Indica Percentage and It's affect on Mostly Sativa Strains

[Lolo94]

I'm curious on others' perspective/experience with regards to how much indica will have an effect in a mostly (75% +) sativa strain.
Yesterday, I tried a well cured mostly sativa cross I had created a while back and was surprised to feel the indica effects as much as I did. The cross is Swazi x (Malawi x(Nigerian Nightmare x Afghani). By my calculations, the Afghani % in the cross is 19% (Including 50% of the Nigerian Nightmare). The high started off as highly motivational (typical of the Swazi) for the 1st hour and a half, but then started trailing off and becoming heavy. For the next couple hours, the high alternated between heavy (sitting on the couch and kind of spacing out) and lightly motivational (enough to get up and do light housework). It eventually ended up just going away without taking a nap and there was no narcotic hangover this morning. I had grown the (Malawi x (Nigerian Nightmare x Afghani) several years ago and was on the fence about whether I liked it or not. It produced a light up high with no comedown and produced nice looking buds. The previous trials of this cross produced a more energetic high, that I hoped would be enhanced with a good cure. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case and I ended up getting rid of the seeds and composting the buds.
I haven't yet seen this effect on my cross of Swazi and a 2010 cut of Referman's Red Congo. That strain only has 12.5% indica.

 

[Dime]

I think it's maybe how much cbd /thc each one has that matters to balance out the effects if we overlook terpene effect,so you can't really put in sativa/indica terms because some sativas are sedative and low thc. JMO.

 

[Lolo94]

The cbd/thc ratio effect is interesting. My only experience with a high CBD strain, was with Panama Red CBD. I believe, its history is from Snowhigh to Coastal to Equilibrium Genetics. This strain produced a calming, yet still lightly motivating high without narcotic effects. It pretty much matched the description. I would classify it as pleasant, but also not really what I was after. It was labelled as being 4:1 to 2:1 CBD to THC ratio.
With the Swazi cross, neither parent had narcotic effects, and being so sativa dominant and somewhat biased against indica (based on trying many and growing a few) , my inclination is to believe that the indica was the cause for the narcotic effect. That being said over 30 years ago, I had and grew a purple Kush that was not narcotic ( not really stimulating either) but a nice happy high, with mild body effects. Hopefully, the friend I gave it to years ago still kept it. I am not eliminating other factors, just curious of others' opinions

 

[Dime]

Originally sativa was looked at as non drug and used for rope and textile and was for the most part hemp and high cbd low thc. Indica was named so because the guy who named it wanted to distinguish between drug and non drug which were growing in the same area so he chose Indica for drug as most Sativa was non drug ,Indica just means from India. I think broad leaf and narrow leaf is a better way to distinguish. The pharma companies went to India to get product to make their tinctures and named many of their tinctures as Indica. Then later hybrids were made, I believe Cannabis Americana was the result and could be grown native so they didn't have to travel so far to make a psychoactive plant/

 

[Old Piney]

Interesting topic. I produced a f1 of Durban and a legal CBD “hemp” strain .it turned out just as I expected right in the middle, pretty much like you just mixed the two flowers. F1s between two IBLs are usually very consistent. I'm wondering about your hybrid it's a bit more complicated, maybe it somehow inherited more Afghani traits . F2 hybrids can definitely express any mixture of traits from either parent

 

[kendermag]

In my opinion the percentage is not a precise indicator.

As Old Piney says, the F2 generation of a cross between a pure indica and pure sativa will show a very varied spectrum, from plants with sativa to indica traits... and all of them with 50/50 genetics.

Depending on how the crosses of the following generations are directed (F3, F4, F5...) you can have very different plants without changing this 50/50 percentage.

Or in the case of backcrosses, it does not matter how much the percentage of the recurrent parent increases, if it is not accompanied by a selection directed towards the main traits of the recurrent parent.

 

[Lolo94]

Thanks for the responses. I think it was best to eliminate this cross from my collection. I don't have the time or space to weed out this narcotic trait.

