Talking Points:
- Cannabis & hemp breeding – past, present, future
- Downstream supply chain efficiencies
- Indoor & greenhouse craft hemp flower cultivation
- New genomic tools and techniques for better seeds
- Plant touching intellectual property and proper protections
About the Guest Speaker
Matt is a breeding & processing specialist in the cannabis & hemp industry and is known as a thought leader who is routinely selected to speak at various expos and trade shows. He has built several award-winning brands in the cannabis sector, ranging from genetics companies to extraction & post-refinement. Matt is an advocate for implementing new technological innovations and transforming the way cannabis can be utilized. As a cannaseur of top quality cannabis products, his vision and expertise will continue to drive innovation and quality within the industry. Matt is currently the CEO of Trilogene Seed Company.
Introduction of the Guest Speaker
Matt Haddad introduced himself and said, “I’m the CEO of Trilogene Seeds, a feminized hemp genetics company based in Colorado. As far as my cannabis journey, it really started on the THC side. So I used to co own the Cali connection Seed Company, helped bring that brand out to Colorado and to the recreational market, did one of the largest seed production projects in metric and those seeds are still sold to this day, and back in 2015, I had a friend who was making CBD isolate and selling them for 20,000 a kilo. And I started to learn more about this space started to work with some of the varieties that I had that were high CBD work with local farmers to identify unique traits we were trying to stabilize, most of which was high CBD with low lipid content so that you lost you lose less than the winterization phase of extraction. And then it just kind of kept progressing from there for us to work with new varieties, create new classes, bring out terpene expressions, bring out minor cannabinoid expressions and start to work with fiber and dual purpose crops. And we’ve since kind of elevated our genetics game and released about 60 different genetics to market since 2016, when we did our first seed release, we’re in about 48 US states as far as farmers, we’ve serviced and 28 countries internationally. So I think we’re the most or one of the most exposed cannabis genetics companies in the world, and work with farmers all over the world. So now we have been embracing our conventional breeding aspects for years, just continuously backcrossing stabilizing our varieties to be homozygous or homozygous. And then the past three plus years have really been embracing new genomic tools and breeding technologies to allow us to accelerate these processes, and give the clients and farmers a really solid seed to start from.”
Mandi Lynn Kerr asked a question and said:
Are there any questions or topics right off the bat that you think needs to be addressed? From your role going into planting season, maybe we should be focusing on this year?
Matt Haddad replied:
When it’s, it’s funny, because people come to us all the time and say, oh, I want to grow smokable or high CBD. And a lot of times we’d like to reverse engineer that conversation by starting with, where are you growing? And what are you growing for? And based on those two responses, you can help reverse engineer what seed might be good for them? And is it starting from seed? Is it a seedling? Is it a clone? Is tissue culture something you certainly want to explore? So I think before people jump in deep, they need to answer the basic questions to make sure they start off on the right foot.
Mandi Lynn Kerr said. There are many questions about a wide range of topics. I suppose. Right, the topic of discussion has shifted dramatically. And there’s a lot of talk about how much land is required for CBD or cannabinoid growth, right? Where do you see that as a market and an opportunity, particularly on the feminized genetic front?
Matt Haddad said.
I think starting from a feminized seed for biomass production is pretty crucial. You’re just going to get a much bigger bang for your buck, when you look at yield per acre are far less problems to deal with as far as pulling males. I think starting from a feminized seed is the way to go and more specifically direct sowing seed at scale for CBD biomass, in my opinion, is the way of the future where there’s some people that have been kind of transplanting seedlings or even transplanting clones that that could have a high cost, you need specific types of planners both on the direct selling and transplant side. So I think that’s still a very strong market. And the past two years or so it’s been a little rough, though, I think we’ve seen a saturation in the market, whereas in a true bear market, people were struggling a lot of extractors buying distressed lots that were lower in CBD and ultimately being sold for prices that are not sustainable. Unfortunately, we, you know, had to see kind of farmers lose their ass to really have Everybody wake up. So now moving into the future, though a lot of those distressed lots, I think have been bought up, the demand for biomass and isolate, even right now is going up from where it’s been the past year and a half, two years. I think it’s on a positive trajectory. And in the process of being a bull market, where we really see a sustainable price kind of flatten out and stabilize.
