• White Widow or White Widow is quite possibly one of the most famous varieties of cannabis on the planet Earth
  • The White Widow became famous mainly for her potency, the quality of her flowers and her extremely high production of white resin
  • Today we look at how this cannabis legend was born

White Widow is without a doubt one of the most famous commercialized types of marijuana to enter the cannabis market. Maybe that's why the history and story of the White Widow's origins is a little mysterious. Right from the beginning of its inception in 1994, White Widow began making waves throughout the cannabis scene. The first success was the dominant win at the absolutely first Cannabis Cup of High Times magazine, which, however, only preceded many other competitive successes and deserved awards. The evaluators most often praised the really unusual volume of radiant resin and potency, which was able to pleasantly surprise even cannabis veterans.

"The White Widow has been a first-class model from the beginning. However, thanks to the constantly evolving breeding methods of growers, its genetics are still shifting. Today we have a choice of countless high quality hybrids . "

white widow seeds

The name White Widow itself is now linked to several names of growers, especially since almost every modern seed bank has its own version of White Widow on offer. The heated debate over who is the true original creator of the White Widow has turned into a political affair dividing the cannabis scene into two hostile camps. One camp claims that the original White Widow was discovered by a man named Ingemar, while the other describes the famous Shantibab as the true breeder. Research into who is the true grower and "father" of the White Widow is tricky, but the truth remains that there can be only one original author.

One of the authors of the blog, Seedman , threw himself into an in-depth examination of the evidence to date and, after scrutinizing all the sources, came to the conclusion that the real creator was indeed Shantibaba (who by the way is a co-founder of the seed bank GreenHouse Seeds).

Shantibaba, the true breeder and "father" of the White Widow?

As mentioned above, the White Widow variety first entered the market in 1994. However, it did not leave the garage of anyone other than the then newly established Greenhouse Seeds Seed Bank. The co-owners of the company at that time were Shatibaba and his colleague called Arjan. The original pedigree of the White Widow published here was composed of a combination of high-quality landrace varieties. One of them was Brazilian Sativa, the other Indian Indica from the Keralan region. A more precise focus on a specific parent variety is just speculation. However, most veterans talk mainly about the Brazilian variety Manga Rosa, which is a long-term and mainly spiritually used type of marijuana in the Brazilian region.

The father was allegedly found by Shantibaba during his expeditions to India, where he came across a man with whom he shared a joint. He rewarded him to his farm in the hills of Kerala. An unknown man showed him a carefully managed garden full of long-term bred Indians, optimized for high resin production. After a few days of careful selection, Shantibaba said goodbye to the man and left the Kerala area with a package full of fresh, high-quality marijuana seeds , which later gave rise to the premiere version of the White Widow in the Netherlands.

While Shantibaba was taking care of his cannabis-seed company Green House Seeds, a passionate grower and breeder, he also began creating modern hybrids , alongside the founder of other famous Dutch banks, Neville Shoenmaker. Later, the two cannabis enthusiasts decided to take their partnership to a whole new level and called - at that moment, the now legendary seed bank Sensi Seeds was established . During this period, riots arose in his relationship with his original business partner Arjan. So in 1998, Shantibaba decided to sell his half of Green House Seeds and traveled to Switzerland, where he and his partner Neville joined forces with Howard Marks (also known as Mr. Nice).

"After these three experienced breeders and hemp enthusiasts joined forces, not much was missing, and a successful seed bank was created, operating under the name Mr. Nice ,"

After being separated from its infamous partner, Shantibaba began to focus contentedly on supplying quality varieties of cannabis to patients and recreational users. He especially enjoyed the combination of modern, old and especially proven geneticists. Since the original White Widow was already on the market under the Green House Seeds brand, Shantibaba decided, under the auspices of Mr. Nice, to release a new, improved version - Mr. Nice Black Widow.

White Widow, Black Widow. And another White?

According to one of the interviews, published in the German magazine Grow, a breeder performing the pseudonym Ingemar also reports on the original breeding of the White Widow. Here, the story of the historical origin of the White Widow is a bit confusing. Ingemar was one of the helping hands working in the original lineup of Green House Seeds. According to existing sources, he also collaborated on the original version, but he allegedly had nothing to do with its original discovery and finding of parent varieties.

It seems that the Dutch cannabis community is mainly on Ingemar's side, but the historical evidence confirming his real evidence is not to be found. According to Ingemar, “the original White Widow seeds were found by mistake, in a batch of hand-picked hashish. However, the commercialized version was not released on the market until we bred the perfect variety. The optimization process took a full 6 years. ”If Ingemar is telling the truth, then we can date the origins of White Widow to 1988.

The problem, however, is that Ingemar has no written evidence. In the case of Shantibaba, we can trace the first notes of White Widow to the aforementioned year of 1995. This tells us that the genetic origin of the true White Widow really comes from the stocks collected by Shantibaba and Neville. So far, in addition to his own words, Ingemar has not provided any convincing evidence. Due to the overall entanglement of this story, Ingemar will probably not receive a solution and recognition.

The real history of White Widow cannabis

Shantibaba, on the other hand, is not shielded from talking about his finding and development as the White Widow. Moreover, he also seems to be well acquainted with both the Widow herself and the varieties from which she came. One of the most convincing proofs is the fact that Shantibaba still owns the genetically demonstrable parents of White Widow. Their clones are thoroughly stored in the genetic library of the seed bank of Mr Nice .

The White Widow flower from the Mr Nice bank is also convincing here. If we compare all other subspecies of the White Widow, which we can find on the market under the brand of other seed banks, we see that the one from Mr Nice is most similar to the original version from 1995.

Ingemar offers its own White Widow crossbreeds, such as the famous potent Ingemar's Punch. He is also in close cooperation with Green House Seeds and thus also the above-mentioned Arjan, to whom he allegedly supplies supplies of original and unique genetics. Even though Ingemar's genetics are hardly the right ones, his hybrids should not be overlooked. These are high-quality and especially highly potent types of medical cannabis.

As for the true batch of original seeds found by Shantibaba, he himself, according to his own words, never shared them with anyone. However, Mr Nice seed bank still offers a variety of varieties that were created during the time when Shantibaba was part of Green House Seeds. However, to reduce confusion, Shantibaba decided to rename the varieties under the Mr Nice brand.

The most important include:

Today, every second seed bank claims to own the original genetics of the White Widow. For example, in 1996, the Dutch Passion and Nirvana seed banks ordered a batch of White Widow seeds directly from Shantibaba. Within a year, they were already offering their own versions of the popular White Widow. Even in other seed banks we can find high quality hybrids with at least a certain ratio of the true genetics of the Widow, there is no doubt about that. However, one could speculate about how true and original genetics really are in these varieties. For now, we know that at least one of the most original geneticists is owned by the Mr Nice seed bank.

Most popular cannabis hybrids (White Widow varieties)

The original Widow is, of course, a very popular species across the breeding community. While choosing and trying to find the right variety of medicinal cannabis just for you, you will certainly come across hybrids combining White Widow and other, often no less popular types of marijuana .

The current favorites of White Widow hybrids include in particular:

Sources: seedsman.com https://www.leafly.com