What's up everyone? Sorry, I'm still getting set up here waiting for everyone to show up to We will be joined shortly by not so and to me genomics and we will be doing our Talk on HPLV so I'm pretty stoked we made it here To this moment. I've been sick all week. So apologize.  I really am and I didn't want to miss out on this because it's important to me that everybody gets this Info so yeah My fans loud I think Brinn's in here. Maybe Brinn can help with that See I'll grab it You can got not so coming in maybe if this works like it should there we go I'm here. What's up? Now? I just have to wait for Kassa from to me There she goes to meet your nose. Let me look her up now. Let's invite to join to me There we go. I can invite And she can jump in I have a whole bunch of notes. Yeah, I do Really? You took I am semi-prepared. Hi, Tafla. Nice to see you. Yeah, good to see you Can you can you guys hear me? All right? Absolutely lab and clear. I'm Matthew. This is not so dog and we are the reader syndicate Nice to meet you guys. Nice to meet you. Thanks for inviting me on tonight. This is awesome No, I think I think the whole community needs to know more about what's going on which the with the HPLV How it's being transmitted through clones how rampant it is or isn't and how scared they should or shouldn't be all of the above So I don't know in a in a conversation like this. Do you want to start with? Where would you want to start a patient zero or do you start with what we're dealing with? Well, maybe the best place to start is to just kind of explain what? What That was one of my questions. I thought would be a good place to begin. Yes Yeah, so So what is a viroid? viroids are One of the simplest forms of life that exists on the planet if we can even call it life as opposed to other organisms like bacteria or Fungus or even viruses They don't have anything on the outside to protect their genetic material.  So we're talking about a really really small Life form and a lot of people actually refer to them as Fossils that are left over from basically the beginning of life when the theory is that it was just RNA and So they're kind of a remnant of that primordial earth time when all life was replicating RNA And these tiny little things are really infectious in plants Yeah, yeah, and they are they then considered are they parasites? Because they can't I Mean they can't exist without contacting some other more complex form of life, right and infecting it Exactly there are they are 100% dependent on the plant metabolism to Replicate it to help it, you know transport all around the plant to do everything that it does So they're the tiniest molecular parasite that we know of. Yep And what we're working with with this current Hops latent virus or viroid I should say because there is a difference right the major difference Yes, yeah So so just to clarify and because there is actually a hop latent virus also just to make things confusing But viruses have some type of outside protection for their DNA I mean, it's often like a protein coat that goes outside Viroids are just the naked genetic information. So they are distinct things and Viruses are more complex Then right they have more of those there. They're there. Viroids are even smaller than viruses, correct? Yes, exactly So Viruses not only do they have that outside coat, but they actually encode information that forces the cell to make Special little molecular machines called enzymes that will that will help the virus to replicate Viroids do not encode even for a special machine So they're completely dependent on hijacking the machines in the plant and Forcing them to replicate the viroids instead of doing what they're supposed to be doing So, I Mean maybe another part of the beginning and like you could talk about the beginning for you But I thought maybe it would be interesting to talk about the beginning for us, okay? So there was there was an aspect like, you know, because I'm older whatever like in the 90s None of the stuff that we're probably going to talk about later As far as like, you know preventing transmission was used people use the same razor blades There wasn't very much disease. There wasn't very much worry going on A lot of these things were kind of unheard of and because it was a clandestine thing and very small circles Even if a circle got infected with something it didn't spread that much. So during like the IG period We had some good friends of ours. That's that, you know, they would you know clone trading happens and all that, right? And all of a sudden people started experiencing something that we call dudding Yes, right duds all of a sudden the plant went from being healthy and happy to unhappy And for a long time, we didn't know if it was one thing We didn't know if it was a multitude of things We just observationally could see that some plants resin production would go way down their health would go way down We had some friends before they even knew it almost reminded me a little bit of like Like when the early part of the AIDS epidemic But in plants where people didn't know how it was transmitted people didn't know it existed People didn't know how to take precautions for it And then by the time that we figured out like what it was and we can start talking to people like you it's everywhere Yeah, yeah, exactly. I so hoplite and viroid itself was characterized in hops in the 80s and Because hops plants are so genetically similar to cannabis at some point the viroid sort of came into cannabis But nobody knows exactly when this happened and just like you said I suspect it's been circulating for a really long time And the negative about that of course is that by the time we realized it like you said it's everywhere And you know, it's just been going unchecked for so long that it's really become like a cannabis pandemic at this point You know that's gonna lead to a lot of questions for me actually because I think there's like there's like two things here one There's like the the aspect of figuring out what it does Right, and then there's like best practices for how we can slow it down You know and one of the interesting aspects is like is that there's a there's a thing that Matt and I called bro science Bro science where you know, there's a lot of rumors because cannabis has been in the shadows for a long time It hasn't had the ability for like UC Davis or the University of Iowa or various scientists to study these things So we have to make we have to like observe and guess Right, and so then there's so then at times then there's there's I think there's a lot of You know I watched a previous interview that you were in and I think Enormous amounts of people were shocked when you said that like 99% alcohol does nothing to it Yeah, that was a big shocker. Yeah, right and then I've been in I've been in greenhouses where they had like the torches attached to the end of like propane canisters and they were cleaning their tools in between and then you were like Oh, that doesn't do anything very much either Right. Yeah. Yeah, and so nothing we need to go into all that right this second But I just mean that I think there's a lot of misinformation Right and just like any other kind of virus or anything going around the best way to figure it out is so people know What works and what doesn't how how do you even get infected? You know can bugs infect you, you know can touching plants infect you Is it just runoff and razor blades? Is it there's a whole host of stuff that I think most people are still pretty ignorant of? Yeah, and It might be it might change over time But you know you seem to be someone that like has some real experience and like what is actually in testing Turning out to be effective. How did how did to me come into testing? For HPLV. How did you come into testing for cannabis anything? Yeah, so So basically I can just give you a really like quick two minute background on the company so we Started to me genomics about two and a half years ago, and it was actually Started originally by myself and my husband who is also one of the scientists in the company and one of our entrepreneurial friends And basically we were both at the end of our postdocs we kind of decided academia wasn't for us and We wanted to take what we knew how to do like all of this inventive You know cutting edge science that was going on in academia and bring it into an industry or a geography that really needed that The tools we could make or the information that we could share Yeah, and so we started the company and then about a month after we started COVID hit and everything stopped and we all the plans that we had made for our brand new startup were completely squished so We said well, okay. We'll just jump into COVID and see if we can help out And we started doing that we made a COVID diagnostic kind of a point of care and on-site test And we ran a COVID lab for the University and kind of at a similar time We had somebody contact us who had a grow and she was having issues with hoplate and viroid and she couldn't find You know place where she could reliably test or whatever and she asked if we could help out So we designed a test for her kind of at the same time that we were also doing like a ton of QPCR testing for COVID and it just kind of grew from there by word of mouth, but Once we got into the industry and I started, you know meeting the people and understanding what was going on I was like cannabis is absolutely the industry for us because yeah We wanted to make a difference we wanted to take what we knew how to do and help people and I think in this industry, you know We can add a lot of good insight and tools to really help people out And so that was kind of how we ended up here My husband's overjoyed because we've had a tent in our basement for like a decade and that's always Yeah, this has always been his favorite hobby and now he's like uh now it's my career. So Well, that's gotta be awesome for him for sure Yeah, he's he's always down there taking notes and stuff. So and and now that's good I mean You know, there's I mean this hoplaton is just one aspect of it, but I do think it's interesting that You know, um, you look at other crops and you get to stand on decades of research Um, there's a lot of information that's out there. There's a lot of breeding. There's a lot of resources for people Um, and then all of a sudden you have this thing that's trying to make legal and it's a multi-billion dollar crop And nobody knows anything about it other than like in terms. I don't mean anything I just mean in the sense that like the type of money and energy that gets brought to bear On other agricultural crops We're like in the infancy of hemp and cannabis being looked at at all in that fashion Yeah, yeah, all the other crops have had decades of research federal funding You know lots of grants and money and academic institutions supporting them and you know Cannabis doesn't really get to benefit from much of that. So We have a lot of work to do a lot of research to do and I I think sadly too I think the onset of legalization is really what And even like maybe medical in the 215 era is really what created the problem Um, and what I mean by that is that in the original era that I was in like I said You either made your own clones or started your own seeds or got them from a close associate and it was very small circles Once you started being able in the 215 era in the medical era with a medical car to go into dispensaries or go to nurseries and buy your clones Right and now especially in the legal market like in cal in california But in other places too where they've mandated that you sort of have to get You have to have a nursery license to even provide plant matter to Most farms they sort of centralized that aspect Which meant that when some of these diseases got into some of those centralized nurseries It went everywhere like really quickly, right and so um, and then you know one of the things we don't know Is for instance like how long can it persist on surfaces? How long can it persist in soil? You know all these different types of things because what's happening to people is that They're getting they're getting clones from a nursery and they're to me up to my knowledge There is no regulation or penalties for a nursery selling you diseased or infected products Yeah, right. I mean that's another thing the cannabis industry You know I suffers from is that a lot of these other industries these these pathogens are highly regulated and they're you know There's government mandates of what to be tested and how to be tested and how to decide if the testing lab is Is good enough or it's done enough validation, but Um, yeah, there's no requirements right now in cannabis Which which means that you know lots of stuff's going on that that's lots of stuff's going on And that I think I don't think with regulation they intended for that to happen But it was simply like an outgrowth of forcing everyone to go to a few nurseries And then this gets into a few nurseries and they're cloning for everyone and they're not changing their equipment They're not taking precautions and so it spreads from maybe one or two varietals through their whole thing And then everyone is getting infected plants Yeah, and um, you know and so um, there's definitely been already legal farms that have failed Uh because being infected and reduced yield reduced quality, uh, you know that type of thing. So Um, I guess maybe we should go on to like maybe the first thing That we should we should we could discuss is like Um, because there's a lot I was I was thinking of but like What's the best way like let's say that you have a plant in your garden that has it like a mom plant What's the best way to keep it from spreading? Because you might not know that you have it.  