Industrial Hemp in Oregon

[OregonBorn]

Acc'd to a new report from the CDC, the REAL issue with the CBD/hemp, THC and nicotine vape oils is Vitamin E acetate added to cut them with. Vaping Vitamin E acetate can lead to EVALI and even death. EVALI (E-cigarette Vaping Associated Lung Injury).

Back in the day we smoked gobs of black market weed from Colombia, Thailand and Mexico, and lived to tell the tale. Who knows what that had on it, including Paraquat. Smoking mites is not going to to kill you. Most herbicides, including Paraquat and dioxin are rendered harmless when burned. That is why there was no massive die off of hippies back on the later 1970s after the DEA was spraying plants with herbicides in Mexico. In Colombia and SE Asia, the common method of curing was to pile up fresh green cut colas and leave it all to rot. That killed the green chlorophyll and created a gold bud product. Smoking gobs of that stuff did not kill off heaps of people either. Botrytus rot is called noble rot in grape vineyards. That has been in late harvest wines since the dawn of civilization. Powdery mildew spores are in the air here non stop in the PNW. If that kills people, we would all be dead up here by now.

Oddly with all the warnings and whatnot, its Vitamin E that is killing people that vape lately. Me, I only smoke my own weed (and hemp, but I do not make any distinction between any types of Cannabis plants) that I grow. Yeah, there are some mites and mite eggs in there, along with some mold and mildew. I do not have any lung issues though.

 

[OregonBorn]

One thing to note about hemp after seeing what has happened in WA, OR and CA after mj legalization. The hemp market will be saturated, and fast. Likely faster than it was for mj in these western states after legalization. Nationwide hemp cultivation increased 550% in 2019. That is a HUGE increase in one year. Tennessee and Oregon dominate the number of hemp growing licenses issued with 2,913 and 2,534 respectively. The next highest is Kentucky with 972. Over a half million acres are now licensed for hemp cultivation in the US.

So how much CBD does the US market demand? And will CBD be allowed to be imported from overseas? And can it be harvested in vats and produced by brewer's yeast? (the answer is yes and yes). Other products than CBD come from hemp though, including the 498 cannabinoids other than THC and CBD. Also fiber, four, and hemp oil. And Terpenoids. And flavinoids. But grown on such a large industrial scale, it seems that the market will be saturated with hemp product and fast.

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

x

Acc'd to a new report from the CDC, the REAL issue with the CBD/hemp, THC and nicotine vape oils is Vitamin E acetate added to cut them with. Vaping Vitamin E acetate can lead to EVALI and even death. EVALI (E-cigarette Vaping Associated Lung Injury).

Back in the day we smoked gobs of black market weed from Colombia, Thailand and Mexico, and lived to tell the tale. Who knows what that had on it, including Paraquat. Smoking mites is not going to to kill you. Most herbicides, including Paraquat and dioxin are rendered harmless when burned. That is why there was no massive die off of hippies back on the later 1970s after the DEA was spraying plants with herbicides in Mexico. In Colombia and SE Asia, the common method of curing was to pile up fresh green cut colas and leave it all to rot. That killed the green chlorophyll and created a gold bud product. Smoking gobs of that stuff did not kill off heaps of people either. Botrytus rot is called noble rot in grape vineyards. That has been in late harvest wines since the dawn of civilization. Powdery mildew spores are in the air here non stop in the PNW. If that kills people, we would all be dead up here by now.

Not true they pileup fresh green colas and let them rot, that is just not true. Did you ever see this in person or is this just fake news? If you think smoking rot, Nobel or not, is ok then you are confused. Cannabis molds can kill you and is very dangerous for people with suppressed immune systems. https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/diseases/aspergillosis/statistics.html -SamS

Oddly with all the warnings and whatnot, its Vitamin E that is killing people that vape lately. Me, I only smoke my own weed (and hemp, but I do not make any distinction between any types of Cannabis plants) that I grow. Yeah, there are some mites and mite eggs in there, along with some mold and mildew. I do not have any lung issues though.

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

x

One thing to note about hemp after seeing what has happened in WA, OR and CA after mj legalization. The hemp market will be saturated, and fast. Likely faster than it was for mj in these western states after legalization. Nationwide hemp cultivation increased 550% in 2019. That is a HUGE increase in one year. Tennessee and Oregon dominate the number of hemp growing licenses issued with 2,913 and 2,534 respectively. The next highest is Kentucky with 972. Over a half million acres are now licensed for hemp cultivation in the US.

