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AROYA opens the mics for your crop steering and cultivation questions.
Cian [00:00:02]:
What's up, Gromies? Welcome to AROYA Office Hours, episode 144, your one stop shop for cannabis cultivation education. I'm CN joined by our Director of Applied technology, Jason Van Leuven. And today, our special guest for the day is Cory Desloge, the director of cultivation at Harbor House Collective in Chelsea, Massachusetts. How's everyone doing? And for any viewers today, we are not live today, unfortunately, so our live comments will have to wait till the next episode. Corey, how about you get us started out today telling us a little bit about who you are and what Harbor House is and what makes you guys a little different than the rest.
Cory Desloge [00:00:41]:
So my name's Cory Desloge. Sorry I had to toss that in there. The S is silent, but. So, yeah, I work at Harbor House Collective. I've been growing weed commercially in the legal markets for about 15 years now. Harbor House was kind of a passion project that started in 2018 by a group of friends. It took a long time to get the license to market, or at least the approval. And then in 2021, they reached out to me while I was working in Oklahoma and said, hey, you know, we have a facility, a couple people that they had worked with prior kind of oversold and underdelivered on the cultivation side of things.
Cory Desloge [00:01:23]:
So, yeah, they brought me in to help get the building up to snuff and be a productive building. But yeah, I've worked with a lot of different companies over the past 15 years. I guess some of the notable ones have been 710labs based out of Colorado. I was there when they relaunched and we relaunched Solventless Lines. And then I worked with a group called Zion Farms out of Nashville, based in Southern Colorado. And then Great Spirits is out of Oklahoma. But, yeah, it's been a fun, fun ride. I got introduced to Arroya, actually, back in 2019, I believe it was, or 2018 when we were in Nashville.
Cory Desloge [00:02:07]:
Must have been 2019 back when we just had the handheld sensors that kind of looked like a Blue Lab meter. I forget what it's called. Jason, do you remember what those were called? Are you talking about like the spot. The spot checker? Yeah, the eos.
Jason Van Leuven [00:02:22]:
Oh, the pro check, man. Yeah, the pro check. Yeah.
Cory Desloge [00:02:27]:
But no, it was good. And that's, you know, ever since I. I started looking at it through, through the data side, through irrigation and actually using sensors. It's kind of like a drug. I just got addicted to it and wanted to learn how I could be better at doing everything that the sensors were telling me I needed to do. As well as understanding my system and its fault through sensors and stuff. But, but yeah, that's kind of the long and short of it.
Jason Van Leuven [00:02:53]:
Corey's been, he's been a long time friend of the array crew, it seems like. I don't know, I'm pretty sure I met up with you in like 19 or 20 and right off the bat Corey's like little Google Image was a WR450 motorcycle. And I was like, oh man, I got one of those. And I don't know, it was like within 10 minutes of meeting each other we were, were, we were right on the same page. And yeah. Helping you out at the, the standard. Okay there. And you know, I've learned a lot from you as well, so just, just really thankful to have such, such wonderful people in the industry like you.
Cory Desloge [00:03:29]:
Thank you. Yeah, dirt bikes, it's a great bonding point. But yeah, no, it's, it's been fun. Here at Harbor House originally they were using Canon nutrients, which grows great. You know, Canada is definitely a line of fertilizer that's kind of stood the test of time. But it is quite expensive and I feel, you know, they were doing batch mixing all by hand, hand watering everything. And you know, we were just under 400 lights and we didn't even have 11 growers. We were at like six or seven growers.
Cory Desloge [00:04:02]:
So one of the first things that I needed to install was a new injection system converted to a more conventional fertilizer. And then AROYA just so I had some optics and ability to understand what was going on once we got the irrigation set up and able to actually run this facility with insight and be a bit more efficient. But yeah, no, it's. This whole facility is kind of over the past three years has really changed for the better and allowed us to really continue to put out good product. And a lot of it definitely has been with the help of Arroya and the advice and advisors that you guys give to help us get to where we need to be.
