Tag Archives: cultivation

Closing the Gaps in Cannabis Dry-Room Handoffs

By Jim Hadley
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An incorrect weight, unreadable container label, or missing inventory record may seem minor during a dry-room transfer, but unnoticed errors can cause problems throughout production and further down the supply chain.

A clear standard operating procedure (SOP) can help employees catch and resolve these issues before the inventory moves to the next stage. It should specify what to check, how to document discrepancies, and who is responsible for resolving them.

 

Establish Clear Transfer Procedures

Before inventory leaves the dry room, employees should know what information to record and what the receiving team must verify.

The SOP should require container identifiers, destination, quantities and units, inventory records, current status, and the name of the receiving employee. It should also explain what to do when information is missing or doesn’t match.

Not every discrepancy can be resolved immediately. The SOP should identify which problems must be corrected before inventory can be accepted and which can be documented for follow-up. Employees should also know who has authority to resolve these issues.

Assign someone to keep the SOP updated and make sure employees are trained on the current version.

 

Keep Transfer Records in One Place

Employees shouldn’t have to search through spreadsheets, text messages, and handwritten notes to find information about transferred inventory.

Use one primary transfer record that includes container identifiers, location, quantity, inventory status, unresolved issues, and the employee responsible for the next step. Supporting documents can be stored elsewhere, but the transfer record should show employees where to find them.

Record when inventory was moved and when the receiving employee verified it. These may be different times.

Avoid vague descriptions such as “pending.” The record should explain what still needs to be done and who is responsible.

Don’t rely solely on color-coded statuses, since colors may not appear consistently on printed documents or different screens.

 

Check for Errors Before Accepting Inventory

The receiving employee should compare container labels, quantities, and destination information against the transfer record. If weights are recorded, the SOP should specify whether employees are checking net product weight or the combined weight of the product and container.

Employees should record what they checked rather than simply marking a box indicating the transfer was completed.

If a label is unreadable, a record is missing, or a quantity doesn’t match, the employee should document the problem and notify the person authorized to resolve it. The SOP should also explain how to handle the affected inventory until the issue is resolved.

Consider a transfer involving three containers. The employee sending the inventory records all three container identifiers and their destination. When the receiving employee checks the containers, two labels match the records, but the third is difficult to read.

Rather than marking all three containers as verified, the employee documents the problem with the third container and refers it to the appropriate person for review.

The receiving employee should not guess at the identifier or assume the container is correct because it arrived with the others.

Once the issue is resolved, the record should show how the container was identified, any corrections made, and when the transfer was accepted.

If records need correction, preserve the original information and document who made the changes and why.

 

Prepare for Interruptions and Shift Changes

Employees may be called away during a transfer, label printers can malfunction, and inventory management systems can go offline. The SOP should explain how to record transfers when the normal process is interrupted.

Facilities should have an approved temporary recordkeeping method and instructions for entering that information into the primary system once it becomes available.

Keep both the original transfer time and the time the information was entered into the system. Check for duplicate entries to avoid recording the same inventory movement twice.

Unresolved problems also need to be addressed during shift changes. Assign each issue to a specific employee and require the person taking over to acknowledge it.

A group message may alert employees to a problem, but someone still needs to be responsible for resolving it.

 

Train Employees to Handle Errors

Training should cover more than filling out forms. Employees need to know what to do when a label is unreadable, a quantity doesn’t match, or information is missing.

Use examples of these problems during training. Ask employees to locate the current SOP, identify what needs correction, and explain who they would contact.

Both the employees sending inventory and those receiving it should understand their responsibilities.

Keep training records and review questions that come up repeatedly. If several employees misunderstand the same instruction, clarify the SOP.

 

Review Transfer Records for Recurring Problems

Facilities should regularly review transfer records to identify recurring errors and delays.

Useful measurements include the percentage of transfers completed without missing information, the number of unresolved discrepancies, and the time between physical receipt and verification.

Facilities can also track how long it takes employees to locate a completed transfer record.

When comparing results across shifts, use consistent measurements and review the reasons for any problems. An increase in reported discrepancies may indicate that employees are catching more errors rather than making more mistakes.

Reviewing these records can help managers identify where procedures or employee training need improvement.

A clear dry-room SOP can prevent small inventory errors from causing problems later in production. Employees should be able to verify what was transferred, document any discrepancies, and resolve outstanding issues before they affect the next stage of processing.

Why CO₂ Management Matters in Commercial Cannabis Cultivation

By Ray Grieco
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In commercial cannabis cultivation, deciding to enrich with CO₂ is often straightforward. The key challenge is maintaining the intended concentration consistently without wasting gas, disrupting humidity control, or creating worker-safety risks.

CO₂ enrichment works as part of an environmental system. Light intensity, leaf temperature, irrigation, air movement, dehumidification, HVAC operation, canopy density, and CO₂ concentration all affect one another. A controller that holds a nominal CO₂ setpoint is just one factor to consider.

For experienced cultivators, effective CO₂ management comes down to three priorities: maintaining the desired concentration at canopy level, coordinating enrichment with the rest of the mechanical system, and collecting enough data to recognize when the room is drifting away from its intended operating conditions.

 

CO₂ Enrichment Has to Match Canopy Demand

Adding more CO₂ does not automatically increase production.

Cannabis research has demonstrated that photosynthesis responds to CO₂ in combination with light and temperature. Earlier controlled-environment research found that photosynthetic response changed as CO₂ concentration, photosynthetic photon flux density, and temperature were varied. Other cannabis studies have also shown that crop-level yield response does not necessarily mirror leaf-level photosynthetic response.

A facility running high-intensity lighting may be able to use elevated CO₂ productively, whereas a lower-light strategy would provide little benefit. If temperature, irrigation, or other environmental conditions are not well controlled, those factors can limit plant performance before CO₂ becomes the primary constraint.

Instead of treating one concentration as universally optimal, cultivation teams should determine CO₂ targets in the context of a room’s:

  • Light intensity and photoperiod
  • Cultivar and crop stage
  • Canopy density
  • Temperature strategy
  • Irrigation and substrate management
  • HVAC and dehumidification capacity
  • Air-exchange rate

This approach also makes cost analysis more useful by focusing on production gains relative to the cost of supplying and retaining CO₂.

 

A Room Setpoint Does Not Guarantee Uniform Canopy Exposure

One common weakness in CO₂ management is assuming a single sensor reading represents the entire room. That is not always the case.

CO₂ distribution depends on injection location, circulation fans, supply and return air patterns, canopy structure, room geometry, equipment placement, and leakage. Dense plant canopies can make spatial differences more pronounced.

That creates two problems at once. Some parts of the crop may receive less CO₂ than intended, while operators keep adding gas because a controller responds to a sensor elsewhere.

Commercial operations can reduce that uncertainty through well-designed CO₂ services that incorporate appropriate sensing, distribution, and control rather than relying on enrichment alone.

Sensor placement should reflect the conditions operators are trying to control. Monitoring at or near the active canopy can provide more useful cultivation data than a reading from a convenient wall location. Larger rooms may also warrant multiple measurement points to identify gradients.

Calibration matters as well. A drifting sensor can make an otherwise well-designed control strategy inefficient because the automation system is responding precisely to inaccurate information.

 

CO₂ Retention and Humidity Control Have to Be Engineered Together

This is especially important in humid climates.

Indoor cultivators often operate sealed or semi-sealed rooms partly because exhausting conditioned air also exhausts enriched CO₂. Retaining that air can improve CO₂-use efficiency, but it also means the facility must mechanically manage the moisture released through plant transpiration.

That moisture load can become substantial as canopy biomass increases.

The result is an important operational tradeoff: a room designed to retain CO₂ may also retain water vapor. If dehumidification and cooling systems cannot keep pace with the crop’s latent load, relative humidity can rise even while the CO₂ controller performs exactly as intended.

High-moisture conditions are particularly concerning because Florida cannabis regulations include microbial and other contaminants among substances that can make products unacceptable, and current testing rules include microbial testing requirements for finished products.

CO₂ automation should therefore communicate with, or at least be designed around, the room’s environmental-control strategy. Operators need visibility into CO₂, temperature, and humidity trends together.

A CO₂ system does not prevent mold. Precise environmental management helps prevent conditions that make contamination risk harder to control.

