The coast of California – from Big Sur and Monterey to Santa Cruz, Humboldt, and Mendocino – evokes a certain imagery. The ocean, redwoods, nature, counter-cultures. As time goes by, OG's are emerging from the shadows to tell their stories, and we're thrilled to share the journey of Santa Cruz Goat Farm. We discussed his formative years in Santa Cruz/Big Sur, his time growing in Humboldt, as well as his evolution to highly successful breeder. We hear the stories how he came to possess two legendary cuts, Trainwreck and Blue Dream, as well as what he has coming on the horizon.
Provenance is everything and Santa Cruz Goat Farm has held his Trainwreck clone since 2000 and his Blue Dream clone since 2008. There aren't too many people still holding the original cuts of these legendary strains and even less so offering seeds. While you may not be able to get your hands on the clone only versions, these S1's are the real deal.
Roll up a spliff or hit a dab and settle in as we dive into the story of how this talented breeder and grower who is releasing some of the most fire genetics around got to where he is today.
Enjoy!
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The Early Years
Buzz Jackson
What was your earliest recollection of cannabis?
Santa Cruz Goat Farm
Probably the first time I came across it was back in the early '80s. I must have been six, seven, something like that. I had an older brother in high school. He'd throw parties at the house and I'd sneak into his room and find his bong. I found a honey bear bong, haha.
So that was my first exposure. Then, towards the mid to later '80s, I was growing up in Southern California, and the summer between sixth and seventh grade, I was hanging out with some of my buddies who had some older girlfriend who drove. She picked us all up one day and broke out a pipe and everyone started smoking. I remember it being this dark green brick weed that had crystals. It was just so shiny. I smoked that, got dropped off at the corner and had to find my way home.
BJ
This would have been the mid 1980s..It was mostly brick weed, even in Southern California where you were at?
SCGF
Yeah. But there was a kid who moved in from the East LA/Compton area and he had cousins that would drive up to northern California and they'd bring back Green Bud. They called it 'the Humble.’ Not until 20 years later, was I like, oh, fuck, they were talking about Humboldt.
BJ
What was Santa Cruz in the ‘90s like? It seems like a haven for counter culture. Cannabis, surfing, skating, music...
SCGF
I actually never really got into surfing. I was more like surfing concrete for the most part. I'd mostly just hang out by the rocks and just smoke weed and wait for my buddies to come up, maybe sell some weed here and there.
A lot of our parents had been surfers though and traveled around the globe and come back with all kinds of shit, different kinds of weird stories. Anytime the Dead would come through, you'd have the whole rainbow tribe down there. We'd hang out with this eclectic mix of people from the '70s and '80s that kept the spirit alive. A lot of LSD floating around.
BJ
What a wild thing to experience in your teenage years.
SCGF
It wasn't until years later, when I moved back down to Santa Cruz area from Humboldt did I reflect on what a unique period of time that was. From about '89 -'97, not too long after Jerry passed, It was just this... It was like the last hurrah for everyone who was still holding on to the bell bottoms and the mushrooms and the patchwork and just everything that they built to that point. There was this apex, at least in the Monterey, Santa Cruz, Big Sur area, it was still...it felt like it was that movie, Dazed and Confused.
BJWere you mainly in Santa Cruz?
SCGF
I did a lot of floating between South Coast, Santa Cruz and San Francisco. I had family spread out all over the place. It was wild, man. There was the surf scene…that's where a lot of my interest with weed was at, because the surfers, they wanted to smoke weed and all their dads were crazy stoners that went around the world bringing back different shit. So, I had the opportunity to smoke fresh weed from Jamaica, for instance. I remember a buddy of mine bringing back something called Blue Mountain. It looked like shit. Black seeds, stems…everything. Driving home after smoking that…halfway down the road, everyting started melting into the ground. I'm like, oh, fuck man. Jamaica's got it going on.
