1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:10,000 Welcome to the cannabis data science meetup group. You're in for one of the best treats 2 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:14,940 ever today. This may be the best meetup to date. Can't thank you enough for attending 3 00:00:14,940 --> 00:00:23,000 to make this happen. We've been talking a lot about the top issues for cannabis cultivators 4 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:30,920 and one that's come up over and over again is this issue with Popsley in thyroid. Well, 5 00:00:30,920 --> 00:00:40,040 these awesome scientists at My Florida DNA, a biotech genomics lab in California, Dr. 6 00:00:40,040 --> 00:00:51,120 Angel Fernandez and Dr. Ajit Anand want to share some of their latest research and they're 7 00:00:51,120 --> 00:00:56,680 open to field some of the questions we may have because we all come at this group from 8 00:00:56,680 --> 00:01:02,760 our different perspectives. And so now this is an awesome opportunity for us to actually 9 00:01:02,760 --> 00:01:11,680 ask and hear from some of the leading scientists in the field to find out what is this issue 10 00:01:11,680 --> 00:01:19,120 with Popsley in thyroid all about. So let everybody have a chance to chime in and ask 11 00:01:19,120 --> 00:01:26,120 questions here in a second. But without further ado, Dr. Fernandez or Dr. Anand, would you 12 00:01:26,120 --> 00:01:34,480 want to take it away and let us know about some of your research? 13 00:01:34,480 --> 00:01:49,320 Yes. Can you hear us please? Yes? Okay. So thank you very much for having us. As you 14 00:01:49,320 --> 00:01:59,480 said, we are a molecular biology lab, a genomics lab located in Sacramento in California, just 15 00:01:59,480 --> 00:02:10,520 in the middle of the most affected region in the world for whole Latin Birolite. Our 16 00:02:10,520 --> 00:02:24,120 main goal is to offer diagnostic services to farmers and growers. We develop a technology 17 00:02:24,120 --> 00:02:32,600 that allows us to analyze several thousand samples on a daily basis with an accuracy 18 00:02:32,600 --> 00:02:44,680 of around 97, 98 percent. We are working actually, we can analyze those plants in a few hours. 19 00:02:44,680 --> 00:02:50,160 So that is very convenient because the clients, they can get the results basically in two 20 00:02:50,160 --> 00:02:59,680 days. The process takes longer actually when they see the plants to our lab rather than 21 00:02:59,680 --> 00:03:15,840 the analysis itself. So for the past year, we have already analyzed around 275,000 samples 22 00:03:15,840 --> 00:03:25,360 and we are continuously improving our protocol in order to lower the price. We know that 23 00:03:25,360 --> 00:03:35,040 this is a very big issue in the industry. We know the economical difficulties that our 24 00:03:35,040 --> 00:03:44,960 clients are suffering. So all the improvements that we are making is basically to lower the 25 00:03:44,960 --> 00:03:53,360 price so that eventually will be translated in a larger volume of samples that they can 26 00:03:53,360 --> 00:04:01,160 analyze. So whole Latin Birolite is a Birolite that actually is the equivalent to what happened 27 00:04:01,160 --> 00:04:10,080 a few years ago with COVID in humans. What we recommend to the clients is to test in 28 00:04:10,080 --> 00:04:21,760 a regular basis. The plant today might be healthy but tomorrow might be infected without 29 00:04:21,760 --> 00:04:31,960 showing any visual symptoms. However, the Birolite might be present in their facilities 30 00:04:31,960 --> 00:04:40,840 and it's very easy to spread to the other plants. So that's why our recommendation 31 00:04:40,840 --> 00:04:50,160 is to keep testing at least two or three times for the whole cycle of the plant. 32 00:04:50,160 --> 00:05:01,960 This is phenomenal that you're undertaking this research and testing to help people out. 33 00:05:01,960 --> 00:05:14,080 I've got a myriad of questions but before I start bombarding questions on you and start 34 00:05:14,080 --> 00:05:18,880 fielding questions from the audience, Dr. Anand, would you want to maybe tell us a bit 35 00:05:18,880 --> 00:05:28,400 about your role and maybe what are some of the challenges with testing? You said you're 36 00:05:28,400 --> 00:05:37,800 doing north of 270,000 lab tests. So that is a well of data right there. So that's a 37 00:05:37,800 --> 00:05:43,800 thought that comes to mind. So I'll be formalizing my thoughts. But you're welcome to chime in, 38 00:05:43,800 --> 00:05:49,000 Dr. Anand. And then maybe we can open it up to some questions. 39 00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:53,160 Sure. Thank you. Thank you all. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to see so many different 40 00:05:53,160 --> 00:06:00,600 people. I've never met many of you but I know you all are one of the best people who are 41 00:06:00,600 --> 00:06:05,160 working on cannabis. I entered into the cannabis industry just a couple of years back so I'm 42 00:06:05,160 --> 00:06:11,200 still learning a lot. For me, when I moved to give you background, I'm a molecular biologist. 43 00:06:11,200 --> 00:06:15,920 I was one of the leading technologies for the seed companies before I moved into cannabis. 44 00:06:15,920 --> 00:06:23,000 I was working for the largest seed company, the US. My background is in functional genomics, 45 00:06:23,000 --> 00:06:26,920 biotechnology, you name it, a lot of things that I've done with microbial engineering 46 00:06:26,920 --> 00:06:32,760 and so forth and so on. What fascinated me about cannabis and you might ask me this question, 47 00:06:32,760 --> 00:06:38,100 hey, what are you doing in this crop? Is that the fact that cannabis is growing, it's getting 48 00:06:38,100 --> 00:06:47,160 a lot of traction and it's one of the 56 largest crop now in the US from the value perspective. 49 00:06:47,160 --> 00:06:51,920 So there is a lot more to be done. There's a lot of information that's been exchanged 50 00:06:51,920 --> 00:06:57,000 between the community but we also need a rigorous data-driven science-based approach to resolve 51 00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:02,720 some of the significant problems that we see. One of the challenges we discuss broadly and 52 00:07:02,720 --> 00:07:11,680 quite often is the HLVD. To just give you about HLVD, HLVD is half-latent virite. Obviously, 53 00:07:11,680 --> 00:07:19,320 it's a half virite. To tell you about virite, virite is like naked RNA molecule, one of 54 00:07:19,320 --> 00:07:27,280 the smallest infectious molecule that primarily only infects plant. That's a good thing about 55 00:07:27,280 --> 00:07:33,160 it. Many aspects of the half-latent virite, I personally have learned in the last six 56 00:07:33,160 --> 00:07:39,160 to seven months. We are still trying to figure out, we are learning each and every step through 57 00:07:39,160 --> 00:07:46,400 the efforts that are put by other organizations like us from the academia. Basically, what 58 00:07:46,400 --> 00:07:53,600 we are doing is using those learning opportunities to actually support the community with solutions 59 00:07:53,600 --> 00:07:57,960 that actually create value for the crops. Obviously, everybody talks about economical 60 00:07:57,960 --> 00:08:02,920 losses and economical losses are not just for cannabis. We have serious issues with 61 00:08:02,920 --> 00:08:08,360 drought in the Midwest today with all the row crops that you can talk about. There are 62 00:08:08,360 --> 00:08:13,640 going to be both biotic and abiotic stresses. The biotic are the pathogens and other things 63 00:08:13,640 --> 00:08:17,480 and abiotic are other stresses which I think we will also have eventually getting into 64 00:08:17,480 --> 00:08:24,760 cannabis. What I feel is we are just on the tip of the iceberg about when it comes to 65 00:08:24,760 --> 00:08:32,440 a crop like cannabis. I personally want to use my know-how building those capacities 66 00:08:32,440 --> 00:08:39,720 in large organizations, bring those intellectual knowledge, bring those experiences to cannabis 67 00:08:39,720 --> 00:08:47,560 and drive to broaden the knowledge on cannabis and also drive services and solutions that 68 00:08:47,560 --> 00:08:53,440 actually are attractive and effective to the growers, the breeders and as well as the nurseries 69 00:08:53,440 --> 00:08:59,720 and cultivators. That is what I am here for. I will talk about the little work we have 70 00:08:59,720 --> 00:09:05,000 done on HLVD. I wanted to give you about a little background on HLVD. HLVD is very serious 71 00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:08,960 