Interesting analysis of Cannabis

[Bonsaiweed]

So my spouse and I were talking, and I come up with an interesting idea. Is THC/CBN an attractant or a repellant?

I thought at first it may be a repellant, to keep from animals eating the seeds. However, it may be an attractant to get animals to eat the seeds.

Some seeds are actually evolved to go through the digestive tract. I wonder if cannabis seeds are.

Think about it. You want to procreate, but you don't want competition. The best thing to do is have a way seeds are relocated.

Opinions? Facts??

It's just a discussion..... something to ponder after a few

I'm in a dry spell and will be for a while.....but I still ponder......

 

[golfer420]

Interesting question. I would think the answer is what happens out in the wild. Most people are very protective of their plants for fear of getting discovered, but if left in the open, do they get eaten by other animals?

While your thoughts could be accurate, I feel the THC is more of a repellent to prevent mammals from eating them. Plants that have seeds transported by hosts are usually fruit-like. I don't know that animals like deer regularly eat the buds (when the THC is strongest). Maybe the leaves when it's in veg.

 

[Bonsaiweed]

Interesting question. I would think the answer is what happens out in the wild. Most people are very protective of their plants for fear of getting discovered, but if left in the open, do they get eaten by other animals?

While your thoughts could be accurate, I feel the THC is more of a repellent to prevent mammals from eating them. Plants that have seeds transported by hosts are usually fruit-like. I don't know that animals like deer regularly eat the buds (when the THC is strongest). Maybe the leaves when it's in veg.

Never heard of a mammal eating the buds, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. Chimps or other primates could like it as much as humans (learn to like it). I'm not thinking in today's world necessarily. I was thinking of the evolutionary times.

But you are right about the fruit.

We will probably never know, but it's something to ponder.

 

[JimmyZee]

Never heard of a mammal eating the buds, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. Chimps or other primates could like it as much as humans (learn to like it). I'm not thinking in today's world necessarily. I was thinking of the evolutionary times.

But you are right about the fruit.

We will probably never know, but it's something to ponder.

My dog seems to love the yellowed leaves, he waits for me to start pinching off the old leaves & won't touch the plant when I'm not around. My buddy's dog ate a bankie when it fell out of his pocket; It was gone in seconds. So maybe its an attractant to certain types of animals?

 

[DrDoob]

I’ve read a theory that the plant evolved alongside humans and created THC to attract humans to help propagate it instead of just animals. Kind of funny, cause if true it seems like a real success since people in every part of the world grow it.

 

[Bonsaiweed]

My dog seems to love the yellowed leaves, he waits for me to start pinching off the old leaves & won't touch the plant when I'm not around. My buddy's dog ate a bankie when it fell out of his pocket; It was gone in seconds. So maybe its an attractant to certain types of animals?

That is too funny. Have to be careful around your buddies dog with the good stuff.

I’ve read a theory that the plant evolved alongside humans and created THC to attract humans to help propagate it instead of just animals. Kind of funny, cause if true it seems like a real success since people in every part of the world grow it.

I guess that explains the "burning bush" ....... That is an interesting theory. It could be as true as anything else. We can't see back in time (yet), so I can believe that is possible.

 

[TheFertilizer]

In Robert C. Clarke's book he mentions that Darwin made notes finding cannabis seeds would germinate 18-24 hours after passing through the intestines of seagulls. I'm not really sure how large that figure is compared to other seeds which are propagated like that, but seeing as cannabis is found to naturally propagate to islands, it's a good bet it got there from birds. However, that's still speculation, as Darwin was far from the first person to be on the Galapogos islands, and so other traders and sailors could have brought cannabis seeds to the island before that.

There's two possibilities in my mind... One, is that cannabis is so ubiquitous and found all the world over, and so universally desirable to humans, that we have sought it out and found it wherever we go. It may not be humans that drive cannabis' evolution, but cannabis that drives our evolution. This is what I believe, personally.

