Subcool Seeds: The Complete TGA Genetics Legacy Guide

He built one of cannabis’s most beloved seed companies, lost everything in a wildfire, and kept breeding until the day he died. This is the full Subcool story.

Most cannabis breeders work in secrecy. They guard their parent stock like state secrets, lock down their grow rooms, and reveal nothing about their process until a pack of seeds hits the shelf. Subcool did the exact opposite. He threw open the doors, handed seeds to thousands of strangers, and asked them to tell him what happened. That radical transparency built one of the most respected genetic libraries in cannabis history.

Born Montgomery Ball, known to friends as Monty and to the internet as Dave Bowman, Subcool spent over two decades shaping how the world thinks about cannabis genetics. His company TGA (Team Green Avenger Seeds) gave us Jack the Ripper, Vortex, Space Queen, Chernobyl, and dozens more. His YouTube show “Weed Nerd” taught a generation of growers how to think about plants. His books, Dank and Dank 2.0, became required reading for anyone serious about breeding.

Then a wildfire took everything. Then his marriage fell apart. Then his lungs gave out. He died on February 1, 2020, and with him went one of the last direct links to the era when cannabis breeding was equal parts art, science, and civil disobedience.

His seeds survived. Here’s how.

Who Was Subcool?

Subcool started growing cannabis in the 1970s. That alone puts him in rare company. But he didn’t just grow. He got busted, went to jail, got out, went back to growing, got busted again, and served actual prison time. Most people would have quit. Subcool came out angrier, more defiant, and more convinced than ever that cannabis prohibition was a moral failure.

He moved west. Through the 1990s, he connected with other underground growers on some of the earliest cannabis forums on the internet. One of those connections was a breeder named Skoosh, who handed Subcool 200 seeds containing genetics from Lamb’s Bread, Purple Haze, Northern Lights, and a strain called Pluton bred by the legendary Nevil Schoenmakers. Subcool worked those 200 seeds for a full year and found the original Jack’s Cleaner, the mother plant that would anchor his breeding program for the next two decades.

In 1997, he joined “The 77,” an underground collective of breeders and growers who traded cuts and knowledge outside the commercial seed market. His plants stood out. The flavors were unusual. The potency was undeniable. Word spread through forums and grow rooms, and by 2001, he was ready to formalize what he’d been doing for years.

What Made TGA Genetics Different?

TGA Genetics was founded in 2001 by Subcool and a small group of dedicated medical marijuana growers. The name stood for Team Green Avenger. Right from the start, TGA operated on a principle that was considered either brilliant or insane depending on who you asked: open source breeding.

Here’s how it worked. Instead of breeding in isolation and releasing finished products, Subcool distributed seeds to thousands of cultivators around the world. Home growers, medical patients, commercial operations, beginners, veterans. He didn’t care about your resume. He wanted data. Every grower who popped a pack was asked to document what they found: growth patterns, flowering times, phenotype variation, flavor profiles, potency, everything.

TGA collected those reports and used them to guide their selections. It was crowdsourced genetic refinement before anyone was using that language. While other breeders relied on a single indoor room and their own palate, TGA was getting phenotype data from basements in Michigan, greenhouses in Spain, and medical gardens in Oregon simultaneously.

The other thing that set TGA apart was their refusal to produce feminized or autoflowering seeds. Every pack TGA released contained regular seeds. Period. Subcool viewed feminized seeds as a shortcut that sacrificed genetic diversity, and he had zero interest in ruderalis-crossed autoflowers. He believed the only way to truly know a strain was to pheno-hunt through regular seeds, find the exceptional females, and clone them. That philosophy attracted a specific type of grower: the kind who wanted to work for their results and understood that the best plants often come from the seeds you almost threw away.

The co-creator behind many of TGA’s most beloved strains was MzJill, Subcool’s wife and breeding partner. Before meeting Subcool, Jill was already an accomplished grower and caregiver for Oregon Medical Marijuana Program patients. One of her patients gifted her a clone of an orange-scented skunk called Melvin, which she stabilized into a strain called Orange Velvet. That plant became the genetic backbone for some of TGA’s most iconic releases, including Jillybean and Agent Orange.

What Are Subcool’s Most Famous Strains?

TGA released over 37 distinct cannabis strains between 2001 and 2017, and nearly all of them started with one of a handful of cornerstone parent plants. Understanding those parents is the key to understanding TGA’s entire catalog.

The Foundation: Space Queen

Space Queen (Cinderella 99 x Romulan) is the single most important strain in TGA’s history. Subcool used a Space Queen male he called “Space Dude” as the father in an enormous number of crosses. Space Queen contributed resin production, fruity terpenes, and hybrid vigor to everything it touched. If you see a TGA strain, there’s a very good chance Space Queen is somewhere in its lineage.

Dark Coast carries Space Queen Bx, a backcross designed to lock in the traits of the original mother plant while maintaining the genetic diversity that made the strain legendary.

