When visiting the High Times Cannabis Cup 2008 in Amsterdam, a lovely looking dry bud displayed at the T.H. Seeds booth struck me, placed in front of a small Rastafari figure, indicating the respective strain obviously must have a Jamaican genetic background. Having asked a staff member about its name, the answer was “Rambo” - which I didn’t like too much, being opposed to any strain names associated with violence. The pedigree of Rambo I did like a lot though: Jamaican Haze x Jamaican Purple x Super Afghan – that really sounded like an exciting genetic marriage.
However, the strain name “Rambo” didn’t exist for a very long time, T.H. Seeds was forced to change the name due to licensing issues to “Lambo” which did appeal to me much more, reminding of the famous Jamaican Lambsbreath landrace. Lambo is an indoor strain though in the first instance, but can also be grown outdoors in mild climate.
It’s a highly bug and mold resistant sativa/ indica hybrid (75:25) says T.H. Seeds, “coming deep from the Northwest hills, this ultimate guerilla grower plant will be your strongest ally in the war against the elements.” And they are crediting it with “large resin coated buds”, eventually enthusing about “an incredible flavor that seems to change from inhale to exhale: it transforms from an Amaretto inhale to a vanilla, metallic lime exhale.” Indoors it grows to a height of about 140 cm, yielding copious 400+ grams per sqm. And it has quite a short flowering time, 55-60 days is pretty fast for a mostly sativa strain.
Lambo also is a great medical marijuana strain that provides a strong clear sativa dominant high that, thanks to the Afghani influence, is accompanied by a certain indica effect also, just enough to serve as an effective analgesic as well.
It was Mr. Power Planter – an ardent lover of reggae music and Jamaica – again who put Lambo to the test, together with Burmese Kush and others. This was why he sowed only five Lambo seeds, half of the package. They proved to be very viable and came out of the ground within four days. Right from the start, the young BuKu seedlings, together with 21 other plants, were grown under three 600 W ‘Green Bud’ metal halide lamps equipped with adjust-awings reflectors (without spreaders).
One week after germination, the plants were transplanted into 11 litre containers filled with Plagron Standard soil mix. The Lambo seedlings thrived very well, being homogeneous and clearly exhibiting their sativa dominant nature by quickly shooting up. But also side branching had an early onset so that Mr. Power Planter was expecting tall bushy plants in the end. Leaves were deep dark green. Three and a half weeks after germination, at a height of 56-65 cm, Mr. Power Planter induced flowering by reducing the light cycle from 18/6 to 12/12 hours of light, at the same time replacing the metal halide lamps with three 600 W Osram HPS lamps. Within eight days, preflowering became visible and Mr. Power Planter had to dismiss two male plants, ending up with three female Lambo plants.
In the course of flowering, certain differences between the plants appeared,
With one of the Lambos having a stronger stretching effect during flowering than the other two. Also, the developing flower structure of this taller plant was different, having stronger sativa traits, while the other two plants were leaning towards the Afghani indica side to a higher degree. But both phenotypes were producing very dense buds with a high calyx-to-leaf ratio and copious amounts of resin. The sativa dominant plant’s buds were longdrawn- out, with lots of spiky bud shoots standing out of them. In contrast, the other two plants developed round thick buds with a much stronger indica touch. But all the three plants were frosted with the same dense layers of sparkling resin, giving off the same exotic delicious smell which was spicy sweet and also somewhat earthy.
In the end, after 56, 60 and 62 flowering days, these three bushy plants with lots of excellent dense buds had arrived at heights of 112, 141 and 152 cm, with the one more indica influenced plant being the first to be harvested. Mr. Power Planter was very much on the edge to test smoke his lovely Lambo buds, and after they had been carefully dried two and a half weeks long, including slight bud fermentation, that day finally came.
The slow drying process had yielded a remarkably fine organic, sweet and slightly earthy aroma that was present on all the buds. They were rock-hard and silvery-white with resin. But before test smoking them, he wanted to find out about their weight of course andput them on the scales that read 52, 57 and 61 grams (following the same order as above) – certainly quite a superb outcome. Smoking type one at first, the buds with a stronger indica influence, did provide both a strong clear cerebral high and simultaneously slight calming indica buzz to Mr. Power Planter.
The high was pretty damn strong and lasting very long. Type two, expectedly, had an even stronger tingly cerebral sativa turn and less, almost no indica influence, reminding of real high-grade Jamaican sativa sinsemilla. That kind of high kept Mr. Power Planter sky-high for about one and a quarter hour, then gradually faded away.
The flavor of all the buds was deliciously mild and sweet, but it frankly took quite some fantasy to maintain it was tasting like Amaretto in the inhale and vanilla, metallic lime on the exhale. But we all know such attributes are always much depening on the sense of taste of the respective person smoking a certain bud.
After the whole test had been completed, Mr. Power Planter was extremely fond of the Lambo strain, regarding it as a highly rewarding, very special sativa strain with outstanding qualities in any respect. Lambo is only available in the form of regular seeds at the moment, with 45 Euros for five seeds and 80 Euros for ten seeds certainly being a fair deal for such an exotic high-quality sativa strain.
Cultivation Data:
Strain – Lambo
Pedigree Mostly Sativa (Jamaican Haze x Jamaican Purple x Super afghan)
Vegetative Stage here: 24 days
Flowering Stage here: 56, 60 and 62 days, 55-60 days in general MediuM
Plagron Standard Mix
Container Volume 6.5 litres PH 6.0-6.3
EC max. 2.0 mS
Light Vegetative stage: 3 x 600 w green Bud MH; Flowering stage: 3 x 600 w osram HPS
Temperature night: 17-19 °C day: 24-28°C
Air Humidity 40-55%
watering gardena “urlaubsbewässerung”- System
Fertilizers Canna terra Vega, Canna terra Flores, PK 13/14 (during flowering week 6)
Stimulators/additives rhizotonic wurzel, Cannazym, Bcuzz Blütestimulator
Height 112, 141 and 152 cm
Yield 52, 57 and 61 g = 56.7 g/average
Text & Photos: Green Born Identity – G.B.I
Originally Published in Weed World Magazine Issue 95