December 21, 2021 • 24 mins
Today’s episode we interviewed Ralph Risch who is the CEO of Phylos Bioscience located in Portland, Oregon.
In 2015 Oregon legalized Marijuana. Before marijuana was legalized, cannabis cultivators were more concerned with avoiding police raids than genetic research. Now that it's legal in Oregon what does the advancement in cannabis & hemp seed science conducted at Phylos Bioscience mean for the end user who buys cannabis at their local dispensary? It all begins with the seeds - Phylos believes quality control starts in breeding and continues through seed production. The final hemp & cannabis product means buyers can trust the quality and consistency of the strains they are purchasing.
Let’s listen to the entire interview with Ralph who discusses this in more detail, and you'll learn what Auto Flower means to a successful grow operation. This feature allows growers to skip the traditional light cycles.
Connect w/ Phylos Bioscience:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/phylosbio/
https://phylos.bio/
Phylos reimagines molecular genetic science to revolutionize hemp and cannabis production for a growing industry. Our world-class team develops high-quality seed lines bred for better, more uniform agronomic traits and improved production efficiency. Phylos is committed to developing industry-leading solutions to help you boost your bottom line, maximize space and labor time, and pull ahead of the competition with short-season varieties.
Our team of geneticists, breeders, plant scientists, and agronomists use a data-driven approach to crop and production improvement.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ronjini Joshua (00:04):
In this next interview, we talked to Ralph
Risch, the CEO of PhylosBioscience, with a bit of a
story past Phylos has kind ofturned a new corner. And they
are diving into seed geneticsyou help sustainable planting
for commercial growers. So wetalked about a little bit on the
science side of how seeds arecreated, how they've developed
(00:29):
these really cool geneticmarkers, and what they're doing
to kind of move the industryforward on both the social
equity side as well as thescalability side as cannabis
becomes legal. Join us in thegreen room.
So Hello, we are back in thegreen room and today we have
Ralph Risch from Phylos CEO.
Nice to see you. Yeah, good tosee you.
(00:53):
So, today, we're kind of talkingabout, you know, a lot of
anticipation with mjbizcon. Andas we were coming into this
conference, what did you expectcoming into it? And what do you
what were you most excitedabout?
Ralph Risch (01:05):
Well, this is my fifth mjbizcon. And what I've
learned is, and especially thisyear, right with the pandemic
last year, yeah, the mostbeneficial thing of coming here
is just meeting with people. Andin my case, seeing people that I
haven't been able to see in 18months, you know, the cannabis
community is unlike any industryI've worked in, and really just
(01:29):
being able to reconnect withpeople face to face. Yeah, talk
about life and cannabis. It'sbeen great.
Ronjini Joshua (01:35):
Yeah, one of the things that I've heard this week
is like, it's not just about theconference, but it's also like
the bonding that's happened overthe pandemic of not being able
to see each other, theconnection there. So a lot of
things. A lot of times when Iinterview people usually kind of
start with the journey, right?
And that's like a big part ofmost people's story of why
they're in cannabis, how theygot to cannabis. So how about
(01:57):
you? How did you get intocannabis? And what did you do
before?
Ralph Risch (02:02):
So I had a career in high tech. And I started out
as a software developer, I had acouple of companies that I
started and grew and wasfortunate enough to exit. And I
was kind of happily semiretired. But one thing? Well, it
something that happened to me isprobably something that happened
(02:24):
to a lot of people in thisindustry, which is like my life
was personally touched bycannabis. I have an autoimmune
disease. And it started in my20s. And it kind of got
progressively worse. And by thetime I sold my last company, I
thought I would never work fulltime again. And I discovered I
basically did my own internetresearch, and I discovered RSO.
(02:47):
And you kind of have to do thispersonal experimentation because
there's no doctors that. Yeah.
And for me, it was lifechanging. And so that got me
interested in the science side.
Files file science was one ofthe first science companies in
the space. So it was a naturalconnection for me. Yeah. And
when I started working with thecompany, I realized they had
(03:08):
brought the best scientists infrom outside to really
understand the cannabis plantfrom the DNA up. And you know, I
just dove in deep. And you know,here I am five years later, as
the CEO
Ronjini Joshua (03:21):
very, very cool.
So, I hear that Fellows is doinga lot of interesting and really
cool new things. And so tell mea little bit about kind of the
Philo 's mission and journey oflike what you guys are doing in
the industry, what you hope toachieve and how it's moving
forward the whole industry aswell as a whole, you know?
Ralph Risch (03:41):
Sure. So we're a genetics company, yeah. Which
means we are breeding newvarieties of cannabis. And for
us, we looked at cannabis earlyon as something that needs to be
grown at scale, basically acrop. And, you know, it's only
been bred in prohibition, youknow, kind of, you know, in
basements under the radar. Itdidn't have the sort of
(04:04):
scientific approach that hashappened in all the other crops.
And so it doesn't have theagronomic traits it doesn't,
it's not ready to be grown atscale. And we set out the team
set up 2014 to put together thetool set that would enable us to
really rapidly breed this plant,rapidly improve it, so that when
(04:25):
people are trying to grow acresof cannabis, it works. Yeah. And
that's what we're doing. So wehave, we have seed lines, now we
have individual clonalvarieties, and they're all
enhanced in important ways forthose cultivators.
