Photoperiod Hippies on the Mountain-Pieces of Maui Wowie

[Micron Creek]

A true story of a patient's search for landraces in Hawaii
I have several friends who are patients of varying degrees. Most with chronic issues. Some grew up in the Tropics. Being in Hawaii meant they remember the huge influx of veterans in the 70's. People just wanted to live in peace. Many were the unsung heroes for Cannabis, as they carried genetics with them. These psychedelic Sativas From across Southeast Asia, were from various places. Sometimes straight from the sides of roads crazy enough. Fields, villages, tie/thai sticks loaded with seeds.
This patient friend of mine was a teen during the heyday of Cannabis on the island. The Sativas there would also be from South America. Panama Red, and Columbian Gold. Some enthusiasts on the island had different interests and brought with them afghanis, but the majority were these long-flowering Sativas. I mean the flowering time of some of these would easily exceed 4 months.
The hippies crafted lightning in a bottle there on the Islands, in their communes where they would not be bothered. High up towards the summits of mountains, surrounded by forests.
It was there they could grow to their heart's content. Strains that could top 20 feet. Looking in older literature before multi-polyhybrid fems were in, one will find good presentations of towering Columbian Golds. Ones that put fear in the lumber industry.
It was a great time my patient friend remembers well.
Now they are a few decades older, but life has been up and down. Before it became too much due to their illnesses, they made the journey back to the same islands, looking for the old magic.
They couldn't acquire the exact same Maui Wowie they remembered, but they attempted to replicate it with some help. First they sought the "Thai". A strain which did not have ideal morphology, but nonetheless displayed the more natural tendencies of being or becoming monoecious. It is something the Psychedelic Asian Sativas were well-known for. It was the reason that thai sticks were the preferred method of ingestion. Extremely airy, wispy buds that are molded onto stalks when still fresh and pliable. Often times these were laced with opium...ahem another tale for another day.
Either way these hippies kept small plots that were organically pollinated, but to me the level of selection was unclear.
My patient friend said that they looked like Thai plants he remembered, he recognized them because he had a great distaste for their growth structure. Very sparse and leggy in their words "the same ugly-ass plant they remember".
To me this seemed odd, to go through the trouble of finding this 40-year-old landrace and dislike it. The effect, in their mind, was worth the journey, soaring highs. Highs that set the bar for them. I will continue in just a moment, have to grind a bowl and sit back for this one.

 

[Son of Hobbes]

Diggin it!

 

[Micron Creek]

 

[Micron Creek]

So here was my patient friend with the old thai he remembered in front of him. I asked how they parted with their genetics. Even though money runs the world, the hippies didn't want it. They didn't have the same care for posessions or currency. What did they trade for their regular thai genetics that they found while being enlisted and kept alive for generations? They were like most people and just wanted company. Someone to light the pipe with and have a laugh. The commune was calm, and almost all were older by that point. The other easy thing they requested was supplies.
My patient friend stopped by a local shop at the base of Hippie Mountain, and made sure to pick up groceries. I almost blew the lit cherry out of my pipe when he told me this. Yeah, I was still combusting my medicine at the time instead of vaping. A sturdy glass spoon was usually it for me. Anyway, that is all these good folks who grew this wicked herb wanted. Some flour for I-man bread and some brethren to share the chalice with.
It took some time, but my patient friend actually succeeded in acquiring a small pile of these Thai genetics. There's more.

 

[Micron Creek]

Why these strains ended up exactly where they did on the island isn't clear. For instance Kona Gold from Hawaii, is it the Santa Marta Columbian Gold or the Mexican Acapulco Gold, or neither? What set the Acapulco apart from Columbian even though they are likely the same strain, is the Acapulco a phenotype?
It is impossible to know for sure. People tend to embellish when remembering.
The "Thai" is a mystery as I didn't lay eyes on it. However, I did get to see the Panama Red.

 

[Micron Creek]

My patient friend's health had been deteriorated by this point, so the journey to find his landraces which would have been a couple weeks, ended up taking months. I would keep in touch, communicating several times a week. However, he decided to have a friend do the breeding outside under the Hawaiian sun.
Chronic and terminal illnesses plagued my friend, and before I had even met him he had a couple brushes with the afterlife. It is something I choose not to speak of, other than to say it limited his abilities to continue.

