We take a deep dive with, Graham Farrar the co-founder of 'GlassHouse Farms' in Episode 10 of the Canna Cribs Podcast, where we document history with the pioneers of the global cannabis industry. In this interview, you will get to catch up with Graham of 'GlassHouse Farms' which is a Greenhouse operation in Santa Barbara, California that was featured in Episode 1 of Canna Cribs. Glass House Farms cultivates its cannabis in sparkling clean, eco-friendly greenhouses using innovative environmental controls that; maximize the coastal sun’s benefit, eliminate harsh elements and bugs that tamper with quality, minimize waste, and maximize water retention with state-of-the-art recapture systems. Each flower is trimmed and packaged with exceeding care to deliver a consistently premium craft cannabis product.
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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?
- Hey, I'm Nick, creator of Canna Cribs 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 the best growers, and built a network of the top cannabis companies. Join me on this next adventure, where I documented history with the pioneer shaping the global cannabis industry in real time. Welcome to the Canna Cribs Podcast. Hey, welcome back to the Canna Cribs Podcast. I'm your host, Nick Morin, and today's interview is with Graham Farrar. And if you recall, Graham is the owner of GlassHouse Farms, episode one of Canna Cribs. Today we caught up about everything that's changed since that episode dropped in September of 2017. Everything from the clones he was taking, about 500 a week, now they're doing a 100,000 a month, to scaling and the methodologies that come with scaling sustainability at his commercial sungrown facility in Santa Barbara, all the way to Graham's opinion on the future, of the regulated cannabis market in California. For everyone that is just stumbling upon Canna Cribs for the first time, this interview with Graham is really special. GlassHouse Farms is actually our very first pilot episode of Canna Cribs, which totally blew up. At the time of this recording we have 20 episodes between Canna Cribs and our brand new show, "Deep Roots", and this podcast you're listening to now. So in this interview, we get to talk kind of nostalgically about what has changed since we went out there to film. And for anyone listening that hasn't heard the news yet, we have a brand new website. Head on over to cannacribs.org. We have all of our shows on there, including some behind the scenes footage, and some special access that you cannot get within the confines of YouTube. Enjoy this interview. Graham, welcome to the Canna Cribs Podcast.
- Happy to be here, thanks for having us. It was easy, no big deal.
- Yeah, we had to spend a little bit of time setting up the Zoom today, as the whole remote podcasting world has seen many times before.
- Yeah, well, we got it now, that's what counts, happy to be here, thanks for having us.
- Yeah, definitely, so for everyone listening, we actually went out and filmed our pilot Canna Cribs episode at your facility, GlassHouse Farms. We launched that episode September 18th of 2017, time flies, and now we're here to catch up, and tell me what's changed since last time we went out there to film?
- Yeah, so a lot's changed. I mean, I think in cannabis, oftentimes, everyday can feel like Monday, and every week can feel like a year. So, 2017 feels like a couple of lifetimes ago. Since then we've added, we've just about quadrupled in size, we've added 50,000 square feet, of additional cultivation capacity, also in green house also here in Santa Barbara, right across the street from the ocean, one of the most beautiful places, that you can imagine being able to cultivate cannabis. So we've got half a million square feet of licensed and fully operational greenhouse, our version two greenhouse up the, kind of efficiency of per square foot by about 30%, which is awesome. We've added in, we've got four stores now in the family pharmacy, Santa Barbara, we just opened a pharmacy Berkeley up in February, that's my most recent store in the pottery down in LA and bottom bloom in Santa Ana, our Glass House Farms Brand is doing fantastic. It's now in the top five flower brands, and the largest market, which is the state of California. And then we have a field extracts are really high and premium extract brands, part of the Glasshouse family, super stoked to have them. We launched a brand with Bella Thorne. Who's an actress that some of you may know, and then Mama Sue which is a health and wellness brand, that we launched with a suit tailor with a seven year old African-American woman, to help come up with products for seniors.
- You have been busy my friend, and one-
- We have.
- And one- then harvested 200 acres of hemp down in San Bernardino.
- Wow, oh my gosh, so where did it all start? Like for you Graham? When did you get into the cannabis industry? How did you get into the cannabis industry? Is this something that you've always been passionate about?
- Yeah, I've always loved cannabis or, you know I'd probably love cannabis, I guess probably longer than you're technically I should have. But I've been, a significant fan for 25 plus years. I mean, just on a personal level. I think the world's a better place with cannabis in it.
- [Nick] I believe that.
- Helping with the healthy, natural way I'd have a good time to relax, to use as medicine. You know I like to keep in mind that we've got an endocannabinoid system in our body, and that system is made for homeostasis, which is a fancy word for balance. And we make a bunch of endogenous cannabinoids, a serotonin and a whole bunch of other things. But then cannabis is a really special plant because it makes vital cannabinoids. And that those cannabinoids are the keys to a lot of the locks in our body, for balance, for fun, for health. And so I'd like to encourage you and I'm happy to see this society is moving away from this prohibition. Plants are not the natural state of plants is not to be illegal. So we've been using cannabis for 6,000 years. It's been illegal for 1% of that, and as Martin Luther King Jr says, "the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice," and I'm happy to see us coming back that direction. This is what I thought was gonna happen, which is why I got into it as a career and not just a hobby. And I'm really happy to see all the progress that's being made. I mean, as of the last election, we only got three states left out of 50. Don't have some form of legal access, and that's a tremendous progress but awesome progress on this.
- And if I remember correctly, right when we were going out to film, we had a conversation and going over your background, and you are actually one of the originals at Sonos, the speaker company, you left, you sailed around the world with your family, came back and then entered into the cannabis world out in Cali, is that right?
