Industrial Hemp in Oregon

[socioecologist]

It was a while ago that you told us that the less common cannabinoids were going to be a major moneymaker for hemp growers, now its turning out to be the case. Is it safe to assume you have projects targeting other cannabinoids?

Most definitely! My biggest target right now are the propyls (i.e. -v). They are a challenge from a breeding perspective (spectrum rather than a switch) and I don't expect to have high concentrations in seed form for another 3 years honestly. The good news about the -varins though is that having those developed double our total number of cannabinoid types we can produce (CBD, CBG, THC + CBDV, CBGV, and THCV). The trick with -varins is that at least two independent lines must be simultaneously developed, then recombined once inbreeding stops becoming effective at increasing the total target cannabinoid fraction. We can do it, but it will definitely take some time.

We are always on the lookout for new plant varieties that are known to contain some "V" of any sort (CBDV, THCV, CBGV, etc.), as they are the building blocks of diversity required to create more pure lines later on.

 

[socioecologist]

Here's a shot of the world's first CBG rosin, made by one of our employees on his Sasquash V2 press. Taffy-like consistency and eminently dab-able. The pain relief is instantaneous. Muscle spasms and the degenerative pains recede for 20-30 minutes following each hit. Different compounds help people in unique ways, but this one is the most profound cannabis medicine I have (personally) ever consumed.

 

[oldchuck]

I was unaware of the benefits of CBG. Doesn't seem to be much research on it. I am very interested.

 

[socioecologist]

Final test results on our pure CBG production clone for 2017. I can't stress enough how important it is to work with a lab that can produce accurate, replicable results. These numbers are much lower than you'll see from non-accredited labs in other states (more to come on that in the next week or so). Check out the LOQs (Limits of Quantification). Our lab (OG Analytical) is as good as they get. They can accurately report down to 0.1% on flower tests, which makes these results beyond fascinating.

First is from flower, second is from rosin (identical starting material). A lot of things making me go hmmmm in these. Previous test results produced equal parts CBD and THC, these did not. This species is so cool--I feel lucky for the chance to devote my life's energy to it. Hope you are all connecting the dots out there...

 

[weedtoker]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to socioecologist again.

Learning curve too much? (questions apart) Huge props for keeping the industry pushing really forward fellow Human.

Cheers, have a good one.

 

[Skoops]

How do you deal with the smell of a large scale farm? Don’t the neighbors find it a nuisance?

 

[socioecologist]

How do you deal with the smell of a large scale farm? Don’t the neighbors find it a nuisance?

Agriculture is a protected farming activity in Oregon. In general, farm use trumps all else (sorry to invoke his name). Marijuana is not yet in that category, but hemp is. So, in a legal sense, zero cares are given.

From a regular human perspective where our actions do have an impact on others: it depends on the farm. We haven't heard a single complaint about smell. Granted, our valley farms are in a premier agricultural area and everyone knows us and what we are doing--almost everyone farms and most farmers are curious about alternative crops (once they learn it won't get you high). Our mountain seed farm is 20 miles from anyone who would care; valley farms are generally tucked away out of sight, but the one that has many who pass by will be interesting next year. The county sheriff has already been out to that farm because someone reported us as an illegal marijuana grow this year. In the same way as it was in the old days, good human-to-human communication is key.

 

[socioecologist]

I love data. See above. The chemotype divergence is obvious, but breeding pure CBG lines is not easy--proper candidates are proverbial needles in haystacks if you are trying to do this "right" (at least by my self-imposed definition). Good information here with these 209 data points; a god damn shame that we lost our lab (OG Analytical) because the owner is literally a neo-nazi. What an insane world we live in. We have temporarily lost one of the best minds in the cannabis chemistry world (Rodger Voelker) with the dissolution and firing of the entire staff after they unilaterally spoke out against Bethany "the nazi" Sherman.

CBC will be the next cannabinoid we release after CBG, but it will be at least a few more generations of inbreeding before we are ready to outcross for production. We will be running extended trials next winter (2018-19), as CBC expression is both genetic AND environmental, with low light conditions producing the highest concentrations.

For those of you who are interested, let's go over these charts. There's so much useful information to unpack here!

