Spanish breeders that are preserving the landraces

I sincerely hope this doesn't turn into some kind of argument, lol. I am a huge fan of the breeders in Spain who are doing all the work they are doing with the landraces, and there are some things I've been noticing that I wanted to bring up here, for an intelligent conversation.

Everyone knows that CBG and Ace share many of the same genetics. They worked closely together for a long while. But after perusing some websites of other Spanish breeders, I've noticed that it's always pretty much the same genetics being offered just about everywhere over there.

I have been partial to Mandala's strains for a long time now, because the price is right, and when I first discovered Mandala, they appeared to be the only ones with the unique landrace genetics coming through prominently in their hybrids. So those varieties are the ones I'm most familiar with. Then I remember when I caught on to the fact that there were these companies CBG and Ace doing the same kind of preservation genetics, and upon looking at their strain lists I remember seeing how many of them were very similar to Mandala's offerings. I mean, they definitely had other, and more, selections, but I would see the similarities as well... like how they had Nepalese sativas, just like Mandala did with strains like Satori. Zamal sativas which seemed to show up on multiple breeders' listings simultaneously, like they all got the genetics around the same time or something. Not to mention all the afghani/Mexican crosses that they all offer... and the indicas from the Chitral valley... the Colombian sativas... This has been with several more seed companies I didn't mention, as well.

There is definitely a pattern here. So I'm curious... are all these seed companies dealing with the same batch of genetics? Like, did one group of people go off to all these countries and get the seeds, come back to Spain, sell them at the farmers market, and then all these seed companies began breeding with them? Or did each of these seed companies go and do their own selections in the mother countries? I'm curious to find out if there are multiples of the same varieties out there, or if each seed company has their own unique selection of all these landrace strains?

If someone wanted to cross CBG plants containing Nepalese genetics with Mandala plants that contained Nepalese genetics, or something like that, would the gene pool be expanded or bottlenecked?

Just curious, that's all. I love you Spain!!!!

I think in most cases these seed strains are named after their location of collection and not all examples will be from the same seed stock. I think you see many names pop up from bank to bank because these geographical locations in the name are hot spots for cannabis cultivation, like "Mazar I Shariff" or the Hindu Kush mountains. This may not be the case with old Dutch strains because most Dutch could presumably be knock offs, i.e Nirvana Hindu Kush is most likely a knock off of Sensi's, or Dutch passion etc..

With Zamal I am pretty sure most of these hail from the seeds Gypsy Nirvana released some years back collected from the La Reunion islands off the coast of Africa. I believe this is where Ace's CBG and Gerrit from Magus found their breeding stock. I also think a lot of these strains come from old Reeferman offerings, I know I have read before CBG uses some of Reefs nepali stock.

I think if you see anything from India they might be unique to the company because it wouldnt be too hard to go to india and find cannabis, it grows all over india in large fields.

Some of the strains how ever could use the same stock, I know Ace/CBG and Underground use some of the same breeding stock in their crosses but I don't believe Mandala uses the same genetics.

I've actually heard the same thing said about the Himalayan strains, too. So knowing that, with the exception of Pakistan/Afghanistan I guess, it seemed reasonable to think that maybe these seed companies are going off and collecting seed themselves. I wish I knew for sure. I have fallen in love with a north-Indian strain by Mandala that doesn't even exist anymore called Sadhu, and I would love to know what's in it, or if other seed companies still have the same genetics that Mandala used to create it?

Im pretty sure I read years ago that Mandala went to India and collected their own breeding stock and then refined it in Spain. Have you ever thought of contacting Mandala Mike thru their website and asking him if any are still available for purchase? I know Mandala does seed sales directly thru their website.

I also meant to say with Ace and CBG, some of their strains may be the same to a certain extent but some use parents from different seed lots/generations making them subtly different from one another.

Thanks for chiming in. No I never thought to contact him, but only because I actually have a clone still going. Now I simply need to self it, in order to keep the genetics around. But I might try contacting them just to see if they would be willing to give up the names strains that went into the creation, lol.

If the parental stock came from India it might not have a name like most strains we think of. There is a shit load of cannabis grown in India, most of it is used for hash production by farmers in the mountains.

Check out GHS's strainhunters India documentary, it is a great insight to the way cannabis is cultivated in India. We tend to think of Amsterdam, US and Canada as being the biggest cannabis countries but over in India and Afghanistan there is quite literally fields of thousands of plants growing on the side of the road or sides of mountains right in plain sight.

