“Skunk #1”into South Africa around 1984, which“destabilized”the genepool.
Jamaicans have replaced gañjāof Indian origin with Afghani hybrids (J. McP, pers.
observ. 2013). Beisler ( 2006 ) boasted of importing and growing“Mexican Gold”in
Afghanistan around 1972. Pietri ( 2009 ) stated that Beisler crossed“Acapulco Gold”
with Afghani landraces. Turner et al. (1979b) analyzed 12 accessions collected in
northwest India, and some plants in Punjab expressed low THC/CBD profiles
suggestive of Afghani landraces.
Ubiquitous hybridization of“Sativa”and“Indica”has rendered their distinctions
almost meaningless. Most hybrids are characterized as “Sativa-dominant” or
“Indica-dominant.” The arbitrariness of these designations is illustrated by
“AK-47,”a hybrid that won“Best Sativa”in the 1999 Cannabis Cup, and won
“Best Indica”four years later. Hybrids have been assigned“strain”names. The
desire for unique weed has led to an explosion of new strain names. At the dawn of
this era, Watson ( 1985 ) offered 10 strains for sale. Fifteen years later, Clarke ( 2001 )
estimated that Dutch seed companies offered 150 strains for sale, and 80% of them
contained hybridized ancestry from Watson’s original strains. A decade later the
number of named strains reached 900 (Cannabis Strain Database 2010 ). Leafly
( 2015 ) listed 1535 strain names, and Seedfinder ( 2015 ) listed 6510 strain names.
Doyle ( 2007 ) called the strain names“ganjanyms.”
In today’s largely illicit market, strain names are swapped and counterfeited, and
generally unreliable (Lee 2013 ; Sawler et al. 2015 ; Pierson 2016 ). Unrecognized
hybrids have plagued recent taxonomic studies of “Sativa” and “Indica.”
Unrecognized hybrids assigned toC. sativaorC. indicadampen signal in any
taxonomic methodology. Widespread crossbreeding and introgression make it
challenging to meet the third goal of this book chapter: identifying differences
between the NLD biotype (“Sativa”) and the WLD biotype (“Indica”). The biotypes
show differences in cannabinoids, terpenoids, and genetics.
In the next couple sections of this chapter, analytical studies that measured
cannabinoids and terpenoids in NLD and WLD biotypes will be compared. This
comparison is hampered by the fact that different studies used different analytical
methods (e.g., gas chromatography versus high performance liquid chromatogra-
phy). These analytical methods may vary in their yields of cannabinoids and ter-
penoids (Wheals and Smith 1975 ; Hazekamp et al. 2005 ; Giese et al. 2015 ).
Cannabinoid and terpenoid content is best measured in a common garden experi-
ment (CGE), where plants from different places are grown in a single location,
under identical environmental conditions, and uniformly processed.
4.6 Cannabinoids
Cannabinoid content differs in terms of quantity and quality; these differ in their
modes of inheritance (Hillig 2002 ). Cannabinoidquantity(dry weight percentage)
is polygenic and influenced by environmental factors. Cannabinoidquality(the
THC/CBD ratio, known as the cannabinoid profile or chemotype) is largely genetic
4 Cannabis sativaandCannabis indica... 107