problem and when you talk about serious problem, I will just put some value. This is all in 72 00:09:08,960 --> 00:09:17,240 the literature or it has been documented. One of the things is we believe that it is 73 00:09:17,240 --> 00:09:22,560 90 to 95% of all the cannabis that we grow in California which is the hardwood we are 74 00:09:22,560 --> 00:09:29,840 sitting is either infected or had been infected in the past. The cost associated with this 75 00:09:29,840 --> 00:09:35,440 worldwide and it is not a problem in the US a lot. It is a worldwide problem. When it 76 00:09:35,440 --> 00:09:41,160 comes to the number of strains, in an example that Angel gave about COVID, we have so many 77 00:09:41,160 --> 00:09:46,640 strains and today a new strain is getting a booster bill for that. The lucky thing about 78 00:09:46,640 --> 00:09:53,200 this worldwide is the quasi-species of the different types of strains that are infected 79 00:09:53,200 --> 00:09:59,560 are limited to two and they are very, very small changes. As I said, this is small RNA. 80 00:09:59,560 --> 00:10:05,480 It is just like around 256 nucleotides. It is much smaller to what our whole genome is 81 00:10:05,480 --> 00:10:10,400 or even a plant genome. Just for a comparison, I would say like the virus, if I were to say 82 00:10:10,400 --> 00:10:19,160 it is a dot, then the viruses are a little point. It is almost 100 times larger than 83 00:10:19,160 --> 00:10:29,480 a virus. If you look at a spore like a fungal spore, it is around 100x larger than a virus. 84 00:10:29,480 --> 00:10:36,280 You can see with the naked eye or use a microscope to see a spore, a fungal spore, whether it 85 00:10:36,280 --> 00:10:42,160 is aspergillus or it is fusarium, but you need very sophisticated electron microscopy 86 00:10:42,160 --> 00:10:50,280 instruments to see a virus. That is about the virus. The effective loss, the economic 87 00:10:50,280 --> 00:10:57,240 loss that is caused by the virus is estimated to be 4 billion globally. We are talking about 88 00:10:57,240 --> 00:11:03,440 a crop which is 5 to 6 billion in the US and we are talking about 4 billion globally analyzed 89 00:11:03,440 --> 00:11:12,400 large that can happen from a virus like HLVD. You feel like, isn't it silly that this little 90 00:11:12,400 --> 00:11:18,480 species that cannot even survive by its own is able to now get into a plant, piggyback 91 00:11:18,480 --> 00:11:24,760 on the plant, use the host machinery and replicate and present the phenotype as a disease. The 92 00:11:24,760 --> 00:11:32,880 disease often people know in the community is dudding or duds. The dudding and duds disease 93 00:11:32,880 --> 00:11:38,440 can be easily seen with the stunted growth, the flower quality, the brittleness of the 94 00:11:38,440 --> 00:11:44,240 plant. Sometimes there is yellowing or darkening of the leaf, but the most common phenotype 95 00:11:44,240 --> 00:11:49,000 which is very visually noticed is if the disease is expressed, the phenotype is seen, the plant 96 00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:56,400 will be stunted and duded. We all know that if the plant is stunted and duded or much 97 00:11:56,400 --> 00:12:02,800 smaller, your yield from that crop is going to be significantly reduced. Another interesting 98 00:12:02,800 --> 00:12:10,400 aspect about this HLVD is now it doesn't necessarily express every time. We know in plants that 99 00:12:10,400 --> 00:12:17,720 is genotype dependency and the resistance or tolerance to diseases. Many times the disease 100 00:12:17,720 --> 00:12:25,720 is not even expressed. You will think about the plant as being growing normal and we have 101 00:12:25,720 --> 00:12:32,960 a practice of using mother plants and making cuttings and rooting. Unknowingly, without 102 00:12:32,960 --> 00:12:36,960 knowing that the mother plant is infected, you're making cuttings and then you're basically 103 00:12:36,960 --> 00:12:43,520 disseminating. Then could there be an environmental effect or could there be another issue with 104 00:12:43,520 --> 00:12:49,320 another pathogen that the plant starts expressing itself and now you realize, oh my God, I've 105 00:12:49,320 --> 00:12:53,520 already lost a lot of my plants because now all these plants are infected. This is one 106 00:12:53,520 --> 00:13:00,160 of the most effective ways of disseminating the disease. Unawareness, unknowingly cutting 107 00:13:00,160 --> 00:13:05,640 and then putting it to footprint. I want all you folks to understand that that's something 108 00:13:05,640 --> 00:13:13,080 that we have to proactively think about, especially in cultivation or necessary practice where 109 00:13:13,080 --> 00:13:18,000 you're using other plants. I would recommend, my best recommendation or medication would 110 00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:23,440 be is be proactive in testing all the mother plants, making sure that you have done it 111 00:13:23,440 --> 00:13:28,040 through different growth stages, that you're not missing the opportunity to cut something 112 00:13:28,040 --> 00:13:34,680 that could have been done much earlier in the beginning. Latency is a good thing I talked 113 00:13:34,680 --> 00:13:43,520 about where you can't know the disease. The other interesting is the effect on the economical 114 00:13:43,520 --> 00:13:50,160 value comes from the flowers that you produce. There is very clear documentation that plants 115 00:13:50,160 --> 00:13:55,760 which are infected may have up to 50% reduction or greater than that in their cannabinoid 116 00:13:55,760 --> 00:14:01,720 composition. The flowers are actually a little more brittle. They're not compact. If you 117 00:14:01,720 --> 00:14:08,680 run through a seed, you can see the flow down. I give you a broad perspective and again I 118 00:14:08,680 --> 00:14:14,920 want to open up with what my thoughts were here so that we can have some good interactive 119 00:14:14,920 --> 00:14:15,920 session here. 120 00:14:15,920 --> 00:14:23,520 Phenomenal Dr. Anand. I love it. I love your work. I kind of want to maybe break this down 121 00:14:23,520 --> 00:14:30,400 into three segments and then we can ask questions about those. Basically, I see this as where 122 00:14:30,400 --> 00:14:38,720 did the hopslate in viroid originate? How did it take root? Quite literally. That's 123 00:14:38,720 --> 00:14:45,360 such a problem in the cannabis industry. Then two, I guess focus on what does this actually 124 00:14:45,360 --> 00:14:52,680 look like? You've already kind of spoken a bit about that. What are the effects of hopslate 125 00:14:52,680 --> 00:15:00,920 in viroid? How can you potentially spot it, identify it? Then the final thing is the solutions 126 00:15:00,920 --> 00:15:08,080 which I think is what your company is really working on is the testing. I kind of wanted 127 00:15:08,080 --> 00:15:18,520 to pick your brain on this and then maybe if anybody else has any questions about the 128 00:15:18,520 --> 00:15:28,320 origins of hopslate in viroid in the cannabis space. I just was doing a brief poke at the 129 00:15:28,320 --> 00:15:36,720 research. I'm just going to put them in the chat here so people can look at them just 130 00:15:36,720 --> 00:15:43,200 for official sources. From what I was reading, and so let me know if this is wrong, it was 131 00:15:43,200 --> 00:15:50,720 looking like hopslate in viroid was first detected in cannabis maybe around 2017 or 132 00:15:50,720 --> 00:16:04,320 early 2018. I was basically looking for ground zero. The earliest mention I could find was 133 00:16:04,320 --> 00:16:13,120 just a case that appeared to be in Oakland in perhaps an indoor grow. Then they mentioned 134 00:16:13,120 --> 00:16:25,520 another case in 2018 in Santa Barbara. What comes to my mind is what are your best ideas 135 00:16:25,520 --> 00:16:34,460 or thoughts on how did hopslate in viroid take root in the cannabis industry? What maybe 136 00:16:34,460 --> 00:16:41,760 made some of the first growers susceptible? Did the fact that cannabis is kind of an illegal 137 00:16:41,760 --> 00:16:48,120 gray area, did that have any influence? Maybe people weren't following the best procedures 138 00:16:48,120 --> 00:16:55,840 or maybe it's got something to do with the strains or the cloning. I don't know. What 139 00:16:55,840 --> 00:17:03,480 are your thoughts? Why did this, maybe the cannabis industry was just right for this, 140 00:17:03,480 --> 00:17:11,680 but why this particular virus and why do you think it took off like it did? That's my guess. 141 00:17:11,680 --> 00:17:13,760 My origin question. 