IPM Masterclass with Sync Angel

0:21BubblemanOkay, look at that. We're live, everybody. Excellent. Welcome, everybody, on this Sunday, November 23rd, Hash Church Season 11, Episode 47. Pretty stoked. We got a true cannabis cultivation wizard in the house today. Let me just turn off some of this. There we go. There we go. I got like nine Boxes open and they're all doing the same thing. My voice in the background. So yeah, no, we're blessed today.

0:54BubblemanWe've got a true cannabis cultivation wizard in the house, the one and only Matthew, who is Sync Angel on Instagram, legendary bug specialist, IPM mastermind. If you ever wanted to know how to keep your garden pest free without torching the terps or the microbes, this is the episode you've been waiting for. Matthew's been battling bugs and winning for decades, dialing in biological controls that actually work in living soil and beyond.

1:18BubblemanGet ready for some next level grower knowledge, you know, light one up and dive in. We've also got the man, the myth, the living legend of cannabis education, Russ from Cha Education on Instagram. So he was here a couple weeks ago with us and wow, it was really wonderful. Great sharing from him. All right, so real quickly here, I am going to go through our sponsors because, yeah, our sponsors make a lot of things possible for us here and we appreciate them.

1:47BubblemanSo just give me a couple of seconds here as I get into this page. All right, let's see if we can find what we're doing here. Let's see if we can find what we're doing here. All right, so today we're going to shout out Puff Co. Actually, it's the Press Club. No, it's the Puff Co. Let me just make sure I'm doing it right here, guys. Yes, yes.

2:16BubblemanSo, Hash Church family, before we light up the next bowl of truth, we've got to send big love and massive respect to the crew that's legitimately dragging dabbing out of the dark ages and straight into the mainstream spotlight. Puff Co. These guys aren't just making devices, they're rewriting the culture. The new proxy is a straight up masterpiece, modular, sexy, hits like it's personally offended by weak rips.

2:36BubblemanI like that. Then they went and dropped the 3D XL chamber on the Peak Pro, 80% bigger clouds, some flawless flavors, zero extra efforts. It's the cheat code every hash head's been praying for. And don't sleep on the pivot, pocket-sized perfection that finally makes real dabs portable without turning your session down. All right, next up,

3:21BubblemanThat is the Press Club. Real quick, before we dive back into the sermon, we gotta pour one out for the squad that's quietly revolutionizing the game behind the scenes, the Press Club. These legends took rosin pressing from the sketchy garage experiments that we all loved to legit art form. Supplying the cleanest, most bulletproof gear on the planet. Food grade, stainless bags that don't blow out, micron perfected rosin plates, pre-cut parchment that actually fits, and those press bags that turn your bubble hash into gold without a single hair of contaminant sneaking through.

3:53BubblemanEvery single Sunday, I would say half the hash we're blessing up here comes through the Press Club filters. They're not chasing clout. They're arming the real pressers, the ones who care about purity over pounds. If your rosinate looking like wet glass and pulling like a freight train, you're probably still using hardware from 2018. Do better. Level up with the Press Club. Because clean inputs equal holy outputs.

4:15BubblemanOfficial rosin armor of Hash Church. Much love, y'all. Much love. You can check them out at thepressclub.co. Use the code hashchurch for a 10% discount. And we hope you do that because obviously we want you guys to support our sponsors. Now, I'm just going to make sure real quick here that everything's good and that you guys can hear me. Yep, perfect. So we will go last but not least with bubble bags.

4:44BubblemanWith the bubble bags. You know, before we keep the circle going, I just want to say a quiet thank you to the people, myself, Rachel, the team, who've had our backs longer than almost anyone. Bubble bags. Two and a half decades in and we're still the same humble, no-nonsense crew that handed you the original eight-bag system and basically taught the world how to make clean, full-melt bubble.

5:05BubblemanNothing flashy, just medical grade screens, bomb-proof stitching, and the kind of reliability that lets you focus on the plant instead of worrying about your gear. Every Sunday when we start staring at those glistening piles of pure trichome heads, we know exactly who made it possible. Bubble bags never chase the hype. We just stay true to purity and let the hash speak for itself. We're honored to rock with the originals.

5:26BubblemanThank you for everything, bubble bags. Let's keep it clean. Let's keep it real. Let's start hash church, shall we? Let's start Hash Church. Let's get these guys in here. We've shouted out the sponsors and apologies to both Matthew and Caleb who were waiting in the room for a few minutes. Matthew was going home. He was at least one minute early. So apologies to not let you know that I usually shout out the sponsors in the beginning, but...

5:55BubblemanNice to see you both, man. Nice to see you, Matthew. I've only met Matthew once, but I've been following on Instagram for quite a while. We had a nice little meal here in Vancouver when Grandmaster LEDs brought him up here for some discussions. And it's good to see you, bro. How you been?

6:12SpeakerI've been doing all right lately. Happy to be here.

6:15BubblemanAwesome. Well, we're happy to have you, dude. We got Cha Cha as well that we sent the link to. As you had mentioned, you guys often have some good dialogues. And I'm not sure if you've met Caleb Chen before, but Caleb's in the house as well. Caleb's been doing work there at the university in Humboldt and doing a whole bunch of really cool projects. And he's just kind of become a nice part of the Hash Church family here.

6:41SpeakerWe need a lot more of that research. Oh, sorry. I should have let you say hi. I appreciate it. Hey, Caleb.

6:47BubblemanYeah, so where are you tuning in from today, Matthew? San Diego, California. San Diego, California. So I suspect, yeah, that's a beautiful spot. I've never been to California, but I did just get a waiver for the first time in 30 years. So I will be coming down to San Diego, California in the near future. I've got a good friend who lives there who does holography. So a whole variety of... Yeah, he does the holography on...

7:16BubblemanI mean... If you know about holography, it really is just a stamp that creates diffraction and splits light. And so he's able to put like really cool multicolored patterns onto THCA. And you look at it and you're like, what the hell is that? Like there's ink on there. And it's like, no, no, no, there's nothing on there. This is just the diffraction of light. And it makes it, he could put your face on there.

7:40BubblemanHe could put your name, he could put, so he's in San Diego. So I'll make sure that the day that I go out there to visit him, We get you out for dinner and you can trip out on some of this THCA holography.

7:53SpeakerI'd actually really like that. Not the least being the fact that one of the things I've been working in my personal time on is a little video game, a little 8-bit video game, actually. And I'm looking, I'm probably going to be looking for an artist to do a little holography on the label because the I'm sorry to say it. The one that I've been working with, I've been very patient with, but they have been having some issues.

8:20SpeakerSo great, great artists, but I think I need. To work with somebody else potentially.

8:26BubblemanYeah, it gets to the point with holography where it's not so much about the art, it's about the holography. And so it's one thing if you can create the art, it's another if you can create the holography. And it is pretty complex. I'm lucky, my partner who's in San Diego, his family's been in holography for 40 years. They're kind of at the top of the game. They're the full melt 73 micron holographers out in the world.

8:54BubblemanHayes, Holographers, Caleb, just to let you know that it's that level. Anyway, I'm stoked for today's episode. We got a few more folks coming in. Why don't we, you know, maybe start with a little introduction, Matthew, from yourself and kind of how you found yourself interested. Well, you know, just give a little introduction because maybe the audience doesn't know exactly, you know, about you, what your interests and your focuses are.

9:19BubblemanBut I'd love to hear a little introduction from you. That'd be amazing.

9:24SpeakerYeah, sure. So for those who don't know, I'm the founder of Sentinel Consulting. And I've been doing IPM support for about 16 years or so now. At this point, a lot, maybe most of my experience to by some extent has been in cannabis. But I've also worked in Gerbera and tea. I spent two years in the People's Republic of China.

9:49SpeakerI have worked with people internationally in Australia and Brazil and parts of Europe and other parts of South America and Mexico. So I have a lot of experience in different crops and different types of echelons of scale and that kind of a thing. And I do a lot of, I mean, I help people with pest problems, with IPM issues, both the creation of strategic plans, but also helping with emergency issues and things like this.

10:17SpeakerHelp people with training, personnel with IPM and crop scouting and that kind of stuff too. So that's generally where I do most of my normal work. And then recently, some of the things that I've been doing is I recently was at the, well, recently, the 2024, I was in Fluence. I spoke at the Fluence PhotoX, which was very fun and interesting experience. And I've also produced a lot of content For longer than that, on my YouTube channel, Xanthanol, which is the one I'm posting in the chat with.

10:53SpeakerSo if you want to, I see people are already adding me. If you have questions or something, maybe we can do a little bit of that too at some point here. I'm jumping all over the place a little bit, but I do want to say that I also got interviewed recently by Verge Aperto, which is a documentary from Brazil that's talking about Like the sort of the international climate of cannabis cultivation, the culture.

11:22SpeakerAnd just recently got picked up by Netflix and HBO. So that's sick.

11:30BubblemanThat's super cool, dude. Sorry, I'm just sending the link out to a few other folks here. You know, I guess one of the things when you're an IPM specialist, a bug guy, you got to know that bugs are all over the world. There's really literally nowhere that you can't find bugs. So it makes sense that you're on this international scale, sort of helping people all over the place.

11:51BubblemanI guess when it does come to IPM, though, it's pretty specific per crop, isn't it? You're dealing with different bugs, different... Just different variables, different terroirs, different everything.

12:03SpeakerYeah, absolutely. And I often advocate for the idea that like it can be super nuanced, you know, different counties and different provinces or states or however your country is organized, you know, can have super major effects and also just your own resources and things like that. It's easy to say like, oh, well, obviously you should use this product that I have easy access to. But I've learned, especially having sort of international outreach, it causes me to be very nuanced in how I talk about those sorts of things, because not everything is accessible everywhere.

12:41SpeakerAnd it would almost be insulting, I think, to not give people the respect of that kind of contextualization.

12:51BubblemanWell, it's definitely a very important aspect of growing whatever you're growing. You know, when the cannabis companies in Canada started doing their raises and you started seeing all these decks hit the tables and you'd look at these decks and one of the things that not a single one of them would have in their deck was crop loss like of any level they just didn't cover crop loss and i was like geez like that seems like a kind of like a pretty important one we might want to have in there and obviously ipm fits right into that whole sort of thing and and obviously a ton of these companies that raised all this money you know quite a few of them went bankrupt from that very thing from crop loss whether it was you know a lot of you know the the standard mistake which is like let's take Cannabis plants from Afghanistan region where it's super dry and arid and throw them into sort of a tropical greenhouse setting and see what happens with that.

13:47BubblemanI'm guessing you've seen quite a few of these sort of situations where you've kind of gotten in there and just been like, okay, there's a lot to deal with here. How do you go about creating these plans for groups when you walk in and you're just like, Thank you so much for joining us.

14:33SpeakerCondescending maybe to say it this way, but for a lot of people, I think it is sort of ego and or like a or at least a very least idea like I don't want to focus on that because I'm, you know, doing other things or I want to focus on the growing or if I grow the plants really well, I won't have any problems, you know, this kind of a thing.

14:51SpeakerAnd maybe that has served them. For a long time. But, you know, eventually you do get hit in the face. I think something happens that was not under your control. You know, extrinsic factors happen. Oh, suddenly you have a, here's a big one. Oh, you have to make construction changes because the regulations change. Oh, why didn't you think about that? Oh, well now, but of course I'm being facetious here.

15:16SpeakerLike you wouldn't expect that you had the regulations you're, you're building for the regulations, but then those change or you can't use certain products. You can't use certain bio controls even. So those big changes that you relied on, now you have no options or you have this big hole in your wall and you weren't planning for that. So yeah, I think being humble about that or having sort of a All of that stuff.

15:39SpeakerSo, you know, I think the contingency plan is really important. Yeah, many other things.

15:43BubblemanYeah, no, I definitely think so. I also think a big part of a lot of people's surprise is scale when they scale, right? They're like, I've been growing for 25 years in my tent here or, you know, maybe maybe you got up to even 20 or 30 or 40 lights. It's not quite the same as like a, you know, multi hundred thousand square foot greenhouse or a field or, you know, I just feel like scale is a real, you know, it can be a real bitch sometimes.

16:12BubblemanFrom the hash world, I see it all the time. It's very much what you just said. They just don't want to deal with it. And it started when we released the five gallon set of bags. Everyone was like, this is great. You know, Subcool started doing the hand washing and it was all about the hand washing. And then we came out with the 20 gallon bags and people were like, oh yeah, I Thank you so much for joining us.

17:00BubblemanEtienne Fontaine, my dear, dear friend. I hope your hip is feeling better, brother.

17:07BubblemanOh, I can't hear you.

17:10SpeakerCan you, can, hey, just out of curiosity, when I'm talking, is there feedback? Let me know if there's feedback and if there's any weird... Weirdness, I'll put the headphones on.

17:21BubblemanYeah, no, you sound completely perfect as we go right now. Welcome. My mic was turned off. That's better now. I was wondering what was going on there, Etienne.

17:31SpeakerMy son hurt his hip too, so I feel for you, bro.

17:35Etienne FontanOh, dude, that was brutal. Multiple times in the hospital, but it's a pinched nerve and it has gotten better and better. It's just right now, sleep's just a little challenging. But besides that, I'm back to walking, but my hips weak. So I'm working on some rehab and walking. So thank you, everybody, for your love and support. Really appreciate it. And yeah, it's great to be here.

17:58SpeakerYou ever do those doses? You know what, for pain stuff, I find like high CBD and like lower THC. So it's like, let's say 10 milligrams of, you know, or 100 milligrams of CBD and like 5 milligrams of THC. Something like that kicks my ass.

18:18Etienne FontanI found 900 milligrams of THC and 100 milligrams of CBD is fine. Holy shit. There's this thing called tsunami caps we have here.

18:28SpeakerAnd so... That is a rum ratio. I can...

18:31Etienne FontanI'll flip it. It worked for me. You know, everybody's different, right? So, you know, I have... I titrate to about a three to one or two to one ratio THC to CBD. So that one I mostly use for sleep or just because the pain was so heavy I couldn't think or work. So... Yeah, I'm very fortunate that we have products that are higher levels than necessarily some of the regular product lines.

19:05Etienne FontanBut I regularly just do usually a 50 THC and a 20 CBD milligrams each. Daily, that's my kind of daily run that helps me with my pain and anxiety. It's just this pain was so severe. I just needed something of a higher dose. Yeah. Now I'm titrating back down. Yeah. Yeah. Regular.

19:26SpeakerSo it's actually funny with pain where it's like normally a high dose THC would like warp your mind. But because the pain is so bad, it kind of just balances it out like it. It takes away the high and is just managing the pain. There's an interesting relationship there. But anyways, I'm kind of digressing. Let's stay on.

20:00BubblemanThank you for joining us.

20:22BubblemanAnd I'm pretty sure all 60 milligrams was in the half that I ate. Because I'm on the plane and it's uncomfortable and the plane, it's like, oh yeah, it's like six in the morning, which is 3 a.m. in the morning Vancouver time. And I haven't been on this trip long enough to really switch times. And so we end up, it's early, we end up at the de-icing station for about an hour.

20:46BubblemanAnd that hour just happened to be the exact hour of intense anxiety I was having from that gummy. But it was cool, man, as a hardcore cannabis user. I don't know. There's some enjoyable thing talking yourself off the ledge. Yes. You know?

21:04SpeakerYes. It's like the funniest thing. I was going to bring that up. For some reason, I don't know what it is, but we thrive on being over the ledge so high and we have to go track the public. On the brink.

21:16BubblemanOn the brink, I call it, right? You're on the chasm of falling into the nothingness.

21:21SpeakerYou're like, why am I going to come across as like, I don't know. Yeah, I think if you go like into a Carl Jung, deep psychological perspective, there's like an element of the self that has to emerge as authentic. And you have to be able to present that to people. And we are interested in finding that tangent.

21:45BubblemanIt's definitely one way to experience ego death, which I believe is what you need to do to kind of, you know, find that authentic. The ego seems to dilute authenticity. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's because we're scared and we think we're not going to fit in. Whatever it is, we all have our issues with it and we all tend to do it. I want to shout out my buddy Neil, who totally filled my empty jar with Haze Live Hash Rosin.

22:14BubblemanOh, wow. Oh.

22:16SpeakerOh.

22:20BubblemanI forgot. I forgot he did. I came home to throw my jars away. And I have this incredible tool. And I've talked about this tool before. And probably I'm not going to be able to find it now, most likely. But if I do find it, it's even worse because I don't know the company that makes this. But anyone that can find the company that makes this tool, it's a metal dabber with a silicone squeegee at the end.

22:43BubblemanWell, let me figure this out here. There we go. That little guy right there. This thing cleans out Myron jars like nobody's business. Like you think it's empty, you give it a little squeegee shot and you've got like a beautiful dab of the last little bit. So I pulled this out yesterday thinking my blueberry smash was all gone and I cracked it open and saw it filled.

23:04BubblemanI'm telling you, it's so rank and so hazy. You got to come up, Caleb. You got to come hit this right away. You got to come down and let me hit this.

23:14SpeakerAbsolutely. By the way, is the squeegee like really rigid?

23:19BubblemanIt's not super rigid, to be honest. You can bend it.

23:23SpeakerThat looks like a lot of rigid. You're putting a lot of pressure on it, though. Yeah, the metal goes to about here.

23:29Etienne FontanYou can, dude, I'm telling you, it's unbelievable.

23:32BubblemanAnd when I don't have it and I want to clean, you know, because these little jars, they're always such high quality resin.

23:37SpeakerThere's always a fat dab left in each one. Yeah, you'd be surprised what you're wasting. I completely agree with that premise.

23:47BubblemanThat's it. So yeah, Russ, Matthew thought it was a good idea. He said you guys have great dialogues. I thought it would be a really great show to get into the whole IPM discussion. I don't know if you guys have a place you want to start or if you just want me to start hammering off little questions. Matthew had a great idea. I thought after you guys spoke about this for a while, we could get some questions from the chat as our chat is...

24:12BubblemanI mean, this is a special group of people, man. They show up every Sunday. They sit for three to four hours and listen to us talk. They engage. They're back and forth with us. And I just, fuck, I really appreciate them. So it would be a great idea to involve them and get some of their questions answered here down the line. But yeah, if you guys have any idea where you kind of want to start with this, we can do that.

24:36BubblemanOr I can start, you know, hammering out some questions.

24:41SpeakerYeah, I don't have anything on in particular. I figured, you know, it's a free flow thing. If Matthew wants to talk about something, I'm sure the conversation will just steer itself. Yeah, I also wanted to give sort of a credence to the, you know, sort of, yeah, free flow nature of hash trishers and how they typically are. So, but, you know, like, I mean, I want to, I'll start by saying this, you know, like, you know, by saying I work All right.

25:09SpeakerOr I do IPM. You know, there's a lot of like connotations associated with that, you know. But like, I'm not somebody who's like out here being probably goes without saying, considering the people that we have in this roster here. But yeah, I'm not out here asking people to use avomectin or some of these other nasty, noxious compounds. But I am. One thing that I think is sort of unique to me is that I emphasize quite a lot on how a lot of pests are able to resist even these noxious compounds like budworms.

25:42SpeakerThere are populations that have been shown to resist things like DDT, if you can believe it. And they hybridize with other Closely related species or other subpopulations like in China, for example, there's massive, massive chemical use of these compounds. It causes a selection pressure, many of them to occur. And then they come around here. And even if you're doing everything right and you're growing your plants with a sort of a certain ecological resilience or you're trying to be cognizant of, you know, using different multiple different approaches so that you don't have resistance popping up.

26:23SpeakerIt didn't, you know, I'm not saying it doesn't matter, but then these populations then come in and you have to account for that, especially if you're growing in a way that allows the budworms to like lay their eggs on your plants, like in a outdoor field, or even in some cases, greenhouses, if they have an opening or ingress point of some kind. So I think focusing on those aspects of like ecology and genetics, we focus a lot on the plant, but I'm here to say that The bugs, they have their own microbiome.

26:55SpeakerThey have their own genes and it allows them to have some pretty powerful capabilities. And they've been doing this for like 300 million years or so. Some populations are, you know, of course, a lot more honed and a lot more recent, but still, you know, like spider mites, small genome, they were the world record holder for the smallest genome for any animal. So like, I want to say like 90 megabase pairs.

27:22SpeakerHuh. And russet mites are smaller. Russet mites have like 30, 32, like Aculops genus. Aculops lycopersicae, the tomato russet mite, was clocked at like 32. And despite having so little genes, compared to cannabis that's got like 900 megabase pairs, and we have 3.1 gigabase pairs, more or less. So despite all of that, they've got like 1,000 plus host species, two spots spider mite, the one that we deal with.

27:54SpeakerAnd it can quickly develop adaptations to different plants and their toxins and their defense signaling. And they can even manipulate the defense signaling in many plants, cause them to have the wrong reaction, which they can then exploit. So when you know all of this stuff, it causes you to have, I think, you know, it makes you, you know, sort of challenge like a lot, like And analyze like claims that people make about products or services or processes.

28:24SpeakerIt's like, did you account for these things? Or are you as a grower or a breeder accounting for these things when you're trying to look for resistance in plants? You know, are you challenging them? Are you controlling for other confounding variables or your own personal bias? Are you doing the respect? Are you at least giving people the respect of that before you? Say that your plants are really resistant and you should pay a premium for those seeds or whatever other cuts.

28:53SpeakerThat's kind of the philosophy that I bring a lot of the time. So maybe that could be a jumping off point.

29:02BubblemanAbsolutely. Absolutely. Dr. Mark just sent a cool article that we might want to discuss in a little bit. I'll let him bring that up when he gets here. I'm just doing a million things over here. How did you get into bugs? Were you super interested in bugs when you were younger? You don't seem like you're super old even right now. So I'm like, what drove you into this sort of pathway of this rabbit hole of insects?

