Interesting post for sure, lots of food for thought there.
There is a lot of speculation over the true intentions of a study like this, and I guess it can all be answered by who is paying for this? I know the Hemp Industries Association is the official group doing it, but what party is the driving cause for this study and did they receive a large amount of funding from someone specifically for this study?
A full DNA map of hundreds of Cannabis strains can't be cheap, but what do I know, these days maybe it is not that expensive to do something like this.
It does fall entirely into line with what Rob Clarke has been studying, and it would be wildly interesting to see the results of this if it were completed.
I noticed it a little odd that they said the results would be available to the public but the actual DNA map of each strain individually would only be available to the donor of the strain. If this really is for the betterment of the plant, why not full disclosure? Would they sell the full DNA maps at a cost to interested parties?
That whole paragraph about patenting seems like they are leaving some important stuff out......... There are a hell of a lot of patented plants. Roses are in the public domain, but there are many patented rose cultivars. Cultivars that are illegal to clone. The US government will eventually legalize the plant, probably when it is more profitable legally vs. illegally, and if something like this pushes it more toward legalization then I'm all for it. There are enough genetics out there for me to play around with for the rest of my life and I'd never have to buy a patented genotype. It would be odd, though, if a hybrid was created that was resistant to spider mites and budrot, because I'd probably want a piece of that =) Does kind of bring up the idea about if someone were to create a strain that made it drastically easier to grow medicine, but you had to buy a seed from them every time and it was illegal to clone it. Not that I've ever been one to obey laws I don't agree with, but it is kind of a strange idea.
This is the Hemp Industries Association doing this. Companies who are interested in profiting from Cannabis support this group. I'll admit that I have my tinfoil hat on right now, but this idea kind of rubs me the wrong way.
Wonder if Shanti is going to give him the plant material he's asking for? Soooooo Shanti, are you going to give him some genes for this?
I understand they're primarily looking for landraces - and so I ask...
If the hybrid seeds are not far bred from the original landraces does this mean with a little more DNA decoding you could just DNA map the hybrid seeds rather than DNA map the parents and come to the same conclusion?
for example, many hybrid seeds that MNS offer are not bred far from the original landraces...
...wouldn't it be easy enough to DNA map Black Widow seeds and find that its parents are from India and Brazil?..
..And with all the additional mapping they will be doing by this process of elimination, won't they will be able to narrow down specific regions relatively easily?
Ah, the Fertile Crescent. I remember it well from economic and ethno botany. Funny you should mention wheat.One, that I'm pretty sure of, is for further acquisitions. By mapping it's heredity, one could find out where along its ancestry it split and therefore where source materials can be found to reinforce the genetics.
Universities and vegetable seed developers do this all the time. If they are trying to create a better wheat they go to where wheat originally sprang forth from eikorn: in Mesopotamia or wherever.
so growing cannabis will become a white collar crime after you sequence it there is no possible variety i can breed unless you get a cut right?Hi Scott,
Greetings from New Zealand. I hope this message finds you in fine health and high spirits. I am writing to invite you to join us in a fascinating opportunity to explore the evolutionary history of our favorite plant – Cannabis. The International Hemp Association is involved in sourcing Cannabis samples for the Phylos Bioscience Cannabis Evolution Project based in Oregon, USA. Presently, the team is building a high-resolution map of the Cannabis genome, based on a modern hybrid THC/CBD strain using next generation sequencing. The map will serve as a reference key for analysis of thousands of other accessions allowing high-resolution characterization of each.
Within six months we will analyze additional modern hemp and drug cultivars, plus traditional landraces, and possibly herbarium accessions and archeological materials. From there on we will add to the live database which will continue to grow as more samples are received although the architecture should not change. Genome data will be studied via network theory to address the issues of hybridization and reticulation in the phylogeny. Although Cannabis is an incredibly varied genus made up of a myriad of local landrace varieties and modern cultivars as well as their feral and wild relatives, this research will generate a huge amount of sequence data spread over many thousands of samples, and we feel confident we can resolve the evolution of Cannabis under domestication.
