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.
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.
A smart farm starts with a smart design, and new technologies can help us create a plan that maximizes efficiency and encompasses sustainability, all while keeping our unique land restrictions in mind. Regardless of the crop(s) we decide to grow, taking the time to ensure our garden will be able to operate at peak performance will prove beneficial. The future of agriculture relies on efficiency, and with a little brainpower and help from technology, even small, personal gardens can enjoy the advantages of a well-designed cultivation space.
Working on farm efficiency requires trying to look at a familiar issue through an unfamiliar lens. It’s vital to question standard practices in order to develop innovative “smart” farming alternatives. Smart farming is an evolving strategy that can benefit many parts of a farmer’s operation, regardless of the crop they are cultivating. Through the use of data collection, we can recognize inefficiencies throughout the season, allowing us to improve the following cycle, reduce our impact on the environment, and increase our transparency with customers.
We know every business is different, each in its unique stage of growth and development. Because of this, we offer payment terms to our approved clients to make purchasing easier and more achievable. In order to provide this service to our buyers, we implement a business credit application that we ask applicable businesses to fill out before payment terms are extended. This process may come with a few questions that we hope to address in this reference article.
As an industry professional, we know the value of our freedom to cultivate a plant that once could have put us behind bars. Since Proposition 64 passed, we’ve been able to run a successful business without law intervention, but not all other individuals who have spent time in the industry can say the same. While cannabis legalization is taking steps in the right direction, we still have work to do to grant freedom to those who suffered the unjust consequences before the plant was deemed legal. The Last Prisoner Project is a non-profit organization working toward just that - getting those in prison for non-violent cannabis offenses out and back home with their families.
Farmers today face erratic climates, a reality that seems to be worsening year after year rather than improving. With this, a new set of challenges rises to the surface, unfamiliar forms of pest pressure being one of them. We can combat this with smart farming technologies, using them to collect data from every part of the field to closely monitor potential threats, understand their impact, and determine the best approach for protecting our crops. Using the precise application of safe and effective crop protection practices that are both sustainable and economically efficient protects our farm from possible outbreaks that could be detrimental to our overall success. By understanding our field's data and implementing the correct treatment methods, we can shield ourselves from anticipated pest problems and create a foundation that's easy to rely on.
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.
Not everything in life goes as planned, but that's what keeps us moving forward on the road of innovation. Without hiccups along the way, we wouldn't fully understand where we can improve our implementations and operations, and we wouldn't learn the valuable bits of information that help us succeed in the future. We recently had one of these hiccups in our garden, but because of other hurdles we've encountered and concurred over the years, we noticed the issue before it became a large-scale problem.
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.
Advancements in agriculture have led to the use of technology in all aspects of the craft. With the demand for food, textiles, and other crops increasing year after year due to population growth, farm operations must find creative ways to increase their production output as well. To do this efficiently, we farmers have to utilize Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), a necessary step to lower our overhead costs while maintaining consistent quality. By adopting and integrating these smart-farming technologies into our daily cultivation operations, we can improve data-reporting accuracy and avoid some of the additional labor requirements, saving ourselves valuable time and capital in the process.
