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On an otherwise average day at the office, I receive a text message from Mendo Dope inviting me up to the farm. Compared to texts I typically receive, this simple invitation is like skywriting from a small plane expelling a message of ganja smoke in its wake, but this is next level and the message isn\u2019t even words, it\u2019s a flame emoji projected against an otherwise cloudless sky. That is to say, Mendo Dope has the fire.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s cannabis harvest season in\u00a0California<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Mendo Dope<\/a>, a musical group led by brothers known primarily by their musical nom de plumes Old E and Bleezy, grow some of the best outdoor cannabis the world has ever seen. They also create some of the greatest music about cannabis. Mendo Dope are the town criers of our time, making public pot professions at levels of specificity akin to receiving the daily news. And, hear ye, hear ye: The state of California cannabis in its first year as a recreational marketplace is hopeful and very dank.<\/p>\n A Purple Candy Cane strain grows in the Mendo Dope\/Greenshock Farms garden.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n To understand the depth of Mendo Dope\u2019s artistry, one has to join them on a complete journey not dissimilar to the lifecycle of the plant itself, a full circle from seed to harvest. Mendo Dope grows plants so huge they can only really be called trees and, while they\u2019re doing it, they also create an album in their forest of marijuana. Then, through\u00a0YouTube tutorials and music videos<\/a>, they plant the seed of knowledge and fans experience what it\u2019s like to cultivate cannabis in the Emerald Triangle, one of the world\u2019s most renowned marijuana growing regions. Mendo Dope\u2019s music germinates in\u00a0Mendocino,<\/a>\u00a0but their concept completes its lifecycle when consumers across California smoke the harvest through their partnership with the\u00a0Natural Cannabis Company<\/a>, which offers the exact strains seen in the videos in adult-use shops.<\/p>\n Some people sing to their plants, but Mendo Dope creates and presents an album for their cannabis, recording the vocals while nested inside a massive single-stalked behemoth that becomes a ganja vocal booth. They bring mixing equipment, musicians and instruments into the ganja garden to record the tracks.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like doing a live concert, you know, just for the plants,\u201d Old E says of the process of creating the group\u2019s \u201cLive in the Garden<\/a>\u201d album series. \u201cI\u2019m performing for the girls out here; they\u2019ve been soaking it in.\u201d<\/p>\n Old E exhales from a blunt while standing in front of the ganja vocal booth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The brothers have been making music together since 2007, with Old E supplying the vocals and Bleezy taking charge of crafting the beats. They exploded onto the cannabis scene in 2013 with their double-disk reggae hip-hop album \u201cPlanters of the Trees<\/a>\u201d and just wrapped up a tour with a live band that included headlining at events such as\u00a0Seattle Hempfest<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Boston Freedom Rally<\/a>.<\/p>\n I first visited Mendo Dope\u2019s grow in Ukiah about two years ago, but since then, times have changed considerably, as many California cannabis companies and cultivators struggle to stay afloat in what is now a highly regulated and permitted system. This shift, for Mendo Dope, has meant moving their operations from a small residential backyard to a marijuana mountain hideaway through a partnership with the award-winning cultivator behind\u00a0Greenshock Farms<\/a>.<\/p>\n A Purple Candy Cane plant stands tall.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n My two-hour drive north to visit the farm is filled with bouts of heavy rain. The skies clear when I meet Mendo Dope at their home, where two pit bull puppies immediately bound outside the doorway and into their vehicle and follow the brothers and a friend to the grow in Willits. I\u2019m doing pretty well following along in the caravan, but once I hit the unpaved mountain roads, filled with mud and large puddles, I slow considerably. Mendo Dope has a song describing their country cannabis lifestyle called \u201cI\u2019m from the Mountains.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe livin\u2019 different in the sticks, from the boondocks coming with a California twist,\u201d Old E raps in the video that features scenes of him dropping verses while standing in the bed of a four-wheeler in motion and smoking Backwoods in a redwood grove.<\/p>\n Once I reach the top of the mountainside and park near the grow, Bleezy tells me he noticed me fall behind once we hit the country roads. \u201cWell, I\u2019m not from the mountains,\u201d I say with a laugh, but thanks to the invitation to visit the grow, I am now deep within the mountains on one of the most incredible outdoor cannabis farms I\u2019ve ever seen. The plants are massive, bursting with heavy, fragrant buds and stretching across the land farther than the eye can see.<\/p>\n Mark Greyshock, the cultivator behind Purple Candy Cane and Tropical Sleigh Ride wanders through his garden.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n To see the plants Mendo Dope and Greenshock are growing together is a magical experience. Greenshock, run by longtime cultivator and cannabis breeder Mark Greyshock, is perhaps best known for its Tropical Sleigh Ride strain, which took home the highest terpene award at the 2017\u00a0Emerald Cup<\/a>, the preeminent event for outdoor herb. Tropical Sleigh Ride is a cross of Purple Candy Cane with Pineapple and contains the rare terpene ocimene.