How to Create & Patent Your Own Cannabis Strain (Strainly.io)

Alan is the founder of Strainly, a Montreal-based startup whose mission is to provide a web based app allowing peer-to-peer cannabis cultivars to exchange and improve access to propagation material.

Strainly allows legal cannabis growers and breeders (medical or adult use) to trade seeds, clones, tissue cultures or pollen and have easier access to a variety of cannabis strains to grow and breed.

Whether looking for Indicas, Sativas, Hybrids or even Ruderalis, users can browse, filter and find their cultivars while benefiting from a rating/reviews mechanism, fostering trust among the community.

Check out Alan Strainly as he breaks down how cultivators can protect their cannabis creations/strains from being patented by large corporations. Avoid the trap and learn how to protect your strains through open source.

WEBSITE
www.strainly.io

GET SHOW NOTES HERE
www.realcannabisentrepreneur.com/podcast 

Transcript

Gary George: 0:01

It's episode nber 10 of the real cannabis entrepreneurs show here is what's coming up.

Alan Strainly: 0:06

Basically, you know, during for emission by definition, there was no way you could go out and try to get a patent on, on a cannabis. A vital that you created. There was just no way because it was admitting to commit a crime. So,, but now that it's being legalized,, some people, some corporations mainly are going and you know, it's no secret,, in Canada we have a lot of large, well-funded corporations in the cannabis space and,, you know, they made no secret that they are going to apply for patents on some.

Gary George: 0:40

Welcome to the real cannabis entrepreneur show. This is the place to learn the exact blueprint on breaking into their cannabis industry. Hey, this show is brought to you by the Real Cannabis Entrepreneur Conference 2019 happening this November 15th and 16th in North New Jersey. This is the only event focused on giving you practical, actionable instruction on how to break into the cannabis industry. Right now. We are flying in some of the pioneers of the cannabis industry from California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and Massachusetts to teach their closely guarded secrets, success stories, lessons and experiences that will give you the advantage and blueprint to crack into the industry. That's right. This event features 30 plus speakers from around the nation, panel discussions, interactive networking, masterminds, VIP cocktail parties, celebrity appearances, and more. Get your early bird tickets on sale now until mid August. You can get yours for 50% off. That's right. 50% off early bird gets the worm. Go to real cannabis entrepreneur.com and get your tickets today. Hey, thanks so much for tuning into the real cannabis entrepreneur podcast show. That's right when you get the low down on how to break into the cannabis industry. I'm your host, Gary George, and I'm excited, excited today to be joined by founder of strangely. Dot. Io. That's right. Alums, strangely he is here. He's the founder of strangely a Montreal based startup whose mission is to provide a web app allowing peer-to-peer cannabis cultivars, exchange and improving access to propagation material. I know that sounds technical people, but don't worry, we're going to explain. It all strangely allows legal cannabis growers and breeders, medical and adult use to trade seeds, clones, tissue cultures or piling and have easier access to a variety of cannabis strains to grow and breed. Whether you're looking for indicas, sativas, hydrides rallies, uses, can browse, filter and find the cultivars who are benefiting from the rating reviews, mechanisms, fostering trust among the community. So without further Ado, ladies and gentlemen, give a warm, real can of welcome for strangely,

Speaker 3: 2:51

founder and creator Mr. Adams Strain[inaudible]

Gary George: 2:59

me., we appreciate it,

Alan Strainly: 3:00

, being here and, and, looking forward to your questions and chatting. It would be to go to what we've tried to do for the past couple years. So thanks for having me, Gary.

Gary George: 3:12

Oh, absolutely. At an Alan, I appreciate you coming on this show today. This is going to be quite exciting guys, because if you have not seen, I want you to all go to his site, strangely, strain l y. Dot. Io. It is a very, very interesting concept. So a bubble. While they're doing that. Alan, I want you to tell us a little bit about your journey. Give us a little background on how you got started in the whole cannabis industry.

Alan Strainly: 3:35

Yeah, sure. So, you know,, as you, as you said, so you know, I'm based in Montreal,, and,,, you know, so like, you know, couple, a bit of, a couple of years ago, we started hearing that,, you know, the government would be legalizing cannabis here in Canada. And, you know, on a personal level, I've been a little bit bothered for a lot longer about,, you know, the, the, the challenges that you usually, you know, farmers face when it comes to procuring,, seeds,, for growing, you know, whatever, from coal into tomatoes, et cetera. And so I've been bothered by that for a full wide, and when I heard that,, you know, cannabis would be legalized in Canada, it was like, okay, you know, maybe it's something that's gonna Happen to for cannabis,, cultivators and, and, and so maybe we should, you know, start thinking about what we should be doing for ensuring that propagation materials, so seeds, clones, women available to, to people and easy, definable in a reliable way. So that's how the idea of creating strangely emerged a little bit over two years ago. And,, and yeah, we've been,, we launch,, in 2017,, with a better version and here we are now with thousands of users in Canada, in the U S and a lot of,, a viral is listed on streaming. So it's, it's good to be here and looking forward to,, 2019. Definitely.

Gary George: 4:57

Absolutely. Absolutely. You guys made a lot of progress very quickly because the site looks great. You've got a lot of action, a lot of activity going on., let's talk a little bit about your background. I mean, how did you come into this and I would assume that you had some type of,, growing a cultivation background, or did you not, how did you get into this actual, you

Alan Strainly: 5:18

know, I've been a, like a, can I be sent to jester for, you know, 15 years now and,, and, so I've been, you know, consuming,, with a, with friends and,, on a, you know, occasional or regular basis. And I've also tried growing, you know, like over 10 years ago,, how doe and then Indo, and it's always been like kind of a really,,, you know, sort of a meditation for me. You know, I've,, more than I, I w I've always been really as interested in the growing process and, and, and just watching the plan for hours and taking care of it as you know, harvesting. And,, sometimes, you know, it was,, I was like really just looking for one, you don't growing a another plant or another set of plants., Dan, you know, just a, a smoking, the Arvest and a, so it's really, you know, growing is really interesting to me and,, and you know, I've not grown for for a while because of, you know, different,, different reasons, your lack of room, like of time, et Cetera. And,, and now that it's legal, you know, I'm kind of a considering, you know, having, having a plant or to,,, but,, it's, it's really like, you know, it just watching,, people grow and you know, and that some friends growing etc as well. And,, and watching them, watching the plants evolve and the different phenotypes has always been kind of a really, really interesting to me. And,, so that's how I came to it.

