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December 8, 2023 • 111 mins

Long Live Landraces! In this delightful introduction to cannabis landrace plant varieties, Shaping Fire host Shango Los talks with Santa Cruz landrace specialist Jade Nectar aka Jeff Nordahl about the differences between landrace, wild and feral varieties of cannabis, their unique attributes that attract connoisseurs, and the importance of conscious landrace breeding techniques and preservation.

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(00:06):
- Sometimes old thingshold a lot of value.
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(01:08):
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(02:10):
Welcome to episode 111.
You are listening to Shaping Fire,
and I am your host, Shang Los.
My guest today is Jeff Nordal,better known on Instagram
as Jade Nectar.
Jeff has been studyingcannabis natural medicine
and psychedelics since his teens.
He has a background as anearly internet entrepreneur,

(02:30):
but became seriouslyill in his thirties only
to find out he hadcontracted Lyme disease.
Conventional medicineheld no solutions for him.
Jeff turned to cannabis medicinein his home of Santa Cruz
and started getting results.
He became an expert on theacid form of cannabinoids
and cannabis leaf juicing,
and started a local medical collective

(02:50):
to get it in the hands of patients.
Jeff Nordal now holds 11 patentsfor using cannabis as food.
Though he doesn't like patents
and got them defensively sono one could ever tell him
to stop juicing cannabisleaves for patients.
He's presently buildingout the Jade Grove Farm
and Wellness Center deep inthe Santa Cruz mountains.
He also has grown more land race varieties

(03:12):
of cannabis than anyone I'veever met during the first set.
Today we will discuss thedifference between land, race,
wild, feral heritage, andhybrid varieties of cannabis.
In the second set, we willlearn about the cultivation
demands of land races, hotand cold, adapted land races,
and hear about some ofthe more exotic morphology

(03:32):
and terpene profiles Jeff has come across.
And during the third set,we'll explore breeding
with land races and finishthe episode with a discussion
of land race preservation.
Welcome to Shaping Fire, Jeff.
- Hey, thanks. Thanks
for having me. It's so great. Excited to
- Be here.
Yeah, it's really great to have you here.
You know, um, uh,
ever since I came acrossyour Jade Nectar profile on

(03:54):
Instagram and started,uh, watching your tours
of all the land races in yourgarden, um, you know, I I,
I immediately kind ofbecame a fanboy, I must say,
just watching your videos, I'mlike, oh, look at that plant.
And Oh, look at that plant.
And it was, it was like, um,the same reason I love going
through botanical gardens, right?
It's just once you fall inlove with plants, you know,

(04:15):
I started with the cannabis plant,
but then that love kindof got became all plants.
So to be able to see lots ofvarieties of a plant together,
it's, it's really like nerdy nature fun
for people like us who cultivate Oh yeah.
But then to see yourInstagram where it's just one
after another and they lookdifferent in the colors
and, you know, you,you've got a bit of teach

(04:36):
and vibes about it, you know, you kind
of tell us about the plant and everything.
And so, um, I, so I juststarted as a fan and a follower.
And then after I went through enough
of your videos over time, I'mall like, oh, dude, I think,
I think, I think this wouldmake a really great episode.
So I'm really grateful that, that you, uh,
you accepted my invitation
to come on the show. So thanks for that.
- Well, cool. And, uh,yeah, if you're enjoying it

(04:59):
through the video, ,just through the inner webs, uh,
yeah, you should come out inperson sometimes, .
- Well, it doesn't, it doesn't
- Have a full experience. Well, thank
- You.
It doesn't take much of encouragement
to get me to come to Santa Cruz.
It's one of my favorite placesin the world, . So.
Alright, man. Well,let's get right into it.
You know, um, when people talkabout land races, people use

(05:19):
that word kind of like a, a bucket, right?
Because, um, a lot of peopledon't understand that idea
of land race or, or where thatdefinition begins or ends.
And then it, then itstarts to get mixed in
with other words, like, youknow, like heritage and heirloom
and, and, you know, varieties.
And, and so the, the definitionis, is a bit muddied.

(05:42):
So, so let's, let's kind oftalk around this idea, um, and,
and tease out some ofthe interesting meanings,
especially somebody like you who,
who spends their whole time, you know,
in the land race world, I, I can imagine
that you would have adifferent take on it.
So, so yeah. So, so whydon't we just go ahead
and start with likethe word land race and,
and why don't you get us started there?

(06:03):
- Yeah, yeah. So, uh, land, race,
and I had to do my own research as well.
Um, and, uh, yeah, it, it is interesting
that even different industries
and such have differentdefinitions for what landrace is.
But it, it turns out that, uh, landrace,
I believe I should look this up,

(06:24):
but I think it's a Germanword for land, Ross, I think.
So that means, uh,
and that translates intoEnglish, like country breed.
So, uh, right off the bat,land raise is domestic.
These are domesticated, uh, varieties,
but you can also have landraise dogs, land raise pigs,

(06:44):
chickens, cucumbers, melons.
Um, so it's nothing specificto cannabis whatsoever.
It has to do with, uh, just agriculture
or animal, um, uh, breeding.
And, and what, but what it is
and why land races are unique is
they're actually tiedto a specific region.

(07:07):
Um, so there's this interplay between, uh,
so let's say a cannabisplant shows up in, um, some
area, let's say in, Idon't know, Thailand.
Um, so there you've got awet tropical environment,
uh, and,

(07:28):
and the people who wantto grow the cannabis,
there are going to benow, uh, breeding with,
with their cannabis, uh,
taking cues from theenvironment over time.
So let's say they growa hundred plants, um,
but 50%, if they were, let'ssay, a, a like an Afghan,

(07:49):
our arid environment, uh,genetic that, that came
to this village inThailand, , you know,
hundreds if not thousandsof years ago, probably half
of 'em would mold becausethey're not, uh, adapted for, uh,
all that moisture and humidity.
Uh, but the humans wouldstart picking, you know,

(08:09):
and taking the seeds fromthe plants that actually
fared pretty well.
Um, so now there's humanselection going on
to find those, uh, seeds
or those genetics that actually
thrive in their local environment.
Um, so once that getsestablished as far as something

(08:32):
that can actually survive
and make it to the finishline, produce, you know,
flowers without melting down, uh,
now the humans might startselecting more for effects.
say, I like a really,
or like, those, that culture
may actually appreciate a very energizing
electric psychedelic, uh,effect in their cannabis.

(08:54):
So then they startselecting, uh, for that.
So now you're starting to infuse
cultural values,
and cultural utility intothis plant, while also, uh,
uh, selecting for thingsthat actually thrive, um, in
that environment.

(09:15):
Uh, so that's, that's kindof the interplay with, uh,
for land raise is ithappens over time with, uh,
pressures from the environmentand also, uh, the aesthetic
and, uh, desire
and utility of the humanswho are growing them and be,
and if these are isolated fromall other cannabis plants,

(09:38):
uh, you can imagine over, youknow, generation, generation,
50 generations, a hundred generations now,
you're gonna have a veryunique, uh, cannabis variety
that's unique just to thatparticular, let's say village.
- Um, you know, you know, Jeff,I think I'm gonna set you up
for your next definition
because, um, you know,

(09:58):
you've already surprised me the definition
of land race already is notwhat I thought it was going
to be because, um, Iwas under the impression
that land races were untouchedby humans that we had, like,
as soon as you saiddomesticated, I like my,
my eyebrow goes up. 'causeI'm like, domesticated.
- Oh, no, no, no, this- Is, yeah.
- And so this is one of thebiggest, biggest, uh, I,

(10:20):
I don't know where thegenesis of this. Am I
- Talking about wild versus land?
Race?
- You're talking about wildor feral? Okay. Uh, yeah.
So, so land race is a hundred
percent influenced by humans.
These are domestic. So,
so if we wanna start talkinganalogies here, start thinking,

(10:43):
um, uh, as far as dog breeds.
So, uh, if anyone'sfamiliar with, let's say,
Anatolian Shepherds
or kle dogs, these are, uh,these big, uh, sheep, uh,
protector guard dogs that are used in,
in the Anatolian Mountains in Turkey.
And they require a very large, uh, dog

(11:06):
to fight off wolves and bears.
Uh, they need to be very independent.
Uh, they actually go out withthe sheep without any humans,
and we'll just watch after thesheep, but also go and hunt
and provide food for themselves.
Um, but the Anatolia Shepherds,
it's not a specific, uh,standard breed that, you know,

(11:29):
has to be 16inches from tail to snout
or any of these standardbreed dimensions, uh,
within the Anatolian Shepherdor Kle, uh, type of dog.
Uh, you actually get alldifferent color types,
all different, uh, variations,uh, and such, but they're,
but at the same time, they're similar

(11:50):
and they perform a utility,which is guarding sheep
and being independent
and also, uh, being ableto handle the environment.
So they have a really nice double coat
that keeps them insulated in the winter.
But, uh, cool. In the summer.
Um, so, so that's an Anatolian shepherd.

(12:10):
You also have things likehuskies, uh, Eskimo dogs.
You'll see there's tons ofvariants in those dogs, uh,
between each one.
So you've got a lot of genetic diversity,
but it's also bred by humans
to pull dog sleds.
Uh, but there's no, uh, you know,

(12:34):
like Kennel Club sitting there going
and measuring the dogs forspecific traits, it's, and,
and so tho those are actuallyconsidered land raised dogs,
and you can apply thesame thing to carrots,
cucumbers, pigs, .
Uh, so
- I, I find it very interestingthat a now, now in my head,
um, a, a cultural use

(12:57):
and, uh, human intention is now part
of the land race definition for me.
Oh, absolutely. And that's a,and that's a surprise for me.
So, so let's, let's move forward and, and,
and have you talk a littlebit about the, the feral
and wild type, which is whatis in my head as land race.
- Okay. And here's another thing.
This is, um, and by theway, I have read websites,

(13:19):
cannabis websites that just kind
of become these echo chambers that just
poach other information.
Just keep repeating the samefallacy Yeah. Over and over.
And for some reason, thereare cannabis websites
that do define land race as wild,
untouched by humans. And
- That is .
Well, we all know that mostof the cannabis websites

(13:41):
are garbage anyway.
They're just Yeah. Peopletrying to throw up content
so they can selladvertising, you know? Well,
- So, so right off the bat,just Landrace is fully domestic.
Just do a Google search ofthe definition of landrace,
and you'll find out thefirst thing it says is it's
a domestic brief.
- Also, honestly, evenmore important than that,
like you're friends with Rob Clark, right?

