Weed stars gather for Hall of Flowers Breeder’s Village
Plus: Umami Seed Co details Zoda Bx1 grow-off; and 8 new top seed drops this week
Zoda Bx1 (Courtesy Umami Seed Co)
BY DAVID DOWNS | Sept. 9
Happy Tuesday afternoon from sunny-ish San Francisco where we’re getting our first shot of rain and shaking off plants and re-applying B.T. This is David Downs with the ‘Fire Follower’ newsletter—cannabis’ only genetics intelligence service.
We’re packing bags for Hall of Flowers this week in Santa Rosa, and scheduling harvest tours of Northern California for later in the month. All while keeping up with the torrent of genetics changing the game.
In this week’s newsletter:
—Hall of Flowers Breeder’s Village assembles
—Umami Seed Co gives us a Zoda Bx1 interview
—8 breeders drop new seeds, plus top buys that are going fast and where to get hype clones
HALL OF SEEDS: The Hall of Flowers Breeder's Village includes 40+ top names like Capulator and Top Dawg Seeds Wednesday and Thursday—easily the biggest drop of genetics on the West Coast these last couple months. We’ll be there gathering plenty of notes.
ARCANA OF THE COVENANT: A super-group of OG growers, Arcana, launches this Fall 2025 with seeds and clones from foundational strains like Chem91, Josh D OG, Ghost OG, Koffee, Banana OG, Kurple, and Black Cherry Freeze. OG Ghost explained that for 18 months, they’ve all been breeding, selecting, and testing new strains at Ghost Town, Washington. High Times has the details on their promise to reward breeders with profit when they make crosses.
OHH MAMI, UMAMI: The nine year-old, 39X award-winning Southern California breeder Umami Seed Co is quickly selling out of their long-awaited new drop of Zoda Bx1 ($120 for 6 fems). Umami tells us they have 75 growers participating in a first-ever Umami Seed Co grow-off of the strain for $12,000 in prizes. The contest occurs on their Discord server—that’s like an online clubhouse far from the reaches of the feared Instagram ban hammer.
Umami tells Fire Follower that the Zoda is one of their flagship strains, so the Zoda Bx1 “was an inevitable thing.” The Bx parent, London JellyZ was the best Zoda cross they found.
“So using that as one of the parents to do the Bx project was an obvious choice for us.”
Zoda Bx1 parent London JellyZ (Umami Seed Co)
Umami is just a 3-person operation helmed by Chase in Southern California with Harry and Chase’s wife. Umami recently upgraded to a 7,000 square-foot greenhouse for seedmaking and tissue culturing, plus a small indoor facility.
Umami takes a ‘flavor over everything’ to selection, and conducts ‘single-batch’ seed drops of as little as 50 packs. They never intend to re-release or repeat themselves. When an Umami Seed batch is gone, it’s gone.
Umami has 200 testers, and only releases the top 10% of the seeds they make. “We need to always come with the best. Every drop we do is something that we’re really excited about,” Chase said.
The original Zoda. (Courtesy Umami)
“You have an opportunity now to go back and find something similar to the original Zoda and ideally something better, which is the goal of any seed project for me.”
Zoda Bx has a low herm rate, should be grown indoors or in a greenhouse, and has 2-3 phenotypes, and is for people who want to hunt a pack of seeds to find a unique phenotype for them.
Find Umami on Neptune and Supreme Seed Bank and a few others. Approved Umami clones are at King Kong Clones, and Hayes Valley Nursery.
In the Fire Follower Pro version we get into: Umami Seed Co’s most slept-on strain, the Seattle Soda parent, how they like to dry and cure, and more.
3 TOP SEED DROPS
This week, we’d recommend:
Freeborn Selections has a big week for new-new from Mean Gene of Mendocino:
Pink Root Beer (Pink Champs x Rootbeer BC2)
Yesca x Hindu fems
Mean Gene states: “Lime 1 is the mother and grandmother of Lime L. Lime L is the nastiest chemical Lime out of a couple hundred seeds from Lime 1 inbred back cross.”
Umami Seed Co keeps dropping hype with Carbon Clair (Carbon Fiber x ZeClair). 6 fems for $120.
Underworld Genetics releases Super Boof part 2 crosses including Boof Nerds (Blue Nerds x Super Boof), and Super Buff Boof (Super Buff Cherry x Super Boof). 10 fems for $60.
Reminders:
Grab an early bird free RSVP to the Terpnami seed show Dec. 6-7 in SF;
Look for Fire Follower in the September print edition of Leaf Magazine all around the country.
Order my book “Marijuana Harvest – Maximizing Quality & Yield in your Cannabis Garden” and finish like a pro.
TOP BUD SHOT OF THE WEEK:
Moroccan Peaches, from Full Moon Farms
In this week’s Fire Follower Pro for $5:
—Umami Seed Co details their most slept-on strain, the Seattle Soda parent, drying and curing tips, and more.
—More top seed drops from Tangled Roots, DJ Short, Jaws Genetics, Cali Connection, and Mosca Seeds
—Where to get the latest Georgia Pie x Z clones
—Essential buys from Seed Junky, Relentless, and Masonic Seeds
—Access to back-issues of Fire Follower Pro, featuring dozens more stellar additions for your grow.
—Genetics and awards Event Calendar
Fire Follower saves you over 100 hours per year keeping up with genetics news, and you never miss a big drop. It’s for commercial breeders, growers, store buyers, PR people, executives, and pro-am aficionados. Buy this week’s issue for $5. Subscribe to 52 issues and save 30%. (I email you the full genetics intelligence report when you pay.)
I’ll see you in the Pro edition.