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Extinction by Hybridization: The Cannabis Biodiversity Crisis

romanoweed

Well-known member
Hmm, i heard to get a Copy of every Gen displayed in a single Landrace, you need minimum 2000 Plants (1000 males 1000 Females).

You have one option wich IS REGARDED of letting a Landrace unchanged: open Pollinate 2000 Plants.
Selecting in a neutral Growenviroment would not even be regarded as suitable for Preservation below that Numbers. Anyway i guess the first Option is comparably Easy.

I say comparably. Possibly one can only grow way less, BUT, i CONSIDER this Scientifical Fact as a way, to work out the best possible Preservation-Plan.

I rather run 100 at once, select the wildish Plants out, rather than running 25 wich i observe exactly cause their full Size. Thats absolute minimum, still not sufficient.
What you describe with 25 Plants is counting nearly fully on Selection. In such small Numbers.
Sounds very Risky. Further, Even im not a fan of choosing one of a thousand Phenos, i can clearly see from two good Breeders, they all run insane numbers, it IS Key for Maintaining the Fiery Quality of Weed. And if you dont want it to become a Caffeine-type feelingless Weed, you need to even select multiple Lines, a Taste Line, a Potency Line, a Robust Line..... Not just Potencline.

MY closest Solution : run the maximal Number (tiny Single-stem Plants) i can, select out the Weak Phenos, open pollinate. But in an initial Run i have to learn to select, and grow the Selections i did out, so i know what i did right and what wrong.

Size matters
 
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TheDarkStorm

Well-known member
Oh I missed that commercial in the video then my bad but I still don't think they sold seeds or weed at that place. I don't think there will be a huge indoor surge of growers either but I could be wrong on that too. It's very expensive to run lights and AC all day and night so I don't think too many regular people will be doing that.

I don't see it the same way as you with thais thinking all new things are better than traditional but maybe it's more true in Bangkok. They sure love some things like the smart-phones and some of them also like western food like pizza and McDonald's but it's not like they all forgot about thai food. I still think that most new growers would be outdoor growers but it's horrible if they let companies like Dutch Passion, Greenhouse et-al sell their seeds here. Advertising is one thing but actually selling them would be really bad. Do you know for a fact that they sold seeds there at that festival?

Yaa-baa is meth, it's the same drug. Yaabaa is what they call the pressed pills which contain methamphetamine and they call the crystals for smoking Ice but it's basically the same in different packings. Yaa means medicine and Baa means crazy. So when I talked about meth I talked about methamphetamine which is both ice and yaabaa.

The western hybrids would be faster due to them responding to the photoperiod much, much quicker as well as their flowering times would be shorter. And yes, they would be quicker at lat 50 as well of course but they would probably veg a bit there too which they won't do too much here.

I don't know much about Columbia to comment on that.

Have you grown indoor hybrids in the tropical environment like south east asia? I think the points I tried to make above are quite valid for this climate. Not saying that it can't be done but I am saying there are some obstacles and one need to be quite selective on which hybrids to grow, NLDs would do much better than WLDs in my opinion.

Pleanty of western hybrid seeds are going to these countries...theyve been going to all these countries for over 30years if not longer....the internet only made it easier.... seed outlets selling western hybrids are popping up in india, south east Asia an Africa as well as other places....plenty of landraces are already contaminated....
 

Stocktont

Well-known member
Veteran
Pleanty of western hybrid seeds are going to these countries...theyve been going to all these countries for over 30years if not longer....the internet only made it easier.... seed outlets selling western hybrids are popping up in india, south east Asia an Africa as well as other places....plenty of landraces are already contaminated....

I have heard of this many times too but I never saw it in commercial weed I bought here nor in the places where I have seen plants grown but of course I have not been everywhere and smoked everything. Just thought I would have seen it at least once if there were skunks and OGs and such around in plenty. Maybe they are keeping them indoors and for more private use or the landrace weed I have been smoking have just not been in contact with all those hybrids. The only western types I have seen here were actually imported flowers from cali, not grown here but smuggled here and the guy sold it mostly to westerners. I know that it's easier to get western type of buds in Bangkok but I have very limited experience with the big city.
 

romanoweed

Well-known member
@Stocktont
First i am rater not believing anything, thats why i was ever sceptical if SEAsian Lanraces Contained Skunk an Such.
I ever thought there could be Breeding under Stress involved. Meaning basically no breeding, just planting some Seeds, as they appear in Buds, and thats what Brickweed.

But i can assure you: if you would cross a pure Thai with Skunk, i have seen Pictures where i thouht this shows a pure Thai, but it wasnt.
It was a Thai x Skunk.