Gary George: 6:46

That's great. I mean, exactly what you said., you know, growing any type of a, a plant is a medicinal in itself. Just, you know, caring for the plan and seeing how it progresses and watching, you know, the care that you give to it and how it affects the plant and that kind of thing,, is a very rewarding,, hobby. And I encourage any, yeah, definitely anybody who's not ever grown. Anything you need to get out there and grow some stuff man. Cause they really does,, make a difference in your life,, in your quality of life. Just enjoying that aspect of it. It is the light. It's like a baby. But,, let me ask you a little, let's look at, you know, let's talk a bit about some of the technical aspects because this gets very technical. You know, and I've, I've, I've grown and I've been into a bit of a farming all over and doing different things from a child and learned it from my family who were,, you know, not growing cannabis but,, farmers by trade and stuff like that. But there's a lot to learn. It gets very scientific and, and a lot of what you have on here, like phenotypes and, you know, just that word alone and, and, dealing with sharing the varieties of pollen and stuff like that. How did you decide or you know, that these were the things that were missing from the equation and to put together this solution to fill the gap? So, you know,

Alan Strainly: 8:07

I mean, you know, just observing it was,, you know, curious to see,, you know, again, like, because, you know, I've never asked myself the question surprisingly before, although I was really, you know, interested in, you know, propagation material and intellectual property in the world of seeds for, you know, for corn, tomatoes,, you know, grain and vegetables in general. I've never asked myself the question surprisingly for cannabis and,, and you know, so then, you know, with legalization coming was like, Hey, you obviously, you know, the question applies to this plant as well. And,, and so I started, you know, you know, I knew how to procure a seeds and although, you know, I didn't have to look too much into it because of, you know, a network of friends that were helping out when I was growing. But,,, you know, I went out west, I started digging, but, you know, how do you procure seeds? And aside from, you know, the big names in terms of seed banks and that everybody knows, I started, you know, realizing that there was a lot of friction actually, you know, whether it's on fors, social media or you know, in, in, in, in person, people who was kind of struggling and it'd be too fine,, what they were after. And, and sometimes, you know, they were seeing some, you know, very nice plans, phenotypes, you know, online and they were struggling to replicate that at home for various reasons. Meaning,, you know, finding the genetics to start with or just having the right skills to match or the plant,, to, to, to, to its potential. And so I thought, okay, maybe, you know, we can come up with, we weave something that else, you know, connecting people in the first place. And when they are connected,, it's easier to search. And, and when they really want to like,,, trade with each other, it should be safe as well. Because I think that's, that's an issue with we've had with within our community or industry, right, is, you know, you have all kinds of people, some really great people and then some more opportunistic people as well. And sometimes, you know, it's, there is a risk associated to dealing with such people. So that was the intent was to have somewhere people would feel comfortable,, connecting with others with a minimum risk involved. So,

Gary George: 10:19

Let's talk a little bit about the business side because as you know, real cannapreneurs are always looking for these types of niches to jump into and you found a really great niche. Let's talk a bit about the growing pains and the structure when you grow a site like this. This is a user populated type of application. So when you first start out, you, cause you start from zero. And that's one of the biggest things that most people have a very difficult time getting over the hump that they have to jump from going from zero to as many members to actually facilitate other people wanting to join. So talk a little bit about some of the techniques and what you guys did to grow your initial base of followers on Strainly.

Alan Strainly: 11:00

Yeah. So, you know, as you said, it's kind of a chicken and egg issue when when you start such a platform is, you know, you need to sort of make the platform attractive by, having the first people coming in. But how do they come in? How do you convince them from coming if there isn't anyone yet using it? And so, you know, we went with a, you know, social media abusively, you know, like just having some social media presence, online presence obviously. But,, you know, we all know, you know, in our industry, we all know that, you know, it comes with challenges because we're not necessarily always welcome on social media. A lot of people get their pages shut down every once in a while. So, you know, we had to be like a really careful in the way we were approaching this. And at the same time, you know, it's attracting people, the first people. But from the get go, the goal was, you know, not attracting everyone and anyone because we, you know, the goal was really to everything., but not being a platform where you have all kinds of people, then it's sort of full with scammers and, and it's not reliable because it's really easy to make yourself a bad reputation. And as soon as you have a few people, you know, victims of scams etc then the word goes really quickly on the street and your name is associated with bad experience, etc. So we said, you know, we've got to attract, you know, like quality over quantity of people and you know, the right, the right people. And even if it takes a long time, but at least that, you know a small number of people who have a good experience and, and said, then set the tone and set the vibe. And, and so that was the goal. And, you know, slowly but surely, these right people tend to spread the word to people they trust. So it attracts,,, polite people, let's say. And, and,, and so, so far, you know, it's,, that was the concern in the, in the beginning was, you know, how do we maintain the place safe and a good experience for everyone. And surprisingly people tend to be quite responsively. The majority of people would be a really responsible, and it's very few bad people we had to ban due to inappropriate behavior or just,, you know,,, scamming and, but it's a very, very, you know, I can share the numbers. We ran some stats and last time we checked was, you know, below a 0.7% of people who have been banned among all the people who join, strangely over the past two years. So it's, it's, it's, it remains pretty safe and this is really what we're, we're focusing on. That's great. And, and now you start seeing some traction because you know, those users spread the word and, you know, we tend to get noticed on social media, so it attracts them. It, it, it raised some curiosity from also some media, et cetera. So it's good. Good to see.

