american landraces

[WelderDan]

Cannabis is not indigenous to North America. It was introduced during colonization, probably in the 1600's as a fiber source for rope. It was a required crop during the Revolution, and a penalty was imposed if farmers did not use a certain percentage of their land for hemp production. It was that important. Not only for rope, but clothing as well. If you've ever heard the term "homespun" referring to clothing, it was the spun fibers of hemp that was used to make cloth.

It was an important crop for ship rope up until WWII, until DuPont created Nylon, after which it became obsolete due to the superiority of of nylon. It once flourished all over the South and Mid West, until Reefer madness led to the eradication of it. There are still feral remnants of it in Indiana and a few other states. Those feral plants are descendent of a thriving hemp industry this country once had.

 

[CaptainDankness]

In the first place you do not need humans to spread Cannabis from one continent to another. Birds, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and dozens of other means of dispersing seed. I am not saying travelers did not bring seed. But that there are other ways that could have brought US land races since glaciers retreated from most of the US. Some native tribes have used Cannabis for all of their existence. George Washington was introduced to Cannabis grown by Native Americans while surveying in Western Virginia. I found it growing wild in Mount Vernon and surrounding areas in 1968. They were pure Indica's that I inadvertently crossed with some Mexican Sativa called Michoacan. I was new to growing without a clue of strain differences.

Do you have any evidence of Native Americans using cannabis for all their existence? The George Washington scenario is possible since he was not even born when Christopher Columbus found the new world in 1492, that's a long time before July 4rth, 1776.

Sure, not only humans are responsible for seeds crossing continents, but do you have any idea how many plants where found in the new world? They most certainly did not exist in the old world.



Table of Ancient New World crops

Cereals Little barley, maize (corn), maygrass, wild rice
Pseudocereals Amaranth, knotweed, goosefoot (quinoa), sunflower, chia
Beans Common bean, lima bean, peanut, scarlet runner bean, tepary bean
Fiber Agave, yucca, long-staple and upland cotton
Roots and Tubers Arracacha, arrowroot, jicama, Camas root, hopniss, leren, manioc (yuca, cassava), mashua or cubio, oca, potato, sweet potato, ulluco, yacon, sunroot
Fruits Açaí, acerola, avocado, blueberry, cashew (cashew apple), cherimoya, Cocoa bean, cranberry, curuba, feijoa, granadilla or lulo, guava (guayaba), huckleberry, jabuticaba, jerivá, jurubeba, macaúba, papaya, pawpaw, passionfruit, peppers, persimmon (American), pineapple, pitanga, pitaya, prickly pear, soursop, commercial strawberries, sugar-apple, tomato, tomatillo, tucum
Melons Chayote, squashes (including pumpkins)
Nuts American chestnut, Araucaria, black walnut, Brazil nut, cashew, hickory, pecan, shagbark hickory
Other Achiote (annatto), balsam of Peru, canna, chicle (key ingredient in chewing gum), coca, cocoa, cochineal (red dye), guaraná, logwood, maple syrup, poinsettia, rubber, tobacco, vanilla, yerba mate

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_crops

 

[J-Icky]

People can say they found cannabis growing wild anywhere in the US but at this point it doesn’t mean anything other than they have either found a patch of feral hemp or someone’s secret grow.

Sadly do to prohibition a lot of info on hemp and cannabis in early America was destroyed. Remember these people wanted any positive of the plant destroyed and if there was evidence that there had been landraces found they wouldn’t want the “good white folks” to be confused by the all American cannabis when they were trying to vilify it as the Mexican devil weed.

My thoughts are that there was no cannabis in North America pre-1492. Maybe Columbus brought it with him and then it spread through the local tribes and by the time the colonials started to show up there was cannabis being grown on the continent.
My other thought is that if it was introduced by 1500, that means there are plants that have been grown in the americas for over 500 years. Wouldn’t that be enough time for them to be considered landraces? How long were the first plants that were taken out of Central Asia and taken to India and Africa and Europe there before they were considered landraces? Most likely any American landrace would be an introduced low-thc hemp strain but to me after 500 years would still be considered a landrace.

 

[troutman]

Landraces can exist anywhere a plant can grow and don't let anyone tell you it isn't possible.

Fact:

If seeds from elsewhere are grown long enough in isolation in your location they will become Landraces.