(14:01):
So your definitions are bouncedoff of Rob Clark, the God
of cannabis genetics.
So like, I'm gonna go withwhat you're gonna say more than
what I'm gonna read just about anywhere
- Else.
Okay. So here's, here's another thing.
And I don't want to get in likepissing matches with people
who say, oh no, it's,it's wild cannabis and such.
So I just went, luckily,I'm, I'm very fortunate

(14:22):
and honored to have, um, uh,developed a bit of a relation
with, uh, Rob Clark.
And he came out and visited, he's been out
to our farm now, uh, three times.
Um, just no particular agenda.
We just like hangingout , you know,
we got 300 land race varieties all growing

(14:43):
in the same garden, soit's kind of just sort
of wonderland, uh, for folks. Yeah,
- It's, it's a cannabisamusement park, is what it is. It
- Really, it's stoner fantasy land.
Um, and it's just, so anyway, he was
kind enough to also, uh, send an email
with his, uh, takes on these,

(15:05):
these definitions just to clear things up.
And, uh, and yeah, I'll, if, if Okay, not
to be super boring, I'll justread a few sentences from
from his actual email.
I hope this, he said it's okayto share this , but
- Yeah, sure.
So long as they're not toolong, we'll go ahead and hit
- It.
Yeah, no, no, but right off the bat,
land races are essentiallylocally adapted plant

(15:28):
and animal varieties thatin that evolve in response
to natural environmentalselective pressures in tandem
with simple human selection
for favorable characteristicswithout formal breeding.
So, um, and it says, all domestic plants
and animals originate fromwild pop populations evolving

(15:52):
naturally, once humans entered the scene,
the first steps towardsland race evolution began.
So, so there you go.
So it's not, it's not a, uh,
just keeping one line of, ofbreeding a particular genetic
for just, you know, like thatultimate, um, seed or clone.

(16:13):
Uh, it's not a narrowbreeding project, it's a, it,
it's a big, large, widesort of open pollination,
usually type breeding project.
But then selecting, most likely
what would happen is then you go
and select the seeds from theplants that finished the best
out of, let's say a wholepatch, like a large field

(16:35):
of cannabis, and then, uh, the ones
that made it to the finish line.
And then when you sample'em, they're awesome.
And you go, ah, I want
to grow the seeds from thisplant next year .
So that, that way the human is now
very much influencing andselecting for their traits.
So that, that is the land race.

(16:56):
And then the other part that'sreally important is, uh,
is that they're unique to that region
because now they've been isolated in
that physical geographicregion for so long
that they're now like totallyunique compared to, uh,
you know, land races in otherparts of the world. Right

(17:18):
- On.
So, so we've established land race. Good.
Let's move forward a little bit. Yeah.
Now, are, are wild and feral synonymous,
or are those individual ideas too?
- Uh, no. And we're good.
And if, as far as running theanalogy, the dog analogy, uh,
what, what feral is, isit's domestic cannabis
that has escaped the farm,

(17:39):
and now it's off growing wild,
but it's not actually the true wild
original cannabis variety. So, uh, it's
- Like post farm wild.
- Yeah. So this would belike, uh, in Australia,
if we're doing our dog analogy here,
this would be the dingo, right?
So the dingoes were in a domestic dog

(18:00):
that was introducedinto Australia, I think,
like 4,000 years ago or so.
And then it went totally feral.
Now it's actually part ofthe ecosystem in Australia,
but it was never actually awild naturally occurring wolf.
Um, it was, it was actually,
- It was never indigenous.It was brought in

(18:22):
- Correct.
And it was a domestic dogthat then went, uh, feral
and now is part of that environment.
So cannabis is very adaptable and such.
So if it escapes the farm,
and by the way, in the Midwestin the US we still have, uh,
ditch weeded that's escapedhemp from the hemp farms,

(18:42):
you know, the early 19 hundreds Mm-Hmm.
. And sothat's still growing.
But when, when a plant goesferal, it's now doesn't have
that human, uh, infusion
or intention going on with it.
So now it's, now it's just theplant doing its thing with,
its only motivation isto keep making more seed.

(19:04):
Mm-Hmm, . So mostlikely when you have feral
populations, um, the taste, the potency
of THC or whatever cannabinoidyou're going for is the,
you know, the plant doesn'teven care about that .
It's just wants to make seed.
So now you're gonna get, youknow, a hardier more adaptive

(19:25):
for survival and reproducingplant for the cannabis plant.
But, uh, probably the desirablehuman traits are gonna start
fading on those, uh, feralpopulations. Um, right on.
- I, I identify with feral.
I think I'm fallingfurther and further out
of normative society as well.
.

(19:46):
- Yeah. So, um, yeah, exactly.
So if, if you went fulloff the grid and, uh, went
and lived in a hutt or a caveout in the middle of the night
and started raising a familyand such like that, yeah. You,
- That would be the full embrace of it.
- You'd be then more adaptedfor hunting and gathering
and not, uh, sitting,
working computer, socialmedia computer. Yeah. Yeah.

(20:08):
- Alright, so let's contractcontrast then that to wild,
which would be the, which wouldprobably be a plant that is,
uh, indigenous to that biosphere,
but has never beendomesticated and farmed.
- Exactly. And the thingis, is most likely, so,
and again, this is, uh, fromRobert Clark, who also has, uh,

(20:31):
sort of combined all ofthe cannabis research.
Uh, he's got a great book, um,
I think it's called Ethno Botany Cannabis.
Ethno Botany. Mm-Hmm., uh, that, yeah,
it goes actually.
It's very information dense. So
- Yeah, it's a heavy duty read.
- Yeah, yeah. It's notjust a casual, uh, sit

(20:52):
by the fire kind of thing.
Uh, but it is a really,really, really a great resource
for going and, and whatthey've done is just tracked
and basically agree with allthese other, um, uh, botanists
and scientists andethnobotanists who've tracked the
original origin ofcannabis seems to come from

(21:14):
what's now geographically in China.
Uh, and that is where the
original wild cannabisseemed to originate from.
But because cannabis, domestic cannabis
was cultivated and usedfor 10,000 plus years in

(21:35):
that same area, it's highly unlikely
that the original wild cannabis didn't get
crossed with domesticcannabis at some point.
Mm-Hmm. . So todifferentiate the true wild
origin cannabis from, uh,feral domestic cannabis,

(21:58):
uh, it, it's kind of almostimpossible to do that.
And most likely, uh, it wentextinct through hybridization
with other, uh,
domestic varieties overthe past 10,000 years.
Right. On. So most,
most likely the original wildcannabis no longer exists.
- Alright, so then the capoff this line of definitions,

(22:21):
why don't we finish off with poly hybrid
and then we'll starttalking about morphology.
- Oh, okay. And then one otherone that's part of this is,
uh, also heirloom or heritage varieties.
Alright, good. Good. So,
and that's more, uh, those would be
specific breeding projects alot of times sort of like, uh,

(22:42):
we've got it going on in California,
especially up in Humboldtand Mendocino and such.
Um, actually was just readingabout some of these, uh,
the Huckleberry Hill Farms Mm-Hmm.
, by the way.
I got the sample some of their,uh, white thorn rose, uh,
which I guess is getting alot of attention right now.
And that was, that isthe only like cannabis

(23:07):
from a dispensary, uh,
that I've sampled in the last few years.
That was like, wow, that'sreally, that took me back
to like Grateful Dead parking lot
kind Bud old school.
Really, really, really beautiful cannabis.
So, um, but I looked intotheir story and such,

(23:28):
and I think a lotsomewhat in that lineage.
He calls it, uh, like moms weed.
So that would be likeheirlooms where families
actually have worked anddeveloped their own, you know,
strain and,
and pass that down throughthe generations to like family
and friends and such like that.

(23:48):
So that's like an heirloomright there, where it's,
where it's being passed through
- That just warms my heart.
Just even thinking about lookingat the, at the genetic line
and, and seeing mom's weeded.
Like that is the heart of cannabis
and like the human relationshipwith the plant, right.
When it's like, it's likepre the names, pre the, the,

(24:10):
you know, categories for sale and,
and pre-competition between people.
It's just, yeah, this was,
this was our family'sparticular strain that we loved
and we had at our holidays.
Yeah. I think, I thinkthat's a beautiful thing.
So, all right, so moms with heirloom.
- Yeah. So that's, that'skind of more like heirloom
where it's being passed, you know,

(24:31):
just like heirloom furniture and such.
Sure. You're passing it throughgenerations and then, uh,
but then heritage strainswith follow that same,
uh, pattern or,
or sort of be in that same category only
that might be morewidely, uh, distributed.
So, and a lot of times, uh, heritage or

(24:53):
or heirlooms exist onlyin, uh, clone Mm-Hmm.
cuttings form.
I mean, they may back 'em up with seeds,
but a lot of times things, youknow, like train wreck AK 47,
uh, old school, even,
even I guess like oldschool, super Silver Haze,
Northern Lights and things like that,

(25:14):
those are more like the heritage,like original foundation,
uh, strains that, uh, did get,
uh, passed, passed around,uh, through the community.
Um, so right on.
- So let's, let's go back
to the poly hybrid then,and then cap off with that.

(25:35):
- So now poly hybrids,
and there's nothing wrong or unethical
or things to be snooty about with
with poly hybrids.
It's just now what seems to be gone,
and this isn't just, I mean,this is my personal opinion,
but a lot of other folks, um, are coming

(25:56):
to the same conclusion is,
and if we're gonna do ourdog breeding analogy again,
uh, most of the modern cannabis
that's now on the scene is like
the Labradoodle times 10 .

(26:17):
So now you've got Labradoodlescrossed to Pug Dole,
or puggles back to a pitbull, back to a Labradoodle,
back to a Cocker spana doodle.
And it's all this p and
and it almost doesn't even have any, um,
necessarily any intention for like, oh,

(26:40):
I wanna create like a reallyracy, high creative, uh,
variety that tastes like passion fruit.
You know what I mean? It's more, okay,
gelato was hot last month, uh,
wedding cake is hot right now,
so we're gonna cross thosetwo and call this gelato cake.

