The tale of Canna Country Farms is one of a multigenerational survivor from Humboldt County, California. Ted Blair, Canna Country’s owner and an award-winning third-generation cannabis farmer, considers the operation a model full-sun garden representing the best “the hill” has to offer. The farm’s geographical location helps, as being in the right location in The Emerald Triangle is critical to growing the best fire possible. Canna Country sits not too far outside Garberville, California. The town of about 1,300 people is southern Humboldt’s first major population center, just north of the Mendocino County line at Cook’s Valley.

Southern Humboldt is King

Some would argue that the Southern region of Humboldt County is some of the most ideal cannabis-cultivation lands in all of California. Numerous Emerald Cup champions in various categories dot the region, and, like Blair, many of their families have spent generations living off the land and the amazing cannabis it can provide.

When you’re talking about elite outdoor flowers grown by legacy survivors, southern Humboldt is one of the best places you can start, as far as Blair is concerned.

“We’re a third-generation farm that went legal, and our property is off the grid,” Blair told High Times. “We are a rainwater catchment. We’re in the ground. We plant a full-term sun, we don’t use any light, no light assist, and we’ve been creating our genetics for about five years up there.”

Blair immediately emphasized that they’re really all about family farming, being carbon-free, and doing things as natural as possible with all organic inputs for their plants. Also deeply embedded in the farm’s core values is trying not to do any damage to the environment.

We asked Blair if living off the grid has impacted his gardening style, given the connection to the land that comes with that kind of lifestyle.

“Absolutely, yes,” Blair replied, “I need to utilize the sun and do most of my heavy work during the day off of the electricity and try and save it for, you know, later at night. We don’t have to have any backup generator of any kind.”

Blair lived off the grid with his family when he was growing up, but they eventually got power.

The farm is a piece of property his family has owned for about 15 years. His mom helped him get started, and in the years since, he has taught his sons how to manage the farm and grow great weed, as contests in recent years have proven. In 2021, Canna Country took home second place for #26 in the sungrown flower category of The Emerald Cup and ninth for #9, followed by a sixth place win for #26 in the same strain and category in 2022. Last year, Canna Country Farms took home a second-place award in the non-infused pre-roll category for its collaboration with Huckleberry Hill Farms, a Whitethorn Rose and Canna Country #26 blended pre-roll.

Based on his many awards, it’s clear that Blair’s cannabis is unique, but he points out a lot is going on at the farm besides cannabis.

“We have fruit trees and persimmons and berries, and we have wild mushrooms in the winter,” Blair said. “We aren’t far from the ocean. So we have a boat, we go salmon fishing, rock cod, halibut, and crab.” 

Blair said he’ll be using the fish carcasses in an emulsion he is making for this year.

Blair went a little deeper into what makes the region so special; it’s the climate, but it’s also the experience that’s in the hills.

“Not only is it just awesome sun and weather, but planting in the same dirt for almost 14 years and regenerating the dirt every year, it keeps getting better and better,” Blair said. “So, having the great weather and all these applications that have their own microclimates, having our genetics that are rare, and then knowing how to cure, dry, and store and just keep it as fresh as possible. And those are things we really can’t teach. It’s just trial by error for me anyway.”

Locally Bred

Blair has been growing cannabis since he was 13. His older sister would toss her roaches off the back porch, and one year, two plants popped up. He started tending to those plants. His mother also always had a couple of plants in her garden that she would let him help with.

The backbone of Canna Country in recent years has been the breeding work they did five years ago. Blair has spent the past few years digging through all those seeds based on which crosses he was the most excited about. In total, he has 305 crosses from that season five years ago. The work has been steady.

A lot of the pollen involved in the process was community-sourced. Different farms had pollen available on different days. They would let folks know what day so they could come over and grab it fresh.

His favorite from the pack so far is the #26. It reminds him of the phenos he grew as a guerrilla grower in the hills during his youth. It’s green all the way through until it gets some purple at the end, exclusively on the flower itself. The strain is a pairing of Forbidden Fruit and Cherimoya.

“We had this strain that was nice, that #26 strain. [It] had that smell, and I couldn’t get out of my head that I remember from when I was a kid,” Blair said, “It’s woody, peppery, and spicy. It’s creamy. It’s got all these different flavors to it. I just fell in love with that immediately. That was our star, that was my star, and it is my favorite. And there have been several others.”

