Cultivation

Thanks to the 2018 U.S. Farm Bill, hemp-based products are at least quasi-legal across the United States – and, unlike marijuana, they’re shippable across state lines. Companies big and small are betting on hemp-derived drinks becoming the next big thing for health-conscious, smoke-wary consumers. Bernuth’s Pharos Brands was one of 30 hemp-derived THC beverage companies at the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America’s January expo at the Las Vegas Convention Center. According to the Hemp Beverage Alliance, hemp drink companies… Read more.

The average price for a pound of cannabis flower fell 8.1 percent nationally in 2023 to around $995, but cultivators in Alaska, Ohio, and Missouri still enjoy the hefty wholesale prices from a largely bygone era. According to a new report from Leaflink, Alaska leads the country with an average wholesale flower price of $2,374.74 per pound, followed by Ohio at $2,282.70 and Missouri at $2,065.88. It’s worth noting the report presents Ohio’s pricing data in grams to align with how… Read more.

Colorado’s marijuana cultivators now have freedom to procure genetics from a wider variety of sources. Senate Bill 23-271 went into effect in January, part of a larger effort to improve conditions for Colorado operators while also protecting public health and safety. Some hope the new opportunities set out by the rules will also help boost sales, which have slumped since the record-breaking sales of the COVID-19 pandemic. Colorado cultivators previously could source new genetics from other licensed cultivators in the state. That meant growers could… Read more.

The New York State Cannabis Control Board (CCB) recently voted to waive cannabis cultivator licensing fees for the next two years. Gov. Kathy Hochul celebrated this recent progress to help struggling cultivators. “Farmers are the backbone of our State, and we’re making sure the family farms across New York that are building our cannabis industry have a real chance to succeed,” Hochul said. “I have made it clear that New York State needs to issue more dispensary licenses and kickstart cannabis… Read more.

Aroma is one of the strongest memory triggers in nature. The smell of a certain perfume can remind you instantly of a friend who always wore the same scent. Without realizing it, scent can shift your thinking and transport you into a different state of mind.  Such is the case with the Sunset Blue cannabis strain, which immediately fills the nose with a sharp pine scent. A true forest flower, breaking open a bud releases sweet fragrances of blueberry and… Read more.

Florida lawmakers approved expansion of medical marijuana licenses for Black farmers for a second legislative session in a row. The provision was tacked onto a broader health bill in the last week of the session and earmarks “at least three” additional licenses for Black farmers who were previously denied licenses, the Florida News Service reported. The effort ties back to the so-called “Pigford” litigation, which addressed racial discrimination against Black farmers by the USDA, such as discriminatory lending. The bill introduces a… Read more.

While recreational cannabis may still be illegal in the North African country of Morocco, the nation is kicking off a new era of legal cannabis cultivation and export. As the third month of 2024 comes to a close, the country has shared data about its first legal harvest season in 2023. According to Morocco’s cannabis regulators, National Agency for the Regulation of Cannabis-Related Activities (ANRAC), the country’s first legal harvest in 2023 was 294 metric tons. It involved 32 cooperatives… Read more.

Ganja in Jamaica is more than just the cannabis plant; it’s a culture, a way of life, and an expression of people from varying cultural backgrounds who ended up on the Caribbean Island via the plantation model. The British monarchy was responsible for the cultural clash that saw enslaved Africans and indentured laborers co-mingling and participating in the smoking of ganja after a day’s work in the sugarcane plantations. This unique phenomenon gave birth to Rastafari, a religious and political… Read more.

A bill proposed in Kansas would reduce licensing fees for hemp businesses from $1,200 to $500 which would reduce the barrier to entry for farmers to cultivate the crop, KSNW reports. State Rep. Tory Marie Blew (R), the bill’s co-sponsor in the House, told KSNW that “Lowering the barrier… is really gonna be appeasing to farmers to wanna get started and learn how to grow this crop and hopefully have more acreage in it in years to come.”  State Rep. Webster Roth… Read more.