(27:01):
- Yeah. It just, just on itsface, it sounds less reputable
because you're, you're breeding
for marketing hype instead of breeding.
To go back to your dogexample, breeding for the dog,
that taking can take care of the sheep
and feed itself in the wild, right?
Yeah. Like one has authentichuman cultural meaning,
and the other one is for capitalism

(27:22):
- And, and it's just, yeah.
It's like top 40 hits,like these just very
just riding hype for the next 30, 60 days.
And it, it's almost like ifpeople were hanging outside, uh,
like a dog show, you know,like a breeders', I don't know,
these Kennel Club dog shows.
Yeah, yeah. And they're like, oh, your dog

(27:45):
won the best interior class
and yours won the best in this, so
how about we just cross 'em together? And
- So now we have a Doberman Schnauzer
or whatever, . Yeah,
- Exactly.
And it's like the hot new dog
that's gonna win the nextyear's kennel club, you know?
And then you just dothat exponentially into,
and that's where we're at now.
We have like all these,whoever won all the cups

(28:08):
or whatever is getting attention.
Then you just crossall that stuff together
and it's just become thismuddled, muddled, muddled old,
uh, genetics.
And the effects, um, uh, it's, I mean,
it's not just me saying this.
I've heard this confirmed
and, uh, there's a lot of consensus seems

(28:29):
to be going on in thecommunity at this point that
you can't really tell thedifference between smoking
runts or wedding cake or Oreos
or peanut butter cookiebreath or whatever.
It's like, it allbasically kind of tastes,

(28:49):
looks and all kind of feels the same.
And unfortunately it's not.
Um, I mean, everyonehas different, you know,
objectives and suchwith, with their stoner
and what they're going for and such.
But a lot of people, uh,
like that up like a creative, uplifting,

(29:12):
inspiring clear head andsuch, and, and feeling active
and kind of amplifying life.
Where now a lot of the, uh,
cannabis varieties rightnow seem to be more of, uh,
like an opiate sedative, uh, kind
of lethargic, tired .

(29:33):
- Well, it's that, it's that,it's that mercene dominance
that's all through themodern commercial strains.
Right.
- And so it's just, uh, yeah.
So, and to each theirown, it's not to be snot.
I mean, there's a time andplace for couch lock and such,
but, uh, but yeah, if,
if every cannabis variety now, uh,

(29:56):
that you find a dispensarygives you that same couch lock,
I forgot my name, I'm justgonna sit in my underwear
and play video games and eat pizza.
If that's the, the same effectyou've, you've now, it's kind
of like all, all the vast world
of all these different dog breeds
with all these different personalities

(30:17):
and fun characteristicshave now all been sort
of hybridized
and homogenized into thisjust blah Mm-Hmm.
, same exactuniform, kind of boring effect.
- And, you know, you know,it's, it's not to the fault
of the modern cannabis consumeror enthusiast either, right.

(30:39):
Because, you know, thevast majority, like 99%
of what's available is themodern poly hybrid stuff.
And, you know, I've been, I'vebeen a cannabis enthusiast
for, geez, 30, 35, 40 yearsnow, something like that.
And, um, you know, and,
and it wasn't until,um, I came across, um,

(31:03):
my buddy shared with me somecuttings of an authentic,
um, Acapulco Gold.
And I'm like, oh, thisis what all those people
who were 10 years older thanme we're talking about, about.
'cause the high was so entirely different.
And then, and then I decided,I'm like, well, I can't grow
that here where I live outside.
And so I was, I was able to get some, oh,

(31:25):
actually he's from yourarea, uh, Eric Miner
of HBK genetics.
Um, he, he used to live inthe, in the Santa Cruz region.
Um, he, he's got this 20 weekblack Colombian land race
that I grew indoors.
And like those two plantsare unlike everything else
that I have smoked and, and have grown.
Oh, yeah. Just because, and,

(31:46):
and so, you know, when, when,when you, when you say that,
okay, the, you know, your, your,
your pound cake tasteslike your cookies taste
tastes like your, this, you're that.
Right. It's
because the modern commercial cannabis,
it's pulling from thisvery small pool of Yes.
Of, of commercially viable genetics.
Whereas, you know, ifthose same people were able

(32:08):
to get access to, you know,you know, equatorial plants
and Thai and Columbiaand all these, and then,
and then smoke themagainst each other, well,
suddenly their taste palette has expanded.
And now they see they,that they, that they see
that they've been looking down Right.
At this particular genetic pool,
but not the, not the global genetic pool.

(32:31):
- Uh uh. Exactly.
And, um, so a lot of timeswhen, when I break out, uh,
yeah, like an Acapulcoor a a, a Thai variety
or, uh, just right now
loving some stuff from SSRI Lanka .
And by the way, a lotof these, uh, land races

(32:51):
that were growing, um, are seeds
that were sourced back in the seventies.
Mm. So it's not even,
so you're geographically travelingand culturally traveling,
but you're also time traveling.
Um, I like that. Yeah.
So there's this myththat now the weeded, uh,

(33:12):
uh, today is stronger and better,
but once you sample
like a 1970s Pakistan,or 1970s SSRI lankan
or some of these old, you know, people
who went on the hippie trail or
or worked at the Peace Corps in some of these areas
and brought back seeds, uh, you know, from

(33:35):
almost 50 years ago.
Yeah. And then you grow'em out and smoke 'em,
and you're like, oh my God, that, yeah,
the weeded was incrediblypsychedelic back then.
Incredibly obli. It's likea whole different category.
It's almost verging onpsilocybin, like, you know,
like a low dose of mushrooms.

(33:55):
- Um, and, and a lot of the,a lot of the modern, you know,
enthusiasts, they haven'thad that opportunity.
And, and so they're just all like, oh,
but the, the percentage THCon those older strains were
so low, and, and now I've got this thing
that somehow is over 30 and, you know,
and like, it's so much better.
But, but a lot of thesesmokers don't understand the

(34:15):
important role that, um,
prevalent terpenes placedin those older strains,
in these untouched strainsthat, you know, they might be 12
or 18%, but their terpenepercentage is so high.
And that's what sculpts the high,
the the experience that you have.
And, and, and that's where thereal difference comes from.

(34:36):
We're not, it's not about the THC,
it's about the whole bouquet.
- Exactly. So that's what's going,
it's like the symphony orchestra.
So yeah, you have thebassoons and the symphonies,
and you have the cellos
and you french horns going on and things.
They don't play a major role,but they add so much texture
and counterpoint

(34:58):
and diversity within the sound
that there's this wholecommunication going on.
But now what seems to begoing on with, if there's only
so much real estate on the cannabis plant,
so if you're up at 30, 35% THC,
that's kind of likethe symphony orchestra.
There's only so much stage.

(35:19):
So that means you have
to kick out all the otherinstruments to make way
for now you have 200 violin players
all playing the exact same note .
Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. Yeah.
And it's just playingthe exact same melody,
and it's still, you know,you, it's still good,
still going, it's still as complex

(35:40):
- Still.
- Yeah. You've justlost all that complexity
and now it's more of a one dimensional
buzz experience without,instead of this big symphony
tapestry of textures and counterpoints
and polyrhythms and such like that.
So it's, yeah,
that's kinda one analogy.

(36:03):
And you could even go likeGrateful Dead Jerry Garcia style.
- I mean, let's not,let's not go that one.
, let's not go there.We only have so much show,
and you and I are both Deadheads ,
and that will be the rest of the show.
So, so I actually wanna moveforward off of the definitions
and, um, because we we're comingup on a commercial not too
far from now, but I wanna get some

(36:24):
of these other ideas inhere that, um, you know,
sometimes let's, let's, let's take a,
that black Colombian Imentioned earlier as an example.
Okay. So, um, you know, um, we meaning
cannabis cultivators that are growing now,
we will get something likea a a a Colombian or, or,

(36:45):
or a, a Syrian
or, you know, whereverthis particular, um,
land race has come from and,
and people treat it like that is, um,
not just an example,
but that is the type ofplant that everybody in,
you know, um, Columbia

(37:07):
or SSRI Lanka you mentionedearlier, as if one, that one,
um, plant is the onlyplant that is grown there.
And, and, um, and, and,
and I just like you to talk to that idea
because I think that
that is a real common misnomerin the modern cannabis world,
that just because you've hadone plant from, you know,

(37:30):
a growing region, that you'vehad what they have to offer,
you know, and, and I,
and I just really feel likethat that's probably not true.
- Yeah, that's, so that'snot reality ,
and all you have to do is go to Mendocino
or go to Big Sur, even goback in, in time, you know,
50 years ago when things were, you know,

(37:52):
more on the down low, butwas every single family
and every single growergrowing the exact same
genetics and answers?
Now it's, and it's not inSrilanka or Afghanistan.
There's not like a cannabis club
where they all vote on what genetics,
every single cannabis farms

(38:12):
- Gonna grow, which one isgoing to be be the official
genetic of their growing region.
- Yeah, yeah. No, they're all,
they're all doing their own thing,
but they're also gonna, well,one, they probably, you know,
are sourcing their geneticsfrom similar gene pools just
because the world hasn't been globalized
for all that long, you know?
Mm-Hmm. ,um, so limited, you know,

(38:34):
genetic resources, they're,
they're gonna pull from thingsthey have in the area, uh,
but then they're also, youknow, gonna also, uh, select
for things that do wellin that same region.
So you're gonna have similarities,
but are they all gonna be exactcarbon copies of each other?
Um, and the answer is absolutely not. It

(38:55):
- Kind of reminds me of yourHuckleberry Hill example from
earlier where back in thegenetic line is mom's favorite.
Like, you know, in SSRI Lanka, it's not,
they're just producing one kind.
All these different familieshave got their mom's favorite.
And so, you know, they, they'vegot just as much diversity
as, as we're experiencing now.
Um, it's just that, um, seeds are so hard

(39:16):
to get from these areas that, you know,
one variety makes its way out and then,
and then unfortunately becomes the
example for the whole region.
'cause that's the only thingwe're able to get. Yeah.
- But they, they will be similar though.
Um, I mean, what's happening now though,
in Thailand is all the Amsterdam
and college genetics are coming in, um,

(39:39):
- And polluting their land races.
- Uh, that's, that'sthe really scary thing.
That's a whole nother topic of discussion.
But we may be experiencing a global
land race extinction dueto, uh, hybridization.
It's basically like if,you know, if you let
labradoodles out toroam free, and they went

(39:59):
and basically copulate withevery dog breed on the planet
now, everything's been doodled,
- . And
- By the way, I don't haveanything against Doodle.
I actually have a schnoodle, uh,
schnauzer poodle, uh, mixed dog.
So they're f fantastic.
- But it makes, but it makesyour point though, ,
- What I'm saying is, dowe want to live in a world
where every dog breed has been dood ized?