Right now, the farm has popped 47 of the strains from the massive breeding project. Usually, Blair would pop about 50 seeds of each cross. He is working on trying to get licensing agreements together and get the work out to people who want to do large grows but has found a lot of red tape in the process.

“I think to have your own strain that no one else in the world has to grow on your farm, we all recognize how important it is,” Blair said noting the #26 is currently their diamond. “Having that in our pocket is probably the only reason we survived.”

Another big winner from the breeding project was the #9. It brings together Humboldt Skunk and F4 Sour Diesel OG Kush for a very gassy experience that the farm calls unforgettable. The team at Canna Country promises a full-bodied high but said there is still plenty of cerebral activity.

Getting Legal

Blair noted that the red tape involved with licensing his strains is difficult on top of the fees that he already pays the state and county to exist, in addition to an assortment of other agencies such as the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Water Board. The farm does whatever it has to stay in good standing. For Blair, going legal was never an option if he wanted his work to keep going; it was a must.

“It was sort of like you had to join up if you wanted to keep doing what you were doing,” Blair said. “At that time, county officials were sending out these threatening letters. They were abatement letters. They were going to come out to your house and start fighting you and doing all this scary stuff. I wanted my legacy, my kids, to be able to do what they’re doing.”

When Blair decided to go legal, he had no idea about the kind of pain and suffering that he would face throughout the process. In our interview, he questioned whether he would still have done it if given a chance to do it over. As for watching other people go hard without jumping through the legal hoops, Blair loves his neighbors regardless of what side of the fence they’re on and doesn’t want any of them to have to deal with heavy enforcement.

Blair went on to explain the biggest hurdle in the legacy market besides the pound price crashing. He argued that just getting the product to market is a struggle in a market driven by THC percentages. Consumers do not often make their purchases based on factors other than THC potency, so Canna Country’s effort to highlight things like the terpene ocimene doesn’t always get the spotlight it deserves.

Packing Dilemmas & Selling Direct

As someone who is very earth-conscious, Blair has been blown away by the amount of packaging he is required to use in order to be compliant. He’s even more shocked at just how wild some folks get with it.

“It’s terrible, man. It’s terrible. If I roll a joint, there’s no stuff I throw on the ground. There’s nothing I throw in the garbage,” Blair said. “[If] we go into the dispensary and want to buy one cartridge, it’s like a pile of garbage, and then you got to buy the battery, and there’s a pile of garbage. It’s just insane what this has turned into.”

Blair feels one of the most helpful things for small farmers would be simplifying direct-to-consumer sales. The average distributor charges 17% of whatever they can convince the retailer to buy the product for. Being able to send things directly from the farm to consumers would be a massive benefit for growers. As the California industry potentially expands to other states, farm direct would mean delivering freshness and quality, especially in Humboldt.

In 2024, California cannabis testing facilities were required to adhere to stricter controls from the state. While these new restrictions should help get inflated THC numbers back to reality, Blair doesn’t think it will matter if consumers aren’t educated.

Those who buy Canna Country flowers understand that quality isn’t defined by THC percentages alone. Among the people buying Canna Country’s flowers is Farmer and The Felon, a brand that has previously won The Emerald Cup with its gear. Farmer and the Felon aren’t going to just toss things in their bags that would dent their reputation. That relationship is certainly another feather in the cap for Canna Country.

“Canna Country embodies the holy trinity of cannabis: genetics, the farmers, and terroir,” said Patrick Anderson, brand manager for the Farmer and the Felon. “For the past two years, they’ve been an exceptional partner, as they have harnessed this synergy to grow cannabis with wildly diverse profiles and unique effects.”

Keep an eye out for Canna Country Farms on competition podiums across California in 2024.

This article was originally published in the May 2024 issue of High Times Magazine.

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That’s a wrap on 2023—here are all the weed cup winners coast to coast to ring in 2024.

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Permanent Marker is poised for a huge influx in demand—ready your wallets. But if you can’t find our Strain of the Year 2023 winner, we have a ready list of alternative strains that deserve their own laurels.

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December was a wild one. From searching the streets of Bangkok for the heat, to the Harvest Ball’s premiere of the Dank Tank, to a whole lot of holiday parties, I’m exhausted. I usually try to take the back half of December to try and recover & prepare for the upcoming year, but it never really works out. This year was no exception. I don’t know why I still expect holidays to be relaxing.