Gary George: 13:52

Absolutely. That's great that the,, the, the cannabis, a farming community is, is one of integrity with that low rate of,, of a issue there. And so it's a something, and I, I, again, this is an industry where people have a bit more of an affinity. I love you more, more genuine appreciation for it. So I do see less of that,, going on when it comes to individuals who are really serious and dedicated to the world of cannabis. So I gotta give Kudos to the cannabis industry for that. All my people in the cannabis industry, man, really cool people that I've met,, all been really very high level integrity, standup guys and gals everywhere. So big up for that man. But I wanted to ask you another question. Allah two leads into another and I want to get a little education as well. Like what is the difference between let's say, seed growing to clone growing and tissue cultures and pollen. You have those things listed. So tell us a little bit, man, teach us,, know what's the difference,

Alan Strainly: 14:52

what's the benefits, the a, the pros and cons, all that good stuff. Sure. So, you know, I try to be quick because you know, we could speak hours or four different, you have different ways of solving,, your, your, your, your rule and basically,, you know, everybody knows,, you know, you can start from seeds and usually when you buy, you buy a pack of seeds. Depending where they come from, you, you, you will have some outliers., it will not necessarily be,, identical plans from a c to another, obviously. So depending on what is your goal, and if you want, you know, like identical plans, you would not start from seeds, but you would rise, start from clones. Also with seeds. The germination phase,, takes a little bit of time and,, and so, you know, if you have a time constraint and you want to, you know, are versed,, as quickly as possible within the next three months, maybe you would start from clones because you're going to have like a ready to flower plant weaker. And then if you start from the season where the, the first few weeks are,, you would basically, it would take like usually, yeah, three more weeks. And if you start from a clone,, on average and,, so, you know, if you don't, if you don't have time and you want identical plans, you would start from clones coming from the same as a plant and a, that's where,, you would save time a I d identical plans. You also pretty sure something that I almost forgot to mention, but,, if you start from a female Moser plant, you're sure that the clones would be females or when you start from regular seeds that are not feminized,, you also take a chance of having males. And so you would have grown plants until the flooring stage just to realize you have to,, take them away. If your goal is not to breathe, you would have to take them away. And so that's,, that's another advantage of going with clones. But the, going with clones as a a drawback, usually it's,, you know, the cleanliness and when, depending, you have to be very careful where you procure your clones from because,,, you may bring in test and passages into your growing environment.,, so clones would carry the pest and facile rents from the master plants. And sometimes, you know, you don't know how many times,,,, how many generations are,, behind the plan that you're getting the clones from. And they may be contaminated,, for, for a, so,, you would bring those into your, your growing environment. So this is why, you know, some people would say, you know, I will never bring in any clone in migraine environment because, you know, I do all I can to keep it clean and that would ruin all my efforts if I get some dirty clones, basically. And that's where then you have a tissue culture, which is pretty new in the, in the cannabis world,, where, you know, it's been really used for,, four decades in the, a kid, a word,, and other article, sure., areas. But,, in cannabis it's pretty for probably, you know, being introduced like during the past couple of years, some people have started working on it in 2014 as far as I could find in the Kennedy's world. But tissue culture as recent vintage of, you know,, starting from basically clones and, and being able to propagate a lot faster with a larger volumes but in a cleaner matter because tissue culture,, when done properly involves,, like,, cleaning,, the planets of the plantlets from,, from, from the mother plant. So you would sort of address the issue that you faced with the Alaska man that I like to make is a, you know, something that I've discussed recently and I don't really have the answers. So it's kind of footfall. Salt is a, you know, with regular clones there is the past and facile trends that I've just mentioned. But there is also another issue that you can find is a chemical compounds that you can find in the plant. And it would be in the plants tissue, you know, for, for instance,, you have,, pesticides that's, you know, for like banned from using, at least in Canada. I know, not sure if it's in all states in the u s but Myclobutanil. And it's been fun on some plants., we've been growing environment where people said, I've never used this thing. And so where is it coming from? I find trace of it in my plants. And the reason why is because they started from clones that came from mothers where microbeads in it was preyed on and, and so, so you would find those chemical compounds coming from clones, from other plants that you didn't have full visibility on in the first place. So that's the other risk and tissue culture as far as I know, if not able to address that because tissue culture cleans the surface of the plants physically but not inside the tissue, the fibers of the plant., so that's not perfect, but it's probably, it's probably a good trade off now. It's probably tissue culture is probably more expensive than,, is, is surely more expensive than regular clones and not easily.,

Gary George: 19:55

so tissue culture is a brand new thing. It's kind of Kinda new. Any industry., yeah. And you said this is cleaning the exterior of the plant,, of the clone and providing it so that they exterior is clean, but you still don't know what's on the interior. You come next year. I honestly, you know, I wouldn't speak too much about it because that would be beyond my, a level of knowledge, but from

Alan Strainly: 20:14

everything and, and, and you know, you ask questions and you speak with many people and then, you know, the official, the official knowledge at the moment is,, is, you know, it's not demonstrated that tissue culture and the cleaning that's in the process of tissue culturing goes inside the plant. It's, it's mostly on the surface. So any, you know, a chemical company that would be inside the plant would stay in. And also viruses., you know, I spoke with nursery recently that does,, tissue culture,, and they say they have like a patent process to remove viruses from the plant, but I don't have any more information about it. So it's probably in the works and people that are trying to figure it out probably.

Gary George: 20:57

No, that's great information, Alan. I appreciate that. Info on a, all the everybody listening,, Alan just dropped some bombs on us, man, in that last one, he just really explained in great detail and, and in Layman's terms, the difference between seeds grown from seeds, clones, the cultures., but the biggest thing is to know is that when you're using clones that you have the benefit of knowing that it's going to be a female, you've got to benefit and no one is going to be identical., you've got a shorter grow time span,, as well that he mentioned. So that's a lot of, you know, benefits there. But the downfalls I'd like he said, you can bring some patches and some other,, things into your grow environment, so you gotta be careful and ask where to, I guess the medium is coming into play with the tissue culture. So that's great. I just learned something new today. Always learning something new, man, that cannabis industry never stops. It is always a education to be had. So that is really great. Thank you for that answer, Alan. I appreciate that. That was a lot of great clarity. And I'm going to jump into our next question, man. And this is a big one that everybody always has, you know, quite a,, you know, hard time understanding and you know, for the indicas the different,, you know, types we got into, cause we got sativas, we got hybrids and the root of rallies,, is something that many people have. And even, I don't even know if I'm pronouncing that right, but you know, that's another look. Okay. The root or is another breed that many of us haven't even heard of. I read about it. It's a shorter breed is something that, you know,, doesn't have as many flowers or something to that effect. But tell us the difference, man with the Europe from your,, knowledge of the, of this whole thing, man, of some of the distinct differences between some of the different types of strains of, of, of cannabis.