The mayor of Winnebago, Minnesota, and his son were arrested on Thursday after being linked to multiple commercial-grade greenhouses being used to grow illegal quantities of cannabis, the Fairmont Sentinel reports. According to court documents, multiple law enforcement agencies launched a cooperative investigation into the grow sites in January 2023 after the South Central Drug Investigative Unit received an anonymous tip in that greenhouses in Winnebago were being used to grow cannabis plants. Adult-use cannabis is legal in Minnesota and residents aged 21+ are allowed to grow… Read more.

Adults in Washington State who grow marijuana at home will continue to face the threat of felony charges for at least another year following a House committee’s failure to advance a cannabis homegrow bill ahead of a legislative deadline this week. HB 2194 was not called for a vote in the House Appropriations Committee before the February 5 deadline for bills to pass out of fiscal panels, meaning it’s no longer eligible to move forward. The marijuana home cultivation measure passed… Read more.

Marijuana industry veterans who have dealt with track-and-trace systems generally have found that these programs can meet their expectations on the cultivation and production side of the business with little to no extra help from additional software. Retailers, however, often need more functionality from either point-of-sale (POS) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. “On the cultivation side, Metrc has actually done a good job of building out a software tool that can track the plant inventory and the finished-goods inventory… Read more.

Nearly all life on Earth requires light to survive, and cannabis is no exception. While cultivators can certainly grow a plant with any common light source, cannabis plants will only thrive under specific spectrums and wavelengths that need to change depending on the stage of growth. Fortunately, it’s not difficult to manage light for optimal plant health and a robust harvest. What is light and how do plants use it? Light is a form of energy that produces different wavelengths based on… Read more.

When Ben Bickle was growing up on his parent’s farm in Grants Pass, OR, he learned to grow food, cut flowers, raise livestock and fell timber. Nearly everything they consumed came from the farm, the forest, the river or the sea. Owning a cannabis farm was nowhere near his thoughts. “I thought everyone lived like that,” he says. “I was 17 when I realized that wasn’t the norm, and that people bought meat and produce at the store. The travesty… Read more.

In 2001, Nathaniel Pennington drove down to the Humboldt County (CA) courthouse to get a business license. He recalls walking inside scared, because at this time it was “really, really early to be branding cannabis.” After discovering the name Humboldt Seed Company was available, Pennington was asked what he did for work. His response? “I make all different kinds of seeds.” The name Humboldt Seed Company (HSC) is directly inspired by Humboldt County, which has historically been viewed as the… Read more.

Australian voters are more for than against decriminalising cannabis and legalising cannabis plants at home for personal use, as proposed by a bill introduced to NSW parliament. New YouGov data collected in December from 1,555 participants found 50 per cent of Australians supported legalising growing cannabis plants for personal use, 31 per cent opposed and 19 per cent were undecided. It also found 54 per cent were in favour of decriminalising cannabis, 33 per cent opposed and 12 per cent were… Read more.

THC potency – the higher, the better – is still the most important factor to consumers shopping for marijuana products, cannabis operators say, but secondary factors also are driving genetics trends at cultivation facilities across the United States. In addition to high-THC, high-yield cultivars, experts in the cannabis industry say consumers are becoming increasingly interested in: The terpene profiles of cannabis products. Legacy strains bred with high-THC marijuana cultivars. Minor cannabinoids such as THCV and CBN. Trends aside, THC potency… Read more.

Maine is cracking down on unlicensed marijuana operators, charging five individuals in two separate investigations in the past week. In the most recent instance, Maine State Police on Tuesday responded to a community complaint about two homes in Belgrade, according to the Bangor Daily News. Police said they executed search warrants at both residences and found 2,300 marijuana plants, which they seized. Yuequan Chen, 44, and Li Min Chan, 66, were charged with illegal cultivation of marijuana and unlawful trafficking in scheduled… Read more.

The supporters of a proposed citizen’s initiative that would allow Florida medical marijuana patients to cultivate cannabis at home have ended their efforts to place the measure on the ballot for the 2024 general election. The home cultivation campaign withdrew its initiative petition late last month after failing to collect enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. Cannabis activist Moriah Barnhart founded the group Wise and Free in December 2022 to put the medical marijuana home cultivation initiative on the… Read more.