Mandi Lynn Kerr said. Talk to me a little bit, I see Latin America really taken off, right, legalizing across the board all the countries. Can you talk to me about what the market and opportunities look like there? And where are you in that market?
Matt Haddad said
It’s really, really exciting what’s happening in South America. And I think at the end of the day, localizing this crop is what needs to happen. To just make it most efficient, there needs to be localized processing facilities, localized farmers, extractors, etc. So in South America, some of the big countries have been Uruguay and Ecuador. Argentina has come online with both private companies and ones with the government. So it’s been huge. And Ecuador is a unique one, for example, because it’s really close to Florida and the Port of Miami. And since they’re on the equator, in the equatorial line, they can really have four harvests a year, with auto flower crops, there’s a little bit of a rainy season, a little bit more in the higher altitude regions of Ecuador. But more or less, you can have quite a few harvests a year. So it’s exciting to see that people are starting to embrace more the smokeable side, the biomass side, starting to formulate and just have the industry mature in those areas. It’s always funny, though, because, you know, we’re in America, obviously, where it’s a little bit more of a mature market and the conversations we were having in 2014 15 16. We’re having them all over again, now, just with South America. So it’s good to see that some of the same trajectories are happening, and we have some experience that’ll be valuable to make sure they don’t make the same mistakes we did, because I think America made quite a few.
Mandi Lynn Kerr asked Matt Haddad and said. What are some of those? What would you say they can do differently?
Matt Haddad replied:
I would say stick to your niche, start with your core business of what you want to do. And then you can always grow from there. I think in America, everybody wanted to be the biggest and best vertically integrated company in the world. And people lost focus of their core business, it ultimately led to them doing everything okay, instead of really well. And that’s something I think Trilogene and has done a decent job of is, you know, we’re a seed company, we produce seeds. Do we know farmers? Yes. Do we have access to isolation? Yes. But our core business is seed production and genetic development. That’s, that’s what we do. And, that’s what I would suggest for any company, really, in any country at this time is focused on your niche, become really good at one or two things and be a strong spokes in the wheel, you don’t have to be the whole wheel.
Mandi Lynn Kerr said. I say collaboration is what’s going to take to move this industry forward, right to really bring this to the mainstream. Okay, so genetics and strength of understanding the genetics and then speaking to certified seeds, right, can you can you talk a little bit about what each of those mean and why they would be important and or may not be as important in different situations.
Matt Haddad replied and said
So certified seed is an intriguing topic. So, for example, almost every state in the United States does not care about certified seed at this time in terms of allowing farmers to cultivate specific seeds and crops. I think there’s a lot of validity and having a third party entity helps control and establish guidelines on what needs to be done in order to make and prove your varieties homozygous and can be commercialized in the market. It’s been challenging for a company like us because Oska and the CDA and Colorado seed Growers Association did not have protocols in place for feminized seed. And for what we do. We need to be able to certify feminized seed, not just regular dioecious seed. So that just happened in 2019. And we in fact helped them come up with the protocols of how to adjust the application to allow the certification of feminized seeds, but even then we did that with one of our varieties called sangria. Got it to the point of being able to commercialize and sell. And there’s just not much of a demand there. There are farmers in Florida who certainly asked, that’s the only state to my knowledge that you have to either be approved or go through university trials. But it hasn’t been a big thing. The other two things with C certification that’s flawed, in my opinion, is genomics. Until we understand more about the cannabis genome and these genetics and how they’re different and unique, and ultimately homozygous, how do you certify something that’s going to be obsolete in two years? Why don’t you push farmers to grow something that ultimately is not the best version of itself. And that’s one of the things that we’ve taken to heart is fiber production and grain production for those seeds. It’s all pollinated outdoors by several different phenotypes, maybe the whole population is homozygous, but it’s hard to stabilize certain traits, because you’re not making selections. So with us, we’ve taken the approach of feminizing, fiber dominant and grain dominant cultivars, so that we can make selections and be very strategic with the pollination so that we’re stabilizing the traits that we want. So with seed certification, until you have genetics that are really unique and special, and can go through those third party steps with flying colors, to us, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to certify them yet, especially if the government’s not jamming it down your throat. So we want it to be a thing more in the future, a little bit of an unstable process right now, in my opinion, but very much need to have those processes in place once genetics have caught up to where they need to be.
