Episode 24 Nate Schneider Sierra Living Organics/Mountain Cultured
[00:00:02.970] - Elijah
Today we're going to be talking with farmer Nate of Sierra living Organics and Mountain Culture. We're
going to be talking about small farms, cannabis genetics and 2022. Let's jump right in and thank you
for stopping by.
[00:00:19.570] - Elijah
You want to get started, maybe talk about the farm a little bit and what you do?
[00:00:24.580] - Nate
My name is name is Nate Schneider, I'm a 7th generation natural farmer and I've been cultivating
cannabis for over 30 years and throughout that time have done everything from all natural organic to
synthetic hydroponics on every type of method. And over the last 15 years or so I've come back to
organics and full organics and now really just doing focusing on regenerative methods including
Jedam and KNF and we do some permanent agriculture style gardening here as well. And that's kind
of been my focus. And now six years ago or so we've been completely closed loop on what we do,
meaning that we grow all of our own inputs and use all the inputs from our farm to feed everything on
our farm and not bring or buy anything to bring in. So we take pride in that and try to grow a diverse
group of inputs as well as medicinal herbs and vegetables for our own human health as well.
[00:01:48.130] - Elijah
And where's your farm at?
[00:01:50.070] - Nate
We are located in central Sierra Nevada on the southwest facing slope, so we're about 3000ft in the
Sierra Nevada.
[00:02:02.630] - Elijah
Northern California. And what do you typically grow in a season? What's it like?
[00:02:10.010] - Nate
Well, our cannabis, we have a unique terroir up here, so we have over the last few years started
focusing more on longer flowering sativa like equatorial genetics, just to where we can go far into
November and see some of these expressions that are hard to see in other parts of the country. Even
in Northern California and closer to the coast, it's hard to grow some of these 1012 1416 week
flowering lines. So we have started working on some of them. We have some Malawi and some
Bermisse. And the original haze from Todd McCormick. And we have a lot of narrow leaf equatorial
genetics that we're working on. And I think that's what is unique to our terrible and what we can do
out here. And we just have a unique expression up here. I think we're in the mother load. This is first
place the Gold Rush started in California and ever since I've been here, I just feel like there's
something magical in the soil and the plants do magical things out here express totally different than
other places that I've seen. I know we are working with California orange and old Cali O genetic that's
been worked up here for at least twelve years and we started working with that ourselves.
[00:03:43.310] - Nate
And I know that there's a lot of history up in these hills with California orange. I'm trying to bring some
of that back and working on some of that in our lines.
[00:03:55.370] - Elijah
With those Equatorials in addition to like biological reasons, were you attracted to them at all for any
reason?
[00:04:03.150] - Nate
Yeah, that's always been my forte. Personally, I've always really got into hazes and back in the early
and mid 90s, early ninety s I was always growing northern for production but I really got into some of
the back then it was some of the pineapple tie and some of other my favorite was the old mango haze
and some of them older hazes and they just really weren't and still aren't big in production and in the
marketplace. So I've always still played with them, I think over the years. I always have a few breeding
plants that I messed with and usually some preservation project of some kind of old. Like I said, I just
was working on old Burmese and some Malawi a few years ago and this year we're doing these hazes
and getting into some other equatorial genetics as well. So it's just something that I've always felt
needs to be shared and needs to be more in our industry. I think a lot of growers and people that are
close with cannabis really enjoy that type of profile and feeling of well being as well. It's not that
marketable, unfortunately, I think our market is immature and they all want stuff that looks a certain
way and tastes a certain way and hits all these points and some of these open airy flowers
unfortunately towards the middle and late 90s started to become not as marketable and desirable.
[00:05:47.630] - Nate
I think that's something I want to bring back. I think it's something that is recognized in some areas of
the country. I know in the Bay Area, I know out in New York and there's some areas where they're
really starting to come back and people are realizing that it's nice to have something that is creative
and helps you feel good and doesn't just knock you out at night.
[00:06:12.310] - Elijah
A lot of those things are a little more cerebral I think too. And like you said, slices in the city and
maybe slightly professional people who are stuck in the office all day maybe gravitate to those things
a little more.
[00:06:25.390] - Nate
Yeah, I know for sure Silicon Valley for years running has always preferred and you can see it in the
data of what they purchase in the stores over there, but it's one of the areas in the country that really
prefers more of a cerebral, daytime, creative, uplifting experience. But it's not so in a lot of the rest of
the marketplaces and unfortunately a lot of the markets driven by distributors and purchasers like the
whole industry. I think that's something that we can work on as education to the client, to the
consumers and that there's other genetics out there. There's other very interesting and happy things
to experience that aren't really in the marketplace right now. So that's kind of why I decided over the
last few years, especially to really start working on them for the first time. I've been trading and
creating genetics and sharing our genetics since the early ninety s and we've just recently decided
about two years ago that we're going to start releasing our genetics into the public. And so that's
something that we're going to be working on, is preserving some of them equatorial genetics so we
can offer them in pure form as peers.