Ronjini Joshua (04:41):
Okay, so what exactly are the seed like? How
does that work? What How are youguys helping with the
scalability side of
Ralph Risch (04:47):
it? Yeah, just give you an example. So historically,
there haven't been any what wewould call stable seed lines in
cannabis. And so if you buyseeds on the internet or you You
get them some other way, whenyou plant them, you get a bunch
of different phenotypes, eachplant looks slightly different
is slightly different qualities,our seed lines, we have gone
(05:12):
through a process to create truef1 hybrid seeds. So there is
uniformity. And if you lookacross a field of our plants, it
looks like they might have beengrown from Cologne. That's just
the first step. You know, it'ssort of a bar, you know, a real
low bar to cross, but just tohave uniform seed lines was the
first piece. Now we're improvingthe potency, we're improving the
(05:33):
flower quality. And step bystep, we're gonna bring those
seed lines to the place whereyou can't get a better clone
than you can get from seed. Butit's a multi year journey.
Ronjini Joshua (05:46):
Yeah, I mean, science takes a long time. Yeah.
So you know, how did yourscientists kind of come up? I
know, you guys have some veryspecial seeds that are, you're
talking about auto flower andphoto CBD on your website. So
how do you guys kind of come upwith what you want to create?
And what kind of seed you thinkwould be, you know, beneficial
(06:08):
to large scale commercialgrowers?
Ralph Risch (06:11):
Yeah, we listen, really, first and foremost, the
cultivators that are out thereare very experienced, they know
what's working and what's not.
Every time we go to a farm we'relearning. And we, we get our
breeders out in the field, weget our cultivators and tech
team out in the field, and welearn what's working and what's
not. And we have a set of traitsthat we've prioritized. We found
(06:34):
genetic markers, or 15, of themost important traits, and we're
using those genetic markers todo an accelerated breeding
process. So it's not GMO,traditional breeding, but we're
accelerating it because we cantest the plants at a very early
stage and see, do they have thatimportant trait?
Ronjini Joshua (06:56):
So then then the quantity comes by cultivating
the ones that do have theimportant traits? Is that what
it is?
Ralph Risch (07:02):
Exactly? So we create 2000 seeds, we germinate
those seeds, and we test themall, we find the 200, or the 20
plants that have the traits ofinterest. And those are the only
ones that we grow up. Okay. Andthen we select on all the other
criteria from those plants.
Right. And, you know, breedingis really a numbers game. Yeah,
if we could have a biggerfacility, we would, but you
(07:24):
know, we've got an 80,000 squarefoot facility. And by optimizing
the process, we're able to lookat a lot of plants.
Ronjini Joshua (07:33):
So baby, you're kind of focused on burning
butter is actually in the seeditself, not exactly in the
plants, right the plants is for,you know, you need to test them
make sure the seeds are working.
So what what can people expect?
And who's going to need these,like kind of, I guess,
commercialized seeds,
Ralph Risch (07:52):
we think there's going to be a bit of a sea
change in this industry. Yeah,right now, people grow from
clones, because they have to.
But if you're growing fromclones, you have to have a room
full of mother plants, those aresource of pathogens into the
grow, okay, you have to, youknow, in a very manual way,
you've got to take cuttings offof each of those plants. It's,
it's really expensive, and it'snot optimal. But historically,
(08:16):
you know, there haven't beenthose stable seed lines that
would enable you to to replacethe cloning process. We think
that 60% or more of the cannabisproduction will be ultimately
from seed. Yeah. And it's goingto be a huge transition for the
cultivators. And what willenable that is these seedlings?
Ronjini Joshua (08:38):
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. So I think
I read something about yoursocial equity program, and you
guys, you know, donating seedsand kind of taking a position
of, I would say, like, justresponsibility for, you know,
helping moving the industryforward in a positive direction.
(08:59):
Um, can you tell us a little bitabout how you guys are donating
seeds in what you're doing
Ralph Risch (09:03):
there? Yeah, I think so we view ourselves as a
triple bottom line company,that's something that we even at
the board level committed toover a year ago. And so we've
got an environmental componentto that, and we've got a social
justice component. And you know,personally, I think that in the
cannabis industry, we have aspecial responsibility to
(09:26):
advocate for social justice,because the war on drugs, you
know, the victims of that warhave been people of color,
predominantly. And those peopleare now largely not
participating in the industry.
And you know, it's a problemthat is not going to be easily
fixed. And I won't pretend thatwe're going to be able to do
more than, you know, step bystep, try to make a contribution
(09:49):
there. For us, the first piecewas to start donating seeds to
farmers of color. So each ofthese last two years we've done
At a million seeds, and we havesome amazing partners who help
not just get those seeds to thefarmers of color, but then
support them through the processof growing those hemp crops.
Ronjini Joshua (10:13):
Oh, that's really cool. And usually how
many I, you know, I'm not agrower, so I don't know how many
seeds use, like this millionseeds go to like how many
different farmers you guys?
Ralph Risch (10:24):
Actually as many as 200 farmers, okay, okay. Yeah.
So that, you know, they're alldifferent sizes? Yeah, some of
them are just getting going withhim. And I would say, I don't
have an exact number, probablybetween 102 100 farmers this
year,
Ronjini Joshua (10:39):
and how do you find these people? Or how can
people apply to get this?
Ralph Risch (10:43):
We have a couple partners. One is there's a Black
Farmers Association that we workwith university or Oregon State
University is another one. Andthere's a list on our website.
Okay. Yeah, where people canfind an organization that's near
them that can support them.
Ronjini Joshua (11:03):
Awesome. So one of the questions I have, you
know, this is kind of like moreof a seed question. But you
know, you're talking about youjust mentioned this million
seeds. And you know, what islike when you're dealing with
working with seeds, and I don'tknow if it differs from if it's
like a produce seed versus anatural seed or whatever the
case may be, what is the net oflike germination? Like how does,
(11:26):
you know, you mentioned like,maybe 20 plants will germinate
or, you know, out of out of 200.