Hi
Most spanish commercial scenario comes from bulk seeds from few mega seed producers, same for everyone
About landraces, I know of a very very very few who have ever grown and worked with landraces and do own work. I do in CBG and as I did for ACE seeds too since the beginning (Oldtimer haze, Panama, PCK, Nepaljam, Bangihaze, Congo,etc)... but I felt quite alone really.

I cant still find any shared landrace here and mostly come from friends, own travels, and so. I dont know if ACE seeds preserves any landraces or not, maybe Tropical Seeds, Undergrounds seeds collective (swisss/french) or Original Delicatessen (italian) do own works. Nepalese Highland came as stocks exchange with Reeferman. I worked 5 generations here upon my criterias. Am still working on Mexicans, Columbians, Guatemalans, Panamams, old Hazes, pakistan Chitral Kush, Uzbekistan, and so and have shared already in the past some of these works done, be under CBG or under ACE releases. I think Mandala are german ppl, Zamal cut came from Gerrit, Malawi cut come from another spanish guy and so on. So there is not really a job based on landraces or own work here and in fact I have recieved lots of bad names in some spanish forums for being independent and not eat of others plate I guess

There are still some good landrace names but if we pay attention only to names...poor job. Not many high quality landraces left, young colombians cant find reds and so or dont know really about their own older classic lines, mexican sativas are almost disspeared for new squat indica dwarfs kushies under usa tastes demand, Sam mentioned several times poor stage of afghani genetics after so large war, etc

There are still few guys caring of some LMN genetics left behind

Other spanish commercial banks here talk about fertile fields in pakistan and own i+d for their autos and crosses...PCK right away into the makeup, although not even mention something so obvious but seems to me, I can be wrong for sure, lots of crosses are done with this same PCK from CBG

best
kaiki

Great to see you around here Charlie!

Hush, I understand your concerns but I think CG just said pretty much what's going on here nowadays.

As many of us know, getting pure breeding material nowadays is really hard. Not only many of them were lost or extinct due to the international cannabis laws but also the trends in cannabis growing, the dutch hybrids era and all that, and even the cannabis smugglers who started breeding them for faster producing plants and having 2-3 crops per year instead just 1. All of that damaged the existence of all the traiditional heirloom cannabis landraces. Nowadays we are all responsible on that too, when we choose to grow certain strains or feminised seeds of trendy names and feed this big business.

In the past there used to be a few small seedbanks offering interesting landraces as African Seeds, Afropips, Herbaria, Green Hornet, Reeferman, Gypsy Nirvana... they were also the source of many of those strains as they were the only seedbanks who were strain hunting, gathering, exchanging or caring about this rare strains and the cannabis biodiversity. Sadly, most of them disappeared with their legacy as most of the people just wanted the new trendy fast and productive hybrids that win the cups and prizes and pay for advertising in magazines or websites.

Nowadays there are some young seedbanks offering wild heirloom strains from the Himalayas, India, SE Asia and a bunch of new seedbanks claiming to offer African strains, probably many of them from the same old source. But the scene has changed a lot.

So that’s maybe the reason why many strains as the Zamal you said, came from the same old and well known original source, as it was the only one available for anyone to purchase. That was the case of Gypsy’s Zamal, who shared it to Gerrit, who selected his famous zamal cuts and shared them with friends; ending in the hands of Female Seeds, ACE, Mandala and many other landrace enthusiasts. So that’s why that Zamal cut was the mum for all this hybrids. I know there are some other Zamal and Mauritius lines around, but they weren’t available for purchasing, in the same way as there are probably lots of Usa growers with oldschool Mexicans or Colombians. Something similar could have happened with other strains.

Right now, as Kaiki said, only a few of them offer some pure form strains or also real breeding works based on true genetics from all over the world. This is understandable, as working with such genetics is tough and requires a big amount of time and passion that most “seed sellers” don’t have at all. They need to be grown, get rid of weak or hermie plants, look for the best parents, test their progeny for favourable traits and transmission and so on. It takes years and years, blood and tears… and most people don’t even give props or recognize such fine art work (for example it’s sad the fact that CBG/ACE are more respected in the internet community than in their own country, were most street growers or seed shops don’t even know them!!). People give favour to all the trendy Kushes, OGs, Diesels, C99, Sours and all that miracle strains that surprisingly, they all came from a fucking bag of weed or accidental pollination, and then bam! amazing plants came from one single seed with unknown genetics and fairy tale stories on their descriptions! Crazy ridiculous world! LOL

