Spanish breeders that are preserving the landraces

[oldchuck]

I don't think you can take the "land" out of landrace.

As I understand it, a landrace variety depends not only on the genetics but also on the environment which subtly alters the genetics over time.

Right now I am participating in a small wheat breeding effort to re-adapt certain wheat landraces to new environments. It simply involves open pollinated heirloom varieties adapted to a new location over several generations. It's a mixed bag of genetics learning how to thrive in a new environment.

You can't just stick an African landrace in a grow box and expect it to remain a landrace.

 

[red rider]

True

True

I don't think you can take the "land" out of landrace.

As I understand it, a landrace variety depends not only on the genetics but also on the environment which subtly alters the genetics over time.

Right now I am participating in a small wheat breeding effort to re-adapt certain wheat landraces to new environments. It simply involves open pollinated heirloom varieties adapted to a new location over several generations. It's a mixed bag of genetics learning how to thrive in a new environment.

You can't just stick an African landrace in a grow box and expect it to remain a landrace.

This is a fact

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

It is well documented that the wide variety of long cultivated strains of cannabis and their associated cannabis cultures are disappearing. The existing samples of "landraces" that are preserved in gardens, grow rooms and seed collections are what we have to work with of this "original" stock. The unique genetic make-up of these sample populations are reproducible, but irreplaceable once lost.

The genetic uniqueness of these sample populations makes them invaluable for developing new hybrid lines. Once they're lost you can't go back. Without these "original" lines, breeders must work with already blended populations that offer less uniqueness. You can philosophize all you want, but there is a worldwide effort among horticulturalists to preserve the unique genetic makeup of early indigenous cultivars before they become lost to the industrial/agricultural revolution. It is recognized that the genetic makeup of these "heirloom" varieties provide an irreplaceable genetic resource for future breeding efforts.

 

[charlie garcia]

You can philosophize all you want, but there is a worldwide effort among horticulturalists to preserve the unique genetic makeup of early indigenous cultivars before they become lost to the industrial/agricultural revolution. It is recognized that the genetic makeup of these "heirloom" varieties provide an irreplaceable genetic resource for future breeding efforts.

Its what surprised me most in this activity since the beginning, the lack of interest in preserving. When I started I asked every seed company for the mexicans or colombians and recieved just vague responses. Well if you are a seed bank, I though this should a intersting area of preservations and developments. But fact is I was late to best golds, I was late to best thais, etc. Whats still surprising me is how little we have learnt since then and is now classic hybrids which are getting lost not only best landraces .

A clone cant be a representation of a whole variety, sounds obvious but often is only individual left of some hybrids. And is where we are. Hush asked for how common certain lines or similar cuts can be used when trying to breed with a landrace. To find a suitable landrace individual for outbreeding is not that easy, challenge is to be as good or perform as well as commercial stock selected for decades. And in a most female market, landraces add a extra sex risk to the pot due its natural behaviour often

In another side there are fantastic hybris on sale, quick, potent and high yielding. Is natural they catch most interest, to work from landraces is marginal activity in fact, more if sativas, obvious. Anyway I see more interest in other countries for landraces than in Spain. Here they are used just for making new taller autos

Randy you are a cultured guy. I understad you well and agree myself too but most seeds sold this year here in spanish shops were auto fems for instance. Young ppl know critical mass and thats all, is a fact. You can breed for yourself using your best criterias you think but is people demand at the end which makes it worthy or not as market is free

best
kaiki

 

[Chomba64]

Peace charlie. We are doing our best with preservation here on the coast.

 

[harry74]

Its what surprised me most in this activity since the beginning, the lack of interest in preserving. When I started I asked every seed company for the mexicans or colombians and recieved just vague responses. Well if you are a seed bank, I though this should a intersting area of preservations and developments. But fact is I was late to best golds, I was late to best thais, etc. Whats still surprising me is how little we have learnt since then and is now classic hybrids which are getting lost not only best landraces .

