Hybrids found by the police in the Parvati valley!

[mexcurandero420]

Let's imagine for a moment that it comes down to a ridiculously simple, single extra allele/gene in wilder 'landrace' strains.
How is that removed from the population by outbreeding with hybrids which lack it?

Answer: it isn't, until significant long term efforts are made to inbreed its absence in limited individuals.

Mexcurry420 you don't speak for Parvati farmers. They are free to grow whatever they choose and just because you think they 'should' stick to traditional stock doesn't mean Jacky nor Jilly Shit.

If there's a threat to that strain from replacement, it's via many years of human effort to do so. If it's so good, that won't happen.
I think you understand that those farmers aren't deliberately growing weak hybrids, they're trying something different, and can probably be trusted to know what they like after growing it.




There is no genetic basis for claiming doomsday.

You're really don't know what you're talking about.I'm getting the feeling that you're self involved in the seed business to introduce some of your own strains.Western genetics already drove Indian farmers to madness or even suicide.Like in the Strain Hunters vid about India when they're asking the local farmer what he thinks about the GHS strains and he answered them they're all males.

[YOUTUBEIF]su2-ijE5snA[/YOUTUBEIF]

Keep on growing

 

[mriko]

meh... too many posts to reply to...

Parvati valley is just ONE case among many others when it comes to the introduction of western commercial breed among native populations.
Effects will vary dramatically from one place to another.

From what I've seen here in Colombia, you can get modern hybrids grown outdoors all day long. However the pure landrace sativa is still very prevalent and is just the way I remember it from the 70s. Speaking just for Colombia I don’t think you could get rid of the original strains if you wanted too, Colombia still has very remote regions and just because some people are growing “imported” strains their not interbreeding with the original strains. So don’t worry cause the Gold, Punto Rojo and all the great strains from the recent past are alive and well here being preserved in their natural habitat.

And I hope those strains remain preserved in their original form for as long as possible.
I've just cut down a Panama Red x Colombia, but when it was in veg and early 12/12, she was looking like pure indica, with very wide-fingered leaves. After asking for more info, I was tell that the Colombian "landrace" was collected in Cauca. Are there local strains up there, with indica features, or is that a sorry sign of gene pollution from abroad ?


About Parvati & around. The introduction of foreign commercial strains has different implications depending how & were it is introduced.

The valleys of Kullu, parvati & Malana are all home to different variations. Kullu has lots & lots really wild looking jungli, very tall, with very thin buds, where as in Parvati, plants have a more "refined" look. Leaves a tad wider, stronger looking plants, with higher genetic diversity than in Kullu.
Malana; i haven't seen the local jungli, but this is where local growers get the genetics they need, and the local environment certainly makes it different than other valleys.
Foreign genetics are regularly brought into Parvati, through the Nepalese workers who are hired to tend the field & harvest the charas. This kind of seasonal worker oftenly travels with genetics from home.
Though foreign imports, it remains in the same cultural areas, where genetics have travelled around & been exchanged since generations, just like in Afghanistan or Pakistan. So it's not a big problem.
But things are different when it comes to western genetics. They don't bring in more diversity since they are mostly, inbred, genetically impoverished strains. And if they bring something, that would rather be their flaws, rather than their goods.
One things is 100% sure in Parvati & around, they certainly don't NEED any kind of gene import. They have everything they need from the jungli stock.

If a small scale farmer is offered some fem seeds and decide to grow them, it won't hurt a lot.
But when it comes to whole fields rented by western organisations & grown exclusively with western strains like I've seen in Kuthla, that can be more of a problem.
There are areas where you can find very localised strains/phenotypes, and I speak of very small areas, with a total surface of half a soccer field. Like these very very short plants I've seen, while walking from Bershani to Tosh, growing a bout a foot tall, and found exclusively under the tree cover between these two villages. I've hiked quite a bit around and nowhere else did I saw such plants in the area.

It's not just about people growing these or those genetics up there, it's a whole ecosystem with very subtle balances we simply now nothing about (I insist on the NOTHING), and we should aply to the Plant what is applied to many other species around the world.
If you go to Dominica, for instance, customs will empty your bag and confiscate any fruit, vegetable or anything with seeds. Stricly forbidden to import any kind of foreign plant, so as to protect the ecosystem.
It's not because our plant is illegal in most countries, that we should abstain to think within a legal frame. And if there's a rule of law we should apply to ourselves, it is that one of not importing western commercial genetics to places substaining local strains.