Alan Strainly: 22:32

So, yeah. So, and, and it's, you know, it's really,, a topic where you have a lot of people arguing whether it's relevant or not. And,, you know, the, the more, the more why I, because, you know, it's a constant, a learning,, you know, and,, I'm far from knowing a, everything does, some very knowledgeable people in the industry you can always learn from. And I'm definitely learning everyday, but,, you know,, what I've, what I started started thinking, you know, some months ago is I'm not sure you know, that if the distinction is still very, very valid., and,, and especially, you know, in a world where we have a lot of hybridized,, vitals, but basically, you know, w,, the, the, the common definition of,, the difference between indicus and eva as a reader earliest. So indicas would come,, from,, usually Asia,, from India and the police,, Afghanis,, vials would be a usually classified as Indycar Diaz, Tyler leads. And,, and they have a, a, a different effect as the study that has,, which are more uplifting,, and usually comes from,, equatorial regions., and,, and all solo plants,, we've seen are leads., generally speaking. So, you know, it's, I think it's relevant as long as you speak of land, race,, genetics., but then when you start hybridizing so usually,, you know, the Europeans and then North Americans studied, you know, using some Landres,, genetics, whether indicas or sativas and cross breeding them,, creating some Muybridge,, with some new traits and trying to,, get the best of both worlds., if I can say, and, and some people would argue that red early is a,, genetics would, I mean rudderless is not even sort of a, a family in itself, but,, it's still like a very shorter looking plant,, with,, that doesn't give a large birds. And the main difference with a rudderless,, genetics is,,, when it comes to flooring. So it's a rudderless,,, plants do not flower based on the light and they is getting shorter like sandy does in because it's based on sort of, it has, it has a,, sort of a clock in it. And after, sometime it starts flooring anywhere, regardless of the light. And the reason why it's because usually it comes from more,, northern,, areas,, like in a central Asia or Russia,, central Europe,, where,, the weather doesn't allow the plant,, to have enough time to flower like a sativa and Indica would do. So I think, you know, Mother Nature at some point,, got involved and the plants said, you know, I've got a flower regardless of the light based on my inner clock. And, and,, so that's what,, sort of a, a distinguish,, Ruderalis,, in genetics and rudderless genetics would be used,, to create out of flooring,, strange basically.

Gary George: 25:47

Mm. Wow. Yeah, that's really great. The ability to flower on its own without the lighting patterns, and for people in a colder environment. So it's a lot to learn from everyone who wants to get involved. There's a lot of ways and a lot of different ways to skin the cat and just understanding which is the best for your particular environment and what works best for you and what you're looking for from a health benefit perspective. There's alot of variables and that is the reason why cannabis education never stops and is something that is ongoing for all of us. It's going to continue to a dvance and we have to continue to study to be on the cutting edge of what's going on, what's new, what's great and what's happening. So l et's talk about the preservation man of the genetics. I know that that's a big thing and reason why you created this platform is to help t he farmers, t he growers, breeders, to maintain genetics, to experiment with things. H as there been any interesting, discoveries or interesting ways that you thought,, that you didn't think would happen that's happening from people using the platform that you started to notice anything like that that's going on? Unique?

Alan Strainly: 26:59

So, yeah. So, as you said the initial goal was creating a strategy to connect people. And because I saw that it was where we could really improve things and there are many other ways of improving, preservation efforts and making preservation efforts easier and improving access to the genetics but it's, it's a collective effort. So, you know, I'm not going to pretend that Strainly and myself can save biodiversity. It's really a collective effort and everybody has to sort of get involved if it's the goal of the majority of people in the industry. But creating a platform to connect people in a safe way was sort of a starting point and where it get's interesting is where people actually, I thought it would be initially more breeders and nurseries getting involved, but actually you realize that a lot of cultivators have aspirations of breeding their own genetics and not necessarily to make a living out of them, but just to have something different that's adapted to their environment. And so they've started using Strainly just to get access to some genetics that would help them creating something that's better adapted to the environment. And so that's where it's really interesting, I think you where a, the conversation went to is the legal aspect where some people started quickly to ask questions about, okay, you know, it's fine, you provide a platform to connect people, et Cetera but you should do more. You know, it's not enough. And I was like, okay, but you know, I thought there would be other entities like nonprofits, et Cetera, or getting involved to preserving genetics. And there are actually nonprofits,, being involved and being sensitive to this topic. And so that's why it's important to have this collaboration effort between us. So we started reaching out to growers, alliances, associations, nonprofits, supporting cannabis cultivators in order to raise awareness about the necessity of making an open source license available to their members, to the growers, to the breeders, so that if they want, they can issue their genetics under an open source license so that no one can use their genetics to put patterns on them down the road. And it's really their decision in the end. Some people, you know, they would consider, you know, applying for patents and it's very costly. We could discuss that, but some others may say I want to keep it like, you know, in the collaborative spirit like we've always done during prohibition. And so I want to formalize that through an open source license. And it's really nothing new. We're not really reinventing the wheel. How open source is something that exists in software development and for breeding tomatoes, corn and everything. It's just not the norm but it does exist. So we can do it for cannabis as well.

Gary George: 30:12

Wow That's eye opening right there. I mean, open source for the cannabis industry and all the software people we understand that term very well from a perspective of open source software allows everybody to contribute, allows everybody to add and it grows a better platform. That's what wordpress is a lot of other platforms where people that don't understand open source, but now you can apply those same principles to the cannabis industry. And this is the first time I heard it Alan when you presented this. So I want you to talk a little bit more about what that exactly means.

