Interview with Sherbinskis
AWC:
Welcome everybody, welcome to the Autoflower family here today at the OG Club. My name is Arnau and we are waiting to interview one really, really special guest. Today we have Sherbinskis. For everybody who doesn't know him, he is a legend in the US, a legend in the cannabis industry. We’ve just passed the third edition of the Autoflower World Cup. Guys, I have to say: that was an epic edition. It was really cool. We had a lot of entries around, almost 50 entries competing this year.
And our guest of today, Sherbinskis, got the second place in the Best New Strain category with Polar Gelato. So guys, let's wait. Let's see what he has to tell us. And yeah, let's enjoy ourselves. If you are at home and you want to smoke a joint, Let's enjoy it, you're more than welcome.
We're gonna roll one beautiful joint of the Rainbow Chip. For the ones who don't know Rainbow Chip, this is like the queen of the OG club. Everybody loves it. It's a hybrid, there are a lot of genes inside, a lot of love, and a lot of THC.
Sherbinskis:
What's up, bro?
AWC:
Yo, bro.
Sherbinskis:
One second.
AWC:
How are you, how is everything?
Sherbinskis:
Everything's great, man. And how are you?
AWC:
Good. It's a sunny Saturday here in Barcelona. We went to a spicy food festival today. It was so crazy. And now here in the club, at the OG, where you've been for the event. It's good to see you, man.
Sherbinskis:
Good. It was a busy night. We didn't get to hang too much that night.
AWC:
I know, I know, it was a busy week for everybody and super busy days. A lot of things going on, up and down, this and that, this event, Spannabis… crazy. But I have to thank you for coming here, to the club, for staying for a while with us to enjoy and smoke something. And also congratulations for this second prize in the Best New Strain category with Polar Gelato!
Sherbinskis:
Thank you! It was an honor to be there and experience your club and just hang out and meet some of the other growers and breeders that I've never met. That was a good experience for me.
AWC:
That was cool, a lot of people were like, “Oh, okay, I want to talk to you, ask some things, to have this, to have that”, there was a connection between people. Also, I remember with Nikka T, you've been talking a lot. So a kind of interesting connection with people here during the event.
Sherbinskis:
Yeah, yeah, it's always nice that I get to meet people all over the world, and especially when I come to Barcelona. People have been smoking and growing a lot of my genetics for a lot of years now. And I had a few people, even those who were at your event, that came up and shared something personal, like, “Hey, Bacio Gelato, Gelato 41 was one of my first Gelatos I smoked, it's my favorite, I grow it”… And I love hearing that, because I'm traveling all the way across the world and seeing something that I had a part in creating. And someone is doing something personal out of it and they love it and it helps them on a physical and spiritual level. Like, it's amazing. I think it's part of the work.
AWC:
That connection is crazy! That you work on one strain, you drop it and people love it, because Gelato was a great hit all over the world, so everybody knows it. So it was something great. And it's nice to have this feedback coming straight from the growers, from the people that are working with it, from the community.
Sherbinskis:
It's what I love. It's that passion that we have for the plant and the time. Because we all know the time and the energy, and the love that it takes when you grow something. And when you have that passion and that care, it really creates a bond, especially with the people that take great pride in what they do. They have one light, but you show it and they're growing in soil and it's organic and it's meticulous what they do. I respect these growers. They're so passionate. These are the people that are buying these seeds. These are the people, it's not these big, huge commercial grows. It's these farmers that are putting just a few seeds in their backyard. They want some varieties. They want to have some different things. And to me, that's what the seeds are about. That's what doing that work is all about. It's about the legacy of Gelato. It's about sharing that with the world. I am kind of related to music, I'm not gifted with those talents, but if I was, I could see if you made a piece of music that's special. And that you share it with the world and all around the world people are being touched by that music. Yeah, and it's timely, the good music, whether it's Marvin Gaye or whoever it is, creators like The Beatles, whoever it is, great music, it lives forever. And so I feel like with genetics it's the same: it just keeps on evolving, and breeders keep on working with Gelato everywhere I go now. In the beginning it was, as I call it, the trenches. It's when you're kind of up and coming, and you want to make a name for yourself as a grower, as a breeder, whatever it is in the industry. And you got to go and you got to win competitions and you got to show up and be like, hey, here's my hash, here's my rosin.
