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15 Jan 2026 Journal article
Unraveling the Confusion of Flowering Types and Terminology in Cannabis sativa
HortScience (American Society for Horticultural Science)· 2026
Perspective/review arguing that cannabis “flowering” terminology is inconsistent across research and industry, which leads to misclassification of photoperiodic behavior and reproductive structures. Proposes clearer categories for female reproductive development (pistillate flowering) and distinguishes multiple male flowering expressions, with descriptive examples and photos to standardize usage across controlled-environment and field contexts.
28 May 2025 Journal article
Domesticated cannabinoid synthases amid a wild mosaic cannabis pangenome
Nature· 2025
The first comprehensive cannabis pangenome, built from 193 genomes (181 new PacBio assemblies plus 12 previously published) representing 144 biological samples spanning use types, history, sex expression and agronomic traits. Includes 78 haplotype-resolved chromosome-scale assemblies and 103 contig-level assemblies covering both male (XY) and female (XX) plants. Documents surprisingly high genetic and structural variation for a single species and proposes a new population structure and hybridisation history. Resolves the heteromorphic X and Y sex chromosomes for the first time, including a variable boundary at the sex-determining and pseudoautosomal regions and male-biased expression of several flowering regulators. Finds that the cannabinoid synthase loci (CBDAS, THCAS) themselves carry very little diversity despite sitting in a region rich in pseudogenised paralogues, structural variation and distinct transposable element arrangements, evidence that the synthases have been recently domesticated against an otherwise wild-mosaic genomic background. Identifies acyl-lipid thioesterase variants associated with fatty acid chain length and with the production of the rarer propyl cannabinoids THCV and CBDV. Confirms that high-CBD hemp lineages such as CBDRx emerged through introgression of the CBDAS locus into a predominantly drug-type genetic background. Concludes that the Cannabis sativa gene pool remains only partly characterised, that wild relatives likely persist in Asia, and that the crop's broader potential is largely unrealised. Provides the new reference framework for placing landrace genotypes in a global population context and underwrites the conservation case that elite modern cultivars have lost diversity that landraces and wild-growing populations still hold.
6 Feb 2025 Journal article
Integrating target capture with whole genome sequencing of recent and natural history collections to explain the phylogeography of wild-growing and cultivated cannabis
Plants, People, Planet· 2025
Global phylogeographic study using a Hyb-Seq approach that combines target capture (with the universal Angiosperms353 enrichment panel) and shotgun whole-genome sequencing on the same data, applied to wild-growing accessions, cultivars and herbarium specimens drawn from natural history collections. Phylogenomic and population genomic workflows on the integrated dataset support treating Cannabis as a monotypic genus and recover three main genetic groups: East Asia, Paleotropis, and Boreal. Paleotropis is further divided into Iranian Plateau, Central and South China–Himalayas, and Indoafrica subgroups. Boreal is divided into Eurosiberia–West Mongolia and Caucasus–Mediterranean subgroups. The strongest signal in the data is geographic rather than use-type, with cultivars clustering by region of origin rather than by hemp/drug distinction. Iranian and Central Asian wild-growing populations emerge as particularly distinctive and morphogenetically diverse, consistent with the idea that this region functions as a genetic melting pot. The study is the first global landrace-inclusive phylogeography of cannabis after Ren et al. 2021 and is methodologically significant for showing that herbarium specimens (including older natural history collections) can be integrated with fresh material to recover phylogenetic signal in a genus where field sampling is legally difficult. Provides the geographic backbone against which any landrace genotype on the wiki can be situated, complements the Lynch et al. 2025 pangenome at the population scale, and supports the conservation case that wild-growing populations from understudied regions hold diversity not represented in modern cultivars.
23 Jan 2025 Journal article
Unveiling Cannabinoids and Terpenes Diversity in Cannabis sativa L. From Northern India for Future Breeding Strategies
Chemistry & Biodiversity· 2025
Cannabinoid and essential-oil profiling of Cannabis sativa collected from five populations across northern India, conducted at CSIR-Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CIMAP), Lucknow. Histochemical work locates cannabinoids and terpenes in capitate stalked and capitate sessile glandular trichomes. Essential-oil analysis reports (E)-caryophyllene at 10.30%–36.80% as the major terpene, followed by α-humulene at 0.50%–15.29% and α-bisabolol at 0.00%–16.40%. Cannabinoid and terpene content shows significant diversity among and within the five populations. Correlation analysis finds α-pinene, β-pinene and limonene positively correlated with CBD content, while α- and β-selinene positively correlate with tetrahydrocannabinolic acid content. The authors frame the work as identifying candidate cultivars and chemotypes for Indian cannabis breeding programmes.
