Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower's Bible

Poison’ yields potent, pale-green, early buds and is the best-known South African strain.
    Asian sativas, including Thai, Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian, and Nepalese, have diverse growth characteristics and vary significantly in potency. While Thai and other sativas from the area are often super THC-potent, they are some of the most difficult to grow indoors and the slowest to mature. Thai strains produce very light, wispy buds after flowering for about four months on plants with large, sprawling branches. Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian sativas are more prone to grow into hermaphroditic adults.
    Nepalese sativas can grow oversized leaves on tall leggy plants that produce sparse, late-blooming buds, but other strains from this region develop into short, compact plants that bloom earlier. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) production and potency is often quite high, but can also be second-rate.
    Hemp strains are all considered to be Cannabis sativa. Hemp, affectionately referred to as “rope,” is Cannabis sativa grown for fiber content. Hemp is often seeded and contains very, very low levels of THC.

This leaf from an industrial hemp plant came from the French entity Chanvre & Co. Industrial “no high” cannabis will pollinate drug cannabis.
Cannabis Indica
    Cannabis indica (= C. sativa var. indica) originated in Pakistan and India. Indica is prized by indoor growers and breeders for its squat, bushy growth; condensed root system; stout stems; broad leaves; and dense, THC-laden, fat heavy flowers. Foliage is very dark green, and in some strains, leaves around buds turn reddish to purple. Short, whitish pistils turn reddish to purplish in hue. A few indicas from this part of the world have narrower leaves, long white pistils, and pale green foliage. Indica strains generally contain a higher ratio of CBD to THC, which causes an effect often described as a heavy, incapacitating “sit-on-your-head” stone. Potency of the “high” ranges from fair to stupefying. Some indicas have a distinctive odor similar to that of a skunk or cat urine, while others smell sweet and exotic. Heavily resin-laden plants tend to be the most fungus- and pest-resistant. Few indicas with heavy, dense, compact buds are resistant to gray (bud) mold.

    Cannabis indica plant.

    Cannabis indica leaf has broader blades than C. sativa leaves, but not as broad as C. afghanica.
Cannabis Ruderalis
    Cannabis ruderalis (= C. sativa var. spondanea) was first brought to Amsterdam from Central Europe in the early 1980s by the Seed Bank to enhance their breeding program. Very similar, if not the same “ruderalis” plants grow from Minnesota north through Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Canada. C. ruderalis is a short, weedy, scrubby plant containing very, very little THC, but it starts the flowering cycle after a few weeks growth. Photoperiod does not induce flowering in C. ruderalis. Sometimes confused with more potent indicas, pure C. ruderalis is true ditch weed. It yields a headache rather than a high! Today a few breeders have incorporated the early flowering C. ruderalis genes with other early blooming C. sativa, C. indica, and C. afghanica.

‘Lowryder’ is one of the few C. ruderalis crosses that is auto-flowering and THC-potent.
Cannabis Afghanica
    Cannabis afghanica (= C. sativa var. afghanica) originated near present day Afghanistan. It is quite short, seldom reaching six feet, with distinctive, broad, dark-green leaflets and leaves. Dense branching and short internodes, most often with long leaf stems (petioles), dominate the profile of C. afghanica. The most common examples of pure C. afghanica include the many different hash plants and Afghani strains. C. afghanica is cultivated exclusively for drugs with much of the resin being made into hashish. It is known for the high cannabinoid content. Many growers and breeders do not distinguish C. afghanica from C. indica, lumping them both into the C. indica category.

One of the first Seed Bank catalogs from 1987 shows a C. ruderalis plant alongside the highway in Hungary. Many breeders mistakenly hailed this plant as the “Holy Grail” of cannabis.

‘Hash Plant’, of which there are many, is one of the classic C. afghanica strains.

    C. afghanica has very wide and distinctive leaflets and leaves.

Close-up of ‘Power Plant’ seeds.

Close-up of ‘Eclipse’ seeds.

‘Kali Mist’ seeds are spotted and mottled.

Seeds
    Explosive growth of seed breeders and legal seed sales in the