The Species Question (and more)

[the_Flintstoners]

What are the advantages you see? Maybe I'm missing the point of the "Desert Rose" example. Could you explain the advantages a little more?

it's just our perspective . . . but we see merit in the wider acceptance of distinguishing between true afghani phenotypes and other "indica/sativa" types . . .

the primary advantage we see . . . is that in community preservation projects . . . a much finer line could (and should) be drawn between Afghani phenotypes . . . and Indica phenotypes . . . with some minor reconsideration then of the line between true sativas and what then would be classified as indica . . .

also . . . the consideration of a new "paradigm" . . . could encourage further attention and debate about the topic . . . which is a starting point itself . . .

we are somewhat frustrated in trying to find "common ground" among preservationists on even basic issues like the diversity that might (or might not) be able to be observed in landrace strains . . .

tearing down to bedrock . . . and building a brand new foundation . . . can be the key . . .

or perhaps not . . . ;)
we are human . . . it's just "our" perspective . . . developed from discussions and studies here at bedrock . . . we'd be the first to admit that we are still students of cannabis ourselves . . . and intend to remain so for the rest of our lives . . . :)

 

[suzy cremecheese]

I'll contemplate your points but in the meantime would you like to discuss that article here or in another thread?

 

[ClancyG]

Fantastic reading - a trademark of Flintstoners/TLB

All this talk of landraces... aren't they fundamentally just geographically inbreds?

All this talk of diversity... It seems, from this myopic POV, that diversity "wants" to happen. Genetically, it's by design that offspring diverge from parents' traits - expressing traits ranging from two-headed snakes, extremely frosty buds, and hairy or hair-free chests.

Despite our best efforts, we appear to be rolling downhill, gathering speed as we domesticate Cannabis, much the same way we have done to Canines.

MY biggest fear is when we legalize hemp and begin to spread "monsanto genetic modified cannabis pollen" far & wide.

Great discussion, though, which I'll mostly just watch from the sidelines (as I'm no geneticist)

 

[the_Flintstoners]

Fantastic reading - a trademark of Flintstoners/TLB

All this talk of landraces... aren't they fundamentally just geographically inbreds?

All this talk of diversity... It seems, from this myopic POV, that diversity "wants" to happen. Genetically, it's by design that offspring diverge from parents' traits - expressing traits ranging from two-headed snakes, extremely frosty buds, and hairy or hair-free chests.

Despite our best efforts, we appear to be rolling downhill, gathering speed as we domesticate Cannabis, much the same way we have done to Canines.

MY biggest fear is when we legalize hemp and begin to spread "monsanto genetic modified cannabis pollen" far & wide.

Great discussion, though, which I'll mostly just watch from the sidelines (as I'm no geneticist)

all are welcome to add their thoughts and opinions . . . as we certainly are just students of genetics ourselves . . . and you are always welcome . . . :)

your fear about the impact hemp legalization could have on drug cultivars is real and legitimate . . . certainly we know storys of individuals who attempted to farm fibre hemp in B.C. . . . but then literally had their lives threatened by guerrella growers who's high value sensi crops had been pollinated by hemp from the valley below . . . so there's no doubt that viable pollen can "migrate" . . .

that's a great point that needs to be considered . . . along side other issues already "on the table" . . . :)

 

[the_Flintstoners]

I'll contemplate your points but in the meantime would you like to discuss that article here or in another thread?

here's fine . . . another thread is good too . . .

we're easy . . . :D

(at least some times . . . )


btw - today we purchased a copy of Jason King's Cannabible #3 to add to our collection . . . and we noticed that the 4 species concept that was introduced by Clarke in Hemp Diseases and Pest was also explained/extrapolated . . .

then we looked at the newest edition of Jorge Cervantes Cannabis Growers Bible . . . and much to our surprise . . . it also featured a brief discussion of Clarke's proposal for a 4 species taxonomy for cannabis . . . from Hemp Pests and Diseases . . .

perhaps acceptance is more wide spread than we'd already thought . . .

btw - one more point should have been made in the original essay . . . that in the eyes of the law . . . all cannabis is Cannabis sativa . . . as long as there is a war on drugs . . . this will likely remain true . . .

