https://www.instagram.com/athena.ag/ 

Grodan

 https://www.instagram.com/grodan101/ 

GreenBroz 

https://www.instagram.com/greenbroz_inc/ 

TREEZ 

https://www.instagram.com/treez.io/ 

https://www.treez.io/podcast 

Horticulture Lighting Group 

https://www.instagram.com/horticulturelightinggroup/ 

Quest 

https://www.instagram.com/quest_hydro/ 

🌱 Check out Canna Cribs Consulting for yourself! 

https://cannacribs.org/marijuana-cultivation-consulting 

Mentioned in the episode: https://bdsa.com/content/q1-2022-top-cannabis-brands/

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Subscribe for more amazing videos! ►https://bit.ly/3ghNVCs 

Visit Growers House for your cultivation needs. 

https://growershouse.com/?aff=2 

You can join the forum and learn more about growing at: Growers Network 

Follow us on Instagram: 

https://www.instagram.com/cannacribs 

https://www.instagram.com/growersnetwork 

https://www.instagram.com/stiiizy/

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

What's in the interview? 

What made you want to get into cannabis? 

What were the early days of Stiiizy like? 

You have a lot of great strains - what are your favorites?

 How did you find the strains you want to grow?

 You’re using tissue culture to preserve your in-house genetics - is that right? What made you decide to move that direction?

 We were talking previously and you mentioned something really interesting. Tissue Culture can protect strains against disease How is Stiiizy using tissue culture to prevent disease? 

What are some important IPM protocols Stiiizy uses? 

Have you ever had to deal with an outbreak? Pest or disease? 

Do you know of any newer technologies being used that haven’t been adopted by the industry yet?

 Let’s talk about some Stiiizy products - How many SKUs? 

What does the future look like for Stiiizy? 

Growth/expansion? 

Any predictions for the cannabis space going forward? 

How far off from federal legalization are we in your opinion? 

Do you think there will be any space for the independent commercial grower when big tobacco and the alcohol industry get involved in the space? 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

#cannacribs #stiiizy #athena #grodan #treez #cannacribs #california #stiiizyvapes #stiiizycarts #Cannacribsconsulting #quest #greenbroz #hlg #horticulturelightinggroup #athenaag #athenanutrients #growingcannabis #growingmarijuana #medicalmarijuana #marijuana #howtogrowweed #smoke #weed #smokingweed #maryjane #customgrow420 #qualitycontrol #awardwinning #organiccannabis #podcast #agriculture #cannacribspodcast #cannabisresearch #cannacribswebsite #growingexposed #podcast #DNA #cultivar #strain #breeding #canopymanagement #northamerica #consultant #consulting #genetics #deleafing #trimming
 

https://www.instagram.com/grodan101/ 

GreenBroz 

https://www.instagram.com/greenbroz_inc/ 

TREEZ https://www.instagram.com/treez.io/ 

https://www.treez.io/podcast 

Athena Nutrients 

https://www.instagram.com/athena.ag/ 

Horticulture Lighting Group 

https://www.instagram.com/horticulturelightinggroup/ 

Quest 

https://www.instagram.com/quest_hydro/ 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Subscribe for more amazing videos! ►https://bit.ly/3ghNVCs 

Visit Growers House for your cultivation needs. 

https://growershouse.com/?aff=2 

You can join the forum and learn more about growing at: Growers Network 

Follow us on Instagram: 

https://www.instagram.com/cannacribs 

https://www.instagram.com/growersnetwork 

Canna Cribs Consulting on the interwebs! 

https://www.instagram.com/cannacribs/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Table of Contents 

00:00 Coming up next 

00:45 Podcast intro 

01:13 Sponsor shout out 

01:55 Juan Gutierrez introduction 

02:58 How did you start working with cannabis? 

07:10 When did you start in the consulting business? 

10:00 Canopy management benefits in cloning and genetics 

23:58 Recommendation for storing 

26:30 Hop Latent Viroid 

28:55 Lifespan of mother plants 

30:35 Canopy maintenance 

32:40 Vapor Pressure Deficit 

34:12 Grodan's Gro-Blocks 

35:17 Tips for a healthier motherstock 

36:20 Treatment differences between production plants and mother plants 

42:30 Optimal plant size 

48:30 Pruning benefits 

51:55 Grodan's Gro-Blocks 

52:55 De leafing importance and techniques 

58:00 Bending 

01:00:00 What does the future of cannabis look like to you? 

01:03:00 Words of wisdom 

01:04:47 Podcast outro

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

What's in the interview? 

How did you start working with cannabis? 

What made you go into consulting? 

Cloning and genetics? 

How would you prefer genetics be stored? 

In your opinion what's most important in canopy maintenance? 

What's vapor pressure deficit? 

What's optimal for mother plants? 

What are the benefits of pruning? 

What do you recommend for de leafing? 

What about bending?

How is the cannabis future looking in your opinion? 

Outro

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

#cannacribs #grodan #treez #cannacribs #Cannacribsconsulting #quest #greenbroz #hlg #horticulturelightinggroup #athenaag #athenanutrients #growingcannabis #growingmarijuana #medicalmarijuana #marijuana #howtogrowweed #smoke #weed #smokingweed #maryjane #customgrow420 #qualitycontrol #awardwinning #organiccannabis #podcast #agriculture #cannacribspodcast #cannabisresearch #cannacribswebsite #growingexposed #podcast #DNA #cultivar #strain #breeding #canopymanagement #northamerica #consultant #consulting #genetics #deleafing #trimming

You have a very interesting story. Can you tell us about your journey from East Coast Academic to Cannabis Holy man?

Significant event lead to this? How long were you in San Francisco? Can you describe the cannabis scene back then?

Where else have you traveled? How did cannabis fit into your journey?

Based on your extensive travels - How do people outside of the US view cannabis differently than we do?

What lessons can we learn from them? How common is personal cultivation in the places you’ve lived?

Let’s talk about regenerative farming… What is it? Advantages? Does it lend itself to organic growing methods?

How does cannabis fit into your spirituality? How can it help others in terms of spirituality?

You talk about the “Spirit of Cannabis” and trying to drive awareness back to the plant… What should we be aware of?

Is the Spirit of Cannabis found through growing? How has growing cannabis affected your spirit?

You have a cannabis brand, Swami Select. Can you tell us about it? When did you start the brand?

Do you implement the regenerative farming techniques you mentioned?

How does the brand tie into your beliefs about the spirit of cannabis? What’s next for Swami?

Anything else you’d like to mention that we didn’t get a chance to talk about? 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#cannacribs #swamiselect #regenerativecannabis #swamicannabis #swamiofpot #cannabis #treez #horticulturelightinggroup #hlg #grodan #greenbroz #athenaag #athenanutrients #growingcannabis #growingmarijuana #medicalmarijuana #marijuana #howtogrowweed #smoke #weed #smokingweed #maryjane #customgrow420 #qualitycontrol  #awardwinning #organiccannabis #podcast #cannacribspodcast #cannabisresearch #cannacribswebsite #growingexposed #podcast #DNA #cultivar #strain #breeding #education #nothingforsale #nfs
 

How long have you been growing? You lived in Alaska prior to Hawaii? Any opinions on Alaskan Cannabis?

When/Why did you relocate to Hawaii? How did you transition from houseplants in Alaska to cannabis in Hawaii?

Did you plan to enter the cannabis space? Tell us about your facility build-out Old banana farm

 Why indoor? In a place with a year round growing season? Challenges Any bureaucratic hurdles?

Hawaii is understandably concerned about invasive species and has very strict rules on products coming in and out -

Does this affect your ability to get the supplies and equipment you need?

Will these requirements present any potential roadblocks to Hawaii based growers expanding into other states in the future? Big Island Grown is a vertically integrated company - how many licenses? What strains are you growing?

I understand you are a nearly 100% sustainable indoor grow - Tell us more about the sustainability components of Big Island Grown Is this something other growers are trying to implement?

You also have an in-house microbial test lab - pretty rare for a cannabis company:

What made you decide to set up your own lab? What are the biggest microbial issues for Hawaii growers?

How do you deal with the microbial & pest issues that come with cultivating in the sub-tropics?

History of Hawaii cannabis culture; what’s the reasoning for this? Is there a lot of public interest in the recreational market? Future of Cannabis in general? Will the feds ever legalize? What’s the timeline in your opinion?

What is the biggest challenge in getting not just the country, but the world to support the cannabis plant?

Any new projects you’d like to discuss? Expansion? New Products? Anything else you’d care to mention?

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 #cannacribs #bigislandgrown #bigcannabis #dylanshropshire #cannabis #horticulturelightinggroup #hlg #treez #grodan #greenbroz #athenaag #athenanutrients #growingcannabis #growingmarijuana #medicalmarijuana #marijuana #howtogrowweed #smoke #weed #smokingweed #maryjane #customgrow420 #qualitycontrol #hawaiicannabis #hawaii #mauiwuai #pineappleexpress #awardwinning #organiccannabis #podcast #cannacribspodcast #cannabisresearch #cannacribswebsite #growingexposed #podcast #DNA #cultivar #strain #breeding #education #nothingforsale #nfs

Thanks for joining me. Care to introduce yourself?

Visited Connected way back in DR episode 8

How’s the Connected team?

Changes since we were there?

Let’s talk about Connected for the people who might not know about you yet.

Founded in 2013 - what led up to it?

How were you introduced to cannabis?

Take us through the journey from idea to manifested vision

Things today you couldn't have imagined in the early days?

What is the secret of Connected’s success?

Popular strains?

Breeding?

Unique techniques/equipment?

Major Challenges?

New Strains/crosses?

I’d like to talk more about the Connected operation

What kind of breeding work is happening there?

Do you use tissue culture? Have plans to?

Are there any pieces of equipment or processes that are integral to the Connected operation?

IPM regimen?

Environmental controls?

Lighting?

Connected does processing too right? Connected took on some Investors with the cannabis hedge fund Navy Capital -  

How did this come about?

What were the major advantages?

What were your goals?

Did bringing on investors lead to Connected’s acquisition of Alien Labs?

How did the acquisition change each of the respective companies?

In what kind of situations should a company consider taking on capital?

Does it cause a facility to lose their autonomy?

Any “best practices” when considering seeking investors?

Avoiding shady investors

Loan vs Capital

What are the biggest challenges these days trying to build up a brand in the cannabis space?

Any social media shutdowns? Companies that might decline to do business when they find out you work in cannabis?

Do you find yourself having to chase trends to compete effectively?

What’s up next for Caleb and Connected?

Expansion?

MSO?

New products/strains?

Anything else you’d care to mention that we didn’t get a chance to discuss?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#cannacribs #treez #connectedcalifornia #connectedcannabis #calebcounts #cannabis #grodan #greenbroz #hlg #horticulturelightinggroup #athenaag #athenanutrients  #growingcannabis #growingmarijuana #medicalmarijuana #marijuana #howtogrowweed #smoke #weed #smokingweed #maryjane #customgrow420 #qualitycontrol #awardwinning #organiccannabis #podcast #cannacribspodcast #cannabisresearch #cannacribswebsite #growingexposed #podcast #DNA #cultivar #strain #breeding #education #nothingforsale #nfs

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Table of Contents 

00:00 Opening

 ___________________________________________________

What's in the Interview? 

