What do you get when you breed the “Queen of Sativas” with one of the sweetest candy cannabis strains ever?

If you’re Simon, the founder of Holland’s famed Serious Seeds marijuana seeds company, you create KaliBubba, the powerful new strain that combines Kali Mist and Bubble Gum genetics for an ideal balance of body and mind effects.

With ancestors like that, it’s no surprise KaliBubba is loaded with pleasure during cultivation and consumption.

Start with the fact that KaliBubba is half Kali Mist, the psychedelic near-pure Sativa beloved by craft cannabis growers and consumers ever since it was created in the early 1990s in Amsterdam by Simon.

Kali Mist won first prize at the 1995 and 2000 Amsterdam Cannabis Cup events, and also won cannabis competitions in Spain, the UK, the USA, and Italy.

It’s one of few prize-winning strains developed by Dutch cannabis pioneers still available in authentic, heritage form today.

Simon says North American breeders were working on Kali Mist’s ancestors long before the strain’s formative genetics were transferred to Holland. These genetics are primarily landrace Cambodian, with other rare Sativa influences.

The strain produces a wonderfully cerebral, creative, contemplative high, but some novice or cash crop growers avoid it because it has a tendency to grow tall and need structural training, and because bloom phase can last 10-14 weeks.

But Kali Mist is only 50% of the origin story for KaliBubba. The other half is Bubble Gum.

Simon’s Bubble Gum strain is as famous as Kali Mist—always a favorite choice in Dutch cannabis shops during the country’s glory days as the only place in the world where connoisseur cannabis could be legally bred and sold.

First released commercially in 1994, Bubble Gum immediately won High Times Cannabis Cup awards, and continues to win awards at cannabis competitions in Europe and North America.

Its popularity comes in part because it smells exactly like old-school bubble gum, and delivers heavy yields with a powerful high that’s euphoric and calming at the same time.

Although legend has it that Bubble Gum strain was bred from “unknown genetics that came from a grower in Indiana,” insiders say the strain is based on a combination of Colombian, Oaxacan, and Afghani genetics created by Simon during a long, complex breeding process.

Bubble Gum finishes faster than Kali Mist, is an inbred line (which means it has remarkable phenotype consistency), is easy to grow, has shorter stature, and produces fat, resinous buds.

But Bubble Gum can sometimes have a cultivation problem—its candied buds are so thickly resinous that they can be plagued by botrytis (gray mold) unless growers keep bloom phase humidity so low that it could interfere with vapor pressure deficit.

Read here for more information about vapor pressure deficit, which is a crucial but often overlooked aspect of grow room environment that greatly impacts plant growth. The main thing to know is if grow room humidity and temperature are mismatched, it can interfere with your plants’ ability to “breathe,” which slows growth to a crawl.

I’ve successfully grown Bubble Gum, and love the strain, but have to set grow room relative humidity lower than I wanted to avoid gray mold, creating VPD problems that slowed growth.

Regardless, the bubbly but heavy high of the strain, and exceptional yields, makes Bubble Gum worth the mold risks and slowed growth.

It was obvious to Simon that by combining Kali Mist with Bubble Gum he could craft a strain that blends the best traits of both while mitigating Mist’s long bloom phase and Bubble Gum’s gray mold susceptibility.

And that’s exactly what he has done with the KaliBubba strain. Not a fan of Bubba Kush, for years I misunderstood Kali Bubba’s genetics, so didn’t bother to test the strain—until Simon made it clear to me that the “Bubba” was for Bubble Gum, not Bubba Kush.

I recently grew the strain in a test grow containing nine elite strains. KaliBubba was my favorite high out of all the strains, and also one of highest-yielding and easiest to grow.

It had 100% germination rate, and only comes in regular (non-feminized) seeds.

I gave it only three weeks after germination to flip the strain into bloom phase, based on my experience with Kali Mist bloom phase stretch and excessive height.

To my delight, I found that KaliBubba’s stretch, height, and structure more resemble its Bubble Gum heritage. Plants that started bloom phase 17-18 inches tall finished bloom phase no taller than 51-53 inches, which is very manageable in most grow rooms and grow tents.

Internode spacing is tight, branches are sturdy, phenotype consistency was high, and the plants respond well to topping and shaping.

Pre-flowering showed quickly, and female to male ratio was favorable.

Both Kali Mist and Bubble Gum have buds that develop most of their resin glands during the second half of bloom phase and this trait exists in KaliBubba as well.

In an average bloom phase of 60-65 days, KaliBubba buds swell into huge puffballs of white hairs with few resin glands visible, until around day 40.

What I realized while dissecting KaliBubba buds after harvest is the white hairs on the bud exterior concealed a forest of resin glands underneath.

When the white hairs began receding and turning orange starting at day 40, resin glands became more visible, increased in number, and enlarged.

The KaliBubba bud in the article photo was at day 47 in bloom phase when photographed. By day 55, the buds were gooey with resin glands, reminding me of Bubble Gum buds.

Note that flushing marijuana is a bad idea no matter the strain, but because KaliBubba lays on the majority of its cannabinoids and terpenoids in the last 2-3 weeks of bloom phase, you want to feed KaliBubba all the way to harvest.

Bud density was so tight that I worried about gray mold and contacted Simon, who told me KaliBubba was engineered to be less susceptible to gray mold.

His assurance turned out to be accurate. Although a few of the fattest KaliBubba buds, which were the size and shape of a baseball, had minor amounts of mold on the inside main bud stem, the pervasive gray mold you see with some strains was not present. I only lost about 13% of my KaliBubba harvest to gray mold.

