Tissue Culture Project

First and foremost, thank you to everyone who has shared feedback about Sun Clone, especially regarding testing and plant health. Your voices have been heard, and we take your concerns seriously. While we've always upheld high standards for our nursery practices, we acknowledge that we've fallen short in a critical area: providing consistent, transparent testing to support our products.

 

We apologize for the lack of transparency through this process, and to anyone who's grow has been impacted by the threat of hop latent viroid. We offer our customers not just an apology, but a solution. 

 

We understand that the absence of reliable test results has caused frustration and doubt. We share that frustration. In recent weeks, we’ve conducted several rounds of viroid testing on a subset of our strains, taking four samples per cultivar. In every case where a positive appeared, the same plant also had three negative results. These inconsistencies have lowered our confidence in their accuracy and have left us without clear answers.

 

We have yet to receive consistently positive test results for any of our cultivars. While the occasional positive result suggests the viroid may be present to some degree in our population, the true extent is unclear. By no means is this meant to excuse the outcome of these decisions, but to help explain why these decisions were made.

 

Instead of publishing results we can't stand behind, we are confident in a new different path that offers accurate and representative testing across all strains. 

 

On a large-scale nursery like ours, testing every single plant for trace amounts of viroid is nearly impossible. Instead of thinking big, we’re going microscopic. We're investing in a full-scale in-house tissue culture lab. This is a long-term solution that allows us to generate clean, viroid-free mother plants with confidence and control. 

 

The Plan

We’ll extract at least 4 samples of meristematic cells (the plant’s “stem cells”) for each strain from our existing stock. This region, the youngest and most active tissue, is the least likely to carry viroid. These cultures will grow in sterile conditions for about six weeks.

 

Once rooted, each culture will be split into two. One half will undergo qPCR testing for HLVd, while the other half continues to grow. Since each half is identical, the test results will directly reflect the health of the culture that remains. We will continue this process until every strain in our nursery has passed at least 2–3 rounds of clean testing.

 

Tissue culture and testing will become a permanent part of our process moving forward. All future mother plants will originate from tissue culture, and viroid testing will be routine and publicly shared. While we do not believe every strain in our nursery is infected, we are treating every cultivar with the same care, caution, and remediation moving forward.

 

The Projected Timeline

July 28: Tissue culture lab fully operational

August 4-18: Samples taken from all current genetics

October 13-17: Cultures ready for testing

November 3-7: First set of test results confirmed

November 13-17: First set of results published

March 23-27, 2026: Full transition to TC mothers for all strains complete

 

Every 6 weeks, new tests will be conducted on future cultures. Results will be published within 10 days of being confirmed.

 

Alongside our tissue culture program, we are integrating a new, viroid-free population of ~50 strains into our nursery. These will undergo initial testing this week, followed by a second round in six weeks. Once fully cleared, these will be made available to our customers.

 

Our commitment is to transparency, accountability, and trustworthy, scientifically backed results. We know the importance of trusting the health of your clones. That trust must be earned, and we’re working hard to make that happen.

 

We welcome all questions, concerns, and feedback. Please feel free to leave a comment or email us directly at info@sun-clone.com. If you have personally been impacted by the threat of HLVd, we would appreciate the opportunity to discuss your unique situation.

 

This work lays the foundation for a cleaner and more reliable future for cannabis cultivation, and we’re excited to share every step of that journey with you. We’ll continue to keep you updated regularly.

 

Thank you for sticking with us.

 

– The Sun Clone Team