Understanding the value of landraces

[Mr Fecund]

Originally Posted by Mark

The reason for my post was to get feedback from people such as yourself Mr Fecund and now I know I'm pretty much on the same page as others in terms of the value of lines like good Thais, Mexicans, Columbians, etc. It was just my interpretation that prevented things from making sense to me. All sorted now though...thanks.



I think you're right about Nevil to some extent but the reason he was looking at those strains was to find lines different to the haze he worked with but distantly related through common ancestors. He mentioned in the Grail thread that his hunch about what made haze so special was a good Thai line in it's make up (a notion shared by many that have worked with both). This suspicion was based on similarities he saw in the best Haze hybrids that reminded him of top shelf Thai weed he'd smoked in the past. By finding different lines that display the same similarities that aren't closely related, his hope would be that they originated from the same (or very similar) old Thai origins. If you can position different individuals in a pedigree with roots to a common superior ancestor, it is possible to produce progeny that throw a reasonable number of phenotypes in the image of that individual. Further linebreeding could eventually fix that type and essentially bring the ancient ancestor back from the past. I know he spoke of other outcross versions of Grail but I'm referring to the linebred version which I believe is his ultimate goal.

I took the lliberty of babbling on a bit above but you sound interested in this stuff like me and the more we discuss these things the more we can learn and the better work we can put together ourselves.

hey cool man, we are in the same boat mark, so you can consider it as were all helping each other.

much of what you have asked/discussed has been the same info i have sought.

i hear ya bout the thai, i know nevil believed it to be the number 1 most important haze influenece, even sam has said that the best of the hazes were always thai leaning.

smokedream whats this bout widow being a threeway? yes i also wanna try malawi or GT x Widow, ace has a very strong malawi but its not ment to be an up/energizing high such as thai. perhaps NH x Malawi X Thai x NH could be the goods, but theres to many possibilities.

i guess to sum it up for me mayb just reintroduce some thai and add some African. after that i'd like to find a nice cross with this to a pureish indica. for me both the sat hybrid and the indi f1's with selected parents would be the goal, not just one of those.

as you can see every time i try to narrow it down i leave something out, but its all good fun.

cheers

[Bambi]

Hallo Mark' cheers for a good read here"

Can you tell me why alot of whats called pure landrace varietys like the older pure afghanni num'1 off sensi has a sativa afghan pheno amongst it,

same thing i seen as a teenager growing the nz bush sativa outdoors and one season after about 3 seasons of accdental inbreeding outdoors i come accross a very smelly fat leaved indica dominant plant or skunk perhaps'' its thought our origional seeds were bought back by war veterans from vietnam and caliofornia to beguin with,

What i keep asking myself is are landrace plants all pure form, or have the indica gene there to? im sure some sativas are pure such as the old oxacan, dunno mate just wanted to put this out here and see what you and or others experiences maybe?

buds speed''
b'

[Elmer Bud]

G`day Bambi

I read some very interesting stuff about Afghanistan in the Book Hashish by Clarke .
Reckons the predominant species in the region pre 1930 s was thin blade Sativa plants !
Apparently the broad leaf was brought from further East by the Hash makers of what is now Xiangxing Provence of southern China .They were driven out by Chinese Authority . The seed collected further East in what is now Pakistan and brought West by these Ethnic tribes . On their way to settling in the Nth West Hindu Kush . Thin bladed Sativas were the plants the Hash makers from Xiang Xing were using before their exodus .
So Hybrids have been probably happening in that region at least since 80 years past .

Thanks for sharin

Elmer Bud .

[Mr Fecund]

Originally Posted by Bambi

Hallo Mark' cheers for a good read here"

Can you tell me why alot of whats called pure landrace varietys like the older pure afghanni num'1 off sensi has a sativa afghan pheno amongst it,

same thing i seen as a teenager growing the nz bush sativa outdoors and one season after about 3 seasons of accdental inbreeding outdoors i come accross a very smelly fat leaved indica dominant plant or skunk perhaps'' its thought our origional seeds were bought back by war veterans from vietnam and caliofornia to beguin with,

What i keep asking myself is are landrace plants all pure form, or have the indica gene there to? im sure some sativas are pure such as the old oxacan, dunno mate just wanted to put this out here and see what you and or others experiences maybe?

buds speed''
b'

i would take a guess and imagine that todays thai, african, central american, south american etc. wasnt untouched by indica genetics. i mean it is a business, business men are up for making more money by cutting down their time/work.

stuff like this makes it even harder to track down that special thai that others experienced in the 60's, 70's.

[Smoke Dream]

Hey Fecund,

To my understanding, Shanti got the South Indian Ind hybrid that grows in the kerala mtns but came from Kovalam beach. As he said, he met the grower of the orig who also farmed in Kerala. But I do not believe he states that the SI ind was a landrace but a hybrid that was selectively cultivated by the the mtn farm. Whats in it...? could be some pahari, etc. Adding the brazilian to the equation later on as a female, I believe he selected himself a male from the SI hybrid.