Introduce yourself? 

What’s your origin story? 

How long consulting? 

Cannabis or other crops as well?

 Sostanza/Canna Cribs consulting? 

Talk about your contribution to the book. 

The chapter opens up with a warning about “ineffective post-harvest procedures…”

 Can you elaborate a bit on which specific procedures/techniques growers might get wrong or not KNOW they should be doing? 

A question we see on the GN forum a lot is about timing of your harvest, growers wondering how they know when their plants have reached maturity and are ready for harvest.. 

What’s your recommendation? 

Trichome heads? 

Go by a calendar? 

What are some of the factors that can influence maturing times?

 Cultivar difference, Environment, controlled stress, 

Flushing 

What do we mean by controlled stress?

 What are the techniques and how far can a grower go without applying too much pressure?

 Let’s talk about trimming…! 

From your experience consulting… 

Is bucking necessary? 

What advantages does it offer the grower? 

Is this more of a strategy for collecting biomass for processing?

 Do you see a benefit of hand trimming over machine or vice versa? 

What’s the ideal use case for each? 

Same with Wet vs Dry trim? 

Speaking of dry trimming, let’s just explore the drying process a bit… 

How can a grower mitigate spoilage in drying? 

What types of problems are going to “Crop Up” in a poorly executed drying process? How does this relate to preserving the quality of your cannabis? What are your recommended parameters? 

There are many ways to dry a plant… 

What’s the best way to measure your moisture content? 

What are some different methods you’ve seen? 

Hang Drying? Any specific advantages or disadvantages?

 Screen Drying Any specific advantages or disadvantages? 

Whole plant dry versus cuttings? Any specific advantages or disadvantages? More growers are using technology to help dry their plants. 

Can we talk about… 

Conveyer drying?

 How does this work?

 Freeze Drying? How does this work?

 Do you risk drying too quickly? 

Vacuum Oven Drying How common is this method? How does it work? 

We’ve seen growers who combined dry and cure, and even a few who would say curing is unnecessary - 

What are your thoughts? What makes a “good” cure? 

What kind of abiotic variables need to be considered when curing? 

What’s your recommended method for curing? 

OK, you we did all this work to make sure we had the best post-harvest period possible for our plants - what’s the best way to store it? C-vault style container? 

Mylar? Something else? 

Anything else you’d like to talk about that we didn’t get to mention? 

Future plans? Consulting work? More books? ________________________________________________________________________________ 

#cannacribs #treez #cannacribs #Cannacribsconsulting #grodan #greenbroz #hlg #horticulturelightinggroup #athenaag #athenanutrients #growingcannabis #growingmarijuana #medicalmarijuana #marijuana #howtogrowweed #smoke #weed #smokingweed #maryjane #customgrow420 #qualitycontrol #awardwinning #organiccannabis #podcast #agriculture #cannacribspodcast #cannabisresearch #cannacribswebsite #growingexposed #podcast #DNA #cultivar #strain #breeding #canopymanagement #northamerica #consultant #consulting #drying #curing #postharvest

Thanks for taking the time to talk to me today. Can you introduce yourself?

How did you get involved in cannabis?

Tell us about Pheno Exotic

Scope of duties as COO

Challenges/Successes

You’ll be featured in an upcoming episode of our Deep Roots series, what are you looking forward to showing off?

Pheno Exotics does cultivation, processing, distribution - are you involved in any other parts of the cannabis industry?

Can you tell us about your cultivation facility?

Size, type, # of employees

Cultivars?

Processing facility?

Types of products ?

Phenohunting

What do you look for?

Best strain you’ve been able to find?

Why is it important to you to have some novelty among your products?

The brand takes pride in “straying from the ordinary” - Is this just in terms of the strains you look for and cultivate? How else does your company do things differently?

How does a boutique brand like PE stay competitive in a growing market?

Marketing strategy?

How do you separate yourself from the rest of the pack?

How important is it to you to look at market trends with regard to the products you are developing?

What do your customers like most?

Small batch series

White label

Best selling flower? Concentrate?

Trends between flower and concentrates?

Increase in CBD interest with Hemp legalization?

Does Pheno Exotics have any new projects you can tell us about?

Expansion?

New Products?

Exciting new strains?

Is there anything else you’d like to talk about that we didn’t get a chance to discuss?

00:00 Opening 

00:30 Shout out to Grodan, GreenBroz, HLG, Treez, and Athena Nutrients 

01:15 Introducing Philipp Matzneller 

03:15 A PhD from Humboldt (not THAT Humboldt)

05:42 First Job in Cannabis 

08:55 Canopy Management 

12:08 Effects of Canopy Management 

15:30 Physiological Factors 

18:30 Lighting Considerations 

19:40 Leaf Area Index Among Crops 

28:45 Rockwool Discussion 

30:07 Shout out to Grodan 

31:12 Shade Avoidance 

38:15 Source-Sink Relationship 

45:18 Shout out to Grodan 

47:14 Airflow 

52:17 Canna Cribs Consulting 

57:24 Data Collection 

01:03:54 Outro

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

#cannacribs #Sostanza #grodan #greenbroz #hlg #horticulturelightinggroup #treez #athenaag #athenanutrients #cannabis #growingcannabis #growingmarijuana #medicalmarijuana #marijuana #howtogrowweed #smoke #weed #smokingweed #maryjane #customgrow420 #qualitycontrol #awardwinning #organiccannabis #podcast #cannacribspodcast #cannabisresearch #cannacribswebsite #growingexposed #podcast #DNA #cultivar #strain #breeding #canopymanagement #leafareaindex #pruning #phd #northamerica #sostanza #sostanzaglobal #consultant #consulting ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

What’s in the interview? 

How long have you been working in Cannabis? You are writing a book chapter on Canopy Management, it’s not out yet, but we got a sneak peak. I’d love a basic primer on canopy management - How would you sum up the importance of proper canopy management and the effects it can have on your crop? What do people forget/get wrong/neglect when it comes to managing their canopy? What kind of factors need to be considered? Can you give us a brief rundown and then we can dig in a little deeper? Physiological Factors Light Interception Is a flat canopy enough? Leaf area Index What is it? Different for different plants? How do you measure it? What’s the best Leaf Area Index for cannabis? Shade Avoidance What is this? What is the overall impact on the plant? How does proper (or improper) canopy management affect the plant growth? Ultimately, a primary goal of canopy management is to increase yield and potency How else can canopy management benefit the final product? I came across something in my reading and I’d like to know more about the Source/Sink relationship? Does it differ during different stages of the plant life cycle? What is it and how does canopy management affect it? We’ve talked to a lot of growers about airflow, but it’s usually in the context of disease prevention, and I’ve not come across something quite as granular as you’ve written about. Can you explain the importance and then go more into detail about the boundary layer and how it’s thickness affects physiological processes? Is there any correlation between airflow and increased yield? Or is it ultimately about pest and disease prevention? As we wrap up, what are your goals with Canna Cribs Consulting? Are there any projects you have going currently that you’d like to tell us about? Is there anything we didn’t get a chance to discuss that you’d like to mention?

You can join the forum and learn more about growing at: Growers Network Follow us on Instagram: http://instagram.com/cannacribs http://instagram.com/growersnetwork 

Check out Mr. Grow It on the Interweb! https://www.instagram.com/shopplanet13 

Table of Contents: 

00:00 Opening 

00:27 Episode Intro 

01:25 Mr. Grow It's Origin Story 

03:17 Growing Medically 

07:13 First Iteration of MGI YouTube channel 

12:00 Social Media Strategy 

17:24 Autoflowers and Photoperiods 

20:48 FOOP Canna Sweetener 

22:15 Mr. Grow It's Grow Philosophy 

30:00 Techniques and Recommendations 

39:26 Getting Along with Neighbors When You Have a Grow 

43:35 FOOP Canna Sweetener 

44:48 Mr. Grow It's Predictions for the Future of the Cannabis Space 

50:35 Future Projects 

54:25 Closing  

#cannacribs #mrgrowit #chrissmooth #cannabis #dispensary #growingcannabis #cannabisoil #canapa#growingmarijuana #medicalmarijuana #marijuana #howtogrowweed, #cannacribs #smoke #weedeveryday #weed #smokingweed #maryjane #dispensary #customgrow420 #qualitycontrol #awardwinning #organiccannabis #DeepRoots #howhigh #cannabisresearch #clonex #cannacribstour #cannacribswebsite #growingexposed #podcast 

Thanks for talking with me today. Can you tell us a bit about yourself? 

How did you get interested in cannabis? 

How did you learn to grow? Mentor?

 Did you ever imagine you’d be working in the cannabis space? 

Let’s talk about your YouTube channel… What inspired it? 

Did you think you’d see the channel growth that you did? 

What’s your strategy for reaching your audience? 

I think you mentioned that you had a channel shut down before - what happened? 

You have a lot of content for beginning growers, what do they need the most help with? 

Most common question you get asked? I also noticed a whole playlist on autoflowers, what’s your overall opinion of autoflowering cannabis? 

Are there any downsides compared to photoperiod plants? Thoughts on feminized seeds? 

Can you tell me about the Beer Cup Challenge you hosted? 

What was the challenge? Plan to do it again? 

 What’s your overall grow philosophy? 

Biggest challenge you’ve ever had with a grow? 

Thoughts on best lighting? Nutrient regimen? IPM? Soil Media? Hydro? 

What do people consistently get wrong about growing cannabis? Advice to make a first grow successful? 

How can a new grower keep from getting frustrated and giving up? What would be the ideal garden setup for a beginning grower in your opinion? 

Any recommendation for genetics? Seeds vs clones vs tissue culture? 

What are your favorite seedbanks/vendors? What sets them apart? 

Do you have any predictions for the cannabis space? 5 years? 10 years? Beyond? 

Why in your opinion are people still divided on cannabis legalization? 

Efforts by anti-cannabis lobbies? 

Why would the world be a better place if more people grew cannabis? 

Do you have any new projects you’d like to discuss? YouTube? Other Projects? Anything else you’d like to talk about that we weren’t able to discuss?

1. What's in the Interview? 

2. What's in the Interview? 

3. What does a cannabis company “VP of Operations” do? 

4. What are you most looking forward to showing off in your upcoming Canna Cribs episode? 

5. First experience with cannabis? 

6. Growing and Breeding? 

7.Can you take us through the origin or Planet 13? 

8. Inspiration? 

9. You have six licenses - what are they? 

10. You wrote the applications for 5 of your licenses - had you done anything like that before? Was it a difficult process? Limited licenses?

 11. Can you tell us about designing the initial grows? 

12. How did you source/choose genetics? 

13. What can you tell us about securing funding for this size operation? 

14. How did you source funds? 

15. How were you able to leverage your unique experience when dealing with potential investors? 

16. Vertically integrated - always the plan or was it the result of organic growth of the brand? 

17. How many stores do you currently have? 1

8. How many other stores carry your brands? 

19. Plans to expand into other states? 

20. Your awards? 2019 US Market Retail Award from MJBizDaily 2018 Best Overall Dispensary from Leafly 

21. The Vegas Planet 13 Entertainment complex is definitely a one of a kind experience - Can you describe it for the listeners? What’s different about it? 

