Original source seeds from the 70's: Yes I have some

[Big Sur]

Just harvested the first of my Maui Waui yesterday. I walked into the drying room at the back of my house this morning, and Wowie! I was hit by this delicious smell of drying Maui colas. I cannot nail down the exact terpene profile, but it is very fruity and it smells fantastic. I keep walking back there to get another nasal high from this stuff. It is truly an elixir for the sinuses. Mr GreenGenes' Cherry Bomb terpene profile is said to be: "A pungent, mouth-watering blend of dank pineapple and tropically-sweet scents; with subtle earthy undertones." OK, I get the pineapple in there and the fruit. Swami says, "Metallic and sweet cherry and wood smell and taste" I get the cherry in there (I love cherries), but no metallic. I can see why they sell "medical terpenes' with this profile. Just the smell alone is addictive. I cannot wait to smoke the dried bud.

 

[Van Stank]

Just curious, do you think if you crossed a proper Durban pheno with a GDP and back crossed it back to the same Durban it might be a little more to your liking? Perhaps making it 75% Durban and 25% would give more dominance to the Durban that we love. Its actually one of the crosses I was planning on playing around with a bit.

I Have been doing a lot of mixing of strains when I smoke lately. Really becoming a fan of taking a little of this and bit of that and getting a nice combined high from the two. I have some Northern Lights thats great for sleep but it doesn't shut down the brain. I have some really nice Hindu Kush that doesn't put me to sleep but it shuts the brain off. Together those two are some serious night time gold! Been doing it with the Durban and Alaska Thunderfuck too. I love the energy from the Durban combined with the pain killing power of the ATF.....good shit. I crossed em but haven't grown em out yet. A couple people have and love it.

 

[Big Sur]

Just curious, do you think if you crossed a proper Durban pheno with a GDP and back crossed it back to the same Durban it might be a little more to your liking? Perhaps making it 75% Durban and 25% would give more dominance to the Durban that we love. Its actually one of the crosses I was planning on playing around with a bit.

I Have been doing a lot of mixing of strains when I smoke lately. Really becoming a fan of taking a little of this and bit of that and getting a nice combined high from the two. I have some Northern Lights thats great for sleep but it doesn't shut down the brain. I have some really nice Hindu Kush that doesn't put me to sleep but it shuts the brain off. Together those two are some serious night time gold! Been doing it with the Durban and Alaska Thunderfuck too. I love the energy from the Durban combined with the pain killing power of the ATF.....good shit. I crossed em but haven't grown em out yet. A couple people have and love it.

Hard to say what would come of a Durban x GDP + back x Durban. I have yet to create the same results from genetic crossing compared to smoking mixed bowls of weed strains. Most Durban here is not a landrace, it is the Dutch skunk cross. For that reason, here at least the Cherry Pie that they sell as a cut reeks more than any other, according to a gal at one dispensary here. She said she grew it on her farm way out in the boonies, and still had to use a charcoal filter to suppress the smell. I have have grown real GDP here and it reeked a lot. I could smell it all the way across my property when it was blooming in a GH. I crossed a landrace Durban with a Grape Ape (Skunk x Mendo Purps x Afghan) and it is blooming now. It looks like a Durban landrace pheno. Dunno what the high will be like yet. It is a later finishing like the landrace Durbans. It may have a geat combo high to it. We shall see very soon.

If you want a good lights out weed strain, try GDP. GDP and Grape Ape are fairly unstable strains though, so they pop various phenos/chemos these days from all the self and IBL crosses. I had a cut of original GDP a few years ago and it is susceptible to PM, but spraying mineral or Neem oil 1:100 mix rate keeps that in check. It is great for sex (enhances the sensation and focus) and it also puts me to sleep. So sex with the GF before bed, and then pass out weed. Sadly I let that cut go because of the PM (my mistake), but I have a stash of dried bud still. It also has the "fake" grape soda taste, which read GDP has. I got another cut of GDP in trade last year and she is blooming now, but I think it is more like Grape Ape. The former GDP that I grew had purple calyxes and finished later than this second GDP cut. This GDP cut has no purple in it at all. It is from seeds from Ken Estes though. So who knows. It may have the fake grape taste and knock me out. Or it may be like my Grape Ape cut which has a terrific high to it, but does not knock me out at all. Likely because this Grape Ape cut is low on odor, and thus lacks myrcene. Rather unstable chemotypes. Phylos Galaxy lists both common Grape Ape strains (one is my cross, the other is a cut of GDP) as unstable and highly variable, and GDP as having the highest genetic variation possible. So breeding with these strains is crap shoot.

