In the ever-evolving world of cannabis breeding, the path for a breeder often faces unexpected stops or ends prematurely. Let's face it, its hard to sustain a garden for years and stability is a must. Life ebbs and flows, some periods busier than others, but this stability cultivates consistency, and where there is consistency, you have quality. When our featured subject, Hooligan Selections (known as Ozark Nation on instagram) found his way onto our radar, I was blown away by how documented his work is. Near daily updates and well put together thoughts on his plants bring you inside his thought process. His collection of mother plants is incredible with close to 180 different cuts and his offerings are remarkably diverse and distinct. A glance at his Instagram (@ozark_nation) is enough to set any heart racing.
Over a couple phone calls, we discussed his journey, from his initial foray into cannabis to the nuances of his breeding process. The latter part of our interview delves into his much-anticipated Luxury Hash Plant project, exploring the exciting new crosses and his plans for the 2024.
Enjoy.
Bubba x Hawaiian by Hooligan Selections
Buzz Jackson
Tell me about when you first started growing. How long ago was that and what led you to it?
Hooligan Selections
I started growing way back in middle school. I first started smoking when I was probably 13, just dry hitting my brother's pipe. Before that, all we ever saw was Reggie back then in the Midwest and Kansas City. Eventually I got to see some nugs, and I was like, "oh, well, I can grow this." I always had a pretty good agriculture background so we got some seeds and started growing at the age of 14 and pretty much never looked back.
Buzz
Was it bag seeds then that you started with?
Hooligan
No, we got some out of High Times magazines. We got some blueberry kush seeds. My first harvest was outdoors, and I really wasn't sure what the nugs were even going to look like. So I harvested my first plant in August. It was just a complete bust…it was way to early so I learned a lesson there.
Buzz
So even at 14 years old, you were ordering out of High Times…how did you get ahold of the magazine?
Hooligan
It was just stuff we saw being in the city. We'd be skateboarding and bmx biking outside of, like, 711 and places like that. 711 was always a good spot to look at High Times and the other adult oriented magazines. Being the midwest, especially when you're a young punk kid, anybody that is already an established grower is not going to give the time of day to you, they're not going to risk it. So you have to be a little brave and order stuff through the magazines.
Buzz
Back in those days, what kind of weed was usually around? What time frame is this?
Hooligan
This is around like 1998-2004. Back then, if we got a name on something, it was pretty cool, but it really was usually just like K-town or “nug” as far as what we could come across. Good heady stuff. Once we started getting accepted by other people we got access to some Golden Go and Trinity coming out of Lawrence and a lot of good white rhino. The white rhino was always awesome. We could get a really good deal on that.
Buzz
So were you mostly growing outdoors, or did you eventually move inside?
Hooligan
I mostly started growing outdoors, and then part of my schooling in my independent learning classes, I studied hydroponics and growing bonsai trees and stuff like that. I brought home the hydroponic stuff because at school, of course, I was growing melons and pine trees and peppers and stuff like that. It wasn't anything fancy. It was the good old general hydro two part. And then we bring it home and I'd sneak some stuff in the closet, and I didn't really have good lighting then. The next thing I did was I had a really nice chameleon terrarium cage. I started growing some plants in there, and that worked out pretty decent. Then eventually my brother noticed it. He brought it to my parents attention, and I had to get rid of it all real quick. And then shortly after I was graduating high school and moving out, it just kind of accelerated.
Buzz
When did you first get into making seeds?
Hooligan
Probably maybe about five or six years ago. I always kind of chucked around and just did some random stuff, but really it started out more for preservation purposes. You get some fire seed and it's really good and you want to lock it down and have more of it. Plus, I always have been into the whole horticulture, breeding stuff like that, whether it's begonias or peppers, super hot peppers, tobacco, roses, and growing up, we bred dogs. It was kind of something that as soon as you figure out it's in a seed, it's always going to be part of the foreseeable future. The breeding aspect was part of it, but as far as intentionally producing crosses and stuff like that, probably about five years ago.
Buzz
What is your current set up. Are you indoors? Are you outdoors? both?
Hooligan
I am pretty much all indoors and use LED’s now. I used to use the CMHs and high pressure sodium and the horteluxe blue thousand watt bulbs. The good stuff.
Buzz
What are you excited about in your current stable?
Hooligan
Oh, man. I'm sure it's a pretty common thing, and I don't want to be a cop out, but I get excited about something at least daily. We have a pretty big library as far as moms go, so it's like one of them is kind of on show every other day. A different day, a different bomb to wow over and geek out on.
The projects that we've been working on as far as breeding and seed development have been really exciting. All of our males have been really stand out for what we want. Really large structure, really good flower size, really good resin production. Some of them, depending on what strain, have a really good loud terpene profile that accompanies the resin. It's just really exciting for us. Some of the ones that we really are looking forward to are the crosses are our Scooby snacks that One Eye did out of Oregon. We're crossing that with our luxury hash plant, which is our Grass Valley Nepalese hash plant crossed the I-95.
