"When I met my partners from Humboldt Seed Organization, there was a natural connection… Growing up in California in the '90s, the word Humboldt was synonymous with quality cannabis. I always heard stories about the iconic growers that have been around for decades. Those people who came to Humboldt after the Vietnam War to escape from the stress of the city. A lot of them had PTSD and they found refuge in Humboldt."
When Mario Guzman starts talking about Humboldt County, his eyes light up. This Northern Californian region has always been a place of reference as far as cannabis and lifestyle is concerned. That's why he uses the term "natural connection" when putting into words what he felt when meeting his new partners for the first time.
"At some point, I started to think about having a legacy behind Gelato and the work that I've done and about preserving it for the generations to come, but doing it in a way that was with integrity and with the right people. So I started to ask my friends who were the people in the industry that I could trust and who did good work. Because this is what mattered me the most: the integrity behind the work. And, if I was ever going to release Gelato in any form or fashion, would it be a clone or seed, I wanted it to be something we could stand behind", explains Sherbinski.
"A friend of mine told me in LA that I should meet Ras, from HSO, and the world has a funny way of bringing people together 'cause later that day I was in Los Angeles, at a coffee shop, and literally bumped elbows with him. So we began the conversation about preserving all my original work and about the necessary steps to do it right. That's how our friendship was born. That conversation led to a trip to Spain, to San Sebastian, where I was able to meet my now partners Dinafem Seeds. The whole conversation was about not something quick and fast, but about the beginning of many years of work."
The New is just the first of many collaborations between the Humboldt Seed Organization and Mario Guzman. A partnership that seeks to preserve some of the most important genetics in the USA, the ones Sherbinski has been actively involved in, and to make the amazing features of these strains accessible to people all over the world. A significant challenge faced without haste but with great accuracy.