youPCR® Plant Screening Platform

Early Detection Saves Grows

The youPCR® Plant Screening Platform allows hemp and cannabis cultivators to screen plants for genetic traits and pathogens, while they are still in the seedling tray. Early screening can be used to prevent costly infestations and save valuable time and resources that would otherwise be spent on plants with undesirable traits, such as males. 

Savings Across Your Entire Operation

The youPCR® Plant Screening Platform allows growers to run a more efficient operation by spending fewer resources on plants that don’t have desirable traits or could potentially unleash a costly infestation.

Cut Electricity Bill

Eliminate males before they use up valuable lighting and HVAC resources that could be better spent on productive females.

Lower Irrigation Cost

Stop wasting valuable water and nutrients on plants that do not have the gender or dominant cannabinoid you are looking for.

Maximize Square Footage

Early removal of plants that do not have the gender or dominant cannabinoid you are looking frees up more space that you can fill with the plants you want.

Curtail Labor

Spend less time inspecting plants for visual signs of contamination or gender, and spend more controlling the environment and taking good notes.

What our customers are saying

COLORADO SEED INC.
“Working in the cannabis industry in Colorado is extremely competitive and rapidly changing. With new advancements and opportunities at every corner, we have to prioritize efficiency in our breeding program to keep up with a growing market. Conventional breeding methods take a lot of time, labor, and off-site lab testing that slows down our breeding process and costs a lot of money! Working with the Medicinal Genomics team and their youPCR system has given us the opportunity to collect imperative data about our plants in a short amount of time. With the ability to accurately detect plant gender and CBD presence from our seedlings, our selection process has become much easier. YouPCR is easy to use, and our results have been 100% accurate. We would highly recommend getting in touch with the Medicinal Genomics team and seeing what they can do for your garden.”
Seth Crawford, PhD | Co-Founder, Oregon CBD
The CannSNP90 Platform is a very powerful tool for cannabis breeders. and can rapidly accelerate the process of marker discovery. In our case, it has helped us take our breeding of high total cannabinoid content in novel chemotype hemp to the next level and made it possible to identify day-neutral plants as seedlings, which are both equally groundbreaking results for us. We will definitely be using this service again.
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Same-Day Results You Can See with Your Own Eyes

1. Collect 4mm punches from each plant leaf and place each in one well of the pre-aliquoted Solution A strip tube.

2. Heat the tubes, with either a thermal cycler or miniPCR machine, for 50 minutes.

3. Remove liquid from each well and pipette into a new plate or strip tube, containing youPCR® Solution B and Solution C.
4. Heat the new plate or strip tube for another 40 minutes.
5. See the results! Positive results will change to yellow, while negatives will remain pink.

Flexible and Scalable

All current and future youPCR® tests can be run on either a 16-well miniPCR thermal cycler or a standard 96-well thermal cycler. Customers should consider volume when choosing which solution will work in their instance. The miniPCR platform is best for small grows or home grows, while larger commercial grows will typically be better suited for a 96-well thermocycler. Contact a Medicinal Genomics representative who can help determine the right solution for your situation.

MiniPCR Thermal Cycler

Contact Medicinal Genomics to acquire a discount coupon code that can be used when purchasing from the miniPCR website.

Standard Thermal Cycler

Any programmable 96-well thermocycler with a heated lid will work. qPCR detection is not required.

Get Started

Review the
youPCR® Protocol

Purchase Reagents from Medicinal Genomics

Review Equipment and Consumables List from Other Vendors

Frequently Asked Questions

No. Although we have done some initial research into using youPCR to test seeds, we have not done enough to confidently say it works as well as testing leaf. We recommend sampling a seedling’s first set of true leaves when using you PCR.

YouPCR assays provide a positive/negative result. When using youPCR to screen for CBDA or THCA synthase, a positive result means there is an active CBDA or THCA synthase allele. Unfortunately, that result can’t be used to predict what percentage the plant will ultimately produce. However, if you combine the CBDA and THCA tests you can determine the plant type.

No. Cannabis plants typically hermie as a response to stress. Although there may be genetic markers that determine if a plant is more likely to hermie, we have not found them, and we do not target them with our gender tests. The youPCR gender assay specifically looks for a Y chromosome.

The youPCR Starter Kits do not include PCR Thermal Cyclers. The youPCR Starter Kits also do not include chemical reagents: Solution A, Solution B, Solution C, and Positive Control. Those must be purchased separately on the Medicinal Genomics web store.

 

In order to successfully test with youPCR, you should have experience with the following laboratory techniques/best practices:

  • Liquid handling with a pipette
  • Benchtop sterility techniques
  • Proper disposal of tips, punches, and strip tubes

 

All of the chemicals and reagents we sell in our web store are manufactured in facilities that are certified to ISO 9001 and/or ISO 13485 standards.

 

Prefer to Outsource Testing?

Cultivators who don’t have enough volume, lab experience, or start-up cash to test seedlings in-house can outsource to one of our partner labs. They have great turnaround time and aren’t going to use your genetic data to fuel a breeding operation.

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