We are all swimming in Picture of fat Buds, so a single Outcross often looks still insanely thin to us.
 
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ngakpa

Active member
Veteran
I know that it's easier to get western type of buds in Bangkok but I have very limited experience with the big city.

depends who you know, what type of people you hang out with...

I was based in Bangkok for a year in the 2000s and only ever saw traditional ganja, some from Thai friend's families, e.g. grown in rural Chonburi Province on their rice farmland

just on a general point:

so far as the landrace contamination situation goes, so much of what you get on forums is just recycled hearsay

despite the confident proclamations, it's clear to me at least that very few people holding forth on this topic have actually been to these places

at the risk of stirring, symptomatic of this situation is there's a famous book on Hashish by an expert who's apparently not even been to Pakistan or Afghanistan
 

Stocktont

Well-known member
Veteran
depends who you know, what type of people you hang out with...

I was based in Bangkok for a year in the 2000s and only ever saw traditional ganja, some from Thai friend's families, e.g. grown in rural Chonburi Province on their rice farmland

just on a general point:

so far as the landrace contamination situation goes, so much of what you get on forums is just recycled hearsay

despite the confident proclamations, it's clear to me at least that very few people holding forth on this topic have actually been to these places

at the risk of stirring, symptomatic of this situation is there's a famous book on Hashish by an expert who's apparently not even been to Pakistan or Afghanistan

@ngakpa yes it depends on who you know and maybe I should have stated, like intended, that in my limited experience it's easier to get western buds in the city though I didn't intend to say it's common or there's a lot of it. I meant more that it's very hard to impossible in most rural places to get it, if you don't know someone who imported some like the few guys I have met that had western buds to sell. All of the commercial weed (and privately grown) I have had have been south east asian types. The few thais I know that bought and sold quantities told me it came from the north. Never knew if that meant north in the country or across the border but it didn't matter much to me as it would all be hearsay anyways.

I agree that most of the information seem to be coming from people reading other people's posts online and parroting a narrative that sounds like “in the know”. I try to make clear that I don't think I know it all or seen it all but try to give my experience from living here. Maybe I am not always making it clear when I state my opinions on things, but all I am posting comes from my limited experience. At least I have been to some places and I am still living here but I am for sure not any kind of expert other than I try to find as much weed I can to smoke as I enjoy it. Hope that makes my stance a bit clearer if I came off like some kind of know it all person.
 

Chi13

Well-known member
ICMag Donor
That was an interesting interview, Stocktont. Had not heard the pot cast before. There's also a part 2 if anyone is interested.

A real eye opener for me was that modern hybrids go for 5-10 times the price of traditional varieties in India. Even in India there seems to be the perception that modern hybrids are better. The loss of landrace varieties is obviously market driven. There are likely tourists who turn up in some of these places who are used to the couchlock experience and probably don't appreciate a different high. I have heard plenty of mostly young folk who complain about older varieties as they don't have the type of high, or rather stone, that they are used to. I don't know what the answer is. My theory is that people seek out the kinds of high that they become used to when they begin using cannabis. I grew up on NLD varieties and they are what I seek out.

Although landrace varieties obviously are acclimatised to their environment, I would be very surprised if many have not been subject to hybridisation sometime in the past (going back hundreds or maybe a few thousand years). Particularly in counties like India there is a long history of various invasions, and of course trade (silk road). Not saying this is good or bad, just that this thread has got me thinking about movement of cannabis. People underestimate how much trade and movement there was in the past.
 

mexcurandero420

See the world through a puff of smoke
Veteran
That was an interesting interview, Stocktont. Had not heard the pot cast before. There's also a part 2 if anyone is interested.

A real eye opener for me was that modern hybrids go for 5-10 times the price of traditional varieties in India. Even in India there seems to be the perception that modern hybrids are better. The loss of landrace varieties is obviously market driven. There are likely tourists who turn up in some of these places who are used to the couchlock experience and probably don't appreciate a different high. I have heard plenty of mostly young folk who complain about older varieties as they don't have the type of high, or rather stone, that they are used to. I don't know what the answer is. My theory is that people seek out the kinds of high that they become used to when they begin using cannabis. I grew up on NLD varieties and they are what I seek out.

Although landrace varieties obviously are acclimatised to their environment, I would be very surprised if many have not been subject to hybridisation sometime in the past (going back hundreds or maybe a few thousand years). Particularly in counties like India there is a long history of various invasions, and of course trade (silk road). Not saying this is good or bad, just that this thread has got me thinking about movement of cannabis. People underestimate how much trade and movement there was in the past.

