In 2020 our breeders pioneered the first commercial triploid cannabis seeds.

This breakthrough follows behind a lengthy list of crops that make use of this agronomical advancement - from seedless watermelons to grapes to citrus and hops. If you have ever eaten a banana - you have enjoyed a triploid. Triploids just make bigger and better fruits and flowers - and without all the seeds.

Our lineup includes a wide array of THC, THCV, CBD, CBDV, and CBG rich triploid cannabis seeds that offer growers game changing advantages - and we believe polyploidy is the future of cannabis.

Don't believe we did it first? Check out our publication in The National Library of Medicine written by our breeders long before the buzz word hit cannabis.

PUBLICATION

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE

Not only are triploid varieties extremely difficult to pollinate and produce seed, but they also show significant increases in production, aroma, and overall aesthetics. This giant leap forward for cannabis producers unlocks potentials not possible before - while greatly reducing the risk of seeded crops.

Triploids are a naturally occuring phenomenon, though rare. They are plants that have an odd number of chromosome pairs and when pollinated they do not produce viable offspring.

For growers in areas with populations of ditch weed, forgotten fields, or fiber crops - triploids can be a season saver. The pollen that comes off any occasional hermaphrodite flower on a triploid is also nearly useless - for indoor producers who might miss one - they are a room saver. Though plants can produce some seed under heavy enough pollination - but at a tiny fraction of what a traditional diploid would produce.

Since 2021 Cornell University has been trialing our triploids interplanted with grain and fiber crops. Plants are essentially coated in pollen beyond anything most growers could fathom. While plants do produce some seed, cannabinoid contents remain high and seed percentages are very low.
Check out the data here.

In trials, our triploid cannabis varieties produced between 30-100% more flower than their diploid counter parts. This is flower weight, and not counting stem or leaf material.

The biggest improvements were seen in autoflowers, with average yields of 400 grams per plant - compared to traditional diploids which generally hit between 100-150 grams per plant. In our photoperiod lines we see an easy 30% increase in flower production.

For us, we've been most impressed by the quality and quantity of flowers that they produce. Triploids are beasts both indoors and out!

It's impossible to ignore how much frostier flowers are on triploids, with resin that extends further down sugar leaves than on traditional diploids. In side-by-side comparisons, you can see the difference on plants. Triploids OOZE resin.

Studies have shown a 50% increase in aroma compounds in triploid hops - with cannabis is likely in the same boat. Researchers are realizing that terpenes only account for about 50% of the aromas in cannabis. With this in mind it makes it extremely difficult to quantify aroma - but you can smell and taste the difference between diploids and triploids.

We are incredibly proud of our THC, THCV, CBD, CBDV, and CBG triploid lineup - but many are in limited numbers.

While these seeds may be spendy they are also extremely difficult to make - and it took years of R&D to dial in the process.

Not only do spend the time selecting parents for F1 hybrid lines - then comes the science. Our chosen mother plants undergo treatments to be converted to tetraploids. Plants are treated and tested over a 2 month period to ensure they are tetraploids. We lose about 50% of the plants during this process, and some plants revert back to diploids and have to be tossed. Converted plants that survive are nursed back to health, cloned, tested again, and eventually become mothers.

Next its into our greenhouses to be pollinated by our other inbred line, a diploid. In the majority of our runs we see around 5-30% of the seed production we would in a normal cross. We've had a few small runs that never produced a viable seed.

So why the cost? Years of R&D, months of testing, cloning, growing, pollinating, lots of electricity bills - and all for between 5-30% of the seed yield we would get on a normal diploid cross.

Pioneering the process was an enormous financial drain that nearly ruined us - but in the end we know it will be worth. You can read more about our triploid breeding process here.

Cannabis in the wild is almost exclusively a diploid (2n) species. In diploids, every plant receives one set of chromosomes from each parent. Though rare, spontaneous mutations can occur that result in a doubling of the diploid genomes and lead to tetraploid (4n) individuals even in controlled breeding populations.

Dr. Hsuan Chen and Brendan Rojas, research plant breeders at Oregon CBD, designed a series of experiments to treat diploid cannabis tissue with compounds known to inhibit cell division. The process approximates the tetraploid-inducing events that occur in nature at a very low rate, but does so (now, after many experiments) in a more consistent manner. Treated plants must be screened using a flow cytometer--a device that can measure the physical size of a plant genome--and compared to their diploid counterparts to detect the desired doubling of genome size. Success results in tetraploids: plants with four sets of homologous chromosomes (4n) and an identical doubled version of the mother. This screening process is repeated a number of times in subsequent generations of cuttings to prevent reversion to the diploid state.

