Hopar Valley Selection #2 Standard

Selection #2 is easily the crown jewel from this season's hunting. To put simply this plant had it all, from aesthetics to resin production and everything in between, despite the harsh outdoor conditions there wasn't a dent on this plant and it had finished flowering already in early October, while looking in absolutely pristine shape.

It shared a similar bouquet of aromas as found amongst most of the plants in the valley, which is quite difficult to put in words, however the best description for it, would be to compare it with sharp smells such as ammonia or some of the other industrial cleaning products with sharp/acrid smells. This plant was growing right next to a small glacial stream in the garden of a different farmer in the valley, who had some other spectacular plants in his garden as well, along with this absolute Gem.

Hopar Valley is a small but beautifully etched portion of the Larger NagarKhas region, inside the Nagar Valley, featuring avg. floor elevation of approximately 2500 meters at 36°N and above at all places. Hopar Valley is an almost perfect bowl valley which is surrounded by towering snowclad mountains and constitutes the base of one of the most famous Glaciers inside the Central K2 National Park** **Maintained by an international programme called "Seed" (Social Economic Environmental Development).

The climate in the valley could be categorised as sub-arctic, and because of the valley being in the rain shadow of the K2 Himalayas. Rain is almost non-existent here, while the extremely arid environment facilitates the withering of the bare rocky surfaces of the mountains into sand and silt deposited at it's base. Hopar Valley, features an extremely cold and dry climate throughout the year, which can be categorized as semi-tundra, with the snow cover spanning over 4 months and valley itself stays surrounded by the repository of glaciers year around, spewing freezing gusts of wind into the valley floor be it winters or the summers.

Hopar Valley is a small bowl valley located at the toes of the Spantik and Hopar glacier. The indigenous population in Gilgit-Baltistan is known as "Balti" majority of whom are shia Muslims.

The cannabis cultivation in Hopar Valley has shrunk significantly in past 3-4 decades from being prolific to cannabis being a secondary crop which is now sown on the sides/periphery of the fields meant for growing food. Unlike, some of the other cannabis hotspots in northern pakistan like chitral, that saw an increasingly stringent attitude of the administration on Cannabis, Hopar Valley in the wake of rapidly increasing tourism had an entirely different reason for slowing down the cultivation of cannabis so, Cannabis can still be easily seen growing on sides of the roads in the entire valley, without a shred of worry.

In Hoper Valley, particularly, we observed that the farmers don't plant cannabis as the main crop but every farmer plants the cannabis seeds as a side crop all along the fences of their fields reserved for their main crops like potatoes. As per the local farmers, they make exceptionally good use of the cannabis plant, by using the resin, the seeds for making traditional soups and the stems/stalks for burning to generate the life giving heat in the winter months.

The cannabis varieties which are adapted to such extremely cold weather conditions, embody certain features overtime, which are integral to the survival and the subsequent reproduction of the plant. These adaptations are typical and seen in plenty amongst the larger populations, Since, it's these fine changes over the long periods of time that ultimately makes it conducive for the populations to thrive.

The first few adaptations which are quite apparent and can be subjectively appreciated in this valley, are the profuse anthocyanins production on the bracts only but not as often on the leaves itself and the relatively bigger size of the trichomes with a clearly more dense coverage as well.

The typical embodiment seen amongst the cannabis populations in the Valley is that of a semi-tall plant with moderate side branching, broad leaflets and fibrous stalk and stems similar to cannabis varieties domesticated in subtropical Highlands around 29-32°N (e.g. Malana, Uttrakhand, Nepal) but Hopar Valley being located at a Much higher latitude (36°N) have both lesser insolation (sun lit hours) and season length hence the plants in Hopar Valley have broader leaflets to absorb sufficient sunlight in shorter days and the plants also flower faster to finish before the onset of the snowfall. The plants at the most get 7-8 ft tall with much of the population staying under 6ft.

A lot of plants are also seen expressing vibrant colors mostly on the floral bracts, while some also showing anthocyanins production in leaves and the bracts alike. In fact there seems tobe a good proportion of plants expressing red/Purple coloration on the bracts with contrasting green leaves, within the larger domesticated population of Hopar Valley.

The un domesticated cannabis population in the Hopar Valley is distinctly different from the fully domesticated ones. E.g. plants from the un domesticated populations clearly show lesser vigor, sporting spindly stems instead of thick upright stalks as seen in domesticated populations here and the wilder genotypes also exhibits some of the typical characteristics seen amongst the wild or un domesticated Landrace populations of Cannabis such as shorter bract life to self disperse the seeds as shown in the picture below.

However, certain traits which are integral to the survival of the organism in this harsh terroir could be seen amongst both populations invariably, such as bigger sized trichomes can still be seen throughout every single plant in the valley be it domesticated or wild. It's also, noteworthy that the smell found in these plants were a lot more intense in comparison to possibly any other known landrace variety encountered yet. The shear density of the resin glands on the flowers was outstanding in majority of the cases and the bigger size of those glands only seems to further aid in being able to produce and store higher volumes of (secondary metabolites) cannabinoids and terpenes.

The interesting part is how these foul aromas seems to be omnipresent within these populations, which means that it is a highly favourable adaptation for the cannabis populations, at least in this particular locale.