This article is the second of a series focused on the most important landraces of cannabis. All the thousands of strains of cannabis we use today are derived from a relatively limited number of landraces, which have been used for medicinal, religious and recreational purposes during centuries. Cannabis originated in central Asia, and from there it has spread to all corners of the world. Sometimes helped by nature, sometimes by man, cannabis seeds have conquered inimmaginable distances, spreading their genetics, adapting to new environments, changing their carachteristics, and therefore resulting in countless combinations. Some of these combinations stabilized themselves through inbreeding in particular environments, and resulted in landraces. Some of these landraces have preserved themselves, isolated in remote areas of the planet with no contact with other cannabis strains for long periods of time. My name is Franco, my passion is cannabis, and my work is strain-hunting for Green House Seed Company. And this month I will tell you the history of:
Malawi Gold
Malawi is a very special African country. Landlocked in the south-eastern part of the continent, it borders Lake Malawi (the third largest in Africa, and the eight in the world). The Great Rift Valley, a complex system of mountains, hills and valleys, runs through the country all the way from north to south, creating an amazing geography of temperate high grounds, humid and hot valleys and lush tropical forests. The climate is shaped by the lake and the mountains, with a hot and tropical south and a more temperate north.
Malawi was inhabited by gatherers and hunters from prehistorically times, but the first sign of civilization came around the 10th century, when the first Bantus came during their migrations from the sub-Saharan regions all the way to current South Africa. Some of the Bantus settled around Lake Malawi and created a complex society of tribes from common ancestors. These tribes evolved in a kingdom that eventually controlled the area well into the 19th century, when explorer David Livingstone opened the way to British colonization and rule. The British never really colonized Malawi; they were too busy fighting wars all over the place to dedicate manpower and resources to this remote corner of Africa. Instead, they administered the country limiting their control to the major cities and the trading activities. The British stayed from the 1860s until 1964, and then Malawi became an independent country under the dictatorship of Dr. Banda. He was a British-educated doctor, and during the 1950s he started the movement that led to independence. During his rule Banda established a huge personal financial empire, one that generated more than a third of Malawi’s GDP and employed 10% of the population during the 1970s.
Banda’s rule ended in 1994, when a democratically elected President stepped in, pushed by international pressure. Only the South African government offered Banda support, and eventually a safe place to die an old man. Since the democratization process has begun, it has helped Malawi improve the personal and social conditions of its people. But the reality is far from being cheerful. Malawi is lacking a proper health care system and the education system has just recently begun to produce some skilled workforce. The country depends largely on foreign aid to foster development, even if in recent years there have been signs of improvement in the economy. HIV/AIDS is a real problem affecting between 20 and 30% of the active population, and child mortality is one of the highest in Africa, reaching 50% in some of the poorest enclaves. Malaria and related illnesses are the number one cause of death in the country, making general life expectancy extremely low (average 44 years). On top of that in recent years many skilled Malawians have migrated to western countries looking for a better life.
But Malawi is also a very old agricultural society, and the third largest producer of cannabis in Africa, after Morocco and South Africa. Most of the cannabis that grows in Malawi is in the northern part of the country, where the rugged terrain and the temperate climate ensure better conditions for the plants and safer movements for the people involved in its production and trade. Traveling through the growing areas and looking at the various fields of large-scale operations, one can easily see that the plants are quite uniform and very similar to each other, clear sin of a very long-established local landrace, one that became known as Malawi Gold.
The history of the Malawi Gold is a very intriguing one. The genetics became famous in the 1970s, when the first tourists traveling through Africa on overland trucks discovered the shores of Lake Malawi as a recreational destination. There were no resorts or hotels, just the tropical lake to swim and dive, the nature and the mountains to hike and trail, and lots of great weed to smoke while partying with the hospitable locals. The fame grew fast and more adventure-minded travelers started coming, but a real tourist industry did not start until the beginning of the third millennium, and it is still facing huge infrastructural problems. Now the southern shores of the lake are a very unique diving destination, attracting fishermen, eco tourists and scientists; and of course, many stoners looking for cheap beach holidays and great quality pot. But malaria and poor hygiene conditions continue to be a real problem for tourists and locals alike.
So, where does the Malawi Gold comes from? Where did the landrace originate? The answers to these questions cannot be answered in sure terms. The truth blurs in the haze of time, in the mist of the African forests. What can be proved is that at some point between the 10th and the 15th century the local tribes started cultivating cannabis, as reported by Portuguese traders and soldiers during centuries of sporadic contacts. The seeds must have come from the north, most probably all the way from central and southern Asia, traded by Arab merchants on their exploration trips into the African continent. Some of the seeds that reached Malawi in this large period of time might have also arrived from western Africa, after being brought there by the same Arab merchants.
When the British arrived near the huge Lake, Malawians were already cultivating cannabis and they were also using dried cannabis for its antiseptic properties. Until the 1930s cannabis was relatively out of the interest of the law, and only in 1961 the law started to punish growers and smugglers. Since the 1970s the production of cannabis has kept increasing exponentially, following a high demand from Europe and North America, as well as from other African countries.
During the 1990s the production increased even more, due to the arrival of trafficking organization from Nigeria and other African countries that incremented the export and the flow of the Malawi Gold to the international markets. More recently, at the end of the 1990s, foreigners from South Africa and Europe started buying properties in the tourist destinations around Lake Malawi, creating a small but very lively backpackers tourist industry. Most overland African tours nowadays include Malawi in their route, and this maintains the popularity of Malawi cannabis while at the same time incrementing local tourist demand.
The Malawi Gold is a truly amazing landrace, one that evolved to adapt to local conditions over a much extended period of time. The amount of time spent adapting can also be one of the factors that allowed several genetics from various regions to blend into one landrace with similar characteristics and several phenotypes. The common characteristics to all phenotypes are very well identifiable: tall plants, with a long-fingered saliva leaf and non-overlapping leaflets; long buds, with small calyxes and a low calyx-to-leaf ratio; extremely dense resin coverage, with trychomes very close to each other and long stalks. All these traits are now common, but maybe they just represent the middle point in between very different original ancestors. Nowadays the Malawi Gold is a very stable and inbred landrace, and the phenotype variations are related to aroma, taste and high more than anything else. Visiting several fields far apart from each others one can find back the same two major phenos: the fruity one and the woody one. Plants with a more intense fruity aroma are slightly shorter and have a more developed branching. Plants with a more distinctive woody aroma tend to stretch slightly more and to have less branches. The difference in the flavor after combustion is even more pronounced, while the saliva aftertaste gives solid common ground to all phenos.
One of the biggest misunderstandings concerning cannabis from Malawi was created during the 1970s and persists today. While the strain is just one, there were two very distinctive types of cannabis from Malawi flooding the European and international markets: Malawi Gold and Malawi Black. This is simply due to the different methods for drying and curing the plants after harvesting them. In the case of the Malawi Gold, plants are cut and dried in full sunshine, then packed into cobs for transport (hence the famous Malawi cobs). In the case of the Malawi Black the plants are cut, then only partially dried. When they are still a bit moist, the buds are roughly manicured and packed into the skin of a goat’s stomach, then buried in a certain type of soil. After 3-4 months the fermentation process has transformed the appearance and the cannabinoid profile of the weed. It has turned from green into a mix of shades of black and gray, and the smell is pungent, stale, with hints of ammonia. Not the most cosmetic of buds, but definitely a very psychedelic experience.
Next month we will travel more towards the southern tip of the African continent, and explore the history behind one of the most underground sativa landraces ever: the South African Rooibard, also known as Red Beard.
Franco – Green House Seed Co.
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