142 00:17:13,760 --> 00:17:18,640 Well, thanks for asking that question. That's a million dollar question. I would say that 143 00:17:18,640 --> 00:17:23,000 we still are able to, we don't know we have an answer for it. I would just give you the 144 00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:29,000 pre-historical thing. The pre-historical thing that I want people to remember is it is a 145 00:17:29,000 --> 00:17:37,120 hop Latin viroid. It was first identified in the 1985-87 time, something around that, 146 00:17:37,120 --> 00:17:46,040 in hops in Spain. So Northern Spain is where it was first. Now, how did it move? How did 147 00:17:46,040 --> 00:17:47,040 it reach? 148 00:17:47,040 --> 00:17:55,000 Let me add, in Spain about 30 years ago, so it's been around for more than 30 years, actually 149 00:17:55,000 --> 00:18:05,480 almost 40 years. So it was first identified and published in 1987. 150 00:18:05,480 --> 00:18:10,040 So it would have been there even before that. I'm saying that the fun thing is we have to 151 00:18:10,040 --> 00:18:18,080 go back and rethink about who, it has been here for almost 40 years, even 50 years. Detections 152 00:18:18,080 --> 00:18:23,480 were, I mean, again, this is a biological system, which is not like you can do any, 153 00:18:23,480 --> 00:18:28,760 like indexing or something that pathologists do because the viroid cannot live and needs 154 00:18:28,760 --> 00:18:34,160 to have a host. So it's probably there for a long time. The other beautiful thing about 155 00:18:34,160 --> 00:18:40,800 it is it's got a very narrow host. Narrow host where probably it expresses as a phenotype. 156 00:18:40,800 --> 00:18:45,440 It doesn't mean that we know that we today understand is it only those three hosts or 157 00:18:45,440 --> 00:18:52,000 is it actually present in other plant species but does not have a disease, right? It doesn't 158 00:18:52,000 --> 00:18:53,800 express the disease. 159 00:18:53,800 --> 00:19:01,680 So the hosts are like a couple of different hop varieties. Then there is this stinking 160 00:19:01,680 --> 00:19:11,160 needle and now we have cannabis, obviously. Now, how did it move from Spain to California 161 00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:19,000 or it was already present in Europe? People went unnoticed and it was just that we happened 162 00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:24,960 to start noticing a plant phenotype in the maybe the late 2017s. I know the first report 163 00:19:24,960 --> 00:19:31,000 was something around 2018, 2019, where two groups simultaneously came and reported it. 164 00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:35,720 But it must have been here. Somebody really paid attention and then tried to identify 165 00:19:35,720 --> 00:19:43,160 what's that hop, right? Hemp and hop are closely related if you look at that too. Now, one 166 00:19:43,160 --> 00:19:48,320 of the most likely, again, I'm not an epidemiologist, I'm not a plant pathologist, so don't take 167 00:19:48,320 --> 00:19:58,600 my word with like, it's a grain of salt, let's say. It's likely it got cross-infected. And 168 00:19:58,600 --> 00:20:05,400 somehow the population moved here. And that's why we say US has a very strong quarantine 169 00:20:05,400 --> 00:20:10,960 when you bring seeds or plants, anything from foreign countries. This is exactly a great 170 00:20:10,960 --> 00:20:16,360 example of something that probably got in a ship, got an airplane and reached here. 171 00:20:16,360 --> 00:20:22,920 Now that is my understanding, but I again want to make sure that people understand I'm 172 00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:29,560 giving a hypothesis. I don't have any supporting data or something to prove that's the only 173 00:20:29,560 --> 00:20:34,560 possible way it reached. It could have also come with seed because now we have heard about 174 00:20:34,560 --> 00:20:40,120 even seed can transmit it and that's more of a latest knowledge. So I would open it 175 00:20:40,120 --> 00:20:47,480 up for people to figure out what exactly happened, but we know that we started seeing this disease 176 00:20:47,480 --> 00:20:56,440 in the cultivation parts of California, in the Santa Barbara area, and eventually now 177 00:20:56,440 --> 00:21:06,840 all of California probably has it in the early 20, 70s and 80s, I mean, 2018 to be more precise. 178 00:21:06,840 --> 00:21:16,280 May I cut in for a sec? This is John Abrams. So I became familiar with this in 2016 with 179 00:21:16,280 --> 00:21:24,480 my work in Humboldt. The name associated with this was Rick Crumb. There was a report, in 180 00:21:24,480 --> 00:21:32,800 fact, I think we presented in 2017 at MJ Biz on what this viroid was. We didn't know it 181 00:21:32,800 --> 00:21:40,240 was a viroid at that time. We were calling it PCIA, putative cannabis infectious agent, 182 00:21:40,240 --> 00:21:46,220 and then we were going to try and identify what it was molecularly. We left that to others 183 00:21:46,220 --> 00:21:54,160 and the story is as you said. The index strain, as we remember in Humboldt in about this time, 184 00:21:54,160 --> 00:22:01,680 was GG4 or Gorilla Glue. And so it was intriguing and of course Humboldt cultivation being what 185 00:22:01,680 --> 00:22:10,960 it is, this is kind of how it spread. So anyways, I would call your attention to presentations 186 00:22:10,960 --> 00:22:20,400 at the MJ Biz Science Symposium and I think it's 2017, but it reflects the story starting 187 00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:21,400 in 2016. 188 00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:27,840 Thank you, John. That's a good thing that you brought to me again. As in the beginning, 189 00:22:27,840 --> 00:22:30,920 I said, I'm learning a lot of things about this viroid. 190 00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:42,000 May I ask another more broad question regarding your discussion of its etiology coming out 191 00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:54,720 of Northern Spain? And I guess that's a cannabis, not a hemp derivative, but a cannabis derivative 192 00:22:54,720 --> 00:23:02,840 report. My thinking is that this has been circulating a lot longer. There were reports 193 00:23:02,840 --> 00:23:10,880 of hemp diebacks in the literature. What I particularly remember is at the time of the 194 00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:20,320 Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, there was a report strangely of hemp was a major 195 00:23:20,320 --> 00:23:28,120 cultivar in Hungary during that time and it took a beating. Same thing in Serbia, if I 196 00:23:28,120 --> 00:23:35,520 remember correctly. So my major question is if this has been circulating for a lot longer, 197 00:23:35,520 --> 00:23:43,860 I'm wondering if the current hemp strains, there were a number of classic hemp cultivars, 198 00:23:43,860 --> 00:23:51,120 they have some endogenous resistance that is worth understanding or looking at. 199 00:23:51,120 --> 00:24:06,960 Okay, John, I completely agree with you. When you mentioned about the inherent genotype 200 00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:17,800 specific resistance or genotype specific exclusion, not expressing the phenotype, that's not only 201 00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:24,200 unique for this. I think the whole world understands how wild germ plasms and germ plasms have 202 00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:36,240 helped to identify and breed for those resistance in other crops. So it may be a great opportunity 203 00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:43,040 for us to go and see if we can actually systematically do this study and identify the cultivars. 204 00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:49,320 I would more or less say, I don't like to say resistance or tolerance more or less. 205 00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:57,640 Identify those in genetics or germ plasms, which are actually much more tolerant to this 206 00:24:57,640 --> 00:25:04,160 HLVD and then incorporate that into our breeding programs. We can then mechanistically identify 207 00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:11,000 if there is a specific gene or specific QTL or a specific mechanism, which could be an 208 00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:19,340 RNA silencing mechanism that allows that particular plant to overcome the disease or doesn't 209 00:25:19,340 --> 00:25:28,640 allow the viral to amplify or increase the titer that results in a disease. 