Is Cannabis Indica a cultigen subspecies?

[zamalito]

Note: By cannabis indica I'm not refering to Cannabis Indica Lamarck which is what is commonly used by our community referring to but the modern definition which generally refers to all drug (high thc producing) cultivars.


To What Extent Did Thc Production Exist Before Human Intervention? This is an important question to ask.


Of course, noone knows for sure but this is a question I've always wondered about and would like to discuss. I believe that cannabis was first cultivated for seed for a very long time before cannabis was a noticeably psychoactive plant.

Now, we must always remember that selective breeding doesn't create any new genes. However selective breeding can create new phenotypes by creating gene combinations that had never occured previously. Selective breeding can also take a gene or mutation which only occured rarely and allow it occur with a high frequency.

Now if cannabis had been a staple food and had become revered and prized for its life sustaining properties did people then notice that primary cbd producers were medicinal or were primary thc producers the first medicinal cannabis. Of course I'm sure there are many more knowledgeable than I who would disagree with me but I theorize that in the naturally occuring cannabis gene pool before human intervention the Bt allele (Bt is the gene for the enzyme which converts the precurser cbg into thc, Bd is the gene for the Cbd producing enzyme) which codes for thc production occurred with very low frequency until after selective breeding by man for medicinal traits and that the first medicinal uses of cannabis were for reasons other than cb1 receptor stimulation (note: cb1 receptors are responsible for the psychoactive effects of thc whereas cb2 are responsible many for the non psychoactive medicinal effects of cannabinoids). Perhaps even the Bt allele was a mutation which first occurred in a cultivated line at which point its characteristics were eventually detected and propagated by man.

These circumstances are not without precedent especially among drug plants. The two species of coca including 4 very distinct subspecies cultivated because of their drug production all evolved under domesticated. The people who domesticated coca started with a completely different species with very low alkaloid production and domesticated these species to the point where they could no longer reproduce with their wild ancestors or even the populations domesticated by another indigenous group. Salvia Divinorum is another example of a species that evolved under domestication and possesses no wild ancestry.

 

[SEEDYNONO]

its possible as far as i know.. but how will we ever really know? dna analysis or something?

 

[pipeline]

I was actually thinking about this while watching some videos on hemp the past couple days..... Glad you posted it up!

Resinous trichomes have many advantages, to the plant..... UV protection, protection from insect damage, repelling animals by taste, smell, texture, or attracting animals.... I wonder if Cannabis had interactions with animals before humans which would have allowed cannabinoid synthesis pathways to be selected for....

The cannabinoid precursers must be produced as well, so are these resins just a place for the genetic variation of cannabis to interact with the environment and other organisms to piece together organic molecules that confer survivability? How much variation is possible? Guess it depends on how much time you’ve got.....

 

[LIMELIGHT]

I was actually thinking about this while watching some videos on hemp the past couple days..... Glad you posted it up!

Resinous trichomes have many advantages, to the plant..... UV protection, protection from insect damage, repelling animals by taste, smell, texture, or attracting animals.... I wonder if Cannabis had interactions with animals before humans which would have allowed cannabinoid synthesis pathways to be selected for....

The cannabinoid precursers must be produced as well, so are these resins just a place for the genetic variation of cannabis to interact with the environment and other organisms to piece together organic molecules that confer survivability? How much variation is possible? Guess it depends on how much time you’ve got.....

not to be a stickler pipe, but humans are animals, and our actions only differ to us,,,plants cant differentiate between the harm one species brings compared to another.....tiger fur cannabinoids as opposed to man hands.....feel me?

 

[zamalito]

There are some interesting theories that have been posed concerning how certain compounds produced by members of the various kingdoms allow identication within an ecosystem and facilitate subtle changes to be made allowing things to work together in a more improved manner. I good book about this is the secret life of plants. There was one technology developed in russia where they had trained plants to detect certain minerals for mining purposes. There were even a few experiments where they had trained plants to anticipate torture via pavlovian conditioning. Those russians... totally off the subject, sorry.

Anyways I don't believe pipeline was saying that plants had any intent of producing cannabinoids for man. I think what he was saying is that the mutation occured and then benefited the plant because of its desirability to humans. Maybe?