:cc:

 

[the_Flintstoners]

Green Nepalm by Dutch Flowers was bred from a highland nepalese "sativa" . . . there's a bit of haze in there but for the most part . . . it's nepalese genetics . . . or so we've been told . . .

nepalese "temple ball" hashish . . . is rather famous for it's heady effect . . . it pretty far removed from the body effect of more traditional hasish cultivars . . . most folks call it a "sativa" . . .

in our eyes . . . under the new taxonomy proposed by clarke . . . the highland nepalese would be considered an "indica" . . . and in our eyes that's a better place to put this plant than with "traditional" sativas . . .

many of it's characteristics are "indica" . . . even if they aren't "afghanica" . .

the highland nepalese and the "desert rose" would appear to be more similar and closely related to each other than to any "traditional" afghan hash plant . . .

 

[suzy cremecheese]

Whether were thinking about 2 or 4 "species," In terms of preservation I'm thinking about individual lines.

The species question is an interesting one but I think technology will need to go a little farther before we completely decipher the Cannabis aspects of it.

As to that article, they need to try some different herbicides because even genetically modified crops are only resistant to a family of herbicides. Article sounds to me like its trying to be alarmist.

 

[HothouseFlowers]

Whether were thinking about 2 or 4 "species," In terms of preservation I'm thinking about individual lines.

The species question is an interesting one but I think technology will need to go a little farther before we completely decipher the Cannabis aspects of it.

I would agree with that. It is something the leading scientists are divided on at this moment and far more research needs to be done to hone the classifications to my mind.

In terms of preservation I'm thinking about individual lines

.

Yes me too, if we do not preserve them their will be nothing for scientists to work with to ascertain the origins and ultimately correct classifications. Most science folk agree that the current research has included to few Cultivars to be sure of the present research.

Peace, hhf

 

[the_Flintstoners]

Whether were thinking about 2 or 4 "species," In terms of preservation I'm thinking about individual lines.

yes . . . we agree in principle . . .

As to that article, they need to try some different herbicides because even genetically modified crops are only resistant to a family of herbicides. Article sounds to me like its trying to be alarmist.

while we found the article "interesting" . . . and are willing to use it as an example of the movement away from traditional landrace cultivars in areas where they were once indigenous . . .

we certainly aren't going to take every word or comment as if it's 100% fact . . . there's little or no doubt in our mind that the Mexican individuals being quoted were being alarmist . . . "inventive" propaganda as been a tool for governments since the beginning of the war on drugs . . .

The species question is an interesting one but I think technology will need to go a little farther before we completely decipher the Cannabis aspects of it.

this is likely true . . . at least to come to an kind of definitive answer . . .

our purpose . . . however . . . wasn't to come to any kind of definitive answer . . . this was simply our "introduction" to the "species concept" . . . a part of our ongoing educational efforts . . .

the reason we wrote this essay was to give an introduction to individuals who might not even be aware that such debates exist . . . and to give one potential working definition that might be adopted . . . we hope to increase awareness and discussion of such issues . . . part of building a "solid foundation" to help forward the future of the plant . . . :2c:

 

[the_Flintstoners]

if we do not preserve them their will be nothing for scientists to work with to ascertain the origins and ultimately correct classifications.

this is certainly true . . .



here's another way to look at the issue of "mixing" of landrace genetics and it's end effect . . .


in the discussion of this essay on another site . . . an artist used the analogy of mixing paint on an artists pallet . . . despite the wide array of colors in the rainbow . . . once they are mixed together . . . you get only one or two colors that remain . . . and all the beautiful original colors are forever lost . . .

our final message is actually really simple when viewed in those terms . . . let's work for a future where the cannabis "colors" available to upcoming breeders . . . are more than just an array of various "browns" . . . ;)

 

[DMAN]

Awesome thread...stuck! :ty:

 

[HothouseFlowers]

in the discussion of this essay on another site . . . an artist used the analogy of mixing paint on an artists pallet . . . despite the wide array of colors in the rainbow . . . once they are mixed together . . . you get only one or two colors that remain . . . and all the beautiful original colors are forever lost . . .

our final message is actually really simple when viewed in those terms . . . let's work for a future where the cannabis "colors" available to upcoming breeders . . . are more than just an array of various "browns" . . .

