Researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) will receive $4.2 million in federal, provincial and industry funding to study enhanced cannabis cultivars, with a particular focus on disease resistance.

In partnership with Aurora Cannabis, the project, titled Fast-Tracking Breeding of Powdery Mildew-Resistant Cannabis, is led by UBC researchers Loren Rieseberg and Marco Todesco.

“Our plan is to develop a genomics-enabled breeding pipeline that will increase the speed and precision of cannabis improvement and bridge the gap in genetic knowledge and breeding resources that currently separates cannabis from other modern crops,” Rieseberg told UBC News.

“In collaboration with Aurora Cannabis, we’ll apply this pipeline to solving a major limiting factor to large-scale cannabis production, susceptibility to powdery mildew.”

Powdery mildew is a common fungal disease that is difficult to eradicate and can destroy cannabis crops if left untreated. The goal is to establish a breeding pipeline of cultivars with “superior agronomic performance” that are less susceptible to disease and are better suited for large-scale production.

“The Government of Canada is proud to support Canada’s world-leading stem cell and genomics research community,” says William Amos, parliamentary secretary to Navdeep Bains, the federal minister of innovation, science and industry.

Amos says that the funding “has the potential to save lives and come up with new ways of solving environmental and agricultural challenges. This is Canadian science and innovation in action.”

The money will be issued by Genome Canada, a non-profit organization funded by the federal government. In total, $15.4 million in federal funding will support 10 genomics research projects across the country that are focused on health, agriculture and the environment. Additional funding from provincial governments, businesses and research partners will boost the total funding pool to more than $56 million.

“The results of this project will benefit the Canadian cannabis industry and Canadian consumers, but also basic and applied science,” says Todesco. “The genomic resources that will be generated as part of this project will be freely available to the scientific community, and will help us and other researchers to understand better this important crop and its evolution,” he adds.