Oh, for sure. It's mostly economics. Tried out ~18 strains with this approach and still discontinued more than half of them. I'll be more adventurous.
There are some genetic redundancies in my current stable (e.g., 3 different thin mint GSC crosses (2 sativa-dom, 1 indica-dom) (GSC comes in under OG Kush)), but I've got some good genetics too:
4 sativa-dominant strains:
- 5 Alive
- Animal Crackers
- Bruce Banner (1.0, 2.0)
- Gorilla Cookies
4 indica-dominant stains:
- Grape Ape
- Larry Bird (Gelato) (might have green and purple phenos)
- White Widow
- Taskenti
Cool thread.
If you're looking to get back to the main strains, why not go with:
Afghan or (Azad) Kashmir for genuine Kush - head a bit further back up the genetic chain (although most are adulterated now...)
Maybe some Malawi?
As for the descriptor, "Earthy", I think of that as a foggy morning walk through an old growth forest -- smells of soil and humus, wood & vegetal scents as the sun warms the Earth. Beautiful stuff.

I get what you're saying about Hay / Alfalfa smelling product though --- I don't like that either. I think it's mostly in the curing:
Commercial operations have deadlines:
100 pounds of product MUST be ready for sale by XX/XX date.
100 pounds of product decided that it wanted to dump it's hay scent a few days later than usual, and was cured with that scent in the jar.
-- but the scent profile on the label of that Hay Bomb jar says, "Earthy, Piney".
I chopped the first plant of this harvest a few days ago - OG Kush. The drying room still has that beautiful Kush funk going strong, but I know that the hay scent is coming - and that's good! After a little while - maybe a week - the hay scent will have off-gassed from my curing buds and that lovely Kush funk is all I'm left with as I jar them.
I grow for friends & Family - what deadline?