And even when about stricly farming, same rule should apply. Jamaica is probably the best, or worst, example of the implications of foreing strains introduction. If you look around, the few jamaican strains offered around are sativa dom which are ready in less than 10 weeks, and they are offered as landraces. Nothing like the 16/18/20 weeks of lambsbread or bluemountain strains.
Of course Jamaica is an extreme, due to the massive influx of foreing genetics from the oh so many holiday-goers.

Back to Parvati & around, it's about both farming & ecosystem and as a matter of fact an ecosystem which haven't been studied, at all. Let's not fuck up things before we even know what they're about. Oh, I forgot, that's the traditionnal western way of life !

Irie !

 

[Nunsacred]

I'm getting the feeling that you're self involved in the seed business to introduce some of your own strains.

I'm the one with the ulterior motive? What a revelation!
See, I thought that someone claiming to know best for others and how they should go about their lives was more suss than me saying "let them work it out for themselves".
Good job you're here to set us all straight.
(You're wrong, again, I have no such interest at all).

Mriko, nice to see someone else saying it's not all apocalyptic ganjacide everywhere.
Still, though, this confident simplicity about what's brought into a region and the consequences, even in the same breath as saying that we don't know.

I think the main takeaway thought from this thread is that Parvati farmers can't decide for themselves what to grow.
Worse, this shitty racist sentiment is clothed in anti-westernism as misdirection, and false eco objections as justification.

Shameful and unnecessary.

If a Sativa landrace is threatened by replacement then grow it yourself.
There is nothing positive in complaining about how other people breed, and there is no genetic certainty that inbred lines will homogenise all the wild strains nearby.

 

[mriko]

I think the main takeaway thought from this thread is that Parvati farmers can't decide for themselves what to grow.
Worse, this shitty racist sentiment is clothed in anti-westernism as misdirection, and false eco objections as justification.

Have you at least been to Parvati and seen how things are up there to make such claims ??

Irie !

 

[spiralofeyes]

I find it kind of funny to read all this conservationist(bordering on vitalist) rhetoric directed towards what is basically an invasive species....If you're so concerned,go there and get seeds before it all gets irreversibly fucked(though I don't think thats even possible in this scenario). Better still,start caring about some species that are actually in danger of disappearing from the environment that gave rise to them.There are plenty.

These cultivars were introduced and shaped by the hand of man as much as by the local ecosystem. Don't you think mass-hybridization occurred at least once at an earlier point? How can you think of these cultivars as ''pure''? Genetic purity is an obsolete 19th century paradigm. Do you know what inbreeding does to a population? This notion of purity as desirable and the inbreeding it leads to is what fucks a species up,not cross-breeding. Mutts,mongrels and hybrids are almost always the fittest.

I understand some of the points being made...but I seriously doubt its as bad as all that. The traits that make the organism successful in it's environment will ALWAYS come to the surface. ALWAYS. Unless you were to introduce terminator-genes or some other monsanto-style abomination,I really can't see any change being permanent. As long as the environment is there to lead the way,the plants will follow.
The farmers know what they're doing. They'll do what they've always done. Select the best,reject the rest. Indian farmers aren't killing themselves over the genetic purity of their crops,they're killing themselves because some assholes tricked/threatened them into using a technology that should never have gotten out of the lab and because of their forced participation in a system that put them deep in debt. Case closed AFAIC.

The genetic doom-mongering(with the best of intentions,I'm sure) has been rife in our particular field for years,but yet....I see more and more people growing the ''lost'' cultivars of old. Variability and diversity in the canna genepool is on the rise,IMO. Sativas didn't get wiped out in the seventies,like some prophesized,hell,they're making an insane come-back.

I trust all the herbsmen of the world to grow the best plants for them. And I trust our super-weed to take care of itself like it has for eons.

