Who’s Buying All That Pot? A Look at the Demographics of Cannabis Consumers

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This report from Headset.io examines who’s buying cannabis, how much they’re buying, and other interesting nuances to purchasing decisions. Take a look!

The following is an article produced by a contributing author. Growers Network does not endorse nor evaluate the claims of our contributors, nor do they influence our editorial process. We thank our contributors for their time and effort so we can continue our exclusive Growers Spotlight service.

Disclaimer

This article was first produced by Headset.io. You may read the original article here.

Introduction

It’s no secret that people are buying legal cannabis at unprecedented rates these days. Sales numbers grow year after year, and reports project that the cannabis market will top $20 billion in just a few years.

For this report, Headset used demographic data from customers who voluntarily signed up for their rewards programs in Washington State to look at everything from brand preference to price sensitivity across the generational spectrums.

Are you might expect, cannabis is most popular with Millennials, who grew up in a world with much more relaxed views on the plant. However, Gen X’ers consume nearly as much cannabis as Millenials, and Baby Boomers are a significant part of the consumer base as well. While older generations consume in fewer numbers than Millennials, they have more money to spend. Data for Generation Z — those born in the mid-90s to mid-2000s — is minimal, as only a tiny fraction of them are of legal age. However, they will be an important demographic to keep an eye on in the future.

Anyone seeking insights into what Gen X’ers or Millennials are looking for will find this report useful. However, this report also offers interesting observations as to each generation’s preferences and values, and how those reflect in their purchasing habits. Designing specials and promotions based on those habits will be a key part of marketing success as the industry broadens and welcomes a new, more age-diverse customer base.

Methodology

Data for this report comes from real-time sales reporting by participating Washington State retailers via their POS systems, which are linked with Headset’s business analytics software. This report uses data collected in the state of Washington from September 2017, cross-referenced with Headset’s catalog of over 150,000 products, providing detailed information on market trends.

Headset’s data comes digitally direct from its partner retailers. However, there is a potential for misreporting in the instance of duplicates, incorrectly classified products, inaccurate entry of products into point-of-sale systems, or even simple human error at the point of purchase. Thus, there may be a slight margin of error to consider.

Demographics

Millennials have dominated the market since we began looking at the data, holding 49% of the total market share in 2016, with a slight increase to 51% in 2017.

Flower continues to remain the largest overall sales category, regardless of generation. What is interesting though, is that the second place category is different for each generation. For Millennials, Concentrates were second place at 17% of their sales. For Gen X’ers, second place was a tie between Concentrates and Vapor Pens. Boomers like Vapor Pens and Pre Rolls, while the Silent Generation goes for just Vapor Pens. In terms of consumption of flower by volume, Millennials, Generation X, and Baby Boomers all split their spend in a remarkably similar way.

Within flower, all generations preferred hybrid strains by a significant margin, as shown in the chart below. The Silent Generation is slightly different because they prefer a little less hybrid and a little more straight indica or straight sativa, but the breakdown is otherwise identical for the other generations.

As might be expected, given the much-publicized economic woes facing Millenials, average basket size is smaller the younger the consumer is. The average item price (AIP) in a Millennial’s basket is only about $14, while AIP is about $17 for Boomers, and even higher in older generations.

Over half of the items purchased by Millenials were under $10, corroborating the AIP data from above. Gen X made just under half of its purchases below $10, while Boomers and the Silent Generation made the most pricey purchases. The Silent Generation purchased nearly 10% of its items at over $40. Can’t take it with you when you go, right?

Editor’s Note: This bodes well for companies trying to sell premium cannabis brands: Target your marketing towards older demographics.

Want to read the rest?

Check out the rest of the report on Headset.io’s blog! It is free to download and read.

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Website: https://www.headset.io/
Email: sales@headset.io

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About the Author

Headset is market data and business intelligence for the cannabis industry. Our extensive Industry Report deep-dives into specific brands to help businesses better monitor the competitive landscape and perform exhaustive category analysis. Reports are generated via aggregate, real-time transaction data to get a unique and thorough analysis of what’s happening in the Washington market and other states as the data becomes available.

An Explanation of Coefficient of Utilization (CU)

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In this contributor article, GrowFlux explains the importance of knowing the Coefficient of Utilization (CU) with regard to lighting for cultivation. You can read the original article here.

When deciding how a particular LED light will perform in a grow operation, Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density (PPFD) is an important consideration. PPFD is affected by the design of fixture array, the height of the fixture above the canopy, the light intensity, and most importantly, the angular distribution of the light exiting the fixture - the factor that defines the “uniformity” of the fixture.

Coefficient of utilization (CU) measures what amount of light exiting a fixture will fall on a canopy area of a particular size, which is important to consider when designing an energy efficient Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) facility.

CU is the ratio of the total light emitted by the fixture against the light that falls on a canopy of a particular size. Light that does not fall on the canopy directly may be wasted (walls and floors) or may fall on adjacent canopy areas depending on the facility’s design (such as reflective walls).

How CU is Measured

Since measurement techniques for determining CU are limited, the only accurate method to measure CU is simulation. In designing Growflux’s RAY Reflectors, we simulated the the entire fixture in a ray tracing tool using Monte Carlo calculation methods and ray data from the LED manufacturer to calculate the light output of a 3D model of FluxScale 6000TL. We accounted for all the materials in each product, each LED, operating and drive conditions, and fixture geometry.

FluxScale Reflectors were designed with ray tracing techniques, ensuring highly uniform lighting on the canopy

A Better Utilization of Light

Calculating CU from a simulation is a simple process; first calculate the entire light output of the fixture, then measure the output incident on various sized planes at different distances from the fixture. The ratio of these values is representative of the percentage of light that hits a geometrical plane of a certain size at a certain distance. As you will see, increasing the distance of the plane from the fixture results in a lower coefficient. Shown below are CU values for FluxScale 600TL on a 5x5 foot plane at three distances. Adding our FluxScale Reflector significantly increases the CU.

It is important to understand that the light that does not fall on the canopy directly under the fixture is not always wasted. With an efficient CEA facility design, this light can be reflected off highly reflective walls or will fall on canopy area adjacent to the fixture, depending on the design of the lighting array.

The RAY Reflector is designed to result in highly uniform lighting across large canopy areas, with whole array Coefficient of Utilization (CU) exceeding 0.95, depending on wall reflectivity and array layout

	1ft distance	2ft distance	3ft distance
FluxScale (no reflector)	0.89	0.68	0.47
FluxScale with RAY Reflector	0.99	0.82	0.60

Below is the above table presented visually.

Click on the images for interactive 3D models!

Want to learn more about what GrowFlux has to offer? You can check out their website here. They have a ton of educational content on their blog if you want to read more about LED grow lights as well.

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About the Author

GrowFlux offers tunable broad spectrum LED grow lights and connected agricultural sensors which help growers save energy, improve consistency, and enhance quality control. The GrowFlux Cloud is a quality control and management solution developed with the unique needs of Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) in mind, and is used in cannabis production, vertical farming, biopharmaceutical production, and cGMP managed CEA facilities.

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Website: www.growflux.com
Email: info@growflux.com

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Testing Your Runoff

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Dr. NPK of Elite Garden Wholesale takes us through why you should test your runoff nutrient solution, and what some of your results might mean.

Disclaimer

This article has been republished with permission from Elite Garden Wholesale. The original article can be found here.

The cannabis industry has all sorts of different jobs. Whether you’re growing, processing, selling, or consuming, we all play a different role, and every role is important. As growers, we can be “field scientists,” since we are creating products for other people to use.

Sometimes we can forget that creation is not the only thing that matters; the quality of our creations is equally as important! To that end, we want to help growers learn to use the analytical resources available to them. Today’s blog is about some analytical methods that can be used to test the nutrient concentration of your feeding water, how your plants are using your nutrients, and how that information can help you grow better bud!

PPM and the Elements: Why should I care?

PPM stands for “parts per million” and is a unit of concentration. For example: let’s say there are 3 lbs of cannabis “diluted” in 999,997 lbs of water (for a total of 1 million even), we would say the concentration of cannabis is 3 PPM for those given weights. Another unit of measurement, ppb, is similar in principle but stands for “parts per billion.” When I am referring to PPM, I am referring to the Total Dissolved Solids (or TDS) in a solution. Another measurement that people frequently use is Electrical Conductivity (EC). The working principle is the same, but the measurement is different. Essentially, the more nutrients you have in your water (a higher concentration, higher PPM), the higher your EC is because the nutrients are ionic solids.

Editor’s Note: The correlation of EC and PPM is not linear, and conductivity can also change based on temperature (while PPM will not). The two measurements measure similar things, but are not equivalent measurements.

When we are measuring PPM (usually with the same instrument that measures pH), we are analyzing the total amount of salts and nutrients in the water. This is important because we must make sure that we are adding the right amount of nutrients every feed. Let’s say you measure your reservoir on Tuesday and you get 1,500 PPM. You measure on Wednesday using the same feed and get 2,200 PPM. This can help you recognize that too many nutrients have been added and that your feeding regimen may need to change.

But this isn’t the only reason to measure PPM! Comparing your runoff (the water stream beyond the root zone) to your reservoir provides useful pieces of information that can make sure your plants are performing the best that they can.

How to Measure Your Nutrient Concentration

Every time you take a measurement, whether it be pH, PPM, or EC, you are conducting a science experiment. Like all science experiments, you must make sure they are done properly to prevent errors. Measuring runoff by itself is useless without several additional measurements.

I strongly recommend measuring two things in your water stream: PPM and pH. Both should be measured in your sump and in your runoff. By measuring at a minimum of these two places, you can see how your plants are behaving and potentially taking nutrients.

Editor’s Note: As a scientist myself, I also recommend you take several measurements at the same points in your reservoir and sump -- sometimes a nutrient solution may not be mixed evenly or the runoff might not be mixed evenly, so several readings can help reduce statistical anomalies. We don’t want to jump to conclusions based on the initial findings!