Well thank them for the analogy from me too, feel that is a great way of describing what is happening.

and are willing to use it as an example of the movement away from traditional landrace cultivars in areas where they were once indigenous . . .

we certainly aren't going to take every word or comment as if it's 100% fact

.

Im pretty sure from its sources and all other reports that this was a pure propaganda issue for a increase in the WOD budgets..

Peace, hhf

 

[kushyman]

quote:
an artist used the analogy of mixing paint on an artists pallet . . . despite the wide array of colors in the rainbow . . . once they are mixed together

>yes but these rainbows keep throwing out different little rainbows
that contain different combinations of the beeeg rainbow
and can be selected from.

However i do agree with not mixing it up too much..
to many in the mix confuses me and probably the plant too
sorry for not bein technical..its not my bag...lol
i believe "breeding" this plant is intuative
i should stay out of this thread..
nice to see yah 3L's.
This is a fine place.

p.s for me Green Napalm was all sativa..
and not wonderful ..LOl

 

[Huangdi]

I have the article from Small et al. , 1976

(A Numerical Taxonomic Analysis of Cannabis with Special Reference to Species Delimitation

Ernest Small; Perry Y. Jui; L. P. Lefkovitch
Systematic Botany, Vol. 1, No. 1. (Spring, 1976), pp. 67-84.)


where they have grown 232 sub varieties (2500 plants) and registered 47 attributes for each sub variety. They performed a canonical analysis on this data set (it is a kind of multivariate analysis, used as discrimant analysis, to find groups). They say that according to their criterias, you can not discrimine between C. Sativa, C. indica and C. ruderalis, and thus conclude that all is Cannabis sativa. I find their sample is probably biased because there is much more what they call "non toxicant" sub species than "toxicant" species. But they used many botanical criterias, including global height, roots size, flowering time, hermaphrodism or not, many criterias for leafs, stem, achenes, fruit bracts, male flowers and chemicals.

I still have difficulties with these sub varieties. I like the biological notion of species because it fits well with the theory in genetic and so you can consider the whole problem (species, sub species and how to preserve both and this is a very different task according you work on species or on sub species) with the same logic.

I'm not sure they have not the same credit as researcher as Clarke as he used to cite them in his book.

 

[Huangdi]

For modern counter arguments of the previous post, you can find modern genetic analysis in Hillig, 2005:

Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 52: 161–180, 2005.

Genetic evidence for speciation in Cannabis (Cannabaceae)
Karl W. Hillig



Abstract
Sample populations of 157 Cannabis accessions of diverse geographic origin were surveyed for allozyme variation at 17 gene loci. The frequencies of 52 alleles were subjected to principal components analysis. A scatter plot revealed two major groups of accessions. The sativa gene pool includes fiber/seed landraces from Europe, Asia Minor, and Central Asia, and ruderal populations from Eastern Europe. The indica gene pool includes fiber/seed landraces from eastern Asia, narrow-leafleted drug strains from southern Asia, Africa, and Latin America, wide-leafleted drug strains from Afghanistan and Pakistan, and feral populations from India and Nepal. A third putative gene pool includes ruderal populations from Central Asia. None of the previous taxonomic concepts that were tested adequately circumscribe the sativa and indica gene pools. A polytypic concept of Cannabis is proposed, which recognizes three species, C. sativa, C. indica and C. ruderalis, and seven putative taxa.

In this article, they use markers on 157 accessions and perform a Principal Component Analysis to retrieve groups (or not). They find two main gene pool at the origin of this 157 sub varieties leading (for us) to the abandon of the one species hypothesis.

However, I notice they do not call correctly the reference of Small et all. 1976 "The allozyme data, in conjunction with the different geographic ranges of the indica and sativa gene pools and previous investigations that demonstrate significant morphological and chemotaxonomic differences between these two taxa (Small and Beckstead 1973; Small et al. 1976), support the formal recognition of C. sativa, C. indica, and possibly C. ruderalis as separate species." whereas Small et al., in 1976 have written in their end of abstract "It is concluded that all plants of Cannabis are assignable to one species, Cannabis sativa".

