A journey through time, friendships, breeding, barbecues and an interview with one of the OG Originals

A journey through time, friendships, breeding, barbecues and an interview with one of the OG Originals.

So we all know Old School Mango Haze is coming soon, but there’s a lot to digest before we give you the low down on the drop itself. We’ve got a bit of a Mephisto history lesson to go through, a Mephistory if you will, and an interview with our very good friend Karel, the father of Old School Haze. So, make yourself comfortable with a piece of your favourite Mephisto Genetics gear, prepare a beverage and snack of your choice and settle into a journey through space and time as we prepare for the release of one of the most anticipated projects in Mephistory, a truly special one for us.

At Spannabis in 2016 Tim and I had, as always, a small agenda of the companies and personnel that we most wanted to get acquainted with at the event. On that list was Biotabs; we’d tried them in conjunction with our autoflowers, and due to having to manage many plants at one time in different parts of the farm at different stages of life, inside and around outside, a water-only organic way of growing was right up our alley.

It turned out they had moved to Spain from the Netherlands to start their organic adventure with the aim to convert as many growers as possible to the benefits of organic Cannabis and conquer the European market!

They were also living pretty close to the original farm so we arranged to meet outside of the show on the beach one day for a couple of beers and J’s on a sunny Catalan day.

As we got to know them on a personal level outside of the industry talk, we slowly learnt about their history and they told us how in the 90s they’d been one of the original Seed banks out of Amsterdam; The Super Sativa Seed Club, and they had one cutting that had been kept alive for over 30 years at that point! The Old School Haze, which was, quite frankly, amazing to us!

SSSC's Kees' Old School Haze in seed form!

Fast forward a couple of years to 2018 and as we knew them much more, at this point we were regulars at the family BBQs and had also travelled to several places together, we politely enquired if we could use their Old School Haze in a photoperiod to autoflower project. We’d just completed the works on our most recent haze/sativa-based projects: Mango Smile (Mango Haze x Toof Decay) and HubbaBubbaHaze (G13/Haze x Hubbabubbasmellscope) and amongst others thought these would be ideal donor autoflowers to use in combination with the Old School Haze genetics.

They kindly obliged, and four crosses were made to the Old School Haze: x Livers Bx1, x Mango Smile, x Northern Cheese Haze and, lastly, x HubbaBubbaHaze.

Over the next 6 years, we worked selectively through the projects, some outside influences delayed the process; moving facilities, COVID-19, and other projects on the burner, but we always had it in our minds to bring this one to fruition.

She wasn’t an easy girl to tame into an automatic format but, with a cup under our belts secured for her already (2nd place Sativa at the American Autoflower Cup 2024), I think we can safely say we’ve succeeded in pro-longing the legend of the Old School Haze and will be introducing her to many more folks going forward into the future.

One of our very Old School Haze plants growing on the farm.

Interview with Karel, father of Old School Haze

To fill you MephHeads in further, let’s go directly to the horse's mouth for some juicy info and let us introduce you to Karel from Biotabs and the now resurrected Super Sativa Seed Club (SSSC) to give a foreword on the strain history, their history and what we can look forward to from them in the future.

Mitch: Hey Karel, we’ve heard so many cool stories about you guys and the Old School Haze over the years, can you tell our readers some more about the history? What are the genetics, how you found her?

Karel: When we founded the Super Sativa Seed Club in 1985, we received a visit from Sam the Skunkman in the Netherlands. Sam brought us his famous Skunk#1 seeds. We were very happy with that, because at that time in the Netherlands, you only had Sativa seeds that we extracted from cannabis that was then sold in the first coffee shops [imported flowers]. Those seeds gave us plants with little fluffy tops, that’s why we were happy with the Skunk#1, finally, nice thick buds!

Sam also had 20 of his favourite haze seeds. Neville from the Seedbank and we from the SSSC each received 10 seeds. The seeds were already old and needed to be germinated. According to Sam, The Seedbank and the SSSC were the only ones in the Netherlands who could do that and understood its importance.

