The Cheese cannabis variety is an indisputable figure in the world of cannabis. Its name comes from its distinctive aroma of old cheese and its strong cultural roots in the United Kingdom. Cheese has been used over the years as a base to create new hybrids with unique characteristics. Its distinguished aroma and effects continue to be part of its legacy, as well as its particular history.

In this blog entry, we are going to try to contextualize a bit, and we will talk about the origin of the famous Cheese, a current phenomenon with a long and curious history behind it…

Cheese cannabis strain

Origins of Cheese cannabis

Cheese is born from a selection of Skunk#1 seeds; today there is still a certain mystery regarding the origin of these seeds, since some Cheese lovers are convinced that it comes from Sacred Seeds, while others claim that it was born from a pack of Skunk #1 from the Sensi Seeds bank (later), but the origin is the same, a Skunk#1 line from the 80s.

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Sam Skunkman (Sacred Seeds) is considered the original breeder of the Skunk#1 strain. He moved from the USA (California) to the Netherlands in the 70s to grow cannabis, forced by the Reagan laws, and introduced the cultivation of sinsemilla marijuana. It is not known for sure how much weight his work had in the collective to create the variety, but he was one of the few members of the group who was able to avoid jail. According to the cannabis rumor mill, Sam arrived in the Netherlands with a suitcase containing 250,000 seeds with genetics created in collaboration with the Haze Brothers and the legendary Skunk.

In Holland, the Skunk genetics quickly gained a large group of followers, and many growers were surprised by its high yields…it produced much more than the sativas they had been cultivating and in much less time! But the Skunk genetics had a weak point; Due to its strong stench, the number of complaints against growers increased, and many were arrested. It should be noted that at that time, the installation of activated carbon filters to neutralize odors in crops was not a common practice, and due to this, Sam crossed the Skunk variety, sweetened it, and significantly reduced the powerful smell of skunk, from this way could go unnoticed in crops and avoid major problems.

The origins of Skunk

At the end of the 80s, specifically in the year 87, a selection made in the UK from Skunk#1 seeds appeared on the English scene, as we mentioned at the beginning, some point out that it was from a package of Sensi Seeds seeds, but… Where did Sensi Seeds get those seeds from? From this famous selection from the late 80s comes the famous Cheese, the variety that will attract growers and smokers for decades to come.

Cheese is characterized by its strong smell, vigor, and slender morphology, with exuberant greenery and really showy and sharp leaflets. It is a plant that branches easily with a medium distance between nodes and with really fast flowering, but that became really famous for its powerful, cured cheese terpene.

How Cheese genetics rose to fame

The turning point in this story is when the famous Cheese cutting reaches the hands of the Exodus Collective, formed in the early 90s in the Luton area, England. This collective occupied disused buildings and confronted the police, promoting housing projects, fighting against social exclusion, and supporting different community projects.

Exodus Cheese by Green House Seeds

Exodus to this day continues to be remembered for its Raves (free Parties) with successes in attracting more than 10,000 people. Back in 2000, they were organized legally through agreements with the owners of the farms, always without doing business with them (fair trade policies).

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During its lifetime, the collective suffered strong police repression due to its alternative approaches to confronting social reality; raids with hundreds of policemen, and mass trials in which the police authorities contradicted themselves in their statements were the order of the day.

The Exodus collective always supported the legalization of cannabis and fair and effective drug policies. They grew weed, and Cheese was one of the collective’s favorites, it is for them that the legend was further forged, knowing the famous cutting as Exodus Cheese.

Cheese Seeds

Already in the year 2.002, the recently disappeared and esteemed by the entire cannabis sector Milo Yung (Big Buddha Seeds) made the Cheese cutting available to growers in seed form through a backcross with an Afghan variety: Big Buddha Cheese was born, a strain with which would get important prizes such as the High Times Cannabis Cup (Amsterdam), Cannabis Champions Cup (Spannabis Barcelona) and Highlife Cup.

Big Buddha Seeds’ Milo Dies

Due to the awards and the success of Milo’s seeds, Cheese continued to expand to Dutch Coffee Shops and began its recognition worldwide, all thanks to Cheese seeds being available within the reach of most mortals (previously, only it was possible to enjoy the original clone).

Original Cheese from The Original Big Buddha Family Farms

Over time, a large number of seed companies have included crosses with Cheese in their catalog, starting with seeds from the Milo bank, while others, in the best of cases, with the true UK Cheese clone (Exodus), such as UK Cheese x Bubba Kush from Philosopher Seeds Bank, seeds only available as a limited edition.

Later on, Milo Yung launched a new project with friends and breeders, Big Buddha Family Farms, where he crosses the original Cheese clone with Original Cheese (Cheese Bx3), one of the closest versions to the first, original Cheese clone.

The Cheese strain and the Exodus collective have become synonymous with cannabis culture in England. But to get such recognition, they also had to face great legal challenges and strong repression from the authorities. Thanks to the Exodus collective, Milo, and Cheese’s unique characteristics, it is still one of the favorite strains among Cheese enthusiasts today.

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Origins of Diesel cannabis strains

In recent years, Diesel strains have become, by their own merits, one of the most popular cannabis genetics, sought by growers and users both for their intense and special taste and for their strong effect, mainly caused by THC contents which can exceed 20% in most specimens. As it often happens in the world of cannabis, the exact origin of this genetics is uncertain, although one of the most commonly accepted theories tells us that it’s directly related to the Chemdog and, later, also to the OG Kush marijuana.

Therefore, to clarify the origins of Diesel, we need to know more about the mythical Chemdog strain – often called Chemdawg – and how it reached the East Coast of the United States.

