What happened to the REAL Skunk?

UM, WRONG. That extremely stinky can't hide the smell of burning tires and pissed of dead skunk corpses type stuff has been bred out. Now, we have great looking buds but no kick to any of it. The "Top Shelf" stuff here at retail stores is mediocre at best...I know, I buy it occasionally. The bud I grow is always better quality, but it ain't no Skunk bud. There's only one type of skunk bud...the bud that smells like a skunk does, but not for two weeks, or maybe twice in the life of the plant, but from the moment it starts to flower until it's up in smoke, the smell is raunchy and you just cannot hide the smell of it period. Where's that stuff? I'd pay huge dollars for real seeds of that strain.

I just asked a guy who actually grew lots of the original skunk bud in the 1990's for some seeds from that strain if possible. Well, he sent me to Attitude Seeds for Afghani X Skunk #1. I hope they smell like I hope them to smell like...like a near dead or dead for weeks skunk's nasty bunghole.

It definitely hasn't been bred out. My room smells just like that now, been puffing on Shoreline OG all day. Some people don't think it's good enough, but I do.

I'm also going to try some Screwed Up Skunk from TexaCannaCreations in Oregon. He has the original Shoreline cut and crossed it with a Skunk91 from Bodhi. He's working on a Shoreline BX also.

It's around, you have to look harder.

SKUNK BUD (Rest in Peace) It's gone my friend...gone, with a capital G. And if there is any on this planet, that is, is somebody has kept the seeds from the 1990's, not cross-bred it with some fruity tuttie strain or whatever, and they're not sharing it for fear of losing it again via cross pollination. I've bought all the "Skunk #1" or "Old School Skunk" bud seeds...not one of the plants ever smelt anything like a skunk, ever. In the UK, anything potent is called Skunk, and I seriously doubt if skunks are native to the British Isles. Either that or the British folks have bad issues with smelling. It's too bad, Skunk bud was by far the best dope I ever smoked...I never got immune to it, that is, every time I smoked it< I got ripped. Even the Top Shelf $90 per 1/8th ounce bud you can buy at any retail bud dealer isn't near as good as Skunk bud was...and don't even bother trying to hide the stench of Skunk bud, remember that? What's that smell? they'd all say. Smell? lol

GrownAtHighAltitude: Maybe I'm getting ripped off then...I've been buying these Skunk strains from here, there & everywhere online, not one plant, nice plants mind you, smelt anything remotely close to what a skunk smells like. I'm not saying the bud is not good or the plants are sad & pathetic, it's the lack of skunk smell, like zero. The Skunk I recall was stinky, and I haven't seen it around since the mid 1990's. Even the bud at the stores that are supposed to be skunk just are not. I'm not trying to be this Dougie Downer asshole about, just my experiences. Damn, i'd walk a thousand miles for some regular Skunk bud seeds.

guitarzan said:

GrownAtHighAltitude: Maybe I'm getting ripped off then...

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Hit up Shoreline Genetics / Wes @shorelineOG . He had the real Texas Shoreline which IS one of the real skunks everyone is fond of. He has a few different strains that are going to be loud and stinky. Texas Roadkill, Shoreline BX/BX2, Shoreline OG, etc. His Sour D is good too.

I'm still working on sourcing the original Texas Shoreline cut. I am a native Texan and would like to see it preserved properly, and maybe adapted to more modern growing environments (including possible high altitude outdoor. The Shoreline OG cut doesn't like the cold unfortunately).


The Tex Canna Fondren & Main turned out to be a really disappointing dud. I should have known by the guy's attitude that it was going to be bunk, but I thought I would try it for the team... I only tried a few seeds but what it produced wasn't exciting in the least bit and definitely wasn't for outdoor use.

I have two packs of the Red Maruf Kandahar selection from the Durand Line project in 2020. I am trying to figure out how to run a decent sized open pollination of those, and also hunt down a male to work with. That is the best thing I've been able to come up with so far that I think has potential for carrying those loud rotten terpenes.

guitarzan said:

UM, WRONG.

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lol.

GrownAtHighAltitude said:

I have two packs of the Red Maruf Kandahar selection from the Durand Line project in 2020. I am trying to figure out how to run a decent sized open pollination of those, and also hunt down a male to work with. That is the best thing I've been able to come up with so far that I think has potential for carrying those loud rotten terpenes.

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Sorry man, I did those this last summer, and it ain't there. ILE WAAAYYY overhyped those. I got several pretty different smells out of a pack, one fruit, one semi-meat, (but nothing like they were advertising), one gasoline leather, (which is actually pretty nice, because it's a true gasoline, not like an OG, but like gas pump gas, but it's a very faint odor, nothing loud at all), one that has a sort of soft milk and mint, and then one that is an almost non-smell smell. Extremely neutral. No putrid or disgusting anything in that line that I can tell... but lots of variety it seems, so maybe you'll get lucky. Here's hoping.

SFnone said:

Sorry man, I did those this last summer, and it ain't there.

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Aww, that sucks. I tested two of them but they both turned out to be male. Still, I found the leaf structure to be quite interesting anyway. Perhaps it will be good breeding stock...

SFnone said:

Sorry man, I did those this last summer, and it ain't there. ILE WAAAYYY overhyped those. I got several pretty different smells out of a pack, one fruit, one semi-meat, (but nothing like they were advertising), one gasoline leather, (which is actually pretty nice, because it's a true gasoline, not like an OG, but like gas pump gas, but it's a very faint odor, nothing loud at all), one that has a sort of soft milk and mint, and then one that is an almost non-smell smell. Extremely neutral. No putrid or disgusting anything in that line that I can tell... but lots of variety it seems, so maybe you'll get lucky. Here's hoping.