The other possibility is of one already considered, that humans are responsible for the widespread propagation. I think the nail in the coffin to this theory though, is historical records of large swaths of cannabis plants pre-date human agriculture, and in fact in China we were burning it under tents when we first got our feet wet in agriculture--that's how we discovered its intoxicating effects. So the idea that we were keeping it widespread before that, would mean it would have needed to be as a source of food, either for us or for animals, but again that would insist upon wild populations being present and used by humans before the advent of agriculture.

The fact that anandamide is a naturally occurring cannabinoid in humans nearly identical to THC, and that there are cannabinoid receptors in other mammals, also seems to indicate that mammalian life evolved alongside cannabis for millions of years before humans began the advent of agriculture. It's likely that we still helped propagate it in less than direct ways. Humans were nomads, so when they moved from one region to the next, they brought their gathered food with them--this could have been in the form of hemp seed, as even today we know hemp seed is basically a super food. So when moving from one region to the next, carrying around this hemp seed, that could have had a hand in its propagation, and meanwhile it's likely we would have fed our animals the same feed, and that animals would have found a way to take advantage of it naturally. The fact that there's these biological pathways evolved inside of us shows that we've been surviving alongside cannabis for much longer than we've been farming it, and honestly probably even longer than we've been homo sapiens.

 

[Bonsaiweed]

In Robert C. Clarke's book he mentions that Darwin made notes finding cannabis seeds would germinate 18-24 hours after passing through the intestines of seagulls. I'm not really sure how large that figure is compared to other seeds which are propagated like that, but seeing as cannabis is found to naturally propagate to islands, it's a good bet it got there from birds. However, that's still speculation, as Darwin was far from the first person to be on the Galapogos islands, and so other traders and sailors could have brought cannabis seeds to the island before that.

There's two possibilities in my mind... One, is that cannabis is so ubiquitous and found all the world over, and so universally desirable to humans, that we have sought it out and found it wherever we go. It may not be humans that drive cannabis' evolution, but cannabis that drives our evolution. This is what I believe, personally.

The other possibility is of one already considered, that humans are responsible for the widespread propagation. I think the nail in the coffin to this theory though, is historical records of large swaths of cannabis plants pre-date human agriculture, and in fact in China we were burning it under tents when we first got our feet wet in agriculture--that's how we discovered its intoxicating effects. So the idea that we were keeping it widespread before that, would mean it would have needed to be as a source of food, either for us or for animals, but again that would insist upon wild populations being present and used by humans before the advent of agriculture.

The fact that anandamide is a naturally occurring cannabinoid in humans nearly identical to THC, and that there are cannabinoid receptors in other mammals, also seems to indicate that mammalian life evolved alongside cannabis for millions of years before humans began the advent of agriculture. It's likely that we still helped propagate it in less than direct ways. Humans were nomads, so when they moved from one region to the next, they brought their gathered food with them--this could have been in the form of hemp seed, as even today we know hemp seed is basically a super food. So when moving from one region to the next, carrying around this hemp seed, that could have had a hand in its propagation, and meanwhile it's likely we would have fed our animals the same feed, and that animals would have found a way to take advantage of it naturally. The fact that there's these biological pathways evolved inside of us shows that we've been surviving alongside cannabis for much longer than we've been farming it, and honestly probably even longer than we've been homo sapiens.

That is some deep information.

I love that this thread has evolved. I was worried when it took a while to get rolling.

Thanks for sharing your opinion and information.

I don't see anything debatable..... Just good information to be available.

 

[TheFertilizer]

That is some deep information.

I love that this thread has evolved. I was worried when it took a while to get rolling.

Thanks for sharing your opinion and information.

I don't see anything debatable..... Just good information to be available.

Well I'm sure I could probably fact check a lot of it, but that's just based on what I remember. I use to watch this network back in the day called PotTV and they had a cannabis historian guy whose show I got a lot of that from. Very interesting stuff, I wonder if it's still around.