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Terroir and Cannabis

Landrace

Fluffy, I concur.

From refer smoke.com aparently acapulco gold is found its way back in some dutch coffee shops. Wonder if this classic strain is available in any dispensaries (please no one list specific ones- don't want to break sourcing rules.)

According to the definition in the encyclopedia of plant genetic resources, 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. Therefore a cannabis landrace is a marijuana plant species that has been geographically isolated from the possibility of cross-breeding with any other strain of a similar plant species. If we were discussing vegetables or another type of plant we'd be using the term "heirloom".

For many years some of the leading Cannabis Seed Company owners have taken a keen interest in preserving the great original marijuana strains of the world and several even work together, creating Seed Banks. There are some important reasons that landrace cannabis has become popular, first because they're the best strains for cross-breeding to make new marijuana strains or brands, maybe the only true way to make a new strain and secondly the plants themselves are fabulous to smoke in their natural form and have recently become very popular amongst both recreational smokers and medical marijuana patients. This dispels a myth that THC content has increased in modern strains of marijuana, as any cannabis landrace will get you very high.

Some of the more famous landrace cannabis strains are from Afghanistan, Africa, Brazil, India, Mexico and Thailand but that's generalizing because according to botany a plant growing from the same strain of seed, such as Jamaica Lambs Bread, for a long enough period of time, without being crossed with another strain, can be known as a landrace. Some of the other best known strain brands are Hindu Kush (pictured), Malawi Gold, or Acapulco Gold, which I recently heard was re-produced by a Dutch grower and brought back to the Coffeeshops in Amsterdam and has become very popular.

http://www.reefersmoke.com/pot/
 
Greek Landrace and Terroir

Here's some info on Greek Landrace and terroir bassed on an inquiry for MMJ from someone on IC whose wife suffered from MS

Does any one know of any strains that have greek landrace genetics?, as im a medicinal grower for my wife who has MS, she is greek ,and im of the belief some of the strains she was used to in greece, would be a good starter for my eventual plans, to breed a strain specifically for her symptoms.
been trying for a while to track down some seeds from the legendary kalamata strain but to no avail,
it seems since she left greece her home town is flooded with albanian weed which doesnt come near the kalamata and cretan strains she was used too, of course we have friends over there tryin to locate some, but if any one knows where i might find some please let me know.

one guy's reply:

been searching for Kalamata myself. A friend of mine who went home to Greece for vacation smuggled a small amount of "Kalamata"(couple joints worth) back with him and I gotta say it was some of the best sativa I have ever smoked. The taste and smell were tainted by the fabric softener sheets he used to wrap it, but the high was very very strong. True one or two hit quitter stuff. I wish he didnt wrap it in those fabric sheets because if I ever do find it again, I wont be able to ID it probably. But Im glad he took the risk so I could try that weed. He was very proud of it coming from Greece.

the quality of greek weed based mostly on climate and ground conditions.also in some really organic tricks that the growers were using,and not only this.in the past years,very important for a special quality weed was the personal contact between the grower and the plants
the best region is in south greece.Personaly, i smoked a lot of different qualities from all over greece in the past years.no matter if it was indica or sativa,the best was always from the mountains of pelloponisos.amazing taste ,extremely tripy ,with a duration more than 3.30hours.
unfortunately these qualities they exist only for a few growers that cultivating for personal use small amount of plants.the only way to smoke this weed is, if you have for a friend one of these growers.in the market is impossible and even if they try to sell it like greek weed from peloponisos, don't believe them.last time that i smoked original high quality greek weed was in 2003....
the last years i am living in amsterdam and i am smoking only hashish.the reason is that because of my standards the weed here is so artificial that i can't accept it

In my experience, alot of Greek weed is made into Hash of superb quality from what I'm told. Lot of shity Albanian weed analogous to our mexican schwag

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=86008
 
I'm bumping this because it is near the end of the outdoor season and it gives people an incentive to vote prop 19 which could lead to reintroduction of classic landrace strains and lay the ground work to institute quality control of varietals and growing conditions ala CA AVAs (appelations) in the CA wine industry with out getting sold fake immitators as such.

Prop 19, quality control, and what the brave new future could eventually hold.
 