Anyway, I know for sure than a few seedbanks as it was said, are working with real breeding material. CBG is probably one of the most compromised seedbank with the landraces and this issue. Not only they’ve been collecting on the spot as well or preserving many rare strains and discussing about them in their forums for anyone who wants to learn, but also even taking seeds back to their original places and trying to help the original farmers. I know for sure that all their strains have years of work on their backs and we are lucky they even release sometimes treasures as the Columbian Punto Rojo, Columbian Mangobiche, Ghana sativa and many others sold in the past and forgotten. ACE was a collective and as Kaiki said, Dubi shared many works and genetics and CBG was the working in many of their strains too as Banghi, Panama, OT Haze, etc… both of them are very well known and respected in the community and probably they have a great collection of landraces and original and exotic works. ACE was offering in the past original stocks from GN Collection as the Lao, Thai Sticks or Mazar too.

Tropical Seeds Co is a young Spanish seed born in Canary Islands by an Italian grower and landrace aficionado. They started with many seeds shared in the Spanish forums and the Canaries years ago by other landrace lovers. That’s the source of their Congolese (old line from Canaries), Nepal highland and Pakistan Chitral came from CBG, Ciskei (old strain from Herbaria Seeds preserved by them), Zambia (old African Seeds pack preserved too) and their Africans strains as Durban, Swazi, Congo Black… all shared by the great African Herbman, who used to be around this forum too. Besides almost all their genetics came from others, their hybrids are very refined and homogeneous and few seedbanks can say this after working with african genetics.

Delicatessen Seeds doesn’t have many available landraces but the owner is and independent Italian breeder who worked with his own strains for years. The origins are unknown but his works are very respected in Spain because of the great highs, very fast flowerings and amazing flavours. They have a lot of African genetics too and even an oldschool Mexican shared by Robert C Clarke himself with the owner, they used to sell it in regular form under the name of Primera Dama I think.

Underground Seeds Collective, Mandala or Tiki are others that came to mind but they aren’t originally from Spain. I think Mike and Jasmin have lot's of great indian and himalayan strains as they have lived there for some time. I remember they offered amazing strains as their limited edition Nigerian strain. The Mango Zamal was an outstanding hybrids as well, GN Collection Zamal crossed to an indian male, i've seen grows in the spanish forum and the plants looked amazing and such a good price for the quality offered. I guess it will be easy to ask them in their forum though. Them seem to be honest and reasonable people for this business.

In Spain and France as well (probably in USA and Australia too but I’m talking about what I know), there is a big and strong underground scene of passionate growers who love this kind of oldschool and rare strains. People that has been exchanging and trying to educate and preserve this strains during years. Rahan, LMN or Kaiki were some of the most renowned breeders and preservationists on the community and contributed to preserve many great strains. Many of those were spread around the globe and they contributed to educate us and remember that there is a whole world of different strains, apart from the mainstream side of the cannabussiness.

I think that’s why there are a lot of people growing and selling this kind of plants in Spain. But watch out because there are a lot of crappy seedbanks here, who just sell bulk seeds without barely any proper breeding work. And many others selling rip offs as the many seedbanks selling nowadays hybrids with Pakistan Chitral, Nepalese, X18, Destroyer or even LMN strains too without even giving credit and props to the own breeders and suggesting they were the ones working with the original landraces!! Now Spain is like the Sodoma of seedbanks and cannabussiness. This scavengers just care about their pockets and getting them full of money through the shortest path. Like most dutch people did in the 90s I guess… haha.

So yeah, there are still many landraces around, people and growers keeping old strains all over the world, other people travelling or with good contacts abroad and so on. I think right now is even easy to get nice and interesting thais, colombians, mexicans, pakistan, panama, malawi, ghana, nepalese, indian and many great old strains. But only a few are using them for their original hybrids. Let’s also keep in mind that it’s very different to bring wild seeds from Nepal, Africa or wherever you want… and refine them to breed them, or using one of this few very inbreed lines preserved and acclimatised for years and make hybrids with them. It will be also very easy getting now Punto Rojo, Pakistan Chitral or Nepal Highland seeds and crossing them with OG Kush or Sour Diesel and selling amazing F1s! But that’s a whole different thing right?