How to Decipher (Some of) the Results

Below I will go over some potential situations that can arise from the analytical results you might get. This is assuming you have already collected a sample/measurement in your sump and your runoff.

PPM Lower in Runoff than in Sump

This is a good thing! This implies that your plants are taking up nutrients, thus lowering the overall ionic concentration! If you monitor this routinely and you see a standard drop (e.g., 1600 in, 800 out, 6 days a week), that implies that your plants are experiencing roughly the same conditions on a daily level. Keep in mind: if your PPM’s are super low in the runoff, consider upping your nutrient treat rates slowly, as your plants may be lacking in nutrients.

No PPM change between runoff and sump (or lower than normal drop).

This implies that your plants are not properly taking up the nutrients in the sump. One reason for this may be due to pH; certain ions (such as nitrate or phosphate) can only be taken up by the plant in certain ranges.

PPM is Lower in Sump than Normal

Check for a white precipitate (a white, powdery-looking solid) in your sump. If you’re sure you added the right amount of nutrients, the PPM might be lower due to nutrient lockout: not all the ions in your sump might be getting along and they may react with one another and form a solid that is not soluble in water (insoluble). One of the most classic culprits is calcium phosphate (from Ca²⁺ and PO₄^3-). You can help avoid this by practicing proper mixing techniques (see video below).

PPM is Higher in your Runoff than Sump.

This should be rare, and it might indicate some sort of salt buildup at the root zone. This buildup persists for a while, and then slowly dissolves back into the runoff, resulting in a higher PPM. The most common salts that are present in the root zone that are not water soluble are calcium-type salts (calcium phosphate, calcium carbonate, calcium hydroxide). Use a line cleaner, or if you’re at the end of the run and the rinse won’t hit the plants, try dilute muriatic acid to help remove the salt buildup. Copious flushing with water will help too; it’s just a slower process.

Yellowing in the Plants

Look at the elemental values in your runoff compared to your sump. First, ensure that your nitrates (plus total nitrogen), phosphates, and potassium ions are decreasing between your sump and runoff. This shows that the yellowing is not due to a macronutrient deficiency. Continue looking at the other elements to potentially find which element needs to be fortified. If your PPM isn’t lower in your runoff compared to your sump, there are likely some issues with your pH that may also be leading to the yellowing.

pH Increase/Decrease Between Sump and Runoff

A little variance is normal, but a large change is known as pH drift. Keep an eye out for nutrient lockout, as this is one of the main reasons for a significant pH drift. It’s a good idea to monitor this because if your pH is drifting, certain nutrients may not be available to your plants as the pH drifts outside the acceptable uptake range.

Closing Thoughts

Analytical data for your grow is extremely important! Make sure that you always have at least two pieces of data before trying to make a conclusion:

Concentration (whether it be via PPM or EC)
pH

These are crucial tools to analyze in both your runoff and sump. It can keep your plants alive and happy!

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About the Author

Dr. NPK has been in the chemical formulating business for over 9 years. With a Bachelors in chemistry from UCLA and a Ph.D. in chemistry from UC Irvine, he has always had a passion for chemical formulation. Over the past several years, his focus has narrowed towards the research and development of products that are optimized for cannabis. He assisted in the development of the Elite Nutrient line and takes great pride in the products he created and uses himself. He has made it his mission to cut through all the pseudoscience available on the web and to educate readers on the science behind growing top-shelf bud.

PTSD Follows Him Home: Veteran No Longer Hiding Medicinal Cannabis Use

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Boveda acknowledges the benefits that medicinal cannabis can bring to veterans with PTSD with a case study of one such veteran.

Disclaimer

Grower’s Network is happy to reproduce this article with permission from Boveda. If you would like to read the original article, click here.

No Longer Hiding

Protecting our freedoms. Keeping us safe. And finding relief from service-related injuries and trauma with medicinal cannabis. HeroGrown, a nationally recognized non-profit organization, supports both veterans and first responders’ right to use medicinal cannabis. Boveda is a founding sponsor of HeroGrown. Join us in helping heroes, like Paul Melling access the medicine they need.

The number of United States veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is staggeringly high. It has had dramatic effects on those who simply wanted to serve their country, many of whom now suffer flashbacks, aggression, night terrors and/or insomnia, extreme anxiety, self-destructive behavior and other debilitating symptoms.

Editor’s Note: The VA estimates that 11-20% of veterans from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have PTSD; 12% of Desert Storm veterans have PTSD; and 15% of Vietnam veterans have PTSD. Source here. Some of their trauma may not even come from conflict either -- as some of it stems from harassment, assault, and abuse from other service members.

One of the brave warriors who has experienced these life-altering symptoms is Paul Melling. After the tragic events of September 11, 2001 (commonly called 9/11), Melling dropped out of college at North Dakota State University to sign up in the military. In January 2003, he was stationed at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, before joining the 2nd battalion, 11th field artillery, 25th Infantry division. The following January, Melling was deployed to FOB (Forward Operating Base) McHenry near Kirkuk, Iraq.

Editor’s Note: Forward Operating Bases (or FOBs) are notorious for the amount of action they experienced during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“My MOS [military operation code] was 13b, field artillery cannon crew member,” Melling described. “Most of my time in Iraq was spent in a bunker waiting to react to incoming mortar and rocket attacks.”

“We provided artillery support for infantry and did a lot of harassment and interdiction fire, which was rebranded as terrain denial fire at some point during my deployment.

“I switched jobs in my artillery section but was primarily the radio operator and I regularly was a driver or gunner on convoys to the Kirkuk air base or to town for meetings with the locals. I also spent a large amount of time in a tower on guard duty.”

PTSD Follows Deployment

Melling returned to Hawaii in February 2005, where he remained until he was discharged in June 2006. Then he returned to his home state of Minnesota. It wasn’t long before Melling noticed the symptoms of PTSD manifest after his emotionally and physically exhausting deployment. He went to VA doctors and was prescribed antidepressants to ease disturbing dreams, angry outbursts, and at times, suicidal thoughts. The medications weren’t effective. Melling first learned about medicinal cannabis at this time.

“I was first introduced to cannabis not long after I was discharged, sometime in the summer of 2006. At the time I did not realize what benefits it had, because it was an illegal recreational drug. After being in and out of the VA and on and off of prescription anti-depressants, I began to use cannabis more regularly later in 2007 and 2008.

“I started to realize that when I used cannabis, I slept through the night, didn’t wake to disturbing dreams and felt my sleep quality was improved. However, I continued to try to give it up; at times people including myself believed it was an addiction and dangerous. I tried various other sleep meds and antidepressants but felt they did not make me feel any better, just crazy, or even more tired. I feel it helps keep my mind from spiraling to dark places I don’t want to go.”

No Longer Hiding Medicinal Cannabis Use

Despite cannabis being illegal at the federal level, Melling doesn’t feel the need to hide his use from the VA, despite the fact that many veterans hide their usage in order to protect their benefits.

“I used to hide, but I don’t anymore. This is mostly because I don’t go to the VA for anything mental-health related and I’d prefer my primary care person to know everything they can about my health situation. I use the VA for physicals, cholesterol tests and other blood check type stuff—plus the emergency insurance. Aside from that, I mostly stay away.”

Melling admits that he feels extreme guilt for many of the things he encountered during his deployment — and that cannabis is the only thing that has helped him overcome this and the other PTSD issues he developed.

“People wonder why 22 vets kill themselves everyday -- [the reason] seems pretty obvious to me. I feel absolute disgust for what I have been a willing participant in; sometime I feel like my condition is not a stress disorder but more of a regret disorder. It feels like the only relief I can find from these feelings is smoking (cannabis).”

“I enlisted in the Army in good faith, on the assumption that I would serve my country and the people of this country, and fight those that would plan attacks like the one on September 11th. Instead, I end up going to participate in the War in Iraq. We went over there and were forced to blow up houses with innocent people inside, and terrorize them in the night with artillery fire. I lost many friends. Then I come home and people look down on me because I want to smoke a plant to get to sleep.”

Flower: A Way Out of Pain & Addiction

Everyone — regardless of military service — should have the right to medicinal cannabis. HeroGrown currently serves more than 40,000 people; people who have protected us and our freedoms. Help them find relief and a way out of addiction and healing through flower. Please give.

Help HeroGrown Launch the Hero Discount Program in Legal Jurisdictions

Donate to HeroGrown.
Sponsor monthly CBD AirDrops.
Cannabis company? Donate product.

Boveda is the leading sponsor of HomeGrown. HomeGrown is a 501(c)(19) nonprofit organization, so your donation is tax deductible to this tax-exempt war veterans’ organization, which consists of at least 90% war veterans.

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Resources:

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Email: info@bovedainc.com

Here are a few additional resources we at GN hope can help our servicemen & women and their families transition from military service to civilian life:

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About the Author

Rachelle Gordon is a Minneapolis-based freelance writer and educator in the cannabis space. She has dedicated herself to informing others about the powers of plant medicine after witnessing her father’s struggle with epilepsy (and subsequent stroke) in her childhood. Rachelle’s posts are being provided for informational purposes only; they do not constitute an endorsement or an approval by Boveda of any of the products, services or opinions of Rachelle. Boveda bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality or content of this post or links to the posts. Contact Rachelle Gordon for answers to questions regarding her content.

Renewable, Large-Scale Heating

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Growers Network burns some trees with Chuck Gagner, CEO of Woodmaster. Let’s find out how to support the environment and reduce our energy load.

The following is an interview with industry experts. Growers Network does not endorse nor evaluate the claims of our interviewees, nor do they influence our editorial process. We thank our interviewees for their time and effort so we can continue our exclusive Growers Spotlight service.

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Wood-Burning Boilers

Burning Cannabis

About Woodmaster and Chuck

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Comments

Wood-Burning Boilers

What is something a layman might not know about commercial heating?

Well, every building is unique, and greenhouses require a lot of heat per square foot, distributed relatively evenly. To that end, we typically hire an engineering firm to go into large greenhouses to determine how best to lay the pipes and distribute the heat. Pipe sizing and gallons of flow are very important to satisfy the heat requirements of a building. It's not enough to just have a boiler that produces the "correct" BTUs.

