In vitro technologies for propagation and genetic improvement of Cannabis sativa****

植物组织培养在现代植物农业中具有广泛的应用，包括无病/无虫/无病毒植物的大规模克隆繁殖，用于作物遗传改良的增强育种计划，以及研究和了解植物的独特生物学。 然而，这些技术还没有为大麻彻底开发，大麻预计将成为加拿大合法化后最重要的经济作物之一。 这些技术对大麻特别重要，因为它主要是植物繁殖的，并且由于植物的特定生物学，在开发育种计划方面存在一些挑战。 该项目旨在开发几种体外技术，以解决该行业面临的挑战，包括：1）开发和优化各种基因型的微繁殖方案。 这项技术将有助于保存优良的遗传基因，并大规模生产高质量、无病害的植物。 2)研究光质对离体植物生理的影响。 这将提供一个系统，以评估使用光来操纵植物生长和发展在一个高度控制和可再生的设置，然后可以应用于商业规模的生产系统。 3)研究出培育无籽三倍体的方法，类似于无籽西瓜。 这将防止不必要的授粉，并消除不必要的种子生产的机会。 总之，这些实验将为生产者提供一套工具，以维持，繁殖和改善大麻中的可用遗传学。

Plant tissue culture has a wide array of applications in modern plant agriculture including large scale clonal propagation of disease/insect/virus free plants, enhancing breeding programs for genetic improvement of crops, and to study and understand the unique biology of plants. However, these technologies have not been thoroughly developed for Cannabis sativa, which is projected to be among the most economically important crops in Canada following legalization. These technologies are particularly important for Cannabis since it is predominantly propagated vegetatively and there are several challenges in developing breeding programs due to the specific biology of the plant. This project aims to develop several in vitro technologies to address challenges faced by the industry including: 1) Developing and optimizing micropropagation protocols for a variety of genotypes. This technology will help to preserve elite genetics and mass produce high quality, disease free, plants. 2) Study the effects of light quality on plant physiology in vitro. This will provide a system to evaluate the use of light to manipulate plant growth and development in a highly controlled and reproducible setting that can then be applied to commercial scale production systems. 3) develop methods to create seedless triploids, analogous to seedless watermelons. This will prevent the unwanted pollenation and eliminate the chances of unwanted seed production. Together, these experiments will provide producers with a set of tools to maintain, propagate, and improve available genetics in Cannabis.