22. Do you get a lot of people who just want to check it out but maybe aren’t interested in cannabis? 

23. Is there something there for them? 

24. What is your favorite part of the Planet 13 experience? 

25. Planet 13 is killing it. How do you plan to increase your market share as legalization continues to bring more competition? 

26. Is it something you worry about? 

27. Let’s talk more about the Planet 13 brands - You came up with the brand name “Medizin” - can you tell us about the brand and its origin? 

28. What are some of your favorite house brands? 

29. What do your customers gravitate toward? 

30. What makes your brands so special? 

31. What trends are you seeing in the industry? 

32. Future expansion? New Shops?

Visit Growers House for your cultivation needs.

https://growershouse.com/?aff=2

You can join the forum and learn more about growing at: Growers Network

Check out our Canna Cribs website where you can watch full episodes and more!

Follow us on Instagram: 

https://www.instagram.com/cannacribs

https://www.instagram.com/growersnetwork

Sproutways on the interwebs!

https://www.instagram.com/sproutways/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Table of Contents

00:00 Opening

Questions from the Interview:

• How did you get involved in the cannabis space? 
• First collections of landrace or heirlooms? 
• What’s the origin story of Kagyu and Coastal Seed CO.?
• What’s your day to day like? 
• How do you source stock for breeding? 
• What do you look for in plants for breeding? 
• For people that are new in breeding, what is your advice?
• What are the most memorable experiences and the main challenges you’ve found up until this point? 
• Why do you like Sativa after all this time? 
• How do you transition from medical era prop 215 to recreational Prop 64 era?
• Tell us about your collaboration with other breeders? 
• Give us your workflow - simplify it for the audience, what’s the steps in the breeding process and when releasing new cultivars? 
• What is the most important consideration to keep in mind when breeding a new cultivar?
• What is your general analysis you have in the current cultivar selection and what is your direction/roadmap in 2021 beyond? 
• What are some of the biggest changes/transitions you've seen in the cannabis space since you started? 
• Has it changed the quality? 
• Cannabis is widely accepted, which is great for business. How has corporate cannabis impacted you? 
• For closing, tell us your project that you want to announce to the audience? 
• Where can they access those? 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#CannaCribs #kagyu #sproutways #coastalseedco #cannabis #breedingcannabis #legalcannabis #norml #nothingforsale #marijuana #medicalmarijuana #medical cannabis #tissueculture #landrace #heirloom #sativa #indica #phenohunt #cannabisgenetitcs #terpene #cannabinoid

1. Thanks for being here! Can you introduce yourself for our audience?
2. How did you get enter the cannabis space? What was that journey like?
3. 1st experience
4. You’re the VP of Genetics and Cultivation at Claybourne - what’s your day to day like in that role?
5. How does it differ from your role as Director of Plant Breeding at Plant21?
6. You love plants - I know this - can you tell me more about some of the other plants you’ve grown and bred?
7. How is breeding/growing cannabis different? How is it the same?
8. What’s your growing philosophy if you have such a thing?
9. Do you consider yourself a breeder or a grower - and is there that much of a difference at your level?
10. What are some exciting results of your breeding efforts?
11. How much pheno hunting do you do?
12. What are you looking for in new cultivars?
13. Are you driven by your interests or market demand?
14. Do you work with outside breeders or are you doing everything in house?
15. A lot of people call themselves breeders these days - what separates the pros from the amatuer in your opinion?
16. What are your most popular Claybourne products?
17. Your website has an application for dispensaries to sell Claybourne products - what do you look for in a vendor?
18. Any thoughts on the future of the cannabis space?
19. Federal legalization - how far off?
20. What are the fastest growing sectors in the cannabis space?
21. Does Claybourne have any projects in the works you care to talk about?

GH Pro Desk: https://growershouse.com/commercial-division-large-scale-growing-operations

Ventana Plant Science: https://ventanaplant.science/

Shop Ventana Plant Science: https://growershouse.com/ventana-plant-science/?aff=2

Commercial Nutrient Consultations: https://growers.typeform.com/to/cNa0dXPP

George's Blog:https://www.foliarpak.com/category/blog/

_______________________________________________________________________________

Table of Contents

00:00 Opening

00:27 Nick Morin Intro

01:56 George’s Origin Story with Ventana Plant Sciences

08:21 How would you categorize your main area of expertise?

12:20 Approaches to different grow styles (row crop, greenhouse, indoor)

18:20 What is unique to cannabis growing?

21:27 The state of cannabis nutrients currently

25:50 Impact of nutrient runoff in communities

30:10 Growers House Pro Desk

31:12 Mitigating environmental concerns

34:20 Problems with some other nutrients on the market 

45:05 DIY nutrient advice

48:10 George’s work with Amino Acids

55:14 Research & Results

59:00 Actionable lessons for growers

01:00:40 Important info for growers

01:08:06 Getting growers comfortable with science

01:12:55 Innovations in plant nutrition

01:24:22 Step by step guide to developing a plant nutrition program

01:32:43 Nutrient spend based on three different models

01:50:10 Best place to find Ventana Plant Science products

__________________________________________________________________

Questions from the Interview

1. How did you get interested in plant nutrition?

2. How long have you been working in the agrochemical industry?

3. What are your main areas of expertise?

4. How much of your work is in the cannabis space versus other areas of agriculture?

5. Can you talk about some of the different grow styles you’ve worked in?

6. How are the nutrient concerns similar/different in these different styles?

Requirements?

7. Runoff/pollution concerns?

8. Can you say how much these different styles might impact the local environment?

9. How to mitigate?

10. What kind of problems do you see with existing nutrients?

11. What kinds of mistakes do people make mixing their own nutrients?

12. I’m interested in your work with different amino acids and mineral interaction. Can you explain this for the layman?

13. What kind of metabolic processes are you looking at?

14. What are some interesting results in this type of work?

15. What lessons can growers take from this information?

16. What is the most important thing any grower might need to know/practice with regard to nutritional programs for plants?

17. Are there any novel or innovative nutritional programs specifically affecting the cannabis industry?

18. What other kinds of innovations are we seeing in plant nutrition as a whole?

19. What can you tell us about ammonium-based nutrients?

20. What are the biggest challenges for growers in your experience?

What could they be doing better?

21. What considerations should be made by growers when developing a plant nutrition program?

22.Do you see a lot of problems with nutrient lock-out? How can a grower avoid nutrient lock-out?

23. How would you alleviate their concerns with regard to your work and agricultural science as a whole?

24. Can you take us through, step by step, how a grower should approach developing their own plant nutrition program?

25. I’ve been reading about this phenomenon of growers wanting “white ash” from smoking their flower. Why is that and what does it indicate, if anything?

26. Are there any new projects you’re working on that you’d like to talk about?

0:00​​ Opening 

1:40 Background on Dr. Sma Zobayed 

8:41​​ Responsibilities at Segra International 

16:40 Day-To-Day for Dr. Sma Zobayed 

30:28​​ History of Tissue Culture 

37:43​ Why Tissue Culture? 

43:48 Packaging with Green Vault Systems 

44:33 Disease Resistance with Tissue Culture 

49:29​ Plant Count using Tissue Culture 

58:03​ Differences Between Cuttings from Tissue Culture 

1:03:09 Packaging ROI with Precision Batch by Green Vault Systems 

1:04:34​ The Future of Tissue Culture 

1:11:13 Future Expansion/Projects at Segra International 

Questions and Topics in this interview: 

-Hello, please tell us a bit about yourself 

-Let’s talk about your role as “Chief Tissue Culture Officer” at Segra Intl. -

You’re THE expert in tissue culture - what is it? Same as “micropropagation?” 

-More and more cannabis growers are turning to tissue culture, what’s the advantage of tissue culture in a commercial grow? 

-It seems like a lot of the cannabis enthusiasts I talk to are a bit wary of science and call anything not “naturally” grown “frankenweed”  

-What are your predictions for the future of tissue culture in the cannabis space? 

-Do you have any new projects or plans you can tell us about? 

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Table of Contents 

0:00​​ Opening 

1:53​​ Catching up w/ Graham since Episode 1 

14:24​​ Cloning at GlassHouse Farms 

18:46​​ Cannabis Compliance 

27:01​​ Tom's Tumbler Batch Machine for Post-Harvest (Python 400) 

27:50​ Sustainability & Philosophy 

35:13​ 200 Acre Outdoor Hemp Farm 

40:33​ Future of Cannabis Cultivation in California 

48:50​ Protecting your Eyes with Method Seven 

50:04​ Canna Cribs Experience 

57:22​ Cultivars & R&D at GlassHouse Farms

Questions and Topics in this interview: 

-What brought you to the cannabis space? 

-Any major changes at Glass House since your episode? 

-Are you working with any other breeders? 

-In your episode you mentioned you were taking about 500 clones a week, has that increased since my team was there?

 -Let’s talk about compliance, in your episode you mentioned that Glass House is at “the forefront of compliant cannabis.” What did that mean at the time? 

-You mentioned in your episode that GlassHouse is committed to Sustainable Resource Management, is that throughout the entire process? 

-Glass House is obviously a reference to your greenhouse grow style. What are the advantages to growing in a greenhouse over indoor and outdoor grows? 

-What did you think about your Canna Cribs experience? 

-What would you say to the hand-trim purists? 

-We didn’t really talk about extracts when we were at Glass House, but you did mention people were “lining up for” your trim. Is this still the case? 

-What were you most excited about showing off in your episode? 

-What is your favorite thing about Glass House?

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Table of Contents 

0:00​ Opening 

2:14​ Kevin Ahaesy Background 

9:20​ ECO Cannabis Business Model 

23:48​ Social Equity Mission & Program 

32:58​ Companies & Mentorship 

41:18​ ECO Cannabis Hiring Process 

48:14​ Advice from Kevin Ahaesy 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Questions and Topics in this interview: 

- Tell us about your background and what led you to the cannabis space? 

-Tell us about your company, ECO, and your role over there? 

-You were a captain of the University of CA Berkeley water polo team, do you still play for fun?

-Do you think athletic governing boards (college and pro) should penalize athletes for cannabis use? 

-ECO is a vertically integrated company, where you incubate eight (8) social equity businesses at your Oakland, CA cannabis campus. How involved are you in the day to day for each business? 

-What makes ECO so special? 

-I’d like to know a little more about your mission as a “social equity” company. Can you explain what that is? 

-Tell us more about mentorship at ECO Cannabis? 

-I love your name and the play on “ecosystem,” because that’s exactly what you’ve created in the city of Oakland, right? Can you tell us how that works? 

-What inspired your mission? 

-What percentage of your workforce are people with prior convictions? 

-What are the biggest hurdles you faced in developing a business model that puts a premium on social equity? 

-Is there a downside to the model? Costs related to working with Oakland companies versus dealing with professionals outside the city? 

-A lot of our listeners are growers or other people who’d like to get involved in cannabis professionally, what’s your advice? 

