In decades of testing hundreds of marijuana strains available retail, we’ve discovered that only a handful of marijuana seeds breeders/companies have a menu of great strains. And many of the best breeders are so small-scale and non-commercial that you only hear of them on grow forums or a few elite seed seller retail sites, and have no idea how to reach them or if they are excellent.

At the top of the commercial retail marijuana seeds pyramid is Humboldt Seed Company. They have a massive menu of strains and some are absolute bangers you can’t get anywhere else. One of our favorite strains of all time is their Orange Creampop, which we first started testing two years ago when no seeds were yet commercially available.

As of now, we’ve completed seven seasons with this strain, growing in organic soil, soilless mix, and coco in multiple grow ops, so we know it very well.

Marijuana is an amazing plant because it can include almost all terpenoid scents found in Nature. The same chemicals that make oranges smell like oranges can also exist in your marijuana buds…but only when geniuses like Humboldt Seed Company (HSC) are the breeder.

Orange Creampop (OCP) is the most pungent pure orange strain any of us have ever experienced, the only one that really deserves having “orange” in the strain name. Orange scent in cannabis isn’t new, but rarely found in strains that are phenotype consistent, easy to grow, heavy-yielding, potent, and have a great high.

Decades ago in Europe and California we grew Californian Orange, made by Dutch Passion from Orange genetics procured in northern California. By today’s standards the strain isn’t a banger, due to low THC percentage. The plants smelled like oranges, the high was bland/boring because it was neither Sativa nor Indica. It took way too long to finish flowering.

Decades later came Subcool’s Agent Orange, which included Californian Orange genetics along with trademarked Subcool genetics like Jack the Ripper. Sadly, Subcool died during COVID, and although scammers claim to still sell Agent Orange and some Subcool strains, we tried those seeds and they’re not worth growing.

We’ve also tested an alleged Orange Creamsicle, from an obscure breeder, which included Californian Orange genetics but was not pheno-consistent, and took as long as 83 days in bloom phase. Waste of time.

Allegedly there’s an Orange Cream Pop (note that HSC’s is Creampop, without the space) from Weaving Genetics that includes Mimosa, Clementine, and California Orange genetics, but good luck finding a way to buy the seeds, lol.

None of these orange strains are impressive enough to be well-known, but when you’ve smelled Humboldt Seed Company’s Orange Creampop, you know why an orange strain is so desirable.

HSC’s orange strain originated in their massive annual phenotype hunts, during which they examine tens of thousands of individual plants to find champion unicorns.

The specific pheno hunt results were: OCP-11 Burr’s Place x CF-30 S1 Casa Flor. This is the kind of data coding you need when you have acre after acre of beautiful cannabis plants to search through.

OCP plants immediately show vigor and resilience. In our first test grow, after 30-34 days in grow phase, we hard-flipped to bloom phase. Many cannabis strains, especially with wildcrafted outdoor genetics onboard, do not like hard flips. They want you to mimic Nature’s transition between summer and autumn using a soft flip, by gradually reducing light hours from 18 to 12, rather than doing it all at once.

Thus, our first OCP grow had three tiny hermie clusters out of all plants in week two after the hard flip. In the next six test grows, we did a soft flip, and there have been no hermies.

Phenotype consistency is almost uniform. The main phenotypic difference we’ve seen is some plants smell and taste more orange than others, have a more sedating high than others, develop cloudy resin glands sooner than others. But these variations are minor.

The plants flower very early, with short internodes quickly filling in. Orange scent comes on with a week of bloom phase starting. As buds mature, we’re excited by the greasy, extremely pungent orange scent and goo coming off stems, stalks, leaves, and buds.

By day 40, buds are coated in resins, light lime green, fluffy but not excessively so, and their bracts remind us of Poddy Mouth, an incredible HSC strain known for huge bracts.

Studying resin glands every day, we start incremental harvesting at day 43. Our final harvest has been no later than day 53, but HSC estimates a 50-55 day bloom phase.

The high changes a lot from day 43 to day 53. The day 43 high is about 75-25 Sativa dominant. It has sufficient body to keep the high from being like an excessive dose of caffeine, but the high’s main traits are a powerful, buzzing euphoria that lasts 2-3 hours.

HSC describes Orange Creampop as a daytime strain, and earliest-harvested buds are exactly that, with a very strong, energizing high. Early buds have about 75% clear resin glands, but later harvests to day 53 show way more cloudy glands, buds bulking quickly, and the high goes from mostly Sativa to 50-50 and then slightly Indica. THC percentages are 29-35%.

