On April 16, the Oregon-based cannabis testing
\ncompany Phylos Bioscience made a shattering announcement: Phylos will be
\nlaunching an in-house cannabis plant breeding program this spring.<\/p>\n
The announcement of Phylos\u2019s<\/a> breeding program made waves throughout the industry, as many cannabis cultivators took to the industry\u2019s most popular social media network \u2014 Instagram \u2014 to voice their concerns about whether Phylos was going to use community-submitted cannabis data to inform their own breeding project. <\/p>\n In the days since Phylos has clarified that the company will not be growing strains they obtained through their cannabis testing work and their CEO Mowgli Holmes has promised that Phylos is \u201cnot going to compete with breeders.\u201d <\/p>\n However, a video of Holmes speaking at the Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference in February reveals a different plan: He says Phylos will be breeding the \u201cnext generation of plants\u201d for the coming age of large-scale commercial cannabis agriculture \u2014 using all of the genomic data the company has gathered from cannabis cultivators since 2014.<\/p>\n After launching in 2014 from their headquarters in Portland, Phylos made their name in the industry through the \u201cCannabis Evolution Project,\u201d their plan to map cannabis DNA on what they called the Phylos Galaxy<\/a>. The company issued an open call for cannabis cultivators to send in their old and unique cannabis genetics, portraying the project as a sort of community effort to trace the history of the cannabis genome. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPeople keep calling us and showing up with old packets of seeds and crazy stories,\u201d Holmes told Cannabis Now in 2015<\/a>. \u201cWe can\u2019t know what they really have until we sequence it. We keep hearing rumors \u2014 so and so lives way out in the Mendocino hills, he\u2019s been growing this and that for 30 years without stopping, never hybridized it. And so we\u2019ll send people out to track it down or try to get word to them. It\u2019s not easy. People are a little nervous about this kind of thing, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n But Phylos assured growers that the company would not claim ownership over their genetics, and that, in fact, having testing records of genetics could help breeders establish their own intellectual property protections over a certain strain. <\/p>\n The company currently sells a phenotype test that they advertise on their website<\/a> as a product that will help cannabis cultivators \u201cdefend your intellectual property,\u201d \u201cbuild a trusted brand\u201d by being listed on the Galaxy and \u201csupport open data.\u201d<\/p>\n And there\u2019s the rub: Plenty of cannabis Holmes has released a statement on Phylos\u2019s Instagram defending the company\u2019s program. We reached out to Phylos for comment, but after multiple attempts and a reschedule request, we accepted we were unable to get a statement. <\/p>\n One person who sent multiple samples to Phylos \u201cClearly, that was not what was presented to Also, the breeder said there certainly were \u201cBut the idea was this was going to help This breeder falls into the first of the two main groups of folks expressing anger on Phylos\u2019s Instagram page. This first group includes those who thought this was a community science project to uncover the cannabis genome and are surprised to see something else develop.<\/p>\n But the second group includes those who saw Amidst the controversy online, Holmes posted a statement on Instagram that attempted to clarify some of the details about Phylos\u2019s new breeding program. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been suggested that we\u2019re claiming ownership over plant samples that have been sent to us and leveraging our genetic database to compete against our customers,\u201d Holmes wrote. \u201cThat would be really f*cked up. But it\u2019s not true.\u201d<\/p>\n Holmes says that Phylos is \u201cnot using the data \u201cThe genotype test data is not valuable to a Instead, Holmes argued that Phylos is going to \u201c<\/em>We are going to tackle the hard problems like [powdery mildew] resistance and get stronger plants out to everyone,\u201d he wrote. \u201cWe\u2019ll also be breeding hemp for industrial uses like hempcrete, bioplastics and carbon sequestration. When we work on plants with high THC and crazy flavors we\u2019re going to release them under open source licenses so everyone can keep breeding with them.\u201d<\/p>\n He finished his statement with a powerful But despite Holmes\u2019s statement that Phylos wouldn\u2019t be competing with cannabis breeders, this February, he told a crowd at the Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference<\/a> that this was always the plan and that Phylos\u2019s new cannabis strains would soon be the top of the line.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like corn was 80 years ago, it\u2019s justWhere
\nPhylos Got Its Cannabis Data<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\ncultivators feel like it wasn\u2019t clear from the beginning that Phylos would
\neventually use their data set to create proprietary strains. <\/p>\nWhy
\nGrowers Are Angry <\/strong><\/h4>\n
\n\u2014 including one strain that turned out to be one of the rarest in its Galaxy \u2014\u00a0 told Cannabis Now that they might not have
\nsent in samples if it had been clear Phylos would eventually be doing their own
\nbreeding program.<\/p>\n
\nany of us at the time,\u201d the breeder, who requested anonymity, told Cannabis
\nNow. \u201cIt was marketed in a way that had you think other people were going to
\nsteal your genetics, and this was a way to put it out there that this was your<\/em> genetics.\u201c<\/p>\n
\nbenefits to seeing the strains in the Galaxy. On one of his strains, he was
\nable to get a clear picture of other people growing it locally. <\/p>\n
\nprotect us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\nthis coming from a few thousand miles away. There is a reason the most elite
\ncannabis strains that cultivators possess are commonly referred to as \u201cthe
\nfamily jewels\u201d \u2014 they are precious secrets. While some will claim Phylos using
\ntheir data set to breed new strains is no big deal, these breeders think that\u2019s
\na joke. They believe the genetic markers Phylos has acquired since 2014 will
\nnot only allow them to recreate the best strains they got their hands on over
\nthe years, but provide a genetic map to making those strains better. <\/p>\nPhylos
\nCEO Responds to the Accusations <\/strong><\/h4>\n
\nabout your plants to help us breed\u201d and that \u201cyour plants don\u2019t belong to us
\nand we\u2019re not going to steal them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nbreeding program because it\u2019s not paired with phenotype data. You have to
\ngenerate that kind of data from living plants, on a much bigger scale,\u201d he
\ncontinued. \u201cThe Galaxy is a database on our website that serves as proof that
\nthose plants belong to the people who submitted samples \u2014 and proof that they
\ndon\u2019t belong to Phylos. We\u2019ve made that information public elsewhere too so
\nthat everyone can see the data. We have no claim to any of those plants. And as
\nfor bringing dead plant samples back to life, it\u2019s just not possible. And if it
\nwas, we wouldn\u2019t do it, because they\u2019re not our plants.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nembark on its own separate breeding projects that are \u201cnot going to compete
\nwith breeders.\u201d However, he went on to list a variety of endeavors that Phylos
\nwould be undertaking that sound like they will<\/em>
\nbe competitive in the market \u2014 though he added they will be making high-THC
\nstrains and flavored strains available under an open source license. <\/p>\n
\nassertion that Phylos needed \u201ca chance to build something different.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Next Generation of Plants<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\nnot a developed crop,\u201d Holmes told the crowd of investors, in a video from
\nBenzinga published on their YouTube page. \u201cAnd one thing it\u2019s been hard for
\npeople to wrap their heads around is that the cannabis in this industry is
\ngoing to be incredible, but compared to how it\u2019s going to be in a few years, it
\nactually kind of sucks right now.\u201d<\/p>\n