Hmong Ganja

Description

Genetics: Tai Cannabis Landrace – Ganja
Sourcing: The Real Seed Company, Laos, Southeast Asia, 2024
Purpose: Ganja (sinsemilla or semi-sensi)
Latitude: 18° N
Regional Harvest: Seed to harvest = 6 months
Height: Up to c. 4 metres
Characteristics: Narrow leaflets; aromatic and resinous inflorescences; high THC
Classification: Cannabis sativa subsp. indica var. indica
Grow Type: Greenhouse or outdoors

A ganja landrace cultivated by a Hmong household in Bolikhamsai Province in the northern Annamite Range of Laos.

Hemp is a traditional crop of the Hmong. By contrast, ganja landraces have only recently begun to be cultivated by Hmong villages.

In the nineteenth century, Hmong clans began to migrate south out of China to escape strife with the Chinese state, which imposed forced labour on Hmong villages as a form of tax.

In Thailand and Laos, Hmong communities reestablished their villages on hilltops in remote areas far outside of the reach of what were anyway relatively weak Thai and Lao kingdoms. Hemp was a crop that the Hmong brought with them into Thailand and Laos from southern China.

Hemp was and is a crop grown by the Hmong for cordage and textiles, including shoes, garments, and shrouds used in funerary rites.

Ganja is a distinct crop that requires specific landraces and techniques, both of which Hmong communities have only acquired through relatively recent contact with Lao and Thai folks at the southernmost limit of their migrations in provinces such as Phrae and Bolikhamsai.

Expect plants with classic tropical Sativa morphology, intense aromatic resins, and a strong uplifting high.