So how much CBD does the US market demand? And will CBD be allowed to be imported from overseas? And can it be harvested in vats and produced by brewer's yeast? (the answer is yes and yes).
While the answer is yes no one is selling GMO CBD cheaper than CBD grown on Cannabis plants yet, and that means no one will buy it vat grown, be honest. -SamS
Other products than CBD come from hemp though, including the 498 cannabinoids (There are not 498 Cannabinoids, if you thinks so post a reference to them or a list of all 498 Cannabinoids. -SamS) other than THC and CBD. Also fiber, four, and hemp oil. And Terpenoids. And flavinoids. But grown on such a large industrial scale, it seems that the market will be saturated with hemp product and fast.

 

[pipeline]

Hi everybody

,


"Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) in Cannabis sativa L "

by

Schachtsiek, J., Hussain, T., Azzouhri, K. et al. Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) in Cannabis sativa L.. Plant Methods 15, 157 (2019) doi:10.1186/s13007-019-0542-5


https://plantmethods.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13007-019-0542-5


Also

Method: low-cost delivery of the cotton leaf crumple virus-induced gene silencing system


https://plantmethods.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1746-4811-8-27



Seems interesting, hence the post
Cheers

Wanted to share this post with the Crawford brothers to make sure they know about these papers that just came out. Found it posted in the Recent Interesting Findings thread. Hope it can help with your breeding programs. Thanks for sharing with us!


https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=304840&page=52


Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!




https://plantmethods.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13007-019-0542-5

• Research
• Open Access
• Published: 26 December 2019

Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) in Cannabis sativa L.

• Julia Schachtsiek,
• Tajammul Hussain,
• Khadija Azzouhri,
• Oliver Kayser &
• Felix Stehle

Plant Methods volume 15, Article number: 157 (2019) Cite this article

• 177 Accesses
• 2 Altmetric
• Metrics details

Abstract

Background

The raised demand of cannabis as a medicinal plant in recent years led to an increased interest in understanding the biosynthetic routes of cannabis metabolites. Since there is no established protocol to generate stable gene knockouts in cannabis, the use of a virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) method, resulting in a gene knockdown, to study gene functions is desirable.
Results

For this, a computational approach was employed to analyze the Cannabis sativa L. transcriptomic and genomic resources. Reporter genes expected to give rise to easily scorable phenotypes upon silencing, i.e. the phytoene desaturase (PDS) and magnesium chelatase subunit I (ChlI), were identified in C. sativa. Subsequently, the targets of specific small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and silencing fragments were predicted and tested in a post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS) approach. Here we show for the first time a gene knockdown in C. sativa using the Cotton leaf crumple virus (CLCrV) in a silencing vector system. Plants transiently transformed with the Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain AGL1, carrying the VIGS-vectors, showed the desired phenotypes, spotted bleaching of the leaves. The successful knockdown of the genes was additionally validated by quantitative PCR resulting in reduced expression of transcripts from 70 to 73% for ChlI and PDS, respectively. This is accompanied with the reduction of the chlorophyll a and carotenoid content, respectively. In summary, the data clearly demonstrate the potential for functional gene studies in cannabis using the CLCrV-based vector system.
Conclusions

The applied VIGS-method can be used for reverse genetic studies in C. sativa to identify unknown gene functions. This will gain deeper inside into unknown biosynthetic routes and will help to close the gap between available genomic data and biochemical information of this important medicinal plant.

 

[OregonBorn]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Not true they pileup fresh green colas and let them rot, that is just not true. Did you ever see this in person or is this just fake news? If you think smoking rot, Nobel or not, is ok then you are confused. Cannabis molds can kill you and is very dangerous for people with suppressed immune systems. https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/diseases/...tatistics.html -SamS[/FONT]

Amusing. Trump fake news? So sorry, I have been all over North America, Central America and northern South America. I saw this method used several places in the late 1970s. Weed bricked when still green. Yep yep yep. I was also shown photos of fermenting piles of weed (so called sweat curing) from friends that were in Nam in the late 1960s. I was never in Nam, no. High draft numbers by pure chance. There was a web site with photos of this method in Thailand. I forget where it was posted. Lots if sites talk about sweat curing. Its not news, or fake news.

