DNA Fingerprinting
After the 2018 Farm Bill was legalized, there has been a surge in hemp cultivation across the United States. This escalation, though exciting also caused worries among Cannabis growers regarding a cross-pollination occurrence.
Cross-pollination is a natural phenomenon where the pollen from other plants outside the field pollinating the cultivated female plants and create a reduction of plant yield such as THC percentage and possibly change the genetic materials of certain desirable genotypes. It has become a major concern since not all growers are intended to produce a seed, and the pollination consumes the energy allocated for yield and cannabinoid content increment.
How neighbor cross-pollination occurs?
WHAT HAS BEEN DONE?
Some straightforward strategy has been suggested to mitigate the risk of cross-pollination. The most applicable suggestion would be establishing geographic isolation.
Identifying the area located at least 10 miles away from the closest hemp industry will decrease the amount of pollen transported by air and lower the risk of being contaminated.
There are also some physical isolation strategies with air filtration systems indoor, light misting of water among the plants, or planting border plants to intercept the pollen movement.
Those techniques are feasible, yet, they can significantly raise the maintenance efforts and resulting low profitability value.
But, the question is, what if it already affected my plants?