And it's… again, I call it the trenches. It's coming up through those battles, if you will. And people give you respect for your work, and this is really nice.
AWC:
Your work, exactly. What you have been doing. And thank you so much!
Sherbinskis:
You can fool a stoner, you might be able to fool a stoner once, but you're not gonna fool them twice. They're not gonna come back and wanna smoke something that they know is not good. But when it's good, and you can share that, I think we all fall in love with it.
Even going back to when we were young, you had that couple of nugs of some really good fire ass weed and you can't wait to go and share it with your friends.
AWC:
Yeah! It's like, “Look guys, look what I have! Let’s try it!” It's about that good connection with your friends, with the community, that makes something more interesting, it’s not just about you smoking alone. It’s about sharing, giving love and enjoying with friends, with fam, it's the cool thing.
Sherbinskis:
It's what I love about our community. I think it’s even all the subculture and even above that, just in general, the people, how it bonds us. And even batch to batch! I think this is the reason why it will never end. Let’s say, your friend grows a certain strain, and then he comes with a special batch. You're like, okay, I've had that already, and they go: “No, no, this batch is special”, and then it re-energizes. And so I think that never ends. It's always about working towards perfection. I think all of us, we're always kind of working towards that, and creating some combination or flavor that we've never tasted, or something that just hits a note.
AWC:
You always want to get a little bit better: okay, let's try this, let's try that, it’s a constant evolution isn’t it? And it's also beautiful, because if not, we would all be stuck at some point, so there would be no fun in the game. That's the good thing: that people take these passions because there's always something to improve or something to try, and this evolution is amazing.
Sherbinskis:
That's why I think the Cups and these competitions are important, because it's a healthy way for us to compete and to drive and push us forward.
AWC:
Yeah, and to show what you have, what you did, what is your job, what are you working with, what do you have in your backyard. And this strikes that curiosity about other things and healthy competition, this enthusiasm to push the boundaries and make something new.
Sherbinskis:
Man, just thanks for having me. It was great to visit when I was there for Spannabis and I really enjoyed visiting your club and meeting other breeders. And I'm out here in Venice, California, my home, and enjoying a nice sunny day as well, and just happy to connect with my friends out there and talk cannabis.
AWC:
For sure. Okay, we have a few topics to talk about that most of our followers are wondering about and have some kind of doubts about. For example: this was the third edition of the Autoflower World Cup and you got second place for your Polar Gelato. Tell us about your first experience and your first prize for this new strain, because it's something really new.
Sherbinskis:
To me, one of the goals with Silent Seeds is to share the original Gelato genetics with the world. And they've been out there and there are cuts, and stuff, and seeds that have been out there. But I want people to know that when they get something with our name behind it, that it's the original. And I think with these original genetics, there's a reason why they've become so popular, whether it's how easily they clone the products and the color and the trichomes and the results that they produce in a range of different environments.
And regarding the autos, for me, it's less popular than doing full term, but I'm seeing the evolution of how they're being used and also how the breeders are doing such an amazing job bringing out and selecting the best traits that we want. And now that years have passed, we're seeing that it's become more and more refined. So it's nice.
AWC:
It's an evolution of the autoflowers.
Sherbinskis:
Absolutely. I'd say I've been working about four years now, maybe even longer. I had my share of work with some of my friends in Spain, and then that was kind of cut off, and we had to start over in a way. And I'd already been working on getting the original Gelatos into auto form. But there was just some hold ups with that, but I'm just happy now that we're to a point where we've gone through a lot of the different trials and now I'm happy with what we're producing and how we're bringing some of these original genetics, like what the Bacio Gelato, why it was so popular, even in America with a lot of the rappers and what those traits were. Mainly a very heavy, strong Indica high, now we're able to offer that in auto form, which is amazing. But it is taking a lot of time and failures, people that are actually breeding and doing want their genetics and for things to just happen, and it does take time and it's a labor of love. And that's why I have a lot of respect for the breeders that are doing the autos because it's very specific work.
I do feel that it already is changing the game, and I think it's going to continue to do so.
AWC:
It's crazy. It's not something that can happen overnight. It's something that you need to put a lot of time into, and being there every day, month after month and having this passion and doing this selection to get the best of the Gelato to the Autoflower world. It's really something that I have to say that you and people from Silent Seeds, you did a really, really great job.
