Skunk in ACE's genetics

[Lebanizer]

A question for dubi , if you find the time to answer I'd be grateful.

First, I want to say I love what ACE has accomplished and has a lot of respect for your philosophy and your work.

Until recently I had never bothered to click on the rainbow circle that appears on some strain description which points to the phylos project. When I did, I was very surprised to see skunk listed in some genetics. Now if we bear in mind that Skunk is 25% Afghan and 75% South American (50% Mexican + 25% Columbian), in some cases there's nothing shocking about seeing skunk genetics being reported. For instance, in South American strains such as Panama, Honduras or even Tikal, it makes total sense as we can expect Panama, Honduras and Guatemala to be close to Columbian and therefore to overlap with skunk genetic markers. In the case of Tikal we can even add the Kush element in relation to the Afghan part of the skunk genetic. Again nothing shocking here.

For other strains however this is much more surprising. In particular, in the case of Malawi and China Yunnan (and Orient Express) or Bangi Haze (Congo x Nepal), it is quite confusing to find skunk genetics reported as one would expect them to be completely unrelated. Do you knwo how such an overlap could happen ?

Again I'm not trying to stir controversy at all but some results are very surprising.

In any case, thanks for any light you can shed on those surprising readings.

 

[CannaRed]

Those group names mean nothing. They had to start somewhere. They should have just labeled the groups A, b, c, d, etc. When they first started analyzing, some of the skunks started grouping together. As the sampling size got larger and larger the group names no longer really make sense.
pretend the group names are a label and nothing else

 

[sallyforthDeleted member 75382]

I find the skunk in Landrace from Africa like Malawi a bit strange. Then again some mixing way back may of happened. Skunk has been around for many decades.

 

[vinrusso]

Remember the original "Skunk" that Sam came out with was mostly Sativa..so what does Phylos consider Skunk?

 

[nono_fr]

Hello,

Khalifat Genetics cross the Moroccan weed " Beldia " with Skunk to have more THC I guess : this is the Desert Skunk .

Desert Skunk= Landrace + Skunk -> https://khalifagenetics.com/product/desert-skunk/ ( the description explains the cross )



I speak about Khalifat Genetics because this is ACE / Khalifat topics

Have a nice run !

 

[MAHA KALA]

broad leaf genetics was present in South America long before Skunkman created skunk(grown there by american pharmaceutical companies) and varieties like panama red or colombian gold were not pure sativas even in 70s.

 

[FletchF.Fletch]

The tests do not differentiate between progenitors and descendants. As far as I know, they are not testing anything similar to Mitochondrial Division to show origin age, and determine which came first or gave rise to subsequent populations etc. Skunk was mapped early so anything measured afterwards that could represent distant parental lineages, instead shows as having Skunk in its genetics as if everything descended from Hybrids that were created from Landrace genetics.

Cannabis genetic history could only be clearly represented and shown as a 3 Dimensional Time Line, not possible to reveal the connections on a Flat Map.

 

[goingrey]

It is an interesting question for sure. Some people do claim "pure" landraces have become all but extinct because of so much influence from hybrids during the last 40 years. How much have ACE parental lines been influenced at their respective sources?

What I can say about the mentioned strains is that they are quite different from Skunk #1. China Yunnan is a much smaller (more "Indica") plant, Malawi is stronger, and Bangi Haze has a totally different kind of high. So being closely related seems unlikely, even if the Phylos profile would suggest that.

 

[Lebanizer]

I did the following graphic (as attachment) for the sake of comparision by taking screenshots of various strains and pasting them close to one another. I don't really know what to make of it other than to agree with what some of you have said as to the dubious meaning of the "skunk" marker(s).

Some of it really makes no sense, notably :

• one skunk#1 barely has any skunk in it,
• one NL5 is almost completely skunk,
• one Pakistan landrace is almost completely skunk as well,
• one Neville's Haze is seen as almost a pure landrace (wtf ???).

Even more interestingly a Michoacan x Columbia x Afghan cross is listed as "only" having ~40% skunk while you'd expect it to have much higher "skunk" in it since it's close to Skunk original lineage. The more I look the less I understand .

 

[Cactus Squatter]

Because… Phylos is a joke.
It’s a great basic idea that is so poorly executed that it is completely useless as anything other than a use of server space and time wasting.
It creates more confusion than it clears up and it’ll only get worse as time goes on.

As stated above Phylos doesn’t distinguish between progenitor and descendent plants which is a massive issue to it actually being a useful tool.

 

[Lebanizer]

I find the skunk in Landrace from Africa like Malawi a bit strange.

That was the weirdest one to me too !

 

[Lebanizer]

Remember the original "Skunk" that Sam came out with was mostly Sativa..so what does Phylos consider Skunk?

That is I guess the biggest question. It seems to be the key to try and make any sense from their data.

