Colombian Gold Feminized Seeds

Colombian Gold is a sativa-dominant feminized strain, 75% sativa and 25% indica, from the Santa Marta mountains of northern Colombia. It is also often spelled Columbian Gold, and Leafly lists it as Santa Marta Colombian Gold. Leafly credits it as one of the varieties behind Skunk #1, which went on to parent many modern hybrids, and its strain data puts THC at around 20%. It is a tall, slow sativa: plan on about 10 to 14 weeks of flowering. These seeds are Lighthouse Genetics’ own line, back-bred from older Colombian Gold seed.

History & lineage

Colombian Gold comes from the cannabis grown in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a mountain range on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. In the 1970s, farmers there shifted from banana, cotton and coffee to growing marijuana for export, and historian Lina Britto describes Colombia as the United States’ main source of marijuana before the cocaine era; her book dates that export boom to 1972 to 1978. Santa Marta Gold was one of the region’s export varieties celebrated for their quality. It is usually called a landrace, though its exact makeup is uncertain, and we found no study documenting it.

Colombian Gold is also part of Skunk #1’s story. Leafly says Sacred Seed Co. bred Skunk #1 from Afghani, Acapulco Gold and Colombian Gold varieties, and that it first bloomed in the late 1970s. Our own Skunk line is listed with that same three-way cross.

Aroma & flavour

For Colombian Gold as a strain, Leafly users most often describe its flavour as earthy, citrus, pungent and lemon, followed by skunk and sweet; woody, lime, pine and spicy-herbal notes come up less often. Leafly’s lab data lists limonene, myrcene and caryophyllene as the main terpenes. Our guide to cannabis terpenes explains what limonene and the others bring to a citrus nose.

Effects, as users report them

These are Leafly users’ reports for Colombian Gold as a strain, most common first. The most commonly reported downsides are dry mouth and dry eyes, and a smaller number of users report paranoia, anxiety or dizziness. Leafly’s strain data puts THC at around 20%, and effects vary with the person and the dose, so if you are new to cannabis, start with a small amount.

Growing Colombian Gold

Colombian Gold is a feminized photoperiod plant: it keeps growing leaves until the light drops to 12 hours a day indoors, or until the days shorten outdoors. It is slow to finish. Seed sellers’ data sheets for Colombian Gold lines give 10 to 11 weeks and 13 to 14 weeks of flowering, so expect somewhere in that range. Outdoors it finishes very late, around late November in the Northern Hemisphere, so it needs a long, frost-free season, and most of Canada and the northern US is too short for it outdoors. See our seed-to-harvest timeline to plan the run.

The same data sheets rate it a moderate grow and suit it to a tropical climate. Plants grow tall with classic sativa structure, around 150 cm (4.9 ft) indoors and 180 cm (5.9 ft) outdoors, so leave room for the stretch, and a screen of green (SCROG) can keep a tall plant even under indoor lights. Expect up to around 400 g/m² (about 1.3 oz/ft²) indoors and up to about 700 g (about 25 oz) per plant outdoors. Leafly describes the buds as fluffy and crystal-covered. Its long flowering suits growers with time to spare.

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