Thai ganja strains - one explanation for the hermaphrodites

Hi Chamba,welcome to the discussion
I have to leave right now,will come back tomorrow
If you want those Black Market Thai seeds,just drop a pm
PS:Bacchus found one of those willows when he grew out some of my Destroyer x Destroyer x Destroyer

In my experience of living in Northern Thailand, I would only infrequently encounter seeds in ganja, perhaps one or two fully mature seeds every ounce or so, if at all


when was this?....I found that 80's commerical Thai brick contained lots of seeds....a bag of Thai brick weed (pressed and sold for export in the shape of a telephone book) would lose 40% of it's weight if you removed every branch, stick and seed.....

and in my few trips there in the late 90's/early 00's I could of sworn the bud I bought was 50% Haze .....

Namkha wrote in all likelihood the reason Westerner breeders complain of Thai hermies is that their lines of Thai plants originate from seeds picked out of packs of Thai sensi and not from seeds obtained from village growers, as they ought to

they probably picked out their original selections from Thai brick weed....(though we used to get some very good quality commercial Thai bud with relatively small amounts of seed..but mostly heavily seeded)

You are right Namkha - those old Isaan rice farmers with a few stands of ganja growing each year for themselves...these genes would more likely have less chance of being muddied with introduced genes and would be the best seeds to grow in search of the "real Thai".

good thread Namkha!..tell us more about the growth pattern, the high and other aspects of these small plots of Thais....I used to spend 6 months of the year in Thailand for 10 years....Thailand in the 80's was pre-AIDS, pre-drug crackdown and pro-fun!

thanks for the offer Raco!...but I've never been involved with seed swapping on the internet (in all my 11 years or so of posting!)..but if I did I would probably request the seeds be sent to Gypsy's Seed boutique in Amsterdam and I could pick them up personally when I travel there again (but I've no immediate plans to go there unfortunately!)

if they kill the males how do they make seed? Do they just use the seed available? (which if there no males and seeds its herm beans) Maybe thats why it herms they keeo growing herm beans. The males are probably all ruined in that breed...

I hope I don't come across as being a know it all about Thai strains....all I've done is grow less than a few hundred Thais a dozen or two at a time scattered in a few bush plots over the years for personal consumption....I also haven't grown a Thai tree for a decade, so it would be great to hear from those who have grown Thais from seeds sourced in the 70's (before introduced genes) and those who live there and grow for quality, not quantity.....

the tallest cannabis plant I've grown was a Thai, also the most vigorous, the strongest, the longest flowering, the most hermies and the one with the absolute best ever high were all Thai specimens....

let's hear more about original Thai Landraces.......but please let's not pollute this thread with mention of so called "Thai" hybrids offered from seed banks or breeders as they should be spoken about in a separate thread as from the looks of 99% of them I've seen online they seem to contain a maximum of 20% or 30% Thai genes in them even if they are sold as "100% Thai" ..(and they finish in under 10 or 12 weeks and they are 100% Thai ...lol give me a break..4 or 5 months more like it!.....and all this talk of lemon or chocolate Thai - I smoked nothing but Thai bud for 10 years, from a wide variety of sources and never experienced lemon, chocolate or tooty-fruity!...from my experience all Thais have a unique dry, earthy taste and so do the Thais grown outside Thailand..the first I heard of these choc or lemon was from those trying to sell Thai hybrids online,...so go figure)

I bred with selected Thais for years......selecting true females and males, crossing selections from the next generation, rejecting any with a hint of ka-toey-ism, collecting seed, smoke testing, more planting etc ...but 3 or 5 years down the road, heartbreakingly, hermies appeared (and this was in an area where you can grow all year round)...probably, the only way to bred a non-hermie "Thai" line is to introduce non-Thai genes ....or just accept that hermies are a part of growing Thai ganja and so plant more than required and cull hard.....from my experience the best highs came from Thai plants that were asymetrical in growth, took forever to finish and hermied!

so I'd say that if you were successful in selecting and breeding a non-hermie Thai line, you'd probably lose the unique strong, trippy high that Thais used to be known for.

heya Chamba and all, wadee, good reading, cheers

a couple of things you wrote have already slipped my mind lol, however -

[edit - everything you have said so far sounds persuasiv reagrding hermies being genetic]

my main experience of rural Thailand is from 2000 onwards; mainly 2005 when I lived and worked up in Chiang Mai
I also spent quite a while down in Lopburi province, which is largely ethnically Burmese, and has a strong shamanic tradition - plenty of funky herbs such as kratom and that
[edit: I would do roughly the same thing as you Chamba and do half year stints, sometimes longer]