We didn't live too far from Big Sur down in Monterey County and I started driving down there every weekend to hang out with this family deep in the sticks of Big Sur. There was a lot of old hippies that made their way down to down there back in the ‘60s-70s. At this point, I still didn't really know too much about the stories of the area. They took me on a hike one day and left me and said, “Okay, find your way back.” The dad brought me down there and knew I was going to have to go through the ganja patch on the way back to the cabin. From that point on it was just eyes wide open. They really brought me under their wing into what they were doing in the outdoor scene.
BJ
How did you hook up with them? Even back then, you had to be careful who knows about stuff like that.
SCGF
At that point I wasn't in Santa Cruz, I was in a small town called Pacific Grove, which is in between Monterey, Santa Cruz and Big Sur. I was friends with their kids and we all would smoke together at parties and hang out. It was hippie culture. In a lot of ways, Big Sur was stuck in the '70s. I'd go down on the weekends and help clean up the property and do burns. They brought me under their wing, just a real welcoming, warm, off the grid family.
BJ
What were they growing back then?
SCGF
The first thing that comes to mind was Big Sur Holy Weed. There was also something called Chamba, which I don't know if not a lot of people have heard of it. There's supposedly two indigenous areas, one in India and one in South Africa. Chamba is like what we call Green Bud here. Just a generic name for local homegrown. Chamba made its way over to the West Coast way back.
They had been growing it up in the hills since the '70s. Actually, the family is still there, and I'm still friends with them. They had relocated to Big Sur in, I think, '81 and those two strains were already around Big Sur way before even they got there.
BJ
Do they still keep those lines around?
SCGF
This particular family isn't holding Chamba or the Holy, although the Holy is still around. I know a guy up here in Santa Cruz that says he's got a line on the original Chamba. They're still holding on to things that they were growing themselves. I mean, a lot of people back then were just breeding for themselves and next year's crop.
They were also rocking something called the White Truffle another one that was called the Chardonnay. I remember this really just insane outdoor purple that basically turned black if you let it sit out long enough.
BJ
So at this point, you were starting to sell weed?
SCGF
Initially I was slinging weed just to be able to smoke it myself. Then I realized a lot of people want to smoke it and maybe I could be the middleman and figure out how to smoke it myself by hooking people up.
A lot of it was brick weed. Eventually it was beasters was coming through from BC. The heads down in Big Sur eventually were like, oh, these high school kids could make us some money here if we run them some ounces every weekend.
BJ
Being in Santa Cruz, did you run into Haze much?
SCGF
Occasionally. But but it wasn’t what people were looking for. You’d run into it here and there but really, it was the 50-year-olds that would get weed dropped off out in the middle of the ocean and bring it back into Moss Landing…those guys would talk about Haze and Thai stick and all that psychedelic, longer flowering varieties. It was around, but it was definitely something that was few and far in between.
BJ
When did you decide to to move north to Humboldt?
SCGF
I had a good buddy who had family in Redway, and we took a trip up there and I got to meet a couple of folks and just see what the vibe was. I was pretty planted down in Santa Cruz, not really thinking about moving, but it left a question mark in my mind. How do these guys pull it off up there? It just dawned on me that this whole selling weed thing has been great, but It's not where my heart is. I was more interested in growing and being on that end of things. Having the freedom of being up north behind what they call the Redwood Curtain just made the most sense.
So I decided to go '98 and in '99 I made the move.
BJ
Were you growing outdoors or indoors?
SCGF
Me and my crew moved up to the Arcata area, which is northern Humboldt. People grow outdoor up there, but it's not as prolific as it is in Southern Humboldt or Mendocino. Within six months, I had rented a house in the adjacent town. Eventually we started blowing up multiple houses. It was just so much more accessible, right? You can grow year-round. I never made the big jump to outdoor. I stuck with indoor with the exception of working on a couple sites over the years with buddies. But I never personally went out and did the 500 plant thing outdoor like everyone else was.
BJ
Being in a fairly rural area, were these houses in neighborhoods or were they out in the country?