Beginning on day 40 of bloom phase, keep your grow op humidity at 45-47%. Do the same when you’re drying the buds. Gray mold is a monster. The fatter and more resinated the bud, the more you have to be on the lookout for evil mold.

It is also useful, both for stimulating resin gland development and for defeating gray mold and powdery mildew, to treat your plants with ultraviolet light for a few seconds before lights off, beginning at bloom phase day 30.

Kali Mist and many other Sativa strains are sensitive to sub-par root zone conditions involving pH, aeration, and moisture, and must be fed carefully because they perform poorly when overfed, fed with inferior nutrients, overwatered, or loaded with too much nitrogen and potassium.

KaliBubba isn’t fragile. Like Bubble Gum, it handles a relatively robust feed program including use of a bloom booster.

But the simpler you make your feed program, the better, and beware dosing too much nitrogen, phosphorus and/or potassium.

A flush containing only beneficial microbes such as the Rx Green product called Root every three weeks beginning a week before bloom phase starts keeps your plants happier.

KaliBubba buds didn’t have much if any scent until day 40. After that, they increasingly gave off a sweet, tasty floral scent with hints of Bubble Gum and Kali Mist, but not identical to either—it has its own unique scent and flavor.

With huge, round buds, I figured I might need to add stakes, trellis netting or other supports to KaliBubba, but the strain is so structurally robust that branches remained sturdy and upright without assistance.

I recommend topping the strain early—not just the main apical tip but several side tops—to keep it short and stocky.

Simon says the strain does very well outdoors if you’re in a sunny, relatively warm place that doesn’t have high humidity during bloom phase.

I harvested when 15% of the resin glands turned cloudy, with bloom phase duration very close to the nine weeks Serious Seeds predicts.

Due to mold worries, I didn’t hang-dry entire plants as I normally do. Instead, I cut buds off their stalks and carefully placed them in a drying room (on a drying rack) with 43-47% humidity.

They dried relatively quickly, retained the floral-pepper scent I loved while they were growing, and didn’t attract mold.

KaliBubba buds are easy to manicure, because they have few leaves sticking out of the main bud structure.

I evaluated the KaliBubba high when the buds were freshly-harvested by placing them into my Storz & Bickel Mighty+ portable vaporizer and drying them for a few minutes at 395°F until they started delivering thick, soothing, sweet vapor, at which time I dialed to 387°F.

The first few inhalations told me this strain is very very strong. When I test a strain after already having several vape sessions that day, and I immediately feel the high, I know the strain is super-potent.

The KaliBubba high is exceptional and rare—a perfect balance of body and mind effects. There’s definitely Bubble Gum relaxation, pain relief,  giggles, and sensual enhancement in the high, but there’s also the Kali Mist burst of creativity, deep thinking, psychedelia, and analytical clarity.

The high comes on fast and lasts for hours, with little or no burnout if you’ve avoided combustion effects by using a vaporizer.

This is a very versatile strain. I’ve used it while doing triathlete training, yoga, making music, at parties, dance clubs, theaters, and concerts, and for meditation.

Because it’s so balanced, it lacks the lethargy effects of Indicas and Kush, and doesn’t have the mind-only, racing thoughts, near-paranoia effects that some pure Sativas give you.

Average yield per plant was 143 grams, which is impressive for indoor, Sativa-dominant plants. The buds cured easily, retained their sticky resins, and delivered a floral-peppery taste along with the superb high.

I’ve grown almost all of the Serious Seeds line, and talked extensively with Simon. I’ve yet to experience a hermie plant from any of his regular or feminized cannabis seeds, which is something I can’t say for most other seed breeders.

And even though I usually don’t enjoy heavy Indica or Kush strains, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Simon’s Indica/Kush Warlock, Serious Kush, and White Russian strains.

They gave me massive harvests, and even though I was paralyzed by their heavy highs, I found them reasonably recreational, and definitely medicinal.

My objective evaluation is that Simon is the most dedicated, professional, honest, and cannabis-savvy of the original Dutch heritage breeders who created the commercial cannabis industry from the 1970s through the mid-1990s, when The Netherlands was a magnet for international cannabis lovers and breeders.

During that era, when Holland was the only place in the world you could legally buy cannabis and use it in public or host cannabis festival events like the High Times Cannabis Cup, Simon and a handful of other cannabis aficionados traveled the world gathering landrace cannabis seeds and breeding them to create legendary foundational strains.

Sadly, as the years have gone by, the other Dutch marijuana seeds companies lost their mojo. Many original Dutch cannabis heroes have died or retired. Others left their companies to be run by incompetent, greedy amateurs.

Some stopped breeding and producing their own marijuana seeds and strains, outsourcing the work to profit-driven sharks in Spain.

But Serious Seeds has not wavered in its commitment to marijuana growers.

Instead, Simon is a cannabis-loving perfectionist who works hard to maintain 100% reliability of Serious Seeds heritage strains while creating new, amazing strains whenever he sees a fascinating genetic opportunity.

I’ve cherished all the Serious Seeds strains I’ve grown, but KaliBubba has risen to the top due to its heavy yields, ease of growing, and potent, exquisitely balanced high that gives you an invigorating, functional suite of body and mind effects.

I recommend you get KaliBubba seeds as soon as possible, and bring serious joy into your grow room or outdoor garden.

The marriage of Kali Mist and Bubble Gum, giving us KaliBubba, was certainly a match made in cannabis heaven!

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