 

[Micron Creek]

The next step in my friend's journey was to find the Panama Red. Panama Red was a namesake when I grew up, so just hearing the name had me scouring online accessible germplasm vendors, but no luck.
There may have been some out there, I found something named Panama from Ace Seeds, but it was said to be a hybrid and I believe fem. only.
My friend was convinced that he could find the original among friends. The Islands of Hawaii have some places where they raise cattle. I didn't think that would be a livelihood there in the Tropics. Certainly the demand for beef, and the high prices on imported goods, made the career very lucrative.
As the Islands are as multi-cultural as the mainland, there could have been many ways the Red my friend knew arrived. Either way the Panama Red was the preferred smoke of the Hawaiian cattlehands he knew. "Paniolo" is what I remember he called them, Hawaiian for cowboy. So I am going to infer that the Panama Red was something brought over by vaqueros or South American cattlehands. Maybe not, could be someone's cousin had the connections and just happened to be a cattlehand.

 

[Micron Creek]

Panama Red, aaahhhh. My friend and I had a hearty laugh with that one. His hippie bra was taking care of the breeding on his own plot on the Mountain. With such space, proper rows were planted to give the ladies all the space they wanted. They took it alright. These strains that my friend had acquired must have been authentic. The pictures have them towering over a 10 foot fence without issue. This was intriguing to me, to be able to see huge landrace plants the size of palms just swaying in the breeze. Even with 10ft of space on either side, eventually the rows began merging. The breeder was hacking away at them every week. They even caught the attention of the locals from the base of the mountain. Our friend had some people stop by, but only to say "Hey bra, you can see them from the street. how about keeping them smaller?" My friend was a patient and completely within his rights. Locals didn't bother him for anything so peaceful. A huge grove of Panama Red is a beautiful thing for any old hippie. Machetes, smiles, and huge joints make a fine evening.

 

[Micron Creek]

The next strain my friend would acquire would be the Columbian Gold. This is where things become muddled. I am not entirely certain about this one. When he would speak about the Columbian Gold, he would interchange names freely with Kona Gold. I assumed by all rights that he was sure they were legitimate. Unfortunately by this time his health issues had exacerbated, he didn't make the journey when he wanted to. However, his source for these "Gold," made the trip to him and delivered them.
Some good days, some not so good. On his good days he would be able to speak with me and tell me how things were. I know he did manage to get up the Mountain a couple of times. However, these trips were so sporadic that he no longer maintained an active role in the breeding process. Nonetheless he loved it when he was able to. He had flowers from the very first Harvest of the Panama Red. His facial expression when he smoked it said it all, he was reunited with his old friend.

 

[Micron Creek]

Although I would personally enjoy having sinsemilla outdoors under the Hawaiian Sun, one would always prefer to do any breeding in a more controlled environment. The breeder had other plans, to do everything outside. These huge rows of Thai, Panama Red, and Columbian Gold were all over the place because they vegged for months. The breeder, from what my incredibly baked friend had recollected, allowed things to breed true for just one generation. That is, each variety was replicated once. I do not know who this breeder friend was so what his methods were are unknown. I do not know if he actually did this with everything or if he took a Panama Male and dusted some select ladies of each, this would ensure that at least the Panama had been replicated.
They then allowed the strains to interbreed with open-air pollination. This made no sense to me. The resulting genetics would have different donors and I could not say how it all played out. Whether he selected the stud and backcrossed the offspring to it or what. My friend's mind, more specifically memory, had changed with his illness. Most of the time he was just fine, but he couldn't get things in the right order when recanting things on his bad days. Sometimes things happened differently depending on what day you spoke with him. So I am trying to piece this together coherently.
The strains were F2'd, then the resulting F2s were organically pollinated. Not sure if there were any males selected to make them.
These new F1's would, in my friend's opinion, be the Maui Wowie. The damn thing is they got rid of the Thai plant altogether, even after all the trouble of going up a mountain to find a commune of veterans. They bred it once with everything else and chopped what they had. They then did a second round of organic breeding with the Columbian, Panama, and the 3-way F1's. This would mean some genetic traits would be more dominant in the offspring.
Hawaii has a strain known to my friend as simply a Hash Plant.....who knows. The only other strain I could find with a similar name is Blue Hawaiian Hash Plant. Let's just figure it is the local representation of Afghani. Well the breeder had free reign to breed this into the mix.
The idea was to shorten the flowering time a month or more.
That would make this 4 strains being represented, and no longer the Maui Wowie. As my friend put it, it was HIS Maui Wowie. Which he would then rename. The resulting genetics were taken from seperate plants, one of them was Panama Dominant and One Columbian Dominant.