Mandi Lynn Kerr asked a question and said
So tell me about your genomic assistance selection program. What does that mean? How does it work? And what’s the benefit? How do farmers know what to grow?
Matt Haddad replied.
When you just do conventional breeding, you’re able to make selections and stabilize certain traits through backcrossing. So that’s kind of traditionally how a lot of breeders have stabilized those traits and made sure that the seeds that are commercializing are what they say they are. We, especially on the you know, there’s the conventional breeding side, and then there’s really the genomics side. So with genomics and genetic marker assisted breeding, for example, you look into the genome and you identify clusters of genes or specific genes that are modulating certain behaviors, and you can identify those characteristics and ultimately breed and select from them. So, you know, that’s one of the main differences between fiber varieties and just conventional breeding is you can control those things instead of it being one big open pollination party.
Mandi Lynn Kerr asked a question.
So biggest differences would you say that you’re seeing in different regions as you’re selecting those genes?
So one of the hardest things has been environment controls, you know that no, there’s been some some media out there of environment does not play a role in THCA expression or THC expression, which is complete BS I think breeding 101 will tell you environment absolutely will play a role in reference to secondary metabolites. They cannot form without environmental controls influencing them. So things like minor cannabinoids, you’ll see minor cannabinoid expression more typical in some outdoor crops than that of indoors from a very general perspective. So we’ve seen certain varieties that maybe have similar photoperiod, but different microclimates have a completely different cannabinoid expression, you know if it was grown in Colorado versus Italy, for example. So all that we do know is that THCA is directly linked to the immune system response in the plant. So anytime there’s over fertilization or too much wind or heat burn or sunburn, you’ll absolutely get a higher THCA expression than that of a controlled indoor environment that’s living soil, organics with heavy microbiology, those typically have better CBD to THC ratios than that of a uncontrolled field.
Comments and Suggestions
Austin Sheppe commented and said, My background is in sort of genetics from a eukaryotic and microbiology perspective. And so now I work with a company who sort of creates these types of tools that people use for marker assisted selection. And yeah, it’s pretty much a really neat way of doing a fino Hunt is Now you have these sort of traditional aspects of smell, Bud structure, stem diameter, things like that, that are going to tell you that this is a plant that’s growing vigorously. And now it’s being able to use DNA sequences to identify maybe how those traits are controlled or discover new traits that you didn’t know were controlled by certain genes that we haven’t necessarily found or elucidated yet in the cannabis genome. So talking more about learning how the genome works, what’s there, what it can do, how it responds to stressors, is all what this sort of research is about. So coming from the scientific world, all of this is super interesting to me. But from a commercial standpoint, I am really here to try and identify, you know, what solutions are reasonable and affordable and understandable to the community because there’s no point in trying to, you know, offer solutions that people aren’t going to adopt. So really just here to help with information, education, and when what you guys are working on.