 

[Chunkypigs]

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I love data. See above. The chemotype divergence is obvious, but breeding pure CBG lines is not easy--proper candidates are proverbial needles in haystacks if you are trying to do this "right" (at least by my self-imposed definition). Good information here with these 209 data points; a god damn shame that we lost our lab (OG Analytical) because the owner is literally a neo-nazi. What an insane world we live in. We have temporarily lost one of the best minds in the cannabis chemistry world (Rodger Voelker) with the dissolution and firing of the entire staff after they unilaterally spoke out against Bethany "the nazi" Sherman.

CBC will be the next cannabinoid we release after CBG, but it will be at least a few more generations of inbreeding before we are ready to outcross for production. We will be running extended trials next winter (2018-19), as CBC expression is both genetic AND environmental, with low light conditions producing the highest concentrations.

For those of you who are interested, let's go over these charts. There's so much useful information to unpack here!

is it the same 209 seeds in each of the graphs here?

how do you read these charts?

 

[Chunkypigs]

Final test results on our pure CBG production clone for 2017. I can't stress enough how important it is to work with a lab that can produce accurate, replicable results. These numbers are much lower than you'll see from non-accredited labs in other states (more to come on that in the next week or so). Check out the LOQs (Limits of Quantification). Our lab (OG Analytical) is as good as they get. They can accurately report down to 0.1% on flower tests, which makes these results beyond fascinating.

First is from flower, second is from rosin (identical starting material). A lot of things making me go hmmmm in these. Previous test results produced equal parts CBD and THC, these did not. This species is so cool--I feel lucky for the chance to devote my life's energy to it. Hope you are all connecting the dots out there...

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which dots are you talking about?

it looks to me like heating it during the rosin making is converting some CBGa to 4 other compounds but usually you get conversion to CBD as well?

you think altering time / temp /pressure during rosin making changes the conversion to other compounds here? or contamination by neo-nazis?

the dots I'm connecting from your posts is that you are on the verge of creating a legal world wide, cannabinoid rich cigarette with a mild relaxing buzz that is healthy and human positive.

you will crush big tobacco and black market weed with the same punch.

have you given any of that all CBG stuff to really sick people to see how it helps?
seizure patients, MS, etc.?

 

[socioecologist]

Yes, all of the dots in the charts are from the same seed batch (all sisters). They are independent of the flower / rosin tests that came before; well, mostly independent--they are granddaughters of our terpene-less CBG production plant.

The scales are relative proportions of different cannabinoids in the cumulative cannabinoid fraction (CBD, CBG, THC, and CBC). .1=10%, .2=20%, .3=30%, etc. These charts show a lot; the underlying rationale for them is that we are working with 3 primary compounds with this particular breeding project (CBD, CBG, and CBC), with THC showing up as a small fraction as well. Our goal is to minimize CBD and THC while maximizing CBG and CBC. The data suggests:

(1) inactive THCa synthases are more efficient at converting CBGa than their inactive CBDa counterparts. This helps to explain why high cannabinoid content type III plants end up with much higher proportions of THC than their type I counterparts have of CBD.

(2) Selecting for high CBD to THC ratio plants for breeding field-worthy CBD producers is a good way to minimize overall THC, but it will never be eliminated from type III plants without removing the THCa loci (i.e. CRISPR). The best ratio we saw out of this large pool was about 50:1. That's as good as we have seen on validated flower test results as well.

(3) The segregation pattern for type III and type IV plants is robust and very clear.

(4) CBC inheritance is, from a breeder's perspective, functionally similar to propyl inheritance (i.e. the varins) but you have to at least partially inactivate CBDa production (i.e. heterozygous at CBDa synthase, functional / nonfunctional). Notice the linear distribution of relative CBC proportion in all of the CBG-predominant plants--the same pattern is present in the CBD-predominant plants as well (just not as visually clear). That means CBC is a tougher problem to crack in terms of developing seed varieties that can accurately deliver a CBC-dominant chemotype and clonal production MAY be the way to go for now...give me this winter / spring to better understand and I'll get back to you all .

