Transbaikal
More actions
| Transbaikal | |
|---|---|
| ActiveGrown here in 2000 or later | |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 51.80, 110.76 |
| Country | Russia |
| Provinces/States | Zabaykalsky Krai,Buryatia,Irkutsk Oblast |
| Area | 491,000 km² |
| Growing history | |
| Earlier names | Transbaikal Oblast |
| Dated accessions | 1931 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
The Transbaikal growing region covers the land east of Lake Baikal, in Zabaykalsky Krai and the southern part of Buryatia, together with the forest-steppe districts of Irkutsk Oblast on the western side of the lake. Ruderal hemp, Cannabis ruderalis, is widespread in the forest-steppe districts of the Baikal region, where it grows as a weed of crops, near dwellings, on river terraces and on stony slopes.[1] In 1931 a botanist who gathered it in the Aga steppe judged it to be wholly wild.[2] In 2025 and 2026 the police and the plant-health service reported hundreds of patches of wild-growing hemp in the region.[3][4]
Geography
The region is drawn on whole administrative units in three federal subjects. It takes in Zabaykalsky Krai except its four northern districts (Kalarsky, Tungiro-Olyokminsky, Tungokochensky and Mogochinsky), Buryatia except its northern and mountain districts (Severo-Baykalsky with the town of Severobaykalsk, Muysky, Bauntovsky and Okinsky), and the forest-steppe belt of Irkutsk Oblast west of the lake: the districts from Ziminsky east to Irkutsky along the Angara, with the towns among them, and the districts of the Ust-Orda Buryat Okrug. The open water of Lake Baikal is left out. The region covers about 491,000 km².
To the south the region follows the frontier with Mongolia and with China, which runs mostly along the Argun; across the Argun lies the Northeast China growing region. It takes in the steppe of the Aga, the Onon and the Argun in the south-east and the valleys of the Selenga, the Ingoda and the Shilka. The Amur basin growing region lies further east, beyond the northern districts of Zabaykalsky Krai.
Hemp as a crop
The one convincing find of hemp seed from the Iron Age and medieval sites of the Amur basin, in the view of the archaeobotanist E. A. Sergusheva, comes from the 10th-century fortified site of Ust'-Chernaya in the valley of the Shilka.[5] In 1681 the boyar's son Nikifor Senotrusov sowed crops at Nerchinsk as a trial and reaped 11 pud of hemp from one pud sown.[6] In the Cossack village of Verkhny Sharanai on the Onon, unlike the other Cossack villages, every household grew hemp and worked its fibre into homespun clothing and for its own needs. A. A. Lebedeva, who studied the village for the Institute of Ethnography, noted that it had been attached to the Cossacks only in the mid-19th century and had kept the subsistence-farming habits of Russian peasants longer.[7]: 8
Wild stands
M. A. Zenzinov gathered hemp at Nerchinsk in 1857.[8] In August 1911 A. Zhukova, of the Barguzin soil and botanical party of the Amur Expedition, gathered a plant labelled Cannabis ruderalis at a hot spring near the river Alla, in the basin of the Barguzin.[9] On 31 July 1931 M. I. Nazarov gathered ruderal hemp on the rocks of Lake Nozhiy in the Aga steppe, where it grew in abundance. He added to the label, in brackets, "По-моему, совершенно дико" ("in my view, wholly wild").[2]
In the Baikal region ruderal hemp is widespread in the forest-steppe districts. It grows as a weed of crops, near dwellings, on river terraces and on stony slopes. V. G. Shilenkov and E. V. Tolstonogova studied the insects that feed on it in the central districts of Irkutsk Oblast in 2002–2004. They found the hemp sawfly, Trichiocampus cannabis, which feeds only on hemp, widespread in the forest-steppe districts along the Angara and especially numerous in the Zalarinsky and Nukutsky districts.[1] A list of the plants of disturbed ground in south-eastern Zabaykalsky Krai, published in 2016, lists hemp near the shore of Lake Nozhiy, on the left bank of the Argun at Abagaytuy, near Bura and in wheat crops, on the left bank of the Middle Borzya, at Molodovsk and by the road at Shilkinsky Zavod, and marks it as introduced.[10]
Eradication
In 2007 the Federal Drug Control Service put the land overgrown with wild-growing hemp in the Siberian Federal District at more than 100,000 hectares. The worst affected were Tuva, Buryatia and Chita Oblast, now part of Zabaykalsky Krai, with about 70,000 hectares between them. The service said that large consignments of plant-based drugs went from there to other regions.[11]
In 2014 a Buryat news report said that the Dzhidinsky, Kyakhtinsky, Selenginsky, Tarbagataysky and Ivolginsky districts had a bad name for wild hemp.[12] In ten days of the first stage of the operation Mak in 2025 the police of Buryatia found more than 380 patches of hemp covering over 1,350 hectares and served the owners of the land with orders to destroy them.[3] In the second stage, in August 2026, they found 254 patches on more than 745 hectares, and 621 hectares had been mown and burned by the end of the month.[13]
