Out of the box..... Pandora Escapes !
Pandora’s Box is a strain that doesn’t get near the attention it deserves IMO. I think this is because JTR over shadows her and people feel it’s just another similar hybrid but this is a mistake if you’re on a serious quest for Dank. Let us review how Pandora’s Box was created. During our selection phase while working with JTR we went through a large number of phenotypes finding the best mother plant, once this was completed and we choose the plant now called Pink Lemonade. This particular female test very high for THVC and is known for producing long trichomes that curl inward on the leaves to form Resin Rails. We then back crossed this JTR female back to the Space Queen male. I am not sure this has been done before most people work to lock down the attributes of the female plant. In this case we were looking to actually lock down more of the males traits in the resulting hybrid. This process stabilized the strain and you find a much more even expression of both parents and almost every plant has that Cherry-Lemon taste I was shooting for. I met a guy back about 2 years ago around the time we had created Pandora’s Box and asked if wanted to test run it in his state legal grow tent and he agreed.
Jem has moved on and is doing his thing somewhere on this planet and I hope he’s smiling, this is the story of his journey and a few others with Pandora’s Box.
After Jem got his females selected and was nearing harvest I made the trip to visit him in his little apartment in the city. I was greeted by Jem and his cool as Bird and Black cat both who have great personalities and they welcomed me for a nice smoke out on some Querkle Z and Urkle. Jem grows in a small closet and a grow tent and I was in for a shock when he opened it I wasn’t expecting freaking tress inside with stalks the size of a hammer handle. Good air flow and mild temps and total dedication and some donated test seeds and presto we have Dank Pandora buds just dripping with resin and huge size. I smell JTR with added cherry smell but these plants are much larger than JTR with buds superhard and that take tell leaf curl I can’t wait to smoke some of the work.
He really out did himself as you can see in the high resolution photo’s, the plants just ooze resin and at 55 days it looks like Jem has the perfect fade going on especially for someone who has only been growing his own meds for just 2 years. His favorite female he calls Cherry Lethal Lemonade.
Lemon and Skunk and Cherry’s are what I smell from the most mature plant while the other has a lingering anise smell hiding under the lemons. When growing out large numbers of seeds the uniformity of this strain just shines and I know of more that a few outdoor growers that have filled there greenhouses directly with seed plants due to the consistency of quality flowers each female plant produces.
We verified this again when our good friend The Herbilizer ran Pandora’s Box for us in his medical garden up in Canada. Herby as I call him is one hell of a grower and likes to sample genetics from all the top breeders and he really knows his stuff. It is quite and honor and somewhat of a challenge to have someone of his caliber testing for us. He ran a large group of seed plants and was rewarded with a high ratio of females so we got to look at a wide group of 9 plants traits all at once. He told me that he liked the strain very much and his harvest from the one strain was tremendous but the telling tale was he kept 3 of the females in clone form running them again not being able to decide which was his favorite. I wonder if he’s still running her now?
A few years later I was standing at my booth at Hempfest when a young man in a wheel chair came rolling up in a wheelchair and introduced himself as Titan. He handed me a big old jar of Pandora’s Box he had grown out in his medical garden. I was amazed such a young man hell a boy to be honest could produce buds of this quality. We became instant friends and I went on to tell his story in an article I wrote about his injury and how he deals with it using medical cannabis. Titan gets amazing pain relief from the Pandora’s Box and while it does not stop his leg tremors completely its does provide the potency to give him some relief. I know for a fact that Titan still runs his favorite female and uses it on a daily basis.
People tend to focus on the next big thing and Pandora’s Box came out so long ago she has taken a back seat to strains that in my opinion are not as potent, or nearly as consistent as this proven hybrid. I notice Paradise Seeds also has a strain named Pandora but there are completely different strains and just a coincident because it’s a very cool name. As a breeder I love the mystery that comes when creating something new and I felt that the unique way she was created just might be special secret and that secret had to be let out of the Box…. Pandora’s Box…are you up to the challenge?
The low down on… Pandora’s Box
Many years ago the most powerful magic recipe was locked away to protect humanity from the devastating power, locked inside a combination of genetics that only a team of Uber-stoners would have the power to harness. This strain is very stable and we are very excited about the yields we have seen. The first plants I saw grown in a hydro hut, grown by a newbie grower, were literally sagging with huge glass-like buds and the buzz is up, speedy and has you smiling like a Cheshire cat. It’s a bit smoother than JTR and has a different feel in the head – less haze influence. I can’t tell where the ceiling is as every bowl I smoke, I seem to get a bit higher until the point my vision blurs. Not for light-weights. I can’t stop grinning when I smoke this weed.
• Phenotypes: Large Triangle shaped glass covered rock hard buds are all we see.
• Height: Wide thick sweeping arms with weighted colas that need support after 50 days/medium
• Yield: For a strain of this potency I think this thing yields like crazy.
• Indoor/Outdoor
• Best way to grow: Topped and bound/Vegged to a large bush
• Harvest Window: 9 weeks
• Sativa/Indica: 70/30
• Hybrid: Jack the Ripper X Space Queen
• High type: Zooming, happy, grinning, anti depressant BIG TIME!
• Smell: It tastes like NL5, but it’s very industrial with a slight citrus taste and a undertone of spice and hash. One female has been named “Cherry Lethal Lemonade”.
By TGA Genetics
Originally Published in Weed World Magazine Issue 100
