The nation’s top soil, water and forage testing laboratories will be teaming up with Ionization Labs to perform cannabinoid testing.
Texas A&M AgriLife has announced hemp crop research collaboration with the Austin based testing company. The program will use Ionization Lab’s USDA cannabinoid testing technology solution called Cann-ID.
“The Cann-ID solution supports A&M AgriLife Extensions the capability to test hemp at initial AgriLife centers in; Lubbock, Uvalde, and Bryan-College Station,” said Tony Provin who oversees the operations of the Bryan-College Station facility.
Ionization Labs is an ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accredited chemical testing and research lab, licensed by the Texas Department of Agriculture. Ionization Labs is described as providing scalable, simple to operate, low barrier to entry, low operational cost testing equipment. That equipment is standardized, meaning ever party gets all the same hardware, software and consumables, creating a platform of consistency never before commercially available.
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Farmers and AgriLife
So far, hemp farmers that approached the AgriLife Extensions for testing of hemp plants, were limited. The test results could tell a farmer if they had a nutrient deficiency, and irregular soil/water chemistry, etc. The tets though could not give farmers an idea if their crop was about to be hot. With the new system going into place, farmers can now get a better idea of the plant they’re growing as well.
Farmers will not only know nutritional deficiencies in their crop but what their crop’s consumers can expect after ingestion given the cannabinoid profile.
“All our hard work is in an effort to give farmers and extractors a tool that can support their success,” states co-founder Cree Crawford.
Calvin Trostle, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension at Lubbock, statewide hemp specialist and agronomist, adds, “Having the Ionization Lab here in Lubbock will be good. A farmer should be testing their hemp probably weekly (once it begins to bud) to understand where the THC is beginning to rise and when it is approaching 0.2%. If it reaches that point, it is near time to harvest. You don’t want it to get hot and be worthless.”, Trostle said.
Ionization Labs Co-Founders Alex Andrawes and Cree Crawford said they are excited and optimistic about collaborating with Texas A&M AgriLife. “Deploying, Cann-ID with A&M AgriLife extensions will provide hemp farmers with a powerful tool that can support cultivation best practices, precision agriculture, and overall success with this new crop,” says Crawford.
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“We feel it is vital to work with the academic researchers to help accelerate the understanding of this plant and its cultivation practices to support successful outcomes industrywide. Cann-ID is a complete standardized testing platform, inclusive of; software, hardware, and testing methods. Analytics are performed with this standardized data acquisition, giving confidence in reproducible results. Additionally, because Cann-ID is Cloud-based, it opens the door for collaboration between academic and research institutions as well as commercial stakeholders that are not necessarily in geographic proximity. “says Shawn Helmueller, Chief Science Officer, Ionization Labs.
Farmers can likely expect to use the AgriLife extensions for the the 2021 grow season. No official date has been given as to the official roll out date. Given the research and development year of 2020 in Texas Hemp, farmers can expect vastly more information for the upcoming grow season.