:D Genetic Preservation :D - Breeding

[GoatCheese]

Cannabis is different to human beings one grate exsample is Hermaphroditism, also referred to as intersex and in humans a hermaphrodite is sterile were in cannabis they can reproduce.

Humans are NOT hermaphrodites at all. These are growth defects; Some people are born without legs, some with too many fingers, they can find parts of jaw bones with teeth in peoples stomachs and what else, and some are born with parts of male and female sex organs but only one of these organs actually work, if not even one of those. This is not hermaphroditism, but growth anomalies/defects.

In our modern times some people want to push the human hermaphrodite-theory but it’s false. Humans are not hermies nor are chimpanzees or other apes. Immaculate conception is a fairly tale too.

 

[GMT]

Since Zif seems to be busy at the mo, I'll post up the paper he found. This is an interesting one, a little heavy reading, but worth a ponder. Interested to see if anyone else has the same thoughts on its validity / uses / relevance, as I do.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.11.430823v2.full.pdf
hoping zif pops in to share his thoughts. Would also love to hear from djonkoman (correct that would you someone if I spelled it wrong).

 

[bsgospel]

^ I found that paper a couple weeks ago, too. I think it's sound and is replicable. It makes perfect sense based on everything I see re: expression at my workplace. I watch many varieties go through phenotypic odysseys round after round with no changes in dynamic environment. Somatic variation would account for the difference and reoccurrence in expressions.

Its uses and relevance are probably only realized by long term breeding outfits (which I'm not doing with this setup) but if I were I would sequence different parts of the plant only during stress testing, and only for confirmation of what I'm seeing. As it stands, I'm only in production, so I go with what works and steer towards what's workable and won't affect labor. It's great to know the underpinnings of what I'm seeing, though.

 

[@hempy]

Humans are NOT hermaphrodites at all. These are growth defects; Some people are born without legs, some with too many fingers, they can find parts of jaw bones with teeth in peoples stomachs and what else, and some are born with parts of male and female sex organs but only one of these organs actually work, if not even one of those. This is not hermaphroditism, but growth anomalies/defects.

In our modern times some people want to push the human hermaphrodite-theory but it’s false. Humans are not hermies nor are chimpanzees or other apes. Immaculate conception is a fairly tale too.

Hermaphroditism, also referred to as intersex, is a condition in which there is a discrepancy between the external and internal sexual and genital organs. It is grouped together with other conditions as a disorder of sex development (DSD).

There are four different types of hermaphroditism, as follows:

• 46, XX hermaphroditism
• 46, XY hermaphroditism
• True gonadal hermaphroditism
• Complex hermaphroditism

Even with the introduction of modern diagnostic methods, the cause of hermaphroditism is not able to be determined in many children. This is referred to as complex or idiopathic hermaphroditism.

 

[GMT]

I'm a little surprised, mainly that as the plant grows, according to that paper, it reverts its DNA back to the original ( damn I need to make up terminology here due to lack of knowledge). C1 clone. I suspect this will have been due to either error, ( in sample labelling) or starvation cycles. The plant had been in the same tub for a year and a half, its reasonable to assume that they got the feeding less than perfect one week. In people, adequate food supplies generates cell division, and starvation periods generate cell repair. This may also have some effect on DNA , I don't know. That's something I need to do some research on. But for mutations to be lower at the mid point than the low point, makes no sense to me.

 

[djonkoman]

just read the abstract, still have to read through the whole thing, but from what I read in the abstract it seems pretty logical to me. the kind of research that is kind of kicking in an open door, not hugely surprising, but still very interesting.
I'll comment a bit deeper once I read it all, but before that 2 points to keep in mind:

-this paper is published in bioxriv. which is a nice source, but do keep in mind it's a pre-print server, so not peer reviewed yet. so you have to be a bit wary if there are unrealistic claims.

-plants don't have a soma-germline seperation like humans(or other annimals) do.
soma-germline seperation is about having a pool of cells that will become the sperm/egg which are already defined at a young age, and so have a seperate development from your other cells.

as an animal or plant grows, cells divide, and each time there's a chance for errors. in case of humans, the negative effects of those mutations are mostly things like cancer, but the mutations happening within your lifetime in your regular bodycells(the soma, everything that is not germline) won't inherit to your children. only a mutation in your germline will go to the next generation(as a logical comparison, consider a mutation happens in the skin of your index finger. no way that cell will ever grow into a sperm cell. on the other hand, a mutation in your balls might have consequences for your kids).

but in plants the germline is not so seperated, the plant will just grow and the moment flowers are formed some cell becomes the ancestor of the egg/sperm, but that ancestor cell itself has a whole lineage of cells before it during the life of that plant.

so for consequences, you might for example get a slight difference between seeds from different branches, if for example a mutation happened in a particular cell that grew out into branch A, causing all cells in branch A to carry this mutation, but not in branch B.
in the abstract of the paper here they described another logical consequence: since the plant grows upward, the lower portion of the plant is closest to the original cells, so you should see the least mutations in them. as you travel up the plant, more recently formed cells(recent growth) should logically carry more mutations. since they are further away from the original cells, more 'generations' (except it's generations of cells, not whole plants).
which is a pretty obvious hypthesis, but in this paper they experimentally show that this very logical phenomenon does indeed occur in practice in cannabis plants.

their argument is then that since this phenomenon is logical to occur, and practically shown to occur, it might be the explaation for the observation from cannabis growers that clone-lines tend to decline over longer time.
(however, this is just one possible explanation for that phenomenon)

edit:
reading through it now, it seems indeed that there is a bit of strangness with the bottom vs. middle vs. top not simply being an increasing trend.
however, I think figure 1A is interesting, since it shows that the 'bottom' sample was actually not taken from the mainstem itself, but from a branch of the mainstem. i.e. it's logical that the 'bottom' sample is not a direct ancestor(cell-wise) of the 'middle' sample, more like a nephew.
it might also be interesting to know how old that 'bottom' branch is, did that bud it grew out of stay in dormancy for a long time and only grew out recently, or did it grow out long ago? and the exact location of the 'middle' sample is a bit harder to see in the picture, it might be the middle sample is actually a direct ancestor of the top sample(but otherwise, they'd still have a more recent split in ancestor-cells, so still makes sense that they are more similar to eachother).

