Hybrid

In the weed world, a hybrid is a cannabis plant with both indica and sativa characteristics. As cannabis has been cultivated for centuries, most modern strains are hybrids.

The landrace varieties are cultivars native to the region where they grow and are generally considered to be pure hybrids and not hybrids. But even modern landraces have been displaced and domesticated. Pure sativas and pure indicas are quite rare, so most of the cannabis you'll find these days is a hybrid herb.

Find out more about hybrid cannabis varieties

Hybrid varieties generally develop phenotypes which are either sativa-dominant, indica-dominant or balanced. Variety descriptions usually indicate this or show the percentage distribution. Remember that the terms «indica varieties» and «sativa varieties» are mostly useful to growers for determining growth characteristics, such as plant height or length of flowering cycle. The effects have nothing to do with the physical structure of today's cannabis plants.

Hybrid cannabis plants can also contain genes from ruderalis varieties, a third type of cannabis that doesn't depend on exposure to light to start flowering. As ruderalis plants flower automatically according to the time they have spent in the ground, they are often crossed with other cannabis plants so that the offspring become auto-flowering varieties.