The Latest Tech For Growing Cannabis

Contributed by Guide To CBD.

Since the 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp agriculture at the Federal level, the technology used to grow and refine it has become increasingly sophisticated. Legalized marijuana is only adding to this landscape of cannabis growing technology. In an effort to produce high-yielding, pure plants in such a way that is both environmentally friendly and profitable, cannabis growing tech companies have revolutionized this sector of farming.

Artificial intelligence and robots are one of the most revolutionary aspects of cannabis growing tech. Cannabis plants are susceptible to things like mold from overly wet conditions, and this mold can lead to an unusable crop, which can be an extremely costly business loss. Artificial intelligence can monitor growing conditions 24/7 and find impurities in soil and plants, such as mold and rot, and it can update growing plans and methods for individual plants. Robots augment this system by being the physical interface between the AI and the plants, recognizing when a certain action achieves the desired result.

Farmbot is an example of the robotics side of grow operations. It can collect data about a cannabis farm’s growing conditions and make necessary changes in real-time.

Seedo makes automatic hydroponic grow boxes that can monitor plants with photographs, collect information about growing conditions, and make necessary changes.

Agrify is a fully-integrated hydroponic growing system that supports vertical farming with up to six levels, increasing the output of the same square footage by six times.

Because cannabis plants are bioaccumulators, hydroponics are often used to control the environment in which the plants are grown so the end product is not contaminated with environmental pollutants.

The extraction of the different parts of the cannabis plants is another area where automation and advancements are still being innovated. Devices that can strip and separate the different parts of the cannabis plants can be run by a single person, but refining those parts once they are separated is still a different issue.

Currently CO2 and Ethanol are the two most popular ways to extract oils from hemp plants. An AI system called Refraction helps to monitor the process, taking out the human labor from the tedious task of monitoring safety systems and alerting the human processors when adjustments need to be made.
For more information about tech used to grow cannabis, see GuideToCBD.org.

The preceding article is from one of our external contributors. It does not represent the opinion of Benzinga and has not been edited.