Sherbinskis:
Thank you.
AWC:
Can you talk a bit about the autoflowers in the US and in California? What is the vibe with the autoflowers? Do people like them?
Sherbinskis:
Certain cultivators know how and when to use them. But I think that it's not as popular as I believe it should be on a large scale, because people are still concerned with the outcome, also with the pricing. Say, in California where I live, if they were gonna run autos just for concentrates, some people know how to do that effectively, but I think it's a combination of knowing how to use these genetics to bring a product to market, and also knowing how to cultivate them.
And I think people are a little scared, especially right now where cultivators and businesses can't afford to take losses. So I think there's a compound of the unknown, where even if people had the whole SOPs and the whole book on how to do it, there are just not as many people willing to take a risk on something unknown.
AWC:
They want to play safe, and minimize any kind of risk at the end.
Sherbinskis:
But now too, what you see in a lot of these different states is, let's say in the United States when they come out and it's all new, there's a lot of money coming in, and all these grows are coming up. But then in a lot of instances they don't get it right because there's not enough dispensaries. So there's way less dispensaries and way too much cultivation. So the pricing ultimately ends up going way down. And let's say I need to get live resin or if I need to get something Fresh Frozen, it's sort of a race to the bottom on what that price is going to be. So when you're looking at margins and big buyers being able to go and really pay a lot, rather than grow it, they say, well, let me just go and pay it. So then it's more of these small farms that kinda have the full supply chain. They're able to grow it, they process it, they make it into products and go direct to the consumer.
AWC:
Like a single source, yeah? From the seed to the product, full cycle.
Sherbinskis:
Right, right. And in that way it makes sense because these brands are like, they're breeding the genetics, they're cultivating it, they're making it into the products, a lot of which would be concentrates for vaporizers. I don't see autoflowers being sold at a high ticket and in dispensaries, if at all. That's just not something that I see. But making it into like a live resin or making hash and such, I think that's something that I do see people playing around with.
AWC:
Okay, so maybe, I don't want to say anything, but maybe for next year, for the fourth edition of the Autoflower World Cup, we can add a category of extractions. What do you think about that?
Sherbinskis:
I think that's actually a really good idea. Because then we can show it off to the world, and I think that's what it's really all about. And that's how the culture is formed around the people that are making the autos, we work with good cultivators that can go, “Hey, I know how to grow these autos”. If there's some weirdos, I know how to pull them out.
And if you're extracting too, even if there's some seeds or something that happens, if it's minimal, it still doesn't really affect it as much on a large scale.
I'll give you an example. When we were in Oklahoma, we did something like 300 acres with seeds. As far as I know, it was the biggest grow from seeds at that time. And when you have all these seeds, and if you're not watching every single plant, things can happen in nature. So I'm pushing towards that, but what it really boils down to is it being grown like corn across the United States, right? And big fields of flower, people are going to want to drop seeds right into the dirt. It's that simple. When you're coming down to the cost of production, when you're talking about hundreds of thousands, if not millions of seeds, every touch point, when you put it into the soil, you have to plant it, there’s a lot going on and then you have to be really thinking forward of where this is going. That's where I feel like autos and such come into play. There is gonna be a time when farmers are gonna be like, all right, give me three million autoflower seeds of these two varieties, and I think we sort of know that, but I think we’re at the beginning stages of it.
But if farmers now can say, hey, here's the quality, but ultimately… and here's the other thing: when you grow the flower, there's a shelf life on that. Your shelf life goes way up in terms of being able to bring a product to market when you make it into a concentrate. So yes: in the competition, we have the flower and such, but better yet. Because sometimes when you extract something, it becomes something totally, totally different in a lot of instances.
So that would be interesting to be able to showcase that in the competition as well. And that will push the autoflowers forward, and the competitions that you have will show different business people, you kind of invite the people that have the farms and be like, hey, here's what we're doing, here's what it can produce. I like that.
AWC:
Totally agree, it's a new thing to explore, a new thing to step in and develop because it's a really nice potential. And I want to ask you, do you know about the new autoflower record with almost 29% THC in flowers?
Sherbinskis:
Wow!
AWC:
That's crazy, it was in the US.
Sherbinskis:
What was it? What was the genetics?
AWC:
I think it was a gorilla-something, and it got the first place, if I'm not wrong, in Dabadoo, Colombia. But it’s crazy, 29% of THC, we're talking about really high levels of THC for a cannabis flower.