A clone cant be a representation of a whole variety, sounds obvious but often is only individual left of some hybrids. And is where we are. Hush asked for how common certain lines or similar cuts can be used when trying to breed with a landrace. To find a suitable landrace individual for outbreeding is not that easy, challenge is to be as good or perform as well as commercial stock selected for decades. And in a most female market, landraces add a extra sex risk to the pot due its natural behaviour often

In another side there are fantastic hybris on sale, quick, potent and high yielding. Is natural they catch most interest, to work from landraces is marginal activity in fact, more if sativas, obvious. Anyway I see more interest in other countries for landraces than in Spain. Here they are used just for making new taller autos

Randy you are a cultured guy. I understad you well and agree myself too but most seeds sold this year here in spanish shops were auto fems for instance. Young ppl know critical mass and thats all, is a fact. You can breed for yourself using your best criterias you think but is people demand at the end which makes it worthy or not as market is free

best
kaiki

Hello:
I do agree with you that nowadays most spanish companies are doing Little breeding work, I would say the mentality over the last years has been "take the money and run".
It looks like besides the "housing bubble",we have a "canna bubble" too.
Sincé 2005, we have seen seedbanks sprouting like mushrooms in spring, but the Prices people are paying are exactly the same....fucking expensive.
I would like to make you a couple of questions with the due respect:
It´s a landrace better,just because it´s a landrace?
I mean, all comercial strains come from landraces and the combination of landraces makes better plants.
Let´s say White Widow... If we have to believe the legends,it´s made of a south indian indica landrace and a brazilian sativa.
It looks like you don´t like autos or work with autos.
¿Why do you put the name of your company into bags of soil that are sold like "special soil for autos"???
Nice day

 

[charlie garcia]

It´s a landrace better,just because it´s a landrace?

that makes not sense

It looks like you don´t like autos or work with autos.
my opinion is just that, my opinion, who cares It seems they are getting better and better as more job/time put into their breeding

¿Why do you put the name of your company into bags of soil that are sold like "special soil for autos"???
Nice day

I had soils, nutes and still have some nutrient since the beginning more than a decade ago... for all plants, not ones I like or not Autos in regular soils can contain too much food and not optimal nutes balanced for such a short life.

Landraces have the importance you want to give them yourself when looking from commercial marihuana side, used to be origin of modern hybrids, but today is most romanticism, curiosity or masoquism. Anyhow for me has worked like a personal "humble scale r+d" at same time.

So they are for breeders or other ppl interested in making different things or have different highs. Not many fans for so many and obvious reasons. As smoker is just logical you look for best potent hybrid and I guess you would enjoy much more as should taste better and more intense, should yield better, shorter time etc etc and as farmers do. And in this sense some spanish companies have been releasing succesful and good hybrids in Spain too.

When I read ppl try to confrontate in our country most "landraces breeders" vs "hybrids breeders" makes not sense at all and throw us in an extreme position I at least dont share at all, is a different way you choose as personal option but you dont have to be against anyone for just not sharing their opinions, thats all, you can make great or poor jobs in any scenario. And regular, fems or auto could coexit, why not, problem should arrive only when/if this is monopolized or reduced to a few world producers like Monsanto or so and due people get only industry propaganda and not have in near future regular seeds for making own stocks or hybrids, they can be losing part of the cake in the future, not me. Maybe I take some things too seriously, dont know and it shouldnt bother me. Is not gonna be me

my opinion is just that, my opinion Harry
Peace
best


best

 

[harry74]

Hello Charlie:
Best of lucks with your breeding work
http://www.cannaweed.com/topic/67321-topic-unique-cannabiogen/page__st__40

Destroyer of post#50 looks real winner
¡You should have that photo in your webpage man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It´s one of the best threads I´ve seen about your strains,really nice photos.
My french isn´t very good but I think the grower says he had few nanners in late flowering, quite usual when thai genetics are involved I think.
Happy weekend.

Pd: Ya se que no es lo mismo torear, que ver los toros desde la barrera

 

[satva]

Destroyer of post#50 looks like a real winner
Looks like a hippy chick from the early 1970's, beautiful, wild and freaky.

"Bend me, shape me, anyway you want to, long as you love me - its alright"

Hopefully, Colorado's new marijuana stores will sell this Destoyer pheno.