- Yes, pretty close, yes. I'm a tech geek by training, love technology, love cannabis. Sometimes have to pinch myself to, the fact that I can bring cannabis and technology together, in my hometown in Santa Barbara, is about as serendipitous as it gets. But I'm a technology guy at heart by Sonos. I was one of the original guys over there, which people who don't know is the kind of the iPod for your house it's a really cool system 16 years later, I think it's still the best product in the category. And that's now a public company. And after helping start that yet I left and sailed though. We went from Santa Barbara and New Zealand, and then doing med in the Caribbean, and said this is the time it's now cannabis is for me gonna be more than a hobby. It's gonna be a profession, and I wanna help break down the stigmas, and move our society forward in the plant, and hopefully build a great business at the same time.
- I love it, and you actually picked up Nat and I, in Tucson at the Million Air, really cool name, private airfield there, are you still flying?
- Yeah, I still fly quite a bit. I really enjoy flying. And it's about the closest thing to a time machine that I've found so far. We have operations in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, Berkeley, San Bernardino. I love to go snowboarding in Mammoth and airplanes are a great way to move around. Really does save time and it's fun too. So it appeals to my techie nature and helps me get more done in a day. So I like to fly as much as I can.
- So, you were flying under training when you pick this up, are you done with the hours? You can fly solo now and-
- [Graham] Yeah.
- All right, we're gonna hit you up for part two. You're gonna fly out, and we're gonna have to go around the world, maybe a couple of trips.
- I'm happy to, that'd be fine. We can do a California cannabis tour. it would be a good thing to do on an airplane, that'd be fun.
- Have you wrapped the plane, so say like Glass House Farms underneath?
- And now we know that we're not advertising it, maybe some day, I guess maybe need that federal legalization before I start wrapping my FAA certified, and cannabis logos.
- Yeah, that's safe. So since we've gone out there to film, you said that you've gone through a pretty massive expansion. I remember you were working with a couple of breeders out there. Let's dive into your genetics, what are you running today? What gear are you running today? And maybe some breeders that you can call out?
- Yeah, so I think, genetics are really very foundational in the industry. Lots of people have been doing this for longer than I'm sure agree with that. The fact that matters, from the operation on the cultivation side, for us, it's basically the same amount of work to grow something good as it is to grow something amazing. So finding the best genetics is a, is high on our list. I'd admit, when we kind of started, it was a little bit ad hoc. I mean, I've got a super silver haze strain that we've been growing through closets, garages and houses and et cetera for 25 years still love it. Still, you know, an amazing frosty, super strong sativa contest over 30%, even out of the greenhouse, which is pretty great. But then we also kind of had just a random mix of things, and we've over the last 12 to 18 months have really gotten a lot more strategic about that, one to come up with a mix that really fits. There were the retail space now it used to be a wholesale market. And now most of what we're doing is in Glass House branded products, so thinking about the consumers that pick that up. We just launched actually a new premium line called Grower's Choice, which is exactly what it sounds like. It is what our growers would pick or take home for their heads stash, and we have some fine genetics in there. Some Purple Gelatos Mac 1, Runts, we've got some GMO coming. So really trying to push forward on that. We've done some breeding ourselves in house, but exotic genetics, archive, talking about some of the seed junkie guys, to see if there's some fun things there. But yeah, if there's any amazing breeders out there, and they're interested in working with a craft greenhouse grower, we'd love to talk to them. So I think I find it-
- There you go.
- Awesome they're as high on our list.
- Yeah, for everyone listening, we'll link, Graham's contact in the description here. So when you're choosing those genetics for kind of that more consumer shelf space pop, what are the trends that you're seeing right now in California, what are you catering your genetics towards?
- Yeah, it's a good question. So I think it shifts your thinking a little bit, when you start thinking about, CPG is the kind of the traditional term, is stands for consumer packaged good. We like to say that CPG stands for cannabis packaged good, because we think it's similar, but different than other products out there. And so, of course there's the Indica hybrid, sativa and then, maybe CBD or kind of exotic cannabinoids categories. You know I'm not super sold on this, on the idea of indica and sativa. I think it gives a representation, in some level of expectation to a consumer, on what they should expect on the effect, personally-
- Which could be misleading, sometimes.
- Yeah, I personally am more of a fan of like the broad leaf and the narrow leaf description, because that is a physiological physical trait that you can actually refer to versus, pretty much everything's a hybrid now and so-
- What is that description? Break it down for me.
- Yeah, so, with kind of "Called The sativa, is typically your more narrow, more jagged leaf, evolved from a climate where limiting transportation and water loss was key. There's plenty of lights, so having big fat leaves wasn't needed and could actually be a risk the indica side." as again is kind of is the broad more rounded leaf, I think typically came from lower down, where moisture loss and dry arid area wasn't as big of an issue, but also you might be more in more competition with other plants for the lights. So a big broader leaf that could pull on the photosynthetic side of things was an advantage. And I think that the effect I'm sure as everyone's listening knows is, you know, the indicas are little bit more sedative, calm, bedtime couch, movies and stuff like that. Sativa historically is viewed a little bit energetic, going hiking surfing, kind of, get stuff done, kind of weed in it. And I think, as a descriptor, that's fine, right? I mean, what you wanna does not surprise a consumer and have them say, "Hey, this is gonna help me go to bed," but actually it has them, running around organizing the room-
- Yeah cleaning their house.
- Midnight so that's fine. But I do think that the indica sativa, I guess, leaning or dominant or whatever is interesting, but I like the narrow and the broad, because that's just that's an objective thing. And I look forward to, when we actually have a little bit more science in there that gets into, why does one strain have a different effect? How can we quantify that and make it a little bit more objective? So anyway, we think within those categories, and then the kind of rule of thumb is you want to, a handful of choices, three choices is kinda the magic number, inside each of those emotions everybody. A lot of people still shop by percentage of THC, or even worse is kind of like THC percent per dollar, which is something that we try and educate people away from. Obviously cannabinoid content matters, but it's not the full story. Anybody who's smoked an 18% of G that leaves you feeling stoned out of your head, knows that it's not just the THC percentage, that makes a difference. So, you know, focus on the nose, and the bud structure and how things look and the cannabinoid content is what we advocate. So I think helping educate people through that, is also a fun experience where you try and curate strains that help people get that and learn and come away.