 

Trend Data Can Reveal CO₂ Waste Before It Becomes Expensive

One of the biggest advantages of automated monitoring is tracking historical trends over time.

A room that repeatedly drops below its setpoint can tell operators something about the facility itself.

For example, unusually high CO₂ consumption may indicate:

  • Excessive exhaust or unintended air exchange
  • Leaking doors or penetrations
  • Poorly timed injection cycles
  • Inadequate gas distribution
  • Sensor drift
  • HVAC sequences that remove enriched air unnecessarily
  • Frequent personnel access during enrichment periods

The rate at which a room recovers after doors open or equipment cycles can also provide useful operational information.

This is where environmental controls become a cost-management tool rather than simply a cultivation tool. Instead of compensating for an unknown problem by supplying more gas, operators can identify why the room cannot maintain its intended concentration.

That can lower gas consumption without lowering the cultivation target.

 

CO₂ Should Be Scheduled Around Plant Demand

Commercial systems should also avoid treating CO₂ enrichment as a constant requirement.

Photosynthetic demand is primarily associated with the light period. Continuing to enrich when the crop cannot productively use the additional CO₂ wastes material and can unnecessarily increase room concentrations.

More advanced strategies can coordinate enrichment with lighting schedules and other environmental sequences rather than operating CO₂ as an independent system.

The same principle applies when rooms are accessed by employees. Control sequences can suspend injection during certain operating conditions, respond to alarms, or shut down gas flow when the room moves outside predetermined safety parameters.

The goal is controlled CO₂ delivery that maintains the desired concentration when enrichment provides the greatest value.

 

Crop Monitoring and Life-Safety Monitoring Serve Different Purposes

CO₂ is also an occupational safety issue.

OSHA’s permissible exposure limit for carbon dioxide is 5,000 ppm as an 8-hour time-weighted average. NIOSH also lists a 5,000 ppm recommended exposure limit, a 30,000 ppm short-term exposure limit, and 40,000 ppm as immediately dangerous to life or health.

Those concentrations are well above typical cultivation targets, but equipment failures, leaks, or uncontrolled releases can produce conditions very different from normal operation.

That is why crop-control sensing should not automatically be treated as a substitute for life-safety detection.

The 2024 International Fire Code also includes safety requirements for certain CO₂ enrichment systems. Section 5307.4 establishes requirements for systems containing more than 100 pounds of CO₂ and systems of any quantity with a remote fill connection. For these systems, the code specifies a low-level gas detection alarm at 5,000 ppm and a high-level alarm at 30,000 ppm. Alarm activation triggers safety measures, including stopping CO₂ flow and activating mechanical exhaust ventilation. Applicable requirements depend on the fire-code edition adopted by the jurisdiction and any local amendments.

For operators, the practical takeaway is simple: production controls optimize the crop. Safety controls protect people. Both require appropriate sensors, alarm logic, maintenance, and testing.

 

Better CO₂ Control Means Better Environmental Repeatability

At commercial scale, CO₂ control shapes far more than photosynthetic performance. It also affects how consistently a cultivation facility can maintain the environmental conditions the crop depends on.

A well-designed system gives cultivation teams visibility into where CO₂ goes, whether the canopy receives it consistently, how enrichment interacts with HVAC and humidity control, and whether gas consumption aligns with production demands.

That becomes particularly important in humid climates, where retaining enriched air without adequate moisture removal can undermine product-quality goals elsewhere in the room.

For commercial cultivators, CO₂ control adds value through the data and coordination it brings to the growing environment. When operators can track concentrations, identify inefficiencies, and respond to changing room conditions, CO₂ becomes a more precise production tool rather than another variable to manage manually.

This Company Wants Your Dirty Grow Air Filters

By Pam Chmiel
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It is not uncommon for industries outside cannabis to adapt their technologies to address challenges unique to this maturing sector. American Air Filter International (AAF) is one such company, bringing decades of experience in air filtration for critical environments such as pharmaceutical clean rooms, food manufacturing facilities, hospitals, and even jet fuel applications.

According to Nikki Sasher, a microbiologist and head of the Clean Air Laboratory at American Air Filter International, cannabis cultivation facilities face a host of airborne risks, with mold at the top of the list. Once mold enters a grow, the financial consequences can escalate quickly, from destroyed harvests to failed compliance tests. Beyond lost revenue, there are serious biosecurity and worker health concerns tied to inhaling mold spores. In cases where Aspergillus reaches the lower lungs, Sasher notes, the mold can colonize and continue to propagate inside the body.

In 2022, a Trulieve employee died after suffering an asthma attack linked to prolonged exposure to ground cannabis dust in her workplace. Following the incident, OSHA cited the company for failing to implement adequate dust control measures, including proper ventilation and the use of HEPA filtration on vacuum equipment.

Health officials and researchers have since identified a range of respiratory hazards common in cannabis cultivation and processing facilities. These include mold and fungi, pesticides and chemical residues, and terpenes and other volatile organic compounds. Many of these compounds create strong odors and can interact with other airborne agents to form irritants that pose both acute and long-term health risks.

These incidents present a growing safety and occupational health challenge within the rapidly expanding cannabis industry, one that is increasingly difficult to ignore.

 

Filtration Is Not Yet an Industry-Wide Standard

Despite these risks, comprehensive air filtration is far from universal across cannabis operations. Sasher explains that geography plays a role. Drier climates, such as Nevada, tend to experience fewer mold issues than states like Michigan, Colorado, and New York, where temperature swings and higher humidity create ideal conditions for microbial growth.

Greenhouses, in particular, present ongoing challenges due to constant water activity created by irrigation systems and plant respiration. Sasher frequently sees mold outbreaks occur in drying rooms, where freshly harvested plants retain moisture. If mold is already present in the room or circulating through the air handling system, spores can easily settle onto wet plant material. Drying rooms are typically smaller and more enclosed than other areas of a cultivation facility, making them among the highest-risk environments in the entire operation.

The use of high-tech air filtration systems has only been around for less than twenty years; some sectors still need to catch up to the standards required in food and pharmaceutical manufacturing, such as adhering to minimum efficiency ratings, change-out intervals, locations, first-in, first-out process flow, and hazard analysis.

 

AAF Wants Your Dirty Filters

To spark greater industry awareness around the benefits of proper air filtration, American Air Filter International has launched a free filter-testing program for cannabis cultivators. Through the initiative, growers are invited to submit used air filters from their facilities, allowing AAF to analyze real-world contamination and build a clearer picture of airborne risks across the sector.

According to Sasher, the filters are evaluated for efficiency, resistance, and pressure drop, as well as downstream mold capture to determine what is circulating in process-facing air. AAF also uses scanning electron microscopy to examine the filter media at the microscopic level, revealing how particulate matter, such as mold spores, dust, and plant material, accumulates and impacts performance over time.

To expand the scope of the research, AAF has partnered with Dr. Alison Justice of the Cannabis Research Center. Together, the organizations are collecting data that will help quantify air quality risks and translate them into practical guidance for cultivators.

 

Exposed Areas in Cultivation Facilities

Modern cultivation facilities rely on complex climate control systems that include HVAC units, humidifiers, and dehumidifiers, each requiring filters with different efficiency ratings. Sasher notes that many of the filters currently in use fall below recommended standards, a gap AAF hopes to validate through its research partnership with the Cannabis Research Center. The goal is to help growers better understand which efficiency ratings are needed in different parts of the facility to meaningfully reduce risk.

Mold spores, Sasher emphasizes, are ubiquitous. Air filtration is only one engineering control among many, alongside practices such as room fogging and sanitation protocols. Once mold is introduced into a facility, it can be extremely difficult to eliminate.

One uniquely cannabis-specific challenge is the presence of trichomes. These microscopic, sticky particles easily become airborne during cultivation and processing, where they accumulate on filters, restrict airflow, and degrade filtration performance. As part of the testing program, AAF is evaluating how sticky versus non-sticky particulate matter affects filter lifespan and efficiency. The findings could help growers better determine optimal change-out schedules and identify operational factors that accelerate filter failure.

For Sasher, biosecurity is the most compelling reason to invest in proper air filtration. Through its collaboration with Dr. Justice, AAF aims to merge air quality science with cultivation expertise to produce data-driven research that the industry currently lacks. The partnership is focused on developing practical guidance around filtration standards, airflow management, preventative maintenance, and standard operating procedures, areas where formal benchmarks are still largely absent.