 

[mriko]

As long as the environment is there to lead the way,the plants will follow.

yep, but what happens when the envirronement gets irreversibly damaged ? Look at the yearly eradication campaigns which are set up overthere. For sure, they don't spray the valleys with some nasty fusarium and what not.
Even though it's not total, yearly eradication surely hurts the local genepool, and by extension, eradication of cannabis makes that the soil doesn't benefit anymore from the stabilising properties of the plants' roots, making some slopes more prone to landlsides which can contribute to genepool impoverishment, by burying whole populations.

Thought I would add some illustrations;

Here a nice view of an old apple orchard in Tosh village, literally overgrown with jungli bhang. The genetic variation in this small patch (maybe 25mx25m, if not less) was absolutely flabbergastering. Alas, most of the seeds I collected there was sold to some breeder who lost'em to mice ! agh...





Here a Italian-rented patch in Kuthla, above Tosh village, kinda all same-same. Can't say wether it's genuine local begij strain, some nepalese import, or something brought in by the Italians. We weren't much welcome there and didn't took the time to ask...



Irie !

 

[swayambunath]

Hi; my first post, and some thoughts;

I don't know how any plant strain can be genetically impoverished. They all have the same number of genes! India is covered in millions or billions of cannabis plants, it is truly a weed there. It will get you high, but it is ignored by most people, though enormous tonnage is processed under government licence into "bhang". Any introduction of western genetics would be a drop in the ocean, even more so when you consider that most imported strains will be bred for commercial purposes, and will therefore have severe limitations imposed on their reproductive capacity, while native strains are allowed to breed freely.
And, while it is true that some cannabis strains have been bred for particular commercial ends, especially in the West, that seems to be changing. People have become much more interested in the different cannabinoids, etc, as well as the spectrum of "world" genetics now available from seed breeders and vendors.
The true danger here is one of GM crops, which can introduce unnatural genetics into the global gene pool, but that is something that effects our food, the way we live, the world as we know it. Whatever effect it might have on the cultivation of cannabis is the least of our worries.
But the main reason I was inspired to post is this; we are worrying about foreign strains being introduced to the Parvati valley. The Parvati valley has been a hub of commercial charas production for decades, and has been the scene of some pretty heavy gangster shit and other wierdness. When I first went there, you had to walk from Manikaran, and even that was fairly new. Now there is a road. I've not been back, but I'm guessing that the road means more tourists, foreign and Indian, more TVs more garbage media, more porn, more motorized vehicles, more pollution, more shit being flushed into the river. Oh yeah, and a honking great hydro-electric dam! The Parvati valley is not the paradise people imagine. It's abit like going to Venice Beach and declaring that the Californian coastline is being ruined!

 

[mriko]

When I first went there, you had to walk from Manikaran, and even that was fairly new. Now there is a road. I've not been back, but I'm guessing that the road means more tourists, foreign and Indian, more TVs more garbage media, more porn, more motorized vehicles, more pollution, more shit being flushed into the river. Oh yeah, and a honking great hydro-electric dam! The Parvati valley is not the paradise people imagine. It's abit like going to Venice Beach and declaring that the Californian coastline is being ruined!

Namaskar swayambunath, welcome to ICmag !

Alas, Parvati has been ruined by charas industry and charas-related tourism. I was there in 2002, and the road has just reached Bershani. A police station has been built up there, and a road goes half-way up to Malana.
When in Tosh I was told how Parvati used to be a paradise, with peacefull people and happy life, but then came the westerners, then charas mafia and now it's all fucked up, people turning greedy & so on..

For sure, there a re billions & billiosn of plants growing all over India. But what grows in Parvati you can't compare with what grows around Thekkady, and it's also different than what you would find in Sainj valley.

again, it's something we now nothing about, so let's see what it's about before screwing things up.

Irie !

 

[swayambunath]

We agree, Mriko, but my point is that Parvati has bigger problems than douchebags introducing industrial strength skunk plants.
It is also my opinion that Parvati is not the best charas/hash in the Himalayas, and further more that charas is not the best smoke in the sub-continent, but that is of course a matter of taste!

 

[mexcurandero420]

Parvati although not strong in potency has good medicinal properties, which can not be found in most western varieties.Another point is that Parvati has a strong resistance against fungi infection, but if you ever grew a western variety bred inside for generations, gray mold will fly around like fruit flies above a basket with ripe fruit.