Exactly. Yeah, I mean that one thing I was going to say is that you know Kind of above or throughout all of the recommendations to keep it from spreading the most important Thing that people can do is to acknowledge That this is everywhere and nobody is immune from it and It's not You know a them problem, you know, it's it's it's a ubiquitous issue And in order for it to be addressed the first thing you have to do, um, I guess I don't want to sound like an addiction counselor or whatever or but is to admit that there's a problem Yeah, for real. Yeah for real all of us need to be taking precautions You know from home grower all the way up to multi-state operator mso Um to make sure that we're not spreading it through the industry, you know passing it on to other people that kind of thing um so The most important precautions to keep it from spreading would be, um sterilization So that's one of them. That's very critical. Um, so you need to be sterilizing your tools and um There's a lot of information out there flying around about what works and what doesn't and um I've even heard us scientists contradicting each other, which I'm sure is super frustrating for everybody out there We'll hear one thing in one podcast and another thing in another um, so I actually went through all of the literature and Consolidated into one document, which you guys can find on our website if you want to And they basically tried 53 different things um in the literature uh with scientific experiments and there were only five of the chemicals or treatments that worked And there was only one would they were able to show worked on multiple viruses or fibroids in multiple crop species And that was bleach 10 to 20 percent bleach 60 seconds I know I say that all the time so here i'm saying it again use bleach Um, so you want to sterilize your tools as you move from plant to plant um You can have a couple pairs of you know scissors or razor blades or whatever all sitting in the bleach and just pull a clean One out do your cuts put it back in the bleach and grab a different one for the next plant If you get sap or whatever on your hands, um You are going to be want to be wearing gloves and you can get put some bleach in those spray bottles Play your hands and rub it around just like you put on hand sanitizer or something like that and you said 60 seconds 60 seconds for the tools.  You can just let it dry on there And that's exactly how we do it in the lab to be honest too because you know contamination there is also an issue So, um, you know if you get plant matter on a table or whatever Just sterilize it clean it up really quick. You can use some bleach there too. Um Don't let debris and whatnot sit around on the floor or on the tables So make sure to be sterilizing all those surfaces Because let me let me throw in let me throw in another question that might be slightly technical or whatever But does it matter what kind of bleach? Because I have I have heard that for instance say that like sodium Like normal household bleach for your clothing or whatever sodium, you know is Um is a little bit more unstable and if it gets a little bit dirty it can get inert fairly fast I've heard that like pool bleach is stronger and more effective and it's more stable Right, so, um, there's different types of bleach I guess you go to the store and you could get you know splashless bleach versus cheap bleach versus pool bleach You know some of them are calcium chloride some of them are So I just wondered if if if there was a difference there or you had a preference like in your lab What would you use? Yeah, so in our lab, we use good old sodium hypochlorite, which is your regular household bleach Um, the the critical point here is not the kind of bleach or the splashless or whatever. It's um the the concentration of the active ingredient so You want to make sure that the the final concentration of the bleach the active ingredient is above 0.0 Or 0.5 percent So that means if you're making a 1 to 10 or a 10 solution the household bleach He needs to have at least 5 percent of the active ingredient Um, and most of them do in fact, I think the lowest one That I know of is 5.25 percent So if you're in a 1 to 10 solution or a 1 to 9 which would make a 10 solution should be the right concentration Because I see a lot of people out there going and using pool bleach Or different forms of bleach because they thought that the household bleach was inferior And wasn't as strong or didn't work as well And it was risky to only use that and so I just thought like some clear direction on It seems like it seems like you know cheap available household bleach will be fine Yes, and almost all of the studies. Um, in fact, I think all of the studies have used sodium hypochlorite So, um You do want to make it up fresh every day because you are correct. It does lose Effectiveness, especially if it sits at a dilute solution if it gets really saturated with plant material It'll also start to lose effectiveness. So you're just going to want to you know Dump it out of whatever your little jar is and and fill it up with some more 10 bleach Um, you can also make it up at that 20 concentration, which would be four parts water one part bleach Um, and then it'll last a little bit longer Um, just to make people feel more comfortable They actually did do a study where they asked how long it was effective for And they made a dilute solution of 20 bleach and it was still inhibiting transmission up to 30 days Oh This was not saturated with plant material. It was just kind of hanging around now But so you could make a spray bottle for instance of 20 percent And and it would be and it would be staying You know contained it wouldn't be getting contaminated by plant material and you could use that to spray your gloves or whatever for Quite some time is what you're saying Yeah, no, I I would definitely recommend making it up fresh But if you know, there was a miscommunication or you weren't sure when it was made there is some flexibility there Leech is cheap. Leech is cheap and it's very effective Because I remember I first saw that interview with you where I was that I was that we were at I was at a good friend's nursery and like I said, they were all heat sterilizing their tools Yeah, and then I just watched you and you were like, oh that doesn't work and I was like, oh no Because they're out there trying to do best practices and do what they can to make sure it doesn't work And then all of a sudden they're doing something that's ineffective Yeah, yeah, so that that was actually tried in the literature six seconds in a propane blowtorch And it reached an average temperature of 430 degrees Fahrenheit And it did not stop the transmission So I mean now this I should I should qualify all of this Almost in fact, none of these experiments were done with hop latent thyroid. All the viroids have a very similar structure and metabolism in the cell So um, we're extrapolating information from other viroids because a lot of research has been done In other plants not that makes sense I was there was one of my other questions is how because there's not there's not a lot of money yet Coming into this type of stuff like how much specific research is even going into it Yes, yeah, and that's uh, not much right now. Um, we're we are trying to bridge that gap We actually started a collaboration with texas a and m And we are we're starting research Into some of the really basic questions seed transmission You know levels around the plant that kind of thing So we're we're trying to encourage more academic cooperation and and more research So maybe we could ask a series of of questions and you could say I know I don't know or nor explain Um, so um, obviously it seems like uh, sterilizing tools is very important So like if you're taking cuttings that would be a primary method of transmission, right is um, what about Uh, what about runoff from watering plants? Yes, so um, what i'm going to tell you is what's been uh demonstrated in the literature so, um For a viroid called potato spindle tuber viroid, which is in the same family as hoplite and viroid with a very similar structure Um, they showed that the viroid is in high level in the roots And that's the same in hops plants for hoplite and viroid The viroid leaks from the roots into the water And if they water tomato plants with viroid containing water those plants Became infected with the viroid They also showed in that paper that the viroid remained infectious for up to seven weeks So in the water um, so That research wasn't done in cannabis it wasn't done with hoplite and viroid But I think there is enough demonstrated evidence in the literature for it to be a concern. Yeah. Okay. Let's think about it So that I was going to ask how long can it persist you're saying that can persist up to I mean like seven weeks is a long time seven weeks is a long time. Yes. Um on surfaces They've done these experiments and they've tested it out to 24 hours and shown that it does survive for 24 hours on most common surfaces Unfortunately, they didn't go beyond 24 hours. So it could be longer, but um, it it can persist for that long um, what about uh For instance, um insect vectors things like thrips mites root aphids, you know, I mean, I know obviously we can catch malaria from a mosquito We can get Lyme disease and other stuff from ticks How worried are you about? Um Bugs spreading it from one plant to another Yes, so I would not be at all surprised if that was a method of transmission Um, as far as I am aware, there was only one study in the literature done with hoplite and viroid on bug transmission And it was done with aphids In hops plants and they were unable to show vector insect vector transmission with aphids Now that does not mean that aphids wouldn't spread it in cannabis It doesn't mean that other types of insects wouldn't spread it and a lot of viroids are split spread by insects um, the research just isn't there yet to One way or the other as to whether or not it can be spread by insects for hoplite viroid and cannabis because to me especially like as a You know as somebody who uses the sun quite often um, I was I was talking about it with some other farmers and You know we can you can do all these best practices and you can do all these things yourself and be very self contained and have Your mother room be perfect and then you know some thrips blow over from the neighbor's garden And you're and you're in trouble Exactly. Yes. And I mean I should say when we're talking about hoplite and viroid right now But there are viruses and cannabis Out that affect outdoor more and those are spread by insects. So um, like beet curly top Coming from leaf hoppers and stuff like that Yeah, so you you definitely want to be concerned about insects. Um, because they are a big vector for a lot of different pathogens Um The seed the seed one's probably going to be the one that we're going