Aurora Project - 303 Seeds

303 has been working on some classic gems for our Colorado family. The first release is the Aurora Project and this will be a quick rundown of the work and pheno's involved.

The Aurora Project is 303 seeds' work with the Northern Lights cultivars. Northern Lights is a nickname for the Aurora Borealis, or Aurora, which just happens to be the Eastern sister city to Denver and also home to the 303 area code.

Northern Lights is Afghani in origin and was worked in Cali and the Pacific NorthWest back in the day before being released by Neville and the Seedbank in the mid 1980's. There were several original NL cuts: 1,2, 5 & 6 stand out in the books as superior and have been released in seed form at some point over the years by many different operations. These cultivars are known for their quick flowering, high producing, resin caked flowers that stay short in stature and are easy to grow. You can find evidence of NL in many of today's top strains, and NL breeds true for many traits. The cuts we used were good to insanely good producers that finished in 60 days or less and were superior representations of their genetics in every way.

We have females from older Ortega stock from the Seedbank the late 1980's and also Northern Lights #1 from Sensi in the mid 1990's. We were lacking the proper male selections to advance the project until Bodhi released his Back to the Future projects. If you know about Bodhi I don't need to say much. If you don't know about Bodhi seeds, you should read up. Check his posts on Breedbay, some amazing journeys throughout the world to collect rare genetics. He also has access to the Cali medical pool and is able to source some highly regarded cuts that we absolutely trust are the real deal 1000%.

One of these cuts Bodhi procured was the 1989 Sensi Northern Lights #5 "Noof" cut, which in Bodhi's words is "dead on the old 80's sensi nl, looks just like the photo in the old catalog". We absolutely agree with that statement after growing out the first pack procured in the initial release. We used a frosty selected male from the NL5 project to pollinate our cuttings of Ortega and NL #1, along with several stellar and unique pheno's from Bodhi's first installment of the Back to the Future project NL5 (89 Sensi NL5 noof cut x British Columbian Seed Co NL5) for the Aurora Project release. Bodhi has given blessings to breed with his stock...and immense gratitude goes to him in return.

Female phenos of Ortega, NL1 and NL5 were pollinated with the finalist NL5 stud "Paul Bunyon". Paul Bunyon is one of my favorite stories originating in the NorthEast where you can actually see the Northern Lights...and if you know the tale, the guy was LARGE! Our NL5 male is also very vigorous, large, resin producing, and also shows recessive for several traits in the first mini test, which allows the moms to really show their stuff in the cross.

The project is going to be released two stages.
First a limited edition release of each of the moms will be done through selected centers. We'll have each of the crosses separated and sold in limited edition 12 packs. Ortega x NL5, NL1 x NL5 and NL5 x NL5. Something like 50 packs of each will go out.

The second release will be a random mix of the genetics, also in 12 packs.

I'll go through the crosses in brief individually to give you a feel for each.
GreenPeak might chime in also as he's got the NL1 girls.

Leading things off below is our Ortega girl, or as we call her, "J-Lo". Ortega is a mix of NL cultivars done by Neville back in the 80's. Mr. Nice also has a rework done by Shanti that is highly recommended.

J-Lo has the typical Christmas tree shape and produces medium-large rock solid buds with immense resin and a excellent creamy hash flavor. She grows easy with no fuss and no staking needed. Another plus with this girl is her vigorous vegetative growth. She gets big enough to flower out much faster than the majority of the indica family. The coloring is also a stand out for J-Lo, she purples nicely in both the foliage and the flowers.

A few pics of Ortega below, more NL goodness to follow!

BP

Looking great BP, as always...

I will deff be getting some pictures of the NL1 girls up here ASAP for everyone to see