- I agree with you, yeah. When we were out there Graham filming, and it said in the episode, you guys are pulling down 500 clones a week. So what, what do you rock in now? Do you even know? I mean, I'm sure you've quadrupled 10X that.
- We are doing 10 times that now. We do 5,000 clones a day, its about-
- A day, holy cow!
- Yeah, yeah, so its even more than 10 times that, we're doing about a hundred thousand clones a week. I mean, sorry a month, 100,000 clones a month. Our new farm has a much higher density than the other one does. And so we are currently at any one time, we have probably 150,000 plants in flower, and then an equal number and the nursery, and we're harvesting six times a year there, so we're rocking through at least 100,000 clones a month right now.
- Wow, congratulations, that's incredible. And one of the most unique parts of your episode was the Elite Growing System. Can you explain what that system is all about, and are you growing that, are you still expanding upon that system?
- Yeah, so the Elite System's a really cool system. they call it a double pot system. So it's basically one pot nested within another. It has some real advantages in that it allows for both the hydroponic as well as aeroponic sections of the root zone, which I think is good for the oxygen, and moisture blend in there. It also captures a hundred percent of the over drains, so that you can recycle it or clean it and reuse it, or at least capture it, keep it off the floor and help to control humidity. We do use that still at our first farm. It was really optimized and it's still great for growing under regimes, regulatory frameworks, that have a focus on plant count. So prop two 15 days, when we really started with that in California, that was six plants per patient was the rule. So to have a fewer number of larger plants to do things worked out really well. Under Prop 64, it's a square footage based model. So the number of plants you have doesn't matter anymore. And for that, we've kinda moved to a higher density planting, where we have a higher number of smaller plants, which the Elite System isn't as great as a fit or so. Anybody looking at I think Michigan and some places like that have-
- Arizona, we have a... Yeah, we just passed we're based in Tucson, Arizona. So for all of our fans out there, we have like a six plant minimum sounds very similar. So the Elite Growing System would be perfect for that.
- Yeah, its really good fit. 'Cause it allows you to, it's all kind of an all-in-one system, easy to clean, easy to attend turnover, captures the water, works really well in that setup, so yeah-
- And you actually pair that with a nutrient lineup as well.
- Yeah, so elite as a really clean nutrient line, it's just a few parts and highly recommended, get it through grower's house, get it through either farm. And if you want something that's, tens away from that kind of 27 different parts, and is a really consistent than leads a great solution for that.
- Yeah, and since we went out and filmed you guys, there has not been another farm to my knowledge, while we were filming that had their own nutrient lineup. That had their own, growing methodology that other people can buy and learn from. It's super cool. I mean, the closest thing to it, is after we filmed with Scott Reach at Rare Dankness, he did launch Rare Dankness Nutrients, something like that. So it's cool to see that you're putting, out there for anyone around the world to grow like you, I think that's really special, and just goes back to your love for the plant, and helping other people grow it.
- Yeah, we definitely have believers that, you know, high tides float all boats and we're looking to help cannabis, flourish as a component of our society. Don't really have a lot of secrets, the only secret is consistent execution. So, keeping something away from everybody else doesn't to us feel like what moves society forward the most. So we're always happy to share and kudos to anybody who can hit what we aim at is quality, consistency, and efficiency. And so if you can do do it well, do it well at the time and do that efficiently, then all the success to you. So that's our goal and we are happy to share.
- There is another point from the episode that I think really stood out to me. And you guys really set the bar. You mentioned that you were at the forefront of cannabis compliance. And of course we were filming this in 2017, a lot of things have changed across the country and California. But let's talk about compliance for a moment. How were you leading the forefront at that time, and how have you continue to evolve and be that steward for your community?
- Yeah, so, I mean, I think cannabis has a real opportunity to kind of forge a path and a lot of different ways, and it can, cannabis can learn, we learn lots from agriculture, but I also think we can, we can give back a lot. We can give back to society in the form of new jobs and tax revenue that we can create. Part of that is being compliant with all the regulations. Cannabis is the most highly regulated crop in the world. Sometimes that's a real pain in there.
- [Nick] I bet.
- Yeah, but that is what we, that is. our joke occasionally is we run a compliance business and so weed on the side, which is tongue in cheek, but also true. If you don't do that part right, then you don't get to keep doing the part where you love, which is growing, harvesting, great cannabis. So, everything in California is in the track and trace system that runs your Metrc here. We have an entire team of track and trace people. We go through, I don't know something like a million and change 1.2, 1.3 million tags a year. Every single plant in California as tagged and individually, when it goes into flower, we have quite, like I said, a whole team, that's dedicated to making sure that we are always following those rules and every single plan is compliant. They can do an inspection anytime. And so we have to be ready for it every time. And it's a whole new layer that, didn't exist half a decade ago, but now is it's the hand tip. It's the race fee, you don't you don't even get to play if you can't do that.
- Yeah, so what about this whole conversation and argument that I've heard that there's over-regulation? And too much licensing and it's making it really difficult, for the California craft growers, to jump into this new market and play in this new sandbox. Let's talk about that what could be done at the state level of California to kind of pull back some of that extra regulation that maybe you don't need.
- Yeah, regulation and taxation which-
- [Nick] Yeah, both of those.