Looking ahead, the research team plans to identify pilot cultivation sites where filtration can be evaluated directly within active grow environments. By measuring conditions before and after filtration upgrades, they hope to quantify the impact on contamination levels and overall plant health. Sasher points to similar work in agricultural settings, where improved air filtration reduced livestock mortality rates by double digits, delivering measurable economic gains.

While cannabis-specific results will take time, Sasher believes the approach has the potential to deliver actionable insights that the industry can implement quickly. Even cultivators who are not using AFF products, she says, will be able to apply the findings to strengthen biosecurity, protect workers, and reduce costly crop losses.

 

Beyond Particulates: Managing Odors and Emissions

While much of the focus in cultivation facilities centers on particulate filtration, Sasher emphasizes that molecular, carbon-based filtration plays an equally important role in cannabis operations. These systems are designed to scrub gases and volatile compounds from outgoing air, an increasingly critical requirement as cultivation and extraction facilities operate closer to residential and commercial neighborhoods, and as consumption lounges come online.

In cannabis, terpenes are responsible for strong odors, as well as gases released during extraction processes that use hydrocarbons such as butane. These gas-phase emissions are subject to strict environmental and safety standards, particularly in regulated markets where operators are required to control odors and limit volatile organic compound emissions.

American Air Filter International addresses this challenge through a dual filtration approach. Pleated particulate filters support plant health and worker safety by capturing airborne contaminants within the facility, while carbon-based molecular filtration systems target gas-phase pollutants before exhaust is released outdoors. Together, these systems help operators remain compliant with local regulations while reducing environmental impact.

Sasher also points to a key differentiator in AAF’s gas-phase filtration program: the ability to test and monitor the remaining life and gas-holding capacity of carbon filters. By measuring remaining adsorption capacity, AAF provides operators with data-driven guidance on when to replace filters. This reduces guesswork, prevents performance failures, and supports more predictable maintenance schedules.

 

As regulators, communities, and workers place increasing scrutiny on air quality, molecular filtration is becoming a necessary extension of cultivation and extraction infrastructure rather than an option. As the industry inches toward rescheduling and ultimately descheduling, GMP-certified facilities will be required, and with that comes clean-air filtration.

CONTACT NIKKI SASHER IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE FREE AIR FILTER STUDY: nsasher@aafintl.com

Listen to Nikki Sasher’s full interview on the Innovating Cannabis Podcast.

Quality From Canada

Inside Red Light Holland’s Plan to Bring Psilocybin Products to the Global Market

By Pam Chmiel
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Red Light Holland (CSE: TRIP) has established its foundation in the Netherlands, where psilocybin truffles, the underground sclerotia of psilocybin mushrooms, are legally permitted for cultivation and sale. The above-ground mushroom is prohibited, but the truffle is treated differently under Dutch law, despite delivering the same psychoactive effects.

“It’s really the same thing, with the same effects,” says CEO Todd Shapiro, “but because it forms underground, it can be sold in compliance with Dutch law.”

From its cultivation facility, RLH distributes truffles through a wholesale partnership to over 150 wellness shops under its brands iMicrodose and Maka. “We like to think of them as wellness shops rather than smart shops, like they are referred to in Holland,” Shapiro explains, underscoring the company’s emphasis on education, QR-code-based information, and community engagement. While regulations prevent RLH from turning truffles into edibles such as gummies or chocolates, its vacuum-sealed, raw truffles have become a steady revenue stream. “They’re a bit walnut-y,” Shapiro notes, “but they sell well and people rarely complain.”

 

Canada: Positioning for a Regulated Future                                                           In Canada, RLH is preparing for the potential regulatory shift that could pave the way for the legalization of psilocybin products. The company has already developed psilocybin gummy formulations, but for now, it only sells them as functional mushroom products that don’t contain psilocybin. This approach not only helps build brand recognition, but it also keeps the company R&D-ready, allowing it to move quickly if Health Canada establishes a legal framework for psilocybin.

 

United States: Research Partnerships for Validation                                        South of the border, RLH has partnered with Irvine Labs, a DEA-registered laboratory in California. The lab is testing RLH’s truffles, imported from the Netherlands, to confirm potency, safety, and pharmacological value. The partnership is central to RLH’s long-term vision of formulating psilocybin capsules tailored to various needs, including microdosing, therapeutic use, and wellness.

Shapiro frames the multi-pronged approach as deliberate groundwork for the future. “The Netherlands gives us a legal, revenue-generating business today. Canada positions us for tomorrow. And in the U.S., we’re laying the foundation with science so that when the regulatory environment changes, we’ll be ready.”

 

Research & Consumer Insights                                                                                In addition to building commercial distribution, Red Light Holland is investing in research that could help shape future regulations. Through its iMicrodose app, the company collects voluntary, anonymized data from consumers in the Netherlands on how they are using psilocybin truffles, whether for trauma, pain management, recreation, or general wellness. Shapiro points to a substantial interest in using psilocybin to tame menopause symptoms from their data.

 

“We ask our consumers if they’d like to participate in the app and give us data on how they’re using it,” explains Shapiro.

 

The data was analyzed in collaboration with Drug Science UK under the leadership of renowned neuroscientist Professor David Nutt, one of the most respected voices in psychedelic research and policy. The published study confirmed that RLH’s data provided meaningful evidence of consumer benefit. “A lot of it is anecdotal research, which is key research,” says Shapiro. “It’s almost like its own Phase 1.”

The findings also carried a regulatory impact. RLH presented its consumer data to lawmakers in Oregon as they developed the state’s psilocybin program, contributing to the inclusion of microdosing language in the final bill. “This was a huge win for the company,” Shapiro says. “It adds credibility, validation, and shows how we can responsibly influence policy through science-backed data.”

For RLH, consumer research serves a dual purpose: it provides a self-regulatory framework for the safe distribution of products today, and it informs the company’s plans for future formulations as regulations evolve.

 

Standardization & Medical Pathways                                                                   Red Light Holland is also working behind the scenes to prepare psilocybin for the medical market. The company has partnered with labs in both Canada and the U.S. to analyze and standardize its products, laying the groundwork for future pharmaceutical-style formulations.

In Canada, RLH has collaborated with Seacrest Laboratories in Montreal, securing multiple permits for the import of psilocybin from Health Canada. These projects have produced certificates of analysis (COAs) to understand psilocybin content better and explore standardized dosing formats. “We’re learning about the standardization of our product,” says Shapiro, “whether that eventually becomes ground into powder form or an extract. The end goal is to move toward a consistent, pill-like product for microdosing.”

In the U.S., RLH works with Irvine Labs in California, a rare FDA-approved, DEA-compliant facility, to advance similar objectives. The partnership underscores RLH’s long-term ambition: validating its Dutch truffles as a source for medical-grade psilocybin products that could one day be distributed under compassionate care or special access programs.

“It’s a slow path,” Shapiro admits. “No one would normally start a business that they could only sell in about one percent of the world. But if you want to be an outlier versus an outlaw, you take the careful approach by generating sustainable revenue in Holland while advancing science and regulations in North America.”

 

Slow and Steady                                                                                                    While regulatory doors are starting to crack open in places like Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and the Czech Republic, RLH isn’t rushing in. Shapiro is careful to point out that the company has no interest in repeating the mistakes of many cannabis operators who built massive facilities before the market was ready, only to burn through cash and collapse in oversaturated conditions. Instead, RLH is pacing itself, positioning products, standardizing formulations, and preparing for the moment commercialization becomes viable.

“It’s frustrating for some investors who want instant results,” Shapiro admits, “but the reality is we can only sell in one percent of the world right now. We’d run out of money if we tried to scale too fast. Every move has to be deliberate.”

For RLH, the mission remains steady: take psilocybin from the underground to the mainstream. Until regulations evolve, the company is committed to cautious progress, ensuring it will be ready to deliver once legalization expands.

 

Market Readiness                                                                                                       To help normalize psilocybin, RLH has leveraged functional mushrooms with its Happy Caps grow kits and mushroom gummies to establish brand awareness. Happy Caps started as homegrow kits for lion’s mane, shiitake, and oyster mushrooms, products that ended up on the shelves of Costco and other major Canadian retailers. The idea is simple: just as Canada allowed adults to grow cannabis at home after legalization, psilocybin might one day follow a similar path. If that happens, RLH will already be positioned with both the distribution channels and consumer familiarity to shift from lion’s mane to psilocybin.