29:34SpeakerWhen I was younger, I was one of those people who thought books were kind of cool. I think it's because they just have an alien biology to like mammals, right? So that was honestly, I do think that was like the initial hook, like, oh, like these creatures, they have this hard body. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

30:19SpeakerI will say that I got a little bit tired of like tropes because of course, creepy bugs, horror, you know, those are pretty much the only like emotional engagements people have with the insect kind, I suppose, is like in horror flicks or horror media or like as like a threat, like a hazard, right? That could give you a disease or something like this. But, you know, I think that it's a lot more fascinating than that, of course, and The biology is so complicated.

30:50SpeakerYou can find a niche in everything and anything. So for me, I just, I just think there's like a cool respect for what they're able to do and how long they've been doing it. And I love to even go all the way down 30,000 foot viewpoint of like some of these pests, like I said earlier, like how did they evolve and what did their genes do? I think that's pretty cool.

31:12BubblemanI got into insects through macro photography. This is a little salacidae, a jumping spider that I photographed on my, he was sitting on a dandelion. And if you go up close to his eyes, you can see the dandelion leaves reflecting in his two big eyes. And also you can see pollen all over him because, you know, like this is actually resin, a resin gland right here on his forehead.

31:42BubblemanThat's actually like a little trichome cluster of hash that landed on his head because of course he's a spider hanging out in my environment. And so it was a friend a long time ago who told me if you want to practice macro photography, And you don't want to fall into this trap of being like on rail systems where the camera's just a robot and you're standing at the back of the room taking a picture with a clicker, you know, doing stacks and manipulating your depth of field.

32:10BubblemanI did none of that because this friend of mine said, go and look for bugs. They almost never sit still. Thank you for watching.

32:34BubblemanSo I got to learn a lot about bugs and maybe remove myself from that alien aspect and the negative aspect of bugs because I just found them so fascinating.

32:57BubblemanLike perfect. I just couldn't believe how perfect they were as I got into their world. And as I was able to open, you know, the depth of field when it's so, so tiny, it's, it's so hard to manipulate to a point where you can see with clarity what it is you're photographing. But photographing insects was what allowed me to gain some excellence in photographing of glandular trichomes and cannabis really.

33:26BubblemanAs a whole, so I also, yeah.

33:29SpeakerI love jumping spiders. They're like my favorites.

33:32BubblemanDude, I think they might be my spirit animal.

33:34SpeakerYeah, yeah, they're like buddies. They're like somehow, I don't know. They're like the buddies.

33:39BubblemanDude, everyone feels that way too, I'm telling you. People that don't even like spiders, it's kind of like people that are allergic to cats, but they like Maine Coons. Right. They're like, do you know what I mean? Like the jumping spider is the Maine Coon of spiders.

33:53SpeakerRight, that's what it is. That's awesome, man. That's cool. You actually did a macro shot like that because my great father-in-law is getting older and he gave me a family his camera. It's a macro. So it's got a macro lens. And it's still rad, but the focal point, the stacking thing, I haven't figured out yet. So that was a pretty good, for having a field depth change of that spider, it came out really clear.

34:20BubblemanDude, trust me, it's super challenging to manipulate your depth of field and put it where you need it to get clarity. I would be remiss if I didn't show the other photo. I showed the flower and I showed the spider, but there's one other photo that I photographed And I'll never forget my son, Tosh. He was very excited about me doing photography. He was about four or five years old.

34:44BubblemanAnd he was like, dad, what if we photographed some ice? And he just had this loving energy of like being so excited to be doing this with me. And he went outside and he grabbed a clump of snowy ice and he brought it in his little tiny hands and it was melting. And he's like, dad, can you photograph this? And I was kind of like, you know what?

35:04BubblemanI'll photograph that, dude. I mean, in the moment, I was kind of like, oh, geez, that's going to melt super fast. Okay, I'll go get my camera. I'll set it all up. This is the photo that I took of the ice that my son brought me. If you notice up close, and I'm going to go closer for you, and I'm not a religious person, but I swear to God, is that not Mary, the mother holding baby Jesus inside that ice box?

35:28BubblemanLike, am I making that up?

35:29SpeakerSure, sure, sure looks, you know, sure looks like it. I definitely see what you're talking about.

35:33BubblemanThe little hand, the two heads.

35:35Etienne FontanIt's Aurora shot test, buddy. You can see whatever you want to see in it. It's true, it's true.

35:41BubblemanI'll tell you, I asked about a hundred people what they saw in that photo, and every single time they said Mother Mary. Maybe I was asking religious people. Yeah, it sounds like you're asking Christians.

35:51SpeakerYeah, I don't know.

35:52BubblemanWe don't have too many of those left in Canada.

35:55SpeakerWell, you just need someone familiar with that phenomenon, I would say, which would increase that. That's a really good photo, though. That's a really good photo. That goes on. That's the that goes on. That's like a calendar photo, bro. Oh, that's a postcard for sure. And I love the hexagonal crystal. Dude, exactly.

36:18BubblemanThe three dimensional frame of what it's the picture is sitting in was just like such a cool shot. And it was funny because Christmas card when he brought it to me, you know, if anyone that's a parent, you have these moments where your kids are so sweet and innocent. They want to do something and you're kind of like, I don't want to do that. Like, I don't want to do that.

36:40BubblemanBut you as a parent, you just have to say, I do want to do that and give them that opportunity because I'm going to get this. You just want to give your kids that opportunity. They want your time, not your dime. You know, that's that's what kids want.

36:54SpeakerYep, it's true. Hey, someone in the comments brought up praying mantis. And I kind of had a question for Matthew about what he thinks about using, is it manti plural? What's the plural of mantis? Is it just mantis? There is a, there is a, well, If you talk to an entomologist, they might say that there's a bit of a nuance, but I think Mantis is acceptable. Okay, Mantis.

37:27SpeakerSo, you know, what do you think? I have never actually bought, you know, eggs. I've never used them. I've seen, you know, they come in the garden every now and then, but... What do you think about their role as like a predator that actually controls things versus just having some, you know, because if they're a generalist predator, I would always think like whenever I would see them, they would sometimes have the good guys and sometimes the bad guys, but it wasn't like they were just going after the bad guys.

37:59SpeakerSo it's kind of like, what do you think about the balance it provides in a garden? I think in a lot of cases, most pests are too small for mantises to really have like an effect on, especially as like large adults. So in general, I don't think you would see like spider mites, no. You know, maybe big caterpillars as they're roaming, maybe caterpillars that are on the exterior.

38:27SpeakerAlthough in my experience and the research I've also read and the people I've talked to, I don't think that they represent as much of a problem At least in cannabis, for example. In other crops, maybe this is more true or in gardens where maybe you got like big beetles, like cock chafers that eat the roses and the petals and that kind of stuff maybe. But like, I don't think that they're, and this is a common, you know, trope you see in like garden centers and other places, people like selling the mantises.

38:57SpeakerBut I think they're a beautiful specimen. The only problem is that also a lot of those mantises are like a Chinese mantis. Or other mantises that are invasive. And so they displace the mantises here sometimes. And that's not great. Or they carry diseases and parasites. So it's kind of a similar analogy to the commercial ladybugs versus similar sort of. Okay. That's very good. There are also the lady beetles that people harvest that are from here, of course.

39:34SpeakerBut I also For similar reasons, I also think that there's a lot of reasons to not use them, I suppose, or better options that might be more optimal, I think. Yeah, I think the larvae are better. Like the one year in 2021-ish, we had this crazy, I intercropped carrots along some autoflowers, like a 50-foot bed. Just the whole row was like a border hedgerow of carrots. And I'd never seen so many ladybugs.

40:05SpeakerAnd it was when we were having like a bad aphid year. And the ladybugs were breeding on the carrot top, the actual greens. And then they would migrate over a row to the cannabis and lay the eggs all over the cannabis. And I'd never seen so many lady beetle larvae. Before my life, and those were like, I think they were more effective at controlling aphids than even the lacewing larvae.

40:37SpeakerI was blown away by the lady beetle larvae. The larvae got to eat. And you're right, the beetles, they've already did their metamorphosis. They're looking for, well, part of the problem is they're, depending on the species, a lot of times, this particular instance is kind of species agnostic. This is true for a lot of lady beetles. You store them cold. And they do maybe have a winter diapause in nature.

41:00SpeakerBut then they have this behavioral response that when it warms up, they want to fly further away because there's probably not food where they're at, where they're hibernated. So when people release them, they get stuck in the fans, get chopped up, they get into all these sorts of things you don't want. If they're in your house, you know, that's not a fun experience. And if you have Harmonia axiridus, the harlequin lady beetle, that thing bites.

41:23SpeakerAnd the smelly and excretes like a yellow staining smelly substance from his joints.

41:31SpeakerWho wants that? You know, so nobody, no, nobody wants that. I don't think so. Yeah. Like the larvae are voracious. They eat like, you know, dozens or hundreds of aphids, you know, much better deal. And they don't fly around. I, as far as I don't know, I haven't checked in a few years, but it's for a long time, there wasn't a commercially available lady beetle larvae. I don't know.

41:56SpeakerI think that's still true because they're just so well, they're they're so soft. So I think I don't think that there's I don't think it's easy to store them to whereas the adults have like a diapause behavior. Yeah. The lacewing larvae are able to be sold. They have a harder exoskeleton. Is that what you're is that? Oh yeah, I think it's more so to do with rearing procedures, but you know, maybe there is a product out there that I'm unaware of for lady beetles.

42:28SpeakerYeah, I don't know. Lacewings are more ancient. Lacewing larvae have been around a long time, and you can tell because lacewings, their wings are very primitive. They're flat, they're long, they're gossamer, and they've got big veins in them, whereas All of these more sophisticated like, you know, versions of the wing are, they can fold or there's two of them instead of just having one pair or whatever.

42:57SpeakerSo, yeah, it's kind of, yeah. I will say this from the beginning of Marcus's sort of diatribe on insects. I think that insects in the study, the entomology is, it's like, Kind of the root of making sure society functions, because I always iterate through steps. And first, there's food. If we don't have food, we all die. And so how do we get the food? We have to grow it.

43:29SpeakerAnd how do we grow it safely? Make sure it's not being eaten. It's the root of all of the baseline functions that allow civilization to exist. Thank you for joining us.

44:00BubblemanOur food hasn't left the food chain. Our food can be consumed and we can perish. That's the reality of it. That used to be the reality of moving into a colder environment. Winters were a serious thing back in the day. If you didn't grow enough crops to get you through your winter, people would perish. And it's still happening in the world. And bugs are definitely a big part of that on both sides, apparently.

44:28SpeakerYeah, that's true. I think it's the, it's, it's, it's maybe not the first, but it's one of the biggest conflicts of the human species. And that's kind of actually the theme of that video game I was talking about earlier a little bit, but I don't want to go into too much. It's still in development. So, but it's a little 8-bit game. I will be releasing cartridges for people who have Game Boys because I'm an artist.

44:51SpeakerAnd that was kind of the point for me is could I make like a little 8-bit Not super extensive thing, but kind of like a little 8-bit game using the same hardware they grew up on, you know, that also was sort of inspiring, you know, being able to live in sort of a virtual world where you find these amazing creatures that evolve and change, right? So, and also for those who played Pokemon, which is what I'm referencing here, people can't see on the screen, is like, you know, if people play the first generation, And I did as a kid, like a big theme is like genetics.

45:29SpeakerLike it was released in the mid nineties, you know, cloning was becoming a thing and all there's a Mewtwo, clone of Mew, right? Like, so these concepts, Parasect, by the way, for those who played Pokemon, Paras and Parasect are cicada inspired by cicada that Get infected by fungi, which I think a lot of people now are very familiar with from like the viral videos and things about cicadas getting eaten alive by fungi.

45:57SpeakerAnd if you haven't heard of that, you should check it out. But cordyceps, yeah, cordyceps fungi. They also, you know, they take over the mind. Some of them, in the case of cicada, produce psychotropic compounds that basically make them trip out, the males. And they're looking around, trying to look for females to mount or do whatever. All right, so we're going to talk a little bit about the research that's been going on around the world.

46:23SpeakerSo, you know, we're going to talk a little bit about the research that's been going on around the world. So, you know, the research that's been going on around the world.

46:43SpeakerYou know, that was a major inspirational point, at least for a movement into biology, if not bugs.

46:49BubblemanI remember the first time I found a cordyceps insect that was like zombied out right behind my house. I was just climbing through the forest. I wasn't looking for it at all. I'm just looking for whatever. And I found these little beetles with these mushrooms coming right out of their heads. And I was like, Holy shit. Like that is cordyceps right in my own backyard. The zombie mushroom.

47:12BubblemanIt really is. It's crazy to see videos of like the bug, just like basically like just all it is is it's exoskeleton. There's nothing left on the inside. It's just been consumed or whatever. And it's just moving. Like, you know, and always trying to go up, right? It's like it wants it to go up for a greater disbursement of spores. Like what a crazy fucking intelligence that somehow just knows how to tap into the brain of these insects or whatever it's tapping into and making it work.

47:44BubblemanLike just taking over the mechanical aspect of that insect is it's pretty mind blowing.

47:52SpeakerThe two bug facts I want to hit you with, since you mentioned that one, Is that some research has shown that jumping spiders, since you were so enamored with them earlier, sleep or enter REM sleep. They dream, potentially. Isn't there, isn't there, my daughter was watching some show, isn't there some zombie show where like they get Stranger Things or whatever? No, it's not Stranger Things. It's a different one.

48:17BubblemanThis is, yeah, yeah, there's, there is a show. It's based on a video game. It's exactly, it's really well written too because it's all about how this kind of, it's based on cordyceps and they talk, this is us or that was us or something. The Last of Us. The Last of Us. The Last of Us. The Last of Us. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, yeah. The Last of Us, Like things have to get colder or something.

48:43BubblemanThe temperature of the human body is too warm for the fungi to attach. It's like, yeah, it's a neat science fiction, right?

48:49SpeakerIt's true that a lot of funky can't infect us because our body temperature is too high. That is true.

48:55BubblemanIt's kind of a cool story where the body temperature goes down just the slightest amount. And now people are, you know, completely overrun by this, this fungi.

49:03SpeakerKind of a cool concept. There is some really interesting data about Candida, I think, in certain fungi that are in our bodies that have hyphae that can like bore through the stomach lining. And there's some emerging data that's showing that they're like influencing our brain, that they're like somehow able to like Do some level of override of the baseline human physiology and influence us to consume things like sugar.

49:33SpeakerWe get sugar cravings. It's not necessarily us. It's the thing inside of us. So it's kind of tricky and important to recognize that you have to be careful with what you think you are doing or you think is good. It's not always the case. No, it's what exactly is you?

49:54BubblemanExactly.

49:54SpeakerYeah, exactly. That's the question.

49:57BubblemanThat gets the deep philosophical question, but it speaks to toxoplasmosis, right? Like it's like the cat. Yeah. And you we all know that there's like cat people, right? They like love and I love cats myself. I have cats. It's like it's just a wild thought that this parasite can get into your brain and be like and just make you love cats even more.

50:20SpeakerThere's even viruses in white flies that do this. They get into the white fly and then they cut off. Basically, they infect certain neural genes or sorry, neural cells. And they kind of lobotomize the white fly such that it doesn't have a, normally has a preference for green plants. Or I'm sorry, it might, I might be getting it reversed here because different insects have different, some of them like to go for yellow, some of them like to go for green for different reasons.

50:49SpeakerBut if I remember correctly, It actually normally goes after yellow plants. And so it overrides that basically it takes out those cells and those cells are crucial for preference, visual preference. And so it goes for green because, and this is good for the virus because it's evolved over time. Thank you for joining us.

51:31SpeakerIntelligence and viruses are fascinating because it's just like, so to me, I swear, I don't know, maybe I've done all the psychedelics I can, but there is like this weird, I feel like viruses are like a biological coding system. Like we're floating in a sea of viruses that are just codes and it's a coding mechanism to maintain confidence.

51:57BubblemanSome type of weird balance. I'm wondering why we don't put just the hospital masks on our plants so we can keep the HLVD away. Doesn't the mask stop? I'm making it into a meme right now.

52:10Etienne FontanPlease do because that's a meme, bro.

52:23BubblemanI'm sure it's, I think I've already seen it, to be honest. I wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't be surprised. You know, I can't even remember the first time I kind of got turned on to the concept of predator bugs. I'm guessing it came from ag to cannabis as it was, it must have existed for a long time before that. But what, do you know a little bit of the history of using bugs as predators, Matthew?

52:46BubblemanIs there a little bit of a kind of history to that, that we could kind of get the cliff notes on?

52:51SpeakerYeah, definitely. So. Biocontrols, as we know them, have like people have been trying to use like insects and mites and even microbes like Bacillus thuringiensis, I think has been known and been used for like over 100 years. I think it might be one of the first ever used as like a commercial product. And I think it might even be as much as like maybe late 1800s, early 1900s, believe it or not.

53:20SpeakerAt least the research goes back that long. Actual success might have taken a little bit longer. I know that one of the first biocontrols is like a arthropod, like an insect or a mite that was used is, I want to say, I used to know it, but I think it was a, it might have been mealybug destroyer, or it might have been something like that used against the, I'm forgetting the exact name, but there's like a cottony cushion scale All of these are very common insects that you've probably seen if you grow like citrus and things like that.

53:51SpeakerThey're very common here in California. And I think copper people, a lot of people know copper biologicals. It's like the granddaddy of biocontrols and making it commercialized and that sort of a thing. I am, you know, with a little bit about me, I usually don't like to, you know, and I don't have like favorites or people ask me all the time, like what's your favorite biocontrol, you know, company or whatever.

54:17SpeakerWe have professional associations and that kind of stuff. And I don't really, I don't really have that with any of these groups. And I don't, I actually don't think that there's like a huge difference between some of the big names out there for those who ask that question, because it happens a lot. But I will say that it's a true statement that copper is one of the biggest ones right now.

54:38SpeakerAnd it got that way because it was one of the first to really try to standardize this process. And so I think they deserve credit for that. And maybe the last 50 years, IPM, by the way, ancient concepts, some of these ideas, it's been morphing and morphing over time. But the IPM of today is basically a factor of like maybe 50 years or maybe, you know, for the for like the modern IPM, like looking at ecology, looking at the genes, looking at all these these things that we can sort of concentrate in pyramid.

55:12SpeakerTo have the most advantages on our end, most disadvantages on the many pests that we deal with.

55:21BubblemanExcellent. I had a couple of good questions, but my wife's texting me and now I completely lost them, but maybe they'll come back to me. I guess it was about, oh, it was a good one.

55:34BubblemanYeah, it'll have to come back. That sucks. Welcome, Dr. Mark. Laughing at me? I haven't even had a puff yet.

55:42Etienne FontanBut I did eat too much gummy last night again. Oh, that's your problem.

55:47BubblemanSays the guy who just ate 900 milligrams of fucking THC.

55:53SpeakerI think I'd reach the spirit realm if I had 900 milligrams. I would melt.

56:05SpeakerThere you go. In the spirit.

56:06BubblemanRight there. This will definitely put you in the spirit.

56:09Etienne Fontan1,000 milligrams of THC, not 900, dude. This is the upgraded version, which I'm starting on today. Jesus.

56:18BubblemanHoly fuck, dude. Oh.

56:23BubblemanThank you so much for joining us today.

56:46BubblemanAnd we know that the biome of the soil can help with secondary metabolites in the plant. You know, we're getting these bugs to bring them in to do a specific job, much like when we bring in a cannabis plant and we, you know, breed it without the strongest breeding practices only for flavor. Sometimes all of these other things happen beside it that maybe, you know, maybe it's now attracting bugs or it's attracting mildew or it has some other weaknesses because all we focused on was this one thing.

57:15BubblemanI wonder if the biome of the bug has an interaction and has the ability to help the plant produce these secondary metabolites that we're so excited about. And maybe this is a Matthew, Russ, Dr. Mark question, but yeah, that was what I was thinking. The answer is yes.

57:32SpeakerThe answer is unequivocally yes. To what degree will depend on the species, but like there's cool research that shows that you've got like a, You know, so the resistance factors, a lot of my, a lot of bug herbivorous insect microbiomes, especially are influenced by what they feed on by the host plants. And so we've seen that some, some bugs are going to be benefited by those microbes.

58:03SpeakerSo the microbe is like sort of a double agent. Maybe it could even help the plant and then it's sucked up into the gut of the insect and helps the insect too, you know, potentially. So a lot of microbes have We have a very versatile lifestyle. Maybe they have multiple lifestyles that they can switch to or under certain conditions allows them to do this. And then also, and if you're interested, I actually just did a presentation on some of these factors.

58:29SpeakerI have the slides and it might be fun to go over some of the specific research. So yeah, but what I wanted to say is that like a lot of this is true in other crops too, but in cannabis in particular, A lot of endophytic bacteria and fungi, probably no surprise to some people, is heavily influenced by the soil and substrate, right? So it's not for all of them though, but for a lot of them, there's like the bulk soil, then there's the microbes in the rhizosphere, and then some of those maybe interact on the surface, and then some of those even enter into the plant.

59:08SpeakerAnd then a lot of those then maybe even move up into, usually through the xylem vessels, Thank you so much for joining us.

59:40SpeakerHas not figured out how to fix nitrogen because this symbiotic relationship with the microbes and isn't it true, Matt, that actually a lot of insects actually rely on microbial digestion in their gut because a way to attack the insect is to basically attack the microbes that live in their gut so they can't digest nitrogen. Cellulose, you know, and yeah, there's these things that actually recruit Bugs called nod factors that are actually released by the plant that actually encourage microbial and fungal population in the soil in and around the roots.

1:00:30SpeakerSo there's kind of like this beneficial thing that's happening down there. And yeah, they both need each other really, to be honest. There's like a three-way handshake kind of going on. So there's a huge genotype microbiome matchup. Some of the research, and I think we're going to get into it. It sounds like people are very curious about this or very interested in this topic. But like in this one research report I was reading about that was published very recently, the different lines that they had, so they had like very line bred lines.