By the way, not really the subject, but they also say: "Some of the accessions in the collection encompass little genetic variation, which may be a result of inbreeding, genetic drift, or sampling error (e.g., the achenes may have been collected from a single plant). " Interesting in a preservation purpose ;)

Granted by Horta pharm by the way ;)

 

[the_Flintstoners]

However i do agree with not mixing it up too much..
to many in the mix confuses me and probably the plant too
sorry for not bein technical..its not my bag...lol
i believe "breeding" this plant is intuative
i should stay out of this thread..
nice to see yah 3L's.
This is a fine place.

no please do NOT stay out of this thread . . . we want to encourage everyone to have their voices and feelings heard here . . .

breeding is both an art and a science . . . and considering the limited amout of scientific tools available to nearly all cannabis breeders . . . there may be more "art" in it than any of us wishes to acknowledge . . .

p.s for me Green Napalm was all sativa..
and not wonderful ..LOl

was that the original F1 . . . or the F2's that got passed around?

while the jury is still out on the Green Nepalm here . . . it's looking to have a fair bit of promise . . .

we're working with the DF F1's . . . so that might be different than what most folks encountered . . . if they were growing somone else's F2's . . .

that's one of the problems we "discovered" as we became "fans" of Dutch Flower's work . . . everyone seems to enjoy the originals that did make it out there in any kind of quantity . . . Metal haze and GHaze both got pretty good reviews if we remember correctly . . .

but some of the DF stuff . . . didn't get as much acclaim . . . nor was it spread as widely . . . so perhaps the "limited edition" offerings didn't always get a fair trial . . .

for instance with Colombian Supremo . . . we remember the original purchaser only germing a couple of the original seeds . . . when he didn't discover a "keeper" from that small number . . . the rest of the original seeds were farmed out . . .

how can anyone make a real judgement based on only a plant or two . . .

ya can't . . .


was that the fault of DF . . . or was it the fault of the individuals who replicated their seeds for sale . . . there's blame to go around. . . if the DF team wanted their genetics preserved within the community . . . their approach was perhaps not ideal . . . but our guess is that "secondary breeders" were responsible for DF's "flops" . . .

while Blowfish F2's were nice in their own right . . . they didn't quite replicate their F1 parents either . . . and the Blowfish phenos we found within the F1's . . . were not exact copies of what other purchasers reported . . .

 

[HothouseFlowers]

By the way, not really the subject, but they also say: "Some of the accessions in the collection encompass little genetic variation, which may be a result of inbreeding, genetic drift, or sampling error (e.g., the achenes may have been collected from a single plant). " Interesting in a preservation purpose

Interesting note, thanks for reporting that.

Peace, hhf

 

[the_Flintstoners]

http://www.taima.org/en/thc.htm is the link . . .

we were directed to it during a discussion about whether or not cannabis would always revert to weedy hemp if grown in higher latitudes . . . there are some interesting little bits in this article . . . whether an individual is a breeder or just a grower . . . so we felt the article was worth sharing in this thread . . .


Many people in Japan think of cannabis as a foreign vice that wasn't introduced until the late 1960s when US servicemen on leave from military duty in Vietnam would bring it to Japan, or Japanese hippies returning from India or the Himalayas would introduce it to friends at home.

People who know that marijuana and hemp are the same plant may think that maybe in ancient Japan cannabis was important only as a fibre crop with low THC levels, the kind that gives smokers a headache instead of a "high". Is it true that (THC-rich) drug varieties and cannabis smoking are only a fairly recent introduction?

We admit that we don't know for sure if that is the case or not. We have researched the evidence and conclude that most likely, both non-psychoactive and psychoactive cannabis were available before 1948. That no laws were passed to prohibit or control cannabis then does not imply that none was used. Countries such as India and Morocco where cannabis was widely used only banned it because of American pressure, as did Japan. If legal availability did not lead to serious problems there was no reason for prohibition laws that would be difficult to enforce.