another thing that may make it a bit confusing to read is that, if I read it right, they first identified variants RELATIVE TO THE REFERENCE GENOME. I.e. unique variants for the bottom sample with that metod do not represent new mutations, they may just be variants(mutations) common to all plants of that strain they used in this experiment, which is not the same variety as the reference genome(they used the reference genome of the variety 'cs10', which I think is the most recent and best reference genome currently, it is a cbd variety).
however still the progression bottom>middle>top does not seem totally logical going by the numbers of variants shared or unique between the samples in figure 1B.
but, the phylogenic tree constructed in figure 1C does show exactly what you would expect.

edit2:
read through it all, I think this quote from the conclusion is the biggest practical thing to take from it:

Based on these data, we advocate replacing mother plants using cuttings from the basal portion of the plant and discourage excessively extending the life of a mother plant. Additionally, important genetics should be preserved using cryopreservation techniques where the original genetic profile can be maintained and accessed indefinitely

don't know if there are any mushroom growers here too, but reminds me of the process around multiplying mycelium for spawn.
i.e. you have your original batch of mycelium from a spore or cloned from mushroom tissue, then you expand that first, then split up the expanded mycelium again and expand again, an use final output mycelium from there as spawn for actual growing. and if you want to store mycelium for later, better to use one of those early batches closer to the original mycelium.

 

[GMT]

Thanks for taking the time for your input man. The reference sample was the original seed plant rather than a generic reference from a database, so the differences were relevant.
your observation that the "bottom" was taken from a branch rather than from stem tissue does go some way to explaining how the "middle" sample could contain less mutations. This was the main issue I was having trouble with from that paper. I read it literally and couldn't reconcile that observation with logic.
Always good to hear your views on this stuff, thanks again.

 

[djonkoman]

where did you get that about the reference sample being from the same plant?

what I read is they took 3 samples(bottom, middle, top), and they compared variants in the samples relative to the reference genome of cs10(which is published, not one they did themselves).
then they indeed compare in between samples, but the variants determined are relative to the reference genome. so all the bottom variants should idealy be baseline(the bottom sample represents the original plant, so theoretically all it's 'mutations' would represent mutations present in the original plant relative to cs10, except that the actual sample was taken from a side branch so it might have a few unique mutations not present in the ancestor cell of the middle sample, but those should be not that many)
what is then striking in the numbers is that indeed they say

Bottom and top samples shared the greatest number of variants (403K), however top and middle shared only 72K variants. The lowest overlap was observed between bottom and middle, 67K.

however, right before that they also say something about variants shared between all samples(so those would be likely variants present in the original seed the plant grew from('Honey Banana'), relative to the reference genome of cs10:

As can be seen in Figure 1B, more than 600K variants, compared to reference genome, were shared among all samples representing 51%, 75%, and 38% of variants detected in the sample from the bottom, middle, and top section of the mother plant, respectively.

so the total number of variants detected per sample is different, the baseline is a larger portion in the 'middle' sample.

so not sure what exactly is the explanation for that midde sample, maybe the mutations mutated some variants to the version present in the cs10 reference genome, but I wouldn't expect that to account for such a large percentage difference. or maybe some variants were detected but excluded based on one of the criteria from the methods section(which I do not fully understand either):

In general, we removed variants if: 1) they had more than two alleles, 2) an allele was not supported by reads on both strands, 3) the overall quality (QUAL) score was <32, 4) the mapping quality (MQ) score was <20, 5) read depth (minNR) was <10 and 6) the number of reads supporting variant (minNV) was <10.

so I think you should not really interpret it as the middle having less mutations, just it being unclear from this data which could just be biological or experimental variation. but it looks like especially something is up with the middle sample, that somehow a lot of variants got excluded there. then more of those variants shared between bottom and top would actually be variants shared between all samples for example.
but they do show the overall trend to support the hypothesis that the more cell divisions you get away from the 'original', the more mutations accumulate, and some quantification in which range that mutation rate might be. but it could be stronger without that thing around the middle sample going on.

edit: checked the discussion again, they do admit this deviation in their data but don't really offer an explanation why it could have happened:

In this study, we witnessed a minor drop in total variants between the bottom and middle compared to the middle to top. Although we didn’t observe a uniform increase, the uppermost sample was the more genetically distant from the bottom than was the middle, as seen by other previous intra-plant studies (Schmid-Siegert et al., 2017; Plomion et al., 2018; Hanlon, Otto and Aitken, 2019).

(that genetic relationship they refer to is that phylogenic tree in figure 1C)

 

[GMT]

You're right. I re-read it just looking for where I got that. There are several places where at first it sounds like its what they did, and where what they did only makes sense if that's what they did, but they didn't. Why the hell wouldn't they just take one sample from the seedling first? All that talk if intra plant comparisons becomes moot when they do interplant comparisons. It begs the question, from where and at what age was the sample they were comparing too, taken.
in people there are areas of DNA that will be more common among unrelated old people, than between young and old people who are related.
I can't take too much from this paper, there are too many anomalies that don't have the data to support any hypothesis that could be implied from them.

Thanks again man, just goes to show, you can't assume that things were done properly, even if its scientists doing it.