<\/p>\n As we enter the fenced grow, I immediately pull my face closer to the sweet-smelling buds almost ready for harvest. The plant I\u2019m sniffing is bursting with notes of tropical fruit and Hawaiian Punch and is one of about 24 variations of the plant in a special patch near the front of the garden. Greyshock is hunting through different variations of this Tropical Sleigh Ride, known to cannabis cultivators as phenotypes, to find the best one.<\/p>\n \u201cThe taste is the same as it smells, just delicious,\u201d Greyshock says. \u201cThis is a nice, antidepressant, creative type of weed. We\u2019ve got a high variation of different styles of it. They all kind of have the same terpene profile, but they look a little different.\u201d<\/p>\n As we walk further into the garden, I ask Old E his opinion of one of the Tropical Sleigh Ride phenotypes.<\/p>\n A cola of Tropical Sleigh Ride.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThis one right here? It\u2019s looking quite nice, I really like the structure of it,\u201d he says. \u201cIt looks like it\u2019s getting that [purple] color to it, too; this looks like a good one. It\u2019s always hard to say until the very end when you actually get to smoke it.\u201d<\/p>\n Both Mendo Dope and Greenshock are on a quest to discover the most incredible weed on the planet and have created a name for their official collaboration that combines their names: Green Dope.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been crazy, super dope,\u201d Old E says of the partnership. \u201cWe\u2019re very thankful that Mark wanted to partner up with us because we were in between [projects], not doing anything, not keeping our brand in the clubs actually \u2014 only doing our personal stuff. We built it up to this level where we have to keep our stuff on the shelf. We have to keep Mendo Dope alive out there for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n The Avenue of the Giants, a world-famous scenic drive through old-growth redwoods, is a spectacular sight a bit further north of where we stand today, but as I look at the grow filled with plants, some of which tower at 10 feet tall and eight to 10 feet wide, surrounded on all sides by a pine forest, I begin to feel like this particular spot merits the same designation.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b>The third iteration of Mendo Dope\u2019s \u201cLive in the Garden\u201d album is set to be released on 420. This year, Old E and the others who performed alongside him in the grow, recorded their parts in a ganja vocal booth composed of the group\u2019s own namesake Mendo Dope strain: a cross of Locomotion and Querkle.<\/p>\n \u201cLast year, before the fires hit, we had the [Mendo Dope] seeds first get made with Subcool\u2026 and some people were able to grow it,\u201d Old E explains, noting their collaboration with Subcool, the breeder behind\u00a0TGA Seeds<\/a>\u00a0who lost his home in 2017 fires that ravaged Northern California. \u201cWhen the fire hit, it burned all the seeds, so we had to recreate it again.\u201d<\/p>\n Old E partaking in his favorite form of cannabis consumption.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n They recently grew out the seeds in an indoor environment and were able to get their first taste of their signature strain.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got to smoke 10-plus different varieties of it,\u201d Old E says. \u201cIt\u2019s very fruity, super nice. [It\u2019s got] a lot of oranges in it, it\u2019s grapey.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn one of them, we found a banana taffy thing going on,\u201d Bleezy adds. \u201cThere\u2019s a good variety in them for sure. There\u2019s a lot of strains that [went into making] the Locomotion and the Querkle, that obviously is Sub\u2019s Space Dude with the Purple Urkle, so there\u2019s a lot going on in [this new Mendo Dope strain] and things are starting to come out from the parents in that strain that we\u2019ve been noticing. It\u2019s pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n And while Mendo Dope\u2019s new cannabis strain is synthesizing a lot of new flavors, the group\u2019s next album is also set to blend genres, combining reggae, hardcore hip-hop and funk beats.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been getting more and more live and we\u2019ve been playing with the band a lot,\u201d Bleezy says. \u201cThe whole CD is really live and there\u2019s solos from instrument players and there\u2019s breaks in between stuff and it\u2019s not just a 16 bar verse, a hook, a 16 bar verse, a hook \u2014 it\u2019s all mixed different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe wanted to have some of it a little more musical this time, where\u2019s it\u2019s just more about letting beats ride and just hearing certain instruments shine, instead of just back-to-back instruments and vocals,\u201d Old E adds. \u201cIt\u2019s just letting it breathe and just kind of feeling it, just groovin\u2019 more.\u201d<\/p>\n Cannabis celebrities, such as \u201cCooking on High<\/a>\u201d host and Cannabis Now contributor\u00a0Ngaio Bealum<\/a>, will be featured on the album alongside reggae artists Winstrong, Isaac King and Meleku, Sizzla\u2019s son.<\/p>\n The Mendo Dope\/Greenshock Farms collaboration is located in Mendocino County.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cTo be surrounded in weed and smoking freely, it\u2019s the best place to record ever,\u201d Old E says of the experience creating the album.<\/p>\n Bleezy noted that the ganja vocal booth is not only made up of good herb, but produces great sound quality.<\/p>\n \u201cIt sounds really good too, especially when the plant\u2019s this big; there\u2019s so much squawking noise from the back of it, so it\u2019s like you\u2019re in an actual vocal chamber,\u201d he says, adding that the experience of recording the album in the grow is very fun. \u201cIt\u2019s super sick being outside and having people come to the garden to play and instead of just coming and doing the music, they\u2019re also tripping on the plants the whole time and smelling everything in between.