[DoctorNick]

I went ahead and looked up these patents. This one looks particularly bad:

https://www.google.com/patents/US9370164

This basically grants them a patent on every single cannabis plant which has >3% THC and CBD, and which Myrcene is not the dominant terpine. Can anyone who knows their bud say which strains this could be applied to?

Also, the specification on this is HUGE. This represents a large investment; they're going to filing continuations on this until the cows come home.

EDIT: I found this website: http://analytical360.com/

This lists a number of strains that could potentially read on this, such as Gorilla Glue: http://analytical360.com/m/archived/261533

[jasonlaramburu]

Myrcene is the dominant terpene in all strains of cannabis according to this study: http://www.internationalhempassociation.org/jiha/jiha4208.ht...

Cannabis has been cultivated and sold illegally in the US for almost a century. It seems unlikely that the USPTO would be able to enforce compliance when law enforcement has not.

[Taek]

Legal marijuana will push out illegal marijuana. Large, industrial farms will outcompete anyone who is growing illegally.

And that is going to make it much easier to regulate. Patents have the potential to pick the winners in this industry if they are handed out irresponsibily.

[code_duck]

Currently, the black market can provide cannabis in colorado, california or oregon for about half the price of the legal market (and generally, if you wanted half a lb to stock up for personal use, you can't just go buy it at a store anyway). Part of the lower price is due to competition from legal sources, part due to not paying taxes.

Personally, I would rather grow it at home exactly like tomatoes, if it's herb.

Most of the action these days is in extracts and fine products for connoisseurs. Don't underestimate the semi-luxury market - the same demographic who support microbreweries and small coffee roasters like cannabis. While there will be giant mass market Wal-Weed, and also large plantations like the wine complex of Napa, there will also be a lot, lot of small growers, extractors and breeders.

[sethrin]

Ah, growing cannabis isn't quite like growing tomatoes. Growing tomatoes is something that a tomato plant does more or less of its own accord. Cannabis really wants to be 15 feet tall and to produce lots of little seeds. Getting it to exclusively produce flowers requires a bit more effort. The 15 feet tall thing may also require some adjustment.

What I'd like to do is to create something about refrigerator-sized which would use hydroponics to get cannabis growing as close to being a push-button operation as possible. I built a prototype a few years ago that was at least able to provide the entertainment of being able to control the lights/fans/pumps via cron job, but life hasn't worked out to be able to do that again. I do think there's a market for such things for pretty much the reasons you identify.

[spraak]

I think you missed the analogy. Firstly, it isn't about the amount of work required, because growing good tomatoes requires work as well. Yes, a tomato seed will produce tomatoes on its own, but so will cannabis produce flowers. But in both cases the product might not be as satisfactory as you'd like. You may lose some tomatoes to bugs, and they may not be very big. Same with cannabis, it may be seeded out if there are males around.

Secondly, I think the analogy was more about the enthusiasm a home gardener has, where tomatoes are often something they would grow. So the poster above meant that they'd rather cannabis to be regulated in the same way tomatoes are: you can grow them without regulation at your house, but if you want to sell them commercially (to stores and restaurants) then further licensing is required.

[sethrin]

I suppose I wasn't clear enough. I do think that his characterization of the social role of cannabis is accurate, but the technical challenges are a bit different. Which is mostly just an opportunity to mention my personal technological interest in this. Which may not be quite entirely topical.

[code_duck]

Right, I did mean like tomatoes in a social, cultural and economic sense. Meaning, one could grow it as a special treat for friends and family, and share it freely. Maybe another comparison would be to home-brewing. There are huge breweries, medium breweries, small breweries, but some people love to do it at home.

[code_duck]

Outdoor varieties do grow that tall, or more. Indicas and modern hybrids tend more towards about 5 feet, but it all depends on training, pruning, whether you use clones (every serious grower uses clones, not flowering a single plant grown from seed).

The seeds in your crop only happen if you have male plants, or a problem with hermaphrodites. Most people cull the males or use female clones. If you have a female plant, it only produces female flowers. Triggering flowering is quite simple as it only requires manipulation of photoperiod.

Growing cannabis is really not that complicated… mot only has hemp been domesticated for thousands of years, but herbal varieties have been bred like heck for decades to be easier to grow and productive especially grown indoors. Fertilizer wise, it is a lot like tomatoes, loving rich soil, drainage and nitrogen, and then switching to a bloom cycle. Overall it's a very hearty and resilient plant (weed?). It's true that doing it well takes time, money, facilities and skill, and ideally passion.

For the small, self-contained unit you described, it soubds like what people call a cabinet grow. I think there's a subreddit for that. The subterfuge aspect is less important these days, now that more people live in states where it is legal, but some still do cabinet grows for space or privacy reasons. The automatic aspect is a great idea... definitely there are vast opportunities in helping people grow their own healthy herbs.

[sethrin]

What you say is accurate, but I feel like it sort of highlights the difference between cannabis and tomatoes. Cannabis is not difficult to grow; even a modest amount of care and attention can produce good sinsemilla. Tomatoes just seem to set a pretty low bar for effort, I think.

> but herbal varieties have been bred like heck for decades to be easier to grow and productive especially grown indoors.

This is probably what I would consider to be one of the key differences. Because of prohibition, there was a great deal of what we might almost call scientific research into maximizing yields. A tomato is pretty much a tomato any way you slice it, but the hemp growing on the roadside and the product of the expert grower are hardly recognizable as being from the same plant. I don't think humans have quite the same relationship with very many other crops.

I think the main appeal of an automated grow cabinet would be that it's relatively difficult to keep temp/humidity/CO2 at ideal levels without a fair amount of investment in HVAC. Monitoring TDS and pH is almost too easy not to do, and being able to adjust those automatically is probably trickier than it sounds, but tractable. Setting up truly ideal conditions for cannabis cultivation requires a lot of planning, and dedicated space. But as you say, this isn't very different from the home/small batch brewing scene, and there should be a similar market for equipment.

[logfromblammo]

Last time I encountered this on the network, the hot thing was self-contained 55-gallon plastic drums, with integrated thermal signature hiding and odor control. You plug it in, add water and hydroponics chemicals, and mostly leave it alone until ready for harvest. But at the time I saw it, the electronic control systems were largely do-it-yourself, rather than turnkey, off-the-shelf control units.

By this time, there should probably be a package targeted for Raspberry Pis, and the ability for your cannabis plant to text you via Signal if she wants some attention.

[csorrell]

When greed meets control, you get a black market.

I don't see illegal marijuana going away. There's always going to a black market for a product that's strictly regulated, so long as it's profitable and in high demand.

[DoctorNick]

Unfortunately, this study is from 1997 and is out of date. This study from 2011 suggests that at least some strains do not have Myrcene as the dominant terpene: https://www.fundacion-canna.es/en/variations-terpene-profile...

[jasonlaramburu]

That's interesting. The strains with lower Myrcene are all Sativa. Myrcene is thought to cause the 'couch-lock' feeling common in Indicas.

[microcolonel]

The PTO is not charged with enforcing patents, that's what the courts are for.