Tetraploid cannabis plants have been described by two other research groups (Mansouri and Bagheri 2017 and Parsons et al. 2019) and their findings mirror ours; distinct morphological changes and increased nutrient consumption are apparent, but chemical composition (ratios and total amounts produced) is relatively unchanged--albeit with a marked increase in aromatic compounds. So far, evidence suggests that tetraploids offer little if any performance increase over diploids, with the exception of louder olfactory notes.

The game-changer for farmers happens when tetraploids (4n) are crossed with diploids (2n); the resulting seed carries 2 copies of chromosomes from the tetraploid parent and 1 set from the diploid parent (3n). This traditional plant breeding process is well documented and has been used to improve many other crops, particularly those where seedless characteristics, essential oil production, and increased biomass are valuable agronomic traits. We are able to offer this revolutionary advancement through ploidy improvements on a wide variety of cannabis chemotypes - making for one of the most significant advancements in the history of modern cannabis breeding.

Whats next? We can't wait to show you tetraploid cannabis!

Triploid genetics are extremely common in commercial agriculture. A wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and flowers that consumers purchase on a daily basis are either triploids or other polyploids—but most people don't realize it. However, creating triploid or other polyploid seeds isn't a simple task, especially in cannabis. Curious as to why there aren't more on the market? It’s expensive and time-consuming. Here’s an overview of how to create your own triploids.

Most species of plants and animals in nature are diploids—meaning they receive one complete set of chromosome pairs from both parents (referred to as 2x). Occasionally, an extra set of chromosome pairs is received from one parent, resulting in a 3x species. In many plants and animals, these 3x organisms exhibit significant increases in production and other desirable traits. They have more DNA, and thus, they produce more. There is a wealth of published research on the topic, including our own, so we’ll keep it simple here. 

In 2020, we wrote the definitive guide on producing triploid cannabis seeds under the guidance of Dr. Hsuan Chen and Brendan Rojas. You can check out our published work here.

If you’re going to invest the time and resources into creating triploid seeds, it’s important to ensure that your chosen parents are high-quality. We spend years inbreeding and selecting plants to create our parent lines, and we typically only produce F1 hybrid triploids.

You can’t simply convert any plant into a triploid. You must use a tetraploid (4x) parent and a diploid (2x) parent. For example, to create a triploid version of the popular polyhybrid Girl Scout Cookies, you would need to retrace the cross back to its original parent plants, convert one to a tetraploid, and pair it with the diploid counterpart. Afterward, you’d hunt through seeds to find the famous cut.

Converting a diploid plant to a tetraploid (4x) involves treating a cutting or seedling with colchicine, a substance that inhibits cell division. Unfortunately, the survival rate for treated plants is relatively low. You’ll need to treat many and hope for the best. The plants that survive take weeks to a month to recover after treatment, and growth during this period is slow.

Once treated plants begin sending out new growth, every new shoot must be ploidy-tested to ensure that the entire plant is a tetraploid. We use a flow cytometry machine, which analyzes plant tissue to detect ploidy levels. We often observe diploid shoots emerging from plants after conversion, and any plants showing both diploid and tetraploid growth are discarded. We test plants for around a month before we’re confident that all growth is tetraploid (4x).

Depending on the vigor of the tetraploid plant, we usually wait one or two months before taking cuttings. These cuttings are rooted, nurtured, and grown for another month or two until they become established mother plants. Once they’re a decent size, we flip them into flower.

We exclusively produce feminized seeds, so while our mother plants are growing, we begin preparing our pollinators. We use S3 and S4 feminized autoflower lines that are treated with Silver Thiosulfate (STS) to induce male flower production on female plants. This process takes about 2-3 weeks. Once our pollinators start producing pollen, it’s time for the next step.

After coating our tetraploid (4x) mother plants with feminized pollen from our diploid (2x) selection over several weeks, we carefully tend to the plants and wait for seeds to form. Unfortunately, tetraploid plants are often close to sterile, so seed production is much lower than with diploid-diploid crosses. We typically see only 5%-30% of the seed production from a diploid-tetraploid cross compared to a diploid-diploid cross, making the process even more costly. The costs of tetraploid conversion and environmental control (such as electricity for lights) add further expenses.

After 9-11 weeks of flowering in our greenhouses, we harvest the plants, separate the seeds, and store them in cold storage. We’ve found that many of our triploid varieties must undergo a long dormancy period in cold storage, similar to many floral species. Some varieties can take up to 3 months to fully break dormancy, after which they achieve optimal germination rates.

Once we’re confident that the seeds are germinating well, we send them off to third-party labs for ploidy and germination testing.

The bottom line is that triploids are neither easy nor cheap to produce. A sophisticated breeding operation is required, and even then, the number of seeds produced is a fraction of what you’d get from a diploid cross.

But we love triploids, and know they’re worth the effort. You can watch our brief guide on seed production below. Triploids, and possibly tetraploids, are the future of cannabis.