Ice Cream
Indica 60 / Sativa 40
Origins: mostly sativa resinous x reversed female sweet stout indica
Flowering: 55-60 days
Harvest: early October
Paradise Seeds’ Ice Cream expresses a diversity of phenotypes, all of them producing good, tasty smoke. The plants look extremely uniform when started from seeds until the fourth week of bloom, when bud formation and final stretching creates some differences in flower formation and node pattern. The common theme among all phenotypes is extreme rapid growth and vitality, with healthy large dark green leaves and profuse resin production. Another common theme is a smooth, creamy taste that reminded Paradise of ice cream.
Some phenotypes express a “sativa” growth pattern, with extremely thin serrated leaves, a high calyx-to-leaf ratio and a slightly hallucinogenic high. All Ice Cream plants give out copious amounts of trichomes, sometimes exhibiting an extremely tight formation of army-style rows of large resin heads. Paradise bred this especially productive phenotype for its almost geometric resin pattern. It delivered some generous hashish extraction, yielding an average of 45 grams per 1000 watts of light input of premium quality ice extraction bubble hash in two extractions. Ice Cream hashish has already become popular with Montreal aficionados.
Ice Cream is a very fast grower, finishing in 55-60 days indoors in hydro or soil, or by early October outdoors. She almost doubles in size when put into flowering after on month of vegetative growth, becoming a middle-branch plant. Her stems and branches are very flexible and offer a great opportunity to take advantage of tying down and bending techniques.
This strain’s metabolism runs extremely “hi-revolutions” and responds well to multiple horticultural triggers. Call it a sports car of growth. “It’s all good and beautiful to own a Ferrari,” cautions the breeder, “but you have to know how to drive it”. Ice Cream’s fast response tendencies, especially in hydroponics, make her sensitive to adverse conditions. Her part-sativa heritage makes her somewhat tolerant to heat and humidity, but she will show other stresses (cold, overfeeding) very clearly. She is especially sensitive to moisture level fluctuations at the root zone. Use caution with feeding, and pay attention to light distance from the plants.
Ice Cream cultivators find themselves engulfed in sweet smells as they train the plant’s profuse lateral branching and promote her fat main cola. The slightest touch sends up a perfume of plant sugars. The buds themselves are white and frosty, with a hint of vanilla. The smoke is smooth, with faint undertones of skunk and pine.
Just as Ice Cream’s metabolism roars along with multiple cycles and variations, likewise her stone is a series of revolutions, an antidote to stoner boredom. Her effects are well balanced and register on both head and body levels, but in stages, alternating from cerebral to slightly physical in a back and forth motion within the same smoking session. For both gardeners and tokers, Ice Cream offers vigor and diversity under a smooth vanilla coating.