The Sativa Side

Jack the Ripper is probably the single most famous strain TGA ever released. Bred from Jack’s Cleaner (the plant Subcool found in those original 200 seeds from Skoosh) crossed with Space Queen, JTR became known for its extreme lemon aroma, heavy resin production, and notably high THCV content. That THCV presence gives Jack the Ripper an energetic, almost electric sativa high that was unlike anything else on the market at the time. It finishes in roughly 8 weeks and produces the kind of frosty, sticky flowers that make extractors drool. Grab Jack The Ripper Bx while it’s still available.

Vortex (Apollo 13 x Space Queen) won Best Sativa at the 2010 High Times San Francisco Medical Cannabis Cup. It’s a soaring, cerebral sativa with a tropical fruit and lemon terpene profile that earned TGA their most prestigious competition win. The Apollo 13 parent brought structure and that specific “up” quality, while Space Queen added resin and fruity complexity.

Chernobyl (Trainwreck x Trinity x Space Queen) might be the most overlooked strain in TGA’s catalog. Growers who’ve run it describe aromas of melon and champagne, which is not something you hear about many cannabis plants. It’s a sativa-leaning hybrid that grows tall and produces heavy, resin-coated colas. We carry Chernobyl F2, a second-generation selection that preserves the original phenotype range.

Jack Skellington (Killer Queen G13 phenotype x Jack the Ripper) is a heavy resin producer with citrus-forward terpenes. Named after the Tim Burton character, this 70% sativa hybrid is especially popular with extract artists for its trichome density. Jack Skellington F2 seeds are in stock now.

The Indica and Hybrid Side

Querkle (Purple Urkle x Space Queen) brought grape flavors into TGA’s lineup. The Purple Urkle parent is one of the great indica clones of the 1990s, and crossing it with Space Queen produced a compact, purple-hued plant with a sweet grape nose and a deeply relaxing stone. It became one of TGA’s best sellers and spawned its own line of descendants. Dark Coast carries three Querkle variants: Querkle F2, Querkle Bx, and the original parent expression in Old Family Querkle F1.

Jesus OG (Hells OG x Jack’s Cleaner x Space Queen) is a three-way cross that delivers Kush flavor with lemon and fruit undertones. It became an important building block for other breeders. Jinxproof used the TGA Jesus OG to create 9 Pound Hammer, one of the most popular indicas of the 2010s. Jesus OG Bx is available in limited supply.

Slymer started as a standout phenotype of Chernobyl that Subcool isolated for its unique slime-green color and potent effects. Slymer S1 preserves that phenotype through self-pollination, locking in the traits that made the original cut famous.

What Awards Did TGA Genetics Win?

Subcool’s competition record is strong, but his influence extends far beyond trophies. Still, the accolades tell a story of consistent excellence across more than a decade.

What Happened During the 2017 Tubbs Fire?

On October 8, 2017, the Tubbs Fire ripped through Santa Rosa, California. At the time, it was the most destructive wildfire in state history. Subcool and MzJill were physically unharmed, but their home burned to the ground. Inside that home was their entire operation: nearly 4 million cannabis seeds, mother plants, father plants, breeding records, and the physical infrastructure of TGA Genetics.

Think about that number for a second. Four million seeds. Years of phenotype selection. Parent stock that represented decades of careful breeding. Gone in one night.

Most people would have walked away. Subcool was already seriously ill with Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, a genetic lung disease that had been diagnosed in 2013. He was on weekly infusions that cost more than his mortgage. He could barely walk some days. And now he was homeless.

But Subcool had done something smart, probably without even thinking of it as a business continuity plan. He’d given cuttings to friends. He’d distributed seeds to growers worldwide through his open source network. The genetics weren’t all in one place. They couldn’t be.

Working with his new partner William Rouland, Subcool tracked down backup parent stock from trusted friends who held cuttings. He even purchased some of his own seeds from retail. Slowly, they rebuilt the core library: Jack the Ripper, Vortex, Querkle, Space Queen, Chernobyl, Jesus OG. All of them came back. He rebranded as “The Dank” and by 2018 had 44 strains available for distribution.

The marriage didn’t survive the fire. On February 20, 2019, Subcool and MzJill officially separated. He surrendered the TGA Genetics name and intellectual property to her. He took the Dank name, the same title as his books. MzJill retained the original Orange Velvet and Space Dude parent plants, though not without some drama involving third-party breeders who held backup cuts.

How Did Subcool’s Genetics Shape Modern Cannabis?

The ripple effects of Subcool’s breeding work are still visible in dispensary menus and seed catalogs today, even though many consumers don’t realize it. TGA genetics show up as parent stock in dozens of modern crosses from other breeders.