 

[Big Sur]

So I was reading this post online:

Landrace Strains: These 12 Types Of Marijuana Started Everything

These 12 Types Of Marijuana Started Everything

But... he does not list 12 strains that started everything, and only has an incomplete list of 10 landraces. Go figure. They are:

• Thai: Sativa from Thailand.
• Panama Red: Sativa from Panama.
• Hindu Kush: Indica from the Kush Mountain range on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
• Afghani: Indica from the Afghan area.
• Durban Poison: Sativa from Durban area of South Africa.
• Punto Rojo – Sativa from Columbia.
• Acapulco Gold – Sativa from Mexico.
• Lamb’s Bread – Sativa from Jamaica.
• Malawi – Sativa from Malawi, Africa.
• Luang Prabang – Sativa from Laos.

I cannot say that I agree with this 'missing 2 strains' list for anything useful. Panama Red was more common in NorCal in the early 1970s, but faded out and was replaced mainly by the closely related bricked lowland Colombian Punta Roja (not to be confused with the superior Punto Rojo). Punta Roja will put you under the table every time and is not racy at all like Punto Rojo is. I would not make any distinction between Afghani and Hindu Kush either. Durban Poison is also more likely an heirloom. Also current Laos strains were mainly derived from Thai genetics, and moved across the border after the VN War ended and Thailand cracked down on growing weed. Also like Panama Red, Acapulco Gold was around before 1975, but became drown out by other (and often times better) Mexican weed from Oaxaca, Michoacan, and Guerrero. This list is also missing some key landrace strains, like Oaxacan, and Brazilian, and most notably, Kerala ganja and Colombian Gold. He does not even list any strains from India. WTF? And only Punto Rojo from Colombia?

My list of the 12 basic genetic powerhouse landrace strains, from most influential to less influential include:

1) Colombian Gold (from the east highlands around Santa Marta)
2) Thai (the earlier skinny 'Thai sticks' from the Golden Triangle)
3) SW highland Mexican varieties (a swath of landraces from Oaxaca, Michoacan and Guerrero)
4) Kerala and South India ganja
5) Afghani-Pakistani indica (the classic that was made into hashish for eons)
6) Punta Roja (the lowland Colombian Red, includes Panama Red)
7) Punto Rojo (from the eastern slopes of the western mountains in Colombia)
8) Lambs Bread/Lambs Breath (from Jamaica mon!)
9) Brazilian (Amazonian sativas, including Manga Rosa)
10) East Mediterranean "indica" hash plants (really sativa landraces from Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt made into hashish)
11) Durban Poison (from South Africa before the Swazi genetics took over)
12) North India sativas, like Malana Cream

Runners up include (consider these all tied for the 12th spot): Cambodian Red, Malawi Gold, Congo (African Black Magic), Zacatecas Purple (Big Sur Holy), Korean (Romulan), Moroccan, Greek Kalamata, the Hawaiian heirlooms (Kona Gold and Maui Waui), Azad-Kashmere, Zamal, Colombian Green (from the west coast), Swazi Gold, Mangobitche (from Colombia, exactly where is not known), VietNam Black, Giant Nepalese, Colombian Black (Wacky Weed), Kilimanjaro, Purple Highland Laotian, and likely some others that I have forgotten. And do not forget Ruderalis, the wild landrace that gave us auto flowering. Where do I put that on this list?