 

[flylowgethigh]

Madjag talks about when he bought his skunk seeds from RCC in his blog. Why are the genetics so different?

https://madjag.com/rccs-excellent-adventure/#rcc-adventure

 

[Lebanizer]

Because… Phylos is a joke.
It’s a great basic idea that is so poorly executed that it is completely useless as anything other than a use of server space and time wasting.
It creates more confusion than it clears up and it’ll only get worse as time goes on.

As stated above Phylos doesn’t distinguish between progenitor and descendent plants which is a massive issue to it actually being a useful tool.

That sums it up then .

 

[Cactus Squatter]

That sums it up then .

…or something.

Every time I look at Phylos it’s just so disappointing to think of what it could have been vs what it is.

 

[Lebanizer]

I share that PoV Cactus Squatter !

 

[Cactus Squatter]

Madjag talks about when he bought his skunk seeds from RCC in his blog. Why are the genetics so different?

https://madjag.com/rccs-excellent-adventure/#rcc-adventure

On a side note, I helped clean all of the irrigation tubing out of the canyon that I believe was Madjags.

 

[dubi]

Hi Lebanizer don't worry, it's a very valid and interesting question. Feel free to ask anything if it's done in a respectful way and it's related to our work.

I will try to explain how Phylos came out with these groups. It's not that the Phylos workers sat down to subjectively discuss this and then they came out with these number of groups and with this classification criteria. An algorithm was used for that. The algorithm used was developed based on mathematics and not on biased subjective criterias (Phylos published the algorithm used, so you can find the science behind it, although it requires degree knowledge on maths and statistics). The algorithm goes through massive amount of genetic raw info and markers from the different samples to find (based on frequencies) patterns and blocks of genetic info that repeat more often than others. The outcome will be different groups (and probably many underlying, not so evident genetic links too).

But the accuracy of the outcome of the algorithm depends also a lot on the authenticity and diversity of the samples provided to make the study, and although Phylos counted with many great landrace samples from respected sources, their analyzed population was too much flooded with North American poly hybrids of very complex linage, which are not the best source to make a proper taxonomy that covers well all type of cannabis found on Earth, since USA modern commercial genepool is highly heterozygous and highly related at the same time (yes, what a mess! Most are cookies hybrids), so they don't help to understand well the very diverse cannabis expressions found in original landraces.
In the case of Phylos cannabis study, the algorithm came out with these 6 groups, you can call them: A, B, C, D, etc .... Of course letters are not very respresentative terms, that's why (based on other observable traits that are well known from the samples, whether they are growing traits, flowering traits, chemotypes, etc ....) Phylos tried to put more representative names to these 6 groups.

Phylos orange CBD group covers mostly Cannatonic family and their hybrids. It's very good to find relatives of Cannatonic family, but not so good to classify properly other CBD rich lines non related to Cannatonic. In my opinion, to name a group as CBD would require that all the plants labeled as such are always CBD rich, maybe identifying the genetic markers that activate CBD synthase. Also, Cannatonic contains a lot of Skunk and Afghani, so to name a group based on this family will later create problems.

Phylos OG Kush blue group seems to be heavily linked to modern-highly refined THC-rich US Afghani hybrids such as OG, Bubba, and to (a lesser extent) to Afghani landraces.

Phylos purple Berry group seems related to DJ blue lines, but also to (a lesser extent) to Afghani landraces.

Phylos green Landrace group imo represents really well the domesticated psychoactive THC rich traditional sativa landraces.

Phylos yellow Hemp group covers wild and traditional hemp populations, along with traditional sativa landraces, and even Afghani traditional landraces, but with very mixed results. Also, what definition of hemp does Phylos use ? Because since the CBD revoltion hemp means something very different nowadays.

Finally their most polemic group, the red Skunk one, which seems to cover both Central-South American traditional landraces, but also many traits that many smokers link to modern strains post Skunk revolution in the 80s, whether they are similar terp profiles, flower structures, effects, etc ... to Skunk or skunky strains.

I think Phylos study was a very interesting project with quite valuable outcome. On 'grosso modo' works decently, but don't take each and every report as the Bible.
Some results are really accurate and interesting, other samples show mixed,and even contradicting results.
For example, those who have grown our Malawi in depth will clearly state it does not contain Skunk, neither is Skunky.

Also, take my observations as such, my observations, i have never inside Phylos to know all the details so i'm far to be able to explain everything they did with the Galaxy project.

 

[Lebanizer]

Hi Dubi,

First of all, thank you for taking the time to address my interrogations.

Second, your answer really confirms what @Cactus Squatter has been saying, namely that phyllos is a great idea poorly executued. I believe we can all agree on that.

Thanks for clearing up the confusion between CBD vs Hemp ("CBD" really means "catatonic"descendents).

<sarcasm>As for skunk, really i think in Phyllos' parlance, it just means "cannabis" </sarcasm>