Regen Project 1st-Inning Recap: From Regeneration to Rescue & Recovery
What a summer for the Regen Team! Mother Nature has switched-up our playbook, it’s now a next-level ballgame! For all you baseball fans, we’ll start with a first-inning recap/highlights, followed by a full play-by-play of the Regen Project journey / trials, tribulations & learnings so far, with color commentary from our collaborators:
The 1st inning of our season started with a rain delay followed by a washout, although our Midwest team was able to get a few runners on base before Mother Nature called time-out! Luckily, before the next inning we made key additions to our lineup/roster (new sponsors TeraGanix & Lone Wolf Biotech). Our hot new prospect LoneWolf came in off the bench and instantly delivered a clutch pinch-hit, the bases are filling up, our teams are staging a rally, a comeback is in the works!
Play-by-play:
Our West Coast team (Tsunami Hazard Grown/THG Farms) started off their inaugural outdoor Biodiversity Regeneration run (of Chitral Precious strain from Mingora Swat region of Pakistan) with a promising start @ ideal timing for upcoming local season (late-May/early-June): Initial test run showed decent germination rates / nice tails so we popped the rest of the batch.
However, Mother Nature threw a monkeywrench: THG Farms is in a region that occasionally sees seasonal fungus gnat & whitefly blooms which blow in from the coast (farm is stone’s throw from ocean). Possibly exacerbated/attracted by endophytic contamination (which we learned about/discovered only later thanks to the lab crew @ LoneWolf). We then attempted additional germination-support techniques & media however the damage had already been done, seeds/sprouts succumbed to mold before they made it far enough to pull through 
…
We’re regrouping, re-setting the dial, refining our procedures to integrate new learnings along the way, and gearing up the farm for another go at our inaugural outdoor Biodiversity Regeneration Run (which will include an EM1 performance trial). Stay tuned, more news to follow as the calendar firms up for our next West Coast run…
Ozark Farm (Legacy Ozarks home base) started their Regen runs with a couple of smaller test batches (@ June 22). The Jalalabad Stars showed a few tails but none of ‘em were strong enough to survive…
Better results with our test run of Pakistani Treasure (which were the newest seeds in our Foundation Stock; the other 3 strains/seeds = older): 2 plants popped early-on…
… and are now thriving & well on their way (hopefully showing male vs. female soon 🤞) …
.. and then 2 more Pakistani Treasures (from same batch) sprouted a bit later and are also doing well. (This particular provenance / region of cannabis landraces, particularly the strains from harsh high-desert climates, have shown long gestation/sprouting periods, 2 weeks is not uncommon.)
After the slow start with the Jalalabads, also factoring-in our 1st West Coast run having gone sideways, we thought it most prudent to bring these precious genetics some additional support, so we shifted focus from Regeneration to Rescue & Recovery: in early July, the Ozark Farm crew drove our gear up to our newest sponsor Lone Wolf Biotech, who’s generously donated the services of their cutting-edge tissue culture & seed-recovery lab and technical expertise/crew to help bring the rest of our Foundation Stock seeds back to life:
The Lone Wolf lab crew popped a test batch (handful of seeds of each of our 4 strains) on July 11th: seeds started with a 24h soak in tubes containing H202 (hydrogen peroxide)…
… then our gear moved into petri dishes containing Lone Wolf’s proprietary in-house germination media which includes plant hormones that stimulate various aspects of seed/seedling/plant growth.
The seeds that germinated (Pakistani Treasure was the 1st to fully pop, on July 18th) were then moved from dishes/plates to self-contained magenta boxes containing same germination media.
Lab crew also started noticing endophytic contamination developing, began devising & testing sterilization procedures…
(Endophytes are naturally-occurring/wild microorganisms which naturally incorporate themselves into the tissues &/or cells of the host plant. Endophytes have been an increasing research focus, over the past decade we’re learning that many plants are hosts to a diverse community of naturally occurring endophytes, most endophytes are neutral or positive to the host plant and many endophytes can be considered symbiotic/beneficial as they play a pivotal role in helping regulate the metabolism of their host plant.
Positive/synergistic endophyte effects include assisting with nutrient acquisition, nitrogen fixation and phosphate solubilization, phytohormone and siderophore (mineral binding/transport-molecule) modulation and production, protection against abiotic stresses, and phytopathogen control.
However some endophytes can have negative effects particularly in tissue culture (possibly because the natural balancing/regulating effect of the full natural micro-biome isn’t present in TC environment..) and the research is continually evolving on techniques & protocols for sterilizing undesirable endophytes from culture samples.
The Lone Wolf crew started another test batch on 7/31, noticed additional endophytic contaminants (one endophyte had fluorescent pink chalky look/texture, other was beige w/ wet texture), began testing different sterilization methods + different germination media/mixes.
Started seeing tails on Jalalabad Star & Chitral Precious 👍, moved seeds to next round of plates/media…
Currently monitoring our test batches, evaluating results/methods and continuing to fine-tune the optimal sterilization + germination protocol for this gear…
And we’re happy to report that our 1st LoneWolf plant/start is ready to move from germination media into soil..! 
More photos along with behind-the-scenes videos, germination pro-tips-&-hacks, and fresh news from our farms & lab on the way (including a preview of our upcoming EM1 beneficial microorganisms/ soil-probiotic performance trial)…
