Extinction by Hybridization: The Cannabis Biodiversity Crisis

[resinates well]

I need to learn the quote reply process, but this is a reply to npaka's comments.

 

[troutman]

It not just Cannabis Landraces that are important. All food crops can use genes from Landraces or wild relatives to improve upon.

Wild potatoes, however, hold valuable, untapped genetic diversity. One trait from those wild plants, Mendes says, "could save our life."

This spud’s for you: A breeding revolution could unleash the potential of potato

 

[ngakpa]

It not just Cannabis Landraces that are important. All food crops can use genes from Landraces or wild relatives to improve upon.

This spud’s for you: A breeding revolution could unleash the potential of potato

Sure, and also true of wheat

and its wild relatives:

Syrian seeds could save US wheat from climate menace
Ancient Syrian grass rescued from Aleppo is resistant to pests devastating American farms

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/06/syrian-seeds-could-save-us-wheat-from-climate-menace

 

[ngakpa]

This spud’s for you: A breeding revolution could unleash the potential of potato

Good article, e.g.

The collectors and breeders are racing against warming, drying, and the proliferation of pests. "Because of climate change," says Nigel Maxted, a conservation biologist at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, "we require higher levels of diversity than ever before."

There is still genetic diversity to be tapped in existing breeding lines. But researchers fear that [domesticated] gene pool may not be deep enough to adapt the potato to future climates or enable other improvements.

Wild potatoes, however, hold valuable, untapped genetic diversity. One trait from those wild plants, Mendes says, "could save our life."

 

[funkyhorse]

This spud’s for you: A breeding revolution could unleash the potential of potato

The first pic from that article is potato used to make chuño: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuño
Chuño would be rudelaris potato. They are small. In the link is explained its use
These potatoes in the picture are potato haze. They make delicious trippy thick chips I could only dream about when I was living in Asia
The one in the right is the natural coloured one. The one on the left is painted with red colouring, it seems there is a market demand for colour
They weigh 500 grams each and is the average weight, you have bigger too

Peru holds a lot of valuable landrace food. It is one of the last refugees of landrace food in the world.
Peru corn is amazing, they should be used to improve corn all over the world, the most delicious and bigger grains in the world. This is the list of all of the peruvian landrace corn, didnt find link in english, sorry: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variedades_peruanas_de_maíz

@Stocktont
Old vs new, traditional vs modern is a very interesting subject that deserves its own thread
Are you ajarn?
People living in rural areas are not more traditional than the posh population of Bangkok. They all like their food the same away and are passionate about that, it is the same all over asia and the world, regardless of living in the countryside or in the city. People are nationalistic about their food and at the same time they all buy at 7/11 and Big C and want hamburgers and pizzas.
What I am impressed really is the acceptance and surge of coffee in Asia in the last 20 years. Asians never liked coffee and always drunk tea. Maybe cafe lao is the exception. It is another example of marketing and food culture hybrid

But both rural and city dwellers are very quick in destroying or altering nature in order to make more housing in overpopulated areas or for whatever reason it is done in the name of "progress" with total disregard of consequences
.
In that video the advertisement for dutch passion varieties is showed big. As you know, if something is advertised for and is a problematic article, it will be sold under the table. I have never seen advertisement for a product in thailand if you dont have that product for sale, you know how it is...
In Colombia farmers have articial lighting in the mountains in order to adapt to the western hybrids, traditional varieties are a remembering of times gone long ago

 

[ngakpa]

In Colombia farmers have articial lighting in the mountains in order to adapt to the western hybrids

it's just embarassing - pathetic, frankly

for a crop that was once associated with counter-cultural idealism, how far things have fallen, when it comes to putting the talk into practice

that and the energy-hog greenhouses etc.

again, all evidence of just how far from optimal current Cannabis cultivars are

with real cultivars for the tropics:

costs of production could plummet

yields could soar

quality of the product could vastly improve (effect, flavour, no need for spraying for fungus and pests)

 

[mexcurandero420]

Colombian marijuana growth in the mountains.

 

[romanoweed]

Wow, nice Link Troutmann!!!!


It holds goo Information about itf that Diversity of even Wild Potatoeas is needed or if this is just talking of Campains.

I just boundled the importent Information, cause i found it very essential to earn about REAL Breeding, not saying other Breeding is unreal, but saying this is a PArt we should look further into especially as Tripweedlovers.


