What is Hop Latent Viroid and How Did it cause $ 4 billion in losses to the marijuana industry?

As an individual or organization interested in cannabis for personal or commercial purposes, you need to be aware of all possible threats to your cannabis plants. This article attempts to provide insight into a growing threat to the cannabis industry leading to incredible losses.

Several potential challenges threaten the profitability of any cannabis company, but not all of these threats have resulted in a loss of $ 4 billion. Hence, the Hop Latent Viroid discourse is a very topical and important one that provides insight into the advances America and California are making in dealing with this challenge.

What is Hop Latent Viroid?

The Hop Latent Viroid, also known as HpLVd, is a single-stranded infection that relies on the metabolism of its host plant to replicate itself. This viroid occurs worldwide in “hops” and can infect the relative of hops, the cannabis plant.

The viroid is also an infectious pathogen that causes disease in the marijuana plant. It is often referred to as “dudding disease” and sometimes the infected plants are asymptomatic (show no symptoms) at first. This infection can also be inactive on plants for an extended period of time, and eventually the symptoms will become apparent.

The Negative Economic Impact of Hop Latent Viroid on the Cannabis Industry.

Before cannabis is ready to be consumed, it must come off the farms and be appropriately harvested. This means that plant health is of vital importance: when infections develop that devastate cannabis plants, harvest time becomes a challenge. Without healthy yields and harvests, we cannot get access to marijuana, which means that supply will not match demand.

There is currently a high demand for cannabis and marijuana-based products. Expectant consumers and users rely on cannabis farms to provide this supply. But with HpLVD constantly devastating the plants, the products become scarce, resulting in financial losses for the cannabis business.

Dr. Bryce Falk is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of California evaluating the threats Hop Latent Viroid poses to cannabis growers. He claims that marijuana growers will find it difficult to detect the infection, mainly because it is asymptomatic at first.

The inability to detect the infectious disease from the start poses a major threat that can result in complete wiping out of the plants before the breeder realizes the problem. He also agrees that to achieve its potential, the industry has to work on a large scale and Hop Latent Viroid threatens such rapid growth. If we have a highly profitable cannabis industry, we must eliminate all risks that threaten the breeder’s peace.

The role of the Dark Heart Industries

Dark Heart Industries is also one of California’s premier marijuana genetics. In August 2021, the company announced that it had completed two hundred thousand tissue tests for Hop Latent Viroid and discovered new data on the impact of the infection on the American marijuana industry.

Dark Heart also tested over 100 marijuana growers across California from August 2018 through July 2021. The result shows that over 33% of the tests carried out on 90% of the growing locations were POSITIVE for Hop Latent Viroid.

This revelation also supports an earlier prediction by marijuana experts that Hop Latent Viroid will negatively affect over 30% of marijuana plants. That report means the industry is losing over $ 4 billion annually. American growers expect to produce over 7 million pounds of legal marijuana in 2021, but this may not be possible due to the effects of Hop Latent Viroid.

The Director of Plant Science and Laboratory at Dark Heart Industries, Dr. Jeremy Warren, believed to be the first scientist to identify HpLVD as the cause of dudding in marijuana. Dudding is a slang term for various symptoms that the plant exhibits.

Some of the symptoms include stunted growth, loss of plant vigor, decreased yields, and complete changes in the morphology of the plant. Under the direction of Dr. Warren developed a patent-pending cleaning process to remove Hop Latent Viroid from all infected cannabis samples.

Within the last four years, Dr. Warren and thousands of other diagnostic tests enable the Dark Heart Laboratory team to eliminate Hop Latent Viroid. This infectious disease affects legal marijuana plants across America, not just California.

Dan Grace, founder of Dark Heart Lab, announced that the lab now has a new facility for biotechnological research. The new laboratory in California is gradually expanding its capacities for processing the hop latent viroid in plants. Hence, it is now safe to say that the lab can assist growers dealing with Hop Latent Viroid in their cannabis farms across the country.

About Dark Heart Industries

In addition to their contributions to Hop Latent Viroid and its effects on the cannabis plant, Dark Heart also has a mission to empower marijuana growers. They are pioneers committed to innovative services and products that benefit cannabis growers.

As the leading voice in the cannabis industry, they pave the way for genetic breeding and plant pathology while developing new marijuana seed technologies. These efforts will be effective in eradicating hop latent viroids and other plant pathogens.

With dedicated laboratories like Dark Heart Industries, there is hope that the American cannabis industry will make strides in the fight against Hop Latent Viroid. Of course, there is still a lot of work to be done and progress to be made, but the infrastructure in place for solutions has become a framework that other countries can adopt for their cannabis industry.

Bottom line

Like any profitable and record breaking industry, the California cannabis industry has its unique challenges, and Hop Latent Viroid is high on the list. While logistics, sales, and marketing problems are easier to resolve, a problem with the facility itself poses a greater threat.

This article analyzed how Hop Latent Viroid is causing losses of up to $ 4 billion worth to the cannabis industry. Fortunately, we have companies like Dark Heart Labs rising to the challenge and looking for solutions to keep the sector from losing out later.

READ MORE ABOUT HOPSLATENTE …

What is the dangerous pathogen that kills cannabis plants?