210 00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:36,560 Sorry, John. So what is clear is that more research is needed and also even to find out 211 00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:47,040 the origin. What we are saying is that what has been documented is that in Spain in 1987 212 00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:53,960 was identified in hop. But I'm pretty sure I agree with you. Probably 30, 40 years, even 213 00:25:53,960 --> 00:26:03,480 before that was already in Russia, in Serbia, in East European countries and even in Asia. 214 00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:15,520 So for that, I mean, there are today we have molecular tools that we can use to identify 215 00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:26,520 the real origin and even to retrieve to know the exact date or year or, you know, a presumptive 216 00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:34,880 year of the spread and origin of this. But the problem that we are facing in cannabis, 217 00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:44,540 all of us, is that we are less than 20 organizations worldwide, including public and private organizations 218 00:26:44,540 --> 00:26:53,120 doing research. This is a very novel topic. And when we compare the research done cannabis 219 00:26:53,120 --> 00:27:02,320 versus the rest of the crops, tomatoes, soybeans, almonds, whatever, for similar pathogens or 220 00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:12,440 any other trade, obviously they are 50 years ahead of us in research. So what he was mentioning 221 00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:22,040 about the germoplasm, wild species, wild ecotypes, that is extremely important to analyze those 222 00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:33,000 genetics and trying to breathe them or incorporate the genes into the domesticated or the standard 223 00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:38,200 cannabis that we are using today. 224 00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:45,360 I just wanted to add to the comment is that the fact that we haven't got as much excitement 225 00:27:45,360 --> 00:27:52,040 for cannabis across the public institutions, so because of the current regulatory regimes, 226 00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:58,680 it hasn't really attracted our universities to do as simple fundamental basic research 227 00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:06,400 that happens with most of the other crops. And lack of that has also limited our expansion 228 00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:10,640 in the industry as well, because now industries are working with limited amount of funds. 229 00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:15,360 And obviously we have to do things that we can educate the community also, but at the 230 00:28:15,360 --> 00:28:23,240 same time provide a way of generating revenue for the organization to survive. So we can 231 00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:27,880 use many of the other crop models, as I was saying, the amount of work that I was doing 232 00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:35,880 in the raw crops to sort of streamline the science-based research on cannabis, but we 233 00:28:35,880 --> 00:28:40,840 have to take a village to do it together. It may not be a single institution that can 234 00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:50,600 be able to achieve those things. But understanding how this wire art originated, how it spread, 235 00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:55,880 I think again, going back to those wild germ plasma, if they are still maintained, somebody 236 00:28:55,880 --> 00:29:00,760 has seed, we may be able to really go back and figure it out because of the modern genomic 237 00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:09,800 tools. And this is a small wire art like 256 nucleotides. We can do a million of those 238 00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:14,760 seeds being sequenced for this just in a day. That's the power we have to do, the tools 239 00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:19,280 we have to do. 240 00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:26,800 I may just chime in with the thought because that snippet of information that John said, 241 00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:33,400 that this may have been prevalent in gorilla glue. That may kind of tie a lot together 242 00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:41,160 and piggyback on some of your work over at MyFloridna. Because what I'm thinking now, 243 00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:47,160 especially since you're saying that this virus may have been around for 40 plus years, is 244 00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:52,640 there was sort of a fun article that came out recently that was saying that they're 245 00:29:52,640 --> 00:30:02,160 finding these ancient viruses that are getting thawed out in the permafrost. And so what 246 00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:10,800 comes to my mind is probably these viruses in hemp have kind of been co-evolving just 247 00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:16,000 for probably a long time. 248 00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:24,800 Let me finish this and then I'll let you chime in Dr. Anand. And then so for whatever 249 00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:32,440 reason, probably because cannabis has been pretty underground in the United States, my 250 00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:39,720 guess is cultivators have had to rely a lot on clones. And then we've discussed in the 251 00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:47,040 past somebody discovered this one variety, gorilla glue, and for a number of reasons 252 00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:53,800 it's just become insanely popular. We were seeing that it's by and for the top selling 253 00:30:53,800 --> 00:31:01,000 strain in Washington state. And then that's not even including all the different varieties 254 00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:10,440 it's been mixed with. So it could just be that this one variety was selected. Unfortunately, 255 00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:16,440 that one variety was super susceptible to the virus and then it's just been cloned and 256 00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:22,440 spread. And then this kind of piggybacks on the question in the comments is, you know, 257 00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:30,800 are clones really being tested? So those are more thoughts rather than questions. 258 00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:36,000 But I think maybe you had something to chime in with Dr. Anand. 259 00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:41,800 I wanted to go back to what you said. You know, it may have been, but the answer is 260 00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:48,840 it is been there over 40 years because we know the earliest documentation is 1987. So 261 00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:55,720 we had just shot a 14 years today. And when a disease is discovered, it's only when somebody 262 00:31:55,720 --> 00:32:01,840 really noticed and this emphasis wants to know exactly is going. So which tells you 263 00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:07,760 it could have been there even earlier than that. It's only the diagnostics and our capability 264 00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:13,200 of being able to identify this came with the sophistication of instruments that we had 265 00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:18,920 by then. So again, think about looking for a 256 nucleotide virus. I'm thinking about 266 00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:27,480 my 1987, I'm still in school probably. I was doing much more laborious way of detecting 267 00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:34,840 a DNA when I came to school in the 1990s. But our detection capabilities may not have 268 00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:42,560 been that. So again, we might have used classical processes for identifying these diseases at 269 00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:48,680 that point, you know, by cross-infecting and there are ways that people do that. 270 00:32:48,680 --> 00:33:01,520 So the second comment of whether the virus has been sort of emerging. The point I mentioned 271 00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:09,160 is even though the virus has been collected 50 or 60 different strains have been identified. 