- I mean, everything it really comes down to the perspective that you enter from, right? So I think my perspective and I guess yours, most of the people listening, is that cannabis is a beneficial plant, which helps make society a better place, right? If you come at it from that perspective, then, regulation almost at all is as too much. If you come at it from the last 50-60 years of how society has treated it, schedule one known medical benefit, high potential for abuse. It's literally the definition of that. Clearly we know that that is not true, right? We do not see data that supports, that it has a high potential for abuse. We have plenty of data now that supports, that it does have medical benefits. All the way to an FDA certified cannabis derived drug called Epidiolex, which is now schedule five, which means basically the opposite medical benefits, no potential for review. So we know that the last 50 years, are not an accurate reflection. But if you come at it from that view, it's not surprising that we do treat it like, it's gonna jump out and kidnap kids. And so the amount of waste and friction, and increase in cost to the customer that comes with that is tragic in the view of, the natural state of is not for plants to be illegal. It's been illegal for one person at a time. The good news is it used to be prohibited, right? So now we have a step in the right direction that it is, there is a path to do it and the legal way, at least in California, I believe as people get more experienced with it, that we will calm down and be less afraid as a society, be able to relax those regulations, be able to give more people, access to the product, and more people into the industry. That's certainly what we believe should happen, this is not a dangerous plant. And the tree that like one is a waste of time and effort and leaves people out, it shouldn't be.
- Yeah, and there are good regulations, when it comes to testing for heavy metals and pesticides, and all that stuff, when it comes to consumer health. But I agree there could be too much, and every state is trying to figure that out right now, right? And the federal government, at some point, hopefully they will figure it out. What states in your opinion Graham are good role models when it comes to regulating cannabis sales.
- That's a good question. And certainly there are pieces of regulation, right? You hit on the health and safety side of things, I think are great testing for pesticides, particularly with a view towards things that were never intended to be combusted is great testing for microbials and heavy metals and microtome. We should do that stuff in food, right? Like you ever hear about someone who gets sick or dies from e-coli poisoning on lettuce? well, they get sick or hopefully not die, but then they'd go to find out where the poisoning is. And then they go back and do some cannabis. Is you test it before it leaves. So, you know, it's not contaminated before you put it out there and use the consumer as the Guinea pig right? So I think there's certainly some upsides to that. As to your question on who's done a good job, I think everybody's feeling their way through it. California is the largest market, so in terms of what's been accomplished, you could argue, California is good in terms of how it's been done. I think it would be a tough argument to say that California has got it right. They tried this two tier model where the state legalized and then each city and municipality has to also approve it as a prerequisite. And it's made the rollout of the legal market extremely small. We still in California only have 850 operational retailers. You contrast that to liquor and there's 13,000 liquor stores. So that's clearly not the right number-
- I mean its like 13,000 growers in Humbled alone.
- Yeah, right, yeah, and yet we have only 850 legal stores. So, clearly if you look at per capita, like Oregon, Washington, Colorado, they have about one dispensary for every 5,000 people. In California, you've got one for about every 45,000 people. Now, obviously that's not the real case. That's just how many legal ones you have. And then you got four times as many illegal ones out there. But they need to fix that, right? And if you don't give people a path to become a legal line, if you won't open the doors, then the market solves with the regulator. So I think Oregon, I'm gonna go to the Oregon is one that's done a good job. They've also done a good job integrating their hemp and cannabis regulations as well, I think so. Let me give Oregon though, the A-plus of the bunch.
- And at one point, part of their legislation did not allow for enough testing facilities, holistically, Oregon was hindered, right? I mean, their price per pound really felt that, for a certain point of time. We went up there to film in the fall of last year, so 2019, and I think they were just coming back into that, prime price per pound, but they felt that for a bit, they had a bottleneck that I think was unintended. But again, all these states that are going legal today, they get the opportunity to learn from all the horror stories. So hopefully Arizona, I mean, we're going rec right now, so I'm really...
- Yeah, congratulations.
- [Nick] Thank you.
- Right, that's awesome, great to see that happen. That's really exciting.
- Yeah, we'll see how it goes. I mean, Arizona has a super strong medical program. I'd say one of the strongest med states, in the same league of Michigan. So I'm excited to see where we go from here.
- Awesome, yeah, radical. Yeah, I'm excited to see approximately only three left, right?
- Yeah, only-
- If he has pretty darn close, we're getting there.
- Yeah, we're getting there. We'll Graham, we're going to take our first break here. And when we get back, we're gonna talk about sustainability at Glass House Farms.
- [Graham] Awesome, love it.
- [Nat] For all of our commercial growers listening out there, I wanna share a resource for post harvest. If you're looking to trim up to 50 pounds per hour, check out the batch machine by Tom's Tumblers. I actually met Tom through the growers network forum a couple of years ago, and I worked with his team shout out Cindy, on the recent Tikun Olam Canna Cribs episode. Where we featured the Python 400. So we were talking about 50 pounds per hour, try 400 pounds per hour with the Python 400. And I spoke with Tom before this interview, and he even said, some of his customers say, that the Python case for itself, after one harvest, that's a pretty good ROI. That goes all the way up to the Python 1200, which he guessed it, does 1200 pounds per hour. If you wanna learn more, head on over to the link I posted below.
- So Graham, when we were out there filming, you mentioned that Glass House is very committed to sustainable resource management. How has that evolved over the past couple of years?