So, you know, what is usuallythe gnat fall off, like, what
did people
Ralph Risch (11:35):
know, actually are seeds? I have a germ rate, a
germination rate always over 90%Oh, my gosh, okay. Yeah. And so
that was a 6%, fake number Iused. Yeah, so that's an
important piece. Yeah, they needto be 100% feminized, and 96%
germination rate. And these arethe kind of numbers that we
(11:56):
target so that people know whenthey buy our seeds that they're
going to get a crop out of them.
Ronjini Joshua (12:01):
And how long does it take to produce some,
like, some types like thisscience? It's like, sounds
really involved, you have to doI mean, you're, you're working
with genetic markers. So Iimagine, along with that, along
with testing them with thegrowing and, you know, testing
them out, how long does thattypically take the cycle to
create these,
Ralph Risch (12:21):
it took us many years to build the capabilities
to genotype the plants, right todo that DNA sequencing. And we
even partnered with a companycalled Illumina, which is the
biggest sequencing devicecompany in the world, to build a
cannabis specific device. Fromthere we ran 1000s of plants
(12:41):
through, we were able to usethat DNA data to find the
genetic markers. That's when westarted the breeding process.
And for clonal cultivars, we canturn out new plants every three
months. Yeah. But for seedlines, it takes two years to
(13:02):
create an inbred line two tothree years. And so once we've
done that work, now that we'vegot the foundation, we can
create new seed lines every yearthat are enhanced, okay. But
we're also always creating newinbred lines. And so it's, if
you look at the timelines forour team, they'll sometimes talk
(13:24):
in terms of five to 10 years.
Ronjini Joshua (13:27):
That must be painful.
Ralph Risch (13:30):
In this industry, where things change so quickly,
yeah, it's it's hard to think ofthose timelines. But we know
that there are some fundamentalsthat won't change. And the the
trades that we are targeting,are those fundamentals, you
won't see us trying to hittrends with our seeds.
Ronjini Joshua (13:46):
Right, right.
Well, looking at what I saw atmjbizcon, at the conference and
walking the show floor a littlebit, and even pre conference, a
lot of the stuff that we'rereading is like the seed is the
future of the cannabis industry.
And we are seeing like, a lot ofthese companies pop up that say,
you know, we're the best seedand and, and we're the best seed
(14:07):
and so you're seeing a lot ofpeople now starting to talk
about that a little bit more.
What really kind ofdifferentiate seed, what were
the qualities that people shouldbe looking at when they have to
compare, you know, you versussomeone else?
Ralph Risch (14:21):
Sure. First of all, I would say Seeing is believing,
okay, and any, any seeds you'regonna buy, whether they're ours
or someone else, try them inyour own grow and see how they
perform and and talk to thecompany you're buying them from,
and see how much support theycan give you in terms of SOPs or
or information to be successfulwith the seat. I would say the
(14:45):
the low bar that everybodyshould be hitting is uniformity.
100% feminization rate, youshouldn't you should not have
different phenotypes and youshouldn't ever have a male in
the ground. If people arehitting that bar, and I know
that sounds obvious, yeah, itjust hasn't been that way until
(15:08):
recently. Yeah. You know, thenyou can start to look for all
the other traits that thatgrowers want to have?
Ronjini Joshua (15:14):
And is that particular to like, you know,
are you or your, the traits ofyour seeds are going to be
different than the treats? Orsomebody else's seeds? Or like,
you know, do you think at theend of the day, it's going to be
kind of like, like, oh, we likethis design better than this
design? Or do you think it'sgonna be a mixture of a lot of
different ones?
Ralph Risch (15:33):
I think there will be a lot of successful companies
in the space. There's room for alot of players. Yeah, I will
say, in our case, we feel like alaser focus on the needs of our
customers, is going to enable usto turn out seeds that make them
happy every year. And then ifother people can do the same,
great, you know, it's better forour customers, it's better for
(15:56):
the industry.
Ronjini Joshua (15:56):
When you guys are developing the science, do
you think about how they'regoing to be using it at the like
the end product? Or do you areyou really just focused on like
getting, like you said,uniformity, and these, like
certain markers that you guyswant to hit so that you can have
a successful flower? But like,do you actually also see, okay,
this is they're probably goingto be using it for this. So this
(16:17):
is how we want to design it.
Ralph Risch (16:18):
Yeah. I mean, it's it's only science to a certain
point. Yeah, it's an art. Yeah.
And our, to give our breederscredit, they're scientists, but
they're also artists, and NECthat we are shipping out, we've
grown it multiple times in ourown facility, and then it
partner facilities, we've lookedat it in different climates in
different regions. So yeah,we're very much real world
breeders. Yeah. And not just notjust their theorist or
(16:40):
scientists,
Ronjini Joshua (16:42):
right. I think also even like what you guys are
doing with the science andtechnology, I think getting it
set up for that when everythingis opened up, people can be
ready to go.
Ralph Risch (16:54):
And you know, we've always said it follows. We have
a window of opportunity here.
Yeah, the big traditional agcompanies aren't in the space.
Yeah. And it enables groups likeus and some of these cultivators
and product people to reallyestablish a footprint here that
will give us the ability to, tolast
Ronjini Joshua (17:18):
last Yeah, yeah, it's really, it's, it's really
exciting. Because like a lot ofthe brands that we're talking to
and people that we're talkingto, it's just like such a very
volatile time for the industry.
So like, there's so much thatcan happen in a positive way.
Yeah, for sure. So a lot ofpeople are looking forward to
everyone, you know, doing theright thing and moving
everything forward and going in,like doing all the right checks
(17:39):
and balances to make sure thatit happens that way. Yeah. Oh,
awesome. Thank you so much fortalking to me.
