The future of growing cannabis
Growing tissue cultures could shape the future of cannabis cultivation. We could see problems like diseases and pests going away soon.
Before we get into tissue culture cultivation, it would be useful to understand how weeds are currently grown. Currently, most cannabis manufacturers are using traditional methods to grow the plant. That means planting seeds, waiting for them to germinate, and then harvesting the finished plant. With these more traditional approaches, problems arise during the growth phase. Insects and diseases can infiltrate the young plants, damage them and make them unharvestable. Since the plants are grown in a confined space, entire batches of cannabis often suffer from cross-contamination. As soon as disease and insects hit one plant, others will quickly follow suit.
Photo by: PrimeShot
These problems pose serious problems for companies. Some diseases, such as latent hop viroid, have killed large amounts of cannabis and therefore prove costly for manufacturers to try to maximize their yields. Finding alternative cultivation methods has become essential to the industry and this is where tissue culture comes in.
Explanation of the cultivation of tissue cultures
Now you may be wondering how tissue culture cultivation solves these problems. To put it briefly, tissue cultures grow plants by reusing the plant itself. Each sample (known as an “explant”) is in its own container, isolated from each other. These explants are also sterilized until the plant is completely clean. There are numerous advantages to this approach, the most obvious being that it reduces the risk of pests and diseases. Since each sample is separate from one another, the risk of cross-contamination is also reduced. This allows tissue culture manufacturers to avoid the most expensive part of current cultivation practices and achieve higher yields.
In addition, tissue culture offers a multitude of production advantages that traditional cultivation cannot. First, the tissue culture turns out to be much more space-saving. Each explant sample grows roughly an inch long, which means manufacturers can allocate space much more efficiently or rent it for smaller production spaces. Second, because tissue cultures reuse the same plant biomaterials, breeders can take the same plant sample over and over again. This means that manufacturers who have a batch of high-quality explants can also rely on them in the future. After all, more consistent quality in production means an optimized supply chain experience. Pharmacies, and therefore customers too, can expect similar qualities in all of their purchases.
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