As for what the CDC says, they said that Paraquat weed would also kill us all. That is what Nixon had planned. It did not. Paraquat weed that I had was was bright gold and had no smell or taste to it at all. Yes, I had it tested at a lab. All the research that I have read on Paraquat is that it is rendered harmless when smoked. Everything I have researched on smoking botrytis rot in weed has led to assumptions and erroneous conclusions. If it was such a bad thing we would all be in the hospitals or dead by now in the PNW. I would be dead for sure. HUGE amounts of botrytis rot occur up here every year in weed harvests. Lots of botrytis rot and PM as well indoors everywhere it is grown. This year a large amount of the outdoor crop (hemp and marijuana) was lost in Oregon due to rot. So a lot will go into processing oil. And a lot will wind up on the black market. Accordingly, they will all die from smoking moldy black market weed? That has yet to happen here.

 

[OregonBorn]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] While the answer is yes no one is selling GMO CBD cheaper than CBD grown on Cannabis plants yet, and that means no one will buy it vat grown, be honest. -SamS[/FONT]

GMO cannabis, or GMO yeast? As an aside, GMO cannabis is not fake news any more, after Trait Biosciences has developed GMO cannabis strains in New Mexico. Those may have great potential, as they are targeting the production of polar cannabinoid molecules that are soluble in water. They are also developing cannabis plants resistant to mold, so hey, they have solved the problem of the moldy weed problem above. We will all actually be healthier as a result (if mold is the health issue that you and the CDC claim it is). I doubt that people will not buy mold resistant or water soluble product because they are GMO produced. I bet they will when they are made available. Like they do cheap GMO corn flakes.

However, I was not talking about GMO cannabis here. I was talking about GMO brewer's yeast here developed by UC Berkeley and being put into vat production by Hyasynth Bio in Canada. My "HONEST" opinion is that GMO vats will supply the majority of beverage and pharmaceutical cannabinoid and terpeniod and flavinoid products due to the low cost and ease to produce them. Since when does anyone look on an insulin bottle and look to see where it was manufactured or processed? That stuff is all biotech GMO produced from bacteria with human DNA. And that is (I believe) about 100% of the insulin Rx supply out there today. THAT is the model coming down the pipe. Yes, its a giant paradigm shift. And people will not believe it until it is already out there and the markets have changed over. Also in my experience living in several legal western US states, no one seems to care where their vape oil comes from, or what is in it, and that is about half of all legal sales here now. At least until th[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]e EVALI vape issue came up. Now maybe people will be more interested in the sources and contents of vape oil (e-cig and e-canna). [/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Be it from GMO brewer's yeast in a vat or GMO cannabis plants in New Mexico, GMO is here today in the cannabis world. Like it or not, here it comes.
[/FONT]

 

[OregonBorn]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif](There are not 498 Cannabinoids, if you thinks so post a reference to them or a list of all 498 Cannabinoids. -SamS) [/FONT]

If you read my post and do the math, I was actually referring to 500, 498 + 2. When I wrote the above post, I meant the total number of known compounds found in cannnabis which is somewhere around 500, no? OK, maybe closer to 400 known cannabis compounds. So you got me man. My BAD! I will commit seppuku at once! (gutting myself and falling over... now will someone please chop my head off!).

According to Wiki, there are 113 known cannabinoids produced by cannabis plants. The number varies a lot depending on where you look. There are potentially far more unknown cannabinoids, and some are made by other plants. Also there are over 120 known terpenoids found in Cannabis (also from Wiki). And there are over 6000 FLAVINOIDS!!! according to NCBI. Not all flavinoids are found in cannabis though, maybe 20 or so? Not much available research on that. My point with vat batch GMO production is that the yeast can produce ANY cannabinoid, flavinoid, or terpene/terpenoid that you want. Whatever the number, brewing in the vats, in Canada, right now! And they have also produced cannabis beer in Canada. Both beer brewed from cannabis with just a THC high, and regular beer with THC added. So there will be multiple cannabrews in Cannada. Are beer drinkers going to care if the cannabinoids were brewed as well?

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

GMO cannabis, or GMO yeast? As an aside, GMO cannabis is not fake news any more, after Trait Biosciences has developed GMO cannabis strains in New Mexico. Those may have great potential, as they are targeting the production of polar cannabinoid molecules that are soluble in water. They are also developing cannabis plants resistant to mold, so hey, they have solved the problem of the moldy weed problem above. We will all actually be healthier as a result (if mold is the health issue that you and the CDC claim it is). I doubt that people will not buy mold resistant or water soluble product because they are GMO produced. I bet they will when they are made available. Like they do cheap GMO corn flakes.

