Cannabis is a wonderful plant, my favorite plant, but it is still just a plant. I am always telling people to stop trying to reinvent the wheel. It can get expensive. R&D is great, I just advocate a firm budget with experiments.
I started with lofty organic goals, but ended up falling back on my agricultural education for Oregon State University when it wasn’t paying off for me. I took many field production and greenhouse production classes. These are all large scale commercial production classes. The agricultural universities know how to produce a product at the lowest cost for the highest yield. I often look to them for questions on disease management, soil management, testing, and general propagation information.
Note: I am not bashing Organic/Certified Green. Organic works and provides a marketing angle and adds value for the retail level, but not in the wholesale commodity level. The label Organic doesn’t transfer to processors unless the processors have it as well, mine does not. If my customer/processor began wanting organic and was willing to pay a premium for the cost of fertilizer and reduced yield, I would certainly revisit the Organic side of production.
Thanks for the reply. I noticed in the intro its mentioned you were able to get started without any investors? How was this accomplished and were there any lessons or knowledge that others could apply?
This question should be answered in the July issue of Cannabis Business Times, along with a full cost breakdown, and how we managed to DIY from Day 1. I don’t want to give too many spoilers away, I hope that is okay. If you have more specific questions about financing after the articles runs, by all means send me a message.
Start up capital and operating costs aside, what reasons did you have for growing outdoor vs. indoor?
If you had the ability to set a budget at any rate to suit your needs, and be able to receive that capital through an investment (hypothetically), would you do anything different?
I am currently in this position ,and am attempting to get investors for a small farm in New England with potential for expansion in Jamaica thru personal contacts and family. This has become extremely difficult as the laws are continuing to change and dates of legalisation changing here for recreational sales and extremely high licence fees ,with that said can you suggest any people places or things that might help someone like myself ,with 20 yrs growing and a master grower certification get the investment opportunities or how to go about it with out investment
I have been told that our plants are loaded with terpenes. This may be due to the harsher outdoor conditions. Overall, if I were shooting for the dried flower market, and I had the capital, I would grow indoor in a shaded, light-dep, environmentally controlled greenhouse (I’d still want to keep costs low, but would also want to strive for the indoor bag appeal).
I enjoy growing cannabis, I always have. I disliked the process of selling, I’m not much of a salesman. I really like not having to hustle to sell cannabis, but had I had the capital, I would have shot for the moon.
Much like most of my life, I have felt that I have been drawn in a certain direction, and it has yet to disappoint me. I think that where I am, is where I am supposed to be.
Perhaps if the OLCC allows for multiple license on one property, I will expand, but I am not sure if additional land purchases are in the 5 year picture. I have also been think about non-cannabis farm diversification. As it is, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I feel good about my place in the industry.
Ah yes, the ever changing laws… That reminds me, I should read the regulations again and make sure I am still in compliance.
I was pretty open with everyone I know about my plans to dive into cannabis and word spread around. Friends of friends suddenly had money and wanted to invest, one even as high as $1,000,000. I have seen many post here on GN connecting growers with investors and vice versa. Perhaps opening that question up as a topic would start getting some feelers out there? Other than that, I am unsure how to find an investor…
Another avenue may be finding an operation that needs a master grower for a salary and a share.
With drip irrigation, early morning or early evening, when the sun is least intense, is the best time to apply water or fertigate. Mid-day watering can be wasteful due to evaporation, and possible damaging if the fertilizer concentration increases due to that evaporation.
One of the major benefits of indoor is a completely control environment. Your plants will not be fighting 90°F days and evaporation should be minimal. I do maintain an indoor vegetative grow through the winter for mother plants. I run a night cycle for veg (4hrs) and temp differential. I still like to water when lights come on and the room is 20°F cooler. It is more out of habit than anything, if they need more water, I don’t hesitate water midday. I don’t think evaporation from the soil is a major concern for indoor.
Similarly, if my outdoor field looked like it need water midday, they will get water midday, but I wouldn’t fertilize. It hasn’t happened, I keep a close eye on the weather and preemptively water on projected hot days.
Hey Dan! We just visited some farms in Humboldt that were experimenting with auto-flowering cannabis plants. Do you have any experience with auto-flowers? If so, what are your thoughts on sustainability of growing auto-flowers over conventional cannabis plants?
One of my favorite graphics from both plant and animal nutrition is Liebig’s Barrel which is used as a nutritional status analogy. The slats represent nutrients and their length represent the amount supplied. The goal is to make a ‘yield barrel’ with all of the macro to micro nutrients slats at the proper level.
One thing that has been far too overlooked in conventional agriculture, in my opinion, is trace remineralization. I have applied 400lbs/acre of azomite (70+ trace minerals, ) to my soil, and foliar feed Sea-90 (90+ trace minerals, a raw sea salt). I believe applying these fairly inexpensive products helps keep that barrel filled to the brim, and everything else is somewhere between genetics and the environment.
If my yield is too much for my drying capacity, I plan to look into planting a section of autos so that I can stage my harvest next year rather than build another greenhouse. I am so very tired of building greenhouses…
I would need some data on their average finishing size, but would assume that I would need at least double the plants per area.
One of my main concerns with this would be males, but perhaps Phylos Bioscience could help with that with their plant sex testing. My second concern is cost. I wouldn’t want to mess with breeding, so I would need seed, probably feminized. I would also need testing for sex or pull males/hermaphrodites. It would require a serious look into costs and benefits for me to decide. I haven’t outgrown my drying capacity, yet, so I haven’t crossed that bridge.
What do you think about the excess weed leftover when you are a caregiver in Az. We are allowed to grow 12 plants per patient and we have 5 patients so thats 60 plants. Can we grow for other legal operations? Or do we sell on the black market.
My knowledge of cannabis law is localized to Oregon and some federal aspects. I think @Growernick would be an excellent resource for you to discuss Arizona specific laws.
