Potohar Plateau
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| Potohar Plateau | |
|---|---|
| ActiveGrown here in 2000 or later | |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 33.20, 72.73 |
| Country | Pakistan |
| Area | 22,400 km² |
| Growing history | |
| Earlier names | Rawalpindi Division (submontane districts) |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Potohar Plateau is a landrace cannabis growing region of wild hemp in northern Punjab and the Islamabad Capital Territory, Pakistan. It is drawn on the Attock, Rawalpindi, Jhelum, Chakwal and Talagang districts and the capital territory. In June and July 2023 Muhammad Younas and colleagues sampled wild hemp at 35 growing localities on the plateau and in the Lesser Himalayas to the north.[1] In 1893–94 witnesses from Rawalpindi told the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission that hemp grew there spontaneously and was not cultivated.[2]: 361[3]
Extent
Younas and colleagues put the plateau at about 22,254 km² of semi-arid country, taking in Attock, Jhelum, Chakwal and Rawalpindi. Attock is prone to drought; in Jhelum, irrigation is hampered by the growing difference between the level of the land and that of the river; Chakwal has little rain; Rawalpindi has moderate temperatures through the year.[1] To the north the Lesser Himalayas, between about 2,000 and 3,000 m, take in the Hazara division, Islamabad and Rawalpindi, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.[1]
The border of the growing region follows whole districts: Attock, Rawalpindi without its hill district of Murree, Jhelum, Chakwal and Talagang, and the Islamabad Capital Territory.
Wild hemp
The Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94
The commission found the hemp plant growing spontaneously in a belt along the foot of the mountains in the submontane districts of the Punjab, from Peshawar to Umballa; the belt was very narrow at Peshawar and widened towards the North-Western Provinces.[4]
S. S. Thorburn, the Commissioner of the Rawalpindi Division, told the commission that hemp grew in all the hilly and submontane districts of the division, "Rawalpindi (particularly), Gujrat and Sialkot, also in Jhelum". It was "obtrusively abundant on the road-sides" wherever the soil was good and moisture considerable, most of all where rainfall was abundant or water near, but it did not grow very densely anywhere. Only one variety was known, the wild plant, and it was called bhang, sukha and sabzi.[2]: 361
Amir Haidershah, an honorary magistrate of Rawalpindi, said that bhang was not cultivated in the Rawalpindi district but grew there spontaneously, and that neither charas nor ganja could be made from it; the charas sold in the district came from Kashmir, Ladakh and Yarkand.[3] Mathra Das, a medical practitioner, wrote that wild hemp grew abundantly at Bhimbar, in the State of Jammu and Kashmir, and to a small extent in the Rawalpindi district.[5]
James Wilson, the Deputy Commissioner of Shahpur, said that in his district hemp grew spontaneously only in the Salt Range, between 1,000 and 5,000 feet (300 and 1,500 m), with about 17 inches (430 mm) of rain a year, chiefly in moist places; it was usually scattered but in places fairly dense.[6]
The 2023 survey
Younas and colleagues sampled 35 wild populations in the middle of June and in July 2023, between 32.57° and 34.22° N and 72.02° and 73.72° E. Their localities included Pind Dadan Khan, Choa Saidan Shah, Kalar Kahar, Chakwal, Talagang, Jhelum, Sohawa, Mangla, Attock, Kamra, Fateh Jang, Pindigheb, Jand, Taxila, Mandra, Bani Gala, the campus of Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Murree, Abbottabad and Nathia Gali.[1] They write that wild hemp grows commonly in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and in Islamabad.[1]
They scored 16 morpho-agronomic traits and grouped the populations into three clusters. One lay in the Lesser Himalayas, where relative humidity was above 64 per cent and the average temperature below 15 °C; the other two lay on the Potohar and were separated by average temperature, one between 19 and 22 °C and one above 22 °C. Average annual temperature accounted for more of the variation in the plants than the geographic variables did. The authors call the populations native landraces of Cannabis sativa.[1]
Growing Areas
No growing areas documented yet.
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
No news items are recorded for this growing region yet.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Younas, M.; Qureshi, R.; van Velzen, R.; Mashwani, Z.R.; Saqib, Z.; et al. (2024). "Geo-climatic factors co-drive the phenotypic diversity of wild hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) in the Potohar Plateau and Lesser Himalayas". BMC Plant Biology. 24 (1) 1031. doi:10.1186/s12870-024-05730-0.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. S. S. Thorburn, Commissioner and Superintendent, Rawalpindi". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. V: Evidence of Witnesses from North-Western Provinces and Oudh and Punjab. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 3, pp. 361–362 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Amir Haidershah, Honorary Magistrate, Rawalpindi". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. V: Evidence of Witnesses from North-Western Provinces and Oudh and Punjab. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Punjab witness no. 58, p. 470 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. III, "The existence, prevalence, and character of the spontaneous growth", paras. 45–50, pp. 24–26 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Further paper put in by Mathra Das". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. V: Evidence of Witnesses from North-Western Provinces and Oudh and Punjab. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Punjab witness no. 49, p. 458 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. James Wilson, Deputy Commissioner, Shahpur". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. V: Evidence of Witnesses from North-Western Provinces and Oudh and Punjab. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Punjab witness no. 14, p. 389 – via Internet Archive.