Alan Strainly: 30:43

So, you know, just to give it a bit of context,, is, you know, basically, you know, during prohibition by definition, there was no way you could go out and try to get a patent a cannabis varietal that you created. There was just no way because it was admitting to commit a crime. But now that it's being legalized some people, some corporations mainly are going and you know, it's no secret in Canada we have a lot of large, well-funded corporations in the cannabis space. And they made no secret that they are going to apply for patents on some varietals,, that the breed or sometimes, you know, I'm not even sure they really breed those varietals. So that would be what we call overreaching patents. And so they are in the process of applying for patents. And this is something, you know, we've seen,, over like the past five decades. Like the large biotech companies like, you know, everybody mentioned the name Monsanto, although it doesn't exist anymore, Bayer acquired the company and the k illed the name because it has such a bad reputation. But basically, Bayer, like Syngenta out of Switzerland, Dupont in North America, you know, t he whole biotech companies that created some new types like varietals of c orn, of tomatoes, of cucumbers of grain generally speaking. And the put patterns on them. And then they sell them to the farmers and the farmers, you know, they have to buy those seeds every year. And even if t hey p roduced some seeds o ut o f their harvest, they can't sow the seeds for free. They have to pay royalties. And most of the time those seeds, they would be sterile anyway. But if, if they can, if they are fertile, they would have to pay royalties back to the seed makers because those seeds are patented. And so they are, there is a solid licensing contract that comes it. And so in cannabis, you know, many people are are against that because we have a very large biodiversity of cannabis, varietals or strains, dozens of them more or less stable to be honest. But there is various very large biodiversity. We have many, many phenotypes available and chemotype profiles. So you know, what we observed in conventional agriculture and h orticulture with patenting over the past decades i s biodiversity reduced. You go to S outh America and you see like t housands of t ype of corn. Then you go to North America and on the shelves, when you and I go shopping and buy co rn, there are four types of co rn a nd th ey a r e a ll patented. And they are not necessarily the most nutritive varieties of corn. They are not necessarily the best for your health. They are usually the ones that produce the biggest harvest and that are logistically easier to move around without being damaged. And that's the, that's the prime goal. So with cannabis, you know, my belief is that their will be the Molson, Heineken, Corona of cannabis, large producers do it as products. And aside from that, you will have hopefully having various, a big potential for that. And you asked me like some small vineyards or microbreweries of cannabis, what we call craft cannabis producers. And it already exists in Oregon, in northern California, in BC, in Canada and other places. But for those smaller scale, you know, people to compete in the market, they would have to have access to some different genetics to differentiate. In the market with a different product, you know, maybe higher quality with higher margins and Higher Price Tag, But that's also the desired by the, by the clients. And if you know, the genetic landscape is reduced, patents are going to be very hard for them to differentiate in the market. And so they are going to be pushed out maybe in some years out of the market by the big players. And so the goal is really to have sort of a safe avenue for these people who can't afford to apply for patents for their genetics. It's very costly to get and to defend. So the safe avenue in my opinion, a nd I'm open to discussions and challenges, but it's my opinion that the safe haven for t he smaller players is o pen s ource where you have these genetics a vailable that do not require patents to be used.

Gary George: 35:22

That is really, really eye opening in terms of the space. And that was some great analogies that you gave in terms of the big players coming into this space and taking over and the differences of how the small guys are going to be able to survive. Once they start sucking down and putting the money behind these things and putting patents on these different breeds and stuff like that, it makes it very difficult for the small guy t o s urvive. So like you said, open source is a method that can be utilized to help a lot of the small guys, the craft cannabis creators have a bit of a safe haven. So how do you go about defining something as open source? How d o t he smaller craft guys say, you know w hat, this particular variety, this b reed, we're g oing t o make this open source so that it can't be patented a nd it c an't push us out of it. Is there a way to do that?

Alan Strainly: 36:11

So at the moment, there is no formal way to do it because to be honest, we drafted an open source license, we work with a German nonprofit that already created an open source breeding license for tomatoes, corn, whatever vegetable. And they said, you're really welcome to use our model to replicate that in the cannabis world. But in order for this open source license to be truly effective what we need to do is localize it in Canada, in the different states, in the US to have sort of a legal weight in those locations. Otherwise, you know, it would require US breeders and Canada breeders to use a German license and then defend it in German courts. It's not very practical. Not everybody speaks German so we need to localize. So what we did was take the license that the guys were using in Germany, tweaked it and modified it a little bit to make it more compatible with the help of an IP lawyer here in Canada, more compatible with Canada law and US law. And then what we did is we sent it out to all of the growers, alliances and associations in British Columbia, in Oregon, in Washington, in northern California. And everywhere we could find such alliances and associations because I believe that it should be these guys, you know, nonprofits representing their members. We should be issuing these li cense l o calized i n California, within Oregon, wi thin B C for the benefit of their members. And I think it's a more democratic way of dealing with this issue. The other option would have been forced to issue the license and then tell Australian users for example they can use the license but at the moment we really wanted to explore the nonprofit direction with a more democratic approach and see if there was an appetite to do it. I think we need to be quick, you know, I don't mean to rush anyone, but I think we need to be quick because when that is done and those localized licenses are available, it means that a grower breeder would be able to say here are my new seeds that I created this season and I want to issue them under the open source license. And what you need to do is just specify when you make them available whether it's on Strainly.io or your website or wherever you want. You simply say these s eeds are issued under open source license with the reference of the license and you put a sticker on the p ack, putting the license and t he URL address pointing to the full license online. That's how you formalize that these seeds have been issued on the open source license. Most of the the breeders in the cannabis world have been issuing, their seeds u nder NO license, not patented, no license, nothing. So it means that after a year t hey are in the public domain and anybody can use t he seeds including corporations. Technically they shouldn't be able to do it, but they did that with corn, where they breed from those seeds in the public domain and then try to patent their new creation. But, y ou know, eventually, usually the result of this practice when there is no op en s ource safe ha ven, th ere's a reduction in biodiversity that's available to the growers.

