The so-called ‘sinsemilla technique’ was already employed in southern India at least 500 years ago. There is no debate about this. Reason being, there is the evidence to prove it.
The Ānandakanda (आनन्दकन्द) or ‘Root of Bliss’, a renowned compendium on Indian alchemy compiled around the 15th Century, details the process of rogueing out males to produce a seedless crop known as ‘ganja’. Some experts date the text to as early as the 10th Century.
Rich as the modern cannabis scene is in gobshitery, many folks in the West still seem to believe ‘ganja’ is a catch-all term for any kind of cannabis. It very definitely isn’t. Ganja refers specifically to seedless or lightly seeded female inflorescences and the particular tropical domesticates used to produce them (colloquially, Sativas).
Most likely this product – ganja – was developed to be chewed. Searching Monier-Williams for the term yields gṛiñjana (गृञ्जन), ‘the tops of [cannabis] chewed to produce an inebriating effect.’* Ganja could be chewed with betel leaf, which is the main ingredient of paan along with areca nut and a range of spices and flavourings. Powdered toasted cannabis is added to paan mixes in contemporary southern India (and in early twentieth-century Bombay so was cocaine!)
Only in the late 1600s do we see the first references to a widespread custom of smoking ganja. The 1600s is likewise when available archaeological evidence suggests the sudden emergence of a chillum industry. Tobacco had rapidly taken hold in India in the early decades of the same century and seems to have been the catalyst for the habitual pot smoking with which the world is now familiar. By the late 1700s there appear the first paintings of mass smoke-ups and hookah-toking dreadlocked yogis.
Based on references to well-known landmarks, a confident guess can be made that the Ānandakanda was composed at Srisailam, an important centre in the sacred geography of Shiva in what is now Andhra Pradesh. The compilers themselves were Naths, followers of deeply esoteric, irrepressibly eclectic Shaiva traditions that fuse knowledge and practices from sources as diverse as Islam and Buddhism.
This is the great thing about cannabis culture. Its origins are richly and confidently syncretistic – not frightened by difference but arising out of a culture of mutual curiosity and admiration. So very unlike the grievance cultures that blight contemporary life around the globe, in other words. Perhaps cannabis really can offer us a way toward ‘the healing of the nation’.
Here’s a podcast episode I recorded with Conor of CANNAMANtv on the alchemical roots of today’s global cannabis culture: Alchemy, Cannabis and Indian Tradition (Part 1):
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The header image on the homepage is Dervish Receiving a Visitor, Bijapur, India c. 1620. Shown is a local Sufi shrine of the Shattari Order. The ascetics with beards are dervishes or Sufis, without beards are yogis.
*Though as far as I know both terms can also refer to red onions and other plants, and are the root of misleading claims such as that cannabis is prohibited in the ancient Indian ‘legal’ text the Manusmṛiti (‘Laws of Manu’).
The Real Seed Company: The Honest Online Source for Cannabis Landraces Est. 2007 
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Another nice tidbit about Sinsemilla. Back in the day of the humanists, philosophers and proto-scientists (17-18th century). The question arose around the botanists: do plants have distinct sexes ? Can we selectively breed them like we do cattle ? In the book “Plant Hybridization before Mendel” (https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/23454#page/42/mode/1up) we find this paragraph:
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“””In the following April, Linnaeus sowed seeds of Cannabis in two vessels grown by the window in two different rooms. In one of the vessels, the male and female plants were allowed to grow flowers and bear fruit, which matured in July. The seeds ob- tained, on being planted, germinated in twelve days. In the other of the vessels, all the male plants were removed, at the age when it was possible to distinguish “the antheriferous males” from the “pistilliferous females.” The female plants put forth flowers, the pistils of which lasted unfertilized as long as was required in the other vessel for the fruits to come to maturity, when the pistils, in a quite different manner, immediately withered, after the males had entirely shed their pollen. The unfertilized plants retained their pistils in a green, vegetative condition, and did not wither until when, “after a long time, they were exposed to the afHatus of the male pollen. Although the virgin plants produced large calices, these were empty of living seeds.”””
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Carl Linnaeus grew Sinsemilla as an experiment. And I believe, and it’s sort of implied: He had no problem whatsoever getting valid “regular” non-intersex seeds back in those days in the places he frequently worked (Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, …).
Cheers,,,
Hi – thanks for this comment, excuse the late reply.
There’s also evidence from early agronomic texts from the steppe frontier of northern China (iirc C9) showing that knowledge of how to produce a seedless crop was understood, though nothing indicating that this was actually used to produce seedless inflorescences for consumption.
One thing to note: grown sensibly, ‘landraces’ shouldn’t be more prone to intersex traits. What’s lead to this reputation is just the astronomically high NPK levels, overwatering, and light regimes inflicted on plants by hobby growers using pots, all of which result in massive stress. Meanwhile in fields in their native countries plants grow just fine and are stable males or females.
Worth pausing to consider how farmers in these places could possibly harvest a crop if plants were constantly going intersex on them. It’s not something we’ve seen or heard reported in the source countries.
This applies even in regions like Laos and Thailand. None of our Lao or Thai accessions show the so-called “hermie” trait.
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As Spock would say,
“Fascinating”
I especially appreciate the link to the definition of gobshitery, a word I am now prepared to use.
I am late to this blog post perhaps, but still enamored of all of the content.
Thank you
Thanks Glenn, much appreciated and great to hear!
Here’s hoping your recent bout with food poisoning was not serious and passed quickly.
I cannot imagine answering customer emails in that condition, and I do thank you for that.
I’ve had 100% germination on everything obtained recently which is a rare thing indeed. Kudos to you and your team.
I also hope the writing is coming along and I get the chance to purchase a copy soon. I discovered Kerouac then found Buddhism and both continue to influence my daily life.
If Kerouac was a strain I wonder which you’d think could best describe THAT?
Regarding On The Road, several years ago the original manuscript/teletype roll was “on the road” and I failed to make the nearest venue to actually view it. I believe it’s owned now by a family with ties to an NFL franchise or a chain of auto dealerships; deep pockets in any case.
Cheers to you and again TY