Pulwama and Budgam are located quite close to each other and share similar terroir and climate. Just 50 kms from the capital Srinagar Pulwama is quite the opposite of an urban center, it’s covered in Chinar trees, walnut trees and and several other beautiful plants that put on a show during the fall with fading colors on the leaf including cannabis.
The cannabis plants here grow short like broad leaf varieties from higher latitudes but with narrow leaflets. The finishing time is quite early as it finishes around 2nd week of October outside with no more than 10-11 weeks. The flavors are quite unique and mostly make one reminiscent of candy like flavours, one of the most common smells being of artificial grapes with very sweet base, that oozes out from tiny resin coated flowers.
Pulwama has a peculiar climate which resembles closely of dry high latitude places like hindu kush mountains only with a slightly higher humidity because of the partial monsoon rains in late summer.
Winters are extremely cold with a good amount of snowfall that begins from late november and snow melts away during april beginning ,gradually receding into the high glaciers. Seedlings come out during april and may and receive about 50-75 days of vegetative growth as it gradually flowers with shortening of days around mid july to beginning of August.
The wilder population is not significantly different from the domesticated types as farmers don’t put a lot of effort in domesticating the crops by selecting plants however the extra care and feeding over time has definitely made it vigorous and much robust compared to the wild growing populations.
This variety brings about the primordial or regional landrace expression acclimatized to it’s habitat for over thousands of years.
These plants will only grow upto 2 meters high at the most If allowed the same amount of time without any training or they could be kept small by pruning and extending the veg period to structure the plant differently. The most dominant flavour is grape and berries like sweet candy smell and there are several different profiles which are less common like citrus, orange or cherry.