But Thailand was wild! I’m working on a piece covering our adventure that you’ll all be able to read sometime next month, but the long and short of it is that the country has embraced legalization like I’ve never seen before. There are independent stands to buy weed in front of dispensaries, there are trucks selling weed like ice cream trucks on every block. I’m not going to pretend they’ve got the highest quality yet, but they’re throwing themselves at it, and I love to see it. There are a few picks from there leading the list this month for anyone looking to experience it. We’ve also got some gems I found while attending the Harvest Ball, which Jimi & I went to the day after we returned to the states. Talk about overbooking.

(Also P.S. sorry to everyone I saw that weekend. It was a whirlwind and I was still coming down from my plane drugs so I barely remember anything, but I’m sure I didn’t get enough time to properly hang with any of you. I won’t make that mistake again – I’m coming well rested all 2023 :))

Anyway, I was hoping to get two more of these out before the year ends as I just turned 33 last week and it felt symbolic, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. Guess we’ll start off ‘23 with #33, which is my lucky number so we’ll say we’re starting on a high note. If there’s anything you think needs to be included, or you just want to talk about one of the picks I made in this or previous lists, hit me on Twitter and let’s hash it out!

Thai Stick

If you’ve been paying attention to the culture for awhile you’ve probably heard the legend of Thai sticks before. Some of the first Sativas proliferating the states, Thai sticks were basically Thailand’s version of brick weed back in the day. Packed and bound tightly around actual sticks and smuggled to all the corners of the world largely through the help of the military, they’re something of an urban legend today. When we landed in Thailand they were obviously the first thing we asked about, but it became clear that this was an elusive delicacy. In fact, most of the dispensary guys we asked said to let them know if we found it for their own consumption needs. While this might not be completely obvious by the looks of us, but we found it, and the guy who has been packing them for almost 60 years. I can’t give you information on how to find him, but I can tell you he’s out there, and so are modern sticks.

Dr. Dope’s Double Dawg

I try very hard to ensure I’m not duplicating picks that other journalists have already written about, and although Jimi already mentioned Dr. Dope’s Double Dawg in his 12 Strains of Christmas piece for LA Weekly I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the best weed we found at a dispensary in Bangkok. While the game out there is still fresh, and the climate makes it difficult to produce tops, this was some real authentically Thai-grown heat. You could actually see the trichomes on this one, which was not as common as you’d expect in the developing market. That said, Dr. Dope was also a fun and frankly classy spot to hang in, worth the stop if you’re in the area!

Plantopia

This is less of a product and more of a destination, but if you want a truly unique weed experience (especially in Thailand), you’ve got to hit up Plantopia ‘Weed City’ on Khao San Road. Basically a weed strip mall, this shopping center has a maze of dispensaries and consumption lounges for you to purchase or consume in, and a nice open air smoking patio for you to sesh with the clients of other shops. It’s wild how in Asia having 100 of the same type of stores right next to each other doesn’t seem to bother anyone, but it was surprising for me. That said, it’s a very unique place to hang – everyone gets their own flavor without compromise.

Kasta’s Nam Wah

At the party I’ll detail in the last entry on this list, a local friend from the internet pulled up with some of his underground grown to show us. I’ll be honest, this was the best weed I saw that (I believe) was actually grown in Thailand, though it wasn’t through a traditional dispensary experience. He said the farm is just getting set up, and that it’s called Kasta. The group also says the cut is called Nam Wah, which is a cross between Banana OG & Mimosa from Symbiotic Genetics. They do love their sativa’s on that side of the world! Also big shout out to Bbboss for pulling up on us at the party!

Trufflez – Wockesha

Let me start off by saying that Trufflez is taking the branding game to a new level with this one. The pleather stitched mylar was not something I ever expected to see, but it also feels like a better compromise than most of the fancy bag attempts we’ve seen lately. It feels classier than a mylar – and while I’m sure it’s more expensive I’m curious to see how weed will last in this pouch long term. I’m going to do some experiments with that on my own. That said about the marketing, the weed in the bag is actually up to par. In fact, all the samples I saw from Trufflez were what I would consider real top shelf flower.