I believe you are spot on regarding all this bollocks about chocolate Thai and fruity what-not
after spening a total of several years in Thailand I do not have the slightest recollection of ever once encountering such flavours, nor ever hearing Thais describe weed as such
always much as you described - dry, though complex, aromas, if that makes sense - vauguely like nice loose leaf Indian tea, though with a deeper more resinous narcotic edge, and nothing remotely sweet about it

good unseeded Thai weed is IME not hard to come by in Chaing Mai city and the northern dois, including in traditional form
the weed I was smoking there was good - as intensely psychedelic as any I have smoked, a little racy at times, but I kind of like that

I don't have much experience of Isan itself, beyond a love of the food and the women lol - man I fucking love lab and dab wan!

I am curious where you got your seeds though - I presume you also took them from bags you had bought - that is fairly central to my conspiracy theory regarding hermies - or "katoey-ism", which I think I will call it from now on lol [edit - seem is it is liely genetic though as you say]

ah yes, the horror: boys turning into ladies, ladies turning into boys - ai sandan!

Namkha

edit: re. pollen Spanish growers do keep an eye on pollen counts from what I hear

edit edit: my knowledge of rural attitudes and practice re. ganja is purely from time spent in home villages of various giks and gfs - I never encountered plants directly, nor did I ever (deliberatley) grow myself - whenever a seed popped in our garden I killed it strtaight away

though as I say, seeds were infrequent in the ganja I smoked up in Chiang Mai, and likewise the info I have on the way people grow in rural areas is from talking directly with Thais in villages and rural towns - I also knew some Thais who grew down on Koh Tao, just up in the patches of jungle, but by their own admission their ganja was not a patch on what was available up in the north (still several times better than all this couch-lock crap)
plus needless to say, life on Koh Tao is a far cry from life in rural Thailand

I never collected seeds nor asked to see plants etc. - something I regret now; I doubt they would have been comfortable with having me visit their patch, but I could have got seeds no probs

Namkha

edit: hey Chamba - what is your take on contamination of Thai genes by outside sources, exactly? Would this be Westerners introducing seeds, or Thais pruchasing from abroad? The latter seems highly improbable to me, the former unlikely to make a significant difference, I would think.
I occasionally see importerd Thai in the UK, and I have smoked Thai sold in the Dam coffeeshops. Needless to say, what I smoked up in Northern Thailand blew the others out of the water.

heya Nate,

In answer to your question about getting hold of good Thai seeds, this is my 2c:

I would personally base myself in Chiang Mai, the main city in Northern Thailand (Thailand roughly divides into Southern, Central, North-Eastern (Isaan) and Northern (roughly what was the Lanna Kingdom)

in Chiang Mai you will find a pretty vibrant ex-pat community, many - if not all - of whom are seasoned smokers. I would hunt down some old-timers there, most importantly some old-timers who speak good Thai and are hanging out with sound Thai chicks (i.e. not the sweaty old gits in t-shirts with syphylitic whores on their arm)

pm me and I will give you the name of some bars where you are likely to find such folk - free-lancers, academics, scientists, art dealers etc. Chiang Mai is a small place, you could suss it yourself, but I may be able to save you some time

Get chatting to such folk and they will invite you for a smoke anyway. Then talk about how to get out to the villages in the mountains/hills (doi) to get hold of some pukka strains.

The best cover you could have would probably be to travel out with some scientists. There are many botanists, entemologists, herpetologists etc. about, what with Thailand being so crazily rich in flora and fauna, many of whom will have their own places out in the hills. They will know the score with where is and is not safe to travel. Merrely going hunting for orchids has it's dangers, you know.

I would certainly not advise heading out there on a motorbike on your own, though you will have no problem doing that if you want. Motorbikes are available for hire everywhere - go for the scramblers, as all but the main roads are rough.

any other questions feel free to ask, and I will help as much as I can

edit: you will likely be offered smoke in villages if you go trecking, but bear in mind that there is a fairly high police presence on many of the main roads through the North. IME they are not actually looking to stop "farang" (meaning basically white foreigners) but this is not something to gamble on. Many backpackers will drive out of town to a couple of popular spots to buy their weed and bring it back in. I would leave that to the maniacs. Carry seeds by all means, but never herb.

