Preserving older "landrace" strains

I have a thread running over on another forum (apologies!) regarding this, originally it was a hunt for the old HFH Scottish beans. The nearest I came to getting my hands on some so far is through the good offices of another UK based grower, who sent me some seeds as follows:

- HFH Scottish x HFH Royal Nepal - a cross made from two strains that are no longer for sale.
- Welsh "landrace" strain - seeds obtained from a grower based in Wales. The strain was apparently grown in the valleys for decades.

I am interested in preserving these strains and trying to get some seeds made, to enable myself and others to grow them outdoors.

I have an outline plan, and some ideas of how to go about it, which I discussed with the grower who gifted the beans. But before sharing details, I thought it might be helpful to ask for some feedback from the community on this forum. There are a lot of experienced growers and breeders here, and your knowledge could be really beneficial to this project. Rather than try to get input on the minutiae of what I'm proposing, it could be good to have a bit more of an open discussion on possible approaches to the overall task.

So I wanted to ask people:

1. How would you go about trying to reproduce a "landrace" strain like 'Welsh'?

2. How to select the 'Scottish' pheno from a cross like 'Scottish x Royal Nepal' when neither parent strain is available?

Please feel free to comment with your thoughts, ideas, suggestions.

Welsh landrace: Keep it in areas where no other cannabis is. Remember pollen can travel miles.
Scottish:: Here you have the quandry. Hybridization might make some money for people but you lose the original genetics if you don't keep them pure. I myself have looked for Michoacan for years. Lots have hybridized it with anything you can think of. You NEVER get it back.

grayeyes said:

Welsh landrace: Keep it in areas where no other cannabis is. Remember pollen can travel miles.
Scottish:: Here you have the quandry. Hybridization might make some money for people but you lose the original genetics if you don't keep them pure. I myself have looked for Michoacan for years. Lots have hybridized it with anything you can think of. You NEVER get it back.

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Thanks for taking an interest. Yeah I plan to start with the Welsh landrace, probably in a tent to begin with. Eventually I would hope to grow some clones outside too.

As to making seeds, I can see options like selfing (with a reversed branch or two on a female providing pollen); open pollination between males and females from the same batch of beans; and selecting for certain traits.

This last option will probably be the basis for working with the Scottish hybrid, unless I manage to source some HFH Scottish seeds.

Anyway, getting ahead of things slightly as I need successful germinations first...

First off there hybrids not landraces esbes works good tho mate id open pollinate the first run then do a bigger sift with more seeds the second run unless you have alot of seeds to do a selective open pollination where you only remove bad plants like hermis etc second to select hard for the scottish phenos you would need to know them from experience tbh otherwise how u gonna know what u looking for you get me ? ironically im in Scotland ive tried some of hfh stuff but never the scottish one he did

Cheers man. The Welsh is a landrace of sorts, been growing in the valleys for decades IIRC. The Scottish was apparently developed from a localised landrace too.

But yeah, selecting the Scottish pheno will be tough. Allegedly both that and the Welsh are similar to early Durban, so I could keep an eye out there. Whatever happens won't be authentic and will be my choice I suppose.

I like the idea of an open pollination, then pheno hunting. Good shout. I don't have huge numbers of seeds, so it's going to be a bit of a lottery...

Crow River said:

Cheers man. The Welsh is a landrace of sorts, been growing in the valleys for decades IIRC. The Scottish was apparently developed from a localised landrace too.

But yeah, selecting the Scottish pheno will be tough. Allegedly both that and the Welsh are similar to early Durban, so I could keep an eye out there. Whatever happens won't be authentic and will be my choice I suppose.

I like the idea of an open pollination, then pheno hunting. Good shout. I don't have huge numbers of seeds, so it's going to be a bit of a lottery...

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Then its a heirloom then cos after a landrace has been replicated out of the environment its from for many generations it becomes its own thing kind of so an heirloom regarding the welsh strain assuming its a pure line and yes breeding can be a bit like a lottery every seed is a possibility good luck mate

Okay, yeah heirloom sounds about right. Thanks for the feedback dude. I'll update this thread when I wet some beans...

Crow River said:

Okay, yeah heirloom sounds about right. Thanks for the feedback dude. I'll update this thread when I wet some beans...

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Sounds unique anyway and if uk outdoors is your thing id check out stuff like guerrillas gold3 and mitey mite too and royal dane is good and early too

Crow River said:

Cheers man. The Welsh is a landrace of sorts, been growing in the valleys for decades IIRC. The Scottish was apparently developed from a localised landrace too.

But yeah, selecting the Scottish pheno will be tough. Allegedly both that and the Welsh are similar to early Durban, so I could keep an eye out there. Whatever happens won't be authentic and will be my choice I suppose.

I like the idea of an open pollination, then pheno hunting. Good shout. I don't have huge numbers of seeds, so it's going to be a bit of a lottery...

