Company Looks to Secure Intellectual Property Rights for Terpene-Based Pesticide
LAS VEGAS, March 11, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Digipath, Inc. (OTCQB: DIGP), a service-oriented independent testing laboratory, data and media firm focused on the developing cannabis and hemp markets, is pleased to announce that it has filed a United States provisional patent application for “A METHOD OF DETERMINING TERPENE-BASED BIOCONTROL AGENTS FOR CANNABIS AND HEMP.” This application relates to a method of using natural, plant based, non-toxic compounds instead of chemical pesticides in cannabis and hemp cultivation.
Terpenes are major components of plant derived essential oils and have been used by humans for thousands of years. Natural terpenes play a critical role in a plant’s interaction with its environment, including repelling pests and attracting pollinators. Mold presents a difficult problem for many cannabis cultivators, resulting in a failure rate of approximately 10% for flower harvests in Nevada, with higher failure rates in California. Mold infections cost cultivators significant money and time, and present potential health risks for consumers. Synthetic fungicides also present their own regulatory, economic, and health risks.
While cannabis growers represent a small portion of a vast pesticide market, the impact of noxious pesticides on cannabis crops is significant. With an average price of cannabis in Nevada of $2,799 per pound according to the Nevada Department of Taxation, a tainted crop can be tremendously costly to the cultivator. Through its testing lab operations in Nevada, Digipath has observed a roughly 1% failure rate of cannabis flower submitted for testing due to pesticide issues. Results in neighboring states like California are significantly worse, upwards of 20% in some areas. And while Digipath’s efforts are focused on its core market of cannabis, its science team believes that there are other large agricultural markets for this technology.
“We sought to take advantage of the production of terpenes by cannabis plants as naturally-derived microbial control agents,” offered Cindy Orser, PhD, Digipath’s Chief Science Officer, “Not only can terpenes be used to distinguish and categorize cannabis cultivars from one another, we noticed that certain cultivars fail for mold much more often than others and it can be tied to their terpene chemoprofile.”
About Digipath, Inc. & Digipath Labs, Inc.
Digipath, Inc. supports the cannabis industry’s best practices for reliable testing, data acquisition, cannabis education and training, and brings unbiased cannabis news coverage to the cannabis industry. Digipath Labs provides pharmaceutical-grade analysis and testing to the cannabis industry to ensure producers, consumers, and patients know exactly what is in the cannabis they ingest and to help maximize the quality of its client’s products through analysis, research, development, and standardization.
Digipath Investor Relations & Financial Media
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Information about Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” that include information relating to future events. Forward-looking statements should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or results and will not necessarily be accurate indications of the times at, or by, which that performance or those results will be achieved. Forward-looking statements are based on information available at the time they are made and/or management’s good faith belief as of that time with respect to future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual performance or results to differ materially from those expressed in, or suggested by, the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause these differences include, but are not limited to: the Company’s need for additional funding, the demand for the Company’s products, governmental regulation of the cannabis industry, the Company’s ability to maintain customer and strategic business relationships, the impact of competitive products and pricing, growth in targeted markets, the adequacy of the Company’s liquidity and financial strength to support its growth, and other risks that may be detailed from time-to-time in the Company’s filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. For a more detailed description of the risk factors and uncertainties affecting Digipath, please refer to the Company’s recent Securities and Exchange Commission filings, which are available at www.sec.gov. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
SOURCE Digipath, Inc.