Here we go, the Essential Iformation of your Article:







The hardest part comes next: getting desirable genes from wild species into cultivated potatoes. In the past, breeders acquired traits such as disease resistance from a dozen wild species. Those victories were hard-won, some taking decades to achieve. That's largely because wild relatives also carry many unwanted traits, which combine with those of cultivated potatoes and vastly lower a breeder's chances of finding a good variety.
Even without wild species, potato breeding is a crapshoot. Because breeding lines have four copies of their 12 chromosomes, the traits of the two parents show up in the next generation in largely unpredictable combinations. As experts say, the current varieties don't breed true, which is why farmers plant bits of "seed tuber," which yield genetically identical plants, rather than seeds. Compounding the headache, breeders select for many traits at once, further lowering the probability of finding a winner. "The numbers get really hard, really fast," says Laura Shannon, a potato breeder at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul.
Genetic markers linked to specific genes have sped up the process. To find out whether seedlings have inherited a trait such as disease resistance, breeders can quickly test for the marker rather than wait for the plants to mature and then expose them to the disease. Even with this tool, a potato breeder must screen up to 100,000 offspring per year. It can take 15 years or longer to find one with the right traits, fully test it, and generate enough seed tubers to distribute to farmers.
Another frustration is that potato breeders can't easily improve existing varieties. Once a potato variety is established, introducing new traits while retaining all of its favored characteristics is practically impossible. That's why classic, widely grown varieties, such as the russet burbank, still dominate the market many decades after their debuts.
Patient breeders using traditional methods can nevertheless achieve impressive results. In 2017, for example, CIP released four new varieties in Kenya, the result of crosses from established breeding lines. In field trials, the new potato plants maintained yields with 20% less rainfall and temperatures higher by 3°C.
Such success shows there is still genetic diversity to be tapped in existing breeding lines. But researchers fear that gene pool may not be deep enough to adapt the potato to future climates or enable other improvements. Wild potatoes, however, hold valuable, untapped genetic diversity. One trait from those wild plants, Mendes says, "could save our life."


---


Last year, at an EMBRAPA research station near Pelotas, technicians in lab coats leaned over the wild species Heiden had collected. They gently daubed their faintly purple flowers with yellow powder from a plastic tube, fertilizing them with pollen from domesticated potatoes.
In a nearby greenhouse, tables were lined with the offspring of previous crosses. Researchers have evaluated thousands of those seedlings for health and yield, among other traits. They screened older plants for drought resistance by limiting the water in plastic-lined troughs. In a temperature-controlled walk-in chamber, researchers tested the ability of other plants to withstand heat; the yellowed plants appeared to be sweltering.


Such expansive testing is aimed at moving wild genes into traditional breeding programs as quickly as possible. It's part of EMBRAPA's larger effort to help Brazil expand production of potato, the country's most important vegetable crop.
In Lima, the Crop Trust has funded CIP to test wild varieties for promising traits even before any breeding begins.


--


In May 2018, as part of their search for more resilient tubers, Potato Park farmers neatly piled red, yellow, and brown tubers harvested from some of Ellis's experimental plots on rows of sacks, scoring each variety for yield and health. Local farmers had abandoned many of those landraces generations ago, as villages faded and exchange fewer plants. Bringing some of that ancient diversity back into cultivation could hedge against environmental change. In Potato Park, farmers have already tried to escape the pests and disease that thrive in warmer temperatures by moving their cultivation 200 meters higher over the past 30 years. But René Gomez, CIP's curator of cultivated potatoes, warns that arable land is scarcer at higher elevations.

 

[troutman]

With an expanding World population the need for new food crop varieties will be the key.

So yeah, all Landraces are extremely important. Genetic variation is the spice of life.

 

[ahortator]

Colombian marijuana growth in the mountains.

It is absolutely pathetic. They have replaced their old landraces for modern BLD hybrids. So they need to extend the light hours or the hybrids would begin to flower too soon they would get tiny plants with a very small harvest.

https://youtu.be/ab6-zxXpTSw

It seems in 2019 the court ordered to turn off the lights.

https://youtu.be/08c6dGFQD7U

They still think the new hybrids offer a best quality product. So the battle is lost as the landraces disappeared there. They are not going to grow them again.

It is what happens when some stupids carry overrated Western hybrid seeds to landrace areas.

 

[Im'One]

Ngakpa what happens when a couple of breeders take columbian, or durban or ? seeds from a couple or breeders and grow them in a new climate, say north texas or southern oklahoma? Will the new genotype have self selected for important traits or lose the original traits and with it the original values? How can we maintain a vibrsnt and virile strain thats is nonetheless adapted to a new cxlimate and geography?

