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.
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.
As owners and operators, we know how valuable our time is. We wear a dozen different hats, take responsibility for the outcomes, and find ourselves fully immersed in all things business seven days out of the week. But what separates the overwhelmed from the productive is respecting the time we are given each day. Without planning and scheduling, we hurt our business's efficiency, costing ourselves money in the long run.
As anyone with a small business knows, staying afloat isn’t always easy. For those with a small-scale cannabis business, navigating the technical world, securing capital, and staying on top of regulatory compliance add even more complexities. Fortunately, equity grants have made life a little easier for some California growers—here’s how.
Perfect for autumn family adventures and first dates, pick-your-own produce is one of the few ways ordinary folks are able to connect with farms. Whether berries, pumpkins, apples or potatoes, a pick-your-own operation also helps the farmer pick up on some significant cost savings. Because it takes a bite out of the staggering 30-40% of American-produced food that’s wasted, it’s great for the environment, too. So, then, does pick-your-own have a place in the craft cannabis industry?
Fortunately, the world is warming up to medicinal and recreational cannabis. As of October, 2021, recreational cannabis is legal in 19 states, Washington, D.C., and Guam. With this increase in legalization, comes an expansion of cannabis business ventures as well as all of the cannabis compliance and business valuation considerations that come with them.
With efficiency as one of our main objectives, we like to regularly evaluate our workflow and see if there are areas where we can improve. Because of this, we've made changes along the way, some that turned out well and others that presented challenges. But what we've found through our years of discovery is that a linear workflow design works best for our farm for several reasons, and maybe it will work best for you too.
A successful business operation is a well-oiled machine. All of us cogs have a place in the system, and in order to improve business efficiency, we all have to own our roles and trust others on our team to own theirs. But being a small business owner can make this tough. We're used to having our hands in every aspect of the business, so when should we back off and let others handle their sector? When the "lanes" of our organization start to become defined, it's time to retire a few of our hats, and put our confidence in the team that supports us each day.
