CO2 GRO Inc. Is Pleased To Present a Recent MMJDaily Article Outlining The Benefits To Medical Cannabis Growers From Employing CO2 Foliar Spray

Fighting Cannabis Pathogens Through Dissolved CO2 Spray

Medical cannabis growers are terrified of pathogen outbreaks such as powdery mildew that can rapidly wipe out crop cycles once a few plants get infected. According to the team with CO2 GRO, there are not many reliable complete organic solutions for cannabis growers to fight pathogens like powdery mildew or E. coli. You might never guess - but they developed one: dissolved CO2 Foliar Spray.

Less tools than food and non-food growers

The high standards of the pharmaceutical industry and new Government Regulators of legalized cannabis are pushing medical cannabis growers to grow their plants with less tools than traditional food and non-food crop growers have. Traditional food and non-food crop growers can use 100’s of approved chemical-based protection products. In Canada, there are only 23 allowed by the Office of Medical Cannabis to date that are less effective organic based solutions. This is due to the new legal cannabis industry being a combination of both agriculture and medicine.

Bioavailable and natural

The Canadian company CO2 GRO has come up with a patent-pending technology solution that is 100% bioavailable and 100% natural - dissolved CO2 Foliar Spray. According to the company, it strengthens cannabis plant resistance to pathogens as well as increases growth, speed to maturity and size and number of buds per plant with higher THC and CBD concentrations. In recent published pathogen trials using cannabis and pepper plants, CO2 GRO has also demonstrated dramatically lower E. coli and powdery mildew cell growth in both cannabis and pepper plants using its CO2 Foliar Spray technology (99% less).

Alternative to CO2 gassing

“Our technology helps cannabis growers achieve healthier crops that grow faster, larger, and safer, bringing greater profits,” says John Archibald, CO2 GRO’s CEO. “There are some indoor growers using CO2 gassing but most cannot due building porosity, the grow area being too warm, power costs being too high, value of crop too low etc. The ones that do CO2 gas waste a majority of the CO2 gas they buy through required venting before plants absorb it. We can bring CO2 gas via Foliar Spray to all of these less efficient greenhouses, shade houses and hoop houses whether they gas or not plus anywhere outdoors, without material CO2 gas loss, in dissolved format.”

“Our Foliar Spray is just water infused with CO2 without bubbles that works in an extremely efficient way,” John explains. “This dissolved CO2 water is 100% bio-available to plant leaves where almost all plant photosynthesis of CO2 into sugars to grow occurs.”

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Fighting cannabis pathogens through dissolved CO2 spray

Medical cannabis growers are terrified of pathogen outbreaks such as powdery mildew that can rapidly wipe out crop cycles once a few plants gets infected. According to CO2 GRO, there are not many reliable complete organic solutions for cannabis growers to fight pathogens like powdery mildew or E. coli.

But how does this spray kill pathogens in cannabis crops? John states “We observed that certain single cell pathogens cannot grow in the presence of sharp pH changes. Our acidic dissolved CO2 (carbonic acid) water is lightly sprayed on leaf surfaces at about 4.5-4.7 pH. That water then rapidly turns alkaline as leaves consume the dissolved acidic CO2. On cannabis and pepper plants, we scientifically measured and observed the near halt (two orders of magnitude or over 99% less) of the growth of unwanted single cell pathogens targeted.”

Post-sprayed water pH

"The post-sprayed water pH on the leaf surface snaps back to the low-to-mid 6 pH area in less than 90 seconds as measured at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. This 2X pH volatility swing is not dangerous for cannabis."

John continues explaining: “We take CO2 gassing cannabis growers from 5 crop cycles per year of value to a net 6 by adding more bud volume, size of buds and speed to plant maturity but use only half the CO2 gas to do that. That ignores the higher THC and CBD bud concentrations we also get. For cannabis growers not CO2 gassing, our value add is closer to 50% without valuing higher THC and CBD. Our technology is “not a pesticide” as concluded by Health Canada’s Pesticide Management Regulatory Authority nor is it “an additive” as concluded by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.”

