Later, in other publications, Gerrit referred to this strain as “London Memories”, however, but why? Gerrit: “In October 2004, the first UK “London Hemp Fair” was held in the Wembley Conference Hall. Coincidentally, I had finished the evaluation of a few test crosses made between Sensi Star and Warlock a while earlier. Since a little more than 1000 seeds I had left from the best performing family where not enough to offer for sale at that moment, I decided to give them away as freebies at the London Fair. I had also not yet registered the (already picked) name Motavation, so I thought it would be nice to give them “London Memories” as a temporary name. This way I could register the name while producing fresh seeds and bringing the strain to perfection.”

Almost instantly after its market entry in 2005, Motavation received early great honors when winning the first prize in the indica category of the International Cannagraphic Cup 2005 – with blind testing by a varied group of international growers and smokers! Two more prizes would follow in the course of the years, with the last one being a victory in the indica category of the renowned Expogrow Cup in Spain.

Motavation is described as a short/squat plant that should spend a bit more time in the vegetative stage than usual, Serious Seeds recommends five to six weeks. She reaches maturity within 50-60 days of flowering, with yields of 300-500g/m2 to be expected. Under natural light, Motavation will finish at the end of October. She produces dense big buds that may be a little bit leafy but are richly covered with resin so that it’s almost a waste to manicure the buds, Serious Seeds says Motavation’s aroma is powerful and a very special one, somewhat sweet with a touch of turpentine or fresh paint. The high is an overwhelming indica body stone, while on the mental level, it shall also effect a creative surge. “However, the execution of those many ideas that one has then, must wait until the effect is over”, breeder Simon comments with a twinkle in his eyes. Motavation is also medicinally valuable, for example as a pain reliever or simply as a relaxant with a deep effect.

Mr. Power-Planter precisely needs such a strain to come down from his laborious daily work and clear his head. So he decided to put Motavation to a test grow. The vegetative part was done by his pal Ellis D. this time, due to lack of space. Ellis D. germinated five feminized Motavation seeds in Jiffy pots, placed in a heated mini greenhouse. After about three days, the seedlings’ heads popped through the surface. In the first two weeks, they were raised under two 36 W fluorescent lights (after some days, Ellis had transplanted the young plants into 7.5 liter pots filled with Plagron soil) which led to a very compact early growth, with the first side branch tips emerging very soon from the nodes. After two weeks, the five Mota’s were placed under a 250 W HPS bulb, growing healthy and very homogeneous. They became bushy, with lush green leaves, a real pleasure to look at. When Ellis D. passed them on to Mr. Power Planter after three weeks, the five plants were about 30 cm tall. In Mr. Power-Planter’s grow room, they then enjoyed an excellent light intensity of about 600 W/m2 which, together with the fact that they had been transplanted for the second time (into 18 liter pots), effected quite a burst of growth. After one week, i.e. a total of four weeks of vegetative growth, Mr. Power-Planter induced flowering, at plant heights of 45-50 cm. In view of the only moderate stretching effect to be expected for the flowering stage, the plants would have profited from a longer vegetative stage by growing bigger and taller, but Mr. Power-Planter already had to place the next generation of plants into his veggie room.

In the course of flowering, the previously already well-developed side branches kept on growing dynamically, forming a dense wide carpet of fat flowering heads around the strong main stem and its top cola. Surprisingly, the indica-dominant Motavation strain exhibited a considerable sativa impact in its flower structure: All of the buds revealed a high calyx-to-leaf ratio, with countless tightly packed small calyxes. While also having that kind of flower structure, one of the plants formed a more longish, tapered bud shape and also was the tallest of all. The buds of the other four plants were more chubby instead. But what all of the buds had in common, was the density and hardness of an indica. And also the odor spread by them was identical: There really was that smell of fresh paint which in that case, being 100% biological, could be deeply inhaled unconcernedly. Mr. Power-Planter liked that increasingly intense smell a lot, and the same was true for the rich resin content of the buds, even most of the bigger flower leaves were completely lined with resin so that he already thought of preparing great water hash after the harvest.

At the end of flowering, the plants’ heights ranged between 68-87 cm, decreasing a bit with each single plant, like stairs. These differences in height were so slight though that one could still call those five plants’ performance homogeneous. The more so because all the five Motavation plants impressed Mr. Power-Planter with a parade of long side branches densely packed with buds and crowned on top by fat head buds that could almost compete with the top cola of the main stem. And also the flower maturation process went along pretty uniformly, after 54-57 days Mr. Power-Planter could harvest all the five plants, within the time frame officially stated.

They yielded an excellent dry harvest of 385 grams, almost 80g per plant on average. With a longer vegetative stage, Mr. Power-Planter certainly would have hit the 100g mark. When test-smoking the Mota buds then, this strain gave him another surprise: Although having that distinct touch of sativa, they packed a most heavy indica punch which already after a few tokes weighted his body down like lead, and also his head felt heavily dazed in the beginning. Judging from the look of the buds, Mr. Power-Planter had expected that those sativa traits would have translated into a likewise obvious effect in the high. However, the sativa share of Motavation didn’t completely go by the book. After a while, creative thoughts were arising in Mr. Power-Planter’s head, suddenly conveying the solution of a certain technical problem in his grow room to him. So Mr. Power-Planter felt tremendously stoned and deeply relaxed, but at the same time mentally agile and slightly euphoric. That kind of effect lasted for about two hours. On the flavor side, the Mota buds proved to be as aromatic as their smell had promised: still like fresh paint after the drying process. But of course they didn’t actually taste like fresh paint, but had a complex sweet spiciness that lingered on the palate very long.

“An easy to grow, very potent and high-yield strain with a very special odor and unusual combination of effects”, Mr. Power-Planter said and added: “Thankfully, this strain was preserved by Serious Seeds after the demission of Magus Genetics!”

Green Born Identity G.B.I.

Originally published in Weed World Magazine 113

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