Ralph Risch (17:46):
It's my pleasure.
Thank you for doing this. It'sreally been great. Yeah,
absolutely.
Ronjini Joshua (17:50):
Question. Yeah, please, please.
Ben Michaels (17:52):
So what I found really interested in what you
said is like everything,basically, that you've planned
for, is sounds like about fiveto 10 years, you know, in the
making with the seeds. And Ithink that's really cool. It
used to do you don't followtrends, what is what is true
five to 10 years ago, that isfinally now coming into
(18:12):
flourishing with these plants.
That is still true, you know,five to 10 years later what the
market wants what are leads andwhat what these you know people
get in the seats want need
Ralph Risch (18:22):
something we said five years ago is that the
market was going to need seedbonds that were stable. Yes,
ality Yeah, and people didn'treally understand that because
they viewed seeds as somethingthat you buy when you want to
hunt for some new things toclone out. But we always thought
there's a big percentage of theproduction will ultimately have
(18:43):
to be done from seed and thathas proven true
Ben Michaels (18:47):
but like when you when you were originally like
selecting these seeds because isit all hemp? Or is it all some
of the cannabis
Ralph Risch (18:53):
that we have both hemp and cannabis seed lights?
Yeah,
Ben Michaels (18:56):
were you trying to target because like now
everybody you know talking abouttrends like everybody's like,
complex terpenes and the morecomplex terpenes are Yeah, no, I
mean what what kind of likeforesight did you have
specifically with the THC based,you know, plants,
Ralph Risch (19:13):
a few things, we we set our sights on some minor
cannabinoids early on. And wenow have some minor cannabinoid
plants that are producing a muchhigher quantity than has been
seen before. And we're now alsoseeing some of the medical
research validating that thoseminor cannabinoids can be really
(19:34):
helpful. So that's a big victoryfor us. On the THC seed front.
You know, it's funny, I, everytime I say this, people like
that's it. But we knew thatseeds would have to be
consistent. They have to havehigh potency. They've got to
have bag appeal, or at least youknow, extract well. Yeah, but,
(19:57):
but literally, it's the firstHoly Grail was to get seats that
were consistent, you know, truef1 hybrid seats, and we've
nailed that. I don't want to gettoo much into futures, but all
the other good stuff is coming.
Right, you know, and we can kindof build on top of that seat
platform.
Ben Michaels (20:12):
Yeah, absolutely.
No, that's cool. That's really
Ronjini Joshua (20:15):
cool. Yeah, I think a lot of companies are
like, just you, they're tryingto get a system in place, that's
going to work for them. And thenthey can get creative with all
those things after, you know,with everything else, and, and
they still have a little bit oftime right there, the window is
still open for right now. Whichis the other exciting thing. I
mean, we've had contact with somany high level people and CEOs
(20:35):
and people that have been in theindustry for a very long time,
but are still accessible. And Ithink that we know, for people
like me, and people who arepodcasting or doing media that
we know is also going to closejust like it did with the tech
boom, where, you know, at thevery beginning, when everyone
was in the startup, you can talkto people really easily, you
could walk up to them and chatwith them. And and you could do
(20:56):
that now, like here at mjbizcon.
It's really cool. You can it'seasy to get access to people.
Yeah, that's gonna be over inlike five years, you're not
going to be able to talk to, youknow, CEOs or you you'll,
you'll, you know, there'll beshutting the door on people's
Ralph Risch (21:11):
will be accessible.
Okay.
Ronjini Joshua (21:13):
But yeah, no, it's it's just very exciting
time. But I again, appreciateyou coming. And do you have
something to add to that?
Ralph Risch (21:20):
I did. So you were asking about traits. And an
important trait that weidentified early on is auto
flower. And if you're notfamiliar with auto flower,
typically cannabis doesn'tflower until it you turn it the
light cycle to 12 hours oflight, 12 hours of darkness.
(21:40):
It's a 1212 light cycle, withauto flower, they flower when
they're ready to flowerindependently of the light
cycle. And it's a subtle thing,but it is incredibly important.
It means you don't have to havelight deprivation
infrastructure, it means thatthey can be grown in a in a very
short grow window, you know, inin northern regions, it means
(22:04):
they can be grown at theequator, where it's always at
1212 lightcycle. Right. And sothat autoflower trade is one
that we we put a bet on earlyon. And we think that's going to
be a critical part of theproduction.
Ben Michaels (22:19):
I'm very excited about that I was working for a
client of mine trying to takephotos in there, give me a tour
of the whole place. No, like,oh, by the way, the lights on
the med site, which had the morebeautiful flower to take
pictures of was at 1245. And solike I was like, it gives me
like two hours to go takepictures like like I can do
this. I can see that beingreally huge. And then and then I
(22:40):
mentioned probably bringing outsome of the plants because I
heard that you know, a lot ofsome of those strands, and those
exotic ones start to hurt. Andthat will disrupt the whole crop
cycle as well.
Ralph Risch (22:53):
Yeah, it's another great example. And again, this
is where we listen to thegrowers. And if you weren't in
there grows, you might thinkthat all that you need to do is
come out with, you know, newcolors and smells, right. But
plants that Herme andspecifically some varieties,
I'll just give you an example.
There's a variety called GMOvery popular, it'll hit 30% THC,
(23:15):
and people like the aromas. Ithas a tendency to hurt. And so
we developed a variety of GMOit's a, you know, a derivative
variety that is hurt resistant.
And that's a subtle thing.
Ronjini Joshua (23:33):
It's a big deal.