The grass valley is just a really rare hash plant that you don't see anybody working it. There's some cool hash plant work out there, but in my opinion, not to knock on anybody, but it's all kind of smaller stuff where it's cool and it definitely fits a niche. But if you're trying to be market viable, people are wanting larger plants or at least heavier yields, and the Grass Valley really brings that to the table. We’ve done a lot of outcrosses with it and back crosses. I really like what the I-95 did to it as far as the outcross and back cross. And so now we're going to get to see how that plays out with the hybrids. I'm pretty stoked on it.
Luxury HP Male by Hooligan Selections
Buzz
Do you keep a stable of males then?
Hooligan
I do tend to keep my males, yes. I'm a big fan of progress, though. So if I'm digging through the F2’s and I find equal males and they're taking everything in the direction that I like then I'm probably going to kill the F1 males and just keep the ball rolling forward.
Buzz
What are you looking for in your mom selections?
Hooligan
Ultimately, I'm a real big flower guy. I like to roll my flower in blunts and then have some extracts in there with it. I'm not like a pure extract guy, but I do like extracts with my flower. I do like the old school hash. So I breed for plants that will really produce a nice, viable flower but also can function well as a hash plant or extract product.
Grass Valley Nepalese Hash Plant by Hooligan Selections
Buzz
Let's get into the upcoming Luxury Hash Plant release. Can you tell me a little bit about what it is, where it came from, how you came to decide to use that for the project?
Hooligan
The Luxury Hash plant is Grass Valley Nepalese crossed with I-95. I've been throwing things at the Grass Valley Nepalese. Everything that I run as far as pollination projects, I pretty much always hit the GVN with it just to kind of see…it's one of my favorite plants. It has a really nice cannabinoid profile and terpene profile, and I really like the effects…at least for myself.
I ended up hitting it with the I-95, and I thought it was really one of the better F1 outcrosses out of all of my choices that I've made. I originally wasn't going to release them as seed to anybody else, and I kind of quietly have, but it's never been anything that I openly advertised. I ran those out, and that's where I'm going to stick as far as progression of the grass Valley Nepalese back cross and stuff like that.
Buzz
The luxury hash plant male that you selected, what was it about that him that you found interesting?
Hooligan
Ultimately, I'm growing for drug cultivars and hash production. My number one criteria when it comes to the males is resin production. If they don't produce resin, I'm not really looking to move forward with them. I'm just going to scrap them and start looking for more. But from there, I like to look for a good structure, depending on what my goal is, whether I'm trying to open them up or not. With the Luxury hash plant, I definitely wanted to add a little inter-nodal spacing and slightly larger plants, especially at the flip, because the GVN, it's a good medium sized plant. She'll pull real tight, doesn't get overly huge. The I-95 kind of opened her up, and there's a couple of really select phenos that really shot up and then stacked like crazy from the I-95 and the male that I picked is one of those.
Buzz
Would you say they are a bit stretchy?
Hooligan
I wouldn't say stretchy. They'll maybe double in size. If you have a big plant, she'll double in size, but they'll have some nice colas. If you watch them and you flip them at the right time, you'll have some nice colas of stacked buds.
Chile Verde x Luxury HP by Hooligan Selections
Buzz
With the males in your stable, is it trichome coverage your looking for or do you also consider terps as well?
Hooligan
I'll look the structure and ease of growth as far as watering. I do consider terps. If it’s an obnoxiously strong plant, sometimes with the males it can be a little hard to pick up much resin on them when they're already dropping pollen. Like, to pick up the smell off the resin without getting that pollen contaminating what you're bringing to your nose. I've grown some males out where I've flowered them, and I've actually smoked them, and it's a pretty interesting experience.
Buzz
Haha...Do they hit?
Hooligan
Yeah, I've had some where you'll get a real good, like, two hour buzz off of them. Sometimes males, when you smoke them, you'll have a real aggro, aggressive come down. It's not real enjoyable, but some of them, they're not that bad. But with the male that I selected, he had a lot of good terpenes, pretty similar to the grass valley nepalese. Had a lot of that deep, earthy hash with some of the grape on the back end of it.
Seer's 09 Animal Cookies by Hooligan Selections
Buzz
For this project you crossed the Grass Valley Nepalese with the Red Lebanese hash plant, Seers 09 Animal Cookies, Key Lime Pie, Moroccan Peaches, Scooby Snacks, Zkittlez, Merry OG and Chili Verde. And then you did a back cross the nepalese, and you made F2's.
What made you select this grouping?
Hooligan
It's the flower that everybody always loves like Scooby Snacks. Everybody always says, “oh, we've had Scooby Snacks” but more often it's archives Scooby Snacks, which isn't the real one. And then once they get some flower of this, it's like, "oh, my God!" This is all of a sudden it's their grail smoke.
So when it comes to a lot of those smokes like that, it's the stuff that people really love. People love Zkittlez and they love to get their hands on it. The moroccan peaches is a really nice smoke. It's got a nice peach profile. Purple City Genetics are the guys that made that one, and it's fire. They won the emerald cup with it recently.