New York’s governor has vetoed legislation that would have allowed licensed marijuana growers to sell products to tribal retailers. The bills, sponsored by Sen. Michelle Hinchey (D) and Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo (D), who respectively chair the state Senate and Assembly agriculture committees, would have given a release valve to hundreds of cannabis farmers who have been sitting on surpluses without any place to sell their products. “We offered a way for some of the oversupply of cannabis grown by NY’s farmers… Read more.

Dry farms are rare in California, but the results people like Chrystal Ortiz of High Water Farm are able to pull off without watering their cannabis plants all summer are pretty amazing. Sure it takes a Goldilocks type of microclimate in the middle of Humboldt County just off the Eel River—the same neighborhood that hosts all the state’s dry cannabis farmers—but what those farmers are able to do is pretty impressive. It is certainly a leap of faith to start. Ortiz described… Read more.

New York’s rollout of legal weed shops has been a mess, to say the least. Designed to revolutionize the legal weed marketplace, New York has instead fallen short either by design or outside factors, including numerous lawsuits.  One of the most significant ripple effects in this series of shortcomings is the immense impact on New York’s licensed growers. Farmers are sitting on one to two seasons worth of product, equaling an estimated 240,000-pound surplus. The situation has become so dire that… Read more.

Cannabis cultivators the world over know the obsessive, purgatorial feeling of waiting for their plants to mature to discern sex—female, male or hermaphrodite. A male plant, while essential for reproduction, can also run rampant across a garden and devastate an entire crop of flowering female plants—intended for consumption—by inadvertently pollinating them and causing hermaphroditism. If culled and managed correctly, the male becomes a key part of this sustainable, perpetuating reproduction process. There’s no way to ascertain if a seedling is male… Read more.

A group of Detroit marijuana operators are suing the city for revoking a business license years after it was granted and only after they’d invested $15 million in a cultivation operation. According to a complaint initially filed Nov. 9 in Wayne County, Michigan, but then moved to federal court, Detroit officials granted the would-be business operators a series of permits to run a marijuana cultivation and processing facility beginning in 2020. The operators – identified in court documents as Cannabis Professional Design,… Read more.

The cannabis industry is abuzz over terpenes. Everyone in the know is claiming it’s “all about them terps brah,” but do you truly understand these magnificent compounds? Here are 10 things you probably didn’t know about the intoxicating aromas of cannabis. 1. Terpenes Are Everywhere These wildly diverse organic compounds are produced by an array of plants and insects and exist abundantly in nature. From orange peels to pine resin, these powerful scents play a major role in our lives that we… Read more.

Oregon cannabis producers grew too much weed again this year, according to a new report, continuing the glut of marijuana that has plagued the state’s regulated pot industry for years.  For much of this year, analysis of Oregon’s production of cannabis showed that the state was on a downward trend compared to last year, leading to a modest increase in prices. But a new report from state economists Mark McMullen and Josh Lehner that was released on November 20 shows… Read more.

A man in Minnesota is providing free growing and cannabis basics workshops—free to the public—to help people get a foot in the door of the industry. Minnesota allows home cultivation under its recently approved adult-use cannabis law, and residents are eager to see if they have a green thumb. Minnesota adults are allowed to grow up to eight plants, four mature. Growing cannabis takes years of experience to master, but you gotta start somewhere.  Inforum reports that Steve Rosenfeldt, who is the… Read more.

The first time I had a conversation with Shavo Odadjian, the indefatigable leader of legendary heavy metal band System Of A Down, I was struck by how easygoing he was, something I didn’t expect, frankly. If you didn’t know that this slight of-frame husband (to Sonia) and dad of three residing in the Los Angeles suburbs was, in fact, a Grammy-winning, killer bassist and legit rock star, you wouldn’t have a clue. Odadjian is a soft-spoken, super funny, good-vibes-only dude… Read more.

Hemp farmers in several states are being told by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that they can grow cannabis or hemp but not both, according to a report from Politico.  Thousands of farmers from coast to coast saw the 2018 Farm Bill’s legalization of hemp agriculture as a new avenue to profitability for the operations. And as the legalization of marijuana has continued to spread across the country, some hemp farmers are seeing new opportunities in growing weed under cannabis… Read more.

