Cannabis land races & preserved ancient cannabis remains

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A landrace strain is a variety of cannabis plant that has less diluted DNA than other strains of cannabis. To take the distinction even further, landrace strains are usually indigenous to a certain part of the world (meaning they have adapted to the environment of a specific geographic location). And since these landrace strains are the original cannabis plant from that area, descendants from those strains often bear part of the region’s name. While currently only 5-6 landrace strains have made it to the modern era, I have hope that can be changed one day. Though not lie bringing back the original blueberry isn't exactly like bringing a mammoth back to life for example, it presents its own particular issues that are almost unique to cannabis in some respects.

From what I can gather there are 6 modern land race strains.

Hindu Kush, Pakistan
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Pure Afghan, Afghanistan
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Lamb’s Bread, Jamaica
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Acapulco Gold, Mexico
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Durban Poison, Africa
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Thai or (Thai stick), Thailand
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All landrace photos courtesy of leafly.com

Why are land race strains important

Remember, landrace strains aren’t stronger, more potent, or better in some way. They’re just less diluted (genetically speaking) than other strains. While this doesn't sound very important, It’s good to know about landrace strains they are a glimpse of a less hybridized cannabis. While perhaps no different to the average consumer these could potentially represent crucial data sets for coding marijuanas genetic lineage.
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lazarus taxon toking?

In paleontology, a Lazarus taxon is a taxon that disappears for one or more periods from the fossil record, only to appear again later. Likewise in conservation biology and ecology, it can refer to species or populations that were thought to be extinct, and are rediscovered. Though not traditionally applied in cases concerning plants, especially just a subset mutation population (IE) cannabis strains. Lazarus taxon could be applied to cannabis in certain circumstances due to the fact that extremely old remains could potentially be cloned, or replicated in modern plants utilizing genetic engineering.
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Many strains have in fact been cross bread out of existence due to the lack of regulation and cannabises legal status. Light of jah is one such strain that both came into existence and disappeared in my lifetime. Reclamation of what is lost to time starts as close to the beginning that we can manage. Landraces are important for this form of research but oddly enough, may not be our only source of clean genetics.
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Nearly two pounds of still-green plant material found in a 2,700-year-old grave in the Gobi Desert has just been identified as the world's oldest marijuana stash, according to a paper in the latest issue of the Journal of Experimental Botany.
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A barrage of tests proves the marijuana possessed potent psychoactive properties and casts doubt on the theory that the ancients only grew the plant for hemp in order to make clothing, rope and other objects.
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outro

Though cannabis strains are not the first thing any one thinks of when the topic of cloning extinct species maybe it should be. Undoing the damage done by repeated mutations is a skill set that could potentially help many other domesticated species with the same issues. Plants are easier plane and simple start with weed and if we play our cards right we might even figure out where dogs come from.
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Yeah Totally mind blowing fact but we still dont know where or when the first canines where domesticated. Another fun fact for shits and giggles horses first evolved in north America after some migrated via land bridges? A mass extinction took place in north America, & ironically their ancestors where brought back via European colonization. The moral of the story is we have unintentionally/intentionally damaged almost everything we domesticated. Cannabis is an oddity with varying levels of genetic damage and centuries old specimens.
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Tried to find a land race for this but none where listed in the dispensary's I checked so I settled for 10th planet.
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Feel free to utilize this cana-curate image ill experiment with more of weedcashe
logos soon
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you could also drop a comment if you want any of the original pngs of the weedcash emblems
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9 comments
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The story of landrace cannabis is such an interesting part of our history! If it where not for all these landrace, we would not have the variety of cannabis we have today. I would like to add to the list you made, the famous landrace Malawi Gold

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I knew i missed some i just chose what leafly considered obtainable but i also left off Panama Red, Central America due to leafly not having it listed and their the weed authority.

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Have you ever seen Strain Hunters?

!ENGAGE 14.20

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literally why I'm obsessed with land races and extinct strains Strain hunters great show better life

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Thank you for your engagement on this post, you have recieved ENGAGE tokens.

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(Edited)

You missed a bunch of landrace strains:

  • Panama Red
  • Honduran
  • Colombian Gold
  • Brazilian
  • Malawi Gold
  • Nepalese
  • Lebanese
  • Afghani strains: Pakistan Chitral Kush, Mazar-i-Sharif, Balkh, Tashkurgan, etc.
  • Kwazulu
  • Moroccan Hash Plant
  • Kerala
  • Malana Cream
  • Ketama
  • Kumaoni
  • Congolese
  • Ethiopian
  • Highland Thai (phenotypically different from Thai stick)

And the list goes on. There are not just 6 landrace strains. I don't care what leafly says... they are not "the absolute authority" on the subject. Most of these strains are available through seedbanks that specialize in landrace strains. There are seedbanks that specialize in Afghani landraces, Filipino landraces, African landraces, and Latin American landraces. Attitude seedbank helps out these small specialist seedbanks by reselling their seeds making them available to the world.

