Alre Already several times, excellent seed strains from the small Dutch quality seed bank Magus Genetis have been introduced here: Warlock, Double Dutch and Biddy Early. They all have in common that they do have a remarkable, very specific genetic pedigree, being developed beyond the usual gene pool by using previously unentered genetic paths. The Exile strain is the fourth cornerstone of Magus Genetics` precious seed selection. After several years of testing different genetic lines, Exile was combined from 50% Warlock, 25% Northern Lights and 25% White Widow in 1999 and put onto the market in November 2000. While the components Northern Lights and White Widow are representing classic resp. neoclassic genetics in this hybrid, a good deal of genetic extravagance is brought in by Magus Genetics` own Warlock, a unique and very charismatic strain that clearly sets its stamp on Exile. Warlock`s genetic type is mostly indica, based on Skunk and Afghan genetics. At first sight, this pedigree seems to be absolutely classic, too, and even somewhat boring. Nevertheless, Warlock is a highly individual variety, obviously Gerrit has used very special genetic lines of Skunk and Afghan that all the other seed breeders have not used. Warlock has a devastating potency and an unsual, extremely strong and obtrusive aroma, nickname: The aroma bomb.

The strain`s name Exile shall of course not signalise any kind of punishment, but hint at the idea of mental escape, of temporarily being completely released from encumbering and stressing thoughts and feelings. So the message is: Exile as escape agent for mental exiles. This mental wadding effect is brought about by a mighty indica stone high of almost hypnotic dimensions which seems to wrap the brain windings in soft wadding all over.

After a long clone-growing career, the grower Ken Guru meanwhile has become an ardent grower from seed. He definitely wanted to experience how close the Exile trip would really take him to a mental exile and sowed a complete patch of 10 Exile seeds into jiffy pots which were placed into a small heated propagating house. After four days, all seeds had broken through the surface. Given a daily light regimen of 18 hours from an Osram Planta-T 600 watts, the seedlings thrived and prospered quickly. When the roots had started to grow through the meshes after a couple of days, Ken transplanted the young plants to 6 litre pots, filled with the standard grow mix from Plagron. For the first time, Ken used Jungle-Boost, a slow-release dry fertilizer that contains all the nice things that the plants need, apart from plenty of nutrients also amino acids, microorganisms and neem for example. Before starting the Exile cultivation cycle, Ken had mixed 50 litres of soil up with 500 grams of Jungle-Boost. According to the Swiss manufacturer of Jungle-Boost, their product makes the use of liquid fertilizer fully dispensable, with its slowly released nutrient depot being sufficient for both the vegetative and the flowering stage. So Ken Guru did without any liquid fertilizer, always giving the plants pure water.

In the vegetative stage, it became clear very soon that the plants branched out quite strong for a mostly indica strain, what resulted in a conical growth model with compact side-branches after some weeks. However, if Exile is exposed to merely minor or mediocre amounts of light, its internodes will stretch too much, producing less yield in the end. Because of its propensity to branch out, the grower should keep Exile clones a couple of days shorter in the vegetative stage than many other mostly indica strains, when practising the sea-of-green method (lots of plants standing very close to one another, mainly yielding one huge top cola at the main stem then). The leafs of Ken Guru`s Exile plants were rather indica typical, quite broad, but with a significantly lighter green colouration. Three and a half weeks after germination, the Exiles were exposed two 12 hours of daily light instead of 18, what caused them to produce the first flowers about eight days later. Mother nature had granted Ken Guru a majority of female plants, out of the ten plants, only four proved to be male.

In the following weeks, the six female Exile plants busily developed dense flower clusters with generous amounts of resin glands. Already after four weeks of flowering, the buds gave off an intense sweet`n spicy scent that featured an earthy pine aroma. The flower calyxes were quite small, but all the more numerous and packed very densely. The flower structure of some of the plants reminded me very much of Warlock, with roundish popcorn flower clusters, while other plants revealed a similarity rather with the Northern Lights flower structure. Both types, however, had in common that they were very compact and featured a favourable calyx-to-leaf ratio that, from bottom to the top, tended more and more towards the flower side, so that the main colas of the plants had a particularly high calyx-to-leaf ratio.

Also in terms of growth habits, the plants became homogeneous, four ladies had almost the same height (74-80 cm), while there were two ones that overtopped their colleagues by 15-20 cm. The smallest plant of the first group was an exception to any other of the plants, because it grew like a pure indica, with very little side-branching and an enormously broad and fat main cola. Between day 61 and day 66 of flowering, all Exile ladies had reached maturity, what corresponded well to the official flowering period of 60-67 days as stated by Magus Genetics. Indeed the Exile plants had grown excellently without any liquid fertililzer (only the stimulant Bud XL was applied, beginning from the sixth week of flowering), the dry Jungle-Booster depot fertilizer had supplied the plants with everything they needed through the whole cultivation cycle, so this product could also keep its promise.

Although the scent of the Exile plants had not fully reached the incredible dimensions of Warlock, it was still impressive and heavily present in the growing chamber. In the course of the harvest process, a lot of resinous leaf material accumulated. As expected, the single plant yields turned out to be very well, with 23 to 30 grams, they were located in the medium to upper category of plants grown from seed with a moderate time of vegetative growth.

Then it was time for Ken Guru to start the mental journey into his inner exile. The Exile bud kind of knocked him down with a big wadding hammer, the effect was highly sedative and really took him to a mental nirvana for a while. According to Gerrit from Magus Genetics, this very narcotic effect also has a big medicinal potential. He knows people who successfully use Exile as medicine against insomnia or muscle spasms caused e.g. by multiple sclerosis. But not only the effect, also the aroma was very strong. The breeder has managed to bring about the sweet`n spicy pine aroma in both the living and dried buds. So Ken Guru`s Exile tasted exactly like it smelled, very delicious and complex. Gerrit has noted that this pine aroma might be weaker when growing Exile on coco instead of soil. However, further observations will have to prove this single case impression.

Exile another big winner from the breeding chambers of Magus Genetics.

Green Born Identity G.B.I.

Cultivation data