What's a landrace?"Let them eat cake"

[Rasterman]

This occurred to me last night when I was lying in bed trying to get to sleep.

There are at least a few definitions of what a landrace is. I have a story from France that discusses the history of a landrace of cats. Only the beginning and end of this story are true. The rest is filled in from my imagination, but I like to believe it went something like this:

Marie Antoinette collected cats the way the reader collects cannabis strains. So she had a shitload of them; ostensibly enough to fill an entire ship. So that's what she did.

She was in fear for her life, the French Revolution was underway, so she decided to flee to the New World. She had to get her cats safe first so she had them smuggled to a ship in the harbor, and would board another ship in two days.

Unfortunately, she was grabbed by the revolutionaries and executed by guillotine before she was able to make her escape. And it bears mention that she died courageously. Marie Antoinette was a badass, even if she did have an unhealthy association (literally) with cats.

When the ship transporting her hundreds of cats to the New World arrived in Maine, the news of the boss' death had already arrived. The crew just dumped them on the beach because they didn't have other options.

That winter, the majority of the cats were killed by the harsh Maine winters. But the survivors were breeding, and not like rabbits - like cats. For a few decades their numbers stayed fairly low as winter killed off most of their offspring. But eventually their numbers grew to the point where they were here to stay.

The only cats to survive were the ones with enough fur to keep them from freezing to death. Eventually, a landrace of cats emerged-the Maine Coon.

This chart shows some Maine Coon phenotypes. Just like cannabis, there's a lot of variation, but of course all of them had a common trait, which is the ability to survive harsh winters.

I don't know whether those phenotypes were created by nature, or breeders. I suspect the feral population looks something like this most of the time:

So if you were to order a Maine Coon sight-unseen, it could look like any of these pictures or something else entirely. But the person receiving a kitten would at least be guaranteed their cat could crap outside in cold temperatures without dying and is probably a great mouser.

Think of the Maine Coon next time your seeds don't grow what you expected!

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

What you are describing is called natural selection. Yes that is how Land Race strains came to be in a given area of the globe. How they originated in many locations is unknown for sure but birds and small mammals may be the distributing factor here. Then the traits that best suited survival won out over the thousands of years these strains grew in isolation. Sadly man appears on the scene only to kill the plants directly or destroy the environment that made each strain special. Nature itself is also playing a hand in the loss of many of the original Land races. There are some still in existence but most have been changed from even 50 years ago. I remember Panama Red and Acapulco Gold that used to get me giggle gawked. We used to laugh uncontrollably. In the past 10 years I have not found any such strain or perhaps I have changed?

The biggest distinction I find in varying strains today is whether the high is energetic, calming, pain relieving, appetite stimulant or appetite depressant. The giggle is gone.

 

[idiopathic neuropathy]

I remember Panama Red and Acapulco Gold that used to get me giggle gawked. We used to laugh uncontrollably. In the past 10 years I have not found any such strain or perhaps I have changed?

Likewise, I have experienced the same feelings. What happened to the "giggle" weed? Like you said, have we changed or has this effect been somehow been bread out?

It's somewhat sad, because laughter is such good medicine.

 

[JP1]

I think the giggle goes away with age or experience. Teenagers these days still giggle when they smoke weed. Pretty much takes edibles for me to get a giggle occasionally

 

[Rasterman]

What you are describing is called natural selection. Yes that is how Land Race strains came to be in a given area of the globe. How they originated in many locations is unknown for sure but birds and small mammals may be the distributing factor here. Then the traits that best suited survival won out over the thousands of years these strains grew in isolation. Sadly man appears on the scene only to kill the plants directly or destroy the environment that made each strain special. Nature itself is also playing a hand in the loss of many of the original Land races. There are some still in existence but most have been changed from even 50 years ago. I remember Panama Red and Acapulco Gold that used to get me giggle gawked. We used to laugh uncontrollably. In the past 10 years I have not found any such strain or perhaps I have changed?

The biggest distinction I find in varying strains today is whether the high is energetic, calming, pain relieving, appetite stimulant or appetite depressant. The giggle is gone.

Yeah, most dispensary fare is good for energizing or going to sleep but not so good for giggles. I've considered that age might be a factor, but really believe that modern strains have far fewer different kinds of cannabinoids and am starting to branch out into landraces.