What climates do you typically sell your products to? Where would it be inappropriate to sell your products?

What benefits/drawbacks would a wood furnace have over other heating methods in a greenhouse?

There’s actually a few reasons why you might want a wood furnace over another heating method:

The price of wood as a fuel is extremely stability. Biomass fuel prices are very consistent, to the point of almost being flat. Heating oil and propane can have very volatile pricing comparatively.
If you care about investing in your local economy (and you should), then biomass fuel is the way to go. Instead of paying to some oil processing plant, you’re paying your local timber industry.
It’s good for the environment. As long as the timber company supplying the biomass replaces what it cuts down, there’s a net zero carbon footprint. Wood pellets and wood chips burn very clean and you can use that ash as a fertilizer.
Burning biomass opens up more options to your fuel source. You can buy processed premium pellets or wood chips. It’s really your decision. Ash removal is automatic and reduces cleaning to a few hours per month.

Drawbacks

Wood chips require more attention. Unlike fossil fuels and wood pellet, there is a bigger chance of foreign matter getting into the fuel and causing a problem. Since wood pellet is just sawdust that has been compressed together, it’s unlikely to contain foreign matter.

Burning Cannabis

Could dried cannabis leftovers (IE stems, roots, leaves) be used for combustion?

AHRI is an organization that tests many different materials as pellets for burning, including corn, straw, hay, and more. Typically those products carry a lot of ash content, whereas a premium wood pellet only carries 0.5% ash. Wheat straw, for example, might be as high as 6% ash. As for cannabis specifically, I don’t know what kind of ash content would be produced. High fiber content tends to burn well, so in theory cannabis should also burn relatively well. And in theory, you could use whatever ash you get for nutrients if you do some remediation on it to make sure it’s balanced. Editor's Note: Update from Chuck! He found that hemp stalks contain 0.3% ash and 8500 BTU/lb, making it as good as premium wood pellet.

Indoor grows typically rely on heat produced by growing lamps. Would a boiler be useful still?

About Woodmaster and Chuck

How did cannabis come onto your radar?

Woodmaster manufactures commercial boilers intended for large applications, typically greenhouses. Most greenhouse growers choose to heat their growing spaces with either furnaces or boilers, so that’s what we do. As our name implies, our boilers burn wood instead of an oil-based product or natural gas. They’re designed to be completely automated with premium wood pellets (which are produced by compressing sawdust with a binding agent). Because the pellets use a renewable fuel, they are a cost-effective and environmentally-friendly way to heat large facilities. The cannabis industry came to our attention because we’re always looking for industries that require large-scale heating solutions. Every business owner wants to know how to make money and save money, and we’re here to help them save money.

How did you start Woodmaster?

Prior to founding Woodmaster, I was a farmer. At the time, I wanted an outdoor wood furnace that would pipe hot water into my house without all the fire risk that conventional furnaces had. So I built one that was contained away from the house but piped hot water in, significantly reducing any fire risk. A lot of my friends and extended family saw what I had done, and they wanted one too. And that’s where Woodmaster was born. We started building heating solutions for the home market, but soon realized the commercial market had a vacancy for large-scale biomass fuel.

What sets Woodmaster apart from its competitors?

I don’t think I know of any competitors in the outdoor wood-burning furnace industry that offers commercial-scale boilers. It’s what really sets us apart. Our complete WoodMaster line, which includes cordwood, wood pellet and wood chip products, are available in sizes from 100,000 BTU to 6.8 million BTU and can fit the needs of hobby farmers to commercial growers! And beyond that, we pride ourselves on service. We educate every dealer who sells our products on maintenance and troubleshooting, so that no matter where the customer is, they can have a local service person. The product is extremely durable and dependable, and requires minimal cleaning if you’re using premium wood pellets. You can, of course, use green wood and other less “pure” biomass fuel sources, but you will see additional fouling of the equipment.

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About the Author

Hunter Wilson is a community builder with Growers Network. He graduated from the University of Arizona in 2011 with a Masters in Teaching and in 2007 with a Bachelors in Biology.

Canna Cribs Episode 3: Copperstate Farms — Snowflake, AZ

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On the third episode of Canna Cribs, we take a jaunt over to Snowflake, Arizona to meet with Fife Symington IV and talk about what’s going on at Copperstate Farms and the inspiration behind this massive greenhouse grow.

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Short on time? Check out our shortened article!

Episode 3

Transcript of Article

Introduction

Nate (Narration): Hi, my name is Nate, owner of Growers House, one of the top suppliers of cultivation equipment in the world. I help growers source equipment and put together some of the largest, most advanced cannabis growing operations. I am constantly looking for the top products and methods needed to grow the best cannabis. Join me on a tour where I get inside access to the industry’s leading cannabis grow ops. This, my friends, is Canna Cribs.

Title Screen

Nate: It’s Sunday night, we’ve just rolled into Snowflake, AZ, and I’m about to go into a 40 acre greenhouse farm. And this farm used to be tomatoes, and now they’ve converted it completely to cannabis. They gave me a pass at security, and I’m about to go inside and meet with Fife, the owner, so he can show me how they run such a large operation. Let’s go inside.

Brief Interview with Fife

Nate: I just walked into Copperstate Farms, and I’m here with Fife, the owner of the facility. So Fife, I know you that you didn't start in cannabis, as none of us did. So what was your life like up until now? Fife: For the last 20 years I’ve been growing tomatoes, seedless cucumbers, and yellow and orange bell peppers in greenhouses. Basically, there was this green revolution going on right here in my home state. And I thought “Wow, I’ve been learning about commercial agriculture and greenhouse farming my whole life.” And now there’s real demand for it in the state of Arizona. Nate: Why don’t you give us the story on this facility in particular, because I know it’s rich? Fife: It’s got a great history, and the beginning of it might be a little bit apocryphal, but supposedly the first owner won the Canadian lottery and decided that he wanted to build a greenhouse in the best place he could find in North America. Looked all over the place, and built the south 20 acres. He was attracted to Snowflake because of the elevation, the light intensity, the number of sunny days, the quality of the water. He ran that operation for about six years, and then sold it to Eurofresh. They then doubled the size. Eurofresh ran it very successfully for a long period of time, and then they sort of got bitten by the global financial crisis. They went through an extended two rounds of bankruptcy. Then Naturesweet, which is a large producer of cherry tomatoes, bought this Snowflake facility and a facility in Wilcox, Arizona, out of bankruptcy. In my own time schedule, I think it was 2015. I thought “You know what, I really do want to get into the greenhouse growing of cannabis.” Right around that same time, Naturesweet announced that they were pulling out of the Snowflake facility. Fife: To me it was like a sign. The stars had aligned. I was looking around the state for where I was going to build a greenhouse, and here was 40 acres already built. We bought the property in September of ‘16, and we had our first harvest in August of ‘17. Nate: Wow. That’s great. And to think that so many jobs… Naturesweet probably pulled out because they couldn’t be competitive with south of the border crops from Mexico, right? Fife: Yes, yes. Nate: And that’s happening more and more, and that means there are certain jobs in the US that are disappearing, and who’s going to pick up the slack? Fife: And it’s a perfect window for the cannabis industry. Nate: Fife, thank you so much for teaching us all about your facility. I know I have an early morning tomorrow with Jacob, one of your growers, and I’m really excited to see the rest of this facility. Fife: You’re in great hands with Jacob, so, enjoy your tour. Nate: Thank you so much Fife. Fife: Absolutely, thank you Nate.

Bridge

Nate: So we’re here in the breezeway, about to enter the mega facility greenhouse of Copperstate farms. And I’m here with Jacob, one of the growers here, and he’s going to give us an inside look at their facility. Jacob: Awesome, we’re happy to have you guys. Let’s go take a look around. Nate: Let’s do it.

Genetics

Nate: Wow. First room of the day. Jacob, where are we right now? Jacob: So this is the mother room right now. We’ve got all of our moms here. It’s basically the start of our process. All the cuttings are going to come from these plants. Nate: These mothers are really big. I’d like to get a closer look at them. Jacob: Sounds good, let’s go. Jacob: So, our mother room is 55,000 sq. ft. Got it broken down in 3 zones, so we’re standing in the B section right now which is our active moms. We’ll be taking cuts off all of these active growing points to be stuck in the propagation room later on. We’ve got about 150 strains represented across about 1200 plants. 100 strains are active, which we’re currently growing for production. 50, we’re growing for trials for seeds or phenotypes, trying to make sure we’ve got some stable genetics.

Propagation

Nate: Look at all these plants. This row must go down… I dunno, a hundred feet? Jacob: Yeah, so. On average we get 350 cuts per strain when we’re going on active cuts. 25 cuts per tray, and on here we’ll have a couple thousands cuts, so I think it’s around 3500 or so. Nate: Ok, so, you guys are using, it looks like… Grodan as a media? Jacob: Yep. We’ve got Grodan Rockwool cubes here, and their trays as well. We’ll go ahead and be using those for our production cuts. Grodan’s been amazing ever since we switched over to them, and I can’t see us switching over again unless we experience problems. Nate: And I noticed there’s almost this sawdust looking stuff on them. What is that? Jacob: That’s actually our BioBest program from Coprate (?). They’re beneficial insects like Swirskii mites and aphipar (?) to really cut down on the amount of bug pressures we see in this room, because really similar to the genetics mother room that we just left, there’s always plants in here. So we’re really restricted on the type of bio regimen we can use. They’re predatory on the pests and they don’t really do anything to the plants. They just live there and call it their home. They’ll leave as soon as the bug pressure that they were eating has left too. It’s kind of like they finished the meal and left the restaurant. Nate: Well, what about the difference between growing tomatoes versus growing cannabis? Jacob: It’s much much more massive. If you think about it, they had 250,000 tomato plants per 10 acres here, and those plants would last for months and months and months. We have a smaller number of plants, and they last for a smaller amount of time, so they’re cycling through much more rapidly.