Oussama Badad commented and said, I was just going to add something on that market-assisted breeding program. We’re coming up with something really interesting that we tried in soybean before and asked me to come and we actually did that with rapid genomics before Austin joined the company. So we do Italian by target sequencing, which basically would disrupt the DNA in the plant on a sea level, we grow it. And we use those markers and those genes, let’s give you an example. It’s very easy. Let’s say we’re looking for phenotypes with specific THC content, maybe a 0% THC content, what we do is we create those mutations, we grow the plant for about two, three weeks just to have enough material to collect DNA. And we sequence those genes, if we find the mutation in, for example, GHC centers, who will pull that phenotype from the lot, because we know that a mutation in that gene is going to do something either gonna stop judging from working, or maybe it will enhance its expression. So that’s, that’s the candidate. So instead of waiting all the way to the flowering stage, and then doing HPLC analysis, and then go back and reverse your plants, we just reduce the time and the cost. So three, four weeks to know which one you keep instead of a four months program. So using genomics, as I said, last time, we know it’s just a tool. And if we capitalize on genomics today, we’ll save time looking at corn industry, soybean industry, 5060 years of breeding, and we didn’t make a lot of progress until we had the first draft genomes. So when you know what’s in your genome, you can target specific genes. So whole genome sequence, target sequencing like the platform from rapid genomics. We’ve I don’t want to I don’t want to talk about it right now. But we are working on something really cool. I can see Matt smiling right now, Austin, and we’re working on some pretty cool stuff. Hopefully we can share later on. But just to emphasize today the trilogy in seed is coming to bear is a revolution and we want to be at the forefront of it. We want to sequence the genotypes that will be heavy hitters in the breeding programs. We don’t want to waste time. We don’t want to allow you know, that old randomness of just you know, hunting based on. I mean, if you’re interested in cannabinoids, and you’re doing your selection based on this date, you don’t know what you’re selected for, maybe that genotype when the plant’s flowering doesn’t have the things that you’re looking for. So using genomics using sequencing, either whole genome, targeted sequencing or even just regular Sanger sequencing for like one gene at a time. All of these tools will allow us to select better, faster and to produce more. So this is Just something I wanted to add on. And we’re, we’re pretty excited.
Jennifer Blanchard asked a question.
The problem with field grown hemp in Louisiana is humidity and fungal infection. Are there any genetic lines that you know of that are more resistant to fungal infection ?
Matt Haddad replied and said.
We have some varieties that are very resistant to fungus and pathogens. We can help recommend a strong variety for you in Louisiana.
He elaborated and said. Jennifer is just asking about varieties specific to Louisiana that have some resistance to funguses. And pathogens. And this is a perfect example, right? Where are you growing Louisiana, in which area? Which microclimate a very humid and pathogen ridden area. So you want to make sure that the variety has really good resistance, maybe something a little sativa leaning, that has some of those characteristics to resist pathogens and, and funguses. So this is a perfect example of what we could help recommend. And one off the top of my head is called Super wife. Very, very resistant variety that we have. And that’s a perfect example of knowing what you’re getting into prior to planting.
Matt Haddad explained about Photoperiod
He stated that the photoperiod has 18 hours or so of vegetative state, which typically mimics spring in most regions, I guess, weather in the northern or southern hemispheres. And that’s what makes the plant essentially grow in size and then come roughly about in August, they’ll start to turn into the flower cycle, when the days are getting shorter, and the Summer Solstice happens, they start to get shorter into the fall, that’s where the flowers mature and then finish. And then there’s certain areas like South Florida, Ecuador, Thailand that have this almost 12 hours your year round. And that’s very challenging as a grower, especially outdoors if you don’t have infrastructure with a greenhouse just because of that supplemental lighting. So we typically recommend outdoor production in equatorial regions, auto flower varieties, and we’ve developed excellent ones with two new ones on its way both for the smokeable side and CBD biomass side.
Like Trilogene as a company that wants to breed and stabilize varieties for every photo period, and microclimate, it’s the hours in between 12 and 18, that are tricky. Some varieties will start to trigger themselves, let’s say at 16 hours of light, others varieties might trigger themselves at 14 hours of light. So stabilizing that variety for the exact photoperiod in that region, where it’s all homozygous and you don’t have phenotypes that are all over the place and triggering at different times is the goal, and is what we’ve done with a few varieties and are continuing to do on others. But that is the biggest challenge with equatorial regions.
