Thai ganja strains - one explanation for the hermaphrodites

Who doesnt like a katoey? LOL

dafatguy said:

Who doesnt like a katoey? LOL

Click to expand...

ooooh errrr missus!!!

lol

well chacun a son gout

pom chorp fen sao
or gik sao

bhasa Thai does my head in

Namkha

I find the fear a few bananas can cause men - men brave enough to do the right thing and grow ganja, quite entertaining. I think of it as a gift From God when he puts his hand in and makes me a few beans on a favorite lady. A blessing so that I do not have to keep clones eternally.

Perhaps it is not just the Thai, but the species itself that is hermi. And perhaps, by selection and bias, we have bred out the best genetics for our meds, or will if we persue only sensi. Perhaps I am a silly old fool who should STFU.

But I do have a hermi grow planned, not here, but when I can do it right with the proper soil and conditions. Reckon I will learn something. Or get stoned.
H

Haps said:

I find the fear a few bananas can cause men - men brave enough to do the right thing and grow ganja, quite entertaining. I think of it as a gift From God when he puts his hand in and makes me a few beans on a favorite lady. A blessing so that I do not have to keep clones eternally.

Perhaps it is not just the Thai, but the species itself that is hermi. And perhaps, by selection and bias, we have bred out the best genetics for our meds, or will if we persue only sensi. Perhaps I am a silly old fool who should STFU.

But I do have a hermi grow planned, not here, but when I can do it right with the proper soil and conditions. Reckon I will learn something. Or get stoned.
H

Click to expand...

i dont think so haps ,, i think u will find if u grow seeds from a hermie the chance of finding a male is very very slim ,, u will grow more hermies

.. why intentionally grow hermies to smoke , they are sometimes so prolific with male flowers early into flowering and then full of seed by harvest ,, a big waste i would say as the seeds are useless apart than for birdseed ...

Hermaphroditism is a survival trait. Some plants are more prone to popping off a few bananas at the smallest hint of something wrong. Others do not. I also feel that without the introduction of new blood, so to say, that landraces produce a substantially greater risk for hermaphroditism due to the fact that the genepool has been watered down so much through the years that the plants that may have exhibited a stronger "denial" of such unwanted traits are no longer there, or at best now have genes with more of a propensity to pop off some male flowers. Haps, grow em brother.

I don't want to derail this discussion of the Thai's, It seems the place for this thought of alternatives. In my thinking there is a significant difference in a full on hermi having a pollen party and the simple survival gene that triggers a few bananas in a few buds to ensure the species continues. I have no breeding goals for this, I have left breeding for those who will live long enough to complete their work. But as a personal grower these little gifts are a good thing and the smoke is fine. I just want to learn first hand.
H

oh hey, Chamba, i just read something earlier on where I appeared to be saying Thai wasn't "druggy", which I think it had said it was in one of your posts (and some of mine in another thread)

obviously "druggy" is a fair description of most Thai, at leasy what I have smoked, if by druggy you mean intense, almost dissociatively so
but needless to say that which I smoked was not druggy in the way that Afghan hash or a pure indica can be i.e. narcotic or stupefying

I have never felt stupefied smoking Thai, but I have sometimes felt like I was losing my mind, flickering reality film style

what was the sample:
"he's losing his mind and he feels it going..."
(aaaargh - thank God people have stopped listening to Goa trance these days)

Namkha

TORC and others surely in an area like SEAsia where there have been drug cannabis cultivars for so many centuries "landrace" or "heirloom" strains should generally be viewed with favour, especially when the SEAsian environment is generally conducive to producing potent plants?
Thailand is surely the kind of place where you might find one of those fabled super-potent "50% THC" plants
plus the Meao Thai "gene pool" has thrown up those interesting THCV strains

my perspective would be that on the whole there is more value in a millenium or more of gentle cultivation and open-pollination than there is in a few decades of anal-retentive manipulation
there is something about the character of intensely inbred plants that puts me off
it's like overproduced albums - plants become souless or weird, both to see and to smoke when they are fucked about with too much, I reckon

