[Mustafunk]

https://www.hindustantimes.com/India-...e1-733313.aspx

Cops trying to seize control of one of Himachal Pradesh's top drug producing regions found new hybrid marijuana plants in remote forest of Malana village in Kullu district. Cops in remote forestland in Parvati valley came across hybrid hemp plants during campaign launched by the state police to destroy cannabis cultivation across the state.

"These plants are smaller in size and have more seeds than other hemp plants that grow in wild" Suprintendent of Police (Narcotics) Dr Vinod Kumar Dhawan told Hindustan Times. "Plants have been genetically improved. It appears so that new strain of hemp had been developed after thorough research and analyses", added Dhawan.

Hemp is traditionally used by villagers to prepare rope and shoes. The hybrid plants found have broader leaves and high content resins that are used for extracting charas.

Discovery of hybrid plants have sent anti-narcotic agencies into tizzy making them believe that drug mafia had scattered seeds of hybrid hemp plants to extract high yield of charas to sell at exorbitant prices in the international market as well in key tourist spots in India, particularly in Goa. To market the local charas, drug peddlers have created their own brands - like black widow Skunk balls, AK-47.

Malana cream -name given to charas extracted from hemp in the forest land of Malana village still remains the most famous. "I cannot say whether it is hybrid hemp but certainly these plants are different" says Superintendent of Police, Kullu, Abhishekh Dhullar, who himself has led the cannabis destruction operation in Malana Village.

Hippies when made this forest lands their transit home in the mid-70s, introduced drug culture in Kullu valley. Drug culture in the valley changed the trend forcing many locals to abandon traditional fruit growing and take up lucrative cannabis cultivation.

Anti- narcotic agencies are struggling to curb the expanding chars trade in the valley that have now drawn peddlers from Nepal. The state police have jointly launched a massive campaign to destroy cannabis. For the first time cases have been registered against at least 20 person under the NDPS act after cops and revenue officials detected cannabis growing in private lands. Further to make cannabis destruction campaign more effective state government allocated Rs. 1 crore under MNREGA for cannabis destruction. Till last month cannabis had been destroyed on 54,000 bighas of forest land across the state.

It seems that the dutch and modern hybrids are polluting and arriving even to this remote regions of cannabis diversity... maybe Arjan and his Strain Hunters passed around Parvati lately too! Not many regions will remain with the time unless we reeducate people and try to keep hybrids at home!

If this continues, all the world areas will suffer what happened in the past in Jamaica, Thailand, Mexico, Colombia...

As Sam Skunkman said:

do not take hybrids to regions of traditional cannabis biodiversity

[ahortator]

Hi Mustafunk

I remembered this news from La Cominera in Colombia.

https://www.elespectador.com/noticias...precio-de-coca

I agree with you. The drug smugglers, law enforcement along the Strain Raiders are a great treat for the Cannabis biodiversity:

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=192004

They are visiting all the traditional cannabis growing zones spreading their bloody hybrids and polluting landraces. I don't know why they do it. Perhaps they want to be the only seedbank with the last pure unhybridized landraces.

Hemp is traditionally used by villagers to prepare rope and shoes. The hybrid plants found have broader leaves and high content resins that are used for extracting charas.

Hippies when made this forest lands their transit home in the mid-70s, introduced drug culture in Kullu valley. Drug culture in the valley changed the trend forcing many locals to abandon traditional fruit growing and take up lucrative cannabis cultivation.

This is at least very funny. The government and mass media pretend make us to believe that psychoactive ganja growing in Parvati is something new and introduced by foreigners. LOL

[Jon 54]

What BULLSHIT!!!!!! I was there in the seventies and believe me there was plenty of hash and charas in the Parvati District and the Malana area. Sure there has been introductions of some hybreds but not enough to hurt the crops at all. Hash is and always will be part of the culture of the people of that area. Jon 54

[maryjaneismyfre]

I have a close friend who stays in Parvati, he maintains that the WW and Skunk have been there for years already.. More than a decade? The genepool is already different.