Jason Van Leuven [00:04:47]:
You know, it's one of those interesting things that we talk about quite a bit. It seems like it pops up every few episodes or, you know, a lot of people, they're, they're somewhat resistant to, you know, investing in the right tools. But really having the right tools lets you take better care of your plants. You know, having those insights, you giving yourself more time. So by automating, you know, your, your batch tanks or your irrigation, any of that stuff, you actually get more time to spend with the plants. The better that you can capture that data. The Better that you can build a repeatable process, the more time that you could invest in refining some of those processes and playing around with genetics. The fun stuff that growers really like to do.
Jason Van Leuven [00:05:31]:
You know, I always like to. I used to think about Aurora as like the EKG for the root zone. Right. Electrocardiographer, where, hey, you know, we got the heartbeat on what's going on with the irrigation system because we have those insights into the root zone.
Cory Desloge [00:05:46]:
Totally. And I feel myself, I'm guilty of it. When I first started growing, you know, I feel like it's some of the best weed I've ever grew, but it's because of my time in the garden and having to hand water and do all those things. But I feel like whether you're know, at one light to, to 500 lights or bigger, you know, having automation and insight only helps you become a better grower. And, and just like us, you know, plants want to be fed at the same time every day with a, a very precise dose of food. And, and you know, when you're hand watering 400 plants, it's impossible to water every plant at the same time if you're doing it by hand. So I feel again, whether it's one light to, to as big as you want to be, consistency is the biggest. Having the insight and the automation really helps.
Cory Desloge [00:06:36]:
And I just, I felt kind of to the point you just said, jade, it does give you more time to actually be in the garden. And I know there's a lot of growers that do it just to give themselves time so they don't have to be in the garden. But I feel like, you know, the grower's grower looks at that as, hey, well, no, I want to learn my plants more. I want to have the attention to detail, you know, down to the angle of the drippers or I potch draining. Right? Like just the nuances of everything that you otherwise wouldn't really have time to look at because you're holding a hose and watering a pot. And I, I don't knock it, you know, like, hand watering is, is huge. But I feel, you know, like if you're really trying to learn, you know, controlling as many variables as you can is the most important part of elevating your ability to even see what's going on. Because if you're having to tweak every single variable or at least fix them, then it's tough to see that, you know, And I feel like with full controlled environment agriculture, you know, that's the whole point is to Try to have control of every variable to, to.
Cory Desloge [00:07:38]:
To be able to make tweaks, slight tweaks, just one or two. Obviously it's very easy as growers to change four things at once and then never really see the real, I guess, value. But yeah, I mean, to me, that's the point. You know, the, the is to be able to, to control as many variables as possible to be constant and then make slight tweaks and see what that does. Like, I know recently we've been running, I guess over the past year and a half, we've been focusing heavily on EC in the substrate and trying not to get too out of hand with it. You know, we've tried pushing it, you know, to the point where we're pinging the meters, you know, over 30, and really trying to stack it to, to try to get the most yield without compromising quality. And I was talking to scene a bit about it earlier when we were getting set up. It's like, I feel like the.
Cory Desloge [00:08:35]:
There's not a one size fits all when it comes to things like substrate EC and even just irrigation strategy. I mean, depending on your setup, whether you have really high ppfd, you run hotter or cooler temperatures, or, you know, you're pushing a higher, you know, VPD or a lower vpd. Like every, everybody's approach is different. And the biggest, I would say, limiting fact is the person's system. You know, like whether the H VAC can handle those set points, whether you can irrigate zone to zone. You know, if your water temperatures are out of whack, coming through to your batch tanks. Like, there's a lot of variables, and as growers, we all kind of have to, to learn those. So it's like there, there is a basic philosophy that I think can be deployed, but round after round, you end up learning your system a bit better.
Cory Desloge [00:09:24]:
And currently, you know, our system, you know, our biggest limiting factor is the H vac. And so we, we have to kind of maneuver our plant counts and then be real particular with how much water we send to each room. You know, our ppfd, the highest that we can push, given our lighting spacing. And then even Massachusetts limits grams per square foot. Excuse me, watts per square foot, not grams per square foot. So like, we're limited on how much light we can pack into a room, which also limits our ability to scream the ppf. So again, it's a, it's a, it's a big equation. But all that to say that we've found that running our substrate, you See no higher than 6 and even lower.