Vegetation

Nate: Wow. Very impressive room. So this is much larger than the mother room we were in. So can you give me a sense of scale? Jacob: So this is actually about twice the size of our mother room. We’ve got 2.5 acres of veg space here. It’s about 100,000 square feet. Nate: One room. 100,000 square feet? Jacob: Yeah, just one room. Nate: Looks like you’re growing in Coco Coir. I see Medicoir on the bags. What do you guys have going on for media and fertigation? Jacob: We start out with our Rockwool cubes, and then we immediately drop them into these Medicoir bags that you’re seeing. Coco is our desired media that we like running right now. After our trials back in August/October time, we saw that coco was the most profitable, and that’s what we’re looking into right now. Nate: And then for fertigation, it looks like you’ve got a lot of drip line here. Jacob: So we have all Netafim drip systems. We love the real pressure regulating aspects of a lot of their products we’re using right now. It really makes sure that we have a uniform fertilizer and irrigation distribution between all the plants we have spread out across the zone. Nate: So whether it’s in this corner of the greenhouse or that one, they’re getting the same amount of water every time? Jacob: Yep. Nate: So what about nutrient regimen? You guys using anything else other than your own custom blend? Jacob: So we do use one product or a few products through a company called Key to Life. They do some amazing nutrient work. We’re currently using their Silver Bullet sulfur for foliar applications. We also did some experiments with their molasses as well. It’s just a great nutrient company out of Colorado. They’re doing a bunch of great stuff as far as cannabis fertilization. Everything that we do is based on plant reaction. It’s not just a matter of every plant needs this. We try to make everything as uniform as possible, but at the end of the day, they still tell us what they want. Nate: I really want to dig into these LEDs that you have. Can we take a closer look at these? Jacob: Yeah, let’s go hop on one of those scissor lifts and take a closer look.

Bridge 2

Jacob: So these are the new LumiGrow Pro 650e’s with a SmartPAR module. I can run the entire lighting system remotely from my phone. It’s an extremely user-friendly system. Like you said as well, I’ve got complete control over this. So increasing the amount of blue spectrum or blue wavelengths in the last couple days of flower actually improves terpene retention. So you can improve your potency based on your lighting strategy even in the last couple days of flower. Nate: These lights, they know if there’s a cloudy day and a few cloudy days. They have predictive analysis that might frontload the amount of light that they get in the morning to make sure the plants are going to get enough light. Jacob: Exactly, so what it’s doing is constantly live-time measuring and analyzing the light conditions of this room, looking at our settings and our targets, and saying “Ok, how do I need to affect or change the instantaneous intensity of this light to make sure that we achieve this goal in the set timeframe?” Nate: As far as I know, this is the only fully automated LED solution that takes into account environmental factors, at least as far as I know. Jacob: Exactly, this is the only fully automated lighting greenhouse solution out there.

Flowering

Jacob: So we’re in house 44 right now. We’ve got about 7200 plants in here spread out across an acre and a half. That many plants, you’re going to get some really crazy smells first thing in the morning. Nate: Maybe… we can take a stroll down one of these rows? Jacob: Yeah, let’s grab a lab coat to keep us off the plants and we’ll go check it out. Nate: Jacob, one of the things I really wanted to get into coming into this flowering greenhouse is how you manage environmental controls. In Snowflake, Arizona, where in the summer it can be 100 degrees, and winter it can be snowing, and you have to grow a crop year round. Jacob: We have a Priva environmental control system and it’s just amazing. It takes into account all these different factors: Temperature, relative humidity, vapor pressure deficit… all of these crazy factors that we can use and create our own program and our own strategy. Nate: And the Priva system… that’s commercial ag software that’s used in tomato production, you guys were able to transfer right over to cannabis right? Jacob: Right, Priva was designed for large scale agriculture and it fits our needs really well here because everything is interfaced into once source, so I can control all of the environmental factors, all of our irrigation, lights, fans vents, whatever it may be, just from one platform. Nate: So you mentioned pruning just a second ago. I know you guys are using our Common Culture Trojan scissors. You guys buy a ton of them. But I want to go over… what’s your philosophy behind it? What are you trying to go for? Jacob: So the philosophy is just to pull off some of those lower shoots, auxiliaries, and little flower sites that aren’t going to produce much for us in the very end. So we pull those off and try to have the plant focus its growing energy on those four main heads that we created in the veg room. Nate: And this is the Grower’s Edge trellis netting. I know that you guys use this in a vertical fashion more than a horizontal fashion that I see so often. Jacob: So what we’re trying to do with this is open up the plant a little bit more, getting the airflow going down through the center of the plant. Right now we’re in monsoon season, so we went from 5-10% average humidity to over 50% within a week’s span. With that big of a change, you’re watching powdery mildew and other mold spores popping up. It’s something that we have to stay on top of with our IPM regimen, our environmental control strategy, and everything down to this trellising and pruning, making sure we’re helping the plants by keeping these pressures as low as possible. Nate: Jacob, I noticed you have these packets hanging up above your plants in the flowering rooms. What are those? Jacob: Those are part of our ProKure protection program. The ones you’re seeing right now are the ProKure D slow-release packets. They give us the ongoing ClO2 protection during the plant’s life cycle. We also have fast-gas ProKure G and V packets that we use in between harvest to clean the room of any remaining mold and mildew spores that could be airborne or in some really hard to reach places. It’s really essential for our IPM program to keep these houses as clean as possible.

Drying

Nate: Ok Jacob, I am not lying when I am saying this is the most beautiful drying room I’ve ever been in. I would eat off this floor, it is so clean. There is not one speck of dust. Jacob: We’re a medical facility, you’ve got to keep this to the highest level of cleanliness. Nate: Of course, and you guys have something I’ve never seen before. You have a wall pushing out air slowly. Jacob: So it’s a slow dry and directional air flow. We’ve got our south walls that’ll push air and our north walls that’ll pull air, and effectively it creates this real slow draft over the plants to make sure that we’ve always got new, dry air coming in, but we’re not blowing trichomes off the plants. We want to make sure we keep those crystals nice and intact. This was just cut down today, so it’s still really fresh. Can probably still get a real big whiff of vegetative and a whole bunch of terpenes. It’ll be here for about a week or so until we get to the right moisture content, and then we’ll go ahead and move it onto the curing room.

Curing

Nate: Jacob, this room is the curing room, right? I mean, it’s really cold and kinda windy in here. Loud too. Jacob: This actually used to be the original cooler back when this was a tomato farm. So this is where they’d store the tomatoes before they got shipped out on trucks to grocery stores all over the US. So, you’re actually hearing the AC from that old system, which keeps it nice and cool for our workers in here. When we originally started we were in these black totes that didn’t quite give us the airtight seal. We switched to CVaults because we realized the benefit in having a sealed environment cure in the little CVaults. Nate: So no light, no air. Jacob: Exactly. Also in these, we’ve got the Boveda moisture packs to help regulate humidity in the CVault, keep it at exactly 62%. Nate: Ok, for the Bovedas. I know some people use the 55%, some use the 62%. You like the 62? Jacob: We like the 62. It keeps a lot of those terpenes in there, we feel. It’s extra sticky, which a lot of customers like. Nate: Ok, so how much weed is actually in this store room right now? Jacob: Because this is also our storage room as well, we’re probably looking at over a ton. Close to 2 tons, 4,000 pounds of weed. Dried, cured, packaged, and ready to go. Nate: Wow, the market is hungry. Jacob: We’re ready to feed it.

Trimming

Nate: So I made my way into the trimming room of Copperstate Farms and I met up with Holly, who’s going to go over a little bit of what they do here. So Holly, what is your role here at Copperstate Farms? Holly: I am in charge of preliminary QA. What I do is when it comes out of the dry rooms, I take at least an ounce of it, trim it up myself, grind it up, and look at some under the microscope. That way I can document if there are any issues like seeds, pests, or mold, and catch that. Then I do the good things like how much it weighed, the density, is it larger than the last batch around, things we can compare to improve in the future. Nate: So that’s interesting. You’re almost acting like the end user to grade the cannabis in different… steps? Holly: Exactly, yes. Normally every strain runs through the GreenBroz first, and then we can send it to them because it cuts out about 70-80% of our trimming. Nate: Cool, I’m going to check out packaging. Holly, thank you for showing me around. Holly: Any time. Glad you could make it.

Packaging

Nate: So I’ve stumbled my way into the packaging department, and I’ve met up here with Ivan. Tell us a little bit about it. You’re running this department and maybe among others you were saying? Ivan: I’m the processing manager for everything that comes in from harvesting. As soon as harvesting comes in, I’m in charge of all operations. Right now we’re ramping up to 500 pounds. We’re anywhere from 200-300 pounds a week. Trim alone, we’re packaging up to 300-400 pounds per day. Popcorn, we can do anything from 100 to 200 pounds a day. We used Boveda packs to balance out our moisture. If the moisture comes anywhere from 10-11%, we throw in Boveda packs into the package. They work both ways. If there’s too much moisture, it’ll remove moisture, and if it’s too dry, they’ll add moisture. They work really well for us.

Extraction

Nate: So we made our way out of packaging and I found myself in this very quiet, sterile room with Alec. Alec, what’s your role at Copperstate? Alec: I’m the extract lab manager here at Copperstate Farms in Snowflake, Arizona. This room right here is very clean and it is the material prep room. We take all flower from the processing area or this big freezer behind you and grind it, mill it, and get it prepared for CO2 extraction. Nate: This Vitalis (?), is that the next step in the process? Alec: That is essentially the next extraction step. Nate: Why don’t we jump out of this room and go show everyone that piece of machinery? Alec: Sounds like a plan.

