We are pleased to announce that our first indoor crop is now underway at our indoor facility in Southern Switzerland.
Following on from the first test crop in Bulgaria last year, Natural Science is now fine tuning their cultivation plans for 2020 with an indoor crop grown in a purpose built facility in Switzerland. The primary goal of this indoor crop is again to optimize CBD levels while maintaining the 0,2% THC maximum.
The advantage of growing in Switzerland is that they have a 1% THC limit on their hemp plants so while this level is not permitted in Bulgaria it will allow us to engage in more rigorous testing to see what conditions make the THC levels spike in our plants, so that we can avoid this situation in our Bulgarian cultivation later in the year.
Also the biomass for this indoor crop will serve multiple purposes. Grown from the same seeds as that are being planted in the main cultivation in Bulgaria, the biomass will be used in the testing facility at Alvan Blanch in the UK. They will be able to test different heat parameters in each of the three drying chambers in our conveyor drier. This is important as you want to dry the biomass as quickly as possible without damaging the terpenes and cannabinoids contained in the plant material.
Some of the biomass will also be sent to our GMP-certified extraction partners to again optimize the commercial extraction process which will take place in October. Other samples will be sent to the University of York for analysis and to sales prospects for analysis.