Landrace Genetics 101

GrowGirl63 said:
You should have thought to have bought a pound of seeds. Seeds are it.
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Not back then. Seeds were just added weight and a nuisance along with stems that had to be removed to roll joints. They were tossed out, planted or kept in jars at room temperature and went bad over time. I could have probably asked for and gotten all the Big Sur seeds that I wanted, for free! Lots of people gave me their seeds. I have a mixed lot of hundreds of Colombians beans that a friend gave me when he moved back to NY. The best of the best, he told me. Not sure of their viability when I got them, but I added them to my collection and froze them in about 1981. He grew Colombian plants in his bedroom window that faced south, right through New Year every year. He gave them all names.
 
From an interview with Mel Frank that I found talking about the late 1970s when he owned a home in Oakland, CA with Ed Rosenthal:

I would freely trade seeds with visitors and managed to collect what would be called landraces today — 200 landraces from all over the world to be exact. I grew whatever I thought might be interesting and did a lot of breeding, especially hybridizing at the time. I had seeds from Colombia, Mexico, Afghanistan, China, Tibet, Cambodia and India. The funny thing is, I wish I had them all again. Now you can’t get them in the same way, and I’m dying to get so many landraces again.
 
BigSur said:
From an interview with Mel Frank that I found talking about the late 1970s when he owned a home in Oakland, CA with Ed Rosenthal:

I would freely trade seeds with visitors and managed to collect what would be called landraces today — 200 landraces from all over the world to be exact. I grew whatever I thought might be interesting and did a lot of breeding, especially hybridizing at the time. I had seeds from Colombia, Mexico, Afghanistan, China, Tibet, Cambodia and India. The funny thing is, I wish I had them all again. Now you can’t get them in the same way, and I’m dying to get so many landraces again.
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Balls! It's hard to hear stuff like that! Because what can we do? Just watch this plant morph unpredictably through the years.
 
lazyfish said:
Balls! It's hard to hear stuff like that! Because what can we do? Just watch this plant morph unpredictably through the years.
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Basically yes. Only it does not morph on its own. They are ALL (landraces, heirlooms, etc.) bred into extinction with OG Kush, Skunk, Afghani and Northern Lights. Red Calabria in Italy is being hybridized into extinction with NL as this is being posted. Greek Kalamata has proven the most difficult for me to find. It is nearly extinct, but there are hints that it is still out there someplace.

I never met Mel Frank (not his real name, BTW), but I wish I had. Unless he stopped into the leather shop at some time on Telegraph Ave. I was in Berkeley a lot on the 1970s. We could have swapped seeds and information about growing. Oy vey.
 
Here's some closeups of some freshly cured Acapulco Gold and some 1 year old colombian punto rojo x mangobiche...

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Thanks! It surprised me to see all that golden resin maturing on the Colombians. I think it's cool that it's taking on a gold color without having to be dried in the sun or "girdled".

The Acapulco Gold's skinny structure is pretty unique too. The resin coverage looks pretty low, I can see why the smoke is lighter on the AG, It's hard to get a big oily hit from the flowers.
 
Someone has posted a thread asking for advice about growing a landrace Jamaican strain in a small tent. I gave my opinion (but that's all it is, of course) and stated that I'd drop a link here in hopes that some of you landrace aficionados would be able and willing to give him some advice. Here is the link to that thread:
Landrace Jamaican tent grow
 
Pennywise said:
Nice, that Punta Rojo x Magobishe should be friggen Fire
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It has the classic short and intense rushy high that many old school Colombians had back in the day. I still have some of that stuff here someplace. Same bud as in the photos I think. o_O
 
CannaFish said:
Thanks! It surprised me to see all that golden resin maturing on the Colombians. I think it's cool that it's taking on a gold color without having to be dried in the sun or "girdled".

The Acapulco Gold's skinny structure is pretty unique too. The resin coverage looks pretty low, I can see why the smoke is lighter on the AG, It's hard to get a big oily hit from the flowers.
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I do not think that the Colombians ever girdled the weed to get the color. The Colombian gold that I grew was gold in color all by itself. Early on the Colombians are said to have harvested like they do in Thailand and piled up the weed to ferment it after harvest for a few days and get the green out. Later on in Colombia I know that they bricked it green and it fermented during transport. We had tons of that bricked light brown 'lombo weed in NorCal in the 70s. Seedy as all f**k too.

Interesting about AG, yes. Smaller trichs. Mild intensity. Likely real AG, as that was the effect that I got smoking it back in the day. There were way more potent landrace strains in Guerrero though, as well as in Michoacan.
 
Speaking of Mangobitche... I have been reading the Latin forums and they say that they do not know where Mangobitche was grown in Colombia. No one seems to know, really. But we do know that Manga Rosa was grown in NE Brazil, and it shares a common name; Mango/Manga and flavor of mango. So maybe its the Brazil landrace? Or sourced from that? All the other major Colombian landraces have known growing areas in Colombia.
 
I saw a video from strain hunters where Franco sourced Mangobishe in the extreme southern portion on Colombia.
 
BigSur said:
I do not think that the Colombians ever girdled the weed to get the color. The Colombian gold that I grew was gold in color all by itself. Early on the Colombians are said to have harvested like they do in Thailand and piled up the weed to ferment it after harvest for a few days and get the green out. Later on in Colombia I know that they bricked it green and it fermented during transport. We had tons of that bricked light brown 'lombo weed in NorCal in the 70s. Seedy as all f**k too.

Interesting about AG, yes. Smaller trichs. Mild intensity. Likely real AG, as that was the effect that I got smoking it back in the day. There were way more potent landrace strains in Guerrero though, as well as in Michoacan.
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Lets try this again.
I have heard the same about strain colors and the fermentation process. I also agree that girdling plants was probably a myth or driving nails through main stocks. And have had similar experience with imports, so I am assuming you are close to my age. Growing up on the opposite coast we seem to have received the same imports, probably the proximity to major coastal import harbors and big cities. And I to reminisce about all those beautiful imports.

Below patches Of Punta Rojo photographed by a Spanish seed collector associated with a good buddy of mine from Spain, who sent me pictures of field and seeds. which I grew in the subtropics in a full sun winter grow pictured last. I was told the location of the mountain region, butI honestly do not remember.
The buds grew fatter with the additional chem fertilizer but.not as powerful as I believe would have come from the original patch along with growing at sea level as apposed to high altitude UV along with the cronological age of the plants I grew probably detracted from the qulity.
 
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