Artificial intelligence is being incorporated into various societal and industry functions at a seemingly ever-increasing rate these days, including within the emerging cannabis industry. AI may prove to be particularly helpful for certain cannabis cultivation activities.

A team of researchers affiliated with the Cochin University of Science and Technology and PSGR Krishnammal College for Women recently conducted a study to see if AI-powered technology could help with cannabis seed genetic detection and classification. The study’s findings were published in the online research database Research Square.

“Accurate cannabis seed classification is crucial for precision agriculture since it has a direct impact on industrial regulation, genetic integrity, and crop productivity.” the researchers wrote. “This study uses a curated dataset of 3,434 seed images from 17 different varieties to investigate a machine-learning-based method for cannabis seed detection and classification. A Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier was employed in this study for the classification of grayscale image features extracted after resizing and preprocessing the images.”

“The SVM classifier achieved an impressive classification accuracy of 93.98% across certain varieties—such as AK47_photo, Hang Kra Rog KU, and Thaistick Foi Thong —exhibiting perfect classification performance. The macro-average F1-score of 0.93 and the weighted-average F1-score of 0.94 both show that the classification is strong, balanced, and reliable across all categories.” the researchers determined.

“These results confirm the usefulness of SVM-based grayscale feature modeling for automating cannabis seed classification and improving precision agriculture through efficient, scalable, and data-driven solutions. The study also points out areas for future research, like making the dataset more diverse and using advanced feature extraction and deep learning methods to make the model work better.” the researchers concluded.

This type of technology could be beneficial for companies that work with cannabis seeds on a large scale, especially when seeds are harvested outside of controlled environments, and proper genetic identification proves to be especially difficult.

AI may even help with quality control efforts for smaller producers as well. Not all seeds are ultimately viable, and perhaps AI technology could help with assessing the quality of seeds before they are planted, in addition to detecting the strain type.