 

[romanoweed]

@Imone . Acording the Knowledge that i take from troutmans Link: It says adding a completely ambundant Trait to a Wanted Strain (say Thai) . So, we could probably choose a Autoflower... They say further: the unwanted Traits of the newly added Strain have to be bread out.. So that means we should basically breed a Autoflower so far till it basically becomes a wished Strain, or atleast to a degree. (Cause breeding all unwanted out, and get ahold of wanted is basically what makes a Dreamlandrace) . So: we could probably NOT take a Autoflower, acording this secound Information, cause it doesent hold any Trippy Traits at all. But listen:

They also say: we cant further develop a already etablished Strain, wich has Traits basically lost, we cant basically go back soo deeply (man, read the numbers wich they select of, 10 000s i recall) . So i guess searching Autotraits in LandraceThais also not work, if they are deeeep, i menan deep burried even. bare with me:
I think, best we could doo is: find a close related Strain, wich resembles Trippy, but also shortflower Characteristics. Say southern Chinese, breed the softness out, breed the trippyness in, PLUS combine this to a Ultratrippy Thai Strain, wich we also select for shortflowering Side while retaining trippy Qualities. Cross them togehter. Last but not least: we can reach Goals only with the Chinese-Strain, just select for trippyness, if the Trait somewhere there.. Or use only the Thai, an select for shortflowering if its there.
All in all, i learn from that Papers, that we can select for something, if its substencially there, and should do it rather than searching for something illusive/utopical?

So: Dont take a 25 Weeker ultratrippy Thai and select for utopical shortflower, rather search for a Strains wich have Traits there, not as deep burried, like a slightly trippy Chinese, or a slightly shortflowering Thai, go from there.

I mean if you have a place where you stay, not as me, you can build automatic Lightdep, cause above Scenarios are Work for Decades, and probably still wont yeald hallucinogenic 8 Weekers..

I know what your Question actually was by the Way: will a Thai stay a Thai while reproduced or selectively bread in say Usa..

 

[Im'One]

@Imone . Acording the Knowledge that i take from troutmans Link: It says adding a completely ambundant Trait to a Wanted Strain (say Thai) . So, we could probably choose a Autoflower... They say further: the unwanted Traits of the newly added Strain have to be bread out.. So that means we should basically breed a Autoflower so far till it basically becomes a wished Strain, or atleast to a degree. (Cause breeding all unwanted out, and get ahold of wanted is basically what makes a Dreamlandrace) . So: we could probably NOT take a Autoflower, acording this secound Information, cause it doesent hold any Trippy Traits at all. But listen:

They also say: we cant further develop a already etablished Strain, wich has Traits basically lost, we cant basically go back soo deeply (man, read the numbers wich they select of, 10 000s i recall) . So i guess searching Autotraits in LandraceThais also not work, if they are deeeep, i menan deep burried even. bare with me:
I think, best we could doo is: find a close related Strain, wich resembles Trippy, but also shortflower Characteristics. Say southern Chinese, breed the softness out, breed the trippyness in, PLUS combine this to a Ultratrippy Thai Strain, wich we also select for shortflowering Side while retaining trippy Qualities. Cross them togehter. Last but not least: we can reach Goals only with the Chinese-Strain, just select for trippyness, if the Trait somewhere there.. Or use only the Thai, an select for shortflowering if its there.
All in all, i learn from that Papers, that we can select for something, if its substencially there, and should do it rather than searching for something illusive/utopical?

So: Dont take a 25 Weeker ultratrippy Thai and select for utopical shortflower, rather search for a Strains wich have Traits there, not as deep burried, like a slightly trippy Chinese, or a slightly shortflowering Thai, go from there.

I mean if you have a place where you stay, not as me, you can build automatic Lightdep, cause above Scenarios are Work for Decades, and probably still wont yeald hallucinogenic 8 Weekers..

I know what your Question actually was by the Way: will a Thai stay a Thai while reproduced or selectively bread in say Usa..

Maybe i wasnt clear, we are using several lines of columbian gold in an outdoor open pollination grow. All the lines are descended from 70s cg. Some are polluted yes but all have the same basic origin.
What will the new environment do to the strain? Will it become something new? Obviously flowering cycles will be altered due tot new latitude.

 

[romanoweed]

Yes, i understood Imone.
Someone would have to Pollinate such a Columbian in USA, then take her Back to Place of Origin to judge i guess.
Still my Anwser holds approximate Anwsers: The Papers say, Modern Landraces with Traits so deeply burried , they are not suited to breed for deeply hidden Traits. And rather a Strain with those Traits fully there, but unwanted Traits aswell is better.

That COULD mean, (not necessairly does) for your Columbian: If trippyness is there in the First Place, it cant go to nowhere in one, two Generations. On the long Run, its could happen tho.

