LA-based Wizard Trees has come to be known in recent years for their excellent, top-tier flower grown from select genetics. They’ve worked closely with breeder DEO Farms (aka Deep East) and have collabed with Doja Exclusive for several high-profile flower drops. Most notably, they’re famous for their RS11 and Zoap strains in collaboration with DEO and Doja; and for Cream and Zangria in collaboration with Fiya Farmer. At the Zalympics competition this year, Wizard Trees took home three trophies, one for first place best overall for the Zoap strain. And at the High Times Cup this year they were award third place for their RS54. It has clearly be a stand-out year for Wizard Trees.
For Scott of Wizard Trees, the RS11 strain has been particularly of interest, since he helped to pheno hunt and cultivate the DEO Farms strain.
Now Scott is working on putting RS11 genetics out into the community to continue the momentum it has towards being an iconic California strain. He’s also working on a bunch of RS11 crosses that constitute his first in-house breeding project. And with all new packaging and purple wizardy jars, Wizard Trees is no longer just putting out flower under collab packaging, but will finally drop original flower under its own brand.
Discovering RS11
Around late 2018, early 2019, Scott held a taste-testing for a pheno hunt of 100 Rainbow Sherbert seeds he got from Bay Area breeder DEO Farms. He whittled those seeds down to 11 phenos, each numbered starting with RS. Out of that batch, RS11 was found. He worked closely with Doja Exclusive to bring the strain to market.
“When we started growing those, we showed them to Doja. DEO was the breeder, Doja was the guy that got it out to everyone, gave it to all the right people and blew it up and then I was the one that cultivated it,” Scott said. “I was the one that pheno-hunted and selected that pheno and we did a three-way collab of the hunt,” he said.
That was the beginning of RS11, which has since taken off as a trendy, in-demand strain.
DEO’s genetics were OG Kush. “He found a male of OG Kush and a female and he crossed those together. And that’s where you found the Pink Guava male. So, then he crossed that Pink Guava to the Sunset Sherbet,” creating Rainbow Sherbert (the RS part of RS11) to come up with the 100 seeds that RS11 was found from.
Scott first began working with DEO after seeing the success DEO was already having.
“I was always paying attention to what he was doing, and it was that he was just doing a lot of special little breeding projects that they’ve all turned out to be amazing so far,” Scott said.
He knew then that working with his batch of seeds was going to yield good results.
“We already knew that we were going to find something special. I don’t think none of us knew that it was going to get as big as it has or as special as it really was,” Scott said.
He said the RS11 strain checks all the boxes. “it’s a cultivator’s dream,” he said.
The RS11 Legacy
They successfully created excitement around the strain and then took a step to put the genetics out into the community. They dropped cuts of RS11 at Erb and Arbor on June 11th and over 50 people camped out overnight to get one.
Scott is hoping to see RS11 continue its legacy by releasing its genetics.
“The goal on our side of releasing it was to try and see how big it can get and see if it can go down in the history books like some of these other strains,” Scott said.
“Honestly, I think it’d be pretty cool to just watch it be grown by a ton of other people and see who makes crosses out of it the best and just watch it live on,” Scott said.
Scott says that the RS11 crosses he’s working on now are the exciting next phase of the strain.
“I got a bunch of them in flower right now, the RS54 times 11 and the Zkittlez times RS11 and we already have a couple of those that got harvested. We got about thirty Zkittlez RS11 and about twenty RS54 and RS11. There’s a couple of each that are looking pretty promising right now. I’m actually about to smoke one of the RS54/RS11 pheno number 10 right now. It’s still early,” he said.
“We got a Runtz x RS11 cross, we did an official collaboration with the Runtz crew,” Scott said.
The RS11 breeding project is in its early stages but will be released early next year as seeds for growers to cultivate.
“The goal is probably the beginning of next year maybe in March something around there. I just want to make sure that the seeds that we put out are tested the right way and if we release them to the public, people find something that they’re happy with and could enjoy growing and smoking,” Scott said.
Going from a cultivator to a breeder is a little bit of a new area for Scott.
“More than anything, I’m just trying to keep the RS11 legacy alive within our group. And see if we can make anything from these new crosses and keep it going.”
Winning Genetics and Continuing Collabs
Another strain that Wizard Trees has had luck with is Zoap, also bred by DEO. Scott said it’s been one of the hottest strains in the market this year, and after winning first place for Best Overall Strain at Zalympics, he said it only got bigger.
“He found that one on his own and he gave it to me as like a royalty deal on my end. So, I’ve been growing it for him for about three years. I think that one really will start to take off probably by 2023. The RS11 was the front runner ahead of that for a while and then the Zoap came in and pushed it out of the way. It was like the new kid on the block, it was ready for it’s turn,” Scott said.
Scott says that he and DEO have formed a partnership over the years, leading DEO to trust him with Zoap.
“I think he’s saw the quality of the flower that I was growing from the RS11 and he liked the synergy that we already had from that one and just wanted to keep it rolling with the friendship that we have. Just keep things going in our circle more than anything,” Scott said.
“Because him as a breeder, and me as the cultivator, there’s a good synergy between us. And if he can focus on that side and I can focus on this side, it works out pretty well. It’s a good duo,” Scott said.
Scott has also worked on the strain Zangria with Fiya Farmer.
He works with people who he’s come to know over the years.
“More than anything it’s kind of just legacy guys that I’ve worked with where we’ve just been friends or we’ve been in the circle for a long period of time and little projects come up and we end up working together. It just works out naturally,” Scott said.
