Isan Thai

Description

Genetics: Lao – Thai Traditional Cannabis Landrace
Sourcing: The Real Seed Company, Isan, Southeast Asia, April 2023
Purpose: Ganja (seedless or lightly seeded buds)
Latitude: 15° N
Regional Harvest: Six months from seed to harvest
Height: 2 to 4 metres
Characteristics: Strong aroma; resinous buds; intense high; Sativa-type architecture
Classification: Cannabis sativa subsp. indica var. indica
Grow Type: Greenhouse or outdoors

A ganja landrace obtained from villagers in rural Ubon Ratchatani province in the southeast of Isan, Northeast Thailand, in the Lao-speaking regions that border the Mekong and neighbouring Laos.

Known locally as ‘sa’ or ‘gancha’, cannabis is a traditional household plant in rural Ubon, where small stands of ganja plants have for several centuries been a feature of many village gardens alongside culinary and medicinal plants such as ‘Thai basil’, galangal, ‘Thai aubergine’, chili pepper, and papaya.

Historical records suggest that cannabis probably became commonplace in Lao and Thai cultures during the same era as chili, papaya, and tobacco, all of which are crops from the Americas which arrived in Asia with Muslim and European merchant ships during the Age of Sail.

That noted, genomics may yet establish that there is an independent centre of domestication for Tai (Lao, Tai Yai, and Thai) ganja landraces along the southern peripheries of China – i.e., southward from Yunnan. Accessions that may be examples of such landraces are our ‘Burmese’ and ‘Highland Thai’. If so, then the distinctive characteristics of most Tai ganja will have arisen through hybridization between these indigenous landraces and foreign imported cannabis from major historic centres of ganja production such as Sumatra and East India (Bengal and the Coromandel Coast).