Cannbreed wants to genetically modify cannabis seeds

Israeli start-up CanBreed has announced that it has entered into a licensing agreement to use CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tools to provide cannabis growers with improved seeds for the production of cannabis medical quality.

CanBreed has developed what it says are «stable» cannabis seeds that will enable farmers to grow cannabis from seed rather than, as is currently the case, cloning it from cuttings from a mother plant.

«Branch cloning maintains the uniformity of cannabis DNA,» but as the plant grows, genes could be expressed differently from those in the parent plant, a explained Ido Margalit, startup CEO.

Since cannabis is a medicinal plant, standardization and uniformity are necessary, and «the use of clones does not meet this objective,» he said. «The only solution to this is to grow cannabis from stable seeds.»

The entire agricultural industry, Margalit explained, is based on the use of stable seeds to grow crops, from tomatoes to wheat. «This practice hasn't yet reached cannabis, and that's what we're doing.»

«But it's not enough to have stable seeds,» he added. «What the grower needs to see are agronomic traits to make sure he'll have the fullest, highest-quality crop possible, and see resilience capabilities in his products, that the plant can be adapted to a certain growing environment. None of these traits exist in cannabis.»

The use of gene-editing tools will enable the company to create seeds with improved characteristics, making them more resistant to disease and more suitable for greenhouse cultivation.

The company expects its stable seeds to be ready for sale by mid-2021, and also expects its first strains to be introduced by the end of 2021, with the introduction of a cannabis seed resistant to powdery mildew, a fungus that attacks plants.

«We want to be world leaders in the use of CRISPR technology for cannabis,» said Margalit. «The idea is to sell improved and stable cannabis seeds to the entire global market.»