Marijuana Business Magazine September 2018

THE LOOP By Omar Sacirbey W hile there are many ways for indoor and greenhouse cannabis growers to be sustainable, few grow types are more environmen- tally friendly and inexpensive to run than an outdoor, closed-loop farm, where everything used on the farm goes back into the land. For example, plants are grown on the farm to be used in nutrient mixes, composts and pest repellants, while excrement from the farm’s alpacas are used in compost. Many commercial cannabis growers shy away from such systems, however, figur- ing they aren’t viable on a commercial scale. To be sure, accumulating enough worm castings and ingredients from your garden for nutrient composts and organic sprays for 1,000 plants sounds daunting. But not only can it be done, it’s simple, said Mark Simpkins, chief cultivator at Sacred Flower Farms, the company he started on a former 16-acre pear farm in southern Oregon. People don’t believe this can be done on scale, but “that’s simply not true,” Simp- kins said. “We ran 1,400 outdoor plants, about 20,000 square feet of canopy and brought in nothing. Almost all our ingredients were grown onsite.” Oregon MJ grower concocts his own nutrient mixes and pest sprays that are recycled back into the soil September 2018 • Marijuana Business Magazine • 49