 

[MrSterling]

You can philosophize all you want, but there is a worldwide effort among horticulturalists to preserve the unique genetic makeup of early indigenous cultivars before they become lost to the industrial/agricultural revolution. It is recognized that the genetic makeup of these "heirloom" varieties provide an irreplaceable genetic resource for future breeding efforts.

Sorry but this is almost all philosophizing and empty talk. It's all empty talk. You're making statements about "early indeginous cultivars", although that's so vague as to not be pindownable in meaning, and referencing two revolutions two and one hundred years old that don't have any real relevance to cannabis, and while it sounds really romantic and poetic we're really just jerking off, aren't we? Legal plants have had a hard enough time being conserved, but prohibition makes this job arduous at best. How many of us ever even have an opportunity to see a landrace variety of cannabis in the wild, let alone smuggle seeds across international borders and then consider the numbers needed to fairly represent it.

I think we spend too much time worrying about varieties we'll never acquire or landraces we'll never see because it's this social glue for a lot of members. We should get back to the realities of what we *can* accomplish instead of pissing in the wind with lofty talk about saving something most of us only ever read about.

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

I make a point of choosing my words carefully. I don't think my post was meaningless. This thread has a number of statements questioning the meaning of "landrace", including yours that a pack of seeds isn't a legitimate representation of a landrace. Well if that pack of seeds is all we've got then that's all we've got to work with. That's the situation we find ourselves in. To get my point across, I purposefully chose phrases such as, "long cultivated strains", ""original" stock", "sample populations", "early indigenous cultivars", and "heirloom varieties" to avoid the word games played around the meaning of "landrace".

I can see how you arrived at your interpretation of my phrase "the industrial/agricultural revolution", but I truly doubt that anyone else read this and thought of coal powered iron smelters in old England. Looking up the phrase "agricultural revolution" I see that it refers to the invention of the plow. My bad! I was thinking of the Green Revolution. Maybe I should have used the phrase "modern large scale mechanized agriculture", but once again I suspect that everybody else who read my post understood what I was getting at. Note that the word "the" in "the industrial/agricultural revolution" indicates that I intended the phrase to refer to a singular event. "Revolution" is not plural.

I've had a hard time understanding what point you're trying to make in this thread and why.

I have no intention of joining you in "jerking off". My statements refer very clearly to the value of samples of landraces with their unique genetic makeup, for breeding. There's no romanticizing whatsoever in what I said.

Perhaps our first priority shouldn't be to preserve purebred old lines, which is timely and difficult under prohibition, but to make sure those genetics remain in the larger gene pool by outcrossing older threatened land races.

Crossing a beagle to an afghan would be preserving the genetics. It just wouldn't be preserved in a "purebred" form which is just a human construct.

Outcrossing samples of a landrace to preserve the genes is like hiding a needle in a haystack for safekeeping. Yeah the genes are still there but now it's harder to access the ones you want.

Everything I said about the value of landraces was in reference to breeding. No romantics involved there at all.

Why do I buy them? I want those seeds archived in my refrigerator. Maybe I will want those genes some time in the future for breeding and I'd better get them now while I can. But I have no qualms to admitting to the romantic notion of wanting to taste again some varieties from my misspent youth. And I want to taste those classic strains that I never had the opportunity to sample before. And a big part of it is that I've found that I prefer smoking bud that isn't part Afghani and makes me stupid till I fall asleep. So much tastes of Northern Lights.

I do love me some hybrids. I'm not a purist in that regard. It's real nice having great smoke that's been bred to grow well in a closet. It's ridiculous that I even feel the need to make that statement here.




edit; What I said here was not done in a kind way. Mr. Sterling is gone now from I.C., and my feeling is that the harshness of my words were greatly responsible. I'd always found his posts worth reading. Sometimes we're tired or too buzzed or in a mood and the consequences play out from there. I could have shown more consideration, as well as been more aware of my own state of being before posting this comment. Once the electrons fly it is out of one's hands but the hurt can continue to manifest. I'm very sorry guy. Very sorry.