SCGF
These are just city blocks in town. The running joke was that every third house was a grow house. We had CAMP eradication out in the hills…they'd fly and look for crops out there, then they'd come and fly over the neighborhoods and use heat sensors to see what houses were radiating through the roof. It was absurd. Literally, when I say every third house, it was probably every three or four houses on each block, there was something going on. In those early days, this was probably 1999, 2000, it was still the wild west.
BJ
We're the cops aggressive with the indoor grows?
SCGF
The cops weren't quite as aggressive for the 10 years I was there... it was really dependent on who the DA was. The ones that were liberal and understood how it was such a part of the economy, they overlooked a lot.
Down in Southern Humboldt, there was a big network and they would know who was coming up the road. People had friends and family working in law enforcement and there would be this pirate radio style network. Up in Arcata it was a little more disconnected from that good old boy network down south.
BJ
Were you growing from seed or clones?
SCGF
It's interesting. Until I moved out of Humboldt, I only grew from seed once. It was just the straight up clone game. That's one of the differences when I reflect back on it between the outdoor and indoor guys. Outdoor guys were really into the genetics and preserving it for the next year and wanting to fuck with male and females, Whereas in the indoor scene, we were like, “how many crops can we squeeze in in a year? Can we get Green Crack and pull it at 45?”
The whole interest in pheno hunting and finding the right plant to then mono crop the fuck out of just seemed like so much extra work when all I had to do is go talk to one of my buddies and they had a flat of anything that was going around at that point. We weren't going to dedicate the time and space it takes to pop seeds. Every square foot was cash.
Arcata Trainwreck
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BJ
How did you acquire the Trainwreck clone?
SCGF
I had a buddy who moved up north a couple of years before me. He would go on and on about this cut called Trainwreck. Thats how I initially heard about it. I had a couple of different living situations in Humboldt, but this one cat that I was living with, we're in our early 20's and meeting chicks from the college. He calls this girl up who had a connection to somebody way up in hills. We said, ‘we got this ruined crop, it was full of PM’…Can you get us some clones?
She called called in a favor, and got this flat (100 cuts) but didn't tell us what it was. I drive over to Arcata to pick it up and she's like, “Here's the deal. I grow. I got my little 4x4 in my house. These guys really don't want anybody having this strain, but I told them that I needed it for me but I'm just going to give it to you guys, but can you pay me?” So we did the exchange.
This happened maybe three or four times over a couple of months. By that time we knew it was Trainwreck.
They didn't call it ‘Arcata Trainwreck’ back then. It was just T-Dub or Trainwreck. Even in Arcata it was an elusive cut. You might come across somebody who has it, but people held real tight to their cuts and their genetics. The dudes that held it were pissed off that we had gotten it. They were out of Kneeland, which way back in the hills. Little did we know we were part of time where the portal was open and all of a sudden T-W just started flowing everywhere. So that was in 2000. I had developed a crew out there by that point, so we probably had maybe five or six people that had gardens going around in different houses running it. But then all of a sudden, trainwreck disappeared. Something else called e32 and Lemon Wreck came on the scene and all the people that we were growing it, nobody had it anymore.
BJ
What made Trainwreck so special?
SCGF
It's so unique compared to most of the plants that you'll come across. If you're really into different sativa’s from across the globe or you're looking at weed from Laos or India, you're going to come across some pretty interesting things as well, like Quaze, that little Dr. Grinspoon strain, where it's just an heirloom sativa, it's just a bunch of calyxes. You see that thing grow, you smoke it, you look at it and you're just, holy shit, what is that? That's alien compared to all the other plants. The Trainwreck is one of those. It grows these crazy grenades. It's frosty as shit 40 days in. It could be pulled at 40 days, it could be pulled at 80, depending on what you're doing. The thing can't hold itself up for the life of it. So if you top it, it becomes this spaghetti monster. But, once you learn to dial it in and you grow it right, It's hard to comprehend when you see it in its full growth when grown correctly.
I've been smoking that thing for 30 years and I have not hit a ceiling with the effect and it will cut through anything that I smoke. I mean, there's some things that rival it for sure, Chemdog. My buddy High n Lonesome’s Appalachia stuff. It's one of those smokes where it leaves an insane lasting impression. If you smoked it back in the day and you haven't had it since, you still remember. If you came across it, you're going to be like, yes, that's it.