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Can you provide details on other plant features? Bud structure, resin content, effects? Just curious since I haven't come across anyone else who's run any of it yet.

I see Cickets and Cicadas Seeds has two versions of Sensi Star x Puck BC2. One is Sensi Star V1 x Puck and the other is Sensi Star V2 x Puck. If the V1 is from Sensi Star from around 2000, it would have some skunk. I grew that around 2000 and the skunk odor was so strong it made my eyes water. I couldn't contain the odor so I got rid of it. Maybe someone could message Bob Hemphill and see if that's the version of Sensi Star he was referring to as V1. I believe Deathstar came from that early version of Sensi Star.

The funny thing is these "where's the RKS?" threads go back 20 years on the forums. And still, no one has found it...

And it's all hard to believe. "It was E V E R Y W H E R E up and down the east coast" I've heard heads claim. And anyone old enough to smoke in the 80's says the RKS came to their neck of the USA at some point... Yet not a single person has come forward with a cut or some seeds of this elusive beast? The feds tracked this one specific strain down so thoroughly they were able to completely eradicate it from existence? I have new found levels of respect for government competency!

MtRainDog said:

The funny thing is these "where's the RKS?" threads go back 20 years on the forums. And still, no one has found it...

And it's all hard to believe. "It was E V E R Y W H E R E up and down the east coast" I've heard heads claim. And anyone old enough to smoke in the 80's says the RKS came to their neck of the USA at some point... Yet not a single person has come forward with a cut or some seeds of this elusive beast? The feds tracked this one specific strain down so thoroughly they were able to completely eradicate it from existence? I have new found levels of respect for government competency!

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No, it was bred out, allegedly, due to it being an issue with clandestine grows. Too stinky.

Kndreyn said:

I see Cickets and Cicadas Seeds has two versions of Sensi Star x Puck BC2. One is Sensi Star V1 x Puck and the other is Sensi Star V2 x Puck. If the V1 is from Sensi Star from around 2000, it would have some skunk. I grew that around 2000 and the skunk odor was so strong it made my eyes water. I couldn't contain the odor so I got rid of it. Maybe someone could message Bob Hemphill and see if that's the version of Sensi Star he was referring to as V1. I believe Deathstar came from that early version of Sensi Star.

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I got the skunk x puck bc2. Im hoping the skunk was a better choice for smellyness than shoreline or sensi cut but im sure there all dank asfg

Nope_49595933949 said:

No, it was bred out, allegedly, due to it being an issue with clandestine grows. Too stinky.

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That means everyone that held it either ditched it, or bred away from the stinkers. I don't doubt anyone, just something doesn't add up in my head. Even if it was mostly bred out, it'd still turn up somewhere if it was as prevalent as everyone claims. I think it's a mix of nostalgia, skunkier weed being more prevalent back then, and that far fewer people actually experienced true RKS than what we're led to believe.

MtRainDog said:

That means everyone that held it either ditched it, or bred away from the stinkers. I don't doubt anyone, just something doesn't add up in my head. Even if it was mostly bred out, it'd still turn up somewhere if it was as prevalent as everyone claims. I think it's a mix of nostalgia, skunkier weed being more prevalent back then, and that far fewer people actually experienced true RKS than what we're led to believe.

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That's probably truer, imo

GrownAtHighAltitude said:

Can you provide details on other plant features? Bud structure, resin content, effects? Just curious since I haven't come across anyone else who's run any of it yet.

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Yeah sure, I'll put some pics up later today. They're on my other phone. But details, buds were landrace looking... not these huge fucking nugs like people think, but very unworked, untainted in appearance. Some having an almost extreme sativa look. Some faded, some stayed green... Flowering time was very fast. Probably 8 weeks. Ima say it again, Iranians kill every Afghan I've come across in terms of meat smells. Not even close. Afghanistan may have had it decades ago, but I think it's migrated, or been blended out for the most part. I know ILE is getting and selling true, pure Affies to be sure, but they lost a lot of credibility in my book by making such outstanding claims, without having the ability to deliver on them. Especially because they had to know people were going to have high expectations.
People want that nostalgic skunk, but I'm really beginning to accept the wheel has turned...

SFnone said:

Yeah sure, I'll put some pics up later today. They're on my other phone. But details, buds were landrace looking... not these huge fucking nugs like people think, but very unworked, untainted in appearance.

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Thanks! I look forward to seeing your pics.

Yes, I appreciate your details and agree that ILE should have done more testing. I guess it is what it is... I'm still looking forward to going through them all. The farmers there wouldn't like the large, dense flower buds as it would be more work for them to loosen and separate the trichomes for hash production. By having a looser structure, they can just beat the plants, or crumble them easily.

Any of those selections will have to be hybridized with western genetics to improve the bud structure radically. It's possible those intense rotten protein smells they selected in the field was a genetic outlier in a field of thousands of plants. They did say the Red Maruf was the rarest of the selections, and it would make sense that it might be a recessive, or non-dominant trait and only coincidentally unlocked through generational breeding.

I have considered that the loud expressions we're looking for in a Real Skunk are these rare traits that only pop up occasionally in various lineages and this is why it is hard to breed out the correct terpene chemistry we're looking for.

Those genetic potentials are likely still in the few seeds in our packs, but perhaps only reachable in the F2/F3 and beyond, and dependent on suitable parental input and good selection work.

SFnone said:

Ima say it again, Iranians kill every Afghan I've come across in terms of meat smells. Not even close.

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If you have more info on Iranian strains you've encountered, that would be awesome too. The only thing I have is this Iranian Fast Flower I bought a few years ago. I'm guessing it came from Dr Greenthumb originally. The bank I got it from sent me a dead pack of BOGs BMR in the same order, so I'm not exactly sure they are going to grow out anyway.

you all need to drop it and move on