Later we crossed our best Skunk #1 plant with our best Haze plant. After a selection from 200 seeds we found our current Old School Haze

Mitch: In 2024, we have that as 39 years you’ve held the cutting, actually older than the years we’ve been on the planet! You’ve moved countries in that time, and also had a family, how did you keep it alive for so long? And what made it so special that you wanted to keep it for all these years?

Karel: In all those 39 years we have always made cuttings of cuttings. Of course, we haven’t kept a single plant all these years. Every time after about 4 months we made cuttings from the mother plant and threw the mother plant away. Because we always did this in a few different places and indeed even in different countries, we managed to keep that plant for so long. As you will understand, a lot can happen in 39 years. But we still have her! And now even very safe in the first legal Cannabis farm in Europe. And we mean a Cannabis farm specifically for Dutch coffee shops! Not medicinal weed, but weed for fun!

The taste, smell and effect of the Old School Haze is very special and that is why I am happy that we have been able to keep the plant all these years.

Mitch: You’ve been in the industry in one form or another for decades now, having been one of the first seed companies out there, having created a nutrient company, as well as authoring books, how has your journey been, and are there stories or reasons as to why cannabis has been such an important part of your life?

Karel: After all these years, cannabis is of course something special in the lives of me and my family members. I am happy that I can share my passion for the Cannabis plant with my two sons. The world would be a much better place if people smoked more, I am absolutely convinced of that. Once again, now that I can do my daily work together with a group of young, passionate Cannabis enthusiasts in a finally legal situation, I see that ‘Cannabis people’ are just better people!

Mitch: What things have changed the most in the industry over the years, for better or worse? And do you think it’s heading in the right direction overall?

Karel: That’s a difficult question. I certainly don’t think it is an improvement that in the current (legal) Cannabis world there are so many people walking around who have no understanding or love for the plant. As far as I am concerned, investors and banks are not welcome in our world. I haven’t forgotten how all these kinds of people made things difficult for us for years. The Cannabis world is a world of freebooters! Let’s try to keep it that way.

What I think is a very good thing about the current situation is that the quality and variety of the new Cannabis varieties is so large and so incredibly good. This just shows what 5 years or so of legal breeding can do, especially in the USA. What I do hope is that all the breeders who have had to work illegally for years will also get a chance in the legal world. Because thanks to them, the legal breeders have such good starting material!

Mitch: What do you think about autoflowers?

Karel: I really didn’t like Autoflowers at all. Loose fluffy buds with a nasty Ruderalis taste. However, this changed when we (as we call them) met ‘the Mephisto boys’. That’s when I smoked ‘Autos’ for the first time, which actually tasted good. And they looked good too. Lots of resin, lots of terps! I’m talking about 5 or more years ago now. The ‘boys’ have not been sitting still and the quality of their automatics has improved even further. I can’t wait to try their latest new varieties in our greenhouse (AARDACHTIG). That’s what we’re going to do, right?

Mitch: Sure Karel, sign us up, we’d love to help out and see our autos grown in scale by you guys! Lastly, can you tell us what you’re working on now, or is there something we can help promote for you?

Karel: At the moment, I am working every day (7 days a week…it is your passion or not?) to grow the best organic weed in the Netherlands on a large scale at AARDACHTIG. Together with my son Kees, the hash maker, known for his brand ‘Ex-tractor’, we put all our passion and dedication into the project. We even secretly started a breeding project. More news will follow soon.

Mitch: Karel, thanks so much for your time and information. We love you guys and looking forward to a BBQ sesh and smoke out with our SSSC/Biotabs fam soon!

Karel, a cannabis workaholic!

Kees, one of Karel's sons and our good friend, inherited his dad's passion for cannabis.

……

Please check out the guy's work, they’re always up to some nice work on their socials that we’re sure you’d appreciate:

@biotabs_official

@supersativaseedclub_official

@ex.tractor

@aardachtigoficial

So, the big question is, when will you guys see the fruits of our labour? When will you get to finally try out Old School Mango Haze? Our OSMH drop is scheduled for 12pm BST/7am EDT/4am PDT on the 15th of April. We will, of course, have another blog post on Friday 12th April with all the details of the drop.

Love from the farm

Mitch, Tim and the Mephisto Crew
🐷🌱