Features of MJ grown in the UK

[syk613]

Any1 seen any similar research from oz growers.

Authors

Pitts JE. Neal JD. Gough TA.

 

Institution

Laboratory of the Government Chemist, Teddington, UK.

 

Title

Some features of Cannabis plants grown in the United Kingdom from seeds of known origin.

 

Source

Journal of Pharmacy & Pharmacology. 44(12):947-51, 1992 Dec.

 

Abstract

The cannabinoid content of UK-grown plants (up to the 6th generation) from Moroccan, Sri Lankan and Zambian seedstock was determined by TLC, GLC and HPLC. All plants from the 5th and 6th series resembled their parents, and UK-grown plants were always much greener than those grown overseas. Cannabinoid content remained broadly typical of the source countries. However, tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA) consistently predominated over tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) to a far greater extent than in the original plants; the THCA/THC ratio was 17 in UK-grown plants compared with 2.0 in the plants from the original areas. Two types of plant emerged from the Moroccan seedstock, one tending to increased cannabidiol (CBD), the other tending to zero levels of this component. The first generation Sri Lankan plants revealed one type of plant with an increased CBD/THC ratio (1.7 compared with 0.11) but this returned to the original value in the succeeding generations. Other Sri Lankan plants had low or undetectable levels of CBD. Moroccan and Sri Lankan CBD-rich plants did not contain cannabichromene, although this cannabinoid was found in THC-rich plants. Zambian plants did not appear to show such a pattern. Zambian seedstock plants had total tetrahydrocannabivarin (diol and acid) levels greater than THC but the ratio was progressively reversed in succeeding generations. The study concludes that the ratios of particular cannabinoids is greatly influenced by the environment.

 

 

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[Luke Skywalker]

Nope, but it's a very interesting question. Must be close to 200 years since cannabis was introduced to australia, eh? Must've come with some of the first colonists, it was an essential part of shipbuilding, not to mention hundreds of other industries.

 

This research looks at only a 6 gens? From seedstock sourced from other countries? I'm sure there would be major phenotypical as well as genotypic variation in strains from other areas brought in and bred here. Any strains from Europe, north america, asia (except perhaps the middle east) would to my mind likely grow larger, more vigourous and perhaps over time even develop lower fertilisation needs if grown in semi-natural conditions in oz. Australia has some of the most depleted (nutrient wise) soils in the world, and our flora reflects this... fertilise a native like an exotic and almost all of them will curl up and die... they're used to soils with very, very little nourishment, so if you were able to naturalise a strain, and still manage to maintain it's potency and vigour in lower nutrient soils, then shit, you've got the ultimate ozzy strain.

 

What you'd need is someone here to grow and study substantial populations of IBL's here in semi-natural conditions, (I say semi-natural because cannabis would have a very hard time surviving the australian environment without assistance and soil preparation. As we all know. ) and then for each generation that is grown, send a sample of seed, from multiple plants, to be compared back with the original stock in their original environments. It would be hard to make specific judgements about what environmental factor did what to what strain with only a few generations, but multiple testing of many gens, over a long time, you may well get some major changes in the strain. And even on a short scale, you'd probably get some interesting darwinian effects on the populations, as there are specific threats to flora here in oz, and they're quite different to what plants usually have to content with. So you may end up isolating some very, very interesting genetics from these plants as they were grown on....

 

Heck, this is all just theory and supposition really, but I don't see why other growers wouldn't have made such breeding programs for themselves once... We had to get mullumbimby madness from somewhere... And there are others out there which are "naturalised" australian strains, and have been for some time too.

 

Thanks for ticking over the brain there for me dude, I needed that.

[white_cluster]

Nope, but it's a very interesting question. Must be close to 200 years since cannabis was introduced to australia, eh? Must've come with some of the first colonists, it was an essential part of shipbuilding, not to mention hundreds of other industries.

 

the hunter valley crop, it was over 200 years old, 200hectares of pot grew wild in the hunter valley, people were led to it by reports in the Maitland Mercury which even told them how to smoke and dry the pot.

 

Anyhoo, this pot was descendant of indian hemp seed, Sir Joseph Banks oganised the seeds himself, the english hoped we would become a hemp farming nation, anyway the seeds where grown by 2 fellas called archibald and william bell, but they abondoned the project upon realising that the hemp made very poor rope, because of the fact they had drug cannabis seeds, not hemp seeds.