Keep on growing

 

[landraceslover]

Hi! What a debate!
That is good, people have to open their eyes on the lost
of biodiversity.
I don't say everything is gone but we have to be carefull
and act like Mriko says, like if it was legal, in keeping the
original caracteristics, clearly described and conserved for
future investigations.
This the diversity for our future, for our childs.
The landraces populations contains a great genetic diversity
and that all we need. We don't have to inject foreign genetics
in this naturals genepools.
If you want to mix everything with everything, please do it in
your closet and keep it for you, please.
For ex, we can see this like this :
This thread was really instructive, educative, intelligent... when
some people like nunsacred (i understand better the name) and
others comes and things changed.
Their attitude is agressive, non-constructive saying, bad vibes...
It is like if you introduce foreign genetic in a landrace population.
The stability is lost and everything is polluted.
Like in plants, one time it is introduce, it is really hard to remove.
The genetic introduce willnever disappeared.
Just for basic ex, you cross a pure afghani indica (original landrace) with a sativa plant. (the one you want).
After that, you want to remove all the sativa cause the original
indica is lost in is country and you have not save it "pure".
The genepool is fucked. You can take "5 humans life", you will never isolate pure genetics like the beginning plants.
You will have some plants which are visually the same (phenotype) but some sativa genes will always be here.
I just want you understand that is really hard to obtain the same genetics. This one is lost and with her some of his original caracteristics. Many are non visible.
Nothing is really lost but everything is transformed.
We have to meditate on this cause if not, we are going into the blandness of dutch genetics, but the world over.
Mondiale standardisation.
Don't want to teach no one but that is not what we need.
Just my point of view.

 

[Nunsacred]

Hi! What a debate!
That is good, people have to open their eyes...

...
If you want to mix everything with everything, please do it in
your closet and keep it for you, please.
....

Where can the horizon lie
when a nation hides it's organic growth (Bowie, All The Madmen)

This thread was really instructive, educative, intelligent... when
some people like nunsacred (i understand better the name) and
others comes and things changed.
Their attitude is agressive, non-constructive saying, bad vibes...

So it's excellent until someone disagrees with your simplistic opinion. I see. Well done.

It is like if you introduce foreign genetic in a landrace population.
The stability is lost and everything is polluted.

Is that how you feel about it all?
Was your homeland polluted when foreigners came over?
That must be really hard for you to take.
You should see a counsellor or something.

[

Like in plants, one time it is introduce, it is really hard to remove.
The genetic introduce willnever disappeared.

Which is exactly why it's nonsense to whinge about polluting the landrace.

I just want you understand that is really hard to obtain the same genetics.

That's already understood. I just want you to understand that
it doesn't matter in the scheme of things and if the traits don't survive hybridisation/segregation then they're on borrowed time anyway.
There's no point ordering people about in terms of what they grow.

You say we don't have to to inject foreign hybrids.
More correct to say :
"we don't have to tell other people not to, nor try to justify this on a genetic basis."

We have to meditate on this cause if not, we are going into the blandness of dutch genetics, but the world over.
Mondiale standardisation.
Don't want to teach no one but that is not what we need.
Just my point of view.

You go ahead an meditate on it.
I'd suggest instead that you try growing and breeding whatever you like and stop this tawdry moralising about how other people grow.

 

[Kalbhairav]

I've been visiting India since 1990 and have lived with locals for a number of years from some of the lower regions of the Himalayas.

Just a reminder of the vast space we're talking about here.. Parvati and Malana are a very small patch of a big area. They are renown like some areas of Mexico, Columbia etc because of a time past where one could pick up great resin. The article in the first post, as has been pointed out numerous times already in this thread, isn't news to us. Even if the gene profile has changed, and unless more hybrids are introduced constantly, then the plant will always adapt to the environment after time.

I've tried many of the different hashes on offer in India and I can say that Parvati and the offerings from that region weren't the best for me. There are regions which still have totally natural and unspoilt landrace populations. Areas that are untouched by the western hybrids we all seem so fond of...

It is a shame with the earth becoming global that these things happen but we probably have to except it as being a product of our future. Diverse culture has already started slipping away and we will all be left with an earth where everything is the same and boring! Natural differences in many things have already been lost in many countries and the environment has been ruined. This is just another example......

