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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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US: A relatively unknown viroid poses big threat to Michigan cannabis growers Adrienne Roberts Farmers Advance Wednesday 05 Jul 2023 Called hop latent viroid (HLVd), the viroid, a tiny infectious particle smaller than a virus, shrinks the size of cannabis plants, reduces THC levels — the main psychoactive compound in cannabis that produces the high sensation — and is the latest threat to the state's burgeoning cannabis industry. The viroid — which doesn't infect humans — has affected Michigan cannabis growers at least as far back as 2019 but it's gaining an increasing amount of attention as it spreads around the world. For example, HLVd has spread to 90% of cannabis farms in California, according to a 2021 study. HLVd is in Michigan, although it's unclear how widespread it is. It will often sit latent (as its name implies) until the conditions are right, David Harns, a spokesperson for Michigan's Cannabis Regulatory Agency, said in a statement. While the viroid has affected growers in the state for the past few years and has impacted cannabis farmers in the U.S. at least as far back as 2016, cannabis growers say, it's still a relatively unknown threat. Some cannabis growers are "not even aware that (HLVd) might be an issue that they need to deal with and so they haven't put any resources toward it," said Cassin Coleman, who sits on multiple cannabis industry associations' scientific advisory committees and is a partner at several licensed cannabis grow facilities in Michigan. Coleman described HLVd as a threat but one that is exacerbated by the fact that the industry "is in a precarious position to begin with" due to many factors such as cannabis still being illegal on the federal level, leading to tax implications, and the declining price of flower that is causing profits to narrow. HLVd also has a significant impact on finances: The viroid reduces the yield of the plant, meaning less marijuana for growers to sell and thus less revenue, which has led to layoffs in some cases. Where HLVd came from HLVd was initially found in hops — a flower typically used for flavoring in beer — and later detected in cannabis in 2019 in California. Coleman and others believe it had spread to cannabis crops before then but there wasn't a name for it. Coleman recalls working at a cannabis grow facility in Colorado in 2016 and noticing that certain cannabis plants that were performing really well all of a sudden weren't. Kevin Kuethe, chief cultivation officer of the Michigan cannabis company Lume, had a similar experience. Before the viroid had a name in 2019, he would see plants with stunted growth, thinking they were the runts of the litter, so to speak. HLVd can cause smaller leaves, brittle stems, reduced vigor, lower water intake, and smaller and looser buds with weaker flower smell, among other symptoms, according to a recent scientific paper. Once plants could be tested for HLVd and Kuethe learned plants at Lume's facility had it near the end of 2019, he had to learn how to treat it and get rid of it, which took a full year. "It's a very difficult thing to do," he said. Sick plants lead to layoffs In 2021, Matt Mooney, chief operations officer at the marijuana grow facility Franklin Fields in Lansing, noticed that the cannabis plants he was bringing in looked malnourished. He would press down on the branches and they would break right off. Mooney started doing some research and saw that this was one of the symptoms of HLVd. He sent the plant out for testing and it came back positive. While HLVd didn't spread to the other strains he was growing, it did impact one whole room of cannabis plants at Franklin Field's grow facility, and Mooney said by that point, he couldn't discard those plants. "I couldn't terminate a whole room and just have no flower production out of it," he said. "We bit the bullet. We knew we'd have less (of a) harvest and we just let them run." Normally, Mooney can harvest about 65-75 pounds of cannabis flower per room. The rooms that had HLVd produced about 20 pounds, resulting in a loss of revenue of about $70,000, he said. Coleman said when she had HLVd in her grow facility two years ago, the plants were producing 30%-50% less material and it impacted 11 weeks' worth of harvest, a loss of revenue that she estimates at $445,000. "There was a point there that we were concerned we weren't going to make payroll," she said. "We literally had to lay off half the team because we had hop latent viroid decimating (our crop) because we didn't know and we didn't find it soon enough." Stopping the spread with clean scissors, new gloves Coleman said as she has learned more about the viroid, effective mitigation methods exist that some good grow facilities may already have built into their systems. HLVd primarily spreads through vegetative cuttings. For example, if a grower cuts an infected plant and then uses the same pair of scissors to cut another plant, it could spread to that plant. At Franklin Fields, 20 pairs of new scissors are used with the same batch of plants until they're harvested, and then those scissors are thrown away. Kuethe said any Lume employee that's working with plants has a pocket full of gloves and new scissors because they will never use the same gloves and scissors on two different plants. These growers are also testing plants to see whether they have HLVd. Many of the CRA's licensed safety compliance facilities currently have methods that have been reviewed and can test for HLVd, Harns said. Kuethe opted to buy an in-house testing machine for about $4,000, a small price to pay for high-value cannabis, he said. "It's a sneaky (viroid) and those small, tiny little differences in yield and quality are big dollars," he said. "It is such a regulated industry with so much (money) required for taxes, regulatory fees and services that you need every dollar you can get." https://eu.farmersadvance.com/story/news/2023/07/05/a-relatively-unknown-viroid-poses-threat-to-michigan-cannabis-growers/70369621007/
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