I don't know about developing tasty non-psychoactive joints for people to puff on, but there are definitely people who are making that happen with our plant material right now. We focus our limited energy and resources on breeding and field trials. The goal is to make CBG more widespread than any other cannabinoid--to do that, we need the big players in the hemp industry to be growing our seed in 2019.

 

[Robrites]

Hey, How many acres do I need to farm
In N.E. Oregon
To make growing hemp
Economically viable?

 

[socioecologist]

1. It gets harder and harder to move your product the larger you get. Growing is (relatively) easy. Hard work for sure, but not impossible. Drying is difficult and hampers your ability to expand. Moving the material is always the major bottleneck. We recommend that farmers start with 2-3 acres (or even 5 if you have drying space) and go from there. I don't know any small farm clients of ours who weren't able to at least recoup their expenses.

The caveat here is that you are growing for cannabinoids with high quality seed stock. Buyer beware for anything else.

 

[Kankakee]

indeed.

over-supply can affect all commodities. look towards Canada and seed production, the more seed produced the more risk for slowing sales and price corrections.

but clean genetics that provide healthy plants in your ecosystem are a must with prime soil as quality and yield per square meter are at the top of one's concerns.

 

[PDX Dopesmoker]

socioecologist did the latest batch of OLCC rules changes just give the weed stores a monopoly on the sale of medicinal hemp products in Oregon? Did you and your fellow hemp medicine producers sell a mountain of your formerly over the counter before the deadline?

 

[socioecologist]

socioecologist did the latest batch of OLCC rules changes just give the weed stores a monopoly on the sale of medicinal hemp products in Oregon? Did you and your fellow hemp medicine producers sell a mountain of your formerly over the counter before the deadline?

We don't sell concentrates / extracts, so it didn't affect us directly. Clients with products have been hit very hard by this though; you can still sell outside OLCC shops, but to get your product into the shops (which is where a lot of CBD products are sold in-state) it must be produced by an OLCC processor first.

We have language in our omnibus hemp bill for the short session that will fix it and allow direct hemp handler ---> OLCC retail transactions to resume, but, if it passes (should), it won't be allowed until at least April. Hard to run a business when you get arbitrarily shut down for no rational reason, but pretty typical in this industry right?

 

[PDX Dopesmoker]

We don't sell concentrates / extracts, so it didn't affect us directly. Clients with products have been hit very hard by this though; you can still sell outside OLCC shops, but to get your product into the shops (which is where a lot of CBD products are sold in-state) it must be produced by an OLCC processor first.

We have language in our omnibus hemp bill for the short session that will fix it and allow direct hemp handler ---> OLCC retail transactions to resume, but, if it passes (should), it won't be allowed until at least April. Hard to run a business when you get arbitrarily shut down for no rational reason, but pretty typical in this industry right?

Yeah I remember at least two or three other times over the past few years when poorly thought out or poorly publicized rules changes lead to a scarcity or complete drought in the availability of hemp based medicinal products. Anyway this one sounds like its not as bad as I had imagined it might be, I thought it sounded like they were using OLCC rules to prevent hemp medicine sales outside of OLCC licensed weed shops.
Thanks as always for the briefing, its nice hearing from someone keeps a keener eye on our rules than I do. I haven't been involved with a commercial operation since October so most of what I knew back then probably no longer applies.

 

[socioecologist]

Microscope shots of pure CBGa trichomes. They have a different color, opacity, and texture than THC / CBD trichomes. The visual difference is pretty striking (reflects as a brilliant silver). Dry sift (test results shown) is white-blonde in color, rosin has the color and texture of dry peanut butter, and co2 oil is orange / red. At least that was the case with our production clone this year (we call her "grandma" now).

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[PDX Dopesmoker]

Beautiful cannagraphics, do the CBG trichs start clear and then turn silver when ripe like the THC trichs do turning amber or are the CBG ones translucent/opaque the whole time?

 

[Anne_Fetamine]

I've seen some pretty Oregon hemp buds for sale on various auction sites & other online outlets. Would really like to try some. I've tried some hemp grown in Nevada & it's great. I look forward to the domestic hemp industry growing in the next few years. Hope there will be a large market for high-CBD medicinal buds.