By the way, when I say Pahari, I mean whatever those folks have as a local strain at each farm. Odds are genetics have been mixed as most farmers trade.

And when I say SI hybrid, I mean possibly of two (SI) strains put together by the local farmers. So not a hybrid of 2 regions apart but of the same, making it pure South Indian indica hybrid. Indica possibly meaning the dominant trait.

What do you think is in it, maybe I got something wrong? Whats your thoughts on it.

-SD

[longhorn]

Classic example of the Canna community using the term landrace instead of heirloom.

Landraces are extremely diverse and would require very large numbers to be useful in my opinion in order to find the plant that suits your preference. They have adapted to survive...ie some long flowering, some short, resistance to different pests and weather conditions, different cannabinoid profiles. The key with landraces is diversity, not something particularly useful in breeding unless you are able to go through massive amounts of plants to choose the keeper. Landraces can be created by feral populations in a few generations (Developed by natural processes)

Heirlooms are what everyone seems to be talking about but using the term landrace. Heirlooms are lines that have been worked by a certain group in an area for a long time and are uncorrupted and passed down for many generations. These are the useful plants that will display similar qualities more consisitently and are selectively bred for medicinal purposes by indeginous populations.These are varieties that were commercially available in the past, but fell out of use when hybrid types were developed and promoted. These are the old treasured varieties and in my opinion much more valuable for a breeder but also much more difficult to come by, perhaps basically extinct now except for the least visited and hospitable places on earth for outsiders. (Developed by man before widespread travel and hybridization)

Just thought Id throw my take on this topic out there. To me landraces are overated. However, it would be awesome to be able to travel like Shanti did many years ago to some remote village where a tribe or family has been selectively breeding a population for generations and find that special heirloom variety.

[deran]

The key with landraces is diversity

the opposite is the case

heirlooms have more diversity than landraces, simple of the fact that landraces only addapt to their environment, and climatic changes arent that fast as media wants to make us belief, within 4 generations nature "develops" only 1 main pheno

[longhorn]

I guess we agree to disagree.

A landrace is an early, cultivated form of a crop species, evolved from a wild population, and generally composed of a heterogeneous mixture of genotypes. This has nothing to do with climate change as you are explaining it. Just the ability to adapt to subtle differences in weather or soil conditions year after year because each plant will be slightly different and atleast some will survive.

The way I see it, landrace would be considered a wild population probably much more resembling hemp or ditch weed. Whereas, an heirloom variety was selectively bred using that same landrace population many years ago and passed down from generation to generation selecting the best along the way.

From definition: Landraces are grown from seeds which have not been systematically selected and marketed by seed companies or developed by plant breeders. Landraces refer to all those cultigens that are highly heterogeneous, but with enough characteristics in common to permit their recognition as a group.

In one of your earlier posts you said that the accepted definition of landrace was a variety that had the same mother or father which seems to be a common occurence in this community. The fact is both landrace and heirlooms by defintion are open pollenated. One done completely naturally, the other by a breeder who will probably only plant his favourite seeds of the best plants the next year.

Non canna related gardening sites say this about landraces:

"Landrace: A variety or collection of interbreeding varieties that were developed in a specific location with selection based more or less on survival of the fittest for that location."

In the case of out-crossing plants like cantaloupe, squash, or corn, a land-race can be thought of as an open pollinated population with tremendous genetic diversity.

"Yield stability of landraces under traditional low input agricultural systems is due to the fact that whatever the varying biotic and abiotic stress for each plant one or more genotypes within the landrace population will yield satisfactorily. Landraces were and still are grown by farmers, market and private gardeners all over the world for this reason."

"A landrace is a variety that has been purposely maintained as a diverse gene pool to help it be more adaptive to harsh conditions."

[deran]

This has nothing to do with climate change as you are explaining it. Just the ability to adapt to subtle differences in weather or soil conditions year after year because each plant will be slightly different and atleast some will survive.

wtf

do you know what u did post?

nothing to do with clima, but it has to do with weather ...

are you ok?

next thing - for one you say landraces are bred by nature, but then quote :

Landraces were and still are grown by farmers

evidently - you have no fuckin clue !

[longhorn]

Just going by the definition. No need to get so emotional.

A landrace is a local variety of a domesticated animal or plant species which has developed largely by natural processes, by adaptation to the natural and cultural environment in which it lives. It differs from a formal breed which has been selectively bred deliberately to conform to a particular formal, purebreed standard of traits. Landraces are usually more genetically and physically diverse than formal breeds. Many formal breeds originated from attempts to make landraces more consistent, and sometimes a particular type has both landrace and formal breed populations. Sometimes a formalised breed retains a "Landrace" [sic] name, despite no longer being a true landrace.