New Funds Awarded For Cannabis-Cloning Research at Loyalist College

Article by Derek Baldwin, The Belleville Intelligencer

Loyalist College’s Applied Research Centre has received its first two Mitacs Accelerate funding awards totalling $30,000 to support an applied research project with apollogreen, a global, cannabis starter-plant supplier.

Mitacs is a not-for-profit organization that receives federal and provincial funding to foster growth and innovation in Canada by solving business challenges with research solutions from academic institutions.

In an announcement Tuesday, Loyalist College said the research project is aiming to optimize cannabis cloning in concert with apollogreen’s more than 600 cannabis strains.

Apollogreen plans to increase quality consistency across its young plants, which it grows in bulk and sells to cannabis product producers. To enhance plant uniformity, the project aims to optimize cannabis cloning (asexual reproduction) and streamline micropropagation procedures, which rapidly multiply stock plant material, the college said.

If successful, apollogreen could establish an early prediction system that improves the selection and production of starter cannabis plants with the most desirable components for production and consumption for medical and recreational markets.

Kandace Parks, a post-graduate Cannabis Applied Science student at Loyalist College, is the successful candidate for the resulting 12-month research assistant position with apollogreen.

Read the full article here.