Austin Sheppe asked a question and said
So I think auto flowers from a genetic standpoint are really interesting, simply because the fact that you have a quicker turnaround cycle from initial seed to final product, but also because depending on the variety you’re using, they’ll flower at different day, not not just photo periodism, but how many days they’ll be in vegetative growth before they’ll switch to flower. And so, you know, my question is, when it comes to breeding for auto flowers, have you sort of found any sort of maybe information or data because I’m a scientist on on sort of what seems to be best for for those types of varieties, because they really will make a huge difference in an equity tutorial regions, but it’s also about getting them to the right size before flipping over. So you get a good final product.
Matt Haddad said.
no, and that’s, that’s a great point. So two things. One is some auto flowers, like you said, finished a little bit sooner. So like, our earliest finishing auto flower is about 65 days from germination to harvest, whereas the latter is about 90 days from germination to harvest. So dialing in, that is certainly an important thing. And then, you know, I know, there’s really two main genes that modulate the auto flower gene. We’ve worked with our friends, chi gene, and energy and who are based out of Israel to help identify those. So that’s still something to be honest, we’re kind of dialing in. But we’ve done several s one populations that are inbred lines that are really stable, and really keep those characteristics that the hardest thing is been producing feminized varieties like that outdoors in very, very isolated fields, you know, without pollen drift, and that are off season. That’s how we’ve taken on and decided to do a lot of our auto flower seed production, because you’re planting a lot more densely on that acreage, you’re doing, let’s say 20,000 An acre instead of maybe 2000 An acre with a traditional full term PHOTOPERIODIC. So we need to make that cost efficient for farmers. That’s something we’re in the process of doing. And we have a couple options that are cheap right now. But I think in about three months after this next harvest comes down we’re currently doing, we’re going to be able to even lower that cost more often, but also, I’ll connect with you after this and maybe link you in a thread with Chris so that we can all have a more strategic conversation about that.
Paul Moreno asked a question and said.
What about photoperiod and fiber/hurd/grain production?
Matt Haddad replied and said.
That’s a similar challenge, especially for people in equatorial regions; there really aren’t, to my knowledge, a lot of super stable varieties. But there’s, you know, interesting varieties that I think are still being looked at and genotypes like in Morocco, for example. Places like that, where it’s traditionally been just homozygous, the delicious seed falls on the floor, it’s rebirth every year. So I think most of the fiber dominant cultivars we’re aware of are more in true photoperiod regions, not in equatorial regions. So an auto flower fiber and grain dominant cultivars would be excellent. Although pollen and water aren’t necessarily best friends, let’s just say pollen. And you know, pollen drift is limited a lot when there’s a lot of humidity and water. So the grain yields per acre in some of these humid equatorial regions, I don’t think are going to be as efficient as places like Colorado or Illinois or more northern or southern states. But this is why we do the research. This is why we look into the gene to see some of the gene expression data. really identify those things.
Darell Huddleston asked a question and said.
They just follow up on what he just said about the green, we’re looking at some green numbers. They’re using 456 kilogram OC to get one liter of oil down in Latin America. They’re giving somebody advice on when to harvest and how to harvest. But going back to this stuff in the southeast part of the US, we’ve been on a lot of fields. A lot of these are converted rice fields, converted sugarcane fields, converted cotton fields, they’re all irrigated, they’re all depressed areas. We weren’t there. There was a guy in Louisiana two years ago, he spent almost a million dollars raising one of his fields up. But by the time he harvested the market, it crashed. So he didn’t really realize his investment back. But you know, I applaud you seed companies doing what you do. But we need more people going out to these fields yard ship and truckloads of seeds out to builds that are a foot or two foot below grade, and hemp won’t grow in a pond. Unless you’re growing aquaculture aquaponics aquaponics or something like that. But as far as row crop farming, it’s got to be a crop yield for him. A lot of the land in the southeast is low, as historically what’s been farmed down here and the way we farm down here. Due to whatever conditions we have, especially down in South Texas, everything is flood irrigated, cotton, corn and everything. Watermelons like everything are flood irrigated. These guys get a truckload of seeds and throw the hemp seeds out there and they get a horrible crop, or it dies or it doesn’t make good yield. And we go to look at it. And it’s a depressed field, this load irrigated, and they control their irrigation, but they can’t control the weather. And then when it rains a lot, they get to put water in the plants and go under water. And that’s happened to Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, for the last two years. But the same company that keeps chipping seeds down here, says we’re working on genetics, but nobody’s sending up a build engineer to go look at the field. But I think the more support leaves from the seed companies.