 

[Raco]

Hola Zamalito..great thread as always
Can it be considered as "evolutive success" of the cannabis plant neck and neck with the human being? sorry my poor english...I´d wish to express myself better but I can´t :smile:

 

[order 66]

FYI -- There's a fairly recent book called "Botany of Desire" that specifically addresses many of these issues in relation to cannabis and other plants

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Botany_of_Desire

 

[zamalito]

Thanks Raco, your english is still much better than my spanish, jejeje, lol

I remember mriko talking about the hunza strain he uncovered where on either one mountain or one side of a mountain drug usage was frowned upon and it was farmed for seeds and the next mountain the same strain was grown for hashish. I think that this may be a similar picture to what maybe happened when the psychoactive properties were first employed. Since, finger hash is a natural by product of seed collection it makes one wonder if the first hashish wasn't almost devoid of thc with a small amount of cbd which naturally isomerized into thc. Then when the first plant appeared was discovered that possessed the Bt allele, kaboom! the hashish produced by that plant could've been 5-20% thc as opposed to .1-1% thc from that simple mutation. This may even be the original concept behind the various hashish or ganja discovery myths i.e shiva, sheikh haidar, baba ku etc.

I really wish mriko was around. I'm sure he would inform me as to how I'm saying is right or wrong.

 

[pipeline]

Thats right.... Mutations or just genetic variability in general.... Allowing a number of different compounds to be produced and those with the right compounds, ie. strong odor, cannabinoids, flavinoids, etc.

Originally cannabinoids likely gave a survival advantage because any animal that ate the flowers would get stoned to the bone, negative reinforcement so the animal does not eat the plant again.... Sweet smell could have attracted birds to come eat the seeds and spread them around, giveing it a survival advantage....

Then we come along.... hey this smells nice, then we ingested aplant with thc/other cannabinoids, got stoned, and the plant found another way to increase survivability and habitat....

OR we cultivated hemp with little or no cannabinoids. A hemp plant which made adequate cannabinoids for an effect was found and used in further breeding.... It may have been stressed, causing higher resin/thc production, allowing it to be recognised more easily....

Humans have a history of looking for spiritual/healing/food plants and I think they found it!

 

[zamalito]

Does anyone know the process for isomerization of cbd into thc in a lab? Isn't it just a matter of heating/refluxing with an acid? If that is the case then isn't it possible that the acidity of finger oils and warmth created by rubbing charas off of one's hands could isomerize cbd into thc? If this is the case then the effects of thc could've been discovered before it was ever directly synthesized by the plant since resin would naturally accumulate on ones hands and it would be a natural reaction to rub the sticky material off and possibly eat it immediately or save it for its aromatic properties or as a wound dressing or medicine.

 

[Rosy Cheeks]

It's an interesting question Zamalito, to which we will never have a clear answer. Although, I believe you are correct when you speculate that Cannabis early history might not be what we think it is.

Man's use of Cannabis Sativa can be tracked back to the Stone age. The oldest evidence of Cannabis use is at least 6000 years old, and comes from hemp fiber cloth found in some of the oldest sites of human habitation in Asia. Most ethno-botanists agree that the plant originates from the Himalayan region, or somewhere in Central Asia. It spread over the Eurasian continent before Civilisation and the advent of agriculture. Specimens have been found by archaeologist that are 3000 to 4000 years old in Egypt. Hemp fabrics have been excavated from sites located near Ankara, Turkey, dated in the 8th Century B.C. (Schultes, 1970).

It was certainly used for it's outstanding fibres, but we know that Neolithic cultures also used it for its psychoactive qualities.

Stone age cultures in the Central Asian steppes used it in a ritual fashion at least as far back as the third millenium B.C.
In present day Romania, a burial site of the Kurgan people (3000 B.C, concidered to be proto-Indo Europeans) revealed a ritual brazier containing charred Cannabis seeds.

The excavation of Schytian tombs at Pazyryk in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia (dating from the fifth century BC) also revealed metal braziers containing charred Cannabis seeds.

The theory is that these people collected the flowers and the leaves, dried them, put them in the brazier, lit up, and got high from inhaling the fumes that rose. There is no other reasonable explanation for the charred seeds.

There are several indications in the Bible that Hebrew priests used Cannabis in a similar fashion.

