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HT: How many different popular versions of Star Dawg are out there now? You hear of any ‘keeper’ phenotypes from others out there who grow your crosses?
TDS: Guava, Illuminati, Corey Haim and Kate Upton. There have been four different versions of Star Dawg by four different males. One of the last being from what we call the “Purple Tres Dawg Male;” everything that Tres Dawg was crossed to threw out purple phenotypes. I just recently acquired a new Tres Dawg male and released Star Dawg 4.0. A different Tres Dawg male crossed them the three separate kinds; this shows the consistency of the Tres Dawg line. It has been consistent with not throwing any hermaphrodites. It has been a stable strain. Lots of people say that Chems are unstable.
Kate Upton was from the 3rd release, the purple release. Green Dot Labs in Colorado found her. They have had good luck with my strains. They picked up lots of seeds during my third release of Star Dawg and have been successful with mostly everything. They have a Tres OG which is Tahoe OG (clone only) x Tres Dawg that gives them 31.5 percent returns on BHO from Whole Plant Extractions. That was the record for resin production for the company. That also turned purple. He also had a Sour Dawg from the same release with purple hints in it. All those strains he purchased off of me in 2013 at the Denver Cannabis Cup. He started a successful company with the seeds he got from me.
HT: What’s your opinion on Gorilla Glue #4?
TDS: It’s nice. It’s a good commercial crop. For personal head stash, for me, it falls a little short. I see the appeal of it. It has good bag appeal, it smokes decent, but it’s not a
super ‘headbanger.’ It has the Chem terps in it, but it’s not the Chem I like. It’s not my preference. Even the Sour Diesel to me falls short. I mostly smoke Chem D, Star Dawg, Nigerian Haze—stuff like that.
HT: Do you prefer the Chem 4 or Chem D dominance in Star Dawg?
TDS: Each one is unique. The Guava has a really good taste to it. It’s not super strong, but like Gorilla Glue, it yields well, commercially it does well. The Corey cut is stronger. I prefer that cut for my head stash. I recent have a new purple pheno. It’s Chem 4 dominant in smell and taste. The purple one has a more different tip to it. It’s almost a sweeter Chem.
HT: Which release of Star Dawg do you like the most? 1st? 2nd? 3rd? 4th?
TDS: First release was 2011. That’s when the Guava came out. The third release was the Purple release. That seems to have gone over well. That’s the stuff that Green Point Seeds is using. Most people are using that third release to breed with. There are some other people as well using it. Garden Of Dreams Seeds is using the original release. There are some people who have the original release, first edition beans, and most people have the later releases. In the beginning, it wasn’t really done on a large, commercial scale. It wasn’t really meant to be. It was just something I did just to see what would happen. No make was kept from the first editions. Just that batch of seeds was made, and the male was killed. After having success with that, another male was popped, more seeds were made and sold, to create the second editions; and then that male was killed. In the beginning there was really no intentions to become a commercial breeder. It was more for my self-preservation for personal use. The extras were sold for seed credit.
HT: What do you look for in males when you breed?
TDS: I usually look for something that’s short, later flowering, has a good smell when you rub the stems, and look at the leaves and stems under a loupe to see if there is any resin production.
HT: Any more remakes of strains you haven’t done in a while?
TDS: I’m trying to get back to that. Right now, I’m just trying to find the right environment or situation in which to do everything. Currently I don’t have enough space to do what I want. Eventually I’ll get back to everything that I was successful with in the past. It’s a matter of getting the clones back. After I left upstate New York, I had to close down. I was not able to keep any mothers; I lost my whole mother stock. When I moved out to Denver, I had to start over again. Most of that stuff I haven’t got back yet. I have so many things that I work with that my plate is always full of different things.
HT: Are you still looking for any hard-to-get strains?
TDS: Maybe the Mass Super Skunk, but I don’t know. A lot of strains just can’t hold up over time. Last that we had it, it was crapping out. The Roadkill Skunks. If you could ever find them again, that is one strain everyone is looking for. There is a lot of talk from people who claim to have it. Bodhi, Riot, but I haven’t seen the real deal yet. I really think that those genetics lie in landrace Afghan genetics. The later back you go, the more of a chance you might get on being able to find something that is close to Roadkill out there. That is where the original Roadkill came from. An old, Afghan seed. Original Skunk #1 has Afghan in it. The Super Skunk was a back cross of the (Afghan x Skunk) x Afghan.
HT: What was the purpose of doing ONYCD?
TDS: I felt that Soma ripped us off. He ripped the name off us. NYCD or “New York City Diesel” in his genetics didn’t properly represent the original New York City Diesel, which was Chem ’91. When we were selling the Chem ’91 back in the day, and people would ask you what is this, and you would say Chem Dog, some people got turned off by the name because it has something to do with chemicals. When you would smell it, it would have almost this chemical-like scent to it. Some people thought it was treated, or sprayed, so we had to change the name to “Diesel.” AJ started calling it Diesel as a reference name. It then became a nickname that stuck. Once you smelled it, and smoked it, it was definitely Diesel.
HT: Where were some of your favorite places to smoke in the city back in the day?
We all used to meet up at Wetlands in Lower Manhattan. On Tuesday night, they had “Grateful Dead Night” where they used to play Grateful Dead music, and downstairs they used to have a drum circle. You used to be able to bring drums, or guitars, or any instrument you wanted. Everyone sat in a big circle and jammed out. Back in the day we used to have access to these side rooms. We used to be able to go in there and smoke. That’s where I met AJ at actually, down at Wetlands. I used to meet “The Weasel” down there. When we used to break out the Chem Dog; AJ sniffed us out. When you crack a jar of that, people are turning their heads. If you were a real weed hound, your nose follows you to the source. AJ knew I had something good on me. We all became friends, and he kind of worked there as an intern, so he would let us in the back room to smoke, break everything out and let it rip.