2010 Northern hemisphere Season

I'm bumping this thread. If you have stories about out grown high quality strains, please share. How was the Season this year, esepecially in Northern California for outdoor pot, especially with all the rains during harvest time? What is your favorite outdoor strain. Will try to add to this in a few days, especially the haze debate. Anyone have stories about Panama red? Will updats in probably 3 day Howabout the Island Harvest for '10? Any stories from oldtimers concerning classic strains especially Panama Red and the Classic strains of Mexico, Colombia, and Thailand. Has anybody run into good outdoor strains this year in the Dam' (before the new draconian pt laws?) Has any Afgan Hash found its way into the market, or have any NATO deployed troops come across any- how was it?
 
is the panama red from jamaica or mexico? because i kow a large influx of jamaica immagrants came i the early 1900s ad brought the weed smoking culture over there to a small degree or was it commercial mexican or columbian crops brought over there by smugglers
 
Thats a good question. from what i read, the strain came from colombia. Other sources say mexico. Apparently the terrroir- growing conditions were optimal for this strain. It was extensively cultivated in the former US Panama Canal Zone and the Islands in the pacific, back in the day. But their is a dirth of info on this strain. The Panama Canal Zone was the first place under US jurisdiction to repeal cannabis prohibition. Interesting story behind this. The Coutry of Panama repealed their law a year later.

Rational Drug Laws- The First Place to legalize Cannabis in the USA
 
Nepalese temple balls

The Buddhists have a saying: "May all beings be happy." They also have a hash to back it up with: black finger rubbings from high in the Himalayas. This was some of my all-time favorite.

Nepalese is among the most cerebral of hashish. A strong yet pleasant head journey packed in every puff. This is some of the happiest hash I have experienced. The taste is spicy/fruity/earthen and among the most enjoyable of hash flavors. Most Nepalese hash is from rubbings, although I have heard from travelers to the area that screened and pressed varieties are available.

Simply put: Nepalese Temple Ball is some of the happiest, fruitiest and most pleasantly flavorful, highest quality hash that I have ever experienced.

I had the pleasure of visiting India recently and had the good fortune to encounter a Nepalese fellow with access to what he said was imported Nepalese hash. It was a very flavoursome smoke with strong heady effects. I did however make the mistake of getting one of the locals to make a bhang lassi with the last few grams I had left. The effect was overpowering and way too heady for me.

It was interesting looking stuff, sold in 12 gram tola's or hand rubbed sticks. There were remnants of plant material in there and it had a much more sweet pleasant aroma than the local weed on offer which smelled musty and was full of seeds.

I didn't take a photo but it appeared black (like a black crayon) on the outside but when broken had golden brown colourings inside
 
I agree, awesome thread!

Escuse me if I misuse the term terroir, it is new to me, but I think I understand the words implications.

I would think it would be possible to learn a lot about the terroir a bud was grown in by analyzing it in various ways. In terms of the taste, smell, structure and so on, the terroir is a defining environmental factor driving the plants development. Of course, if one had access to a very expensive apparatus for analyzing the chemical constituents of the bud, different soil or other growth medium signatures must have been imprinted in it, reflective of the environment/terroir of growth. So with such a machine, enough time and patience, not to forget a lot of dirt and weed, an enthusiast could learn a lot!

The more one knows about the seed or clone origins, the better; naturally, there are a set of genetic presets, in terms of the plants DNA. A C. indica grown in Northern Africa, will still retain similarities to it's homegrown counterpart in the Himalayas, and a C. sativa grown indoors in a Canadian grow-house using rockwool hydroponics, still retains inherent similarities to its homegrown African counterpart.

A volcanic basalt derived soil of the tropics will have a strong impression on bud characteristics, such as taste and aroma, as will a silicious soil of the Himalayas, but in a much different way. If you've smoke a lot of Columbian bud, or Ethiopian bud, or any bud for that matter, I'm sure you'd always be able to taste and recognize it. From all the bud I've smoked, I remember, and will always recognize the distinct tastes of certain bud that I know to be from a specific place; the bud characteristics and chemical constituents (it's entirety - everything from soil or atmosphere derived molecules, to inherent scent molecules), as well as the surroundings upon ingestion are fundamental factors in terms of overall sensual impressions. Thus, it is a question of being able to categorize the bud based on ones response to the weed, which relies on the users capability to realize what the cause for their sensual responses were - e.g. if you realize that a certain taste is due to the soil that the plant was grown in, you will always be able to say something about the terroir of growth, when you come across the same taste again.

So without expensive equipment, we're left with our senses, and with enough insight, I'm sure one could say a lot about the terroir a bud was grown in, exactly the same way a wine enthusiast might be able to say something about the grapes terroir of growth from the taste, smell or even consistency of the wine. Every bud, from every part of the world, will have a distinct taste and all-round 'feel' unique to the plant and its growth environment, and the more you know, the better your grow!