 

[djonkoman]

I think it does make sense. a sample from the seedling would've been nice, but they say it was some motherplant that was 2 years old or so?
so my guess is they did not grow that in the lab. 2 years is quiet long to prepare for an experiment(if you consider a whole phd takes 4 years), and such a motherplant also takes up quiet some space(relative to a bunch of arabidopsis plants for example). so if that's the case, taking a sample from the seedling would be impossible since the experiment had not started yet.

so my guess would be this motherplant belonged to some company or so who just used it to take cuttings, and they were allowed to take a couple of samples for this experiment, which would also explain the bottom sample from a side branch(they probably did not want to kill the plant).

looking at the reference genome to define variants also makes sense. if you sequence, you're going to get a bunch of dna-reads, to get a structure in there you link it to a reference genome. in case of weed, I think there are 4 reference genomes available? (purple kush, finola, jamaican lion, cs10). the reference genome has all the bits put together in the right order, assembled into chromosomes(for example with the cannabis reference genomes you can find they still disagree on which chromosome is which number), and ideally also annotated with functions of genes.

so it's logical to map to one of the reference genomes(and cs10 is the most up to date one I think), because you need those parts of dna to make some sense, you need to know where on the genome they fit, otherwise you also can't determine if there are variants at a certain spot, since you would not know if 2 possible variants of eachother are actually variants.
but, reading the results you do need to keep in mind that with this method it's very well possible a whole bunch of mutations went undetected. you can still draw some conclusions from this, but besides what you see you should consider what you possibly don't see.
so determining variants based on such a reference genome is not really strange, it's just that in looking at the data you need to keep in mind that the 'bottom' sample represents a baseline of variants that are likely specific to this variety. (the number of variants unique to the bottom sample should theoretically be small, and the number of variants shared between bottom and top, but not middle, should be negligible, those should mostly represent errors, but in this case that's the largest shared category)
and if my suspicion is correct(a bunch of variants in the middle sample went undetected, meaning part of those 400k variants shared between top and bottom should actually be in the category shared by all samples, making that category more than the current 600k), the baseline number should actually be higher, and you should kind of ignore the middle sample(instead better to just compare bottom and top and forget about the middle), since if you would for example compare middle vs. top, you might find seemingly new mutations which actually were already present in the original plant, but just went undetected in the middle.
so for example that later part of the paper about high impact mutations and where those might be located I take with a big grain of salt, it's an interesting thing to look at, but I think it's all a bit too uncertain here to draw any conclusions from. if some variant for example was only detected in the top sample it would come out of that as a new mutation, but seeing how many seems to be missing in the middle sample, I would not fully trust that only detecting it in the top also means only presence in the top(as opposed to just staying undetected in the other samples).

you can't assume that things were done properly, even if its scientists doing it.

and yeah, definitely this, can't just accept anything as fact even if it's peer reviewed and published in a high reputation journal (and in this case, it's just a pre-print).

 

[GMT]

Thanks for the help man, I was having a little trouble putting it into perspective. Knew you'd be of help there.

 

[acespicoli]

some photos of this strain shared by coco and reposted here maybe a good strain to save?

Cold tolerant landrace varieties from the Village of Pulga .
colors and aromas are vibrant and range from reddish to deep black . fruity and minty to heavy pungent aromas

PULGA VILLAGE | Altitude : 2895 m

31.999229° N 77.44191° E



Accessible only by foot the Village is a few hours hike from the town of Barshiani located in Kullu district Himachal pradesh . Home of the Narayan Rishi sacred cove which protects dense Deodar forest almost entirely covered in snow during the winter months of November – March .

Landraces collected from this region express wide variety of colors and structures . Some Microscopic images are included for the science heads to ponder about the expressions in 60X magnification

Incredibly tolerant to cold and moisture these cultivars have documented to grow for upto a month and more covered in snow and icicles .

Stories told by the eldest members of the village boasts of a time when the first foreign travellers arrived to discover the flavors of the village 5-6 generations back. Farmers have struggled to meet the demand from the insurge of tourists through experimenting with the newly acquired knowledge to process the flowers in different methods and selecting the plants in improved ways .

Years of selection and breeding by the natives have led to one of the most colourful and vibrant lineages found in Parvati valley .

 

[acespicoli]

assam

 

[acespicoli]

In exploration of caylx traits, do the variations have a final influence on potency capabilities?
Maybe youd be interested in the article its a start V

(added edit)

Summary​

The cannabis leaf is iconic, but it is the flowers of cannabis that are consumed for the psychoactive and medicinal effects of their specialized metabolites. Cannabinoid metabolites, together with terpenes, are produced in glandular trichomes. Superficially, stalked and sessile trichomes in cannabis only differ in size and whether they have a stalk. The objectives of this study were: to define each trichome type using patterns of autofluorescence and secretory cell numbers, to test the hypothesis that stalked trichomes develop from sessile-like precursors, and to test whether metabolic specialization occurs in cannabis glandular trichomes. A two-photon microscopy technique using glandular trichome intrinsic autofluorescence was developed which demonstrated that stalked glandular trichomes possessed blue autofluorescence correlated with high cannabinoid levels. These stalked trichomes had 12–16 secretory disc cells and strongly monoterpene-dominant terpene profiles. In contrast, sessile trichomes on mature flowers and vegetative leaves possessed red-shifted autofluorescence, eight secretory disc cells and less monoterpene-dominant terpene profiles. Moreover, intrinsic autofluorescence patterns and disc cell numbers supported a developmental model where stalked trichomes develop from apparently sessile trichomes. Transcriptomes of isolated floral trichomes revealed strong expression of cannabinoid and terpene biosynthetic genes, as well as uncharacterized genes highly co-expressed with CBDA synthase. Identification and characterization of two previously unknown and highly expressed monoterpene synthases highlighted the metabolic specialization of stalked trichomes for monoterpene production. These unique properties and highly expressed genes of cannabis trichomes determine the medicinal, psychoactive and sensory properties of cannabis products.