-What’s next for you and ECO? 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

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#cannabis​ #ECOCannabis​ #equitycannabisoakland​ #cannabispodcast​ #growingcannabis​ #cannabisoil​ #growingmarijuana​ #medicalmarijuana​ #marijuana​ #howtogrowweed​ #cannacribs​ #2020business​ #industry​ #podcast​ #tucson​ #smoke​ #weedeveryday​ #weed​ #smokingweed​ #maryjane​ #dispensary​ #customgrow420​ #qualitycontrol​ #vape​ #DeepRoots​ #howhigh​ #cannacribspodcast​ #cannacribs​ #quest​ 

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Table of Contents 

0:00 Opening 

1:58 Jarret Ricci Background & Next Big Crop Business Model 

10:56 Jarret Ricci Day-to-Day 

21:32 Clients of Next Big Crop 

25:18 Challenges of Next Big Crop 

46:14 Horror & Success Stories while Consulting 

53:09 Jarret Ricci Teacher Background 

58:00 Future of Next Big Crop 

Questions and Topics in this interview: - Thanks for talking with me today. Tell me a little bit about your background? - Tell us a little more about “Next Big Crop” - What are you brought in to consult on most often? - How much work is remediation or addressing a problem? - Next Big Crop also does consults for processing facilities… - There are tons of new grows and processing facilities popping up, do you see any trends with regard to... - Can you share any horror stories with us? - Is Next Big Crop working on anything new? - Is there anything else you’d like our listeners to know that we didn’t get to discuss?  

You can join the forum and learn more about growing at: Growers Network Shout out to our podcast recording equipment sponsor Artesia: artesia-pro.com 

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#cannabis #breeding #cannabispodcast #growingcannabis #cannabisoil #growingmarijuana #medicalmarijuana #marijuana #howtogrowweed #cannacribs #2020business #industry #podcast #tucson #smoke #weedeveryday #weed #smokingweed #maryjane #dispensary #customgrow420 #qualitycontrol #vape #DeepRoots #howhigh #cannacribspodcast #nextbigcrop #cannacribs #quest #generalcannabis #cannabisconsulting

0:00 Opening 

2:07 Joe Sulistyo Background & Business Model 

6:54 Cannabis in Southeast Asia 

9:10 Tech World vs Cannabis 

15:49 What would you consider Sproutways? 

25:57 Seeds vs Clones Marketplace 

40:29 Sproutways Breeders 

51:40 Genetic Catalogue 

56:30 Future of Sproutways

Strains from Sproutways: Bred by Bodhi Seeds - Black Raspberry Black Triangle Dread Bread Lazy Lightning Mothers HashPlant Neroli 91 Soul Mate Space Monkey Terpenado Bred by SnowHigh - BlackBerry Spacewreck Blueberry Blast Grim Creeper Heroine High Voltage Purple Mexican Thai Bred by Kagyu - Burmese High Biscus Northern Pride Panama Red Smugglers Choice Burmese Swazi Red Burmese Yeshe18 
 

0:00 Opening 

3:21 Garrett’s first grow op at Native Roots 

15:39 Process of a preexisting grow operation entering the Colorado market 

18:42 Partnerships and Relationships in the workplace of the industry 

24:40 Garrett’s management philosophy 

30:45 Helping entry level employees grow within the business 

49:36 Evolution of Garrett’s role in sales 

01:05:06 Garden First’s Deep Roots episode comment responses 

01:10:27 Cleanliness of the Garden First Facility 

0:00 Opening 

1:32 Pankaj & Background 

7:12 Old Guard vs New Guard 

18:39 Testing 

26:32 Changes after Copperstate Farms Episode 

32:12 Dispensary 

40:09 Business Expansion 

55:15 Licensing Genetics Deal with DNA Genetics 

01:06:50 Before vs After Business Goals

0:00 Opening 

2:02 Paul & Background 

12:12 Emerald Cup 

17:56 Transitioning from Big Pharma to Cannabis 

28:18 Organic Chemistry Background 

37:39 Paul's Day-to-Day 

44:52 Collaborations 

57:07 Vape Market Feedback

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Table of Contents 

0:00 Opening 

1:39 Jason & Background 

9:35 Hope Railroad 

14:10 High Times Cup for CBD flower 

20:24 Medical vs Recreational markets 

25:00 Licensing and Testing for legal cannabis businesses 

42:35 Common Issues as a Cannabis Operator 

52:30 Bad Advice in the Cannabis Industry 

56:30 IPM Strategy 

1:02:18 Mistakes New Growers Make 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

#consulting #cannabis #growingcannabis #cannabisoil #growingmarijuana #medicalmarijuana #marijuana #howtogrowweed #cannacribs #2020business #industry #podcast #tucson #smoke #weedeveryday #weed #smokingweed #maryjane #dispensary #customgrow420 #qualitycontrol #vape #DeepRoots #howhigh #cannacribspodcast #quest #hoperailroad #pheno #cbd

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Table of Contents 

0:00 Opening 

1:52 Nat's Background with Humboldt County 

17:00 Breakdown of Seed Companies 

26:19 Cannabis Seeds vs. Cannabis Clones 

38:30 Phylos Bioscience Update 

50:58 10,000 Plant Mega Phenohunt 

1:05:22 Humboldt Seed Company Business Model 

1:25:00 Autoflower Genetics

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#humboldt #cannabis #growingcannabis #cannabisoil #growingmarijuana #medicalmarijuana #marijuana #howtogrowweed #cannacribs #2020business #industry #podcast #tucson #smoke #weedeveryday #weed #smokingweed #maryjane #dispensary #customgrow420 #qualitycontrol #vape #DeepRoots #howhigh #cannacribspodcast #houseandgarden #royalgold #pheno #autoflower

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Episode Transcript:

- Hey, I'm Nick, creator of "CannaCribs" and Growers Network, where we have educated millions of people on how to elevate their craft. I have toured some of the largest grow operations, befriended of the best growers and built a network of the top cannabis companies. Join me on this next adventure, where I document history with the pioneer shaping the global cannabis industry in real time. Welcome to the "CannaCribs Podcast". Hey, welcome back to the "CannaCribs Podcast". I'm your host, Nick Morin, and today's guest is Nat Pennington. And about 20 years ago, Nat started Humboldt Seed Company, you might've heard of it. And in this interview, Nat teaches us how he started that company, and a lot of advice for new breeders and new growers entering the cannabis industry and about his most recent 10,000 plant mega hunt for the best phenotypes in the industry. Stay tuned for this interview, I hope you enjoy it. You're about to hear how Nat scaled Humboldt Seed Company over the past 20 years while providing strong genetics to tens of thousands of growers all around the world. This was all made possible by having healthy plants at his own grow operation. Like any healthy plant, the food they consume is vital to their success. This episode is brought to you by House and Garden Nutrients. I'm not sure if you knew this, but they're actually headquartered in Arcadia, California, right behind Humboldt Seed Company located in the heart of the Emerald Triangle. And just like Nat, House and Garden has helped thousands of growers succeed in cultivation with the use of their nutrients and amendments. You can check them out at house-garden.us that's www.house-garden.us. Now, on with the episode. Hey, Nat, welcome to the "CannaCribs Podcast", thanks for joining us.

- All right, glad to be here.

- Yeah, so tell me a little bit about yourself, how'd you end up in the cannabis space?

- Well, I didn't go to school specifically for cannabis, obviously, I had studied, done art, and a little bit of glass blowing, but didn't get too far with that and ended up making my way out here to Humboldt County at a really pretty young age, I was 18 years old, and of course Humboldt is a Mecca for cannabis. And I loved cannabis and as a young adult, let's just say, as well. And so of course getting here, everything fell together and yeah, but it was a journey to get here a little bit, as well.

- Tell me about that journey. I heard that you took a road trip from Philly, ended up in Humboldt and then never went back.

- Yeah, well, I certainly have gone to visit with family and friends. But I spent my childhood in upstate New York and in the Philadelphia area, and like I said, I went to school briefly for glassblowing and pottery, actually, and then a high school sweetie called and said, "Hey, let's take a road trip across the country." And I was certainly a sucker for that and just-

- I would be too.

- Jumped on that one, and before I knew it I was heading across the country and we were seeing the sights and just having a blast. And we actually ended up, for a while, in the little town of Prescott, Arizona, and there's kind of a-

- Hey, I'm in Tucson.

- Yeah, right, and there's like an alternative school there. And some friends of ours, mutual friends, my girlfriend, at the time, and I, we're in college and so we kind of had some places to stay and it was kind of a whole scene. And being from the east coast, the west coast, you just kind of, wow, this is wild out here, and it was the wild west for sure. But we actually ended up parting ways and she went off with this, I gotta admit, this gorgeous female folk singing lady, I don't blame her, but it was definitely a surprise. I was like, wow, okay. And I had this choice of like go back with my tail between my legs and face the music with family and such or continue on this journey. Yeah, and of course, I definitely made a good choice, I think, and ended up touring California. I wouldn't exactly call it touring, more like the classic Volkswagen bus and then San Francisco, and Santa Cruz, and San Diego, even,

- You had explored it all.

- Yeah, but then just got to Humboldt and it was just like, wow, this is it and this is the spot to be. Beautiful Redwood trees. I can't say I came here just because I was on this cannabis pilgrimage or anything like that. But, I don't know I had it, and it was like nature was calling, I think, more and Humboldt is full of some of the most beautiful wild. Yeah, exactly, the redwoods, the ocean, the mountains, the rivers, and so I got here and just, I didn't actually believe it, but I was like, if I could stay here it would just be amazing. And lo and behold, it all kind of worked out.

- Yeah, I remember I went out to Honeydew Farms in Humboldt to film my "CannaCribs" episode and it felt like the time paused, and we went up the hill and it's just you're going through this warp zone and everything pauses, and you're just in this beautiful bubble of nature and you're surrounded by cannabis plants. And I am looking for reasons to take us back. So you want us to go out there to film and let me know.

- Anytime, anytime.

- So you started Humboldt seed company in 2001. Did you work in the cannabis industry before then up in Humboldt? Or right when you got there, you're like, "Let's do this, this is what I know I want to do."

- Well, I think I started working with cannabis growers and of course back then it wasn't a job, so to speak, it was like we were doing, really, the old school style. And it was-

- So the lifestyle.

- It was hiking, and definitely we were out in the open about it, at all. And I'm not sure how much I should get into it but I think everybody knows how Humboldt is and was. And so, yeah, but I definitely started, I had some mentors, I'll say, a person that was a wonderful musician, an incredible grower, and also an environmental, a mentor for a lot of environmental work that I eventually got into, fisheries biology and things like that. And I wanted to emulate a lot of things about the amazing things that he was doing in his life. So that was really helpful, to be honest.

- The power of mentorship can really change the path of your life forever.

- And so I definitely can't say that I decided, oh, I wanna be a seed company, right out the gate, but there was a need that was really evident in Humboldt. And because the cannabis industry still was relatively, had to be tucked away and hidden, there wasn't as much of a continuity when it came to holding onto cannabis genetics. So because people were hiding things and you weren't able to just keep the same strain and so on and so forth. But I wanted to, and I wanted to not only keep genetics around, but I liked a lot, but sometimes improve on them, and have them ready for myself as much as anybody. And certainly just the community of Eastern Humboldt that I was in. And so before I knew it, I had kind of become one of the primary people that was the person that had seeds. And so every year I'd end up having, especially, obviously like December, January, March, and February, March and April, there were a lot of folks that would come and get seeds. And my whole thing was, "Well, bring me a few beers," we'll have a beer around the kitchen table. Yeah, and they would always say, though, "Oh, I feel like I should pay for this." And it took, I think, a girlfriend at the time being like, "Dude, you really should say yes and take compensation." Because, well, I think, a, she was sick of me having person after person show up with beer, and then, b, it was just she kind of saw that there was something to it. And I was putting a bunch of effort into it. And I always just felt like, well, if I'm doing it for myself, it's not hard for me to make enough for other people too. And so then it became a real conscious shift into this is actually something that I really do enjoy and I wanna continue to do it and why not have a company. And so I made my way down to the local courthouse and got a business license. And that was so long ago that-

- 20 years.

