[zamalito]

With $200 petrolia headstash packs Afghanis seem to be a popular strain lately and I wanted to run my theory on this by you. I'm a sativa guy and not a fan of the latest trichome covered purple f1 indicas but the afghani is something I've always loved w/ a flavor that can't be produced by anything else.

Ok, the commonly accepted history of the afghani is something many of you know but I'll run thru it just bring the rest of you up to speed.

In the late 1800's the Russian explorer Vavilov (a sort of Russian version of a combination Linnaeus and Louis & Clarke) explored Afghanistan. He noted that the afghans were cultivating sativas for hashish production and the variety of wild plants used by nomadic groups were indica. So what happened to the legendary afghan hash sativa? My theory is this. First off our definition of indica is probably quite different from Vavilov's 120 years ago. Interestingly one of vavilov's criteria for the taxonomic classification of indica was a height of less than 3 feet. The afghan hashish culture was composed of immigrants from Russian and ChineseTurkestan (approx location of modern day uzbekistan and xinjiang province of china) I believe that what vavilov labeled as cultivated sativa were actually giant pure indicas brought to afghanistan from turkestan. The reason these plants are no longer in afghanistan is while the climate of the two countries are similar and they both are irrigated by melted runoff from snow melting in the spring afghanistan is prone to EXTREME drought lasting sometimes ten years. The regions around Samarkand and Yarkand (the two areas of turkestan that supposedly produced hash that would make bubbleman blush even before christ existed) have large areas of deciduous forest showing that there's ample water supply to support very large cannabis plants. Because of these droughts afghanistan doesn't have any very large deciduous forest covered areas. Another piece of evidence is the gorgeous 6-9 ft tall uzbek hash plant indica strains (of which I have two hehe). One of which is the Tashkenti from cannabiogen. I purchased some about 2-3 years ago and it stretches more indoors than my zamal!! But its 100% indica and makes wonderful hash. If you look at the structure of a true p1 afghan you see short height, short branches that stay close to the main stem, and a dense covering of resin covered wide leaves with little actual flower weight. All of these are adaptations that allow the plant to conserve water in dry air during drought and simultaneously use the sun to efficiently produce trichome. Since I don't believe that resin helps the plant deal with drought it just seems far fetched that the plants developed their resin producing ability simultaneous to adapting to such a terrible climate. The hi resin trait must have been developed separately then combined with the wild afghans. While the afghani does have the traits that matter for producing good hash I believe that the genes from the wild indicas that allowed them to survive the hellacious afghan drought eventually carried over to the hash plants out of neccessity for survival. So the afghan hash sativas probably either never existed or are something we've been overlooking for a while now depending on how you look at it (at least in my opinion). BTW It takes a lot of balls for me to disagree RC Clarke who says it actually was a sativa.

[Closet Funk]

Interesting!

[jaykush]

its gonna be hard to argue with that, lol. interesting indeed.

[Reign of Terror]

nice read

Reign

[Reign of Terror]

so indicas came from china, then europe, and lasty afghanistan/middle east?!

wow...

I can't argue because it makes complete sense

Reign

[zamalito]

I'm glad you find it interesting. I was kinda scared you guys would all rip me apart. As far as the origins of the first indica I can't make too much argument one way or the other. The most accepted theory is that it was created in the hindu kush range. I don't argue with this but I think the originals had much more genetic diversity having more traits in common with sativas and still weren't exactly what you and I would call a true breeding inica. Over the years I think environment has played a roll in decreasing that genetic diversity (like the droughts in afghanistan wiping out the genes for larger plants). One of the things DJ short says about ruderalis is that its a pheno that's created when indica is bred for a northern climate and I agree with this. So ruderalis and indica are the same thing. This (morphology) I feel is the only true difference between indica and sativa. Indicas when feral in a northern climate become the ruderalis pheno of indica. Sativas when feral in a northern climate become weedy hemp. Sativas show a strong correlation between latitude and thc/cbd content and fiber production suitability. This is how a wild malawi specimen can be 10% thc (better than beasters) and most wild cannabis in the us and canada is ok for hemp production although that is what its descended from. Indicas on the other hand will retain their chemotype better until the climate gets cold enough to produce the ruderalis pheno which typically kills the thc content.

[Reign of Terror]

very, very interesting info

im astonished, ive learned a lot in those 2 posts of yours

[Raco]

Good read!
A couple months ago I enjoyed a lot the outdoor Taskenti F6...yes,I´ve said F6 that CharlieBioGen sent to me....really smooth,well cured herb,medicine IMHO

[jaykush]

i can deff see how you believe it was all enviromental caused, if there was any sativas along with the soon to be pure indicas. over generation most of them probly died beacuse of the draught, higher elevation, temperature. which made them adapt to it in growing small, short, dense nugs and heavily coated with resin so they could live in that enviroment. same thing as if you throw a group of indicas in the tropics and see what happens after a few years.

i'm sure its not an f6... if taskenti was an ibl, then there's no 'f's' involved