Different production method Blonde VS Red Lebanese Hash?

Hi guys, I hope any of you know the answer or could set me on the correct path. My question is, does anybody know that there was a different method involved in producing Blonde VS Red Lebanese Hash? I once heard that to produce Blonde Hash they would harvest the plants earlier and vice versa...

www.icmag.com

(added edit)

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/tpj.14516

The fluorescence emission and droplet arrangements observed in ‘Finola’ trichomes are consistent with trichomes of high-THCA medicinal varieties ‘Purple Kush’ and ‘Hindu Kush’ (Figure S1a–c). Pure cannabinoids fluoresce with a peak emission at 430 nm (Hazekamp et al., 2005), which falls within the broad 460 nm peak observed from stalked glandular trichomes. The interpretation that the strong blue-shifted fluorescence of stalked trichomes reflects high cannabinoid content is supported by previous reports showing stalked trichomes have the highest cannabinoid storage of the three trichome types (Turner et al., 1978; Mahlberg and Kim, 2004; Potter, 2009).

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Both of the original holders of this strain are no longer with us, hope to get some of the last seeds left to be viable still,
still have some s1 of the mother of this progeny she had the same caylx form as this one hope to find a suitable male outcross
fingers crossed someone is holding a proper line, I had considered haze but im not sure...rather have a fresh nice south of the border strain from ox if possible

If you have any similar strain or information about caylx size, please post
Does size matter ?

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@Pineapple_Punch grew this fine Oaxaca which is exactly my preferred calyx shape in a strain

 

[acespicoli]

Photo by E.B.R

Seeds at right are a feral plant in Kashmir (800 seeds/g) and those at left are culinary seeds from China (15 seeds/g)​

top seed kerala bottom seed china ?

@Sam_Skunkman are these the largest seeds you ever came across?

ChinMa Variety used for hemp photo from commercial hemp importer

 

[acespicoli]

HAN NW CHINA SEED very large seed variety
very similar look to the Tashkurgan seeds from RSC

2,500-year-old tomb offers earliest evidence of humans using cannabis to get high | CNN

An excavation of a 2,500-year-old tomb in western China has revealed the earliest clear evidence of humans using cannabis for its psychoactive properties.

www.cnn.com

Han-Cold
Winter Crop
Sow the seeds in January to February .
Plant can stand for temperature low to -5 to -10°C (below freezing F)

5°C seeds get germinated in soil 41F

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

The largest I have are 12 to one gram, they are from Yunnan, I collected them 30 years ago. I have grown them and they remain very large seeds regardless of where grown, as long as they fully mature.
-SamS

 

[acespicoli]

I imagine the large size in seed is due to being selected for consumption of the edible seed
@Sam_Skunkman this is helpful information for breeding the calyx size traits, thx for sharing your knowledge

As far as growing for flower and potency I guess a dense bud is preferable over a fluffy bud for THC yield?
Although I always prefered fluffy buds, guess thats a personal preference for sativa effects most likely.

What comes to mind is the surface area of activated carbon, or the surface area of a calyx

A gram of activated carbon can have a surface area in excess of 500 m2 (5,400 sq ft), with 3,000 m2 (32,000 sq ft)
(alot of area to stack trichome)
The other concern would be
Bud Rot, Botrytis or gray mold that affects cannabis flower and the growing conditions

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Hemp as a food crop in ancient China
Cannabis seed was used for food by the ancient Chinese. The Book of Songs has the following mention of the use of hemp seed for food,

"Farmers eat hemp seeds in September."

Hemp was commonly grown as a seed crop throughout the Spring and Autumn period (770 to 476 BC), Warring States period (476 to 221 BC), the Qin dynasty (221 to 207 BC), and the Han dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD).
The Li Qi places hemp among the "five grains" of ancient China which included barley, rice, wheat, and soybeans. Hemp seed remained a staple of the Chinese diet through the 10th century when other higher quality grain became more widespread (Li 1974).
There are hemp seeds and inscriptions of the characters ta ma on bones found amongst the relics unearthed from the Jin dynasty (265 to 420 AD) ruins in Henan province.
Among the sacrificial objects unearthed from the Han dynasty era Ma Wang Dui tomb near Changsha in Hunan province, hemp seeds were stored together with those of rice, millet, and wheat. Hemp seed remains were also found inside of earthenware grain storage jars recovered from a tomb at Shao-kou near the Han dynasty capital of Lo-yang in present day Hunan province (Yu 1977).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I always enjoyed hempseed oil on salad and eating seeds

Appreciate help and input

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The cultivation and use of hemp
(Cannabis sativa L.) in ancient China


Xiaozhai Lu1 and Robert C. Clarke2​

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Figure 1. Hemp (Cannabis sativa) was grown throughout eastern China by the year 200 BC.​

Hemp in ancient Chinese literature
Hemp was one of the earliest crop plants of China. Through long term efforts, the ancient Chinese domesticated hemp from a wild plant into a cultivated crop. According to the Chinese historic records and archeological data, the history of Chinese hemp cultivation and use spans approx. 5,000 to 6,000 years. The archeological record shows that China was the earliest region to cultivate and use hemp. From the time of the earliest primitive societies (about 4,000 -5,000 years ago) to the Qin and Hah dynasties (221 BC to 220 AD) ancient Chinese techniques of hemp sowing, cultivation, and processing developed rapidly and became fairly advanced.
The earliest Neolithic farming communities along the Wei and Yellow rivers cultivated hemp along with millet, wheat, beans, and rice. The oldest Chinese agricultural treatise is the Xia Xiao Zheng written circa the 16th century BC which names hemp as one of the main crops grown in ancient China (Yu 1987).
Remains of Cannabis fibers and seeds have been recovered from archeological sites especially near the Yellow and Yangtze rivers.
In the ancient Chinese works The Book of Songs (a book of culture and social customs) and The Annals (written by Bu-Wei Leu during the Warring States period (476 to 221 BC), there are records of six kinds of crops that the ancient Chinese generally planted. These crops were named "he, su, dao, shu, ma, and mai". 'Ma' is Cannabis hemp.
The Book of Odes or Shih Ching, written during the Western Zhou dynasty, describes the life of the Chinese people from the 11th to the 6th century BC and discusses hemp cultivation for both fiber and seed. The area whose description is encompassed by The Book of Odes lies south of present-day Beijing (Ho 1969).
There are also records about hemp cultivation and fertilization methods from the Zhou dynasty (1100 to 256 BC),

"Hoe up all the weeds in the field during the summer solstice (June 21), let them dry in the sun, and then bum them into ash. All these ashes will permeate into the soil after a heavy rain and the soil will be fertilized."