- Yeah, it's actually like really rare that I don't think any companies that were even cannabis minded, and of course it's like Humboldt Seed Company, I didn't walk in and say, "Hey, I sell all these cannabis seeds." I walked in and just said, "I wanna have a seed company." And they were, "Okay, great." So it wasn't exactly like that, but since then, of course, we've had every Humboldt Farm, Humboldt, all the different names that could even be related are taken or whatever you wanna call it. So I think, I definitely had a little bit, I don't wanna come off braggy, but I add some foresight there in being like, all right, this is something I really like doing.

- Yeah, you had the vision and I'm sure there's a lot of things that have changed over the past 20 years as well.

- Yeah, oh my gosh, it's wild. And one of the things that I kind of lament a little bit about the new paradigm of legalization or recreational use, whatever you wanna call it, is that sometimes we did end up losing some of the old, Humboldt, the people that kind of made Humboldt so well known for great cannabis have not been the best at transitioning into all the regulation and red tape that's associated with having a licensed farm. So I think we lost some skills and some really great contributors to what makes Humboldt cannabis what it is. But the good news is that a lot of 'em are now parents, grandparents, you see a lot of second and third generation Humboldt farmers that are carrying the torch. And obviously that's a connection between some of that original cannabis community.

- So how does one go about starting a seed company? I know it's not as simple as just walking down to the courthouse, getting your business licensing. Nowadays you might start a website, you might get some social media set up, but where do you go next?

- There are so many different kinds of cannabis seed companies. I'd say first figure out where your interests lie. Do you want to make seeds that are good for pheno hunting, or do you wanna make seeds that are unknown outcome and all of the, if you say it's a cherry strain, it's gonna come out like cherry every time. Or do you want to be a regular, or auto flower, or a feminized, or CBD, so I think that's the first thing. And then obviously just get your feet wet, actually make some cannabis seeds because it's not as easy as people might assume. Then it depends too, there are a heck of a lot of seed companies out there that are just kind of making seeds that fall under the personal use, let's just say. Either they're in a medical state or they're doing this in a basement, or garage, or even a closet. And we love that. While that isn't so much what Humboldt and what you would probably do here, because ironically, a place that those grows were so prevalent 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago, it's become almost harder now that we have all of this legalization and all of the licensure and stuff. Just as an example, I had neighbors in my neck of the woods of Humboldt just last year that had been growing for quite some time, out of the blue they just got busted. And it really, it is because of the new laws and the fact that now you've got to pay your dues or whatever it is. And if people aren't paying their dues then they are gonna end up having enforcement action, which I don't like that or agree with it but that just is the way it is.

- And in your opinion, do most seed vendors in the world right now do their own in-house breeding?

- What's developed in the cannabis space, without a doubt, and it's not uncommon in like conventional ag seeds too, but you have a seed bank, which is essentially like a reseller/distributor. And then you have the actual seed breeder or the seed company that's creating the seed and testing the genetic, and all the work they're, at least supposed to be doing. And so to be a seed bank you don't need to have a ton of hands-on experience with cannabis. You should know that the breeders that you're working with are good, but-

- You're in this vertically integrated map, so you have both. You have the in-house breeding, and research, and development, but then you have the seed bank side to distribute those genetics.

- Yeah, and we just assumed that would be the way to do it, and I don't think we ever really thought about one way or another. But yeah, we make the seeds and we have a packaging facility which, actually, that's where I'm sitting right now. And then we have all different kinds of distribution but we certainly do our own distribution sometimes. And we have farmers come in here regularly and we're having meetings with them, and we call it genetic consultations. And so we'll have those pretty regularly in here with people that have licenses in California, for example.

- And in my research running the Growers Network Forum, we have a little over 10,000 growers at the time of this recording, we are kind of an affiliate for a lot of different seed banks around the world and a lot of different types of genetics. So in my research and in running those partnerships and relationships, a lot of those partners are overseas like in Spain, for example. So how is Humboldt Seed Company able to operate successful in the United States but maybe those companies can't?

- Well, that's a good question. So we've now set up satellites and we have production in different parts of the world, more and more coming on all the time. And so we take SOPs, and we take methodology, because I'll tell you one thing, it definitely, it's not, you asked earlier just how do you start a seed company? The years and years of experience that we've got, just as an example, here in Humboldt or in the Emerald Triangle, or over in Amsterdam, that really does make a huge difference. You can identify problems that you've maybe seen in the past and head 'em off before they become issues for your customers and things like that, really does make a huge difference. So I guess back to what your question was, is we look at it like our basis here in Humboldt. We actually have licenses, a couple more licenses in California and Nevada County. And Ben Lind down there runs those, he's the CAO for the company. And then we've got operations in Oregon, and Oklahoma. And in all of those different places, we do actually produce seeds, in Maine as well, and we've got an operation happening in Spain. But just to wrap it back around, all of the IP, and the methodology, and a lot of the breeding really originates here. But at the same time, I have to admit that there are great things that we find. We're doing some work in South Africa, and Jamaica, and those are places that are hot beds for cannabis genetics as well. So, I think, as the plant is a little bit de-stigmatized and as laws change, it's just gonna, even more, open up pathways to both share and improve the genetics. And then our heart is in not only improving, but making sure that we preserve some of the different, special attributes of cannabis that potentially could be lost if we shift too far towards monoculture or having just a couple of strains that become popular. And lo and behold, we would probably find out, a few years down the road after some more studies happen, and so on and so forth, that maybe there are more molecules than just THC on all the different terpenes that are out there.

- I'm so excited for that research Nat.

- Yeah, and I think, a lot of us sort of seasoned cannabis smokers, we know that because, or consumers, I guess I should say, we know that inherently because of all the different experiences we've had with the plant over our lives. We know that there's more to it than just-

- About scratching the surface.

- But I do see that the consumer base, if you look at, like the California market, we always breed for terpenes, and the effects of cannabis, and we have a pretty significant catalog, but just to be completely honest, when it comes to us doing those genetic consultations for big farms in California we do have to guide them more towards, especially, if they wanna produce A grade, top shelf flower that goes into a jar. People are making their purchasing choices based on THC numbers, more than they are the smells and the things that they really should be, maybe, making choices based on. But so it's a tough job and I think we're doing a pretty decent job of balancing those consumer, the market drivers like THC and what our hearts tell us is important. Like terpene profiles, and different cannabinoids, and some things that we're yet to even unlock as far as research and our understanding.

- Yeah, well, let's dive into seeds versus clones. So I read an article where you actually mentioned seeds potentially being better than clones for commercial growers. Can you explain why, for our audience?

- Well, it's always, it's a little bit, of course, of a needle that we thread with that. 'Cause we do a ton of breeding with clones and we have amazing business partnerships with California's largest clone nurseries, as well, where we're providing them with clone genetics. But one thing that's become really evident is, I'm sure folks that are listening have heard about pesticides, and cannabis. And chemicals and all the testing that's needed to happen to clean it up and make the industry safer. And we're, of course, a hundred percent behind that. I think obviously folks that were growing cannabis never had any intention to put harmful chemicals on it. But sometimes the way that we were sharing genetics with clones from basement, to garage, to closet, there's this amazing network and I wouldn't change it if I had the chance, I think it's great the way that works. But it led to a lot of insects and pathogens ending up getting passed from one basement, one garage to another. And so, we basically had to start trying to get rid of that.

- It's a double edged sword. The spread of genetics through that network, that organic network, that spread was great but it also carried negative side effects.

- Kind of one of the cons of seeds, which I have to touch on 'cause I don't wanna be one sided here, is that with the seed it's a new life form. And so you're gonna have, it's clean, but you can have a lot of variation in genetics and it just really on how you do your breeding. I like to do a comparison with like dog breeding a lot, and some seeds are essentially mutts. And the ironic thing is that mutts sometimes make the best dogs and that kind of holds true with seeds as well. If you take a recent popular strain and cross it with a classic one that you love, you're probably gonna find something in there that is amazing. But that doesn't necessarily work very well if you are trying to plant 10,000 seeds and have an acre or two of cannabis, or whatever it is. You're more likely to want to have a whole bunch of more clone like plants where you can mix the whole harvest together and batch it all up. And that was, honestly, one of the things as an evolving seed company here in Humboldt County, you can probably imagine that it was not a really an easy place or a forgiving place to build out a seed company because it has some of the best cannabis growers in the world, and they expect to have performance from their genetics. And as the cannabis market grew and grew, one thing that we started noticing as a seed company was people needed to have bigger batches of cannabis to sell, and they had to come from plants that looked, and smelled, and tested fairly identical. And so, that was something that we set out to do quite some time ago. And I think that's probably one of the things that we're best known for. And just as an example, we created a strain called blueberry muffin, it was like 2010. And if you look at all the reviews that there are about it, and if you hear from people, their experience, I think like Leafly, let's just say, they can be quoted saying like, "It's the most apple aptly named strain around," because it really truly does smell like blueberry muffins. And the thing that, I think, we're really proud about is the fact that we can guarantee that every seed that you grow from our blueberry muffin seed line, actually, will have that smell and it'll come out true to form. And so, that's basically all in the breeding. And true breeding seed is not an easy accomplishment, it's not something that you can just do in one year. So, when it comes to having the pros and cons of clones versus seeds, it depends where you're getting your seeds for sure, and it depends how much work that breeder has put into making a seed line that is, one, very stable and produces-

- Consistency.

- Consistency, and I'm not even getting into the whole, you probably, if you've ever done any gardening, you might've bought like hybrid corn. And there's a little bit of a misnomer in cannabis that, well, it's just in conventional breeding a hybrid varietals is one that has two incredibly inbred lineages that are brought together in the final stage of the seed creation. So it's basically a highly inbred mother and a highly inbred father, and that sounds bad, but plants.

- Oh, yeah, don't start, that does not sound like a healthy baby.

- But plant breeding and animal breeding are different. But it is, it's basically like if you look at labradoodles, for example, you've got pure red poodles and purebred labradors, and all of a sudden they come together and you've got these litters of really cool dogs. And it's very similar, almost every major agricultural crop, the work has been put into making seed so that you can have hybrid. Because it's kind of a phenomena when you bring those highly inbred lines and in, and of themselves they're actually not appealing 'cause they're so inbred and they have inbred depressions so they don't have hybrid vigor. But the phenomena of breeding, in general, is when you bring those two together you get, all of a sudden, the genetics are reinvigorated and you've got what we call hybrid vigor. But at the same time you end up with uniformity, and consistency, and so it's this holy grail of seeds. And that's something that we actually released our first effort at that last year with our Early Girl OG Hybrid seed, and it's just basically the product of many, many years of creating inbred lines. And it seems to have worked really well, so we're excited about that.

