line, but kept this one special plant for his personal garden. This was around '69 or so. anyway, the clone made its way round the club and soon this Bay Area group decided to adopt it as a project.
With the C.Gold mom used by Jingles as well as the Haze Bros they set about trying to create a stable version of Jingles "skunk". The result would be known as Skunk#1. Columbian Gold x Acapulco Gold/Afgani There are better people around here to tell you the exact details, not the least whom is Sam_Skunkman over @ TFD. Yes it's him.

My understanding of the SK#1 breeding group is that it started very small and grew as time went by. SkMan starting out as a Jr grower in the late 60's and rising to the level of chief breeder and seedmaker for the seed co.
in the late 70's/early 80's. It was supposed to have been very difficult to join this group and a prospect would first have to be sponsered by a member of the inner circle then be required to breed out a certain number of versions of Sk#1 from both clones provided by the club as well as genetics they provided themselves. This way they assured quality control and widened the gene pool at the same time. The original unstable "model skunk"plant was a direct cross of C.Gold x Afg. But the Bay Area people soon found out how difficult it was going to be to cross a C.Gold to anything. So it was found that it was easier to cross these difficult plants to a plant that was already hybribized. Hence the Introduction of A.Gold into the mix. This also apparently added two other favorable traits. In addition to making crosses easier, high GCA has been stated by Clark as one of the goals of the breeders, the A.Gold also marginaly reduced flower time but most importent was its addition to calyx/leaf ratio. If you turn to P 248 of Mels Dlx you will find a pic of four mexican colas. Notice the two shots on the bottom are taken against the backround of Sandy W's barn. I'm almost 100% sure the plant on the lower right is A.Gold and about 90% that it's the primary A.Gold mom in Sk#1. Notice the foxtail style buds and hi C/L. Now imagine this crossed to an afgani, starting to get the picture? By the way most but not all of the Afganis were from MLW.

As i said earlier most of the Sacred Seeds breeding groups suffered disasters of one sort or another in the early days and in the case of Sk#1 it was the dreaded botritis cinerea, grey mold. Introduced by some of the early afgani crosses it kicked of a massive afgan genetics hunt/torture test. And while the late great Maple Leaf Wilson provided most of the genes they scowered every nook and cranny for an Afgani ;0. Many non Skunk#1 members of the Sacred Seeds who were also working on their own projects got involved.

I already spoke about Sandy W's involment and there were apparently others though the only one I am reasonably sure of was an East Bay biker/Vietnam Vet who went by the handle "Mendacino Joe", who as you can probably guess by his name he was supposed to have been one of the founders of the Trinity grow scene. Joe was working on a grape/pepper flavored mostly afgani hybrid not related to Sk#1, but he had a large collection of genetics and was a good grower and so he was included in the torture tests. The ultimate result of these tests was a special line called Skunk#18.2 (Sk#1 x Afg bx-1). It is a line that inparts incredible hardiness and pest/disease resistance on its offspring.

The Skunkman brought several kilos of these seeds with him along with his other stuff when he moved to holland in '82 in the wake of his release from prison.As far as I know he has only given these seeds to Nevil, Shanti, and Wernhard from Positronics. (ever wonder why Shiva Skunk {NL#5 x SK#1) is so resistant to spider mites?)

In the wake of the Sacred Seeds bust in '82, "Mendacino Joe" moved to the Vancouver islands and changing his handle to "Romulan" Joe bringing with him some early Sk#1s or deriviteves, a line of Central Ithsmus lowland Thai that may have been purchased from the Haze Bros and of course his grape/pepper flovored indica strain, Romulan. Soon to be a BC classic. It was these lines that Pr. Ziggy @ Federation seeds in BC was supposed to have purchased from old Joe shorly before his death, and are offered as Island Sweet Skunk, Golden Triangle Thai, and Romulan. Torture tests and "inoculations" were mostly done outdoors with special patches of extra clones in an isolated area, which were then diliberatly infected. Deseased and pest riddled local plants would be transplanted into these special gardens and then the plants were tested to destruction while the growers watched and made note of the strongest individauls. Sacred Seeds was all about division of labor.It's one of the ways they accomplished so much in so little time and they used natural selection to work in their favor. Skunk#1 first went on sale in '78 or '79. As far as I know it was the only strain that Sacred Seeds didn't give a discount on orders over 1k seeds. Seeds were 2$ a peice and people bitched about prices even back then. Especialy that no discount thing But like the Hazes (which could sellout a year ahead) SK#1 sold out every year. The seeds were sold as F1's made if I recall with a F ? fillial plant backcrossed to one of the original parents. Due to the communal nature of the project,there were many parents as each breeder included his own varietion, Skunk#1s bred from the same P1 stock but often getting to the goal a different way, for instance some variations used C.Gold on the male side. With tight control over the P1s the breeders could assure their stated goal of making true breeding stock but with the widest possible gene pool they could also be sure to achieve both high SCA and GCA. also stated goals of the project.