- Yeah, well, hopefully we've only gotten better. I think, we philosophically recognize that everything in this entire industry comes from the plant, right? And the plant comes from mother earth. So to have any kind of cannabis business that is not a respectful of that fact, seems pretty unconscionable to us. So we've always tried to do what we do, with his lighter footprint on the environment as we can. As I mentioned, the three legs of the stool for us are quality, consistency and efficiency. Part of what is in efficiency is not taking or using more than you need to achieve, what you're trying to make, right? So the way I like to think of efficiency is not, don't care factory, generic. What efficiency means is you give the plant, exactly what it needs to get the results that you're looking for, which is high quality cannabis, and no more, no less. If you give it more than it needs, you're wasting resources wasting, water, et cetera. If you give it less than it needs, then you're losing something because you could have gotten more than you did. So we really are fans of the precision agricultural approach, which, as an example of that, we like to amplify our love for the plant, not dilute it. So if you think back to, when you had your first couple of plants or whatever, and you were hand watering it, doing that at a scale of 150,000 plants, would be really inefficient. It would result in cannabis as super expensive. So instead what we do, is we get a really bunch of smart people with a lot of experience, both in agriculture and in cannabis, we get them together. We figure out exactly what the recipe is, that the plant needs for each stage of its growth. We program that into a computer, and then the computer is really good, at every single time, doing exactly what we want it to do for those plants. And then also being smart with, as an example, we have a light sensor connected to our fertigator. So if it's a cloudy day, it gives them a little bit less water. Because if you give it the same water as a sunny day, it would just drain out the bottom, and you'd be wasting water and fertilizer, and the plant isn't gonna go grow more anyway, it actually grows worse. On the other hand, if it's a super sunny day, in the middle of the summer, as opposed to the middle of the winter, then it says, "Oh, I don't need four irrigations I need six." Because the plants, if you didn't give that the water there in that case, you'd be missing out, because the plant could have photosynthetic synthesize more, could have grown bigger, if it had had the resources to do it. So, things like that, I think I love it when I called the triple bottom line, which is it's good for the planet, it's good for our business, and it's good for the consumer, 'cause they get the highest quality, we stay in business so we can keep doing it, and pay our employees more well, and more than minimum wage, and have health benefits and all that stuff. And it's good for the planet, because you're not taking anything more than you need to accomplish what you want. So that triple bottom line approach and precision agriculture are kind of at the core, of how we think about what we do.
- And would that be utilizing a tool like Priva or Argus?
- Yeah, exactly, yeah, so Priva is what we use, we use Priva climate control, as well as Priva for fertigation, Priva climate computers, best in the business I would say, that's what all the best Dutch growers with 200 acre greenhouses in Holland are using the same equipment. We're really lucky to have access to it, and you can make greenhouses do amazing things. In indoor quality at outdoor price is our kind of day to day goal, and Priva and the systems we have is how we accomplish it.
- Well, Glasshouse farms is definitely leading that charge, and sustainability and getting those outdoor prices at indoor quality. I believe it, I saw it firsthand. Let's talk about the other growers, like there's a lot of indoor growers in California, that might not be utilizing, the same precision agricultural methodologies, might be pulling on the grid, might be pulling on the water, that's left in California. How can they transition? Not necessarily going from indoor to greenhouse, but how could they transition some of those methodologies to be a little bit more sustainable, for that triple kind of mine?
- It's a mindset, right? You need to think about more than just survival, and kind of optimization. So, I always hesitate to moralize or preach at anybody, without knowing their circumstances, right? I mean, if you're just trying to hang on, and then you're just trying to hang on. Once you get to the point of Kevin kind of caught the wave, then you start looking for ways that you can do that. You first got to build the machine and then you start to polish it or tune it, right? And so, I think there's a lot of things out there, and indoor has its pros and cons as does every growing method. There's no one right way. We like greenhouses because we like partnering with mother nature, and then kind of taming her just enough, to give the plant that ideal climate year round. And again, you know we can harvest six times a year in the greenhouse. If it's cold outside, we can most of the time just close some ridge vents and we don't even need to add any heat or resources. Just the greenhouse alone will bring the temperature up. We live in a great spot in Santa Barbara, right? So we have a great climate certainly-
- Its so beautiful out there, oh my God.
- Yeah if someone's in Michigan or somewhere where it's snowing, right? All these, the equation is location specific. So, in indoors as the upside of, you get to play God, right? And you set the dial and it is that temperature, and that humidity and that CO2 level. But then it also comes with a much higher impact in terms of you are recreating the sun with artificial energy. And then you're probably using double that amount of energy to take the heat out that you just put in. So, just however you're doing it, think about giving the plant precisely what it needs, right? More plants die from being over watered than under watered. Maybe, if you think about it from that point of view, so giving it more does not always get you more. And I think about it like that, then you can do the, at least the best that you can with the tools you have to, to be efficient, and leave these lighter footprint as possible.
- Yeah, and I've definitely seen best of both worlds. I've seen some of the best greenhouses in the world, including yourself for cannabis production, and also some of the best indoor cannabis. Like, we were just talking about Scott Reach and Rare Dankness at a Denver. Dialed in environments, that are just producing the most top shelf. So I think there's always gonna be a place in the market for both of those things.
- Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think, there is no right answer, right? I mean, if you're making vape pens and outdoor in a row crop can be your, the best way to get there. If you're making, the premium, the bud that you put under the little like, glass dome and you study it with a loop, and you talk about all the genetic parents of it. Then you know that out of an indoor environment, and some like rare diagnosis, a great example. I mean, the work they do is amazing, and the plants get the vote. So whatever goal you're aiming at, you can talk about all your one, but the plant is what decides. And so if you make the plant happy, then you're happy, so, its really really comfortable.
- Yeah, and speaking of outdoor, we filmed Los Sueños Farms 36,000 plants, 90% of that production went to carts, went to extracts. So you're exactly right. I mean, it's what your business is tailored towards. And you yourself mentioned earlier, you had a 200 acre outdoor hemp farm.
- Yeah, so we had just finished harvesting in about a month and a half ago, 200 acres of hemp. It was a kind of our first commercial run on that, we like looking at the world through the lens of a cannabinoid product company that owns its supply chain, with the farm bill Delta-9 THC is not allowed, but every other cannabinoid is. So figuring out ways, that we can produce those cannabinoids efficiently, and in a way that's legal in all 50 markets, or 50 states is interesting. I mean, I've gotten to see, pull it over here. I just got some samples. So, here's something that we're working on. This is a forbidden fruit, a hemp based smokable flower, with CBD and CBG in it.
- Oh, wow.- [Graham] We're working on this.
- Can you send me some of those samples?
- [Graham] Yeah, I can the amazing thing is I can, because this is hemp- Right, so-
- We don't have to cut that out, okay.