Note that I list the indicas farther down the list, as they were not prevalent in breeding outside of IBL in their native areas until the "Hippie Trail" people brought seeds back from Asia. Until the later 1970s, the only 'weed' we got from there and North Africa (mainly Morocco) was in the form of hashish. Now hashish was lovely stuff, but it was made from landraces and not breeding stock. Hashish also lacked seeds. Most all early breeding stock came from bag weed seeds, and most bag weed was sativa from Thailand, Mexico, India, other parts of SE Asia, Colombia and to a lesser extent Jamaica, South Africa, The Congo and Brazil. I never saw any Malawi weed back in the day, or Brazilian. I add Brazilian as it was used to make White Widow (and later Black Widow by Scott/AKA: Shantibaba -bowing to the master breeder-).

 

[Graytail]

I have to say, Sur, that I like your list better.

I'd be less discriminate about the central and south American strains ... not so sure the genetics differ much between high and lowland Lumbos, Panamas and Brazilians. Have we determined if cannabis was ever indigenous to the Americas? If not, then it came with the European explorers as sail hemp seed, and drifted genetically into high THC stands. All of it would have had limited and similar genetic material. Same thing with the coast of the Indian Ocean. In those cases, the Indian mountain strains would have been separated for a very long time and could be considered as entirely different. They would have drifted westward into Paki and Afghan, etc. The Syrian hash strains have started to interest me a lot, especially since the recent availability of genuine landrace hash genetics. It seems they would have been kept separate from the others. Come to think of it, that would mean Morocco and other Mediterranean strains are probably similar to Syrian.

To me, there are maybe a half dozen regions where cannabis has existed for a very long time and was isolated enough to have distinct genetics.

But as far as the building blocks of the present strains, yep, that's whatever was available - Thai, various Colombians, various Mexicans, and "Afghan" (probably not a specific region or strain). Were there truly Hawaiian strains or were they merely Thai crosses? I don't think I ever had African weed, but they had some great hash back then. Whatever was special about Lambsbreath appears to have been bred out of existence, but I can see how that may have remained separate for a few hundred years.

I have to spend some time on the Galaxy again one day soon. I assume the samples keep coming in. One of these days, we'll be able to track how it spread around the world, and be able to separate what's derivative and what's distinct.

 

[Big Sur]

Sorry, but there is a HUGE difference between various Mexican landraces by region, Brazilian landraces by region, and Colombian landraces by region. I have the seeds to prove it. Most consider plants grown in a particular area for 100 years or more as a landrace. The Spanish brought hemp to the new world as early as 1500, recorded as being grown in New Spain and Chile. I am not sure when the Portuguese brought hemp to Brazil, but it was over 300 years ago. Colombia is more of a mystery as to when hemp was introduced there, but hemp production was in high gear during WWII around Santa Marta. Some records for marijuana in Colombia (particularly Colombian Gold) go back to the revolution there in 1810. So marijuana is at least 200 years old in Colombia.

I have had this argument with many people over the years. I was booted off of Overgrow because people are convinced that there was only one landrace in Mexico. Not so. Zacatecas Purple has nothing in common with Acapulco Gold, which has little in common with minty Oaxacan strains. They grow different, bloom different, they look different, they have different highs, different terpenes, and different cannabinoids. Acapulco Gold has little in common with several other Guerrero strains from the same state. Colombia is thought to have had about 20 distinct land races of Cannabis, and I have at least a half dozen of them. I have grown three: Colombian Gold, Colombian Green, and Colombian Black. Vastly different. Also back in the day (and how I got exposed to various land races), a my buddy of mine that was stationed in Saigon in the Army sent his wife a box made of teak. Inside it had compartments with different types of the best weed and hashish from SE Asia. Thai weed on sticks, several Cambodian strains, including the best elusive Red (my favorite), several strains of VietNam weed, Laotian, Burmese, several South India strains of ganja and Kerala, and Nepalese temple balls and Nepalese finger hash from Nepal. We got high like you cannot believe on that stuff. He said he got it all on the streets of Saigon. SE Asia is and always was rampant with trade, especially on the black market.