 

[charlie garcia]

Problem with landraces seems to always be the word "preservation", so maybe just picking up several kilos of original seeds from the field as farmers do seeded crops for their own supply every certain runs and freeze them. And thats all
best

 

[Chomba64]

It would be nice picking up several kilos of original seeds. I am happy and fortunate to find a small sack to work with. When the opportunity arises I acquire all I can. Peace

 

[Betterhaff]

Its what surprised me most in this activity since the beginning, the lack of interest in preserving. When I started I asked every seed company for the mexicans or colombians and recieved just vague responses. Well if you are a seed bank, I though this should a intersting area of preservations and developments. But fact is I was late to best golds, I was late to best thais, etc. Whats still surprising me is how little we have learnt since then and is now classic hybrids which are getting lost not only best landraces .

^^This^^

 

[mexcurandero420]

Landraces are still around but in countries of origin, people want to have some of those newer hybrids which are faster in flowering than the old landraces or gangs involved in cultivation like in Mexico who puts the old varieties to the background for new varieties .

It's good that there is some form of preservation, but in most countries is hard to continue thnx to drug policies.It would be good when you have some more companies like Ace, RSC, Cannabiogen, Astur Jaya etc like you have with the veggie/fruit heirloom companies.

Keep on growing

 

[Sirius seeds]

Problem with landraces seems to always be the word "preservation", so maybe just picking up several kilos of original seeds from the field as farmers do seeded crops for their own supply every certain runs and freeze them. And thats all
best

or we can clean up these landraces before slowly inbred them with small group of choosen plants, use them in different crosses and keep an original batch of cleaned OP seeds in the freezer as you wrote.

 

[Jon 54]

Hi
Most spanish commercial scenario comes from bulk seeds from few mega seed producers, same for everyone
About landraces, I know of a very very very few who have ever grown and worked with landraces and do own work. I do in CBG and as I did for ACE seeds too since the beginning (Oldtimer haze, Panama, PCK, Nepaljam, Bangihaze, Congo,etc)... but I felt quite alone really.

I cant still find any shared landrace here and mostly come from friends, own travels, and so. I dont know if ACE seeds preserves any landraces or not, maybe Tropical Seeds, Undergrounds seeds collective (swisss/french) or Original Delicatessen (italian) do own works. Nepalese Highland came as stocks exchange with Reeferman. I worked 5 generations here upon my criterias. Am still working on Mexicans, Columbians, Guatemalans, Panamams, old Hazes, pakistan Chitral Kush, Uzbekistan, and so and have shared already in the past some of these works done, be under CBG or under ACE releases. I think Mandala are german ppl, Zamal cut came from Gerrit, Malawi cut come from another spanish guy and so on. So there is not really a job based on landraces or own work here and in fact I have recieved lots of bad names in some spanish forums for being independent and not eat of others plate I guess

There are still some good landrace names but if we pay attention only to names...poor job. Not many high quality landraces left, young colombians cant find reds and so or dont know really about their own older classic lines, mexican sativas are almost disspeared for new squat indica dwarfs kushies under usa tastes demand, Sam mentioned several times poor stage of afghani genetics after so large war, etc

There are still few guys caring of some LMN genetics left behind

Other spanish commercial banks here talk about fertile fields in pakistan and own i+d for their autos and crosses...PCK right away into the makeup, although not even mention something so obvious but seems to me, I can be wrong for sure, lots of crosses are done with this same PCK from CBG

best
kaiki

It's great to hear from you Kaiki!!! Been awhile, how's it growing?? Jon

 

[scai]

All breeding projects should have a set goal, and I don't think "preserve Oaxacan Gold" counts as it doesn't sum up any real qualities, just a name. If you asked most smokers and growers what qualities they're trying to preserve by preserving an IBL or a landrace I think you'll see lots of feet being shuffled. People are looking to save names instead of qualities, and I think it's misguided.