1:01:02SpeakerThey had domesticated, like less domesticated lines and then feral lines and land race lines. And basically as the domestication went up, They found that on the whole, bacterial diversity went down, actually. And this is no surprise compared to other crops too. A lot of breeding, ancient breeding too, you know, it's not just modern breeding, screwing it all up for everyone. Humans that didn't have any concept of genes or any of this stuff, they're just trying to survive, brought plants out of other places, you know, grew them in different environments and grew them in ways Where they weren't necessarily looking at the microbiome dynamics.

1:01:43SpeakerAnd so this has had a truncating effect compared to their wild ancestors for a lot of plants. So that's actually a really cool thing too, is that like we as growers and breeders could sort of turn that on its head potentially and reinvigorate that maybe by merging the less domesticated and the more domesticated lines and looking at genes and microbes therein. But the really cool thing I wanted to say was that a lot of people are familiar with Rhizophagus regularis, which is a arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.

1:02:17SpeakerThey found that it was in all tissues, in cannabis particularly. And maybe this has been found in other crops too, I'm not familiar, but usually it's associated with the roots as a mycorrhizal fungus, but it was actually found in stem tissue and leaf tissue and flower tissue, all tissue samples. In the plants they were looking at. So that was kind of an interesting thing. And it was one of the, I think it was one of the core microbes that they found in most of the lines that they were looking at.

1:02:46SpeakerHow much of that is selection bias? I don't know. But I thought that was really interesting that even the feral populations often had this fungus interacting with it. Yes. And all connected to this, I think if you really want to go down the nerdy rabbit hole, You look up ISR and SAR. I still am trying to always develop those fields of interest, right? So it's like, For a grower that wants to stimulate the plant's metabolite system, you can sort of trick the plant into thinking it's being attacked.

1:03:27SpeakerSo like if you were to use something like frass, which is the insect, you know, exoskeletons, the frass itself triggers the, is it the, no, the SAO, it triggers- No, frass is the feces. Yeah, so frass triggers ISR. Is that right? It could be both. It could be both. It could trigger an immune system because the plant is reacting to the, well, mostly it could be other metabolites, but a lot of time it's the chitin.

1:04:00SpeakerYeah, the chitin. It's all the chitin. It's all about chitin and chitinase and that triggering the plant's immune system response. Yeah, that's the nerdy rabbit hole if you want to really... If you want to boost Terps, want to boost your Terps, Sprass is rad. There's also, there's plenty of other things too. Chris Trump had a really interesting thing about this IPMO. Have you looked into that? This IPMO thing with, yeah, debating the own endophytic or I'm sorry, entomopathogenic fungi, like literally like making it yourself.

1:04:37SpeakerIt's really wild what he was describing. It seems like a lot of green for, you know, it's like compost tea. Like, are you, are you making it? What are you making? What is in there? Exactly. And are you controlling for things? I worked with a man named Steven Sfold, which I'm probably not pronouncing correctly. It's a very Nordic last name. But he worked a lot with Buveria bastiana.

1:05:04SpeakerAnd the Cliff Notes thing about this is that when I was cutting my teeth on using Buveria, especially on whitefly, silverleaf whitefly, Which it worked amazing on and many other pests too. He told me that one of the, I was looking at creating an auto inoculation trap for this greenhouse, this Gerber grower, cut flowers, which is a trap where you attract an insect to get all dusted up with spores in this case, and then it will surely die and perhaps even mate and transfer those spores off to another adult or something like this.

1:05:42SpeakerAnd I was asking about whether or not it was possible because I knew you could grow it on agar, for example. But what he told me was that if you grow Bouveria and many of these other entomopathogenic fungi on a non, not just a non-insect substrate or not insect-based substrate, but on like a non-challenging host, like if they don't have to sharpen their teeth, So to speak on a real immune system that challenges them, then the fungus can just get by by just replicating on free food sources.

1:06:19SpeakerA lot of those genes, virulence genes that we rely on for biocontrol, they very much wither away very quickly. And so I know there's people out there who grow these or like try to grow these microbes or offer them. But there's a reason why like biocontrol companies spend like millions of dollars And lots of technicians' time and energy to make sure that the product that they're selling not only improves, but also continues to have the sharpness that they should have.

1:06:53SpeakerSo I think that's an aspect of IPMO and things like it that I think more and more people are able to actually assess this kind of a thing and know for sure. Likewise, I know somebody in Arizona growing... We're growing cannabis and they are growing Buveria or Better Hesium, which is a similar kind of fungus for those who don't know, on like grain spawn and they're not seeing virulence change.

1:07:20SpeakerSo there's certainly ways to do it correctly, but it's one of those things that I always want to bring up because I feel like some people, if you don't control for everything or you don't have a way to do that, there might be some complications. Yeah, yeah, it requires some thought. Yeah, yeah.

1:07:35Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineWe got semi in trouble from Maroon Biotech a long time ago by reclaiming that Cornell University put out a study that Bavaria bassiana was harmful to honeybees. But then they, Cornell sort of changed, like they changed it or something. And Maroon Biotech got their feathers all up in a ruffle that we were making that claim. But I was like, well, it's not really our claim. We're just sort of like re-reading about this.

1:08:05Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd what's your thought on that, Matthew? I was wondering.

1:08:08SpeakerIt was interesting. You know, I live in California. So for me, like I, the joke I was always told was like, You know, whole wings of pesticide departments are made up specifically so they can follow the rules and regulations of California. Like, does it actually work? If you put the name of the organizm on the label, better work on it, which I thought was normal, but apparently is not, which I think is crazy, by the way.

1:08:34SpeakerBut yeah, not very consumer friendly, I think. But it's interesting because I know California has restrictions for Bavaria, and I've actually met Nick Wiggins, Merone, in person a few times to attend some presentations of hers and other things. She never struck me as somebody who would be like kind of against it, but she has left Merone Bio Innovations or however it's termed. So maybe she's not directly in charge of these sorts of things.

1:09:03SpeakerI think that's been true for a while. But I know that Europe, just to answer your question better, I know that Europe has these restrictions. I know California, I'm pretty sure California has restrictions on use for like daytime or during like flowering season or to like make sure you don't kill honeybees and wild bees and other sorts of insects therein. So I support it. And I know that there's other groups that support it too.

1:09:29SpeakerAnd I thought Maroon, I know that Maroon, the person I think supports this, but I'm not sure the company, maybe they can't take the PR loss at all.

1:09:38Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineThey supported, they support Bavaria Bassiana. They didn't support the concept that it killed honeybees.

1:09:45SpeakerBut that's what I mean is I guess like the, yeah, sorry, the sort of the eco forward perspective. I think Maroon, the person, Also shares that, but maybe the business itself didn't want any kind of thing that would make it seem like it's bad for the environment. Most likely.

1:10:05BubblemanLike us.

1:10:07Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineYeah. We're humans on the list. Dude, we are the list. Yeah. But yeah, super good to hear your words today, Matthew. Always a lot of respect and love for everything that you're doing. So I appreciate it. Thank you. Good to see you, Josh. Thank you, Marcus. And as well, everyone else.

1:10:28BubblemanThanks for joining us. He was definitely in Europe.

1:10:35SpeakerOkay, the background, I see a giant, I was like, he had a giant cathedral.

1:10:40BubblemanOh, yeah.

1:10:41SpeakerDude, that's funny.

1:10:43BubblemanWell, listen, the first time Johnny from Huckleberry Farms of famed White Thorn Rose came on Hash Church, he was at La Sangrada de Familia in Barcelona. I remember being like, dude, are you in Barcelona? He's like, yeah. And he's got the whole thing in the back while he's walking around around all these people. I was like, dude, why don't you just get in a cab and come to my, My hotel, like, shit, tripped me out.

1:11:08BubblemanBut yeah, that is awesome, Josh.

1:11:10Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineThis is just a photo, but it's the photo of the tower right before the Charles Bridge in Prague. So there's a bunch of towers like this. It's not a cathedral. It's just a tower in front of a bridge. In front of a bridge that's like 1600 years old.

1:11:26BubblemanThat's the truth. Right, right. As many friends of mine like to remind me.

1:11:29SpeakerYou kind of forgot that part. What's that, Matthew? Oh, I just, I went to China for two years. So I remember I went to the Tiananmen Square and the Yu Yuan Gardens. And there's these, I remember seeing these trees that were actually held together with metal bands, bolted into the trunk. Some of them were splitting. They're like, oh, this thing is like, you know, this thing is like 10 times as old as your country.

1:11:58BubblemanThat's interesting because we have this super old tree in Stanley Park and it also has these kind of metal bands. And I would not be surprised if that technology, that concept came from Asia, from China in particular. We have a huge Chinese population in Vancouver.

1:12:14SpeakerI wonder if it's like the sword. It was developed in many other places. Put metal thing, wind it around tree. Yeah. Does good enough.

1:12:25BubblemanIt's hilarious.

1:12:25Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAs long as you don't strangle the bark, you're good to go.

1:12:28BubblemanAs long as you don't strangle the bark. So yeah, we're just chatting IPM, Josh, which, you know, from a living soil perspective, and I don't want to spray shitty things on my plants. It's got to be right up your alley.

1:12:41Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineSuper into the talk about endophytic fungi and bacteria, because it's a semi-known, but semi-unknown world, I feel like. And Each endophytic fungi and bacteria has its own medicinal values and stuff, which are extractable. But again, I don't know a lot about that. I just find it really fascinating. And man, we used to go through getting bugs and doing a lot of sprays and everything. And I don't know if it's Education or luck, but for the last few years, we've just been going with the model of equal parts flowers and food to cannabis.

1:13:27Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineSo you can't just have like a big cannabis field, you know? You have to sort of do strips, I would say, in our experience. You know, you do like a greenhouse or a strip, and then in between you have flowers and potatoes and things that are constantly flowering, which are just... Always bringing in this with the wind, you know, this flow of bugs. And also, I'll say that we think, and this is not verifiable that I'm aware of, but we've been using a lot more wood chips.

1:14:02Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineThat's beautiful, Marcus. A lot of wood chips.

1:14:05BubblemanInspired by you.

1:14:07Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineDude, find your coolest tower, put it up. But anyway, you know, and just putting a lot of carbon in the soil, a lot of sawdust, a lot of wood chips, but not, you know, obviously not directly in the soil. You know, you kind of buffer it in the aisles and then you fold it in as it as it breaks down, it becomes more like soil. And then we think that there's more fungi in the soil, which just pulses through the plant, which keeps away Thank you so much for joining us.

1:14:45Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineThank you for joining us.

1:15:12Josh Dragonfly Earth Medicineand open it as soon as the zero lumens meaning now i have flow through all night because we never had flat fans or anything we're super passive so you know situation where and we have not sprayed one thing on our plants we have very almost zero any mildews and no spider mites no uh russet or Any of those terrible, you know, mites.

1:15:43BubblemanYou know, I feel where you live, I feel where you live in the communities is like a very special place in the sense that you're, You know, there's definitely other people growing around you, but it's not the most concentrated place where every single person is growing because it's like, no matter how much you have your shit in order, if you got people, well, you know, just not having their shit in order.

1:16:09BubblemanWhich is like down the street or maybe someone's visiting who's also visiting, you know, coming and helping do work, but they're also helping people do work that do have mites and all of that stuff. Like it's, you guys are definitely out there.

1:16:24Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineThat's part of our IPM, and I would admit that. We chose a place far away from humanity, and then our area is not actually a bunch of weed farmers around here, which I also think is great. We have no blow-by from mass farming. We have logging, you know, we have any issue that comes with logging, which is potentially sprays or something on clear cuts. We don't have that right here.

1:16:52Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineBut we do have like a neighbor that grows indoors, like our direct neighbor that's right there grows indoors, you know, so it's not we don't have anyone with. We also start everything from seed. We don't bring anything in from clone. We start it from seed in the ground, in the spot where it's grown, no transplanting. And we have, but I will say we have had crazy outbreaks of spider mites.

1:17:18Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineOur cucumbers do get actually powdery mildew pretty bad. And they're in the same greenhouse as the weed. We've had terrible broad mites, russet mites. We like, we have had those issues. So that's why I say, I don't know. Is it luck? Did we realize like, wow, these flowers and everything are making a huge difference. I think it's adding more other plants around you, having trees and bushes and plants.

1:17:48Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd I believe it's those things which is balancing our environment. That's just what we think in this moment.

1:17:55SpeakerI think that's dead on. I've been studying it. Josh is like totally dead on. This is actually really important. If people want, it's like the concept of polyculture is very powerful. And like if I was to quantify something like whatever, if I'm approaching this from like a scientific side, I've been trying to attract beneficials into my environment for a long time. And what I've found is that at least minimum 25% of your space has to be for other flowering plants.

1:18:28SpeakerSo if you have 100 square foot bed, 25 square feet has to be for your insectary plant. You're you know that that or or whatever food most food is like it's funny you just have these names but a lot of time the food crops or the herbal medicines are the insectary plants it doesn't just have to be like a lithium it can be a carrot or whatever and so there's this like interesting relationship With that, and so like Josh says, if you go up to 50% or something, you're going to have like this really interesting polyculture relationship.

1:19:05SpeakerAnd then the roots of the plants too are cross talking. There's, you know, evidence that there's some generation of other microbiological, you know, from the exudates of the polyculture plants of the insectary plants, there's something going on there. You know, there's potential with yarrow to release phenolic compounds that stimulate immune responses in neighboring plants. There's a lot of really interesting research in that field.

1:19:33Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineYou know, and you have to be willing to pull the plants out as well. You know, you have to be willing to be like, oh, there's an over, but pull them out.

1:19:39SpeakerYeah, right. That's right. And it's really interesting. You bring up, you know, like the carbon and the fungi and there's this, you know, I was kind of just like nerding out on this while you were talking about it. And so like from an endophytic perspective, if there's all these endophytes in the plants, right. They trigger the jasmonic acid response, ethylene, enhanced production of secondary metabolites, cell wall reinforcement.

1:20:05SpeakerThere's all these components to having an increased microbiological soil consortium of soil microbes that get into the plants and stimulate these immune responses. So it's like there's a lot to be said, unpacked with that. It's not, there's not a lot of, there's not tons of data on this, but it's like, you know, it's, it's a powerful thing. Yeah.

1:20:32SpeakerYep. Yeah. I would say that, you know, one way you could try to discern whether it's luck or, or strategy would be to like challenge the plants. Because a bunch of spider might see if the spider might stay on, put them on the plants and find out, or Same thing with powdery, like, you know, that's how people do it with genetic resistance.

1:20:53Etienne FontanYeah, we did it with powdery mildew, right? Is we'd put plants in there with powdery mildew.

1:20:57SpeakerDirectly put the powdery mildew, which is hopefully not a hypo virulent strain, by the way, you have to, that's another thing, like some powdery mildews, you know, they're making millions of spores, maybe a good glut of them actually You know, get on the plant. You know, you don't see the first like 120 hours of infection anyways. It's visible to the human eye. By the time you see even any sign with your Mark 1 eyeballs, there's already been a lot of failure on the plant, on the point of the plant's local immune response and the manipulation of the powdery mildew of its physiology, which a lot of powdery mildew get to do really well.

1:21:36SpeakerA good 60% of the genome is based on plant manipulation genes in many powdery mildews like the ones we deal with in cannabis. Also, what about the thing with, I mean, some powdery mildew that affects other plants is not necessarily the same strain. I finally get to say the word strain properly, right? Yeah, exactly. Powdery mildew on cucumbers might not be the same strain that is going to affect cannabis.

1:22:03SpeakerSo that's really fascinating. Like I see it on calendula. I've had calendula in greenhouses. Thank you for joining us.

1:22:30Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineCall in the other bugs that eat those things, right? And then, so now you have an overpopulation of that around. We also used to kind of kill yellow jackets, right? You know, like in the beginning of the season, you're like, oh, I'm going to get ready, you know, because yellow jackets get bad or whatever, you know? And then we started realizing, wow, that was the dumbest thing in the world.

1:22:55SpeakerThey love caterpillars.

1:22:56Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineYeah, they just eat everything meat. They just want. Yes, that's true. That is true.

1:23:01SpeakerAnd you can get yellow jackets. Yellow jackets particularly are this way.

1:23:05Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineYeah, yeah. And you can make, this sounds silly, but you can make friends with them. And I've heard there are studies. Yeah, no, there are studies where like bees like recognize your face. So we have like. It's true. We have like light depth, you know, hour or whatever. And we go and then all of a sudden some years, like there'll just be a bunch of nests right around where we have to mess with the tarp, right?

1:23:26Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineSo then we're like, oh shit, you know. But we just go like, you know, we're just like, okay. You know, kind of tap on there, like be like, hey, like super into you guys being here. We're just doing the tarps thing. They'll buzz around and not mess with us repetitively every single day. So I'm like, all right, this is fine.

1:23:45SpeakerThis is where I mean, I'm super intelligent for insects.

1:23:48Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineWe have to allow things to be intelligent. We have this concept that like We have to teach everything when really like

1:24:14Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineIt is actual just symbiosis, you know, like I'm genuinely learning from them as well. Like it's a real thing. I'm sitting here, let myself down. I'm learning, you know, and I'm connecting. And then you realize, well, a thing like an insect or a child doesn't have to break through some mold of like, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

1:25:00SpeakerHumans, it's hard to discern, you know, like people get raised by their parents and all this other stuff. But, um, yeah, I do think there's an intuition. I think education becomes really useful, uh, for like counterintuitive things. You might think it should be this way. It makes sense that it would be this way, but it's actually not this way. Uh, and that's where I think that's where people get into trouble, uh, you know, historically speaking.

1:25:23SpeakerUm, so you, but you want it, but you can't like forsake, you can't like emphasize one and forsake the other.

1:25:28Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineI definitely completely agree. It absolutely takes both and one feeds the other. And that's where communication and sharing like these circles comes into play. It's just it sparks things, you know, and then there's a combination of going out and doing things and a combination of like, oh, I want to learn and read more about this. I'm just curious what humanity is saying about this, you know. And then a lot of times that's the insight you need.

1:25:53Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineIn other cases, like it's your mindset that's new, your newness that you can stimulate a new idea. You know, that's almost more, it's almost less common, you know, to stimulate a new idea, but yeah.

1:26:08SpeakerWell, I would be happy to go through some of the slides that I'd mentioned earlier if you want to go over that, Mark.

1:26:17BubblemanI do, we will, we must.

1:26:18SpeakerI don't know if you have a preference.

1:26:21BubblemanYou can call me whatever you like, man. Just don't call me late for dinner.

1:26:25SpeakerI am the same way. Somebody asked me recently and I said, well, Matthew is fine, but I'm not a coward. And I'll reply to Matt, too. I'm not going to get upset about it, you know?

1:26:37BubblemanYeah, I mean, listen, so many people call me Bubble Man. I'm happy with Mark or Marcus. There you go. All right. Allow. Okay, cool. Multiple presenters can share.

1:26:49SpeakerWhatever you guys are doing while something's going on, the yellow jacket thing is really interesting because I was the same way where I was just like, dude, they're seeing me kill, kill, kill. And then one year I saw him eating a caterpillar and then it sort of like flipped. It was a switch that was flipped. I was like, oh, and you know, the yellow jackets are like predatory.

1:27:10SpeakerThey're like giant predator wasps. Oh yeah, they're the attack helicopters of the insect world. Caterpillars, loopers, budworms, armyworms, they eat all of those types of pests. So it's like, if you have a problem with those things, you might want to consider having yellow, you know, wasps and yellow jackets. I don't know. I would say, I think yellow jackets are a little aggressive for a lot of people.

1:27:38SpeakerBut if they're in your area, yeah, well. You don't want to piss them off. You don't want to piss them off. But paper wasps, the thing is, is that people assume that all wasps are like yellow jackets. And they're not. Paper wasps are super docile. And you can learn the difference. It's not hard. They're bigger than yellow jackets, and they don't move as aggressively as yellow jackets.

1:27:59SpeakerAnd they also have been shown to be able to recognize each other's face plates, different markings. Actually, for some species, more darker markings are considered like a... I guess like more strong. So like other adults, other females won't challenge females that have more darker, more melanin in their face plate. But what I want, what I wanted to bring up was like, yeah, they love caterpillars. There are other wasps, many, many, many like people might've seen tarantula hawk wasps fly by them in like Southern California, for example, blue iridescent, Just full of piss and vinegar.

1:28:41SpeakerBut they're solitary. They don't have a nest to defend. So they don't really care about you, really. They're just scary to you. But they're really just looking for nectar all the time. And they're actually basically herbivorous until it comes to tarantulas. And others go after spiders and they make mud daubers make these nests. And if you don't want like spiders... You know, clogging up like it happens every autumn over here with the hallways and stuff.

1:29:06SpeakerLet those mud daubers, you know, sort of subsist in your location. You don't have to kill everything that's an insect, you know, so I would definitely encourage that behavior for sure.

1:29:18Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineThat's super cool. I don't want to interrupt you, but I think we do have the paper wasps. Oh, actually, that's the kind of.

1:29:25SpeakerYeah, yeah. Let's look at it. Actually, let's look at it since we're on the topic. They look really similar, like the paper wasp. Actually, I would have had a hard time distinguishing between the two. They both have the yellow and black. That paper wasp here, this paper wasp, it looks a little bit like, there are ones that look like this. You can really tell, you see those two divots on the top of the abdomen?

1:29:47SpeakerYeah. The yellow. Yeah. Yes. So that's a major way to tell the difference. Yeah. Look at the yellow jacket. Yeah. Yeah, yellow, much less black. It's like, it's like a solid thorax or whatever it's called. Yes, yeah, yeah. And there's like here, there's all kinds. There's like polices are the paper wasps. So polices, there's domesticus, which by the name you might expect is kind of docile, doesn't really care about you too much.

1:30:14SpeakerAs long as you don't get up in their face in the nest, you're probably fine. And they need all these fats and proteins from caterpillars to feed it to their, they carve them up. They get rid of the hard parts. They don't care. And then they feed all of that to their larvae because they need fat and proteins to then, you know, metamorphosize. So you get Pokemon, even me, who knows the difference.

