African landraces and heirloom thread

I didn’t really get much off the plants in veg. I usually don’t get really nosy on the males when they start dropping pollen because of bad allergies :sweat_smile:

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You have a weed allergy? My brother craft brews, but he self sampled so much he developed a yeast intolerance and now he can’t even drink it🤣

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That’s got to be rough for a brewer. Like a chef losing his taste buds or Musician losing their hearing.

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Yeah devastation is the word, his worst nightmare lol… so much so that he’s constantly trying to breed strains of yeast that don’t make him sick! I think there’s a lesson there somewhere kids🤣

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Necessity drives innovation in an interesting way, like the universe guides us in its own unique way. Best to you and yours, hoping he’s able to reacquaint himself with the fondness of experience he remembers and/or he’s able to discover and innovative a new fondness in his brewing endeavors. Much love

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Thats dedication. I hope he strikes gold and creates a yeast for the yeast intolerant.
Maybe yeast created from earlier civilizations grain/hops could possibly yield some interesting results.
I only mention this because people with gluten intolerances can eat pasta from Maynard Keenan’s Osteria in Arizona due to his choice of grain that is low Yeilding/ less complex to digest.

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That is super cool, I’m glad people like that exist in the world.

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the crazy thing is that old Strains dont usually yeald thaaaaat few…
they just yeald 1/3 less.

but the most crazy thing is, that the modern Strains contain less Nutrients per Weight.
And guess how much less Nutrients? up to 1/3rd less nutrients .
hahaha, its actually not funny , but better laugh then cry
(this is just what i heard tho…)
Also, im not against modern breeding, its more a Regulatory problem, whera monunto guys push forward…

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Its funny you say this because I just rubbed the stem of the ACE Ethiopian highland female outside and it had developed more of an orange citrus rind aroma, but I think I may be allergic to a terpene in it, started sneezing after. No reaction to the male though.

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Anyone here grow out Kilimanjaro? I smoked it years ago. It would be cool to grow it out.

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A friend grew out a plant from the World of Seeds selection, had electric lemon aroma if I’m remembering correctly but not as complex as other landrace aromatics. It ended up being a favorite of his cousin when he grew it indoors. Wasn’t as much of a fan of it since the plant felt much like a modern hybrid THC cultivar with a small amount of THCV, had a fairly anxious headspace for me.

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I remember I enjoyed the flavor, the lemony aroma sounds about right. Very zesty. I would look to grow it out for a nostalgic smoke.

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With respect to traditional curing techniques used in Africa I came across this from Cannabis in Africa by Du Toit published in 1980.

16.4 Curing and Preparation for Selling

This final step by the grower before selling or consuming his cannabis is perhaps the most dependant in his skill at producing top grade cannabis. The desired product, insangu ebomvu, or “red dagga,” is the highest quality cannabis and fetches the highest prices on the market. In order to create insangu ebomvu from the fresh plants the leaves must be dried and cured with great care. Says one informant: “The leaves are stored in properly floored pits where they dry in the shade. The top of the pit is covered making sure that water does not enter to spoil the product yet leaving room for ingoing and outgoing air to ensure that moisture escaping from the leaves does not result in mold which would ruin the leaves.”

After harvesting, the cannabis is stored in pressed mealie bags and kept in a dry place far from the village…

Mr. Gasa varies the process somewhat: “Dagga clusters are reaped and dried on top of huts or roofs of houses until all the green stuff is out. It is then sprinkled with water and packed in air tight bags in which it is kept for six to eight weeks. It can thereafter be cut into pieces and smoked.” In some cases the clusters are shaken after drying so that the seeds fall off.

Finally, Mr. Gasa explained the recipe for ukuvundisa which literary means to make rich. “The cut branches and leaves are put in bags that are tightly closed and this is done to allow very little air in. From time to time the bags are opened and the dagga leaves are spread on the ground when there is sunshine. This dries the dagga and produces good quality insangu ebomvu.”

What none of these gentlemen mention is that it takes a knowledgeable eye and sure hands to cure cannabis in this eat without mold forming or the plants drying improperly.

I’m conclusion, we present Mr. Bhekami Zulu’s explanation of how he and his sugar cane laboring friends grow… cannabis on their employer’s sugar cane plantation.

On reaping: After four months it is ready to use. We pull them up from the roots, drop them and go off in another direction as if forgetting about them. After three weeks they are ready.

On curing: The seeds are almost loose because as we pick them they are already falling. We bang them on the rocks until most of the seeds have fallen off, and put them into paper bags. Now comes the job of removing the leaves which are ready for consumption.

Also of note it mentions

Mr. Mthiyane says that he only picks the bud but that most people cut the stem vertically through the center so that the plant lies down on the ground. Then the leaves are picked off after the plant has dried some in the sun. The grower then picks the branches and leaves off the main stem when he harvests his crop.

