Horticultural and production research of medical plants for EXKA Inc.

大麻的法律的地位正在发生变化，导致北美和欧洲市场迅速扩大。由于大麻以前被列为非法药物，目前又被列为受管制物质，因此在大麻生产和加工方面存在知识空白。虽然大麻的临床应用数量不断增加，但经验证的方法和国际公认的大麻生产准则极为有限。标准的缺乏导致了相互冲突的方法，导致了不同的产品产量，效力和质量。在加拿大，大麻的完全合法化使行业和研究人员能够共同努力，使大麻生产、收获后处理和加工标准化。麦吉尔大学正在与EXKA公司合作开发一项研究计划，以解决其中一些挑战，这些挑战将有助于开发优化方法，通过营养和肥料管理，收获后加工（干燥，研磨和储存）和提取药用大麻化合物来改善药用植物（罗勒，啤酒花和大麻）的生长。将探讨影响这些化合物在植物中积累的因素。例如，确定可能影响大麻化合物生物合成的生长条件将有助于提高产量，最大限度地增加化合物的积累。重要的是，主要目标包括评价药用级大麻产品的常见植物加工、提取和提纯技术。标准化检测将用于确定生产工艺中任何步骤的化合物产量和/或产品质量是否受到影响。

The legal status of cannabis is shifting, causing a rapidly expanding market in North America and Europe. Due to its previous listing as an illicit drug and current status as a controlled substance, knowledge gaps exist in cannabis production and processing. While the number of clinical applications for cannabis is growing, validated methods and internationally recognized guidelines for cannabis production are extremely limited. This lack of standards has resulted in conflicting methods that have led to varied product yield, potency and quality. In Canada, the full legalization of cannabis allows industry and researchers to work together toward standardizing cannabis production, postharvest handling and processing. McGill University is working with EXKA Inc to develop a research program to address some of these challenges that will contribute to the development of optimized methods that will improve medicinal plants (basil, hops and cannabis) during growth through nutrient and fertilizer management, post-harvest processing (drying, grinding, and storage) and extraction of medicinally important cannabis compounds. Poorly understood factors that impact the accumulation of these compounds in plants will be explored. For instance, identifying growth conditions that could influence cannabis compound biosynthesis will allow for improved production that maximizes compound accumulation. Importantly, major objectives include the evaluation of common plant processing, extraction and purification techniques for medicinal-grade cannabis products. Standardized tests will be used to determine if compound yield and/or product quality are affected at any step in the production process.