Cannabis has the ability to adapt rapidly by gene switching, just like humans do. For example, if your father or grandfather was exposed to famine and low food intake during their younger life, you are likely to live longer. This is because a gene is switched on in men if they are exposed to long periods of hunger. Cannabis has similar genetic switches, and this is why Cannabis adapts and changes so rapidly in any new environment. They do not evolve that fast, they just switch on and off genes. This has been recorded as early as the late 1700s in Kentucky by farmers growing European strains of hemp. Rapid decline in quality in Cannabis has been seen growing hemp fiber, seed/oil, and flowers. Generally any Cannabis strain that is grown someplace else will adapt within 4 generations of seed. For that reason I do only one LARGE seed run of any landrace strain and I freeze the seeds. They will not adapt in one generation, and they will generally grow true to form with little pheno/chemo variation. Which brings up another issue for me in the landrace argument. If Cannabis can adapt that fast to local environments, it will be come a landrace far faster than 100 years/cycles.

 

[Big Sur]

As for some specifics in land races and heirlooms that I know something about: Hawaiian weed is what I consider as heirlooms and they had three different main sources of strains grown there. On what is now called the Big Island, Kona Gold was a localized strain derived from Colombian Gold from the Santa Marta region of Colombia. They have always know that there. At least we did back in the 1970s. Maui is a bit more complicated. When my brother was living there, he said that most of the local cane field grown Maui was from Thai genetics. Which makes sense. Thai sticks were common in NorCal in the 1970s and they were easy to transport by the US military stationed in East Asia. Also during that time lot of Mexican weed was sent to Maui by the likes of myself. I used to send the better weed samples that I got to my brother living in Wailuku in 1977/78. At that time I was getting premium manicured sinsemillia bud from Morelos, Mexico for insanely cheap prices. There were a few seeds in that stuff (which I still have in my collection listed above). Also if you look at the history of Maui Waui Cherry Bomb '79 by Mr GreenGenes, it is a cross of BOEL Oaxacan and Afghan. So Maui Waui was generally either Thai or Mexican based. I smoked a lot of various Maui weed strains. Some was good, some was so-so. A dishwasher at one restaurant that I worked at traded me Maui for Big Sur local stuff. My room mate brought back some Kona Gold hash on one trip and that was the best hash I have ever smoked. Bar none!

As for the local Big Sur grown weed, as a result of the Paraquat spraying of large scale Mexican weed fields by the DEA in the 1970s, three things happened. One is that Colombia became the dominant source of imported weed into NorCal. It was heavily seeded and mostly bricked lowland (Punta Roja). Second is that the hippies that imported Mexican weed went into the hills of the inland states on the plateau and grew the best high grade weed that they could. Third is that we started growing weed locally in NorCal. But the bag weed seed land race strains were an issue for us. Colombian strains bloomed way too long and late, well into the rainy season which starts about now (in mid October) in Northern California. So most grew SW Mexican strains that bloomed and finished earlier. They had also been growing Big Sur Holy from Zacatecas seeds in Big Sur since the late 1960s. But Zac Purple blooms pretty late compared to SW Mexican strains. But for a few years there between about 1978 and 1982 they grew a lot of Mexican land race strains in Big Sur, and some Punto Rojo (red hair) in places like Carmel Valley and the Santa Cruz mountains. They also grew it as seedless or semi-seedless Sinsemilia, which in itself was way ahead of seeded imported bag weed. The seeds were heavy. Looking back, the seeds were priceless. But like baseball cards being valuable now from the 1960s, that is only because everyone tossed them out! Seeds were considered worthless. I collected them, but few if anyone else seems to have done that.

A few people grew Anfgan strains early on, but in general they were to harsh to smoke as weed (which is one reason that they made it into hash). They then started cross breeding the Afghans with the Colombian and Mexican landraces, and the rest is legend. For example, SAGE was a cross of Big Sur Holy and Afghan. Skunk was a cross of Colombian Gold and/or Acapulco Gold and Afghan. Contrary to popular belief, there were several original breeders of Skunk in NorCal, and skunkweed was fairly common around there then. AND IT WAS CHEAP! I blame the High Times rag for ruining a great thing we had going locally with cheap $60-$80 an ounce sinsemilia. After High Times started publishing the local prices for weed in their rag, people in suits strated showing up from the East Coast with briefcases full of money and the price skyrocketed. It all became known as 'lawyer weed'. So I strated growing my own... again. After that some large scale local grows were busted, and large scale growing and breeding basically moved north from Central Coastal California to what would become the Emerald Triangle. Others in the NorCal area went to Holland and took the available local genetic seed stock with them. The Santa Cruz and Big Sur mountain areas continued to grow weed through. Once medical weed became legal in California in the 1990s Santa Cruz became a breeding center again and some top shelf strains like Blue Dream and GDP came out of there. Mendocino, Dutch and PNW genetics were all blended and pumped into new strains that are common now. Of late those crosses have all be re-crossed, and crossed with all the land races. We seem to have one giant mutt now, Northen-Blue-Skunky-OG-Grape-Widow-Afghan-Kush-Whatever all rolled into one.