- Yeah you don't have to get it out, right? And so, if you think about what's going on, right? There's so we have forbidden flowers as our brand that we did with Bella Thorne. And there's a California version, which is obviously cannabis, but then you can't sell that in Amazon. You can't sell that over Instagram. There's a whole bunch of, there are a lot of places you can't sell it. But this, I think there's six states that don't allow smokable hemp. But all the other ones do, and so-
- I've never seen colored papers.
- Yeah, so these are-
- That is fancy my friend.
- See but it's actually got the logo on there too, and so that's when we're working. Again, this is hemp so it's a different world, but we're working on getting this, using botanical tabs, to match the flavor and smell profile, of the cannabis strain. So if you live in California,
- Oh my Gosh.
- You can buy the cannabis, if you live anywhere else, you can have the closest possible thing, which is a hemp joint that we grew, and it smells and tastes pretty darn close to
- How's that smoke like? What's your experience after hitting one of those? looks like a dog-walker, it's perfect for chilling.
- If you're coming as a cannabis connoisseur, it's like a beer lover drinking non-alcoholic beer, right? I mean, you're not gonna, you know I can say, oh, that's yeah. But if you're coming from a place that might not have access to that, and you've wished that you could have it, as a cannabis light, that's pretty darn good. I mean, you can feel it, it's satisfying to smoke, it tastes good.
- What's the like for you personally?
- It's mellow, like regular cannabis is a shot of tequila or margarita, this is a glass of Chardonnay, right? So it's not nothing, but it's much lighter than you would have on the THC side.
- I mean, me personally, sometimes I want that more, sometimes I don't wanna go out and get completely blasted off planet earth.
- Yeah, I mean, it's all in the same thing, right? Like sometimes you're on a, let's have some shots, mood, and sometimes you're in a glass of wine or, a light beer mood. And so it's, again not a right or wrong answer, but that's allows to address a bigger market, and give them some access to cannabinoids. These ones actually have CBG in them as well. So, again, a broader spectrum of cannabinoids, you can do anything, but Delta-9 THC, which opens up a lot of doors, we're making a tincture.
- CBG what are the effects that come with that cannabinoids.
- Kinda similar to CBD anti-inflammatory calming relaxation. Maybe even I might say is a little bit even stronger effect than CBD does by itself. I mean, everything's better with a little THC, but-
- Entourage effect.
- Yeah, but there are CBNs another one that you can derive from hemp, and really has a great sleep aid. So we're working on a tincture right now, that'll be CBD and CBN again, hemp derived. We have a cannabis one-
- So you're Isolating those cannabinoids specifically for the desired effect of just going to sleep?
- [Graham] Yep.
- Wow, I'm excited for that.
- Yeah. Think, think about that, Think about the lens of how can cannabinoids can help people feel better. Whether its fun on a Friday night, or a tincture to sleep through Tuesday night. Like again, there's no, no right thing, there's just the right thing for what you want. And so if you think about it through that lens, there's a whole lot of fun.
- Yeah, I agree. So let's talk about the distribution of that. Are you currently exporting outside of the United States?
- No, we're not doing anything outside. This is a, the hemp stuff is very much R&D for us, obviously cannabis cannot cross state lines. So what we grow in California, stays in California. On the hemp side the rules, the laws come down, which is exciting. And we're really, I mean, these are the things I'm showing you are literally the ones that I got delivered. Then as prototype formats this morning, so that we're working on. But I think we'll probably, we'll be able to do direct to consumer over a website, we can sell it on Amazon, we could, I think we'll be able to do it over Instagram. So, you know there's some pretty fun new ways to reach new markets. We're again, as long as you're compliant on the farm bills sec.
- Definitely, so Graham let's dive into the future of cannabis cultivation in California. So some of the best microclimates in the world, whether you're in Santa Barbara, where you're at up in Humble, everything in between. So let's talk about outdoor indoor greenhouse, what's the landscape gonna look like over the next 10 years?
- So, I mean, I and Glass House are big believers in the green house approach. I think it really hits the nexus between controlled environment, and efficient see from a cost point of view, I think it hits the nexus of environmental light footprint. The knock on a greenhouse is they're expensive to grow, but we own all of our facilities and have our green houses and there's no one to payback for them. So, for us, when we wake up in the morning, it is the goal is indoor quality at outdoor costs. And our OpEx is in line with that. Everything has its place though, right? So would we do outdoor for oil and extract production? Absolutely, can you do outdoor at a craft scale and have really quiet quality flour, that too? Can you do things indoor that you might not be able to achieve in other places also? Yes, so, I like, again, I like greenhouses, that's my bed. You look at the tomato guys, they operate off a very thin margins, almost exclusively in greenhouses. Because again that quality costs crossovers really, really nice there, especially in the climate.
- Yeah, in Arizona, it's been interesting. We filmed both Sunday goods and the farm down in Wilcox. And then we went up to snowflake and film copper state farms. Yeah, and both of those facilities were former tomato. I think Nature Sweet and Eurofresh. So it's interesting to see a lot of the tomato, big agriculture convert, and transition into the cannabis space. And it makes sense, utilizing this technology that has been with a lot of Dutch growers for so long. And they've mastered it and perfected it, and having that technology to come over here and apply it to cannabis as a special thing.
- Yeah, and its really I mean, and we do a lot of that, right? We look towards what people have figured out in agriculture and try to be one of the first ones to bring the good pieces of that to cannabis. And, I don't think we're not particularly smart, but we can hopefully recognize smart when we see it, and then, and bring that in to the cannabis space, which is not, it's not that prevalent yet. It will be at some time, but it's still kind of new. And again, like I said, I like following the tomato guys, and a lot of what they do because they'll grow a tomato for a dollar, and they're happy if they can sell it for a $1.05. So cannabis is not tomatoes, it's a lot more like making wine than growing veggies, but on the agricultural side, they're not so far apart that the lessons don't apply. And so I think high quality controlled climate greenhouses, are to me the wave of the future.
- [Nick] Yeah, definitely.
