Is CO2 Gro the next cannabis phenom?

There are a number ways you can play the cannabis sector, from licensed producers and extractors to retail and pharma, but for those who like a bit of adventure with their stocks, greenhouse tech company CO2 Gro (TSXV:GROW) may be up your alley.

The bonus? CO2 Gro’s patented growing system has potential reach far beyond the pot business.

“CO2 Gro is looking at multiple different opportunities, cannabis obviously being one of them, but other plant and other agricultural purposes as well,” says Bruce Campbell, portfolio manager at StoneCastle Investment, who spoke on BNN Bloomberg on Monday.

“It's one that we have on our radar. We don't own right now but we certainly think that if the smaller tests that they've done have actually been yielding the results that they think and they can get that on a bigger mass scale test, then it certainly could be one that gets adopted by industry — and that could be any type of growing industry because the yields obviously will be significantly higher with not a lot of extra cost,” Campbell says.

Toronto-based CO2 Gro uses a process that infuses carbon dioxide gas into water in order to enhance delivery to plants, with the outcome being higher yields. And while growers have used carbon dioxide gassing for decades, CO2 Gro says its system is much more economical than previous iterations, resulting in up to 30 per cent better yields.

Earlier this month, CO2 Gro announced the installation of 15 full-scale CO2 delivery systems for a number of greenhouse operators in Missouri under the Linn County Seed & Flower Co-op for the production of hemp.

“The greenhouse owners will be evaluating the performance of CO2 Delivery Solutions™ throughout one harvest cycle in which aqueous CO2 misting will be consistently applied from vegetative stage through to harvesting of the hemp seeds. Upon completion of the harvest cycle, greenhouse owners will have the option to purchase the installed systems,” said CO2 Gro in a press release.

Last month, CO2 Gro provided a corporate update concerning the COVID-19 crisis, saying that its business operations are continuing as per usual. Not only are agricultural businesses part of essential services, the company’s carbon dioxide delivery systems are fully automated and require essentially no human labour and interaction.

“The vast majority of our business is in North America where we have built a team of sales representatives and operations partners across the US and Canada,” said CEO John Archibald in a March 23 press release. “Having this network in place ensures that both our business development and operations management are not significantly affected by the COVID-19 lock downs.”

Microcap stock GROW, which has a market capitalization of $10 million, had its name changed from BlueOcean NutraSciences two year ago. The stock has a 12-month chart looking like many other cannabis-related names, all showing a prolonged slump dating back to last spring. GROW has dropped from a high of $0.70 last April to where it currently trades in the $0.15 range.