TISSUE CULTURE
The legal and medical cannabis industry is a fast-growing, evolving market, and we are turning to advanced scientific approaches, such as Tissue Culture micropropagation, to reduce costs and offer scalable, predictable, safe, high-quality, cannabis strains.
This process involves producing genetically identical clones by cultivating existing plants with cuts of plant material, which are sterilized and multiplied in a lab.
This process involves producing genetically identical clones by cultivating existing plants with cuts of plant material, which are sterilized and multiplied in a lab. Then the clones are put into a vessel to be acclimated for greenhouse or indoor growing. Prior to Tissue Culture usage in Cannabis cultivation, propagation was done either by seeding or via cuttings. Physically planting seeds is time-consuming, with a high degree of variability in output, and gives the cultivator little control over the genetics of their crop. Tissue Culture is an improvement over both conventional cannabis propagation techniques, faster than seedlings, more disease resistant than clones, all while providing near complete control over the preferred genetics of a crop.
BENEFITS OF TISSUE CULTURE
Tissue Culture technology allows One World Legends to quickly mass produce identical plantlets (clones) that are disease-free with customized and consistent characteristics. This process can help our cannabis distributors and customers by addressing these key strengths:
1. Tissue culture clones are true-to-type to their mother’s genetics. This means we can accurately predict phenotypes and chemotypes based on the mother plant’s profile and our customers will receive identical flower to the selected original mother’s COA. Additionally, Tissue Culture plants can be grown with optimal nutrients and under the best conditions, which makes them healthier and stronger. The plants are kept pest and pathogen free without using any harsh chemicals.
2. Traditional propagation from mother plants can take 4-8 months to scale. By utilizing Tissue Culture, we can scale cultivars in a matter of weeks. This translates to producing a much greater yield, faster, more consistently, and create the exact genetic replicas of the source plant. This allows One World Legends to standardize cannabis plants, and thus the cannabis experience. That means consumers can expect the same characteristics from One World Legends grown strains every time, including potency, taste, and even smell.
3. Tissue culture technology can be used to quickly mass produce healthy, identical plantlets. In turn, this reduces our operational risks and costs, while increasing yields and delivering a dependable product.
PRESERVING PLANT GENETICS
Beyond the benefits that Tissue Culture cultivation provides, this approach to testing, storing, and growing cannabis plants also goes a long way towards protecting cannabis genetics into the future. Over-breeding and a dwindling demand for heirloom strains also threatens the loss of some individual plant genetics. Maintaining a rich seed bank that features both legacy and boutique strains allows us to have options for future tissue culture cultivation or for future new strain development. We at OWL have hunted and acquired rare Landrace strains so that our customers can experience the original natural herb known for centuries and that are the parents of all hybrids today. Tropical landraces are considered crown jewels in the cannabis industry because of their rarity and heritage. Our coveted Landraces such as Malawi Gold, Colombian Gold, and Durban Poison are some of the rarest cannabis varieties. At OWL, we are saving the future of Landrace strains by preserving the genetics of the past, so we do not lose the original cannabis strains forever in a world dominated by hybridized varieties.