Namkha

I occasionally see importerd Thai in the UK, and I have smoked Thai sold in the Dam coffeeshops. Needless to say, what I smoked up in Northern Thailand blew the others out of the water.

when bud is poorly dried, no cure, roughly handled, crushed, packed, stored, transported and dried out it loses potency.......the older and drier it is, the weaker the high. I had an excellent source of ganja in Thailand, the bud was fresh, not dried out and the high was first class most times...though sometimes it was a little old and dry and not as good

.....plus ganja grown in massive qualtities for $$$, not for the love of the plant & it's high, will always be a poor second to good "home grown" or from small plots nurtured by a smoker/gardener

you will likely be offered smoke in villages if you go trecking, but bear in mind that there is a fairly high police presence on many of the main roads through the North.

I did a big trip on motorcycles in "golden triangle" in the 80's...spent months on dirt roads visting hill tribes, seeing the sights etc and all I was offered was opium (or rarely some crappy weed)..I was so glad I bought good ganja with me on that trip!

I have some funny stories about that trip ...one time we were stopped by a police roadblock that appeared just aroudn a bend and I had a cigar sized joint (mixed with baccy.....now I'm 100% tobacco free) in my mouth that I had just lit up ( as one does in the morning in Thailand)..but it was cool ..the cops and us just laughed....(nowdays I'd be quickly alot poorer or jailed)..another time I gave a jay of very good Thai ganja and hash made from the same stuff to an elephant mahoot ..I try to warn him that it was strong shit etc and he just said " it's ok, farang, I'm Thai, this is Thai ganja..ha!...mai-mee-pen-ha" (no problem!)....a few hours later we passed the guy and elephant again ..he was fast asleep on his back on the elephant, shit faced, completely out of it...!..mai-mee-pen-ha indeed! I hand rubbed the dry ganja over and over again to make a charas and then rubbed this charas back into the best of the buds that I had set aside (as I had too much to carry around)..this ganja was supercharged and many a smoker was wiped out by it...knockout asleep after 20 minutes, dead to the world! lol @ the lightweights!...I tried to warn them! lol

I would certainly not advise heading out there on a motorbike on your own, though you will have no problem doing that if you want. Motorbikes are available for hire everywhere - go for the scramblers, as all but the main roads are rough.

I went with a mate of mine and his Thai girlfriend (now wife with 4 kids) on (rented in Chaing Mai) 125cc trail bikes for a big trip in and around the Golden Triangle in the 80's...the roads were rough and if you haven't had at least some off road motorcycle experience then I'd suggest you rent a small 4x4 Suzuki instead cos when it rains the steep, badly rutted red dirt roads/tracks get very slippery, the rivers rise and you have cross raging rivers on log bridges (consisting of 4 or 5 big logs lashed together) ....expect to lay it down a few times so dress for it so you holiday isn't spoilt with scrapes and bandages ...if you really want to get onto the back roads and tracks, then it's def not a place to learn how to ride a dirt bike.....every second tourist who rents a motorcycle or scooter in Thailand ends up leaving some bark on the road or worse.

Chamba said:

....every second tourist who rents a motorcycle or scooter in Thailand ends up leaving some bark on the road or worse.

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definitely

Likewise I never found the Golden Triangle areas (I am thinking Chiang Rai eastwards into the GT areas of Laos, the bits I have seen) were good for ganja - just as you say: opium and scrubby shite

Just to be clear, when I refer to the North I am thinking Chiang Mai and the surrounding dois (hills, mountains) .... that said, I didn't see much evidence of herb around Thaton ( a couple of hours west of Chiang Rai, right on the Burmese border) though I wasn't looking hard (all the villages I saw seemed to be Akka)

... all this talk of travel is giving me itchy feet lol

Namkha

edit: just for the record, I would avoid the cheap flat-bed trucks that are often the least expensive four wheel vehicle to hire - they slew around on the corners when it rains, unless you have something heavy in the back

Nice advice guys. I live in Asia around 19 degrees N and I've never had the fortune of doing a Thai strain...one day! We get Cambodian brick here..and it DOES smell chocolatey...I might do some of those seeds. I bet they'll finish in March like the Indian sativas I did last year...almost a year from start to finish...

Good day all!

Very interesting topic namkha! I have enjoyed reading the points of view of all the growers and breeders here.