Anyway I think it’s a lifestyle and It goes with the grower’s personality… you either love them or hate them! And another thing, if only a few landrace strains were as good as how exotic was their origin or the stories behind them… it will be crazy! But one of the reasons about this could be how fucked is the cannabis diversity. Now to find a proper real and good Thai or Mexican that resembles to the oldschool 70s plants people wrote about in the past, you need to grow dozens of strains and hundreds of plants! And man, just a few people have the passion, time or space to do this plus many of them are truly and sadly extint forever already.

P.S: last thought... don't kill males guys! Make your own seeds and have fun for free!

Vibes!

I never imagined kaiki would be chiming in here when I was creating this thread! Kaiki, I'm very honored you contributed to this thread. I don't mean to blow smoke in your general direction, but the more I've read about you, and your company, the more respect I have for you. I have known about you for several years now, and I'm only just now about to order some seeds from you. Better late than never, right? I even just set up an account on the cbg club forum, once I found out your presence here will be fading away. I just really appreciate what you do, and why you do it. It's no surprise to me that you are as well respected as you are here among the breeders and aficionados, or that you are a pariah in the cannabis world because of your integrity. At any rate, you are one of my heroes, for what it's worth.

Also, mustafunk, thank you for that wonderful post! Such detailed history in there, you really know your stuff! Now I know a whole lot more, too.

I have decided not to purchase any Dutch strains ever again if I can help it. Or strains derived from those. After growing Mandala strains side by side with other, typical varieties for almost 10 years now, I've decided there's nothing amazing about these new school genetics. That doesn't mean they don't work... They just aren't amazing. They don't amaze me.

What's actually amazing to me is how I can keep smoking nothing but one strain, like Satori, for months and months on end, and the complexity of the high never ceases. It doesn't get tiresome.

But every time I had lots of bubblegum, or white widow, or fill-in-the-blank-Kush, it gets a little boring after a while. Usually sooner than later. Not to mention the common genetics that most of these strains all share, making flavors, aromas, and highs all relatively similar.

There are aromas that have come from my Mandala plants that I don't even have words for in my vocabulary. In certain cases, all I could say was that it DOESN'T smell like skunk, or fruit, or anything I've ever smelled before.

I believe that has to do with the relative freshness of the genes that went into these varieties. And now that my sights are set on CBG gear, I'm even more excited, because the selection I have before me, looking at their varieties, will truly open me up to the finest cannabis in the world.

One quick story before I go... I grew out a cross by mandala recently of Colombian/Haze x Blueberry (called Far Out), which went Hermy on me in late flowering, so I didn't keep it... But I had a pheno that I believed to be very representative of the Colombian line within. I have grown blueberry and haze varieties before, so I was able to pick out a pheno with no obvious characteristics of those strains... And this was probably one of the best highs I've ever enjoyed in my life! I'm fully convinced it was heavily leaning in the Colombian side of its parentage, the one I really focused on.. And that's what led me to decide to order from CBG next time... because they offer more of the Colombian genetics, and not in only a feminized form like Far Out.

I think it's safe to say that if I hold on to my sadhu mother, it will open up a few varieties' gene pools a bit by breeding with her. She is staying in my stable forever, hopefully.

thx hush. am interested in landraces and I spend sometime with that but thats all
Am more into Mustafunk phrase philosophy which tells better and in few words: "don't kill males guys! Make your own seeds and have fun for free!"
best
kaiki

Great post musta, Australia is defo worth a mention, plenty of African and S.E Asian strains being maintained properly, in the ground in full sunlight.

Thing is we can never maintain these landraces with the small amounts of plants people run in artificial conditions,
the genetics will inevitably mutate after a few generations.
Many of these strains will not have fully activated cannabinoids indoors especially under cfl.

So its one thing inbreeding but another thing to maintain a line in the correct conditions so as to not alter the genepool (or to alter it as little as possible)

Luckily there are growers who do it old skool and Spain has good conditions for this.

I just popped some PCK and Malawi myself.

So great to see you pop in Kaiki. Your presence and independent spirit are missed here.

I wonder though, are we constraining ourselves within a false paradigm by worrying about the loss of landrace varieties? Certainly we are losing what people in the 70s would have recognized as the standard, but are we losing any actual genetics is my real concern. Change is the only constant in the universe, but we might be limiting that change by reducing the genetic diversity available. Perhaps our first priority shouldn't be to preserve purebred old lines, which is timely and difficult under prohibition, but to make sure those genetics remain in the larger gene pool by outcrossing older threatened land races.