Jinxproof used Jesus OG to create 9 Pound Hammer. Exotic Genetix’s Mike publicly credited Subcool as an inspiration when news of his death broke. The fruit-forward terpene profiles that dominate modern cannabis, all those candy, berry, and citrus strains filling dispensary shelves, trace a direct line back to what Subcool was doing with lemon, grape, cherry, and orange terpenes in the 2000s. He was doing it before it was trendy, before terpene testing was standard, and before anyone was talking about “terp profiles” on Instagram.

His advocacy for regular seeds also shaped a philosophical divide in the industry that persists today. While the commercial market moved hard toward feminized seeds (and the convenience they offer), the breeding community never stopped valuing regulars. Subcool proved that regular seeds, properly pheno-hunted, produce exceptional plants that feminized seeds simply can’t replicate. That argument has only gained strength as more growers discover the rewards of hunting through a full pack of regs.

And then there’s the “Weed Nerd” show. Subcool’s YouTube series, filmed in his grow rooms and featuring everything from plant tours to breeding tutorials, was one of the first cannabis cultivation shows on the platform. It taught an entire generation of home growers how to think about their plants. At a time when growing information was scattered across forums and paywalled magazines, Weed Nerd was free, accessible, and hosted by someone who clearly loved what he was doing.

What Subcool Strains Does Dark Coast Carry?

Authentic Subcool genetics are getting harder to find every year. The man is gone, the original TGA company changed hands, and many of his strains have fallen out of commercial production. That makes the surviving seed stock increasingly valuable to growers and collectors who understand what these genetics represent.

Dark Coast Seed Co. carries 14 Subcool Seeds varieties, one of the largest selections of his genetics available anywhere. All are regular seeds, exactly the way Subcool intended them to be grown.

Why Are Subcool Seeds Becoming Rare?

There’s a simple, hard truth at work here: Subcool died in 2020. There is no active breeding program continuing his work under his name. The seeds that exist today are preserved lines, continued through F2 generations, backcrosses, and selfed selections made from original TGA parent stock. When the current inventory sells through, these specific genetics may never be commercially available again.

That’s not marketing hype. It’s just how genetics work when the original breeder is gone and the parent plants are no longer actively maintained by one person. Some of TGA’s strains live on through other breeders’ crosses, and MzJill has continued work under her own name. But the specific Subcool Seeds lines represent the last direct link to his personal breeding selections.

For growers, that makes this a legitimate preservation opportunity. Pop a pack, find a keeper, take cuts, and you’re holding a piece of cannabis history that connects directly back to those early forum days, those 200 seeds from Skoosh, and a man who believed cannabis should be shared freely.

If you’re interested in the heritage preservation angle, Dark Coast also carries genetics from heritage breeders like AK Bean Brains and landrace preservationists like Silk Route to Salvation. Subcool’s work sits alongside these efforts as part of a broader movement to keep important cannabis genetics alive for future generations.

How Should You Grow Subcool Seeds?

Subcool was famously opinionated about growing methods. He developed his own organic soil recipe called “Super Soil” that became widely adopted across the home growing community. The recipe was designed to create a living soil environment where the plant could feed itself through the entire cycle without bottled nutrients.

TGA strains respond particularly well to organic growing methods. They were bred in organic environments, selected under organic conditions, and their terpene expressions tend to be fullest when grown in living soil. That said, they’ll perform in any well-managed setup.

Because all Subcool Seeds are regular, you’ll need to sex your plants. Plan for roughly a 50/50 male to female ratio and pop enough seeds to find keepers. The males are worth evaluating too. Subcool’s strains carry breeding potential in both sexes, and finding a standout male from a Querkle or Jack the Ripper pack could be the start of your own breeding project.

What Makes Subcool’s Legacy Worth Preserving?

Five years after his death, the cannabis industry looks very different from the one Subcool helped build. Cookies crosses dominate dispensary menus. Feminized seeds outsell regulars ten to one. Most new “breeders” are pollen chuckers slapping two hype strains together and calling it a day. The open source ethos that defined TGA’s approach has largely been replaced by hype drops and limited editions designed to sell out in minutes.

That’s exactly why Subcool’s genetics matter more now than ever. These strains represent something the industry is losing: breeding done with patience, data, transparency, and a genuine love for the plant. Every pack of Subcool seeds contains the potential to find phenotypes that don’t exist anywhere else, flavors that predate the current trend cycle, and genetics that were tested across thousands of grows before they were ever sold.

Subcool didn’t breed for Instagram. He bred for growers. And the growers who’ve run his gear consistently say the same thing: the pheno range is wide, the flavors are real, the resin is heavy, and the best plants from a pack will outperform most of what’s on the market today.

The Dark Coast seed catalog carries 14 Subcool varieties, from the iconic Jack The Ripper Bx to the lesser-known Pinesol Piff and The Rapture. These are regular seeds from continued TGA lines. The kind of genetics Subcool believed in. The kind that reward growers who put in the work.

His seeds survived a wildfire, a divorce, and a fatal disease. Now they need growers willing to pop them, hunt them, and keep the best cuts alive. That’s the only way a breeder’s legacy actually endures.