Sour Diesel develops spectacular calyxes

Grateful Dead and Chem cannabis

On the 6th or 7th of June 1991, during a concert of Grateful Dead at the Deer Creek Amphitheater in Noblesville, Indiana, a young breeder called Chemdog met Joebrand (alias Wonkanobe) and Pbud in the parking lot, who sold him a 500$ bag of a pot called Dog Bud (grown indoors near the California-Oregon border). Surprised by the quality of the buds, Chemdog asked them for their number, and they later agreed that they would send him a couple more bags to the East Coast.

According to Chemdog himself, one of these bags contained only sinsemilla, while he found 13 seeds in the other bag, to the surprise of Pbud and Joebrand, who had been buying these buds for more than a year without ever finding any seeds. The male parent of these seeds remains unknown, and even the possibility of self-pollination has been considered.

Dinachem, Dinafem’s version of Chemdog

That same year, Chemdog germinated 4 of these seeds; one of them was a male that was discarded (Chemdog was still very young, 17 years, and didn’t notice the potential of this plant) while the other three, which were females, were labeled as follows:

• Chemdog (today known as ’91 Chemdog)
• Chemdog “a” (today called Chemdog’s Sister)
• Chemdog “b”

10 years later, in 2001, Chemdog and his girlfriend tried to germinate 3 more seeds, labeled as “c”, “d” and “e”. The “e” never sprouted, the “c” turned out to be mediocre, while the “d” has been preserved until today, known as Chemdog D or Chem D.

In 2006, Chemdog and Joebrand met again, and Joebrand got 4 of the last 6 seeds. He labeled them from #1 to #4 and kept the #4, which he called “Reunion pheno” since he considered it the most similar phenotype to the original genetics. If we are to believe this, Chemdog would still be keeping the last 2 seeds today.

Chemdog and his friends – most of them were underground breeders – developed several hybrids from the Chemdog marijuana. These ones became especially popular:–

• Giesel (Chem D x Massachusetts Super Skunk)
• Bubble Chem (Chemdog’s Sister x Sag’s Blueberry)
• Chemhaze (Chem D x ’93 NL#5/Haze, also called Dawg Daze)
• Super Snowdawg (Bubble Chem x Super Skunk/Oregon Sno)
• Chemdog D x Pbud (variedad old school de Colorado)

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OG Kush and Diesel cannabis

In 1992, JJ and Weasel met in New York City’s Central Park, and shortly afterwards, Weasel obtained the Massachusetts Super Skunk and the ’91 Chemdog from Chemdog, although he didn’t like this name and changed it to Diesel or New York City Diesel. Just a couple of years later, in 1995, the Original Diesel came in – also known as Underdawg, Diesel #1, Headband, or Daywrecker Diesel – a hybrid developed by Weasel from the ’91 Chemdog and a Massachusetts Super Skunk x Sensi Seeds Northern Lights cross.

Soon, the famous Sour Diesel – also called East Coast Sour Diesel, or simply ECSD – was created by accident when a whole crop of ’91 Chemdog was pollinated by DNL (Northern Lights x RFK Skunk/Hawaiian) or by Massachusetts Super Skunk (JJ-NYC).

Chemdog from Green House Seeds

There seems to be no relationship at all between the American Diesel lines and the New York City Diesel from Soma (so popular in Europe thanks to the Mandarin Cut), neither concerning the organoleptic traits nor to the effect, which is milder than American Diesel genetics.

We cannot tell this story without mentioning the OG Kush strain. There are several theories about its origins: for some people, it is simply a sister of the Sour Diesel. For others, it is a self-pollination of the ’91 Chemdog selected in the Lake Tahoe area in 1996. Finally, the third and most widely accepted theory (Kailua Kid from Sierra Seed Company) tells that it’d be a cross between a Chemdog clone and a Lemon Thai x Old World Paki Kush hybrid developed in Northern California; this theory would explain the “Kush” in the name of the variety, while the “OG” would probably mean “Ocean Grown” (grown near the ocean).

From here, different clones of the popular OG Kush were selected, kept and shared, such as the Tahoe Cut (introduced to the community by Swerve in the nineties), the San Fernando Valley or SFV cut (coming from the area with the same name) or the Raskal’s OG cut (also from the San Fernando area) among many others.

OG Kush Bud

Today, we can find a large number of hybrids developed from Diesel and OG Kush genetics, which gives us a hint about the quality of these strains, characterized by a very intense cerebral effect and an unmistakable blend of diesel, earthy, piney, and citric notes.

JJ-NYC is one of the breeders that has developed different varieties from the original genetics. He performed different tests with Hindu Kush and Afghani seeds from the Sensi Seeds Bank, developing a backcross called Double Dawg (Chemdog D x Afghani), which he backcrossed again, thus creating the Tres Dawg. Tres Dawg has been used for developing numerous hybrids of excellent quality, like Star Dawg (Chem 4 x Tres Dawg), White Dawg (The White x Tres Dawg) or Original New York City Diesel (’91 Chemdog x Tres Dawg). Rez from Reservoir Seeds has also used this genetics in his breeding projects, offering extraordinary versions like Sour Diesel IBL, mother plant of the renowned Riri cut, selected in France by Riri in 2006.

So, the next time someone mentions Diesel, you know it’s not just about potency and aroma, but about a story that began in the New York garages of the 1990s and ended up conquering gardens and dispensary windows around the world. A legendary strain that, like all good myths, lives on, mutating, inspiring… and leaving an aromatic trail impossible to ignore.

Happy harvest!

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