Research undertaken by the Chinese scholar and biologist Hui-Lin Li ("Alkaloid-bearing Plants and their Contained Alkaloids",1970) indicates that both the technological and psychoactive uses of the plant were known to the ancient Chinese. In Chinese, hemp is referred to as "ta-ma", meaning 'great fibre'. Li also points out that in archaic times (Early Han dynasty), the character "ma" had two meanings. The first of these were 'chaotic and numerous', a reference to appearance and quantity of its fibers, the second meaning was 'numbness' or 'senselessness', a hint to its psychoactive qualities.

We can therefore conclude that Cannabis has been used both for its fibres and its psychoactive qualities since the dawn of modern man. It should be mentioned that Oxford archeologist Andrew Sherrat has suggested a new interpretation of the origin of Agriculture in the Near East (his work particularly focuses on Neolithic Jericho, one of the oldest known cities in the world). According to Sherrat, the first 'cultivated' plants in the region were possibly not cereals, but medicinal plants with psychoactive qualities, such as Mandrake, Belladonna and Henbane.

We can therefore assume, that selective breeding for both fiber crops and drug type crops have taken place, and that the sub-categories of Cannabis Sativa is the result of that process.

Many of the food crops we consume today have been altered by selective breeding to an extent that we have practically transformed them into new sub-species. Corn, potato, tomato, oat, sugar beet, bread and durum wheat, rice, and pumpkin are good examples of this. The potato plant originally contained levels of toxic glycoalkaloids that made it more or less inedible to man. The tomato plant originally grew fruits the size of cherries. These plants have been modified into excellent staple crops by man, and we can speculate that the same process have taken place with Cannabis Sativa.

It could very well be that once upon a time, Cannabis Sativa had mild psychoactive qualities that were detrrant/unpleasant, but the population at the time used it any way, for it's medicinal properties as pain killer. Then one day, someone came across an elite plant, that had a high slightly more pleasant high, and got the brilliant idea to breed it.

And that's how the Roadkill Skunk was born...

 

[Tripco]

India has longest continuous culture of Cannabis cultivation, by far longer than any other country. And they still have special people who have "special sense" for discovering and selection of best parents for next season grow (within the same landrace).
So, we might assume that all psychoactive Cannabis landraces in the world could be a product of human intervention and probably it is so.
But why would someone even try to select some plant for certain trait (in this case psychoactivity)? Defenetly 'cos that particular trait already existed in that plant.
When Arian tribes arrived to Indian subcontinent, they brought Cannabis with 'em. Being nomadic in their nature, they hadn't time to work on selection, so they used a feral Cannabis, or plants they've cultivated in some more peaceful periods of time. When they settled down, they developed culture, and voila, breeding work begun.

 

[zamalito]

The unknown origins of the rks, eh? Good post rosy.

One of the more crazy achievments of human plant breeding over hundreds of generations is that broccoli , brussel sprouts, cauliflower, collard greens, kale and kohlrabi are all the same species bred for different structural traits and for different purposes more than likely by folk who were mostly illiterate though I'm sure they took their crops very seriously devoting most of the physical and mental energies towards producing as much of and as good of a crop that they were capable of barring what was out of their control.

 

[Erin Kerrik]

If the drug and fiber strains are cultivars of a wild plant expressing neither characteristics, we should see their ancestor in the wild, yes?

Broccoli, etc was bred from Wild Cabbage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brassica_oleracea maize from Teosinte http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maize

Maybe because of it's wind-blown pollination, there are no wild varieties that do not have some of the selected allelles ...

Interesting thread.

 

[Rosy Cheeks]