A licensed medical marijuana cultivator in Arkansas avoided a license suspension on appeal but still must pay a fine. Hot Springs-based Leafology faced a 15-day license suspension and $15,500 fine after Arkansas’ Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) accused the grower in October of failing to control cannabis odors and neglecting to maintain proper video surveillance and track-and-trace records. However, during an appeals hearing Wednesday, the ABC chose to levy the fine against Leafology but not the license suspension, Little Rock TV station KATV reported. Before… Read more.

One after another, many of Canada’s largest cannabis greenhouses and indoor grow operations have been sold or mothballed as the industry continues to search for a supply-demand equilibrium after years of overproduction. The facilities, each costing anywhere from 100 million Canadian dollars ($73 million) to more than CA$500 million, are being closed for various reasons. Some of the operations crashed into the cannabis industry’s hard macroeconomic realities: Canadian cultivators bankrolled and licensed too much cultivation capacity before and after adult-use legalization in 2018,… Read more.

A group of Alaska hemp growers and manufacturers has filed a lawsuit against the state challenging its new hemp regulations, arguing that they are unconstitutional and contrary to federal law. The new rules, which were approved in October and went into effect last week, are designed to regulate intoxicating hemp products. The lawsuit brought by plaintiffs including the Alaska Industrial Hemp Association and four businesses, was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, naming the Alaska Department of Natural… Read more.

Bud rot—also known as botrytis or bud mold—is a common fungus problem that affects cannabis grow rooms and farms across the entire agricultural sector. This anamorphic fungi in the family Sclerotiniaceae thrives in high humidity and outdoor environments, destroying plants quickly if not addressed. Luckily, bud rot is easy to prevent if you have the right knowledge and resources to address the root causes. We sat down with a few cultivation experts to discuss the main causes of bud rot,… Read more.

There’s nothing quite like the feeling you get when you can say, “The crop is in the barn.” There’s a sense of accomplishment, as well as a great relief that you got it in before the weather turned really bad and cut each cultivar before first light, at its peak potency. Nonetheless, I also always get a little depressed right after harvest, kind of a postpartum blues, as I look out at a garden bereft of the glorious plants that… Read more.

The Emerald Cup’s marquee winter event that celebrates small craft cannabis farmers in Northern California and connects them with prospective buyers across the state is being canceled this year, according to sources familiar with the situation. The Harvest Ball Festival, which has drawn more than 13,000 attendees to the Sonoma County Fairgrounds the past few years, will forgo this year’s installment as event organizers focus efforts and resources on the Emerald Cup’s 20th anniversary event in the San Francisco Bay Area… Read more.

New York state’s unique Cannabis Growers Showcase program (CGS) has helped ease the burden of unsold marijuana worth hundreds of millions of dollars amid a dearth of adult-use retailers, according to local growers. Cultivators and brand representatives want the showcases to be allowed to continue after the Jan. 1, 2024, expiration date, particularly with forthcoming competition from the state’s large medical cannabis companies. The showcases, which range from farmers market-like setups to more conventional retail experiences, were designed to help… Read more.

While it’s no secret that California cannabis companies have been struggling for years, it wasn’t until this year that the legal marijuana market actually began to shrink noticeably. Now it’s down by almost 29%, according to permit statistics from the state’s Department of Cannabis Control. As of Oct. 24, the number of active business licenses in the state had dropped to 9,900, a decline of 28.5% since July 2022, when there were 12,719 active provisional and annual cannabis business licenses, the DCC… Read more.

According to a recent report from The Japan News, the region with the most hemp cultivation in Japan is the Tochigi Prefecture, located north of Tokyo. Farmers in the area initially cultivated a variety of hemp called Tochigishiro in 1982, which they still grow today. The number of hemp farmers has dwindled, with 6,000 growers in the Tochigi Prefecture at its peak, down to just 12 today. Many of these remaining growers are in their 60s and 70s. One 44 year old cultivator, Yoshinori… Read more.

Trick or treating might be out for you, but you can still have some fun that is equal parts cool and creepy. Scary movies are always an easy go-to for celebrating Halloween as an adult without feeling like you’re missing out on anything — especially if you’re not really into the idea of costume parties or haunted house attractions. And if you add some weed into the equation, you have the beginnings of a perfectly content night at home. Need… Read more.