Matt Haddad said. That’s a really tough one. And I wish I had a better answer. But the reality is, climate change, I think, is really starting to take effect and affect farmers more than earlier finishing varieties, narrowing down that season is going to be beneficial so that you can prepare the field as well as harvest the crop before a big hail or a big storm kind of comes in. So those are certainly things we were looking at the water, you know, having really deep water in certain fields. That’s one I don’t know, that can ever be resolved.
Drew Kitt commented and said
I wouldn’t say better insight so much is that it’s just a highly complex plant and a highly complex market. And you know, when you’re dealing with cannabis, and again, that’s the plant we’ll be talking about. It just depends on which type one, two or three and for this conversation, it’s hemp type three, which is that low THC, which we haven’t touched on, but that’s also, you know, a big issue in the market, but the market is highly complex in that. So grain, obviously, is one end use fiber, another which has some different, you know, sub categories. But when you’re talking about hemp to be grown for oil, as Matt had mentioned, kind of what’s that end use? Is it oil or is it smokeable smokeable super complex? And I see Jesse on here and Jeremy I mean, when you’re talking about bag appeal, the you know, from a consumer market to be able to develop genetics that are going to sell in the market for smokeable super unique, highly complex, interesting space dealing with terpene profiles, the cannabinoid profile the structure, if it’s to larvae, is it tight, how it’s trimmed? There’s so many variables but it’s a much smaller market and it takes a lot of time and effort. So talking about certified seed if you’re every year that market changes, like first it was Bubba Kush. And then lately, there’s been other genetics that have more appeal just from that nose like a terpinolene. That sour tropical fruit nose was really popular last year. So it changes so much. It’s really hard to get ahead of the market. What Darrow is talking about is like rope crop, large scale oil production where maybe you have a variety that year over year, you’re consistently producing for oil and you’re planting density like mirlo. Behind me, this was in North Carolina, more tightly dense, you’re not walking the field selecting that smokeable. It’s outdoor, there’s going to be bug pressure disease, weed, a lot of that can get dealt with during extraction. So again, you really need to match what you’re growing for, to that genetic, where it is. And the cold, you can have that same genetics grown by different people even in the same area, and it’s going to end up potentially different. How you feed it, how you manage it, it’s just really hard to, like generalize the market, it gets really deep. It’s hard to like, nail it every time. So we’re learning every year, you know, it’s really interesting to see as it evolves. And I appreciate all those people on the call that are in this space trying to help the industry succeed. Because again, we’re all working together to try to make this happen.
Mandi Lynn Kerr to Drew Kitt.
Can you touch on or talk a little bit about our seed trials and some of the purpose of it? I
Drew Kitt replied and said
I mean, just you know, real simple, there’s small trial plots, so that you can manage the different variables. So they’re there. Even soil variation affects, like Darrell also had mentioned with water and kind of irrigation. So dealing with smaller plots, you’re more easily able to manage the control of the growth, we’re dealing with fiber varieties. So we’re looking at yield primarily because the market, you know, smokeable market has one kind of type plant that you’re going after with a fiber for this trial, we’re going for herd yield because of the building material, and use applications or animal bedding. So those are the 10 varieties we’ve targeted, some are Oska certified, some are not, each of them are going to be grown in different regions, because Matt already touched on as far as lightcycle. And the other variability variables, including whether that’s unpredictable. So just seeing how these plants perform the same plants in different regions being grown for the same end use and being managed in a similar way. It’s going to be really interesting to see the same varieties that are performed consistently in each of those different locations. Highly unlikely, but what are those variables? This way we can help the farmer understand what some of these expectations may be, but it’s not like you can replicate a small trial when you’re growing at scale. So at least it gives an indication to try to limit what you choose. Because again, even getting some of these varietals, you know, with the war in Europe, and there’s the cost of importation, it’s hard to check all the boxes every time but the more we do research, the more we learn, and the more we can eliminate some of those mistakes that are costly for farmers by not knowing so we’re just trying to help identify some things to help be more successful with.