to hear the most and leading up to this interview for Like since I announced it I have heard so many answers on so many people so confident On the exact percentage of transmissibility in cannabis seeds for sure Yep And wildly different percentages that they think are proven as well. Yes some very low some quite much higher Um, so it's you know, we what are your what is studies that you're seeing? Show as far as seed transmission Yes, so there is one study in hops showing that seed transmission of hoplite and viroid in hop plants is eight percent Yeah, um We have started preliminary studies. So this is very preliminary and um, we still are working with texas a and m because they're they're growing out the plants but um What we are finding is that it's variable Based on the cultivar based on how infected the mom was and so Um, my gut is that these people are claiming wildly different numbers because it's going to be wildly different for each batch of seeds each cultivar and you know, obviously if your plant is on fire with hoplite and viroid that That percent transmission might be higher than a low level infection. Maybe you see nothing Or or zero percent transmission. So pretty pretty par for the course with cannabis like anybody who tries any serious scientific studies into cannabis sexual expression By ethylene production or inhibition they find that it's just so variable in every single it's not down to strain It's down to Not just the plant it's down to the plant in that specific environment And and it's just there's so much variability to even be taken staffed at numbers like that until there's like this wide ranging Study that just hasn't been allowed to be done yet So seed transmission you would probably it's fair to say is just um, it's Variable or requires a lot more study before we know it's sort of an educated guess at best at this point Yes, I would say, um, there's probably enough evidence to say seed transmission happens Or can happen, but there is not enough studies out there and and high enough numbers to come up with a percentage Um, and that's going to take a lot of research, you know, and certainly not in cannabis specifically, right? Like the studies were done in hops. So cannabis is a completely different beast Even though they're very similar in structure and I was almost, you know, uh I'm by no means a scientist but when I was reading about the the viroids trying to like prepare for talking about tonight It almost made me think of like some of these viroids have some similarities with enzymes And then like they're not actually alive. They're sort of like waiting for a reaction to happen Like to encounter something that then triggers what they can do Yeah They um, you know one of one of the aspects that you know, uh So like it, you know, can if it persists then it can just be sitting there in a seed Or it can be it can be, you know, do you think people can transmit it by touching? So Potentially, um, the way that the viroids so the viroid needs to gain access via a breakpoint So, um, if for example, you're trimming your plants and you have goo on your hands And then you touch another plant and you even if there's a little micro tear or you know Just a little breakage of a stem as you're touching you can spread it like that Um, but there needs to be Like some sap exchange between a sick plant and a healthy plant that has a little opening for the for the sick For the infected sap to get in So for lack of a better way to look at it like a healthy skin would prevent You would have to have a cut or or abrasion or something like that in order to give the a vector for it to go in Correct. Yeah, there has to be some type of even miniature mechanical damage for it to access the plant Okay, um One of so I guess Do you know anything about because this is the other part of it that Is really harmful is obviously like cannabis is under a lot of financial pressure right now Legalization has not been smooth There's a lot of odd regulations going on and people are really feeling it Um, and you know one of the biggest aspects of hop laden Is the expense of trying to figure out how to deal with it once you have it, right? Yes And you know, there's there's You know one of the one of the groups that spread it a bunch one of the nurseries Then later came out with a cure Right, um of you know, oh, I've seen a lot of stuff about uh tissue culture maristem Heat treatments various um to be honest very expensive and time consuming treatments Um that you know, some people have been jumping on because they have a favorite cultivar They have a favorite strain. They don't know where they can get it again and it's infected And so there's a big push to like I want to save this thing Rather than just throw it away and and give up Right. Um, but I see a lot of conflicting information on whether or not this stuff actually works Yes. Yeah, so um Tissue culture can work. It is not 100 effective. It's not going to work The same on every cultivar. So here we go again And it's going to depend on how infected the plant is Um when people are doing this heat treatment thing So it was shown in hops that if you subject the plant to high heat Um like 35 degrees Celsius, I think is the temperature they use The level of the viroid will decrease. It doesn't go away completely, but it goes down enough that when they dissect the apricle maristem They they have a higher chance of not getting any infected material along with the apricle maristem So you can clean it with tissue culture It is a lengthy process and it takes a long time And and not everyone works. So if if they I mean what they do is they clean it then they You know, they they they grow a bunch up and they have to test each of them Get rid of the ones where it didn't work and just keep on testing I mean that they usually are testing for a really long time before they can be sure that they've cleaned it completely um And that's because the the apricle maristems not in the vascular system Is that why the viroid isn't there and that's what they try to keep it Like that little bit from any kind of contamination on the sides and Yes, yeah, so it is excluded from that region that the Like the stem cells in there But you do you have to be super careful and know exactly what you're doing to get rid of all that vascular tissue Because that tissue does have a hoplite environment in it So I'll uh, maybe that leads to another question then Because I've seen people who Have had inconclusive testing um You know when it comes to testing for hoplite which is obviously extremely frustrating because You want to get a negative test then you want to be like, okay, I'm in the clear right my plan is clean But what what it seems like is that almost like with cobit or something else If you're heavily infected, it's almost always a yes that it'll pick it up But maybe if you're only lightly infected it could come back negative Right, and you might so how many What maybe walk us through like if somebody was worried that their plant wasn't performing the right way or looked a little sickly Um, how many tests how far apart what protocols should they have to like ascertain whether or not they're infected or not? Yes, okay, so um, so first to understand why you There's such a frustration with you know getting a negative test and a positive test or part of the plant's positive part of its negative Is understanding how viroids actually move through the plant So when a plant gets infected The viroid moves through the tissue until it reaches the vascular system once it's in the vascular system It basically has to hitch a ride on the movement of the sap of the plant So where it's going to go is dependent on where the sap from that branch is currently traveling So viroids are going to move for what they call a source to sink type movement So they're going to move towards areas of the plant that are experiencing active growth at the time the plant was infected So you can imagine if it's a middle branch And it travels to the vascular system It's going to move up towards the new growth, but those lower branches are less likely to receive viroids So not every part of the plant is going to get the same load at the same time So the reason that they say oh submit multiple samples is we don't you don't since you don't know when the plant was inoculated And what the source to sink You know flow was at the time you have to grab a bunch of different spots of the plant To feel confident that you've cased enough areas that the statistical probability of catching it is high enough Um, I will say we did run a little study. It's not quite ready for publication yet or or putting on our website But Capricorn nursery was gracious enough to take in a couple positive four positive plants actually and they took Samples for us all over the plant, you know new growth old growth stems roots everything Um, and the part of the plant that was the most predictive of infection was the roots We got 100 success rate when we tested the roots And if you think about it, this makes a lot of sense because the roots are always growing and you're always going to have nutrients from the foliage moving into the roots So I would say if you were going to pick a part of the plant to pick some root tissue as well as Some petiole tissue around the plant just because this was a preliminary study It was four plants and I don't want to base someone's diagnostic on You know a small study like that But I think it's suggestive enough to also be submitting root tissue one of the one of the ways We had a good friend of ours who experienced at the time what we called dudding Which you know I'm a I'm a collector of of old and rare and unpopular things And so for people like us It's really scary You know because in cannabis there's not very many people that are willing to hold on to a wide diversity of genetics Especially if they're not currently profitable, right? Yeah And so to have something like this rip through your collection of possibly old unpopular not backed up by very many people Sometimes not backed up by anyone Is pretty scary and one of the things that he learned or he guessed was that It was his runoff On sharing on trays and things like that was that it was infecting things And so he instituted a program where like every single mom was elevated And drained away so that no runoff would ever touch another plant Yeah, right and I I think that's that's a good idea and it's not just for hoplite and viroid There's a lot of root fungal pathogens that spread through the water and Um Shared water if you're trying to prevent pathogens Is not recommended because it's it's an excellent way for a bunch of pathogens to move around I can tell you that um before we ever heard the term hoplatant Uh, a lot of us were considering gutting to be an aggressive form of fusarium Yeah, you know, uh, and and we were you know, there was a lot of there was a lot of like, you know Uh our research going into like well, how do you cure that? How do you get rid of that because We couldn't do the testing. We didn't know what it was. We were just observationally seeing what was going on and uh So basically I guess what you're saying is you think Is it fair to say that you think that the vast majority of transmission is happening via runoff and via cloning with contaminated tools So I would say the vast majority is happening via mechanical transmission with tools. Um I suspect that there is a percentage of transmission going along with water transmission, although I don't have published evidence to show that. Um, we did we did take some Tubing from a water admitter from a facility that had an outbreak And we just used the tube itself in the pcr and we were able to amplify hoplite and byroid from the tube So it was in there and it was stuck to the rubber on the inside of the tube Whether or not it was sufficient to infect a plant, you know, I don't know But it lived there It was there. Yeah, and I I want to make sure that I answer the question how many times to test your plant Um, yes, you want to be certain that it's negative You need to test it at least at least twice Um, three to four weeks apart So that if it was missed because it was a very early infection You give that plant long enough to have enough of a systemic infection and a high enough load that you can You can catch it the second time around Um, and