change; some plants keep the same smell and that will translate into taste later. Others, the scent is gone, it changes completely, or it will fade in intensity. e selection process is pretty intensive. ings like height, yield, veg time, does it root easily, how fast do the moms grow, plant labor needed, and even trimabili- ty. Quality is always rst and last though. e rest of the selection process is trivial if the consumer doesn’t have a great experience. How do you balance the commercial pressure to grow "hype" strains with your own desire to introduce unique or forgotten terpene pro les to the market? Drew: I’m not against the hype strains. ey usually back it up. ings come and go, that's how the markets have always been. It was that way with the OGS, Runtz, Sours and all the rest of the strains that people desire at any given time. Cannabis is no dierent than pop culture, it’s also an integrated part of that culture. So, it makes sense to me that people's taste and desired experience would ebb and ow. When you're pheno-hunting a new seed launch, how can a consumer tell the di er- ence between a generic version of that strain and your "winning" selection? Blake: We are constantly running new genetics. We have been running seeds and new cuts in our Inner circle room. It is a small batch brand so that we can really focus on dialing in the plants. Once we nd our top three phenos of each strain in our organic set up, we rotate them into our larger production synganic rooms. We will typically run a half rack of each pheno to see how they perform at scale and on other feeds. en we push them through our store, Sunset coast. We tend to lean on our customer base to let us know what their favorite phenos are. Drew: When pheno hunting we usually will keep multiple winning phenos. We’ve come to nd that a lot of times we will nd the “One,” as in, whatever the breeder’s intentions were Ex. Lemon cherry gelato. We also have found sister plants that intensify or change in avor, smell, or color. We started with some great seed stock and we try to do the breeders justice by bringing out the best potential of the plants. Hydroponics? Soil? Indoor? Outdoor? What’s your favorite, what’s the best (in a
into a lot of people at the time who were able to grow. Once things started to go medical in Michigan I was able to learn a lot from people at events and of course you can’t forget about the guys at the hydrostores! When you’re selecting a mother plant, what is the rst thing you look for beyond THC— is it the structure, the scent, or a speci c "feeling" you get from the plant? Blake: For commercial production, we are looking at Veg time, owering time, yields and test results. For Personal I like to nd unique terpene pro les, and typically lean more towards a sativa-dominate, racy high. We have been making a lot of traditional hash, bubble and brick, temple balls as well as rosin lately. So we have begun to shi focus a bit on things that we know have a good return on resin. With the ower market as saturated as it is in Michigan currently, we have been working to diversify our oerings to making quality hash products. Drew: I’ve de nitely started to notice a struc- ture that yields more and that is more directly associated with the overall vigor and hearti- ness of a plant. I like things that root quickly and have a shorter veg time. Scents tend to
15
HIGHTIMES LOCAL ▶
Made with FlippingBook Learn more on our blog