- You can see, that's how much I believe it.
- Greenhouse Grower. I like it. So still looking into that 10 year horizon, you're saying you mentioned earlier that there's not enough legal retail licenses out there right now. And there still are retailers, and there's still a whole lot of growers out there that might not have jumped onto the California, rec licensing play or platform yet. What does that look like for them? You know, what's gonna happen in the next, let's even say two years for all the businesses on the retail and cultivation side that, might not have a legal license, can they still operate? Can they still provide for their family and their community?
- It being an unlicensed cultivator is gonna get increasingly hard. California has a long history, it was 24 years, I think, or so of medical or maybe it's 21 years and then three years of Prop 64 now. But there's a lot of gray and the prop two 15 rules, The gray is basically gone. It is separated black back into black and white and there's pros and cons to that. But you either have a license at this point or you don't. As a retail operator, if you don't have a license, they get shut down and they pop up, a couple of days later, two blocks down the street. As a cultivator, it's really hard to have any kind of large scale or cultivation, that's also hidden, right? And I mean, we've got a lot of history in California, hidden cultivation, but it used to be that, "Oh, okay, here's my patient Rex, and here's my documentation, and you'd have a conversation and most of the time probably the sheriff would walk away, and be like, now it's someone walks in, "Can I see your license?" "Yeah, here we go." "Okay, thank you very much for tax paying rule." Following guy, "Oh, I don't have a license, but there is no story to tell anymore," right? And so at that point, the sheriff isn't is not your friend anymore without a license and that, that gets to be a pretty dangerous spot. My hope is that we get these stores open, so that we can have plenty of legal retail demand. And then there's plenty of room. I mean, for all these growers, like if you love-
- That's bottleneck, is the retail side. And why aren't there more than 850?
- So it goes back, and this is kind of nuanced thing, but the way California set things up is the state legalized it. But then they said, "To get a state license, you have to get a local municipal license." So that means every city and county gets to decide how they wanna handle cannabis. It sounds good, and I can understand the reason behind it, but the reality is it makes it very slow, and creates a lot of friction currently in California. About 62% of the counties and cities, don't allow anything cannabis related. So if they don't allow it, then it's not allowed. And the process is slow and it takes years, and eventually we'll get there, right? But in the meantime, California the fifth largest economy in the world, 40 million people live here, a hundred million visitors a year. It needs more than 850-
- [Nick] Its crazy.
- Its ransom right? Yeah, I mean, again, liquor stores 13,000 of them, dispensary's 850, we need 13,000 maybe not, but should we have 5,000, absolutely.
- Wow, so just with time, you think it will naturally work its way out?
- Yeah, when we're making progress, we opened the first ever licensed adult use dispensary here in the City of Santa Barbara. It took us three years to do it. It's been open for a year and a half now, the pharmacy, Santa Barbara, we just won the best dispensary in Santa Barbara, which is cool.
- [Nick] Congrats.
- And you know, on Monday or two days ago, we submitted some applications in the county of Santa Barbara. So three years later, the county just opened the door to submit an application. It'll probably take two years, before those stores open. So if you just play that out around the state, you can see that like
- And not everyone has.
- [Graham] We really haven't.
- Your background, your guys's team, your guys's resources. I mean, that is a really hard model to make it.
- [Graham] Yeah, they don't-
- Some people just, yeah, that's not a possibility.
- Yeah, and I mean, it's frankly it's too hard. I would self-interest, be damned I guess like, I think more people should have access to cannabis and the price. And if you pick something off our shelf, 50% of the cost is taxes. That's not a way-
- [Nick] 50 percent?
- Yeah, its gonna double the price, right? And we're not getting the money, and yet, so, and then how do you get the illicit market to go away when you make people pay twice to not be there. So I think we should make cannabis accessible. And that means more available.
- Yeah, well, Graham, we're gonna take our final break here. And when we get back, we're gonna talk about your experience in your Canna Cribs episode.
- [Graham] Awesome.
- [Nat] If you're like Graham, and you're in your garden every single day, you need to protect your eyeballs. That's where Method Seven comes in. And if you're not familiar with them, they are a collaborative group of scientists, engineers, and problem solvers. They're looking to unlock the potential, of our human vision by mastering the spectrum of visible light. Well, that sounds pretty cool, but what does that mean, Nick? That means they provide glasses for your grow room, whether you're under LED, HPS, or you're just outside and you need glasses to protect from the sun, the natural light. I wear them pretty much every day, and when we go out to film, Canna Cribs and deep roots, our entire crew is decked out and Method Seven glasses, all the way down toward cameras. They actually manufacture a lens filter, that goes over all of our cameras that we use for filming, so check them out. It's method seven.com. They protect your eyeballs and make you look cool. Head on over to methodseven.com, and enter coupon code Canna Cribs, all one word at the checkout for 15% off your entire order. Certain restrictions may apply.
- So we are back from the break, and I'm curious, what did you think about your Canna Cribs experience?
- It was awesome, it's all the way back to the premier episode and I can't even tell you how many times I've told people that people have said that they've seen us on that episode. So I don't know what the view count is on it, but a lot of people that I've crossed paths was, "I've seen the video and always seem to really enjoy the production." I mean, it was I think one of the first shows that felt like a real show that was about cannabis, right? It's pretty cool, and always great to talk to anybody who loves a plant and what it can do for us. And I'm excited to have an audience to share thoughts and ideas. We live and breathe this stuff every day and have for decades now. So it's exciting to be able to talk to people who care.
- Yeah, and we're at 300,000 around there, at the recording of this. We launched September, 2017, We had 3,500 up votes and then 90 haters.
- [Graham] 90 haters.
- I don't know who the hell. We have 90 haters.
- Well, I mean your ratio is pretty good there, but if you do that math that's what do you got, that's 3%. So, if you can make 97% of the people happy, you're doing a pretty good job, but yeah. Cannabis is interesting, there's always a little bit about, someone's always gonna cast a stone or try and throw shade, and cause something's usually comments like that, tells me more about the author of the comment, than the comment they're making.
