Serious Happiness. A perfect description of what we desire when we use marijuana.
And now the name of a new photoperiod marijuana strain from the cannabis pioneer who created the legendary AK-47, Kali Mist, Chronic and Bubble Gum marijuana strains.
Serious Happiness comes from Simon at Serious Seeds in Amsterdam.
Serious Seeds is one of the few legendary Dutch marijuana seeds companies that has maintained the genetic integrity of its famous strains while introducing killer new strains.
Simon started collecting and breeding rare cannabis seeds nearly 40 years ago. He worked for Sensi Seeds’ founder Ben Dronkers before founding Serious Seeds in the early 1990s.
He soon created Kali Mist, AK-47 and Bubble Gum, which were big hits at popular Amsterdam cannabis coffee shops such as Greenhouse, Bluebird, and Dampkring.
Serious Seeds strains won High Times Cannabis Cup awards. People took hits of AK-47 and found out why it was named after a machine gun.
Simon told us he has always focused on quality rather than quantity when it comes to his strain menu. “We work on strains for years and only release the very best,” he explains.
Serious Happiness is a 50-50 Sativa-Indica hybrid bred from the foundational genetics that created the modern drug cannabis genetic library.
Its father is Warlock, an almost-pure Skunk #1 x Skunk cross created originally by Magus Genetics.
Its mother is AK-47, which contains Colombian Gold, Mexican and Thai Sativa, and pure Afghani genetics.
Magus Genetics was a Dutch connoisseur seeds company founded by a breeder named Garett in the 1990s. He produced several award-winning strains including Warlock, Biddy Early, Motavation, and Double Dutch.
In 2011, Garett approached Simon and asked if Serious Seeds would like to take over his mother plants and strain library. Simon was very happy to do so, and quickly began using Magus strains in his breeding programs.
Nine years later, he added Serious Happiness to his esteemed strains menu.
We grew Serious Happiness indoors in soilless mix under a mixture of LED and HID grow lights. We fed using a combination of veganic and synthetic fertilizers in a drain to waste system.
The strain showed aggressive vigor right away, with 100% germination rate, and faster growth than other strains started at the same time.
The plants were topped once at 25 days after germination and placed in bloom phase 37 days after germination.
We assumed that the heavy presence of pure Afghan and Skunk genetics would prevent excessive plant stretch and height. This assumption was partially accurate: plants that started bloom phase at 24-26 inches tall were 46-54 inches tall at harvest time.
This strain naturally grows stocky and sturdy, with strong branches. Growers will love that it doesn’t produce a lot of leaves and has short internodes with moderately thick buds that fill in gaps and make trimming and manicuring very easy.
Phenotype consistency is remarkably uniform, another sign the strain has been properly bred.
Note that the most well-developed top buds are very thick and resinous, making the strain susceptible to botrytis (gray mold). Read this article to see what to do about gray mold.
During early bloom phase I was worried because the buds were rapidly gaining size but resin gland density was low. After about a month in bloom, however, stalked resin glands suddenly blanketed the bud structures and sugar leaves, and resin production skyrocketed.
The sudden influx of resin glands came with a massive surge in skunk smell that lasted two weeks before it was buried beneath a combination of sweet fruit and peppery scents.
Simon says the strain can be harvested indoors after 60-70 days in bloom phase, but we found that 67-75 days in bloom was the most useful. The strain puts on serious weight and resination in its last 2-3 weeks before harvest.
The strain appears to be a heavy feeder, but we’d need to grow it in a pure hydroponics system to verify that for sure.
Other strains in the same grow room being fed the same nutrients dosage showed signs of overfeeding, but the Serious Happiness did not.
Average yield per plant was impressive, considering this is an Indica-Sativa hybrid, with each plant producing at least 135 grams of premium, chunky, sticky, dried buds. The main colas on these plants can look like columnar mountains of gooey buds.
Harvest sampling gave us a strong, surprisingly stimulating, functional high that includes significant body effects but not enough to cripple your ability to think or function.
A bubbly euphoria and calming sense of well-being, along with enhanced tactile and aural sensations, are prime components of a high that comes on fast and lasts a long time. Some samplers noted an intense case of the munchies at the end of the high.
Serious Happiness is available in photoperiod regular and feminized seeds.
Given that it contains foundational genetics, growers who want to do their own breeding programs would benefit from getting the regular version and crossing the strain with itself and other strains.