Ben Michaels (23:34):
It's yeah, a lot of money for them down the line,
right like for these growers.
That's why these seats are I'mexcited. Yeah.
Ralph Risch (23:42):
You get a Herman your grow and and it can
pollinate in a whole room anddestroy your crowd. So that
could be a millions of dollarsproblem. Mm hmm. Yeah.
Ronjini Joshua (23:52):
This has been very informative. The science
Well, the science of cannabis islike still just being
discovered, I think. I thinkit's, we're just going to hear a
lot of other things coming uptoo. But thank you so much for
joining us.
Ralph Risch (24:05):
Yeah, thanks. Great question.
Ronjini Joshua (24:06):
Yeah, absolutely.
In this next interview, we talked to Ralph
Risch, the CEO of PhylosBioscience, with a bit of a
story past Phylos has kind ofturned a new corner. And they
are diving into seed geneticsyou help sustainable planting
for commercial growers. So wetalked about a little bit on the
science side of how seeds arecreated, how they've developed
(00:29):
these really cool geneticmarkers, and what they're doing
to kind of move the industryforward on both the social
equity side as well as thescalability side as cannabis
becomes legal. Join us in thegreen room.
So Hello, we are back in thegreen room and today we have
Ralph Risch from Phylos CEO.
Nice to see you. Yeah, good tosee you.
(00:53):
So, today, we're kind of talkingabout, you know, a lot of
anticipation with mjbizcon. Andas we were coming into this
conference, what did you expectcoming into it? And what do you
what were you most excitedabout?
Ralph Risch (01:05):
Well, this is my fifth mjbizcon. And what I've
learned is, and especially thisyear, right with the pandemic
last year, yeah, the mostbeneficial thing of coming here
is just meeting with people. Andin my case, seeing people that I
haven't been able to see in 18months, you know, the cannabis
community is unlike any industryI've worked in, and really just
(01:29):
being able to reconnect withpeople face to face. Yeah, talk
about life and cannabis. It'sbeen great.
Ronjini Joshua (01:35):
Yeah, one of the things that I've heard this week
is like, it's not just about theconference, but it's also like
the bonding that's happened overthe pandemic of not being able
to see each other, theconnection there. So a lot of
things. A lot of times when Iinterview people usually kind of
start with the journey, right?
And that's like a big part ofmost people's story of why
they're in cannabis, how theygot to cannabis. So how about
(01:57):
you? How did you get intocannabis? And what did you do
before?
Ralph Risch (02:02):
So I had a career in high tech. And I started out
as a software developer, I had acouple of companies that I
started and grew and wasfortunate enough to exit. And I
was kind of happily semiretired. But one thing? Well, it
something that happened to me isprobably something that happened
(02:24):
to a lot of people in thisindustry, which is like my life
was personally touched bycannabis. I have an autoimmune
disease. And it started in my20s. And it kind of got
progressively worse. And by thetime I sold my last company, I
thought I would never work fulltime again. And I discovered I
basically did my own internetresearch, and I discovered RSO.
(02:47):
And you kind of have to do thispersonal experimentation because
there's no doctors that. Yeah.
And for me, it was lifechanging. And so that got me
interested in the science side.
Files file science was one ofthe first science companies in
the space. So it was a naturalconnection for me. Yeah. And
when I started working with thecompany, I realized they had
(03:08):
brought the best scientists infrom outside to really
understand the cannabis plantfrom the DNA up. And you know, I
just dove in deep. And you know,here I am five years later, as
the CEO
Ronjini Joshua (03:21):
very, very cool.
So, I hear that Fellows is doinga lot of interesting and really
cool new things. And so tell mea little bit about kind of the
Philo 's mission and journey oflike what you guys are doing in
the industry, what you hope toachieve and how it's moving
forward the whole industry aswell as a whole, you know?
Ralph Risch (03:41):
Sure. So we're a genetics company, yeah. Which
means we are breeding newvarieties of cannabis. And for
us, we looked at cannabis earlyon as something that needs to be
grown at scale, basically acrop. And, you know, it's only
been bred in prohibition, youknow, kind of, you know, in
basements under the radar. Itdidn't have the sort of
(04:04):
scientific approach that hashappened in all the other crops.
And so it doesn't have theagronomic traits it doesn't,
it's not ready to be grown atscale. And we set out the team
set up 2014 to put together thetool set that would enable us to
really rapidly breed this plant,rapidly improve it, so that when
(04:25):
people are trying to grow acresof cannabis, it works. Yeah. And
that's what we're doing. So wehave, we have seed lines, now we
have individual clonalvarieties, and they're all
enhanced in important ways forthose cultivators.
Ronjini Joshua (04:41):
Okay, so what exactly are the seed like? How
does that work? What How are youguys helping with the
scalability side of
Ralph Risch (04:47):
it? Yeah, just give you an example. So historically,
there haven't been any what wewould call stable seed lines in
cannabis. And so if you buyseeds on the internet or you You
get them some other way, whenyou plant them, you get a bunch
of different phenotypes, eachplant looks slightly different
is slightly different qualities,our seed lines, we have gone
(05:12):
through a process to create truef1 hybrid seeds. So there is
uniformity. And if you lookacross a field of our plants, it
looks like they might have beengrown from Cologne. That's just
the first step. You know, it'ssort of a bar, you know, a real
low bar to cross, but just tohave uniform seed lines was the
first piece. Now we're improvingthe potency, we're improving the
(05:33):
flower quality. And step bystep, we're gonna bring those
seed lines to the place whereyou can't get a better clone
than you can get from seed. Butit's a multi year journey.
Ronjini Joshua (05:46):
Yeah, I mean, science takes a long time. Yeah.