DNA extraction equipment is installed in nine Cannabis testing labs in six US states, and we continue to gather modern hybrid drug varieties for analysis. As planned, Phylos just completed their initial analyses of over 600 Cannabis flower samples from dispensaries. And, as expected, because of extensive interbreeding within this small portion of the whole Cannabis genome the data appear as a cloud of points with distances between them somewhat indicative of their relatedness, but provide little insight into how they were formed and who their ancestors might be. What we need is to add depth to our study – the third dimension of time, the branches on the evolutionary tree – by including samples from earlier and more diverse origins in Cannabis’s evolutionary history. DNA analysis of seeds and/or leaves from landraces, hemp and drug cultivars, mother plant clones, herbarium accessions, archeological samples, etc. may offer us this opportunity. The IHA is contacting sinsemilla seed companies, hemp breeders, museums, herbaria, and archeologists requesting samples to improve the understanding we will gain from more encompassing research. We hope you will participate in this interesting project.
Participants will receive analyses of each sample they submit as well as a summary of our findings. One benefit to participating seed companies will be establishing the DNA fingerprint of each of their cultivars. One of Phylos’ long-range goals is cultivar identification to determine which amongst several samples analyzed at a later date represent the “real” original cultivar sold by a participating seed company. At this time there is no way to establish breeder’s rights for a Cannabis cultivar to protect that cultivar from being renamed as another variety, or imitated by a different variety bearing the same commercial name. Data from this project will be used in the future to create a variety protection program for Cannabis, a way for sinsemilla seed companies to protect their investments of time and money spent to create seed varieties from unscrupulous competitors.
I am writing to ask if you will supply any of the following types of samples:
The basic building blocks for all present-day sinsemilla cultivars were traditional landrace cultivars mostly made available to domestic growers via seeds from imported drug Cannabis. Seeds and leaf samples from traditional landraces are essential in recreating the evolutionary history of sinsemilla cultivars – they represent the genomes to which present-day cultivars owe their genetic makeup.
There are two types of landrace samples you could provide. First are seeds of the original landraces themselves. We only need a very few seeds to be sure of extracting DNA samples suitable for analysis; and these seeds do not need to be alive and viable as we have no need to germinate them. Dead seeds are useless to growers and breeders, but they still contain valuable genetic information. However, a sample of just a few freshly dried leaves from an original landrace plant (clone) will provide an even better sample source. Hybrids between known imported landraces (ex., Thai X Afghani) can also be used as long as both parents are known, and they are both imported landraces. You may want to submit landrace samples simply to help grow the Cannabis family tree, to satisfy your intellectual curiosity, and provide deeper insights into Cannabis’s evolution.
Another type of sample that will prove valuable to the project will be leaf samples from mother and/or father clones used to make the seeds sold by your company. In the future, these are the samples that will serve as reference points when verifying whose cultivar is the real one. And remember, there is no way the DNA extracted from your cultivars can be used to create another variety. Our research interests are purely for the sake of advancing science.
We hope you will join forces with the IHA and fellow seed companies to assist in advancing our knowledge of Cannabis by participating in the Phylos Bioscience Cannabis Evolution Project. Please refer to the links below to learn more.
Phylos Bioscience Home = Phylos Bioscience
About Phylos Bioscience = About Phylos Bioscience
Phylos Bioscience Frequently Asked Questions = frequently asked questions | Phylos Bioscience
Phylos Bioscience Cannabis Evolution Project = The Cannabis Evolution Project | Phylos Bioscience
Willamette Week article about Phylos Bioscience - January ’15 = Portland Company Phylos Bioscience Is Mapping the Weed Genome for the First Time
If you have any questions please feel free to contact us and we will do our best to answer them.
Best regards,
Rob Clarke
International Hemp Association – Projects Manager
The problem with the history of early cannabis is that there are many conspiracy theories muddying the waters, indoor growing goes hand in hand with asset forfeiture.And you are right IRS is coming!!!!Being in the pharmaceutical industry for close to 15 years, I can't imagine anyone who is involved in this isn't putting money and profit first. There is still an element of control and middleman involvement that I am uncomfortable with. Legalization is just another way to fund our police departments and state govt. because many are currently bankrupt. In effect, they have succeeeded in taking a covert situation (criminal CIA/DEA funding thru bogus drug wars, etc.) and making it into an overt situation- directly funding and benefitting out local L.E. This really isn't about legalization in the true sense (freedom)- it is merely a legitimatization that gives us a false sense as we vote? to give more power to the controllers thru funding. Mark my words, the IRS will be involved just as they are now in our healthcare. Participation in some ways is making their job easier to close the loop or should I say snare? No one should be involved in the care of my health except for me and my doctor. It is a Pandora's box I know that will be opened regardless but money should not be part of the equation as it only corrupts. How many times have we seen govt. and corp. share a supposed benefit only to establish precedent and then move into a situation that results in more regulation, less choice, and the giving up of basic rights around sovereignty? We shouldn't continue to give these things up for a temporary feel good moment.