[00:07:59.580] - Nate
We have them anyway to be able to share and so we'll be doing seed expansion projects on some old
Burmese, some of the old Malawi. We have some wild afghan that's actually from some villages that
are taken over by the tailband now, and a lot of the cannabis plants in the areas and regions have
been cut down. And I know I've heard some of them are going to be growing corn or some other
something they haven't grown in many generations. So it's pretty sad to see. So some of that stuff I
think really needs to be preserved and offered and I think that's super important for upcoming in these
next five to ten years, especially as we move through more hybridization and proposition of cannabis,
saying that that's going to be our main focus is working on preservation and we do have some hybrid
lines that we're working also. And that's that California orange I was talking about. We have that
crossed with ATF and we've used that mail to do some interesting hybrids and we have some F one S
and F two S of them that will be released soon. And then also our am lime, fourth place Army Cup
winner from 2022 that we have stabilized and we have F three seeds of them available for spring
along with seed starts.
[00:09:33.820] - Nate
And we then also choose the choice mail out of our F two progeny of the am lime and we use that as
our male on our property. This in 2022. So we have some old Lily Wonder, some old Northern and a
whole bunch of really interesting plants that we, that received the am lime pollen really well this year
so we're excited to share them crosses as well.
[00:10:00.320] - Elijah
What was your favorite cross?
[00:10:02.170] - Nate
Oh man, I don't know. One of the progeny out of the am lime ATF mail it was just amazing. I mean it
came out almost like a dark burgundy color. It has some of the orange cherry and a lot of the pine
coming through so it's just an extremely unique plant and we have done some breeding with that one
as well now so I'm pretty excited about that. We're moving that one into an F two right now so we hit
that with our lime mail. So that one I'm pretty excited about. The cherry pie ATF Cross is also very
nice. It brings a lot of cherry, almost like a cherry menthol and just covered in resin. So we have a lot
of testers that have been working in through all of our regenerative methods and they are also running
right now in indoor and they're just producing extremely well. I think I just saw a picture of week 28
and they're completely coated in resin and leaps and bounds above the plants that are around them. I
think they're running out runs and some other cross for their production. They're really excited. They
just basically bought a pack of seeds and then found four choice females that they cloned and are
running out.
[00:11:41.070] - Nate
They already ran the moms out and now they're running out the clones. They're actually doing, I think,
a table of each just as testers to see how they do and then they're going to pick one. But yeah, pretty
interesting stuff coming out of that line as well. So other than that, like I said, I get excited about the
old stuff. So I have some northern number two that I got from Todd McCormick that I grew up this
year. That's extremely amazing. The structure and resin on the plants are just amazing. This comes
through completely coated outside regenerative methods. They came out looking like indoor.
Actually. I met up with Todd and brought my flower and his flower and it looked very similar, so I was
really impressed. I always wonder that when you grow something, are you seeing what the breeder
meant for you to see? Pheno was the one in their eyes, so it was cool to actually hook up. And I
brought the female that I really liked and he had some of his northern tubes that he grew indoor and it
was cool to see it side by side. He smoked mine, I smoked his.
[00:12:58.410] - Nate
And it was I nailed it. The female eyebrow was the female he had as well. Smelled the same, look the
same, nice. It was really cool to do that. And then I have another just one that I received. It was called
Northern. And I don't know if it was a northern one or just a straight Northern lights. It came from
Dave Pope from Alaska and I ran some of them out this year and totally amazing expressions on
them. Plants as well, really brought me back. A lot of really sweet pine brought me back to the early
90s. Like I said, I used to run a cut of northern from probably 91 to 94 and it was very special. It was
that classic pine tree smell, taste, and look. And it was definitely special in my circle and it was
something that I was known for and then kind of lost track of northern. Over the course of the
probably about five or six years ago, I realized that I didn't have really any pine or pine in my life at all.
And then remembered, started thinking about the old northern. And that's when I reached out to some
of these guys and started to try to find maybe what I had, even though what I had was just called
Northern.
[00:14:21.260] - Nate
It was given to me as a cut. We kept it for at least four or five years and ran it for production. That
really brought me back to this old Northern one or the Northern Lights that I ran. Besides the northern
two from Todd, the one from Todd really had a lot of funk, some gas and even some sweet berry in it.