So you know, how did yourscientists kind of come up? I
know, you guys have some veryspecial seeds that are, you're
talking about auto flower andphoto CBD on your website. So
how do you guys kind of come upwith what you want to create?
And what kind of seed you thinkwould be, you know, beneficial
(06:08):
to large scale commercialgrowers?
Ralph Risch (06:11):
Yeah, we listen, really, first and foremost, the
cultivators that are out thereare very experienced, they know
what's working and what's not.
Every time we go to a farm we'relearning. And we, we get our
breeders out in the field, weget our cultivators and tech
team out in the field, and welearn what's working and what's
not. And we have a set of traitsthat we've prioritized. We found
(06:34):
genetic markers, or 15, of themost important traits, and we're
using those genetic markers todo an accelerated breeding
process. So it's not GMO,traditional breeding, but we're
accelerating it because we cantest the plants at a very early
stage and see, do they have thatimportant trait?
Ronjini Joshua (06:56):
So then then the quantity comes by cultivating
the ones that do have theimportant traits? Is that what
it is?
Ralph Risch (07:02):
Exactly? So we create 2000 seeds, we germinate
those seeds, and we test themall, we find the 200, or the 20
plants that have the traits ofinterest. And those are the only
ones that we grow up. Okay. Andthen we select on all the other
criteria from those plants.
Right. And, you know, breedingis really a numbers game. Yeah,
if we could have a biggerfacility, we would, but you
(07:24):
know, we've got an 80,000 squarefoot facility. And by optimizing
the process, we're able to lookat a lot of plants.
Ronjini Joshua (07:33):
So baby, you're kind of focused on burning
butter is actually in the seeditself, not exactly in the
plants, right the plants is for,you know, you need to test them
make sure the seeds are working.
So what what can people expect?
And who's going to need these,like kind of, I guess,
commercialized seeds,
Ralph Risch (07:52):
we think there's going to be a bit of a sea
change in this industry. Yeah,right now, people grow from
clones, because they have to.
But if you're growing fromclones, you have to have a room
full of mother plants, those aresource of pathogens into the
grow, okay, you have to, youknow, in a very manual way,
you've got to take cuttings offof each of those plants. It's,
it's really expensive, and it'snot optimal. But historically,
(08:16):
you know, there haven't beenthose stable seed lines that
would enable you to to replacethe cloning process. We think
that 60% or more of the cannabisproduction will be ultimately
from seed. Yeah. And it's goingto be a huge transition for the
cultivators. And what willenable that is these seedlings?
Ronjini Joshua (08:38):
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. So I think
I read something about yoursocial equity program, and you
guys, you know, donating seedsand kind of taking a position
of, I would say, like, justresponsibility for, you know,
helping moving the industryforward in a positive direction.
(08:59):
Um, can you tell us a little bitabout how you guys are donating
seeds in what you're doing
Ralph Risch (09:03):
there? Yeah, I think so we view ourselves as a
triple bottom line company,that's something that we even at
the board level committed toover a year ago. And so we've
got an environmental componentto that, and we've got a social
justice component. And you know,personally, I think that in the
cannabis industry, we have aspecial responsibility to
(09:26):
advocate for social justice,because the war on drugs, you
know, the victims of that warhave been people of color,
predominantly. And those peopleare now largely not
participating in the industry.
And you know, it's a problemthat is not going to be easily
fixed. And I won't pretend thatwe're going to be able to do
more than, you know, step bystep, try to make a contribution
(09:49):
there. For us, the first piecewas to start donating seeds to
farmers of color. So each ofthese last two years we've done
At a million seeds, and we havesome amazing partners who help
not just get those seeds to thefarmers of color, but then
support them through the processof growing those hemp crops.
Ronjini Joshua (10:13):
Oh, that's really cool. And usually how
many I, you know, I'm not agrower, so I don't know how many
seeds use, like this millionseeds go to like how many
different farmers you guys?
Ralph Risch (10:24):
Actually as many as 200 farmers, okay, okay. Yeah.
So that, you know, they're alldifferent sizes? Yeah, some of
them are just getting going withhim. And I would say, I don't
have an exact number, probablybetween 102 100 farmers this
year,
Ronjini Joshua (10:39):
and how do you find these people? Or how can
people apply to get this?
Ralph Risch (10:43):
We have a couple partners. One is there's a Black
Farmers Association that we workwith university or Oregon State
University is another one. Andthere's a list on our website.
Okay. Yeah, where people canfind an organization that's near
them that can support them.
Ronjini Joshua (11:03):
Awesome. So one of the questions I have, you
know, this is kind of like moreof a seed question. But you
know, you're talking about youjust mentioned this million
seeds. And you know, what islike when you're dealing with
working with seeds, and I don'tknow if it differs from if it's
like a produce seed versus anatural seed or whatever the
case may be, what is the net oflike germination? Like how does,
(11:26):
you know, you mentioned like,maybe 20 plants will germinate
or, you know, out of out of 200.
So, you know, what is usuallythe gnat fall off, like, what
did people
Ralph Risch (11:35):
know, actually are seeds? I have a germ rate, a
germination rate always over 90%Oh, my gosh, okay. Yeah. And so
that was a 6%, fake number Iused. Yeah, so that's an
important piece. Yeah, they needto be 100% feminized, and 96%
germination rate. And these arethe kind of numbers that we
(11:56):
target so that people know whenthey buy our seeds that they're
going to get a crop out of them.
