To mark the occasion of 30 years of the company, welcome to the fourth and final instalment of the company’s history: Paradise Seeds 2020s. We take a look at the years between 2020 and 2024. Please do catch up with the other chapters from the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s.
After an eventful decade which had seen the rise of medical cannabis and unprecedented levels of legalization across the Americas, cannabis seemed to be coming in from the shadows at last. However, as 2020 began, there was a new shadow on the horizon, and this one had nothing to do with weed…
The team had come from all over Europe for the annual Paradise get-together in Amsterdam. Between the tough tasks of sampling the next batch of strains for release there was talk about a new virus which had appeared on cruise ships in the Far East.
It was the beginning of a Corona virus / Covid period which would affect the world for the next two years as countries slipped in and out of quarantine. While it was undoubtedly a dark time, a silver lining was it was two years of incredibly good weed being grown!
With governments around the world forcing growers to stay at home, there was nothing for them to do but watch Netflix and spend time with their weed plant. As a result everybody was sharing their amazing harvest photos during this time!
El Dorado OG and Rainbow Road were the latest releases from the Paradise Seeds Californian Collection. The 2020s saw the stratospheric rise of USA strains, specifically fuelled by the legalization of recreational cannabis in California – one of the established epicenters of international popular culture.
For Paradise, the rise of Californian (AKA Cali) weed felt like a closing of the circle. Back in the 1990s and 2000s, Luc had forged many alliances with American growers from the region who were passing through Amsterdam.
Thousands of early Paradise seeds – particularly of Sensi Star – had been smuggled back to underground grow setups in the Emerald Triangle region during that time where they were bred with local varieties. In 2020, Sensi Star had been linked with over 50 direct lines originating in the USA, including Death Star, Sensitron and Lemony Stinky.
Now it was time for Paradise to incorporate the terps and potency of US strains such as Cookies and Gelato into crosses with classic Amsterdam legacy strains such as White Widow, Dutch Dragon and Amnesia. The result was a wave of popular Paradise Cali varieties including White Noise, Apricot Candy, Chocolate Wafflez.
Paradise Seeds 2020s: USA Connection
Paradise’s US adventures took two more significant steps in the early years of the new decade. Firstly, Paradise Seeds partnered up with one of California's hottest seed companies, Compound Genetics. Releasing multiple seed lines at the Spannabis 2022, with US Genetics like Apple Fritter and Gelato at its core. This was followed by the launch of Paradise Seeds US. For the first time customers could legally buy Paradise Seeds in the US.
The 2020s also saw the expansion of a Paradise dynasty. Paradise founder, Luc, explains: “We had watched Wappa become this huge favorite with growers during the 2010s and people kept asking if there would be another Wappa cross. So I called the breeding team together and said ‘let’s give Wappa an American cousin!’.”
The result was not one cousin but two! Tangerine Sorbet and Caramba.
In the cannabis world at large, there were huge developments taking place as the new global cannabis industry boomed. Paradise Phytogenetics was launched in 2021 to answer the call for high performance, stabilized genetics to LPs supplying new medical and recreational markets.
In the 2020s Mexico, Thailand, Germany were added to the list of countries where cannabis was now legal. German legalization is particularly close to Paradise hearts as it has a long established relationship with German growers who appreciate the finer things.
Since the opening of the Paradise shop, the company had been used to a constant stream of happy cannabis tourists from its neighbour across the border seeking out quality seeds in Amsterdam to take home. Paradise had also been a presence at the Mary Jane expo since it had begun, although nothing could have prepared the crew for the 2024 edition! With legalization just announced, the brakes were off - over that weekend there was a superhero level of consumption as the party came to town! One Paradise crew member who thought they had seen it all over the years, declatred that it was like a scene from a movie; "legalization and beyond..."
Meanwhile, Paradise became involved in new projects which aimed to open up the cannabis cultivation space to the vast wealth of knowledge which had optimized traditional crops in agriculture. As partner of the MCPIR, Paradise joined a long term Dutch project seeking ‘the blueprint’ for growing the perfect cannabis plant.
As Paradise Seeds celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2024, the cannabis world was looking like a very different place to the one which a young Luc Krol stepped into when he began the business in 1994…
Here’s looking to the next decade!