Cannabis has an important role in many religions, from Hinduism to Shinto. Several Shinto rites involving cannabis are entirely unrelated to hemp's use as a fibre plant and suggest an awareness of the psychoactive effects of marijuana smoke:


Cannabis leaves were burnt during o-bon. The time of o-bon in August is when female plants start developing flowers and producing resin:
"On the first evening fires of hemp leaves are lighted before the entrance of the house, and incense strewed on the coals, as an invitation to the spirits." (Moore)

We are told that travellers made sacrifices of hemp leaves which they were in the habit of carrying:
"Travellers prayed to them [monuments of the sahe no kami preventive deities] before setting out on a journey and made a little offering of hemp leaves and rice to each one they passed." (Moore)

Some shrine festivals involve the burning of hemp plants.

Ceremonies at Ise shrine, the main shrine of the Imperial family, involve the burning of cannabis.
The roots of Shinto religion probably date back to the neolithic Jomon culture (10,000-300 BCE), and so it is quite possible that psychoactive cannabis had been available in Japan for well over 2000 years.

It is no secret that weedy (uncultivated) hemp in Hokkaido is still psychoactive. Indeed, every year some people try to harvest it in the autumn and get caught by the police. Its potency has been described as "quite good". It descended from cannabis legally grown by Japanese farmers until the late 1940s. Hokkaido hemp is by no means the only kind of indigenous psychoactive cannabis found in Japan:


"A survey of the THC, CBN and CBD content of hemp from all parts of Japan was reported by Dr. Keizo Watanabe. Marihuana from Tochigi and Hokkaido regions contained a 3.9 per cent and 3.4 per cent THC, respectively." (UNDCP 73/3)
These potency figures are comparable to marijuana available in Jamaica and Mexico in the 1970s.

Before worldwide laws against cannabis were introduced over the last few decades, there was no real incentive to breed plants specifically for low THC yield. There is no known genetic link between qualities desirable in fibre plants and low THC-yield. In fact, since the resin acts as a natural repellant against insects and other pests it is likely that more resinous plants are more robust. Thus plants could be usable both as industrial crops grown for fibre and seed and for medical and recreational purposes.


"Many of the older fibre hemp varieties were in actual fact rather rich in THC, since psychoactivity was not used as a selection/breeding criterion prior to the 1970s." (Prof. Szendrei, UNDCP 1999)

Many of the old hemp seed strains of pre-war Japan can no longer be legally cultivated because they don't meet the low THC-requirements imposed by some prefectural governments. This is even though the Cannabis Control Law does not specify any THC limits and regulates only based on the intended purpose of the crop. The Nagano prefectural government is refusing to issuing licenses to grow the traditional local mountain hemp and will only permit cultivation of a specially bred low-THC strain called "Tochigishiro". That strain was developed at Hiroshima University and its main cannabinoid is CBDA. Some old hemp farmers complain that it produces fibre of inferior quality when compared to more traditional strains that do contain noticable amounts of THC.

Because potent cannabis is uncommon at northern lattitudes it seems likely that Hokkaido hemp is unrelated to Siberian hemp and was introduced from further south. It may have originated from seed hemp cultivated there for making oil, bird feed or human food. In other countries varieties grown for seed production were sometimes psychoactive. For example, the most common type of bird seed hemp in the USA before cannabis was prohibited was a strain known as "Smyrna hemp". Besides seeds this plant from modern day Izmir, Turkey also produced resin for hashish known as "Smyrna powder".

Another possibility is that potent cannabis was introduced from India or Southeast Asia, where cannabis smoking has a long history. Until 1948 cannabis could be legally imported into Japan from other countries. Marijuana, hashish or viable seeds could be shipped from India and Thailand to Japan. Japan has a long history of trading with China, which in turn sent ships as far as Africa. In the 8th century Buddhism reached Japan from India via Nepal and China. Later Japan was trading with Portugal which had a base in Goa, India and with the Dutch who colonized Indonesia, places where marijuana use was not uncommon. The famous Silk Road carried trade from Arabia, Persia, Afghanistan all the way to Japan.

It is interesting that Kiseru pipes ("ksher" in the Khmer language) which until the 20th century were also popular for smoking tobacco originate from Cambodia, were cannabis is still sold from street stalls today. It would not be surprising if the smoking materials travelled along the same route as the smoking instruments. The bowls of kiseru pipes are much smaller than for western tobacco pipes, which is consistent with the fact that a psychoactive dose of cannabis is from 1/2 to 1/10 the weight of a tobacco cigarette.

