Variedades Northern Lights

No other indica plant besides the legendary G-13 has accumulated such widespread recognition and fame as the Northern Lights Afghani.

Making its way from the Pacific North West to the Netherlands in 1985, the Northern Lights arrived in the possession of Neville Schoenmaker. Neville was the owner of Holland’s first cannabis Seed Company known as The Seed Bank, which later was renamed Sensi Seeds under new ownership.

According to the most credible source; Northern Lights was originally bred by a man known as “The Indian” on an Island near Seattle, Washington. Some also claim that the plant originated in California before ending up in the hand of this mysterious man from Seattle but there is no conclusive evidence to support this.

Apparently, there were a total of eleven plants that were labelled Northern Lights #1 through Northern Lights #11. Northern Lights #5 was said to have been the best of the bunch, with Northern Lights #1 coming a close second.

The original Northern Lights plants were described to be true breeding Afghanis with extreme indica characteristics. They were dark green in colour and very stable, with a high flower to leaf ratio while sporting a piney taste and purple hues in flowering. They were also known to be highly resinous with a THC percentage over 15%, sometimes higher.

The story goes that all the various Northern Lights plants that were given to Neville Schoenmaker at the Seed Bank were female clones. Soon after, many new plants showed up on the Seed Bank list, including several different Northern Lights strains.

This is where the history begins to get a bit hazy. How exactly these new seeds came to be is unclear but apparently Neville Schoenmaker used the plants that he receievd from “The Indian” to create new hybrids by further crossing them to some males of Afghani origin. He might have acquired them from the same source as the females. However, the Northern Lights males were never labelled, so their history remains unclear. The best guess is that Neville Schoenmaker created the new seeds by further hybridizing and inbreeding the plants that he acquired from “The Indian” with his old stock.

The strains containing Northern Lights are simply too many to mention.  This variety has, over the years, become a very important line in modern cannabis genetics. Today, most seed companies offer their version of Northern Lights. Some of the plants are more closely related to the original plants than others but users can always guarantee a classic smoke that has never, and will never disappoint.