This is also one of the earliest mentions of using potash fertilizer in agriculture.
There are other ancient Chinese agriculture books such as the Si Min Yue Ling written by Cui Shi during the Eastern Han dynasty (25 to 220 AD), Ji Sheng's Book written by Ji Sheng during the Western Han dynasty (206 BC to 24 AD), and Qi Min Yao Shu written by Gui Shi Xian during the Northern Wei dynasty (386 to 534 AD). All of these books contain accounts of hemp cultivation.
Ancient Chinese hemp cultivation techniques of collecting seeds, sowing time, field controls, and their influence on hemp quality were also recorded in the Essential Arts for the People or Qi Min Yao Shu which is a precious legacy of ancient Chinese science written 1,400 years ago. The Essential Arts for the People systematically summarized the ancient Chinese techniques of hemp cultivation.
In the Essential Arts for the People there are accurate records about the relation between the male hemp plant scattering pollen and the female hemp plant bearing seed.​

"If we pull out the male hemp before it scatters pollen, the female plant cannot make seed.

Otherwise, the female plant's seed production will be influenced by the male hemp plants scattering pollen and during this period of time, the fiber of the male hemp plant is the best."​

This ancient Chinese discovery of the dioecious nature of hemp came at least 1,500 years earlier than any mention in European publications.
The Essential Arts for the People also recommends that adzuki beans (Phaseolus angularis) is the best green manure crop to follow hemp (Bray 1984). This is one of the earliest mentions of the use of green manures, cover crops, and rotational cropping.
The Record of Rites or Li Chi is an ancient Chinese book of classical Confucian works written by his followers during the Qin dynasty (221 to 207 BC) and contains many detailed references to hemp. The Record of Rites describes the uses of hemp as the cloth of the peasant masses. Hemp textiles were common items of early Chinese culture used for many purposes throughout life, then, from swaddling clothes to funerary shrouds.
The cultivation technique of hemp was increasingly perfected during the Qin (221 to 207 BC) and Han dynasties (206 BC to 220 AD) there are detailed descriptions in Ji Sheng's Book of hemp's cultivation techniques and quality control,​

"Deep plow and fertilize the soil before sowing the seed. When spring comes, about February to March, select the dusk of 4 rainy day to sow seeds. Remove the hemp's big leaves when it is growing.​

Then thin out seedlings according to the distance of 9 per chi3. Fertilize the hemp with silkworm excrement when it has grown to one chi tall, and when it has grown to three chi tall, fertilize it with silkworm and pig excrement. Water the hemp frequently, and if there is much rain, the quantity of water should be decreased. The water from wells should be used where there is no river near the field and it should be warmed by the sun before using. By using all of these controls, the yield of dry stalks and leaves from each mu4 could be 50-100 shi5 and the lowest yield could be 30 shi. The quality of hemp fiber depends not only on the field controls, but also on the sowing time. If the sowing time is early, the fiber will be thick and strong and can be harvested early. Otherwise, the fiber will not be mature. So, it is better to sow hemp seed early instead of late."

We learn from these records that Han dynasty farmers not only knew to select the appropriate season to sow hemp, but also knew the principles of field controls, and selected the higher quality fibers from the male plants to spin textile yarn.
The Si Min Yue Ling is another ancient Chinese book which was written during the Eastern Han dynasty (25 to 220 AD). There are descriptions of hemp sowing and harvesting times in the book such as,​

"Plow and fertilize in January. In February, sow the female hemp's seeds, and on a rainy day in May sow the male hemp's seeds. Then, harvest the hemp and spin it into cloth in October."​

These records show that some of the hemp cultivation techniques used during the Han dynasty were quite different from the techniques used today. Perhaps the ancient Chinese sowed the seeds that were destined to be the seed plants early, so that they could reach a large size, before they were pollinated by the late sown male plants. This method could increase seed yield significantly.
The sowing methods written in the Essential Arts for the People are,​

"First, soak the seed in water and sow them as soon as they germinate. Soak the seed in water for about the same time required to cook two shi of rice. Then spread the soaked seeds on the bamboo bed for about three to four cun6 in thickness. Stir the seed several times and after one night they will germinate. It is best for hemp to grow after a rain, when the rain has permeated into the soil. Second, in order to avoid plant diseases and insect pests, hemp should rotate with wheat, bean, and cereals. Third, different methods should be used with different soil moistures."​

Field control methods are also described in the Essential Arts for the People.​

"Disperse the sparrows for several days in order to protect the seeds that have just germinated from being eaten by them. When the seedlings have grown for some time, thin out weak ones so that there is some distance between two seedlings and good seedlings can grow well."​

A simple method of distinguishing different sexes of hemp seeds was also presented in the Essential Arts for the People.​

"Generally, male hemp seeds are white. There are two ways to examine the quality of the white seeds. The first is to bite a seed with the teeth, and if the inside of the seed is very dry, it should not be sown. Otherwise the seeds can be sown. The second method is to put the white seed in the mouth for some time. The seeds that do not turn black are good."​