Now I can tell you from personal experience that exactly what constituted a "skunk" was a matter of just a little debate but they basically came down into camps which actually carried forward into the Dutch world. The "Sweet Skunk" camp, which including the SkMan, and the "Stinky Skunk" camp. In terms of modern Sk#1 the CC/TFD Skunkman bred "the Pure" is bred for more consistant plants and towards the SkMans ideal Sk#1. While the stinky side of the house would be best represented by the SeedBank/Mr Nice skunks which also have more variation in types like the earlier California skunks. I must state here that there is no right answer, its a matter of taste and a debate thats been going for on about 30 years. In '82 I came home one night and turned on the TV. Just as they went to commercial the news bimbo teased the story, "comin right up after this" police official say they got the source of the skunk. Yeah right I thought, we'd heard these claims before, always to be followed by shot of some deputies pulling three scragly plants from some poor sucker's patch. This time it was different, this time they were standing in front of a warehouse.

Sacred Seeds was busted in '82. The Skunkman was arrested and the cops were in possetion of the groups main seedmaking op. But this bunch was savey and had pre-paid bailbonds/lawyers on retainer and so SkMan was out in a matter of hours. And so began one of the greatest capers in Sacred Seeds history.

An event I will call "the great rootball rescue". Skunkman, out on bail and eager to find out the condition of his grow rooms stakes out the grow to make sure the cops aren't waiting there for him. After sitting for hours he finally gets over his paranoia and makes a cursery recon and can't believe what he finds, the cops in either there arrogance or ignorance have left the place secured with only police tape. checking the grow as well as the dumpster out back the found many plants cut well above the the first node and some that had been simply pulled from their containers and tossed whole. the dumpster was also full of seeds and it was obvious that the cops had broken many seed containers but because there were so many eventually just started throwing jars out whole. the cops had left all the stuff there until morning when they could properly catolog it, including all the grow equip. Skunkman sprang into action, called a number of the un-busted members of the club and the "great rootball rescue" was under way. His friends showed up and they litteraly stripped the place of every thing usefull. Lights were sold to pay legal fees, the rootballs, including the Haze mom SkMan has to this day were nursed back to health by the people who escaped prosicution and the police were left with a distinct lack of evidence. Causing some of the cases to collapse entirly and some, like SkMan to serve greatly reduced sentances. If they'de gotten him on everything they wanted him for he'd still be there. Instead, He served less than a year and on his release he collected up his strains from his friends, including Sk#18.2 rescued from the dumpster and made his way to amsterdam were he founded Cultivators Choice seed co, named after the top award at the annual Sacred Seeds harvest fests held in Nor Cal from 67-83. A year later Skunkmans new friend aqquire a second batch of Sacred Seeds Sk#1 seeds. When Cultivators Choice went out of biz a few year later Nevil bought most of their stock. While both worked from the same set of Sk#1 females each has there own males (breeders never give up a male) selected from the only two importations of authentic Sk#1 into Holland.

The Cultivators Choice variation is the one offered by TFD as "the Pure" The SeedBank version is @ Mr Nice, Shanti's Shit is his Sk#1/Afg variation with "Pure Shit" aka pure Sk#1 upcoming.

