\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cannabis is an often misunderstood plant, in more than one way.\u00a0 A commonly misunderstood aspect of cannabis is its preferred growing environment.\u00a0 Cannabis evolved originally as a desert plant, also referred to as a xeric plant.\u00a0 Xeric plants such as cannabis have developed survival mechanisms for environments with less than 10 inches of rainfall per year- the definition of a desert environment.\u00a0 Now, desert doesn’t always mean sand and cactus.\u00a0 In the case of cannabis, the arid mountains of Central Asia provided the desert conditions that resulted in some of the well-known botanical features of the cannabis plant.\u00a0 These features are also common to other xeric or desert plants like cannabis.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One adaptation to an arid climate is the well-known trichome.\u00a0 This is a feature that other desert plants also share and is an important adaptation to preventing rapid loss of water from the plant, an important survival mechanism in the desert.\u00a0 Trichomes help the plant conserve water by slowing the rate by which the plant loses water to its exterior through openings in the leaves.\u00a0 Trichomes accomplish this by stabilizing the air around the plant.\u00a0 Around every plant there exists a layer of air that is more humid and of a slightly higher temperature than the rest of the environment.\u00a0 This layer that surrounds the plant is called the \u201cboundary layer\u201d.\u00a0 The boundary layer is formed by the loss of water from the plant through openings in the leaves called \u201cstomata\u201d.\u00a0 When the boundary layer is in place, it helps to slow down the loss of water from the plant by forming this area of warmer and more humid air around the stomata.\u00a0 The trichomes function to stabilize this boundary layer by forming a protective barrier around the stomata openings.\u00a0 In this way the trichomes prevent the dry, desert air from sweeping directly across the surface of the leaves, preventing the boundary layer from being disrupted, thereby slowing the loss of water from the plant interior.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0THC is also thought to be, in part, an adaptation to the desert environment, providing the plant with protection from UV light.\u00a0 Having a basic understanding of the evolutionary development of cannabis can aid you in making the right decisions as a patient cultivator to optimize the cannabis you produce.\u00a0 Understanding that cannabis is a desert plant is a good clue to know that over-watering and maintaining high humidity are two quick ways to lower trichome production.\u00a0 If the cannabis plant doesn\u2019t need to conserve water, it doesn\u2019t need to produce as many trichomes to stabilize its boundary layer.\u00a0 The use of foliar sprays should be restricted to when it is absolutely necessary.\u00a0 Finally, a close eye on light intensity will help ensure that your desert cannabis will have everything it needs.<\/p>\n Keep it Pure!<\/p>\n The Pure Analytics Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cannabis is an often misunderstood plant, in more than one way.\u00a0 A commonly misunderstood aspect of cannabis is its preferred growing environment.\u00a0 Cannabis evolved originally as a desert plant, also referred to as a xeric plant.\u00a0 Xeric plants such as cannabis have developed survival mechanisms for environments with less than 10 inches of rainfall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pureanalytics.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pureanalytics.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pureanalytics.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pureanalytics.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pureanalytics.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pureanalytics.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47,"href":"https:\/\/pureanalytics.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions\/47"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pureanalytics.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pureanalytics.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pureanalytics.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}