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有着广泛的应用，包括大规模无性繁殖无病、无病毒的植物，加强作物遗传改良的育种计划，以及研究和理解植物独特的生物学。然而，这些技术还没有为大麻彻底开发出来，预计大麻在合法化后将成为加拿大最重要的经济作物之一。这些技术对大麻特别重要，因为它主要是以无性繁殖的方式繁殖，而且由于这种植物的特定生物学特性，在制定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，以应对该行业面临的挑战，包括：1)开发和优化各种基因类型的微繁殖方案。这项技术将有助于保护精英遗传学，并大规模生产高质量、无疾病的植物。2)研究光质对试管植物生理的影响。这将提供一个系统来评估在高度受控和可重复的环境中利用光来操纵植物生长和发育的情况，然后可以应用于商业规模的生产系统。3)开发创造无核三倍体的方法，类似于无核西瓜。这将防止不想要的授粉，并消除不想要的种子产生的机会。总而言之，这些实验将为生产者提供一套工具，以维持、繁殖和改进大麻的现有遗传学。

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.