(40:21):
Yeah. And, uh,
and every can cannabis has been cookie
cake gelato, you know?
Yeah. Um, right on.
- Well, hey, uh, I don't think,I, I don't think I'm going
to top, uh, uh, don't doodleyour cannabis, um, , uh,
anywhere anymore in this,uh, in, in this first set.
So let's, uh, let's, let's end there
and go for commercial break

(40:41):
and we come back, we're gonnastart talking about, uh, uh,
terpene profiles in land races.
So, um, let's go ahead,
let's go ahead and take it. Yeah, yeah,
- Yeah.
Alright. Can I say one other tiny,
tiny little thing about the land race?
Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Andthat whole, uh, wild, uh, sort
of feral definition and such,
and this is a reallyimportant thing for, uh, sort
of ethics morals of, of land races.

(41:04):
So the definition thatsome folks have worked on
the wrong definition, that,uh, land races are just kind
of wild and feral
and growing on the sideof the road also sets up
a situation of appropriation
and complete erasing of the farmer

(41:28):
who developed the land raise variety.
You get what I'm saying? Yeah, I do.
So here, maybe in the us, if you all
of a sudden have some reallycool, uh, Thai variety,
you're, if you're totally discounting
that this is probably hundredsof years of genetic work
by actual humans in Thailand in, in whatever region

(41:52):
or village who created thislike totally sublime variety.
If, if you think that itwas just growing on the side
of the road wild, all of asudden there's no credit,
there's no honor, there's norespect for, uh, those farmers,
and then you're more apttto just name it something,
or even call it your weeded,

(42:14):
and you've just erased, uh,the, the human, uh, work
that actually got that strainto that sublime, uh, state.
So it's just reallyimportant for land race
to also fully credit these amazing
cannabis intuitive breeders who, uh,
develop these like absolutelysublime, uh, varieties.

(42:37):
Uh, so a lot of human work wentin to get 'em to this point.
Um, and just
'cause you took a vacation
to Thailand brought backsome seeds, doesn't mean
you created that strain
- .
Man, that's a really good point.
And I'm glad that, I'm glad
that you held me up to put that in there.
So, alright. Thank you. Alright. Yeah.
So now let's go to commercial.

(42:58):
Uh, we're gonna take thatshort break and be right back.
You're listening to Shaping Fire
and my guest today is LandRace specialist Jeff Nordal.
And, you know, withoutthese advertisers shaping
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Welcome back. You arelistening to Shaping Fire.
I am your host Shang Los,
and my guest today is LANrace specialist Jeff Nortel.
So in the first set we talked a lot about
what exactly land races are
and how to understand themfrom different varieties

(49:29):
of plants that may have comeinto this modern world in
different ways so that wecan really be precise in
what we're talking aboutsince we are talking
about a scientific term.
So that was really greatteasing those terms
apart generally.
Um, but now here in the secondset I wanna talk about, um,
a little bit about thecharacteristics of these plants and

(49:50):
and, and why we generallyall tend to respect them
and why Jeff has, uh, youknow, uh, focus so much
of his life on it.
So, so Jeff, you know,
in your videos on yourYouTube channel, you are, uh,
constantly talking about justbeing like, like bowled over
by the complexities of,um, the terpene profiles.

(50:11):
And, and during the first setwe also talked a little trash
about like modern poly hybrids and,
and about how so many
of them are massively mirroring dominant.
Um, but, but I wanna tease outa little bit more, um, about,
uh, about the experiences thatyou've had in your garden,
um, with unique blendsof terpene profiles.

(50:34):
And, and like, you know, you don't have,
clearly you're notgonna talk about all 300
that you're growing, but if it,
I wanna provide the listenerswith a snapshot of some
of the experiences you've had.
So, so maybe just like pick like three
that were especially unique to you and,
and describe them to us so thatwe can smell it through you.

(50:57):
- Alright, as far as top three
standout terpene profilesfrom this year's garden,
and again, everyyear we're doing different
varieties from around the world.
Uh, but the ones that aresuper fresh in my mind are, uh,
the Cambodian two varietiesof Cambodian had the most

(51:20):
insane passion fruit,like just that tangy,
zippy, sour, super tropical, loud, loud,
loud passion fruit.
Mm-hmm, .And I actually, uh, went
and got an actual passion,fruit fruit, sniffed that,
and then sniffed one ofthese, uh, mondo curri

(51:41):
and then also Tao anotherregion, uh, in Cambodia.
They smelled exactly thesame, the actual passion fruit
and, uh, the cannabis, uh,at least those varieties
of Cambodian .
So that was pretty mind blowing.
Um, another terpene profile that, uh,
you rarely come across insort of the, uh, modern,

(52:05):
uh, poly hybrid genetics, but,uh, which I'm a huge fan of,
or the really stinky skunky rotten meat,
burnt rubber, rottenonions, just super funk.
Um, and a lot of times you'llfind those in the Afghan,
uh, Pakistani.

(52:26):
Uh, we actually grew some beck um,
varieties this year.
Um, and, and one ofthose smelled like rotten
decomposing onions
and garlic really, really funky.
It's almost, uh, disgusting.
But at the same time,intoxicating, kind of like the, uh,

(52:48):
truffle black truffleeffect Mm-hmm.
where it'sgross, but intoxicating. Well,
- I I, I love thosecheeses that smell and,
and smell like baby diaper.
You know, like, like if if it,if that smell was coming out
of a human, I'd be like, eh,
but suddenly now on a, on aplate with crackers, I'm like,
yeah, this is awesome .

(53:08):
- Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and bythe way, reminds me,
there's a really weirdterpene profile, um,
that actually smells like,uh, like bounce dryer sheets.
Oh wow. Like that really gnarly fabric.
And, and by the way, this iswhat's strange is I'm highly
allergic to a lot of syntheticfragrances, especially those,

(53:32):
uh, laundry detergent smells.
So I just absolutely am repulsed
whenever I smell that smell.
But then, uh, and I always said,there is no smell in nature
that smells like a bounced dryer sheet,
but I've actually grown somecannabis now that smells
like bounced dryer sheetsand it's kind of weird.
So who knows, it may actuallyhelp me, uh, get, get

(53:57):
through my dryer sheet aversion by, uh,
smelling it in cannabis form. It
- Is really strange when yousmell something in cannabis
that you also exist in the real world.
Uh, this example isn't as great as yours,
but you know, there, uh,the blueberry muffin, uh,
variety from Humboldt SeedCompany, it's really startling

(54:18):
how much it smells like theblueberry jiffy cake mix,
which is, which doesn't, you know, it kind
of barely smells like blueberriesthat are natural, right?
It smells like itself.
But it was so strangeto smell that variety
and be all like, oh my God.
Like, okay, this smells blueberry,
but it smells like the muffin box

(54:41):
and those muffinsthemselves, which, you know,
have got a little more ofa, a breakfast cereal vibe
to them than like a natural organic berry.
And it's, it's a fantastic,uh, you know, variety.
I've, I've grown it along time and I love it.
And yet it smells like a cheapboxed muffin mix .
And it's just a bizarre thing. Yeah.

(55:01):
- It, it is so wild.
The diversity of aromas
and terpenes that this cannabis plant, uh,
can carry and provide
and that can just sort ofemerge from these plant.
And then when you start crossing plants
to whole new combinations of all, it's,

(55:22):
it's pretty mind blowing.
I, I'm not aware of other plantsthat have such a diversity
of smells.
- So I'm gonna ask you onemore terpene related question.
I don't wanna spend too much time here.
'cause like, you know, not everybody can
smell it together, right?
So it's, uh, talkingabout terpenes is, is kind
of challenging sometimes, but the,
the last question I want toask you about this is, um,

(55:44):
tell us, tell us about one plantthat you smelled where you,
this, the, the, the, theterpene profile of it was,
was a smell that youhad never smelled before
and it blew you away
because you, your brainwasn't sure what to do to it.
It'll probably be very hardfor you to describe it to me
because of that reason too. Uh,
- Yeah.
It's almost like, uh,

(56:05):
seeing a color you've never seen before.
Yeah. Just like that.And there's just, yeah.
Your, your brain justcan't even process that.
But yeah, there's a numberof, uh, varieties of cannabis
that, uh, come across in theseland race botanical gardens
we do every year that havejust it, like,

(56:26):
scrambles your brain
because you've never smelled
anything like that.
And so you, you can't evenfind words to describe it
because it's such a bizarre smell.
Um, so yeah, that happens quite a bit.
And then you end up justsitting there sniffing it
because it's, it's intoxicating

(56:47):
just to have that experience. Yeah.
- So it's so engaging to havethat first new experience.
We humans go for those
- Ab Absolutely.
Oh, oh. Did wanna say the otherreally interesting terpene
profile that you find in land races, uh,
especially the African
and Southeast Asian equatorial,
is there's this reallyinteresting, um, carrot,

(57:11):
uh, parsnip, uh, turp.
So it's, and the reason how, uh,
actually connected those dotswas my girlfriend was actually
peeling parsnips
and the smell that came fromthose parsnips, I was like, oh,
that's that smell .
So it's that, uh, sortof antiseptic astringent,

(57:32):
really earthy, sweet, fresh, fresh,
fresh carrot parsnips smell.
Um, but you'll actually seethose in a lot of African, uh,
varieties as well as,uh, uh, Thai Chang Rai
that we grew this yearactually had that TURP profile.
Uh, and that's, that'salways a favorite too. So
- While we're kind of goingthrough your picture album,

(57:53):
if you will, of, of, ofplants that you love, um,
we just did terpenes and Iwanna do a very similar thing,
but with morphology now, right.
So how the plant looks, it's structure
because, um, you know,I love, uh, when you go
through these different plants
and I'm like, wow, theseare all cannabis plants,
but they all have got so muchdifferent visual personality.

