Watch the episode · 3:18Long before strain names, seed banks and grow tents, there were places: mountain valleys and tropical fields where cannabis was grown, saved and replanted for centuries. Every modern strain traces back to these plants. They are called landraces.
What is a landrace? ▶ 0:23
A landrace is a local population of a crop, shaped over many generations by one place and the people who farmed it. Each year farmers kept the seeds from the plants that did best, and the local climate weeded out the rest.
| Landrace | Modern hybrid | |
|---|---|---|
| Shaped by | one region, over centuries | breeders, over a few years |
| Genetics | diverse, but recognisable | selected, often crosses of crosses |
| Adapted to | local climate, pests and seasons | grow rooms and growers' goals |
It is not one uniform strain. A landrace is genetically diverse but recognisable, and perfectly suited to its home.
Where it began ▶ 0:47
So where did it all start? A 2021 study sequenced 110 cannabis genomes from around the world and concluded that cannabis was first domesticated around 12,000 years ago, in East Asia.
Its findings suggest that every modern hemp and drug type branched off from an ancestral gene pool that still survives today, in wild plants and landraces in China.
Source · Ren et al., Science Advances (2021)
From there, people carried it along trade routes across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and beyond. Everywhere it landed it adapted, and new landraces were born.
Shaped by climate ▶ 1:25
In the high, cold mountains of the Hindu Kush, plants grew short and stocky, with broad leaves and dense flowers that finished before the frost. (The most famous of them gets its own story: Afghani, the landrace behind almost every strain.)
In tropical places like Thailand, with no harsh winter coming, plants grew tall and slender, with narrow leaves, and took months longer to flower.
| The plant | Why | |
|---|---|---|
| Mountain | short, broad leaves, quick | short, cold growing season |
| Tropical | tall, narrow leaves, slow | long, warm growing season |
Same species, very different answers to very different climates.
The Hippie Trail ▶ 1:50
In the 1960s and 1970s, travellers on the so-called Hippie Trail brought landrace seeds home from places like Afghanistan, Thailand, Mexico and Colombia.
Breeders in California and the Netherlands crossed them, creating classics such as Skunk #1 and Northern Lights. Almost every strain sold today still carries those landrace genes.
Disappearing ▶ 2:16
But many landraces are now under threat. In Morocco's Rif mountains, researchers found the traditional local variety being rapidly replaced by imported hybrids, a shift that took off in the 2000s.
Source · Chouvy & Afsahi, Int. J. Drug Policy (2014)
And because cannabis is pollinated by the wind, pollen from new hybrids can drift into local fields, slowly diluting genetics that took centuries to form.
That is why seed collectors and preservation breeders work to keep landraces alive: storing seed, and growing out large, isolated populations so the original diversity is not lost.
A landrace is a local population, shaped by one place over generations. Cannabis began in East Asia around 12,000 years ago, climate shaped each landrace into something unique, and many are now at risk.
Sources
- Ren, G. et al. (2021). "Large-scale whole-genome resequencing unravels the domestication history of Cannabis sativa." Science Advances 7(29): eabg2286.
- Chouvy, P.-A. & Afsahi, K. (2014). "Hashish revival in Morocco." International Journal of Drug Policy 25(3): 416–423.
Every claim in this article comes from the episode script, which is checked against these papers. Prices on Seedscanner are dated observations; this page is not growing or legal advice.