More recently, RLH launched mushroom gummies in Canada made with a lion’s mane and shiitake blend. These gummies carry a Health Canada–approved NPN number, which allows the company to make validated health claims, such as immune-boosting and antioxidant properties that most competitors cannot legally advertise. Shapiro says this not only sets RLH apart in the crowded functional mushroom category, but also provides a ready-made blueprint for psilocybin gummies once regulations allow. “It’s a much easier way to consume than chewing on a raw truffle,” he explains. In other words, today’s Happy Caps gummies are tomorrow’s psilocybin edibles.

In parallel, RLH is deepening its scientific foundation through a partnership with Irvine Labs. The company has already imported truffle samples for testing, focusing on potency, shelf-life stability, and consistency—critical steps in moving psilocybin from a naturally variable product to a standardized medicine. “If you’re microdosing for medical reasons, you want to be sure each dose delivers the same effect,” Shapiro explains.

That requires rigorous testing under pharmaceutical standards, much like cannabis research has revealed the complexities of the entourage effect.

Shelf stability has emerged as one of the biggest challenges. Like fresh produce, truffles degrade quickly if not kept under controlled conditions. For RLH, understanding how to preserve potency over time is key to developing future formulations, whether in pill or extraction form. “Consistency is always the goal when it comes to drug discovery,” Shapiro notes.

 

Strategic Growth Through M&A                                                                    Beyond consumer products and R&D, RLH is also exploring mergers and acquisitions as a path to scale. Shapiro says the focus is on acquiring brands with strong recognition and the potential to be cash flow positive, rather than companies burning capital. “A great Instagram account and loyal customers can be half the battle,” he notes. The idea is to consolidate products, share resources, and expand distribution while maintaining financial discipline.

Still, opportunities are scarce. After reviewing more than 40 companies over the past two years, Shapiro says nearly all were losing money. The demands of major retailers compound the challenge—fulfilling large orders requires significant upfront inventory and the ability to survive long payment cycles, which can stretch 90 days or more.

While RLH has heard of pioneering efforts, such as Oregon’s first psilocybin edibles, local ownership laws, and public company reporting requirements make direct entry into that market difficult. For now, the company continues to evaluate partnerships and acquisitions that align with its strategy, while supporting others that advance the industry. As Shapiro puts it, “Rising tides lift all boats.”

 

Looking Ahead                                                                                                        Red Light Holland is narrowing its focus on CPG products, leveraging its experience in the Netherlands while preparing for a global market. While the company continues some cultivation, its strategy centers on creating standardized, science-backed psilocybin products that can reach more people and address the growing mental health crisis. “We’re a psilocybin company at the end of the day,” says Shapiro, “focused on products that can help people, responsibly and sustainably, while navigating complex regulations and building a foundation for future growth.” By combining research, consumer insights, careful regulatory planning, and selective M&A, RLH is positioning itself to take psilocybin from niche wellness shops to mainstream markets worldwide.

Cannabusiness Sustainability

Taking Cannabis Global: Inside Somai Pharmaceuticals’ Multi-Country Strategy

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In an industry defined by local operators struggling to stay afloat and confined within their borders, Michael Sassano, founder and CEO of Somai Pharmaceuticals, has created a blueprint for scaling cannabis worldwide with pharmaceutical discipline and regulatory agility. With headquarters in Lisbon and operations in 12 countries today, Somai is preparing to reach 18 by year’s end.

The company has already secured distribution in Germany, the UK, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand, with France recently authorizing Somai’s products for its growing patient program. By the end of this year, six more markets, including parts of Eastern Europe, will be added to the roster.

 

“Every new country is like starting a company from scratch,” Sassano said in an interview. “You have to understand not only the national regulations but also how local medical communities perceive cannabis, how prescriptions are written, and what distributors are required to do. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach.”

 

Operating across borders has taught Somai how to adapt to widely different healthcare environments. In Germany, cannabis is covered by insurance in some instances, requiring negotiations with health funds. In the UK, the market is dominated by private clinics and cash-paying patients. Australia and New Zealand have highly structured import programs, while France is still moving cautiously through pilot projects.

This incremental, country-by-country buildout has given Somai real-world experience operating across multiple regulatory systems, positioning the company as one of the most credible voices on international cannabis harmonization.

 

High Standards Are Key

At the core of Somai’s global strategy is its pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Lisbon, certified under EU-GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice). This certification is a mandatory requirement for selling medical-grade cannabis products in the EU and most international markets.

 

“EU-GMP is the gold standard,” Sassano says. “Without it, you simply can’t access the bulk of the world’s regulated medical markets.”

 

This distinction highlights one of the biggest differences between the US and international cannabis industries. In the United States, the market is fractured by a state-by-state model, with companies forced to duplicate infrastructure in every new state because products can’t cross state lines. By contrast, Somai can centralize manufacturing in Portugal and distribute to multiple countries. Products produced in Lisbon are eligible for export across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil, and other compliant markets.

Unlike US operators who may quickly launch products like gummies with minimal oversight, a EU-GMP market-authorized medicine requires approximately two and a half years of validation, stability testing, and regulatory review before reaching patients. The payoff is consistency, safety, and the ability to meet the expectations of regulators, physicians, and patients alike.

By owning EU-GMP manufacturing and pairing it with distribution partnerships across 12 (soon 18) countries, Somai is among a select handful of cannabis companies capable of bringing pharmaceutical-grade products to the global market.

 

Strategic Partnerships, Cultivation, and Research

Somai’s global growth relies on a carefully balanced supply chain strategy that combines in-house cultivation with an extensive network of international partners. In addition to cultivating indoor flower at its own facilities, it also works with about 15 cultivation partners worldwide.

In most European markets, pharmaceutical cannabis must move through distributors before reaching pharmacies. Somai works with leading distribution companies, ensuring products reach doctors and patients in compliance with local laws.

Research partnerships are also part of Somai’s business strategy. The company collaborated with a university in Lisbon to conduct clinical research evaluating its manufacturing process, ensuring consistency from one product to another and from batch to batch. This validation of consistency is crucial for Somai to claim medical status and prove it.

“There are really only five global operator brands today in the market, and then a lot of localized brands, clinic brands, and white-label brands,” Sassano notes. “Our focus is on building a pharmaceutical brand with true international reach.”

 

Pharmaceutical Rigor from the Start

“In pharmaceuticals, quality is binary,” Sassano explains. “Either you meet the exacting standards or you don’t. There is no middle ground.”

This applies from raw material sourcing to batch release protocols. Unlike the US, which often requires independent third-party lab testing, the EU herbal medicine framework permits EU-GMP-certified facilities, such as Somai, to conduct all necessary testing in-house. Somai operates its own EU-GMP lab, a rarity in cannabis but standard in pharma.

The lab operates under strict oversight from a Qualified Person (QP), who leads the independent Quality Assurance (QA) department. The QA/QP team conducts regular onsite reviews of all procedures and documentation, ensuring that production, laboratory testing, and batch releases adhere to rigorous protocols. “Nobody can influence the lab or its reports,” Sassano emphasizes. Each product undergoes multiple checks: raw material testing, formulation verification, and random dosage confirmation.

Even packaging and labeling are treated with pharmaceutical precision. Labels must comply with each country’s language and dosage requirements, and patient information leaflets are tailored to the regulatory environment. “It might seem like a small thing, but one mistake on a label can stop a shipment at customs and delay patient access by months,” Sassano notes.

Sassano supports the rigorous framework. “Doctors will only prescribe, and patients will only trust cannabis if it meets the same standards as any other medicine on the shelf.”

 

Navigating a Patchwork of Regulations

Some nations allow doctors to prescribe freely, while others limit access to a narrow list of conditions. Even within the same country, patients may face dramatically different experiences.

Sassano points to Italy as a case in point. While prescriptions are permitted, the way pharmacists prepare medicines can vary region by region. “A patient in Milan might get a different preparation than a patient in Rome, even with the same prescription,” he explains. “That creates inconsistency for patients and makes it extremely challenging for producers to standardize.”

The difference between magisterial preparations and finished dosage form medicines illustrates the unevenness of the system. In newer markets, such as the UK and Australia, patients now receive finished dosage products that are fully packaged, labeled, and ready to use, just like any other pharmaceutical. But in older systems, pharmacists were often required to compound medicines themselves, a legacy from the early years when manufacturers didn’t exist and flower was the only product available.