I am not saying that there aren't killer plants there, what I am basically saying is that over the years, without proper care and culling, that landraces(Thai in this instance) are far more susceptible to producing hermies or traits thereof due to the lack of "fresh" genes. W/o proper care this could lead to hermaphroditism very quickly. We all know that not all people who grow use this care($ talks, BS walks).

using the "landrace" term is deceptive in this regard, as it gives a false impression of genetic uniformity, which I don't believe the term is intended to, or should, imply

landraces are a repository of genetic diversity

to contextualise:
in the case of Thailand, for instance, we are talking about a country roughly the area of France (i.e. fairly large)
furthermore a country which only began to have the beginnings of working national infrastructure in the decades after WWII
e.g. in the early 60s for a civilian to travel between N Thailand and BKK was still done on the crappest of roads, in precious few vehicles

this contextualisation is intended to convey the extent of isolation of rural areas, and basically, that the world is a vast and diverse place

bear in mind that in the greater historical picture "Thailand" has been trading and exchange culture, crops, commodities, goods (and cannabis genes) with "India", "Burma", "China" etc. etc. for centuries
" " because these national distinctions are hazy over such time frames; though all the above nations do reflect a relevant level of cultural continuity

"dollars talk" - ah yes, I do believe that is the CIA's unspoken motto is it not? and look where that's got them
"oh yes meesta, we take your money, now we do "bullshit walk" for you, OK? you like?"


Namkha

one other thing TORC, places such as Thailand, Afghanistan and India, as well as being vast, do also have extremely old traditions of cultivation, and I mean extremely old (millenia)

couple this with the mobility of people along ancient trade routes from highland Burma and Thailand through Kham to the plateau of the Himalaya, and Xin Jiang, Hindu Kush, Iran etc., directly north into Southern China (Yunnan and northwards) , across the Indian Ocean etc. etc.
all these areas have been connected for literally millenia by trade and highly sophisticated cultures

humanity and natural preocesses of cell division both work to develop and incorporate favourable traits and desirable characteristics in the case of all crop plants,
not least in a plant which has as ancient an association with humans as cannabis does

many of the tribal cultures of Asia are (or were nomadic or semi-nomadic too

were it not for the fact that so many Westerner's grow indoors and in Northern climes there would be little or no need for us to bother to further breed good Thai, Nepalese etc. cultivars
no doubt you know that, but to reiterate:

Hmong Thai or Meao Thai after all implies a plant that is both a landrace (adapted to it's environment) and a cultivar (manipulated by Blue Hmong for desirable characeristics)

So, what you are saying is that most of what is growing in Thailand now has had some influx of different genes added to it's own genepool over time by way of the trade routes that you mentioned(it would only be natural). Thanks for clarifying the descriptions. I am to assume that Meao is a man or tribe that has worked that strain for a long time and not necessarily a region of origin.

has anyone ever considered that a slight hermie trait is actually something an outdoor small scale grower might want?

It's my theory on things and just that

If I were a traditional grower that planted from non-hermie seed every year I would have to kill all the males except for one or two to make seed for next year. I would have to divise some way of only pollinating a little bit of my bud so as not to seed the whole crop. To me this sounds to be an improbable situation - that is to say that these little rural growers would not want to keep a male around to make more seeds every year - Instead if the grower was able to kill all the males and still get a very few mature seeds in the crop, say on the order of a couple per ounce, now the rural grower would not have to keep a male for seed making.

My point/theory is that having a plant that hermies just a little bit producing next seasons seeds may have been advantageous to them and they may have intentionally continued to grow this way from year to year - hence producing the characteristic hermie tendency and the few seeds per ounce namka mentioned.

I have an indica dominant plant from the PNW that does the same thing - around day 35 it makes a very few seeds - and then the rest of the plant stays sensi. This plant was inbred in the PNW for 20+ years outdoors - so maybe this was a desirable trait to them too. That is they could kill the males and rely on a small early flower period pollination to produce enough seeds for the next season. Rest of the bud remains damn good, so who cares about a few seeds when it insures you can grow the strain again next year.

-suga

sugabear_II said:

has anyone ever considered that a slight hermie trait is actually something an outdoor small scale grower might want?