 

Pictures I've seen of the plants are all very short, I've heard they were up to 12ft, but they show farmers in the field and the plants all seem about 5ft high, medium width leaves for a sativa and little flower development, so probably have a bit of growing to go.

 

This crop really set off smoking in australia, like it had been grown before then by the chinese, but this crop was huge and supplied all of sydney for a long time. Apparently was a great smoke unlike wild US weed.

 

Australian strains have a particular look about them, I'd like to think scraggly, and huge plants with quick growth with clear highs and grassy tastes and odour.

 

The source of tons and tons of nimbin, northern NSW and probably everywheres weed is from a shipment of thai sticks, apparently there was 2 very small shipments in the 50's that were far better than anything after them, but a purple thai strain was started from this by a guy called fred or frank or something, and it ended up making itself into many forms, including mullumbimby madness, etc...

[wassily]

There's a bit about the Hunter crop in this book I read on holiday (it's the only time I get time to read) called 'Dopeland'. It's by John Birmingham, who's 'He died with a falaffel in his hand' I didn't like at all, but this is one fuckin funny book. Basically his tour of dope growers and smokers all over Australia. I read it almost in one go on the flight and GF was lookin at me cause I kept laughing out loud on the plane and then later she read it by the pool, and I kept hearing her burst out laughing.

[syk613]

Yeah white cluster I've heard of ppl back in the late 60's going to nth NSW to get mj growing wild in the fields and apparently it was about 4-5m high in fact in the dark it looked more like a small tree rather than a mj shrub and in the story I heard when they went to get it at night (because the locals would call the cops or shoot you in the arse with birdshot) they got out of there car after driving for a while, after not seeing anything that looked like a mj shrub by the roadside, and started to look through the larger trees when after looking up they discovered to their amazement the 12ft plants were mj.

 

@luke, thanks for the reply, what you said made a lot of sense, do you use a database to search for info in journals, like this info? if so which ones?

Edited November 6, 2003 by syk613

[Luke Skywalker]

Heh heh, nah syk, I just soak up stuff which bangs around in that empty cavern I call a brain, every now and again a neuron bumps into each other in the dark and I remember shit like this. I read a lot. And I think plants are better than people in a lot of ways, but that's another issue really.

[syk613]

Yeah luke a lot of the info i have read from you seems like it comes from somebody with tertiary training in biology maybe genetics or plant biology, shit if you can read these abstracts and understand them the way your posts indicate then you would probably pass the 2nd year exams and fly through1st year without opening abook or going to a lecture, What do you do for a crust mate? I thought I read you were on DSP, (yeah so am I and I gat a payment to study), ever thought of studying from reading your posts you may enjoy it and its not that hard to get accepted if your high school marks ain't great you probably got 99/100 tho.. anyway just a thought luke I am probably too stoned and you will find the suggestion STUPID

a lot of your posts jar a few of my brain cells and they seem to make a lot of sense, have you ever tried one of the databases and searched for research that has been published in journals like nature,science and all the others?

there are free ways to get access to these abstracts (summary of the introduction,methods,resultsand discuccsion) from experiments from all over the world actually any legal research that is done in a scientifically sound way will get published somewhere if it is new and impt info.

 

A lot of this you probably already know but if you want a link to a free gateway to these resources I will PM it to you if you PM/post a reply (i'll have to take a look for it) I think you'll find a lot of it interesting and some very informative info, while the full texts won't be avail all the time I may be able to get some of the online fulltext papers and I would be happy to PM a requested article to you, if you live near a uni with a good biology dept or life sciences then you can just go to their library and you probably won't get hassled, i never have been been hassled going to other uni libraries ( I don't think I can post a whole article because of copyright (i may be wrong though)

Some of the articles will be quite quite narrow in thier scope while the more informative papers are the review articles that summarize the research in a chosen subject. I'm offering this because I think this kind of resource would be helpful in compiling the book(good luck) and your general research for OS and yourself and additionally I don't know of many other memebers that understand the abstracts at the same level you do (myself included). Reference books are good but to adequetly reseach a topic I find while the nuts and bolts come from books jouranl papers can provide more up to date and much more specific info

Cheers luke and sorry about the length of the post.