(58:14):
For example, you recentlypost a video about one from,
um, the island of St.
Vincent. And, and I saw it
and I'm like, now this is a plant
that would work really well where I live
because it doesn't grow big and bushy.
It kind of grows, like, it, it grows kind
of like straight up and down,
like it's a pencil skirt or something.

(58:35):
Yeah. And it's very respectfulof its neighbors, right.
You can walk past it without it grabbing
you like most plants do.
So, so I guess kind oflike you did with terpenes,
maybe tell us like three ofyour favorite morphologies.
Like tell us the storyof like three plants
that look atypical.
- Um, this year,
and again, I'm just goingoff this year .

(58:55):
Sure. Every year there'smind blowing, uh, structures
and, uh, but this yeara huge surprise was, uh,
Brazil amazonia.
So I was, you know, thinking
that was gonna be just along lanky wispy tropical
equatorial sativa type.
This actually turnedout to be super short,

(59:20):
super squat bushy with big,
chunky, thick buds.
It, it grew and looked almostlike an, uh, a typical indica,
actually an even bushierstockier squattier, uh, indica.
Uh, but it has this wild, um, pina colada

(59:41):
terp profile going this tropical fruit.
And then, uh, when youfinally get around to, uh,
sampling it and smoking it,it is super high electric,
almost like Brazil, uh,carnival kind of vibe.
like bright colorsand feathers and electric
and drum beats, all in

(01:00:04):
a very squat bushy,actually early finishing.
These were all done, uh, bythe end of September as well.
Uh, but super electric sativa stone.
So, uh, that was, that was a big surprise.
Um, and also like super bulletproof as far
as pest resistance and mold.

(01:00:25):
- It's got all that landrace vigorous still going.
- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.And that's, that's one
of the beautiful things tooabout these land races is
they're just so, they're so much hardier
and designed to not behigh maintenance plants.
Mm-Hmm. Um, so, soanyway, they have, yeah,
we don't even deal forthe most part with botes,

(01:00:47):
haven't seen powder mildew in 10 years.
Wow. Um, and, uh, bugpressures pretty low.
The aphids are stillkind of a menace
that's probably gonna bearound for quite some time.
They're kind ofindestructible, but, um, yeah.
So that's, so anyway, that,that was one, uh, structure

(01:01:08):
that was very surprising this year.
Another, yeah. The St.
Vincent as, uh, you noticed, uh,
even though we had unlimited root space,
so usually a cannabis plant,
when it has unlimited rootspace, tends to the top
of the plant will then become wide
and bushy as well tomirror the root system.

(01:01:30):
Uh, but for whatever reason, um, the St.
Vincent just shot straight vertical
and only was maybe a four footdiameter plant, where a lot
of ours are like eight to10 foot diameter plants
when growing in those conditions.
So, uh, for whatever reason,it just really wanted
to str stay going vertical.

(01:01:52):
Uh, and it got probably 12 feet tall
with just really nice uniformsort of candelabra of, uh,
uniform flowers going.
Um, have not sampled that one yet,
but, uh, had all the signs
that it should be, it shouldbe a nice one. Yeah. And,
- And it, and it's special too.

(01:02:12):
I just like plants that,that look different.
You know, like, like even these mu mutants
that you see people put online, like,
I like mutant plants too.
It's like people are like,oh, that should be destroyed.
Kill it. Get it out of the gene pool.
And I'm all like, okay,maybe all of that's true,
but also isn't it cool, you know,
- Yeah.
And it may turn out to bea, an advantageous adaption.

(01:02:35):
Mm-Hmm. ,you know, um, that's kind
of mutants drive evolutionary change too. So
- Let's, let's talk a littlebit about how the morphology,
um, responds to wherethese plants are from.
Right? Because a lot of theseplants that come your way,
these land races, they havethemselves over, you know,

(01:02:56):
hundreds or thousandsof years have become hot
or cold adapted for theareas that they are from.
And so, um, you know, uh,I'm very willing to be wrong
'cause I have not come in a contact with
as many land races as you have.
But generally speaking, myimpression is, is that, you know,

(01:03:16):
equatorial plants whereit is, um, you know, wet
and hot, they tend to bemore open, airy flowers
so that, um, you know, theycan, uh, more easily, uh,
transpire and, you know, kind of respirate
and breathe in the heat
and also so they dry out really quickly

(01:03:38):
after, you know, a monsoonor something like that.
Whereas so many of the,the, you know, the,
the, the pakistanian Afghani,you know, things that are
grown, um, you know, near,you know, these, these,
these cold seasonal mountainreason regions, they tend

(01:03:58):
to have these like, like tighter flowers.
And in my head it's always like, oh,
so they can con conserve warmth.
And I don't know ifthat's true or not, but,
but I'd just like to hear your thoughts
after having interacted withso many of these plants.
How do you see thesemorphologies, um, you know, uh,
being associated with the different parts
of the world that they come from?

(01:04:20):
- Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And there definitely is, um,yeah, the equatorial, tropical
sativa for the most part.
Yeah. Share that, um, lar airier,
uh, flower structurefor that exact reason,
because they're in a extremelyhumid, moist environment,
and they might even begetting rain quite often.

(01:04:43):
Um, so yeah. Yeah.
So if, if it was a supercompact dense flower,
they'd all implode ,you know, within the first week
of flowering, um, due to baus, uh,
they'd probably mold out very quickly.
So, uh, yeah, kind of across the board.

(01:05:04):
Um, the equatorial sativaall have that looser, airy,
uh, structure a lot of times.
Uh, very foxtail likefoxtails upon foxtails Mm-Hmm.
, but almostlike a Romanesque, uh,
- - Kind of, you know, fractals
of like foxtails within Foxtails.

(01:05:24):
Within Foxdale. Yeah. And, uh,
but you'll find thoseare also crystal coated,
so they may not be heavy, but every nook
and cranny is coatedin crystal. So, um, so
- If you're just talkingabout straight resin yield,
they might actually end upbeing a bigger one a a better
choice, even though they're open and airy.

(01:05:45):
- Yeah. Yeah. And, um,
and that's another reallyinteresting thing about, um,
but yeah, so that's equatorial,tropical equatorial.
You'll see that prettymuch across the board.
But the amazing thing isthese plants just don't mold.
They just, pouchitis just does not happen

(01:06:05):
unless, uh, the only thing that gets the,
like the achilles heel
of those tropical sativa is, uh, frost.
So, and as things start to get cold,
if you do get frost on thosebuds, they tend to, um,
die very quickly.
Uh, so that's, uh, sothat's the only thing.

(01:06:27):
And even when they die, a lotof times you won't get, uh,
bot mold, you'll just get dead spots.
Um, so they're justincredibly mold resistant.
Um, now with, uh, likeAfghan, Pakistan, Iranian,
those varieties, it'snot just hot and cold,
but those are alsoextremely arid environments,

(01:06:50):
so very low humiditywhere, uh, bot just isn't
as much of a threat in those regions.
So, uh, the human, um, uh,
intervention with those has,has been to maximize yield.
So you get more yield witha chunkier heavier bud.

(01:07:11):
And if you can push itwithout bot, you know,
there, there you go.
Uh, the problem is when youbring a super dense chunk,
Afghan all of a sudden intoSanta Cruz coastal, wet,
foggy environment, that'sjust a recipe for, uh,
bot explosions.
And that's, and see that quite, uh, a lot

(01:07:34):
of people have that experience.
Um, we're fortunate wherewe're growing, we're
behind a mountain range, sothat catches the marine layer.
So we're actually prettyarid in our place,
so we can actually pull off these, um,
uh, Afghan, Pakistani, uh,

(01:07:54):
- Yeah, it's prettyobvious from your Instagram
that you live in a special bio region
because seeing all thesedifferent plants from all these
different regions ofthe world, all growing
and finishing, like I've,I've sworn at my phone before.
I'm like, how the hell ishe growing this? Oh my god.
You know, because like Ilive at the other end, right?
I live Pacific Northweston an island, you know,

(01:08:15):
know 50 feet from crashing water
that's marine and salty, right?
So like, I live a terribleplace to grow myself.
But where you are, it's,it's like, you know,
best possible combination of attributes.
- It's, yeah. And, uh, it'sSan Lorenzo Valley in, uh,
Santa Cruz mountains,has a long, long, uh,

(01:08:36):
cannabis history .
And it turns out it's a realnice, uh, little microclimate
that, uh, yeah.
State. It's, it's blockedoff from the marine layer,
even though we're down in a valley.
Uh, so you don't necessarily have
to be super high elevation.
Uh, but, uh,

(01:08:56):
but we're behind amountain, uh, empire grade
that actually catchesthat whole marine layer,
so we just don't get that coastal fog.
So, uh, anyway, so, so yeah. So the next
- Thing I want to talk about is the,
the unique cultivationdemands of land race.
And that kind of fits in perfectly
with the weather conversationthat we're having
because, you know, I'm sure lots of people

(01:09:18):
who are listening likeme are being inspired by
what you're saying, and we're all like,
I wanna grow land races.
And, and, um, uh, Haveyou, you know, from,
from growing so many year over a year, um,
have you noticed any cultivation demands
or best practices, um, for land races?

(01:09:40):
Because, you know, I imagine
to a certain degree they arefinicky, uh, to us who are used
to kind of growing all ofthe same plant, because,
because these, these, these modern plants
that we've talked about earlierare, are, are very similar
to each other, but,
but then you're growing allthese weirdo plants, which
of course are land races,and they're not weirdo,
but like they are if you're a cultivator

(01:10:01):
who has never grown them before.
So, so let's, let's heara little bit about that.
Like, I'm, I'm sure that youhave run into some unexpected
growing needs that, thatsome of these varieties have.
- Uh, well, here's,
here's the very good newsabout land raise is, um,
they're actually developed
to be low maintenance plants .