I remember a thread back in time where someone asked what came first, Indica or Sativa. I believe the general concensus was that Sativa was prior, since there exists many wild-growing landrace variaties of Sativa, but the Indica sub-category is an all domesticated plant.
Although, that is certainly a simplification of Cannabis Sativa's history. Probably, ancient man discovered, used and cultivated a proto-type of Cannabis. With time, the plant evolved.
It spread through the world to different climatic and environmental regions, and adapted to these conditions. It didn't necessarily need man to spread to equatorial/tropical regions and adapt to the particular conditions that reigns there. But man has certainly interacted with the Cannabis Sativa species for at least 6000 years, and that can change a lot.
30 years ago, during archeological excavations at the mountain fortress of Masada, where Jewish rebels chose suicide over capture by Roman legions in the year 73, date seeds were found inside a jar. Radio-carbon dating showed the seeds to be some 2000 years old, placing them during or just before the Masada revolt.
Recently, the director of an experimental orchard and the NMRC cultivation site at Kibbutz Ketura in Israel, decided to try to germinate the seeds.
First she soaked the seeds in hot water to make them once again able to absorb liquids. Then she soaked them in a solution of nutrients followed by an enzymatic fertilizer made from seaweed.
A few months later, one seed germinated. That seedling now grows into a date tree that will furnish scientists valuable information on how the species have evolved over two milleniums. It is clear that the seedling is a Judean date palm, a cultivar of the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera). The cultivar was thought to have become extinct sometime around the first century A.D, but destiny proved differently.
It is still too soon to say what sex the date tree has, but it is clear that in genotype and phenotype, this date tree is very much different from modern date trees (in Israel), belived to descend from Iraqi date trees.
The point is, the genetic drift that takes place (due to human cultivation) over 2000 years in a date tree, must go much quicker in Cannabis Sativa, which is an annuary plant. We can therefore assume that man has extensively affected Cannabis Sativa's genetic properties over 6000 years.
I said it is likely that man has always interacted with Cannabis Sativa, because both Cannabis and man prefers the same climatic and environmental conditions. Reasonably warm, lush, fertile environments with good water resources. Even if it grew wild, wherever Cannabis thrived, man thrived. It is therefore reasonable to assume that man is involved in all the sub-categories of Cannabis Sativa. The cultivated strains must also have interbred with the wild growing varieties over time, affecting their evolution.

 

[zamalito]

Erin, I'm not sure what you're asking. There are wild cannabis cultivars which produce extremely small seeds with poor flavor and completely lacking the Bt allele. I don't know if they also produce poor fibers though there are definitely domesticated fiber varieties which are much more useful for fiber production than any of their wild ancestors. Another problem which complicates matters is that cannabis easily goes feral. There are many populations which possess the Bt allele that are considered to be wild. In order for what I'm saying to be correct these populations would have to instead be feral descended from a cultivated population or like you said a wild population pollinated by a cultivated one.

 

[ShroomDr]

 

[Erin Kerrik]

Erin, I'm not sure what you're asking. There are wild cannabis cultivars which produce extremely small seeds with poor flavor and completely lacking the Bt allele. I don't know if they also produce poor fibers though there are definitely domesticated fiber varieties which are much more useful for fiber production than any of their wild ancestors. Another problem which complicates matters is that cannabis easily goes feral. There are many populations which possess the Bt allele that are considered to be wild. In order for what I'm saying to be correct these populations would have to instead be feral descended from a cultivated population or like you said a wild population pollinated by a cultivated one.

Originally, I was asking if as you speculated THC production was a seldomly expressed trait before human intervention, why we don't see ancestors of the domesticated drug varieties which show no THC production.

I don't recall hearing of the Bt allele, but I understand you mean a genetically controlled trait that allows the plant to synthesize THC. Googled around and didn't find anything that seemed clear ...

If the ability to synthesize THC is dependent on this Bt allele (a particular encoding of a particular chromosome), we'd expect to see varieties that produce no THC, wouldn't we? To my understanding, all varieties produce some amount of THC and CBD ... if THC-free cannabis is a genetic possibility, industry would have certainly found it in response to restrictions on the THC content of industrial hemp.

Found while googling ... a Ukranian experiment concluding cannabinoid production is controlled across independent genes: Link

Results and discussion
Individual analyses of cannabinoid contents of the offspring allowed us to divide the populations of F2 hybrids and back crosses into groups by the level of cannabinoids (high or low) shown by one of the parents and to determine the cannabinoid phenotype ratios. Two pairs of reciprocal crossings were taken as examples of segregation and the data is given in Table 1.
In the F2 generation, a segregation of about a quarter of the plants with low CBD and THC content equal to ‘USO-45’, can be seen (Table 1). The remainder of the F2 offspring resemble either the F1 or the high cannabinoid parent ‘US-9’. In the first back cross with the parental form ‘USO-45’ (BC1), low cannabinoid content plants constitute about half of the off-spring. In the second back cross with the parental form ‘US-9’ (BC2), half of the offspring have a high cannabinoid content equal to that of ‘US-9’. The balance of plants in the back crosses resemble the F1.

