CANNABIS CULTURE – Chris Winn founder of Winn Horicultural talks Indica Vs Sativa Lineages- and if these labels even matter?
“Do you know what the difference between absorb and adsorb is?” Chris Winn, Founder of Winn Horticultural asked me once, while we were on the porch of his old apartment smoking blunt and admiring this year’s strains that he was growing.
“Absorb is if you ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and you digested it. Adsorb is if you took a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and stuck it on your arm.”
Winn pictured with an outdoor grow of one of his first strains, “Wilma”
Winn spends many of his days absorbing information and discussing whatever thoughts are adsorbed to the moment whether it be metaphysics, fermented foods, breathing techniques or the mess of cannabis genetics in the United States.
That final topic, and anything to do with the subject of cannabis are what take up a lot of our time.
Cannabis is a plant that is bred like dogs or orchids and is a passion project for Winn, who is slowly building his own genetic library. The problem that Winn sees with the new, decentralized legal cannabis market is that there are no regulations to tell which strains came from where.
“Strain lineage is just a mess. We just need to throw away everything we have right now.”
I asked him what we’d replace it with, and he looked at me with a smile, “You know the answer. It’s landraces.”
Winn with his organic GMO (Garlic Mushrooms Onion) and Mozambique punch strains ready for pollination.
Think of landraces like the modern-day wolf. All the genetics in the cannabis breeding world extend from either the wild landraces around the world or the strains that originally began in cannabis’ birthplace of Central Asia.
“The best way to think about that is in India. When you go to higher elevations to cooler climates, the morphology of the plants changes,” says Winn. India is home to many types of cannabis landraces. “Whatever traits they’re expressing should be what you’d expect for their microenvironment to be like. Their traits should make sense and they should be consistent across.”
“Sativa, being a tropical expression, is characterized by tall plants with thin blades. Indica, being a cooler climate or higher elevation expression is characterized by shorter plants with broad blades.”
Recently, scientists have discovered something very strange. “The psychoactive effects of the strain can’t be accurately described this way. You can feel the same regardless of whether it is indica or sativa,” says Winn.
The key to how you feel lies in the terpenes.
Winn has been following the work of scientists like Nick Jikomes, the Director of Science and Innovation at Leafly. “Jakomes’ team used a statistical modeling technique to determine that terpenes come in clusters. They called these clusters entourages.”
This name stems from the “entourage effect” first described by Dr. Ethan Russo which says cannabis compounds like cannabinoids and terpenes act synergistically to give a specific psychoactive effect.
Jikomes via email said most budtenders will continue using the indica/sativa dichotomy because it is quick and easy. Even though it is of no more use than random guessing, the effects of products are so subjective and dose-dependent and the recommendations sufficiently vague, that most consumers won’t really notice.
“Think about the implications high latitude growers if they could start flowering in June?”
Since 96% of cannabis is THC-dominant, Jikomes looked at the composition of terpenes in thousands of different flowers to test the theory of indica versus sativa. It turns out that there are three types of these entourages.
Group 1 has high levels of limonene and beta caryophyllene. Strains like these usually have glue or cake in their name like gorilla glue, wedding cake, or gelato. Winn describes this group as “peppery citrus.”
Group 2 has high levels myrcene and pinene. These include strains like Blue Dream, Granddaddy Purple, and 9lb Hammer. Winn describes this group as “herbal pine.”
Group 3 has high levels of terpinolene and myrcene. These include strains like Jack Herer, Super Lemon Haze, and Ghost Train Haze. Winn describes this group as “herbal fruit.”
“’Peppery citrus’ correlates more to uplifting effects while ‘herbal pine’ correlates more to sedative effects,” says Winn. “Depending on the exact distribution of the terpene entourage, ‘herbal fruit’ can land on either end of the spectrum.”
“The important takeaway from this research was when you superimpose this data over the data where the samples came from, it does not line up at all with indica and sativa.”
Despite this groundbreaking discovery, it will take some time for cannabis culture to absorb this information. Until then, Winn will continue consulting from his home base in New York State.
Besides starting his own seed bank and working on his cultivation, eventually he wants to open his own place. Before that can be done though, he wants to adsorb more strains. His next step is a visit Japan for some proper strain hunting.
“The Hokkaido landrace has this rare trait where it starts flowering after the summer solstice,” Winn says. Most cannabis strains aren’t harvested until the fall. “Think about the implications high latitude growers if they could start flowering in June?”