Gary George: 40:04

That was a lot of great information. It's game man. To do that is, that's eye opening for the other farmers to breeders. Everybody out there that's doing it. Gee, you heard what Allen said, that you put these things out. We're doing what we do to, you know, I'm all of us cannabis industry,, guys who really have an affinity and, and are really trying to help the whole ecosystem. You put it out, you see, I don't want to put any type of patent on it. I don't want to restrict it. I, you know, I'm going to put it out there and let everybody use it. That's the way we all intended. It's a plan. It's supposed to be for everybody, right? That's the way we all think and it should be that way. But we're playing in an unfair world, man. When we got these big corporate dollars coming in and swiping the work of the blood and sweat from all of our small guys that are actually implementing all of the ingenuity, all of the new stuff, and then taking it and breeding some of variations from it and then putting patents on it. So we got to get smart and everybody's got to get smart in the industry and not just say, hey man, it's just for goodwill and it's all for the love and all of that good stuff. When these guys are gonna come and swipe your from you and put a patent on it, then you can't even use your own seeds and stuff that you created your own self. So we really gotta get on it, man. So I appreciate those points, Allen, that you really pointed out there is that it is time for you and there's something that you can do to allow everybody to use it freely without having those things over your head, which is the open source,, framework that Alan just explained about. And that's a really, really great thing. So,, I, I think that all you guys really need to claim, you need to contact Alan over edge, strangely, strangely dye io asap so that you can start working on making some of the things that you're creating open source,, so that these corporations and big corporate dollars can come swipe it up and, restrict you and everyone else from growing that variety man. So that's a great point and I really appreciate you elaborating on it.

Alan Strainly: 41:54

Thanks.

Gary George: 41:56

Yeah, definitely. So,, so I guess the next step on that, let me be clear so that everybody's listening, cause I know they're gonna want to know this, they just need to reach out to you cause you are the one who has, you have developed the a open source framework or you were able to use it from another nonprofit in Germany. You got something going that you can help everybody. So everybody who needs help, they can get in contact with you for that help to put it out on strangely or give it further instruction. How to make it open source.

Alan Strainly: 42:19

Sure. Yeah. So what they should be doing is reaching out to us is the easiest way. And then you are, depending where they are located, we would be happy to direct them to, you know, like suggest them to reach out to some, growers, alliances and associations that we sent the open source license to. And these guys, they have a lot of things to do. They have a lot on their plate, they have many things to deal with, you know, from a regulatory perspective and a, we are in their newsletters. We see there are tons of things to deal with for them. And I think, you know, the more people reach out,, to,, to those alliances and associations,, the, the, the higher rate will get on their priority list, right? A that issuing,, that open source license. And again,, you know, we have other ideas in terms of how we could issue a quicker vis license for the benefit of our users or anyone who wants to use it. But at the moment, our approach is really to say, you know, let's try to go through associations and alliances already representing the growers because we don't want to step on anyone's toes. These guys, they represent democratically, they are members in a local fashion, right? So, you know, there are associations and alliances of growers in each county, almost in California. So I think it's better to have, you know, like a more local, a model at the moment if, you know, if it doesn't work. We have a, we have another project where we're kind of exploring, seeing if it could work here in Canada at least. And, but, but they could, they could, the, what they can do is reaching out to us and we'll point them in the right direction and we can keep the conversation going. What I wanted to say, it's a collective effort and it's work in progress. And the more,, we are,, you know, aware about these issues and collaborating on, on, on open source initiatives, the better it is and there already are the better. So let's definitely, you know, they can reach out the other site. And,, and for sure we'll,, we'll get back to them quickly.

Gary George: 44:15

Absolutely. And we're going to get, we're going to have Alan give his contact information at the end of the show. Guys, we're almost to the end. Got a couple more things that I'm going to have them spew out here. So hang on to the end real quick., what is the future man for strangely, what do you see, where do you guys see going? What are you working on? Give some details behind

Alan Strainly: 44:32

that. So the good and you know is,, if really started the, the, the, the, the main,, she goes,, fees, you know, preservation of edibility of genetics and, and now we have something that works and we're going to improve it. We have a major, a great coming in spring 20, 19,, more features,, well more like handy, practical for the users. And we've got a lot of feedback from the users, you know, saying hey there, that would be nice if we could have such and such features., you know, my inbox is fool and I like to be able to organize it a little bit. So, you know, we have a whole lot of the, of the improvements coming,, very shortly really working out on it. And it should be a lot of improvements,, by spring., so that's in the short term, but,, you know,, on the, on the longer term,, you know, we've also listened to the feedback and some people said, hey, you know, I have these questions, you know, I'm looking for some equipment, I'm looking for this and that, etc. And,, and so, you know, we've got diluting the initial vision because it's really important that we stay true to our values and to the initial vision and not go away,, from that. But,, you know, eventually, you know, on the longer term, that would be ideally becoming sort of a one stop shop,, for, for one stop resource, a very, a important and trustworthy resource for growers and cultivators. And we've also, we still with that core thing, which is, you know, genetics,, accessibility, but maybe you know, other things around that. And,, and so, you know, I'm not going to expend too much on it, but we're thinking about, you know, maybe having some more social features where people will be able to share their,, their growth, their experience plus features of how the plant is showing,, in flooring,,, phase and things like this. And I would have to the transparency,, overall,, you know, how a gen is, some genetics from a certain reader are performing and the visa and the or those conditions as opposed to other conditions. And,, and so that would allow people to compare a little bit and have a meaningful information and, and socialized further. This is a, a lot of the feedback that we got is about, you know, socializing further back on the transactional aspect. And so that's something we really want to implement. And,, and yeah, and, you know,, there is a also something,, we're trying to explore but, we don't want to make a mistakes on that front is, you know, helping greeters and words becoming a bit more scientific, using your senses and your, your intuition is very important. And I'm a big believer of that. But at the same time I think there is room for becoming a bit more scientific in our approach to breeding and growing. And that means testing,, using, chemo type profiles from labs., in addition to observing the phenotypes and you know, in some cases the, the genetic profile as well that said,, the reason why we haven't moved forward very quickly on that front is because we want to make sure that,, we point people to labs that are working in se call niners meaning that they are not going to use,, the data from the test results for other proposes,, that is not,, told to, to their clients, to the breeders, to the growers that,, that we'll be using strangely. And,, that has,, there has been, I've been some, some concerns on that front, so we want to be very careful, but we'd like eventually to be able to sort of form partnerships with some local lads to local growers and, and, and breeders to test their genetics in a stash manner to be able to, you know, see for a fact or what is the, what are the Turpines, what are the cannabinoid concentration that is in the plant and a B or a bit more scientific. So,, so this is a, what's a, what's lying ahead and what we plan in the future in the short term major, a grade in the spring with, very,,, with,, improvements in some of the features and then the reboot later on during the, during 2019 social features. We're working on it.

