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As American hemp growers struggle to pinpoint plants and keep their crops from getting hot—by exceeding the definition of potency that turns plants into hemp, or 0.3% THC on a dry weight basis—they are improving Technologies to make these tasks a little easier. With the help of some of the brightest minds at Texas A&M University, Louisiana-based Mariposa Technology has developed a digital farming tool for hemp and marijuana growers that uses a database and software to test their plants at any stage of the growing season without cutting samples to have to. With a small laser-powered spectroscopy device, THC levels and plant sex can be determined without waiting for a lab to process the data.

The Mariposa Technology team developed the Predictive Analytical Modeling Application for Plants (PAMAP), a protocol for rapid field testing of live plants. It gives farmers the ability to do self-testing, saving them valuable time that would otherwise be spent shipping cutting samples for lab testing.

“The only plants we currently have in our database are cannabis plants, mostly hemp; However, the technology can also be used for other systems in the future,” says Michael Dalle Molle, Chief Operating Officer of Mariposa Technology. “We are primarily focused on hemp because we see major pain points in the industry that our technology can solve for farmers.”

A handheld device that uses Raman spectroscopy is used to scan the plants. Raman spectroscopy is an analytical laboratory technique that uses scattered light from a laser to measure the vibrational modes of molecules to determine the chemical composition of materials. The laser light interacts with molecular vibrations and provides a chemical fingerprint.

“So essentially you have a handheld device that interfaces with our database, which is made up of millions of different data points, and you fire a laser through the scanner that scans living complex living tissues, so this is a non-destructive, non-invasive test.” says Molle. “And that scan produces a spectrum, and the spectrum is then sent through our application, read by our algorithms, and you get a result.”

High Times Magazine, February 2023

Hot hemp horror

How bad is the hot hemp problem? According to New Frontier Data, over 4,000 acres containing around 243,000 hemp plants were destroyed in the United States in 2019 due to heat. In 2020, that number rose to just 6,234 acres — even though fewer acres were planted. According to data from the past few years, that number could rise to over 10,000 acres of land destroyed, considering that in 2021 the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) changed the definition of THC limits — they’re now not just 0.3 % Delta-9 THC but limited to total THC.

“We spoke to farmers who previously had to destroy all of their crops; “It’s happening less and less because people are becoming more aware of the issues and how to mitigate those issues,” says Molle. “But it’s just happening less for the farmers who are aware.”

Cannabis farmers can usually effectively select hot hemp, but by the time they realize this, thousands of dollars have often been wasted. Still, in many states, a lot of hot hemp biomass makes its way into regulated cannabis markets and is sold in vape pens or other products.

“Our tool allows you to be aware of this before receiving a certificate of authenticity [certificate of analysis]. Before you send tests to your local authorities, you can use PAMAP to basically predict when things will get hot,” says Molle. “So it’s both an optimization tool and a testing tool. And it allows growers to really understand THC levels and when they might need to harvest or if unfortunately it’s too late to harvest, and then they have to come up with a plan B. Our test is able to provide you with all this information.”

sexing plants

Volume 27, Issue 15 of Molecules, published August 2022, was joined by Mariposa Technology co-founder and President John K. Roberts III and Molle, along with five other co-authors – Nicolas K. Goff, James F. Guenther, Mickal Adler, Greg Mathews and Dmitry Kurouski – to publish their study on using Raman spectroscopy to sexualize plants. The journal article showed how they can identify hermaphroditic, male and female hemp plants by detecting different levels of carotenoids. Carotenoids, or tetraterpenoids, are yellow, orange, and red fat-soluble pigments found in certain plant species, including cannabis.

The concentration of carotenoids is highest in female cannabis and hermaphrodites have the lowest carotenoid content, with males in the middle. In particular, the spectroscopically recorded intensities of carotenoid vibrations were much more intense in female plants than in male plants and less intense in hermaphrodites.

“We think it’s because of the carotenoids in the plant,” Roberts explains, explaining how they can tell the difference between males, females and hermaphrodites. “But we didn’t decide. We have proven that we can successfully do this 100% of the time for male and female plants and 98.7% of the time for monetary plants [hermaphrodite] Plant. But the real reason why we can determine it is still an open scientific question.”

Gender is a controversial issue in the cannabis plant world, which has led to efforts to ban male cannabis plants. In Oregon, Corvallis-based company Oregon CBD has been fighting state legislation to ban male hemp plants since 2014. The company said windblown pollen from a neighboring farm ruined its crop, resulting in an estimated $2.5 million in damage.

Cross-pollination by renegade males causes problems. It’s bad for hemp producers and processors who focus on CBD and other non-psychoactive cannabinoids, as a pollinated hemp plant loses up to half of its biomass and about 30% of its total cannabinoid content. For farmers who only focus on fiber, it’s not such a big deal. If the plant’s sex could be determined sooner, some of the damage could be mitigated.

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What is Raman spectroscopy?

Dmitry Kurouski, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at Texas A&M, specializes in Raman spectroscopy technology and uses it for everything from cannabis compound identification to crime scene analysis. For example, Kurouski showed in one study that Raman spectroscopy could determine whether hair was dyed at the crime scene or was a natural hair color, which always posed a bit of a challenge for law enforcement.

As with human hair, Raman spectroscopy can also be used to determine components of cannabis. The laser excites molecules, causing them to oscillate differently and generating different spectra in the measured values.

“A laser is fired and only has a millimeter-wide focal point,” says Molle. “So you fire a laser at a very concentrated area and it creates an excitation within the photons and electrons. You will then receive a vibration picked up by the device and the reader in the device. So the laser generates an excitation, the device picks up this excitation and generates a spectrum based on the vibrations of these molecules. And that’s why it’s such a precise instrument.”

The motivations behind technology in the cannabis world go beyond just saving time and money. Hot hemp — especially in states with high altitudes that are prone to stronger UV light, which is a trigger for THC production — is an ongoing problem.

Roberts explained that the hardware that performs the scanning has been around for about a decade and is made by Agilent Technologies, although it hasn’t been used for cannabis before. Agilent Technologies focuses primarily on ways to improve the overall laboratory workflow. The company was founded in 1999 as a spin-off from Hewlett-Packard.

The same tools previously used for crime scene analysis proved ideal for identifying cannabis traits.

“What happened was that Professor Kurouski of Texas A&M, our collaborator and partner in this field, found that this particular device, used for chemical identification in a variety of scenarios, had just the right laser, nanometer and power of the had handhelds.” “Device that eliminates background scatter from the spectra of living agricultural products,” explains Roberts.

The handheld scanning device is one thing, but it’s essentially worthless if you don’t have the right data to compare the readings with. Mariposa Technology plans to offer the wearable detection device via a subscription service soon after a software update.

“The hardware itself produces a numerical representation of what it’s scanning organic compounds and spectra that you can look at, but it doesn’t tell you anything unless you have a dataset and a library to reference and cite it.” compare,” says Roberts.

As well as speeding up the cannabis testing process, this technology has the potential to further revolutionize the cannabis testing industry by reducing its environmental impact as new abbreviations apply to materials such as chemicals and solvents used by laboratories. It is also a solution that can reduce transportation and other costs.

“We’re working hard to also reduce the overall carbon footprint of the cannabis testing industry,” says Molle. “Our device is very easy to use. And one of the main reasons is that you don’t need any chemicals or solvents. You don’t need gloves. Much less waste is produced. There’s no transport of samples, you know, with a licensed handler, we don’t have that. In addition to all the other things we do, we also hope that we can just make the cannabis industry greener and greener overall.”

This article was originally published in the February 2023 issue of High Times Magazine.