honestly, I would I think people if you know, they're you're really trying to be careful I would test your mother plants periodically, you know on a continual basis on a routine basis Not everyone has the ability to do this. Yeah, um, and it's difficult But we in in recent years with the influx of just a bunch of horrific things That started getting spread around not just hoplite but root aphids You know, we call them super mites With your basically two spotted mites that have been trained for decades to grow resistant to many pesticides Every every pesticide Yeah, well, you know over over just like any other thing overuse of certain kind like, you know Like overuse of antibiotics or whatever and all of a sudden you have so, you know, there's um Basically, I guess what I'm saying with that is that You know, you would recommend let's say that you bring in something new or old that you're excited about And you quarantine it you would recommend at least two tests Four weeks apart and get both of those negative before you would feel confident to even want to move that plant into your larger safer mother room of Hopefully clean genetics Yes, absolutely. I think strict quarantine for anything new Two tests, um for economically critical pathogens and I would probably add fusarium oxy sporum to that list Because you don't want that floating around your grow either Separate tools you don't want to be using the same tools and If you're thinking about the workflow in your facility, obviously don't start in the quarantine room And then move to your mom room So this is um, yeah, and this is exactly what the u.s. Government does right when when plants come in They go in strict quarantine and they're tested and observed before they're allowed into the country Yeah, um This is about protecting your borders another another aspect of that that I I find interesting and I'd love some clarification on is that um You know when people are doing clones right and obviously especially like in commercial instances where you're taking Hundreds or even thousands of clones on a work shift Right You can do stuff like you can do what we talked about earlier Where you could have bleach and you could have rotating tools and you can clean all that And you can have you know fresh starting material whether it's rock wool or plugs or whatever but One of the things that I know about cannabis that everyone does is Most of the time Every single stem goes in that rooting gel or goes in that dip and grow or goes in that hormone right And trying to figure out how to isolate Hormone or rooting gel or whatever for each specific plant themselves and not mixing that That is a bottleneck. And so Um, you know, it's expensive. Yeah, how how risky is it to let's say you dip a clone into dip and grow for three or four seconds How much and but it's a fresh wound? Right. Yeah, you just cut how much risk is that and how and what what practices could people even institute? Um in order to not make that a vector for transmission Yeah, so Unfortunately, if you cut a clone, you know and and you have this huge open wound it's and it's it's infected It's going to be seeping hoplate and viroid into that solution and If you get a clone that's infected and you dip another one in that solution You're you've basically created an inoculum and you're using it to inoculate every clone after that that's dipped into that that solution Um, that's Yeah, I mean just to be honest, you know, I get it's the reality of it But it just it just leads to a whole series of it's basically like you want to have a different vessel for um for cloning material Uh for every single plant Yeah, yeah, and I mean, I don't know if you know, maybe you can put it in an egg carton You know, so you just have a little bit in each each spot or something something I mean I hate to break in but like it even goes down to like even Different parts of the goddamn plant if it's a big enough plant Because some of that might have more viral load than the bottom half and you may actually increase your chance of Inoculating it when you might otherwise not have and got grabbed a clean branch somewhere left I mean, I was almost thinking of like, uh, I mean you could have permanent you could have like, you know 20 different glass shot glasses That you have a little bit of different grow or a little bit of your hormone or whatever in each one And then as soon as you're done with it, you dump the excess out into something and you drop it into bleach And you move on to the next one and then by the time But something like that would have to be because You could sterilize it and just wait a minute or two Right and it would be clean Yes, so if you had say 10 shot glasses, you could go from plant to plant and not spread Because I will tell you that 99% of people out there That are taking precautions are still using A centralized dipping solution of some kind Yeah, that's just the industry standard. That's just how it how it works Yeah, that would that's definitely if you are concerned at all that any of your plants have hoplate and viroid then You're not going to want to be sharing anything that has touched sap and then dip another plant in it with a gaping wound Because you're just going to spread it to ever That makes that makes excellent sense. So I have I have a question So you see a lot of plants probably that come in that are negative For hoplate and viroid, but people suspect them of being dutted now When you see this negative thing pop up for the hoplate and what I mean, do you test it for what else it could be? And at that point, what is the next most common form of things that people are calling dutted that you're seeing? Yeah, so beyond hoplate and viroid the Percentage of plants that have other viruses, you know, at least that we know of is pretty low It's usually hoplate and viroid if they're seeing viral like symptoms Um other things can cause stunted growth like Fusarium pithium, right because these things are chain on the roots And so you're going to see slow growth or it'll look like a nutrient deficiency kind of Yeah, so we're definitely seeing those pathogens also and Just a little sidebar We're also seeing that Those pathogens can come in through people's water sources Especially if you're not change like, you know following all the recommendations for how your water is filtered. Yeah So I would highly recommend that people test their water systems periodically Just to make sure that they don't have anything growing in there and they're you know watering their plants with like pithium water Well, so yeah, that is I mean that's something I haven't done this in a long time, but 20 years ago I was a mostly hydroponic person And when you're growing with water culture and like nutrient film technique and stuff you learn about pithium You learn about water temperature how it can grow how it can replicate So if let's say you had a 50 gallon drum for the sake of argument, right and you were worried about your water What would be what would be the way that you would think would be the best way to sterilize it? And then how long would you have to wait before you could use it? Could you add a certain amount of bleach stir it for 10 minutes an hour or two hours and then go or do you have data on that? So I'm not going to say for sure because I'm not exactly sure at what concentration. I'm comfortable with that What time I don't I don't want to No, I get it. There's I figured there was going to be you have you have certainty You have uncertainty and you have I don't know which is That's where we're at Yeah, I I'm not sure how how effective it could be to actually sterilize the water that's in that tank Um, I can say if you want to test it you should take the stuff from the bottom The the stuff where all the material might settle and grab whatever that sludge is And we can usually find it if it's there because we for the water testing we grow it out on plates So it's not like a 24 hour thing like testing for the viroid But um, then we can grow it up and look at all the fuzzy stuff that grows and do a PCR test on each colony To see if you got something growing in there. Um, so another thing that uh Maybe would be really important for people is that obviously there's some growers That start with fresh material every time they grow whether that's rock wool or coconut fiber or you know peat moss perlite whatever, but then there's also a growing movement of people Certainly outdoor But also moving more indoor, you know all kinds of living soil or multi cycle grows that type of thing And so, um, you know, we did a uh, I had a commercial thing We were working on and we got some plants that did absolutely horrible from a nursery And we tested the soil About three months after harvest And it came up positive Yeah For how happily yeah So i'm curious if you could tell because there's a lot of people right now That want to move to more like regenerative practices that want to be reusing their medium Either from an expense perspective, you know perspective or maybe like a you know What just whatever it might be right and there's a lot that are trying to reuse their soil reuse their mix Do multiple cycles in it um, so You know basically what it was really scary for people like them is that if they get infected It's a lot more expensive for them to just throw it out and start over than it is for someone that just buys six inch rock Well every crime every time right? Yeah. Yeah, so what do you recommend?  In soil if you plant inflect infected plants after you've killed them Yeah, so um Once again, these experiments have not been done in cannabis In hops they can show that the viroid over winters But that's a perennial plant. So it's not it's not a very good, you know comparison Because it has living roots and stuff that it can stain Yeah, um, I will say uh, it's Even in in cannabis from you know, the limited studies that we've done It's in very high concentration in the roots So if you have an infected plant and there's still root material left in that soil If you plant another plant in that root material, um, I I think you're playing with fire as far as getting infected plants um That's everyone that reuses their soil because they typically cut the plant down and they're relying on Biology and various things to break down the root mass in the system and return that energy or whatever to The soil food web. So no one I mean, it would be impossible even unless you like screen to remove roots Right, right. So I think you know you you if you I mean, I don't know what's cheaper testing every plant or the you know, the some root decay left in the pot Or just starting with new soil But um, it would definitely not be reusing soil from a plant that had hoplate and thyroid So basically what you're saying is anyone that uses the same soil year after year in an outdoor situation Or in a greenhouse or anyone that is in some sort of living soil Organic regenerative thing where they're doing multiple cycles They would need to be even more militant than normal Yeah, I mean I I think kind of what this comes down to is that You know, all of these practices can be worked into a regular standard operating procedure as long as you're testing As long as you're constantly measuring, you know, the the biotic stress of your plants and so You know what's going on you you're you know, you can adopt your sops depending on what outbreaks or which types of pathogens Are there but if you're not collecting information then you can't make intelligent choices downstream about what's safe and what isn't so um, if we're gonna get it under control people need to be Monitoring their plants all of the time to make sure that they don't have something, you know spreading in there and and Because if you don't Then you end up with catastrophic loss losses or possibly you do so on that level, um That leads me to another question and it's related to something matt said, you know You said earlier too that like in addition to hoplaton you would also test for a certain kind of fusarium You know matt was talking earlier about You know other forms of dudding to use the common term Um, you know, I uh, so for you since you offer these services or something like that How how affordable is it? Like if if if you if we were to create a panel of hoplaton with two or three other common things Right How much does it how much is it going to honestly cost somebody just like even just like a hobbyist who's concerned and wants to test their little collection? Um, to do like a one once a month Uh on a plant for instance Yes, so, um, I mean obviously every testing lab is going to have a different price and whatever Our cost is twenty five dollars for a test for hoplaton specifically or for multiple things So that's for hoplaton specifically. Um, we're working on Channels putting multiple things together. Um, and then you know, uh, kind of figuring out where the cost of that will fall but, um Even if you know, if you're a really large or a larger facility and you want to get on some sort of regular testing schedule Then there, you know bulk deals and and kind of subscription type things where we can help with sops Sure.  