1:30:36SpeakerI'm going to say evolve, you know, on this stream, but they metamorphose into adults and they need all that nutrient. So there's a huge incentive. And as the nest gets bigger, There's more caterpillar killers. So yeah, if you can tolerate them, if you're not allergic to them, um, I think that there, uh, there's even research I've seen in like Florida, I think where, um, They were trying to find ways to like encourage paper wasps to make their nest on like a movable track.

1:31:05SpeakerAnd then they can take this like post and then put it somewhere else so that they can get more caterpillar killing. But the problem is that wasps have like a locational understanding of where they are spatially. So it might confuse them, I think was one of the results. But there was ways to like make it work and have kind of like a little, you know, air wing command going after all these caterpillars.

1:31:28SpeakerIt's pretty insane. That's cool, man. That's neat.

1:31:32BubblemanIt's so intensely complicated when you think of like creating, you know, like your ultimate sort of dream team lineup of beneficials for a living. So it's got to be different everywhere. Like there's no, you're not just writing a program and saying this works for everyone.

1:31:53SpeakerThat's right. Potatoes do a good job for everyone.

1:31:58Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineOh, well, I do like potatoes. They do flower. Yeah. Spider mites are really bad in the UK. And I was just talking about that with a bunch of growers over there and supposedly indoors. The spider mites are just vicious over there right now. So and I saw that you had a spider mite thing. So I'm super interested in what you have to say here.

1:32:20SpeakerThis is from an earlier presentation that I did actually yesterday for the Home Growers International channel. But there are some sections of these slides that I've also repurposed and used in other presentations. So if you wanted to see the whole thing, you can check it out there. But yeah, I looked up new research in order to keep current on the things I like to talk about. Yeah, so this is the two-spot spider mite.

1:32:48SpeakerFor many people, they know what this looks like, but I always like to call it the plant poison drinker. And it's got over a thousand host plants, about 150 of which are crops that are important to humans. But they have this, like I said earlier, this insane capability for resisting synthetic compounds and natural compounds. Oh, is somebody trying to say something? 557 resistance cases involving 96 types of synthetic pesticides.

1:33:21SpeakerYeah. Yeah. And over 140 families of plants, which is like huge breadth and depth, right? So like, why are they able to do this? They're able to do it because there are conserved immune system responses that plants have. They're more basal, but even all of the little niche versions and changes and things that all the plants Justin Delacruz, Have had they're able to manipulate the plant and also change and also detoxify stuff.

1:33:47SpeakerJustin Delacruz, Josh had mentioned, you know the UK having really bad spider mites and not surprised it turns out that, according to this research Europe might be the origin zone of spider mites based on their biodiversity it's kind of the same logic as like the. Aaron Ward- Like the fact that like you know parts of I think it's Sub-Saharan Africa has the greatest biodiversity of the human genome and so that correlates with the idea that you know humans come from Africa originally and that sort of thing so in a similar sort of way.

1:34:20SpeakerThese samples had the most biodiversity, so there's a strong circumstance for this possibility. When I first read the research, I actually was familiar with research that postulate that South America was the origin zone, but they didn't have this level of extent and it was more hypothetical. So it's cool to see this sort of change over time. But it kind of makes sense because I think persimilis mites, which are specialist predators of two-spotted spider mite and other spider mites, I think are originally the ones that we first got were from like Egypt or like the Levant or like the Mediterranean area.

1:34:58SpeakerSo it kind of checks out. But there's populations, these blue sections on the right. By the way, am I the only one who sees the video of ourselves or is this also on screen?

1:35:10BubblemanYou are on screen in the top right corner. That's it. And if you want a difference, just let me know.

1:35:15SpeakerYeah, just you. No, no, no. Okay, cool. Yeah. So I will. I see the map. Small. There we go. Okay. Yeah, good, good. So on the blue section, these are from Asia, and they have huge chemical resistance genes. This is a sort of complicated... It's actually not that complicated. It looks complicated, but it's actually just a little sampling of these genomes and showing their relatedness. So the yellow ones are from Europe, the brown ones are from North America, the blue ones are from Africa, and the light blue ones are from Asia.

1:35:53SpeakerBut there's three main parts or four main parts here that I want to focus on. I guess two of them I already talked about. One is that they found that a Romanian population had a huge amount of its genes from a different species of spider mite. We've also seen hybridizations with other species as well. So, you know, this is another way they can kind of sort of download new resistances.

1:36:17SpeakerItaly, Greece, France, and England were found to be the base for biodiversity. So it's possible that For people who grow in these areas, they might have the most adaptives of the adaptive spider mites, which is a scary thought. Yeah, so.

1:36:32BubblemanHow do they acquire new resistances from one another? Like what, they're just hopscoping over evolution?

1:36:40SpeakerBreeding? Well, mating together is one. And then the other one is the selection pressures that we sort of, All right, we're going to move on to the next question. So we're going to move on to the next question. So we're going to move on to the next question. So we're moving on to the next question.

1:37:17SpeakerBecause I think neonics also affect, now neonics are usually insect physiology, but mites have a similar physiology. So there's some effect generally, but pyrethroids I think affect the same acetylcholine receptors as, as I forget if I said neonicotinoids, neonicotinoids or pyrethroids there, but they both affect the same certain neurobiology. This was the fact that I was talking about earlier about megabase pairs with, um, Spider mites and russet mites.

1:37:45SpeakerSo, but yeah, the cassava spider mite, the kanzawa spider mite, and there's hundreds of other spider mites out there that might be able to hybridize with the two spotted spider mite. This has probably been happening for a long time, you know, when you think about it. Budworms also have this great capability. Some of them are resistant to Bt proteins. They have a genetic component, but they also have microbes like enterococcus and Klebsiella in their gut.

1:38:13SpeakerTheir gut, for those who don't know, a lot of caterpillar guts are actually incredibly base from a pH scale. And budworms are one magnitude below bleach, which I believe is at the top. So yeah, it's, it's pretty aggressive. So these BT proteins usually come in, the BT produces them and It wrecks their gut lining. They get sepsis and they die. But these microbes help keep the pH so high that the proteins denature.

1:38:43SpeakerIncredible. Isn't that wild? And so they also do that. Well, it's a very small gut. It's a very small gut. Well, I'll tell you how. You want to know how? I know how. They have goblet cells in their gut like we do. And they pump. They have a bunch of proton pumps and they pump out. A bunch of, what's the word? Hydrogen? Yeah. And that's how they keep the pH up, basically.

1:39:14SpeakerAnd it helps them digest stuff. Interesting. It also denatures toxins and proteins the plants produce too. On a side note, I'll let Matthew continue talking, but just very quickly, if you are dealing with pests, the proper thing to think about with IPM is 100% coverage. If you follow an IPM regimen for a few weeks, spraying every certain number of days, and you achieve 100% coverage, you will have a much higher rate of success.

1:39:47SpeakerI would say so. I would say so.

1:39:57SpeakerFor the home floor, if it has to be done. Do you think with spider mites, have you noticed any different efficacy levels with a biological or chemical spray versus a predator mite treatment system like persimilis? Do you think one of those is better in terms of the IPM world? Or is it just dependent variable depending on environment and conditions? Making me say a lot of boring answers, Russ, which is, it depends.

1:40:30SpeakerBut, you know, it's true. You know, I love, if you're going to use biocontrols and it makes sense for your context, you know, I love using persimilis mites because they're so effective against spider mites. But I think the real, you know, clinchpin here, lynchpin, sorry, clinchpin, I think that's a better term, is, you know, getting them early, not just the predator mites, but also like spotting them early.

1:40:58SpeakerIf you spot them really early and on a home grow scope, although I don't like the idea that home grow is associated with small grows because I want to live in a world where that's not necessarily true, but we might not have that going forward in the USA. But, you know, regardless of all that, like if you are catching them very early, then you don't even, maybe it doesn't even make sense to use biocontrols.

1:41:24SpeakerYou can just, you know, clip them off or, but you gotta be sure, like Russ is saying, You know, it might make sense to just, when you apply the persimilis, apply them broad. You know, don't apply them just to the hotspots. Maybe bias the spread. So, like, maybe take 30% of the persimilis mites you have, dump them into the hotspots you've identified. You find them in one place, definitely look to make sure you have all the places, and then assume that you might not get all of them.

1:41:52SpeakerAnd I think that's the logic of... You know, hotspot applying versus coverage. And I think I would agree with Russ that it's usually worth it to assume that you maybe didn't get 100% of your sample. Have you ever used to Thoris punctilum, the spider mite destroyer?

1:42:09Collin PalmerYes. I've always wondered about that one.

1:42:12SpeakerI've never used it. What do you think? Yeah, I, I like it. I like it, but I don't, I almost never recommend, uh, other predators for spider mites for cannabis than Persimilis or maybe Californicus, uh, because like there's Teltiella carasuga, which is a midge that has a larvae that feeds on spider mites, but pretty much no one, uh, Thank you for joining us today.

1:42:54SpeakerI remember when I first got really into this like six or more years ago and I was looking at Californicus and I was like okay I've got the batch put it under the microscope on the leaf watching and they would despite you know it's like a bad spider mite outbreak and I was watching them and they would like okay they're gonna they're going after the adults and then it would just bump into the adults the adults would kind of like they do this like thing and then they would move off I'm like what what What is going on here?

1:43:26SpeakerI thought they were supposed to kill the spider mites. And it seemed like the, I don't know the age of the Californicus mite, but they would not attack the adult mites. They would only, they would mainly eat the eggs is from what, you know, or maybe the juveniles that were less able to defend themselves. That's what my observation led to. So then it made me think about, you know, management.

1:43:49SpeakerOkay, so they're, Consuming the younger spider mites, the adults will still be alive, but then when they die or they reproduce and die, the Californicus will basically be consuming the younger generations, which will eventually cause a die off. Is there some accuracy in that or am I not, you know, I don't know. Well, it's a salient observation because that's also what a lot of research does. All right, let's move on to the next question.

1:44:19SpeakerThis one is for you. This one is for you. This one is for you. This one is for you. This one is for you.

1:44:46SpeakerHuge, huge pests of many crops, huge pests of cannabis. It's actually an omnivore and it will feed on the spider mite eggs if it had access to them, but it doesn't because of the silk. And there's research that showed when they remove the silk threads and the adults would sometimes might bully thrips that they detect in their area by like tackling them a little bit. The Western flower thrips just ate all of their eggs.

1:45:17SpeakerYeah, isn't that trippy? So yeah, so like some of these bugs are a little bit more interesting than we might expect. And the reason why they produce these silk, you know, they have some tangible benefit for the spider mite, but the persimilis neutralizes that. Cool. Well, yeah, the persimilis are the ones for spider mites in case for anyone listening, that's the one.

1:45:39BubblemanBut right on. That's the spider mite predator.

1:45:44SpeakerI kind of talked into you off your topic, Matt, but if you want to... Oh, no. This is meant to be conversational. The presentation I had before, I was going at a quick clip. But, yeah, I do intend to have a conversational part. But I will get to... This is the warm-up for the microbes. It's all microbes, right? I think everyone on this panel and the audience appreciates that, I think.

1:46:12SpeakerWe're all warming up to microbes.

1:46:15Etienne FontanYes.

1:46:18SpeakerSo one of the coolest things about pudworms, if you can call it that, is that there's a population in Xinjiang that survives as pupae. So the caterpillars get fat on your food, and then they burrow into the soil, and then they pupate. And in some places, they just become an adult, and they come out in a couple of weeks, and then they live for about a month.

1:46:42SpeakerAnd for others, they go and they sleep for the wintertime and they overwinter. And these ones can survive minus 20 degrees Celsius because they have a, well, they have a capability. They have sugar. Any freeze, you've known, yeah, you've heard me talk about this before. It's trehalose. So the insect blood sugar, which a lot of insects have, they're able, these ones are able to just store it, a lot of it.

1:47:11SpeakerAnd it works like an antifreeze because it doesn't freeze under these conditions, which is pretty. That's mental. So, yeah, right?

1:47:22Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineI mean, that's insane. Minus 20 super cold.

1:47:26BubblemanFor a tiny little bug, bro.

1:47:30SpeakerSix inches in the soil, six inches maybe below the ground. So normally in the US, I'll give you an example. Around the 40, 42 parallel, like, no, no, no. Is that like around here-ish? Something like that.

1:47:45SpeakerUsually growers of various crops would, they rely on the idea that they're going to get a clean slate, right? Because the freeze comes in, it kills a bunch of bugs. But if these do not If these come to the US and they survive that, then the spring comes in and people are going to be hit in a way that they would normally be hit, you know, several months later.

1:48:07SpeakerThat being said, budworms can move 750 to 2000 kilometers, which, you know, in freedom units is like the entirety of the US continental US or like from the edge of Central America to Into up into like Midwest or Southern West, um, USA. And this, this diagram here is from my recent budworm video on my YouTube channel, Xanthanol. So you can learn more about that if you'd like, but this sort of shows some of the resistances and developments that we found.

1:48:41SpeakerUm, the USA examples have already been found in the U S and at these locations. And I'm trying to illustrate the point that like, People's Republic of China has a lot of selection pressures and resistances and microbes that allow it to be more resistant to the environment. And Brazil also has accompanying genes, different resistances that do the same or similar things. So all these populations could come together and reproduce, right?

1:49:12SpeakerYeah, about 18,000. A sweltering 18,000 genes related to things like toxin processing and that sugar processing. I'm not going to get into this diagram too much, only to say that it's on the right. We have like different population groups like Africa, South America, Europe, South Asia, South China, Oceania. And I believe that's supposed to be Central Europe, but I might be forgetting it in the moment. But yeah, different populations have different All of these are genes that do different things.

1:49:44SpeakerThat's what this KEGG pathway means. It's a database of genes that you can kind of look them up and see what they do. Kind of a repertoire of that. In China, you know, this is just more of the same. This graph on the left shows different chemistries, pesticides on the bottom and genes on the right. And if it's got a light blue or a blue color, then those genes are much more expressed in relationship to the chemicals that the Bugs are exposed to.

1:50:13SpeakerNorth China uses upwards of 70,000 tons of pesticide on a 10 million hectare area and about eight applications per year. This is divided. And then Xinjiang, for example, only uses like 18 tons in an area of 6 million hectares. So as you can see, there's a big change in use case. And that's probably why we get these selection pressures. This is like a cool On the right here probably is the more relevant section.

1:50:45SpeakerThis shows that a little change in a little protein receptor on the cell wall, this is what's allowing the insects to store a lot of sugar. This little green section here, this receptor allows that to happen. And then this here is a diagram that shows a little David Price- Little gene change here this mutation L315 on this little receptor here. David Price- This changes the gut lining so that the BT toxins can't destroy the gut.

1:51:16SpeakerDavid Price- And on the left, we have examples here where these genes are being found in particular so as trade. We would expect these to kind of move across the world. And this is a bunch of stuff about cannabis Midwestern genes that I'm going to cut. I'm going to skip here to the microbiome section. So this research found a cool microbe called, now it's called peribacillus frigoritolerans C1141.

1:51:48SpeakerThis is the specific strain. They found thousands of growth-running genes in this one bacteria. And some of them had direct effects. Some of them had indirect effects. Here's what Russ was talking about earlier. This SAR, ISR systemically, systematically acquired resistance or induced systemic response. But other things like even things that allowed it to be more effective for itself, like it's fitness and the host, spore production, stress neutralization of like environmental factors, They said plant derived, subtract usage.

1:52:23SpeakerI think this is a translation error or something, because I think what they mean to say is like extract, but maybe somebody who's a chemist like Mark could illustrate that for me, because I'm not sure about this interpretation, to be honest, when I was reading the research report. I think this is also another way to just say subtract in English. I know a few people who say subtract instead of subtract.

1:52:50SpeakerBut I do know that's the case. Does anyone have commentary on that, by the way? No, but I have an interest. What is, this is like, it's reclassified from Bacillus. What are we, what is this? We're looking at a strain of Parabacillus. Well, Parabacillus is the genus and Frigora Tolerans is the species. And then C1141 is the particular strain that they're, They looked at here. This was found as an endophyte in cannabis.

1:53:22SpeakerAnd in the research, it was called bacillus. But you know how taxonomy is, Russ. Sometimes, you know, a research report will call it one thing, but they didn't look it up to find out that it's actually called this particular species was called bacillus frigoritolerans. And now it's called parabacillus. And a lot of bacillus got reclassed into peribacillus because of their relationship and how related they are. Yeah.

1:53:47SpeakerOh. This is interesting.

1:53:49Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineDo they talk about where it comes from or how, what makes the plant have it in its biome or like causation of, you know, how to create it in a biome?

1:54:00SpeakerI think they do a little bit, but I think this is kind of more provisional. They just found it. And I know that peribacillus, as it's called now, or I should just say frigoritolerans or frigor, frigor, we'll call it frigor. So Frigga here, Frigga, yeah, is, it's been found other plants too. I think it was first isolated, I did look it up. I think it was first isolated in another plant entirely.

1:54:27SpeakerAnd maybe it was like decades from, you know, from now. So we've known about this organizm for a very long time already. So it is not unique to cannabis, but this particular strain, they looked at it uniquely. Let's put it that way. Bro, bro, bro, bro, bro. Listen, this is fascinating. Okay. So the Baxillus, the Baxillus thing, there's a company called Key to Life and they're sending me samples.

1:54:53SpeakerThey're like, oh, this is like a cleaner. Like it helps like clean the slate, breaks down. You know, it's like you can use it to clean your lines, but it's also, and I'm like, what is it? He's like, oh, it's just a bunch of bacillus strains. I'm like, wait. He's like, yeah, yeah, bacillus does have all these enzymes. And so I'm looking up Frigga, Frigga here. Releases a lot of, it says, you know, biologically potent cocktail of extracellular enzymes.

1:55:18SpeakerThey break down proteins in the soil, break down starches, break down cellulose, break down pectins, release plant available phosphorus. It's actually really, really cool. This is like really fascinating. You can see that here. Yeah. Phosphate, potassium, solubilization. Yeah. For some reason I didn't put the number here, but yeah. Like, and I didn't list all of them here too. That's why I love this diagram because it shows all these other things.

1:55:44SpeakerThat's probably that xenobiotic degradation too, which is not always a good thing. It depends on what those things are sometimes, but yeah, I think it's, it is cool, right? And so like, yeah, tons of genes. This is what I like to say, quantified microbiome research. These people, you know, had the resources and the gumption to Really quantified some of these microbes, which are some of them very versatile.

1:56:13Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd this is one microbe out of the biome too. Just one. You know what I mean? So you could just be like, oh, well, I've heard there's, you know, a million or even a billion in some case, trillion. It's wild. It's so wild.

1:56:27Etienne FontanWell, it's like you've heard of serenade, right? Serenade is what's industrial used in Napa Valley for white pottery mildew. And that's bacillus subtilis. And that's applied with a stilic oil. And that supposedly then eats the white pottery mildew. And then if there's a reactivation, you can then come back with the stilic oil, which is an industrial oil, and then it reactivates it and continues to eat the white pottery mildew of its presence.

1:56:55Etienne FontanSo Yeah, I mean, there's these microbes are important and have been used for decades in farming. And I mean, just that one alone, I know has been used in for white pottery mildew, and we couldn't get access to it because you can only order it industrially.

1:57:12SpeakerYes, you know, like there's a lot of that too. So, you know, I don't want to make it sound like I'm not, you know, power to the people or that there aren't actually some really cool examples. I was just talking to somebody who is pretty sure that they found a Buveria bassiana strain that is particularly pathogenic to spotted lanternfly. Which is an invasive pest in the East Coast.

1:57:37SpeakerAnd Californians are incredibly worried. And there's been some false alarms. But if it gets into our grapes or our orchards, it's going to be a problem, man. And so people have been spending hundreds of millions of dollars to find solutions. But a lot of predators don't eat them because they produce these alkaloids that are toxic to them and they taste nasty. So a lot of insectivorous mammals, but not all.

1:58:05SpeakerYou know, they're not doing the controlling that we would have hoped potentially. It's also a cannabis pest for that matter, although probably not the most significant one, certainly. But, you know, so like this is like there can be strains of organizms like these microbes that are actually much more narrow in their effect and. Thank you so much for joining us.

1:58:49Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicinePresent in the soil everywhere. And we had an agricultural person come to our farm saying, we heard that you're producing bacillus subtilis on your property. And we're like, I mean, we're clearly not. But I mean, I said at the same time, like, you can't not find it on our property. It's basically, it's covering every inch of our property, bacillus subtilis. So we kind of had a joke with it and he left.

1:59:15Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineBut... It's also one of the microbes that you take as a human, you know, to go into your digestive tract.

1:59:24SpeakerI was just going to say, there's a, you know, I think that for one, I would say we should blame the regulators over the scientists for that one. I think that's, I don't have any idea of the context, but I know that some people get A little bit bug-eyed because of like regulations and the worry of like maybe spreading the wrong thing or maybe because of someone's saying that they're producing a pesticide that certainly becomes sort of a legal claim that has to be kind of, you know, maybe they just don't, you know, what if it's like contaminated with stuff and that could be a problem.

2:00:04SpeakerBut like, you know, I have empathy for that, but at the same time, yeah, like it's a little bit silly. It's a little bit silly in the grand scheme, right? You know, you know, Bacillus, I want to say Bacillus, is it Subtilis or there might be another Bacillus that I'm forgetting. There's so many, but Bt, right? Well, there's a Bacillus. There's a Bacillus that is closely related to Anthraxis, which makes Anthrax.

2:00:33SpeakerAnd it's also found commonly in the soil, right? So, yeah. You know, yeah. So like these microbes have a very versatile, many strains and also many brethren.

2:00:46Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineSo that doesn't make them all a problem, right? I'm curious what your thoughts are on BT, Bacillus thuringiensis, like Mark Scaldone just mentioned. They use it in our lake around here to kill mosquitoes, right? Mosquitoes, yeah. And I'm just, they always say, oh, it doesn't kill anything else. You know, I just, I don't know that that's true, but I just wonder what your thoughts are on that.