BJ
Do know what the lineage might be?
SCGF
I would imagine that its a potential Thai, Mexican cross. When Trainwreck came about, people were importing shit from Vietnam and from Mexico. If you pull it early you get what we call “workman’s weed”, because you get this fucking energy to just take care of everything. You get that from Haze, right? You get that from longer flowering varieties. So how can that not be in there? You get that from some of those Mexican sativa’s where it's like, you take a hit, and it's like drinking three cups of espresso, and you're off on a rocket ship. These are just guesses though…I don't claim to know where things come from. I'm just one of the caretakers, bringing it through and keeping it alive. That's about as far as I'll venture…My guess is it was around for at least 15 or 20 years before I even got to Humboldt.
BJ
How do the S1s compare to the clone only? is there much variation?
SCGF
The S1s flavor and smell is on point. It doesn't vary too far away from the clone only. In the smoke and the end product, not too much variation. I have seen some colors, though, for sure, that have popped up in the S1 that I've never seen with the TW cut, like wild colors. It makes me wonder what East Asian plant might actually be hiding in there. Some Oaxacan, Mexican strain that people forgot about popping up. There's some real pretty shit, though. The the viney, unstable, can't hold itself up expression is there with all of them.
The one thing about opening up the S1 though is, and even with the clone only, if you don't figure out how to dial in the cut correctly, it has a possibility to express intersex traits. The clone only would throw these death nanners if you weren't treating it correctly. If there was a light leak or it's too hot or it gets off schedule.
BJ
What does it need for it be dialed in?
SCGF
The dial-in factor is more along the lines of being very consistent with her treatment. She doesn't like to be fucked with too much. No light leaks and try to keep the stress to a minimum. Consistency is the key. You want to have your nutes and water regimen consistent from day to day. Follow the life cycle of the plant versus treating it the same across the board. If your consistency is there, its well worth it…its an amazing plant.
Santa Cruz Blue Dream
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BJ
How did you come across your cut for Blue Dream?
SCGF
My buddies were growing Blue Dream before I got to it down here in Santa Cruz. Once I moved back down to this area around 2008, I called in a favor and I got three plants brought over…Pure Kush, Blue Dream, and Blackberry. My buddies that hooked me up with that had a 15,000 square foot outdoor greenhouse, and they were propagating Blue Dream and selling that shit across the state.
It was just unlike any other strain. It exploded in a matter of a few months. You didn't really see it much around because people were holding it tight to all of a sudden something happened in the market. I think people were getting a little more friendly about going to the clubs and buying shit there. Clubs started selling clones. Before you know it, Blue Dream just spread across the country.
There was a point where Blue Dream was like Trainwreck…you had heard about it, but you didn't really come across it. If you did come across it, at least as a smoker, you kept that plug close.
SCGF
She's a great commercial plant. I would recommend it for anybody who is just starting to grow. it's a hands-off type growing plant. It yields ridiculously. Back then, people were sending weed back east and people were down in LA. The whole kush thing wasn't quite as big as it was later on in the 2000s and all that. So if you could have a commercial cropper that gave you weight, that's what you wanted. Blue Dream was like…people pulling 10, 15 pounds a plant outdoors.
The difference though between somebody growing it in their basement and the guy outside commercially and making it killing off the plant was quality. It got a bad wrap because everyone was growing it and a lot of it was being grown poorly. It was huge. You get a lot of weight. But you weren't getting that fine detail, that person who's hand-watering that one plant in their tent.
BJ
So its better quality-wise, indoor when its a smaller plant?
SCGF
I think the quality goes down, the bigger the plant gets. I've had a lot of people this last season put the S1 outdoors and kept the pot size small versus throwing it straight into the ground or having a 100-gallon pot. The plants that are 10, 15, 20-gallon outdoors are beautiful and just amazing compared to something that's 15 feet tall. I'm biased, I lean towards indoor just for my own personal preference. But if you grow well outdoors and you take a blue dream and keep it in a smaller pot, you're going to have some epic weed for sure.
