I had two distinct phenos of NL Blue. Phenotype #1 was a light green lanky plant with very spindly branches and super long leaf stalks. Overall a very sativa’ish plant with the benefit of not needing any actual care, or any additional fertilizers （grown in convential, pre-fertilized soil btw）.
Right from the beginning you could tell her Blueberry ancestry by the intense smell of blueberries even a slight stem-rub gave you. This impression carried through the whole flowering cycle: the buds smelled amazingly blueberry-like, mixed with a citrusy milkyness, that reminded me of sunscreen.
The dried buds were in need of several weeks of curing before they revealed their actual aroma: While the smell was almost off-puttingly sweet （like some kind of berry jam with way too much sugar added）, the taste is quite different, very much like chocolate cookies mixed with a noticeable background-note of that milky blueberry taste. VERY NICE!
Unfortunately she yielded so badly that even her taste didn’t justify keeping her. Ergo: She was discarded :（
Phenotype #2 is different in many ways: A short, bushy, dark green （almost blue） plant that appears to bet the fastest cloning plant I’ve yet encountered （Others said it before me: roots take about a week to appear – fantastic feature!）. She doesn’t need much care, neither in veg nor in flower, though she benefits a lot from a medium feeding regime during flowering.
While in veg the plant looks like it will yield big on you but the actual yield is kind of a let down. Not bad, by any means. Just not as much, as you would hope for. This is also indicated by the massive stretch she shows after switching to 12/12 that elongates the internodal spacing significantly and let’s you surmise that she won’t develop any long, bulky colas. So the buds themselves ain’t too big, but they make up for it by being among the most dense and hardest ones I’ve seen, as well as being very, very frosty.
During flowering the buds have a bright, pungent, slightly lemony smell with a hint of macadamia aroma, all wrapped in sweet berry tones. Just like pheno #1 the dried and cured buds smell like sweet berry jam. Not quite as spectacular, but very nice, none the less.
The taste is not as pronounced as the smell would make you think: a little rough at first, slightly bitter （sort of like ‘dark-green’）, mixed with a subtle sweetness. But on the exhale it’s all berry, though not necessarily blueberry. Overall the taste is very nice, just not that strong.
The high of both phenos is very similar: a calming, slightly sedating high that equally effects mind and body. It doesn’t put you to sleep but it definitely keeps you from getting shit done. An excellent choice for a cozy evening on the couch.
While pheno #1 took 65 days to properly mature, pheno #2, despite it’s indica look, takes even longer and is good to go for about 70 days. With a stated flowering time of about 53 days, this is simply too long.
NL Blue certainly isn't a bad strain, but considering the vast amount of strains that are faster, provide a similar or better buzz and are much more tasty, I can't really recommend it...[6/10]