- Yeah, and over the past 20 years, Nat, I am sure over your breeding experience, you've come across a fair bit of fraud. And other companies, or growers, or breeders around the world perhaps taking some of your genetics and putting it under their own brand, their own company. Can you talk to me about that?

- It's a touchy subject for sure. There's ethics and then there's the legality of things. And especially in cannabis, the legality question is really hard to unravel because you don't have any enforcement anyways. If you were to trademark, or patent, and things like that are trickier because we don't have the federal government looking into any of that stuff in the US. And then it's a global thing. Cannabis is a plant that's enjoyed and consumed, I would venture to say, in just about every nation on the planet. And so it's not an easily controllable plant, and which I love about it. If I were to have a choice of whether to have all cannabis completely just open source versus having it totally locked up by a whole bunch of patents, I would definitely choose the open source. And what I think we're gonna end up with is there will be some battles that happen between companies over patent infringement, and that's gonna-

- Is that inevitable, Nat? That's gonna happen regardless, no matter what we do now, that patent war on cannabis genetics will be in our future?

- Yeah, and we'll see if it really becomes a war because there was this rush to get a bunch patents on cannabis that were probably undue, or they were over-broad and overreaching patents for things that weren't necessarily a hundred percent the creation of a patent applicant. So for it to get a patent you should have put a lot of work into creating something that is, they use the word novel.

- Novelty factor.

- Right, and so you have to have created either a method. And you can, you can patent plants and you can have different kinds of patents on plants. Some of them are more broad and some of them are only specifically for one, like a clone or one iteration of the plant. And so, yes, I do believe that there will be litigation and that is inevitable. But I don't necessarily think that it's going to be as powerful as people tend to think. Because fortunately cannabis is an incredibly diverse plant, like we were discussing before. And so, as important as it might be to find wonderful strains and wonderful genetics, I also tend to think that people will continually want to try the next version. And so it's gonna be hard to find, if you look at apples, and one thing I found really interesting and akin to cannabis is this cotton candy grape thing that just came out, have you ever tried those?

- I haven't, no, what is that?

- It's literally, they're grapes, and they truly surely taste just like cotton candy.

- You can just go to the store and buy these grapes?

- Yeah, they're really popular. And whoever came up with that, I'm sure that they've done their best at being compensated for that discovery. And it probably took a good amount of work to get there, to create a grape that actually tastes like cotton candy. But I really do feel like, just years ago we created a strain that smells like blueberry muffin. And so, there's a lot of similarities between conventional agricultural breeding and cannabis.

- So last year, Phylos Bioscience caused a little bit of a stir when it was kind of discovered that they had an internal breeding program going on, and I didn't really dive too deep into that whole controversy. But what happened, in your opinion? Can you teach me what went on, and what is Phylos doing today?

- Yeah, we did a decent amount of work with the folks from Phylos and we don't have a particularly hard feelings. We know that groups have shareholders, and things like that, that they need to look out for. And that's, unfortunately, I think, sometimes sort of the crux of the US system that we've created. Is that these corporate entities and they don't always act in the best interest of the whole, because there's our shareholders that are involved. And so, I think that there was a lot of that motivation involved with the whole Phylos thing and that they had to make some decisions that maybe weren't what they were originally supposed to be doing. And so I know a lot of people that had given them genetic material from their own cannabis breeding programs, things like that, who were up in the understanding that they were not a company that was ever intending to use information or genetic material to then profit and make money in the breeding space. And then just to have them turn on a dime and all of a sudden they were.

- It was a little misleading, the public program. And then what was said internally, it was a leaked investor meeting.

- Yeah, there was a fella who knew his way around social media and had recorded a public meeting. So he didn't do anything specifically wrong and put it online. And it kind of really just showed a lot of their hand of what they were trying to do. And there were things that were said in that video recording to this room full of potential investors that were just outright, they were misleading the investors and many of us knew that. Like, oh my gosh, not only are you saying things that are insulting to anyone else in the cannabis space, but you're misleading this poor. If they're potential investors, they're not poor, but let's just say you're misleading these people who might put their hard earned money into this company. And knowing that, it was sort of definitely hard to watch. Because they had collected all this information and all of a sudden they were saying, "Now we're the best, we're in the best position of anyone to be able to breed cannabis genetics." And that was not even remotely true because all the information that they had collected was, at best, anecdotal and didn't have like real hard and fast data connected to it. And also you can't use, breeding cannabis, there are advantages to having, let's just say a molecular breeding program or marker assisted breeding, or that GMO and gene editing, which they weren't necessarily saying that they were doing that, but it sort of begs the question. But I'm very familiar with all of those different methods, and we actually have a molecular breeding program. We're not modifying, we're not gene editing, we're not doing any of those things. But the irony is that you can't, a computer can't tell you what cannabis consumers are going to like. And a computer can't tell you what terpenes are gonna be popular in the next year. And, a computer, there are certain things, maybe even the THC synthe gene occurs at so many different loci in the genome that the functionality of that is not something that's very easily controlled via gene editing, or even a marker assisted breeding program. And so these things that, maybe, the advantages that they might have had had they had this huge dataset that had truly hard and fast data attached to it, you can't just turn on a computer and switch the artificial intelligence, switch to on, and it tells you, "Oh, Wiz Khalifa's gonna rap about that one next, so you better breed for that." So there's just more to it than that. And they also said that they had a exclusive agreement with Illumina, which is a genetic sequencing machine. Essentially, you can sequence the DNA and they're top of the line sequencing equipment. And that wasn't true because we had sequenced cannabis with Illumina equipment as well. So there was just a lot of things that were like, boy, that's a stretch. And it ended up being a huge social debacle and a major controversy in the cannabis space. And the ripples and waves that it created are still having an effect. And I feel like.

- Oh really, 'cause I feel like I haven't heard about them really sense that debacle, I guess, about a year ago. They're still around, they're still a business?

- Yeah, Phylos is still a business as far as I, yeah. I know that they're looking more at the hemp space because one of the things is if you want to invest a ton of money into marker assisted breeding programs or different kinds of doing breeding that is really technical, you need to be protecting that intellectual property that you're creating via patents, via, so on and so forth. And so in hemp, which I believe that they're doing some more work in hemp, and it's a little bit more straight forward because it's not a schedule one drug anymore or whatever. But the scientists at Phylos are all a bunch of really nice people and smart people and some of their outreach and staff, and we don't hold anything against them and we wish them the best. It was, definitely, a precipitous falling from grace that kind of occurred at that time. And I don't know whether they deserved all of it, but there were some things that seemed a little disingenuous that happened. And it just goes to show that the cannabis space doesn't seem to reward folks that are not authentic, which is amazing 'cause I don't think any of us really expected that. But if you look at what's happening with a lot of the super funded companies that are trading on Canadian stock exchange and things like that, and of course like the MedMens of the world and those kinds of groups, there seems to be a trend where they're not having a lot of successes and it's hard to ignore. I don't think that I'm saying anything that everybody doesn't know, so I'm not worried about saying that. But it seems like the authentic companies that have been in this space for quite some time and have this understanding of how to navigate both ethically, and keep the teamwork and be collaborative, they seem to be somehow being successful against, it's sort of like the, what is it, David and Goliath? I don't even know the saying. But the small to mid-size operations here in California are crushing it. And Humboldt, who would have thought that a whole bunch of these weed smokers in Cali would be actually making it through this wild upturn with, probably, what is one of the most financially exciting industries since the .com era.

- Yeah, it really is, and I appreciate your explanation of what happened with Phylos and kind of that breakdown and where we're at as an industry right now, of authenticity really shining and being rewarded. I appreciate you breaking that down for me. So we're gonna take a quick break for everyone listening and don't go away. Right after the break, we're gonna talk about your 10,000 plant phenotype mega hunt, so we will be right back. Hey, hope you're enjoying the episode so far. I wanna shine a light on another incredible Humboldt company, Royal Gold. They have grown their company alongside Nat in Northern California providing one of the original Coco soils nationally distributed to some of the most discerning cultivators in the world. Many that we filmed here at "Canni Cribs". And as home gardening, industrial commercial hydroponic and organic cultivation industries continue to grow, Royal Gold is right there alongside of them continuing to innovate and create new products and ways to help gardeners of all shapes and sizes succeed. Check them out at royalgoldcoco.com, that's royalgoldcoco.com. Now back to the episode. All right, so we are back from the break, and I noticed on your website, you guys produced a video on your 10,000 plant phenotype mega hunts. Do you wanna tell me a little bit more about that?

- So, everybody told me that that was a crazy idea and it would be just way too much. And to be honest, it was a heck of a lot of work, but what we saw with California and the expansion of the weed world, and with a lot more acreage in Humboldt, I thought, how can we take advantage of that? Or in California in general? While it was maybe not good for really small mom and pops there was still, I think, a way, and what I came up with was making this collaborative phenotype mega hunt, which is something that we continued doing. But what it was, in 2018 and '19 we developed this idea and got a group of farmers together that has significant grows and we're willing to look at our seed populations. And so, we kind of split it up, we had different crosses that we knew would produce amazing offspring. And allocated, some farms did up to like 3000, Happy Dreams Farm, I think, handled like 3000 of them.

- That's pretty cool, you split it up that way.

- Yeah, we had other farms that were more like 2000, and I think the smaller farm was 800 or something like that. And we did close to a thousand ourselves. But the idea, well, what we've done for many, many years is we go and take vegetative cuttings or clones off of the plants right before they go into flower and we catalog everything. So the ones in the field are labeled to the cuttings that we've taken off of them. So we know that it's a genetic clone of the one in the field. And then once we've got them all preserved like that in our clone room, then the fun part happens. And the video, I think, that you're referencing, which is on our website, and some bunch of different places, but we actually invited media and we invited a whole slew of different collaborators from dispensary owners, to the general public, to newspapers, TV, and-

- I missed the invite Nat , I would have loved to film that for "Canni Cribs".

- Yeah, that would have been perfect but we'll have you guys next time. Obviously we're not doing a giant get together like that this year, for obvious reasons, but we'll certainly do it again. And at what we were able to do over the course of that weekend, long weekend, we did three days, and we actually looked at a subset, but a significant subset, of the plan. So we went around and I think we were able to look at around 3000 of the living plants and the different participants had notebooks or we had iPads, and data sheets. And we developed many years ago a phenotype rating data sheet that has all the different attributes that we consider critical to breeding.

- What were some of those attributes, for example?

- Well, I'll tell you this. It's actually, we published our phenotype data sheet on the Cannabis Horticultural Association website. So, if folks actually wanna look at it, that's something that I think we published five or six years ago. But it has like the different terpenes, the Tricom content, it's got just everything that you can imagine that you might appreciate about cannabis. And, of course, farmer friendly things too like how much vigor does the plant have? Does it require trellising or does it kind of hold itself up really well? All those different things that they're both something that consumer might be interested in and also something for the farmer too, that's important as well. And at the end of the day the idea was to find 10 or so, just exemplary cuttings, and just hope and pray that they were actually cataloged and made it through that whole process. And fortunately it worked out really well in some of our-

- 1%, that's what you guys were looking for?

- Yeah, we did, we ended up-

- Oh my gosh.

