The Development & Implimentation of Instrumentation and Methodologies for the Rapid in situ Quantification of Micronutrient and Heavy Metal Content Found in Cannabis Plant Material

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The Problem: Beleave Inc. plans to produce high-quality medicinal cannabis to treat patients suffering from avariety of health issues, including cancer, multiple sclerosis, and post-traumatic stress syndrome. Producers ofmedicinal cannabis must optimize industrial production practices to ensure adequate micronutrient delivery forplant health and cannabinoid production, as well as to minimize any potential for bioaccumulation of metalimpurities.Significance of the Problem: Standard validated laboratory methods exist for plant mineral and heavy metalanalysis, however these methods can be time-consuming and expensive, as well as requiring extensive samplepreparation and destruction. There exists the opportunity for innovation with respect to development ofportable spectroscopic instruments capable of in-situ field analysis of plant mineral and heavy metal content.Thus, there is an urgent need to develop and validate a method and associated standard operating procedure forthe in-situ analysis of cannabis plant mineral and heavy metal content for industrial scale cannabis production.Solutions Proposed: Working under a federally issued research license at Ryerson University, we will developinstrumentation and methodology for the quantification of plant mineral and heavy metal content from the leaf,stem and floral tissues of non-psychoactive, medicinal plant cultivars in order to optimize and evaluate impactof industrial production practices on plant mineral content, and to perform quality assurance testing of plantmaterial for heavy metal content.