While I am very interested in genetics and where things may have come from, I am more interested in what heals me and other human beings. It is not okay to enslave plants, put bar codes on them and treat them as objects. This medicine should be available to all without economic barriers and controls.
This process of submission of plant material for free sort of reminds me of all the questionaires that come in the mail expecting me to give free information. Now they want my plants for free to do "research" in which someone will benefit from monetarily. I'm sure it won't be me.
An interesting read:
"The 15 Ounce Pound: Big Pharma's Plan to Patent Pot"
M
The problem with the history of early cannabis is that there are many conspiracy theories muddying the waters, indoor growing goes hand in hand with asset forfeiture.And you are right IRS is coming!!!!
Hi mate, check out what Phylos Bioscience Cannabis Evolution Project is about...dodgy as!!I agree with not being apart of this genome study.
I have to say this though......
I dont think anyone owns any rights to genes unless they put thevtime in to work them. Now after that someone else comes along and creates a new strain they own the new strain and parents to that strain regardless...now they should have to give credit where the parents came from that created the new strain. I dont the the original breeder should be able to get royalties or anything like that...a person sells the seed someone else creates the new strain. Seller loses all rights. Except for the right to the continual geneology of whatever is in future strains created from the original breeder. Look at all the breeders from all those countries who the smugglers gotvseed from. They lost their copyright to the future geneology of the future of the seeds they gave or sold. If they arent going to repatriate those folks then to hell with everyone in the future....
My point here is if you choose to sell breedable seed you lose certain rights to the genes. If i buy a seed from whomever, it becomes the best plant on earth, thats yours. I posses those genes. Now if i bred it and made a great strain, i would (in all due respect to the breeder of my best plant on earth) definetly make mention who the breeder of this best strain on earth seed came from. But i own its progeny bottom line..IM THE OWNER. NOT THE BREEDER I BOUGHT THE ONE SEED FROM WHO I BOUGHT ITBFROM. NOT THE BREEDERS BEFORE THAT BREEDER, AND SO FOURTH. WHAT HAPPENS??? EVERY PAST BREEDER GETS THEIR CUT? YOU GOING TO BACK 8,000 YEARS AND REPATRIATE??
Also how lame would it be if you spent 2x the effort than the breeder before you and that breeder gets half your profits...crazy if that were to occur....
Lets say i buy seeds from here. I create a line. Is it mine? Sure it is. Should there be a legal obligation for me to state where my genes came from? Hell yeah! As long as a person isnt pulling shit (buy seeds from a breeder f2 f3 f4 them whatever) and comes up with either a copy cat line or has a different name altogether, never gives credit to the original breeder, and turns around acting like they put all this work into this new line when all they did was piggy back/ride coat tales of another breeder taking and credit for the other breeders work...dude on thcfarmer selling nevils seeds(thought i heard this) shortly after he passes away....just fucking lame!! Now if nev and him were best friends then maybe there shouldnt be an issue. If not, thats a breach of ethics to me. Now if he put in thebwork and gave credit to nevs work maybe there shouldnt be a problem....
What im tryin to say is if you breed give credit to the original breeder who it came from.
If you cant do that you're fucking whitebread...who eats that anymore??
Hi mate, check out what Phylos Bioscience Cannabis Evolution Project is about...dodgy as!!
100% man, could see it coming!Phylos Bioscience Sparks Outrage Over New Breeding Program Announcement
With Phylos Bioscience’s recent announcement that they are launching an in-house breeding program, many growers who provided their genetics to Phylos to be a part of their Galaxy strain database and mapping project are up in arms. The company’s CEO released a statement saying the company has no...cannabisnow.com
Lol...they're stealing the genetics now....stupid these people are for giving them up in the first place...if phylos paid for them it'd be different. They lied and are now trying to corner the market with genetics they didnt ceate or pay for....just a pure scam....lol
Lol....who the phuk would trust someone with the name mowgli any freakin way??