Bridge 3

Alec: So this is ELSA, the Vitalis Q90. It’s able to process about 75 pounds of biomass per day. Currently we’re running 25 pounds of material, we expect to get around 2000g of crude oil from it. Nate: Alec, I saw this in the corner and it looks like a really insane crockpot, but I know it’s much more than that. Can we go into this guy? Alec: Yeah, so this is our Delta Separations CUP15 Ethanol extractor. C1d2 approved, able to process about 30 pounds of flower every 35 minutes. Beauty of this system, in an 8 hour shift we can process about 300 pounds with a single technician. Nate: And how much does a machine like this run? Alec: It’s actually a pretty reasonable pricetag. It’s only about $84,000 give or take depending on what additions you get. Nate: Wow, that’s crazy. And this is making a lot of the things you see in vape pens, distillates, shatters… Alec: With this we can make isolates, sauces, shatters, crumbles, we can whip different products. Like you were saying, we can make distillate, distillate cartridges. This is really kind of an all-in-one system. Set it, forget it. It spins, it dices, it sets the prices.

Bridge 4

Nate: I’m here with Bodhi, one of the cofounders of Root Sciences, this really awesome piece of equipment behind me. And he’s going to go into it a little bit so we can learn a little bit more. So Bodhi, what is this? Bodhi: So, basically what we’re doing is putting the feed stock into the feed tank. This is already prepped oil ready to go. We use gear pumps instead of a gravity fed system which allows us to pump oil through the machine instead of using gravity which gives you a less precise separation of the cannabinoids. So on the first pass, we’ll want to pull out the terpenes. On the second pass, we’ll target cannabinoids. We do that through temperature and via vacuum. We’ll modify those parameters to target terpenes or cannabinoids. The check valve is our barrier to vacuum. From there it goes into the degassing arm. The degassing arm helps us to alleviate entrainment issues, which means we don’t want any off-gassing happening on the evaporator, which can cause splashing for residue to condense on the coil and it’ll come out in your distillate. So the oil comes down the evaporator wall. The rotor is creating a thin film which agitates the oil and provides maximum surface area. On the first pass, the terpenes are vaporizing off of the wall, recondensing on the coil, coming down, and coming out this side. The rest of the oil is staying on the evaporator wall and coming out this side and pumped out here. Once all the oil has run through the feed tank, we’ll take this oil, which doesn’t have any terpenes in it any more, put it back into the feed tank, change the parameters, temperature, vacuum. We’ll pull a deeper vacuum, run it a little hotter. And then we’re going to do the same process. But because of those parameters, now the cannabinoids are going to vaporize off the wall, recondense on the coil, now you’re going to have distillate coming out this side. Your residue, which is basically trash, is going to come out this side. Root Sciences has been doing distillation for 7 years, so we have the expertise and the know how to run these machines, train people on these machines, support these machines, which you’re not going to see from other competitors. The other competitors that are out there are manufacturers. They don’t know the process of extraction or winterization and filtering and solvent recovery. They know distillation. Root Sciences knows the whole gambit. We started out in concentrates and extraction. You’re not going to find a better piece of equipment in the market. Nate: Very precise piece of machinery right here.

Edibles

Nate: Welcome everyone to this week’s episode of cooking with cannabis. I’m your host, Nate Lipton, and I’m here with Good Things Coming, Sarah, and Alex. Why don’t you tell us how Good Things Coming came about? Sarah: So Good Things Coming is started by industry-leading chefs. We came together in Phoenix and we saw that there was a huge need for chef-driven edibles. We took our experience working in high-intensity kitchens. We took that discipline and applied it to a really badass brand of edibles. Nate: So Alex, tell us a little bit about your background. Where did you come from and how did you end up getting here? Alex: I’m original from Spain, Barcelona I mean. I started in some pastry schools in Barcelona, and then I started working for one of the best pastry chefs in the world. I just moved to Arizona last summer, and they told me about the brand and I said “Let’s do it.” Nate: I hate to use the phrase, but you must be like a kid in a candy store. In this 4000 square foot commercial kitchen with all the new… appliances? Tools? Equipment? I don’t think anything can help me close out this show better than your company’s name… there’s Good Things Coming to Arizona and maybe even the rest of the country. Sarah, Alex, thank you for having me.

Analytics

Nate: So I’m here in a very unique laboratory inside of Copperstate Farms. Now I’ve never seen this before, but this is a separate business operating on the same property of Copperstate Farms. Now this business is run by Catherine, and what is the name of your guys’ business? Catherine: Well, welcome to Bioanalytical Laboratories Nate. Nate: Why thank you. It’s a laboratory of course, I see all the equipment. But what do you guys do here? Give me the skinny. Catherine: We test for cannabinoid potency, we test terpene profiles, take a look at that, and we also take a look at any microbial activity that may be present since we are working with biological systems. Would you like to help me with my microbial assay? Nate: I do not know what that means, but it sounds like fun, thank you. Catherine: Great. Come on! ... Nate: I hope they fast motion this part. Catherine: We’re currently evaluating the Cure Advantage system. They’re a local company that’s located right here in Tucson, Arizona. The Cure Advantage staff monitors the gases that are released during curing. They do that in realtime. Nate: So it’s almost like you put the flower into a receptacle, and rather than burping it manually, that system will handle any exchange of gases within it so that you can cure faster. Catherine: Right. And it’s a very simple system to use, dried flower is put in the containers, and they’re connected with quick connects, and it’s that simple. It has the potential to reduce labor costs and elimiNate any contamination. Nate: Yeah, cool. I want to hear more about that Cure Advantage as you guys get farther along in your testing. Catherine: Ok. I will keep you updated. Nate: Thank you Catherine. So that wraps up my tour of Copperstate Farms, Catherine, thank you so much for showing me around this analytical lab. It’s the first one I’ve ever been to. Catherine: Well, I hope that you enjoyed yourself Nate, and thank you so much for honoring us with your presence. Nate: Thank you.

Final Transition

Nate: After a long day of hanging out at Copperstate Farms, I’m finally here with my crew. Jacob is joining us, and I got some of these. Would you like one? Jacob. To good times, to high times. Canna Cribs Episode 3: Copperstate Farms. That’s a wrap. I think we’re going to go hang out with our crew. Jacob, thank you for joining us. Let’s go.

Abbreviated Article

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5-Minute Snapshot

About Copperstate

How did Copperstate Farms start?

I teamed up with a good friend of mine, and we started Copperstate a few years ago. Not two weeks after we began looking for a facility, Naturesweet, a large cherry tomato producer, announced that they were pulling out of a 40 acre greenhouse in Snowflake, Arizona. It was almost as if the stars had aligned. We went to work to get the permit from the town council in Snowflake. It was a long process, and quite a few people in town were nervous about the idea. I assured them that the farm would be a significant economic boon to the town, and I promised to focus on hiring local labor rather than outsourcing. The town agreed to let us start growing and converting the greenhouse. I initially hired 130 people, and nowadays we’re over 200 people. We’re the largest employer in Snowflake, and one of the largest in the county.

Copperstate is a MASSIVE farm. How did you secure the capital necessary to acquire and renovate the facility?

How difficult is the conversion process for facilities that were designed for tomatoes?

The most time consuming thing was taking down the energy curtains and replacing them with light deprivation curtains. We also made other subtle improvements. High quality cannabis requires constant airflow, so we added a lot of ventilation equipment to improve it. We also had to design a system to allow ventilation to remain on when the light deprivation curtains are in place.

What distinguishes Copperstate? What’s its competitive advantage?

I am striving for customer service that is above and beyond. What I mean is that a lot of dispensaries in Arizona don’t have a reliable supply of cannabis. Many dispensaries have to shop around from multiple growers and supplement their own stock to just have enough. I come from conventional agriculture, where our customers are number one. We want them to come back to us for our reliability and our quality.We’re willing to communicate with our customers about the product and if there are any issues. I want to make the experience for a dispensary owner as easy as possible so that they can focus on their sales.

What happened while you were pitching Copperstate to the town of Snowflake?

One of our competitors hired an attorney and launched a two year smear campaign against me. Their team even dropped pamphlets all around Snowflake claiming that I came from a Mexican drug cartel and there’d be druggies all over town. They tried to extort me into reducing the amount of space I’d grow in. They even went so far as to find a few strawmen in the town to file a lawsuit against me. We ended up winning. The opposing attorney never said who his client was, but there was a whole lot of shadiness about it.

Guiding Philosophy

Where do you picture the future of the Arizona cannabis market in 10 years?

10 years from now, we will have adult-use legalized in Arizona. I don’t believe there will be federal legalization by that point though. That said, if I’m proven wrong, we’re in a great strategic position to compete all across the American Southwest.

What’s been your biggest challenge?

With cannabis, I’d say that ⅔ of the work actually happens after the harvest, and only ⅓ of the work happens in the greenhouse. That took a bit of a learning on my part.

What’s been your biggest success?

One of the best parts of forming Copperstate is just seeing how rewarding it has been for everybody. It’s hard to pay people well in commercial agriculture. You pay the minimum wage because of tight margins, and there’s high turnover because of the difficulty of the work and the low pay. But with cannabis, that paradigm has been entirely flipped on its head. I’m able to pay people a living wage and provide full benefits.

What was your response to the 2016 ballot initiative in which recreational marijuana use in Arizona was not passed?

I was surprised and also appalled by the donations from opiate manufacturers. They were running a “Save the children!” campaign while they were making drugs that are causing deaths all over the country from the opioid epidemic. The amount of hypocrisy from anti-legalization groups makes me sad.

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If you want to read more, you can read the full article below.

About Copperstate

How did Copperstate Farms start?

I teamed up with a good friend of mine, and we started Copperstate a few years ago. We spoke with an agricultural broker and a real estate specialist in order to find a good place to start building the facility. Not two weeks after we began looking, Naturesweet, a large cherry tomato producer, announced that they were pulling out of a 40 acre greenhouse in Snowflake, Arizona. It was almost as if the stars had aligned. Here was a 40-acre, high-tech, Dutch greenhouse that suddenly became available only two weeks after we started looking. Since I knew the Naturesweet management team from my work in the produce industry, I called up their CEO and asked if I could buy the property on the condition that Snowflake would grant us a special-use permit to grow cannabis. You could almost hear a pin drop over the line when I mentioned that to him.