And then with the cookies…everybody loves cookies, but it doesn't really wash as well as people would like it to. It's the same with Key Lime Pie. Key lime pie hits good numbers, but it could always be a little better. I also like the key lime pie for flower really well. So hitting it with the luxury hash plant, I was hoping to increase the washability. We’ll make some of those heads a little better to wash and it should be transparent in the crosses. All the other grass valley hybrid males that we've used have been. They really let the mom shine quite a bit. I was trying to find those exact kind of moms, but a really more a washable trichome head that is a lot easier to harvest and maintain.
Key Lime Pie x Luxury HP by Hooligan Selections
Buzz
So it's safe to say this release is geared toward washing?
Hooligan
Yeah, that's the goal with the luxury hash plant project, is to take those really awesome flowers, plants that don't necessarily wash the best or could use a little boost. Some of them already wash ok, like, the moroccan peaches doesn't need any help. It's already over 6%. But let's see what we can do. We like to have our cake and and eat it too.
Buzz
Lets talk about Merry OG. Tell me a about the backstory on that one.
Hooligan
Merry Og is…She’s a real special plant man. My homie that was down in Macon, Georgia found her. He was running a room of Irene, and he found a seed and ran it out...and this is her. She's an Irene S1. He didn't have any males or anything running. She is amazing. She's easier than Irene. She stacks way easier. She's got a more stout stature. She has these really nice, elongated, kind of kush looking buds, but they stretch out and have that nice, fluffy, huge calyx OG look to them. She's got a real nice meaty OG gas profile. That just is some good shit. If you're not a seasoned smoker, it's nighttime smoke. It'll wreck your fucking day.
Buzz
I'm excited to see that one.
Hooligan
Yeah, we're big fans of Irene and Bubba and stuff like that. But Merry, man, I mean, she just blows them away. I have probably a good 20 plus OGs, and if I'm going to run one to crop where I just want to have an easy run and have some of the best OG flower, I'm just going to run Merry.
Buzz
We touched on Scooby Snacks a little bit, what's the backstory and where did your cut come from?
Hooligan
It's One Eye from Oregon. He made Dog Walker OG, and dog walker got spread around really crazy, really fast, and it was everywhere. When he made Scooby Snacks, it was something that was held tighter. People didn't want to see it whored out quite as quickly or as bad, whether that was a good or a bad thing. I mean, some of us still kind of like it being held real tight. One of the bad sides is not a lot of people have it anymore…you can hardly find anybody who's willing to even say they have it. Most people are like, don't mention my name.
Buzz
I probably haven't actually tried the original.
Hooligan
It’ll blow your socks off. Where One Eyes cut is the Girl Scout Cookies and Dog Walker OG. Surprisingly, she grows more similar to GSC in being a smaller plant and not shooting up like the dog walker, which is kind of cool. I definitely have entertained the idea of crossing her to the dog walker again.
Buzz
The red Lebanese hash plant...Sounds interesting.
Hooligan
I want to say it's Howard Marx's personal hash plant…But it goes by a nickname. Tootsie roll…it just has that solid chocolate Tootsie roll flavor to it. It's just a really killer hash plant. Has a real nice structure. In veg, she'll stay real tight and shoot up all her branches really tightly. Once you flower her out, she'll kind of open up and have a bit more of a candelabra shape to her. But the first time I ever saw it, it's something that I always wanted to cross with the grass valley nepalese hash plant at some point. It’s kind of a grail project of mine.
Buzz
Yeah? what you're looking to do with it?
Hooligan
I am looking to find some really killer chocolate hash plants and get it more locked down into seed…To always have something like that tootsie roll. Maybe with a little bit of impact from the Nep in there, but I wouldn't be mad if it was more just red Leb dominant and have it in seed form and have it locked down.
Moroccan Peaches x Luxury HP by Hooligan Selections
Buzz
So do you have any plans on taking these to further generations. Have you done that with any of your lines really gone quite that far? You have so much stuff.
Hooligan
I do have quite a bit. I've been going pretty heavy at just creating all my starts for right now. I got some stuff that's at F3 and about ready to be at, like, back cross two, and stuff like that. This new gas pack project will be my last F1 outcrosses. And then after that, it's all going to be F2s and back cross, and just keep going from there.
I've worked the triangle kush back crosses some already, and I've also worked those to F2s and F3s, so I’m excited to keep going.
Buzz
What do you have planned for 2024?
Hooligan
2024 is going to be us really putting the pedal down, man. We're expanding as far as what we can produce, looking at producing more hash and ramping up our flower production to look through more and more plants, but also just kind of blow some keepers up and get the keepers out there to keep repping the quote unquote “brand”.
We're going to slow it down a little bit on the seed production but we have a pretty fun fem line lined up that we're kind of keeping hushed up on, but it's around the corner. It'll be a pretty awesome release, I think.
We're also looking at a possibly trying to get somewhere where we can really blow up a little bit more plants, get some outdoor going, run some deps and see more plants and all that fun stuff. Get a little bit more production out there. Really get our flower out there.
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Huge Thanks to the homie Hooligan Selections for the chat. You can find his Luxury HP drop here as well as some of his previous work.