(01:10:23):
- So a real, we love hearing that.
- So, so a real finicky highmaintenance like og cush,
you know, that, uh, you know,is gonna have powder mildew
and all this, uh, it, it, not
to get back into the dog thing, but, um,
but it's kind of like, youdon't have to worry about
with the land race, like the hip dysplasia

(01:10:44):
and all this like kind of inbred Mm-hmm.
problems,Mm-Hmm. with, uh,
susceptibilities to disease and, uh, molds
and, and pathogens.
Uh, and it turns out actuallywith the hop latent vir, uh,
most land raises, I mean,they can still get it,
but don't seem to be affected, uh, ne

(01:11:04):
as negatively as some ofthese poly hybrids too.
Uh, so, so it's actually,yes, all the land races,
and we're growing them from all
around the world fromtotally different regions.
Uh, but
because they're such hearty,uh, plants that are designed
to, you know, thrivewithout a ton of human, uh,

(01:11:29):
catering and pandering to the plant
and pampering, um, they all do pretty,
they have a, they all seemto have high tolerance
to disease molds and pests.
Um, so I I actually think they're easier
to grow than, uh, most

(01:11:51):
of the modern poly hybridsthat tend to have sort
of genetic disease vulnerability built in.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. They've,they've actually, yeah,
they've gone for potencyand who caress about.
And, and when people say, oh,it's a challenging strain,
or really finicky strain,
there's another way you could say is

(01:12:11):
that's kind of crap genetics.
If you massivelydisease prone plant,
that might actually bekind of crappy genetics.
No one wants to Yeah.
Be growing unless you're doing some
adoptive foster thing forsickly plants or something.
Why, why would you wannagrow plants that you have

(01:12:32):
to spray chemicals all over all the time
to fend off diseases?
How about just getting genetics
that naturally fend offdiseases? But that's, do you,
- Do you find that, um, ittakes some time with these
varieties for you to figureout their, like basic needs?
Like I can imagine thatthese different plants from
different places have got likedifferent water requirements

(01:12:52):
and different, um, you know, uh,
food amendments requirements,
- Actually, not really.
Oh, right on. And I,
and I can totally seewhere you might think that,
but, uh, here's, here's how we grow.
Uh, we,
we don't actually really feedthroughout the entire year.
So what we focus on
and we, uh, grow in a Hugo culture Mm-Hmm.

(01:13:16):
environment.Uh, so, so where,
and, and what we do iswe build a really super
nutrient dense, super rich living
soil in the off season.
And then by the time we plopthat plant in that soil come,

(01:13:36):
uh, uh, June, may
or June, we don't actually feed
those plants throughout the whole year.
Wow. So it's, what we'redoing is we provide an
all-you-can-eat buffet of compost
and organic nutrients that,uh, along with all the, uh,
breaking down, uh, forestdebris, uh, sticks, leaves, uh,

(01:14:00):
chunks of logs and everything Mm-Hmm.
. And so nowyou have all the mycelium
that's just thriving in there.
So it's kind of likethe plant, um, can pick
and choose what it wants.
It's got an all you CANet buffet
and everything's there atits root tips, uh, to absorb.
Uh, so that's, that'show we actually grow.

(01:14:23):
We supercharge and getreally living great,
powerful living soil, uh, inthe beginning of the season.
And then the plants justkind of adapt to that.
So we're not at all runningaround going, oh, this,
these Brazilians need some phosphorus,
or this needs magnesium.

(01:14:44):
Like, we don't do that at all.
Um, the only time ismaybe some of these longer
flowering plants that getsuper, super huge, uh,
may just need a little bit of, uh,
nitrogen later in the year if they start,
if they've gobbled upall the, uh, nitrogen.

(01:15:06):
A lot of times we'll dothat with just a simple
like fish emulsion, compost tea, uh,
to just balance 'em out.
But, but no, there's, these are not, um,
yeah, they, they all basically, they're,
they're all growing in the exact same soil
with the same nutrients,same watering ,

(01:15:28):
and they kind of, andthey just kind of adapt.
- So when, when you are new to a land race
and you don't know whether
or not it's going to be,you know, a four foot wide
or a 10 foot wide plant,
do you just give all yourplants the same amount of space
and let them express themselves,
- Or Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(01:15:48):
And we're in a, uh, fixed,we installed these hexagon,
uh, shaped, uh, planter boxes,uh, in the soil. So we're
- Ah, so you're not moving yourgrid every year or anything.
It's like, yeah.
- So, and we gave 'em a lot of space
'cause we designed thegarden, uh, for humans
to be wandering around.

(01:16:08):
Nice. This is not a row crop
yielding industrial garden by any means.
It's, it's actually aliving art exhibit of, uh,
cannabis genetics from around the world.
And it's cool, just growing.
But then they make it so much, it
- Just sounds like a pleasuregarden, dude. .
- Oh, it, so, so we, we started this

(01:16:32):
and we started having, uh, visitors out,
and it was just so much fun.
But this was pre COVID and then COVID hit,
and, you know, we've kind
of taken a break from having visitors out.
Uh, and then the hot latentOID had me really freaked
out until now.
I, I, I have a much betterunderstanding of the risk,
um, and such.
And we're not in a highrisk, uh, of humans visiting

(01:16:56):
and like transmitting, thank goodness.
So, um, but anyway, yeah, thegarden's designed to actually
for humans to wanderaround, um, where each box
actually has plenty of space in between.
So you can actually, ifyou're wandering around,
socializing, smoking a joint, ,
and you resonate with a particular plant,
you can then walk all theway around the perimeter of

(01:17:19):
that plant, see it from allangles, uh, and and such.
So that's, yeah, we givethe plants lots of space
'cause we kind of see each oneas like a, a work of art, uh,
and we want to give it, its, its space
to do its thing. .
- Good, good. So, um, howdo you find that these, and,
and like I, I recognizethat you're outdoors,

(01:17:41):
so you may not have hadto done a lot of this,
but I bet you still havean educated opinion on it.
Like, how do, how do theseland races that have never, um,
you know, been cultivated by present
growers, how do they respondto things like training
and scroggin and like, kindof like, like human dominance?
- We don't, well, that's exactly it.

(01:18:02):
Like, um, philosophically, I,
I don't see my relationshipwith the plant as
where I'm trying to dominateand squeeze out and maximize
and exploit everymolecule of that plant to
pump out more buds for me.
. Yeah. Right, right.Um, so we, we don't top,

(01:18:24):
we don't leaf, we don't train.
We we're just, each one ofthese seeds is a mystery,
and we wanna see what this plant story is.
So we actually step back
and just let the plant do its thing.
Uh, so we, again, we don'teven leaf these plants.

(01:18:44):
Um, and what, what you'll find though,
when you let a plant justgo natural, you, you kind
of get a Christmas tree type shape,
and then it may be like, Hey, how do,
but how does light getinto the inner buds?
But the answer is as, as thebuds get heavier on the tips

(01:19:06):
of the branches, thatactually opens the plant up
as the gravity pulls down those branches.
So now all of a sudden,the whole length of
that branch is now sort of,
the entire plant is almostblooming like a flower
and opening up.
And now all of a sudden thesun can get in to those, uh,

(01:19:26):
inner buds as well.
Uh, but then we also do, um,
'cause some of these plantsare, you know, 12 feet tall,
10 feet diameter, I mean, they're huge.
Uh, so we don't harvest the entire
plant all at the same time.
We do like a layered harvest,
so we just take the top right buds,
and then that also allows the sun

(01:19:48):
to now penetrate further into the plant
and let those under buds develop.
So, we'll, we'll do three
or four harvest off the same plant,
uh, while at the same time just watching.
Yeah. We don't, we don't do,
we've given up on allthe human manipulations.
Uh, the one thing we do thoughI should know, is as far

(01:20:10):
as you do have to support the plant, um,
so we just put four redwood posts, uh,
creating an out outer boyou know, a box of posts,
and then we take, uh,organic hemp bakers twine.
So it's actually foodgrade hemp twine, .
And we just run that twine,sort of like a big spider web

(01:20:33):
around, uh, the plantto support its branches.
So, uh, but that's, that's all we do. So
- We're gonna take a shortbreak and be right back.
Um, when we come back, we'regonna be talking a little bit
about breeding land races,
and a little bit more about,uh, preserving land races.
So you are listening to shaping fire,
and my guest today is landrace specialist Jeff Nordal.

(01:20:57):
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That's Gas Lamp Seeds. Welcome back.
You are listening to Shaping Fire.
I am your host Shloss,
and my guest today is LandRace Specialist Jeff Nordal.
So here we are at the Big finish,
and you know, during thefirst set, we figured out
what the hell land races are,
and during the second set,

(01:27:00):
we talked about why we haveall fallen in love with them
and, and why anytime the floweris available, um, serious,
uh, weed heads are like on it, like catnip
because we know that that isthe special rare rarer thing
that we just, you know, don't have
as much access to anymore.
And, um, and, and they'rebeloved for good reasons.

(01:27:21):
So in this last set,
we're gonna talk a little bitabout breeding with land races
and then a little bit aboutpreserving land races.
So, so Jeff, you know, um, you know,
we've already touched onbreeding a little bit earlier in
the show, and, um, it's weird.
It's, it's like it's atwo-sided coin, right?
Like on one side, breedingwith land races is exhilarating

(01:27:43):
because we like the idea oftaking whatever our favorite,
you know, modern strain is, and then,
and then breeding it to a land race strain
to perhaps like increase its vigor
or increase its resistance to pests,
or to grab some of those like,you know, old school land,

(01:28:04):
race terpene profiles,
whatever it is that we're trying to do.
Or actually the other way,um, try to breed a land race
to a modern plant to like cut down on
how many weeks it takes to flower.
So there's, there's a lot of like, reasons
that we may wanna breed with a land race,
but the flip side of thatalso is that every time we,

(01:28:24):
we breed a land race thatis less of that land race
that exists in its pure formfor us to preserve, for,
you know, medicinal applications
or for just enjoying thatland race in and of its own.
Right? So, so what are your,what are your, you know,
I would just like to hear youspeak to that about, you know,

(01:28:45):
like, like, like areyou crossing land races
to modern hybrids or, and whatare your thoughts about that?
- Um, yeah, so, uh, there's,
there's two things going onwhen you're sort of deciding
to work with landrace plants
and, uh, so there's,there's, there's two goals.