But there comes my Impression, i believe if you select around in small Scale, you fastly loose a certain Edge/Power, and its wise to breed rather in High Numbers, than past Generation 5... Cause Science says your Ground, your Soil, your Sun, everything will change expression, so you will unintendedly select for a USA-Ruderalis or what you have for Indigen Strains at home, will happen over long Time.

Neutralize Growenviroment:
I found very rarely the Knowledge that you would have to neutralize Growenviroment, to not automatically select thowards USA-Strain. The way to do that is to: open pollinate complete Different Strains for 8 Generations each. Lets say Superskunk first. Then you open Pollinate say a Thai for 8 Generations, And now you search for similar Expressions wich in BOUTH Strains showed up. Now you adjust parameters, exchange Soil, change Lights, anything that can influence Cannabis. Grow another Strain for 8 Gen. , look if you see same Expression again (you changed Setting, so probably not, but another Expression may appear, wich you discover trough growing yet another Strain) . So: you adjust till you neutralized all Expressions in Cannabis. Insane amount of work, and you find rarely any Knowledge about that Practise. Once done that with X Strains all expressing randomly, not similar, you can breed with Columbians.. without change.

Anything other should change your Strain to a certain Degree (besides open Pollination, but open Pollination i heard will allow wild Tendencies to showup, wich is also a Change, atleast after 2, 3 openPolls in a Row)

 

[troutman]

Ngakpa what happens when a couple of breeders take colombian, or durban or ? seeds from a couple or breeders and grow them in a new climate, say north texas or southern oklahoma? Will the new genotype have self selected for important traits or lose the original traits and with it the original values? How can we maintain a vibrant and virile strain that is nonetheless adapted to a new climate and geography?

Assuming the plants can mature in the new environment to produce seeds they would locally adapt to those conditions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_adaptation

Selecting Landraces more suited to you area will make things much easier.

 

[Im'One]

I was told that mexican would probably do better in oklahoma than columbian would. I have numerous indian landraces but havent ran any outside yet.
I have a kashmiri landrace that supposed to have great mold resistance for instance

 

[Chi13]

I have been using cannabis since 1977. At the time I started in Australia the produce around was either imported, usually from Asian countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Indian and Nepal, the old hippie trails. We even had Colombian thanks presumably to Escobar. It was shipped via Vanuatu like Cocaine is today. Virtually all I saw was sativas for my first 10 years or so of consuming and i am guessing it was mainly landrace rather than hybrids. There was the odd hash as well but it was mainly sativas. Gradually hybrids took over. I stopped using cannabis in my 30's and rediscovered it at age 40. It was now all seed bank stuff like skunk, NL etc.

A few years ago I traveled through parts of Asia and found to my surprise that cannabis I sampled was much better than the hybrids I now grew from overseas seed banks. Sampled some Thai and Lao that were particularly good. Euphoric, happy, and stimulating highs. I realised what I had been missing and that my current hybrids were a pale comparison. This was quite a revelation.

To me the old varieties were much better. People talk of the entourage effect in today's hybrids as being something good and useful, however I believe the opposite is the case.

Anyway I have now been introduced to the Real Seed Company and made my first purchase. Fingers crossed they arrive.

There seems a consensus that you need a large population to maintain a landrace? Is this the case? When someone brought up potatos I thought of the the book and series "Botany of Desire" that was around some time ago. I seem to remember farmers in South America growing all sorts of different potatos, sometimes in neighbouring farms. You could have hundreds of different varieties grown in a small area. Is it the same with cannabis? For example in the same village do you get farmers growing the same varieties, or has each farmer got their own genetics? Do they swap genetics with each other? What I am getting at, is it possible to preserve genetics with a small number of plants. Isn't that what backyard growers have been doing all along?

 

[troutman]

When someone brought up potatoes I thought of the the book and series "Botany of Desire" that was around some time ago. I seem to remember farmers in South America growing all sorts of different potatoes, sometimes in neighboring farms. You could have hundreds of different varieties grown in a small area. Is it the same with cannabis? For example in the same village do you get farmers growing the same varieties, or has each farmer got their own genetics?

The main difference between potatoes and Cannabis is that most people select tubers for the next generation vs using seeds created by cross pollination by other plants.
So a person could grow 100 different types of potatoes in the same garden and just keep the nicest tuber from each plant while keeping all those genetics variations intact.
That would be impossible with Cannabis.

BTW: What you eat with a potato is botanically called a tuber.

While potatoes grown from tubers or seed potatoes produce an exact genetic clone of the mother plant,
those grown from true potato seed are not clones and will have different characteristics than the parent plant.