- And so we do that to some degree every year and in 2019, we set that target of 10,000 plants and boy, was it a lot of work to go and take? And a lot of them, we tend to try to take two cuttings off of each plant because if you've ever taken clones before you know that if you have 95% success rate you're doing pretty good. There's always gonna be a couple of them that don't make it. So if you have redundancy, take two cuttings, then you're in pretty good shape. So we probably really ended up doing around 15, 16,000 cuttings in the field and keeping them alive, but this happened over the course of one growing season. So we had light deprivation and it was spread out as far as the timing of it, but it all did come together in our big event where we actually had all of those different people out there rating the clones. And we went to, I think, four farms to look at the 3000 plants.

- And that entire 10,000 plant pheno hunt, what was the most exciting find that you took back to Humboldt Seed Company?

- Everybody definitely always asks that question. I like the plant, the vanilla frosting plant, which is something that we had created with Happy Dreams Genetics. Well, they weren't really a genetics company at the time but we made a cross of something that we had really special that we'd been working on and something that they had, and came together and looked at 3000 plants. And so, that was a particular find that I thought was exemplary, and has really had a lot of a lasting effect on the market because it tests really high, and I think, as I mentioned before, that's really important to people.

- So, you were able to bring that back into production and then people can start buying it maybe six months after, or three months after, walk me through that timeline.

- So yeah, then we'll bring that to the public in clone form, and we do that with like our nursery partnerships that we've got here in California.

- Like Dark Heart, for example.

- Yeah, those guys, and HendRx Farm, and the list goes on. But the process to do that, actually, has gotten longer and longer the more that we've kind of learned that just because something does really well in a field or a light DEP, doesn't mean that it's gonna do well indoor, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's gonna do well in light DEP or a field. All the different growing conditions need to be truthed out and tested. So, these days it takes longer than six months, but back then we actually did come forward with some of them in about six months, so you kind of nailed it there. And fortunately we didn't run into a lot of problems and that's looking at trying to pick one plant out of 10,000, or excuse me, 10 plants out of 10,000. That is a lot of R and D, I would say, just compared to some folks, but we've held ourselves, definitely, to a little bit more of a standard, and now we collaboratively test it with all the different environments. Make sure that all of a sudden it doesn't hate the indoor growing environment and it wants to hermaphrodite or something like that. Or the other one that's new that we do before we release something is we look for any pathogens. So test it for the hop latent diploid virus or any other diseases and things that might be in it.

- That could be passed through. So when you find a new phenotype that you really like, you know you're gonna bring it to market, how closely do you work with those breeders if it's not under your company?

- Yeah, so just for example, we have a new strain out, it's called the Freakshow, and that one is something, folks may have seen it, it's kind of all over the cannabis media these days 'cause it's so entirely different from any other cannabis plant. I would definitely venture to say that it's probably the most unique cannabis plant that just about ever that's come out, so-

- Why is that, Nat? What makes it so unique?

- Well it's got these leaves that don't resemble cannabis at all. It looks something like a fern crossed with a marigold, crossed with maybe a cannabis plant at one point. But it's almost unrecognizable as cannabis, especially before it's budding. And then when it buds, if you know your stuff, you might be like, those are buds, that's weed. But everything else about it, it has these lacy leaves that don't have like the traditional five finger, or seven finger, or 11 finger cannabis leaf that we're all accustomed to, that's got these, it's like a pinny leaf form that is very lacy, it looks like a fern, it does not look at all like a cannabis plant.

- That's fascinating.

- Yeah, you've got to check it out.

- I will, for sure.

- It's on the cover of "Grow Magazine", actually, the last issue that came out, but it's also all over our website and social media.

- We'll definitely link it, we'll link it in the show notes. And for everyone watching this interview on YouTube, we have a bunch of videos and pictures that we'll put in the interview while we're talking.

- Yeah, so the Freakshow plant, we made all the seeds at our facilities but we didn't create the strain. It was a fellow who goes by the breeder name Shapeshifter out for, I guess, obvious reasons.

- The Freakshow by Shapeshifter, I like that.

- By Shapeshifter, yeah. And I mean, the cool thing is it produces really good cannabis. So as much as it doesn't look like cannabis, it is cannabis, it's not cannabis sativa, or cannabis indica, or ruderalis, I would almost say it's deserves an entire new sub species, but it makes really nice bud. And it tests reasonably high for THC, it's like 18%, it's average, it seems like. And it has really amazing terpene too, it's got, I don't know, it's really hard to describe it, but they're unique. And a lot of people say hints of cherry and maybe a little bit of train wreck smell. Then I have some that I feel like have just a gassy, paint thinner, almost smell, but it's a very unique terpene profile on the Freakshow strain. And so even if it didn't the crazy, amazing leaf structure that it does, I think it's something that we would be interested in working with.

- Yeah, and I'm fascinated with your business model, Nat. So let's say you come across genetics like the Freakshow, do you reach out to Shapeshifter, those types of breeders, or do they reach out to you and then you just have a licensing agreement to resell their genetics on their behalf?

- Yeah, exactly, so it's tricky these days because I think we talked about before, there's not a lot of things that you can do to protect your work. And so we like to think of it as like, hey, we're doing this because we love the plant, and we love what we do. And so every day is vacation if you love your occupation or what have you.

- That's right, I love that quote.

- But Shapeshifter deserves credit because he found this amazing thing. And one thing that always resonated for me that he said was he had been working in and breeding with cannabis for many, many years, I don't wanna say exactly how long, but a long freaking time. And that experience to find something like this genetic and to not just throw it away, because I know, especially in my early days of breeding and when we were cutting our teeth as a seed company in late '90s, early 2000s, if you found mutations, and if you found things that don't look right in your breeding population, you were like, "Argh, get this out of here, I'm scared of it." And he, I think, had the level of comfort in what he was doing.

- That wisdom.

- To recognize that it was special and rather than get it out of his population and hide it, then maybe he wanted to work with it. And so he did and preserved that leaf shape and was able to get it to the point where it was basically ready for us to take it and then kind of produce it at scale. And he 100% deserves to be compensated for that because otherwise, there should be compensation for the development of unique and special cannabis genetics.

- Well, once upon a time, beer was just as good of a barter.

- Yeah, and so we definitely seek to have transparent relationships with other breeding companies because cannabis doesn't just spontaneously, there's no immaculate conception, everything has to start from genetics. And it's the work that you put in that makes it your own creation and that work should be rewarded. And so a hundred percent, we say, it's not cool to just take someone's work and recreate it, and then try to profit off of that. But when it comes down to, on the other hand we don't love like the Monsanto model where they have certain aspects of their seed so locked up that if a farmer is growing next to a farmer that's not growing, and then the pollen from their seed blows on to, and then all of a sudden all you wanted to do is grow your own corn and keep the seed like you've been doing since time in memorial, and all of a sudden you can't do that because this patented corn is.

- Is it happening in a different way though? Is it happening with the rise of hemp genetics and hemp farms in this country, outdoor. Wind blowing over to a cannabis farm and messing up their crop? Is that happening in your opinion right now?

- Yeah, for sure. And we hear a lot about that from folks up in Oregon, in particular, and the Oregon recreational people that might have either just greenhouse or outdoor cannabis that they do not want to have seeds in it. And then this new emergence of a significant hemp market and the fact that hemp is grown at such scale that it's pretty hard to be 100% sure that you're never gonna have a male plant that releases pollen, and all of a sudden there're seeds everywhere in both the hemp, which is bad. For most people don't want even their hemp to be seeded, but then it gets your neighbors and all of a sudden their whole cannabis crop. It's expensive and it's a major issue, it's a huge loss for a small cannabis business to have everything get full of seeds.

- Is there any way it can be avoided when you're growing outdoors, in your opinion?

- Well, one of the things we're looking into here in Humboldt County, because there are people locally in Humboldt that would like to set up some big hemp production here, and there's been a contingent that is really opposed because they've heard about the horror stories of Oregon and the pollen getting out and things like that. But I think there are some sensible solutions, but unfortunately they involve regulation, of course. And basically, if you wanna be a good neighbor you shouldn't be doing something that really, really adversely affects the neighborhood. And if in Humboldt, let's just say there's a decent portion of the neighborhood that has an economic surrounding seedless cannabis and the recreational cannabis market. So I do think that as hemp growers, if they do eventually have a foothold in Humboldt there will be some strong regulation. It may just be feminized seed only, clone only.

- Are you gonna be supplying that growth, Nat? Are you trying to diversify into hemp genetics?

- Well, yeah, we do have a hemp line already and we did a project with the Yurok Agricultural Corporation. So there's the local Humboldt Native American community is actually quite robust, and it's pretty awesome that we've got that here. Because those cultures were obviously really hurt in other parts of the country and they're intact more here, which is great. And so we worked with one of the local tribes and did produce some hemp seed. It seems like the hemp market is not doing super hot right now.

- Why is that, in your opinion?

- It's funny because, cannabis is, what do they say? It's the most widely consumed recreational drug in the world, I think, and I'm not sure if that includes alcohol or not. But for many, many years that's developed into this robust industry, whether it was black market, or now white market. And CBD as awesome as it is, and as great as hemp is, there hasn't been this black market network of people buying and selling hemp rope, or hemp herd, or buying CBD tincture from that guy on the down the road.

- The iceberg under the water that has been there building up this cannabis industry, this trade network, whether it was black market or not, that's what you're saying, is it's been there for cannabis, but not for hemp.

- So with hemp we had the Farm Bill, which basically made it legal and really made it crystal clear that the feds were not gonna go after a hemp farmer. So people planted 1000s, hundreds of thousands of acres, and now there's not as much of an established market to handle all that product. And I heard, just last week, that someone's trying to just give away hundreds of thousands of pounds of hemp biomass in California right now because it's just not selling. And so, that's going to even itself out. There's gonna be.

- The market will balance.

- Yeah, it will. And there's always gonna be, I think from now on, I hope that there is a robust hemp market for all the different byproducts and products that come from the cannabis plant. And I definitely, even if, occasionally, it puts some pollen that's maybe not wanted, I think that's gonna work itself out and there'll be a place where that's okay and maybe some places where we don't want that so much. And so, hopefully we don't have too many financial casualties in that process of it working itself out as far as the economics go.

- Hopefully the businesses can sustain themselves. Can you share some advice for maybe some smaller breeders or growers out there, of how they can really use their genetics to stand out from other growers in the market?

- I think that's really important to think about as a grower and obviously as a breeder. And one of the things that has been really successful for us is finding, as a small breeder, let's just say, we can start with that. Finding partners that are cultivators who can give you immediate and honest feedback about the genetics that you're providing. And so, those kinds of relationships, with, be they small growers or even big growers, but oftentimes it's nice to have someone who is willing to throw a few of your new genetic into the corner of their grow and try it out. And from the grower perspective, having different and new exciting genetics is, I think, incredibly important to differentiate yourself if you're a small business, if you're even a medium sized cultivator. One of the harder things about getting dispensary shelf space, for example, can be just the fact that you walk in there and you've got the same genetic as everyone else. And so everybody, that day came in with their product and they all had OG Kush or whatever. And just having something different can really get you sort of past that first filter that a lot of dispensaries have to have for like, well, "I'm sorry, but we are all stocked up on OG Kush. we can't take any more." And so having something unique, having something different, like maybe a different cannabinoid profile.