- Exactly, we have definitely grown thick skin with all the trolls in the world. But we haven't really talked about this before, so you picked us up in Tucson, we flew out there, we hit the ground running, we started filming. We just... That was our very first episode. We didn't know what the hell we were doing. I mean, a lot of stuff, we still don't know what the hell we're doing. But it was crazy, because we went out there, it was the shortest production time. Typically, we have two to three days filming. We went out there, we filmed, we hustled all day, everyone works so hard, when the sun started going down, we went indoor to that fertigation room and started filming that, till probably like nine, 10. And then the next day we filmed all day. And then we literally were running against the sun. Because one of the last scenes was the the smoking scene. So and then we jumped in your Tesla, we had the drone scene and then we booked it to the airport, and flew out. And I look over my shoulder, and the sun is setting and we're flying back to Tucson, and I said, "Wow," like to myself, like, this is one of the most special experiences of my life, and we gotta do this again. So, you have literally that pilot has inspired us to go out and film. I think we're at like 18 episodes now.
- That's awesome, yeah, they're all great. And you can feel the energy all the way back to that first one. I mean, or you can watch it, you can tell people were energized and having fun, and excited about what was going on. And I think we all realized that, we were really on the cusp of a big change. I mean, and here it is, right? Three years later, we got someone, vice-president elect who says she wants to decriminalize cannabis is the federal level. We've got five more states. I think it was that joined the ranks of having cannabis access. There's only three left to go. You've got South Dakota, North Dakota, I always forget which one of the ones that they had, pretty conservative state. And they had a medical option and an adult-
- Look at Arizona, we've been conservative for a very long time, flipping a rack. We are living in the tipping point. And Canna Cribs is kind of the documentarians of that tipping point, which is so special. So for you, Graham, what was the number one takeaway from that episode? Like what stuck with you the most? What stood out?
- I think the thing that stuck, the people care, right? And I think it's that people are really excited about cannabis as it's been held away from a lot of folks for way too long. And there's just a lot of interest in it, right? I mean, I will say, if you think you don't like cannabis, you just don't know how you like it. And that may mean that you'd like it as a muscle rubber, bath bomb. You know, maybe it's not even getting high, or maybe it's someone gave you a weed brownie, and they told you to eat the whole thing and it should have been a corner. And now you can get a chocolate bar that has two and a half milligrams of THC in it, every single time. And that's perfect for you. And you gotta try it again, with the amazing flower, or the beverages or whatever, like, the people love it and they, and they're excited about it. And they wanna learn more about how it's made, right? I mean, most people know how wine is made, but not everybody knows. I mean, maybe everyone who watches your show does, but not everybody in the society. That was how cannabis has made, because it's been this under the table, hidden thing. And so even just to see short days and budding and light DAP and continual harvest, and drying and curing them, trimming them, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Like a lot of people have a lot of excitement for that. And as someone who loves it, it's exciting to be able to be part of bringing that story to a broader piece of a society. And also I get to hear lots of stories about the kid where that all epilepsy who was helped by a CBD tincture. Or the guy with Parkinson's who can feed himself again, The chronic pain that's alleviated or all the drugs, and Valiums and things like that that are skipped. And so to see, it's great to see the pain relief, and the suffering relief that cannabis can do. It's painful to think about the suffering, that wasn't alleviated because we stigmatize it for so long. But at least we're working on making tomorrow better than yesterday.
- Yeah, well, we went out there, we all on both sides of the table, worked really hard to make that production possible. But if we could go back again, and film it one more time, clean slate with what you know now, and after watching the episode, what would you change? What would you have done differently?
- I would take you to our greenhouse, because it is amazing. And I don't know if this is gonna work, but let's see, it's truly incredible how much of a difference, we have been able to affect in that, and how much progress. We thought we had... How's the right way to say, I don't know what to do, but I know a lot of things not to do. And sometimes that's, that can be more valuable. Honestly, I don't know if it's gonna work in your video, but there's one of the new greenhouse. I flew the drone through it. So that this, what you're looking at here is about 5%. So there's about 20 of those in this greenhouse, every single piece is just filled with bud. There's not an aisle or a walkway or an empty space, it just keeps going and going and going and going. And it's really fun to see the progress that we've made from what we thought was good. We've made way, way better.
- How many cultivars are you running across the board?
- We're probably up to 50 or 60 now, with probably 20 to 25 in active production, based on the season. We're doing a lot of R&D work now. And so we've always planned with new stuff, and testing them out. And one of the nice things about having a half million square feet is you can, you can dedicate, 10, 15, 20, 100 square foot sections to female hunting and trying things out and not have it, stop you in your tracks. So lots of really cool stuff in the works and the pipeline. And can't wait to share with people.
- Yeah, well, thank you so much for joining me today, Graham, is there anything that we didn't hit on today, that you'd like to chat about?
- Thanks to everybody for listening, and keep being an advocate, keep moving the world forward, keep sharing your positive experiences with cannabis and educating the world. We're getting closer, but we're not quite there yet. So we gotta get the rest of those states legal, we gotta get the people who are sitting in jail right now for doing what we do is jobs and hobbies and love, and they're in prison for out. And so we gotta keep working on that together as a society to make tomorrow better than yesterday so, I mean, the only way to do that is to do it all together.
- Well said my friend. Well thank you again for joining me today. We're definitely gonna have to go out there, and film those new greenhouses, so count me in.
- [Graham] Come check it out, they're pretty fun.
- [Nat] Hey, thanks for joining me today on the Canna Cribs podcast. Hope you learned something new. If you haven't checked out, our two other series Canna Cribs and Deep Roots, head on over to our YouTube channel today, we also have a growers community, called Growers Network. At the time of this recording, we have 14,000 members all around the world. You can join for free today@growersnetwork.org. I'll see on the next interview.