2:01:11SpeakerWell, it's certainly plausible. There's like BTI, like Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis, that goes after mostly flies and their larvae. So they are specific. They don't kill caterpillars. So in that way, maybe it's plausible enough. They're at least like a sort of lineage narrow. And maybe they've done the due diligence to make it even more targeted. I know that's a huge aspect of research. However, you know, like how they're applying it and how much they're applying and all these other things I wouldn't be able to know either.

2:01:52SpeakerAnd I do get a little bit concerned because there are examples of mishaps, right? So like, yeah, I feel I am cautiously optimistic. I know the technology could be good. But I often find that the execution is lacking.

2:02:10SpeakerYeah, and I think there are questions that people should, I also don't think that, what's the word I'm looking for, the phrasing?

2:02:21SpeakerI don't think anyone is above reproach. I don't think anyone is above like being challenged to like be like, oh, well, could you respect my intelligence and explain it to me? Which I encourage many people to do. Like also in the commercial space, like someone says, hey, my bios, you know, will fix all your problems. Really? You know, maybe.

2:02:43Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineProve it.

2:02:44SpeakerYou know, you know, like what exactly are you trying to sell? And, you know, also like is it already in your soil? I'm excited that people are able to take control of their own destiny with regards to microbiome. I think it's really important to think about the dynamics by being able to maybe purchase or access not only the research literature, but also systems that are able to crunch all of this microbial data for us or detect it in our soils.

2:03:12SpeakerAnd so we can make informed decisions. I don't think it should be only the providence of certain groups of people. Hey, check this out. While you guys were nerding out, this is a... This is the video. This is the... Okay, okay. Check this out, Russ. It's right here. Is it there? Do you see this? It's this. It's this. Do you see this? Wait. Yeah. Hold on. Microbes.

2:03:42SpeakerYes.

2:03:46SpeakerThis is from 2024. This is like... Yeah, this is the graph I have up. Is this related to this paper? Yeah, we're getting to it. We're getting to it. Oh man, this is like the coolest paper ever. It's all the different strains found in seeds. Like all these bacillus, all these, all these staphyla, you know, curdo bacteria.

2:04:06Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineLet him tell us about it. Let him tell us about it.

2:04:09SpeakerOkay. All right. Sorry. I'm nerding now. I got, I got ahead of myself. All right. Oh, but I'm happy to hear it. Um, Oh, there it is. Yes, there it is. There it is. Yeah. In dark vision. Because I think it makes the colors pop. But yeah, aren't you? I'm really happy you brought it up, honestly, because it shows that Like, you know, it's only in 2024, right?

2:04:35SpeakerIt's very recent research. Isn't that incredible? I think the peribacillus research is from this paper. Do you remember? Did you see that, Russ? Or that different research report? They're all blended up together with me. But so this is a graph that showed physical development of peribacillus versus another one that's commercially used, serratia plamuthica. And compared to control, Parabasils knocked out of the park with plus 260% biomass compared to control and 96% stalk diameter and 43.3% height change versus control.

2:05:14SpeakerSo a 25 centimeter stalk versus a 12 centimeter stalk and a 175 centimeter plant versus a 125 centimeter plant. And so I think that's pretty cool. And it shows that these microbes could be used even just by their lonesome and have like really Strident effects that you can really see with your eyes. I think that's important. And then this was a, yeah. Sorry, I'm getting excited. Oh, it's great.

2:05:40SpeakerNo, I want this to be conversational. A hemp research grant. I was looking for like grant money. And we're looking at increasing the biomass of hemp for fiber production or, you know, woody material for material science. That would be, you'd want to, you could spray with that periobacillus and it would increase the stock weight. It would increase the weight just for hemp, just for agriculture. That's interesting.

2:06:08SpeakerOstensibly. Yes, ostensibly. Actually, let me, let me jump around here to this example. Since you brought it up, you know about Leaf Spot Funky, right? Septoria, Bipolaris, Cercospora, Anthracnose.

2:06:22Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnyone in Michigan knows about that.

2:06:25SpeakerYeah, so I've been getting lots of calls about these guys. What's that?

2:06:32BubblemanIt's just feedback coming through Russ's microphone. Yeah, he's on a phone, so it's a little harder to mute each time, but... Oh, sure, sure.

2:06:41SpeakerHold on. Hold on. Hold on. I'll deal with it right now and put headphones on.

2:06:51SpeakerBut guess what? They found... I'll let him to get his headphones on. I don't know. He can hear me. You can hear me, right? All right, cool. So they found bipolaris CSL1. They designated it here. A beneficial endophyte isolated from cannabis. And here on the left, we have a tree of relation of different bipolaris. For some reason, they didn't specify it down to species, which I thought was weird to put like a strain name, which is a genus.

2:07:20SpeakerBut apparently this is pretty common. And Yeah, Bipolaris is typically a pathogen genus. Most species in Bipolaris are leaf spot fungi that cause significant damage to plants. But what they found was that this particular one, and there's other typically pathogenic species like Botrytis cinerea and some other ones. Fusarium has many strains of normally pathogenic species, which is pretty incredible. It increased gibberellins and indole production. And it inhibited jasmonic acid production in its host, which, of course, is diametric to gibberellins and indole.

2:08:02SpeakerSo it increased the other two and decreased the thing that would inhibit those two. So it kind of has a double whammy effect. It can also chelate iron, making it soluble and available to the plant. So they put it in rice. They inoculated rice with it. And you can see that the control is a lot more sort of emaciated compared to the CS01 inoculate. Pretty cool. So, yeah, I mean.

2:08:32BubblemanYeah, we had, oh, what's his name? Brandon Rust on recently talking about that spot and talking about how it was jumping onto trees and then back onto plants and just a nightmare.

2:08:53SpeakerIt's also able to be in the soil.

2:08:54BubblemanYeah.

2:08:55SpeakerThe problem is that you can't, even if you were to like just spray, like let's say you just sprayed, like you had like a microbe inoculant that kills it 100% in and outside the plant, whatever, safe, totally harmless, no problem. Well, it's still going to be odious because if you apply it and you kill everything, but the microbe is still in the substrate, we're still on the plants right next to you.

2:09:20SpeakerIt's going to keep re-inoculating. So you got to do something about the substrate. So you have to have something that kills it. So I guess if you had a microbe that kills in the substrate, that would solve the problem actually. But the point I'm trying to indicate is that like, it's not necessarily that there aren't solutions that work. It's that there's still like You have to, there's now this constant logistical strain.

2:09:45SpeakerAnd we inherit it. There's a very famous, kind of like the granddaddy of IPM, I would say, and like biocontrol use. And I forget his name off the top of my head, but he did say something very salient, which was that, huh?

2:10:02Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineRudolf Steiner, just kidding.

2:10:03SpeakerYeah, it was a different guy. Actually more recent, more recent than Rudolf Steiner. He was saying that, yeah, if we, when we get rid of the, basically something all of us know very well, if we get rid of the bios, the biocontrolling effects of these organizms, then we inherit, you know, their job, which is actually very expensive. I lived in China for two years. I worked in rice and sorghum and tea and other crops and tomatoes.

2:10:36SpeakerAnd here's the thing, you know, there was a time in their history during the Cultural Revolution called the Four Pests, where they had this campaign, the Four Pests campaign, which maybe some people know about. They had all this grain, right? And they knew that bugs were a big problem. And they knew that sparrows would come out and eat the grain. And that was a problem too. So they had people, they, they organized, incentivized people to go out and basically kill millions, gotta be dozens of millions of sparrows.

2:11:14SpeakerThey would go up, they would kill them. They would, they would get sticks. They would find that the sparrows would get into trees and then they would beat the trees. So they didn't have any where to roost and they would just die of exhaustion. On the case of sheer man capability, I'm impressed. However, by killing all those sparrows, which also ate bugs, you caused a huge problem and millions of people died of famine because of it.

2:11:44BubblemanDamn, that's some karmic retribution, eh?

2:11:47SpeakerRight?

2:11:47BubblemanI think the balance. It's like, what could possibly go wrong if we killed 12 million sparrows? Like, they're just birds.

2:11:53Etienne FontanUnbalanced nature, just one little bit, right?

2:11:57SpeakerRight, just over here, it's okay, right? So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, this is the same group of people who pulled so much water into the Three Gorges Dam that it turned the Earth's rotational axis noticeably.

2:12:14Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineJesus Christ. Don't worry, we're not affecting the world. They're killing barred owls on the West Coast here in this now or soon. And it's like super like hurts your heart to like.

2:12:27SpeakerThat hurts my heart. Why?

2:12:30Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineLook it up and look, it's because they're causing some ecological, I don't know. Whatever. Yeah. But I don't know. Yeah. So, but I like Dr. James White, his information as far as the endophytes and the soil and the mycorrhizal and the myco, the rhizophagy cycle in the soil and He has a lot of really good information on that.

2:13:02BubblemanSo, Josh, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services has a controversial plan to call barred owls on the West Coast to protect the endangered northern spotted owl. Right. The strategy calls for the barred owl management strategy proposed removing up to 450,000 barred owls

2:13:23BubblemanOver 30 years by shooting them in specific habitats to reduce competition for food and territory. Rather than stop logging, like, don't stop logging.

2:13:36Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineYou know what I mean? We got to do something with these little micro climates that we have with all these crazy barred owls everywhere. We got to get rid of them.

2:13:43BubblemanWell, I guess they're not native to the West Coast. They expanded their range and they out-compete the smaller, threatened, northern spotted owl for resources.

2:13:53SpeakerLike carp, huh? But here, check this out. So while you guys were talking, I was just plugging in a GPT. Barred owls are a way more potent pest control owl than the spotted owl. They're generalist high volume predators, so they will control Thank you for joining us.

2:14:34SpeakerWho knows? You know what I mean?

2:14:35Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineIt's just smaller. I mean, there's like saw wet owls and pygmy owls and the small, barred owls are like pretty like big. Yeah, they're really, they're pretty beautiful. I mean.

2:14:47BubblemanWell, they also don't make noise when they fly. Have you ever seen that?

2:14:52SpeakerYeah, the video of the vortex.

2:14:55BubblemanAll the birds. They do like 10 different birds flying over these like super sensitive like ASMR microphones. And they're all, you can hear the flapping, but the owl, the barred owl does not make a single sound. It's just, it just flies and it flaps, but there's no noise.

2:15:12SpeakerI want to build those owl boxes. Yeah, what's crazy? Moths. And I have slides for, actually in my budworm video has the diagram for this, but several moths have been found to have invented stealth, radar stealth, or I should say, not radar, but bioacoustic stealth from a bats because the scales that developed on their wings Will neutralize the acoustic call that bounces off of them. The similar sort of way that radar resistant or radar reflective paint on like F-35s and things like that are able to absorb, radar absorbing paint, I should say.

2:15:54SpeakerIt absorbs the exact frequency of the sound wave. And so the result is that the bat is not able to detect the moth. Crazy, crazy. Yeah, and it's just in the acoustic range. For the most part of those bats. Yeah.

2:16:12BubblemanDude, how fucking interesting is all of this stuff? Like, I get it. We're human. Sometimes we just want to play video games and go snowboarding or whatever. But it's like, cool. Is it now that you have access to just people nerding out on this kind of information all over the internet all over YouTube, you can just sit around and listen on a Sunday afternoon to a bunch of people nerd out on shit that just I mean, first of all, just the fact that we discovered it seems impossible.

2:16:39BubblemanAnd then when you go deeper, the fact that it exists is for sure impossible.

2:16:45SpeakerMy heart brims with the opportunity to be able to talk about this and nerd out. So I really appreciate the time because when I was doing this presentation, every slide was like 30 to 40 seconds. But being able to like really saturate and then have a conversation, have it like kind of digress a bit. I enjoy the sort of the curly cues of that kind of growth.

2:17:06SpeakerAbsolutely.

2:17:07Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineWhat does it say in here if the triploidy equals fungal bacteria diversity?

2:17:14SpeakerOh, yeah. What is that, Matthew? Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's very sort of like They're not very much research on this, so kind of provisionally. I remember reading in this research report, the one that Russ handsomely pointed out is that triploidy seemed to have an association with lower fungal and bacteria diversity, but I don't think that necessarily is inherent to the triploidy. I don't know. Could be gene factors there.

2:17:46SpeakerThis, excuse me, this graph on the, On the left, B was showing that there was a correlation between land race, selected lines, cross hybrids, inbred lines, and then whatever not applicable was with the chemotype. Or in some cases, an inverse correlation between these things based on their genes. And so maybe triploidy being that you have excess, you know, extra copies of the genome. And other polyploidy might have these effects, but to be honest, I didn't fully litigate that.

2:18:22SpeakerIt seemed like there was only one research report and it's just circumstantial. But it's interesting to think about. So is that, am I reading this correctly? UMAP is the...

2:18:36SpeakerBacterium diversity. Is that what, what's, what am I reading, looking at here? Oh yeah, sorry. So, so yeah, so you, this UMAP is like the, like, think of it as like the different, um, there's like a gene, um, like a, uh, Thank you for watching.

2:19:12SpeakerThe description for the research report, but it's basically what they're looking at is like different bacterial segments of their genome. And they're using that as like they're correlating that with like the the populations of cannabis. So it's like genome of the bacteria, genome of the different lines of cannabis and where they correlate with in this case with chemotype. So like land race. I'm sorry, it wasn't bacteria.

2:19:40SpeakerExcuse me. This is why I like to keep the sections of the graphs on in case I flub it. This is actually just looking at the domestication chemotype. I'm thinking of a different graph where they had the bacterial codes, the different gene codes that they used to assign different bacteria because there's so many bacteria. And sometimes the difference between different strains is like, you know, a few snips, you know, single nucleotide.

2:20:07SpeakerYeah. Oh, I see. This is just chemotype. We're just looking at chemotype. And domestication line. Yes. Yeah. Sorry about that. I'm willing to be, I love an opportunity to be relatable. Okay. And making mistakes. Yeah. It's up to us to sort of take this data and simplify it. That's sort of the role. Yes, definitely. Yeah, I do. It's not easy. I do like to do this though.

2:20:30SpeakerSo I do take some pride, but yeah, please, if anyone's interested, you know, check out the research report, um, which is somewhere in this here. Yeah. Endophytes and cannabis sativa identifying and characterizing microbes with beneficial and detrimental effects on plant health. So sections that, oh, yeah, no, go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, so sections that were really cool. So this is mostly the looking endophytes in particular, which are microbes inside the tissue.

2:20:59Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineWhich could be both fungal and bacteria, right? Both fungal and bacteria.

2:21:04SpeakerYeah. Okay. They focused on bacteria and they had some other sections on fungi, but they found that in a particular seed endophytes, sometimes through the xylem channels, which kind of makes sense. It's actually kind of intuitive because how do plants get water for the most part? Through the root system. And so my internet connection is unstable. Can you guys hear me?

2:21:28BubblemanYeah, you're coming in fine. Although I did like half a second ago hear you speed up and I was like, I wonder if he just sped up like that.

2:21:36SpeakerThat's just, that's just, it's just my personality. That was me affecting a like late night commercial infomercial.

2:21:43BubblemanOkay, I got it. Then we're perfect. We can hear everything you're saying.

2:21:47SpeakerSo domestication was a fascinating thing to me. It was a domestication, a domestication level lowered. That's what the arrow is supposed to indicate. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

2:22:24SpeakerThey also showed that growth level, the maturity of the plant also had a massive effect, which is why below here I make this point that you can't really compare, it's hard to compare microbial diversity. It's kind of a, you know, it's fuzzy. You know, I'm not saying it doesn't have any effect. I'm saying it has huge range of effect. And, you know, when it comes to making choices, you know,

2:22:51Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineI think that you have to have a ratio like in the soil you have this base carbon nitrogen ratio that kind of makes for like the perfect soil I think with endophytes like you can't just have a bunch of endophytic bacteria you kind of need both fungi and bacteria or in a microbial system like microbial is just this overarching word and then underneath that you have all the Description.

2:23:18Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineSo I think that, and then a lot of times in soils, we've found that it's low in organic matter, high in bacteria. So I think over the years we've tried to bring fungi back into the soil so it can then go into the plant.

2:23:34SpeakerThere's even bacteria, endo hyphal bacteria that live in some fungi and affect things like their ability to produce spores, their mating success. Which a lot of fungi do have mating types, a lot of pathogenic fungi, like powdery mildews, you know, there's a hop powdery, hop, yeah, there's a hop powdery mildew mating type one and two that It's basically like, kind of like, I guess it's like having multiple sexes in a species, but basically the long and short of it is that the mating type one has certain resistances and capabilities and a mating type two, which is in other places, I think in Europe, maybe other parts of the US, but the problem is that for some reason, these types have not interspersed despite all of the things I've just said about trade and whatever.

2:24:24SpeakerBut if it does, um, It's a quarantine pest. And so what they're really afraid of is that the resistances and capabilities of this mating type two, if it comes in and breeds with the powdery mildew of mating type one, then I think there's going to be this huge transfer and it might upend. Because hop powdery mildew, I remember reading about how it destroyed like eight kilometers, eight square kilometers, I want to say, of like hop Um, production in like the Northwest U S and it was like, uh, incredibly like destructive thing for the beer industry.

2:25:06SpeakerUm, which, you know, I don't drink a lot of alcohol myself, so I don't have that like empathetic, uh, dog in that fight, but you know, like it's a question I think also like as cannabis becomes, I'm curious people's opinion on this actually, uh, as cannabis becomes more mainstream, hopefully still. And allowed, hopefully still. Then how does it mingle with other crops? Does it get precedence because it's our favorite plant?

2:25:34SpeakerAre there people who've been growing in places for maybe hundreds of years, you know, and they don't want cannabis to vector certain pathogens or pests that it's uniquely capable of doing? You know, like hop and cannabis are Sister Species and that kind of thing. Like, you know, I think there's like an aspect. I think there's a good ending to this. I don't think we're on the track in the USA for a good ending to this, as I would define it, which would allow people to have the freedom to grow and that kind of stuff.

2:26:04SpeakerAnd I know that opens a can of worms, but like, what do you guys think of that? Like, how do we all play nicely?

2:26:08Etienne FontanYou know, like, that's been a problem in the Central Valley because some places in California don't like the smell of the cannabis, period. That's true. You know, so inadvertently that has caused its own kerfuffle. And Matthew, it's a very, it's worth pondering because as we have fought for, right, the ability for, and one I think most activists are still trying to fight for is the ability to To grow and self-grow, but there's quite a few states that don't allow that, right?

2:26:45Etienne FontanAnd I think that's where the legitimate pessimism comes from is because there's more against than necessarily for it currently. However, the tide at the national level is to do so, but at the same time, at the international level, that is something that's being pushed. I was just in South Africa last month and You know, they are allowed to have home grow and things like that. And so as other countries come on board, it's a push for that.

2:27:13Etienne FontanSo I think this is a valid concern and a worthy debate because there's many levels to it. Because early on, you know, we wanted to overgrow the world, right? But we know that's unrealistic because when I was working in hemp, people like International Harvester and John Deere will not even touch or manufacture a product until there's at least a million acres in the ground in your country.

2:27:41Etienne FontanSo, you know, therefore the manufacturing of decorticators and processing for cannabis only exists at the very small shop level because there's not enough growing. And then how do you get it growing? You had a whole bunch of people that were sold a whole bunch of unacclimated genetics that caused all kind of, you know, Farming issues all over, you know, North America for that matter. And it's a huge problem that has caused farmers who were initially excited to run away because there's no processing facilities, there's no regional distribution or manufacturing points, as well as hemp farmers I know can't ship their hemp over state lines.

2:28:26Etienne FontanThere's certain shipping companies that don't even touch hemp. So it touches many different aspects of the lives as we saw, I mean, in the last five years as many farmers tried to make that switch into hemp and only found themselves literally out of reality because of those, you know, problems that don't exist. So How can you promote something when there's no structure for its processing or bringing it to market?

2:28:59Etienne FontanYou know, that's, there's a lot to this.

2:29:03Collin PalmerI think, you know, hey, guys, it's good to see you guys. I'm driving.

2:29:06Etienne FontanHey, welcome, Colin.

2:29:08Collin PalmerWhat's up, boys? You both bring up and spring up like there's just so many different tangents. But I think to kind of compartmentalize it a little bit, I think it's like it starts at genetics. It goes through process, like processes, like how do we plan? What are the efficiencies behind that? How do you then manage all that? Like what's the IPM strategy behind that? Making sure that it's done properly, you know what I mean?

2:29:36Collin PalmerAnd all these things I think are still in process, you know what I mean? I think as much as we all know, You know, homegrown doesn't follow you into commercialization. Maybe some of the genetics do, but most likely most of them don't. Sure, your knowledge sticks with you, but there's new things that come into preview that weren't there in a homegrown. So there's just so much to talk about, but I think It's really from my vantage points, like from a commercial point of view, it's like genetics, processes, SOPs, work instructions, and then talk about equipment.

2:30:13Collin PalmerLike, you know, you nailed it, I think, really well, ATN. Like there's no equipment that's designed for this type of plant. It's all just this general catch-all scenario. And if it is designed for the plant, it's very much a, Thank you so much for joining us today.

2:30:59Collin Palmerso like if you at a very high level we've got a long long long long way to go and that's okay like i think that's absolutely okay it's actually why these conversations are so important and what you just brought up is so so important to highlight is because we have to think about so many things that are in between these broad strokes that we're used to most people are like we get the license we build the field of dreams and they will come and it's There's just so much in between all that that makes all of that even happen.

2:31:30Collin PalmerThe equipment, yes. You know? Yeah. Think about that. Like, who's designing, like, something for cannabis? So you actually as a harvester that could gently do it in the right ways.

2:31:45Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineMaybe there's a robotics. Eastern Europe has a lot of that equipment. Ukraine, Romania, Poland.

2:31:53Etienne FontanYeah, but those mills have collapsed. Those have been sold and are gone because I used to import by the tonnage all of that in the 90s.

2:32:05Collin PalmerYeah, like I'm saying there's been aspects, right? Like, yes, I understand like there's been people that have tried, but like it's, there's so much more to go. And then like, think about what are our expectations, our consumer expectations today. Like, How we expect cannabis to be, you know, handled is very different than on a commercial scale. You know, in a commodity, you know, there's 10% of that is really just that, big machines and stock and all this stuff that gets blended in.