 

[Graytail]

No, I simply meant that the variety in Mexico and Colombian strains likely came from adaptation to the environment, rather than different source genetics, although there isn't anything necessarily similar about hemp seed.

For instance, there probably wouldn't have been many indica strains brought to the Americas. Sativas make longer fibers and grow bigger in a season.

When I talk genetics, I'm thinking of the pre-hippie days before everything got mixed together.

You have the advantage of sampling all this stuff before it got polluted.

 

[Big Sur]

When I talk genetics, I'm thinking of the pre-hippie days before everything got mixed together.

You have the advantage of sampling all this stuff before it got polluted.

The genetics did not get polluted until after the hippie days. The pollution started at the beginning of the yuppie and lawyer weed days. In the hippie days, everything was land race bag weed wih seeds or hashish, with some rare exceptions like Ganja which was typically seedless and gooey as all fuk. An example: Big Sur Holy was grown and kept as an IBL strain of Zac Purple, and grown with males and females producing seeded weed, which was typical growing method in most places then. Only after the book, Sinsemillia came out around 1977 did people realize that they could cull the males and get these huge flowers from the females. Even though I have books that talk about culling males and growing sinsemilia from the 1960s, it was not common practice. Nor was growing what was called "home grown", which for the most part was bunk because people did not know how to grow good weed then. We were in the experimental stage then. One exception to that was when I was at a party in Los Angeles in Laurel Canyon in the early 1980s. A black guy handed me a joint of his home grown. One hit and I was out. That was from seeds in a bag of African weed that he had gotten. African weed was popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but it was always expensive stuff. Now it is called African Black Magic from the Congo. One restaurant that I was the chef at in Monterey... the gay and very eccentric owner would leave us African roaches on the fume hood in the kitchen that he smoked before going home at night. So we would come in and light them up in the morning. We got high at work all the time there. The dishwasher there used to bring in fresh Maui Wowie from the cane fields. I always had an assortment of weed then.

 

[Big Sur]

No, I simply meant that the variety in Mexico and Colombian strains likely came from adaptation to the environment, rather than different source genetics, although there isn't anything necessarily similar about hemp seed.

For instance, there probably wouldn't have been many indica strains brought to the Americas. Sativas make longer fibers and grow bigger in a season.

Actually if you look at modern Cannabis genetics, hemp stains are a lot closer to indica genetics than sativas. Its counter intuitive. Also Mexican sativa strains are more closely linked to South India sativa genetics. Some have postulated (incorrectly IMO) that Mexican strains came from India through Africa. However, if you look at the old world trade routes after the Pope split the world between Spain and Portugal, trading was done from Mexico mainly with Chile and Spain along the South America and Atlantic routes, and with The Philippines across the Pacific. Also Spain enslaved native American Indians rather than import African slaves early on. So there were no early ties from Mexico to Africa. Nor was there any Panama Canal. Old Spanish records show "Manila Hemp" as the source of their hemp stock grown in the new world. One has to assume that South Indian Cannabis strains had been traded into The Philippines by the 15th century and then were routed to Chile and Mexico by 1525 or so.