272 00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:16,040 The thing is they all seem to have are very stable. We're not seeing very quasi species 273 00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:23,200 of RNA, which is third in other virus that also has infecting plants and PSL, it is one 274 00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:29,880 of the more PSS TV is one of the most extensively studied. That's a good news. The good news 275 00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:35,680 is most of the virus that are infecting are still belonging to the two class that I said 276 00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:42,120 can one and can two. And they're infected. And whether they're infected, they're present 277 00:33:42,120 --> 00:33:49,720 in the US and they also present globally. And the third question or comment that was 278 00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:55,760 about clones, I think that is imperative. That is what I think is an important thing. 279 00:33:55,760 --> 00:34:01,560 Testing where you get the clones, who provides the clone, I think is the best step. So I 280 00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:10,360 would say that, you know, to be able to do that early enough is the best mode of preventing 281 00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:18,280 the disease proactively testing clones before they are grown and multiple stages. Like even 282 00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:22,400 when you get a clone, don't just wait for the first few leaves and test it because our 283 00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:28,000 study tells it pretty clearly that if you wait a little longer, you do it every weekly 284 00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:35,840 or bi weekly. Even if the virus is at low titles, they're going to increase over a period 285 00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:40,520 of a couple of weeks and which would have been not detected. Now would have identified 286 00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:47,840 as an infected plant. So having something would I call it. Yeah. I have something called 287 00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:55,120 an SOP of pest management practices, a cultivation management practice will help us avoid the 288 00:34:55,120 --> 00:35:02,400 virus load. And again, Angel, please go ahead. Yes. Because I read a question in the chat 289 00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:11,320 asking if the, all the clones sold in California are being tested for first for HLV. Well, 290 00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:20,720 so this is one of our recommendation that even a grower buys for tissue culture labs, 291 00:35:20,720 --> 00:35:26,160 the clones and even if those tissue culture they have tested, they had done the test, 292 00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:34,640 the testing for HLV at that earliest stage, they might be negative. Then two, two, three 293 00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:42,480 weeks later, the vital load can increase, right? And become positive the plant. So our 294 00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:52,000 recommendation to the growers is just randomly select a few plants to make sure that everything 295 00:35:52,000 --> 00:36:01,560 is clean and the infectational level is 0%. I mean, based on statistics and based on the 296 00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:13,200 numbers of plants that they will get from the, from the tissue culture or their nurseries. 297 00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:17,960 And to make an analogy of that is again, I go back to the COVID era where we all have 298 00:36:17,960 --> 00:36:24,120 tested on weekly, monthly basis to make sure that the population, the amount of infection 299 00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:27,960 that we have in the population is reduced. So I think this is exactly Angel, what is 300 00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:36,720 it is that you have to have a routine testing plan and we are here to help it. We have solutions 301 00:36:36,720 --> 00:36:40,880 that we want to provide on site so that you are capable of making all those decisions 302 00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:50,280 and necessarily as supporting you. So this is similar to a problem in straight 303 00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:58,820 out mammalian cell biotechnology that has been solved, I would say years ago, when you're 304 00:36:58,820 --> 00:37:08,640 propagating transfected or recombinant mammalian cells for blockbuster biologic drugs worldwide, 305 00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:14,120 you have to make sure that your endogenous retroviruses and all that are not brought 306 00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:21,320 forward into your culture systems. So it is very standard to create master cell banks 307 00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:28,360 and working cell banks that go through elaborate characterization to make sure it's clean and 308 00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:34,160 free of infectious agents and virus. This is standard practice in the biotechnology 309 00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:40,960 industry and there are organizations that are very good at running these tests. My view 310 00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:46,400 is we have to do the same thing in cannabis if we want to go forward with this. And it 311 00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:54,080 comes to the major question of creating master cell banks of, I've always been a fan of protoplasts 312 00:37:54,080 --> 00:38:03,240 to do this. The technology is not there yet, but you would have a well characterized protoplast 313 00:38:03,240 --> 00:38:09,280 master cell bank and then you would come out of that and use best practices to keep this 314 00:38:09,280 --> 00:38:17,300 down. The paradigm is in biotech, in mammalian scale up cell culture biotech. I think we 315 00:38:17,300 --> 00:38:24,440 have to do the same thing here. John, I totally agree with your comment and 316 00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:30,040 thanks for putting it. I think this is what we normally say seed banks when it comes to 317 00:38:30,040 --> 00:38:37,760 plant germplasm and we have seed banks like the UC Davis has seed banks for hemp. There 318 00:38:37,760 --> 00:38:46,840 is a seed bank for hemp in I think University of Washington. Yeah, in Cornell I met also 319 00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:52,080 another gentleman in one of the conferences that they have also started going and collecting 320 00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:55,200 seeds from different places. Yeah, you're right John. 321 00:38:55,200 --> 00:39:01,960 But I think it has to be beyond seeds. I think you actually have to go to tissue culture 322 00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:08,760 based cell banking in this case because I think it's difficult. How do you screen seeds 323 00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:18,260 effectively? It's a destructive analysis. Once you've taken a seed and tried to analyze 324 00:39:18,260 --> 00:39:23,440 it for viroid presence, it's not a seed anymore. True. 325 00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:28,720 What I'm saying is getting the quality seeds and then maintaining it. You can germinate 326 00:39:28,720 --> 00:39:33,440 seeds and then test it and then as well as get more seeds. Obviously, you're not talking 327 00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:38,720 about 50 seeds being saved. That's one viable. Now the reason I think that's a viable process 328 00:39:38,720 --> 00:39:43,480 because it's been already known and documented for other crops. Protoplast on the other hand 329 00:39:43,480 --> 00:39:49,920 is very difficult in crops. Regenerating plants from protoplast is not easy. 330 00:39:49,920 --> 00:40:00,000 Yeah, no, I agree. But I think that if