Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

The rapidly growing interest in cultivation of marihuana (Cannabis sativa) for medical use (and potentially recreational use in the future) in Canada by licensed growers and individuals has raised concerns over product quality and consistency of the strains used in production. In addition, there are concerns about the reliability of the production environment and the impact that cultivation methods could have on the final product available to patients and consumers. Compounding these concerns is the lack of prior research on diseases affecting the crop and disease management options available for producers. These various challenges to the production of high quality marihuana for medical use will be addressed in the proposed research. Firstly, an assessment of the extent of genetic variability amongst widely grown strains of marihuana will be made using molecular approaches. Using this information, specific regions in the genome will be targeted with the objective of developing a DNA fingerprinting method that can be used to identify/confirm the genetic identity of specific strains in production. This will have commercial applicability in ensuring quality and consistency of the product. Secondly, the diseases affecting marihuana during highly intensive cultivation will be studied, as well as potential methods through which pathogens may be introduced and spread. Disease control options based on biological approaches will be investigated by evaluation of registered biological control products for disease management to identify those with the most potential. Although tissue culture methods provide advantages to propagation of marihuana that can be uniform and free of pathogens, the versatility and applicability of this approach has not been investigated. Therefore, the utility of tissue culture methods to obtain high quality plantlets of marihuana will be studied as a third objective. Select strains will be assessed for their response to tissue culture methods in the proposed research. The outcome of this collaborative research project will provide the medical marihuana industry in Canada, as well as regulatory agencies, with a much-needed set of research-derived guidelines to ensure that a high quality product is guaranteed for consumers.