Um, that could that could be a major expense for a normal person Right trying to stay on top of things it could run into the thousands of dollars a month perhaps Yeah, I mean depending on your collection, you know, if it's if it's big enough it can it can be an expense for sure Um, so then maybe maybe I could get like perhaps a little like political slash regulatory um So, you know one of the one of the the equitable things or people talk about like social equity a lot in cannabis because A lot of the people that are traditional or legacy cannabis breeders Are, you know, sort of small outwash types folks and now you have a lot of big money You have a lot of investment You have a lot of like people that never would have dealt with it before so the culture is changing dramatically, right? Yeah, sadly The little guy has a lot harder time affording this than the big guy When in my opinion as far as I've been able to determine It's unscrupulous or simply poor practice big people and that are spreading it everywhere Right, and then they have no responsibility once it's gotten out there to do anything about it. They don't owe anyone anything, right? So do you think then that there should be some kind of regulatory or political change where you know clones sold Should come with a clean bill of health That that should be like an absolute standard because to me if you're paying all this money for instance I'll just use california as an example But if you're paying a bunch of money upfront for the right to grow for your square footage And you're paying all these taxes and fees upfront and you have all this cost And then you buy a thousand clones that ruin your season And now your soil is infected and you've got this massive issue The only person that has no liability is the person that happily took your money To sell the clones they're free and clear they you don't have I don't think there is any cases of being able like in the regular agricultural system If you spread some kind of terrible disease From your nursery to a big agricultural people they'll come after you, right? Yeah, yeah, so I mean I think so this problem Needs to be I mean, this is my opinion attacked on multiple levels I think it should be standard in the industry that you know, if you're if you're selling clones that you're getting your stuff tested And that you can provide some type of documentation certification That you that it was tested and and these are the results Like this mom was tested within 30 days of me taking this clone Yes And I think on the other end when people are buying clones They should have the right to say hey is this tested and if the person says yeah, I say awesome Can you give me the can you give me the results and tell me what lab it was tested through? So you can do your own research and decide whether or not You believe the results you trust the science You know, you can you can get clones and Just do a quick screening yourself You know if you bought a thousand clones you can you can bulk test You know, maybe five or six clones per tube and just try to get like even even like five percent of them and send them And well, I'll throw something out there because this is this is maybe a little technical So i'm not going to try to bore anyone but with the rate with but you know Honestly with the regulations exist or whatever in legal situations Like a lot of a lot of you know licenses that have flowering rights You know, you're supposed to move your plants into those areas within 24 hours You know, you don't have like it's not that easy to like just sit there take a bunch of clones Spend a few weeks testing them waiting for results making sure they're clean Keeping them healthy without transplanting them and then figuring out whether or not you need to buy more clones Because a lot of these nurseries You put your orders in in spring, you know, you have a week that you get your plants It's not like if somebody screws you Uh, you can go to another nursery and be like, hey, I need 9 000 cuts and i'm behind They might not even so I I guess what i'm saying is is I don't know that putting the the responsibility on the farmer Is very effective for the farmer as in terms of cost and just the way the regulations are I almost it almost seems to me like in uh, I mean, this is a crazy analogy or whatever, but like, you know, um, You know, uh people that work in the sex industry like in in movies and stuff. They have to get tested every two or three weeks Right and they have to like before they go to work. They have to provide a clean bill of health So it almost seems to me like the same thing should be done with nurseries like if you want to sell Thousands of clones to someone you should have a recent test You know that shows that the mother that came off this stuff was not infected because otherwise it's going to keep happening Yes, I absolutely agree. I mean, and I think Um, we work with nurseries that test all of the time I mean that test every, you know, they they cut they and they send in hundreds of samples to make sure that they're not selling positive plants to anybody and I think those are there's ethical people very much so Shout out to our our friends, uh at radio ridge who I know spend a lot of money monthly Testing their stuff, but there's other unscrupulous nurseries that don't waste any money on that Uh, and they end up spreading a lot of disease without realizing it Yeah, yeah, and honestly, you know, I think the the biggest responsibility that would fall to the clone That person buying the clones is to simply ask did you test? And you know, you have the right to move to a different person if you if that you know If they haven't been testing and you don't feel confident, you know You can try to source them from elsewhere, but I I think that Moving forward that's gonna have to start to become the industry standard if we're gonna, you know, get this thing under control Everybody's gonna have to be testing. I can tell you, um, having Consulted and worked at multiple legal scenes Especially ones that like are brand new and getting off the ground Um, most of the bugs for talking of those will stop talking about byroids for a second But most of the insects that come under those under those first grows come from the nurseries They come with free root aphids or free cannabis aphids or free thrips or, you know, free Free, you know, two spotted spider mites and there's no discount Uh for that gift that comes along with that. So, um, nurseries haven't done a very good job yet of providing problem free plants Um, yeah, I I kind of want to rewind it a bit because I did notice some people were mentioning We didn't go over like initial Reasons why someone would even suspect they have Like me and not to have seen a lot of plants with this. So we know like we see one.  That's that's it It's like it's obvious But a lot of people watching are going to be very confused on how they would even begin to identify it So are there some some markers? Maybe you would tell us to look out for Yeah, so common symptoms are going to be, um, slow growth Um You'll have branches that instead of them coming up to like the normal angle. They'll they'll go out more horizontal like this Um, yeah more of a 90 degree branch. Yes, correct And they'll be brittle.  It's a little subtle But the leaves instead of kind of being separated will overlap a little bit. Um, and that's another symptom You can also see things like leaf chlorosis It sometimes it'll like puff out and look more like a Christmas tree Um, like a Christmas tree type growth Um, you know in in little clones, you're going to see a much slower slower growth and sometimes it looks kind of sparse and sickly but You know, and then obviously sometimes the the symptoms can be really subtle and depending on when it was infected It's not super easy to see it Um until flowers and then it's just super duper disappointing Those are those are all I would I wouldn't say all but I would say about 90 of what you mentioned Especially the angle of the stem the brittleness of the stem and the the small leaves Are all stuff that we had noticed Um among plants that were worrisome Um before we even knew what the word hoplaton was Yeah, I remember one of the others was the stem color There wasn't a lot of stem color. I don't know. Oh, yeah, that's a really good one so I don't know if you know about that but what we what we saw with infected plants is that Most infected plants would be like a uniform pale green They wouldn't have any red or purple or any kind of coloration. They would almost be like a pure I don't want to say sickly green because that's not right Well, their texture was different too. It wasn't like the normal texture that I would see It was almost rubbery and when you would move your hands down the stem It would definitely break because of its different type of texture It would basically be the the plant would look almost a uniform the stem would be a uniform pale green It wouldn't have some of the variation We've come to expect with you know as it gets woody or this or that and so you know one of uh um But the other the other risk of that is that Uh, and maybe we can jump into this for a minute is that the problem is is that you can be infected and be asymptomatic, correct? Yes, you can have you can have an infection that's young enough that it hasn't started showing these deformities if you will, right? Yep So maybe you could explain You know and maybe you maybe you know, maybe you don't know But we you've mentioned a number of times where there's differences between the viroid just like exploding around through the plant Versus a plant that has less viroid Um, what are some things that can you know outside of just the plant's health? What are some things that slow or speed the plant being infected? In the sense of do you have any idea on those aspects or ways to slow it down even if it might be infected? that type of thing Yeah, so um, so it is mentioned in the literature that Higher temperatures and um more intense light Tends to speed up the Replication of the viroids so it it so the plant's going to have a higher load um You're going to see the symptoms more Robustly if the plant gets stressed out So that doesn't mean that it isn't it isn't in there replicating but um, if the plant gets stressed out Dried up or whatever The stress response of the plant isn't going to be functioning as well as a healthy plant And so you're going to see those symptoms come out really pronounced If the plant gets stressed out Um, you know, it's It's tough But what you what you really want to do is try to find it before The symptoms are super obvious because once they're super obvious the plant is you know Really infected and the chances of of its spreading are quite a bit higher Um, you know, which is why i'm back to the you know screening thing because if you can catch it early on with a sensitive enough test Um, you can it's much easier to contain and and keep it from spreading like that Matt, do you intentionally have comments off? Yes, okay. Just just just to be clear. So, um, there is a So basically what we're talking about is that we we've established there's a couple different things you can do that really That really prevent spread But the best thing is just to prevent it from coming in Yeah, all right. That's the ideal. Yes, that's the ideal um, and then You know so and you say that uh because you know one of the things that I see a lot of these places when they offer TC or Maristem This is uh four to six thousand dollars often Yeah, and you're saying and it's it's very pricey and you're saying and it takes months Right, and you're saying that it can be effective But the people doing it have to be really talented At actually removing all of the vascular only getting it down to the Maristem itself And starting from that point and there's some luck to it as well, right like Yes, yeah talent. Yeah. Yeah, some of it some of it's really knowing what you're doing really understanding the plant getting the plant You know really healthy before you You know even attempt the process you want to pick the right the right part of the plant or the you know the healthiest bit And then it's not going to work on every single one. So yeah numbers your tests. So maybe I could I think I already know the answers to this but Um, I have I'll just take you through uh some bro science for a second on What people are doing to cure it, right? So one of the one of the ways that people have heard this learn it You know is you clone out of it, right? You have a plant that you think has an issue you try to get it as healthy as humanly possible Right, you take some clones.  