Another cheesy export hit from Holland
It rarely happens that Seeds banks decide to open their treasure chest and share some of their pure genetic gems with the public. These are known as IBL (inbreed line) strains and they have exclusively been used as breeding stock before. If a breeder makes such IBL strains available, such as Luc from Paradise Seeds did when releasing Original White Widow IBL and Original Cheese IBL to the seed market a while ago, then the worldwide grower community expresses a huge amount of joy.
OG White Widow has already been tested with great results by The Doc, and Growolf recently took care of OG Cheese (mostly indica). She is a very classic strain with a long history, a very special Skunk variety going back to the late 1980s when she used to be on the menu of several coffee shops in Amsterdam, but then vanished, giving way to Super Skunk which became the new top seller. In 2003, Paradise Seeds obtained an original Cheese cutting from their “red eyed friend in London”, using it for cross breeding projects with some of their own varieties, but the respective outcomes have never been released – instead, Luc decided to make it available in its original pure form, as an IBL strain. After a flowering time of eight weeks, Original Cheese is expected to deliver high yields of big, hard, chunky buds (indoors 400-500 g/m2, outdoors up to 600g) “with the distinctive Cheese smell and flavour”, providing a strong high, both mentally and physically, recommended by Paradise to all Skunk lovers.
Growolf sowed a package of five feminised OG Cheese seeds into Jiffy pots. As usual, they were raised under two 75 Watts high-efficiency CFL lamps in a Secret Jardin one sqm. grow box for starters. After two weeks, Growolf transplanted the seedlings into 6.5 litre pots filled with coco ground and watered them manually. They were then moved into the actual grow room which was equipped with 4x 600 Watts lamps (2x HPS, 2x MH), where the vegetative stage lasted for another week. After those three weeks of vegetative growth, the five OG Cheese plants had developed into quite bushy looking plants measuring 28-41 cm, with medium broad dark green leaves and lots of side branches, adopting a typical Skunk strain growth pattern. A considerable further stretching effect in the flowering stage was accordingly expected by Growolf, who cut down the daily light cycle from 18/6 to 12/12 to induce flowering. Two more 600 watts HPS bulbs were installed in the grow room, replacing the MH ones to give the plants a perfect light spectrum for the flowering stage.
Within 6-8 days, on all the three plants, the first female preflowers had become visible and soon after that the flowering impulse took full possession of the plants, sporting lots of flowers. After some weeks, these flowers had accumulated into little rose-shaped knobs all along and on top of the branches. At the same time, the five OG Cheese plants kept on stretching in height, with one of the plants stretching particularly vividly and noticeably rising above the others that obviously represented OG Cheese standard growth and bloom behaviour. When they were six weeks into flowering, the plants had formed great looking, dense, roundish buds with fairly small calyxes and a high calyx-to-leaf-ratio. These were covered by rich amounts of resin glands that even spread over wide parts of larger flowering leaves. The air was filled with an intense, sweet, cheesy, skunk odor that also had a fruity undertone, and Growolf realised that the plants would obviously finish flowering according to plan (expecting about two more flowering weeks needed for maturity).
That estimation proved to be right for most of the plants and, in the remaining two weeks of flowering, the OG Cheese buds swelled to impressive final density, tightness and size
whilst also exhibiting tremendous amounts of resin. Only one plant exceeded the official flowering time of 56 days to a considerable degree, needing 62 days to ripen instead of 55-58 days as required by the other four plants. In the end, the plants had arrived at heights of 81, 2x 82, 93 and 111 cm.
Thanks to the high calyx-to-leaf ratio of the buds, Growolf could make fast work of the harvest that, after a drying process of about two weeks, had turned into 346 grams of super hard and dense, very sticky OG Cheese nuggets (almost 70 grams per plant). Those dry buds deliciously smelled like a mix of cheese, butter and fruit (the fruity note had come out more distinctly after the drying process), making Growolf look forward to a yummy smoke experience. The flavor really was excellent, providing a full-mouth sensation with a spicy, sweet and somewhat fruity taste. OG Cheese’s effect rushed on Growolf’s body and mind very quickly, a couple of puffs and he felt a warm stoney and relaxant feeling spreading in his head and over his extremities and his eyes became a bit glazed. However, at the same time there was also a certain subtle sativa effect pounding somewhere in his head which kept him from getting completely “killed” by that strong indica turn, and so he enjoyed an exciting football match of his favourite club on TV, keeping his nerves under control by means of that long lasting calming indica effect. After more than one and a half hours, Growolf felt that the high was fading away, leaving him feel very happy and relaxed – possibly intensified by the fact that his team had won the match!
“This strain offers the best cheese strain quality possible, with very rewarding results in terms of yield, potency and flavour. An excellent choice for both self-supplying and commercial growers. Many thanks to Luc for sharing this superb classic with the public, I strongly suppose that many growers worldwide will feel the same… OG Cheese easily stands up to the great reputation that the Dutch (milk) cheese enjoys, surely becoming another cheesy export hit from Holland – Say cheese!”
Green Born Identity – G.B.I.
Cultivation data:
| Genetics | Original Cheese IBL (Skunk variety) |
| Vegetative stage | here: 3 weeks |
| Flowering stage | here: 55, 56, 2x 58 and 62 days, 56 days in general |
| Medium | Coco CoGr (6,5 l pots) |
| pH | 5.6-6.4 |
| EC | 1.2–2.0 mS |
| Light | First two weeks: 2x 75 W Secret Jardin CFL, then 2x 600 W HPS + 2x 600 W MH, 4x 600 W HPS for flowering |
| Temperature | 20-27°C |
| Air humidity | 40-60% |
| Watering | by hand |
| Fertilisation | Plagron Alga Grow and Alga Bloom, PK 13/14 (flowering) |
| Additives/stimulants | Plagron Power Roots and Vita Racer (until the 3rd week of flowering)
Plagron Green Sensation (from the 5th week of flowering) |
| Height | 81, 2x 82, 93 and 111 cm |
| Yield | 346 g (about 70g per plant on the average) |
Originally published in Weed World Magazine Issue 105