- Are there trends in those cannabinoid profiles or phenotypic traits that you see are gaining popularity, that growers and breeders can cultivate towards?

- There's certainly like the sativa, indica thing and you could come in with sativa strains, tend to be a little less common right now, so those are desirable for dispensaries and they may be a little trickier to grow or just trickier to even find as a grower. But if you're a breeder and you kind of diversify your offerings and work with the grower who then gets those into the market and gets some recognition, then all of a sudden you might be surprised. I mean, you mentioned cannabinoid profiles and there's new cannabinoids that we're discovering all the time that may have effects like THCV, they say might be an appetite suppressor. And someone like me, that sounds good 'cause over the years I have put on some pounds maybe from the munchies.

- Is that the one that I heard dubbed as like skinny weed? cultivars with that cannabinoid?

- Yeah, THCV, there's actually a breeder in Mendocino that has really, really taken an interest in breeding specifically for that cannabinoid, and-

- Really, that's so interesting.

- And then of course the CBD, there's CBG, we're discovering new types all the time, and so-

- On an annual basis you're coming up with, or discovering new cannabinoids and bringing those to market.

- Yeah, and it's us, or the laboratories, or researchers in specific. But teasing out what the effects of those different peaks in different cannabinoids might be, is kind of, in a way, up to the consumer. It can be a little subjective. So, as I'm sure all the cannabis smokers out there know, you can actually like build up a tolerance to a certain type of cannabis and it doesn't have the effect, maybe, that you're looking for any more, if you're just smoking a joint or whatever, it doesn't do the same thing. And so then that's often, people would try something new. And I think that's one of the beauties of cannabis and it sort of circles back to that whole discussion we were having about gene editing, and breeding from a sort of molecular breeding. And I'm not saying that those aren't gonna be useful tools and those aren't tools that we're using. But I think also there's so much human, it's so dependent on what people actually like and that is subjective at its core.

- And influenced so easily by culture. As you put it, a musician rapper, Wiz Khalifa, could mention a certain cultivar in a song, and then boom, people wanna go try that.

- Exactly, and actually, I love that because it keeps it fresh and it keeps it moving. And I think what we want as a community in cannabis is not to have everything be consolidated so that you can really only buy your cannabis from let's say the big three producers or something like that. Kind of like you have just a few choices of-

- Fuck that.

- So I don't think that's the nature of cannabis. And so I think that it will have a built-in resistance to that kind of economic phenomena, but I still think that it's important for us in the cannabis space to try to buck that whenever it comes our way. But like I said, I think that nature will do that because it's evolving, and we're evolving as consumers, and the plant is evolving through breeding and evolving just in the fact that we've just barely seen the tip of the iceberg as far as what can come out of this plant and the different benefits that we're gonna see that it has for humanity and for the planet in general.

- And I was perusing your website and I came across your auto flower section. What type of growers are buying auto flower genetics from you? What are they looking to do in comparison to, maybe, some other stuff that you are currently selling?

- Yeah, that's a good question. We've been breeding cannabis for over 20 years and only probably breeding autos for like five years. So they are relatively new and I think they're largely new in California. It seems like they've been more popular in Europe for a little bit longer, so there are folks there.

- That's interesting.

- Yeah, it is.

- The culture over there. Maybe they're growing in doors, they want shorter cycles, you think that kind of brought on the auto flowering genetics a little bit sooner than us out here that might be growing outdoors and influencing our genetics that way?

- Yeah, I think that that was a factor. Also, it's my understanding that Siberia was the original, where nature created an auto flower.

- Wow, I never heard of that.

- Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's the case and that then in Holland and some of the sort of cannabis centers, Spain and places like that, that folks started quickly crossbreeding the original ruderalis low-rider types. And what we found in the last, which I think is something that was surprising 'cause I didn't necessarily expect that it would be some sort of malleable. But what we found is that that auto flower characteristic can essentially be just kind of copied and pasted into the genetic makeup of any of our photoperiod type. So when I say photoperiod, I mean, of course, the cannabis that most of us are used to that begins to flower when, either, naturally the light starts to, days get shorter in the fall, or if you are in an indoor or a light deprivation. So photoperiod versus auto flower, or day neutral cannabis that just, essentially flowers no matter what you do, a few months after you start the seed and then it's done on average, maybe two and a half, three months later. So that trait though, it's crazy how useful it can be because with the light DEP as a growing technique that has become very popular in California, for example, we end up using inadvertently a lot of plastic, and that's not something, I think, that any of us cannabis growers are very proud about. And we'd love to see those kinds of impacts go away and an auto flower is really, you're not losing anything. What I think I originally assumed was that we would lose a bunch of quality in the flower, or a bunch of terpenes, or just that you couldn't kind of have your cake and eat it too. But it turns out in our experience with auto breeding that we're able to essentially just take that one trait, that, let's flower, just not when the light tells us to, but just when our internal clock tells us to. You can take that trait and literally paste it into any kind of cannabis and have-

- Incredible, faster yields, more control.

- More control, although adversely, you could also say that the photoperiod flowering gives you a little bit more control too. One problem that some people have ran into with autos is they're not like magical beans. You don't have a plant that just grows. So people will start them when it's still really cold, for example, like here in Humboldt if you start a seed and plant it outdoors, and February or March just try to put it right in the ground, it's not gonna do very well and it's gonna struggle and it won't get big. And then if it's only six, seven inches tall, and it's an auto flower, it's gonna flower whether you like it or not. Whereas one that is a photoperiod type, you can say to yourself, well, I want this plant to be at least two feet tall before it starts to bud. So there's pros and cons, but really the pros, I think, in a lot of respects outweigh the cons. And I think people will gravitate more and more towards the auto flower genetic. And one thing I really like about it is the fact that it's nice for the home grower, the backyard grower to be able to just go and treat the plant more like they would treat a tomato plant and have a nice little harvest of bud just a few months later.

- So smaller yield, but quicker time and a little bit easier to grow and maintain for that new grower.

- Yeah, I think those are some of the qualities. Other drawbacks are the fact that I can't stress enough how important it is to never let an auto flower plant get root bound. And I didn't believe it until I had done enough experimentation myself. But we normally treat the photoperiod seedlings that we do, we wait until they're kind of holding together the soil that's in the pot, and then we'll transplant and move 'em into a larger pot size. But with auto flower, if you've waited until the roots are encircling the soil, you've waited too long and they'll actually start to flower before they've gotten big enough to be of substance. So that's something that.

- That's a good tip for everyone out there getting into auto flower.

- Anyone who's listening, it's hard to believe and I didn't believe it myself, but I came to learn very quickly that it is actually true that you do not wanna let the auto flower, any auto flower cannabis become two root bound 'cause it will just flower out on you. And it can be kind of a cool thing 'cause if you only want a plant that gets like two feet tall, you could put it in a one gallon or a two gallon, and it's really only ever gonna get a foot and a half to two feet tall. But then it'll flower, it'll be done quicker. So you do have a lot more control in a lot of ways.

- So Nat, what's on the horizon for Humboldt Seed Company in, let's say, the next 10 years. What are you guys working on? Maybe some projects that you can share with us.

- Yeah, well, I think I talked a little bit earlier about how we're growing and expanding a little bit into these sort of other places and markets. So that's exciting for us because the whole goal was to provide something that was a service to people that wanted to grow cannabis, be it commercially. One of the things I get a lot of, it makes me feel good to see people having success in their backyard or in their little closet grow, and people that are new to it. So I know that we're gonna continue that, and I know that we're nice people and we just like to help people and that's our company culture.

- And you're authentic. You genuinely want to produce a really good product for your customers, and I feel like that service and that story shines through. Like we were talking about earlier with certain companies that might have a different story behind closed doors, to what they share with their fans, their followers, their customers. So I commend you for that. For 20 years you have built that reputation and stuck to it.

- Well, it was never about the money, that's for sure. And for the longest time, here in Humboldt, my colleagues or friends, or just our community, I think didn't get it. They were just like, he must really enjoy doing that, playing with pollen, and breeding, and all that. 'Cause it wasn't so much, certainly we could have made a lot more money, I could have done a lot more winter vacations in Thailand or whatever it was, like it's-

- Sounds pretty nice.

- Yeah, I know, but I guess it wasn't like so much our style. And I didn't talk about this very much, but for many years many of us who'd been involved with the company were also biologists or scientists that worked to, like my focus was fisheries biology. And I did a whole bunch of stuff with the removing the Klamath River dams, which is, people said, the world's largest river restoration project. And so science and this was never about money for us. We've learned a lot about following your heart and your passion, and that was work that was passionate. We were all passionate about helping protect, locally helping protect Humboldt's environment and helping Northern California in general and even global issues. And so, yeah, I think it just so happens that we have a great business model, but it's probably pretty clear to people that we don't do it for the money.

- Yeah, you're in it for all the right reasons. So we have reached our time with this interview, thank you so much for joining me today. And I'd love to extend you the platform of "Canni Cribs" to share directly with our listeners, anything that we didn't mention, maybe something that we missed in this interview. The floor is yours, my friend.

- Excellent, yeah, well, we will be definitely promoting because this has been a great opportunity for us to kind of get the word out about what we do and we love what you guys do as well with "Canni Cribs". So I know you've been to a lot of mutual friends and it's a small, small world, actually, with the whole cannabis community. And I look forward to a day when we can actually have you up on our different farms and show you.

- Count me in that.

- I know we're sending some video and stuff, but yeah, we'll have to get you out there and back to Humboldt.

- Yes, back to Humboldt. I love that and we will make it a "Canni Crib" special where we film your next mega pheno type hunt. You had 10,000 plants, maybe we can increase that, maybe we can do some new things, we have a bunch of drones that we can fly and it will be a lot of fun.

- Oh yeah, that sounds awesome.

- Well, thank you again Nat, I really appreciate you, everything that you're doing for this industry, keep up with the great work and I'll talk to you soon. Hey, thanks for listening to "CannaCribs Podcast", I hope you learned something new. And if you liked this episode, you're probably gonna like our other series by Growers Network like, "CannaCribs", and "Deep Roots." You can check it out on our YouTube channel. Also, if you wanna join 10,000 other growers around the world to help elevate your craft, checkout growersnetwork.org. It's an online growing forum for growers just like you. See you on the next episode.

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Table of Contents 

4:38 - Women in the Cannabis Industry 

7:05 - Diversity in the Cannabis Industry 

9:55 - Future of women in Cannabis Industry 

11:48 - Research/Science at The Clear 

17:41 - Product Development 

25:26 - Action Bronson and The Clear 

30:27 - Consumer Perception 

37:02 - How The Clear works with operations and states

43:31 - Why The Clear?

46:59 - Future of the industry 

49:25 - R&D 

51:21 - Customizing a vape pen & new products 

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theclear #cannabis #growingcannabis #cannabisoil #growingmarijuana #medicalmarijuana #marijuana #howtogrowweed, #cannacribs #2020business #industry #podcast #tucson #smoke #weedeveryday #weed #smokingweed #maryjane #dispensary #customgrow420 #420 #qualitycontrol #vape #DeepRoots #howhigh #cannacribspodcast #acrossinternational #concentrates #actionbronson

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Company mentions/Resources:

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The Clear

NCIA

California Minority Alliance

Cannaclusive

Forbes

Action Bronson

Flower One

Congress Bill