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There’s no landrace strains from the British Isles. Maybe some grown for a long time but no landrace strains.

conor c said:

Sounds unique anyway and if uk outdoors is your thing id check out stuff like guerrillas gold3 and mitey mite too and royal dane is good and early too

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Believe it or not, I have all those beans!

I was just really keen to find out what outdoor growers were doing in the UK before autos, semi-autos, and fast versions were a thing. Tracked down Welsh, and (almost) Scottish. I really wanna grow some out, see what they're like...

hotrodharley said:

There’s no landrace strains from the British Isles. Maybe some grown for a long time but no landrace strains.

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Fair enough, I was just going with how Esbe's Scottish were described back in the day. But yeah, heirloom is probably a more accurate term.

Crow River said:

Believe it or not, I have all those beans!

I was just really keen to find out what outdoor growers were doing in the UK before autos, semi-autos, and fast versions were a thing. Tracked down Welsh, and (almost) Scottish. I really wanna grow some out, see what they're like...

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If u got all that check out real gorilla seeds they run by a guy called panik guy was a huge guerilla grower now he breeds he got plenty of cool lines for the uk climate also seedheaven in denmark is a good source for northern outdoors stuff too

Crow River said:

Believe it or not, I have all those beans!

I was just really keen to find out what outdoor growers were doing in the UK before autos, semi-autos, and fast versions were a thing. Tracked down Welsh, and (almost) Scottish. I really wanna grow some out, see what they're like...

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They were not doing much unless you stay south of england or have a greenhouse as for semi autos they always existed pal some landraces are semi autos like morrocan Sinai things like that id imagine they try to grow things like that before the named stuff entered the game.

hotrodharley said:

There’s no landrace strains from the British Isles. Maybe some grown for a long time but no landrace strains.

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I know of some pure stuff grew 50+ years on the south coast of england but as you said its no longer a landrace tis an heirloom just an old one

conor c said:

I know of some pure stuff grew 50+ years on the south coast of england but as you said its no longer a landrace tis an heirloom just an old one

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Landrace were around before humans ever discovered cannabis. That didn’t happen in the UK. It was introduced into the British Isles by humans.

hotrodharley said:

Landrace were around before humans ever discovered cannabis. That didn’t happen in the UK. It was introduced into the British Isles by humans.

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Yeah i know im agreeing with you theres no uk landrace from here however i will slightly disagree on the before humans bit if its used for bud then that means selection the human hand if its ruderal genetics then possibly none or little human influences but then again think even those have some and if its used for hash then a bit of selection but not the same type of selective pressure you gonna see with a long time ganja landrace that will have been selected more intensively like say thai laos manipuri etc


Actually angus wrote a good wee bit on this

What a good article. I can tell you from personal experience that Angus is as generous with his knowledge as he is with getting you seeds you would never hear of but for him.

conor c said:

If u got all that check out real gorilla seeds they run by a guy called panik guy was a huge guerilla grower now he breeds he got plenty of cool lines for the uk climate also seedheaven in denmark is a good source for northern outdoors stuff too

Real Gorilla Seeds – Real Gorilla Seeds

www.realgorillaseeds.com

About Us - SEEDHEAVEN

seedheaven.org

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Ha! I'm a regular customer of Seedheaven, I get Soviet Finland beans and some of the Danish breeders from them. Also have some Real Gorilla beans, but haven't grown them yet.

I'm not short of outdoor strains, just curious about these old heirloom strains. I imagine that they must be pretty tough if they were being grown outdoors in Wales and Scotland! The seeds themselves must be a decade old, might not even germinate. But I can try...

conor c said:

They were not doing much unless you stay south of england or have a greenhouse as for semi autos they always existed pal some landraces are semi autos like morrocan Sinai things like that id imagine they try to grow things like that before the named stuff entered the game.

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Dunno man. When I was a teenager (a long time ago) I knew an old hippy who grew weed. This was in a greenhouse, but TBF it was an island off the north coast of Scotland, so weather not good for outdoors growing.

The Welsh and Scottish are apparently old outdoors strains that have been grown in these islands for decades...

Crow River said:

Dunno man. When I was a teenager (a long time ago) I knew an old hippy who grew weed. This was in a greenhouse, but TBF it was an island off the north coast of Scotland, so weather not good for outdoors growing.

The Welsh and Scottish are apparently old outdoors strains that have been grown in these islands for decades...

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Id argue it isnt bad for growing providing its a ok season and your in a greenhouse remember us scots get longer lit summer nights so if its a semi auto thats ideal but i imagine you can pull off alot more than you would think its the cold and most of all the abundance of rain and humidity that makes many parts of Scotland so tough to grow outside imo im curious what was it those old hippies you knew were growing all those years ago ? If ye know of course also mate i know a couple of boys up north who grow outdoors mainland Scotland mind you but still the highlands they all grow hfh stuff mainly though