Danny Danko is the name I have written under since I joined High Times in 2002. I was born Daniel Vinkovetsky in Leningrad on the fourth of July, 1972, grew up in the United States and studied sociology at Boston University. I started growing cannabis long before it was legal to say so in print, and by the time High Times hired me I had been doing it for years, indoors and out. The job turned a private habit into a public education.
What I did at High Times
I spent eighteen years at the magazine, from 2002 to 2020, moving from publishing coordinator to cultivation editor in 2004 and to Senior Cultivation Editor in 2007. The title covered a lot of ground: the monthly grow features, the Dear Danko column where readers sent in their sick plants and their questions, grow photography, and judging at the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam and later at the US cups as they spread across the legal states. From 2005 to 2018 I personally selected the annual Top 10 Strains of the Year, and in 2007 I created the High Times Seed Bank Hall of Fame. I have judged more Cannabis Cups than anyone else on the planet, and I interviewed and worked alongside most of the breeders and growers whose names you know. That is the experience behind the grow guide on this site: not one grower's opinion, but a long look at what works across thousands of gardens.
I left High Times in April 2020 in the pandemic layoffs. From July 2020 to November 2023 I was Senior Editor of Northeast Leaf, a free monthly print magazine for the cannabis communities and businesses of the northeastern states. Since November 2024 I have been the Cultivation Section Coordinator for CHAMPS Trade Shows, and since January 2025 the Director of Cannabis Education at the Conbud dispensary at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.
Books, podcast and the rest
I wrote two books. The Official High Times Field Guide to Marijuana Strains (2011) profiles well over a hundred strains with lineage, breeder and character notes and is the source of most of the strain material here. Cannabis: A Beginner's Guide to Growing Marijuana (2018, foreword by Jorge Cervantes) is a 144 page first course for someone who has never grown a plant of any kind.
From 2011 to 2018 I hosted Free Weed from Danny Danko, the High Times cultivation podcast. In 2020 Mike Gianakos, the former Editor in Chief of High Times, and I co-founded the Grow Bud Yourself podcast; it has run 138 numbered episodes with growers, breeders, judges and activists as guests, and the whole archive back to the first Free Weed episode lives in one feed. I also turn up regularly on other people's shows and stages; the appearances page collects the ones that are on video.
Career timeline
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1972 | Born Daniel Vinkovetsky in Leningrad, 4 July |
| 1994 | BA in Sociology, Boston University |
| 2002 | Joined High Times |
| 2004 | Cultivation Editor, High Times |
| 2005 | First year selecting the Top 10 Strains of the Year (through 2018) |
| 2007 | Senior Cultivation Editor; founded the High Times Seed Bank Hall of Fame |
| 2011 | The Official High Times Field Guide to Marijuana Strains published; Free Weed from Danny Danko podcast begins |
| 2018 | Cannabis: A Beginner's Guide to Growing Marijuana published; Free Weed ends |
| 2020 | Left High Times in April; co-founded Grow Bud Yourself; Senior Editor of Northeast Leaf from July |
| 2023 | Northeast Leaf role ends in November |
| 2024 | Cultivation Section Coordinator, CHAMPS Trade Shows, from November; Grow Bud Yourself reaches episode 138 |
| 2025 | Director of Cannabis Education, Conbud Yankee Stadium, from January |
| 2026 | dannydanko.com launches as the home for all of it |
Credentials and judging
I have judged cannabis competitions for most of my career, starting with the High Times Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam and continuing through the US cups that followed legalization. Judging teaches a different set of eyes from growing: you learn to read a flower's cure, trim, density and aroma against hundreds of others in the same room, and you learn which traits breeders chase and which ones consumers actually notice. Those eyes are behind the strains section and the Top 10 retrospective.
Working with me
Editors, producers and event organizers will find bios in three lengths, photos, logos and a booking route on the press page. Readers with a plant problem should send it through Dear Danko rather than email; the answers become pages that help the next person with the same problem.
