socioecologist
Member
It's sometimes difficult to step back and appreciate the opportunity we have been given to fully explore all of our questions/hypotheses about cannabis breeding, but this week gave us pause. With as many irons in the fire as we have, good news and bad news abound in equal proportions, so it was with a lot of trepidation that we opened up the 3-week-overdue spreadsheet of test results sent to us by our lab last Wednesday. Let the roller coaster begin!
Our 5 "early" series varieties are verified as type III cannabis plants. We expected this, but confirmation is always necessary (more on this below). In my photoperiod sensitivity experiment on these lines, all 5 varieties started flowering at about 15 hours of daylight--that's mid-July at 45N. They are about 2.5 weeks into flowering now and have completely taken over their space--really looking forward to the next few weeks as they start to smell!
We are stoked that our hypothesis re: photo sensitivity is again validated after our initial field trials last season: this is a breeding tool that allows ALL cannabis farmers to get their crops in earlier. We are very excited about the options that presents to us and other breeders. There will be additional experimental lines using this tool kit in our R&D field this summer (just flipped the greenhouse to produce these), including two different Haze hybrids converted to CBD production. I can't wait for these!
We also found out that one whole greenhouse was comprised of compromised plants--a final latent consequence of last season's massive cross-pollination event. It means 50 acres less in feminized seed production for us in 2017. Not stoked about that.
A couple of our leaf sample tests confused the hell out of the lab tech who ran them; there was barely any CBD, even less THC, and mostly some other compound--he thought their fancy new HPLC was busted. Nope, that's just a CBG-predominant plant...we're very happy, as this confirms another hypothesis we have been testing and opens up the door to large scale CBG farming next year. Look for the first commercial release of feminized CBG production seeds in the spring of 2018!
Testing accuracy remains a significant concern, even with our lab's incredibly rigorous ORELAP/NELAP certification. Case in point: as I mentioned in this thread, we received (what was purported to be) an extremely high ratio Cannatonic cut last summer from some friends out of Colorado. Their trimmed flowers tested at 20% CBD and 0.34% THC by a Colorado lab: a 58:1 ratio. We had a leaf sample tested by our lab immediately after receiving the plant, which produced an identical result of 58:1. Our friends flowered it out here in Oregon and produced trimmed flowers with 15% CBD and 0.62% THC (24:1). Confused, we submitted 5 new leaf samples for early ratio testing off of large, mature clones vegging in a greenhouse. Keep in mind these are identical plants...the results: 24:1, 68:1, 63:1, 23:1, and 154:1. Mean ratio in 5 samples: 66.4:1. That's 2.7x higher than we know this plant to be! A couple lessons embedded here: (1) do NOT trust test results from labs who are not required to be externally validated by competent certification bodies and (2) leaf sample ratios are great tools for identifying gross chemotype differences (i.e. type I, II, III, and IV plants), but are consistently inaccurate predictors of quantitative ratios. It's frustrating to know this, but will ultimately make us better at what we do.
The average ratios on our 5 "early" lines demonstrate how problematic this becomes when you are trying to provide the most accurate advice to farmers. We tested 61 plants total; the mean value for each variety was: 40.9, 28, 29.1, 32, and 39.2. Is this accurate? From what we know of these lines, it very well could be...but getting actual 40:1 averages in finished flowers isn't something we've been able to achieve from a breeding standpoint yet--who knows, maybe it's accurate. The lesson here is that, despite our best wishes and intentions, the only truly valid test for determining an average ratio for a variety requires large sample sizes and testing of finished flowers by an accredited lab. More to come on that front later in the spring.
Our 5 "early" series varieties are verified as type III cannabis plants. We expected this, but confirmation is always necessary (more on this below). In my photoperiod sensitivity experiment on these lines, all 5 varieties started flowering at about 15 hours of daylight--that's mid-July at 45N. They are about 2.5 weeks into flowering now and have completely taken over their space--really looking forward to the next few weeks as they start to smell!
We are stoked that our hypothesis re: photo sensitivity is again validated after our initial field trials last season: this is a breeding tool that allows ALL cannabis farmers to get their crops in earlier. We are very excited about the options that presents to us and other breeders. There will be additional experimental lines using this tool kit in our R&D field this summer (just flipped the greenhouse to produce these), including two different Haze hybrids converted to CBD production. I can't wait for these!
We also found out that one whole greenhouse was comprised of compromised plants--a final latent consequence of last season's massive cross-pollination event. It means 50 acres less in feminized seed production for us in 2017. Not stoked about that.
A couple of our leaf sample tests confused the hell out of the lab tech who ran them; there was barely any CBD, even less THC, and mostly some other compound--he thought their fancy new HPLC was busted. Nope, that's just a CBG-predominant plant...we're very happy, as this confirms another hypothesis we have been testing and opens up the door to large scale CBG farming next year. Look for the first commercial release of feminized CBG production seeds in the spring of 2018!
Testing accuracy remains a significant concern, even with our lab's incredibly rigorous ORELAP/NELAP certification. Case in point: as I mentioned in this thread, we received (what was purported to be) an extremely high ratio Cannatonic cut last summer from some friends out of Colorado. Their trimmed flowers tested at 20% CBD and 0.34% THC by a Colorado lab: a 58:1 ratio. We had a leaf sample tested by our lab immediately after receiving the plant, which produced an identical result of 58:1. Our friends flowered it out here in Oregon and produced trimmed flowers with 15% CBD and 0.62% THC (24:1). Confused, we submitted 5 new leaf samples for early ratio testing off of large, mature clones vegging in a greenhouse. Keep in mind these are identical plants...the results: 24:1, 68:1, 63:1, 23:1, and 154:1. Mean ratio in 5 samples: 66.4:1. That's 2.7x higher than we know this plant to be! A couple lessons embedded here: (1) do NOT trust test results from labs who are not required to be externally validated by competent certification bodies and (2) leaf sample ratios are great tools for identifying gross chemotype differences (i.e. type I, II, III, and IV plants), but are consistently inaccurate predictors of quantitative ratios. It's frustrating to know this, but will ultimately make us better at what we do.
The average ratios on our 5 "early" lines demonstrate how problematic this becomes when you are trying to provide the most accurate advice to farmers. We tested 61 plants total; the mean value for each variety was: 40.9, 28, 29.1, 32, and 39.2. Is this accurate? From what we know of these lines, it very well could be...but getting actual 40:1 averages in finished flowers isn't something we've been able to achieve from a breeding standpoint yet--who knows, maybe it's accurate. The lesson here is that, despite our best wishes and intentions, the only truly valid test for determining an average ratio for a variety requires large sample sizes and testing of finished flowers by an accredited lab. More to come on that front later in the spring.