I were to push where the tech needs to go, I think 331 00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:05,280 that needs better development. Yeah. And the other thing about protoplast is 332 00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:11,400 also when you do long-term cultures with protoplast, you also can introduce variation. So there 333 00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:17,040 is another way of looking at this is taking these shoots or the nodal tips. 334 00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:25,720 And that is to make synthetic seeds or doing cryopreservation, which has again been done 335 00:40:25,720 --> 00:40:31,240 with the plant germ blossoms. So there are multitudes of approach. I mean, I just wanted 336 00:40:31,240 --> 00:40:37,640 to know. But again, as I told you, there needs to be an institutional commitment to do these 337 00:40:37,640 --> 00:40:46,960 things to support. I mean, a private institution cannot do it. 338 00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:55,640 And it comes to my mind and I wouldn't be doing justice if I didn't ask it. So I've 339 00:40:55,640 --> 00:41:01,400 studied economics. And so what always comes to my mind is cost. And so that's kind of 340 00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:08,000 what keeps coming back to mind is you say, oh, test every clone and test them frequently. 341 00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:13,040 And so that seems like that may be a high cost. And then what John's describing with 342 00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:19,120 the tissue culture, if I'm getting that right. So that sounds even more costly. And I think 343 00:41:19,120 --> 00:41:27,360 that may be a problem, right, is a lot of the growers are as far as agriculture goes, 344 00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:33,280 they're small scale farmers, right? These are as far as right there is some really large 345 00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:39,320 agriculture plots out there. So these are kind of small, small scale agriculture. And 346 00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:47,520 so maybe people are just, they're maybe hoping their plants don't have the virus, because 347 00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:55,960 right, it appears that you find out pretty late, the effects if you don't test for it. 348 00:41:55,960 --> 00:42:01,120 So maybe everything looks like it's going along well. And then their flowers, like you 349 00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:06,240 said, they get dusted. And then, you know, they're maybe just trying to salvage it at 350 00:42:06,240 --> 00:42:11,760 that point. So I guess my question is, you know, if somebody's trying to be super cost 351 00:42:11,760 --> 00:42:20,600 effective, you know, is it worth waiting a little while into the vegetative stage to 352 00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:27,320 test because maybe the virus is spread a bit more? Or are you running a risk of spreading 353 00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:36,440 it to your other plants at that point? Like, what are your thoughts for somebody who, I 354 00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:41,000 mean, just imagine this really small scale cultivator who's really trying to be budget 355 00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:48,720 conscious? No, would you still recommend they test and then you know, at what stage I think? 356 00:42:48,720 --> 00:42:54,040 And then every and then another idea is every clone? Or could you potentially, you know, 357 00:42:54,040 --> 00:43:01,640 get away with doing like a random sample of clones? If that's a worthwhile question. 358 00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:08,080 There are several options and obviously depending on the size of the cultivator, the budget, 359 00:43:08,080 --> 00:43:16,800 one strategy that they can do is they can pull one leaf from several plants all together 360 00:43:16,800 --> 00:43:25,280 in one chip. And then we do the analysis for that pool. That is a way to save money. The 361 00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:32,720 only problem is that if one plant or the pool becomes positive, you will have to go back 362 00:43:32,720 --> 00:43:43,880 and analyze individually which plant is the positive one. I mean, in an ideal scenario, 363 00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:49,680 obviously is to test every single plant, but the reality is that no one, even large corporations, 364 00:43:49,680 --> 00:43:56,400 they can do that, right? So frequency is very important. I think my personal recommendation 365 00:43:56,400 --> 00:44:04,040 as a scientist is even for those growers with very limited budget is to test less plants, 366 00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:12,880 but more frequently rather than waiting 10, 12 weeks and at the end decide to analyze 367 00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:19,680 20 plants or 50 plants because the infectation level might be high, the spread, the disease 368 00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:28,880 can be already spread. So it's better to analyze less plants, but at an earlier stage. And 369 00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:39,120 the pooling strategy is neither a bad idea. What do you think, Ajit? 370 00:44:39,120 --> 00:44:46,320 I mean, I agree with you, like, you know, it is not possible for a small scale grower 371 00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:52,280 to do every plant. So in our study, at least we are showing that we can do it as early 372 00:44:52,280 --> 00:44:57,440 as like five, six weeks. This is five, six weeks after cutting from another plant, which 373 00:44:57,440 --> 00:45:01,380 basically if you take three weeks for rooting and you're talking about one or two weeks 374 00:45:01,380 --> 00:45:06,000 before the leaves are emerging that you're actually testing it and you can test that. 375 00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:10,840 So whatever best fits for a small grower is what I think our recommendation is, whether 376 00:45:10,840 --> 00:45:16,720 it's pooling, three dimensional pooling, making rows and columns and randomly random block 377 00:45:16,720 --> 00:45:23,440 design is what the other way, but do frequently check because the, this culprit is going to 378 00:45:23,440 --> 00:45:28,720 be latter. This guy will not, I don't want to be gender biased, but this is not going 379 00:45:28,720 --> 00:45:37,600 to express. And sometimes we are cheated by the virus. And it's so be proactive in preventing 380 00:45:37,600 --> 00:45:44,240 it out of your control. And the only way to do is to know if you by chance have a plant 381 00:45:44,240 --> 00:45:48,920 that you've infected. Because then all other things that the way it's spreading in the 382 00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:56,400 facility is all through your mechanical cutting, your tools, the SAP, you know, it seems like 383 00:45:56,400 --> 00:46:01,640 what I've heard from one of the strongest pathologists is well known, even rubbing this 384 00:46:01,640 --> 00:46:08,480 wire art on the leaf doesn't allow it to infect. So it's mostly coming from the SAP, wherever 385 00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:14,240 you're going or it's spreading through water because roots are growing. So again, Angela's 386 00:46:14,240 --> 00:46:21,120 correct. You know, be proactive and find out what best fits your budget and is your best 387 00:46:21,120 --> 00:46:22,120 solution. 388 00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:34,880 Can I ask, given that you've done very large scale testing, does your database include 389 00:46:34,880 --> 00:46:42,520 any information about the plant samples coming in as like strain names or anything like that 390 00:46:42,520 --> 00:46:50,000 beyond that? The reason I'm asking this question is I'm wondering if you were to look globally 391 00:46:50,000 --> 00:47:01,560 at your large data sets now, are there potential hints in the data for strain names that are 392 00:47:01,560 --> 00:47:09,440 underrepresented and can be somewhat defined therefore as having some degree of resistance? 393 00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:15,680 I realize there's all sorts of confounding issues in bringing that forward. But as a 394 00:47:15,680 --> 00:47:22,840 matter of fact, do you record from your sample submitters the name of the strain? 