Gary George: 48:46

Yeah. Excellent. Excellent man. So I wanted to give some clarity. So is strangely as it for, is it just for commercial,, vendors or is it also for consumers, regular guys looking to grow, do home grows, that kind of thing?

Alan Strainly: 48:59

No, it's for a regular guy who's doing them. Girls, you know, individuals a, they can use Trendly definitively. You know, if they want to procure a seeds and a clones, a, you know, they are allowed to,, go to a nursery, a in their state,, or whatever, a retailer that sells a seeds. And,, so, you know, a strain is definitely a platform that can help them, you know, locating, spotting that a reliable source of genetics,, so they can really,, a user's friendly., and it's,,, it's sort of a, you know, if you ask me in business terms, that would be sort of a B to B to c type of platform where you have definitely some commercial growers using strangely. And it's helpful for them. But,, we want, we're definitely inclusive in our,, philosophy and, and with, you know, how we manage the platform. It's for, it's for as many people as we can serve definition.

Gary George: 49:52

Excellent. Excellent. So one other question I have before I get into your last question is the genetics you mentioned that,, you know, like using Ruderalis and understanding the different,,, you know, things that are going on with the plants and the benefits of each one,, for let's say the small, you know, beginner guy, he wants to get any, wants to jump in, you want to experiment, you know what your environment's like, you know, what you're looking for help from a health perspective. You start putting together some old, some of your own genetics and breeding and cross cloning and doing other things. You could be, could you like anyone could create their own,, breed their own strain, correct. And be the next individual to say, hey man, this is, this is the Gary George strain right here that I just created. And it can, it can become something big, right? Is that possible?

Alan Strainly: 50:36

Yeah. Technically, I mean, you know, in theory a yes, it's possible., now that said,, you know, you would ask any breeder, it's not as easy as we've just said. It, meaning that, you know, in order to, to, to be,, to greed and to offer some quality seeds, you know, it takes a bit of experience. I mean more than a little bit of experience in order to, you know,, have,, something that's of quality that's going to, you know, with germination rate that's high,, that's,, has high as possible because you don't want to offer,, seeds that are not going to germinate in the first place. Then in terms of further stability and you know, many people refer to stability as to whether there will be,, air armies,, you don't want plans that are male and female at the same time. Definitely not., so,, so you know, you, you can't improvise, improvise yourself as, as a breeder,, next week, but with some experience with, you know,, acquiring some knowledge, reading, listening,, and, and, and experimenting on your own. You can become a reader. Yeah, definitely. And then what's important is when, when you started breeding your first seeds is testing, testing yourself and testing with people you trust and strategy can help with, you know, offering seeds to testers. You just have to be specific that these are testers. And so people know that, you know, there's a risk associated to putting the seeds because they are testers, they are being tested by you. You are being the Guinea pig basically. So you have to be transparent about it. But technically, I mean, anyone who has room time passion can become a breeder that it takes. It takes some time to, to,, to,,, experiment yourself. Yeah.

Gary George: 52:18

Well that's great. That's great. Everybody out there, you hear that man, any one of us could,, dive right into it and like Allen saying, it's going to take a little bit of research and work like anything with a get good at. But if you, you, it's quite possible to do it and it's not something that's unattainable., there's a lot of science and a lot of other things that go into what we do. But,, there's also some very common sense elements that go into what is done here. And a, it's something that people don't need to be afraid of and to start experimenting with it, you know, with your own homegirls and having some fun and, you know,, medicating yourself by growing the plants and watching them grow is also another great hobby to have on the side as well. So,, getting up for you guys, man, for providing this platform for everybody to really come to one place and be able to identify a lot of different things, learn a lot of different things. I would tell you, I encourage everybody to go to the site, just read some of the listings and you'll see what the, you know, some of the more expert breeders and farmers are really talking about in their descriptions. And you start to learn, you start to get acclimated to the terminology just by seeing it. So it's a really great way to learn overall. So Alan, I'm going to ask you two more questions man. And I'm gonna let you go. I know you're a guy. So my next question is from your experience, I know you see a lot in this industry you've been at for some time. I'm going to ask you, and I asked you that, I asked this to a lot of the guys in the industry,, this is what everybody wants to know. This is what everybody's trying to get into, but what do you see as some of the untapped niches, the low hanging fruit in the cannabis industry that's just waiting to be exploited, but you really haven't seen anybody dive into it. Is there anything else out there that you can think of off the top of your brain that is one of the biggest unexploited niches that no one has tapped into yet? Wow, that's a, that's a really good question. I don't know.

Alan Strainly: 54:05

Oh, you already, it's not prepared. You're taking it.

