A hybrid is the offspring of a cross between genetically different parents. In crop breeding it often means a specific F1 between two inbred lines; in cannabis it usually just means any cultivar with mixed ancestry.
In practice
Almost everything on the cannabis market today is a hybrid, often many generations of hybrids crossed together. Modern lines trace back to crosses made from the 1960s on, between landraces from Afghanistan, Thailand, Mexico, Colombia, India and elsewhere, and later between the hybrids themselves. Only a few outlier landraces remain unmixed.
So "hybrid" on a dispensary label is not a meaningful third category beside indica and sativa. It is the default state of the plant. What matters is documented lineage, selection and test results.
Don't confuse with
- F1 hybrid: a specific cross, usually of inbred parents, with uniform offspring.
- Polyhybrid: a hybrid with many different lines in its recent ancestry.
- Landrace: a locally adapted traditional population, not a recent cross.
Myth check
Indica, sativa and "hybrid" describe plant shape at most, not species or effect. Cannabis is one species, Cannabis sativa L. (McPartland 2018). See indica, sativa and ruderalis.
F1 is the first generation of offspring from crossing two parents; if the parents are inbred and different, F1 plants are uniform and often show hybrid vigour.Inbreeding is mating between related plants, which raises homozygosity; an inbred line is the resulting population, measured by the inbreeding coefficient F.A landrace is a traditional, locally adapted cannabis population kept by farmers in one region over many generations, with its own type and plenty of internal variation.A polyhybrid is a cultivar whose recent ancestry mixes many different lines, so its seed segregates widely and rarely breeds true.The single botanical species, in the family Cannabaceae, that covers all hemp and drug-type cannabis; "L." credits Linnaeus, who named it in 1753.Heterosis (hybrid vigour) is the tendency of offspring from genetically different parents to outgrow or outperform both parents in traits such as vigour and yield.A cross is the offspring of mating two different plants, written female x male, as "A x B"; one cross starts a line but is not one.Indica is a popular label for broad-leaflet, compact, faster-flowering cannabis plants; it describes plant shape at most, not a separate species or a predictable effect.