The cultivar game is playing itself out too far from the center, if that makes any sense. Things have gotten too "meta" although that's a real misuse of the term. I think the worst thing we could have happen is end up with a bunch of "landraces" based off two or three initial parents, which is what happens when landraces get "rescued" and some small time private breeder manages to make a couple hundred packs of seeds. I have "Malawi Gold" from Afropips in my ark, same as some Maui Waui from Mr.GreenGenes, but I'm not under any impression I have a representation of a landrace. What I have is a small initial representation of that landrace. There's no other way to do it that I can see, but it does feel inaccurate to say "This is what Malawi Gold is like" when you know your holdings comes from a genetic bottleneck. I just see so much more positive potential in looking for stellar plants outcrossing those genetics, after all mutts are usually healthier than purebreds.

Had to read this few times to understand.
I see no harm in preserving landraces....what ever they are.
They are still one genepool (or mix of it), weather they are originals or just species or phenos adapted to special growing place.
Yes doing them pure erases some of the genepool, but if it is like hermies, is that such a bad thing?
I fully understand the lack of enthusiasm from seedbanks to sell all what they gather from wild...would be bad reputation in one year....
And if people do a whole lifes work with them like Kaiki, I'm honoured to be able to buy them.Cos I know I have best of the genepool that he was able to work with.
It beyond reasonable to expect that Kaiki could have preserved ALL Oaxaca in this world.
Instead of blaming him from something, shouldn't we just look how WE buy things and could WE even do more, like go to see if there is any Oaxaca in the wilds anymore.
It's cheap to blame people who do the best they can, and not tobring table what we all could do more? Solution perhaps?
(Kaiki is just an example, we blame many more seedbanks too, cos they don't fill our dreams)

But that preserving as whole.

I think we should be bit worried as preserving even more than landraces?
There is some good hybrids that I have personally liked, like Papaya or Misty.
They are hot now, but can you find them after five years? Trends come and go too fast...
There are some good hybrids (not those my examples perhaps) that need to be preserved, not to loose their genepool too?

 

[homebrew420]

I am working with what I have. Any landrace I grow with will always get "op" open pollinated. The real selction begins with this next gen of plants. There is much work to be done with these breeds. All the while a great deal of plants need to be grown to fine the "one" select pheno. This is far more work than 90+% of growers are willing to deal with. Cant blame them. Who the hell wants to use all available space to grow out a BIG maybe, not to mention extended flower times on many wild varieties.
I have and will be working a # of landrace seed,
Thai
Malawi
Mazar-I-sharif
Pck, selected
Panama
Jamaican, Caribbean for certain, collected
I will never see them all of course but we do the best we can for preserving them as we recieved them.
It was mentioned earlier, ibl/op/heirloom varieties are not always the best. Or rather they are often bland and mediocre.
We know that info, as thorough as possible, needs to be given on offered seed stock.
Where, when, context for collecting/recieving. People want to know this.

Thank ChalieGarcia for giving us real info as to seed stock origins. Very helpful. And great work by you and CBG and Ace. Thank you for your hard work. Generations to come will look back and wax nostalgic about the preservation pioneers helped save many varieties used in all modern hybrids.

Peace

 

[charlie garcia]

It's great to hear from you Kaiki!!! Been awhile, how's it growing?? Jon

all fine Jon, thx, how are you? were you able you visit your friends back in Cali? best vibes

Scai I can agree with most of Mr Sterling words but, lets use common sense and lets be humble and realistic with our words and practices. In other side if we dont care about genetics, who is going to care? police? Monsanto? a seedbank? And that includes everything, not just pure (if any pure line left), landraces or best hybrids. As much I grow older, as much I see how things move and change too fast nowdays, we all know. I see autoflowerig lines been mixed with regular lines in Colombia as auto arrive as fem only and ppl want to make their own seeds too for next crop with whatever male they can find around. Dont think this is going to be positive in short term but is marketing, businnes and common practice today. If makes money is good, thats unique criteria.

Not need to thank me for doing what I liked homebrew420 (thx anyway), respect to any other position. If so is me who should thank all good ppl around and friends who trusted and helped me sharing interesting seeds with me for long. Wish I made them justice, Ive shared all lines collected too, wish they are interesting and useful for others, thats all

best amigos
kaiki