I know in vegetables and fruit, Heirloom is considered any plant that has been cultivated, consistently and unchanged (non hybridized) for a period of time. It varies as who you talk to. Some say 50 years, others say 100, and another group says “a steady strain since 1945”. Why 1945, I do not know.
It would seem to me, and what I have always heard, is that “Landrace” strains are ones that propagated naturally, with out human interference. My thought is, if you find it on a mountain in Afghanistan, where most people wouldn’t be, it probably has been there for a long time and would probably be a Landrace. I know, it’s weird, but somehow it make sense to me.
Project CBD: Well, I remember back in the day, back in the 1960s, late 1960s, when one spoke about cannabis one heard phrases like “Acapulco Gold,” “Panama Red,” yet when I go into a medical marijuana dispensary these days in California, I don’t see those strains. What happened to those great old landrace strains?
Clarke: Yeah, those would be like you say, what we call those landraces. Those were varieties maintained by local farmers in concert with the natural selective pressures of the local environment. And usually selected for a particular end use, whether it was for marijuana or for hemp seeds or hemp fiber. And those were really what the original marijuana varieties were: the imported Colombian and Mexican and Thai of the past. They were the varieties that farmers grew for themselves. Then they became items of trade. And there was never really enough of those to fill the expanding market. So, pretty soon people grew whatever they could get a hold of. They brought seeds from the USA back to production areas like Mexico or Colombia. And, then those landraces began to disappear. There weren’t farmers carefully taking care of them every year, maintaining them. There wasn’t such a selection for quality plants any more. We’ve just basically lost these over the years.
I kind of agree with Clarke. Why would the farmers continue to grow the strains they were, when they could grow the strains that were popular. they became a “cash crop” rather than a usable one. That seems to be the the thing that may have killed the “traditional” strains.
I guess I am a little to blame. When I was a kid, Many MOONS ago, all I wanted was the best high. If I knew now, then, I would be a LOT more choosey. I mean, let’s face it, 80’s weed was a good buzz, but it tasted like shit.
I am glad that there are folks trying to rebuild the lines, but we do need some group to start documenting and saving genetics.
Correct! But not because you selected and bred seeds but because someone did 1000 years ago. Cannabis has been picked up and moved through out time. It did not just pop up all over the planet someone bred it before it got found… even in Afghanistan . “Landrace” is an improper term. If you go by the original definition it’s a pig. Now people say it means something totally different which is ok but has no backing or science behind it at all. If you go by loose definition like how Clarke is saying then my sunset sherbet is a landrace also lol. It has been maintained by local farmers in concert with the natural selective pressures of the local environment:rofl:. This kinda pseudoscience is what holds back the progression of Cannabis breakthroughs. It makes a large part of the scientific community disregard cannabis studies because of a large number of false/non-scientific claims that people in our community make daily. I also believe that some terp/cannabinoid profiles have been “lost” and that we need to go do some searching to find things we have missed but we must do it in the correct way and label it how it should be labeled if it is to ever be taken seriously.
We have changed the cannabis genome over thousands of years by selective breeding and cultivation. What we consider “traditional” today is actually brand new in the grand scheme of things. People have been cultivating cannabis to fit their needs for thousands of years. we got to where we are now after all that time in a symbiotic relationship. to say that medicine was “bred out” in the last 30-40 years because of “cash cropping” is incorrect. If anything drug varieties have become more prevalent because of advances in technology/ human interaction, not the other way around.
I know it doesn’t below here but i do have Moroccan gold seeds hand picked in Morocco, trades and donations open, the founds or seeds are going back to my friend in Morocco who’s doing a haunt all around Africa
I’ve contacted all of the seed banks in the above links in hopes of finding support for our non profit research project but haven’t had much luck yet.
We’re hoping to run variety trials on the most genetically diverse strains in order to identify and adapt an open-pollinated variety to northern climates!
I’ve posted in the seed trading topic here:
If anyone can help out with a few seeds from your stash they’ll go a long way towards Cannabis research and development!
We’ll pay it forward by sending back as many seeds as we can once we’ve started seed production in 2020.
Yuuge selection (almost 100 seed companies listed, including Ace, Tropical, World, & RSC), cheap prices, cheap shipping, and they take credit cards! They also ship RSC seeds to the US, which RSC will not do.
I browsed their site, tltseeds.com, then sent them an email, to which I received a reply detailing availability and pricing regarding varieties that I’d written that were of interest.
. This kinda pseudoscience is what holds back the progression of Cannabis breakthroughs. It makes a large part of the scientific community disregard cannabis studies because of a large number of false/non-scientific claims that people in our community make daily. I also believe that some terp/cannabinoid profiles have been “lost” and that we need to go do some searching to find things we have missed but we must do it in the correct way and label it how it should be labeled if it is to ever be taken seriously.