On Wednesday October 19 iconic weed brand TerpHogz showcased several new phenos and crosses of their Original Z (aka Zkittlez) strain. TerpHogz also announced a new breeding project that will soon make official Z seeds more widely available.
New strain releases and clones dropping in seed form and in flower dropping at Emerald Cup Harvest Ball in December. seed packs.
The crowd in attendance of the tasting party included heavyweights like Mario Guzman (Sherbinskis), Brett Feldman (Wonderbrett) and Yung LB (Runtz), plus many others.
Z creators Tony Medo and Green R Fieldz (along with John Doe) were in attendance to premier the Z strains and get feedback as they hunt out the best to produce at scale.
“Once we figure out what the crowd favorites are and what we liked the best, we’re going to put those into production,” Fieldz said.
The Z team is also working on making their genetics more widely available.
“We’re going to be selling some clones on different scales, we’ll have some larger scale clones sales, we will have some more exclusive clone sales. We’re going to be dropping some of the seed packs here in the next few months as well. Our first feminized seed packs,” Fieldz said.
The feminized seed packs in particular are an accomplishment. Up until now, Z was a clone only.
“Original Z, you would have to feminize it to make it cross as the donor. Z is really, really, really, really hard to reverse. And it took us three different times to get it actually to drop pollen. So, it’s a long time coming for this project. We’re super excited about it,” Fieldz said.
It’s not simply a matter of creating a Z cross, Fieldz said.
“Any other Z crosses out there, Z would be the receiver. This is the first time Z was actually feminized, the real Z was feminized onto anything,” Fieldz said. “It is the first time you’d ever see a real Zkittlez on Zkittlez and see those expressions.”
Zkittlez mother plant was of an unknown strain that Fieldz acquired. He thought it was Cookies, but it turned out not to be. Still, there was something special about it. TerpHogz co-founder Tony Mendo crossed it with a Grapefruit pheno and Zkittlez was created.
“Fieldz brought a clone that was supposed to be Cookies and was not. It was something way better. The undisclosed was unidentified. At that point, I had the clone and no one else. It was my male that hit that undisclosed strain, that was a Grapefruit pheno (Sweettooth x Grape Ape x OG),” Mendo said.
It started to spread in popularity around 2015-2016. Since then, in less than 10 years, California is firmly in the Z wave, with some of the most hyped strains of recent years coming from Z crosses.
Fieldz says that he recognizes the impact Z has had. In fact, it’s just as popular as ever.
Fieldz brought a clone that was supposed to be Cookies and was not. It was something way better.
-Tony Mendo, TerpHogz
“It hasn’t died out and it hasn’t gotten to the point where a lot of strains ever have where it just got so flooded where people got sick of it,” Fieldz said.
“I try to be humble about things, but I definitely feel like we started something. I feel like it’s going to be a Z decade,” he said.
And since terminology and credit matters, it’s important to note that Zkittlez was the first name given to the strain, but because of trademark issues and the effort TerpHogz put into marketing Zkittlez, it took off as a strain far beyond their control. Instead, they trademarked the name “The Original Z,” and by now in the industry you’re just as likely to hear the strain referred to as Z as you do Zkittlez. But the official TerpHogz version of the strain is called The Original Z.
I try to be humble about things, but I definitely feel like we started something. I feel like it’s going to be a Z decade
-Green R Fieldz, TerpHogz
Because of the massive success and impact of the strain, it was copied and bootlegged. But, Fieldz says, when people came to him and tried the original Z, they realized what they were missing in the many counterfeits or crosses.
“If somebody really knows Z, what happens for us at least is, once they get our Z again, they’re like, ‘Oh, man, I’ve been really just waiting for this.’ ‘This is what I’ve been missing.’ Literally, I’m not just beating the drum, I’m just saying this is what happens time and time again for years and years,” Fieldz said.
TerpHogz is the official name of the company, that Fieldz and Tony calls his genetics group and production and distro team combined.
TerpHogz distributes flower, concentrates, and with their Zeus pod, a proprietary vape cart system that has been a huge hit with the connoisseur crowd (who usually eschews vapes).
“The Zeus pod is going crazy right now. Everybody seems to love it. They’re now in a position to want to smoke the Zeus pod with live resin it. Because of its power, the way it hits, the way that we curate the oil that goes into it, it’s always amazing,” Fieldz said.