With the Cannabis landscape and market evolving rapidly, we are thrilled to be part of the community striving to understand the genetics of Cannabis. We were part of the longest running interdisciplinary Cannabis science event in San Diego from 1-3 March 2023, presenting a poster and conducting many valuable conversations.

At the conference, we received comprehensive insight into what is relevant in the Cannabis industry and in Cannabis science. We enjoyed hearing about studies investigating the influence of nutrients and growing conditions on the quality and potency of Cannabis. Particularly instructive was the talk about the extensive spread of the pathogen hop latent viroid (HLVd) causing stunting and reduced yield as well as reduced cannabinoid content. We understood that predictive models for those traits should consider the presence/absence of this little pathogen (it consists of only 256 bp RNA without any genes).

With research around the genetics of Cannabis being only in its infancy, we are excited to be part of the community aiming to better understand the specifics. We believe we can contribute to this goal with our interactive browser of pangenome graphs Pantograph, which we presented on a poster at the Emerald conference. Exploring the pangenome, the entire genetic variation between multiple whole genome DNA sequences, facilitates the inspection of large-scale, complex, and non-reference variation as well as links between genetics and traits. We are happy to visualize your Cannabis varieties and help you discover genetic markers or better understand the genetics of your traits of interest.

Pantograph, our interactive pangenome browser

More about Pantograph: Watch the video for a short demo of the tool, or download of the full poster.

If you’d like to get a better understanding of your Cannabis pangenome, please contact Jörg Hagmann directly!

Did you know that Computomics is a member of the German-Canadian network CANNABIS-NET? CANNABIS-NET is a unique association of German companies lead by University of Hohenheim that meet the challenges of the medicinal cannabis market with their products and services in an innovative way. Listen to our podcast with Simone Graef-Hoenninger to learn more.


Next Green Wave Cannabis plants in California - photo by Ryan Lange on Unsplash