Germany still clings to this model. Pharmacy compounding laws require pharmacists to fill vape cartridges or re-bottle oils instead of allowing manufacturers to deliver standardized, child-proof, finished dosage forms directly. “In some cases, they’re literally just swapping a cap, calling it magisterial prep, and charging patients double,”

Sassano notes. “It’s an archaic system that needs to go.”

Despite these hurdles, Sassano sees eventual harmonization as inevitable. “Europe cannot sustain a market where 27 countries have 27 different systems,” he argues. “Over time, patient demand and cross-border trade will push regulators toward standardization. Finished dosage forms are the future.”

 

Global Market Access

Somai’s EU-GMP certification positions it for international distribution. Unlike the US state-by-state system, where borders are closed and infrastructure must be duplicated in each market, EU-GMP allows a single production hub to supply multiple countries. As a recognized pharmaceutical standard, it enables Somai’s products to move across borders into any country that accepts EU-GMP medicines.

This flexibility is critical because cannabis is treated differently around the world. Europe and many international markets have strong herbal medicine traditions, so cannabis extracts fall under the herbal pharmacopoeia as true medicines and are subject to rigorous pharmaceutical rules. In contrast, the US market is closed off under FDA oversight, which historically favors synthetic cannabinoids over botanical extracts.

Still, Somai is positioning itself for future entry. “We’re working with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs because there is no federally approved cannabis extract made domestically,” Sassano says. “If cannabis is ever integrated into federal programs, it will need to be a registered medicine, not a dispensary product.”

Beyond the U.S., Somai has already secured FDA-style registrations in countries like Thailand, is pursuing approvals in Japan, and has entered France’s government-controlled medical program, where cannabis is subsidized for patients.

“These are true medicines that can travel cross-border,” Sassano says. “Wherever cannabis is accepted as a medicine, we want to be there.”

 

Conclusion

Michael Sassano’s insights offer a roadmap not just for his company but for the entire industry. “Cannabis is a medicine first,” he emphasizes. “Our responsibility is to show regulators, doctors, and patients that it can be produced, prescribed, and trusted like any other pharmaceutical. Once that trust is established, global acceptance will follow.”

Quick Q&A Recap

Q: Who is Michael Sassano?
A: Michael Sassano is the founder and CEO of Somai Pharmaceuticals, a company scaling cannabis globally with pharmaceutical-grade standards.

Q: What is Somai Pharmaceuticals’ global footprint?
A: Somai currently operates in 12 countries and plans to expand into 18 by the end of the year.

Q: Why is EU-GMP certification important in cannabis?
A: EU-GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) is the gold standard for pharmaceutical products and a requirement to sell medical cannabis in most international markets.

Q: How does Somai’s model differ from U.S. cannabis companies?
A: Unlike U.S. operators confined by state borders, Somai can centralize manufacturing in Portugal and distribute across multiple countries under EU-GMP rules.

Q: What are the main challenges of international cannabis expansion?
A: Each country has unique regulations, healthcare systems, and distribution requirements, forcing companies to adapt market by market.

Q: How does Somai ensure pharmaceutical quality?
A: The company operates its own EU-GMP-certified lab with strict Quality Assurance oversight, ensuring consistency, safety, and regulatory compliance.

Q: What role do partnerships play in Somai’s strategy?
A: Somai balances in-house cultivation with about 15 global cultivation partners and works with leading distributors to reach doctors and patients.

Q: What is the future of cannabis regulation in Europe?
A: Sassano believes eventual harmonization is inevitable, with standardized finished dosage forms replacing outdated pharmacy compounding practices.

Q: Is Somai targeting the U.S. market?
A: Yes. Somai is collaborating with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and preparing for potential federal approval of cannabis-based medicines.

From The Lab

How Tissue Culture Is Advancing Cannabis Genetics and Global Expansion

By Pam Chmiel
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Not every genetic is suited for every growing environment, production model, or end market. For cultivators, the challenge is not finding new genetics but identifying which breeders align with their goals and whether those genetics are clean, stable, and commercially viable. As demand grows for consistency, disease resistance, and scalability, shortcuts in breeding and cloning are becoming more common. Without proper tissue culture protocols, even elite genetics can carry hidden pathogens that can devastate entire operations.

At MJBizCon, Sergio Picazo, co-founder of California-based Powerhouse, moderated and hosted panel discussions examining how breeders and cultivators source, validate, and scale genetics, and why tissue culture is rapidly becoming an essential tool in modern breeding programs, particularly for breeders looking to scale globally.

Picazo opened one conversation by emphasizing that tissue culture remains underutilized in cannabis, despite being standard practice in other agricultural industries where it is foundational to professional breeding and propagation. Panelist Martin Chase of UMAMI Seed Co. expanded on this point, noting that his team has relied on tissue culture since 2014, well before pathogens such as hop latent viroid were widely recognized. Initially, their focus was on cataloging their genetics library, protecting individual cultivars, and minimizing the footprint required for mother plants.

 

Contaminated Clones Unknowingly Flood the Market

As legal cannabis markets expanded around 2016, many new operators sourced clones from established legal or legacy markets, often without comprehensive pathogen testing. Infected plant material circulated unknowingly for years before cultivators realized that viroids, viruses, and other systemic pathogens were the root cause of widespread crop failures. Powdery mildew, viruses, and viroids traveled easily through shared genetics, exposing a major vulnerability in the industry’s early supply chains.

As outbreaks intensified, breeders and cultivators recognized that pest management practices were no longer enough. The need to prevent disease at the genetic level became apparent, prompting commercial operators to adopt tissue culture to establish truly clean mother plants.

 

Nodal vs. Meristem Culture: Choosing the Right Tool for the Job

According to Chase, not all tissue culture methods serve the same purpose. As pathogens became more prevalent, his team began cleaning up the genetics using increasingly precise tissue-culture techniques, starting with meristem culture. This method involves dissecting a plant down to a tiny cluster of undifferentiated cells roughly one millimeter in size. Because most viruses and viroids do not typically reach this cellular level, meristem culture offers the highest likelihood of producing pathogen-free plants. However, Chase noted that in extreme cases, where infections are deeply embedded, even meristem culture may not fully eliminate disease.

For less intensive needs, nodal tissue culture offers a faster and more cost-effective option. Nodal culture is essentially micropropagation, producing tiny clones from existing vascular tissue. While this approach can help standardize production runs and reduce surface-level contamination, it does not fully reset a plant’s genetic health. Because vascular tissue can still harbor pathogens and endophytic microbes, nodal culture is better suited to maintaining clean cultivars than to rehabilitating compromised ones.

Breeding projects, foundational grandmother stock, or heavily infected plants are best addressed through meristem culture. For stable, repeatedly tested cultivars, nodal culture can support scalable production, provided operators are prepared to restart the process if contamination reappears.

 

Resetting Declining Genetics

Beyond disease prevention, tissue culture plays a critical role in preserving and reviving older cannabis genetics that remain commercially or culturally valuable.

Cannabis is an annual plant, not a perennial. Under natural conditions, plants complete their life cycle, produce seeds, and die. In commercial cultivation, however, elite genetics are cloned and maintained indefinitely, an unnatural process that can lead to gradual degradation over time. Aging mother plants often weaken, lose vigor, or exhibit subtle performance changes that growers may mistakenly attribute to environmental conditions or nutrient programs.

Chase noted that long-term cloning can result in genetic drift, accumulated mutations, and physiological stress, causing cultivars to behave differently under new lighting systems, feeding schedules, or production models. Tissue culture, and specifically meristem culture, offers a way to reset that decline. By regenerating a plant from a tiny cluster of undifferentiated cells, cultivators can effectively return a cultivar to its original baseline, similar to starting again from seed, but without losing the genetic identity that made the plant valuable in the first place.

 

Scalability and Cost Effectiveness

According to Chase, tissue culture offers one of the most powerful advantages for exponential growth. One container becomes two, then four, then eight, and so on. This process dramatically reduces the space required for nursery production. Operators can eliminate 75 to 80 percent of traditional mother space, stack thousands of plants within a very small footprint, and use the same environmental controls already in place. For large-scale operations, this efficiency translates directly into cost savings, operational consistency, and faster expansion.

