When I first heard about the new Lowryder strain, which was starting to make its way across the Atlantic from our ever inventive brothers in Canada, my interest was immediately awakened. What the Joint Doctor, the breeder responsible, had apparently done was to create a strain which regardless of environment would germinate and immediately start flowering through to completion!
Was this true? Could this be done without degrading the quality of the end product? I had to find out for myself.
There is always a huge amount of contradictory reporting on new strains, so I had to dig deep into the scene to get to the bottom of the Lowryder mystery. My initial thoughts are that any strain which grows with extreme tendencies such as auto-flowering or feminization will tend to show a lack of uniformity and often produce “freaks” like hermaphrodites. As well as the genetic risks there are also the obvious negative aspects of growing a miniature plant in the final yield totals and the quality of bud formation. However as with all things in life there is something for everyone out there, not everyone wants to grow huge plants and monolithic buds that will have you sleeping on a camp bed in your sitting room as your bedroom is slowly taken over by a garden full of giants!! Not everyone can grow large plants; with the space, smell and time constraints of modern life. So I can easily see why this strain is creating such a buzz on the growing scene, but does the hype really live up to the reality?
So how did Lowryder come to be?
What we do know at present is that the Joint Doctor has back crossed over 9 generations the original Lowryder in order to bring us the present stable version. As for the parentage both Williams Wonder and NL #2 are rarely mentioned strains on today’s numerous web forums. Williams Wonder dates back to the 80’s when it was first introduced by the Super Sativa Seed Club gaining a reputation in Europe as a good indica hybrid for crossing. Strangely enough the SSSC wrote in their literature that (in Europe) “Williams Wonder cannot be flowered outdoors without first being induced indoors”. Odd parentage one would have thought for a plant that auto-flowers immediately after germination!! Perhaps there is method to the Joint Doctors madness! Northern Lights #2 or Oasis as it is referred to more commonly ( Dutch Passions NL#2) on the scene, is known for it’s thirsty growing patterns and once again it’s an indica ; so it doesn’t seem as if ‘super sativa’ genetics are the order of the day here. The Ruderalis used is believed to have been a Mexican variety. Certainly the genetics are there with this dwarf. Whether these genes choose to show through is really down to the skill of the breeder, but 9 successive generations of stabilization has brought this strain to heel.
What of the growth?
Believe all hype that you’ve read; this plant’s odd characteristics are all there to be seen. Germination rates are top tier, and once they’ve taken the seedlings begin to auto flower, regardless of the light hours the plants are under. The plants will grow to between 10” and 20” depending on what system is used, all the while happily flowering away to completion. The look of the finished plant is to all intents and purposes that of a mini indica with medium lateral branching and one main cola. The size of the finished plants and amounts of dry flower largely depends on the system used, with as much as 2.5 0z coming from one plant in a water farm hydro bucket down to 3 grams for a tiny soil plant. So what you get back very much depends on what you put in- however it is only fair to state that this plant is not going to yield heavy crops regardless of what you do.
So why would you grow Lowryder over other strains?
There are a number of reasons depending on your circumstance, stealth being the most obvious to myself. Lowryder really is a new wave in stealth plants; you can plant it in your back garden amongst your vegetables or flowers and relax knowing that no one is going to be looking around their ankles for your herb farm!! When planted out either in window boxes or in the garden these miniature plants really do camouflage beautifully. Strangely, because of their size and relatively low pungency the sight of a Lowyder on a windowsill hardly seems to attract a glance from any visitors. Roof gardens and balconies would also suit this plant.
Outdoors Lowryder can be planted virtually all year around allowing for several harvests. In Europe the last crop could be planted as late as August and still produce its expected yield /quality. It is only when I was driving through a mountainous region of my home country the other day that I realized the potential of ground cover crops; that is to say –Putting large numbers of plants’ onto a hillside to create a green field at shin height, effectively growing in a “Sea of Green” outside. Planted alongside other legal ground cover crops these fields would be almost undetectable. Wonderful!
There are also reasons why novice gardeners would enjoy Lowryder, primarily due to the plants ability to auto-flower. This leaves relatively little for the gardener to do except, water the plants, and prevent them from becoming too hot or cold. It is this which I am most interested in. For years now colleagues of mine and I have been trying to help medical cannabis users to grow their own plants, thereby cutting out the need for a middle man and risk of being prosecuted for supply of cannabis albeit to medical users (The UK law lords have just thrown out medical necessity as a defense in law). The chief problem with the medical users growing their own is that many of the people that we work with are seriously ill and incapable of tending a garden of any significance, Lowryder however if planted in a convenient location around the house could easily be cared for even by wheelchair users. For this reason alone in my opinion Lowryder deserves serious attention, and I wonder if the entire anti-Lowryder brigade has really thought about what this plant is most useful for. It clearly isn’t heavy yields and super sativa highs. I haven’t seen or heard such a commotion in relation to a new strain in recent times, perhaps when one strain wins all the accolades at a show, but not just as a new addition to the cannabis gene pool. Lowryder really does seem to invoke deep love and admiration or anger and hostility. There are plenty of reasons why Lowryder will be a permanent fixture in the cannabis world of the future; I can almost hear the rushed footstep of all the anti-Lowryder mob heading down to the head shop for seeds to cross with their favorite strains, so even as a parent of other strains, Lowryder will be with us for some time yet.
In conclusion I’d have to say that the Lowryder strain isn’t going to win any prizes for strength or quality of buzz, nor is it going to produce any massive freak crops so for your average home grower after both strength and quantity this isn’t going to be their first choice. However for other sections of the grow community this plant is going to be absolutely brilliant, answering more than one of their problems at once – security and ease of growth. Medical users and hobby growers alike can revel in the strange delights of the Lowryder!! As a footnote it’s worth mentioning the scene that has developed around Lowryder. Since its’ release a year or so ago an avid community has built up around the Joint Doctor’s new genetics. One of the greatest offshoots of this community has been the rapid introduction of new Lowryder crosses, with online chat rooms used to discuss and swap many of these new crosses’. It seems that everyone is crossing their favorite strain with Lowryder and sending the results far and wide. This is exactly what the cannabis community needs; this sort of genetic dispersion can only lead to a wider understanding of what is still a little understood new strain. The most noticeable so far has been a Matanuska x Lowryder, a stabilized hybrid. However there are many, many more just about to burst onto the scene with Santa Maria and Mazar hybrids soon coming from the Joint Doctor himself.
Whether you’re a fan of Lowryder or not it’s hard not to be exited about such a different plant, allowing for so many possibilities in the future. This plant has to be one of the first really revolutionary things to have happened in the last ten years.
I can’t wait to see what comes from this new wave of genetics- good job Joint Doctor.
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