ive just had my first smoke of the day so bear with me on this... I have been collecting various seeds over the last year, i moved house and my carefully selected seeds got mixed up. i was only able to sprout 4 of my first 20. but already even in this early stage i can see there are clearly 2 different strains that have sprouted, 2 of each which is nice. So i will use my 2 as an example because there is quite a contrast. Strain A - 2 weeks old and already about 4-5 mm taller than SB - light/bright greener than grass green - leaves come to steep point at the tip. fins on leaves are regular but very rough and jagged all the way along. Strain B - distinctively shorter than SA - dark bush like green colour - tips of the leaves come into a semi-circular curve. fins on the leaves are regular and even, almost as if the leaves are a smooth oval shape opposed to the spikey nature of SA (I have pictures to illustrate if you aren't sure what i'm on about.) i enjoy studying mushrooms and other fungi in terms of looking at what subtle (and not so subtle) differences in the patterns and shapes you find can mean about that plant. so based on my examples or please share others what can we tell about a cannabis plant of unknown origin? i understand height usually indicates a sativa dominant strain but i am particularly interested in what you can learn from the leaves in terms of pattern/shape and colour?
they pretty much just tell you what the dominant genes are. indica or sativa. you're going to have to grow em out to tell if its going to be a good plant/good smoke etc. though.
The leaves can give you an indication of sativa/indica origins but really most commercial weed, and seed for that matter, is so cross bred that you aren't going to be able to accurately determine species just from leaf shape. A plant can be 80% indica, and 20% sativa but if the sativa phenotype is dominant in that particular offspring then it will look like it has more sativa than indica. There are very few 100% pure landrace strains left.
is that all? i was counting on you to bring the science! i have read the study titled 'Leaf Variation Among Cannabis Species From A Controlled Garden' which looked at wood anatomy and leaf width/length and how that relates to the taxonomic make-up of the plants in terms of genes and potency to an extent. fascinating stuff - problem is it only looked at the wood anatomy and W/L, however the study identified that variations in leaf serration, odor and colour do relate to the taxonomy of plants but they were not able to quantify any of that information citing "further research would need to be done". ...so what further research has be done?? this study was done in 1980! *side note - they identified a sativa dom strain in japan that had few trichomes and zero THC content but was otherwise fitting the typical sativa description. it is interesting i promise!
sure, i get that. but the dominant genes are what we are looking at when we see the plant, i would think the dom gene would be reflected in the chemical make-up as-well? i dont know but i still think leaf analysis could be a useful tool in identifying more accurately to which side of the indica/sativa scale a plant is and possibly help to pin down specific cbn tendencies for said plants.
Well this question is pretty easy to answer without having to look at your leaf pattern. If it is cannabis then its species is Cannabis sativa. All these wonderful strains are just that variations of their genetic expression. Even a "pure bred indica" is Cannabis sativa var. Indica. A good analogy would be people. We are all Homo sapiens but with our species there is a wide array of genetic expression. If you lived in Finland you would not say a person who is "pure bred" Chinese is a different species. If they were you would not be able to procreate with them. What can you say about strains or variations within a species is that is it more likely for the Finnish person to be blonde and blue eyed than a Chinese person. As people we love to label stuff...so we "come up" with names for our favorite (or least favorite) genetic expression (phenotype), usually based on size, shape, growth rate, flowering time, smell, THC content, etc... To this end we can come up if a limited degree of accuracy what to expect and not expect when growing and even to a lesser extent when breeding.
No, not always. Just because one particular genetic trait becomes dominant doesn't mean that every trait from that particular parent will also be dominant.
Indica and sativa are different species of the genus cannabis. They developed in different parts of the world. Even if they did originate as one species time and isolation has made them geneticly different. Actually your human analogy isn't good at all. Your comparing the exact same genus and species. Of coarse they are the same. A better example would be an African lion and a snow leopard. Both members of genus Panthera, but vastly different animals and thus they are different species. Scientific naming isn't really done on a whim, or just cause we want to do so.
Yes Joker that is a better analogy. All I meant was within the genus Cannabis you have sativa, indica, and ruderalis as species. All the names we given to varies strains "blue dream" and what not are not a different or new species. Sorry if my English doesn't translate well.
