Northern Lights Strains

Because Northern Lights is one of the most widely crossed strains of cannabis, NL crosses with 50% or less NL heritage are listed under the heading of the cross, i.e. NL x Haze is found under "Haze" not "Northern Lights".

Origins of Northern Lights
Northern Lights is a stabilized Cannabis sativa crossed cannabis Afghani hybrid variety developed in the late 1970's near Seattle, Washington. The northwest of America was the center of indoor sinsemilla (from the Spanish meaning "without seeds" , this begins the female clone technique that is commonplace technique now ) production and cannabis breeding. Due to the poor weather associated with this region, sinsemilla cultivators have long resorted to growing cannabis inside under lights long before growers in other more temperate regions of North America. Northern Lights has been highly regarded for many years throughout the northwest and was multiplied and distributed by Dutch Seed companies, starting with Nevil's Seed Bank then Sensi Seed and S.C.C.C.

The variety was inbred and selected for short early maturing plants with large floral clusters and resembles its cannabis afghanica parentage most closely. Northern Lights has been preserved much as it originally was through inbreeding without any marked improvements other than hybridization with other established varieties. Northern Lights is a dark green, fairly short variety with leafy but very resinous floral clusters and requires 8-10 weeks of a 12 hour photoperiod to mature completely. Conspicuous about Northern Lights is it has little smell. -High Times Cultivation Tips

Northern Lights came from the Seattle area, but I am convinced that the initial genetics came from California. Back in the late 60's and early 70's the principle sources of pot on the West Coast was Mexican, with some occasional Thai Stick and Nam weed thrown in for good measure. The Thai and Nam weed kicked the Mexican's butt, and the entry of Colombian into the market out here in say, oh, 1972 (first I saw) made us all disenchanted with Mexican. I remember Christmas of 1972 some friends brought up 100 or so pounds from SD and couldn't sell it for anything! No one wanted to smoke the crap. I took off for the holidays and came back to find them still squatting in the house trying to move the dope, when they had planned on spending a monied Christmas in the sun. They looked whipped!

Up to that time there was no real point in growing Mex. Oh sure, some tried, I had friends doing it all the time, but you know what they got. I grew two 8 footers in a closet in my flat in the University District (both male, haha). Besides, it was 0-130 per pound! Why go through the effort? The higher quality pots got expensive and scarce as the war was winding down, and Colombian was king at about 0-450 per pound.

Well, at that price more and more people started trying to grow. And getting nowhere; huge Christmas tree plants maturing in December, if they were lucky.

So, everyone knows what happened then, someone or some group, unknown to me, got hold of some indica seed and the rest was history. The first crystalled sativa/indica hybrid I saw was from Humboldt in 1976, but I believe the scene had been going on a bit before that. And it was a fricking monster of course. I remember being in San Diego visiting a friend and a grower from Humboldt brought some of this stuff down. We were huge pot smokers, I mean huge, but one small joint of this stuff didn't even get burned down. It went out, to our great embarrassment and shock. This couldn't be!

Anyway, Northern Lights didn't just pop up in Seattle. Obviously some seed from the California explosion got up here, and we started messing with it. The problem with Seattle of course is that our falls are too wet to grow outside past September, and the California weed was maturing in late October. The answer was to bring it inside, but then it needed to be short and quick. Some early results of the breeding activities I saw was a basement growing room, about 100 plants in soil buckets under fluorescent lights (and boxes of aluminum foil covering the wall). The plant would be recognizable today as essentially Northern Lights.

This was 1977, 78 These growers I know were connected to the California scene, no question about it, and I would bet my balls they got the seed and plants from there. The time frame is just right, for one of the group was going to college in Humboldt at the time. But it's also almost certainly true that this same story didn't happen only once. Plenty of stoners were growing around here at that time, and never connected with each other, naturally.

I've been growing the same plant from seed and from clones ever since, off and on, and a friend has never quit; same plant from that basement room. I have three distinct types, and have replaced them only recently when I was able to get "name" brands from Vancouver. So, for all intents and purposes, I guess I know where part of Northern Lights is, or at least a similar plant. But as to whom actually takes credit and the full lineage of the various types sold today, that is not known to me. I retain no pure strains, because I lost the male lineage about 8 years ago. I bred the three female types against several "name" strains to preserve some of the genetics, but it looks to me that the Dutch seed companies have the real thing, or close. -SCW