 

[Rocket Soul]

In my opinion the percentage is not a precise indicator.

As Old Piney says, the F2 generation of a cross between a pure indica and pure sativa will show a very varied spectrum, from plants with sativa to indica traits... and all of them with 50/50 genetics.

Depending on how the crosses of the following generations are directed (F3, F4, F5...) you can have very different plants without changing this 50/50 percentage.

Or in the case of backcrosses, it does not matter how much the percentage of the recurrent parent increases, if it is not accompanied by a selection directed towards the main traits of the recurrent parent.

I agree, where does those percentages come from really? My best guess is that someone smokes the weed during breeding/testing and decides how sleepy he gets. I think its all very arbitrary. Sometimes you get sativa type effect on a plant that looks like an indica and vice versa.

 

[Raco]

 

[kendermag]

I agree, where does those percentages come from really? My best guess is that someone smokes the weed during breeding/testing and decides how sleepy he gets. I think its all very arbitrary. Sometimes you get sativa type effect on a plant that looks like an indica and vice versa.

I think in theory it should be a simple mathematical calculation... that is, calculate the "mean of each part", for example:

But in practice I think it is an approximation... In my opinion, the "real percentage" itself doesn't say much, since there are dominant traits, recessive traits, quantitative traits... hybrids from unknown parents...

 

[kendermag]

I agree, where does those percentages come from really? My best guess is that someone smokes the weed during breeding/testing and decides how sleepy he gets. I think its all very arbitrary. Sometimes you get sativa type effect on a plant that looks like an indica and vice versa.

It is possible that in practice, these percentages are defined mainly based on the duration of flowering... 100% indica for short flowering, 100% sativa for very long flowering, and intermediate percentages for intermediate durations

 

[Lolo94]

I agree, where does those percentages come from really? My best guess is that someone smokes the weed during breeding/testing and decides how sleepy he gets. I think its all very arbitrary. Sometimes you get sativa type effect on a plant that looks like an indica and vice versa.

The percentages i used come from the breeders" description. Although it's difficult to prove, my hope is that reputable breeders have a good knowledge of their strains and their effects whether through their own trials or customer feedback.

 

[Rocket Soul]

The percentages i used come from the breeders" description. Although it's difficult to prove, my hope is that reputable breeders have a good knowledge of their strains and their effects whether through their own trials or customer feedback.

Yeah but how does the breeders come up with them? My guess its by looking at traits, high and such but also looking at how to market their seeds.

I think in theory it should be a simple mathematical calculation... that is, calculate the "mean of each part", for example:

View attachment 19098801

But in practice I think it is an approximation... In my opinion, the "real percentage" itself doesn't say much, since there are dominant traits, recessive traits, quantitative traits... hybrids from unknown parents...

I agree, but i also think those percentages are somewhat made up, at least at some point in the genetic tree. Some strains will have pure indica or sativa traits but anything in between is just going to be estimates and/or marketing. What would be the percentage of an indica looking plant with a sativa feeling high? Whatever sells the most seeds in the breeders opinion is my best guess.

 

[dilettante]

I think in theory it should be a simple mathematical calculation... that is, calculate the "mean of each part", for example:

View attachment 19098801

But in practice I think it is an approximation... In my opinion, the "real percentage" itself doesn't say much, since there are dominant traits, recessive traits, quantitative traits... hybrids from unknown parents...

Just a short reminder not to confuse the percentage of genes frequency in the offspring population as a whole with the percentage of genes in one individual of that generation.

Easy example: F2 generation of an XX for whatever gene crossed with xx.
You get a population of 25% XX, 50% Xx and 25% XX. When you take a plant at random that's your probability of getting Xx or XX etc.

When considering multiple generations a of selecting just a few individuals as parents the percentage calculation becomes meaningless. You might be continually adding XX yet still selecting for Xx in every step

 

[Lolo94]

Personally, I'm only interested in effect first and taste second . As long as the plants are resilient, I dont care what they look like. A good strategy has always been to eliminate any hybrid/strain with narcotic effects (unless that's what you're after).