This passage indicates that ancient Chinese farmers already knew the methods for distinguishing the sex and quality of hemp seeds 1,800 years ago. Although the correctness of these methods is dubious, the innovative spirit of the ancient Chinese farmers is commendable.
The sowing time stated in this book is the same as that stated in the Si Min Yue Ling. A warning about late sowing is also included. The hemp sowing time is around the spring equinox.​

"Sowing seeds ten days before the summer solstice is called late seeding. Late sown hemp will not grow vigorously and its fiber will be too thin and light to spin into yarn."​

Hemp as a fiber crop in ancient China
The ancient Chinese used the hemp plant for many different purposes. The bast fiber of the male plant was used to spin yarn and weave cloth. From the time of the earliest Chinese societies, until cotton was introduced into China during the Northern Song dynasty (960 to 1127 AD), hemp textile was the main cloth worn by the ancient Chinese. Many of the accounts of hemp use for cordage and textiles contained in the ancient Chinese texts have been corroborated by archeological discoveries.
During the Western Zhou dynasty (1100 to 771 BC) the hats of nobles were made of hemp.
The fine diameter of the yarn in the cloth was equivalent to modern 70-80 count yarn. High-quality raw material, along with advanced cultivation and processing techniques were needed to produce such fine cloth. The Book of Songs was written during the Western Zhou dynasty into the Spring and Autumn period (1100 BC to 600 BC). In a poem named 'The Pool in Front of the Main Gate' (written about 900 BC) in the chapter entitled 'Culture of the Chen State' (in southeast Henan province) there is a reference to hemp;
"The pool in front of the east gate could be used to Ou Ma. The pool in front of the east gate could be used to Ou Ning . . .". The phrase 'Ou Ma' means 'to ret hemp' and the phrase 'Ou Ning' means 'to ret high-quality white hemp'.
The Classics of History or Shu Ching, the earliest Chinese history, mentions the value of hemp for fiber, and reported that hemp was grown in present day Hunan and Anhui provinces (Li 1974).
The Er Ya, the earliest Chinese dictionary with cultural, agricultural, and social contents, was written about 2,200 years ago during the Qin (221 to 207 BC) or Western Han (206 BC to 24 AD) dynasties. In this book, there is a sentence;

"Male hemp is called xi ma, female hemp is called ju ma.". This quote shows that the important discovery of hemp's dioecious sexuality was first recorded at a very early date in China. There are more mentions of hemp in this book, such as,

"Ju ma grows tall and straight. Its fiber is very thick and strong, and its seed can be eaten. The fiber of xi ma is thin and soft, and can be used to spin cloth.".​

Several archeological discoveries have confirmed the accounts of the use of hemp textiles described in ancient Chinese books. Several pieces of pure hemp textiles were discovered in the ruins of the Shang dynasty period (1700 to 1100 BC) near Taixi village in Hebei province.
Imprints of hemp textiles and cordage adorn several fragments of pottery found amongst the ruins of Xi'an Banpo village in Shaanxi province. Through the C14 dating of these remains, they were confirmed as cultural relics of the Yangshao culture (4115 +/- 110 BC to 3535 +/105 BC) (Xi'an Banpo Museum 1963). Although the imprints of textiles and cordage could have been made from fibers other than hemp, hemp remains the most likely choice. Archeological strata at Xi'an Banpo contained large amounts of pollen identified as belonging to the genus Humulus. Humulus is the closest relative of Cannabis and their pollen grains are very similar in appearance. Pollen grains of Cannabis could easily have been confused with, and incorrectly identified as, Humulus pollen (Li 1974). Pottery fragments bearing rope imprints, have also been recovered from a Lung-shan culture site at Hsichou in Hunan province dated at between 230 +/- 95 BC and 1170 +/- BC (Li 1974).
Hemp cloth has a long association with burial rites. Corpses were often shrouded in hemp cloth before interment. Hemp corpse covers were recovered from Western Han Dynasty (206 BC to 24 AD) tombs in Gansu province. According to Li (1974), the hemp cloth outer shroud covered silk dresses and were tied with hemp ropes.
A piece of hemp cloth was unearthed at a ruin named Ma Wang Dui No. 1 near Changsha in Hunan province. Careful analysis showed that the fiber diameter was 21.83 microns, and the fiber cross sectional area was 153.01 square microns. Both values are very close to those common for present day hemp varieties. The weave of the cloth is relatively tight, indicating that weaving techniques had become quite advanced by this time.
A piece of hemp textile with a silver-white design was unearthed from a tomb in a cliff near Guixi in Jiangxi province and dated to the Spring and Autumn (770 to 476 BC) or Warring States period (476 to 221 BC).
During the Tang dynasty (618 to 907 AD), China had close trade relations with central and west Asian countries and there are many traces of hemp along the Silk Road. Two pairs of hemp shoes and a piece of hemp cloth were found in a tomb dated to 721 A.D. near Turfan in Xinjiang province of western China.
These archeological data show that the ancient Chinese had already known how to cultivate hemp and use its fiber to weave cloth at a very early date.​

The use of hemp for paper making in ancient China
Hemp fibers were also used long ago in ancient China to make paper. Pounded and disintegrated hemp fiber was used to make the world's oldest piece of paper, recovered from a tomb near Xi'an in Shaanxi province dating from 140-87 BC (Temple 1986). Ba Qiao paper which was made during the Western Han dynasty (206 BC to 24 AD) was unearthed near Xi'an in Shaanxi province and analysis showed that it was made from hemp fiber (Shaanxi Museum Xi'an). Scraps of hemp paper have also been recovered from Han dynasty tombs in Shanxi province. A piece of hemp paper bearing Chinese characters from the Analects of Confucius or Lun Yu was found near Turfan in Xinjiang province in a tomb dated to 1100 AD. White hemp paper shoes sewn with white hemp thread, and a piece of hemp fabric, were also recovered (Li 1974).


