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Why cannabis genetics might matter more than the harvest
South Africa's fruit industry has been running a genetics-based system for decades. Every commercial apple variety, Pink Lady, Royal Gala, Granny Smith, someone owns those genetics. The same applies to table grapes, wine grapes, blueberries. Breeders develop cultivars, register them, protect them, then growers pay royalties to cultivate them.
The Agricultural Research Council in Stellenbosch, a few kilometers from Durbanville, does exactly this work for conventional crops. The infrastructure for plant variety protection already exists in SA. It just hasn't been applied to cannabis yet.
The draft regulations signal that cannabis breeding could eventually follow the same path. A regulated market will need identifiable, stable cultivars. This changes the value equation. For decades the assumption was that the valuable part of cannabis was the harvest. In a regulated system with plant variety rights, the genetics themselves could become the real asset.
What can a breeder do right now? Document everything. Photograph plants, record selections, label every generation, keep proper breeding notes. Treat the work like intellectual property even before the law requires it. If cannabis genetics eventually become protected IP, those records could be worth more than the seeds.