Landrace seeds are seeds that have been grown locally in an area for
well
a long time. They are seeds that have been grown in a isolated area for several hundred generations. The longer the plant spends in that area the more acclimated it becomes to that environment. As plants breed they evolve to grow better in their environment, gaining and losing attributes giving it its own uniqueness.
All the wonderful cannabis grown today is basically a cross of maybe 10 different base genetics (South Indian, Brazilian, Laos, Cambodian, Mexican, Afghanistan, China, Russia etc). Each area providing its own unique characteristics to produce the quality we get today. These genetics all came from landrace seeds that breeders identified for certain qualities. For instance, pure Citral is a strain that came from the Pakistani town of Chitral and easily identified by its strong lemon citrus smell/flavor. Any strain with a distinct lemony citrus flavor (Super Lemon Haze anyone) has probably been derived from the original landrace seed from Chitral Pakistan. Hindu Kush is almost pure landrace and was pulled from the Hindu Kush mountain range. Its famous for its potent indica high and copious resin production.
Breeders are constantly searching new areas for landrace genetics that offer something new to our ever-expanding strains. Once a landrace seed has been selected, it has to be stabilized. This is the process of crossing desired phenotypes (of the same plant) to achieve a plant that produces uniform and consistent babys. An un-stabilized cannabis plant can have several phenotypes that can be for the better or the worse. AK-47 has a very cherry phenotype that is absolutely amazing. You may get one of these phenos after buying several packs of non-feminized seeds.
The big hit on the market today is auto-flowering strains. These strains are landrace seeds from taken from the northern hemisphere where days may have 24 hours of light. Well obviously a plant is never going to flower on 24 hours of light (since Indicas and Sativas rely on the shorter days of the years end to flower near the equator). These northern hemisphere plants basically got thrown into the other Cannabis category named Cannabis Ruderalis. Ruderalis simply flowers after two or so weeks of growing since it has no idea what time of the year it is. Outdoor growers are reading this going
wait
I dont have to build a light deprivation green house to yield more than once a year. This is indeed a fact. The problem is that Ruderalis in its native environment produces NO THC.
Breeders identified this two week flowering trait and thought This would be awesome for outdoor growers if it got you medicated. I dont know exactly who (probably Dutch Passion) made the first but somebody stabilized a cross of Cannabis Ruderalis and Cannabis Indica/Sativa that produces a good amount of THC. Two months from seed to harvest pushing 5+% THC. The plants are small but with a complete grow time of two months what can you expect. Now that the genes are stabilized watch for some unique auto-flowering strains.