Definitely one of those strains where bigger isn't necessarily better. That said, it still pulls weight in a small pot.
BJ
DJ Short Blueberry, crossed to Super Silver Haze?
SCGF
I think it's going to be the most likely. I think Super Silver Haze came out not too long before Blue Dream hit the scene. I haven't come across it, but people talk about the Santa Cruz Haze and some other Blueberry, I want to say maybe out of Canada, I don't even know what Blueberry it was. It came out of the north as potential parents to the Blue Dream. But I don't know...I'm seeing Super Silver Haze in the S1’s. And the Blueberry, when you do get the Blueberry leaner, it looks like DJ’s.
But there's all kinds of stories, right? In terms of what is or what isn't. And as many people as you have that will say it isn't, you have 10 more people that will sign up and swear by it is.
BJ
What made you decide to keep it? Seems most people let her go.
SCGF
I've been through many, many strains over the years and the majority of them haven't stuck around. When you come across a certain plant and there's just something about that fucking plant that stands out to you and is just unique. But as somebody who's a nerd about spending time with the plants and raising them, and nurturing them, and watching them go through the cycles, and all the different nuances. you form this relationship with the plant in a different way.
For me there was something about Blue Dream..its so different compared to the other things. It's high is just absurd. I'm happy, I'm smiling. You'd tell me bad news, and I would just laugh it off. Pair that with the fact that I don't have to do anything…this thing grows itself. The way that it's got that silver shimmer…I don't know, man. She hooked me somehow. There was something about it.
I think after you run it long enough, there's this bond, and this undying obligation to keep it alive now because its more than just a plant to me. Its part of my history, too. I mean, you could say the same thing about the jacket I'm wearing. Shit, I've worn this thing since back in the early '90s, and now its came back in fashion. You know what I'm saying? I never deviated, bro. I've been wearing the fucking thing the whole time.
BJ
At what point did you decide you wanted to get into proper breeding and releasing seeds?
SCGF
Well, I mean, over the years, I'd always dabbled but I would say Santa Cruz Goat Farm really started going was in 2014.
You could see the beginning of the end around there. Prices were dropping and people were talking about regulations and laws. It went from being a growers' market to the middlemen/brokers’ market to the club market. We started getting squeezed out and margins were different and there was a lot of competition.
It was a long time coming. At that point, it might have been 20 years or so, maybe a little longer, 25 years of riding that train.
So I was like, well, shit, dude, what is this? Instagram? I see this community of people talking about weed, right? There’s all these genetics and people are breeding. I thought maybe I’ll have the space now and the energy and the ability to... Instead of it being a grind, now I can have fun and be creative, right? That was the reason for it. Then I met a bunch of people I call good friends now, back in 2015-16 online.
All of a sudden, I'm connecting with people who are just like me, that were lone wolves that are now on this thing.
BJ
You already had a breeding stable from your operation?
SCGF
Yeah, for sure. I've always been a holder of cuts. I've been keeping cuts since the beginning. But it ebbs and flows with the ones that I let in and the ones that I let go. For the life of me, I can't get with cookies. It's just never been my thing. But I have a Slurricane cut that I came across years ago and I have it in my garden. So I'll I have certain cuts that I'll keep around.
BJ
How big of a library are you keeping?
SCGF
Well, my network... If I don't include the network of people that I exchange with, we'll hold down cuts or I'll hold on for them or we'll exchange. I would say, like legit old-school Elites..I might be holding 20 of those at a given time. I still have boys that have been holding on to them for dear life for 15 years. I can always get them back. Then just going through the shit that I've that I've bred over the last couple of years and trying to isolate ones that I want to be the keeper cuts…that’s a whole other level of fuckery. I probably have another 20 things i've done that I should have already flowered but haven't got to yet.
I also have some longer term projects that I don't talk much about...that's usually where I'm doing the breeding with regs and working on some longer work. Trying to isolate the same expressions and then add to that and wait around for a cut that I like through the progeny.
