Critics often highlight odor nuisances associated with cannabis cultivation, but it is important to acknowledge that vineyards, too, emit strong smells due to the use of agricultural inputs like sulfur. Addressing odor concerns without considering the broader context of other agricultural activities may lead to unfair treatment. Similarly, noise and lighting impacts are often cited as potential drawbacks of cannabis cultivation, but vineyard operations involving heavy equipment and non-downcast lighting practices can also disrupt neighboring communities.
Let’s step off the cannabis farm for a minute and instead look to agriculture as a whole. The cannabis industry has picked up a lot of lessons from the farming world, and while taking a fallow year doesn’t yet appear to be a widely-adopted trend, this year may be different.
While winter brings some time for rest and recovery, for those involved in year-round cultivation, the new season brings added complexities for growing cannabis. The plant is thought to have evolved about 28 million years ago on the eastern Tibetan Plateau, which is home to extremely cold winters. While cannabis can grow in the winter, taking some extra steps to support your greenhouse cannabis cultivation can certainly help.
In a market that’s increasingly being taken over by large-scale production, lower quality, and cheaper prices, it’s important to look at the better alternative: craft cannabis. What makes Giving Tree Farms and other craft cannabis producers stand out? From seed-to-package, there’s a certain mindfulness involved. So, let’s take a look at what harvesting craft cannabis entails.
Fresh-frozen cannabis has taken the cannabis world by storm in recent years. As the name suggests, fresh-frozen cannabis entails freezing the harvest directly after it’s been picked. It’s been growing in popularity—especially as it’s one of the best methods we have to preserve terpenes and cannabinoids.
Join us for a behind-the-scenes look at how we go about producing fresh-frozen cannabis.
When purchasing a product, many feel it's important to know where that product came from and how it was made. It's natural to care about the origin of your purchases because they affect our lives, whether directly, like through consuming food we buy, or indirectly, like how our dollars are applied to the business, its employees, and its production process. We care about transparency because it connects us to the source of what we've purchased. It puts an understanding of creation and highlights the efforts taken to make the product into the finished good we hold in our hands. Craft cannabis is no different, and Giving Tree Farms embraces transparency as one of our core values.
We started our solar journey by signing up for Sonoma Clean Power as our source of grid energy. This program guaranteed that all of our energy use was obtained from renewable sources, like solar and wind energy. But where this came up short was during California's rolling blackouts throughout the fire season. As a cannabis cultivator, fire season takes place during our fall cultivation cycle, harvest, and through part of processing, when it's absolutely imperative that we have electricity for irrigation, humidity and temperature controls, and security measures. When we process fresh-frozen harvests, this adds an even more critical need for continuous power. Otherwise, we could lose our entire crop. We knew we needed to take matters into our own hands or possibly face an uncontrollable fate. This thinking was the start of our off-grid solar journey.
As a wholesale cannabis cultivator, we’re introduced to some exceptional brands throughout the year. Some of them, however, have really stuck with us. Whether it's their sustainable values, their small farmer sourcing, or their drive to make a difference, the following brands have taken "business" a step further.
In an effort to raise efficiency standards for indoor cultivators in California, the California Energy Commission (CEC) has proposed a new mandate that would require all cultivators currently using supplemental lighting to switch to LED lights by 2023. This costly requirement has put many California cannabis cultivators on edge, knowing that this transition may not be possible in an industry that's heavily taxed and already expensive to operate compliantly in. Most cultivators who want to produce cannabis outside of the regular season, like within a greenhouse or indoor facility, don't have the monetary means to support such a costly transition so soon.
Cannabis has a unique relationship with our human anatomy due to the cannabinoids it delivers when consumed. Our bodies naturally produce endocannabinoids, a molecule similar to cannabinoids, that keep our bodily functions operating appropriately. These molecules interact with our endocannabinoid system (ECS), a series of receptors found throughout the body.
This year has taught us many things so far, both personally and professionally. When the normal day-to-day was flipped upside down and COVID-19 said its hello, our weaknesses were highlighted and our strengths had to be fully utilized. But what these times have also shown us is the power we have when we work together. We now have proven data to display our potential in numbers, pointing to how we can flatten a curve simply by all agreeing to stay inside. But this strength in numbers idea doesn't have to be limited to our 2020 pandemic. Instead, we can rise out of this challenge with wisdom and new knowledge. We can use this opportunity to shape our futures, molding it into the reality we've always wanted to see.
To achieve cultivation success, we have to begin from the ground up. Precision soil sampling is our starting line. As an environmental-focused farm, we reuse and rebuild our soil each year, giving back to the earth while we lower our ecological footprint. But to do this, we have to understand what nutrients are lacking in our soil, as well as precisely where they are missing in the field. When we're armed with this data, we can create a foundation that helps us produce exceptional cannabis harvest after harvest.