Gary George: 54:11

[inaudible] man, this is a tough one. It's a tough one,

Alan Strainly: 54:15

man. I don't know. I think, you know, there are room out, there is room for, you know, if you ask me in Canada, there is room for laboratories,, dates and it's not too many laboratories that do testing in an ethical way here., and if you ask me, yeah, I'm going to speak from a Canadian perspective,, what I'm looking for,, looking forward to see here in Canada is a lot more,, craft growers I think very is definitely room for craft brewers in Canada. You get east nation in Canada at the federal level, you know, I know, you know, we shouldn't, we shouldn't complain because when we speak to, you know,, a US based,,, people in India industry to say, you know, you don't realize how lucky you are being in Canada. We have the federal legalization, et Cetera. You can sleep much better than we do. And you know, I totally agree. But the, the, the, the downfall to it is,, you know, the industries is rather concentrated in Canada. There is a lot of big players, you know, that don't necessarily have the, the knowledge and the culture from the industry. It's people who are coming from outside in, in many cases., and, and you know, I'd like to see,, something that we see in California, in Oregon,, in Massachusetts as well, where a lot of smaller scale growers in Maine as well, smaller scale growers, you know, more craft,, type of, of a, of production. And I think, you know, I really believe in that. I think it's a, where the quality products are going to be available and a, and we the local aspect to it where, you know, when you go to California you won't find what you find on the east coast. And I think that's the beauty of it. And,, and we need more of that in,, in, in, in, in some states, in the u s, in, in, in New York state where, you know, there seems to be a lot of concentration on like following ribbit the Canadian model. And we need to have that in, in, in Canada. We have that on the west coast of Canada and there's potential to do it all across Canada. More craft growers. So if you, if you're based in Canada and you have a[inaudible] and you want to considering applying for a micro cultivation license from als Canada and want to go, you know, craft,, I can only encourage you, I think it's a where we'll be room for, for such producers and for such and, and people will have an appetite for it for sure. So I'm a big believer of it. Yep.

Gary George: 56:28

Great answer man. I want to give you the last question of the day, man. This is contest time, contest time people drum roll please. We're going to run this contest. We are going to see man who wins this thing and we won't be able to tell it until some years later. But I'm gonna run this by you man, and see what your guests is. All right, here we go. What year do you think cannabis will be federally legalized in the United States?

Alan Strainly: 56:57

I think 2020

Gary George: 57:00

Tony told me, Whoa, you got aggressive on a say. Hey, I hope so.

Alan Strainly: 57:05

I think I came across some articles recently saying they would be submitted to the ballot on a, in 2019 by the by Oh 10 2019. And, and, so, you know, I want to be hopeful and I know I'm kind of,, maybe I'd be dreaming here, but,, I want to, you know, I think there is no coming back if you ask me there a, you know, at the end of the day whether we like it or not, money is God, especially where we live in North America. And where is,, you know, back to, you know, like cold,, business,, considerations., there is a lot of capital that's been deployed in this industry and my opinion is, you know, yeah, there is no coming back. So,, you know, it's going to be, yeah, I'd say 20,

Gary George: 57:48

20, 20. Let's hope for it. Everybody, let's hope for 2020 that it goes down and we get that federal legalization in the u s man, that would be lovely, man. So, oh, this is it, man. I enjoy you stopping by the show, man. And sharing all the great information that you gave us. Man, you gave us a ton, very well spoken man and I want to give it, how did it, how do people get in contact with you and how can they get in contact before I let you go, let them know how they can get to you.

Alan Strainly: 58:14

Sure. So you know the other websites so strangely that I owe there is a contact form so you can email through the contact form and, you know, there is always be, someone answering or if you want to contact me personally, it's Alan, a l a n at[inaudible] dot io and, if you want to email me that's the way you, that's the way you, you, you, you get to me and, I'll do my best to answer as quickly as I can.

Gary George: 58:37

Excellent. Excellent. Once again, man, really appreciate you stopping by the show, giving us all of the great information. You've been a great guest man. For all the listeners out there. Thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely man. Sold much. I, I'm all the listeners out there. Make sure you go to strangely, strangely strained l y. Dot. I oh, check out the platform. It is really, really revolutionary, man. Loved the idea. I think this thing is really going to blow up and go far. You heard it first. Some real cannabis entrepreneur podcast. That's right guys. Make sure you subscribe to the show. Make sure you leave a review, make sure you share it to all your buddies out there. Everybody looking to get into cannabis industry or just learn for their own selves. We gotta hear it. The real cannabis entrepreneur podcast. Thanks again ladies and gentlemen for Tuning in. We'll see you on the next episode. Wow. Wow. Wow. What's up man? That was a great interview with my man. Alan's drain, Lee, the founder of strangely. Dot. I oh, I am here with my cohost and Co founder Real Cannabis Entrepreneur, Marie George. What's up? What you ain't memory.

Speaker 5: 59:37

Hey everybody. How you doing today?

Gary George: 59:40

All right. Just wanted to thank you all for tuning in. Go straight to strangely. Dot I o strangely. Dot. Io. Sign up and check it out, man. The site is off the hook. What's up Larry?

Speaker 5: 59:50

Yeah, man. If you want to check out the show notes and listen online, go to the www Rowe cannabis entrepreneur.com podcast on links mentioned during the show will be posted there.

Gary George: 1:00:01

All right. All right, and check it out, man. If you guys want to or if you're really, really, really, really, really serious about getting into the game of cannabis, check it out. We have formed the largest cannabis entrepreneur mastermind. It's a private mastermind group. You guys want to check it out? We only take it by application only, man, but go to real cannabis entrepreneur.com forward slash master mind if you like to check it out

Speaker 5: 1:00:24

and don't forget to subscribe on iPhone. Open the podcast app on Android, Google, play music, stitcher, Spotify. Tune in soundcloud and now[inaudible]. Yeah,

Gary George: 1:00:38

that's right. That's right guys. We're all over the place, but check it out. We even have the hugest, biggest announcement of a mall, the Real Cannabis Entrepreneur Conference 2019 it is live tickets are on sale right now. It is happening November 15th and 16th in North New Jersey. This is your chance to get the early bird discount for a limited time. Get your tickets 50% off and get this people. I'm going to even do better for my podcast listeners. You guys are loyal, so I'm going to hook you up with a bonus, a 10% off coupon s right? This is a no brainer. Guys. Use Coupon Code episode 10 to get 10% extra 10% off your tickets made for the real cannabis entrepreneur conference. That's right for my loyal podcast listeners. Thank you guys so much for tuning in this week and we will see you again. Payee.