"Most Thai strains are very late-maturing and subject to hermaphrodism. It is not understood whether strains from Thailand turn hermaphrodite as a reaction to the extremes of northern temperate weather or if they have a genetically controlled tendency towards hermaphrodism."

Thais and all the sativas coming from latitudes between 0-10º are very late maturing. They need 4-6 mounths to finish correctly the flowering.

Thais, like most landraces have hermie tendencies. Are thais more hermie than ( to name a few) columbians, wild nepalese and indians, senegalese, vietnamese etc ...?

The hermie tendency in a line depends mainly on the job of the breeder or grower to avoid it in the breeding selections. I have had great and bad thais, some were hermies and others not, but the same happens with any other landrace. You can expect lot of hermies from non selected wild landrace populations or from bad selected lines. The work of the breeder is the most important thing and not the origin.

The hermie thais and hermie SE asian genetics i've grown produced hermie plants even when grown under good conditions, so it's obviously very genetically dependant.

A good thai ganja farmer would eliminate the hermie plants to produce high quality 'sinsemilla buds' and would select a few pure males to produce non hermie seeds for the next season.

Raco said:

Very interesting thing....
The breeder of the Destroyer told me a long time ago that the Meao Thai is/was very difficult to tame (domesticate?) because the hermie tendencies and such.The Destroyer was developed in 7 years if I don´t remember bad,it´s mostly Meao and it´s excellent btw.

Click to expand...

Hey raco!

CBG's Meao thai has low hermie tendencies. Meao thai was hard to domesticate for indoor growing and temperate climates because her tropical condition but not for the hermie problems.

Only some meao thai crosses showed recessive hermie problems but the pure meao didnt produced much problems.

heya dubi, great to read your info

so you are from A.C.E seeds?

if so - right on - that is an impressive array of strains

NepJam and Canela in particular have caught my eye

I will have to be a hypocrite re. my earlier remrak to Raco and ask if the people at A.C.E have any Thai strains they are working with - yes, no?

between you and CBG it looks like there is some mighty impressive stuff going on in Spain


Namkha

Lots of good read since the last time!!
First of all,read this quote from Clarke´s "Hashish!":

"In June,1995,the pollen counts in southern Spain revealed that huge quantities of Cannabis pollen were blowing north from the Rif mountains of northern Morocco,42 kilometers across the straits of Gibraltar and up to 160 km. inland.That showing of pollen from the male plants was interpreted as an indication of a bumper crop of kif in the Autumn"

Well,
160 km (100 miles +/-) is a long distance....I´ve heard of crops being pollinated in the Alpujarras(mountain area).The plants I saw in a trerrace in Malaga City in the summer of 1982 were seeded.Malagai has a semitropical climate and hundreds of young seedlings were starting to grow in the soil,from the seeds dropped by their mothers
The weed was poor,the growers agreed...they were growing them for fun...
the reason of my visit (I travelled 1000 km) was the purchase of 250 grams (less than 1/2 pound) of Red Lebanese...pressed in cloth (lino?),super!!
My homegrown at that time was much much better that the one by those friends...but,once again,at that time it was just "homegrown"
And yes,spanish growers are concerned of the accidental pollinations!!

"Only some meao thai crosses showed recessive hermie problems but the pure meao didnt produced much problems"
Hola Dubi
The hermie problems that I found re-shuffling the Destroyer were minimal,and almost always indoors,and probably due to some kind of stress.Just the same thing than many other sativas grown in the same conditions(and a lot of commercial hybs as well!!).
In fact,I have 4 seeds that Bacchus found in one ECSD cutting that probably are fathered by a minimal amount of pollen from one nanner (or more) from one of the two Destroyer x Destroyer x Destroyer taht he grew in the same room.I´m going to grow them for sure!! lol

"The hermie tendency in a line depends mainly on the job of the breeder or grower to avoid it in the breeding selections. I have had great and bad thais, some were hermies and others not, but the same happens with any other landrace. You can expect lot of hermies from non selected wild landrace populations or from bad selected lines. The work of the breeder is the most important thing and not the origin"

Well put Dubi,
landraces are usually FULL of hermies!

"between you and CBG it looks like there is some mighty impressive stuff going on in Spain"
100% right!!

"katoey-ism",
I´ve heard this before...
Some said they are misshapen male flowers or something...
please,I´d love to know your opinion,folks
Also heard of "alligator tails" (about the serration and size of the leaves)
but also:
Dragon tails or dragon eyes....cubbed stems,fasciated? :wink: