The eras of cannabis: from landraces to hybrids and autoflowers.

The history of cannabis strains is usually split into eras: landraces, hybridisation (Old School), autoflowers and Cali. The division is arbitrary — it was invented not by scientists but by breeders and growers themselves. Behind the labels, though, lies the real evolution of the plant alongside humans. We will cover the first three eras; the Cali phenomenon has an article of its own.

The landrace era.

Landraces are often described as “wild, created by nature without human involvement”. That is not quite right. The oldest find of psychoactive cannabis dates to roughly 650 BC: a vessel of marijuana was discovered in the Yanghai tomb in the Gobi Desert, an artefact around 2700 years old. Yet humans have practised agriculture for 10,000–12,000 years. So the selection of the tastiest, most productive and strongest plants was under way long before that find.

Ancient people collected seed from plants they liked and sowed it near their dwellings, fixing the desired genes. When tribes died out or moved on, those plants went feral again — but now carrying a human contribution in their genetics. Landraces therefore cannot be considered purely natural. Judged by modern eyes, most growers would call them “brooms”: leafy, with airy buds and, by today’s standards, low THC.

Terroir: place matters

Landraces bring with them the notion of terroir (more often applied to wine, though the term Terroir-Hash also exists). Terroir is not only genetics but the whole locality: soil composition, relief, altitude, temperature regime. The same landrace — Afghan Kush, say — will give a different result at home and in a Dutch greenhouse.

The modern starting point.

Around the 1960s–70s landrace seeds began arriving in bulk from every corner of the planet — and that is where modern breeding starts. The first issue of High Times appeared in 1974, and in 1977 came a “Top 40 strains” list featuring landraces such as Acapulco Gold, Thai, Hawaiian and Colombian Gold. THC levels then were often just 1–4 %, and only Afghan landraces occasionally reached 8–10 %.

The hybridisation era (Old School).

As soon as landrace seeds reached underground growers, they started crossing them with one another. That produced the first F1 hybrids and, a little later, polyhybrids. Sativa and indica were the most common pairing: indica supplied dense buds and compactness, sativa the uplifting effect and resilience. This era gave us cult strains — Northern Lights, White Widow, AK-47, Super Lemon Haze, OG Kush and the legendary Hazes.

The autoflower era.

In the early 2000s (around 2003) a breeder known as the Joint Doctor essentially created an automatically flowering plant by accident — Lowryder. It cut ripening times sharply: an autoflower moves into flowering by age rather than by day length. The price of that speed was a monotonous aroma, a mix of cultivated plant and weed. Work on autoflower flavour and aroma continues to this day.