Um One of the problems with the viroid is you don't need a lot to get that infection again I mean one or two copies. Um, you're not going to see much for a long time It's going to take a while for it to build enough to even be detectable on a test Um, but just a little bit and you're you're right back to an infected plant um If the viroid chases the new growth, right? Like correct. Yeah, so it's it's definitely uh, you're you're playing a A chasing game right again. Um, if you think about it if if the plant was just infected And it's moving down that first branch into the vascular system and up If you can cut a clone off before it gets there like intellectually It should be possible to grab a clone that doesn't have it. Um I don't you'd have to start the race before you knew that you should be racing Exactly in order to Outrun it but then the next Right, so it's it's it's it sounds unlikely um, I I tried that with the trend so hard on on the trinity and and We I think we had it outdoors trying to chase it Up and out that way it was growing bigger is taking the healthiest cuts every time and over a period of year and a half It just was not It looked great and then slowly but surely the traits would start showing back up again. Yeah So then there's there's some big companies out there Um that have claimed that they had dudding issues and they cured them by you know dunking dunking plants and and something like say xeratol or you know, uh, putting Sanidate, uh, putting you know, um, soaking the roots so the roots uptake Whatever sterilant it might be type of thing and that they have cured it and never seen it since kind of gig um, and uh, you know, there's a There's a big push with any kind of nursery or any kind of big, um big grow If if anyone in the community finds out that you have it They want to let everyone know as soon as possible that they've solved it and that is gone, right? And so Uh, you know, I have a certain amount of skepticism that that would work From your experience that would not also not be probably very effective No, no, so I guess to help people understand Viroids are intercellular pathogens. So what that means is they're not just in the plant tissue They're they're inside the cell and then once they get inside the cell. There's actually another little tiny Organel in there called the nucleus and so they traffic all the way into where the DNA of the plant is And they they hijack the machine that's supposed to be interpreting the DNA for the plant and they use it to replicate themselves and so any type of nonspecific disinfectant That would actually make its way all the way into the nucleus of the plant and and nonspecifically destroy RNA would kill the entire plant Because RNA is used by the plant to do its own biology like it's essential. So If basically you you could get it to work by dropping your entire plant bleach or something But it will just be dead after like an hour or so, right? So There's no way for a topical or you know, something that's being taken up that that's a nonspecific disinfectant to get all the way into the nucleus and Only destroy the viroid and not the rest of the plant. Maybe I'll ask a related question, but just more general So in your experience, the only thing that has a chance of curing it But even that is variable would be a high quality meristem Tissue culture with testing afterwards to select the healthy ones Um and to get rid of the ones that it it remained you haven't seen anything else Uh, you know so far that will lead to success Yeah, so right now that is the only option for a reasonable cure that has evidence that it works. Um, that doesn't mean that they're, you know, there are ways of Um, obviously genetic modification Selecting for plants that are resistant. There there are things that you can Basically mutate or deactivate in the plant so that that viroid can't traffic through the plant anymore. It can't replicate um, and then there are They're more theoretical right now or you know, still in the literature kind of research zone um, some types of molecules that can actually encourage the secondary immune system of the plant to respond specifically To the viroids. Um, and that would be by activating something called RNAi Which is uh, the plant's version of the secondary immune system Now none of these things as far as i'm aware are actual products. Um, they they've just sewn some success in academia in theory Yes. Yeah, so they've shown they've shown some success, you know in a in a scientific lab And it's looking for for things that could work But as far as i'm aware nothing's been turned into a product that people could I mean, it almost seems to me like an analogy that i've kind of started settling on as far as like What it's going to take to stop this thing Is um, you almost need to start uh treating your plants like they're in a tattoo parlor Right, uh, where you know where where, you know, you have every every plant, you know is gets clean gear Yep, you know people are, you know, uh every every time, you know, that that level of because obviously all those practices Um in tattoo parlors happened because we wanted to stop transmission of hiv and hepatitis and all these other things that you know Because back in the day that wasn't so so much a worry um, and then it became a big worry and then basically I believe not that i'm You know familiar with tattoo regulation, but I pretty much believe that you have to have like autoclaves You have to have a certain level of sterilization. You can't even operate Um without these this gear Yeah, to make sure that you're not going to be a vector for spreading issues Yes, yeah, absolutely. I think that the entire industry is going to have to adopt Standard operating procedures very similar to that. Um, and we actually to help people kind of Remember what they need to do.  That's the oh like Flow of the people organizing where your clones are sitting So if a mom plant pops positive You don't have to throw out every tray because you don't know where those plants are sitting that came from that positive mom So thinking about that. Um, and then the p is to protect your borders, right? You don't let anything in that hasn't been tested Um and make sure that you're keeping infected stuff out um, so if you can if you can go through that whole stop, uh process then um, you stand, you know, you're making the right corrections to sort of keep the thing at bay and limit your economic exposure to it So it's really it's basically, you know, one of the aspects that people, uh People get mad about right where they want to talk about like being a a libertarian or something like that you know, we should have no rules is that In positive aspect of regulation is it's there to force people that would never do it? Mm-hmm to somewhat do it Yes, you know Um, and so one of the one of the hard parts about regulation for me right now is that because you don't have federal Legality on any level every state is its own island Yep, so you know if we you know, obviously winning in california would be big because You know, it's it's gonna take much like hiv or something like that at this point.   You need to show Like level of detection, you know, all these things like inclusivity and specificity and positive predictive value And all these things that you're supposed to do Um, and when we came into this we were used to working in human diagnostics where you know I mean there was like this huge list of things you had to prove Um and realize that here, you know, a lot of labs aren't doing any of those experiments, you know, because there's no standards right now No We need to hold ourselves to a higher standard, too I just I just saw something proposed and I don't know if it's going to I don't know exactly remember when it's going to take effect But they're starting to push for standardization of labs for thc and terpenes and stuff Um, because there's a lot of shady business going on With that because there's no standards that people have to adhere to Yes, yeah, and it's unfortunately, I mean even for tissue culture and testing labs because there's no standards Some of the, you know, it's not fair, but some of the responsibility or way to protect yourself is to Know the right questions to ask, you know, and if you if you find a testing lab and and they You know, they want to you know, you're going to send your plants there You can say hey, can you send me your validation? Can you tell me the experiments that you did to prove that your test is accurate or sensitive enough to detect it? um And a good lab a lab that's that's, you know Don its research should be able to send you a document where it spells out the experiments they did Oh, their stuff works I mean in all honesty having sourced clones for some pretty big scenes in the legal system Most nurseries are only really prepping say 10 to 18 Uh different strains for their season It's not like they might have a big library But they're only really they're only picking so many things to mom up and offer Numbers up So it wouldn't be that prohibitively expensive Like in winter for them to test these things make sure the moms they're propagating are clean You know and and that it's not like they have to put their entire collection through they just have to put What's in current production? Through correct. Yeah. Yeah.  Um, and then You know, even if you do like a really small random sampling of five percent of the clones um All like the entire sop that we recommend is a couple bucks per plant or something like that and Like if you if you if you take all the costs together and calculate it per plant and it's just totally worth it To not you know to feel confident that you're selling somebody A good product because I think nurseries too want to feel good that they're giving people high quality clones And be trusted and stuff like that as a as a breeder too Like I I think it's becoming more incumbent upon especially learning that there is even a remote possibility of the transmission from mother plant to seed stock because right now I mean It would be a great solution for the current problem right now with clones and the mass You know, I mean like people are all pretty much growing the same shit like whether I mean, it's all gelato cookies some foreign foreign thereof, right? But this could really be a good advocate for more seeds more seed stock Not relying on the same exact clone more diversity But that only is great if also the breeders are also aspiring to the same level of Testing that everyone else is. Yeah.  This has the turps.  It's gonna last a week, right? So So, I mean, it's it's it's the whole industry as and we all take responsibility together and then I think, you know, we can Start making a dent in it Yeah, it's gonna take a lot of education for the actual End user and that's that's always been the hardest part when it comes to Like we do a lot of talk on on cannabis genetics history seed history What have you and It's not always as important to everyone Like a lot of people have that genuine idea that it's dank who gives a shit what it's called or what what it is But when it comes to stuff like this, there's a reason that people care Or there's a reason that everybody takes it sets these standards or aspires to these standards.  