He soon discovered that the commercially available Thai, Colombian and African strains did not perform well in the Netherlands's northern European climate, nor indoors under artificial lighting.
It was around this time that he met David Paul Watson, a cannabis collector and breeder from California better known as "Sam the Skunkman."
Schoenmakers was able to purchase from Watson seeds of the premier Californian varieties "Original Haze", "Skunk #1", "Early Girl" and "California Orange.
In the process he was able to cross equatorial sativas with Afghani indicas to create strains that were more suited to the temperate climates and indoor growing mediums of his European and U.S. customers.
[citation needed] For some time after Schoenmakers's return to the Netherlands, he was on the FBI's most wanted list, but because his activities were legal under Dutch law his extradition was refused and the charges were ultimately dropped.
The original Northern Lights 5 X Haze plant of Nevil's has been living on through clones [citation needed] and still wins championship awards.