21 Jan 2025 Journal article
Population genomics of a natural Cannabis sativa L. collection from Iran identifies novel genetic loci for flowering time, morphology, sex and chemotyping
BMC Plant Biology· 2025
Genotyping-by-Sequencing (GBS) study of 228 male and female individuals drawn from 35 natural Iranian Cannabis sativa populations spanning multiple climatic zones, grown in a randomised complete block design field experiment at the University of Tehran. Recovers approximately 23,266 high-quality SNPs and links them via association analysis to inflorescence characteristics, flowering time, plant morphology, THC and CBD content, and sex. Resolves the Iranian collection into five fineSTRUCTURE groups against a higher-level two-cluster PCA structure, and finds that Iranian populations are globally distinctive when compared to international reference data. Identifies novel candidate genetic loci for flowering time, morphology, sex determination and chemotype, providing markers that can underpin future cannabis breeding from Iranian germplasm. Frames Iranian natural populations as wild relatives and progenitor-adjacent material that retain genetic variation lost from highly bred modern cultivars. Critical regional reference for the Iran/Persian gene pool on the wiki, complementing the broader Balant et al. 2025 phylogeography (which places the Iranian Plateau as a distinct Paleotropis subgroup) with population-scale resolution and a marker-trait association layer.
21 Aug 2024 Journal article
Unveiling Colombia's medicinal Cannabis sativa treasure trove: Phenotypic and Chemotypic diversity in legal cultivation
Phytochemical Analysis· 2024
Phytochemical and phenotypic characterisation of 156 legally cultivated Cannabis sativa plants grown across diverse ecological regions of Colombia. Ten cannabinoids and 23 terpenes were quantified by liquid and gas chromatography alongside other phenotypic traits. The data resolve four distinct chemotypes based on cannabinoid profile. Type I varieties show significantly higher terpene content (>0.03%) and Type IV varieties show lower content (<0.03%). β-myrcene emerges as the dominant terpene in balanced and CBD-dominant varieties. The authors report that several normally uncommon terpenes appear in significant quantities and suggest that Colombian environmental conditions may favour their expression.
13 Jun 2024 Journal article
Morocco· Rif Mountains
International property rights for Cannabis landraces and terroir products. The case of Moroccan Cannabis and hashish
International Journal of Drug Policy· 2024
Argues that appellations of origin offer the best available intellectual property protection for cannabis landraces and terroir products, on grounds that what needs protecting is tradition and collective ownership rather than innovation and individual ownership. Finds UPOV plant variety protection unsuited to landraces, which cannot meet the distinctness, uniformity and stability criteria required of cultivars. Develops the case through Moroccan hashish and the kif landrace of the Rif, whose typicity derives from the region's geography and the sociotechnical itinerary of cultivation. Concludes that only hashish made traditionally from kif could qualify for an appellation, since recent imported hybrids have produced a resin of Moroccan provenance but not Moroccan origin, and notes that an appellation cannot legally control third party use of a landrace but extends protection in practice to the agroecosystem on which the terroir depends.
23 Nov 2022 Journal article
Morocco· Rif Mountains
Moroccan hashish as an example of a cannabis terroir product
GeoJournal· 2022
Develops operational definitions of terroir and landrace and applies them to cannabis cultivation in the Rif region of Morocco. Argues that hashish produced from the kif landrace meets the typicity, originality and reputation criteria of a terroir product, with the Rif as a delimited area where Berber communities have built up a collective production knowledge over a system of physical, biological and cultural interactions. Treats terroir as historically modern rather than fixist, and traditions as partly invented and reconstructed. Distinguishes site from situation as localisation factors: large-scale cannabis production requires both a biophysical site and a political-territorial situation marked by relative isolation from central authority, conditions the Rif has long met. Traces the etymology of balad, bled, beldi and beldiya to show that territory, terroir and landrace are expressed through variations of a single Arabic root in Moroccan Darija. Examines the contested historical-zone narrative and the five douars said to have been authorised under Moulay El Hassan I, drawing on Bellakhdar's 2021 proposal of Aït Aaksi, Griha, Ighmad, Azila and Talarouak. Concludes that the kif landrace cultivated before the 1960s no longer exists in unmodified form, that the introduction of hybrids in the 2000s and the 2021 therapeutic-cannabis legalisation are accelerating introgression, and that an appellation-style protection coupled with legalisation is the most plausible route to conserving the landrace, the agroecosystem and the regional economy.
