Sour #13
An obscure Sour Diesel-family selection more often referenced in breeder lore than reliably documented in modern strain catalogs.
Sour #13 is one of those names that gets passed around in Sour Diesel lineage discussions without much hard documentation. There is no peer-reviewed chemistry on it, no verified pheno hunt records you can pull from a regulator, and lineage claims vary depending on who is selling seeds. Treat anything you read about it — including this article — as breeder folklore until a lab report with chain-of-custody shows up. If you've got a cut labeled Sour #13, what matters is what it actually tests at, not the number.
Overview
Sour #13 is a name that circulates in cannabis communities as a numbered selection from the broader Sour Diesel / Chemdog family. Unlike its better-known siblings — Sour Diesel, ECSD (East Coast Sour Diesel), and Headband — Sour #13 has no widely distributed seed release from a major breeder and no consistent profile across labs or dispensaries No data.
When people sell or trade flower under this name, they are usually pointing at one of a few things: a numbered pheno from a Sour Diesel-derived seed run, a clone-only cut passed between growers, or simply a renamed Sour. There is no central registry that confirms which is which. The Sour Diesel lineage itself is famously tangled — see Sour Diesel — and any 'numbered' offshoot inherits that ambiguity.
Chemistry
There is no published peer-reviewed chemotype analysis specific to Sour #13 No data. What follows is inference from the Sour Diesel family it claims membership in.
Sour Diesel and its close relatives are typically THC-dominant chemotypes (Type I), with THC commonly in the high teens to mid-20s percent range and CBD under 1% [1] Strong evidence. Terpene profiles across Sour Diesel samples tend to feature caryophyllene, myrcene, and limonene, with notable terpinolene or ocimene in some phenos [1][2] Weak / limited.
The 'diesel' or 'gas' aroma associated with the family is not fully explained by any single terpene. Volatile sulfur compounds (VSCs) — particularly prenylated thiols identified by Oswald and colleagues — appear to drive that fuel/skunk note, not terpenes alone [3] Strong evidence. So if a Sour #13 cut smells convincingly of diesel, that's likely VSCs doing the work, regardless of the terpene readout.
Without a specific COA for the cut in your hand, assume nothing about its chemistry. Two plants both labeled 'Sour #13' can test very differently.
Reported effects
No clinical trials have studied Sour #13 — or any specific named strain — for effects No data. Strain-specific effect claims are based on user self-reports, which are heavily shaped by expectation, setting, dose, and tolerance [4] Strong evidence.
Anecdotally, users describe Sour #13 the way they describe most Sour Diesel relatives: alert, talkative, sometimes anxious at higher doses, with appetite stimulation and a relatively short duration compared to heavier indica-leaning hybrids Anecdote. Whether those reports reflect the cut's chemistry or simply the Sour Diesel reputation priming users is impossible to disentangle without blinded testing.
The older 'sativa = energetic, indica = sedating' framing does not hold up against chemical analysis; lineage labels are poor predictors of effect [5] Strong evidence. Dose and individual response matter more than the name on the jar.
Lineage (disputed)
Sour Diesel's own origin is contested. The widely repeated story credits AJ from the original Chemdog circle with the cut in the early 1990s, possibly involving Chemdog, Mass Super Skunk, and Northern Lights or DNL crosses [6] Disputed. Different participants have given different accounts over the years, and no contemporaneous breeding records exist.
Claims about Sour #13 specifically are even thinner. Some sources describe it as a numbered pheno from a Sour Diesel seed selection; others tie it to Reservoir Seeds' Sour family work; others still treat it as a regional renaming of an existing cut. None of these claims are backed by documentation you can verify No data.
If a vendor tells you a confident lineage story for Sour #13, ask what their source is. 'A breeder told me' is not a source.
Cultivation basics
Assuming the cut behaves like its Sour Diesel relatives, expect:
- Flowering time: roughly 10–11 weeks indoors, longer than average. Sour Diesel cuts are notorious for testing grower patience Anecdote.
- Structure: tall, stretchy, with long internodes. Topping and training help manage height Anecdote.
- Yield: moderate indoors; the lineage is not a heavy producer compared to modern commercial hybrids Anecdote.
- Environment: prefers controlled humidity in late flower to protect the fuel-forward aroma compounds; VSCs and many terpenes are volatile and degrade with heat, light, and time [3] Strong evidence.
- Difficulty: intermediate to advanced. Sensitive to nutrient swings and prone to hermaphroditism under stress in some Sour lines Anecdote.
Cure carefully and store cold and dark. If gas aroma is what you want from this cut, treating it like any other flower will lose it fast.
Marketing vs. reality
Numbered strain names ('#13', '#4', 'Cut B') carry an implicit promise: that someone, somewhere, ran a careful pheno hunt and selected this specific plant for specific reasons. Sometimes that's true. Often it isn't — the number is decorative, attached after the fact to make a generic seed plant sound like a curated clone-only.
For Sour #13 specifically:
- There is no canonical breeder release you can point to.
- There is no consistent chemotype across samples sold under the name.
- The lineage story varies by source.
- 'Sativa-leaning' descriptions reflect family reputation, not measured effect.
None of this means a flower sold as Sour #13 is bad. It might be excellent. It just means the name is doing very little work to tell you what's in the jar. Read the COA, smell the flower, and judge the cut on its own merits.
Sources
- Peer-reviewed Smith, C. J., Vergara, D., Keegan, B., & Jikomes, N. (2022). The phytochemical diversity of commercial Cannabis in the United States. PLOS ONE, 17(5), e0267498.
- Peer-reviewed Reimann-Philipp, U., Speck, M., Orser, C., et al. (2020). Cannabis Chemovar Nomenclature Misrepresents Chemical and Genetic Diversity. Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research, 5(3), 215-230.
- Peer-reviewed Oswald, I. W. H., Ojeda, M. A., Pobanz, R. J., et al. (2021). Identification of a New Family of Prenylated Volatile Sulfur Compounds in Cannabis Revealed by Comprehensive Two-Dimensional Gas Chromatography. ACS Omega, 6(47), 31667-31676.
- Peer-reviewed Gertsch, J. (2018). Cannabis Phenotypes and the Entourage Effect: Implications for Patient Self-Reports. Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research, 3(1), 1-7.
- Peer-reviewed Sawler, J., Stout, J. M., Gardner, K. M., et al. (2015). The Genetic Structure of Marijuana and Hemp. PLOS ONE, 10(8), e0133292.
- Reported Bienenstock, D. (2017). 'The True Story of Sour Diesel, the Strain That Conquered America.' MERRY JANE.
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