Plants are grown for variety reasons throughout the world. For medicinal use plants are used to create extracts. Alkaloids, glycosides, essential oils, tannins, bitter principles, sugars, fatty oils and organic acids are found in plants and used for all kinds of industrial and pharmaceutical uses. Cannabis extracts focus mostly on essential oils. Essential oils contain terpenes, sesquiterpenes, and other components.
Extracts are often made from solvents like alcohol, butane, propane and can also be made with CO2 with high pressure. The chilling effects of the compressed gasses help separate the THC or other desired cannibinoids. What is being done under federal research guidelines is determining potential extracts. Different strains of Cannabis have different cannibinoid levels. With thousands of strains being grown there is a wide range of chemical compounds available within the extracted oils. This is work that has to be done by large pharmaceutical companies because of practicality. Independent studies are useful also but it is hard for most people to keep controlled environments to lab standards. Pharmaceutical companies bring their good and bad to the industry. Just like big agricultural it wouldn't be hard for a single company to dominate an industry. Most Washington State legal operations are at a mom and pop business level. Individuals are making millions in some cases and the industry is making billions. The state industry has not yet caught up with the total recreational market which is a predicted 5 billion annual industry.
CBD and similarly cannibinoids are being isolated for their medical potential. THC has more psychoactive properties where CBD offers relief without the narcotic effect. There's always too much of a good thing. More than once I have witnessed the over use of THC leading to an uncomfortable state of being. Strangely CBD can counteract the effects in some people. Not too far in the past Freud used cocaine to treat opiate addiction. Cocaine is addictive itself but in controlled doses it could eliminate withdrawal symptoms caused by opiates. Currently CBD is being considered for addiction treatments. Cannabis addiction is more behavioral and psychological than physical. It is definitely not for everyone and just as many bad experiences would likely be recorded as good in the overall. Most people don't like an uncomfortable paranoid feeling that THC can cause. There are three basic types of Cannabis I am familiar with Indica, Ruderalis, and Sativa. Most have become hybrids of one type or another. Heirlooms which can be defined as a plant grown in a specific area with specific genetics for more than 30 years are not usually hybrids. Indica originates mostly from Northern or mountain regions of the world. Indica plants are often short with broad jagged leaves.
It allows plants to capture more sunlight or water. Sativa like most tropical plants has less ridges on the leaves. Again the ridges often depends on availability of sun and water. A tropical plant does not have as much use for water retention. Often Sativa plants have longer flowering cycles. Because most Sativa is found near the equator and cannabis being photo periodic allows the plant a longer flowering cycle. It grows as it flowers more than Indica or Ruderalis. Ruderalis is more similar to Indica in size and leaf structure often having webbed leaves. Ruderalis was mostly ignored until recently with interest in CBD and Ruderalis is an automatically flowering plant. Auto flowering just means that the amount of time rather than change in daylight hours determine flowering stages. All three advantages have been cultivated in hybrid auto flowering plants. The size from the Sativa, potency from Indica, and the auto flowering from Ruderalis give the growers new options for integrated farming methods. Knowing the basics might help in plant selection. Now as far as the Columbia Basin goes hybrids offer the most advantages for yield but heirlooms often have distinct flavor from years of cultivation in one climate. Generally photoperiodic cannabis plants are put outside as clones from around May 1st to about mid July. They can be put out as late as August but flowering effects usually start to show around the middle of August depending on strain. Certain strains acclimated in mountain regions often flower earlier.
The Columbia Basin is right around or just above the 45th parallel. Summer solstice is right around 18 hours of light so after about the 21st of June the light reduces. Harvest time range depending on variety but on average most photoperiodic strains finish from the middle of October through the mind and November depending on elevation. A low lying valley is subject to earlier frost. Usually the area experiences low average rainfall and fall can fool farmers into neglecting draining water from freezing pipes. Good for the retailers but costly in time and effort. Seasons can be extended with greenhouses or light can be manipulated with light deprivation techniques but I prefer to grow specifically for an environment. Over time a plant acclimates itself to an environment. California had The Skunk Man or the Haze Brothers and in the Columbia Basin some less known individuals achieved heirloom status through breeding. Cannabis like hops has both male and female plants and the female plants are cultivated commercially in both cases. It is becoming difficult to find heirloom strains because of the popularity of hybridized seeds. Both have their qualities but heirlooms offer a better resistance to common pests of the area. Most commercial cannabis growing is done with clones. Nothing wrong with cloning but to avoid pest issues starting initially from seeds in the intended environment will yield the best results. From personal experience in the region anytime clones from a source outside of seeds grown in an environment often attract pests that can lead to infestations.
There are feminized as well as regular cannabis seeds available. Feminized are bred through disruption of the flowering cycle causing the plants to think a catastrophic event is about to take place causing hermaphrodite plants that can seed themselves. All of these seeds are female but prone to hermaphrodite under stress. Another way to feminize seeds is to flower pollinator plants ahead of plants needed to be pollinated. After cannabis plants have reached maximum cannibinoid or plant sugar production they can grow yellow flowers that can be used for pollination. It depends on strain as far as how long it takes to produce flowers. Female plants have buds not flowers but a common term for female buds are flowers. Flowers grow on the male or hermaphrodite plants. Sorting males and females is no big deal but requires an extra step and may use up more space if that is a limiting factor. Really though growing directly from seed removing male plants will likely yield better results than using clones from an outside source. If you have to get clones get them from the area. Extra caution had to be used in the area because of the existing hop industry. Cannabis and hops are in the same plant phylum and share common pests. Doing everything possible to obtain or build genetic qualities is the first step in having the highest quality products. Unfortunately seeds can be expensive so people often take a lot of care in the germination process. If an abundance of seeds are available seeding directly outside rather than transfer from indoor will produce much stronger genetics. It would take about 6 years of breeding to obtain a strain that could rival the best indoor. Indoor growing allows total climate control but can be expensive.
Larger indoor operations need to keep lab like quality control to avoid problems. Introduction of a bug or mold could destroy a warehouse full of products. This is why people wear clothing similar to doctor or nurse scrubs from medical fields. Outdoor growing can be treated with spray but using biological techniques growing can be done without spraying. Spraying vegetables or ornamental plants is one thing but when something is smoked there is chemical changes to consider. Inhalation of bacteria, fungus, pesticides, or viruses is probably not the best for the health. Cannabis plants have a tendency of absorbing and metabolizing sprays. Outdoor cannabis often has insects or animals that might interact with the plants. Some of them even poop on the plants but this doesn't cause the same amount of absorbing as spraying with a bacterial or chemical treatment for pests after flowering. Each seed of a plant is considered a different phenotype. Only the best phenotypes should be cloned from and only the best phenotypes should be pollinated for seed production. I will go more in depth about breeding at a later time. Cannabis has been used for thousands of years for different reasons and recorded by many societies. It can be controversial but on the longer term it will likely be normalized like grabbing a beer with friends. It has made itself part of our lives.
Everyone thinks we are the smart ones studying plants but plants are master chemists way ahead of our knowledge. Plants are stationary and communicate mostly through chemical and frequencies we don't completely understand. A plants goal like all cells in ideal conditions is to reproduce. This particular plant has appealed to humans to help it's goal. It could just as easily become poisonous. Humans have around 26,000 lines of DNA and RNA coding and plants have over 100,000. They are far more adaptable than we are capable of. Who knows maybe my plant overlords have convinced me to write this so they can thrive.