Ronjini Joshua (12:01):
And how long does it take to produce some,
like, some types like thisscience? It's like, sounds
really involved, you have to doI mean, you're, you're working
with genetic markers. So Iimagine, along with that, along
with testing them with thegrowing and, you know, testing
them out, how long does thattypically take the cycle to
create these,
Ralph Risch (12:21):
it took us many years to build the capabilities
to genotype the plants, right todo that DNA sequencing. And we
even partnered with a companycalled Illumina, which is the
biggest sequencing devicecompany in the world, to build a
cannabis specific device. Fromthere we ran 1000s of plants
(12:41):
through, we were able to usethat DNA data to find the
genetic markers. That's when westarted the breeding process.
And for clonal cultivars, we canturn out new plants every three
months. Yeah. But for seedlines, it takes two years to
(13:02):
create an inbred line two tothree years. And so once we've
done that work, now that we'vegot the foundation, we can
create new seed lines every yearthat are enhanced, okay. But
we're also always creating newinbred lines. And so it's, if
you look at the timelines forour team, they'll sometimes talk
(13:24):
in terms of five to 10 years.
Ronjini Joshua (13:27):
That must be painful.
Ralph Risch (13:30):
In this industry, where things change so quickly,
yeah, it's it's hard to think ofthose timelines. But we know
that there are some fundamentalsthat won't change. And the the
trades that we are targeting,are those fundamentals, you
won't see us trying to hittrends with our seeds.
Ronjini Joshua (13:46):
Right, right.
Well, looking at what I saw atmjbizcon, at the conference and
walking the show floor a littlebit, and even pre conference, a
lot of the stuff that we'rereading is like the seed is the
future of the cannabis industry.
And we are seeing like, a lot ofthese companies pop up that say,
you know, we're the best seedand and, and we're the best seed
(14:07):
and so you're seeing a lot ofpeople now starting to talk
about that a little bit more.
What really kind ofdifferentiate seed, what were
the qualities that people shouldbe looking at when they have to
compare, you know, you versussomeone else?
Ralph Risch (14:21):
Sure. First of all, I would say Seeing is believing,
okay, and any, any seeds you'regonna buy, whether they're ours
or someone else, try them inyour own grow and see how they
perform and and talk to thecompany you're buying them from,
and see how much support theycan give you in terms of SOPs or
or information to be successfulwith the seat. I would say the
(14:45):
the low bar that everybodyshould be hitting is uniformity.
100% feminization rate, youshouldn't you should not have
different phenotypes and youshouldn't ever have a male in
the ground. If people arehitting that bar, and I know
that sounds obvious, yeah, itjust hasn't been that way until
(15:08):
recently. Yeah. You know, thenyou can start to look for all
the other traits that thatgrowers want to have?
Ronjini Joshua (15:14):
And is that particular to like, you know,
are you or your, the traits ofyour seeds are going to be
different than the treats? Orsomebody else's seeds? Or like,
you know, do you think at theend of the day, it's going to be
kind of like, like, oh, we likethis design better than this
design? Or do you think it'sgonna be a mixture of a lot of
different ones?
Ralph Risch (15:33):
I think there will be a lot of successful companies
in the space. There's room for alot of players. Yeah, I will
say, in our case, we feel like alaser focus on the needs of our
customers, is going to enable usto turn out seeds that make them
happy every year. And then ifother people can do the same,
great, you know, it's better forour customers, it's better for
(15:56):
the industry.
Ronjini Joshua (15:56):
When you guys are developing the science, do
you think about how they'regoing to be using it at the like
the end product? Or do you areyou really just focused on like
getting, like you said,uniformity, and these, like
certain markers that you guyswant to hit so that you can have
a successful flower? But like,do you actually also see, okay,
this is they're probably goingto be using it for this. So this
(16:17):
is how we want to design it.
Ralph Risch (16:18):
Yeah. I mean, it's it's only science to a certain
point. Yeah, it's an art. Yeah.
And our, to give our breederscredit, they're scientists, but
they're also artists, and NECthat we are shipping out, we've
grown it multiple times in ourown facility, and then it
partner facilities, we've lookedat it in different climates in
different regions. So yeah,we're very much real world
breeders. Yeah. And not just notjust their theorist or
(16:40):
scientists,
Ronjini Joshua (16:42):
right. I think also even like what you guys are
doing with the science andtechnology, I think getting it
set up for that when everythingis opened up, people can be
ready to go.
Ralph Risch (16:54):
And you know, we've always said it follows. We have
a window of opportunity here.
Yeah, the big traditional agcompanies aren't in the space.
Yeah. And it enables groups likeus and some of these cultivators
and product people to reallyestablish a footprint here that
will give us the ability to, tolast
Ronjini Joshua (17:18):
last Yeah, yeah, it's really, it's, it's really
exciting. Because like a lot ofthe brands that we're talking to
and people that we're talkingto, it's just like such a very
volatile time for the industry.
So like, there's so much thatcan happen in a positive way.
Yeah, for sure. So a lot ofpeople are looking forward to
everyone, you know, doing theright thing and moving
everything forward and going in,like doing all the right checks
(17:39):
and balances to make sure thatit happens that way. Yeah. Oh,
awesome. Thank you so much fortalking to me.
Ralph Risch (17:46):
It's my pleasure.
Thank you for doing this. It'sreally been great. Yeah,
absolutely.
Ronjini Joshua (17:50):
Question. Yeah, please, please.
Ben Michaels (17:52):
So what I found really interested in what you
said is like everything,basically, that you've planned
for, is sounds like about fiveto 10 years, you know, in the
making with the seeds. And Ithink that's really cool. It
used to do you don't followtrends, what is what is true
five to 10 years ago, that isfinally now coming into
(18:12):
flourishing with these plants.
