What are landrace strains?

Perform a search for cannabis strains and you could literally read for weeks and still never have more than a cursory education about the variety and the science behind strain development.  The growing popularity of landrace strains are something we’re starting to see more mentions of and it’s a whole new world of plants that are vastly different from the strains developed by commercial cultivators in greenhouses or outdoor grows.

Biologists have tried to help educate us by explaining in laymen’s terms that “landrace” includes any plant that’s native to a particular region and possesses specific, unique characteristics from the rest of its species.  Think of these as the vast fields of cannabis growing in the wild without human intervention that have started in the wild and grown to adapt to their native climate and conditions and continued to thrive with their natural terpenes and cannabinoids that are impossible to create in a human-influenced grow atmosphere.

   

The long used terms “sativa” and “indica” actually only accurately describe landrace strains. Since practically every weed strain sold by street dealers or licensed pot shops is the result of crossbreeding, almost all buds you can find these days are technically “hybrids,” regardless of how they’re marketed. If cannabis cultivators want the genetic components of landrace strains in their proprietary strains, they need to cross their plants with a landrace first.

This is why the Afghani and Thai landrace strains are called “Afghani” and “Thai” and not something more colorful like “Purple Punch” or “Green Space Alien.” Some say that nature often does it better than we humans do. No matter how our creative breeding methods get, landrace strains, which are essentially designed by nature, will always guarantee that we’ve got dank, potent weed.