Hemp as a food crop in ancient China
Cannabis seed was used for food by the ancient Chinese. The Book of Songs has the following mention of the use of hemp seed for food,

"Farmers eat hemp seeds in September."

Hemp was commonly grown as a seed crop throughout the Spring and Autumn period (770 to 476 BC), Warring States period (476 to 221 BC), the Qin dynasty (221 to 207 BC), and the Han dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD).
The Li Qi places hemp among the "five grains" of ancient China which included barley, rice, wheat, and soybeans. Hemp seed remained a staple of the Chinese diet through the 10th century when other higher quality grain became more widespread (Li 1974).
There are hemp seeds and inscriptions of the characters ta ma on bones found amongst the relics unearthed from the Jin dynasty (265 to 420 AD) ruins in Henan province.
Among the sacrificial objects unearthed from the Han dynasty era Ma Wang Dui tomb near Changsha in Hunan province, hemp seeds were stored together with those of rice, millet, and wheat. Hemp seed remains were also found inside of earthenware grain storage jars recovered from a tomb at Shao-kou near the Han dynasty capital of Lo-yang in present day Hunan province (Yu 1977).​

The use of hemp as medicine in ancient China
Chinese accounts of medical or euphoriant use appear very early. In Shanxi Province, jade stone 'oath documents' contain the archaic character ma for hemp, along with the connotation of negative that denotes the stupefying nature of Cannabis hemp. This is the earliest reference to the psychoactive and psychological effects of Cannabis. The ancient Chinese medical texts make a clear distinction between ma fen or toxic, and ma ze or nontoxic, Cannabis seeds. The first mention of the medical or euphoriant uses of Cannabis appear in the Materia Medica Sutra or Pen Ts'ao originally attributed to Emperor Shen Nung who lived around 2,000 BC. However, the original book of the Materia Medica Sutra is lost and the oldest version in existence dates back to the first or second century AD. The Materia Medica Sutra says that,

"Ma fen (Cannabis seed) . . . if taken in excess will produce hallucinations (literally 'seeing devils'). If taken over a long term, it makes one communicate with spirits and lightens one's body."​

During the second century AD the famous Chinese surgeon Hua T'o successfully used an anesthetic made from Cannabis seeds and wine during complicated abdominal surgery (Li 1974). The Ming'i Pieh'lu, written by the famous physician T'ao Hung Ching in the 5th century AD, says that,​

"Ma fen is not much used in prescriptions (now-a-days). Necromancers use it in combination with ginseng to set forward time in order to reveal future events."​

From the description of the spicy taste and the psychoactive effects of the ma fen Cannabis seed, it seems likely that the Materia Medica Sutra and the Ming'i Pieh'lu were actually referring to the resinous bract that surrounds each seed, rather than the seed itself. The quantity of Cannabis used must have been fairly large to cause an anesthetic effect (Mechoulam 1986). The wine may have served to extract the active compounds from the Cannabis and concentrate them. Thus, these are the earliest Chinese written records acknowledging the euphoriant, psychoactive properties of Cannabis.​

Conclusion
Hemp was one of the main crops in ancient China and it holds important status in China's long history of farming fiber crops for spinning yarn and weaving cloth, making paper, and formulating traditional medicines. All of the traditional uses of hemp were invented in China.
The earliest hemp cordage and textile remains, the earliest records of hemp seed use for food, the first paper, and the first medicinal use of hemp can all be traced back to ancient China. Although the medicinal value of Cannabis was recognized early on, the recreational value of Cannabis smoking and eating for its inebriating effects seems to have eluded the ancient Chinese. Since China has such an ancient cultural association with hemp, it makes sense that China is currently the world leader in hemp production.


References

• Bray, Francesca 1984. Early Chinese references to soybeans and adzuki beans in green manures and crop rotations: In F. Bray 1984. Science and Civilization in China Vol. 6 Biology and Biological Technology Part 11: Agriculture, Cambridge, England, Cambridge University Press: 431.
• Ho, P. T. 1969. The Loess and the Origin of Chinese Agriculture. American Historical Review 75(1): 1-36.
• Li, Hui-Lin 1974. An archeological and historical account of Cannabis in China. Economic Botany 28(4): 437-448.
• Mechoulam, Raphael 1986. The pharmacohistory of Cannabis sativa: in Mechoulam, R. (Ed.) Cannabinoids as Therapeutic Agents. CRC Press: Boca Raton, Florida: 1- 19.
• Temple, Robert K. G. 1986. China - Land of Discovery. Patrick Stephens, Wellingborough, UK: 81.
• Yu, Ying-shih 1977. Han China: In K. C. Chang (ed.) Food in Chinese Culture. New Haven, CT and London, Yale Univ. Press: 53-83.
• Yu, Youtai 1987. Agricultural history over seven thousand years in China: In Sylvan Wittwer et. al. (eds.) Feeding a Billion: Frontiers of Chinese Agriculture: 19-33
• Xi'an Banpo Museum Publication 1963
• ook het electoraat van de Volksraad klein bleef; nog in 1939 bestond dit uit slechts 2228 personen. Zie: M.C. Ricklefs, A history of Modem Indonesia (London /Basingstoke: MacMillan 1981) 153.