2:32:35Collin PalmerConsumers today don't want that, right? So that's the other, I think, aspect of it is, are we thinking about harvesting in the right ways? Are we just thinking of grabbing this plant

2:32:49Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineI think that the hemp is a good example. What we found, what happened in our community as we figured out hemp was less than 0.3%. And then all of a sudden there was two branches of hemp. There was medicinal hemp that went to 20% and above, which was often grown as a female in a female field. And then there's industrial hemp, which is always going to be male and female and is always going to have pollen in the wind.

2:33:20Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineSo if you're going to like really do it out right, you kind of have to have industrial hemp zones, which is going to have pollen all over the air. You'll have to have some type of medicinal hemp or just put medicinal hemp with THC, which is pretty much where it is in Canada. Like there is no good CBD All of these are available in Canada. You would have to grow your CBD and a THC license.

2:33:49Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd Marcus might say something different that I might not know about, but a lot of the approved cultivars in Canada are really not heady CBD varieties. There's a few.

2:34:01BubblemanNo, because we never, hemp was always like, initially, the pipe dream that we learned through Jack's book was that like, whoa, you can do, There's 50,000 commercial products, right? And then when you're young and you're an activist, what you don't realize is the $17 billion of infrastructure that's required to make those things exist. And we learned that with, yeah, we learned that with hemp plastics. We even learned it really with hemp fibers.

2:34:30BubblemanI mean, the cotton ginny popping out in like the 30s was a big deal and the decorticator getting buried and not really being able to produce those nice hemp fibers, at least in North America and Europe. There was some nice and it grew and grew and it got better and it really got better when they started mixing it with cotton and bamboo and other fabrics. But really, hemp was always about grain in Canada.

2:34:53BubblemanWe're a grain country. We produce 25% of the world's grain. And so we grow grain. And that was always, we knew that That hemp was 0.3% THC. We didn't know the THC-ATHC sort of loophole that would come to exist, I would say at least 20 years later, because our hemp license in Canada was in the 90s, right? It was 94, 95 that the first crops that were just experimental were grown.

2:35:22BubblemanAnd it was no one in their right mind was thinking we can sort of, you know, Thank you for joining us.

2:35:42BubblemanIt was a step up from the 0.3% because Zolotinosha was actually 0.03% because 20 plus years prior, the DEA went into the Ukraine and told Goroborodko from the Institute of Bass Fibers, get rid of the THC or get rid of hemp. And he kind of came up with this litmus test in the field where he could kind of find plants with a little bit. It was a purple litmus test.

2:36:09BubblemanHe'd pull these plants. He pulled them for like 20 years and he created the Zolotinotia. I guess it was the 11 that was the first 0.03%.

2:36:20BubblemanTHC. So from our government's perspective, we went the other direction. We weren't trying to like kind of be like, hey, it's all good. It's THC A versus T. We just said, look, this shit has literally almost no THC whatsoever. And lo and behold, the high school kids that were in the nearby town came to that field and had like four foot, three foot and four foot colas in their lockers, not even in bags like they were just So tripped out that this field existed.

2:36:51BubblemanThey all just went and cut a bunch. And luckily, because it was our farm and we didn't want to press charges and they weren't had any press charges because the cannabis wasn't like a drug cultivar. So they, you know, young, dumb kids in Manitoba in the Bible Belt could have got hammered out with some harsh drug charges if that was, you know, 20% THC. So yeah, we just did a brain up here in Canada.

2:37:16BubblemanYou guys are crushing the... The hemp thing down in the U.S., so we don't have to up here. Used to be.

2:37:23Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineNot anymore. It used to be crushing. It was crushed. But I'll just say, with the proper equipment, you should be able to get the seed. Oh, sorry, you muted. I'm sorry. With the proper... Can you unmute, Josh? I really don't hear you right now, and I don't know if it's just me or what I'm doing. It keeps auto-muting. Oh, well. Here we go. I was just going to just say, with the proper equipment, you should be able to get the seed off the top and the fiber from the bottom, correct?

2:37:58BubblemanSomething definitely went down. Something definitely went down.

2:38:03Etienne FontanMarcus is having some technical issues. One moment, people.

2:38:09Etienne FontanCan you hear us now?

2:38:13SpeakerAre we having technical issues? Am I getting feedback? Is there feedback?

2:38:18BubblemanNo, my shit went completely dead. That's okay.

2:38:22SpeakerMy battery was about to die, so I had to charge my phone, so I had to unplug the headphone jack. So if it's reverbing, let me know. One topic that's interesting in all of this that I find incredibly fascinating, basically hemp is at the forefront of advanced material science. So we think of hemp as like fiber for clothing and seeds for food, but hemp holds an insane potential for bioplastics, And graphene production.

2:38:58SpeakerThere's a lot of emerging materials science with hemp being the perfect materials for creating graphene, which is like for super capacitors and batteries. So with all these like hyper advanced materials science in the works, there's going to be a lot of money that's going into hemp. It's happening right now. It's happening at scale and it's coming fast right now.

2:39:25BubblemanI will say the craziest hemp product I ever saw in my life was hemp metal. And it was put in my hand by a billionaire by the name of Peter Steiner from Germany. And he had this hemp metal and this hemp metal, it was blunt, it wasn't sharp, but you could cut an X into a ashtray because hemp metal was a 9.8 on the hardness scale. And I remember because he had invited the Hack Brothers who owned the company De Beers, the diamond company.

2:40:00BubblemanBecause diamonds were the only thing that could cut this, this thing, this hemp metal. And this piece that I held in my hand had traveled around the world like nine or 10 times, you know, being shown to different people. And obviously, I never saw anything happen from it. I suspect it started building like space shuttles and stuff like they just it was lighter than titanium, lighter than aluminum, stronger than titanium.

2:40:23BubblemanSo, or as strong as titanium, like a super insane metal on the hardness scale. Carbonized hemp fibers. Still to this day, I haven't seen a picture of it or anything. I held it in my hand and I know it was real. What were you going to say before I kind of, so. No, it must be.

2:40:42SpeakerThat's fascinating. Cause like the graphene is for people that don't know. Graphene is essentially a single layer of carbon atoms in like a hexagonal.

2:40:51BubblemanI thought you were saying, I had something to say, Matthew.

2:40:54SpeakerOh, oh, sorry. Yeah, I was just gonna say.

2:40:56BubblemanShit, my headphones are doing it again.

2:40:58SpeakerOh, yeah, no problem. Well, I was just asking earlier, like, what kind of metal it was, but it seems like it's carbon based, so it's not even metal at all. Yeah, I think, I don't know, but from my research with graphene. Fascinating. With graphene, it's a single layer of carbon atoms in a hexagonal pattern, and they're using graphene for like body armor. It's really strong when it's layered properly.

2:41:27SpeakerSo it may be related to that, the like lattice arrangement of the carbon atoms. Peace, Josh. Yeah, I'm gonna have to jet soon too. But the graphene, it might be related to these like lattice network of carbon atoms that are really strong. I don't know, but that's fascinating. Hemp metal, never heard of that.

2:41:50BubblemanYeah, it was insane. I had never seen anything like it. This was back in the old Manitoba days when we first started doing hemp and there was a lot of excitement in the scene. Do you want to finish up on your slideshow here, Matthew?

2:42:05SpeakerYeah, we'll dive back into the microbes. I'll go through all of that. But since we're talking about hemp, I did have a section on hemp too. So this might be kind of fun to talk about a bit. But basically, also because you're in Canada, Canada, right? So is Manitoba near any of these states here? I don't know anything about your geography.

2:42:27BubblemanManitoba, it borders North Dakota.

2:42:32SpeakerOkay, right here. Correct. So this research report was talking about the suitability of cannabis in the Midwest. And when we put it on a regional eco map, we can see that there's a big overlap on rivers and waterways, which they go on to talk about. There were three major eco regions of the U.S. that It kind of, I felt like we're associated. Annotate here, it's Driftless, the Driftless area is specifically the, what's called the North Central Hardwood Forests.

2:43:09SpeakerAlso the Western Corn Belt Plains and the Central Great Plains. And mostly pretty suitable. I'm going to fast forward through these. You think people say fast forward anymore? I hear it every once in a while. Oh yeah. Anyways, So they expect that there's supposed, there's probably going to be range changes in places like Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana. Um, this was a cool section that showed different organizations, mostly universities that were finding land feral or land raised populations of cannabis.

2:43:46SpeakerSo it'd be a cool place to access maybe for, I was making the argument in this, in this, uh, presentation about pest resistance and environmental resistance. Um, I'll just go over some cool facts. Environmental suitability predictors were river channels, well-drained soil, disturbed land, that root or all ability, and ample moisture. And we even found sort of localized adaptations and genes related to that in Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado.

2:44:16SpeakerSVP2 was a gene called smaller trichomes with variable branches. That's the full name. And it regulates trichome production. They found changes in those populations and also in the MEV kinase, which is a key step in the production of specifically sesquiterpenes through the bivalonic acid pathway. And they also said that the predictors for occurrence of feral hemp in the Midwest was high temperature of the driest quarter, which they said was winter, low field water capacity, and high precipitation in September, which they felt was the last month that got about over a half an inch of rain.

2:44:55SpeakerAnd there was a drought conditions in 2024 when they did this, and that most of these populations had a European fiber or Chinese land race pedigree. So here is recent research, very recent, that shows some of the populations of like wild cannabis and domesticates. And I would agree that this also corroborates the idea that like the pink Euro-Siberia, Western Mongolia, and I would also include the Central and Southern China, Himalayas in green, and then North China and Eastern Mongolia, Korea.

2:45:29SpeakerZachary Lidman, Ph.D.: Mongolia in yellow here are I think kind of relatives in this way, and this is just a section. Zachary Lidman, Ph.D.: This is all ac and ab and c are all with c being this research reports interpretation of like the movement and different population groups by and large of cannabis sativa, the different gene pools that are distinct. And I'm going to go through back to here.

2:45:58SpeakerThis was the core microbiota found across domestication grades. Pseudomonas, lots of species in that. Staphylococcus, Ralstonia, often considered to be pathogen, a group with a lot of pathogens in it, and Bacillus and Pelomonas. And here's the fungal endophyte example I would have liked to have Josh on. I'll have to come back again and have people where we can talk about this microbiota. Absolutely. But like some of the most abundant fungal endophytes, this was in a hydroponic greenhouse, okay?

2:46:30SpeakerThis is not in soil. An important point I wanted to make here was that the substrate I believe was coco fiber, and they found that there were endophytes associated with the substrate and those that were not associated with the substrate. And you'll see a couple of things, aspergillus, penicillium, fusarium, trichoderma, They were associated with the substrate versus those who were not. Botrytis, Paziza, Ficomyces, but also Alternaria and Buveria.

2:46:55SpeakerBuveria they applied. So over 1%,

2:47:02SpeakerAbundance, which is high, was Fusarium, Penicillium, Rhizophagus, like Rhizophagus irregularis, the Mycorrhiza, and Aspergillus were found as an endophyte, whereas others were not. But the coolest thing for me is that there were two Penicillium species, Rubens and Citrinum, Which produced antibiotics. Penicillin, obviously, but also citrinin. And this was found in all tissue samples, which is interesting. And it might be something that is more prevalent than we might consider.

2:47:37SpeakerAnd it might have implications for pathogen control in the endosphere of the plant, inside of it. But there's also, like I said, I think I mentioned this earlier, Rhizophagus irregularis was found, which increases cannabinoid content. David Price- or yield, I should say, and also stimulates nutrient and growth effects was found in also all tissues, not just the root tissue. David Price- Which is where it normally would be associated with which I think i've never seen any other research myself that I can think of.

2:48:07SpeakerDavid Price- But another thing that we were talking about is that they found that explants during like tissue culture when you clean out all the pathogens if you're able to. We also clean out all the endophytes and it becomes a clean slate that is easy to colonize. So you might consider creating like a bio barrier or inoculating certain microbes, specific microbes that can kind of fortify the plant as it gets propagated.

2:48:34SpeakerAnd that kind of stuff. And then this was a bunch of tables just delineating various bacteria. People could come back to this live and or the research or the presentation I did earlier to see more, but I'm just going to move through these. This is penicillium and fusarium and F moving up and down the xylem channels. These are spores primarily and the fusarium spores as well, which have a kind of like a kidney shape to them.

2:49:02SpeakerAnd then this is more spores moving up the xylem water channels. And then these are also differences between indoor and field and wild cannabis bacteria in particular. They also found a bunch of research reports about cannabis in particular, I believe, and their bacterial species and their mode of action, which I think is really important. And I really respect these people for going over the details of how they work and what they did.

2:49:31SpeakerAnd putting numbers to it, which I think a lot of people could benefit from. But the most salient part is that they're mostly inhibited and inhibitive of a lot of these fungal pathogens like Botrytis, Infusarium, Sclerotinia, and Aspergillus and Alternaria that people often deal with. Even Trichoderma harzianum, which is often used as a biocontrol for pathogenic fungi, was able to stimulate growth. Like dry biomass, height, root density, which was interesting.

2:50:03SpeakerSo again, versatility you might not have expected. We already went over this. That's it.

2:50:14SpeakerAwesome.

2:50:15BubblemanAppreciate it, dude.

2:50:16SpeakerYeah. Yeah, no problem. So now we can see our faces again.

2:50:21BubblemanYes, exactly. Not that anyone wants to see them. And... But yeah, that's deep, man. That is a lot of information. Definitely going to have to go back. No one's going to be able to retain all of that. That is for sure. And is there a place where this whole, you said the whole presentation was?

2:50:42SpeakerYeah, that's the, there was, I just yesterday did the Home Grower International event. Michelle. I'll link it.

2:50:50BubblemanI'll link the show. I'll link the show in the description of this video. So if you can send me that link, I'll put it in the chat and I'll put it in the actual description of this episode of Hash Church. That way people want to get even deeper on it.

2:51:07SpeakerYeah, absolutely.

2:51:08BubblemanWell, they can. We all know how deep the rabbit hole goes when it comes to some of this stuff. It's incredible. It's so incredible that it can possibly be this complicated. And I always know for a fact that we're just tipping the iceberg with what we know.

2:51:29SpeakerAbsolutely right. And like, you know, I think I just feel like people, I'm excited that people are able to make All right, so we're going to move on to the next question, which is, how do you make more informed decisions about such a complex and nuanced thing?

2:52:01SpeakerI think it's a very fuzzy, very hairy, and we're trying to fight for just the ability to grow itself, you know, like it's might feel like a sort of less relevant to think about these details, but I liked what Etienne said, you know, like there are multitudes to consider.

2:52:30BubblemanAbsolutely. Good to see you, Colin. It looks like you're seat belted to a dab.

2:52:37Collin PalmerI am for sure. Always.

2:52:40BubblemanIt's hilarious.

2:52:44Collin PalmerYou're just hanging on the dabber. I always got something. Yeah. That looks so fucking good.

2:52:53Collin PalmerWell, I love you all. It's, uh, I loved your presentation, man. That was awesome. Um, it's funny. I was, uh, I tried to DM you like maybe months ago and I wanted you to come on the show and I'm, I'm glad Marcus had reached out to you and, uh, you're here. It's great, man. It's nice. Nice to meet you.

2:53:13Etienne FontanUh, one of the things that, um, We never contemplated when we originally started testing for THC and all that and started doing microbial testing back in 08 and 09. We did not think it would ever be prickly between because initially it was embraced when growers had the opportunity to finally come forward and get their stuff tested. They came forward excitedly. You know what I'm saying? They came forward with vigor.

2:53:50Etienne FontanI think also our not really understanding what the numbers were early add to the confusion, right? Because it led to that confusion of, oh, a higher THC number must IE get me high, which as we know is not the case. But it's been fascinating to watch over the past 15, 16 years, this prickliness grow between uh the growers and the uh because originally i had a whole bunch of people come to me and say oh my stuff's clean i can't wait to get it tested and then it came up hot or it came up and it failed and that of course was a huge disappointment but it also showed me you know the need for and why testing was so important because so many people had promised and said that they were good actors and it turns out that was not the case so I think these are recent phenomena that we need to grapple with because as stated we never anticipated anybody going shopping for higher numbers.

2:54:53Etienne FontanThat was never a consideration in our idea of the concept and it really pissed me off that it went that direction but it's gone so strongly that direction that you've got different testing methodologies from state to state and even what the states Test four, which is, again, a confusion when, you know, more happens when people go to other states that have different situations. So there's still a lot of education that still needs to go on around it.

2:55:22Etienne FontanBut I do agree there's been a bunch of misinformation, I think, has trumped a lot of the good information, which has led to that distrust.

2:55:31Etienne FontanAt the behest of both sides.

2:55:34Collin PalmerYeah, the other thing is, is on the genomic side, I think you said it like a little soundbite a little while back, like most of these varietals are only a few snips away from each other. And that's the truth. If you really look at it on the phyllo tree, and I think that's the other important missing link of all this is like authenticity and like actually growing something that has a lineage behind it that you know.

2:56:01Collin PalmerYou know, not everything's clean and everybody passes everything around as something that they were given and labeled. And that's also a massive issue still today.

2:56:10Etienne FontanRight. Misnaming, misnomering and not really understanding what you truly have. And they're so then entrenched because they were told it was this. So, God damn, it is this and nothing will tell them otherwise. Right. Which is another.

2:56:22SpeakerHow dare you? How dare you say that I'm wrong about something? Right. Possibly.

2:56:28Collin Palmerexactly well that's the thing is like everyone's so hyped up on that i that that thought that little moment right there that you just picked on and then they're not stopping to think that hey maybe this deserves a different name or maybe it's um it is something different you know and um that that can be okay you know it doesn't need to be um everyone doesn't need to always be right because it's not necessarily about that right it's about Making sure that you're growing the right things and you know what you have.

2:57:01SpeakerSo you know what you have. You know, I did a video on hazelnut powdery mildew a while ago, and there was this new powdery mildew that came in. Aaron Wiggins, Aaron Wiggins, Aaron Wiggins, Aaron Wiggins,

2:57:37SpeakerUh, you know, they've been around for like centuries and millennia perhaps. And because the hazelnuts don't have to, um, You know, like you don't, you can just grow them in one spot. So like if they get pollinated or they, or they like get, if they just seed themselves, like there's a lot of, there's not as much selection breeding as what I'm trying to say in the sense of like cannabis can have or many other plants get.

2:58:01SpeakerAnd what they found was when they looked at cultivars for resistance, a lot, they also found that a lot of the plants that has certain names, like Tom Bull is a cultivar that I bet all of us have eaten. Thank you for joining us.

2:58:37SpeakerYou know, so this stuff happens. And yeah, it's just it's just the it's just the the it's feckless and mendacious to be like, you know, no, I'm right because I said so. I don't care what the I don't care what the gene test says. I just it's crazy.

2:58:53Collin PalmerNo, it totally is. But the other thing before I forget, and we've talked about this a little bit on past episodes, have you ever studied the viral load of every any said cultivar? Like what?

2:59:09SpeakerOh, you broke up a little bit. I didn't hear that.

2:59:13BubblemanHe's chopping. Someone dabbed him.

2:59:17Collin PalmerI got picked up on my dab. Can you hear me now, actually?

2:59:22BubblemanWe can hear. No, you're still coppering.

2:59:39Etienne FontanCheck the charge on your headphone.

2:59:40SpeakerCan you guys hear me without reverb? Yes. I was going to just, while Colin's getting situated with the sound, the viral load is a fascinating concept. Because I think it's like, it's actually like one of, it's not only important for plants, it's important for our understanding of human immunology. The viral load is literally like The linchpin of understanding of what immune system health is and how plants and humans regulate it and how we can balance that viral load and still function.

3:00:18SpeakerSo if you look at like humans, we have 480 trillion viruses in our DNA, 480 trillion, trillion. We're literally just like a complex coding mechanism of like, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

3:01:04SpeakerJustin Delacruz, us since the last universal cellular ancestor, or LUCA. And there's a lot of cool research about the origins of viruses, how they've come about. I just read a recent research report about the evolution of giant viruses. But anyways, I want to give Colin the ability to make his point. That's cool.

3:01:24Collin PalmerNo, I love where you're going with it. You're absolutely so spot on. The reason I'm bringing it on is because specific to cultivation, it can inform things that you may or may not use and need to use at certain rates and application rates as well, because we do use a catch-all Aaron Wiggins, Soil Grown, Storm, Skully Vibes, Skully Vibes, Chay, Cherry Blossom, Cheryl T Rose, Chip, Chris Bennett.

3:01:50Collin PalmerAaron Wiggins, Soil Grown, Storm, Skully Vibes, Chay, Cherry Blossom, Cheryl T Rose, Chip, Chris

3:02:05Collin PalmerYou know, just on a basic level, and let's say you're a home grower, but even at the commercial scale. So that's, that's, that's, that's why I brought it up, because I think it's really important. It's just something that's so overlooked. So I just thought it'd be great to talk about it.

3:02:21SpeakerReally quickly, I just wanted to say that I have written on the subject in like white papers and academic literature. So this was, this is just a slide that I often recycle of those selected publications. So I have some on Uh, viral diseases of cannabis. Um, and, uh, also this sort of, um, there are a couple of other things so that you can check out on my website, zentsnall.com, where I've written about this stuff.

3:02:46SpeakerIf people are interested and, uh, and that's it.

3:02:53SpeakerThese are your, these are your articles, Matt. Yes, that's right. The one from in Cornell Cooperative Extension and Taylor Francis and a Sylvia. That's a collaboration with other people with Cornell to make like a cannabis sea of a guidebook. It's in English and Spanish for those who are more comfortable in that language. And it's like a kind of like a, just a general guide that they wanted to produce.

3:03:23SpeakerSo that was very fun. That was cool. I really liked that process. But the virus publications, that's one of them. And there's a couple of others that I published on in books. That's rad, dude. That's cool. You've been making moves. Yeah, well, I find that topic that you just talked about, like the origins of viruses and how they've influenced immune system. I think that it's maybe more accurate to say that genes, which viruses are made up of two for the most part, but not all.

