The original ruderal hemp stems as a plant genus from the Asian region, probably from the areas of China, Tibet, and India. The place of origin is likely found in the region of the Himalayan mountains. Hemp seems to develop far more intensive compounds as a genetic trait in higher altitudes over the years, while it also thrives excellently as a raw material in lower elevations.
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Where Does Hemp Come From and Where Was It Introduced?
As long as the right variety is cultivated, potent marijuana can be grown even at altitudes of around 100 meters. However, these potent varieties seem to develop and maintain themselves better in higher altitudes in the wild without targeted breeding by human hands.
Hemp as a plant genus emerged at least 10,000 years ago, possibly much earlier. It was discovered quite quickly by humans, who were still nomadic in their search for food and very hungry for knowledge. New discoveries secured survival. Since you can eat the hemp seeds from the flowers and then consume the flowers along with them, causing intoxication, humans would have discovered the effects quite quickly.
Hemp was probably first cultivated as one of the oldest known and used fiber plants for its fibers in textile production. Since wild hemp grows practically as a monoculture in its native regions in the Himalayas, it didn’t necessarily need to be cultivated by humans for intoxicating or medicinal effects, and even today hash is still extracted from wild-growing hemp.
Climate Determines Whether Hemp Can Grow Wild
Hemp grows everywhere the climate allows, even wild, once it’s there, including in Germany. In some areas, it displaces other vegetation across entire areas because it grows so fast that it overgrows everything, including weeds. Hemp can thus be grown for years on weedy areas without pesticides, so that these areas produce less weeds when crops are rotated. Originally, hemp comes from the Asian region and was quickly spread here by humans. Thus, the success of the former Japanese Empire is also attributed to hemp, which was naturalized there by humans.
If seeds were to stick to an animal’s hoof and fall off at a completely different location after some time, hemp could also spread without human intervention. From its original regions in Asia, it spread not only across Asia, but thanks to humans also to Africa and Europe, and later to the New World. Scene information from the USA states that drug enforcement there destroys millions of wild-growing hemp plants every year, as they wanted to completely and permanently eradicate the cannabis genus worldwide, starting from the USA.
What Does Hemp Need to Grow Wild?
Hemp must first be present on site. If it finds suitable soil and sprouts in spring thanks to sufficient moisture and overgrows other vegetation to drop its seeds in autumn, these will also survive the winter frost, while the hemp plant itself dies in frost. Depending on the situation, hemp plants grow scattered or they spread further and then support each other in asserting themselves against other vegetation. Why doesn’t hemp grow wild everywhere today, including in German-speaking regions, as it did before hemp prohibition?
Just like in the USA, all found plants were destroyed because of drug bans. However, as soon as these don’t produce seeds for one year, practically no hemp will sprout the following year. Depending on the situation, a hemp seed that didn’t sprout in the first year can also sprout the following year, but generally this once-cleaned region would be sustainably „cleaned“ until hemp is sown again. After several years, the feral hemp returns. Feral industrial hemp gains THC content, while high-potency marijuana loses it.
What’s crucial here are naturally the hidden traits that come back up through feralization and cover up the bred traits again, which regress. Human-bred hemp adapts to the climate everywhere over time, and the characteristics that best enable this will prevail over the years. The same variety would thus develop differently in cold and rainy regions than in warm and dry countries, if it survives the first years.
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