Fascinating anthropology. Hope others enjoy the quoted text. Much love

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So the term ukuvundisa stood out as it seemed to be the best of the best from what was written about in the text and while the author translated the word as meaning “to make rich” it seemed that there was more to be discovered about that term as it relates to cannabis.

Wanting to know more I Googled it and it seems that it’s a word of Xhosa origin which is a Nguni language, a Bantu subgroup of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family.

Some interesting correlations with the usage of that word, ukuvundisa, and how it seemingly applies to fermentation. For example, from The South African Trilingual Wine Industry Dictionary, ukuvundisa kwisitya esinye is a supposed direct translation for the phrase batch fermentation while ukuvundisela ebhotileni translates to bottle aging. If the term ukuvundisa was being used with association to cannabis I think it’s quite likely to think fermentation played a significant role when being described in such context.

Hot, humid, long sundried, bagged tight with a little moisture reintroduced to set things off perhaps. One thing is quite likely, it was all seemingly done without the use of modern technology. It was a product of the environment both literally and figuratively. From the most basic of resources.

I think it’s as much the genetics being grown too, being able to express as such. I’ve heard stories about the wacky weed. The fits of uncontrolled laughter. I’ve only experienced that twice from weed, both times were Kali Mist and it wasn’t cob cured or sundried on a Tanzanian roof or anything like that. Did I leave the bag in the car on a hot day? Did it ferment and produce unique esters? No clue but we could not stop laughing. Some of the most memorable weed I’ve ever smoked and enjoyed. Has anyone else has weed that gave them and everyone else the giggles? It’s something else! Much love

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Yeah, when I was 16 and did bong rips for the first time, we were like 4-5 people hotboxing a tent at a festival. I laughed so much I couldn’t breathe, I thought I was gonna die :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
I’m not sure what cultivar that was… something lemon…
I remember it was very hot those days and my friend keeping the bag on him the whole time, could be that it was fermented a bit too.
I think it has to do with some kinda fungi…

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But what years do you speak of @Rogue ? PS reason I ask is pre 80s was a lot of super giggly weed

That was 2002 or 2003.
It might be purely genetic though, who knows…

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My guess would be that the microbial molecular reactions from various sweat ferments done pre 80s (cob, thai stick, brick, hash, others) that were used to cure cannabis in wetter tropical regions and make cannabis into something more compact that could be more easily transported, combined with more diverse cannabinoid expression in the gene pool (less hybridized/bottlenecked landrace genetics) produced cannabinoid reaction / oxidation products with strong/unique activity at cannabinoid receptors. Microbial isomerization / cyclization in a manner of speaking.

I am admittedly not very good at canabis sweat ferments, but I do remember pressing rosin from already cured Purp that I had cob cured for one week, and it had a distinctly psychedelic giggly effect. One of the biggest issues with sweat curing in my experience is the oxidation and CBN formation from aerobic microbes as soon as it hits air, so this halted the process and prevented additional sedation from setting in.

Honey kombucha, milk kefir, and mold/yeast/bacteria rice wine cultures are also capable of making similar changes to the chemical composition of cannabis, at least from my experience, for edible use. There are differences based on the capabilities of the microbial culture, but often will make it clear, more psychedelic, more euphoric, sillier, more creative. But I also had a cob ferment of a CBD strain that induced immense feelings of impending doom so cannabinoid starting content and whether the bud is fresh or cured makes a difference.

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I remember leaving a bag with some Menage A Trios from MOD, an old school SeedsDirect freebie, in the car on a hot summers day. No joke it forever made the interior of that car smell like weed. Not fruity weed, not, citrus. It was specifically that dank weed smell.
Especially on hot days. It’s like the heat made it more intense and no joke I looked everywhere in that car for weed or a joint or a blunt that I thought must have gotten lost behind the seats or somewhere because why else does it so often smell like dank weed. I’m sure it was because that day the MOD Menage A Trios variety got inadvertently “baked” in the hot summer sun. People would get in my car and straight up be like it smells like weed in here all the time, even when I didn’t have any weed. Looking back, connecting the dots it’s likely that my habits would have been to leave weed in the car more often before I understood more, or at least before I thought I understood more, about the various volatile organic compounds and secondary metabolites in cannabis. These days I’m all glass jars and try to keep it out of the heat. If I go surfing I bring my little jar down to the beach and hide it under the shade somewhere so it’s not in the hot stuffy car on a summer day baking away. Back when, it was usual for me to leave my weed in the car and in a plastic bag.

Interesting stuff. I’m pretty sure I’d inadvertently “baked” a bunch of weed that way, but only that one permanently turned my cars interior into a dank weed smell and another gave us the giggles. I think some genetics grown in select hot and humid environments develop something on their surface that when drying and curing facilitates these reactions. Fermentations or whatever other reactions are taking place on the multifaceted and complexly contoured surface structure that makes up the flowers. This is my current guess/hypothesis. We live in symbiosis with bacteria. Appreciate the space to converse and share these thoughts that otherwise stir in my head alone. Hope everyone is having a wonderful day. Much love

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This is fantastic research, good job!

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