(01:29:06):
There's, uh, uh, preservation,so backing it up,
so realizing that theseare possibly at risk
of going extinction.
So, uh, do, uh, seed, uh, re-up
or, uh, just, uh, an inline breed
where you're just preservingthat, uh, particular line

(01:29:26):
of land race for preservation.
Uh, but then you can go offand start playing around
and experimenting anddoing all kinds of crosses
and, uh, uh, genetic hybrid work.
So those are both totally valid things.
But if you just go, uh, full-blown hybrid
and then lose your, it'sagain, with the

(01:29:51):
with the dog breed thing, youcan't really take the doodle
out of the doberman pincher,
you know, once it goes in there.
So, so yeah, once, once, onceyou've bred that land, race,
all those attributesare all mixed together.
Yeah, it would take lotsof generations to try
and back it out to getback to the original, uh,
variety or at least close to that.

(01:30:12):
So, so there's really, uh, sothere's preservation going on,
and that right now, at my stage in
where I'm at in my cannabis adventures is
we are popping new seeds everyyear, total mystery seeds,
uh, from these different,uh, regions of the world, uh,

(01:30:33):
even sometimes going back in time
to the eighties, seventies, sixties.
And then we're observing those,
and right now we're focusedon preserving those genetics
and, uh, to do that really well.
Uh, you can't just goskipping down into your garden

(01:30:53):
with, you know, if you'retrying to pollinate,
let's say a Vietnamese plant, uh,
you may have your male Vietnamesefrom that same seed batch,
or hopefully like three,four or five males.
So you're getting moregenetic diversity, uh, oh,
by the way, that's anotherthing you're trying to do
with your land raise seed backups.
Your genetic backups isyou're not doing a lot

(01:31:16):
of selection, right?
Then you're actually trying
to get the broadest, uh, gene pool.
So you wanna use as many females
and as many males fromthat variety as you can.
Mm-Hmm, . Sothen when you make, let's say,
a thousand seeds, you're trying to capture
as much genetic diversity inthat, uh, seed backup Mm-Hmm.
. And those arejust, uh, not primary colors,

(01:31:37):
but these are, you know, yourfoundation building blocks,
of cannabis breedingthat you wanna keep pure.
Uh, uh, but then onceyou have those locked in
and you have those seeds
where you're saving themin a good environment
that they're gonna last, you know,
10 years plus still beviable, then, you know,

(01:31:58):
then you have the freedomto go start making crosses
and hybrids, uh, that whereyou're, you know, trying
to improve things or adapt things for, uh,
like here in California, um, you know,
I may absolutely love, uh, like, uh,
the, the effect the high

(01:32:19):
that you got from a plant from Laos,
but it's a 16 week flower .
You know, it's very difficultto grow that outdoors
here in Californiabefore the storms come in
and just beat the crap out of the plant.
And it may even kill it, you know?
Uh, so you may say, Hey,I, I want that Laos effect,

(01:32:41):
but in a plant that finishes,you know, in mid-October,
so then you, you have to start pondering
what would be the leastintrusive early finishing plant
that might carry all the Laos effects.
Mm-Hmm. with it on top of it.
You, you get what I mean? Sothat, that's totally cool.

(01:33:04):
Totally fair game.
I don't think that'sdisrespecting any cultures.
I don't think that'sculturally appropriating.
Um, as long as you're crediting the,
the wider global cannabis community, um,
and, and then are transparentwith how you created
that variety, like say, yeah,if, if a tie and a Laos plant

(01:33:28):
and an Afghan went together,you know, document that
and let people know that'swhere that plant came from,
those are its lineage, then Ithink that's, um, respectful
as well to, uh, the origins
and the farmers who created these plants.
Um, so that's, that'stotally, totally cool

(01:33:49):
and, and fair game.
But, uh, the, uh, sort of ethical
shortsighted blunderwould be to immediately,
at least this is my opinion,
just immediately start makinghybrid crosses without backing
up and preserving that original land raise
that may have taken hundreds,if not thousands of years

(01:34:13):
to create that unique genetic. So I don't,
- When you say back it up, would
that just be a simple open pollination,
like in a tent or something?
That way you're not, you're notlosing the pollen into other
plants , but you just,
you're just letting 'emall make more seeds.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
So, sorry, sorry, Ikind of rambled on that.
So the thing is, if you'redealing with a lot of varieties

(01:34:37):
of, uh, pure lines of land raise, uh,
you can't be sloppy with your pollen
and, uh, just bring pollendown into your garden
and potentially have
that pollen drift ontoother plants, right?
Uh, so the, the technique that I use that
works well, but I'm open

(01:34:57):
to other ideas if other peoplehave come up with other, uh,
techniques that are workis, anyway, what I do
is we grow the landrace plants out in our
landrace botanical garden.
That's where you get the big10, 12, 15 foot tall plants.
But before those plants gointo flour, I label each one

(01:35:20):
of those plants with itsvariety, plus its pheno number.
So it might be Mexico halco,
three out of four halcoplants we're growing.
So this one's number three pheno, right?
So I'll take cuttings off
that number three Lescoplant, take those cuttings

(01:35:41):
to my other property,uh, root those cuttings.
And now I have very small
- Oh, - Versions of thatplant, right, that are now,
that are, now I'm keeping themin like a three gallon pot.
So now when I need to goisolate them for pollinating,

(01:36:02):
I can easily just movethem around my property.
Um, and,
and then, uh, the males, Ikeep in a, a separate area,
and then we even isolateour males for a time
to make sure some otherplant's pollen is not drifting
onto that maleo plant.
. Mm-Hmm. . Uh, so,
so we know we're getting thatjust that pure, uh, pollen,

(01:36:25):
and then that pollen gets taken to
that very isolated cluster of
let's say halco number three.
Uh, but, but when we'redoing, let's say halco,
if we had four plants, Iwould then put halco 1, 2, 3,
and four cuttings all in one area, right?

(01:36:45):
So we've got the cuttings all there.
They're now in flower mode.
And then I hopefully willhave three, four halco males,
and I'll take all that pollenfrom all four of those males
and then go evenly distribute
that over all the, uh, cuttings.You get what I mean? Yeah.

(01:37:06):
- I totally follow. AndI really like the idea.
So I really like the idea
that you take the cuttingsearly on when the plants in your
main garden are in veg, andthen you just move them away.
'cause honestly, before you explained
that you had the secondproperty, I was trying
to picture you safelypollinating these plants in your
garden with all 300 land
- Races.

(01:37:27):
- And I'm like, thatsounds like hell, man.
That sounds impossibleto succeed, .
- Oh, no, yeah, you, you,you get pollen drift.
I mean, you kind of haveto treat pollen like
Ebola, you know, .
It's like, it just gets everywhere.
It will find a way that the cool thing
that most people know though is with, uh,
pollen water will immediatelyrender it non-viable.

(01:37:50):
Mm-Hmm. . So,um, uh, that's another way
to get a dirty hippie toshower a lot too, is ,
- Is to put him in chargeof the pollen preplan.
- Oh, yeah. I'll, I take 10showers a day, if not more,
you know, when I'm, uh, in the middle
of doing breeding projects.
Um, but, uh, yeah, sothat's, so we do kind

(01:38:12):
of an open pollination,
but we do it on just a very small, uh,
with small little cuttings.
Um, and my understandingat least is that those,
those cuttings fromthose original plants are
the exact same genetics.
So those, those seeds willbe true to that plant.

(01:38:33):
It just makes it, uh, youhave a lot more agility
and easily being able to, uh, isolate
and move transport plantsaround for breeding.
- Cool. So I want to, I wantto continue down this, uh,
this preserving paththat we've started on.
You know, I think a lot morepeople are thinking about, um,
you know, land races.

(01:38:54):
You know, I,
I guess I'm gonna talk abouttwo levels of magnitude.
Generally, people are veryinterested in land races
because, especially ifthey're connoisseurs,
because so much of moderncannabis takes tastes the same.
So the interest in landrace is increasing,
and they're seen aselite and very desirable.
All of that's true. But also,um, you know, as, as kind

(01:39:16):
of like global travel,uh, for cannabis people,
you know, continues to increase.
And along with the technological ways
to tell friends about them,we're getting experiences like,
uh, like recently a lot ofpeople watched on Instagram,
like, uh, you know, Kevin Joryand Danny Montero and, um,
and IG land race genetics.

(01:39:37):
Like, they put together a group of people
and all went to Pakistan, right?
And so, um, like I was, Iwas riveted by those videos
of, of like people who I know
and my friends who are likesuddenly in Pakistan places
where I normally only seerepresented in like war
and terrorism movies, you know?
And suddenly they're allthere like wearing beards, um,

(01:40:01):
you know, in Pakistan andinteracting with the locals and,
and checking out their hashand checking out their plants.
And I was all like, wow, this is great.
Like, like, I wasn't,you know, on this trip,
but I, I feel like I, I got a bunch
of these experiences from the trip, right?
And so it just increases the meaning
and value of, of land race seeds

(01:40:23):
and genetics in my overall head.
And so I, I think that there's more
and more people who are justinterested in land races,
which is good, of course,because, you know, the, the, the,
the land race origin areaslike Thailand specifically
are starting to get, um, uh,

(01:40:44):
we're like a bunch of ourpeople are bringing seeds there
and, and developing 'emin Thailand, and so,
and so their natural land raceis getting diluted, right?
So all of this is to setup this question that, um,
you know, I can see thatland races are going
to become increasingly popular,
and yet we already aretrying to preserve them
for medicinal reasons.

(01:41:05):
Um, I'd like to hear you speakto the idea of preservation
and a, how do you think that, um,
land races are effectively preserved?
And b, do you thinkthere's any chance in hell
that we're not actually gonnaeventually lose all the land
races because they are a set number today?