3:03:53SpeakerAnd like, Back like, like the hypothetical RNA world before we had cells, there were probably things, replicates that were trying to, I mean, trying to avoid viral parasitism, cellular parasitism, as they call it in this research. And there's a, it's just so interesting to see the gene. These are just genes. Thank you so much for joining us.

3:04:47SpeakerYou know, they're arc genes from a retrovirus is the reason we have short-term memory. In fact, so you can think viruses for a lot of very, very nuanced. And also probably these effects were not even realized until other things came about and influenced their production or their presence or their whatever, man. So like, yeah, it's tough. It's a lot of cool stuff. I could talk about forever, but I'm not going to.

3:05:18SpeakerLike I learned that the human placenta was from a like HIV retrovirus that somehow allowed the masking of the cells that that was actually a weird HIV type retrovirus mutated the mammalian genome to like allow for this creation. It's wild. Yeah, it solves the answer, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Right. So like things had things made eggs and before they made and after they made eggs.

3:05:48SpeakerYeah. Mammals developing a placenta was a was in part affected by this. Yeah. This retroviral ingression, which is fascinating.

3:05:58Etienne FontanYeah.

3:05:58SpeakerAll that stuff. But what does that mean for plants and how can we, you know, understand viral load for plants and, you know, like how, how I, you know what I would love to see the one thing is the, I would love to do a research experiment. My, Great research experiment with HLVD would be to take plants that are just in rock wool and salt fertilizer. That's it.

3:06:25SpeakerAnd then take plants in a full living soil system with a complete microbiome as humanly possible with all the benefits of vermicompost and compost, etc., And have both plants inoculated with HLVD. And my hypothesis would be that the living soil mechanisms would greatly decrease the viral load. And the plants without the diversity would have a much higher viral load. That would be my hypothesis. I would love to do that piece of research.

3:06:53SpeakerWell, a lot of viruses have no effect. I mean, we eat viruses all the time on the leaves of plants and we don't even know it. Many of the viruses you mentioned that are in our body are bacteriophages that kill bacteria in our gut and keep populations at a certain level. And also when you brush your teeth, which I hope you do, there's millions of bacteriophages on those toothbrush bristles.

3:07:20SpeakerI think there was research that came out that talked about this. And so you have like a little bacteriophage repertoire in your mouth, in your oral microbiome. They even found hop late. No, no, I want to say this correctly. They found viroid like, I think you saw me post about this a couple of years ago, Russ, but they found viroid like entities in, I think, the oral microbiome of several humans, of humans across continents, including Antarctica, the few researchers and things that hold up there.

3:07:53SpeakerSo that was kind of fascinating. And I don't remember all the details that go into it, but Yeah, that's kind of interesting. That's wild stuff, man. Well, gentlemen, I probably need to go, so I'm going to take off, but the three hours have passed here, but it was really nice talking with all of you.

3:08:14BubblemanYeah. Thanks for coming in so quick.

3:08:17SpeakerThanks, Marcus. Thanks for having me on again.

3:08:20BubblemanAbsolutely, man. We'll do it again someday.

3:08:24Etienne FontanAlways a great conversation with Russ. See you guys later.

3:08:30BubblemanAbsolutely. Well, we still got about 52 minutes left if we're going to go till 1 p.m. So we might as well.

3:08:38SpeakerI've prepared for it.

3:08:40BubblemanYes, exactly. You've prepared for it. Very much.

3:08:43Etienne FontanI got to give you credit, Matt. You definitely came forward with the homework prepared and the presentations there. Not many people are as prolific in their graphic bringing. So good job. Yes.

3:09:00SpeakerI really liked as a personal preference. I just don't think it's always necessary. But I do love having a good visual aid. When we happen to be talking about a topic, you guys are the ones that started talking about hemp. And I guess I kind of mentioned that a bit too, but I really liked your take. I was like, oh, hey, I got a fucking graphic about that, so.

3:09:21BubblemanNo, I think it's something I tell more and more people as I invite them on to church, particularly growers, hash makers. It hasn't really quite caught on yet, but I'm hoping they kind of realize like, look, the same way you promote yourself on your social media, like when you know you're coming on hash church, get in the lab, photograph some of your hash making, Video some of your hash making.

3:09:43BubblemanShow some of the crops, close-ups, whatever it is. Fuck drone shot over your crop. Some sort of eye candy that we can put on that's clearly better than looking at our mugs. Although Colin hanging off of the dab is pretty cool. I think I might have to pin him up there. Look, it even looks like he's massaging it.

3:10:06Etienne FontanAs somebody who used to...

3:10:08Collin PalmerCarrying a little dab.

3:10:12Etienne FontanI used to always have to read to my dad and my brother who were both blind. So even having a visual is a concentration of information of which I can convey. I love it visually because I'm a very visual person. And that always helps me better understand what I'm hearing because it gives me visual clues to come back to to reference. It's just my learning methodology. But so I greatly appreciate visuals.

3:10:39Etienne FontanSo You know, not saying it's mandatory for people coming on in the future, but we greatly appreciate them is all I'm saying.

3:10:45SpeakerWe'll definitely bring some fantastic visuals the next time over. Happy to contribute.

3:10:51Etienne FontanOh, because you're slacking today? Fuck off. Yeah.

3:10:57SpeakerI have high standards for myself, I guess.

3:11:00Etienne FontanWe love high standards. I love to come here because I love to learn. I want to absorb. I don't want to just hang out here and just be a schlub. I want to absolutely absorb something I can take forward and understand because it's always fascinating. Once you hear something about something, all of a sudden it starts to orbit around you for the next week or so and you find all these other little facts and information which are always fun to watch the universe throw your way.

3:11:27SpeakerMark and Matt. Also, I thought I really liked your, I just want to say one thing. I loved the video you guys had with Ian of Abstracts and various other people, Jeremy Plummer, and I believe Mark, you were there too, right? Not you, Mark, but you, Mark. Yep, yep, yep. That was like speaking, you know, I love the I love like theory of the mind and like cognitive philosophy and all that stuff.

3:11:52SpeakerAnd I loved how it drank deeply from these different pools of like cognitive science and chemistry and the sort of the interface between senses. I think that's just so cool.

3:12:07BubblemanThat was an incredible show. And yeah, Mark, Dr. Mark helped curate that one. And yeah, the whole, you know, volatile organic compound show, the Vox, the Vox show. We're looking to do another one really soon because that one, yeah, it hit some, checked, it checked all the right boxes. It seems like right where we are with cannabis right now is I guess when you don't know what you don't know, it's easier to go down the wrong path.

3:12:37BubblemanAnd so these conversations will at least kind of help us or help ourselves and other people who are listening to them understand that, oh shit, I didn't even know that I didn't know that. And it sort of kind of leads you down this pathway that, uh, You know, for the longest time, everything was called the Terps. And so that kind of, you know, Nick Ziegler coming on and going into thiols and thiolates.

3:13:02BubblemanFor me, that was the first time in the industry I had heard those terms. And it was soon after that I heard it more often. But even before I got turned on to Abstract or any of those guys, Nick was definitely on Hash Church saying, look, like there's 1400 thiols that I discovered in hops. He says, I bet there's that many in cannabis. And so it sort of opened this world of like, oh my God, like we're calling everything the terps, right?

3:13:31BubblemanIt turns sometimes in the cannabis industry, we tend to take science and turn it into bro science. I will admit it happens. It's been known to happen. That's why we try to get like Dr. Mark here. So if any of us says anything, he'll just be like,

3:13:49BubblemanDon't dumb here. Don't dumb here. Don't dumb here. We have someone holding us up, holding us to what we say.

3:13:59SpeakerYeah.

3:14:00BubblemanWhich, of course, Skunk Man... Well, exactly. And Skunk Man Sam used to be the king of holding us all to what we said because... You just can't believe how many different groups are specializing in things that Sam just sat over at all of the like every level and he was just at this super highest level it's like how do you know this much about this when you didn't even really well you know I just studied with the guys that studied it you know I didn't have to study it myself I just worked with them and so that's where Sam's sort of high bar got set and his excellence came into play and we like to We like to represent that as much as we can here at Hash Church.

3:14:40Etienne FontanI don't think anybody called us on our shit more than him. Of course not. Right? Nobody that I know who could call us because his breadth of knowledge was so vast on so many different things. He already had a patent on it by the time we were talking about it, right? I mean, for real.

3:14:57SpeakerYeah, so Mark, check out this paper that I put a link in the chat. This is really interesting. Which chat did you put that in? I put it in our chat. Why am I not seeing it?

3:15:12BubblemanIt's in the Zoom chat. Oh, I might have to scroll. Okay, Mark, there we go. Frontier, yes. Oh, yeah, this just came out. I saw this. Yeah.

3:15:19SpeakerYeah, did you see this, Matt? So this is very interesting. Yeah, I recently saw this. This is pretty interesting. So this guy, I don't know if you've been following him, but he's been doing some really interesting work. This is Tsang Huck Park, who's at... Our Colorado State University in Pueblo. And it's kind of counterintuitive. I mean, what they find here is that, yeah, I mean, lower humidity or higher humidity decreases cannabinoid content, right, in the trichome, which I think is kind of like counterintuitive, right?

3:15:57SpeakerWhat cultivars was he using? Is he talking about...

3:16:02BubblemanNarrow Leaf Drug Cultivars or Wild Leaf Drug Cultivars?

3:16:04SpeakerYeah, I think he's talking, he's mostly looking at CBD stuff, but, you know, and... Yeah, but which one also kind of matters too, you know?

3:16:13Etienne FontanYeah.

3:16:15SpeakerI forget, did they have a mode of action that they sort of articulated? Maybe it's more extrapolatable? Yeah, I mean, I think he's just looking at general trends, you know, like what can stimulate secondary metabolite profile, you know, trichome density, you know, is trichome density, especially in flowering, you know, how much of a role does humidity play in that? And I think there was some previous studies that he cited in the paper, um, He's doing some really interesting work.

3:16:51SpeakerHe's

3:16:59Etienne FontanAnd a few different other, you know, responses in the plant and looking at how it affects... Limits in consideration, only one genotype was studied, a CBD dominant type 3. It's not certain the same magnitude impacts apply across THC dominant other chemotypes or different cultures. It was in a controlled environment chamber. Field conditions may introduce additional variables, airflow, pests, microclimates, variations, etc. The low RH in this study, 37 to 58 percent, is fairly low compared to more humid climates.

3:17:32Etienne FontanThe study authors caution that this is a baseline rather than an optimal RH for all settings.

3:17:40Collin PalmerWell, the other thing that comes into play is the is perspiration. You know, if the plant can't like have an active perspiration. You know, airflow.

3:17:49SpeakerYeah.

3:17:50Collin PalmerYeah. If it can't do that, then yes, I would agree that it actually would, would actually decrease the, yeah, I would start. That's what I was going to get.

3:18:00SpeakerYeah.

3:18:00Collin PalmerYeah.

3:18:01SpeakerI was wondering if that was like, if it was just like a, it doesn't trigger at the right time. Right.

3:18:06Collin PalmerWell, no, it just like suffocates it. Yeah.

3:18:08SpeakerIt's part of photosynthesis, right? Yeah. Sorry. I know you were the one talking.

3:18:14Collin PalmerNo, I love it. I think we're on the same wavelength. I actually want you to keep going.

3:18:20SpeakerThe author refers to it as vapor pressure deficit. Deficit. Okay. Yeah. Vapor pressure deficit. Yeah, because it's part of photosynthesis, right? So you need the evapotranspiration. You need the oxygen comes in. You make the sugars. You quench the photons in the chlorophyll and then you got sugar and then you do stuff with those sugars. And then, so yeah, I would be, I would not be surprised if it was something like that, which sounds like it could be cultivar agnostic potentially to me.

3:18:52SpeakerPotentially. Yeah. Could be. Yeah. It sounds like a very fundamental thing that's being affected rather than like a, but you know, yeah, I mean, that's just provisional and, and, you know, I've, I, you know, another thing that I respect about you guys is you immediately went and found in the discussion where they say, hey, we don't really know for sure. And not like a lot of people who go, this conforms to my bias.

3:19:14SpeakerI'm right. I've always been right. Isn't it funny how scientists, isn't it funny how scientists research stuff they already knew? Right, right, Matt, that's what we found.

3:19:25Etienne FontanIs that a lot of the cannabis science is wrong. And that's what we've learned from or capitalize off of that curiosity and tried to actually replicate it and found that either worked or didn't work. And we found there's more misinformation over science as well as the continuity of science in cannabis. You know, people remember, people still think endocannabinoids are still a thing, right? So we're still dealing with that willful ignorance.

3:19:50SpeakerIt's not that it's wrong. It's just that our understanding is constantly evolving, right? So, you know, something that was held... As truth a couple of years ago can easily be disproven now with the right science. I mean, that's the great thing about the continuum of science, but I guess, you know, there's always been interest in looking at like light intensity. And again, I think that this guy has a previous paper from 2022, Matt, that looked at, um, That looked at heat stress and not just heat stress, but like, you know, like drought stress.

3:20:37SpeakerI don't know if there's such a word, right? You know, just starving plants for water. Yeah. So starving plants for water, like what does that do in terms of inducing changes in the secondary metabolite profile? Oh yeah. Big hormone changes for sure. A lot of plants have Factors for that, you know, like the nod and mic factors you were talking about earlier that induce different kinds of symbiosis for sure, for sure.

3:21:08SpeakerSalt tolerance too, you know, like sometimes when the drought, when the desiccation happens, then other things that was somewhat maybe we call medium sensitive to then becomes super sensitive to because there's no buffer or whatever, you know? So yeah, it definitely has multitudes.

3:21:27Collin PalmerI saw that in a large room, Dr. Mark, when we were growing in Massachusetts, really, really large room. It was just like 2,000 square foot room, indoor, really dialed. And all of a sudden, the Argus system had issues. And I remember the guy, this guy Drew that was working for me came and talked to me and he was like, hey man, we had this drought issue. It wasn't actually targeting right.

3:21:54Collin PalmerAnd then we had a heat stress on top of that. But then I went in the room and honestly, I looked at him and I was like, I've never seen this plant ever push as many trikes out in my life. I would also love this plant for over 10 years.

3:22:07Etienne FontanWe saw a dry farming method that was being done by the up in Geneva, New York, where they did not water it. It was actually they had set the land and we never got to see. Caleb, have you ever seen any of that? I would love to see what the the spectrum analysis of those flowers were compared to the, you know, the saturated or the hydroponic plants.

3:22:33Etienne FontanLike the homogenous garden that we met in, right? I would love to see what the, yeah, all around the different compound comparisons from garden to garden. I think that would kind of give us some answers.

3:22:47SpeakerI bet it would be similar to like if you have a traditionally grown peach like a run where you're watering it versus like dry farm peaches that you might get from like Newcomb Family Farms and Willow Creek and what you have is like higher density of secondary metabolites whatever they are just because there's less water content in there there might be smaller And for like the dry farmed cannabis that is on like the California market that I've seen, like there is definitely something to that.

3:23:16SpeakerLike you end up with a unique look and then I don't know about, you know, microbiome interactions. I'm sure there are some, but definitely just that water. You'd have to assume that there's huge changes, right? And like even like, like even if you're talking about drought and rainfall, right, with sun-grown cannabis, Thank you so much for joining us.

3:24:01SpeakerAt high altitudes where, again, the mixture and the atmosphere is very different, your bud architecture is very, very different. Like you get a very airy, kind of larfy almost bud as opposed to something more at sea level. But I think the point is, is that like if the... If the leaf is kind of like for light intensity, right? The leaf is the antenna for the sun's rays, right?

3:24:36SpeakerSo the leaf is going to be like an optimum architecture and shape and morphology to be able to capture sunlight. I'm sure in very way, The roots are kind of the same to capture moisture. I'm just curious. I'm like, you know, like I always just assume that, you know, for dark, dense, you know, trikey bud, you're going to want high humidity. And that's why this article really caught my attention because it just, you know, again, took what I was thinking as a hypothesis, which is you need a lot of humidity for For trichome density and for potency, but it looks like it's just the opposite.

3:25:22SpeakerI mean, I think it really is genetic dependent because for that study, it's specifically on like a type three CBD, you know, dominant cultivar, but that could be a type three CBD dominant cultivar that takes 24 weeks to flower or six weeks to flower. And they definitely chose the six week one.

3:25:42Collin PalmerYeah, I think into your point, Caleb, you know, the one thing to keep in mind is like more humidity creates way more problems for bacteria and microbial content upwelling from the soil to get deeply seeded into the inside of the colas. And that's where you will find aspergillus and things like that forming. So you have to be really careful, you know, to keep the balance in check.

3:26:09Etienne FontanWell, we all it's an ecosystem with growing of hemp that, you know, we've seen places where there are droughts and there are heat issues that the THC goes hot. Right. It actually goes above the point three percent. So where there is something to Some sort of denial of water that causes a spiking, at least we know, at least in the, you know, the hemp varietals, we don't, we would need to see the science that actually would back it for the, you know, type one versus the type three.

3:26:44SpeakerI'd love to see the, go ahead, man. I would just say, just like, you know, you know, it's also possible that like, you know, like what Caleb was saying, the right genes, Chris Brown, Turning on, turning off, or whatever, or breeding in a certain way, it's possible we could minimize, we could probably, we could press maximize and minimize the bad and maximize the good when it comes to like humidity response.

3:27:09SpeakerChris Brown, Maybe priming with some microbes or compounds could also have a similar effect and maybe we can like You know, like with crop searing, right? Like people have been, I would say all crop searing is inherently biological. I think the word biological is maybe a little superfluous because for one thing, we just went over all the endophytes and other things in the plant. So, you know, and we might be having effects on some of these microbes too, right?

3:27:39SpeakerAnd other sort of macro level effects. But yeah, the plants have the growth defense paradigm, right? So if they're not growing, They're defending, they're dumping resources into that. So if they're getting suffocated, perhaps there's ways that we can like kind of neutralize those stress responses.

3:27:59Collin PalmerYeah, the one thing I was gonna add is it's more of a question for everyone here is how much life is really happening in a dry farming scenario? Because we all know that if you drive back too far, things die, right? Colonies die. So how do you keep that in check

3:28:17Etienne FontanThat balance, right?

3:28:19Collin PalmerRight. Yeah. And how does that work without adding it back in, right? How do you naturally cultivate that, let's say, and call it hanging fruit, living soil? That's going to take some work, you know, and that's just a thought that I had, you know. I think it's an honest one to ask yourself, well, how much is actually being kept versus how much would you have to add and is that sustainable?

3:28:47Etienne FontanWell, how are you tracking it? Well, they did use a, you know, they did grow clover prior. That was the thing. So at least there was nutrients in the soil. You know what I'm saying? To at least nitrogen to uptake. Caleb, go ahead.

3:29:00SpeakerNo. For the dry farms that I've seen in California, they're, they're very much like very limited in where they can be. And they're all mostly in like riverbeds, like previous flood zones. And like, so their water table is pretty consistent right underneath there. And really like, it looks just like any of these other polycultural regenerative farms that we were touting so much. It's just that they don't have to water them.

3:29:26SpeakerAnd, you know, they might have some So you're saying the water table itself is...

3:29:56Etienne FontanYou're helicoptering, bud. Sorry.

3:29:58SpeakerDry farming is only happening in regions. Yeah, only happening in certain regions. And in most regions, if you tried to dry farm, you'd run into exactly the problem you were describing.

3:30:11SpeakerI was also going to say that reminds me how like people ask me a lot, like soil microbiome, you know, if I apply Bouveria or if I apply another chemical, a natural chemical, even that like kills an insect. Or something like that. And how much am I going to disrupt the microbial population? And, you know, for me, it's like, I think that's a very valid question, but at the same time, there's even research that shows that, you know, even if you apply something that might be mildly antibiotic or only affect bacteria, let's say, or maybe a little bit of fungi, some, there's so many microbes, some of them will not be affected.

3:30:47SpeakerAnd others, you know, you might shift the population, like maybe many of the, maybe the total, you know, microbial consortium, however you want to talk about it, maybe goes down for a little bit. And then it comes back up. And I've seen research that shows where they applied, where they applied azadirachtin, actually.

3:31:07SpeakerI'm sorry, not azadractin, neem extracts, not just azadractin, but all the other fancy schmancy chemicals in that really biologically diverse substance. And the microbes went down, fungi, bacteria, but then they souped up and they actually went over what they were before because there was sort of like a population, well, there's like a resource glut that also happened too. And so like, it's interesting, there's even research of aphids that drop their honeydew And if there's too much of it or a lot of it, then that honeydew drops to the soil and it can actually change the microbial population very strongly because the sugars they get, like when people put sugars in the substrate.

3:31:49SpeakerAnd sometimes this is helpful for the plant. So in a funny sort of way, the sugar tax that the aphids extract, then do things like change the microbes in the soil or even attract, you know, good guys that would come and kill them or something like this. So it's kind of interesting to see this multipartite Structure and kind of hypothesize about.

3:32:12BubblemanYou got to wonder how we fit into it all. Like, are we a part of this system and whatever we're doing is just like that aphid whose honeydew changed the entire microbe of the soil because he had too high of a sugar content? Or are we the alien that is clearly not lined up with the current system? I tend to think it might be a little bit of both.

3:32:34SpeakerI think we insulated. I think you said it really well that we The reason it feels this way is because we've insulated ourselves so much from the normal controls of humanity. And yeah, I think that does make us like kind of like a hybrid.

3:32:59SpeakerAbsolutely.

3:33:01BubblemanWe got 28 minutes left. 28 minutes left.

3:33:04SpeakerReally counting down, Marcus. Have I said something to offend you? No kidding.

3:33:08BubblemanNo, no, I'm just, yeah, just kind of looking at it. I'm doing it.

3:33:12Etienne FontanHe does this all the time, man. He has kids and a life outside of here. So he. Oh, does he?

3:33:17SpeakerThat's really convenient.