30 Jan 2022 Journal article
Why the concept of terroir matters for drug cannabis production
GeoJournal· 2022
Foundational treatment of terroir and landrace as analytical concepts for drug cannabis. Argues against fixist readings of terroir, treating it instead as a modern concept describing how environmental and cultural factors shape the typicity of an end product within a delimited area. Builds the bridge to landrace via shared characteristics: both result from interactions between physical and human factors, both are spatially and historically anchored, and the most distinctive terroirs are those whose products are issued from an autochthonous landrace. Reviews evidence from coffee, tea, hops and grapes that soil, climate, water source and biotic stress influence secondary metabolite profiles, then extends the argument to cannabinoid and terpene expression in cannabis, citing Bershaw's preliminary Oregon work on soil chemistry effects across cultigens. Surveys the world's cannabis landraces from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal through Xinjiang, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Lebanon, Morocco, southern and east Africa, Jamaica and Latin America, noting that most landrace names are exonyms and that introgression from modern hybrids since the 2000s has put many at risk. Distinguishes site from situation in localisation, arguing that large cannabis production areas owe their existence less to biophysical optima than to politico-territorial control deficits, and that classic conservation policies struggle in regions with weak state capacity, no major corporate presence and limited conservation culture. Concludes that the legalisation green rush threatens to erode the genetic, cultural and sensorial diversity that illegality and isolation paradoxically helped preserve.
9 Sep 2021 Journal article
Sri Lanka
Cannabis (Cannabis sativa) Containing Drug Formulations Mentioned in "Thalpathe piliyam": A Review
South Asian Journal of Social Studies and Economics· 2021
Systematic review of all 267 cannabis-containing drug formulations in the 21-volume Thalpathe Piliyam series, analysing therapeutic indications, preparatory methods, and cannabis percentage by ingredient weight. The most comprehensive published inventory of cannabis in Sri Lankan traditional medicine.
13 Jul 2019 Journal article
Cannabis cultivation in the world: heritages, trends and challenges
EchoGéo· 2019
Sets out the state of knowledge on cannabis cultivation as a global phenomenon at the cusp of legalisation. Reviews the unresolved Cannabis taxonomy debate (monotypic Small versus polytypic Hillig, Clarke and Merlin) and the inconsistency between the sativa/indica taxa as used in botany and the sativa/indica labels as used in the trade, citing Sawler et al. 2015 to show that strain labels often do not reflect a meaningful genetic identity. Traces the modernisation of cannabis cultivation from the 1970s sinsemilla shift in Mexico, Colombia, Jamaica and California, through Skunk #1 and the first modern hybrids, the introduction of cloning in the 1990s, the development of feminised seeds in 1999, and the more recent spread of autoflowering varieties. Catalogues the principal cannabis end products: herbal cannabis, sieved hashish (Morocco, Lebanon, Afghanistan), hand-rubbed charas (India, Nepal), bhang, and the modern solvent-based and solventless concentrates. Documents how production estimates from UNODC, INCSR and national authorities are derived almost entirely from eradication figures rather than from systematic ground or remote-sensing surveys, and shows how the Moroccan Rif estimates have remained implausibly stable across years of widely varying eradication intensity. Maps the global state of legal recreational cannabis, medical cannabis and hemp as of 1 January 2019. Argues that legalisation in the Global North is creating disruptive consequences for traditional cannabis farmers in the Global South: the loss of the competitive advantage of illegality, the threat to landraces from imported hybrid germplasm, the carbon footprint of indoor cultivation, and the rise of corporate consolidation. Foundational reference for the wiki's framing of landrace conservation under legalisation.
1 Dec 2018 Journal article
India· Western Himalayas
Cannabis and Social Change in the Indian Himalayas
Journal of Ethnobiology· 2018
Sociological ethnography based on fourteen months of doctoral fieldwork in the Parvati Valley, Kullu District, Himachal Pradesh. Conducted from Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University. Documents how cannabis shifted from a "humble object" of everyday utility (food, clothing, medicine, social intoxicant) to a "transgressive substance" driving rapid social transformation. Records traditional multi-use baseline: hemp fabric coats, hemp footwear, seed chutney with sidhu bread for winter warmth, flower oil for menstrual cramps, buds in milk for impotency, leaves as de-wormer, cannabis used to wean from alcohol, charas consumed socially in hookahs and chillums. Economic data from three pseudonymised villages: all households involved in cultivation/production/trade; charas increased household income 50-100%; specific income figures for cultivator-dealer households. Documents cultivation on state forestland at altitude above villages, enabling lower-caste participation without hereditary land. Records 510 NDPS cases in Kullu in 2012 (143 local residents), prison sentences, drug tourism introducing cocaine/heroin/MDMA/ketamine/LSD. Traces colonial circulation of cannabis to Europe, fetishisation as exclusive intoxicant, and "imported" Western meanings that now overshadow local uses. Argues India resisted UN drug convention pressure for 25 years before NDPS Act (1985). Theoretical framework draws on Latour's actor-network theory to position cannabis as non-human social "actant."