I'm less interested at this point in life by having a Maui Waui or Panama red land race than I am in having those genetics out and active in the breeding pool. Better to live on as random crossings and F1s than die as old seeds in a collector's jar.

MrSterling,
I appreciate your wish to preserve the genetics, and I agree. I have some concern about the random crossings however. Wouldn’t be a bit like crossing a beagle to afghan and calling the mutt you got preserving the genes? Not like you can just back up at that point.

Crossing a beagle to an afghan would be preserving the genetics. It just wouldn't be preserved in a "purebred" form which is just a human construct. Grow it out to F3s and start searching if you're really looking for a specific parental plant or line. All breeding projects should have a set goal, and I don't think "preserve Oaxacan Gold" counts as it doesn't sum up any real qualities, just a name. If you asked most smokers and growers what qualities they're trying to preserve by preserving an IBL or a landrace I think you'll see lots of feet being shuffled. People are looking to save names instead of qualities, and I think it's misguided.

The cultivar game is playing itself out too far from the center, if that makes any sense. Things have gotten too "meta" although that's a real misuse of the term. I think the worst thing we could have happen is end up with a bunch of "landraces" based off two or three initial parents, which is what happens when landraces get "rescued" and some small time private breeder manages to make a couple hundred packs of seeds. I have "Malawi Gold" from Afropips in my ark, same as some Maui Waui from Mr.GreenGenes, but I'm not under any impression I have a representation of a landrace. What I have is a small initial representation of that landrace. There's no other way to do it that I can see, but it does feel inaccurate to say "This is what Malawi Gold is like" when you know your holdings comes from a genetic bottleneck. I just see so much more positive potential in looking for stellar plants outcrossing those genetics, after all mutts are usually healthier than purebreds.

A landrace is a known starting point. Once you hybridize you may still have all the original genes but they are now all mixed up in a new combination. There is no going back. An analogy would be the difference between two different dinner plates each with a different cut of steak and vegetables, and a nice vegetable beef stew. It might be a great beef stew but sometimes you might want to focus on the taste and texture of the original unhomogenized ingredients. And if you're going to create a new dish you might have better luck starting with those basic ingredients instead of modifying a "stew".

The recent losses and bottlenecking are a tragedy. This isn't only with cannabis. People worldwide are hustling to save heirloom plant varieties before these known genetic entities which are the foundation of modern cultivars become lost forever.

McCannabis?

I'd like to see people breeding the landrace into a great IBL then hybridizing like everyone else then we could have pure sativa's with fast flower times like Durban Poison but they all take short cuts I kinda like Mandala's way but they to are taking short cuts by hybridizing I'm sure if it where legal our breeders would do amazing things but really nobody takes the time on a nice IBL like Skunk #1 and Northern Lights. Tom Hill is the only one I know of that works on IBL's these days.

My point is that a landrace isn't a known starting point. We just believe our small holdings of a landrace are representative of a landrace as a whole.

Tom's bread and butter is IBL but don't mistake true breeding for quality, that's a mistake we seem to make a lot. Which isn't to say tom's gear isn't good, it's just to say true breeding isn't necessarily a mark of greatness.

We're a far way from McCannabis and we certainly have the power to keep that from happening. Over 90% of apple cultivars have been lost in the last century. We're relatively lucky that prohibition has spared us the true commercial homogenization of cannabis

if you let me drop some other questions to debate.

Knowing main cannabinoide and terpenes why to grow seeds or plants if you can make a product (pill, spray, whatever) with certain Cannabinoids and Terpenes from lab which may make you feel the same? or are we thinking still future is in plants and stoners breeding? Do breeding stability makes any sense today when DNA is known already and so can be manipulated? Do we think we protect certain "copyright" selling only crosses and not stabilizing at all any line? Is this the reason why any seedbank can have a large menu of offerings in just 2-3 years of work and thats great cause great names, highs and marketing in all magazines? Now here comes auto fems, not moms, not males... Dont you think Monsanto or whatever big corp. couldnt do it much better than we do today as pretender "breeders"?
rambling rambling
best
kaiki

Many good questions Kaiki.

Knowing main cannabinoide and terpenes why to grow seeds or plants if you can make a product (pill, spray, whatever) with certain Cannabinoids and Terpenes from lab which may make you feel the same?

Click to expand...

I think myself that from what I've seen man imitate from nature and make as synthetic, no freekin way! that they can never imitate the subtleties of the flavors and highs or replace the love from growing. They know oranges, but they still have to squeeze the orange to get good orange juice.