UK Cheese x Obama Kush sits between UK Cheese and Obama Kush: the Exodus clone - a single Skunk #1 plant found in Britain around the turn of the 1990s and kept ever since on one side, Red Beard's award-winning 2007 selection out of CSI's own Mendocino Purple Kush on the other. What CSI sell is access to their clone collection in seed form. The parents are the cuts themselves, not a line bred to resemble them.

UK Cheese sits on the seed side here, Obama Kush on the pollen side. If you have seen these two names paired the other way round, that is a different pack and not this one.

Genetic Lineage

• Mother: UK Cheese. The Exodus clone - one Skunk #1 plant found in Britain around 1990 and never let go of. Parentage: a Skunk #1 phenotype, not a cross. Famously forgiving and often recommended to beginners; spread by the Exodus Collective.
• Father: Obama Kush. Red Beard's award-winning 2007 selection out of CSI's own Mendocino Purple Kush. Parentage: a selection of Mendocino Purple Kush, which is Mendocino Purple x Bubba Kush, made by CSI in 2006. Red Beard pulled two keepers from that seed - Obama Kush and George W. Kush; the Obama cut spread through the Pacific Northwest and stayed there.
• The point of the pairing. Neither parent needed rescuing. Putting them together is about what sits between them, not about fixing either one.

Flavor and Aroma Profile

Expect the profile to move plant to plant rather than settle.

• The Aroma. Sour dairy and skunk over sweet earth, and genuinely difficult to mask from the UK Cheese side, against coffee and cocoa hash from the Bubba side with grape from the Mendocino Purple from the Obama Kush side.
• The Taste. Sour and cheesy with skunk underneath, finishing earthy and lingering up front, turning to spiced earth and dark roast through the exhale.

How the two sides differ

• Two different harvest dates. Seven to nine weeks depending on source for UK Cheese, eight to ten weeks for Obama Kush. Judge each plant on trichomes rather than pulling the room together.
• Where the nose comes from. One side gives tangy cheddar over earthy, skunky sweetness, loud enough to fill a house; the other gives coffee and cocoa hash from the Bubba side with grape from the Mendocino Purple. Plants landing in the middle are the keepers.
• They pull differently. Growers put UK Cheese at balanced and sociable; slight indica weight and Obama Kush at settling. Which end a plant lands on is the main variable.

Cultivation and Growth Traits

• Plant Structure. A spreading plant that wants support.
• Vegetative Phase. Top or train before you flip rather than chasing the canopy afterwards.
• Flowering Time. The parents are not on the same clock. UK Cheese runs seven to nine weeks depending on source, Obama Kush eight to ten weeks. Judge each plant on trichomes rather than pulling the room together.

Effects and Experience

• The Mind. Growers describe UK Cheese as balanced and sociable; slight indica weight.
• The Body. Obama Kush is reported as settling, and that is the side supplying the weight here.

In the pack

Feminized seeds from Humboldt CSI. Nearly everything CSI put out is built from cuts they hold themselves rather than from other people's seed lines, which is why their catalogue reads like a list of clones instead of a list of brands. Humboldt CSI original genetics.