In Irkutsk Oblast as a whole more than 800 patches of wild-growing hemp on 1,069 hectares were destroyed during the operation in 2025; soldiers with special equipment destroy patches in places that are hard to reach.[14] In 2021 the oblast's police reported wild hemp in 32 municipalities, growing on abandoned farmland, wasteland and rubbish dumps close to settlements; the worst infested were the Alarsky, Irkutsky and Ziminsky districts.[15] In Ziminsky District it covered about 200 hectares in August 2026, twice as much as a year before.[16]
In Zabaykalsky Krai the plant-health service, Rosselkhoznadzor, reported that by the end of July 2026 the operation had found 40 patches of wild-growing hemp on almost 90 hectares. Dmitry Anikiev, head of its land-supervision department, said that the plant flourished most in the Aleksandrovo-Zavodsky, Kalgansky and Priargunsky districts, and that the patches lay mostly near rubbish dumps, on the edges of villages and at abandoned livestock stations.[4] By late September the count stood at 78 patches on more than 105 hectares, the most of them in Nerchinsky District and the largest area, 31.78 hectares, in Priargunsky District.[17]
Licensed hemp
Industrial hemp was brought to Buryatia from Mordovia in 2020. By 2023 it was grown in the Zaigrayevsky, Yeravninsky, Tunkinsky and Dzhidinsky districts, on 50 hectares near the village of Oyor in Dzhidinsky District and on trial plots of a hectare each in Yeravninsky and Zaigrayevsky.[18] An earlier attempt failed: in 2013 local scientists sowed a batch of non-narcotic hemp from Novosibirsk in Zaigrayevsky District, and the report of 2014 blamed the dry, hot climate, which raises the THC content.[12]
Growing Areas
No growing areas documented yet.
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Collected | Locality | Area |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nazarov 14088 (1931) | Nazarov 14088 herbarium specimen, Lake Nozhiy, Aga steppe, Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia (1931) | On the rocks of Lake Nozhiy, Aga steppe, in abundance |
Recent news
No news items are recorded for this growing region yet.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Shilenkov, V.G.; Tolstonogova, E.V. (2006). "Вредители конопли в Прибайкалье". Acta Biomedica Scientifica (in русский) (2).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Specimen MW0062821: Cannabis ruderalis". Moscow Digital Herbarium. Moscow State University. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Более 500 гектаров дикорастущей конопли уничтожили в Бурятии". Ариг Ус (in русский). 7 August 2025. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Поля конопли общей площадью почти 90 гектаров выявили в Забайкалье". Аргументы и факты – Забайкалье (in русский). 29 July 2026. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ Sergusheva, E.A. (2026). "Археоботанические исследования на памятниках польцевской культурной традиции: материалы к реконструкции систем жизнеобеспечения населения Приамурья в железном веке". Труды Института истории, археологии и этнографии ДВО РАН (in русский). 52.
- ↑ Klimova, E.V. "Растениеводство". Энциклопедия Забайкалья (in русский). Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Lebedeva, A.A. (1964). "Из опыта изучения хозяйства и культуры русского сельского населения Забайкалья" (PDF). Советская этнография (in русский) (3): 3–17.
- ↑ "Specimen MW0062806: Cannabis sativa L." Moscow Digital Herbarium. Moscow State University. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ "Specimen MW0062820: Cannabis ruderalis". Moscow Digital Herbarium. Moscow State University. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ Aistova, E.V. (2016). "Аннотированный список сосудистых растений нарушенных территорий юго-восточной части Забайкальского края". Известия Иркутского государственного университета. Серия: Биология. Экология (in русский). 16.
- ↑ "Засоренность земель дикорастущей коноплей в Сибири составляет более 100 тысяч га" (in русский). ИА Амител. 30 May 2007. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Свыше четырех тысяч гектаров дикорастущей конопли выявлено в Бурятии". Информ Полис (in русский). 24 July 2014. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ "В Бурятии уничтожили более 600 гектаров конопли". Байкал-Daily (in русский). 28 August 2026. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ "В Иркутской области за 2025 год уничтожили 1069 гектаров дикорастущей конопли". IRK.ru (in русский). 18 May 2026. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ Жаркова, Ольга (24 November 2021). "Названы неблагополучные по наркоситуации районы". Областная газета (in русский). Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Полянская, Ольга (7 August 2026). "Сотни гектаров дикорастущей конопли уничтожают в Иркутской области". НТС Иркутск (in русский). Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Рыжанкина, Наталья (26 September 2026). "В Забайкалье нашли поля дикорастущей конопли площадью 105 гектаров". ДВ-РОСС (in русский). Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ "Техническая конопля вновь занимает своё место на полях Бурятии". ГТРК «Бурятия» (in русский). 4 October 2023. Retrieved 20 October 2026.