[spiralofeyes]

Emotionally I find it really sad that this area has been contaminated.I love diversity as a matter of principle.
Rationally I know that,given a large enough population, the plants will evolve with the selection criteria of their habitat,i.e back to their landrace form.
Geneomes aren't written in stone,especially not in an organism that completes it's reproductive cycle in less then a year. This all hinges on there not being some pathogen that the hybrids have no resistance against,but if the hybridization has gone on for a decade or more without issue,I suspect it has already gone past that critical point.

my 0.2 USD.

[blan-k-flor]

Very sad news...

[mexcurandero420]

Originally Posted by maryjaneismyfre

I have a close friend who stays in Parvati, he maintains that the WW and Skunk have been there for years already.. More than a decade? The genepool is already different.

I heard that 2 from a guy who lived there for more than 20 years.Only high in the mountains you can find the traditional varieties, but hybrids in the lower parts of the area.

Keep on growing

..........another reason to save traditional landrace seeds

[sprinkl]

I don't know if that's such a horribly bad thing, there are 10000s more wild plants so much more pollen, hybrids will probably flower later too so everything's already pollinated by the wild plants.
Also even if the genes get mixed up the environment will make the most suitable genes survive. IMO if you plant white widow in jamaica after 10 years it will pretty much be a jamaican sativa. After all cannabis is all the same familly, the ancestors were all the same. Difference in varieties are due to difference in environment and climate, nature selecting the most suitable genes(the most suitable plants simply produce more progeny), and humans selecting the best drug genes thereof.
If White Widow stays the same White Widow after 10 years it means its genes are better.
Or that local drugfarmers just aren't as succesful in breeding as western breeders who have controlled indoor environment, clones and massive selections to find the best plants...
I thought all drugstrains were created by man, as cannabis grown naturally without selections would just revert back to low thc hemp.

I mean it's sad that original strains, bred for hundreds of years by local farmers in the same environment selecting the same way, steadily improving or maintaining their quality are getting mangled with other genes but with time and energy, using the same location(or artificial environment) and selecting in the same way you could reproduce those strains.
You could go as far as say that the original strains are changing anyhow because of global warming and pollution etc

Just some mental rambling and my 2 cents...

[maryjaneismyfre]

I'm going to stir the pot here and say that it is because man has taken this plant and planted it in every corner of the globe and cared and loved for the plant and made sure that some survived and because during this it has been exposed to every kind of pest and every kind harsh condition the environment has thrown at it and some have always somehow survived..sorry, it is because of this that it is our most 'medicinal plant' we know of, in terms of how diverse the range of protective terpenes is that it can produce potentially from within its genome or with selective breeding.

There is no other plant in nature that can produce the range of anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, anti-septic, anti-acarid and insect repelling terpenes that cannabis can. This is not even exploring the cannabanoid terpenes. I think it is positive in the long run to introduce good genes from other corners of the globe as novel terpenes and chemistry will come out and we as well as the growers stand to benefit. The landrace cannabis was only introduced there by man anyway at some point in history and I think after many generations natural selection takes care of things with weak pest and rot prone lines dying out. Ive seen AMAZING things come out of native fields once F5 and later generations are reached after introduction of foreign genetics. I think what is important is that ruderalis genetics and autoflowerers are not introduced as well as hermaphrodite prone genetics. Also I have seen shocking dope come out of areas that used to be known for good weed a few years after introduction of dutch genetics so what is also important is that varied genetic pools are introduced and especially hybrids with stable landraces and elite hybrids because of the benefit for all. I have seen and heard of rural poor changing their fortunes with a yearly crop becoming a quarterly crop with different resultant hybrids strain lines settling out to distinct different flowering times in the year once pressured with the climate and other factors allowing for a more constant supply of much more valuable medicine to market for them. Pest and mold resistance can be introduced as well if smart introductions are made.

my 2 cents..