\u201d<\/p>\n And both brothers say the process of recording the album adds to the development of the weed itself. As they recorded \u201cLive in the Garden 3,\u201d they were pollinating lower branches of the ganja vocal booth, meaning new strains and songs were being created at the same time.<\/p>\n \u201cNew strains are being created while the music is being made,\u201d Old E says. \u201cSo inside the seed, there\u2019s so much packed in that little seed in there.\u201d<\/p>\n One of Mendo Dope\u2019s puppies wanders around the enormous grow.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a0<\/b>All in all, the Green Dope grow contains 125 different plants and 12 strains. Each plant is growing straight into the soil, which means there\u2019s no limit for how far the roots can stretch into the native earth.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you have this beautiful earth like this, it feels like, why not use it?\u201d Greyshock says. \u201cNumber one, you just save so much money and when you really get technical into it, like in terms of tastes and flavors and stuff, the natural dirt and earth to me just tastes better.\u201d<\/p>\n The whole grow is done with organic cultivation methods, utilizing compost fertilizers containing alfalfa and guano and, during the plant\u2019s vegetative period, is watered on a drip system once every five days. Nutrients are added throughout the course of the season and the fertilizer is cut out as the plants get closer to harvest and watered more often to flush out any excess build-up of salts and nutrients.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got to figure whatever you\u2019re feeding them with is kind of what your plant becomes,\u201d Greyshock says. \u201cIf you\u2019re using chemical salts and a lot of that stuff, your plant\u2019s going to have that in it. [Growing with organic practices] makes a significant difference in the final product when it comes to the taste.\u201d<\/p>\n Bleezy holds the stalk of a cannabis plant to illustrate its size.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Standing in the shadow of these immense florae, I have to ask, what\u2019s the secret to growing gargantuan marijuana plants?<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a variety of things definitely,\u201d Old E says. \u201cIt\u2019s the time they were started at. We started from seeds, and these were started on February 12. It\u2019s also genetics, like this Tropical Sleigh Ride is just a monster. It grows so big outside and it was made here out in this climate, so it\u2019s built for this. This is what it thrives in.\u201d<\/p>\n When I ask the question, we\u2019re looking at a particular plant that they expect to get 10 pounds of yield from.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s crazy how big they get in just one season, they\u2019re really trees,\u201d Old E says.<\/p>\n Bleezy adds that a key to the size is that these plants have lots of sun and water along with a good amount of wind.<\/p>\n Light catches a leaf in the garden.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cTo grow a plant this big, they have to stay happy the whole time. If they have a hiccup in between, then you\u2019ll notice it at the very end,\u201d he says. \u201cTiming is huge and just keeping them at that peak so they never have to get sad and come back from that \u2014 and that\u2019s kind of hard to do when you\u2019re doing the trees.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b>As our afternoon in the garden concludes, Old E rolls up a Backwoods of the Mendo Dope strain and thinks about how his music can reach so many people from this remote mountaintop location. Mendo Dope\u2019s favorite topic to rap about is cannabis culture and their music is designed to promote that way of life while boosting the reputation of outdoor cannabis.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re probably some of the first to go this deep into this kind of culture, our little mountain life,\u201d Bleezy says. \u201cIt\u2019s not a city vibe for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, we\u2019re from the mountains,\u201d Old E says.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/b>, what\u2019s your favorite Mendo Dope track?<\/p>\n Originally published in Issue 35 of Cannabis Now.\u00a0LEARN MORE<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n The post From the Mountains: Growing Massive Marijuana Plants with Mendo Dope<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
On an otherwise average day at the office, I receive a text message from Mendo Dope inviting me up to the farm. Compared to texts I typically receive, this simple invitation is like skywriting from a small plane expelling a message of ganja smoke in its wake, but this isContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":32931,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[148,50,5,6914,85,7260,7616,6918,795,89,6407],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32930"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32932,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32930\/revisions\/32932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/mendodopestrain-1.jpg\")
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<\/p>\nGreen Dope in the Avenue of Giants<\/b><\/h4>\n
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<\/p>\nLive in the Garden<\/b><\/h4>\n
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<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/mendodopegarden-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe Secret Life of Trees<\/b><\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: From the Mountains: Growing Massive Marijuana Plants with Mendo Dope<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"