For more information: 
CO2 GRO Inc. 
Suite 5800 40 King St West 
Box 1011 
Toronto, Ontario M5H 3S1 
(416) 315-7477 
sam.kanes@co2gro.ca

co2gro.ca

Publication date: 4/29/2019 
Author: Andrea Di Pastena 
© MMJDaily.com

CO2 GRO Announces Dramatic Pathogen Reduction Results Using CO2 Foliar Spray on Cannabis

TORONTO, ON – February 25, 2019

Toronto based CO2 GRO Inc. (“GROW”) (TSX-V: GROW, OTCQB: BLONF, Frankfurt: 4021) is pleased to provide further dramatic results from scientific pathogen experiments using CO2 Foliar Spray at two separate U.S. commercial cannabis greenhouses on cannabis sativa plants. These commercial growers financially supported this research.

All experiments were designed and measured consistent with GROW’s Pathogen experiments on peppers that were press released December 6, 2018.

Results:

E. coli – Another excellent result of a two order of magnitude reduction in E.coli bacterial growth (99%) in the CO2 Foliar Sprayed cannabis plant group versus the control cannabis plant group. All plants were exposed to the E.Coli bacteria. Results are consistent with GROW’s pepper results.

Powdery Mildew – All plants were covered with a known dried powdery mildew pathogen and grown for a further 21 days. Results were scored visually at these commercial sites. All six plants in the control group developed powdery mildew disease while none of the CO2 Foliar Sprayed cannabis plants developed powdery mildew.

Grower Implications – CO2 Foliar Spray is gaining traction with commercial agreements and more successful plant science and trial data. Accoding to Global Organics, the fastest growing acreage is organic, up 20% to 70M hectares Y-O-Y. CO2 Foliar Spray is proving to have some natural pathogen resistance that may lead to reduced need for chemical fungicides and pesticides and faster adoption by organic growers that cannot use them.

John Archibald, CEO, commented “we are delighted with the cannabis E. coli and powdery mildew results. Each trial adds to our collective knowledge.These U.S. cannabis results should have significant positive impact on our commercial endeavors.

About CO2 GRO Inc.

GROW's mission is to accelerate all indoor and outdoor value plant growth naturally, safely, and economically using its patent pending CO2 Foliar Spray technology. GROW’s global target retail plant markets are food at $8 trillion per year (Plunkett Mar 2017), non- food at an estimated $1.2 trillion per year with retail tobacco at $760 billion (BA Tobacco 2017), floriculture at $100 billion by 2022 (MarketResearch.Biz estimate). Legal cannabis at $52.5 billion per year by 2023 (Statista) and legal US hemp CBD at $22B per year by 2022 (the Brightfield Group).

GROW's CO2 technologies are commercially proven, scalable and easily adopted into existing irrigation systems.

The CO2 technologies work by transferring CO2 gas into water and foliar spraying water across the entire plant leaf surface which is a semi permeable membrane. The dissolved concentrated CO2 then penetrates a leaf's surface area naturally like nicotine dissolves through human skin from a soluble nicotine patch.

Foliar spraying of water, dissolved nutrients and chemicals on plant leaves has been used for over 60 years by millions of indoor and outdoor growers. To date, outdoor growers have not had any way to enhance plant CO2 gas uptake for faster growth.

Indoor CO2 gassing has enhanced plant yields for over 60 years but 60% of the CO2 gas used is typically lost from ventilation. Current greenhouse CO2 gassing levels of up to 1500 PPM are not ideal for worker health and safety. GROW's safer infused CO2 Foliar Spray can be used by both indoor and outdoor plant growers with minimal dissolved CO2 gas lost and much greater CO2 plant bioavailability resulting in higher plant yields than both CO2 gassing and no gassing plant yields.

Forward-Looking Statements This news release may contain forward-looking statements that are based on CO2GRO's expectations, estimates and projections regarding its business and the economic environment in which it operates. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to control or predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements and readers should not place undue reliance on such statements. Statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update them publicly to reflect new information or the occurrence of future events or circumstances, unless otherwise required to do so by law.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

For more information, please visit www.co2gro.ca

Or contact Sam Kanes, VP Business Development at 416-315-7477.