However, I was not talking about GMO cannabis here. I was talking about GMO brewer's yeast here developed by UC Berkeley and being put into vat production by Hyasynth Bio in Canada. My "HONEST" opinion is that GMO vats will supply the majority of beverage and pharmaceutical cannabinoid and terpeniod and flavinoid products due to the low cost and ease to produce them. Since when does anyone look on an insulin bottle and look to see where it was manufactured or processed? That stuff is all biotech GMO produced from bacteria with human DNA. And that is (I believe) about 100% of the insulin Rx supply out there today. THAT is the model coming down the pipe. Yes, its a giant paradigm shift. And people will not believe it until it is already out there and the markets have changed over. Also in my experience living in several legal western US states, no one seems to care where their vape oil comes from, or what is in it, and that is about half of all legal sales here now. At least until th[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]e EVALI vape issue came up. Now maybe people will be more interested in the sources and contents of vape oil (e-cig and e-canna). [/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Be it from GMO brewer's yeast in a vat or GMO cannabis plants in New Mexico, GMO is here today in the cannabis world. Like it or not, here it comes.
[/FONT]

Yes it is here but that does not mean I will buy it. GMO is illegal to grow in the EU which has twice the population of the USA. -SamS

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

Amusing. Trump fake news? So sorry, I have been all over North America, Central America and northern South America. I saw this method used several places in the late 1970s. Weed bricked when still green. Yep yep yep. I was also shown photos of fermenting piles of weed (so called sweat curing) from friends that were in Nam in the late 1960s. I was never in Nam, no. High draft numbers by pure chance. There was a web site with photos of this method in Thailand. I forget where it was posted. Lots if sites talk about sweat curing. Its not news, or fake news.

As for what the CDC says, they said that Paraquat weed would also kill us all. That is what Nixon had planned. It did not. Paraquat weed that I had was was bright gold and had no smell or taste to it at all. Yes, I had it tested at a lab. All the research that I have read on Paraquat is that it is rendered harmless when smoked. Everything I have researched on smoking botrytis rot in weed has led to assumptions and erroneous conclusions. If it was such a bad thing we would all be in the hospitals or dead by now in the PNW. I would be dead for sure. HUGE amounts of botrytis rot occur up here every year in weed harvests. Lots of botrytis rot and PM as well indoors everywhere it is grown. This year a large amount of the outdoor crop (hemp and marijuana) was lost in Oregon due to rot. So a lot will go into processing oil. And a lot will wind up on the black market. Accordingly, they will all die from smoking moldy black market weed? That has yet to happen here.

No one in the western Cannabis community does sweat cures for large crops of Cannabis there is a reason. It will fail Micobiological testing and be taken off the market. Yes it is used for illegal BHO extractions, but not sold legally. I will not smoke any product with mold in it will you? -SamS

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

Amusing. Trump fake news? So sorry, I have been all over North America, Central America and northern South America. I saw this method used several places in the late 1970s. Weed bricked when still green. Yep yep yep. I was also shown photos of fermenting piles of weed (so called sweat curing) from friends that were in Nam in the late 1960s. I was never in Nam, no. High draft numbers by pure chance. There was a web site with photos of this method in Thailand. I forget where it was posted. Lots if sites talk about sweat curing. Its not news, or fake news.

As for what the CDC says, they said that Paraquat weed would also kill us all. That is what Nixon had planned. It did not. Paraquat weed that I had was was bright gold and had no smell or taste to it at all. Yes, I had it tested at a lab. All the research that I have read on Paraquat is that it is rendered harmless when smoked. Everything I have researched on smoking botrytis rot in weed has led to assumptions and erroneous conclusions. If it was such a bad thing we would all be in the hospitals or dead by now in the PNW. I would be dead for sure. HUGE amounts of botrytis rot occur up here every year in weed harvests. Lots of botrytis rot and PM as well indoors everywhere it is grown. This year a large amount of the outdoor crop (hemp and marijuana) was lost in Oregon due to rot. So a lot will go into processing oil. And a lot will wind up on the black market. Accordingly, they will all die from smoking moldy black market weed? That has yet to happen here.