North American growers who weren’t traveling to Amsterdam when Holland was the only legalized cannabis country on the planet might not realize how important Serious Seeds and Simon have been in the cannabis industry.
Simon is rare among major breeders in that he doesn’t release multiple new strains per year. He prefers to work hard to maintain his heritage strains and only introduce new strains when he has something absolutely amazing.
Simon explains that maintaining motherplants, pollen plants and breeding programs for decades is stressful and requires constant, professional attention…or else the genetic integrity of famous marijuana strains can be quickly lost.
When we mentioned we test hundreds of seeds per year and discover that most seed marijuana seeds companies are selling garbage genetics, he sadly agreed that the marijuana seeds industry is unregulated and full of scammers.
In recent years, scammers have been growing heritage strains in Spain and making amateurish crosses and bogus copies of them, he notes. The scammers sometimes copy the strain name from the original breeder or create a minor variation of the strain name.
Simon says he is rather disgusted with the AK49s, counterfeit AK47s and many other inferior copycat strains from greedy people who buy bulk seeds from the Spanish growers, create a new marijuana seeds company and flashy marketing campaign, and start selling mediocre, poorly-bred seeds under false pretenses.
Growers buy what they believe are AK-47, Bubble Gum, Kali Mist, and other strains created and maintained by Serious Seeds, but the fake seeds have low germination rate, and the plants grow out to be jokes rather than champions.
Typical of grower experiences is this a review of a non-Serious Seeds “AK-47” strain grown from seed: “This new company’s AK-47 is worth nothing. I’ve grown this strain from Serious Seeds and it’s the best. But this version doesn’t come close to the Serious Seeds version. It lacks resin, taste, smell and potency. It has multiple phenotypes. It’s a crime they call it AK-47, because it isn’t. This is nothing compared to the original from Serious Seeds, and I’m sorry I wasted my money on it.”
Simon is a laid-back Dutchman with a pleasant cannabis vibe, but he’s had to get serious with competitors who are stealing his strain names and misrepresenting their seeds:
“We have a never-ending fight against fake strain names by an endless row of ‘new’ seed sellers constantly coming up with their versions of AK-47, Bubble Gum and our other famous strains. The threat of legal action usually makes newbies change strain names, but every so often we have to take a seed seller to court. The problem is there is so many of them, and we find out when growers complain to us about strains that had the same name as ours, but are no good.
The bulk producers keep on laughing, they go on offering seeds using strain names we created. They ride on the fame of popular strain names, smearing the reputation of those strain names by selling bad seeds.
We get complaints from people who bought AK-47 and had bad results. They think the seeds came from us because of the name. When we see a picture of the packaging it becomes clear it was not our seeds at all.
There is very little interest amongst most cannabis magazines or websites to warn the public about these widespread practices.
Another trick they use is to create ‘strain guide web sites’ that smear the reputation of our strains and claim that new versions of our strains made by other breeders are better.
For example, one of these sites falsely claims that the original version of AK-47 was only “medium strong” with THC levels at 16%, but an AK-49 from [a Spanish cannabis seeds company] is much more potent.
Funny thing is, this company is selling inferior Spanish-grown bulk seeds. They tried to use the name AK-47 until we contacted them about it, then they changed it to AK-49.”
Intrigued by what Simon was telling us, we researched those so-called strain guide websites, and found most of them are cleverly marketing crappy seeds by skewing strain descriptions to diss heritage strains and point growers towards knockoff counterfeit strains made by scammers.
For example, the website “AskGrowers” claims to be created by connoisseur cannabis growers and experts who recommend only the top marijuana strains, but when you look at who runs and creates the site, it’s a bunch of Russians who apparently have no experience growing cannabis.
The site appears to be a stealth advertising vehicle for people who want to market cannabis products other than marijuana strains. It’s not what you’d trust for accurate advice about the best marijuana strains.
One reason we feature only a handful of cannabis seeds breeders here at Growing Marijuana Perfectly is that after decades of growing marijuana from seed, and querying seed breeders and sellers, we’ve discovered the vast majority of marijuana seeds and seed companies aren’t worth your money or time.
Simon and Serious Seeds are worth your time and money. When you’re looking for serious happiness from your marijuana growing, now you can order it through the mail, germinate it, and harvest it.
Take a look at this Serious Happiness bud. That’s seriously fantastic!
Growing Marijuana Perfectly! 