It's my theory on things and just that

If I were a traditional grower that planted from non-hermie seed every year I would have to kill all the males except for one or two to make seed for next year. I would have to divise some way of only pollinating a little bit of my bud so as not to seed the whole crop. To me this sounds to be an improbable situation - that is to say that these little rural growers would not want to keep a male around to make more seeds every year - Instead if the grower was able to kill all the males and still get a very few mature seeds in the crop, say on the order of a couple per ounce, now the rural grower would not have to keep a male for seed making.

My point/theory is that having a plant that hermies just a little bit producing next seasons seeds may have been advantageous to them and they may have intentionally continued to grow this way from year to year - hence producing the characteristic hermie tendency and the few seeds per ounce namka mentioned.

I have an indica dominant plant from the PNW that does the same thing - around day 35 it makes a very few seeds - and then the rest of the plant stays sensi. This plant was inbred in the PNW for 20+ years outdoors - so maybe this was a desirable trait to them too. That is they could kill the males and rely on a small early flower period pollination to produce enough seeds for the next season. Rest of the bud remains damn good, so who cares about a few seeds when it insures you can grow the strain again next year.

-suga

Click to expand...

from what i have seen growing cannabis the last 23 yrs i dont think this is possible ..

many hermies are out of control and not just a few flowers in them .. the times they display these flowers also varies a lot , from onset of bud , to the end .... i doubt u could ever guarentee a plant grown from hermie seed will only throw a few late bananas , more likely u will ruin your whole crop with that hermi plant ... and fill it with useless seed , someone may buy the herb u grew , grow the seeds and then also waste a grow ..

i always grow male and female plants ,,, a male plant can be spotted easily , where as a hermie is much harder ..
using hermies to make seed is not a reliable way to go about it , make seeds from male and female plants ...
the better thing to do is keep plants that resist all hermaphradism , they are the ones to make seed from and keep as mothers ,, throw away them hermies ...

hiya TORC, yeh, I wrote something about what little I know about the Hmong/Meao above

I believe they belong to the larger Thai ethnic group that also includes other tribes and peoples in SEAsia and Southern China, includingh the people we think of as Thais (there are "Thai" tribes possibly even as far West as some of the states in Eastern India, though I am not 100% sure on the latter)

main point being I expect you could find the Hmong growing a number of different varieties of cannabis pos. inc. "indica"
Dubi I think corroborated that above

Is that right Dubi? Were you saying the Yunnan was from a Hmong grower?

damn, I would love to visit Burma, Yunnan (pronounced like "Yu-eee-nun", the "u" in "nun" being a "schwaa" for other ex English teachers out there) and Nagaland etc.

yeh and there has been a Indian (esp. Brahmanical) presence in Thailand for centuries, as well as Chinese (mainly Hakka I think, but there is extensive Chinese influence on Thai aesthetics)
There are Indian Mahayana Buddhist statues dating back to the 7th century and earlier Mahayana Buddhist ruins all over Issan (in that case old Khmer Mahayana) and many other areas inc. I think the Southern Peninsula, where there is a beautiful Brahmanical statue of Avalokiteshvava (S Peninsula is now principally Muslim though) amonst other things (that at Wat Suan Dok)
The Burmese were also in areas of Central Thailand such as Lopburi at points in the past

on the whole the Thai nation as we now know it reflects Central Thai dominance, i.e. "Thai" Thai Theravadin Buddhists (Theravadins became influential from 11th century onwards I think, so not that long ago in the Buddhist scheme of things)

how this has impacted on cannabis exactly who can say, but also

SE Asia has been trading with Africa for centuries, and strains like Malawi could reflect that, and also Indian presence in Africa, and certainly the Zamal is likely to reflect SE Asia- Africa trade routes if I understand right
I think SE Asian drug cannabis would have been arriving in Africa from the 13th century on if my memory serves

this is just patchy rememberigns, but gives you a general idea of the sort of diversity I was trying to convey

Namkha

edit: I would guess the Meao Thai CBG has would have originated from somewhere in the Northern Highlands/Mountains (doi), which is the area with the highest concentration of ethnic groups and most renowned growing tradition to the best of my knowledge; there are other commercial hybrids about with NE / Issan provenance too, from what I have seen; Chamba was saying good things about Issan above... not generally a place I know much about... I would think there are some Hmong there too, and in Laos, and Vietnam, so fuck knows really lol

Great thread.