Certainly there was a trade for a long time and with Cannabis where varieties were brought to other regions too, only those varieties were also grown outdoors.Nowadays most in the west is grown and developed indoors under other circumstances with less plants and even with feminize technique.
For the people in those countries it will be to late to understand that their landraces will be ruined thnx to the introduction of those western hybrids.Good example is the strainhunters part of their tour in India, where the local farmer is asked what he thinks about the modern femenized varieties he is growing and he says they're all males.
 

ngakpa

Active member
Veteran
Good example is the strainhunters part of their tour in India, where the local farmer is asked what he thinks about the modern femenized varieties he is growing and he says they're all males.

hi - the reason the Himalayan farmer said the female plants are male is because, in the Himalaya, farmers typically assign biologically female plants to the male gender...

in other words, what farmers in the Himalaya call males are the females

fwiw, that relates to the first I ever heard of the Indian guy in the interview posted by Stocktont, which was a couple of years back... when he started making daft claims about the name "Nanda Devi"

this guy is not a reliable source of information about anything, be it the culture or botany

to be fair, the most important thing is that these seeds are being collected and saved

but it does matter that - intentionally or unintentionally - sincerely motivated people are getting mislead by the dodgy information he puts out

occasionally an Indian collector I work with forwards me stuff this guy has said or written, and it ranges from total nonsense to deliberate misinformation

he's still in the habit of describing true wild plants as landraces... which is for a self-described expert in landraces isn't ideal... it's crucial for people to know the difference between domesticates and wild plants, especially given how important wild populations are

he's also on record as claiming that Parvati Valley is unaffected by hybrids, and the "skunk" smells are natural to the region

there's a bunch of other stuff

like I say, first I ever heard of him was a couple of years ago, when he decided to name his Himalayan accession from Chamoli as "Nanda Devi"... it's a name I'd given to a landrace I collected a decade earlier from Kumaon in 2007

that in itself was just a bit odd, but then he started twisting facts about the local culture to justify what he had done... his claim was that "strain names" in India are based on devata culture, which is basically the shrine culture of local gods etc.

fact is, devatas - to the best of my knowledge and that of friends of mine from the Himalayan region - have nothing whatsoever to do with Cannabis
https://landrace.blog/2018/08/30/nanda-devi-and-tall-tales-from-the-himalayas/

anyway, bottom line is - apparently, he's someone willing to twist and distort the truth about Indian culture in order to score points off people he sees as his "competitors"

which is a bit crap, really

the same thing happened with one of the Afghan guys, who went further by putting out a bunch of daft lies about me and the Afghan and Pakistani collectors I work with (then refused to take them back)...

he pulled the same trick, which is to lie about Afghan Cannabis culture in an attempt to score points, in this case about the names used for cannabis (re. bhang, charas, hashish)

all shows a lack of respect for Afghan/Indian culture itself, and for the sincerely motivated people who want to maintain these plants

not ideal, but kind of to be expected -

as it is, we've got a great network of collectors across Southeast Asia, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanstan, Iran and elsewhere, so all good
 

Stocktont

Well-known member
Veteran
@Chi13 yea I actually haven't finished listening to it but I thought it could be interesting with someone from there giving their thoughts on the topic. Much of the pot cast depends on the guest, the first 40 or so minutes I listened to the guy seemed nice enough to give a listen. There's a lot of episodes but the guests are not always that... well... nice to listen to.

I agree that there's been trade and movement for thousands of years and the cannabis plant, in whatever forms it used to exist, is kind of an old one. A lot of crops have been industrialized and lost their uniqueness and variation like corn and wheat which is sad and it makes one understand why this thread was started. I don't know why people seek out the same kind of cannabis as they are used to as it is one of the really exiting things going to new places and trying unique new highs, for me at least. It would sure be a pity if the diversity in cannabis is lost to the point of corn or wheat et-al where those special experiences become rare to extinct. There's definitely a pretty big difference between smoking landrace types like south east asians which I have been exposed to more so than others and most of the indoor western hybrids. Though some hybrids are strong they seem, in general, to have less longevity where my cannabinoid system gets used to them much quicker than the more unique types.

@mexcurandero420 the one where strain hunters went to Malawi was also quite telling on how far their “passion” for the plant stretched. When asked if they shouldn't give something back to the people they took the seeds off Arjan didn't seem to want to do that he was more interested in getting some unique compounds from those seeds to sell to big pharma and make millions. If they managed or will manage to do that I don't know. I can't really take them seriously but they can make quite a negative impact spreading their inferior seeds to unknowing farmers around the world. Did they ever release any kind of seed line from their “expeditions”? In some of the episodes they made it out to look like they were hunting for rare landraces to make new genetics available but then years after the series had already run all I saw from that strain hunter brand was some hybrids made with wester clones.
 

ngakpa

Active member
Veteran
Although landrace varieties obviously are acclimatised to their environment, I would be very surprised if many have not been subject to hybridisation sometime in the past (going back hundreds or maybe a few thousand years). Particularly in counties like India there is a long history of various invasions, and of course trade (silk road).

this is discussed in the studies linked to throughout this thread

they're where the authoritative info is - not podcasts with gobshites - so if you want the answers, I recommend checking them out

almost all Cannabis domesticates are hybrids between biotypes

that includes landraces

Thai and Lao farmers refer to their landraces as hybrids "gok pasom pan"

also, many landraces in regions such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Middle East are hybrids between formal taxa

many landraces appear to have arisen as hybrids between var. indica and afghanica, not just in the centuries immediately prior to the Hippie Trail era but as far back as the thirteenth century and no doubt earlier.

https://landrace.blog/2020/05/13/endangered-varieties-of-subs-indica-a-few-thoughts/
 

Stocktont

Well-known member
Veteran
hi - the reason the Himalayan farmer said the female plants are male is because, in the Himalaya, farmers typically assign biologically female plants to the male gender...

in other words, what farmers in the Himalaya call males are the females

fwiw, that relates to the first I ever heard of the Indian guy in the interview posted by Stocktont, which was a couple of years back... when he started making daft claims about the name "Nanda Devi"

this guy is not a reliable source of information about anything, be it the culture or botany

to be fair, the most important thing is that these seeds are being collected and saved

but it does matter that - intentionally or unintentionally - sincerely motivated people are getting mislead by the dodgy information he puts out

occasionally an Indian collector I work with forwards me stuff this guy has said or written, and it ranges from total nonsense to deliberate misinformation

he's still in the habit of describing true wild plants as landraces... which is for a self-described expert in landraces isn't ideal... it's crucial for people to know the difference between domesticates and wild plants, especially given how important wild populations are

he's also on record as claiming that Parvati Valley is unaffected by hybrids, and the "skunk" smells are natural to the region

there's a bunch of other stuff

like I say, first I ever heard of him was a couple of years ago, when he decided to name his Himalayan accession from Chamoli as "Nanda Devi"... it's a name I'd given to a landrace I collected a decade earlier from Kumaon in 2007

that in itself was just a bit odd, but then he started twisting facts about the local culture to justify what he had done... his claim was that "strain names" in India are based on devata culture, which is basically the shrine culture of local gods etc.

fact is, devatas - to the best of my knowledge and that of friends of mine from the Himalayan region - have nothing whatsoever to do with Cannabis
https://landrace.blog/2018/08/30/nanda-devi-and-tall-tales-from-the-himalayas/

anyway, bottom line is - apparently, he's someone willing to twist and distort the truth about Indian culture in order to score points off people he sees as his "competitors"

which is a bit crap, really

the same thing happened with one of the Afghan guys, who went further by putting out a bunch of daft lies about me and the Afghan and Pakistani collectors I work with (then refused to take them back)...

he pulled the same trick, which is to lie about Afghan Cannabis culture in an attempt to score points, in this case about the names used for cannabis (re. bhang, charas, hashish)

all shows a lack of respect for Afghan/Indian culture itself, and for the sincerely motivated people who want to maintain these plants

not ideal, but kind of to be expected -

as it is, we've got a great network of collectors across Southeast Asia, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanstan, Iran and elsewhere, so all good

Very interesting read, that's why I posted the interview here, to get opinions from people who have knowledge on the topic. Think the pot-cast guy should have you on instead of that indian guy by the sounds of it. A lot of people take things said online and on podcasts etc. without having any idea who the people that are putting out the information are or their credentials. Thanks for giving it straight to us about this one @ngakpa
 

ngakpa

Active member
Veteran

Stocktont

Well-known member
Veteran
did the Adam Dunn Show last year

and have done two shows on the Curious About Cannabis podcast

Curious About Cannabis is good because Jason really knows what he's talking about
https://www.cacpodcast.com/episodes...trains-cannabis-culture-and-cannabis-taxonomy

the above is a full-length chat where we go into everything from sacramental use by sadhus, Scythian death cults, collecting in 1920s Afghanistan etc.

I listened to the Adam Dunn one, didn't get that it was you until I followed the links to your blog (which is a very interesting read). Thanks for the other one, I will give it a listen.
 

ngakpa

Active member
Veteran
I listened to the Adam Dunn one, didn't get that it was you until I followed the links to your blog (which is a very interesting read). Thanks for the other one, I will give it a listen.

thanks

the Adam Dunn one was alright, but the one with Jason from Curious About Cannabis covers way more interesting stuff

thing with the Adam Dunn one is I couldn't jump on everything Adam said that I thought was wrong, e.g. his misleading comment about Thai versus Lao landraces... (kind of thing which may be why the Pot Cast would sooner avoid having me on the show)

anyway, the more recent episode I did with Curious About Cannabis discusses the new study on endangered landraces from Small and McPartland... the full version of the new episode needs a subscription

recommend subscribing, Jason is doing great work getting all kinds of people on the show
 

Stocktont

Well-known member
Veteran
thanks

the Adam Dunn one was alright, but the one with Jason from Curious About Cannabis covers way more interesting stuff

thing with the Adam Dunn one is I couldn't jump on everything Adam said that I thought was wrong, e.g. his misleading comment about Thai versus Lao landraces... (kind of thing which may be why the Pot Cast would sooner avoid having me on the show)

anyway, the more recent episode I did with Curious About Cannabis discusses the new study on endangered landraces from Small and McPartland... the full version of the new episode needs a subscription

recommend subscribing, Jason is doing great work getting all kinds of people on the show

Yea I get the thing with Adam Dunn. I have listened to it for a long time but most of the time it's hard to get through an episode for a lot of reasons. It got better when he got rid of all the side-kicks that kept interrupting with all their banter but it's still not that great of a podcast. I guess it's hard to be the host of a podcast too as I had some doubts about the pot-cast where the real questions and discussions are not always had but I guess no guests would come on one if I did it haha. The Dunn show isn't always filled with facts but a lot of inside jokes and tales.

I will give the Curious about cannabis a listen today while out walking on the beach I got the link to my phone. The second one I have to subscribe for, is it associated with a cost? If it's a good one it would be worth it.

I would recommend people to go to your blog and check it out too, I love the old photos you put up there and of course the information. Takes a few reads for a novice like me to get it sometimes but I like the style of it.
 

ngakpa

Active member
Veteran
I only notice Cannabis industry stuff when it encroaches on my realm of interests, e.g. when someone or something mentions "landraces", like the Strain Hunters fiasco...

honestly, a bowl or two of what most people smoke these days, and I don't know how anyone could stay awake through most podcasts put out by the "Cannabusiness"... tried listening to a few, really not my thing...

what I like about Curious About Cannabis is that Jason gets people on who do know what they're talking about (I'm about as non-expert a figure as he's interviewed)

plus he's not getting the usual line-up you see - so there are plenty of women, BEM folks, not just the usual stoner bros etc.

anyway, to get back on topic, I'm looking at putting together a short film on endangered Cannabis populations in 2021, so that's a start
 

Stocktont

Well-known member
Veteran
I only notice Cannabis industry stuff when it encroaches on my realm of interests, e.g. when someone or something mentions "landraces", like the Strain Hunters fiasco...

honestly, a bowl or two of what most people smoke these days, and I don't know how anyone could stay awake through most podcasts put out by the "Cannabusiness"... tried listening to a few, really not my thing...

what I like about Curious About Cannabis is that Jason gets people on who do know what they're talking about (I'm about as non-expert a figure as he's interviewed)

plus he's not getting the usual line-up you see - so there are plenty of women, BEM folks, not just the usual stoner bros etc.

anyway, to get back on topic, I'm looking at putting together a short film on endangered Cannabis populations in 2021, so that's a start

I agree regarding the greenhouse fiasco and much of the “industry” today to me isn't that interesting anymore. For some odd reason as it got legal it turned worse.

I managed to get to listen to the second one of the curious about cannabis for free and without subscribing, both episodes were really good listens, liked the first one where you described a lot of different places and the other one was really good to as it brings up something that I have noticed in the cannabis world for a long time about taxonomy and nomenclature, how we all speak about cannabis and what names are being used for what type of cannabis.

I am on a boat trip today going to see a friend and smoke some nice south east asian and I will listen to some of the other curious episodes, as you said, there's a few interesting guests on there.

Please make that film, that I think could reach a lot of people and make people understand the situation. Like you guys said in one of the podcasts it's easy to make hybrids but you can't ever go back from that step, we need to have those things that makes hybrids in the future too...
 

Dankwolf

Active member
So this is a simple question . why has has extremely compact strains became the standard of quality ?

What happen to the diesels , northern lights 9'5'2' , burmesse, g13, hawian , critical mass and skunk 9

Basically the red hair strains . why ??
 
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