Satellite view of Snowflake, Arizona. Click for full size image. Copperstate's greenhouse is in the top left of the image, Snowflake is to the right. Image courtesy of Google Maps. Luckily, we came to an arrangement and my partner and I went to work to get the permit from the town council in Snowflake. I established my residency in Snowflake in the summer of 2016, and lobbied the council. It was a long process, and quite a few people in town were nervous about the idea of converting the facility into a cannabis grow, as it was a significant landmark there and the public was worried about the perception of a giant weed farm. I assured them that the farm would be a significant economic boon to the town, and I promised to focus on hiring local labor rather than outsourcing. Additionally, the town had lost several businesses in the previous few years, and here I was with a golden opportunity. So, rather than letting the greenhouse gradually degrade and fall apart, I would take up the mantle. Sure enough, the town agreed to let us start growing and converting the greenhouse. I initially hired 130 people, and nowadays we’re over 200 people. We’re one of the largest employers in Snowflake, and one of the largest in the county. We only needed six employees to relocate from elsewhere. Turns out we were pretty lucky. Many of the Naturesweet managers and workers were still in Snowflake, and had lots of experience in commercial agriculture. Most of the work we had to do were retrofits for the facility and getting people up to speed about the specifics of cannabis.

Copperstate is a MASSIVE farm. How did you secure the capital necessary to acquire and renovate the facility?

Because of my background in other agricultural businesses, I’ve been raising money and entering new ventures like this for 20-25 years. So I started like I would with any other business: I came up with a business plan and figured out how to finance it. I spoke with some private investors whom I’ve worked with before and explained Copperstate’s business plan. Most of them were eager to hop on board. With that said, of the 40 acres we own, we’ve only retrofitted 8.5 acres, and we’re working on another acre and a half, so we’re functionally farming about 10 acres right now. We’re working on getting our processes dialed in, and we’re holding the extra space in reserve in case demand starts bumping up for some reason.

Did you scale in phases or did you attempt the conversion all at once?

We actually started development on the 10 acres all at once. We worked with a Danish greenhouse engineer and Dutch contractor to come up with with the steps necessary to convert the ten acres. Our mother room was designed to be big enough to supply the entire 40 acre facility, and our propagation room is just as capable. Our veg space is large enough to supply 20 acres, so that if we expand to the full 40 acres, we’ll need to make some more veg space. The rest of the space, about 5 ¼ acres, is flowering.

Copperstate at twilight! Snowflake is an ideal location for greenhouses because it has an incredible number of sunny days and because it’s 6000 feet above sea level, you also get cool nights. When we compared light measurements at Copperstate to our friends at Aphria, they were blown away. We get more light on a December day than they do in the middle of August. That reduces our flowering time from 8 weeks to only 6 weeks in the summer. Snowflake also has a relatively low humidity for most of the year, except during monsoon season.

How difficult is the conversion process for facilities that were designed for tomatoes?

The most time consuming thing when we were converting the facility was taking down the energy curtains and replacing them with light deprivation curtains.

Energy Curtains

Light Deprivation Curtains. Gif courtesy of GGS Structures.

We also made other subtle improvements. High quality cannabis requires constant airflow, so we added a lot of ventilation equipment to improve it. We also had to design a system to allow ventilation to remain on when the light deprivation curtains are in place, as they stop a lot of airflow. That took some structural changes to the greenhouse, and we had to specially design a flow pattern that pulls all of the air in the greenhouse to a carbon filtration system which then vents above the facility.

What distinguishes Copperstate? What’s its competitive advantage?

It sounds really corny to say it, but I am striving for customer service that is above and beyond. I don’t mean in the business to consumer (B2C) aspect though. What I mean is that when I started doing my research and visiting grows and dispensaries, I noticed that a lot of dispensaries in Arizona didn’t have a reliable supply of cannabis. Many dispensaries have to shop around from multiple growers and supplement their own stock to just have enough. They didn’t have a regular buying pattern, and there was a whole lot of caveat emptor. It seemed like people were just trying to take advantage of each other all of the time for a quick buck. I come from conventional agriculture, where we’re used to selling six or seven million boxes of produce per year, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Our customers are number one. We would have never tried to screw them over for a quick buck, because we needed the repeat business. It wasn’t about making a killing on one sale, we wanted our customers to come back to us for our reliability and our quality. It showed in how we interacted with our clients. If there was ever a production or quality issue, we were upfront with our buyers. We let them know what was going on. If they sent something back to us, we dealt with it in an amicable way.

This is how I notify everybody of a production issue. And that’s how I want to be perceived in the Arizona cannabis market -- as a large producer with consistent quality, consistent pricing, and willing to communicate with our customers about the product and if there are any issues. I want to make the experience for a dispensary owner as easy as possible so that they can focus on their sales. Any agricultural business must acknowledge that Mother Nature can be somewhat fickle, so you can’t always have the best or prevent every problem. Instead, we focus on honesty and being forthright in our communications. We want to make dispensaries happy so they can keep coming back. Copperstate is about repeat business. We also aim to be the one stop shop that can consistently provide the stock that dispensaries need. Because of our sheer scale, we’re able to grow a large number of different strains in large quantities. We have about 25 different strains that we’re really confident on right now, and we have another 100 in the research phases right now. The ones that show promise will start going into commercial production.

How did you get to your current particular strains?

I was used to the commercial agriculture industry where you can bulk order over 100,000 seeds of the exact same consistency and quality from a large seed company, and they handle all of the genetics. Those seeds are guaranteed to yield 25 pounds per seed. They’re so dialed in, it’s crazy. But you don’t get that kind of system with cannabis. You’ve got to do all the genetic research in-house. I didn’t realize just how much work that was, because I was just used to paying a lot for seeds and having that work already done. So now we do our own in-house R&D, focusing on strains that sell well and produce well, with plenty of variety to be the one-stop shop in case our customers need it. It takes about 6 months from a seed pop to when we have enough mother stock for commercial production though, so the research process is relatively slow.

What does your pest management look like?

Before we fully implemented our complete ventilation system and added more fans, we had some mold issues and powdery mildew. Once the ventilation was fully operational and the fans were blasting, that problem went away. The permanent, dedicated dry rooms also helped out a lot in this regard. As for bugs, they’re always an issue. All sorts of bugs out here love to eat our plants. In the commercial ag business, we joke that we’re waging full-scale biological warfare all the time. We definitely follow IPM protocols for targeting bugs. We regularly use biological pest controls and scout constantly, and we never use chemical pesticides. We have a huge handbook that was focused on tomatoes, and cannabis shares a lot of pests with tomatoes, so it’s a great resource for dealing with problems when they arise.

Is there any technology or automation you’re using in Copperstate that really makes you go “wow”?

Yeah, a few things. Our greenhouses are controlled by a Priva system with all sorts of plugins and customization options. Not only does the system take a lot of programming from the factory, but we also have to customize it for our location. It’s truly eye-popping what these things can do. We’re also using software called AgriWare in concert with Microsoft 365. It helps us document everything and manage our costs in a well-designed way. We even have it connected with our RDF system for seed-to-sale tracking. You can just scan a tag at the door and bam, it’s logged.

Can you talk a little bit about the process of pitching Copperstate to the town of Snowflake?

As I mentioned previously, the town council was a little hesitant at first, but once we got to emphasizing the economic benefits and the kinds of jobs we would create, it started to become a simple decision for them. We have had the permanent effect of hiring a significant percentage of the population in Snowflake.

Some of them reeeeeeeeally get into soil. While the community itself didn’t seem to have a problem with the idea, one of our competitors did. They hired an attorney and launched a two year campaign against me to try and rally opposition to everything I was doing. Their team even dropped pamphlets all around Snowflake claiming that I came from a Mexican drug cartel and there’d be druggies and vagabonds all over town. They tried to extort me into reducing the amount of space I’d grow in. I didn’t listen. They even went so far as to find a few strawmen in the town to file a lawsuit against me. I met with the individuals filing the lawsuit one by one, and when they realized they were just being used as pawns by another marijuana grower, they dropped the suit. We ended up winning and getting the full award of our attorney’s fees, and Snowflake also won its fees too. The opposing attorney never said who his real client was, but there was a whole lot of shadiness about it.

Guiding Philosophy

I predict that 10 years from now, we will have adult-use [cannabis] legalized in Arizona.Fife Symington IV

Where do you picture the future of the Arizona cannabis market in 10 years?

I predict that 10 years from now, we will have adult-use legalized in Arizona. I don’t believe there will be federal legalization by that point though, and we’ll still be unable to import or export across state lines. That said, if I’m proven wrong about importation and exportation, we’re in a great strategic position to compete all across the American Southwest. As for Arizona itself, I think in 10 years the market should be similar to where Colorado’s is at right now, as far as total market size goes.

What’s been your biggest challenge?

Besides the issue with genetics I mentioned earlier (no reliable seed companies), there was also another factor I didn’t anticipate when we started the facility, and that factor is the post-harvest process. You see with tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, etc. your post harvest simply amounts to boxing everything up, chilling it, and shipping it out. That’s not the case with cannabis. With cannabis, I’d say that ⅔ of the work actually happens after the harvest, and only ⅓ of the work happens in the greenhouse. That took a bit of a learning curve from me, but now we understand the process much better.

What are your current struggles?

Right now, one of our biggest struggles is managing a big organization. We went from zero employees to over 230 in a single year. That’s a huge managerial challenge, but we’re getting there. The other struggle we’re working on has to do with extraction. Simply put, it’s hard to find extraction equipment that can handle the volume we’d like to produce. Most extraction equipment is meant for small grows, and can’t handle the large quantities of cannabis we have available. That said, we do make bulk distillate and plan on making vape cartridges soon. We use a subcritical CO2 extraction process, which is very clean and safe.

What’s been your biggest success?