This took 5 minutes to find:

Fatal aspergillosis associated with smoking contaminated marijuana, in a marrow transplant recipient
https://sci-hub.tw/10.1378/chest.94.2.432

Pulmonary Aspergillosis, Inhalation of Contaminated
Marijuana Smoke, Chronic Granulomatous Disease
https://sci-hub.tw/10.7326/0003-4819-82-5-682

Too Many Mouldy Joints – Marijuana and Chronic Pulmonary Aspergillosis
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3103256/

Marijuana smoking and fungal sensitization
https://www.jacionline.org/article/0091-6749(83)90067-2/pdf

Aspergillus: The Most Dangerous Cannabis Pathogen
https://www.medicinalgenomics.com/aspergillus-dangerous-cannabis-pathogen/

3 Essential Components of Microbial Safety Testing
https://cannabisindustryjournal.com/tag/aspergillus/

Aspergillus and Organ Transplants
https://www.safeaccessnow.org/aspergillus_and_organ_transplants

Fungus in medical Marijuana eyed as possible cause of death
https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/02/06/medical-marijuana-fungus-death-uc-davis-medical-center/

 

[flylowgethigh]

This from: https://www.medicinalgenomics.com/aspergillus-dangerous-cannabis-pathogen/

"The danger posed to medicinal cannabis patients exists solely through the practice of ingesting cannabis by smoking, and inhaling, the product directly into the lungs through combustion. This danger is due to the fact that the heat created through the combustion does not reach the approximately 200 degrees required to effectively eliminate Aspergillus spores. "

I hope that is *C, and still real trouble for Volcano users.

 

[hellfire]

Are all of OregonCBD's strains too high in thc + thca now under the USDA rule?

On another note. Will an MTA or whatever legal effort semi patent/license companies try actually hold up in court when most of the cbd strains on the market all have direct parents in the public domain? Ie acdc cannatonic etc.

 

[socioecologist]

Been a while IC, hope everyone is as safe as safe can be under the current circumstances.

Oregon CBD Announces Triploid Varin-Rich Varieties

---

It’s late July and, if you followed our sowing and planting recommendations, crops of Oregon CBD varieties are going into flower across the country. This is a critical time in the field for farmers, who are filled with both excitement and nervous trepidation. Now is the time to be walking fields on the lookout for those rare (1/4000), but fully male phenotypes that can pollinate your crop and decimate returns.

As experienced cannabis farmers know, the threat of cross-pollination poses one of the most severe risks to a successful season. Having a crop pollinated is a severe hit for biomass farmers (loss of 50% of usable material and 30% reduction in average cannabinoid content) and catastrophic for anyone in the trimmed flower business (total loss). What if farmers never had to worry about pollination events again?

The team of scientists at Oregon CBD have made this dream a reality for 2021. Following in the footsteps of plant breeders in other crops (watermelon, banana, hops, grapes, citrus, etc.), we’re proud to introduce SEEDLESS cannabis varieties for 2021.

These Non-GMO triploid varieties are made possible through advanced ploidy screening.

Triploid benefits

• Infertile flowers
Your flowers will not be seeded by neighbors or by any rogue pollen generated on your farm

• Non-viable pollen
Any pollen that may escape your farm will NOT pollinate your neighbors

• Reduced costs
Hiring crews to rogue “males” is no longer necessary

• Increased yields
Up to 100% in some hop cultivars

• Increased aromatic content and complexity
30%-50% increase in terpene content in hops

• More efficient use of inputs
Increased copy number of key genes leads to hyper-efficient plants

• Fully compliant at day of harvest for total THC
Total THC fraction is cut in half over previous type III plants with THCVA in its place

• Rich in novel cannabinoids (CBDV, CBGV, and CBCV)
35%-65% of the total fraction are high value propyl cannabinoids

• Photoperiod sensitive and day neutral autoflower varieties
Allow for staggered harvests or September finishing times

• Attained through traditional breeding
Awaiting inspection, Non-GMO Project and Oregon Tilth


How is this possible?
It’s all mathematics. In this case, 2n + 4n = 3n.

Cannabis in the wild is almost exclusively a diploid (2n) species. In diploids, every plant receives one set of chromosomes from each parent. Though rare, spontaneous mutations can occur that result in a doubling of the diploid genomes and lead to tetraploid (4n) individuals even in controlled breeding populations.

