Nebula

She’s not as old as the stars in the sky, but in the world of professional cannabis strains, Nebula – which means star cloud – belongs to a group of cannabis stars that arised quite a long time ago: It was in 1996, when Paradise breeder Luc created Nebula and chose this name for the strain’s “stellar qualities”. So Nebula looks back on a proud 18 years history already, she’s a first-generation Paradise classic that thanks to its excellence has successfully sustained its firm position within the famous Paradise strain assortment.

She’s not as old as the stars in the sky, but in the world of professional cannabis strains, Nebula – which means star cloud – belongs to a group of cannabis stars that arised quite a long time ago: It was in 1996, when Paradise breeder Luc created Nebula and chose this name for the strain’s “stellar qualities”. So Nebula looks back on a proud 18 years history already, she’s a first-generation Paradise classic that thanks to its excellence has successfully sustained its firm position within the famous Paradise strain assortment.

Her mostly indica lineage consists of an unknown US strain crossed with the Master Widow strain which back then in 1996 was a 13th generation White Widow hybrid. From Master Widow, Nebula has inherited that legendary super-rich Widow resin content, while a sweet-fruity aroma and high yield potential was brought in by the US strain. With its open growth structure, she is very suitable for a sea-of-green setup, Paradise recommends to put 20 plants on one square meter, the yield is to be expected to amount up to 500 grams then. The plants require a flowering time of 60-65 days to ripen. Nebula isn’t choosy with regard to grow mediums, performing well on hydro, coco or soil. Her buds are described as thick, even “obese” when receiving plenty of light. Nebula smokers are enjoying a “transcendental and cerebral, sometimes even a little psychedelic” high, carried by a THC content of 15-18%. This strain’s superb profile is made perfect by a sickly-sweet smell and a very honeyed fruity flavour. Due to this, Luc feels that Nebula deserves the nickname “honey pot”… She can also be grown outdoors very well in temperate zones between 50º n.L. and 50º s.L., maturing in the middle of October and delivering yields of 500-600g per plant.

Nebula won the Copa La Bellar Flor Cup 2005 in Spain, took second place at the High Times Cannabis Cup 2005 and third place at the Highlife Cup 2004 (hydro category). The Doc wanted to be taken to the outer realms of the cannabis sky and decided to test-grow Nebula, using a package of three feminised seeds. Germination was as reliable and fast as usual with Paradise strains, after three days, the young seedlings appeared above the Jiffy pot surface and stretched toward the light that came from a 600 W MH bulb which also supplied plants of two other strains. He planted them into 11 litre pots filled with Plagron Standard Mix soil, pimped with 5% expanded clay and horn chippings. Growth was very stout and bushy in the first weeks, with a lot of side branches vividly coming off the nodes. When four weeks of vegetative growth had passed (The Doc had meanwhile added another 600 W MH and one 400 W HPS bulb), the three Nebulas, without having been pinched back or bent down, looked almost ball-shaped, with impressive side-branching and lush green leaves. And they were remarkably homogeneous, having arrived at heights of 44, 46 and 47 cm which was low, but The Doc expected that a noticeable stretching effect would set in during flowering. He induced flowering by reducing the daily light period from 18/6 to 12/12, at the same time replacing those two 600 W MHs by two 600 W HPS lights. It took the three Nebulas six days to reveal their female gender, with those first preflowers having become visible.
 
After two weeks of flowering, The Doc reported: “Nebula is waisting no time: The first rose-shaped little flower clusters have already emerged along and on top of the branches. As expected, a strong stretching effect has taken possession of the plants, they’ve grown to heights of about 60 cm now and will keep on stretching for a few more weeks I guess. Wow, there are dense long flowering side branches in abundance, these fruitful plants are a sheer pleasure to look at.” Two weeks later, he continued: “The buds have been rapidly gaining size. And their flowering structure is much appreciated - lots of calyxes are produced and fairly little leaves. Already coated by goodly amounts of resin glands, those parental Widow genetics are really making no secret of their presence. Still no differences at all between the three plants, Nebula seems to consist of only one, extremely stable phenotype – Chapeaux, Luc!”

The stretching effect lasted for about 4.5 weeks, leaving the three plants with almost identical heights of 81-85 cm. “Still a most amazing uniformity”, The Doc praised after five weeks of flowering, “and the buds are gaining weight like hell now, simultaneously impressively enlarging their silvery-white resin coatings, I can already see the stars shining! And there it really is, that most sweet and fruity smell Nebula is famous for.” The next two weeks saw the three Nebulas prepare for the finish, after seven weeks of flowering, a majority of stigmas had turned reddish-brown, and the buds seemed to have reached their big final size more or less, but The Doc supposed that the calyxes would keep on swelling a while longer.
One week later then, two of the plants proved to be totally ripe, after 56 days already - which was surprisingly fast with regard to those 60-65 days officially stated for Nebula. The third plant took regularly long, The Doc harvested it after 61 days. He reported: “The three plants have grown to final heights of 85-90 cm and kept their very bushy growth and bloom pattern until the very end. From the bottom to the top, I am excitedly looking at countless dense voluminous buds that are most copiously drenched in resin, as if they were sprinkled with icing sugar - this phenomenal resin scenario strongly reminds me of that legendary White Widow level of resin content, indeed. And Luc hasn’t promised too much about Nebula’s sweet smell - the mouth-watering aroma given off by those tons of resin glands is simply fantastic, really markedly honeyed with a touch of fruit, it reminds me of a special orange blossom honey I brought home from Italy years ago.”

240 grams of dry rock-hard Nebula buds had been produced by the three plants, excellent 80 grams on the average. Much to The Doc’s delight, that beloved honeyed aroma had not changed at all during the drying process. He eagerly smoked his first Nebula spliff and already the first toke impetuously rang the sativa bell in his head. The taste was expectedly yummy-yummy honeyed and organic, pleasantly mild, delivering nothing but fruity sweetness. A few more hits made him feel like levitating above the ground, the mental Nebula rocket had left the earth station and was about travelling to the stars. “When I had finished the whole spliff, it was a heavenly feeling then: While that enormous deal of sativa power kept me flying and reaching for the stars, I also felt thoroughly stoned, like wearing those green spectacles of careless happiness.” That ethereal trip lasted for about one and half hour, then The Doc slowly landed again, spending another 30 minutes in the Nebula earth station’s recovery tank before feeling completely down-to-earth again.

“A highly remarkable buzz that was”, he enthused, “18 years and that Nebula sky rocket can still take you for a most exciting journey. Thanks for the flight, Captain Luc! I will certainly be on board again soon…”