b"Head Start for HempThe industrial hemp sector has had somewhat of aIndustrial hemp in Canada has been deregulated to a head start when it comes to scaling up productiondegree and available for field scale crop production and moving to seed. Scott Horner, a former Canadianfor over 20 years. With the development of food and Seed Trade Association president and board memberfibre markets hemp is becoming a more significant crop. for the Canadian Seed Growers Association, enteredPart of whats driving growth is consumer awareness the cannabis realm in 2018 when he co-foundedand demand for natural plant-based products; whether Tritium 3H to serve the three main pillars of Canadasprotein for food, fiber for hempcrete or car parts, high-demand hemp industryfibre, food andconsumers are attracted to hemp as a sustainable medicinal. production source, Horner says. On April 19 of this year, Health Canada added high- Enter CBD. With interest in its therapeutic properties CBD industrial hemp varieties to its list of approvedgrowing, Horner says the time was right to enter the cultivars, allowing industrial hemp seed suppliers tospace to help further legitimize a crop that was once provide the industry with cannabis varieties low inillegal in Canada and was only legalized by the United THC but high in other valuable cannabinoids. States government in 2018.Refining the Experience its early days in this industry. The same thing happened with According to Pick, the changing experience among consumersalcohol prohibition. You're going to see a much more sophisticated will only continue and will help spur new innovations inapproach among cannabis consumers in terms of selecting cannabis as those consumers focus less on THC content andproducts, which is going to take some time. I compare it to how consider the full range of qualities exhibited by the plant. the fine wine and craft beer industries have evolved, Pick says.Yes, a lot of consumers still focus on THC content. They wantAs consumer preferences shift, so will the way cannabis is the most bang for their buck, so to speak. Thats largely becauseproduced. Currently, the crop is propagated through cuttings, but researchers are actively working to change that as the genetics evolve. Currently, issues with disease are significant, and producers are extremely limited in terms of what they can use in the way of herbicides. Moving away from cuttings to seed will help solve that, Baute says.Moving to seed is the next step in the evolution of growing this crop. That shift will remove a lot of the pathogen issues, PEDIGREED SEED Baute says. CPS RED WHEAT OATS Aurora is working full-time on genetic resistance to disease. AAC Goodwin CDC Arborg The company is taking part in a large powdery mildew HRS WHEAT CS Camden resistance project in conjunction with the University of British AAC Brandon Columbia (UBC), made possible through a $2.1-million AAC Wheatland VB TRITICALE matching grant from Genome Canada and Genome BC. The AAC Viewfield Taza project, titled Fast-Tracking Breeding of Powdery Mildew-CDC Silas (NEW) AB Stampeder (NEW) Resistant Cannabis, is led by UBC researchers Loren Rieseberg BARLEY PEASand Marco Todesco. AAC Connect CDC Forest (G) The improved cannabis cultivars will result in reduced CDC Copper AAC Chrome (Y) losses to pathogen contamination and increase product quality. Canmore AAC Carver (Y)AB Wrangler (NEW) CANOLA The breeding pipeline itself will also be used in the future to AB Hague (NEW) Pioneer Hi-Bred identify other important production and higher-value traits and ESMA (NEW) Canterra introduce them into cannabis cultivars.The long-term goal, of course, is scaling up production.Grass/Forage Seed/Corn Given that we are in the early stages of the legal cannabis On Site Scale - Seed Treating - Blending industry, we are still identifying how to grow cannabis at scale. Cannabis is one of the most heavily regulated industries in LenKelseyCorwin (L) (403) 323-0317 Canada, and with that, we are always leaning on our teams Box 97, Halkirk, AB (K) (403) 323-0315 creativity and past agriculture experience to develop and T0C 1M0 (C) (403) 916-5582 implement new best practices, Brandle adds.(403) 884-2358 [email protected] Zienkiewicz106seed.ab.ca"