Slow growth, small size, nutrient assimilation problems, smaller flowers, poor resin production and, consequently, milder flavors, aromas and effects. The latent hop viroid (HLVd) is one of the worst threats to our cannabis plants.
Typical of the hop plant, but then over the years also transferred to cannabis, this virus seems to be able to do decrease by 30% the total production of the plant.
Recently, however, news has arrived from the USA that makes all growers breathe a sigh of relief: that of a cannabis genetic resistant to this ravenous disease.
Genetics that resist the latent hop viroid discovered
It's called Jamaican Lion and is an award-winning CBD-dominant genetic. The announcement, arrived from the San Francisco newspaper SFGate, says that Kevin McKernan, chief science officer of Medicinal Genomics, revealed at a conference in Florida that he had found a cannabis strain partially resistant to the latent hop viroid.
How did you reach this conclusion?
The researchers rubbed the viroid on the cut leaves of the plant to infect them, and then inject it directly into a plant. After six weeks and 57 repeated tests, the strain was still not infected, at least not completely.
In fact, scholars have detected HLVd only in roots of the plant, while leaf and flower tissue tested negative until harvest. Flowers which, in fighting the infection, have been noted to tend to turn purple.
“We don't know why - underlined Kerman - This could be one immune response, but we do not see this strongly increased purple coloration in the control that is not infected."
How to fight the latent hop viroid
Being the production of anthocyanins, of plant pigments present in flowers, already linked to the fight against viroids, scientists should check whether there are other purple plants resistant to HLVd.
An essential research because, from what has been reported by SFGate, it is estimated that the 90% of plantations of California cannabis is infected with the viroid, which severely limits both the production of flowers, which are increasingly smaller and lighter, and the THC levels, which are significantly decreasing.
For Medicinal Genomics the long-term solution to defeat the viroid is to develop resistant cultivars which do not suffer serious losses in efficiency and power.
* Photo by Diyahna Lewis on Unsplash