So it's what we are talking about, these have a lot of potential and maybe if you want to do an extraction of that, why not? You get these 3 million of autoflowering seeds and you begin to make extractions from that because man, it's a high level of THC. You have a space to work, you have room to develop it.
Sherbinskis:
Yeah.
AWC:
Okay. Can the autoflowers eventually beat the photoperiods in everything? What do you think, now that we're having this conversation?
Sherbinskis:
I don't know… I think, ultimately, if we talk about the progression of the autoflowers just in the last few years, it's gone leaps and bounds, right? So I think that that will only continue to improve and more genetics will be available as years pass.
But I don't think it's gonna be a matter of “better” or “surpass”. I think it's gonna be a matter of how those seeds are being used, and what the purpose of that seed would be depending on where you are in the world.
AWC:
What do you need, what do you want to use, right? This or that?
Sherbinskis:
Right. Like places where the light won't allow certain full-term strains to be grown, then I think the autoflowering strains can be used in certain regions where it's going to benefit and allow growers to have high quality by using an autoflower scheme.
AWC:
To achieve the results that they want. And okay, if you need this, why not try maybe with autoflowers and go with that?
Sherbinskis:
Right. I'm advocating for what's going to work best for the cultivator, for the growing, on a large scale. For me, as I go around and talk to these 250,000 square feet or greenhouses all with lights, and it's like… they're thinking, how do we become profitable? So there are a lot of ways that I work with these farms, be it using our brands, certain genetics, and even autoflowers; and how, if they're extracting, depending on what licenses they have… it's case to case. But again, that's how I look at the seeds. How can we utilize the genetics for this particular farm?
AWC:
Cool. Okay, we are arriving at the end of our interview, and most of our followers want to ask you, what are your plans for this 2023? What do you have in your mind? What are you developing, what is your next step in the industry? If you can tell us, of course.
Sherbinskis:
I think to continue to do significant licensing deals across the US, like, Sherbinskis is just coming into Florida. There's only a handful of states in the US that actually have a really big market, and Florida is one of them. So getting my brand into these different states that are important to me, that's one thing that I'm actively doing and opening up to spread my brand around the United States. But also taking the brand to other countries, like Germany, for example. There people have been working on these licenses for like six years and now finally the facilities are up. We're moving in the direction of a global market. To me, I'm planting the seeds that need to be planted around the world to develop the relationship and share Gelato, and also the Sherbinskis Gelato, as well as the brand, with people around the world.
Let’s say, there’s a certain cultivator in Germany right now, they're only growing two strains. And that's what they're allowed to grow right now, and they're interested in the original Gelato, and there are a lot of people who have already had it. But when you talk about a global market, there's a lot of people that never have had it, so they need it. And that's my vision. And that's my dream. I think God put me on this planet for a reason and I feel like these genetics are my passion and my love and to be able to, like we talked about earlier, just share those with the world and allow more people to benefit from the amazing strain that it is and the healing properties it has. And I'm excited about the global market opening it up. And that's why I appreciate our relationship so much, and that you are giving me the opportunity to compete. It just opens up our global family. And we're able to share these incredible genetics and learn from each other. So I appreciate you having me on board and allowing me to share with your community out there. And I have a lot of love for you guys. And everybody, if you've ever smoked Gelato, if you've ever grown Gelato, love. And I hope it's been prosperous for you and brought you good health.
AWC:
Yeah, man, I really agree. And I love your vision and your goals and your mindset. I see that you have an alternative and you want to share this Gelato, this gift with everybody.
It’s really respectful. And it's one of the best things of the cannabis industry that we are all together and we are sharing our knowledge and we are sharing our strengths and we are enjoying life because this is it. We are here to enjoy and to share and smoke together. Sherb, thank you so much for being with us today at the OG Club.
I really appreciate it. Do you want to say some final words to our audience from the Autoflower community?
Sherbinskis:
Muchas gracias por todo. Barcelona, Arnau, muchas gracias, mi gente. Much love.
AWC:
Much love bro, thank you so much it was a pleasure.
Sherbinskis:
I'm coming next year for the first place tho!
AWC:
Yeah!
This is the attitude, this is what we want to see! I will let you know if we also introduce this extraction category because I think it's really really pumping.
