Straw Hat (Strawberry Cough x Bubba Kush) brings Strawberry Cough together with Bubba Kush. The first is Kyle Kushman's cross of Strawberry Fields to an unknown Haze, and the plant that made strawberry a real cannabis note; the second, the West Coast indica benchmark, a Los Angeles clone from the mid-1990s named after the grower who kept it. Two lines that were never going to produce a quiet plant. These are held cuts, not recreations. CSI's entire catalogue works that way, and it is the reason their crosses are worth chasing.

Written this way, Strawberry Cough is the mother and Bubba Kush the pollen donor. Reversing a cross is not a formality; which plant carries the seed shapes what comes out of the pack.

Genetic Lineage

• Mother: Strawberry Cough. Kyle Kushman's cross of Strawberry Fields to an unknown Haze, and the plant that made strawberry a real cannabis note. Its own cross is Strawberry Fields x an unknown Haze.
• Father: Bubba Kush. The West Coast indica benchmark, a Los Angeles clone from the mid-1990s named after the grower who kept it. Dense colas need airflow; the Pre-98 cut is the shorter, broader-leafed, heavier expression.
• Why these two. They are not variations on the same idea. They pull in different directions, and that spread is what makes a pack worth hunting through rather than just growing.

Flavor and Aroma Profile

Two distinct smells, and a pack will give you both plus everything between.

• The Aroma. Unmistakable strawberry over a haze backbone from the Strawberry Cough side, against coffee and cocoa over an old-fashioned hash note, with wood behind it from the Bubba Kush side.
• The Taste. Sweet strawberry with a clean sativa finish up front, turning to spice and earth up front, closing thick and hashy through the exhale.

Where the parents disagree

• What to budget. The documented side, Strawberry Cough, runs nine to ten weeks. Set the room to that and let the plants correct you.
• Where the nose comes from. One side gives unmistakable strawberry over a haze backbone; the other gives roasted coffee, dark cocoa and old-school hash with a woody edge. Plants landing in the middle are the keepers.
• Two frames in one pack. Strawberry Cough is smaller, denser buds than most sativas, strawberry-red pistils threaded through olive-green flower under a heavy glistening trichome coat. Bubba Kush is short to medium and stocky, broad deep-green leaves, tight internodes, modest 1.2 to 1.5 times stretch; golf-ball to cola-sized buds with thick calyces and heavy resin, forest green through to plum. Decide which suits your room before you flip, because you get both.
• Opposite ends. Strawberry Cough is reported as sativa-leaning and lifting; Bubba Kush as gentle and unhurried, warm and loosening, body-forward. The cross sits somewhere between and moves plant to plant.

Cultivation and Growth Traits

• Plant Structure. The two parents disagree here, so plan for range. Strawberry Cough is smaller, denser buds than most sativas, strawberry-red pistils threaded through olive-green flower under a heavy glistening trichome coat. Bubba Kush is a stocky plant with barely any stretch - one and a half times at most - carrying dense, thick-calyxed flower that colours from deep green towards plum under a heavy resin load.
• Vegetative Phase. Top or train before you flip rather than chasing the canopy afterwards.
• Flowering Time. Strawberry Cough runs nine to ten weeks. Start checking trichomes a week before you expect to be ready.

Effects and Experience

• The Mind. Growers describe Strawberry Cough as sativa-leaning and lifting.
• The Body. Bubba Kush is reported as gentle and unhurried, warm and loosening, body-forward, and that is the side supplying the weight here.

In the pack

Feminized seeds from Humboldt CSI. The point of their catalogue is access - cuts that otherwise only move between growers who already know each other, put into a form you can actually buy. Humboldt CSI original genetics.