Vermont is a small farming state, so it’s no surprise that recreational marijuana regulations included multiple license types for small cannabis farms to foster a craft ethos in the market’s burgeoning adult-use industry, which launched Oct. 1, 2022. Like other small farmers in the Green Mountain State, marijuana cultivators face a daunting climate of suppressed wholesale prices, inflation and high taxes. Unlike their peers, many small cannabis farmers seem largely unaware of the opportunity Vermont offers license holders to diversify… Read more.

Some of Canada’s largest cannabis cultivators are turning to vegetables, fruits and orchids to bolster their bottom line as macroeconomic fundamentals continue to challenge the struggling industry. The latest licensed producer to enter the food business is Leamington, Ontario-based Tilray Brands, which recently said it was converting part of its sprawling facility in Gatineau, Quebec, to grow fruits and vegetables. Tilray joins Alberta-based Aurora Cannabis and British Columbia-headquartered Village Farms International in diversifying their main business at a time when… Read more.

Since the start of legalization, the cannabis industry has expanded exponentially, introducing previously unimagined jobs like “cannabis public-relations rep” and “cannafluencer” to the world. But none of these progressive pathways for the plant would exist without roots planted in a highly efficient grow room. That’s always where a cultivator’s budget should begin. Innovation continues to propel evolution. Updating outdated systems reduces errors, increases profit, and improves the quality and efficacy of the industry. In a grow room, that looks like… Read more.

Amid 120 acres of decaying cornstalks and scarecrows along County Road 665 north of Paw Paw, rows and rows of lush green trees rise into the sky. Expensive trees. Trees that make up the next crop of marijuana growing at Grasshopper Farms. October, otherwise known in the cannabis industry as “Croptober,” is the annual harvesting of the state’s outdoor marijuana plants, and an estimated record 100,000 plants will be reaped this season. Croptober also means a product surplus that invades… Read more.

A startup phase for a pilot program to allow limited cultivation and distribution of adult-use cannabis in the Netherlands is set to launch in December with only two cultivators, the Dutch government disclosed in a letter to Parliament. The program, which is supposed to involve 10 cannabis cultivators supplying dozens of stores, had originally been intended to launch in 2020. “The cabinet has decided that the (startup) phase of the closed coffee shop chain experiment will start on December 15, 2023,” according… Read more.

Harvesting and curing cannabis is a straightforward business, but there are a few things to know before you start the process. The Harvest Before beginning, prepare a good, strong elixir of equal parts chilled vodka and water. The vodka (cooled to zero degrees Celsius), will shock the roots into closing up and will actually make them stop functioning. This is exactly what you want since the goal is to dehydrate the plant. Pull the plants up after an entire day of… Read more.

Much of the medical cannabis produced under Denmark’s regulatory system has not made it to market and was intentionally destroyed for various reasons, according to government data. Just over 300 permits have been issued for the destruction of 145,541 kilograms (320,862 pounds) of cannabis, the Danish Parliament’s Health Committee said in a reply to a parliamentary inquiry earlier this year. The figure includes all cannabis destroyed by the companies with an authorization to cultivate cannabis – within the country’s pilot program –… Read more.

Cannabis is typically grown in a medium, often a soilless medium such as rockwool or coco coir, or in living soil. Aeroponic cultivation eliminates that growing medium entirely: Exposed, hanging plant roots are misted directly with a solution of water and nutrients. Combined with careful environmental controls, the method can accelerate crop growth. “The speed is basically unbeatable,” said Jim Strain, director of cultivation for Cranbrook, British Columbia-based cannabis producer Dycar Pharmaceuticals. “I’ve done them all side by side, I’ve tried… Read more.

Profitable enterprises take time to build – but it continues to run thin in one of the industry’s most promising cannabis markets. That sentiment underscored many of the conversations that took place at Green Market Report’s first New York Summit on Sept. 13 in the heart of the Big Apple. Operators and investors large and small traded advice and stories of power, money, and property within the context of a market brimming with opportunity, but one that is also showing signs of… Read more.