395 00:47:22,840 --> 00:47:31,720 So let me take this one, Ajit. So we don't have a database for HLV. What we developed 396 00:47:31,720 --> 00:47:39,440 last year is myflora cloud. Okay. And this is a platform where the clients, they get 397 00:47:39,440 --> 00:47:45,760 access to all the data, their data, all the statistics and so on. Obviously we cannot 398 00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:52,080 to share that information publicly because that belongs to the clients and we don't even 399 00:47:52,080 --> 00:48:00,440 know the name of the strain. Some clients, they want for their own record and for their 400 00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:09,520 own statistics, they want to add the name of the cultivars so like that they can check 401 00:48:09,520 --> 00:48:17,600 or they can retrieve the information month by month based on cultivar or year by year 402 00:48:17,600 --> 00:48:21,880 or whatever information they want to add. But there are many other clients that they 403 00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:29,360 just number the plants. So if they send us 500 plants, they number one to 500 and we 404 00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:37,480 don't know that information. But again, this is not a, this is a platform like AT&T or 405 00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:46,040 T-Mobile that you as a user, you get in and then you can check the bill from last month, 406 00:48:46,040 --> 00:48:55,360 how much energy you have spent. But it's not available for the public in general. 407 00:48:55,360 --> 00:49:04,560 What about the concept of incentivizing your submitters to provide more information to 408 00:49:04,560 --> 00:49:13,520 help understand whether there are more resistant strains? We believe there are. We also believe 409 00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:20,400 that there may be epigenetic stress factors that drive towards this and we may be in a 410 00:49:20,400 --> 00:49:29,760 position to determine at a cultivation level if you're running stress cultivation or whatever. 411 00:49:29,760 --> 00:49:36,200 Interestingly anecdotally, we were on a call last week with some Mendo-Sino area growers 412 00:49:36,200 --> 00:49:43,160 and there's the topic came up that is this prevalent in higher mercine strains which 413 00:49:43,160 --> 00:49:50,480 would fit with our models of mercine gross and moto being a stress factor indicator in 414 00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:57,160 cannabis. So I would encourage you, maybe there's you dropped your rates or something 415 00:49:57,160 --> 00:50:03,480 like that if the submitter provides more information and you start to build your data set that 416 00:50:03,480 --> 00:50:09,360 way. So what I would do instead is probably to 417 00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:19,000 create like a consortium including association of growers from different locations, different 418 00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:28,520 states where everybody submit samples and my Florida DNA will take the responsibility 419 00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:36,840 of doing the genetic analysis for free and then what we can do is to write a scientific 420 00:50:36,840 --> 00:50:48,160 article, a scientific manuscript and make it available for the community as a whole. 421 00:50:48,160 --> 00:51:01,080 But we wouldn't be able to use our clients' data and make them public or make a scientific 422 00:51:01,080 --> 00:51:09,480 analysis. So basically we are super happy to do this kind of analysis but good from 423 00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:19,200 scratch where we sit down, we set the foundation of the analysis, what information we want 424 00:51:19,200 --> 00:51:25,200 to get from there, what information the community really needs and my Florida DNA would take 425 00:51:25,200 --> 00:51:33,400 the leadership and would do the genetic analysis again for that consortium free of charge and 426 00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:47,040 then with the condition of making the data public. We are a group of scientists, we are 427 00:51:47,040 --> 00:51:54,000 coming from academic institutions. This is the first time that we decided, we have decided 428 00:51:54,000 --> 00:52:07,800 to put all of our knowledge in a private company so our mind is very academic oriented and 429 00:52:07,800 --> 00:52:13,880 that's why we published this recent publication which is the largest analysis done so far 430 00:52:13,880 --> 00:52:22,720 for HLE because we want to show to the public the technologies and get data from there. 431 00:52:22,720 --> 00:52:31,040 We should then talk further because with the connections that we are developing in Mendocino 432 00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:37,720 Cannabis Alliance as one and the Humboldt County Growers Association which represents 433 00:52:37,720 --> 00:52:46,400 a lot of farms, those would be two key stakeholders if you will and they are certainly all aware 434 00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:51,360 of this so we should talk further about how to move this along. 435 00:52:51,360 --> 00:52:54,400 We are happy to do that. 436 00:52:54,400 --> 00:53:02,400 I thought it was a good idea because the data science meet up after all and so it was kind 437 00:53:02,400 --> 00:53:10,480 of in line with a thought I had that maybe you may ask people if they want to opt in, 438 00:53:10,480 --> 00:53:15,160 that's kind of in line with John's comment in that you've got this sort of gold mine 439 00:53:15,160 --> 00:53:22,600 here and if you just sort of ask people for various data points, sort of who knows what 440 00:53:22,600 --> 00:53:26,200 you may find, right? 441 00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:31,920 How many weeks of vegetation was this plant in, what strain, if they're willing to share 442 00:53:31,920 --> 00:53:35,160 their location, so on and so forth. 443 00:53:35,160 --> 00:53:41,120 A couple of people I think had wanted to ask questions and I apologize to them for not 444 00:53:41,120 --> 00:53:49,680 getting around to it but Candice, Larissa, Blue or anybody, you're welcome to chime in 445 00:53:49,680 --> 00:53:53,320 down with any questions you may have. 446 00:53:53,320 --> 00:54:01,280 So my apologies I didn't get to everybody's questions but I was thinking that the conversation 447 00:54:01,280 --> 00:54:08,240 was going well since we finally got to sort of the data side. 448 00:54:08,240 --> 00:54:11,160 We are happy to come back another time. 449 00:54:11,160 --> 00:54:19,040 I know this is a very hot topic and it takes time so we will be happy to come back next 450 00:54:19,040 --> 00:54:24,480 week or in a few weeks and resume the conversation if we don't have enough time today. 451 00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:25,480 It's okay. 452 00:54:25,480 --> 00:54:30,520 Well I'll reach out to everyone who attended and see if they do have any questions that 453 00:54:30,520 --> 00:54:34,120 they may want to ask you in a future week. 454 00:54:34,120 --> 00:54:39,320 Real quick, welcome to the group Trevor, we're just sort of wrapping up our talks on Hopsley 455 00:54:39,320 --> 00:54:40,800 and Viroid. 456 00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:45,040 If you have any questions, now is the perfect time. 457 00:54:45,040 --> 00:54:55,360 No questions, I just kind of wanted to pop in and just kind of get a feel for the space 458 00:54:55,360 --> 00:54:58,880 and say this is my first time in the space. 459 00:54:58,880 --> 00:55:06,280 Yeah, I think I came a little late, I had a work meeting. 460 00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:12,840 We can kind of move to the third part which is basically okay we've discussed the origins 461 00:55:12,840 --> 00:55:18,600 of Hopsley and Viroid, now we've discussed what it looks like in the industry and now 462 00:55:18,600 --> 00:55:21,400 we've been brainstorming solutions. 463 00:55:21,400 --> 00:55:27,720 So I guess I'll let Dr. Fernandez and Dr. Enand, I'll let you two have the sort of the final 464 00:55:27,720 --> 00:55:35,840 words here, but you know what do you see as a future for cannabis cultivators and you 465 00:55:35,840 --> 00:55:43,360 know how can they you know overcome this obstacle to keep delivering top-notch cannabis flowery 466 00:55:43,360 --> 00:55:44,360 to people. 467 00:55:44,360 --> 00:55:48,800 So what are your thoughts? 