Interesting read, thanks

quite enjoyed reading that, its almost amazing the storys that come with some strains, g13 was another (though id like to do the widow version slightly more i think) make them all the better to grow aswell while adding that little extra, feeling you know more about the past of the genetics, bit like buying a car or bike with full service history

few years back (about 2 or 3) i brought a cheapo pack of sensi skunk#1, it was 1 of the 15 seed packs, which since i have learnt was probably seed stock that was about 2 years old when i got it and was renouned for crap germ rates) in the end i got about 4 seeds that sprouted, all females, and was an amazing smoke, i WILL be doing it again sometime, though might do a few others like the pure too, mabe this calls for an assorted skunk grow

I agree, its nice to grow something with a bit of history. Those pioneers put so much work into creating skunk and other originals i think its only right we grow it and enjoy it for what it is, one of the most succesful stablized hybrids ever. Try The Flying Dutchmens 'The Pure' Skunk #1 you get loads of phenos, pure indica to pure sativa and everything inbetween i love it!
Long live the skunk

sam the skunkman, i had the original back in 1994. but the cops got them.

Yeah i found that too, something for everyone

Amazing article on the history of skunk.

I've only just sprouted my Shiva (NL5xSK1) and
I'm gonna look at em a little differently from now on.

Thankyou.

i got a few seedsman skunk#1 on the go at the moment, dunno if theres different phenotypes, but mine look to be full indica.

Maybe Seedmans skunk#1 is just their selection they have bred, probably because it was their preferred high or grow height or something. Its still skunk#1 though.
Theres loads of skunk selections like Skunk Passion from dutch passion and skunk #11 etc they all descend from the original skunks

I've done the seedsman skunk#1 back in the early days.

I germed 6 of the ten, and one grew rather tall & wouldn't flower.
It was culled as a male through lack of space under the CFL's.

The other 5 were relatively uniform with just the one smaller runt.
The smallest grew more like a compact indica, rather than showing
the 75% sativa genetics given on the seed packet. The other 4
looking more like the sativa.

All in all, a bargain for the price I paid. All were ready to harvest
within 8 weeks with the earliest pheno being 7weeks 4 days.

The smoke was straight up like a rocket, sweet with a curing aroma
resembling a bouquet of flowers. Very nice indeed.

Cool read.

Johna

RIP Skunk No.1
A fine strain, long since destroyed by the Seedbanks who have made it into a boring old Indica. It used to take a full 70+ days to finish, now its done in 56.
Personally, I dont believe it even exists any more in its true format. Its been Affied to hell and back by the likes of the Dronkers et al.
I was on a hunt for the real Skunk No.1, my Mother plant having passed away. All to no avail, so I've given up and held a funeral for it. RIP, fine Lady herb!

I quite like the story about AK47. With regards to saving the seeds from behind enemy lines when the russians went around burning everything. You can find it in the strain base files. Some good info on some strains there.

Never say never on that Skunk Arn, I'm sure someone must still have something near the original. There's probably original seed stashed in someones collection waiting to be reborn. Hope I see it one day. Bit of a legend now that strain. I'm to young to ever have had the pleasure of it. I missed loads of good stuff through not being born yet

I've found some long flowering skunk1's, even the more indica doms from Flying Dutchman went 10wk. I'm not quite sure why my second pack is so different to the first though, much more sativa dominant than the first pack i had

The Skunk is not dead man, Get some Flying Dutchmen 'The Pure'. There are sativas in there that take 14 weeks and more! The best sativa is the one that smells like cat piss if u ask me.

interesting read..although seedsman do claim that its the original skunk, same as the pure.
seedsman claim it to be 75% sativa, perhaps my phenotype leans to the indica in it.

i think if you cross two of your skunks together the offspring will probably have some sativa genetics show up, hopefully, because the sativas are the best!

What a great topic

i have some Flying Dutchman Skunk#1 and growing 2 rite now here is a picture of 1 of them

1st time i have grow this strain and it has been under 250w cfl to try and keep node spacings as short as pos but it looks like these are more indica than anything else, sure does look like a nice plant though and smells great at 5 weeks veg from seed

shall put them under the hps for flower time

I quite enjoyed my pures but none of them taste like skunk to me.

I grew out a pack of "The Pure"
Poor vigour, Indica dominated stuff.
However, people keep talking them up, so maybe it was just an old pack, or a rogue pack.

nice looking plant, and indica dominant to.