Other than terroir, climate is important, as well as sunlight hours. I guess one should be able to taste the terroir, to smell the climate, to see the sunshine when smoking a decent bud or lump of hash from anywhere in the world, if similar bud has made an impression in the past. And I do believe the connoisseurs and enthusiasts around know what I'm talking about. I also think that growers will know what I'm talking about, because the best way to get to know a bud, is to be there and care for it through all it's vegetative and flowering stages, and to appreciate a proper cure and carry out a respectable smoking ritual.

Long live Cannabis sp.! And free the plant, for fucks sake already!
 
I'd just like to go to Amsterdam to taste again some top Kashmiri hash, like the one I tasted back in '89... I'm drooling.
There was a war going on in Kashmir during all the nineties-beginning of 2000's and there was no Kashmiri hash to be found in Holland. But now...

I agree... some of the best hash I've smoked has been Kashmiri... For some odd reason that I will never fully comprehend it's called 'Kashmir pollen'..
 
Some info about cannabis vintage 2011 in California. Provided by Slimvictor in DiTM:

The 2011 Cannabis Harvest Looks Golden

The Bay Area is renowned for having some of the best produce in the world, and that reputation again extends to its sun-kissed cannabis. California's annual outdoor marijuana crop has come in, and despite global warming and heated federal threats, the harvest looks quite golden. Growers, dispensary operators, and experts say California's 2011 outdoor is bountiful, cheap, high-quality and more medicinal than in years past.


While the federal government has publicly pilloried medical marijuana profiteers and exporters, the DEA generally is not interested in qualified patients cultivating marijuana according to state law.

More people are growing more ganja than in years past and more of it is being grown outdoors, said Ed Rosenthal, Bay Area author of several cannabis cultivation books.

Cannabis is a seasonal crop in California with an estimated value of $14 billion per year. Though most of it is thought to be grown indoors nowadays, outdoor crops still go into the soil after the last spring rains.

Farmers in Northern California's Emerald Triangle, formed at the intersection of Mendocino, Humboldt, and Trinity counties grow much of it, though robust outdoor growing now occurs throughout Northern California and into the Central Valley.



Kym Kemp
Outdoors, cannabis plants can get gargantuan

Outdoors, the bushy weeds can grow as big as small trees throughout the dry, scorching summers. Seasonal workers cut them down before the first fall rains start. After several weeks of drying, curing and trimming leaves off the buds, the crop is ready for storing or consumption.

Price

The fall harvest typically means a drop in prices as a glut of weed comes to both the black market and the burgeoning dispensary market, and this year promises substantial savings. In the medical scene, eighth-ounces - which can go for $55 - are on sale for as low as $35. Ounces which retail for $360 can be found for as little as $200. That's a boon to low-income patients, several operators say.

Rosenthal said price cuts might be even more sharp in the black market, because dispensaries are not hoarding inventory like usual. Federal saber rattling, and efforts to shut down storefront collectives has operators nervous about stocking up, said Rosenthal. When cash-needy growers can't quickly sell their product, prices drop, he said.

"It's going to make for very low prices," said Rosenthal.

Quality

The quality of outdoor this year is also rivaling indoor-grown sensimilla, and that's something of a sea change, experts say.



East Bay Express file photo
A flower top of outdoor cannabis from 2011 that tests at 21 percent THC

In the Seventies, all cannabis was grown outdoors, but the federal drug war in the Eighties pushed farmers out of direct sunlight, and many went entirely indoors.

Since the Nineties, the indoor market has come to dominate California cannabis both in clubs and on the street. It tends to be stronger, better-looking, and more easily controlled than an outdoor grow, watchers note.

But under the protections of state laws Prop 215 and AB 420, as well the state Attorney General's guidelines and two federal memos - outdoor is making a comeback, many say.

David Bienenstock, editor of High Times Medical Marijuana magazine, based in Santa Cruz has gone on several Fall garden tours this year. It's another big year for Kushes and Diesels, but his favorite this year is a Norcal hybrid called Tangelo.

"It has this amazing tangerine citrus smell," he said. "I think people are bringing more and more knowledge and experience to outdoor growing and they are producing this incredibly high-quality harvest because of that. I think as people return to putting plants in full sun - which has been going on for a while - it's becoming a big part of why the outdoor harvest product continues to get better in quality."

CBD Rich
The outdoor harvest is not only higher-quality, but it's more medicinal. In 2011, outdoor growers have embraced the high-CBD strain Harlequin in a major way, said Bienenstock.

Cannabidiol or CBD is a non-psychoactive anti-inflammatory molecule in marijuana. Highly therapeutic for pain, CBD dampens the psychoactivity of pot's main active molecule, THC, which is why black market breeders had nearly eliminated CBD from contemporary pot. The Bay Area medical scene has been using labs to identify high-CBD strains and get them to growers - to bring CBD back, as it were.