3:33:19Etienne FontanDon't tell everybody else that, you know, they'll believe he's just an elf over there, just churning out bubble hash all day long. But he actually has life.

3:33:27SpeakerI got a life. Strong forearms on bubble, man. Okay, good.

3:33:35BubblemanTrue enough, Etienne. True enough. I've got like nine other conversations going on. I got my wife's feeling a little into the weather today, so I'm going to make sure at one o'clock I'm out there getting her a tea and making sure she's got a nice fire built for her. Let's ask Matt, what are you smoking on?

3:33:56Etienne FontanDo you smoke lately? Yeah, I do. What are you currently imbibing?

3:34:00SpeakerMy favorite mechanism of consumption is usually joints. typically that but you know it's like you know how like when you play a video game if you use a weapon a lot they'll be like that was your favorite weapon to use it doesn't mean the one that i use the most is not the one that i necessarily like the most okay um just in that matchup so i do like to to partake in joints but I find that the most common thing that I use is actually usually like small dabs.

3:34:29SpeakerI find it very efficient, easy to use and that kind of stuff. Extracts, you know, also if they're done right, you know, they might be more clean in a sort of way. And, you know, you know, not getting a lot of smoke and tar in my lungs is, I think, a benefit. I think I tend to agree with people who say that it's like a more finished product, a more refined product, right?

3:34:53SpeakerI think that's generally true from a functional standpoint. But, you know, I've had some really interesting cultivars to take. I usually tell people about the orange tang that my buddy here in the San Diego space developed. And it was like, it was like the orange tang powder Uh, you know, that they made it in my, in my opinion, it was very orange in the particular citric sort of taste of like orange, you know, which sometimes you get lemon, you know, and that kind of stuff.

3:35:25SpeakerIf I were to describe my favorite flavors though, it's like, I like, I like strong gas. If I had to like construct a specific that I like, um, I would like, I like the, I like the weird ones, like, uh, herbal and like peppery and like very, uh, gassy or fuel forward. Um, and a few soul, that kind of stuff. Um, I do tend to like those really strong, um, sulfuric compounds, like the kind of sulfur compounds and things we were talking about earlier.

3:35:55SpeakerUm, I'm not, I'm not gonna be like, oh, that's too candy. I can't have it. Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, like, I do feel like I don't really get tired of any particular flavor, but those are the flavors I find really impactful and tasty. And yeah, I just find it very unique in the flavor profile. And as far as like food and things, I'm also the same way.

3:36:17SpeakerI like strong flavors. I tend to like really strong flavors. Really, I like bitter actually a lot. And I like sour a lot. And I like savory and salty. And so I guess that's almost all of them. But you know, like I like save, I like salty, sour, bitter, probably the most of all.

3:36:36Etienne FontanWhat's your favorite stoner snack after your high?

3:36:40SpeakerOh, I don't get munchies, actually. And I'm like Mark here where I can't use it to go to sleep. Keeps me up. Probably just my brain chemistry. I knew a guy who for whom caffeine was like that caffeine makes him sleepy because of the way his genes are then the opposite, right? So For me, I tend to like to use it as like a thing that helps, it's like a performance enhancer, but I like something like a, I'll take like a nice burger, to be quite honest with you.

3:37:16SpeakerThat's usually a good, it's usually a good choice for me. I try to be healthy, but I do like things that many people like, like salt, vinegar, potato chips. I like, I like strong ginger beer. You know, I like these kinds of flavors too, for sure. You know, yeah.

3:37:38Etienne FontanNo, I mean, it's, it's fascinating what, what, you know, what influence and I, it's always, you know, interesting what people pair with their cannabis or don't pair with the cannabis. I know certain people actually pair fruit with their cannabis, you know, for the, depending on their terpenes, et cetera. You know, I've never been that, um, Over the top with it. But, you know, I appreciate different people's ingestions, methods and methodologies.

3:38:02Etienne FontanBut yeah, I am drawn to dabs too. And I think it's also because of what you're talking about, which is the harm reduction, right? You're using less, you're not, you know, inhaling the tars, etc. Now, I love a mooring joint. But that's about it.

3:38:16SpeakerI like a hippie speedball too.

3:38:18Etienne FontanDon't get me wrong. Right. Oh, so you like coffee with it, right?

3:38:21SpeakerI don't drink a lot of coffee lately, but yes, I do. And yes, I will use all other caffeinated and caffeine adjacent products as well to really have a zip to my zap.

3:38:37SpeakerA zip to the zap. Zippity do da. How about that? That's right. Yes, exactly that. My oh my, what a wonderful day.

3:38:46BubblemanMark, you just been smashing on the Puffco this whole show? Is that what you've been doing? Yeah, dude. Yeah, look at him.

3:38:52SpeakerI love the pipe. I love the like, yes, yeah. Well, I went and visited our friend last week.

3:39:02BubblemanI saw. Brian. Oh, Best Friend Farms. Yeah, we haven't seen him in some weeks. Hopefully he shows up for the Compassion episode next week.

3:39:11Etienne FontanWhat flavor is that, Dr. Mark? He's just busy, bro. Busy, busy.

3:39:17SpeakerIt's the gas mask. The gas mask? How good is it?

3:39:21Etienne FontanYou look gassed.

3:39:22SpeakerSuper good. Oh, man. I tell you what. Holy shit. Yeah. I want to shake it.

3:39:29BubblemanWell, Brian is definitely good at what he does. He's conscious. He's super just good vibes. It was great to see the photo. That's some Piatella he hit you up with or some melt? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, that made me smile. Dude, I'm definitely coming down. I'm just going to drive down and see you next time I'm in Quebec.

3:39:50SpeakerYeah, you're only like an hour away, right? I know. You're an hour away when you're here at Farnham, I think, right?

3:39:57BubblemanYes.

3:39:58SpeakerCome on, man.

3:39:59Etienne FontanHow far from Burlington are you, Dr. Sheldon?

3:40:02SpeakerI'm only like about 10 minutes from Burlington. Jesus.

3:40:08Collin PalmerDude, I'll drive up. Let us know when you're going to do it. Let's do it. I'm going to crash in your pad, Dr. Mark. Get ready.

3:40:15SpeakerAbsolutely, Colin. Let's do it. Let's do it. You asked me what I paired with. I realized this team. Yeah, Marcus, did you get your thing?

3:40:24BubblemanDid I hear you right? I saw you drinking that tea. Did you hear me right what? Did you get your waiver?

3:40:32SpeakerI got my waiver, dude. So you could come to the United States right now.

3:40:38BubblemanI can come to the United States. I'm going to Vegas next month for MJ BizCon.

3:40:44SpeakerNice.

3:40:45BubblemanYeah, coming. I'm there. That's what I'm saying. In fact, when I was in Quebec, like two days ago, in Farnham, I was like, I had my waiver with me. But I was like, you know, just like, I'm gonna like, be very respectful of my Thank you so much for joining us.

3:41:26BubblemanTake away my waiver. I just want to be able to be like, let me just go down and hang out with my friends. I'm not going to cause any problems down there. I promise. But I am going to have a nice time.

3:41:39SpeakerLet's fucking go, man. Let's go. We got to get.

3:41:43BubblemanSo I might be back in Farnham after, let's see, Vegas ends on the 5th. I got to go to Whistler for like five days and then maybe like 11, 12, 13, sometime around then I might be back in Quebec. Finish up some of this R&D. Let's go.

3:42:04Collin PalmerLet's go. We'll get at it. Get everybody together. Get Adam to come out and hang.

3:42:10SpeakerYeah, let's go. I'm ready. Come on, Colin. Marcus, we can play hockey. We can play.

3:42:18BubblemanI want to play hockey.

3:42:22Collin PalmerWe can play in Adam's backyard. He's got that rink.

3:42:26BubblemanSo I got to bring my skates. Is that what you're saying?

3:42:29Collin PalmerNo, we'll figure it out. But that'd be really funny.

3:42:34Etienne FontanDon't need you to bring weapons across the border. Oh, yeah.

3:42:38BubblemanNo weapons. Don't bring your stick. I'm just excited. Matthew, I have not been to the U.S. since 1998.

3:42:45SpeakerYeah, I heard you talk about that.

3:42:47BubblemanI probably wasn't allowed to go there when I did, but I just...

3:42:51SpeakerI'm sorry. I meant Mark with a K. Will I see you again at ACS? Yes. All right. San Diego coming up. Oh, Atlanta. Atlanta. The most recent, the most next one is Atlanta. I think there's another one coming, hopefully to San Diego. Yes. I'll probably go to that one.

3:43:15BubblemanWhen's the next ICRS?

3:43:19SpeakerNext ICRS is in Paris. Really? When?

3:43:22BubblemanYes. 26? In June. In June. Huh. That'd be an interesting.

3:43:32BubblemanLet's go. I've been there a long time since I've been to Paris. Yeah, I don't know.

3:43:36Etienne FontanYeah, I have friends. Farid Gounacher, he is with Paris Normal or France Normal. So he is part of our international team at the UN. So you have a friend in Paris. Just let me know. I'll be more than happy to introduce you. He is... In fact, he was just in a Charlie Hebdo for the work that he and I were doing when we were at Vienna at the UN this past year.

3:44:04Etienne FontanWe were passing out flyers as we were showing off the plants because the UN would not allow us to bring in hemp plants. Although we had all the finished products, they would not let us bring in the plants, so... In the Charlie Hebdo this week, there's a picture of, well, there's a drawing of Farid out passing out the flyers in front of the UN. And there's just screaming, hurry, Farid, hurry, we need you in France.

3:44:29Etienne FontanSo they're hoping that we will continue to change the world laws so that France will change its laws. So we have friends in France. Vive la France.

3:44:40BubblemanOf course, there's also some old school French activists that have been there for a long time, a husband and a wife that like to, I believe they're publishers. They publish books. I wish I could remember their names right now, but I've definitely met them over the years. I also have my own friends in Paris. So, well, just outside of Paris.

3:45:01Etienne FontanWasn't it Misha was your name? Was that the one?

3:45:05BubblemanShe was definitely one of us, like a super cool activist, Michka, from Paris. This is a different husband and wife. They were good friends with Mila. You'd see them at the Cup every year. It's really nice folks.

3:45:24BubblemanRepresenting cannabis from all over the world. Holy smokes. It's crazy. Now it's just Pandora's box. She's been open. There's nothing you can do except help steer it in the right direction with your knowledge. So where can people access you, Matthew, when they're like, my shit is fucked. I need to talk to Matthew. You have a consulting company you were mentioning earlier.

3:45:49SpeakerYes, that's right. So you can do this a few different ways. I actually, I did not prepare for this to be the case in my career. But actually social media seems to be a pretty big way that people contact me. I also have a website and there's like a little sort of message system that you can use to get a message to me through my email. But you can also, you know, talk to me on social media on Instagram and on Twitter or on X, I guess they call it now, Sync Angel, and then my Zinthenol YouTube channel as well.

3:46:25SpeakerLots of comments and things like that. But yeah, usually people reach out online in some capacity. And then once we have a rapport, you can give me a call.

3:46:37BubblemanVery cool. Excellent. Well, good for people to know. Because I'm sure some will have the interest. It's amazing. Social media is so crazy. You don't even need a phone number anymore. You just have like an account. You can just call people on it, FaceTime people on it, the whole nine yards. It's pretty incredible how far we've come. Imagine back in the day, like I used to meet people traveling and then I'd like write my name and my address and be like, send me a letter.

3:47:06BubblemanYes.

3:47:07Etienne FontanYeah.

3:47:07BubblemanBe like, maybe that person would have their shit together in a way that they could not lose that piece of paper. But the problem with me was I would manifest people who did not have their shit together and would definitely lose that piece of paper. So that was fun.

3:47:22SpeakerYeah. I've had that experience.

3:47:27BubblemanJust meeting cool people where you're like, let's stay in touch. It's like, here's my shit. Nowadays, it's like, my goodness, you just, you just touch your phone to the other person's phone. Have you seen this thing that the phones do?

3:47:39SpeakerOh, yeah, like an NFS or however it's called, NFC and NTC.

3:47:44BubblemanIt's insane. It's insane. I was just like, I don't even know how I knew it. Someone was like, hey, we should exchange numbers. I was like, oh, I think you can just do this. I must have heard one of my kids talking about it or something. And we just touched the tips of our phones together and they both vibrated and they made a ripple on the screen.

3:48:03BubblemanAnd then a screen popped up that said, accept. And we just, yeah, suddenly it's like we didn't have to do anything. It was just in the contact. I was like, I like this. This is good. At conferences. I do this at conferences because it's, I just was going insane with the inefficiency of QR codes and all the different ways of connecting with people. So I would create a custom QR code.

3:48:30BubblemanI would make it the screensaver on my phone. And when you hit this QR code, it was a contact QR code that opened up your contacts, populated it with all of my information. And all you had to do is go save. And that is by far the best way. Forget about business cards and all this other baloney. And then usually I would put in maybe in the notes or under where it says company, I might put in like the event that I met that person.

3:48:58BubblemanSo now I have all these different numbers in my phone and it's like these are MJ BizCon or they're Grow Up or they're, you know, whatever, whatever else, all the different ways.

3:49:10SpeakerI still use a, I like to use one of these, these digital notebooks, like the remarkable two, actually, I think is what this one is, but I still write things down, you know, do a little sketch or, or take notes and that kind of thing. So yeah, there's some reference for the old school, but I do think that like, yeah, having like a little, uh, card system, uh, or account card that you can just, Bebop to someone is pretty cool.

3:49:37BubblemanEspecially at these events, these cannabis events where it's just like, it's so fast. So much is happening. Everyone wants to get like as lit as possible. You know, like, you gotta try my bubble hash. You gotta try my bubble hash. I'm like 50 rips in on bubble hash. I need honey. I need tea. What kind of tea were you drinking, by the way?

3:49:57SpeakerSo I actually mixed it up. My daily driver is usually some Tie Guan Yin. When I was in China, I developed a love of that particular tea, which translates in English to the iron goddess of mercy tea, which is pretty metal for a name. Yeah, Guan Yin. But here I have some silver needle white tea. So tea Guan Yin is like a roasted oolong, usually, kind of green.

3:50:24SpeakerSometimes there's green tea Guan Yins, I suppose, if you're into the tea world. There are variations, but I like the rock tiaguanian, and I like the silver needle that I'm having here, which is from the younger leaf buds. For people who don't know the difference, the older mature leaves tend to have more caffeine in them, and they get roasted in various ways. When I was in Hangzhou in China, there's a dragon leaf, longjin?

3:50:54SpeakerYeah. That's like pan fried and the leaves are like middle maturity and they're like flat. I really liked it and had a very interesting sort of herbal grassy flavor to it. But the silver needle is very, you know, it's got this like, in tea nomenclature, it's called, I think it's called huigon, I want to say, which is like this, uh, If you have an astringent thing like tea, you drink it and then you stop.

3:51:25SpeakerAnd then there's like this astringency that coats your tongue. And then there's like a weird like phantom sweetness that you can taste sometimes. I believe it's called hui gan or something in Chinese, like end sweet or after sweet or aftertaste. That's sweet. And I like that flavor profile a lot with the teas that are white and they have these like compounds and They have like a more kind of like herbal flavor to them.

3:51:56SpeakerI must ask, how do you feel about bug bin tea? You like drinking that? I knew you'd ask about that. So yeah, so that's for those who don't know, there's a leaf hopper. I believe it's the tea leaf hopper that is, I guess it's allowed to exist in the tea Some tea orchards and it's found that if it and actually, you know. Maybe I have some.

3:52:29BubblemanMaybe I have some.

3:52:32Etienne FontanWait, what's in this?

3:52:34SpeakerYou can see it on the on the tea leaves. I think that's why he's grabbing it. Yeah, here it is.

3:52:42BubblemanHe's like, oh, here's my bug shit tea leaves. There it is. Grab that off the top shelf here.

3:52:48Etienne FontanIt's always funny how you're always, you know, whenever we're doing stuff and you want something, it's always where you can't find it.

3:52:56SpeakerI believe that this is what this is, if I remember the packaging correctly.

3:53:04SpeakerIt doesn't, I don't think it says bug bitten tea in Chinese script, but... Actually, no, this might not be it. I think it was in a redder package. Let's cool that way, but I want to be real with y'all. But anyways, the leafhopper, it feeds, it sort of drinks the fluids, and it causes a reaction in the plant, and it changes the flavor. And I had some.

3:53:26SpeakerI liked it.

3:53:31SpeakerYeah, I liked it quite a bit, actually. But, you know, it wasn't, like, spectacular. I think that this is like a... It's not a strong change. And I'm sure that if I were to taste one versus one, the same cultivar that doesn't have the leafhopper effects, I'm not sure if I'm a connoisseur enough to really find a huge potent difference, but I'd liked it when I had it.

3:53:57BubblemanI wonder if it would be about being a connoisseur or about being like a part of that terroir and culture, like deeper than visiting.

3:54:08SpeakerOh, yeah, because the tea has the flavor change difference. Yeah.

3:54:12BubblemanWell, just even how you perceive it.

3:54:16SpeakerOh, well, I mean, if you want to, if you want to bring up that barrel of monkeys, yes, I think that your, your history, your experience in the moment, whether or not I was really concentrating on the tea flavors, or whether I was sipping it while I was on hash church or something will definitely have an effect. Absolutely. I think that's true.

3:54:37BubblemanYeah, well, I feel like I got to go to China and try this tea.

3:54:41SpeakerWell, I would recommend against it.

3:54:43Collin PalmerLeafhoppers, I mean, they also carry off-lane virus too.

3:54:49SpeakerRight? Well, it's possible. And other viruses, beet curly top virus, leafhoppers.

3:54:55Collin PalmerThey can. Yeah, no, Kevin and I. Oh, I mean, I'm sure it's possible.

3:54:59SpeakerYeah, I mean, there's research that shows that, like, yeah. It just stays in their mouth. Well, the thing is, the thing is, I try to be very... I think I'm a little bit conscientious when I make those kinds of claims. Yeah, I do, you know, but I do think that, like, not only is it plausible, but the research shows that many insects that feed on the fluids and even those that don't probably do vector it to some degree.

3:55:23SpeakerIt even goes in the water, mechanical movement, you know, so. Yeah, I'll send you this.

3:55:29BubblemanWhat is the patch on your hat?

3:55:37SpeakerThe Cascadia bioregion. Nice. This is the Cascadia dug. And only cool people ask me about it.

3:55:48SpeakerThey're like, oh, is that the Cascadian flag? Yes. Yes. I'm from San Diego, California, born here, raised here. But the Cascadia bioregion is in the north, partly in Oregon, I think, too. But, you know, it's just a beautiful place. I like it. It does make me look like a paramilitary organization or something like that, but no, it's not the case.

3:56:15Etienne FontanWell, yeah, because it's a Velcro patch, so that's an automatic association, being a military guy. Are you part of camp, man?

3:56:26SpeakerWell, you know, I'm part of the Marine Force Rangers, so yeah, that's the same thing, right? Actually, I wanted to... A little different. We all go our own ways and take our own paths. I would have much rather have gone to China than gone to Saudi Arabia. Yeah, perhaps. Yeah. Well, and this was in 2010.

3:56:57SpeakerOkay, Hu Jintao was in power. Things were a little bit nicer. I was Mr. International. Everyone wanted to be like, yeah, come into my noodle shop at 2 a.m. Just talk. Let's just talk. Let's just hang out. Yeah, the Chinese people are great people.

3:57:14SpeakerThe government I had issues with. Hold on.

3:57:18Etienne FontanReally? You had problems with the Chinese government? I'm so surprised. I

3:57:22BubblemanI just want to speak for the record. I have no problem with the Chinese government. I've got a waiver that I'm waiting for from the Chinese government. Everything's good with me and the Chinese government. We're good. We're good. This is the Total South Park Show.

3:57:47BubblemanListen, I want to thank everyone for... Coming and hanging out today. We did a solid four hours in Hash Church. Matthew crushed it. I appreciate you coming on, dude. Sync Angel. I'm going to have all his contact info in the description as well as his extendo video of his presentation that he did on another podcast yesterday. So if you don't know about that podcast, you're going to get turned on to it and you'll be able to see his whole presentation over there.

3:58:16BubblemanI also want to thank Cha Education for coming on. Appreciate you, homie. And of course, all my rigs, Dr. Mark and Etienne and Caleb in the house, Mr. Colin. Yeah, thanks everyone for watching. Thanks Puffco and the Press Club for your continued support. You guys can go check them out. Press Club's got the Hash Church discount code for 10%. And Puffco's got some crazy Black Friday deal going till the end of the month.

3:58:49BubblemanGo get yourself one of those proxies that Dr. Mark held up. That black one's pretty nice. I asked for the haze because the name, right? But I do find, I want to say one thing before we finish this off. One of the things I really like about this thing is it's very much like a kind of debonair pipe. It takes away the concept that there's drug use being done and brings it back to this old...

3:59:11BubblemanSort of puffing away like I swear you could go watch your kid play soccer and be kind of in the back area and be chuffing away on this and you wouldn't have too many tisks happening in the in the In the, in the audience. Anyway, thanks everyone for watching Hash Church season 11 episode 47. I do want to say next week is a banger. We got, we're doing Wade's Compassion episode.

3:59:37BubblemanWe're hoping that Monica is going to show up for that. We got a whole slew of cool people from Valerie Corral to Debbie Goldsberry, ATN will be there. Our good friend, Ed, who you guys have not met, but he's very into the compassionate use of cannabis. And he's the one that's been doing all of the video and audio clips for both Skunk Man Sam and Wade. So we're going to have a new compilation video of Wade to show during the Compassion Club, our Compassion episode.

4:00:07BubblemanThere will be a lot of Compassion Club folks from here in BC, Ted Smith. Phil McMillan from the Nelson Kootenay area, Compassion Club and Hillary Black. So it should be pretty good. Definitely don't miss it. It's already up. In fact, I've already made the video and created the link. So I'll send those out to everyone here soon. In the meantime, may the full melt bless your bowl sooner than later.

4:00:38BubblemanPeace out, everybody.