468 00:55:48,800 --> 00:55:50,920 Let me jump in Angel if you don't mind. 469 00:55:50,920 --> 00:55:58,600 I think as we were saying our first and foremost recommendation know the plant you have and 470 00:55:58,600 --> 00:56:05,000 when I say that know what the material is and there is where again some of our technologies 471 00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:09,440 will come which means you know we have DNA fingerprinting which can be another conversation 472 00:56:09,440 --> 00:56:10,440 that we can use. 473 00:56:10,440 --> 00:56:15,560 What is the genetics that you have in your grow area, whether the plant is infected or 474 00:56:15,560 --> 00:56:24,200 non-infected, what is the source of the material, that information is very important to both 475 00:56:24,200 --> 00:56:28,960 the grower and as a scientific community for us so that we can look at the progression 476 00:56:28,960 --> 00:56:31,120 of that. 477 00:56:31,120 --> 00:56:37,160 We like this idea of a consortium where the consortium of growers, cultivators and the 478 00:56:37,160 --> 00:56:48,320 nursery can come together and use our sophisticated tools which allow us to be able to understand 479 00:56:48,320 --> 00:56:56,160 what's the issue, what the constraints are and can we recommend some germplasm of genetics 480 00:56:56,160 --> 00:56:57,160 that is superior. 481 00:56:57,160 --> 00:57:03,640 That's a learning that is going to mutually help each other. 482 00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:10,440 I recommend also to work with us on some of the tools that we have developed which is 483 00:57:10,440 --> 00:57:16,640 very high throughput, very reliable, very sensitive and as well as affordable. 484 00:57:16,640 --> 00:57:22,240 You can do that either by sending it to us or we can provide you also possibly on-site 485 00:57:22,240 --> 00:57:31,680 solutions but diagnosis is the best way to prevent the disease so do that proactively. 486 00:57:31,680 --> 00:57:37,960 Now the whole suite of things that opens up with this is when we have more system-extremely 487 00:57:37,960 --> 00:57:42,320 study that goes on with cannabis, we could unravel many things including what John was 488 00:57:42,320 --> 00:57:47,320 saying, maybe there are genotypes which are varieties which are resistance and then looking 489 00:57:47,320 --> 00:57:49,800 for using that for resistance breeding. 490 00:57:49,800 --> 00:57:54,840 That makes me more of understanding how this virus presents itself. 491 00:57:54,840 --> 00:58:01,200 So what our team can do is only do the diagnostic but we need the phenotypic data as well from 492 00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:03,400 the other end. 493 00:58:03,400 --> 00:58:09,000 We have done experiments, we have done huge scale testing with people or growers where 494 00:58:09,000 --> 00:58:15,720 they have had 30-40% of infection down to like 3-5% infection today which basically 495 00:58:15,720 --> 00:58:21,160 says that and historically that tells you that if you have a good practice of managing 496 00:58:21,160 --> 00:58:27,160 this disease you will figure out how to control the disease in your growing. 497 00:58:27,160 --> 00:58:32,720 And there is a lot more scope to understand if there is a host mechanism, is a gene to 498 00:58:32,720 --> 00:58:38,200 gene interaction, is this is the resistant pathway but this will take a lot more dedicated 499 00:58:38,200 --> 00:58:43,480 work and we need public institutions to jump into it. 500 00:58:43,480 --> 00:58:48,520 We as a private organization do not have a grow facility. 501 00:58:48,520 --> 00:58:52,960 All that we can do is, yeah we can support some tissue culture work, we can get rid of 502 00:58:52,960 --> 00:58:57,440 some of the virus, but that's a limitation of what we can do. 503 00:58:57,440 --> 00:59:02,600 Indra, please jump in if you have any other thoughts. 504 00:59:02,600 --> 00:59:20,920 Yes, my main recommendation is obviously encourage growers to test before getting a surprise. 505 00:59:20,920 --> 00:59:32,200 There are, we start seeing many reports stating that the quality of cannabidiol, its concentration 506 00:59:32,200 --> 00:59:40,600 and so on is significantly decreasing. 507 00:59:40,600 --> 00:59:48,880 It's true that we have had many clients that started with levels even above 50% and right 508 00:59:48,880 --> 00:59:59,480 now are around 5%, 6% of the overall infectational level of the facilities and that is thanks 509 00:59:59,480 --> 01:00:01,680 to the testing. 510 01:00:01,680 --> 01:00:03,760 There is not a secret for that. 511 01:00:03,760 --> 01:00:10,120 We understand that the small growers they might have a very limited budget but there 512 01:00:10,120 --> 01:00:18,380 are always solutions by for example by pulling plants, 5, 7 plants in one tube. 513 01:00:18,380 --> 01:00:25,600 That is, you can get information for a very small amount of dollars. 514 01:00:25,600 --> 01:00:34,280 We will be glad to create a consortium and help the industry moving forward with this 515 01:00:34,280 --> 01:00:40,320 problem that is affecting actually the whole community. 516 01:00:40,320 --> 01:00:41,600 Well thank you for your work. 517 01:00:41,600 --> 01:00:47,680 I would just like to end with this in that we always come across these big problems, 518 01:00:47,680 --> 01:00:54,520 these big issues but there is always a little ray of light and the one here is the virus 519 01:00:54,520 --> 01:01:01,520 itself for now it looks like it's remaining pretty constant so that's good. 520 01:01:01,520 --> 01:01:08,560 I have a lot of faith in all of the brilliant innovators and entrepreneurs out there and 521 01:01:08,560 --> 01:01:17,960 that's what's kind of so cool about this is that one person's problem is an opportunity 522 01:01:17,960 --> 01:01:20,280 for an entrepreneur. 523 01:01:20,280 --> 01:01:27,240 So for example my Florida DNA, so we've got cultivators with 50% detection rates and if 524 01:01:27,240 --> 01:01:35,400 you can lower your 50% detection rate to 5% all of a sudden that unmanageable problem 525 01:01:35,400 --> 01:01:41,360 can now be managed and as I was saying in the hemp fields you may never fully eradicate 526 01:01:41,360 --> 01:01:42,360 it right. 527 01:01:42,360 --> 01:01:50,520 There was curly top virus and there was just a small percentage of plants that get affected 528 01:01:50,520 --> 01:01:54,160 by it but overall the hemp field can power through. 529 01:01:54,160 --> 01:01:59,400 So if you can get your cultivation down to maybe a 5% detection rate then hopefully you 530 01:01:59,400 --> 01:02:02,920 can kind of power through that and overcome. 531 01:02:02,920 --> 01:02:10,360 So we'd just like to say as always the future is bright and a big thank you to Dr. Fernandez 532 01:02:10,360 --> 01:02:17,600 and Dr. Anand at my Florida DNA for coming and teaching us a thing or two about hopsley 533 01:02:17,600 --> 01:02:22,480 and viroid and giving us a little bit of hope for the future. 534 01:02:22,480 --> 01:02:23,480 So thank you both. 535 01:02:23,480 --> 01:02:31,800 Sure thank you very much for having us and feel free to contact us anytime with questions 536 01:02:31,800 --> 01:02:38,720 so all the audience can get answered to that. 537 01:02:38,720 --> 01:02:40,000 Thank you from my end too. 538 01:02:40,000 --> 01:02:44,480 Thank you for making the time for us to come and present and I want to thank the community. 539 01:02:44,480 --> 01:02:48,400 What we are doing is because of the community participation and we are here today because 540 01:02:48,400 --> 01:02:53,200 we are able to learn and also at the same time provide solutions. 541 01:02:53,200 --> 01:02:54,280 Thank you. 542 01:02:54,280 --> 01:02:56,240 Thank you very much for your presentation. 543 01:02:56,240 --> 01:02:57,240 Very very interesting. 544 01:02:57,240 --> 01:02:58,240 Good morning. 545 01:02:58,240 --> 01:03:03,640 And thank you all to all the members of the Cannabis Data Science Meetup. 546 01:03:03,640 --> 01:03:08,600 This meetup wouldn't happen without all of you fine folks, all of your brilliant ideas, 547 01:03:08,600 --> 01:03:10,480 your thoughts, your ideas, your questions. 548 01:03:10,480 --> 01:03:13,680 You're the people making this happen at the end of the day. 549 01:03:13,680 --> 01:03:15,260 So thank you. 550 01:03:15,260 --> 01:03:17,760 Thank you for making the meetup happen. 551 01:03:17,760 --> 01:03:24,480 Hopefully we can move the cannabis space forward at least by a molecule or today at least by 552 01:03:24,480 --> 01:03:25,600 a virus. 553 01:03:25,600 --> 01:03:30,960 So slowly but surely I think we're making progress. 554 01:03:30,960 --> 01:03:59,520 Thank you.