America’s millions of cannabis lovers, get ready for an overflowing cornucopia of chronic.
As you read this, the nation’s world-class ganja farmers have thousands of metric tons of outdoor-grown pot air-drying in cool, darkened rooms. Thousands of sun-grown varieties will boggle dispensary shoppers’ minds this fall and into 2022.
Flower fact: Cannabis is an annual, fast-growing, bush sown in the spring and chopped by October. Prohibition drove growers indoors decades ago, but nowadays, outdoor and greenhouse-grown bud rival the best indoor. Outdoor also costs much less.
Pair legalization with amazing breeders, growers, and sunny weather, and boom: “There’s a huge-ass harvest out there,” said Daniel Hendricks at the influential HendRx Farm nursery in the nation’s cannabis heartland, Humboldt County, CA.

So what are the quintessential, 11 best cannabis cultivars of the 2021 harvest? The trendsetters and exemplars? Who are the Most Valuable Players in this $18.3 billion legal industry? What flavors did outdoor and greenhouse farmers grow tons of because the people demand them?
Leafly News has got you. We’re independent, and we grow, grind, and pack bowls daily. We secret shop, conduct interviews, trawl conferences, lurk Instagram, and scan search data.
Here’s the best of the harvest, destined for your bubblers by Danksgiving. Look for these 11 strains and their close cousins for that undeniable fire in your life.
Strains highlighted in this article:
- Ice Cream Cake
- Kush Mints
- Tropic Runtz
- Modified Grapes
- Marshmallow OG
- Mimosa #3
- Sour Tangie
- Prayer Pupil
- Hella Jelly
- Pennywise
- MAC Tyson
Ice Cream Cake and crosses

Don’t hate the Cake, hate the game. Ganja farmers grew literal tons of Ice Cream Cake and its kin, because smokers coast-to-coast love it day or night.
“Ice Cream Cake is here to stay,” said Hendricks.
The soft, sweet vanilla smell; the rich, fragrant smoke melting into notes of dank gas—Ice Cream Cake runs high in THC yet won’t give you The Fear.
It stands on the shoulders of giants: Wedding Cake crossed with Gelato #33, bred by the #1 in the game, Seed Junky Genetics.
ICC took a 2019 Emerald Cup in the greenhouse category and this crowd fave grows well indoors or out. Its bag appeal, nose appeal, and versatility make it the number three most searched strain on Leafly in 2021 in the US.

It’s also very, ahem, re-nameable, said Hendricks, in Humboldt. “I don’t think it all goes onto the market as ‘Ice Cream Cake.’”
See also in 2021: Blue Velvet Cake, Oreo Cake, Rozay Cake, and Runtz Cake
Kush Mints and kin

The heads have spoken. They like their Cookies strains minty and heavy-hitting for that red-eyed nighttime munchie sesh.
This elite cross of Animal Mints and Bubba Kush has spent the last 18 months clawing into the top 25 strains in the US on Leafly.
First bred indoors by Seed Junky Genetics of LA, Kush Mints now cavorts outdoors in the fields, getting it on with other top strains, resulting in big crosses like Gush Mints. Sploosh.
Greenhouse grower Allen Hackett of MD Farms in Salinas, CA loves growing Gelato x Kush Mints—it’s hearty and fat.

“Seed Junky killed it with this one,” Hackett said.
See also: Purple Kush Mints, Sunset Mints
Tropic Runtz and friends

Ring the alarm, here comes a tsunami of Runtz crosses like White Runtz, Pink Runtz, and Blue Runtz; exclusives like Ridgeline Farms’ LANTZ; and of course, fake Runtz.
Leafly gave the Zkittlez and Gelato cross the Strain of the Year title in 2020, so farmers tripled down in 2021. Dive into them all this fall, including Exotic Genetix’s Tropic Runtz, which crosses Runtz with Tropic Truffles (Tropicana Cookies x Mint Chocolate Chip).
“[Tropic Runtz] has one of the most insane, mind-numbing citrus aromas I’ve ever smelled on cannabis,” said Ben Caldwell, cultivation director for F5 Farms in Tulsa, OK, where cannabis exploded this year.
If it’s a Zkittlez and cookies cross—smoke it!