Conclusions
Monohybrid segregation indicates the monogenic character of cannabinoid levels in the crossed forms of ‘USO-45’ and ‘US-9’. This could mean, that if the control of biosynthesis of the different cannabinoid components is performed by the same gene, then the real segregation of CBD and THC, would be exactly the same in all combinations of crossings. But since, as is seen from Table 1, this is not true, then it is more logical to conclude that the content of each of the cannabinoids is controlled by closely linked independent genes.
The presence of the above mentioned source of heredity of differences in cannabinoid components greatly simplifies the selection of hemp. It is now possible to quickly create varieties and hybrids, that are non-psychoactive, based on easily realized methods of selection.​

That the intervention of man has greatly increased the quantity of cannibinols iis undoutable. But given cannabis' fast adaptability, I find it likely that cultivation has greatly increased allele frequency in all strains - even where the wild populations are indigenous and not feral.

 

[zamalito]

Ok I think I get what you are asking and I believe I may have slightly confused you. . Lacking the Bt allele doesn't mean that cannabis is 100% lacking in thc. It means that is is lacking in the enzyme which most effectively converts cbg into thc. In this situation cannabis can still contain thc just in very small ammounts possibly created as a byproduct in the synthesis of other cannabinoids or as a result of other cannabinoids/compounds reacting to their environment.

This is crucial to understanding what I was saying. While resin levels most likely gradually increased through either natural or human selection as a component of the resin the presence of the Bt allele allows the thc content jump from being a minor trace component to bening a major constituent.

http://www.springerlink.com/index/P35K178864368267.pdf

 

[The Slickster]

Domestically people are able to uncover or discover what was already inherent or within the plant. Such as some very large plants like haze trees that cannot be grown in compacted spaces could be called cannabis gigantea. There are all sorts of names, and cannabis was not given the same time and attention when it came to official naming of plants and subspecies such as for other plants, even just flowers. There is the day neutral ruderalis, the Russian autoflowerer. Then cannabis chinensis the Chinese cultivar with budlets on the leaf making for the only clonable leaf if not using tissue regeneration.

Cannabis formerly being placed with the genius nettles/mulberry, has now moved into the hops/humulus category which are both considered part of the hemp family. And it is interesting that hops is what is used in the making of beer, and in itself does have calming sedative properties. Since man started naming or trying to label cannabis into scientific species and subspecies, there is no difinitive answer only debate amongst a plant that is regarded as a drug to be prohibited. So the prohibition is also a large part of the debate, more studies could definitely be done and more names issued along with possible seperate sub-species along with new ones. They "debate" over whether cannabis rasta or rastafari really is a seperate subcategory. Well that Jamaican weed is differerent and comes from a Neotropical zone so it very well should have its own name soon along with other regions following suit with many more names. While having a zippy buzz it is not necessarily like an African which grows in a Paleotropical zone and which would need another name like cannabis spontanea or culta. But with more names comes more confusion as a sativa and Indica make it simpler for people who mostly consider it all weed or cannabis.

Even though it is only 1 species with multiple subspecies, oversplitting of names eventually leads to more complications.

What would happen if you took a Deep Chunk (could be cannabis afghanica) to grow in Thailand, Mexico, or any other Sativa tropical species. And there was no other pollen to enter the equation, would it keep its overly large deep dark green fan leaves, etc? And taking a Thai into the Middle east without diluting it, will it stay with its slender leafs and stretchy structure? Surely they could both adapt, but just how much would they be able to deviate from their sub-species in order to be able to enter a new one with no cross pollination from any other plants? It is only a hypothetical question, I really don't know the answer as I have not tried it. But perhaps someone else can shed some light on it.

More names like cannabis kafiristanica, americana, mexicana, vulgaris, etc.

Here is a chemotaxonomic analysis done with preservations, but even it can only come to the conclusion that there are two species. In reality the subspecies if classified and named in the future could well run into the hundreds, from there much confusion will be at the same time created and addressed.

http://www.amjbot.org/cgi/content/full/91/6/966