Mandi Lynn Kerr added and said. there’s something like 40 data points at the field not including everything we’ve done before the field which is pretty exciting, but are some of our sponsors are like IND HEMP, PRAIRIE BAND AG, AGRILEAD, Formation Ag and Agri Lead so far that have come on and so like I said, seeds are going in the ground.
Drew Kitt said. And the work is being done by, you know, standardized SOPs being done by third party crop research scientists so it’s gonna be quality.
Mandi Lynn Kerr said. And all on they’re all certified like you said there and I think all but one have previous hemp farming experience, which made a big difference also in his studying.
Matt Haddad added and said.
We have agronomists on our team. So we do it for some clients who buy seeds. They also need consulting on how to grow this successfully so we can offer that service. We have a certified agronomist on our team, as well. We work with other certified I’d crop consultants for IPM and other beneficial options, especially on the smokeable and greenhouse side. So yeah, we can definitely offer that support as well.
Neil Havermale asked a question and said. Is there any “certified” hemp consultant test or qualification being presented by the primary crop consultancy associations? Or is this the era of self-nomination from various schools of hard knocks?
Matt Haddad replied. I think there are several agencies that are legitimate and come from other crops. And that’s certainly always a good place to start in reference to just their knowledge and understanding of real crops and scaling challenges and things like that. But in reference to the school of hard knocks, I have a soft spot for that, because that’s where I came from, to be honest. I think there’s a lot of validity in that knowledge, even though some label it maybe as bro science, but part of what we’ve been doing is bridging the gap between the bro science and the science science, right, I think there’s knowledge from both sides that needs to be combined. And that’s certainly what we’re trying to do for children.
Mandi Lynn Kerr asked a question and said.
Can you speak more to the planting density for auto flowers?
Matt Haddad replied and said.
With outdoor production, I would say roughly around 20,000 per acre is, you know, good measure. So similar to what we were talking before with Austin of there’s certain auto flowers that might mature a little bit faster, let’s say in about 65 days, because they’re more dependent on time rather than photo period. So if it’s only getting 12 hours of light, it’ll finish in 65 days, if it’s getting 24 hours of light, it’ll also finish in 65 days. So there’s ones that finish and 65 days all the way up to 90 days, and based on those levels of maturity and base based on when you’re planting exactly, that’s where it can fluctuate in planting density, really between 15 and 25,000 per acre is typically what we recommend. And then similar for like full term varieties, if you’re going to be transplanting seedlings, at the end of May, you only you might only need 1700 per acre, where if you’re going to be planting at the end of June, you might need closer to 3000 per acre for example, so time of planting is really important for PHOTOPERIODIC. And with Otto flowers, it’s more based on maturity. So you can really see how much space those plants take up and to be honest, one of the things we’ve noticed and seen is areas that have a higher power sun value, like places like South Florida, those auto flowers will just photosynthesize more and get larger than in a place let’s say like Vermont, you know, that’s a little bit more cloudy. So I think depending on where you are and how much sun you’re getting in that term, and versus how cloudy it is in that specific term that will help maneuver your planting density for autos.
Sondra Huddleston asked a question and said.
For smokable in Texas indoor grow is the best. Control environment. -Heat- Cross pollination.
Matt Haddad said
I agree, you know, and the quality of indoor CBD flowers is excellent. I think people have had this narrative in their head of hemp tastes like hey, and a lot of the people who were smoking were doing it outdoors before and then drying it in a barn. That’s not the way that’s where the bro science of cannabis cultivation is starting to clash with that’s, you know, very relevant in that topic. We’ve worked very hard to create varieties that are really rich in terpene content and have a really good smokeable experience even though it’s hemp and CBD flowers, but indoors is absolutely where you’ll get the best product in my opinion.
