Testing for Cannabis Pollen

Testing for Cannabis Pollen

Tim Hammerich
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
With California Ag Today, I’m Tim Hammerich.

You’ve probably heard about sensors helping in agriculture in areas such as soil, water, and canopy. But Utah-based PollenSense is helping growers monitor pollen. This is especially important in the growing cannabis industry, says CEO Landon Bunderson.

Bunderson… “If they can't prevent their female flowers from being pollinated, then their THC and CBD levels drop. And their crop is basically ruined. And since the production of hemp and cannabis, the acreage is rising every year, the risk for pollinating their production fields and even in their greenhouses goes up and up. And our technology can notify them. When there's a risk, they can turn on sprinklers to basically mist it out of the air.”

Obviously wind is a risk of spreading pollen in outdoor growing conditions, and Bunderson says indoor growers also have reason to be concerned about pollen spreading via the HVAC system. Then there’s the inherent risk in the seed their buying having no guarantees.

Bunderson… “If you're growing from seed, there's a percentage that's going to be male, even if it's feminized seed. Suffice to say everybody's worried about pollen and they all have unique risks and we can help them monitor for those risks.”

Technologies like PollenSense are taking digital agriculture into this budding industry.

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