In the 16th century, the Portuguese controlled South Asia, Africa and eastern South America. It is easy to see that African and Brazilian strains came from India and SE Asia through the Portuguese trading routes. At least that is a reasonable hypothesis. Also looking at Colombian Gold genetics, they are more closely linked to Thai. So the South and central American land race Cannabis strains have variable sourced genetics through variable routes. Early North American colonists brought hemp with them from Europe when they settled here in the states, but those strains are all of European hemp stock and genetics. Growing flowers for getting high was not really common in the British North American Colonies, though it was rumored that George Washington grew hemp and smoked the flowers to relive his pain from wearing wooden teeth. That is what a US History teacher taught me in the 11th grade anyway. Since the Panama Canal was not built until the early 20th century, that would explain why Colombian genetics are so varied, as they would have been seeded east and west from different trade routes and sources. The same genetic origin source differences are likely between western Mexico and the Caribbean. Though in the end they may both wind up being "of Indian origin."

 

[Big Sur]

BYW, after some thought about this for some years now, my map of the original Eurasian-African Cannabis strains are as follows: North of the Himalayas, C. ruderalis grows from Mongolia west through southern Siberia and into eastern Europe. Big swath that, and it is already aptly named. East of the Himalayas I would dub the original 'sub-species' as C. sativa Chinensis, growing in China, the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, and out as far as Saipan in the Pacific. Then in SE Asia I would call it C. sativa Siamese, growing in what was Siam, including Thailand, Burma/Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, VietNam and Indonesia. Then moving west into south India, I would call it C. sativa Surindica, which includes the south Indian ganja and Kerala strains. Then moving north along the Himalayas from Nepal to Kashmir and into southern Tibet, I would call it C. sativa Norindica. From there moving west from Azad-Kashmir out through Pakistan and Afghanistan, and through the stepps of Asia including many other -stan nations, I would call it C. sativa Afghanii. Then west of that from Turkey northwest to Greece and south through Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and across North Africa to Morocco, I would call it C. sativa Mediteranii. For me the current indica and sativa split is stupid, like the marijuana and hemp split is stupid. It is one plant, one species, and all the groups above I would classify as sub-species. Maybe with the exception of the species C. ruderalis, and the rest which I would classify as subspecies of the species C. sativa.

 

[Graytail]

Thanks for all that, Sur!

I've been mulling over the same things without actually doing the research. I had forgotten, for instance, how vast the seagoing explorations and trading were. I had postulated the route from SE Asia along the shorelines to Africa, but I was thinking in earlier times, when they stayed close to the coasts. By the 1500s they were rounding the Cape on a regular basis. It also hadn't occurred to me that much of the trade would go through Mexico, and what that meant for Pacific vs Atlantic trading.

You've obviously looked into it more than I have, but I would agreed wholeheartedly that the sativa/indica poles don't make genetic sense. And with my own eyes, in my own garden, I have witnessed epigenetics in action. I saw a plant totally change its habit in the soil I use. It gradually went from a squat fat-leafed plant to a thin-leafed sativa looking plant as it grew, and its clone was thin-leafed from the start. I'm guessing it was hydro bred, and changed when it grew in the HB organic soil.

I also spent 8 years growing Colombians in a barn. We started with 80 bagseeds, took cuts of all the females, and culled them down to a half dozen or so after a few years. So I had a chance to see the variety just one stand can produce. This was from 1982-1990. It seemed like it was landrace - no foreign genetics. I know that indicas weren't available out here in the boonies during the 80s, so I didn't think they'd been introduced to the commercial fields in Colombia. They all had the energetic Colombian high, and I think we must have gotten some seeds from a bag of true Gold, because we had a couple phenos that were in a different league from the rest.

We could have a fun discussion about your strain divisions. I see many of the same routes as you do, but I'm not sure that I would consider as many distinct types as you do. As a migration history I like it, but for the same reason I'm suspicious of the sativa/indica, I wonder if there are that many different kinds. I think of it more in terms of the original genetics, and then its environment. In hot dry climates, the very same cannabis will grow differently than it will in hot humid climates. And if you leave it alone for a few hundred years, the same identical genetics will look like two completely different strains. So I really like your migration routes, but I wonder how much of it is simply epigenetics. One could argue that it's just one strain. It might be correct to separate them at points in time, instead. Before the silk road, and before deep sea sailing, there would have been a certain number of fairly distinct types of cannabis, but by the 1600s they would have been mixed and blended to a degree.