The predominant cannabinoid in marijuana plants is THC. In fibre hemp on the other hand the most common cannabinoid is CBD, which is not psychoactive. In 1956 a study for the Japanese government analyzed domestic cannabis plants. It found THC but no CBD... The study concluded that the tested plants were closer to South-East Asian drug hemp than to northern fibre hemp:

"From the spectrophotometric studies of our domestic hemp, it is concluded that it contains tetrahydrocannabinol [THC], or an analogous compound; and in general the hemp plants grown in Japan give a resin more similar to the Malayan [Malaysian] resin reported by Biggs than to the Canadian resin." (Asahina 1957)
We don't know much about the lives of peasants in medieval Japan, since history as we know it is essentially the version of events reported by the literate samurai class, who considered the common people not much different from their farm animals. What we do know is that hemp was smoked in rural areas at least as recently as the 1940s. We don't know if this is because of the tobacco shortage during the war or if it reflects a more ancient heritage. The Shinto aspects and the reported THC levels of Japanese cannabis strains suggest the latter.

Until cannabis cultivation was largely halted, cannabis flowers were always cheaper than alcohol brewed from valuable rice, since they were a byproduct of growing the plant for seeds and fibres. Rice on the other hand was a precious commodity which was used to pay taxes and feed armies. In fact, during the Edo era rice was grown largely for the samurai class while the rural population had to survive on other crops. The Tokugawa gained dominance because of the large amounts of rice grown in the Kanto plain. This was food for samurai, not for peasant farmers. Therefore it seems likely that expensive sake was the drug of choice of samurai while peasants might have used cheaper hemp to relax.

Japanese medicine is based on both traditional Chinese herbal medicine and Western (mostly German) medicine. Both Chinese and western medicine used cannabis for healing. Cannabis was in use as a herbal medicine in China for some 5000 years. Psychoactive strains exist particularly in Southern China, near Vietnam and Thailand. The central Asian part of China bordering on Turkmenistan was a hashish exporting region until the 20th century. In Western countries cannabis came into medicinal use from the 1830s. Cannabis extracts were sold in pharmacies until the 1940s or 1950s. Countries like Britain and Germany imported seeds of psychoactive cannabis strains from India or Africa to grow medicinal plants. Such medicinal plants were also cultivated in Japan. Indeed they are still being cultivated at the Tokyo Metropolitain Medicinal Plant Garden:

Torao Shimizu examines the gray sky and gives the brown earth a little kick. "This is good climate for marijuana," he says. "It grows easily here." On the other side of a high double fence, safeguarded by motion detectors, a row of tall green pot plants sway gently in the morning breeze. (Japan Times)
If potent cannabis was not available long before rice and had not arrived with Chinese medicine 1300 years ago either, it probably would have been introduced with western medicine 130 years ago. Today Cannabis is no stranger in Japan and it probably never was one. It is only by knowing the facts that we can learn to deal with it in the least harmful way.

 

[kushyman]

yes the GN's were DF f1's
It appeared to be a sativa
with the hint of a good high.
\
As far as "species"
i am interested in the bulky/squat
colombians and how they fit in.
i do remember reading in the 70's
how Colombia had imported giant amounts of
seeds from Jamaica and Hawaii.
At least some of the Colombian "strains"
appear to be a missing link between indica and sativa
or are homemade crosses.
i know farmers choice is one of them.

 

[HothouseFlowers]

As far as "species"
i am interested in the bulky/squat
colombians and how they fit in.
i do remember reading in the 70's
how Colombia had imported giant amounts of
seeds from Jamaica and Hawaii.
At least some of the Colombian "strains"
appear to be a missing link between indica and sativa
or are homemade crosses.
i know farmers choice is one of them.

Few differing thoughts on how they came to be there brother, in the old lines we have from the regions pre early 70's there is no short squat indica hybrids in the mix of the lines. They are all pure Sativas. After this there is a change in many of the lines form same regions. We think this is due to imported skunk lines being brought it. We suspect many of these lines, the short squat types could be acclimatised Skunk types.

Have never found any pure indicas from the region, and dont know how they would be grown under 12hr consistant lighting.

Peace, hhf