All good things come in threes, but cultivators are just beginning to understand how this famed Latin principle applies to cannabis genetics. The weed we know and love is typically constructed with a pair of chromosomes (diploid) and a limited number of phenotype possibilities. However, cultivators are becoming aware of a new plant variation that can occasionally occur as a natural phenomenon: predominantly-seedless cannabis plants known as triploids. What are triploid genetics? Triploid cannabis seeds are developed by crossing a diploid… Read more.

Health Canada said two licensed cannabis companies have voiced concerns about the wildfires in British Columbia, but the federal regulator told MJBizDaily it has yet to receive any reports the blazes have destroyed marijuana crops. “Health Canada is aware that the wildfires and their associated evacuation orders may have an impact on cannabis license holders,” a Health Canada spokesperson said via email Thursday. “We acknowledge these are challenging times.” The regulator did not identify the companies. Canada has been battling its worst… Read more.

All outdoor cannabis crops have the potential to be destroyed by one or two of the various problems lurking in the wilderness, unlike indoor growing where plants are protected. In checking on the crop, make sure to keep an eye on the little details that will spell trouble later. There are a few different things to look for: AphidsAn aphid infestation is a hard infestation to get rid of. For most of us, using chemical insecticide is the no-brainer solution,… Read more.

As marijuana consumers develop a better understanding and appreciation for terpenes, flavonoids and other chemical compounds found in cannabis flower, live resin products are becoming increasingly popular. Live resin can be used in many different products, but it mostly appears in vape cartridges, dabbable concentrates and edibles. The best way to create live resin is from freshly harvested material that still contains moisture, according to Nic Robertson, vice president of operations in Massachusetts for Phoenix-based multistate operator 4Front Ventures. Moisture… Read more.

Research published in the journal Energy Policy found annual carbon emissions from inefficient indoor cannabis cultivation in the U.S. are similar to emissions produced by 3 million cars. Beyond a long-term problem for the planet, inefficient production across the industry is a poor way to attract the most important customer segment for long-term growth in an era of declining sales. More than half of Gen Z (born between 1997 and 2013) is 18 years of age or older, and their preferences as consumers will dictate… Read more.

Nic Robertson, vice president of operations in Massachusetts for 4Front Ventures, said commercial growers have moved away from eyeballing the color of trichomes and squeezing buds to gauge moisture content in favor of scientific methods to evaluate when cannabis flower has reached an optimal point for harvest. “Over the last seven or eight years, I have been proven wrong by my aesthetic view of how mature I think that plant is at that time,” Robertson said. “Getting those test results… Read more.

Cannabis companies from Northern California to South Florida will continue confronting operational challenges this week, as severe weather taxes power grids while parts of the Northeast struggle to recover from historic flooding. Millions across the country face excessive heat warnings, while Canadian wildfire smoke is once again descending on the Midwest, the Great Lakes region and the Northeast. The convergence of severe, weather-related events across the country underscores how climate change is causing upheaval for individuals and businesses alike – cannabis operators… Read more.

Cannabis entrepreneurs are increasingly turning to smaller micro-cultivation facilities to manage costs and produce higher-quality marijuana at a time when the industry is facing a glut of “standard” product and falling prices. That shift ultimately could help shrink some of the Canadian cannabis industry’s current supply glut, given that micro-class licensees operate smaller cultivation facilities. At the end of 2022, Canada’s total indoor growing area was 28% lower than the all-time high reached in 2020. Canada’s federal government last year… Read more.

In Northern California’s Trinity County—inland from Humboldt and more rugged—a recent brutal police raid on cannabis farmers at a local homestead provides an all too vivid example of what the stakes are when the legal sector fails small operators. Racist Raids in Trinity County?On May 2, Trinity sheriff’s deputies executed a search warrant in the Trinity Pines community near the town of Hayfork. The Sheriff’s Office said over 16,000 plants were seized in the operation, along with 7,500 pounds of… Read more.

Upset with the predicament he's in, The Dude in The Big Lebowksi, played by Jeff Bridges, accuses the man who shares his namesake, played by Davis Huddleston: "You human paraquat!" In 1998, that was quite the nonsequitor. But fans of the movie know Jeff Lebowski (a.k.a. The Dude) was a '60s student radical who would've been awae of the paraquat controversy in the '70s. These days, paraquat – a chemical pesticide – is best known as a cause of Parkinson's disease. Ads run regularly on… Read more.

