A number of news services, including Associated Press, have been carrying the news of a new marijuana plant that resists herbicides and cutting. The plant must be grubbed out by the root in order to kill it. This has been the unenviable task of the Mexican army, which first discovered the super hybrid about two years ago in the western Michoacan state.
Michoacan is a mountainous remote region, which lends itself to clandestine gardening. Reportedly sophisticated irrigated plantations of this special fast growing hybrid have been discovered. Allegedly the crop matures in two months, can be grown year round and is an exceptionally high yield variety. High yield defined as both plants per acre and chemical concentration per plant.
While it is possible to spot some of the fields from the air, one out of 5 according to Mexican sources, the crops can not be destroyed from the air. Burning the tops or dousing them with chemicals fails to kill the root and the roots quickly resurrect themselves into flourishing plants.
Mexican authorities are calling this a “genetically improved” hybrid. Slate Magazine, in a story by Jack Shafer is calling it the “stupid drug story of the week”. Questioning the source of the information, and unable to find a cabal of stoned horticulturists who will admit to working on the genetics of the super “weed”, Shafer concludes that it is Mother Nature’s hybridization and superior cultivation techniques at work. He is probably right the Old Girl is usually up to something and, as every gardener knows, a little manure goes a long way.