Like he's talked about that northern two never really got released and it wasn't one that got given to
Neville or any of that stuff from my understanding. So it's a pretty unique one. I think it was really
bracked out. I think it really has a lot of basis of maybe some of the OGS and possibly even some
sours came from some of the lines. But yeah, it was definitely brought back some flavors that I
haven't had in a long time in both of the Northerns this year. So that was probably the most exciting. I
did grow some cali mist this year I got from some old 80s freezer beans and them are very exciting
too. It was really haze. The females I had were haze dominant and I harvested most of them.
[00:15:43.900] - Nate
Actually two females were done later November and then I harvest the other one right at the
beginning of December and I have another one that I just harvested a few weeks ago and I'm doing
that one fresh frozen and we're going to try to do some wash on it and see how it washes out. So
we're pretty excited about some of these old genetics and we're getting the opportunity to work with
them. Not sure they're marketable, but that's kind of like I said a couple of years ago, we decided to
shift more into just our genetics. That opens us up not to focus so much on flower production and we
can really run some of these things that we're interested in sharing genetics to the rest of the world.
[00:16:27.290] - Elijah
Absolutely. And apart from commercially viable, if you didn't have to worry about that in the magical
Christmas Land, what would you want to be growing right now or what are you interested in?
[00:16:38.990] - Nate
Well, yeah, that's kind of when we decided to start this seed line we realized I think it's really important
that we try to release things that are interesting, that have some preservation in them and maybe like
a pure bread preservation line across to more of a hybrid. And the reason being is because I think it's
important to share them genetics without a whole lot of human interaction. Right. We've manipulated
these genetics so much to this point that I almost feel like when I work something into an F four and F
five or an F six or seven or start back crossing it and really selecting it heavily. My concern is that I've
personally now selected that genetic self for myself. My own terrorist, my own property, in my own
situation and acclimate to me. And I feel like that as that is great for me. If that's my path. And I'm
trying to find the perfect phenomenon for me to run for production or for me to have on my property.
But as me wanting to release these seeds into the public, I feel like the more selection I do on them,
the more I might be selecting out the genetic possibilities and phenols that maybe someone else
around the world would want.
[00:18:11.470] - Nate
Right. And that's what's held me up all through the 90s. Like I said, I've bred a lot of plants and I've
worked a lot of genetics in background stuff. I've worked them into FH. I've done a lot of breeding
work with a lot of plants, but I've never called myself a breeder or went down that path as to put the
addicts out, because I felt like, well, I haven't done this work. With this particular one and I've been
chasing unicorn since the early ninety s and I haven't found that amazing plant that I think is perfect
on all sides and all angles. Right? I found amazing work and amazing lines and stuff that I want to
work with and stuff that I know is market viable and all that stuff. But I just feel like that if I work all
that stuff into my choices, I'm limiting the choices that you might have if I just did F one hybrids or
even in the released F two. Which really opens up the genetics for someone who's trying to find that
certain phenol for their own property or for their own self. And that's when I realized that's more of my
lane.
[00:19:21.970] - Nate
I don't think my lane trying to allow cannabis to express what it has to offer to the human race. I think
if I stay in my lane I can try to manipulate them genetics the least amount as possible. I don't think my
lane is to work these genetics into something so stable that I can offer somebody 100 or 1000 seeds
that they can plant production style and have 99% or 90% of them all come out to san pheno. I think I
would be doing justice for what I think I have to offer and from what I think my relationship with this
plant is. So that's kind of what I decided a couple of years ago. And that's why I decided to start
releasing a lot of this work, is because I feel like that finding these certain lines that I feel like whether
it's the terp combination, the way the terps express themselves or the plant itself expresses
themselves and the feeling and relationship with nature and humans around it, I feel like that's what I
have to offer is kind of that in a pure form so that when you get a pack of these seeds, you can expect
to have multiple different variations of them.
[00:20:40.610] - Nate
Genetics in there. So you can choose what expression works the best for you and your situation and
on your property. And then if you're looking for that for production, then you can find that perfect
phenotype that you think that will be a good expression of your brand or your farm and will help you
succeed as a production product into the marketplace. But like I said, I think if I select these things
out and come up with these and stabilize all of my lines, that I'll be doing everyone, especially around
the globe, a disjustice. Because the female that I selected out and maybe you'll never see if I take it to
a back cross or an inbred line or an F eight or something like that, you might not see them phenos that
you would have chosen. Right. So I just feel like that the more and the older I get, the more I feel like
that my place with this plant is to get out of the way and let the plant do its thing. And that's what I try
to do in cultivation too. And I recommend everybody to do that. When you're having a relationship
with this plant, whether you're doing production or you're just growing for your own medicinal use or