Strain

Marijuana Horticulture

by Jorge Cervantes

Strain is not a scientifically accepted botanical term, although in the cannabis industry many use the term when discussing seed lots for purchase, for lack of a more accurate term. Strain is a term incorrectly applied t selections of cultivars or varieties. In the cannabis seed industry, very few seed lots can be considered true varieties or cultivars, because they are not uniform or do not breed true.

All plants within the population do not reproduce the defining characteristics, and, usually the variations in the defining characteristics are not described. Very often, commercially sold seeds are nothing more than hybrids of hybrids with names, and there are no defining characteristics of the “strain”. Perhaps “family” or “group” are more appropriate terms.