You say, "The moral of the story is we have unintentionally/intentionally damaged almost everything we domesticated."

I vehemently disagree with this statement. I think you are conflating genetic difference with damage. Every food source we have was from domesticating wild varieties and performing years of selective breeding to make that variety more useful to us. An example of this are Broccoli, Kale, Kohlrabi, Cabbage, Brussel Sprouts and Cauliflower -- they all have the same parent: wild mustard. Which by the logic you have presented here suggests that these useful and nutritious plants are actually genetically damaged and inferior to wild mustard. The opposite is true, all the variants of wild mustard took several hundred years of selective breeding to bring them where they are today, and they are easier to grow and more nutrient dense than their original parent, wild mustard.

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Preserving landraces is extremely important for preserving cannabis, due to their in-bred genetics (Homogeneous genetics) being highly stable. Modern strains are often quite a bit more psychoactively powerful, with a boutique blend of smells and flavors. It is only through modern feminization of Cannabis seeds that we risk introducing "hermageddon" into the genetic pool, which is why preservation of landrace strains is crucial for the ongoing health and sustainability of cannabis.

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thanks i knew there was a lot i missed, and i feel the same i know what these generational mutations add up to its not good just look at dogs. thanks for the feedback

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(Edited)

I'm not a geneticist or a doctor or an expert, but in-breeding dogs is not the same as in-breeding with plants. I'm totally splitting hairs here, arguing that what you are defining as "damage" is an emotional judgement that is not accurately reflected in reality:

Considering that natural evolution is nothing more than Time + Genetic Mutations, and that wild landrace Cannabis is, by nature, often only interbreeding with itself, I fail to see your point?

By your logic, inbreeding equals "genetically damaged" (BAD), but all landrace cannabis is genetically inbred? Which is how it became a "landrace" in the first place. ("Landrace" is defined as wild Cannabis which has adapted to a specific locale/environment and therefore produces uniform, recurring, phenotypic traits amongst its offspring, and has a uniform homozygous genetic pool.)

In the theory of evolution, "survival of the fittest" refers to the possession of a set of traits that make them better adapted to survive a given environment. Since homozygous (in-bred) gene pools can be wiped out if a disease or a predator develops to specifically attack a trait that all members of a species possess, then they are all vulnerable. Thus, it can be said that the process of evolution disfavors homozygous genetic pools. This does not equal with homozygous gene pools being intrinsically "bad" -- just more vulnerable to disasters, plagues, extinction events.

In very recent history there was a mass die-off of these funny-nosed antelope from the steppes of Southern Asia.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42720955#:~:text=A%20mass%20die%2Doff%20of,caused%20by%20a%20bacterial%20infection.
This could be an effective example of how nature can select an entire homozygous population for destruction, and why a heterozygous population will manage to survive a mass extinction event.

The Tasmanian Devil population has been endangered by a specific disease, DFTD, or Devil Facial Tumor Disease that is attacking their population too.
https://greentumble.com/why-are-tasmanian-devils-endangered/

It seems the conclusion that can be drawn is that nature and the force/process of evolution disfavors homogeneous (in-bred) populations, and favors heterozygous populations in the long run because heterozygous populations contain minor genetic differences that can make them just different enough to protect against something like a specialized disease that would otherwise wipe out a homozygous population.

Humans are helping by taking these landrace Cannabis strains and performing crosses creating heterozygous "hybrids" with selective breeding, then working to stabilize and concentrate specific desirable traits (which is the process of producing a new homozygous strain), thereby strengthening the cannabis gene pool via diversity, because these landrace crosses are highly unlikely to converge in normal circumstances by virtue of geographic distance.

Within farming and cannabis breeding circles the "F1 Hybrid Vigour" is a well known fact amongst many different species of plants. When you cross breed two landrace plants (two genetically homozygous strains), the resulting F1 Hybrid "child" is stronger, healthier, and produces a heavier yield than either of its parent landrace strains do. Farmers have been exploiting this fact for years to manage an ever increasing demand for food by a growing populace. They took landrace strains and bred them together to produce monster yielding varieties that feed all of us. Look at landrace corn yields compared to modern corn yields, landrace alpine strawberries, vs. the modern Fresca strains that are sold in supermarkets today.

Specific strains of cannabis have been bred in certain areas of the world for literally thousands of years. Those farmers only had one variety of cannabis to grow, so they grew a lot of that, all this did to that strain of cannabis is made its genetic pool homozygous. Its obvious that either in wild nature, or cultivated by human farmers, that cannabis can be safely-inbred for thousands of generations without any harm. Cannabis breeding programs only strengthen the genetic pool by adding additional diversity.

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I do believe a lot of landrace seed has been saved, but I do fell a lot have been lost due to hybridization. But I will never claim to be an expert on the subject, however I am very intrigued! Would love to see a write up . And see if you can get some nice votes along the way of sharing valuable info.

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