Origins and Backstory: Received as a tester from @meangenefrommendocino, this intriguing seedling is a cross of the clone-only Motorbreath15 and one of Gene’s more obscure males, a cross of Northern Lights and Oil Can. Northern Lights needs no introduction, while Oil Can is an old northern California heirloom variety. I wasn’t told anything about these plants but was happy to get growing them and exploring the genes. These were grown outdoor on the Colorado Front Range just outside of Denver.
Appearance: Christmas-tree like, a bit tall and surprisingly an element of lankiness, but with solid and dense bud structure that goes every bit of the entirety of the branching. These plants remained completely green in spite of cooler fall temperatures, and other plants right next to them turning completely purple. These plants grew tall with extremely heavy flowers and the sizes of individual flowers as well as overall yields were excellent. Nugs are huge and full, very satisfying to look at in a bag, and relatively pale in coloring.
Aroma: Distinguished from most of Mean Gene’s other gear, this cross is dry, woody, acrid, musty, smelling nostalgically of old-school indica weed from the ‘90s and early 2000s. It is not smack-you-in-the-face loud like most other Freeborn gear, but is layered with complexity. When broken up, these woody and herbaceous flowers release tones of mint, menthol, metals, pine, skunk, and something funky and inexplicably hard to place. It is at once attractive and off-putting, the indescribable note, asking for nugs to be broken up more and sniffed for further investigations. Overall it is a bit underwhelming.
Flavor: OK, so this is the surprise—while certainly herbaceous, woody, dry, and acrid upfront, this all shifts into a mouth-coating skunky dankness that reminds me of some of the more putrid smokes I received as a younger lad in the midwest. Occasionally, my area would be blessed with a variety of weed reeking of roadkill skunk, but would almost always come without any particular name. We’d always describe the aroma and flavor as “dank,” and this mouth-coating, pungent skunkiness is captured in Motorbreath 15 x NL/Oil Can. The flavor is really impressive and one certainly wouldn’t have picked up on it from the aroma alone. If you’re a skunk lover or miss classical “dank” weed from earlier years in cannabis, this is worth the experience.
Effects: This weed is really a classic indica stone to the fullest. Eye-reddening, mellow, and easy-going describe the buzz from this weed. It isn’t too strong, and I usually end up smoking something else 30-60 minutes or so later. Maybe I’m a glutton. OK, I’m probably a glutton. However, I hold weed to a pretty high standard, and especially weed from Freeborn Genetics. This strikes me like a more basic smoke, and it doesn’t stand out in any particular direction.
Overall: People are magnetized to Freeborn for a few different reasons—wanting something completely unique, wanting something stunningly loud and/or potent, or a combination of both. This strain certainly seems to fit in the former category, as I’m not sure if there’s really anything comparable that comes to mind. Landrace Afghanis and other varietals with origins in the middle east come to mind, but even then there is enough layered complexity here to warrant a category all of its own. This plant grew very easily and yielded spectacularly with little effort. The aroma is weird and intriguing and attractive, and the flavor follows suit. The buzz is a classically-relaxing indica stone, and relatively long lasting while also not being overwhelming by any means. From an overhead point of view, this plant is underwhelming in many respects. It is an impressive plant and the structure/growth are remarkable, but the aroma and effect leave me dissatisfied. The flavor is impressive, especially given the mild aroma, and gives me hope that there are likely more-favorable phenotypes to be found in these seeds. The reader should keep in mind that I grew a literal single seed of this variety—so it’s entirely possible that this plant is not representative of the genepool as a whole. In total transparency, I’d like to run a few more of these plants and see what else is inside this cross, as I suspect there are more desirable females to be found.