The term strain refers to the many variations found within a plants cultivar. Within cannabis, strains are either pure or hybrid, broken down into four groups: Sativa, Indica, Ruderalis & Hybrid. These groups originally allowed for a consumer to more easily understand a strains effects. However, due to so much hybridization, these indictors for consumers has faded. Cannabis strains do help cultivators characterize and predict a plant’s growth habits and patterns.
“There are over 779 known cannabis strains that fall into one of these four groups.” -maximumyield.com