Alejandro from Argentina.
Do you, guys, have made RILs or NILs populations or do you know other companies that have made them?
Oussama Badad commented and said.
Recombinant inbred lines are basically you take two two parents that are genetically very different. When you cross them, what you’re developing is a recommended red line, which is the hitters because he’s really big in it. You want your study in your study in multiple genes to see segregation. When you do an NILs which is a near isogenic line. They’re mostly very stable one, but they have like one or two. That way you can study. The difference between recovery in the red line and those near isogenic is just the level of segregation within them. So if you’re looking at a big population looking for different tree traits, you can use a recombinant inbred line. If you are targeting one gene specifically, you can use a nearly isogenic line that’s the only difference.
Matt Haddad added and said.
Anybody who has any of these individual questions, I know we got to do as many as we can. Feel free to reach out to us directly. Feel free to reach out to Mandy directly. We’re happy to get on the phone, schedule a call and talk about your topic specifically. So we’re always available well to all of our farmers and clients, or even just collaborators and people who are genuinely interested, we want to provide the knowledge we can to help make people successful. So anything we can do to help, we’re more than happy to.
Neil Havermale asked a question and said.
What are the top three fiber traits that you are hunting for? selecting for?
Matt Haddad said
if we have to narrow to three, that’s going to be tough, but some things we’re looking at are amino acid content, protein content, bass fiber content, I’d say those are some of the the top ones we’re looking at.
Neil Havermale asked a question and said.
I’m most interested in the fiber test, actual, test of fiber, the resulting fiber at the NoCo, hemp. Dude, us there was a really interesting group out of India that was on a worldwide hunt for high quality threads to go. And I said, How much do you want? She said, our business is exploding for high quality weaving. And so the question is, are there any lines that will provide the highest quality of fiber that is required for these manufacturing specs?
Matt Haddad replied and said.
I think so. And one, one question I would ask them if they were here is how they are processing and making those weaves. What type of processing equipment do they have? Because we’ve noticed, depending on that, genetics make a major influence. So you know, varieties like jinma, for example, that have really long, dense fibers to coordinate extremely well, where things like canola and fanola, who have thinner, thinner stocks and less fiber density typically for weaving purposes are less efficient. So I would definitely be curious how they’re doing that.
Mandi Lynn Kerr commented and said.
I’m interested actually, as I’m as we’re talking, that’s something we should be looking at on our fiber trials is pulling that data, you know, through each step, I was just typing a note saying Drew Kitt , we should be pulling this data from our trials. And I know that it’s not something we didn’t include originally in this year’s trials, but looked at doing it for next year. But more and more I hear that conversation come up on specifics to fiber quality throughout the process. Versus just there.
Neil Havermale asked a question and said
Are you aware of Mandi Lynn Kerr or any of our group of us based fiber testing labs that’s willing to take in Chem, tests and fiber tests?
Mandi Lynn Kerr replied
I’ve had a member who’s been doing it for years in India. And they’re looking to bring testing and fiber fiber quality testing to the US. But I don’t know if they’re in the US yet. And I know that Bill was looking into this as well. Maybe that’s where this is coming from.
Dave Crabill commented and said
Maybe I think there’s some companies that can do some tensile strength testing on the fiber. You know, so I think that’s readily available
Mandi Lynn Kerr said.
John Porterfield has the name of a test that they were using to do the diameter and tensile strength is the same as what they use in the wool industry to grade the wool.
Matt Haddad said
And I just speak from our perspective. I mean, when we’ve done our field trials, and given that material, we’ve given it to the US Home Builders Association. We have some friends there who basically will make him create different products and tell us how efficient it was compared to other results. But quantifying that data is certainly essential. And as these processing facilities come online, I think they’ll soon find that genetics definitely plays an influence in their process. And that’s where we want to focus our energy is to provide the best seat possible to make sure it’s as efficient as possible.
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