We'd like to see these these genetics carry on in the form that they are We don't want to lose everything And and not paying attention not giving a shit not caring not testing is a good way that to end up with Gelato for the rest of your life You know, there's an issue with that and maybe maybe this is a this is a good time to bring it up or whatever But you know in in regards to other to other Agriculture one of the things that matt and myself and a number of our friends are concerned about is that With the uneven rolling out of legalization, right? Not that many people like I said before care that much about holding on to old things, right? And it's expensive and time consuming But it used to be that it was a little bit more lucrative to do this And that allowed you to fund You know your passion if it were right and so what I'm worried about is that as we grow into this big industry You know We could lose like the legalization movement right now Is probably a bigger threat to diversity than even prohibition was Yeah, definitely in my opinion and then we could be looking for like you were talking about Like maybe five or ten minutes ago in one of your answers where you were saying You know we we can breathe for resistance to certain things We can you know You can look at like the banana or other aspects of agriculture where some disease came in and crushed it and they went and found Varieties that resisted that and then those became the standards And so cannabis is going to in the next 10 20 30 40 years It's going to encounter things that need to be dealt with like that Yeah, and we're not going to know where the answer lies But it probably lies in some plan that if it gets lost in the next five years Due to all these things happening We could end up. I mean that was joking about cookies and gelato You know even if those are your favorite strains They might lack genetic Aspects that later on would be critical for the survival of the plant as some kind of bug or disease or Or whatever comes along Those definitely will not be the ones because they are so susceptible to everything Because this is this this might sound a little nerdy or something, but forgive me But I read this huge article on why um, you know 30 40 years ago Like when I was a kid every lots of people hated brussel sprouts Because they had this really offensive odor when cooked And so what they did is they went back they figured out that there was this one Substance within the brussel sprout right that led to that aroma So they went back and they started breeding all these hundreds of varieties that were no longer in production But were so saved in these various banks Yes, they grew them all out. They looked for which ones had the least of this substance in it They started breeding them together And lo and behold this new improved brussel sprout that doesn't have that funny cooked smell Is now on your shelves in the store.  I've never seen it I guarantee you no it there you can you could you could type in it Anyone could type it into google and it'll pop up that they literally rebuilt brussel sprouts from the ground up Because they realized this aroma was really affecting its sales And so they were able to go they were able to go back to the 50s 60s 70s 80s And grow out hundreds of different varietals of brussels Looking for just low amounts of this one compound And that's the type of stuff that's going to happen in cannabis in the future And so if we don't have a bunch of variety We we don't even know what we might need to go hunt for later Yeah, yeah, I think the you know the fact that there isn't a bank like a centralized bank for all these strains in cannabis is You know, that's one of the serious issues Right now because you know, there's all sorts of cool stuff out there being made and unfortunately Maybe strains being lost, you know, and that's all the time Yeah, yeah, which is and you know hoplatin vibrates obviously making it worse, right? Because if you know if you if it's infected and you you can't afford tissue culture You don't want to go that route, you know, then it's just kind of you know I had this thought while we have you on and I know this isn't um tissue This isn't hoplatin related, but it is somewhat related to genetics And so I thought maybe we could get your your opinion on it and you can say I know or I don't know But there's been some there's been some literature coming out where it used to be um For best practices for a long time was when you were cloning and you were taking new mother stock That you always went for the fast growing tops The tips of the plants all that and now there's been some research It seems like that's been coming out that's been talking about how the top of the plant might actually have more like More mutations And it would be safer to to keep that plant there would be less mutations lower down on the plant on the lesser growth That as newer growth happens, there's a greater chance of Something odd, right and for us for a long time you always went for the healthiest newest growing tips We called it the cult of our cut Yeah, yeah, and then and now it seems like there's been some evidence coming out that maybe that's mistaken And then it might be safer to take new moms and new new genetic material from the lower parts of the plant that Have less of a likelihood of some kind of mutation happening Um, is that something you're familiar with and seen and you could speak on or no So, I mean I so I've read, you know, some of the literature. I'm not going to speak with extreme confidence. Sure Um, I don't know that that body of literature as well. Um I do know that, you know, so when you're cutting plants clonal wise, you're taking somatic tissue So somatic tissue is everything that isn't the germ line. Um, and it the The the genome of somatic tissue is not protected in the same way As um, if you were to go through seed, right because the germ line is is really protected um, and so those tissues are going to accumulate more mutations and When you're cloning a mom, you're not Getting a new plant.  Yeah, um, and so That those somatic mutations over time will accumulate um, I you know the the people if you're trying to take the apical Mary stem area that area contains new stem cells and so Beyond somatic mutation beyond actual changes in the base pairs You also have these things called epigenetic changes Which um, they're like edits if you think of of the dna sequence as as letters and words Epigenetics is like highlighting in a capital letter. Maybe you scratch out a word So it's stuff overlaid on top So a lot of those epigenetic changes are are reset in stem cells, especially the freshly made ones And so you can get if you grab that top part or you use those stem cells You can re-vigorate the plant Whether or not there's a big difference in somatic mutations like point mutations in the dna Like the changes of the letters Dramatic enough to make a difference in the vigor from the top to the bottom.  Um, if it's just kind of hanging out at four degrees. Yeah growing that makes sense Super ideal. Maybe I could get one more non viroid question in and see if if what you think so In in relation to that. I mean keeping mom's healthy and stuff like that There's a lot of talk in our community about oh the plant got tired Or it got cloned too much and it suffered genetic drift Or things of that nature, uh, matt and I both have I mean I have a number of things that at this point are 20 15 20 25 even 30 years old, right? So pretty ancient in cannabis terms, right? Do you feel that that kind of like when you're taking clones Do you think that if a plant starts to not perform the way you want to It's because there's some mutations that happened or there was some of what you just spoke about you believe And do you in the genetics itself? You know some some um undesirable changes made have happened. Do you think plants get old? Do you think they get tired? If you will I realize that's that's a row term But it's thrown around enormously like the the plant's just tired the plant got genetic drift You didn't clone off it when it was healthy enough and you ruined it forever. It's not the same as it was It's not like it was five years ago Um, and so if you could talk a little bit if that's within your knowledge base on what you think about that kind of thing That would be very helpful for people as well Because it's thrown around enormously Yes, yeah, so um There will be somatic mutations that happen now. This is not Going to be happening on a massive scale. All right, so it's I mean there there can be mutations here and there But it's not like it's going to take a completely healthy plant and turn it into a total dot. You know really fast um I've heard a lot of people say things like that too like it stopped taking up nutrients or You know like somehow the plant randomly decided i'm just not going to eat anymore or whatever um I think a lot of times the decline has to do with pathogens Um that you don't know we're in there. Um, if you're if you're experiencing a serious decline I think it's much more likely to be some type of pathogen than it is to be You know, that's a suicidal plant. Yeah, exactly That's that it's hard to come across that I'm sure well, I mean for for us It's like, you know for humans, right? We have a you know, we have a lifespan You know, so if you if obviously you can't clone a person But you know you clone a teenager and they're they're very healthy you clone an 80 year old and they're not that healthy And I realize it's not the same thing at all But I just wonder like, you know, these plants are theoretically in nature. They survive a season Yeah, and I have clones. I have clones that were are from the early 90s And so they've survived, you know, 32 seasons Right. Yes. Yeah. I mean mutations will accumulate in, you know, older somatic tissue and You know, just like a person over time those mutations It's possible that could lead to, you know, decreased vigor. Um, I think it kind of depends on what you're seeing Usually what I when I hear people talk about it.  That sounds like a pathogen Um, but do I mean will a plant eventually get old, you know and go, you know into Having issues it it sounds reasonable to me. But again, I don't know any literature on that. So right now You know my thoughts not not data No, that's I mean, that's you know, we're with this this podcast is about thoughts, you know And we always try, you know, when we're talking about history Um, because most of cannabis history is oral We always try to be like this is what we know These are our educated guesses This is what we're pretty sure of but there's disagreement amongst people and it's hard to say what's specific So this is like right in our wheelhouse of what we deal with It really is You know, it it it is because Huh, the the general Consensus when it comes to cannabis whether we're talking about like I said reversals and and and sexual identity with cannabis or What have you the answer is just it varies so heavily It varies so heavily and there just isn't enough research yet and I think that's one thing that Anybody who who delves into the data just runs into constantly time to time again Yes, there's there's definitely a lot of unknowns and very few knowns out there right now. Um, so, you know We've been talking for a long time. I think mostly we got our questions answered. Do you feel that way too, matt? Yeah, yeah Yeah, I do It's amazing. Maybe maybe you could plug You know, I noticed a number of times you mentioned Do you have some SOPs or you have some best practices available on your website that people could go reference? Um, maybe you could talk a little bit just for a second about what you guys do What you have available for people Resource-wise testing wise that type of thing. So feel free for a minute to just sort of lay into all that if you will Yes, absolutely. Um, yeah So, you know, we we definitely do testing. Um, hoplate and viroid. Obviously, that's the thing that's tested the most often we also offer a panel of testing for pithium as well as fusarium We have a panel of viruses and even a viroid hop stunt viroid, which hasn't been shown to be in cannabis Yet, but it has a really high large host range and it has some pretty damaging effects and hops and so You know, we're we're kind of screening things