Jorge Cervantes closed Innexo’s Acceleration Day with a review of genetics, a line of attendees waiting to sign copies of the Grower’s Bible, and a single sentence that puts everyone in the greenhouse within a bloodline. “We are descendants of this country, this room,” says Jorge. The forefathers he named were Nevil Schoenmakers and David Watson, the two breeders who took cannabis genetics beyond prohibition and built the foundation of every plant on the test bench. None of the seeds being scanned for spaceflight, none of the veggie-free trials, none of the triploids would exist without the work started by those two men, and the June 8 event is the clearest update of what got them off the ground.

© Innexo

© Innexo

The last Acceleration Day brought together more than 100 people and 60 companies in the greenhouse, coming from all over Europe and from Israel, Morocco, Turkey, Tasmania and Uruguay, the event started a few years ago with 20 people, in a free-for-all format.

Cannabis all day
Dominique van Gruisen, CEO and founder of Innexo, had breakfast and coffee before opening the program for the day. “We’re here to be that sandbox where LPs and tech developers can come together around the factory. That was my mission a couple of years ago,” says Dominique. “We started with 20 people at a free-for-all event, and now we’re at 100 people with an exclusive event. It’s a big leap.” The event spanned 12 hours for the first time, from morning to evening, which eased the pace rather than tightening it.

© Innexo

After the presentation, Xavier Gaya of Avitas Global took to the stage to explain why Avitas is working with Innexo and why it’s crucial that someone other than the host implements with LPs, then recited a poem to set the tone. They all dressed in white and went to the greenhouse to what Dominique calls the boutique network with the plant. “I don’t think there was a single person who didn’t talk to an LP or a tech developer,” says Dominique. “You see them coming together around common issues. Fluence joined Atami, Grodan wants to join Faven, you have these synergies in place that combine experience to move the industry forward.” Rehearsals on the tables became the connective tissue between people who would otherwise have stayed in their corners.

Xabier came in after the greenhouse session had already started. “I saw 60 to 70 people dressed in white from head to toe, looking at the different tests on the table. It seemed to me like a school project, and the person doing the experiment was next to explain,” says Xabier. “Everything was green, everything was dressed in white, it was a bit surreal to see.” His reading of the research is that of an operator, not a scientist. “I don’t like scientists who don’t push the envelope. If you have to do science, you have to push the envelope, and science has to be operationally useful,” says Xavier. What Avitas said taking the stage is that deployments need to live with LPs, not be locked within the walls of the host.

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For the crops in the room, the trials were the reason they were there. Mendocino Mike, from Northern California, came online as much as to touch the plants. “As a grower, I was interested in the tests I saw, the no veg technique, the different lighting strategies, as well as networking the people in the rooms. It’s not just about shiny shoes,” Mendocino Mike says. “It was a group that looked after plants like that, that was the main takeaway.” He draws a hard line between the European standard and what he knows at home. “It’s so different from California. It’s just EU MMJ, the way we grow and cultivate it, and the bottom line we’re looking for. Here you have to pass very strict microbial tests. In California they’re lower because of the rec frame,” says Mike.

© Innexo

© Innexo

Oussama Badad, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Growmics, Chief Scientific Officer of Trilogene Seeds and a Fulbright Fellow, has been following for two years now and uses the gap to measure the event against himself. “I came here last year, I came back this year, and I see the evolution. I have seen many new faces, and LPs which is very important for this event, to come to see these innovators on this platform, to support the cause,” says Oussama. “The quality of the talks this year, the technology, the sending of seeds into space, the testing of the Faven guys, you can see it with your own eyes.” What he values ​​is the curator. “Dominique was a great host. It’s a very well-organized event where you’re not running around meeting people, it just happens organically, so it’s effortless,” says Oussama. “You come where the research is done. We visited the lab this morning to see all the equipment.” His current reading is correct. “It’s time to strengthen, so it’s about getting the cool kids together and seeing what we can do with high standards,” Oussama says. “We’ve seen advances in other crops, so why not use that technology in cannabis?”

F1, triploids and space travel
The evening’s knowledge session went from borderline absurd to downright absurd, covering, as Dominique put it, spectral fingerprints, F1 hybrids, triploids and the project to send cannabis seeds into space. “It’s almost literally amazing that we can now send seeds into space, and mimic what the Chinese have successfully done with some crops,” says Dominique. “We have a global collective effort. Inexo does a spectral scan of the seeds before and after they are launched into space.” All participants went home with a 3D model of a cannabis plant attached to a QR code. “This technology alone will allow us to take cannabis from the 60s into the space age,” says Dominique.

© Innexo

© Innexo

© Innexo

Josh Goodman-Levy, who leads Dosatron’s hydroponic business outside of North America, attended his third Acceleration Day and weighed in on the conference circuit. “A lot of times you have consultants, sales professionals, it pays to play the whole thing, there’s more authenticity and culture at Innexo,” says Josh. “The improvement and quality of the event is evident every time I come. The speakers, the research, the networking, it’s really unique in the European market.”