How Science and Technology is Revolutionizing the Cannabis Industry

Cannabis development is highly attributed to plant breeding and targeted cultivation strategies. Crops themselves are entirely different from those in the 1970s, and we’ve learned a lot by fine-tuning our techniques.

According to Anders Peterson, Cannabis Operations Specialist at InSpire Transpiration Solutions, science and technology have been game-changing for cannabis development.

“We’ve been able to collect a significant more amount of data and learn from it, even just over the past five years,” said Peterson. “Besides that, the technology used to create a controlled environment inside in terms of lighting, fertigation, HVAC, have allowed us to also optimize plant growth and production and efficiency in these spaces.

In the same ways that farmers learn over time what crops grow best in what areas, we learn to isolate environmental factors to optimize plant growth. Starting with data collection, we better understand what the plants need.

These developments have decreased the number of days plants take to reach maturity and, in turn, increased the number of harvests a year within greenhouses. Specifically, within InSprire Transpiration Solutions, technology has increased harvest cycles from four per year to six. Similar techniques are developing in outdoor cannabis development and production.

In addition to environmental developments, we have also seen cannabis development in the plants themselves through crop steering and breeding. In the 1970s, THC levels in cannabis plants consistently registered 8-12%. Nowadays, plants are testing in the range of 35 to 40% with some cultivars. That’s a significant increase. A lot of that is down to the changes in plant breeding. However, targeted cultivation strategies also contribute to that shift.