 

The Path to Global Distribution

As the cannabis industry matures, tissue culture is becoming essential for preventing large-scale pathogen spread. Panelist John Bayes of Green Bodhi emphasized that when genetics is distributed at scale, especially across borders, consistency and cleanliness are non-negotiable. Backing up genetics at the meristem level ensures plant material is uniform, clean, and suitable for international movement, an approach long used across global agriculture.

Chase expanded on how tissue culture enables compliant global distribution. With tissue culture labs operating in Canada, Austria, Germany, and Australia, his team is able to move phytosanitary-certified plant material around the world with relative ease. Because tissue culture plants are shipped in sterile, sealed vessels without growing media, they can bypass many traditional import and export barriers while still meeting quarantine and regulatory requirements.

Unlike seeds, these shipments often include live explants. Once received, facilities with basic lab infrastructure and trained technicians can rapidly scale production. By rooting plants outside the lab environment, operators can quickly transition tissue culture material into plugs that behave like conventional clones, significantly shortening production timelines. While the process requires technical expertise, it allows growers to start with genetically uniform, pathogen-free plants that can be scaled efficiently across diverse environments.

Picazo emphasized that this level of scalability is only possible because of the work done on the front end. By dissecting plants down to meristem tissue and validating cleanliness through multiple stages of testing, breeders can ensure genetic integrity before material ever enters the global supply chain. In an increasingly international cannabis market, tissue culture is emerging as the most reliable pathway for scaling genetics uniformly while reducing the risk of widespread pathogen outbreaks.

 

Despite this progress, the cannabis industry is still only scratching the surface of what tissue culture can offer when compared to advances made in other agricultural sectors. Not every plant responds the same way in tissue culture, and techniques that work for bananas do not automatically translate to cannabis, hemp, or hops. Even so, tissue culture is emerging as a critical tool in the modern cultivation toolbox, helping breeders and cultivators push genetics, consistency, and scalability to the next level.

How Smart Water Filtration Strategies Can Save Cannabis Growers Thousands

By Shu Saito
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For licensed cannabis cultivators, water filtration isn’t news. It’s critical infrastructure. Yet treating it as fixed infrastructure rather than an operational cost could be quietly cutting into grower margins.

As operators finalize budgets and review efficiency for the seasons ahead, water quality deserves closer scrutiny. Not just from a plant health perspective, but as a recurring expense that directly impacts profitability in an industry where every percentage point matters.

The Filtration Foundation

In controlled environment agriculture, particularly hydroponic and aeroponic systems, water quality is non-negotiable. Commercial cannabis cultivation typically requires a blank canvas: microbiologically safe water stripped of dissolved solids and contaminants so growers can add back precisely calibrated nutrients.

The industry standard starts with ensuring biological safety (typically through UV treatment, though many operations confidently rely on municipal sources), followed by reverse osmosis to reduce total dissolved solids to near-zero. Pre-filtration with sediment and carbon filters protects the reverse osmosis (RO) membranes from premature fouling, extending their operational life.

This multi-stage approach works. But it comes with ongoing costs that many operations set and forget, until replacement cycles hit harder than anticipated.

The Replacement Reality

RO membranes aren’t permanent. Even with proper pre-filtration and maintenance, commercial membranes in cannabis operations typically require replacement every 2–3 years. Sediment and carbon prefilter cartridges need changing every 6–12 months, depending on source water quality and system load, while backwashing carbon tanks last longer.

The costs add up quickly, particularly with stacked replacement cycles across multiple grow rooms or facilities. For multi-room or multi-facility operations, avoiding even one premature RO membrane replacement or emergency downtime event can translate into thousands of dollars in annual savings.

“While environment, pest control, and genetics all matter, water quality plays an outsized role in achieving desired results,” says Shu Saito, founder and CEO of All Filters, a filtration supplier serving indoor agriculture operations.

“Staying on top of filter maintenance and having replacement components ready means operations never slow down waiting for parts to arrive.”

Where Cannabis Growers Mispend

Not every cultivar demands identical water treatment. Some growers overspend on RO systems for peak capacity they rarely use, paying more upfront and replacing membranes more frequently without improving yields or cannabinoid profiles. Others skimp on pre-filtration to save upfront costs, then watch membranes foul prematurely. A sediment filter protecting an RO membrane extends its operational life significantly, but only if it’s replaced on schedule—or sooner if water quality changes unexpectedly.

The Variable That Changes Everything

Source water quality isn’t static. Municipal water chemistry shifts seasonally. Well water composition can change with weather patterns or aquifer drawdown. Both scenarios can accelerate membrane fouling or require adjustment to pre-filtration strategies.

Regular water testing will catch changes in hardness, chlorine levels, or dissolved solids. Many cultivators test nutrients religiously but may only test source water once during buildout and never again.

Rethinking Water Strategy

Smart operators now treat water treatment as a controllable operational cost with specific levers:

Inventory management: Keeping replacement filters and membranes in stock prevents emergency orders and minimizes downtime.

Scheduled maintenance: Proactive replacement based on volume processed and water quality testing, not waiting for system failure.

Bulk purchasing: Volume discounts on replacement components, particularly for multi-facility operations.

Source water monitoring: Regular testing to catch changes before they accelerate membrane degradation.

Right-sizing systems: Matching filtration capacity to actual demand rather than theoretical maximums.

The goal isn’t cutting corners on water quality. It’s optimizing costs without compromising the precise nutrient control that makes RO essential for commercial cultivation. With energy, labor, and regulatory costs rising, water filtration represents one area where informed purchasing and proactive maintenance deliver measurable improvements to the bottom line.

Starting with water that’s both safe and pure isn’t optional. How growers manage that requirement, and what it costs annually, absolutely is.

Cannabis Seeds Could Be The Next Frontier For Space AgTech

By Pam Chmiel
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NASA’s core mission is to explore space and aeronautics, expand scientific knowledge, develop breakthrough technologies, and ultimately bring new knowledge and opportunity back to Earth. What many people do not realize is that some of NASA’s most impactful discoveries have reshaped industries far beyond aerospace, including modern agriculture.

Vertical farming and LED lighting are two widely adopted agtech innovations that trace their roots back to space research. Scientists studying long-duration space missions discovered that specific wavelengths of blue light influence how the human body produces melatonin, helping regulate circadian rhythms in environments without natural daylight. That same research revealed that precisely tuned light spectra could support photosynthesis and plant growth indoors. These findings laid the groundwork for modern LED grow lighting. Around the same time, Columbia University introduced the concept of vertical farming, defined as multi-level crop production within controlled environments. The approach was tested for space-based food production and has since become a cornerstone of urban and indoor agriculture on Earth.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Dylan Taylor, Chairman and CEO of Voyager Space, a multinational space exploration company building next-generation space infrastructure for NASA and other global space agencies, suggested that seeds may represent the next frontier for space-based agricultural technology. Taylor emphasized that space presents extraordinary opportunities for agtech research that could meaningfully improve crop performance, resilience, and sustainability back on Earth.

That thesis is already being tested. StarLab Oasis, an Abu Dhabi-based agricultural research firm partnered with Voyager Space, is leveraging the space environment’s unique combination of microgravity, deep-space radiation, and launch vibration to develop crop seeds with novel and beneficial traits. On Earth, plant breeders routinely apply physical stressors such as drought, temperature fluctuations, nutrient limitation, and high-intensity light to identify plants that retain vigor, yield efficiently, and resist disease and pests. Space takes this concept to an entirely new level. According to the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, space breeding has already produced more than 200 plant and fruit varieties, including rice, wheat, maize, soybeans, cotton, and tomatoes. These varieties have generated an estimated $29.9 billion worth of agricultural output, totaling more than 1.3 million tonnes of food.

 

Cannabis, To the Moon

Martian Grow is now bringing this space-breeding approach to cannabis. Founded by Božidar Radišič, a longtime cannabis researcher at the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Health Sciences in Slovenia, the company is focused on formal scientific research into cannabis biology and real-world applications. Martian Grow launched its first space-breeding mission on June 23, 2025, aboard a SpaceX rocket from Vandenberg, California. The research capsule itself was designed and sealed in Germany.

That initial mission did not go as planned. The capsule failed during atmospheric reentry, and the seeds were not recovered, meaning no experimental data could be collected. While disappointing, the outcome was not entirely unexpected in a field where engineering, physics, and biology intersect under extreme conditions.