Dr. Hsuan Chen and Brendan Rojas, research plant breeders at Oregon CBD, designed a series of experiments to treat diploid cannabis tissue with compounds known to inhibit cell division. The process approximates the tetraploid-inducing events that occur in nature at a very low rate, but does so (now, after many experiments) in a more consistent manner. Treated plants must be screened using a flow cytometer--a device that can measure the physical size of a plant genome--and compared to their diploid counterparts to detect the desired doubling of genome size. Success results in tetraploids: plants with four sets of homologous chromosomes (4n) and an identical doubled version of the mother. This screening process is repeated a number of times in subsequent generations of cuttings to prevent reversion to the diploid state.

Tetraploid cannabis plants have been described by two other research groups (Mansouri and Bagheri 2017 and Parsons et al. 2019) and their findings mirror ours; distinct morphological changes and increased nutrient consumption are apparent, but chemical composition (ratios and total amounts produced) is relatively unchanged--albeit with a marked increase in aromatic compounds. So far, evidence suggests that tetraploids offer little if any performance increase over diploids, with the exception of louder olfactory notes.

The game-changer for farmers happens when tetraploids (4n) are crossed with diploids (2n); the resulting seed carries 2 copies of chromosomes from the tetraploid parent and 1 set from the diploid parent (3n). This traditional plant breeding process is well documented and has been used to improve many other crops, particularly those where seedless characteristics, essential oil production, and increased biomass are valuable agronomic traits. We are able to offer this revolutionary advancement through ploidy improvements of our newly developed, varin-rich total THC compliant hemp varieties--making for one of the most significant single-year advancements in the history of modern cannabis breeding.

 

[gorilla ganja]

Well done, Hats off to you and your team.

 

[socioecologist]

The plant breeder on our team responsible for these new triploids will be publishing findings and the methods in coming months, but has been sharing some cool early details. Here is one of the first (quote from Dr. Hsuan Chen):

"Pollen resistance is essential. Inflorescences of a pollinated diploid plant (left) and a pollinated triploid plant (right) are demonstrated. The diploid plant stops accumulating inflorescence after pollinated and starts to produce seeds. The triploid plant, instead, keep blooming and accumulating female flowers. A huge difference in CBD yield can be simply expected. This is only one of many reasons that triploid cultivars are better than diploids.

To be continued.........."

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

Been a while IC, hope everyone is as safe as safe can be under the current circumstances.

Oregon CBD Announces Triploid Varin-Rich Varieties

---

It’s late July and, if you followed our sowing and planting recommendations, crops of Oregon CBD varieties are going into flower across the country. This is a critical time in the field for farmers, who are filled with both excitement and nervous trepidation. Now is the time to be walking fields on the lookout for those rare (1/4000), but fully male phenotypes that can pollinate your crop and decimate returns.

As experienced cannabis farmers know, the threat of cross-pollination poses one of the most severe risks to a successful season. Having a crop pollinated is a severe hit for biomass farmers (loss of 50% of usable material and 30% reduction in average cannabinoid content) and catastrophic for anyone in the trimmed flower business (total loss). What if farmers never had to worry about pollination events again?

The team of scientists at Oregon CBD have made this dream a reality for 2021. Following in the footsteps of plant breeders in other crops (watermelon, banana, hops, grapes, citrus, etc.), we’re proud to introduce SEEDLESS cannabis varieties for 2021.

These Non-GMO triploid varieties are made possible through advanced ploidy screening.

Triploid benefits

I HAVE MY DOUBTS?

• Infertile flowers
Your flowers will not be seeded by neighbors or by any rogue pollen generated on your farm

MOST IF NOT ALL TRIPLOIDS DO PRODUCE SEEDS

• Non-viable pollen
Any pollen that may escape your farm will NOT pollinate your neighbors

I DID NOT TEST MY TRIPLOID MALES TO SEE IF THE POLLEN WAS NON-VIABLE OR NOT, WE USED FEMALE CLONE TRIPLOIDS, 30, UNRELATED DIFFERENT LINES AND THEY ALL SET SEED TO VARYING DEGREES AND ALL ALSO PRODUCED WHITE NUB SEEDS THAT DID NOT FINISH INTO MATURE SEED. WE POLLINATED WITH NORMAL DIPLOID MALES, USED A DOZEN UNRELATED MALE CLONES FOR THE POLLINATIONS. OUR FEMALE TRIPLOID CLONES WE HAD 5 EXAMPLES OF EACH OF THE 30 VARIETIES, THEY ALL SET SEED.