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/potato/true-potato-seed-growing.htm

 

[Stocktont]

The first pic from that article is potato used to make chuño: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuño
Chuño would be rudelaris potato. They are small. In the link is explained its use
These potatoes in the picture are potato haze. They make delicious trippy thick chips I could only dream about when I was living in Asia
The one in the right is the natural coloured one. The one on the left is painted with red colouring, it seems there is a market demand for colour
They weigh 500 grams each and is the average weight, you have bigger too
View Image

Peru holds a lot of valuable landrace food. It is one of the last refugees of landrace food in the world.
Peru corn is amazing, they should be used to improve corn all over the world, the most delicious and bigger grains in the world. This is the list of all of the peruvian landrace corn, didnt find link in english, sorry: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variedades_peruanas_de_maíz

@Stocktont
Old vs new, traditional vs modern is a very interesting subject that deserves its own thread
Are you ajarn?
People living in rural areas are not more traditional than the posh population of Bangkok. They all like their food the same away and are passionate about that, it is the same all over asia and the world, regardless of living in the countryside or in the city. People are nationalistic about their food and at the same time they all buy at 7/11 and Big C and want hamburgers and pizzas.
What I am impressed really is the acceptance and surge of coffee in Asia in the last 20 years. Asians never liked coffee and always drunk tea. Maybe cafe lao is the exception. It is another example of marketing and food culture hybrid

But both rural and city dwellers are very quick in destroying or altering nature in order to make more housing in overpopulated areas or for whatever reason it is done in the name of "progress" with total disregard of consequences
.
In that video the advertisement for dutch passion varieties is showed big. As you know, if something is advertised for and is a problematic article, it will be sold under the table. I have never seen advertisement for a product in thailand if you dont have that product for sale, you know how it is...
In Colombia farmers have articial lighting in the mountains in order to adapt to the western hybrids, traditional varieties are a remembering of times gone long ago

Hey @Funkhorse I agree that the traditional vs modern is worthy of a whole other discussion. I don't know if I should take the “are you Ajarn” as a compliment or an insult hahaha I am familiar with the site but no I am not. I haven't lived all over Asia just Thailand but I think they are more linked to the traditionalism than where I come from in northern Europe but I also agree that there's a bigger inclination in younger generations to embrace modern or foreign things but not predominantly western in my experience. The kids as it were, here are more into Korean movies than american but yea, there are 7-elevens, Family Mart's and Tesco stores all over the place.

I absolutely believe they sold weed at that festival just not openly and I do agree it seems like a strange idea to have all these companies there advertising their products if they didn't think they could get something out of it like sales. I haven't been everywhere and I don't know everything but I have only seen western type of hybrids being sold at a very few places and in all cases it was imported Cali weed. It catered to western tourists though. Most all of the weed sold commercially are otherwise traditional south east asian types.

Let's hope if there's an insurgence of western cannabis seeds that they will stick to growing them indoors which would be less of a problem.

 

[ngakpa]

There seems a consensus that you need a large population to maintain a landrace? Is this the case?

it depends what your aims are

heirloom/landrace vegetable growers recommend about 25 parent plants to maintain a good level of diversity in the varietal

Gatersleben are said to use about 100 parent plants in their reproductions of their Cannabis accessions, which include landraces

(though a German collector tells me his understanding is they use significantly less)

but the point is, Gatersleben is looking to maintain diversity

if you were wanting to grow like good traditional ganja growing, which means a bit of selective pressure, you could just keep the "elephant seeds" from the best female(s) - then you use those for next season's crop

that means all the males dropping pollen, and any intersex plants cut down

You could have hundreds of different varieties grown in a small area. Is it the same with cannabis?

landraces are region-specific

usually you have variation along one local theme, e.g. in one valley or district

sometimes, you might have more than one distinct varietal

e.g., the Nanda Devi and Kumaon landraces both come from the same district of Kumaon

but the precise picture depends on the region

Afghanistan is very biodiverse re. domesticates

in Laos you can also have several highly distinct cultigens in a relatively small area

but in both places, seeds move around quite a lot

whereas in the Himalaya, in regions where the traditional crops are still grown, seeds don't move around except when sold in the bazaar for culinary use

For example in the same village do you get farmers growing the same varieties, or has each farmer got their own genetics? Do they swap genetics with each other?

Cannabis is interfertile, so if the fields are within 5km of each other, everything is ultimately going to homogenize

unless you have some kind of reproductive barrier, like one varietal is much earlier and/or sown on a different cycle (as with the Nanda Devi)