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New research confirms plant-killing black root rot in marijuana facility
The fungus that causes the plant disease black root rot has spread to cannabis plants beyond hemp, warns new research that identified the pathogen in a licensed commercial cultivation facility in British Columbia, Canada.
Black root rot can be fatal to cannabis plants, said Chris Dumigan, a Ph.D. candidate in biology at the University of British Columbia Okanagan who specializes in cannabis and is lead author of the new research in the academic journal Plant Disease.
“It’s growing on and inside your root tissue and then it’s causing the roots to die, and the plant will eventually die as a consequence of that,” Dumigan told MJBizDaily.
The affected marijuana facility in Cranbrook, B.C., “had to throw out a whole bunch of equipment, they had to get rid of a bunch of plants, because they had a fungus that was growing and taking hold of their facility,” he added.
“And if you can’t control that, you’ll face total crop destruction.”
Black root rot was previously documented in a hemp greenhouse in Kentucky in late 2019, according to a 2022 paper in the same journal.
The research marks the first report of “black root rot in high THC-containing cannabis,” the new paper notes.
Confirmation of black root rot in marijuana comes as the industry focuses on plant pathogens in light of the spreading impact of hop latent viroid.
However, David Kessler, chief science officer with Billerica, Massachusetts-based marijuana cultivation technology Agrify Corp., said he doesn’t expect black root rot will pose the same economic threat to the cannabis industry as does hop latent viroid.
“That said, those cultivators that are affected by this most certainly are going to feel that economic damage, but having it be pervasive through the industry is less likely,” said Kessler, who was not involved in the research.
‘More widespread than people think’
Commercial marijuana businesses should be aware that black root rot exists and poses “a threat to their bottom line,” cannabis researcher Dumigan said.
The B.C. outbreak occurred at a cultivation facility that uses aeroponics, a method that leaves plant roots exposed and feeds them with a mist of water and nutrients.
The grower contacted Dumigan after sending diseased plants for pathogen testing and receiving negative results.
“To me, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, because that facility is quite clean,” he said.
“It’s not an oversight on their part, they were more or less a victim of a lack of research in the area,” Dumigan continued.
“This thing is more widespread than people think.”
In Australia, the destructive effect of black root rot on cotton crops has led to it being declared a pandemic, according to the paper.
Cannabis hasn’t been subjected to “the same research as other crops of similar market value,” Dumigan said.
“So something like this can fly under the radar and still be discovered as a new pathogen in this crop in 2022, which I think is very interesting – but also points to a lack of knowledge about cannabis, cannabis cultivation and cannabis pathology.”
Considering that black root rot has also been documented in greenhouse-grown hemp on the opposite side of North America, Dumigan said he would be “highly surprised” if the disease was new to marijuana.
Infections might have been misclassified as another kind of root rot, he said.
Aeroponic question unanswered
It’s not surprising that black root rot would affect cannabis, said Kessler, Agrify’s chief science officer.
“It thrives in cool and wet conditions,” he explained.
In particular, Kessler suspects black root rot might be more likely in an aeroponic environment such as the B.C. facility where it was detected, as opposed to cannabis grown in a medium.
Aeroponic growing is not the typical method of commercial cannabis production.
It involves “a very humid, air-rich environment, and that is a really great place to grow fungus,” Kessler said.
Without the buffer of a growing medium, he added, cannabis can be subject to “much more rapid temperature swings.”
“And that can be something that helps promote these types of diseases,” he said.
“A lot of these fungal spores can survive significant amounts of time just waiting for the right host and environment before they will – if you will – sprout and replicate.”
University of British Columbia Okanagan researcher Dumigan said the B.C. aeroponic facility in question grew “really robust cannabis plants that were disease-free for the longest time” using a pathogen control method.
“I do wonder whether it’s this unique (aeroponic) environment that really allowed this fungus to take hold in this facility,” Dumigan said.
Despite that theory, Dumigan cautioned that the research does not prove any link between black root rot and aeroponic cannabis cultivation.
“Since (the aeroponic facility has) been able to deal with this pathogen – monitoring it closely, always watching the roots – they haven’t had any issues and they have really good healthy crops,” he said.
More research needed
Dumigan and his colleagues isolated the black root rot sample from the Canadian facility into a culture and sequenced its genome for the first time, allowing them to further study the fungus.
“But what’s really interesting (is), we can start to develop diagnostic tests that use (genome) sequence information to determine when it is there and when it is not,” Dumigan told MJBizDaily.
Dumigan said he’s interested in developing new tests to detect the presence of black root rot in wastewater.
Early detection is “imperative,” he said.
“Because if you don’t detect it early, you can’t quarantine the infected crops, and it’s just going to spread through your facility.”
In the meantime, Dumigan has shared a technical bulletin about black root rot in cannabis on LinkedIn.
He said more research on black root rot in cannabis could include researching ways to combat the threat, such as microorganisms that produce antifungal compounds.
Anecdotally speaking, Dumigan said, “we’ve seen genotype-specific resistance to this and that some cultivars of cannabis will show more resistance than others.”
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-research-confirms-plant-killing-black-root-rot-in-marijuana-facility/
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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