All cultivation operations face the potential danger of biological contaminants such as mold, yeast, Aspergillus, E. coli, Salmonella, and other harmful pathogens. In most states where cannabis is legal, laws require products intended for distribution undergo microbial testing before entering the market. Shockingly, 10–15 percent of legal cannabis-flower tests fail to meet state colony-forming unit (CFU) limits. Failing microbial testing can have severe consequences for commercial growers, including lost revenue, expensive fines, liability litigation, reputation damage, and even the loss of their… Read more.

Decibel Cannabis is a rare breed among licensed producers in Canada. The company’s ascent to the top of market-share charts in key product categories came not from costly and severely dilutive mergers and acquisitions – a strategy employed by some larger rivals. As of April, the Alberta-based company said its national share was 7.1% – good enough for second place in Canada’s hotly contested market, though market analytics firm HiFyre had Decibel as No. 1 in the key provinces of… Read more.

Washington’s cannabis regulator provided an update on pesticide contamination in marijuana produced in the north-central area of the state, nearly two months after putting some MJ cultivators on “administrative hold” for an investigation. The investigation began this year after random testing of marijuana grown in the area – once home to fruit orchards – detected the chemical compound DDE, which is created by the breakdown of the now-banned pesticide DDT. Eighteen cannabis licensees are located in the “five mile stretch of land along… Read more.

While robots and artificially intelligent digital bots start to land exotic jobs in manufacturing, agriculture, and other types of industrial production, smart cannabis companies are investing more money into mundane machines used to create pre-rolls, stamp out labels, or trim flower. In order to compete in an increasingly competitive marketplace, automation is one of the most effective ways for companies to cut costs and boost bottom lines. “What we’re seeing across the United States is the price of cannabis has fallen and,… Read more.

An increasingly competitive market with slim profit margins means cannabis cultivators are always looking for ways to optimize output. But without hindsight, the line between streamlined success and an erroneous misstep can prove difficult to identify. Synthetic plant growth regulators (PGRs) are being marketed to growers as a simple way to maximize crop yield with the use of chemicals. While this may help cultivation-focused companies reach their target quarterly profits, the financial achievement could come at great risk to consumers’ health, brand reputation,… Read more.

As legalization proliferates across the United States, the cannabis industry’s rapid growth is forcing a reckoning with its environmental impact and how to reduce the resource consumption and waste that accompany commercial operations and products. Of particular concern to environmentalists and industry veterans is how to better manage the energy use required by cultivation facilities. According to some experts, the industry already accounts for more than 1 percent of all U.S. electricity consumption, and that percentage continues to rise as the industry… Read more.

Mexico’s government on Thursday granted its first-ever license for cannabis cultivation in the country. The Mexican Health Regulatory Agency awarded the license to Xebra Brands which allows it to import and acquire cannabis seeds, cultivate and harvest cannabis, process and produce cannabis, and sell cannabis products both domestically and through export.    The licensing comes two years after the Mexico Supreme Court ruled cannabis prohibition was unconstitutional which led to the passage of cannabis reforms by federal lawmakers.    In a press release, Jay Garnett, CEO of Xebra Brands,… Read more.

One enormous facility on the northern edge of metro Los Angeles reveals expectations of marijuana becoming legal nationally CAMARILLO, Calif. — This is what the long game of California weed looks like. Rising two stories from razor-straight rows of parsley, artichokes and strawberries, the greenhouse complex hums with solar-powered efficiency, its vast airy interiors redolent with the sticky plant that fills much of it. Cannabis. The flatlands here stretching between mountains and sea have attracted farmers for generations, just around… Read more.

As the legalization of cannabis in Canada has opened up new opportunities for consumers, many people have turned to backyard planting to save money on their cannabis purchases. For price-conscious cannabis consumers, buying cannabis from licensed dispensaries can be prohibitively expensive. However, by growing cannabis in their backyard, these consumers can save significant money in the long run. Backyard planting has become a popular option for many Canadians, as it allows them to grow their high-quality cannabis at a fraction of… Read more.