One of the best parts of forming Copperstate is just seeing how rewarding it has been for everybody. After nearly a lifetime in commercial agriculture, I was used to fighting for very tight profit margins. It’s hard to pay people well in commercial agriculture. You pay the minimum wage, and there’s high turnover because of the difficulty of the work and the low pay. Unfortunately, that’s the economic situation in a lot of commercial ag. But with cannabis, that paradigm has been entirely flipped on its head. I’m able to pay people a living wage and provide full benefits. Our starting wage is $15/hr, which is nearly impossible with any other commercial crop. It’s just a great environment in the air around here; people are happy to be working with us. And you can see it around town -- cars are filling up nearly every parking lot around here. Business is booming. It’s also great to see how quickly our team has come together. There’s a lot of really excellent people here working with us.

Where do you think technology is heading in regards to cannabis?

How has politics shaped your role in the cannabis industry?

When I first started my research into the industry, I was really quiet about it. I didn’t want to advertise it. But almost overnight, cannabis has started to gain cultural acceptance, both in Arizona and the US. People’s minds are changing very quickly, and almost everybody knows somebody whose life has been improved with medical cannabis. This effect has snowballed, and so now I am much more open about talking about the matter.

What was your response to the 2016 ballot initiative in which recreational marijuana use in Arizona was not passed?

I was surprised, but was also appalled by the donations from opiate manufacturers. They were running a “Save the children!” campaign while they were making drugs that are causing deaths all over the country from the opioid epidemic. The amount of hypocrisy from anti-legalization groups makes me sad.

If an adult use bill is put before voters, do you think it will pass?

I think it would pass if put before the voters in 2020. If you look at the polling in the state, the majority of Arizonans want to have adult use in the state. Turnout in the general election of 2020 will be a lot higher, and the demographics are there. They’re almost there today, and at the rate that opinions are shifting, it will almost be a guarantee.

A hemp bill was passed in AZ recently. Will it affect Copperstate?

About Fife IV

Tell me about your past experience in agriculture.

I lived and worked in Mexico for a few years after I graduated from college. Afterwards, I moved back to Nogales, Arizona, and started an import/export business named Apache Produce, which, as the name implies, focused on the produce industry. Nearly all of the vegetables that enter the US and Canada during the winter time come from Mexico, and we were one of those distributors. The business opened my horizons to other potential areas of opportunity in commercial agriculture. In 1995, my best friend from college started a farming company in Culiacán and I got involved with it. We built large scale greenhouses and produced high-quality tomatoes en masse. It’s done really well. There’s over 800 covered acres of greenhouse in Mexico that ships over 200 million pounds of tomatoes, cucumbers, and bell peppers to the US and Canada every year.

Tell me about your history with the cannabis industry.

After a while of working in the produce industry in Mexico, I saw the business start to plateau. I decided to look around for other ventures that would fit my line of experience. When I realized there was a green revolution happening in Arizona, did my research and started visiting grows. I spoke with one of my buddies, John Cervini, who had founded Lakeside Produce up in Ontario. Lakeside Produce was a distributor for tomatoes and cucumbers in Canada during the winter. John had sold his share of Lakeside Produce and was a founder of Aphria. He told me what was happening around the US with regards to cannabis, and invited me to try it out. I took a brief jaunt over to visit him and see Aphria for myself. I was impressed by their capitalization strategy and valuation. When I mentioned that I was interested in starting something similar in Arizona, they were eager to offer financial backing for what would become Copperstate Farms.

What does a typical week look like to you?

To be honest, I wake up on Monday morning, and I don’t have a clue what’s going to happen this week. We’ve made huge strides in the last year, and the problems we have now weren’t the problems we had a few weeks ago. That said, we’ve made massive strides retrofitting the facility, and we’re well into our production cycles, so hopefully our week-to-week activities will start to stabilize.

What do you want to show the world through your Canna Cribs episode?

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Website: https://copperstatefarms.com/
Email: info@copperstatefarms.com

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Hunter Wilson is a community builder with Growers Network. He graduated from the University of Arizona in 2011 with a Masters in Teaching and in 2007 with a Bachelors in Biology.

Marijuana Licenses in California – Part 5: Growth and Comparisons to Other States

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Ed Keating of Cannabiz Media continues his series about cannabis licenses in California. Today we're looking at retailers, dispensaries, and delivery services.

See Part 1 here!
See Part 2 here!
See Part 3 here!
See Part 4 here!

Disclaimer

This article was originally published on Cannabiz Media. To see the original article, click here.

Growth and Comparisons

For the final portion of Cannabiz Media’s 5-part series about marijuana licenses in California, we review the state’s 2018 licensing growth and how it compares to other states.

A lot has changed in a short time since we’ve written this series of blog posts about marijuana licenses in California. Here are three important highlights:

California issued over 5,000 marijuana licenses during the first quarter of 2018.
That equates to 65 licenses issued per day. If this trend continues, there could be 20,000 California licenses by the end of 2018.
California currently has more active marijuana licenses (5,369) than Colorado (3,206) and Oregon (1,792) combined.

The Cannabiz Media License Database currently shows that California has issued 5,369 licenses, which is more than double the approximately 2,000 licenses that were being tracked in the database at the end of January of 2018 and significantly greater than the 3,518 licenses that were issued when this series first began in March 2018. The chart below puts the growth rate into perspective.

Among the three regulators that have power with regards to cannabis licenses in California, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) – which is responsible for licensing cultivators – has experienced the greatest growth in its issuance of licenses since the beginning of March 2018 at 79% growth. The number of license issued by the Bureau of Cannabis Control (CBCC) – which is responsible for licensing adult-use and medicinal retailers, testing labs, and microbusinesses – increased by 32%, and the number of licenses issued by the Department of Public Health (CDPH) – which is responsible for licensing manufacturers – grew by 17%. The chart below shows this data visually.

The 5,369 currently active marijuana licenses are primarily cultivation licenses (3,099). As you can see in the chart below, there are also 682 active manufacturing licenses in California and 841 active retail, dispensing, and/or delivery licenses.

Of the licenses that have been issued as of the time of this post’s writing (April 2018), the distribution of issued licenses shows that there are more medicinal-use licenses than adult-use licenses in the state. You can see the distribution in the chart below. Please note that the data in the chart below does not include microlicenses. It will be interesting to revisit this data in the future to see how/if the distribution changes.

Related Notes: Want to learn more about microlicenses Check out this helpful article about vertically-integrated microbusinesses.

California Marijuana Licenses Compared to Licenses in Other States

At the time of writing (April 2018), there are 7,182 active marijuana cultivation licenses in our database from the United States, and 43% of them are located in California. Additionally, there are 2,748 active manufacturing licenses and 3,461 retail and dispensing licenses in the United States of which 27% and 23% (respectively) are Californian. You can see the breakdown in the chart below.

It’s important to understand that while the number of marijuana licenses in California is growing rapidly, the state is only issuing temporary licenses right now. Temporary licenses will start to expire at the end of April 2018 (each temporary license is valid only for 120 days from the date of issuance). When a temporary license expires, the license holder can apply for a 90-day extension if they’ve submitted a complete application for a regular license. This is something to watch in the coming months as things could look very different in the future.

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Ed Keating is a co-founder of Cannabiz Media and oversees data research and government relations efforts. He has spent his whole career working with and advising information companies in the compliance space.

How to Grow Cannabis 141 – The Basics of Vegetative State

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We continue our trek through the basics of growing cannabis with a foray into the vegetative state.

Vegetative Basics

Today we’re talking about vegging. No, not that thing you do when you toke too much. We’re talking about vegging your plants.

So what is veg? Veg, vegging, vegetative, etc. are all terms used to describe the period between when a Cannabis plant is between a seedling/clone and flowering. Vegetative is when your marijuana is just taking in nutrients, water, and light to get bigger. It’s not flowering, it’s maturing, like a child turning into a teenager.

Leonardo showing us how vegging works.

So what do you need to know about vegetative state? What do you need to do?

Do you want to learn how to grow cannabis? Check out Growers Network University!

Watering

If this is your first time growing any plant, we need to cover a few basics about soil and watering regimens. First and foremost, we need to know how our plants are feeling. Plants express how they’re feeling very differently than animals do, but they express their feelings nonetheless.

For example, if you’re underwatering, your plants will start to droop and go limp, as water makes up a large portion of a plant’s structure. If you’re overwatering your plants, they may start to show signs of death as the roots drown.

To avoid harming your plants with water, here’s a few tricks:

Use a saucer underneath your pots. The saucer holds excess water, preventing it from running off with precious nutrients, and the plant’s roots will gradually draw this water up from the saucer. A saucer will tell you when you’re underwatering or overwatering as well. If it’s empty, then your plant needs more water. If it’s full, stop watering.
Don’t just get the top of the soil wet. Let it pool a little bit when you water it. Water needs to sink down into the soil. You can use a thin stick (or your finger) to poke down into the soil -- if the soil sticks all the way down your little stick (or your finger), good job, it’s just right. If it only sticks partially… then the soil needs more water. If you pull up mud, stop watering immediately.
Try to pour the water on the soil, not the leaves. Wet leaves encourage the formation of mold and fungus, so apply water directly to the soil.
If you’re growing inside, figure out a regular watering schedule. Once a day, once every other day, once every three days… all can work depending on how much you’re watering.
If you’re growing outside, you’ll have to keep a closer eye on how your plants are behaving. Humidity and rain can greatly affect how thirsty your plant is, and you’ll need to adjust your watering schedule accordingly.

Underwatered Cannabis

Appropriately Watered

Overwatered Cannabis

Nutrients

If you bought fresh bags of potting soil to grow in (as we recommended), generally you won’t need to supplement your nutrients. If you’re reusing soil or using soil from elsewhere, you may need to add nitrogen into the soil during vegetative stage. Phosphorus and potassium are less important here.

There’s a variety of sources for nitrogen out there, and most can be bought online or at a gardening store. If you want to grow organically, look for source materials that are organic or biological in origin.

Lighting

During veg, plants should be getting 18 hours of light. If you’re growing outdoors, this will depend on your latitude and the weather, so check the Weather Channel to find out what it’ll be like in your area.