I'm at the point now that I consider habit for my growing convenience, but it's the terps and the cannabinoid blend I'm after. I'm operating on the assumption that terps will change with soil and environment, but that the cannabinoid profile doesn't. So I'm looking to sample the purest of the distinct strains that I can find, or at least be able to identify the Durban influence for instance. Perhaps I'm wrong on that. Do you happen to know? The Galaxy has been an eye-opener, and I don't mean the mistaken genetics. It's things like the very close and consistent genetic matches between Thai and Colombian Gold that interest me. And I like being able to see the genetic diversity too. Some strains are very unlike any others.

I'll have to think about the trading routes some more. I was stuck in regional terms - hadn't considered that they brought different hemp strains to the Americas from different parts of the world, and distributed them to different, or even the same, regions of a country.

 

[Big Sur]

I look at the global trading routes after the Pope split the world between Spain and Portugal to avoid the first real world war. The Treaty of Tordesillas was signed in 1494, and a second Treaty of Zaragoza to divide the Pacific side of the world was signed in 1529 by Spain and Portugal. This map shows the treaty lines, major trade routes and territories held by both global superpowers in the 1500s through the 1600s. These were the first major global-spanning trade routes to have existed. So this is likely where, when and how the vital resource hemp would have first migrated into the new world and possibly South and West Africa (though there may have been earlier Cannabis migrations to those parts of Africa). Cannabis is a sneaky plant. They induced humans early after the end of the last ice age to spread them worldwide!

 

[Big Sur]

As for different strains, species or sub-species as I list them, I see only two main divisions in the genus Cannabis. One is between ruderalis and the rest, as ruderalis does not show photo triggered flowering and the others all do. The other is between CBD producing types and non-CBD producing types. You could divide these into hemp and marijuana as the DEA does, but genetic history does not see it the way. Geneticists say that Cannabis was able to produce THC first, and then a later mutation of Cannabis created CBD. CBD is not restricted to hemp strains though, and many hemp strains are low in or have no CBD. Where or when that happened is not known. CBD production seems to be in all strains now though. Other than that I see Cannabis as being one species, and hence that is why I list them as sub-species. At the top I have two species, Cannabis ruderalis and Cannabis sativa. Then the sub-species, or cultivars under the species sativa. I split north and south India because the Malana plants are so different than Kerala. North Indian may be the same as Chinensis. I have no experience growing Chinese or Korean strains though. Similarly the Siamese plants are older and different, Thai being the classic example. They bloom different. That shows up in modern Colombian Gold genetics. What is called indica is what I call Afghanii, for several reasons, one being that it was really a plant from Afghanistan that they mis-idnetified as being from India (actually in what is now Pakistan). They have fat leaves, a recessive trait, and they bloom differently. The Mediterranean strains seem to be a hybrid of Anghanii and one of the Indian or Siamese strains. The Lebanese land races still show both phenotypes. Many say that Greek Kalamata was brought there from Thailand in Alexander The Great times, so the east Mediterranean strains may stem from as far back as 2,000 years ago.

So I look at the global spread of Cannabis from several perspectives. One from new genetic information. Another is from the old traditional trading routes and written history. Another is from the chemotype and phenotypes seen in these plants.

 

[Big Sur]

And before the global trade routes, there were Eurasian trade routes. This one dates back about 3,000 years to Greek and Roman times. It also includes the overland Silk Road which lasted from about 200 BC to 1500 or so.

 

[Big Sur]

And there were the Indian Ocean trading routes that date way back as well. These rely on the monsoons for when you could travel best in which direction.

 

[Big Sur]

Before these times, the early use of Cannabis in agriculture for making clothes, medicine and for food dates back at least 10,000 years. The Chinese recorded Cannabis as an analgesic about 2,000 years ago. The Scythians recorded using Cannabis in their steam baths 2,500 years ago to 'feel good'. The Assyrians recorded using Cannabis for getting high as far back as 3,000 years ago. Hindu texts record Cannabis as being a source of joy and used in medicine date back 4,000 years. Cannabis seeds were listed as a food source in China dating as far back as 6,000 years ago. Also between 7,000 to 5,000 years ago hemp fabric was a staple in the Yellow River Valley of China. The oldest known evidence of Cannabis being used for making cloth dates back to over 10,000 years ago in Taiwan. So weed was in Asia, Northeast Africa and Southeastern Europe long ago, and likely the early and later trade routes stirred up the genetics and strains. Starting in the 1960s, the weed boom did a lot more to stir up the genetics with rampant black market trading worldwide. I had the world at my doorstep in NorCal in the 1970s. The weed and hash came to me from all over the world wrapped in plastic baggies. All I had to do was whip out my wallet and trade them for some paper notes.

