A thought occurred to me. Is there an official amount of time a cultivar has to grow in a specific region before it can be considered a Landrace from that region? I've constantly heard a vague "hundreds of years in the same place", but is there a specific number? For instance, if I started growing a field of ganja today, and kept growing, regrowing, and collecting seeds for the next 50 years, could I call that a landrace? Could my children?
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That is the million dollar question. Nobody really know as everybody, especially in the cannabis world have different ideas. Anyway we can take as reference other sectors of agriculture or even animal farming. What those who do not suffer of almost a century of repression and bans, even inside Universities, have to say?
"A landrace is a domesticated, locally adapted, often traditional variety of a species of an animal, plant or fungus that has developed over time, through adaptation to its natural and cultural environment of agriculture and pastoralism, and due to isolation from other populations of the species. Landraces are distinct from cultivars and from standard breeds."
Wikipedia says and continues
A significant proportion of farmers around the world grow landrace crops, and most plant landraces are associated with traditional agricultural systems. Landraces of many crops have probably been grown for millennia. Increasing reliance upon modern plant cultivars that are bred to be uniform has led to a reduction in biodiversity, because most of the genetic diversity of domesticated plant species lies in landraces and other traditionally used varieties. Some farmers using scientifically improved varieties also continue to raise landraces for agronomic reasons that include better adaptation to the local environment, lower fertilizer requirements, lower cost, and better disease resistance. Cultural and market preferences for landraces include culinary uses and product attributes such as texture, color, or ease of use.
Plant landraces have been the subject of more academic research, and the majority of academic literature about landraces is focused on botany in agriculture(..)
So from this we can extrapolate the following points. A landrace is:
1- a domesticated (not wild) locally adapted variety
2- cultivated by traditional farmers using traditional methods
3- isolate so unique but not homogeneous
Is not specified "from how long", but have to be long enough to be considered part of the culture "traditional" so 50 years is barely the minimal time
The world "traditional" also implies that is not grown by a single farmer or just few individuals but in numbers that are large enough to become part of cultural heritage, for example entire villages or regions
So potentially is possible to "create new landraces" but that will take an enormous effort of hundreds or even thousand of farmers from a specific area that use traditional methods collectively like sharing the seeds, no synthetic fertilizers, chemical pesticides, green houses or artificial light, etc.. and in isolation (means no external genetic contamination) and this for a minimal time of 50 years
This why is so hard to "recreate" new landraces and is advisable to preserve the one that exists already
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I had always wondered why everyone said the old landraces were "lost to time". I never realized that you'd need that largescale of an endeavor to recreate them.
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The loss of Landraces is a direct consequence of the carbon fossil economy and global centralization of resources. If we stop to use petrol the way we use in our days, or if petrol will finally end, or we simply learn to live in a decentralized circular economy that day Landraces will "regenerate" naturally.
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Tbh , once it is not in its natural environment, it is not really a landrace no more, but a heirloom, we do not have landraces of tomatos in europe, but the non hybridised are considered heirlooms , that is the botanical way . Even after 100 years my cut will be a heirloom , never a landrace . If A malawi farmer keeps stock or cuts around in Malawi , it is a landrace. For example prempavee sells landrace, but once in an american or european garden, it is a heirloom , if kept around ( seeds or cuts)
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Well that is discutible, because if true, for example, would means that the Americas cannot have Cannabis Landraces, but cultivars like the Punto Rojo just to mention one are considered Landraces. Anyway in many publications the terms Heirloom and Landrace they coexist
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Thats what i wanted to go on about to, but felt like be to much info 
, in a way, but that is a very accurate statement, yes. I always say i grow feral genetics , to avoid discussions haha
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the Americas have had cannabis since the 1500's. I'm pretty sure it started in the Caribbean and spread from there. Then the question becomes, is 500ish years long enough to change enough to become something unique to its region?
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Yes that more or less the same for tomatoes in the other side. Accepting, of course, what is generally teach inside schools.
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tomatoes actually makes for a great comparison because Italian tomatoes like Roma and San Marzano are prized varieties. I would call those Italian tomatoes, but I wouldn't call them landrace per se. It does show how sometimes taking a crop from its native range can produce a unique and often regional cultivar in that timeframe.
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Landrace and heirloom. Truth is its a rabbithole, for wine, for coffee, for tomatos and even more cannabis, whilst it biggest difference then other crops, it is faster adaptable and changes superfast her expression. Without human stewardship a tomato plant would never grown throu the ages in the heirlooms we got . And my bosnian heirloom wuld never had survived , also the taste is exact same as grown in bosnia, even seeds i took from my own grows now , still same , but ye its only 12 years i got it and using her seeds
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From a quick search on Google about San Marzano tomatoes, Wikipedia classify them as Heirloom but other sources as Landrace.
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Well , i fell in the rabbithole now .
Decided gonna stick to feral . Yes i think heirloom is a very open to interpret term, in a way if one keeps a cut from a hybrid around, does that not make it a heirloom aswell ? 
And why would human trade make wild seeds not to be a landrace in the new region, after all ,( did you not once say?) , humans belong to nature, so a human trade or a bird / river transporting seeds , its all natural ways in how cultivars and wild plants got passed along in a certain point of view no ?
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For me i will only consider landrace as varieties coming from the original countrys before this modern interconnected world we have now
Wild cannabis that eventually got cultivated and chosen by farmers and tribes over hundreds even thousands of years but it most likely started with wild ganja from that area
I think in the future anything new will become heirloom and its probably the right thing, because they will adapt to a new climate and phenoes chosen will not be the same
Prem told me before to keep a landrace you need a very big amount of plants hundred thousands or more, most heirlooms will not be of that scale if any
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Yes, bit we still don't know how things works in nature. For example one theory is that ganja originated in Asia from the Himalayan plateau . So if we go too strict that will exclude also Africa .. I personally think that 50 years is sufficient to be called Landrace also because we do not really know more than 1000 years ago or even we don't know very well more recently. What if what they told us that American continent was connected to rest of the world only 500 years ago? What about the Mayan and the Egyptian ? Are we sure they was not in contact already? So many mysteries. About Landraces , currently, for my opinion on the matter now that maybe I can change idea in the future, if they are integrated with the cultural heritage and grown by traditional farmers in large scale longer than Gran mother can remember grow by her mother and not sure maybe before so is Landrace.
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A story that comes to mind is the Mexican Landraces. Before prohibition most of the ganja in America was Mexican landrace smuggled over the border. In the 70's there was a crackdown that poisoned the Mexican fields. Border checks, pressure of growing opium for higher profit, and the explosion of indica hybrids in America caused many of the original landraces to go extinct. If the people of that region started growing preserved heirlooms would you consider that a revival of the original, or the beginning of something new?
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Added research on topic in my research thread. Bottom post.
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There is no landrace strain indigenous to the UA. "Ditch Weed" grows wild and is left over from hemp.
Volcanic Adaptation: Hawaiian lines like Maui Wowie and Puna Buddaz adapted to tropical island microclimates and volcanic soil, often classified regionally acclimatized/landrace lines,
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Ye that makes the term feral not as efficient neither, as ditch weed is really feral , cultivated gone back wild, mostly industrial hemp indeed but landraces are feral in a way compared to heirlooms or modern day hybrids no ? " Falls deeper down the wabbithole"
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