The high profile is reverse of what most strains give you, because most Sativa-dom strains start with an energizing high that resolves into a sedating high. OCP is the opposite. The first times we sampled it, we were surprised at how much body high there was. But after about 30 minutes, the body high receded and was replaced by a goofy, stimulating euphoria that lasted hours.

When a drying tent dehumidifier failed and the drying Orange Creampop buds were at 60-63% relative humidity, they started to mold quickly, so this strain is not fully mold resistant. Control your late bloom phase garden humidity and keep your drying room at 50% max.

Very few leaves in the buds, and big long, thick, dense buds make trimming easy, except that OCP’s resins are very glue-y so you need plenty of isopropyl alcohol to remove resins.

Speaking of resins, if you want to make heavenly hashish, kief, dry sift, live resin, bubble (icewater) hash, or other extracts, the terps and resin gland density of Orange Creampop will thrill your soul.

What many people overlook with Humboldt Seed Company is that by developing new types of terpenoid combos in their one-of-a-kind strains, they are inherently developing new types of resins.

This is easily discovered when manicuring the buds—amber-tinted orange candy goo gathers on hands, scissors, pipes, lungs. Experienced trimmers say the viscosity, color, and glue factors are superior to Gorilla Glue and other strains known for particularly tenacious resins.

Everybody is absolutely in love with the scent and taste, not just its cheerful, orange sunshine high.

The orange scent is a mixture of fresh orange pulp and orange rind, and it permeats the grow house. Opening jars of Orange Creampop provokes olfactory delight. The orange taste and scent coat your lips and tongue. It’s almost like inhaling live resins!

The orange terps and other goo are so thick they clogged up our vaporizer inhalation chambers with clear terps that we scraped off and used as terp sauce.

We average 2-5 ounces per plant and the tallest plant so far was 55 inches tall, so this is a useful strain for limited height grow ops or outdoor stealth grows. The strain does well with mild topping to create a bushy plant, but late-bloom branches are not sturdy, and need support to hold heavy buds.

If you had the right climate, sun exposure, and security to grow full-size outdoor plants in 50-gallon grow barrels like growers do in HSC’s beloved Emerald Triangle, this strain produces stacks of long, thick buds, smelling like oranges, lacquered in potent citrus resins like no other cannabis strain you’ll find.

The orange scent is so strong that when a repairman was working near where OCP was being grown, he kept asking if there was an orange tree in or near the house. During an outdoor OCP grow, a neighbor pointed to an actual orange tree and said: “It sure smells good.”

There are other benefits to this stellar strain. For example, some people claim autoflower cannabis is “as good as photoperiod,” but this full-size, 33% THC photoperiod strain finishes FASTER than most autoflowers.

You use less electricity to grow it, because autoflowers have to be given at least 18 hours of light per day for their entire life, while photoperiods only need 4-5 weeks of grow phase at 18 hours and then you drop to 12.

So when you want a fast-finishing, extremely potent, rare, terp-forward, delicious strain that gives you a happy high, Orange Creampop beats ANY autoflowering marijuana in ease of growth, high, and yield.

Here’s what HSC says about Orange Creampop:

“One of your favorite childhood treats has been reinvented as a cannabis strain! Orange Creampop is a classically beloved flavor combination. Here at Humboldt Seed Company, we’re proud of our uncanny ability to create seeds that undeniably embody their namesakes. Just like our Blueberry Muffin, the world’s most aptly named strain according to Leafly, every Orange Creampop seed produces loads of luscious terpenes, and unique flavor compounds that keep the strain smelling like it just finished curing. As usual, this was a labor of love that originated with one of our R&D partnerships. First crossed in 2020 when our Hella Jelly strain was still called Jelly Rancher, the un-stabilized Jelly x Orange Creamsicle seed was pheno-hunted in 2021 and ’22 with Burr’s Place in Calaveras. Every harvest at Burr’s looked and tasted better than the last as we closed in on stable seeds with the perfect ratio of orange and cream. More R&D with Casa Flor contributed a remarkably productive washer selection which was incorporated into the final push so expect above average rosin yields with THC levels in the low 30’s!”

We are loyal only to growers and their outcomes. Like you, we’re always searching for the few unicorn strains that are absolutely thrilling, reliable, killer. The bottom line is you want to get Orange Creampop feminized photoperiod seeds as soon as possible.