 

[Graytail]

Fantastic stuff - thank you!

It's been a couple years since I looked into it, but I think CBD production must be a dominant trait. If you explore the lineage of CBD crosses, most of the offspring gain CBD.

And I think there's an interesting focal point in the hash producing regions - the old Persian Empire. All the legendary hash plants come from there. It's not a stretch to recognize the similarities to Hindu Kush, Afghan Kush, etc. It would have been traded on the eastern Mediterranean into the coasts of Europe and northern Africa. That would seem to be a distinct kind of cannabis, cultivated for trade as an herb, not fiber.

Ever run across Peruvian or Chilean cannabis? Odd - you'd think they'd have it too. No equatorial sativas in Ecuador?

 

[Big Sur]

CBD genetics is rather elusive. I have been looking for high CBD strains for a long time myself. I was going to breed them until I got ahold of some Lebanese land race Bekaa Valley beans, and there is no point trying to re-invent the wheel. It has already been bred. Then I started looking at really high CBD strains, not strains that produce some CBD. There has been a lot of work on this lately. Shantibaba at MrNice is working on breeding several high CBD/low THC breeds to release soon. Generally high CBD is in modern hemp genetics and not marijuana genetics, as they have suppressed THC. In Oregon hemp growers cannot sell seeds or flowers into the marijuana market, so they are hard to get here. Also you have to buy them by the kilo for high dollar amounts. So it has been frustrating. I am finally getting some in trades this month from Europe and Canada. Even then? CBD rates are highly variable within seeds lots. Some will have high CBD, others low CBD. I have seen this in my land race Lebanese strains. The THC and CBD cannabinoid ratios are all over the place, even in the same seed lots. So I do not think that CBD is a dominant gene. Otherwise it would be easy to get there.

I think the only way to get consistent CBD is by growing many plants and cloning the ones that test out. The reason that I think this is in local examples of the variability of CBD and THC in so called high CBD strains. In Oregon all weed has to be tested before it is sold, and they list the THC and CBD on the label. One month Harle Tsu tests out at 0.7% THC and 15% CBD, and the next month the same strain from the same grower is 4.3% THC and 8.7% CBD. I have seen the same with Sour Tsunami, varying from 0.4% to 8% THC, and 8% to 16% CBD. So it is not as easy as you might think. It will be interesting to see what Shantibaba has to offer in this newer emerging market. The rage is now for hemp with high CBD and near zero THC for medical purposes. We seem to have run the gambit on making super high THC strains. Not they want super high CBD strains. I do as well. High CBD weed can level me out if I get too stoned, or if I just want to lift my mood and not get high. I also use it in skin medications that I make. THC and CBD have anti-cancer properties. Now that I have been diagnosed with skin cancer, I have a keen interest in this area. I have been brewing batches of skin salves using pure CBD crystals from Colorado, the only place I have found it available. They used to sell pure CBD oil here in Oregon, but that market seems to have dried up after legalization of rec weed. So anyway, I am looking for high CBD strains to make this stuff with. I blend coconut oil, bees wax, shea butter and cocoa butter and dissolve my own grown and rendered hash oil in it with CBD crystals. It works for muscle cramps and back pain as well.

The older I get the more medicinal weed becomes.

 

[Big Sur]

I have smoked Peruvian weed. Santo Rojo or Sativa Rojo I think it was called? I have also smoked Venezuelan weed. But these were rarities, and they never ramped up production like they did in Colombia and Mexico. Chile, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia all had land races. Many are likely now extinct like in Colombia. They also had land races in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras. I now have some of those called Santo Miguelito, Purpura, and Punto Creepy. And of course there was Panama Red. Also the slaves in Brazil had weed from the get go.