Turtle Pie Co – Purple Sticky Rice

Anytime I see something new from Turtle I know it’s going to be something that’s going to hit in the streets, but their latest, Purple Sticky Rice is hitting on a whole new level. Redefining the ‘candy’ nose most expect from some purple dank, these were some of the sweetest nugs to ever hit my nostrils. And I’m not just including this because of the Asian nod, this one’s definitely a gelato relative and we all know how the market loves that! All I’ve seen so far are the tasters so I’m not entirely sure if this one’s hit the streets yet, but when you get a chance, definitely tap in.

Life is Not Grape – IDK/IDC

You’ve heard me rave about LING in the past so I don’t need to go into how great his production skills, or brand design, has been thus far. You already know that his flower is killing it all over the country, and that his hash collaborations and donuts are top tier. Well friends, have you tried his new Runtz x Gushers cross yet? Because let me tell you, I am writing home about it. With all the sweet firepower you expect from two of the most popular strains of the past decade, LING’s got something truly special on his hands with this one – do I even need to mention how god damn hard this branding is?

Spoomalack

I’m not entirely sure what’s going on with this one. I don’t know if he’s a brand, or if he’s just growing fire, but what I can assure you of is he’s definitely doing that. I met the new homie at Chronic Culture for the first time at their Kalya dinner (which was directly after Jimi & I got off the plane returning to the states) and every single cut he showed me was stellar, and fully rocked me upon deeper inspection (into my lungs). Not knowing if he’s a full brand, I’m not sure how available this flower is, but if you’re in the Bay and you hear someone talking about a cultivator with a weird name (I mean, what IS Spoomalack?), maybe it’s this homie. If it is, you’re in luck, young padawan. 

Flytrap’s Gumbo

These guys have been making a TON of noise down in Florida and I’ve been asked more about Gumbo than pretty much any other cultivar in recent history, so I’m pleased to report that it’s not just hype – the guys are doing something down there in the South East. I was fortunate enough to catch Superfly and El Tay on my trip back from the Bay (shout out to Jet Suite X, the trapper’s choice!), and they broke me off with some of their latest harvest and carte blanche, this is the best weed I’ve seen come out of Florida yet.

Sherbinski & Compound Genetics – Tribute

Felipe presented this to us in the Dank Tank Jimi and I hosted at the Harvest Ball and I’ve got to say, for a guy who has said countless times he’s over gelato, their new collaboration with the creator himself, Sherbinski, just rekindled my love. This Apples & Bananas x Gelato 41 cross smells and tastes exactly how you would expect, with a natural, yet couldn’t be more dialed in with additive terps if you tried flavor. You can smell the apples, the bananas, and that sweet candy finish Gelato’s known for. And it’s smokin’ too! While not quite as knock-you-out as a lot of Gelato varietals, this one’s a nice sunset smoke.

Bonus: Thai Lasagna

If you ever get the chance, you’ve got to try a Thai lasagna. I’ve been dreaming about these freakin’ things. When we went to visit Tropicanna, after sampling their wares the gang let us know they had prepared lunch if we were hungry. I had known one of the owners spent years living in Italy (you could tell, he had style); I didn’t realize he was half Italian. Not going to lie, I never expected to eat a lasagna and curry feast, but boy did we house it. It was the best hospitality we experienced in Thailand, in my opinion. There will be more on this in the ‘the Gang goes to Bangkok’ piece I’m working on, but for now just know I ate close to an entire lasagna by myself.

Nepotism Bonus: Phandee

I’m adding this as a nepotism bonus because Oliver, one of the proprietors of Phandee, was our guide for the Thailand trip, but I am not fronting when I say this was my favorite of the shops we saw in Bangkok. While the store itself isn’t all that big, it’s part of a larger footprint that also sells food, drinks and even booze, and has a great little patio in the middle so everyone can enjoy everything together. It’s not only a good setup, it also looks insane because the outside is wrapped in this rainbow translucent glass. Or plastic, I don’t know, but I know I like it. Oliver also hosted a party at the shop for us while we were there and I’ll be honest, I was not expecting anywhere near the type of turnout we got, or the amount of people who knew who we were. It was a great time and will surely be a check-in anytime I’m in the city.

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Hash holes, new zaza, epic throwback strains, and scratch and sniff bags are coming.

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At the Emerald Cup, judges pair cutting-edge lab data with their own exquisitely tuned senses.

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Be the judge of your state’s best pot.

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