Best Bubblegum Breeder

There are several strains out in the world of cannabis genetics whose origin and further breeding process seem to be unclear. Growers get especially confused, when a certain strain is offered under the same name by two or more seed banks: who has the original one, whose are copies? Bubble Gum is such one contentious strain, of which at least two seed banks do offer their own versions, in this case Serious Seeds and T.H. Seeds (both residing in Amsterdam), not to mention all those internet-based criminal copy cats here. So I decided to trace back the real roots of Bubble Gum. Asking both the above-mentioned breeders resulted in two corresponding versions of the Bubble Gum's breeding story, giving good reasons for the existence of two high-quality Bubble Gum strains.

A grower in Indiana (USA) developed the original material during the 80ies. In 1993, this guy gave three very different female Bubble Gum plants to Adam from T.H. Seeds as well as to Simon and Tony (the two split up shortly after, with Simon founding Serious Seeds and Tony Sagarmatha Seeds) from Cerebral Seeds. So Bubble Gum arrived in the Netherlands in the hands of three breeders. And from that moment on, different new chapters were written in the breeding history of Bubble Gum, its development kind of branched out. Three breeders, three ways of breeding: These seed masters were going to make their own special selection out of the three different genetic types they had received.

Simon reports: As far as I know, T.H. Seeds did work further with another of those 3 plants than I did. That's the reason why Adam (T.H. Seed's BG will be another story) considers his Bubble Gum as "mostly indica" whereas Simon puts his version into the "Mostly Sativa" category. He focused his research on two of the three lines, finally deciding for one type that should become his Bubble Gum seed strain.

It took Simon five generations to end up in the desired breeding result, officially registering it as 'Bubble Gum'. He says that it is not possible to give exact sativa/indica percentages, but reveals that the genetic background of Bubble Gum consists of three different exotic sativas, amongst them Mexican and Columbian, and an Afghani indica.

Bubble GumIt is remarkable that Bubble Gum is the only inbred strain (no F1 hybrid) in the Serious Seeds menu, thus being especially uniform. Upon being asked about special considerations to Bubble Gum, Simon explained: The bubble gum shows a remarkable uniformity in plants grown from seeds. It is a strong and beautiful plant, which grows a heavy stem, you never need to tie heavy buds up. The initial stages of seedlings can be tender, and you have to take care a bit for them in that stage. It is important to not let them be overgrown by neighbouring plants, which may grow faster at first. When about 2 weeks old the Bubble Gum will start to pick up speed and grow as fast as other plants. This delay in growth can be explained by the fact that the BG is an inbred strain and therefore does not have that hybrid vigour effect (faster and stronger growth) of F1 hybrids.

Keeping these hints in mind, I sow four BG seeds - only four seeds, due to the chronic congestion on my seed-testing list. They really showed off the ground one day later than common, but germinated properly and simultaneously. And in fact, the overall growth speed was slow at first, but increased significantly after two weeks. When the multiple-finger leafs had been formed, their look was quite unusual: dark green in the colour (indica trait), but at the same time rather narrow and sharply serrated (sativa traits).

Bubble Gum After five weeks from germination, they had grown into medium tall plants (55-65 cm) under HPS 400 + 250w, with few side branching. But due to the dominating sativa content, it was clear that they would further stretch during flowering. Two plants turned out to be female and soon developed the first flower clusters after having turned the lights to 12/12. And one could quickly realize that huge top colas were about to be produced by the plants.

After four weeks of flowering, the buds began to release a sweet fruity scent that was going to become more intensive from week to week, really reminding of fruity chewing gum. Also resin production had gotten into full speed, conquering more and more of the plants` surface. The buds grew into very compact resinous heads, featuring a high calyx-to-leaf ratio, thus allowing for easy harvest processing.

After 58 resp. 61 days of flowering, harvest was not only easy, but also rewarding, as the two BG plants yielded 25 resp. 28 grams of finest sticky sinsemilla. As expected, they had kept on growing vertically during flowering, finally amounting to 91 resp. 102 cm. But this contributed to the formation of long-drawn, heavy yielding main colas.

The buds were pleasantly mild to smoke and had preserved some of that special fruitiness also after the drying process. No surprise that the high delivered a pretty strong sativa power dosage, with euphoric tendencies, at least it will make you blow some funny fantasy bubbles in your mind.

The indica aspect, however, is also noticeable, causing a certain degree of stonedness, too. This nice mixture of both sides of the spectrum makes Serious Seeds` Bubble Gum an attractive experience, and accordingly, it has won several awards, e.g. at the High Times Cannabis Cup 1994, 1995 and 1999.

It may be new to some that Bubble Gum is also a good choice for outdoor cultivation. While rather taking place on the balcony in Holland, it is also successfully practised in the great Spanish outdoors, as Simon reports: "Bubble Gum is also liked for outdoors in Spain a lot, it will also form a very nice plant with moult resistance buds when grown outdoors here but just finishes not soon enough for my standards to call it an outdoor plant. Normal finishing date 1-15 oct."

GBI: Green Born Identity​