 

[Relentless]

you cant deprive these regions of dank.. they will search out and find hybrids eventually.. or it will be brought to them.. preservation is key.. we should all start stocking seeds of these older, less stabilized genetics..

 

[Kalbhairav]

Just to add...

There was a time not so long ago when there wouldn't of been any problem with harvesting and growing cannabis in India. In a cultural sense it was/is considered a part of religious observance (especially if your Shivite). Although there has never been reference in the scripture to smoking it, only ever consumption through ingesting orally.

In a sense it is western culture that has changed the views of Indian society (as pointed out very roughly in the Hindustan Times article). There is nothing we can do about the change that is happening but blame ourselves.

I can tell you for sure the offerings from Parvati etc have changed! As well as the area where it is grown.. Every Monsoon shows more and more destruction of the landscape through deforestation and the by product of landslides. Cultivation of cannabis on a wide scale over the past 30 years has both hindered and helped the area and I don't see it stopping any time soon.

As for the introduction of hybrids all I can say is that from an Indian local cannabis farmers perspective they think the same as us: - Why wouldn't I want to improve my farming methods and get an improved product in less time? We all use hybrids for this reason so why wouldn't they?

As I said before, there is nothing to be done.. It is their will which affects the area they live in and the products they grow. Also, I personally know the president of one Indian charity/company that is trying to get locals to grow fruit again within Fairtrade standards . This will improve the environment and land structure since replacing trees that have been lost will greatly improve the region during monsoon.

So much more I could say on the subject.. Stop rambling now..

 

[landraceslover]

I really don't want to say to people they have to grow this or this.
You have not understand what i want to explain.
I just want to say, and that's my right, that for our future, the best is to the preserve the diversity, that's all!
People, in Parvati, in Colombia, in thaïland... do what they want.
No problem but the future will come from this diversity.
But, like i see, it is really hard to speak quietly and i don't want to fight.
Do what you want people. I really, and you too, don't know where we go but i have great hope some enlighten people reassure myself. PEACE.

 

[Rinse]

nunsacred - If the people of the land genuinely want to grow import seed, Im not gonna stop em, but as far as I can see, there is no great demand neither is there an obvious benefit to growing import genetics, apart from yeild perhaps. So I think it would be more likely that cartels favour the import seed.
And people with money have more power than the average resident, as seen the world over.

We agree there is a distinct difference between the average Dutch skunk and a Himalayan landrace, taking into account terpenes and cannabinoids (in particular CBD in this case).
Well the locals use cannabis as medicine for various ailments, Im sure you can see where Im going here in relation to CBD and the Bd allele.

It would just be a shame full stop to influence the character of ancient strains.

 

[Nunsacred]

...as I can see, there is no great demand neither is there an obvious benefit to growing import genetics, apart from yeild perhaps. So I think it would be more likely that cartels favour the import seed.

So it's the cartels that this finger-wagging doomsday naysaying is aimed at?
Do you think I believe for one single second that there's no obvious benefit from import genetics?
Are you about to tell me that you only grow indigenous breeds? If so what date is your cut-off after which it's an 'import', and how did you decide that date?

We agree there is a distinct difference between the average Dutch skunk and a Himalayan landrace, .....
It would just be a shame full stop to influence the character of ancient strains.

Landraces can never gain anything positive from introgression?
Just because that incoming pollen has many unsuitable traits, nothing good can come of it?
How do you think plants evolved then?

This is a ridiculous conversation.

I've made it quite clear why I think it's pointless to worry and shameful to wag your fingers about other peoples' grows.

 

[mexcurandero420]

All depends from where the genes are coming from.Introducing genes from the same species grown in a totally different environment is not a good idea.Autoflowering genes is good for areas like Alaska, Norway etc, but would be devastating to introduce it in areas around the equator.There is no totally benefit for the farmer overthere.

Let's not forget the environmental factors like e.g. UV

Keep on growing

 

[spiralofeyes]

But how long would(for example) the autoflowering trait subsist in an equatorial latitude where it isn't "needed"? How rapidly can the superfluous/negative trait be silenced aka. bred out?That is the crux of the problem,IMO

A few generations,according to what I know. For example,Clarke says ANY drug cultivar will have diminished greatly in potency after four generations of purely natural selection in northern latitudes.