That is still true, you know,five to 10 years later what the
market wants what are leads andwhat what these you know people
get in the seats want need
Ralph Risch (18:22):
something we said five years ago is that the
market was going to need seedbonds that were stable. Yes,
ality Yeah, and people didn'treally understand that because
they viewed seeds as somethingthat you buy when you want to
hunt for some new things toclone out. But we always thought
there's a big percentage of theproduction will ultimately have
(18:43):
to be done from seed and thathas proven true
Ben Michaels (18:47):
but like when you when you were originally like
selecting these seeds because isit all hemp? Or is it all some
of the cannabis
Ralph Risch (18:53):
that we have both hemp and cannabis seed lights?
Yeah,
Ben Michaels (18:56):
were you trying to target because like now
everybody you know talking abouttrends like everybody's like,
complex terpenes and the morecomplex terpenes are Yeah, no, I
mean what what kind of likeforesight did you have
specifically with the THC based,you know, plants,
Ralph Risch (19:13):
a few things, we we set our sights on some minor
cannabinoids early on. And wenow have some minor cannabinoid
plants that are producing a muchhigher quantity than has been
seen before. And we're now alsoseeing some of the medical
research validating that thoseminor cannabinoids can be really
(19:34):
helpful. So that's a big victoryfor us. On the THC seed front.
You know, it's funny, I, everytime I say this, people like
that's it. But we knew thatseeds would have to be
consistent. They have to havehigh potency. They've got to
have bag appeal, or at least youknow, extract well. Yeah, but,
(19:57):
but literally, it's the firstHoly Grail was to get seats that
were consistent, you know, truef1 hybrid seats, and we've
nailed that. I don't want to gettoo much into futures, but all
the other good stuff is coming.
Right, you know, and we can kindof build on top of that seat
platform.
Ben Michaels (20:12):
Yeah, absolutely.
No, that's cool. That's really
Ronjini Joshua (20:15):
cool. Yeah, I think a lot of companies are
like, just you, they're tryingto get a system in place, that's
going to work for them. And thenthey can get creative with all
those things after, you know,with everything else, and, and
they still have a little bit oftime right there, the window is
still open for right now. Whichis the other exciting thing. I
mean, we've had contact with somany high level people and CEOs
(20:35):
and people that have been in theindustry for a very long time,
but are still accessible. And Ithink that we know, for people
like me, and people who arepodcasting or doing media that
we know is also going to closejust like it did with the tech
boom, where, you know, at thevery beginning, when everyone
was in the startup, you can talkto people really easily, you
could walk up to them and chatwith them. And and you could do
(20:56):
that now, like here at mjbizcon.
It's really cool. You can it'seasy to get access to people.
Yeah, that's gonna be over inlike five years, you're not
going to be able to talk to, youknow, CEOs or you you'll,
you'll, you know, there'll beshutting the door on people's
Ralph Risch (21:11):
will be accessible.
Okay.
Ronjini Joshua (21:13):
But yeah, no, it's it's just very exciting
time. But I again, appreciateyou coming. And do you have
something to add to that?
Ralph Risch (21:20):
I did. So you were asking about traits. And an
important trait that weidentified early on is auto
flower. And if you're notfamiliar with auto flower,
typically cannabis doesn'tflower until it you turn it the
light cycle to 12 hours oflight, 12 hours of darkness.
(21:40):
It's a 1212 light cycle, withauto flower, they flower when
they're ready to flowerindependently of the light
cycle. And it's a subtle thing,but it is incredibly important.
It means you don't have to havelight deprivation
infrastructure, it means thatthey can be grown in a in a very
short grow window, you know, inin northern regions, it means
(22:04):
they can be grown at theequator, where it's always at
1212 lightcycle. Right. And sothat autoflower trade is one
that we we put a bet on earlyon. And we think that's going to
be a critical part of theproduction.
Ben Michaels (22:19):
I'm very excited about that I was working for a
client of mine trying to takephotos in there, give me a tour
of the whole place. No, like,oh, by the way, the lights on
the med site, which had the morebeautiful flower to take
pictures of was at 1245. And solike I was like, it gives me
like two hours to go takepictures like like I can do
this. I can see that beingreally huge. And then and then I
(22:40):
mentioned probably bringing outsome of the plants because I
heard that you know, a lot ofsome of those strands, and those
exotic ones start to hurt. Andthat will disrupt the whole crop
cycle as well.
Ralph Risch (22:53):
Yeah, it's another great example. And again, this
is where we listen to thegrowers. And if you weren't in
there grows, you might thinkthat all that you need to do is
come out with, you know, newcolors and smells, right. But
plants that Herme andspecifically some varieties,
I'll just give you an example.
There's a variety called GMOvery popular, it'll hit 30% THC,
(23:15):
and people like the aromas. Ithas a tendency to hurt. And so
we developed a variety of GMOit's a, you know, a derivative
variety that is hurt resistant.
And that's a subtle thing.
Ronjini Joshua (23:33):
It's a big deal.
Ben Michaels (23:34):
It's yeah, a lot of money for them down the line,
right like for these growers.
That's why these seats are I'mexcited. Yeah.
Ralph Risch (23:42):
You get a Herman your grow and and it can
pollinate in a whole room anddestroy your crowd. So that
could be a millions of dollarsproblem. Mm hmm. Yeah.
Ronjini Joshua (23:52):
This has been very informative. The science
Well, the science of cannabis islike still just being
discovered, I think. I thinkit's, we're just going to hear a
lot of other things coming uptoo. But thank you so much for
joining us.
Ralph Risch (24:05):
Yeah, thanks. Great question.
Ronjini Joshua (24:06):
Yeah, absolutely.
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