all the time to make sure that we're kind of staying on top of stuff um Among the stuff that I am the most excited about that we're it's hoping hoping to come out at the beginning of next year is Our onsite testing platform So this is one of the ways that we're trying to help the industry bring the cost of doing a lot of routine testing down into a Range where people can afford it And so, you know, we've been working really hard at Evolving a platform that we created to test for coveted in human saliva And evolving that into the cannabis industry starting with testing for hoplate and viroid um And the thing that I'm most excited about it is that we we sat down with the chemistry that currently existed Isothermal amplification or lamp. I think a lot of people have heard of that. Um, and we started addressing some of the um Weaknesses of that technology the false positive rate the low sensitivity the you know the lack of internal control And um, we were able to improve that technology quite a lot So we were able to bring the sensitivity To the point where you should be able to detect about 95 of the reactions that are found by a qpcr in the lab Um, and the test can be judged, you know, it's a color change test But there is an internal control so you can tell if you've done the test incorrectly or if your plant is negative um, and it it also comes with um an analysis software, so If you want to do it high throughput if you'd like to do, you know, 96 plants at a time That's totally possible and that'll give you a digital readout Um, and so, you know, we're really excited about bringing this out because We've worked really hard at making this a really good test and a really good tool and I think This is going to help people do the type of testing that they're going to need to do to really Start yeah knocking thing down Okay And then your is your website just uh, is it to me genetics.com? Is it genomics genomics? Yeah To me genomics.com. Yeah hooked on phonics never came to my house. I I mangle at times so You know I have a little twang but but so that that's where people could go to read about the sops that you mentioned and some of the Some of the data and stuff that some of what we know There's an easy to reference area on that where you can learn Yes, and we are constantly putting up new content and we try to let people know on instagram when we're putting new stuff up And there's a lot of so I've just been busy making content and doing research to help people out so You know what we're going to have Some stuff about all the different viruses and viroids that are known in cannabis the ones that aren't known What you know, what's the evidence they exist? Which should you worried about which not? a lot of a lot of content like that so It's and it's all going up on the website Just to help people figure out like to navigate all of this because there's so much contradictory information that it's it's really difficult For someone to figure out what they're supposed to do and what they should be worried about and What's actually proven and what what is somebody just saying something really confidently even though they don't actually know We hear that a lot Yeah, like I said for this episode the amount of people that told me exactly Precisely how transmissible This hplv is in cannabis seeds was astounding how many people were sure, you know what I mean like So this this whole thing is very helpful And we hope anything else that you guys work on whether it's it's it's these new Different videos that you put out or whatnot. You'll bring it back to us and we can have you on again To talk about more and any new findings with hplv or anything anything you think the cannabis community should know about Or be aware of like this because this is so important Yes, absolutely. Yeah, and we are like I said instigating research studies and collaboration with techs at they and m and i'm hoping that that's really going to accelerate You know good science and real data and and as soon as we find it I I love to share it with the community because I think that's what's really needed here is quality research and a lot of education so people understand Um, maybe I could throw this out there just real quick and this and then we could end it on that But you just mentioned texas a and m right? Texas is not cannabis friendly yet So, you know, what do you like, you know, what do you think about like obviously like bringing to bear some of these colleges And some of these these departments and stuff like that that have been working in agriculture and other areas for a long time Is going to be part of the fabric of our new world Um, how do they work on that in texas? Do they have to get special like federal permission or something like that like texas law doesn't allow any I mean, it's not california. It's not anywhere where they have any kind of medical or recreational program either It's it's one of the states that's anti still So um in texas a and m they work on hemp varieties the you know the The difference between a hemp variety and you know a thc containing variety is the amount of thc the plant has Yeah, um, so because it's in the farm bill they can work on it They can work. They can test all that stuff via the hemp and just get around the drug cult of drug cult of our aspect or whatever Yes, yeah, and you know, um, there are universities like colorida state university here in colorado is doing research And they actually put out a paper where they did next generation sequencing On cannabis looking specifically for what pathogens are actually there Yeah, and so there there are universities. They're starting to jump in the ring too And do research and I I really think that that's where the answer is is You know collaborations between, you know, academia and industry and open sharing of information So that everybody can benefit from what's being learned both industry research and academia research the one biggest bar between academia that I found and Maybe it maybe it's a bar between academia The people who have the money and the actual cannabis people who've been doing it, you know for decades Is that not often do the people with the money or the people with the academia ever? Encounter the people behind the scenes that are doing that are the people that have these collections that have been doing the real research And taking real data trying to keep it as straight as they can not often do any of these people ever meet in the same Real, so I'm really hoping that somehow that's that a bridge is is reached between academia and What they would probably turn black market botanists The observational community The observational community, yeah, that's a better word for it Yeah, and that you know what that's one of the major missions of our company is Um, I was an academic scientist. My husband was an academic scientist half the scientists on our team were academic scientists and What we really want to do is bridge that gap and bring academia and what's going on You know all the knowledge in the cameras industry and bring that all together and really get some some solid data I like the testing you guys are doing Yeah, I have issues. I have issues with like the terpene and thc testing because I think it's so inaccurate And I think it's led people to assume a bunch of stuff. That's not true Um, you know, and I don't think we know yet like why plants why those why cannabis plants make us high Right like and or or why the different highs happen Like you can't look at a test and be like, oh, this is going to give me a racy Crawl out of my skin. I'm nervous feeling versus like I want potato chips and I'm giggly and I'm warm and happy Uncomfortable feeling Right, and then you know, I do we do testing all the time and it's like I uh, you know They say that there's like 150 different terpenes and cannabinoids that they've discovered and they test for like 30 Yes There's I think there's a really big fixation right now on the level of thc and everybody wants the highest level possible but I don't you know Based on personal experience now. We're not talking about data at all. Yeah. Yeah Just because it has a really high level of thc does not mean that it's going to give you You know give the consumer the feeling that they were going for, you know, and they're Much more complicated Than that and I think we just don't know right now how all that stuff interacts with the human body and with Each chemical with it each other, you know, maybe you know, maybe you know this from academia But I bet a lot of people don't know this where because cannabis was is a schedule one substance, right? You needed the dea's permission Um to test for it, right? And so during the war on drugs for a long time Um, if I went if I was a scientist and I went to the dea and I was like I want to see if cannabis lowers my blood pressure and makes me a happier person They would deny me And if you went and said hey, I want to test and see if cannabis makes me more violent more prone to illegal Acts and and raises my blood pressure. They would allow it So what's happened is we have like 40 or 50 years of cannabis testing looking for negative correlations and effects And barely any looking at the actual effects or if there could be positives Yeah, yeah, there's there's very limited research and um, you know, I think one of the most frustrating things and I was actually discussing this With a lawyer at a cannabis conference is that to get something off the schedule one list You have to do research to prove that it's not dangerous But you're not allowed to do research on things on the schedule one list So you're caught you're caught in the catch 22. Yeah, exactly the dea was able to prevent anything from messing with their narrative By them having a bottleneck and you had to get their permission to actually have cannabis to test with Yeah Yeah, no, I I mean and and I am really hoping that This is gonna change because there there needs to be so much research and You know from a virology pathogen biology perspective Having a reservoir of pathogens in a plant where we're not doing any research. We're not monitoring it That's dangerous for all of agriculture. Sure perspective of of what you think about the legality If we're not doing research on it then everything is is Threatened by it especially with legality. They want to take all the cannabis out of the hills and mountains where it thrived And they want to bring it down to the valleys and the ag land and next to a lot of other kinds of crops Correct. Yeah, so I mean and we need research. We need to understand what pathogens are there Which ones are coming, you know and how to keep, you know, all of agriculture safe like how they do with all the other crops Yeah, oh, yeah, well, we're about two hours here, which is normally when we cut it I don't know. I want to thank you so much for coming on and chatting. It was really engaging And it cleared up a lot of stuff. I wrote down a lot of questions and It's good to hear the state of where we are You know where we know we are and where we're worried about and all that and so Maybe matt if you want to do your end of the end of the evening plug and then we can all have a good night That would be great Yeah, well, thanks a lot for coming on tasso. We really appreciate you To me genomics and everything you are doing to help us to help bring us into the new In this new weird feature that is cannabis for a lot of us that are that have been very resistant to it Like I didn't do a lot of testing myself Over the years like early on because it was so expensive and just didn't make a lot of sense But I think we're at that point where testing has to be a mainstay So we appreciate you bringing your knowledge and everything you've learned for free here to to share with everyone Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, thank you so much for this opportunity. This was actually a lot of fun. So I love talking about science so and teach teaching science. So this was great Thanks you guys so much for inviting me here. Well, we're happy to have you For mel all of us here breeder syndicate.  You'll end up there. Go check out riot seeds.com proceeds and Reversal spray and that this will be this will be put up on youtube shortly and as always. Thank you very much for your friday night Much appreciated. Bye. Bye everyone. Thank you