Marijuana Business Magazine - February 2018

“I see it as a blessing in disguise because I was never put on a bottled nutrient. I was told from the beginning that you can make all your own,” said Simkins, CEO and chief cultivator at Sacred Flower Farms, a combination outdoor and green- house grow with about 1,400 plants amounting to about 20,000 square feet of canopy. The cultivation facility also is close to being a closed-loop grow, where almost all the inputs – including nutrient mixes, soil additives and pesticides – are grown onsite. Simkins is among a breed of cannabis farmers who shun synthetic nutrients in favor of organic nutrients and enriched soils. For nutrients, they rely on diverse mediums, including fish and worm excrement, lobster and crab shells, kelp and alfalfa, plant ferments and compost teas.They swear that using natural instead of synthetic nutrients results in better cannabis. “You get a much cleaner product,” Simkins said. Ted Grillo, president of Ocean State Cultiva- tion Center, a licensed medical cannabis whole- saler in Warwick, Rhode Island, agreed. “A plant that is more vigorous is going to produce a better fruit at the end,” Grillo said. “I get better yield, better resin, better terpene quality. Happy roots, happy fruits.” Super Soils Erica Haywood, a licensed hemp farmer and president of LoveGrown Agricultural Research in Farmington, Maine, has gotten a good overview of the many organic nutrient options through hemp growing research projects she works on with two By Omar Sacirbey W hen Mark Simkins moved from Austin, Texas, to southern Oregon a few years ago, his lack of cultivation experience may have been his greatest asset. Why? He never learned to grow mari- juana using synthetic nutrients. Instead, Simkins started with a clean slate, teaching himself how to make and use his own homemade organic nutrient mix. Cultivators shun synthetic nutrients in favor of organic mixes and soils, using worm excrement, alfalfa, lobster shells and more February 2018 • Marijuana Business Magazine • 41