1 Sep 2018 Journal article
India· Western Himalayas
Indigenous uses of wild hemp (Cannabis sativa) by the local inhabitants in Manikaran Valley of Himachal Pradesh, North Western Himalaya
Journal of Non-Timber Forest Products· 2018
Primary ethnobotanical fieldwork (2015-2017) documenting indigenous uses of wild hemp by native communities in Manikaran Valley, Kullu District, Himachal Pradesh. Surveys conducted in five villages: Kasol, Rasol, Pulga, Kalga and Tosh. Records medicinal uses including seed oil for arthritis (cold-pressed or infused in mustard oil), dry leaf powder with egg for abnormal menstrual bleeding, leaf paste for wounds and sores, leaf paste with cow urine for joint pain, and leaves rubbed on wasp/bee/scorpion stings. Documents religious use: Ghota (hemp offering) prepared for Lord Shiva during Shivaratri; leaves used in daily Shiva worship. Records material culture in detail: hemp fibre (Shel) processed by dew retting then water retting in kulh (irrigation channels), used to make pullan (traditional footwear for religious ceremonies and snow travel), ropes, mats and Chikda (bull mouth masks); fibre form cheuli used as non-stick on cooking plates. Documents food uses: seeds (Mangolu) roasted and ground with garlic, salt and green chilies as condiment; seeds used in traditional dishes Siddu and Aaksalu; chutney prepared with seeds, dadhu (local pomegranate), chilies, mint, coriander and lemon. Records leaves used in preparation of Dhehli (inoculum for Sur, a local alcoholic drink). Published by researchers at G.B. Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment and Sustainable Development, Himachal Regional Centre, Mohal-Kullu.
1 Feb 2015 Report
Morocco· Rif Mountains
Le haschich marocain, du kif aux hybrides
Drogues, enjeux internationaux (OFDT)· 2015
Field-based investigation conducted in 2013 in the Rif under the European Linksch programme, addressing the gap between UNODC area estimates and seizure volumes for Moroccan hashish. Documents that cultivated areas fell from 134,000 ha in 2003 to 47,500 ha in 2011, but argues that the corresponding 75 percent decline in production volume is implausible given seizure data: the 2009 figures alone implied an 83 percent interception rate, leaving too little hashish in circulation to supply the European market. Resolves the inconsistency through direct field observation: most parcels visited in 2013 had been replanted from kif to imported hybrids with indica-dominant morphology. Documents roughly ten hybrid names current in the Rif including khardala (the dominant 2013 variety), gaouriya, romiya, pakistana, jamaicana, mexicana, marijuana, avocat and hajala, alongside the renaming of kif itself to beldiya, maghribiya, aadiya or kdima dyalna in dichotomous opposition. Traces the supply chain through Swiss outdoor hybrids developed for the Canna Swiss Cup from 1999, Dutch breeding heritage, and increasingly Spanish seedbanks. Reports khardala extraction yields of 7 percent year one, 5 percent year two, 3 percent year three (5 percent average) versus 2 to 2.8 percent for kif per UNODC, doubling or tripling resin yield per hectare. Links the hybrid shift to the documented rise in THC concentration of Moroccan resin seized in France from around 8 percent in the 1980s and 1990s to over 17 percent in 2013. Flags the ecological cost: hybrids require irrigation, accelerating aquifer depletion in a region already exhausted by monoculture. Notes the 2013–2014 legalisation proposals from Istiqlal and PAM and the formation of the Coordination du pays du kif by Senhaja and Ghomara growers' confederations.
1 Jul 1977 Journal article
India· Western Himalayas
Tantric Cannabis Use in India
Journal of Psychedelic Drugs· 1977
Primary ethnographic and textual analysis tracing ceremonial cannabis use in Indian Tantrism to three converging Vedic traditions: magical use of bhang (Atharva Veda, second millennium BC), divine poison-drinking mythology (Churning of the Milk Ocean), and drug yoga (oshadhi/siddhi). Provides the most detailed English-language description of the vijaya (cannabis milkshake) consecration ritual from the Mahanirvana Tantra (c. 11th century AD), including full sequence of mantras, mudras and meditative stages. Notes approximately 90-minute interval between ingestion and ritual climax corresponds to pharmacological onset of oral cannabis. Argues vijaya functions as essential "sense-heightener" not merely a disinhibitor. Reports Tantric practice peaked in medieval Bengal and Himalayan kingdoms; in Bengal cannabis called siddhi (pun on "occult powers"). Personal communication from Prof. Agehananda Bharati that as of mid-1960s no one performed full traditional ceremonies. Author affiliated with Fitz Hugh Ludlow Memorial Library, San Francisco.