Since then, Martian Grow has regrouped and significantly strengthened its leadership and technical team by bringing on American executive John Bernard McQueeney as CEO. McQueeney and his partner, Will Jasper, first attempted to send cannabis seeds into space in 2023 after learning about a Chinese space-breeding experiment that produced a drought-resistant wheat variety. That variety has since become the second most widely grown wheat strain in China.

Their initial proposal to conduct cannabis research aboard the International Space Station was rejected by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, or CASIS, due to cannabis’s Schedule I status at the time. CASIS serves as the United States’ operational arm of the ISS National Laboratory, which Congress established to expand access to the space environment and unlock research and commercialization opportunities in low Earth orbit.

In an interview, McQueeney explained that space-based seed experiments are well established across agriculture. Seeds are routinely sent into orbit and exposed to cosmic radiation, microgravity, extreme cold, and other stressors. “That combination of stressors induces higher rates of mutation in the genome, particularly in embryonic cells that are not yet fully developed,” McQueeney said. “Seeds are one of the most effective biological sample types for this kind of research.”

 

June 2026 Lift Off

As Martian Grow prepares for its next launch in June 2026, the company has partnered with some of the most respected names in legacy cannabis genetics. These collaborators are providing original genetics that will be grown out post-mission and closely analyzed for phenotypic variation, genetic mutation, and trait expression.

According to McQueeney, the growing list of partners includes Phylos BioScience, Sensi Seeds in the Netherlands, Canadian breeder Dwight Diotte, Huckleberry Hill Farms, Ridgeline Farms, and Kevin Jodrey of Wonderland Farms and the Cookies R&D Lab. The team has also been joined by Professor Lumír Hanuš, one of the world’s most respected cannabis scientists. Hanuš previously worked in Raphael Mechoulam’s laboratory in Israel and is credited with describing anandamide, the first endocannabinoid identified in the human brain.

 

The Plan

Martian Grow’s research plan is ambitious and methodical. Cannabis seeds will be sent to low Earth orbit for nine months, where they will be exposed to sustained microgravity and cosmic radiation. After recovery, the seeds will be grown under tightly controlled conditions on Earth to evaluate phenotypic, genetic, and epigenetic changes.

Biology adapts when exposed to pressures outside its normal environment. Spaceflight introduces two pressures that plants never evolved to manage: microgravity and cosmic radiation. When stable parent-line seeds spend extended time in orbit, they are forced to reorganize internal regulatory systems simply to survive. Those changes can result in entirely new expressions of vigor, yield, and resilience.

McQueeney points to studies from China conducted over the past decade showing that space environments induce higher mutation rates than traditional radiation-based breeding methods on Earth.

Martian Grow compares space-exposed seeds to Earth-based controls using whole-genome sequencing, transcriptomics, epigenetic analysis, metabolomics, and AI-driven multi-omic modeling. This approach enables researchers to map the full causal chain linking the environment, biological stress, adaptive responses, and heritable trait development.

Radišič notes that the past year has been spent rigorously preparing for the June 2026 flight. The team has tested its capsules in Germany using plasma wind tunnels designed to simulate reentry conditions, including the extreme heat and aerothermal forces experienced during high-speed atmospheric descent. The company’s thermal protection system is led by Maximilian Maigler, PhD, one of the world’s most prominent German space scientists, who has already delivered two thermal protection designs for Mars landings.

Martian Grow currently has three launches scheduled and is operationally prepared for up to five missions. The company plans to use traditional CubeSat and PocketCube dispensers mounted aboard SpaceX rockets.

Tens of millions of dollars have already been invested globally in similar space-breeding experiments across major crop varieties. While Martian Grow has secured a seed round to support its first launch, the company is actively seeking additional investment to fund future missions and expand its research pipeline.

 

Those interested in learning more can contact John Bernard McQueeney, CEO, at john@martiangrow.com

 

 

 

Why Cannabis Cultivation Needs a “Soil to Shelf” Standard

By Steve Garner
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In cannabis cultivation today, many decisions are made in response to market pressures such as speed, yield, and potency. But after two decades in both cannabis cultivation and commercial horticulture, I’ve come to believe that the most valuable outcomes, both for consumers and cultivators, are the result of a plant and product-forward process, not shortcuts. Too often, the industry arrives at the conclusion that craft quality and scaling operations are at odds with each other but, more often, this is due to a lack of knowledge, skill, or both.

A truly sustainable, trustworthy cultivation model demands a broader view – one that considers everything from crop health to post-harvest transparency. What my company, Ethos Cannabis, calls a “Soil to Shelf” mindset isn’t about one system or method. It’s about re-centering the values of integrity, transparency, and plant expression in an industry that too often prioritizes efficiency over quality.

 

Remediation Isn’t a Strategy, It’s a Red Flag

Remediation, whether through irradiation, ozone treatment, or other post-harvest processes, has become common practice in large-scale cannabis operations. For many cultivators, it’s a backstop when microbial contamination arises due to any number of factors.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: if cannabis requires remediation to pass testing, something went wrong upstream.

The growing reliance on post-harvest correction raises concerns not only about product integrity but also about transparency. Patients and consumers often have no way of knowing if what they’re purchasing has undergone remediation despite meaningful differences in chemical profile, freshness, and potential therapeutic impact.

There’s a place for risk mitigation, of course. But the industry must ask: Are we normalizing band-aids for systemic cultivation issues rather than solving for the root causes?

 

Fundamentals and Crop-First Decisions

Similar to the trap of remediation, making decisions from a fundamental and crop-first perspective is one of the biggest differentiators between those who focus on quality and those who focus on shortcuts. While these fundamental decisions are often costly and not as ‘easy’ as doing things the standard, mass production model, we believe the end quality and consistency stand on their own.

A few examples from our cultivation facilities include:

  • Utilizing tissue culture labs to maintain disease and viroid-free mother stock
  • A design process for all cultivation facilities that is led by the same team that operates the facilities
  • Taking no shortcuts during the design process to ensure food-safe quality construction, redundancy with all equipment and systems that impact product quality, and remote monitoring capability to limit the risk of crop loss
  • No foliar IPM applications after day 21 of flower, to prevent any reduction in flower quality
  • Strict water, air, and surface sanitation protocols to create the most sterile environment possible
  • Irrigation and fertility programs that are strain-specific instead of a ‘one size fits all’ model
  • High-end HVAC, humidification, and dehumidification systems in all propagation, grow, dry, cure and vault spaces to ensure ideal growth or storage conditions at all stages of the process to limit

We at Ethos have a firm belief that if we build the right way the first time, evaluate and cultivate strong genetics, and intervene in the crop as little as possible, we will get the best expression of the plant that we possibly can. Quality is not about how much you do, it’s about how little you can do to get in the way of what nature does best.

 

The THC Trap: Potency as Proxy

The current market rewards high THC numbers, despite growing evidence that potency alone is a poor predictor of consumer experience or therapeutic value. That dynamic creates a loop where growers chase THC-dominant phenotypes, often at the expense of chemovar diversity or minor cannabinoid development. It’s a narrow definition of quality.

In practice, some of the most complex, effective, and enjoyable cultivars are those with moderate THC but robust terpene profiles and balanced cannabinoid ratios. These profiles don’t always win lab label wars, but they tend to resonate more deeply with patients and seasoned consumers alike.

A recent example of Ethos’s efforts to reverse this trend is the introduction of our Landrace Sativa line in Pennsylvania. We worked with landrace genetics (think heirloom varieties that have been cultivated regionally for hundreds of years) from Colombia, Mexico, Pakistan, Burma, and beyond to deliver a diverse range of THC and CBD, along with unique terpene profiles. These genetics, while not as commercially desirable as 30%+ THC, have delivered medical benefits to our patients that are simply not available from 99%+ of modern genetics.

Reframing “quality” to include a broader set of metrics—total active cannabinoid content, terpene expression, cultivation transparency—is critical if the industry wants to evolve beyond novelty and hype.

 

Cultivation Ethics and Consumer Trust

When we talk about cultivation standards, we’re really talking about consumer trust. Especially in medical markets, patients rely on consistent, clean, and fully disclosed products. That trust is built, or eroded, in the cultivation facility long before the product reaches retail.

Decisions are made in that facility, including whether to select for certain genetics, how to manage pests, when to harvest, how to cure, and how to accumulate into the final product. Every shortcut carries a consequence. Every tradeoff eventually meets the end user.