BJ
Most of your releases are fems or S1's...tell me about the work with regs.
SCGF
The breeding with regs I usually take it to F2-F3 but I enjoy hunting the F1's. Thats where I play around the most. I usually don't release them, I'll give them to friends and testers to look through but it's more personal stuff. Whereas a lot of the feminized stuff, I'll take two proven strains and then match those up with one other or something and sift through those and see if there's something worth working with through.
BJ
Are you using multiple males or are you trying to find a single stud?
SCGF
The one thing about males is that you cant predict what's going on just by looking at that him. You got to work with it. Put it in there and see how it ends up affecting the expression along the way. So it depends on how interested I am and what I'm working with. If I'm like, fuck, I just want to see what comes out of here. I might go through and find five males and pick the best one or what I think might be the best one. If it's something that I'm really interested in and I see it more as a long term, I may very well do a handful of different males with the same female and see where that ends up leading me. If I do go down that road is because there's something really special in there. I have one right now that I've honed in on over the last couple of years, which is taking some of Bodhi's work, a hash plant that he has with the old the Norcal Afgooey, that I've had for a while. I actually lost the Afghoo two years ago, but I bread with it before I lost her. Now I'm just digging deep into that whole line.
BJ
you had mentioned you have some new stuff coming in the next month or two?
SCGF
I wanted to revisit hitting a few of the cuts I've had with Trainwreck. I had an intention a couple of years ago to cross TW with some sour and hadn't gotten around to it. I’ve been holding on to this Giesel cut one of my buddies passed on to me a few years back and I threw her in there. Do you know about electric boogaloo?
BJ
I do...it originated in my part of the world…I know about it but cant say I ever ran into it back in the day.
SCGF
They re-named it Dog Shit, right? PNW Dog Shit. So the EB, I hit with the Trainwreck. I love EB. One of the nicest smokes to come across for me for a while. Giesel, Notso's cut of Chemdog. I have a bunch of work I'm doing with Green Crack coming up around the corner.
BJ
Speaking of Green Crack, your Wet Dreams (Green Crack x Blue Dream) that I grew is fantastic.
SCGF
What did you find there? What was the expression?
BJ
I found that those plants yielded. Just giant fucking colas. I got some of that mango-berry in there…but the high was soaring. I mean, I was high for three hours, holding on to the couch. That first month out of cure it was like that. Now after a couple of months it's settled in to where it still slams you for an hour and then it settles into a beautiful, blissful body buzz. It's just fantastic.
SCGF
It's so good. I'm glad you like it. That's the thing with a lot of those Dream Theater lines is most most reports I get back from people are like, Fuck, I was high for two, three hours, man. You get that euphoric smiley, happy, like everything's going to be okay, buzz. The plants are resistant to basically everything unless you just let the colas get way too big…just gotta keep your environment in check at the end.
Green Crack is a Skunk 1 and it's a very interesting plant. My good buddy High n Lonesome has done a lot of good work with it and has a green crack x Appalachian cut. It's just such a beautiful pair. The plant is an amazing…so I'm looking forward to getting some of these hybrids out. It should be pretty fun project.
BJ
I think something that gets overlooked is testers. You've got a really large group of testers. Your seeds are tested, they’re run by lots of people in different environments.
SCGF
It's really cool to see because there's no way that I would be able to get a chance to take a look at these seeds in multiple different environments across the world. It's such a trippy experience to have 40, 50, 60 people out there or more reporting back. It's a real trip and it's the coolest thing ever.
BJ
I think people are starting to understand that with seeds that have been tested, you know what to expect.
SCGF
I can't tell you how many times I'll get a message from somebody who's like, "Man, you got Blue Dream, Trainwreck...I haven't smoked that shit since high school...I can't believe I can do this".
It's great to be able to get seeds out there. The biggest kick is somebody who comes from my era and is like, “I haven't had Blue Dream ever. I can't believe I'm smoking it right now!”
That there is the best pay off.
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