April Pride: This podcast, discusses cannabis and is intended for audiences 21 and over.

Livvie Smalls: Well, why does this one vintage have this oaky flavor? Cause they had to switch the barrels that year because they only had this wood accessible. Well, so much of that happens in cannabis. Why did this round of it gets such a high yield of THC because the farm actually had some different water come in from some different area or they were using tents that year. So with cannabis, we don’t have vintages unfortunately. So you just have the yield as it comes.

April Pride: Welcome back to Saturday Strains, an audio series from How to Do the Pot. I’m April Pride and I’ll be your guide every Saturday. If you like How to Do the Pot, please share it with someone and rate and review us on April podcasts. It helps more people find our show.

April Pride: Now that you know what a strain is, we’re going to go a bit deeper into why you had an experience you loved when you visited a friend in LA, but by the same strain in Chicago, and didn’t feel quite as nice. Where and how the cannabis has grown will actually have a pretty big effect on how you feel when you consume it.

April Pride: You just heard celebrity chef and cannabis educator, Libby Small share what can make we different from crop to crop. If you’re a wine lover, you know about terroir, a French term used to describe the complete natural environment in which a particular wine is produced and just like wine and food. Terroir is also critical to weed. The elements, soil, light climate, all influence its original genetics, nature, nurture, right variations and growing conditions can produce two very different cultivars or cultivated varieties of a single strain. So the blue dream from one grow may look, smell and make you feel different than a blue dream from another grow with different terroir, like state to state or whether the plant is grown indoor versus outdoor.

April Pride: And now for some science stick with me, we broke it down to what you need to know now to get the best experience for you later. So cannabis plant genetics, there are thousands of cannabis strains available and new ones bred on the regular. Some quick history about strains, all modern cannabis, genetics derived from landrace strains. Think of these as ancestral strains. These are strains that come from throughout the world, Jamaica, India, Africa, Mexico, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central America. Landrace strains with low THC and higher in CBD were more therapeutic and less intoxicating. And this was the genetic profile of the cannabis used in Chinese medicine and by pharmacists in the US who used cannabis in 150 prescription formulations and compounds before prohibition was an acted in the early 20th century.

April Pride: The strains you can buy today, all derived from landrace strains, and we call them heirloom strains. What makes them different? The original genetics of landrace strains have been modified through crossbreeding to make the plants adapt to modern cultivation needs. For instance, shorter growth cycles and more resistant to bugs and disease. They were also bred with a singular intention of getting people higher, a lot higher. In the 20th century, nearly all of the CBD was brought out while simultaneously levels of THC, the stuff that gets you high increased wildly, like from 6% to 26%-ish. You might be familiar with terms like sativa, indica or hybrid. All heirloom strains are technically hybrids. Indica and sativa described two distinct types of cannabis plants, specifically plant structures that evolve because of where they were grown and how they adapted to conditions within that natural environment.

April Pride: Generally speaking, sativa strains grew naturally in areas that were closer to the equator and adapted to thrive in this hot climate with little water. Indica strains historically grew in more temperate mountainous areas, and these plants adapted to survive the colder winters of their natural habitat. You may recall from the last explained episode, Kush, the Kush family in the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan, these are primarily indica plants as a result of their temperate mountainous environment. In short, nature gave us one set of genetics and as word spread of this magic plant. So did it seeds throughout the globe and how it was nurtured impacted its genetics along the way.

April Pride: As we go through Saturday Strains together, we’ll cover the strains we consider essential for a woman’s stash. Chances are you’ll find two to three that are sure to become your go-to depending on how you want to feel that day, what your needs are. Why will knowing these facts about land raise and heirloom strains help you out, it’s all part of the process of building up your weed knowledge. So you can dial in exactly how you want to feel and stick with us to help make Saturdays a little more special.

April Pride: Thank you for listening to Saturday Strains. And a special thanks to Jeffrey Graybar PhD, and Colin Montgomery of the Workshop, as well as Nick Jikomes PhD of Leafly. Let us know what you think. Follow us on Instagram @dothepot, or you can follow me @aprilpride and for lots more information about cannabis and women, visit dothepot.com. Thanks to my co-founder Ellen Scanlon, Madi Fair our marketing manager, and our producer Nick Patri. I’m April Pride and we’ll be back soon with more of How to Do the Pot.