1 Chief Production Engineer, Dong Ping Hemp Mill, Shandong, P.R.C.

2 International Hemp Association, Postbus 75007, 1070 AA Amsterdam, The Netherlands


3 One 'chi' equals about 1/3 meter or 13 inches.​

4 One 'mu' equals about 660 square meters.

5 One 'shi' equals about 30 kilograms or 66 pounds.


6 One 'cun' equals about 2.5 centimeters or one inch.

tibet​

xinjiang
Xinjiang, an autonomous territory in northwest China, is a vast region of deserts and mountains. It's home to many ethnic minority groups, including the Turkic Uyghur people. The ancient Silk Road trade route linking China and the Middle East passed through Xinjiang, a legacy that can be seen in the traditional open-air bazaars of its oasis cities, Hotan and Kashgar.

https://www.travelchinaguide. com/cityguides/xinjiang/

 

[acespicoli]

More ramblings:​

Abstract​

Cannabis sativa has long been an important source of fiber extracted from hemp and both medicinal and recreational drugs based on cannabinoid compounds. Here, we investigated its poorly known domestication history using whole-genome resequencing of 110 accessions from worldwide origins. We show that C. sativa was first domesticated in early Neolithic times in East Asia and that all current hemp and drug cultivars diverged from an ancestral gene pool currently represented by feral plants and landraces in China. We identified candidate genes associated with traits differentiating hemp and drug cultivars, including branching pattern and cellulose/lignin biosynthesis. We also found evidence for loss of function of genes involved in the synthesis of the two major biochemically competing cannabinoids during selection for increased fiber production or psychoactive properties. Our results provide a unique global view of the domestication of C. sativa and offer valuable genomic resources for ongoing functional and molecular breeding research.

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Demographic history https://www.science. org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abg2286​

The strong selection likely exerted on Cannabis through its long domestication process is expected to substantially affect the effective population size (Ne) of the existing genetic clusters. To address this issue, we estimated Ne using the pairwise sequentially Markovian coalescent (PSMC) method (30) and found that all four groups exhibited similar demographic trajectories (Fig. 2A and fig. S4). The ancestral Ne of Cannabis reached a peak at ~1 million years ago, followed by a continuous decline until the end of the last glacial maximum [~20,000 years before the present (B.P.)]. We further used coalescent simulations to model the recent demography of Cannabis. Drug-type feral and Drug-type genetic clusters were treated as one group to reduce model comparisons and parameters. Eighteen alternative models were defined to test bottlenecks and/or growth of the Basal cannabis group, Hemp-type group, and the integrated drug-type group with or without migration between these groups (fig. S5). The model involving a multistep domestication process (with changes in all population sizes and continuous post-domestication introgression from Basal cannabis/feral populations to both hemp and drug types) produced a significantly better fit than alternative models (Fig. 2B, figs. S6 and S7, and tables S2 and S3). The shared haplotypes between Basal cannabis and other groups were also shown in identity-by-descent analysis (fig. S8).

Fig. 2. Demographic history of C. sativa and selection signatures identified from comparison between hemp- and drug-type cultivars.
(A) Demographic history inferred from the PSMC method (30). (B) Graphical summary of the best-fitting demographic model inferred by fastsimcoal2 (65). Widths show the relative effective population sizes (Ne). Arrows and figures at the arrows indicate the average number of migrants per generation among different groups. The point estimates and 95% confidence intervals of demographic parameters are shown in table S3. Examples of genes with selection sweep signals in hemp-type cultivars (C) and drug-type cultivars (D). Three independent sets of signals (FST, π ratio, and XP-CLR) are shown along the genomic regions covering the four genes. Dashed lines represent the top 5% of the corresponding values. Below the three plot schemes are the gene models in the genomic regions. Below each gene model are the SNP allele distributions along each of the four genes for the two groups (green, heterozygous site; orange, homozygous site of reference allele; blue, homozygous site of alternative allele; gray, missing data).
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Genomic characterization of the complete terpene synthase gene family from Cannabis sativa

Terpenes are responsible for most or all of the odor and flavor properties of Cannabis sativa, and may also impact effects users experience either directly or indirectly. We report the diversity of terpene profiles across samples bound for the Washington dispensary market. The remarkable degree...

journals.plos.org

Genomic characterization of the complete terpene synthase gene family from Cannabis sativa​

Discussion​

The terpene profile in C. sativa flowers is complex, averaging about eleven terpenes present at above 1% total terpene content, and varies across genotypes. All of this complexity arises from a very diverse family of synthases with at least 55 members. The TPS gene family has been investigated in a number of plant species and diverse repertoires of 40 to 152 TPS genes have been reported [1]. This enzymatic diversity reflects the roles these compounds play in environmental adaptation. Different terpenes, and perhaps combinations of terpenes, can attract or repel various organisms both above and below ground, and individual terpenes can play multiple different roles. For example, β-caryophyllene is a defense against a bacterial pathogen of Arabidopsis [28], while in maize, the same molecule is released by roots under attack by western corn rootworm to attract entomopathogenic nematodes, which then attack the root worms [29]. In a citrus hybrid, monoterpene emissions are triggered by insect herbivory, but the mix of terpenes released depends on whether the herbivory is above ground or below ground. In response to below ground attack by root weevil, the mix of monoterpenes, dominated by β-pinene, attracts entomopathogenic nematodes that attack the weevil [30]. Further, terpenes and other volatiles have been shown to define bacterial niches, with bacterial population density varying strongly based on scent emissions [31]. The finding of a root specific expression clade in the C. sativa TPS family is particularly interesting in light of the role volatile terpenes play in plant interaction with the soil biome. Only one of these genes, TPS6, the β-ocimene synthase, has been functionally characterized, and it is not known what role, if any, these compounds play in C. sativa. But it could well be that the precise terpene profile emitted by C. sativa varieties, either above or below ground will have substantial agronomic impacts and could easily lead to future breeding targets.

 

[Møøse]

The largest I have are 12 to one gram, they are from Yunnan, I collected them 30 years ago. I have grown them and they remain very large seeds regardless of where grown, as long as they fully mature.
-SamS

It sounds like you found something close to the big one below, which Clarke calls "...the very large "snack food" seed landrace from Yunnan Province, China." in the chapter he wrote for the 1999 Advances in Hemp Research. Do you have any photos of the growing plant? I'd love to learn more about it.