If you’re growing indoors though, this means you’ll be running your lights on an 18 hours on, 6 hours off schedule (referred to as 18-6). Some LED systems can be programmed to run on a schedule, and other lights you can handle manually or with timers.

If you have a choice in the lighting color, tend towards white-bluish light in vegetative. In a more advanced How to Grow article, we’ll cover what this means in terms of color temperature and light output, but for now, just know that your plant prefers bluish-white light during vegetative state (greater than 4000K), and reddish yellow during flowering (less than 4000K).

Blue-White spectrum on the left is appropriate for vegetation. The Red-Yellow on the right is appropriate for flowering.

Temperature and Humidity

Now that we’re in vegetative state, we’re no longer growing in a dome. This means we have to worry a bit more about the environment our plant is in. If you’re growing outdoors, you have very little control over temperature and humidity, so you’ll need to start growing after the danger of frost has passed. Check the Weather Channel to know when that is for your locale.

If you’re growing indoors, we’ll ideally be aiming for temperatures that are around 75-85 degrees Fahrenheit, or 24 to 29 degrees Celsius. If you don’t want to run your air conditioning that warm, that’s fine. It just means your plants may grow a little slower, but it should be alright.

The only things we suggest staying away from are swamp coolers. If your air conditioning for your residence uses a swamp cooler, keep your plants far away from it, or get a new air conditioning unit. Swamp coolers greatly humidify surrounding air, which can cause fungal issues in your plants.

Training

During the vegetative phase, you may need to do some light trimming around the plant. If you find any leaves that are constantly in shade or are yellow, give them a clip with some scissors or a sharp knife. Don’t go overboard! The plant needs a lot of its leaves in this stage, so only trim leaves that are towards the bottom of the plant.

If you want to make sure your plants don't fall over, make sure to get some wood or bamboo stakes into the ground and tie them to your plants with vine clips.

Editor's Note: Alternatively, consider learning how to SCROG in one of our more advanced lessons coming soon!

And that’s about it for veg. Do you have any questions? Let us hear them in the comments section below, or on the Growers Network forum!

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How to Grow Cannabis 112 – Practical Planning

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So, you want to start growing some weed for personal or medical use. But you’ve never grown anything before. Does that describe you? If so, read on.

The following is an article produced by Growers Network. This article is for educational purposes only. We do not claim any responsibility for any legal or financial repercussions of your decisions. Always consult with a lawyer or attorney before making a decision that could have a legal consequence!

How to Grow Cannabis 112 - Practical Planning

Assuming you are allowed to grow in your locale, now we need to consider some more practical matters. Marijuana is a living organism that requires several things to grow:

Time (>8 weeks)
Sufficient Space
Light
Water
Growing Medium
Nutrients
And air, which has the CO₂ necessary for photosynthesis.

Time

Pot typically takes 8-12 weeks to grow and will require a relatively significant amount of attention to make sure that it grows pest-free and well. If you’re growing in an outdoor environment, marijuana may take longer to grow because it is an annual plant that typically starts flowering in the Fall when light levels start to decline.

Do you want to learn how to grow cannabis? Check out Growers Network University!

Space

Generally speaking, most laws regarding personally-grown cannabis require it to be grown in an “enclosed, locked facility” and not cause any kind of nuisance due to its smell. This typically means you’ll be growing indoors unless otherwise noted by your state or municipality. In some locations, you can grow in your backyard if your yard has a sufficiently tall fence and the cannabis is hidden from public view.

If you are growing indoors, consider investing in a grow tent of an appropriate size to provide the best growing environment for your cannabis and to control potential odor and space issues. A grow tent makes the most efficient use of any artificial lighting in a residence. If you’re renting a property, you absolutely should use a grow tent so you don’t lose your security deposit.

A grow tent setup.

If you have the opportunity to grow outdoors, weigh the pros and cons of growing outdoors. Generally speaking, growing outdoors is easier and cheaper, but you also expose your plants to more pests and environmental hazards. If your locale experiences extreme weather, your crops will have to deal with the extreme weather as well.

No matter what you decide, you also need to consider…

Light

As we mentioned above, weed also needs light.

If you’re growing outdoors, you should already have the light factor covered. Set aside a sunny spot in your yard so that your plants can get the most sunlight possible. If you’re growing indoors, you’ll need to provide a source of artificial light, a window, or a skylight. There are a wide variety of lights available for purchase, some of which may or may not be useful to you as a home grower. Here’s a list of the major artificial light sources you can select:

Fluorescent Bulbs: T5 fluorescent bulbs are applicable in artificial lighting. They are cheap, electrically efficient, and run relatively cool. The downside to T5 lights is that their light output is relatively small, and they may need frequent replacement if they are running constantly. Plants will grow more slowly under fluorescents.
HID Lamps: HID lamps are a high intensity artificial light source. They are relatively cheap, durable, with a very intense light output and are common in commercial indoor grows. The downside to HID lamps is that they put out an immense amount of heat and consume a lot of electricity. If you rely upon a conventional air conditioning unit to cool your property, it may not be enough to counteract the heat generated by an HID lamp.
LED Lights: LED lights use light-emitting diodes to generate artificial light. They are electrically efficient, durable, and run relatively cool. The downside to LED grow lights is that they typically have a very high initial cost (usually several hundred dollars), and you will probably need to do some research to find out what is most appropriate for your space.

For your first indoor grow, we recommend sticking to fluorescent bulbs or LED lights, as the heat output and electrical consumption from an HID lamp can be very unwieldy to a first-time grower. We’ll cover HID lamps more in more advanced courses.

Water, Nutrients, and Soil

Cannabis is a thirsty plant that likes to be well-fed, much like your aunt Trixie. ZING!

With that kept in mind, for the purposes of our 100 series on How to Grow Cannabis, we will be using soil to cover both our nutrients and our medium. There a number of commercial growers who use soil, and it is relatively cheap, easy to find, and easy to use. The soil itself holds lots of nutrients, and generally doesn’t require much micromanagement.

If you’re growing outdoors and in the ground, make sure that your soil isn’t too sandy, too rocky, or too filled with clay to grow. Ideally you want your soil to be “loamy,” which is ideal for outdoor growth.

Soil types as defined by the USDA.

If you’re growing in a pot (pot in a pot), you’ll want to pick yourself up some potting mix from the nearest Home Depot or gardening store. It’s relatively cheap, just make sure you buy enough to fill all the pots you’re going to grow in. Potting mix is specially formulated to be loamy, but also hold water very well. We don’t recommend using dirt from your backyard in a pot, as it will not hold water very well. If you're looking for brands with an emphasis on cannabis nutrients, considering looking at these brands:

As for watering, it really just depends on how automatic you want it to be. There are a large variety of automatic watering solutions available, but for the sake of simplicity, a good old watering can doesn’t hurt.

Can't go wrong.

In more advanced courses, we’ll cover other mediums such as rockwool, coconut coir, sand, beads, etc. and automation tools such as drip irrigation and fertigation.

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Hunter Wilson is a community builder with Growers Network. He graduated from the University of Arizona in 2011 with a Masters in Teaching and in 2007 with a Bachelors in Biology.

How to Grow Cannabis 111 – Legal Planning

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So, you want to start growing some weed for personal or medical use. But you’ve never grown anything before. Should you get started? Let’s find out!

Keeping it Legal

If you’ve never grown weed before, you might confused by the amount of information and ideas floating around the internet. People are talking about things like hydro, media, lights, nutes, pH, etc., etc. It’s a lot to take in, and Growers Network is here to help you sort it all out with our new How to Grow Cannabis series. We’ll join you on your quest to advance in your growing knowledge and skill, and hopefully turn you into a professional (should you so desire, of course).

Now you may be thinking to yourself… “How hard could it be?” It is just a plant after all. Some soil, some water, and bam, you’ve got yourself a growing plant. You’re not wrong. You could grow like that, and you may even get some decent marijuana out of it. But if you really want to make a mountain out of a molehill, we need to add a little science to our grow.

And it all starts with a little planning.

Do you want to learn how to grow cannabis? Check out Growers Network University!

Planning your Grow - Legal Questions

The first thing you need to consider when you want to grow your own cannabis is… are you allowed to in the first place? While everybody wants to feel a little bit like a rebel, Growers Network doesn’t want anybody getting behind bars, so you should check to see if you’re allowed to grow in the first place. The following is written primarily with the United States in mind, but similar steps also apply if you live in a different country.

There are several places on the internet you can find information regarding what your state’s (or country's) perspective on marijuana is, but you also need to check if your city and county (or region/territory) will allow you to grow personally. Many municipalities, for example, won’t allow you to grow if you happen to live within a certain distance of a dispensary. If you can’t find the information, then you need to speak directly with a city or county clerk and find out. We also highly recommend you speak with attorney or lawyer to get approval in an official way.

Editor’s Note: If you’re looking for a relatively simple way to determine if you are allowed to grow, consider checking out PotGuide.com. They have information relevant to states where cannabis is legal.

For example, I (the author) live in Tucson, Arizona. Arizona allows medical cannabis only. According to Arizona state law, if I have a medical card granted to me by a doctor, I can grow up to 12 plants if I live more than 25 miles away from a nearby dispensary (Source). If live closer than 25 miles from a dispensary, then that’s where I’ll need to go to get my weed. I know that Tucson has dispensaries covering most of the metropolitan area, so I can’t legally grow here at the time of writing (August 2018).

Too Long; Didn’t Read

Check if your state (or country) law allows you to grow and what conditions must be met. It is relatively easy to find this information online via Google.
Check if your county or city have any prohibitions on cannabis cultivation.
1. If this information is hard to find, call your county and city clerks.
2. Alternatively, speak with a lawyer or attorney.
If you're unsure about anything, speak with a lawyer first.

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About the Author

Hunter Wilson is a community builder with Growers Network. He graduated from the University of Arizona in 2011 with a Masters in Teaching and in 2007 with a Bachelors in Biology.

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