(01:41:26):
And that number is likelyjust probably gonna continue
to decrease, but maybe, maybeI've got an, um, you know,
an especially jaded view of it.
So I know that's a big question,
but I'm just gonna like, hand you the
mic and hear what your thoughts are.
- Yeah, yeah. So, um, yeah, the extinction
through hybridization is incredibly real

(01:41:47):
and it's happening.
Um, so yeah, a lot of peopleare sounding the alarm,
like, Hey, we really need tostart, uh, backing these up,
uh, before they all go extinct, uh,
as far as these land races.
So, um, and

(01:42:09):
yeah, so, so yes, thatis really happening.
And, um, so, so the
- Extinction is a real concern- Period.
Full stop abs. Absolutely.
Um, and, and it's not just,uh, like pollen drift.
It's actually, you know,folks, we're gonna get

(01:42:29):
to a point, I mean, we,
we've romanticized here inthe US we may romanticize this
little secluded fantasy village,you know, in the Himalayas
you hike up to,
and you think you're gonnafind this like amazing weeded
that's grown by monks or something,
or the whole village likegrows as magical weeded, uh,

(01:42:50):
and you take this trek upthere and you get up there
and they're like, Hey, we got cookies
, and they're,
- We got Coca-Cola.
- Yeah, exactly. Andthey're like, yeah, we're,
we're growing, uh, gelatoand diesel and og and uh,
- Oh, that's the kind ofcookies that you mean.
Ah, yeah, that's,
I I thought you meant likewestern foods, you mean.

(01:43:11):
- No, no, no, no, no.
I mean, it may be thatthey're like blasting.
I mean, they, it's cool,
but yeah, they may beactually blasting Snoop Dogg
and growing, you know,California strains Yeah.
Up there. And, and, uh,we of course romanticize
that they're supposed to stay isolated
and unique, uh, whenin reality they wanna,

(01:43:32):
- They wanna grow the height too,
- , they wanna integrate.
And they, they're watchingstuff in California
and Amsterdam thinkingthat's, that's really cool.
Why would they wanna gragrow their grandfather's
old lar fee weed ?
So anyway, these are justlike cultural phenomenon
and things that happen,
and then there's no judgment or anything.

(01:43:52):
You just have to realize that that's this,
these are things that happen.
Um, so, uh, there seems
to be some value inpreserving these genetics.
And a lot of these genetics, um, you know,
could go back hundreds ifnot thousands of years.
And, uh, they're kind of, uh,in a way almost like cultural

(01:44:18):
biographies or evenautobiographies from the actual
breeders, you know,like antique art is too.
Yeah. And they're infusing.
So it's plant, but it'salso so infused with,
uh, culture's values and their stories.
And so, so in a way it'salmost like their, uh, cultural

(01:44:38):
part of their cultural story too.
You know, just like theirfood and their seasonings
and dishes and, and religion,dance and, and religion
and the, and the, thecannabis is a reflection
of those values and aestheticsthat they've chosen for.
Um, so it'd just be asuper bummer to have those
disappear and, uh, just get hybridized

(01:45:01):
or, or, or such.
Um, and then, you know, once, once some
of these cultures also maygo through, like, you know,
the hype phase ,there may be in like 20 years
all of a sudden a reinterest in,
in their heritage genetics.
And if, if someone wasn'tbacking this stuff up,

(01:45:24):
you know, it may be gone.
Um, and it may be thatthey actually have to look
outside, uh, other people who, who happen
to keep those genetics, youknow, in their, from their trip
that they took to that region.
They've been keeping'em in their sock drawer
for the last 20 years, you know?
So, um, there just seems, itdoesn't seem to be negative,

(01:45:46):
uh, in any way by, uh, backing up
and preserving these genetics.
And it just seems like a good long view,
uh, strategy that there is
value in keeping these,uh, genetics around
and preserving them if, if nothing more

(01:46:08):
for just historical purpose.
But I'd argue there's probably tons of
medicinal, uh, compoundsand terpene combinations
and such that may actuallyhave some real, uh,
medicinal value, uh,going into the future.

(01:46:29):
And, uh, and then just theeffects and everything else.
So there's, there's a lot of incentive
and reason that, uh,
these genetics really should be backed up.
So, um, um, and, and,
and lots of different peoplearound the world are, are
playing different partseither by, uh, gathering

(01:46:50):
and hunting, uh, these seeds
and actually just collecting them.
And then other people are , sort
of distributing them as hubs.
Mm-Hmm. , youknow, for people who are, uh,
interested in accessingthese genetics, um, something
that we've sort of toyed aroundwith here in, uh, Santa Cruz

(01:47:11):
and something that I'd, I'dreally like to be a part of
and even potentially work with,uh, a larger organization,
uh, who has like grant money and such,
but to actually put together,um, an actual cannabis, uh,
seed bank, like a public domain seed bank
to try and back up, especially,uh, as far as land race,

(01:47:35):
genetics, uh, try and back up
and preserve as much ofthose genetics as possible.
But then very importantphilosophically, um,
that would be public domainwhere everyone would have access
to these, there's noproprietary ownership, uh, of,
of any of these genetics. Um, and
- You'd be, you'd be preservingthem for their own, right?

(01:47:57):
You don't mean like a seed bank,
like people use Seed Bank now very often
as just like a seed bank storeor a seed bank distributor?
Oh, no, no.
Where, where, where there's a,
there's the profitMoffitt motive, primarily,
you're talking about a moreclassical seed bank, like,
like those of us whosave seeds, right? Where
- You're, and like the, you're- Making a library

(01:48:18):
- Like the seed preservation.
Yeah, yeah. Like the seedpreservation that's, you know,
going on in Norway orwherever. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- A big building thatunsurprisingly flooded .
- Yeah. Yeah. So thatthose kinda, uh, seed banks
and, uh, like here UCSC,uh, university California,
Santa Cruz, um, did something else,

(01:48:40):
which was the Human Genome Project.
Mm-Hmm. , wherethey mapped the entire human
genome and then put thatin the public domain.
So they were in a race withsome of the pharmaceutical
companies and researcherswho wanted that information
to be proprietary .
But, uh, UCSE in our sort of hippie

(01:49:03):
for the community sort ofvibes, at least UCSE, decided
to put that all in the public domain.
So as the human de genomeproject, where anyone, uh,
can actually access, uh, that information
and we'd like to see inthat spirit, uh, something
with a cannabis, uh, c bank or library

(01:49:25):
or archive where everyonewould have equal access,
uh, to all those genetics for, you know,
there'd be a procedure toobviously to, to get them,
but, uh, where yeah, wherethey're available to everyone.
'cause we kind of come from the philosophy
that humans did not create cannabis.
It came from the universe.

(01:49:46):
And so who, who are we
to claim ownership?
It's cannabis is here for the people,
and the magic of it
is connecting more peoplein a positive way, uh, with,
with cannabis like that, thathas the potential to actually

(01:50:07):
shift things in a positivetrajectory, uh, for this plant.
But if we're gonna startplaying these, uh, ownership,
proprietary exclusive, uh,
commercial dollar chasinggames with a plant
that generally whenyou consume it, a lot

(01:50:29):
of times has the oppositeeffect or opposite message
- ,- That that would be, yeah,
that's definitely in the spirit
of just the cannabis experience,is making things available
to, to everyone equal access,share the, share the love.
That's beautiful. Iguess to break it down.
- Cool, man. Well, I, I thinkthat that's a great place

(01:50:50):
to stop on that message.
I really, I really love that.
And, and, and so Jeff, I, Iwanna, I wanna first thank you
for, uh, I know your time is valuable,
and you know, this time ofyear is really busy, as,
as you know, you work through, you know,
your plants coming downand curing and all that.
And so, so thank you formaking time for us, number one.
And then number two, I'm, I'mreally grateful, like, kind

(01:51:11):
of like for you as, asyour personality, you know,
you're such a, a chipper, easy
to like guy on your Instagram.
And, and that is exactly, you know,
how you showed upauthentically here today.
I, I, I can't imagine there'sanybody who's been listening
to the show who wouldn't likea, like to hear you talk more,
and then b, wouldn't enjoy like,sitting down for like lunch
and a chat on your deck with you.

(01:51:32):
You know, you're just,you're such an amiable dude
with like,
such vast experience onthis very particular topic
that we all get giddy about.
So, so thank you for, for comingonto shaping fire and, and,
and, and sharing with us your experience.
- Cool. Well, it's beena, been a pleasure.
Thanks for the interest and, uh, yeah,

(01:51:54):
and some point in the futureour, our plan is to actually
have people come out andvisit our, our property.
So we can just sit thereand geek out and nerd out
and stand there in awe staring
amazing plants.
So, so that, that is the goal.
And, uh, with COD

(01:52:14):
and everything, it madeit tough to have visitors.
So those videos thatyou've watched really is,
is coming from that, um, uh,intent is actually wanting
to share, share these plants with others
and inspire others to take a closer look
and maybe delve in to, uh, the unlimited

(01:52:35):
infinitely fan, uh, amazing land,
race world, .
- Fantastic. Alright.
So, so in wrapping up, dearlistener, um, if you would like
to, uh, keep tabs on, uh, Jeff
and his, uh, land race amusementpark that he runs, ,
um, uh, I recommend atthe top of the list, um,

(01:52:57):
you follow him the way I do on Instagram.
And so that's really easy. He's easy.
That's jade nectar, all one word.
Now, uh, that, that is anabsolute have to, if you want
to know more about, uh, Jeff
and, um, his, uh, medicinalpreparations, he is a,
an expert in the acidforms of cannabinoids.

(01:53:19):
Uh, he even holds us patents,which, uh, is not something
that we, uh, was on the topic today,
but he's a very interesting cat.
So you can find out more about that aspect
of his goodwill at his, at his website,
which is jade nectar.com.
And then finally, um,if you wanna see, uh,
sometimes longer forms of the videos

(01:53:41):
that are on the Instagram,um, you can also search, uh,
Jade Nectar, uh, onYouTube, uh, for, for some
of the longer forms of the videos.
You can find more episodesof the Shaping Fire Podcast
and subscribe to the show@shapingfire.com
and wherever you get your podcasts.
If you enjoyed the show, we'dreally appreciate it if you
would leave a positivereview of the podcast.

(01:54:02):
Wherever you download yourview will help others find the
show so they can enjoy it too.
On the Shaping Fire website,you can also subscribe
to the newsletter for insightsinto the latest cannabis news
exclusive videos and giveawayson the Shaping Fire website.
You also find transcriptsof today's podcast as well.
Be sure to follow on Instagram.
For all original contentnot found on the podcast

(01:54:24):
that's at Shaping Fire
and at shingo los on Instagram, be sure
to check out the ShapingFire YouTube channel
for exclusive interviews, farmtours, and cannabis lectures.
Does your company wannareach our national audience
of cannabis enthusiasts?
Email hotspot@shapingfire.comto find out how.
Thanks for listening to Shaping Fire.
I've been your host, Shang Los.
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