Only this takes a very long time.

According to Zeven (1998) “an autochthonous landrace is a landrace grown for a long period in the farming system concerned. As the environment changes annually and as the landrace becomes ‘contaminated’ with few genotypes of other landrace(s), or cultivar(s) it will continuously adapt itself” and “an allochthonous landrace is an autochthonous landrace of a foreign region recently introduced into the region concerned.

The following link will help you understand the process.

Toward an Evolved Concept of Landrace

 

[HuffnPufferfish]

hemp however is one of the main native plants known to exist in the americas.

you base this on what exactly??

 

[Montuno]

are there any?

There are a lot of American landraces from México to Chile or Paraguay.

 

[Montuno]

Cannabis orgin is Asia, it was prolly traded to other races after that. as to when America got "those" landraces, i dont know for sure. But i think it would have been around the 1400's or maybe even earlier. The Chinese had trade routes set up around the world a very long time ago. Cannabis might have made its way over to America 10,000 years ago, with the Ice bridge. To my knowledge Cannabis was brought here, and has adapted to the American climate to produce what americans have today. thats my 2 cents.. be well, peace.

Cannabismavin,

The firsts cannabis seeds (with African Sativas genes) in América were imported to México from Seville n Canary Islands by Hernan Cortés.

 

[Montuno]

Cannabis migrated with humans out of africa.

We'll never really know what was native to North America. It's obvious there are sativa's that have mingled in South America.

It's a shame they didn't document more in the states before eradicating. I would like to know what a Ohio landrace looked like.

Cannabis migrated with humans from Asia.

 

[Montuno]

In the first place you do not need humans to spread Cannabis from one continent to another. Birds, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and dozens of other means of dispersing seed. I am not saying travelers did not bring seed. But that there are other ways that could have brought US land races since glaciers retreated from most of the US. Some native tribes have used Cannabis for all of their existence. George Washington was introduced to Cannabis grown by Native Americans while surveying in Western Virginia. I found it growing wild in Mount Vernon and surrounding areas in 1968. They were pure Indica's that I inadvertently crossed with some Mexican Sativa called Michoacan. I was new to growing without a clue of strain differences.

The remarked by my is completly false. North American natives didint knowed cannabis till the Spanish arrived. The same happened with horses: their first horses were presented to them by the Spanish.

 

[Satyros]

There are native American plants called hemp--I forget the exact names, but I think it's something like "Virginia Hemp"--which are neither cannabis nor the standard fiber hemp. One of the eastern tribe's names translates as "users of hemp", but it's talking about this plant that is somewhat of a look-alike. Somewhat of a misnomer that may be the source of confusion about times past.

 

[mexcurandero420]

Beginning 1900, the small, Christmas tree like US fibre hemp was primarily of European origin but was successively crossed with mainly Chinese varieties to obtain huge plants with minor branching. Therefore, the resulting Kentucky hemp varieties were blends from all over the world. From what I've found on the net, 'Kymington', 'Chington' and 'Tochimington' were the three best performing varieties. 'Chington' is a Chinese strain whereas the 'Tochimington' contains Japanese genes. The 'Kymington' seems to be a mix of different US lines... But, as stated by Lyster H. Dewey (link below), the favourable traits for fibre production diminished after ~10 generations (= 10 years) and the varieties needed to be crossed again with tropical strains. With the prohibition era and due to errors and bad luck, most (if not all) of these original varieties got extinct and are lost forever. What remains of them is feral hemp, known as ditch weed, growing wild at several places mainly in the Midwest. Obviously, today's US feral hemp is a wild mix of different selectively bred lines from the years ~1920 to ~1940 acclimatised for over 70 years to the local climate and containing to some degree or another genetic influences of modern varieties (industrial hemp or drug type cannabis).text thnx to Only Ornamental

 

[J-Icky]

Well if anyone has the time space or interest I can get seeds of these feral hemp varietals. I’ve also thought about gathering some and sending them into that galaxy thing to see where they would fit in and if they may contain other genetics from either people tossing mexi brick seeds into the patches over the years or pollen coming from illegal grows or any other way drug varietals may have gotten mixed with these feral hemp patches.

I’m also curious to see if they would still test within standards for hemp or if just the imbreeding and genetic changes over the years may have raised the thc levels over the almost decade or more they have been growing wildly.