• Reduced costs
Hiring crews to rogue “males” is no longer necessary

• Increased yields
Up to 100% in some hop cultivars

• Increased aromatic content and complexity
30%-50% increase in terpene content in hops

• More efficient use of inputs
Increased copy number of key genes leads to hyper-efficient plants

• Fully compliant at day of harvest for total THC
Total THC fraction is cut in half over previous type III plants with THCVA in its place

• Rich in novel cannabinoids (CBDV, CBGV, and CBCV)
35%-65% of the total fraction are high value propyl cannabinoids

• Photoperiod sensitive and day neutral autoflower varieties
Allow for staggered harvests or September finishing times

• Attained through traditional breeding
Awaiting inspection, Non-GMO Project and Oregon Tilth


How is this possible?
It’s all mathematics. In this case, 2n + 4n = 3n.

Cannabis in the wild is almost exclusively a diploid (2n) species. In diploids, every plant receives one set of chromosomes from each parent. Though rare, spontaneous mutations can occur that result in a doubling of the diploid genomes and lead to tetraploid (4n) individuals even in controlled breeding populations.

Dr. Hsuan Chen and Brendan Rojas, research plant breeders at Oregon CBD, designed a series of experiments to treat diploid cannabis tissue with compounds known to inhibit cell division. The process approximates the tetraploid-inducing events that occur in nature at a very low rate, but does so (now, after many experiments) in a more consistent manner. Treated plants must be screened using a flow cytometer--a device that can measure the physical size of a plant genome--and compared to their diploid counterparts to detect the desired doubling of genome size. Success results in tetraploids: plants with four sets of homologous chromosomes (4n) and an identical doubled version of the mother. This screening process is repeated a number of times in subsequent generations of cuttings to prevent reversion to the diploid state.

WE USED FLOW CYTOMETER AND FOUND THAT WHEN A PLANT IS TRANSFORMED FROM DIPLOID TO TETRAPLOID NOT ALL OF THE PLANT CAN BE ASSURED TO BE TRANSFORMED TO TETRAPLOID, YOU NEED TO CHECK ROOTS, STEMS, FLOWERS, LEAVES, OR YOU WILL HAVE A PARTIALLY TRANSFORMED TETRAPLOID, IN FACT AN ANEUPLOID AND I ADVISE TO NOT USE THEM FOR TRIPLOID SEED PRODUCTION.
-SamS

Tetraploid cannabis plants have been described by two other research groups (Mansouri and Bagheri 2017 and Parsons et al. 2019) and their findings mirror ours; distinct morphological changes and increased nutrient consumption are apparent, but chemical composition (ratios and total amounts produced) is relatively unchanged--albeit with a marked increase in aromatic compounds. So far, evidence suggests that tetraploids offer little if any performance increase over diploids, with the exception of louder olfactory notes.

The game-changer for farmers happens when tetraploids (4n) are crossed with diploids (2n); the resulting seed carries 2 copies of chromosomes from the tetraploid parent and 1 set from the diploid parent (3n). This traditional plant breeding process is well documented and has been used to improve many other crops, particularly those where seedless characteristics, essential oil production, and increased biomass are valuable agronomic traits. We are able to offer this revolutionary advancement through ploidy improvements of our newly developed, varin-rich total THC compliant hemp varieties--making for one of the most significant single-year advancements in the history of modern cannabis breeding.

WHEN WE DID SIMILAR UNPUBLISHED PLOIDY WORK FOR SEVERAL YEARS IN THE EARLY 1990'S WE FOUND TETRAPLOIDS THAT WERE SLIGHTLY BETTER IN YIELD AND OTHER FACTORS LIKE TERPENES, THEN THE DIPLOID MOTHER THAT THE TETRAPLOIDS WERE MADE FROM, BUT ALSO FOUND SOME MADE THAT WERE NOT AS GOOD AS THE DIPLOID MOTHERS. YOU STILL NEED TO EVALUATE ALL TO FIND SOMETHING TRUELY SUPERIOR TO THE DIPLOIDS AND TO USE ELITE TETRAPLOIDS TO MAKE ELITE TRIPLOIDS.

