Doctor Pot: PhD in Cannabis Production

"It [cannabis] is not really a big part of my life outside of the science."
"There is a need for the science and there is a market and there are people that are growing it and they are going to have to grow it safely and make money -- and they can't just make it all up themselves."
"They [University of Guelph] offered a number of plant courses and I took some on a whim and fell in love with it. I'd always been interested in economics and business and I figured I wanted to get into an exciting, fast-growing industry and unfortunately there's not much that qualifies in terms of the plant science."
"I was trying to graduate to be done by the time legalization [as of October 17 in Canada] was happening so I kind of had my head on the ground, not looking for work."
"But I had a number of companies contact me, some with some very serious interest in having me on to continue to do research with them or to help them improve their production practices."
"It's interesting and new and the fact that there is [little] research in the area [meant] I could have free rein of what I wanted to do. Being able to get into the forefront of a scientific topic these days doesn't seem like even an option, it's kind of just built upon the work of others."
"Any crop you're producing you have to know how much to fertilize it, how much to irrigate it, what to grow it in. And because there's not academic research on the topic, there's very little guidance for growers and growers are forced to rely on [often[ unreliable information."
"We custom=formulated and evaluated several growing substrates -- specifically for cannabis and determined what would work best."
"There's a lot of practices that we see with cannabis growers that are interesting and have some kind of logical explanation, but not necessarily one that's founded in plant science."
Deron Caplan, alumnus, University of Guelph

Deron Caplan will soon be what is believed to be North America’s first Ph.D in pot production. (Turgut Yeter/CBC)

This  enterprising young man who has earned Canada's first doctoral degree in cannabis production focused on the basic horticultural elements of cannabis production ... basically methodology which, during the era of prohibition -- soon to be concluded -- represented trial and error. His doctoral thesis in effect has resulted in an academic body of expertise on vital agricultural methodology relating to optimal fertilizer rates and growing mediums, useful for large licensed producers and at-home growers alike.

Methods of propagation and best practise in stem-cutting techniques also received their due. Although University of Guelph, best known in Canada as an outstanding agricultural institute of higher learning is the first to have produced a specialist in specifically growing marijuana crops McGill University also has three students with doctoral theses in neutral hemp production, none yet having earned their PhD with an emphasis on the medicinal and intoxicating marijuana strains that will become legal in Canada in October.

Other major agricultural schools across Canada have yet to focus on producing programs that will result in doctorates in marijuana production. Now, pot doctor Deron Caplan will find his academic skills in high demand. Though he is the first Canadian to emerge as a PhD in cannabis production he won't be the last as more postgraduate degrees will most certainly emerge, according to Anja Geitmann, dean of agriculture at McGill University in Montreal.

"I'm pretty sure it's going to change the research landscape in the sense that researchers now have access or can do research on the plant much easier", she commented. In so doing, scientific knowledge relating to the cannabis plant will expand as universities respond to the legalization of pot. Taking undergraduate classes in environmental sciences at Guelph, Caplan's interest in cannabis science was sparked leading to the serendipitous synchrony of his completed doctorate with the new cannabis law.

Once his undergraduate degree was realized, Caplan was inspired to approach horticulture professor Youbin Zheng who has worked extensively with cannabis, to enquire about the possibility of a master's study of the plant. While awaiting an opening for postgraduate studies in cannabis research, Caplan filled in the time by travelling for eight months to France, Germany, Croatia, the Netherlands, Greece, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia and Russia.

His travels came to an end when Professor Youbin messaged him that a project was at hand, compelling Caplan to return to Guelph to pursue the research in 2015, which he later combined with his doctoral work in 2016. Professor Zheng acted as thesis adviser which led to the two collaborating on the first research paper in North America to be published in a peer-reviewed journal on indoor cannabis production.

A worker at Cann Trust's Niagara region greenhouse cultivates marijuana plants. Cann Trust will be one of a number of licensed marijuana producers looking to hire graduates from Niagara College's new commercial cannabis program. (Turgut Yeter/CBC)