In an industry still working to shed its legacy of prohibition and stigma, building that trust through transparency and consistency may be one of the most important outcomes cultivation teams can deliver.

 

The Case for Systems Thinking in Cultivation

“Soil to Shelf” isn’t a program. It’s a framework, one that encourages cultivators to treat each stage of the process as interconnected and consequential. That includes:

  • Environmental inputs: Are systems designed for plant health, or simply speed and yield?
  • Genetic decisions: Are phenotypes selected based on their marketability or their full-spectrum potential?
  • Post-harvest practices: Is the flower able to stand on its own, or is it being “rescued” in processing?
  • Labeling and education: Are consumers equipped to understand what they’re using and why it matters?

There’s no single formula. But systems built with intention tend to produce products with integrity.

 

Where the Industry Can Go From Here

Cannabis cultivation is at a crossroads. The drive toward scale, automation, and standardization has brought many benefits but also introduced blind spots. As new states legalize and new operators enter the space, there’s an opportunity to pause and ask what kind of industry we are building.

One possible answer: an industry that values how something is grown as much as what is grown. An industry that realizes quality and profit are not at odds with each other, one is dependent on the other. One that educates consumers on more than THC content. And one that views post-harvest remediation not as a default, but as a signal that bigger changes may be needed upstream.

We have a chance to raise the bar for cultivation ethics and product quality. That won’t come from chasing the next trend, but from recommitting to the fundamentals: science, transparency, and respect for the plant.

Move Over Clones, Seeds Are Making A Comeback

By Pam Chmiel
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Cutting cultivation costs was one of the loudest themes at this year’s MJBizCon. Michigan cultivator Kevin Kuethe, Chief Cultivation Officer at Lume, shared his strategy for combating price compression through genetics during a panel discussion titled “Mastering Genetics.” “The easiest way to do that is through more yield,” he told the crowd. “If you have two plants in a room, it’s going to cost you the same amount of land to grow both, but if one yields twice as much, guess what? That flower costs you half as much.”

Seeds used to get a bad rap for being inconsistent, but modern breeding has leveled up in a big way, according to Kuethe, who still runs a clone program but has eased into using seeds more, which now account for 30 to 40 percent of Lume’s production and power almost all of the company’s large outdoor grows. Today’s breeders are using genomics tools borrowed from big agriculture, such as SNPs, QTLs, and AI-generated breeding values that help predict a plant’s outcome.

 

Breeders can now screen thousands of plants, identify the markers that matter, and use that information to produce seed lines that grow more uniformly, resist pests and mold, and push yields higher. Kuethe says we are still in the early innings, but it’s a game-changer for cultivators.

 

Speeding The Process Up

Tools that have been standard in agriculture for years, like genomic markers, early-stage screening, and AI-assisted selection, are finally making their way into cannabis. And for growers, this means a much shorter breeding timeline. Native Roots’ Lacey Sears says breeders no longer need to grow huge plants or run massive pheno hunts to find a winner. Thanks to early genetic screening, breeders can identify promising plants at the cotyledon stage when they have just popped. “We don’t have to grow out mothers and huge plants anymore. That is the biggest thing reshaping this,” she says.

 

This new technology allows breeders to lock in traits like yield, vigor, pest resistance, and structure much faster and with far fewer plants. What once took years and thousands of test plants can now be done in a fraction of the time. As Kuethe puts it, “It is a drastic difference. This technology has been used in big agriculture for decades. We are finally catching up.”

 

Better still, breeders can now collaborate directly with cultivators to create genetics tailored to specific grow environments or business goals. Want a fast-finishing, short-stature plant that performs well indoors? Or a mold-resistant, high-yielding line for your outdoor farm? Breeders can now design for that.

 

Busting Seed Myths

One of the biggest hurdles to wider seed adoption in cannabis is the myths around seeds: they aren’t uniform, they are slower, they cannot hit high potency, yields are unpredictable, and “herms” make them too risky. Much of that was once true, but only because cannabis missed out on decades of modern plant science while the rest of agriculture raced ahead.

 

Damon Hess from Phylos compares it to buying a packet of tomato seeds. You don’t get 20 different tomato shapes and colors. You get the same tomato every time. Uniformity works in every major crop. Cannabis was the outlier because prohibition kept universities and major agricultural companies from doing the genomic work that other crops benefited from. Since the 2018 Farm Bill, that bottleneck has finally broken, and universities like Cornell, Oregon State, Kentucky, Colorado State, and Georgia are now generating data, breeding insights, and collaborating with seed companies.

 

Myth 1: Seeds grow slower than clones

Clones take roughly two weeks to root and another three to four weeks to veg before the flip, for a total of five to six weeks. With modern seeds, growers can go from sowing to flowering in about four weeks with the same eight-week flowering window. Seed-grown plants finish earlier, and the time they save continues to compound with every cycle.

 

Myth 2: Seeds are not uniform

This was historically true, but not anymore. Over the past several years, breeders have finally been able to stabilize cannabis lines the way other crops have been doing for decades.

 

Myth 3: Seeds herm more than clones

Herms are a stress problem, not a seed problem. Feminized seeds and female clones both herm when pushed beyond their stress limits. Phylos explained that their early seeds were sold only for outdoor use because stress-induced herms were too common indoors. That changed once they identified genetic markers tied to stress tolerance. By selecting for plants that do not buckle under stress, they drastically reduced hermaphroditic expression.

 

Myth 4: Seeds cannot match clone potency

Once a seed line hits a potency benchmark, it stays there. Phylos gave the example of its Cheddar Cheese line, which consistently produces THC levels over 30 percent. Mother plants age, decline, mutate, and accumulate pathogens, which often leads to potency loss. Stabilized seed lines do not have that problem.
Clones can certainly hit high potency, sometimes even higher than a seed line, but that peak is not stable. Once locked in, seeds maintain it.

 

The Challenge of Switching Your Grow To Seeds

Running a grow entirely from seed eliminates the need for mother rooms and the labor, space, and mechanical systems required to maintain them. That alone can recover weeks in the production cycle and free up valuable square footage for additional flowering rooms.

 

The real challenge, as Lacey explains, is that facilities have been designed around a clone-to-flower model for years. Seeds introduce new variables, such as lighting adjustments, environmental tweaks, and different early-stage care practices. Staff often need retraining. SOPs must be rewritten, veg rooms reconfigured, and teams taught to manage seedlings rather than clones. The transition takes time and money, but seeds offer advantages once dialed in, including minimal storage needs and faster veg times.

 

Because of this complexity, Damon recommends a phased approach. Most cultivators start with a small trial room to see how seed-grown plants perform in their facility. If the results are promising, the next step is a pilot production room that is run like any other production cycle to prove that seeds can deliver yield and uniformity.

 

What Are the Risks of Switching to Seeds?
While stable seeds are becoming easier to use and more reliable, shifting a commercial facility from clones introduces operational challenges. Cultivators have built operations around a clone-based workflow, so teams must learn germination and seedling development and avoid pitfalls such as improper sowing orientation.

 

Seeds also grow more vigorously than clones, which changes how plants respond to nutrition. If cultivators feed seedlings the same formula they use for clones, they may get excessive vegetative growth. Many growers need to rework nutrient recipes, especially by reducing nitrogen early in the cycle, and recalibrate fertigation equipment.

 

Another risk is environmental compatibility. Cultivators usually select strains that fit their facility’s existing environment. Dialing in seeds takes testing, and facilities with fixed lighting heights or rigid environmental controls may need incremental upgrades before seeds perform at their best.

 

Supply reliability is another concern. A winning seed line has to stay in stock. Operators worry about what happens if they build a room around a specific strain and the breeder runs out of that strain. Companies like Phylos are addressing this through guaranteed supply programs, but it remains a concern with growers.

 

Finally, seeds may introduce operational risk but also provide insurance. If a clone room crashes due to contamination or equipment failure, an entire cycle can be lost. With seeds, growers can pop new plants immediately and recover lost time because the propagation cycle is shorter. Seeds become a fallback that allows cultivators to get a room back on schedule instead of losing revenue.

 

Overall, the risks are not about seed performance. They are about change management. Facilities that invest the time to retrain staff, rewrite SOPs, run trials, and partner with stable seed suppliers are the ones that will optimize production and trim costs.