SO TO BE CLEAR YOU GET ZERO SEED SET? AND NO LITTLE WHITE NUBS OF UNFINISHED SEEDS? EVERY TRIPLOID WE MADE AND CONFIRMED BY FLOW CYTOMETER WHEN POLLINATED WITH DIPLOID POLLEN FROM AROUND A DOZEN DIFFERENT DIPLOID MALES DID SET SEED AND ALL MADE EVEN MORE WHITE NUB SEEDS LIKE FOUND IN ALL TRIPLOID WATER MELONS.
WE STOPPED THE R&D WHEN I WAS UNABLE TO PRODUCE 100% STERILE TRIPLOID FEMALES AS THAT WAS OUR GOAL, WE DID THIS WITH MAINLY HIGH THC VARIETIES BUT ALSO LOOKED AT INDUSTRIAL HEMP THAT HAD CBD AS THE MAIN CANNABINOID. IT ALSO HAD NO 100% STERILE TRIPLOIDS. WE HAD NO PROBLEM MAKING ALL FEMALE TRIPLOID SEEDS, BUT THEY STILL SET SEED ALL 30 DIFFERENT VARIETIES. WE ALSO FOUND A FEW TETRAPLOID INDIVIDUALS THAT WE PREFERRED TO THE TRIPLOIDS OR DIPLOIDS OF THE SAME VARIETY.

I PERSONALLY HOPE YOU HAVE DONE WHAT YOU SAY, IT WOULD BE VERY USEFUL FOR HASHISH PRODUCTION IN COUNTRIES LIKE MOROCCO WHERE ANY PLANTS GROWN OUTDOORS GET POLLINATED FROM NEIGHBORS MALE PLANTS. ANY IDIOT FARMER COULD MAKE MASSIVE CROPS OF UNSEEDED PLANTS FOR DRY SIFTING THE RESIN, AND GET HIGHER YIELDS OF RESIN.
-SamS

 

[socioecologist]

SO TO BE CLEAR YOU GET ZERO SEED SET? AND NO LITTLE WHITE NUBS OF UNFINISHED SEEDS?

I remember you writing about that here several times over the years. That information (the small, white, immature seed) is something I brought up to our team at the onset of the project in 2018, but it's not something that we have seen in our trials. We have a large number of different crossing populations in the study and are averaging 4 undeveloped seeds per plant (~40g of flower) when heavily pollinated over 3 weeks in a sealed 4'x4' tent.

I will get the above-pictured plant from Hsuan at the conclusion of this particular round of testing and grind it finely and post a picture. I know exactly what type of aborted embryo formation you are talking about and it would be great to confirm the result.

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

Good Luck,
I hope you are correct, mine all had lots of white nubs as well as set dark seeds, did you test them with only Triploid pollen or did you test them with Diploid pollen?
I only tested my 30 different unrelated Triploids (each plant over 6 feet tall 5 copies of each) with Diploid pollen from maybe a dozen unrelated Diploid Males, as that is the problem in the world, do you think that explains the difference? I know that in the world it is Diploid pollen they will run into and set seeds from. Maybe Triploid pollen is just not as viable? We had both THC and industrial hemp Triploids and Diploid Males we used to pollinate, they all set seed and all had even more white nubs than dark set seed. But the dark set seed was 10%-95% of normal yield of seeds, none had zero set seed, not including the white nub seeds found in all the Triploids.
Anyway, I am glad that 3 decades later this work is being pursued again, if it does lead to a useable breeding method, time will tell.
I did trials for 3 years before I gave up. But you know how R&D is most does not work out but you learn what does not work and occassionally do find R&D that moves Cannabis forward. Cannabis R&D is what I loved best besides smoking.
-SamS

I remember you writing about that here several times over the years. That information (the small, white, immature seed) is something I brought up to our team at the onset of the project in 2018, but it's not something that we have seen in our trials. We have a large number of different crossing populations in the study and are averaging 4 undeveloped seeds per plant (~40g of flower) when heavily pollinated over 3 weeks in a sealed 4'x4' tent.

I will get the above-pictured plant from Hsuan at the conclusion of this particular round of testing and grind it finely and post a picture. I know exactly what type of aborted embryo formation you are talking about and it would be great to confirm the result.

 

[pipeline]

Great to see an American pioneering this research in cannabis hemp! Keep up the good work!



Are there no stamen produced or is it simply the triploid plants are infertile?



If no pollen is produced that would also benefit anyone in the area growing diploid plants.