WHATFG
Well-Known Member
From 420 Magazine...
Marijuana has been grown in a clandestine manner by a great many growers for a long time.
Despite that, an optimal way of cultivating the plant to boost its medicinal properties has not be found, says a University of Guelph plant scientist who is leading the charge to perfect pot growing.
Mike Dixon and his research team in the University of Guelph's controlled environmental system research facility and program, has received $210,000 from Ontario Centres of Excellence. The money will fund the application of new irrigation technology to medical cannabis growing. It's a process by which small sensors are strapped to the stem of a plant and hooked up to a wireless data logger that measures the water status of the plant every 15 minutes.
But that is just one component of ongoing work being done by Dixon on cannabis.
The work is in partnership with Napanee-based ABcann Medicinals, and will be carried out in ABcann's Napanee facilities. Due to regulatory restrictions cannabis can't be grown on campus without first going through a lengthy research licensing process.
The controlled environmental system research facility is a precisely controlled plant growth environment that carefully measures things such as plant growth rates, nutrient remediation and organic compounds.
Dixon is known for his extensive work over the past 20 years on the use of plants as biological life support in space travel. He has worked with multiple international space agencies and companies in the aerospace sector. His team is also working on plant-based cancer drugs with Guelph-based PlantForm.
He said finding the best way to grow medical marijuana will involve a systematic and repeatable approach.
"This is just the leading edge of how the phytopharmaceutical sector must go," Dixon said. "It must approach the production of medicinal compounds in plants in this manner."
The work with ABcann Medicinals is much broader than the irrigation component.
"We have a very comprehensive research program in collaboration with ABcann Medicinals," said Dixon. "We're doing the whole environment control package, including the lighting systems, and the organic growing substrate that we're developing. We are looking at the plant in its entirety, its relationship to environment control systems, and how that ultimately defines the productivity in terms of the medicinal compounds of interest."
Dixon said there are many variations on the theme of growing pot, but no standardized method. Perfecting and standardizing production and quality is necessary if cannabis is to attain the stature of a high quality pharmaceutical commodity.
Gaining the capacity to grow the same drug every time is absolutely necessary, he said. And while there are strong genetics available to do that, the only way to produce a systematic, standardized product is through using repeatable, high quality environmental controls. Dixon said no one has achieved it yet. The task is a big one.
"The plain truth is that the environment controlled recipe, comprised of light intensity, light quality, temperature, humidity, nutrients, soil attributes … that recipe for specific commodities does not exist," he said.
"Every grower spawn by the decades of underground growing has their own recipe, but very little of it is proven in the cauldron of scientific research, with controlled experiments and objective assessments of the outcome, and detailed analysis of the medicinal compounds," he said.
Marijuana has been grown in a clandestine manner by a great many growers for a long time.
Despite that, an optimal way of cultivating the plant to boost its medicinal properties has not be found, says a University of Guelph plant scientist who is leading the charge to perfect pot growing.
Mike Dixon and his research team in the University of Guelph's controlled environmental system research facility and program, has received $210,000 from Ontario Centres of Excellence. The money will fund the application of new irrigation technology to medical cannabis growing. It's a process by which small sensors are strapped to the stem of a plant and hooked up to a wireless data logger that measures the water status of the plant every 15 minutes.
But that is just one component of ongoing work being done by Dixon on cannabis.
The work is in partnership with Napanee-based ABcann Medicinals, and will be carried out in ABcann's Napanee facilities. Due to regulatory restrictions cannabis can't be grown on campus without first going through a lengthy research licensing process.
The controlled environmental system research facility is a precisely controlled plant growth environment that carefully measures things such as plant growth rates, nutrient remediation and organic compounds.
Dixon is known for his extensive work over the past 20 years on the use of plants as biological life support in space travel. He has worked with multiple international space agencies and companies in the aerospace sector. His team is also working on plant-based cancer drugs with Guelph-based PlantForm.
He said finding the best way to grow medical marijuana will involve a systematic and repeatable approach.
"This is just the leading edge of how the phytopharmaceutical sector must go," Dixon said. "It must approach the production of medicinal compounds in plants in this manner."
The work with ABcann Medicinals is much broader than the irrigation component.
"We have a very comprehensive research program in collaboration with ABcann Medicinals," said Dixon. "We're doing the whole environment control package, including the lighting systems, and the organic growing substrate that we're developing. We are looking at the plant in its entirety, its relationship to environment control systems, and how that ultimately defines the productivity in terms of the medicinal compounds of interest."
Dixon said there are many variations on the theme of growing pot, but no standardized method. Perfecting and standardizing production and quality is necessary if cannabis is to attain the stature of a high quality pharmaceutical commodity.
Gaining the capacity to grow the same drug every time is absolutely necessary, he said. And while there are strong genetics available to do that, the only way to produce a systematic, standardized product is through using repeatable, high quality environmental controls. Dixon said no one has achieved it yet. The task is a big one.
"The plain truth is that the environment controlled recipe, comprised of light intensity, light quality, temperature, humidity, nutrients, soil attributes … that recipe for specific commodities does not exist," he said.
"Every grower spawn by the decades of underground growing has their own recipe, but very little of it is proven in the cauldron of scientific research, with controlled experiments and objective assessments of the outcome, and detailed analysis of the medicinal compounds," he said.