Addison DeMoura, co-founder of Steep Hill Lab in Oakland said 2011 ushers in a new era of high-CBD outdoor Harlequin as well as other high-CBD strains Blue Suede Shoes and ATF.

For the first time, they're systematically coming to market, Bienenstock notes.

"The dispensary provides this new feedback loop between patients and growers, and out of a big choice, the growing market is for non-psychoactive and less psychoactive pot. It goes against the U.S. Attorneys' entire point for making a target of these places."

Climate Change
This year's outdoor harvest has also been affected by global warming, growers say. "They're experiencing climate change," said Bienenstock. "The one thing I've been hearing everybody wail about is the weather patterns they've been used to and have relied on have not been consistent."n

Southern Humboldt collective operator Charlie Custer at the Tea House Collective writes, "good old global weirding has created even stranger summers up here than the Bay Area has. The last two years' late spring rains, cool and humid summers and soggy falls have been wonderful for our salmon and just perfect for our mold."

Grape farmers are worried about losing 30 percent or more of their crop, and cannabis crops suffer from the same mold as grapes, he said. "Many growers along the coast have suffered more than 50 percent losses," he said.

Consequently, greenhouse-grown ganja has emerged as a new halfway point between fully outdoor grows and a controlled environment, Bienenstock said. "Greenhouses are a way to adapt."

Sungrown, NO2-Flushed
Hybrid enclosures are also changing the terminology of the harvest. This year, Harborside Health Center, SPARC, and others have started calling "outdoor" cannabis "sungrown" cannabis. It better reflects the product's origin and battles the stigma that outdoor is somehow contaminated, dirty, or weathered, they say.

"I think it's a good way to remind people that that's the natural way to produce this plant," Bienenstock.

Lastly, places like Steep Hill are touting new techniques for preserving this year's skunky bounty. While pot can stay fresh for up to a year when sealed and stored in a cool, dry dark area, growers are increasingly turning to nitrogen-injected, vacuum-sealed standardized packaging that's labeled for transport to dispensaries.

This is most definitely not the outdoor stuff bound for export by alleged Mexican cartels, DeMoura said.

"You don't spend $20,000 on testing, packaging and labeling 100 pounds just to rip it up and ship it out of state. You don't wear Manolo Blahniks to the bowling alley."

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/Legal.../11/03/the-2011-cannabis-harvest-looks-golden
 
With the new outdoor season fast approaching it would be interesting to get some info on this years Northern Hemisphere Crops beyond the usual Mexican Cartels are setting up outdoor grow operations in National parks and wreaking catostrophic damage to our environment," drivel. Anyone got anything to add to this thread? I'll try to post things if I find them on the subject which I consider esential reading for the diserning cannabis conoisseur.
 
Purple Maroc Seeds is Female Seeds specially inbred feminised Moroccan strain

Purple Maroc
Purple Maroc has been intensively bred from original Morrocan Ketama genetics by Female Seeds. It is an early maturing outdoor/greenhouse sativa with high THC resin production. Maroc (Moroccan) is perfect for both outdoor and greenhouse cultivation. After about 8 weeks of vegetative growth it is ready to start flowering by the middle of July. Maroc produces long , slender buds with an open structure that is very mould resistant. Although the genuine Ketama taste requires the "terroir" of Morocco to be fully realised this cannabis variety developes its own delicious unique flavour elsewhere with different climates and soils - an extremely aromatic smoke. This plant becomes rather an unreliable strain indoors as it is specially bred for outdoor cultivation.
http://www.headsite.com/purple-maroc-seeds-231-p.asp

Anyone here consider the idea of "Terroir" as it pertains to Marijuana?







The French use the term Terroir, loosely translated to "sense of place" when talking about wine. Its kind of a culmination of things, assessing the entire environment in which a plant is grown, the positives, negatives, and the likely results it will produce.

We all do this to some extent as growers, but the idea has not been embraced like it has in the winery business. Familiar with the idea, and thoughts on it?

http://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/407381-anyone-here-consider-idea-terroir.html

Seems like others have the same idea I do.;)

http://books.google.com/books?id=_i...AEwBA#v=onepage&q=terroir and cannabis&f=true

Google book discussing terroir as it pertains to outdoor morrocan cannabis- very intersting read. Cannabis enthusiats check out previous posts on page 1 and 2

Not the best articles posted but the google book is good. I suggest reading over page 1 and 2 of this thread and familiarizing ones self with the term terroir. You will here more of it when Gange is made legal.
 
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