Cory Desloge [00:10:08]:
You know, we were talking to, seeing Christina and I were talking about it earlier. It's like anything that has gelato in it, you know, any of the candy leaning finos, once we start pushing it over six, you'll, you'll see burnt tips, you'll see lockout. But if we keep it between like three and five, you know, five when we're stacking, we end up getting a better result. And again, I know that's very subjective, but yeah, that's, that's what we've been messing with a lot recently and we've been having some really great results. Just keeping substrate, you see a bit lower.
Jason Van Leuven [00:10:42]:
This is, and this is one of the reasons you're successful, man, is like you are, are trying to move from what historically a lot of times has been anecdotal growing. Right. Here's the things that work and you pinpointed it as, as limiting the number of variables and, and then making those tweaks. Hey, kind of funny, I was thinking about our buddy Jeff show the other day and he was like, yeah, change 1% at a time. It's like, well, I mean 1% might not be enough to make a, you know, a significant difference but, but yeah, that, that philosophy is exactly right. One of the things that also kind of hit me, I think, God, two or three years ago we did a interview with, yeah, we might have done this at Grower of the month or something.
Cory Desloge [00:11:28]:
Yeah.
Jason Van Leuven [00:11:29]:
And you were like, well, Jason's kind of like a therapist and it's like, yeah, you know, I can't, I can't give you guys the, the blueprint, the roadmap, like, you know, I can't tell you exactly what's going to work, but if we can, if we can discuss the, the scientific reasoning that we understand, you know, really break it down to a full understanding of what some of these behaviors are happening because of. You know, you guys, you could apply growing knowledge, you know, you can apply everything that, that you're seeing on site and, and make the right decisions. So love that attitude.
Cory Desloge [00:12:07]:
No, for sure. And like, I feel, you know, there's a few people out there that have been really emphasizing nutritional steering and trying to focus on, you know, your, your ratio of minor elements to your macro elements and your mobile and immobile nutrients. And I've been fascinated by it all. But what I found is that there's not really many peer reviewed or collegiate level studies on fertility for cannabis outside of the vegetative state. There's a lot of nurseries out in California that have good research that shows these are the percentages of each element that you want in the tissue. And this is the PPM targets that you want your fertility to be able to run a nursery and grow your moms to peak health. A big reason why you don't see a ton of research on fertility from day one of flower to whatever, how many weeks you run is because you have buds. You know, like where, what labs and there's a few allegedly labs that are willing to take buds to send into the lab to test, you know, the percentage of your, your elements in the tissue of the leaf as well as the bud so you can try to understand, you know, how your elements are moving throughout plant throughout the whole life cycle.
Cory Desloge [00:13:29]:
And it's just because of the laws and restrictions, it's hard to find real good research throughout the flowering cycle. And that's something that, you know, luckily, you know, we, we've been trying to dive into here is like building custom fertilizer profiles and working with a few mixers just to really try to tweak elements in, in our, our inputs to not only encourage great plant health but to encourage, you know, better curing, better smoke shelf stability, things of that nature that, that people think about in other crops. But now we're at this point in time where we're able to work with people who are also helping us learn more about the nuance of fertility and the real difference, not just on the vegetative side, which again is very, very important. If you don't have good clones, good veg plants and you're, you're starting off wrong, but been something that I know me and a couple of other cultivators on my team are really trying to nerd out on is, is what is going to do, do the best for us throughout the flowering cycle. And you know, there's a lot of fertility companies out there that are just saying one part and slightly tweak EC here and there. But we're trying to do a deeper dive to really understand what is the best. And right now it's kind of a combination of things. We haven't really landed on it, but to, to the point you're talking about in regard to research, it takes time, you know, we do, it takes three months for us to understand how well this batch of fertilizer did.
Cory Desloge [00:15:00]:
And so far we're trending in the right direction. We've had some hiccups but like, and then you will make slight tweaks again. But it takes, you know, Three to six months to get real data. And even then, that's kind of not enough time to really make, you know, changes with conviction. But yeah, that's been something fun recently outside of irrigation and environmental steering, like trying to, to tap into the nutritional steering, but it does kind of all play a part with your environment. You know, like what, what, how much is your environment affecting everything. And then you kind of have to dial your process relative to your growing conditions.
Cian [00:15:36]:
And kind of like what you said earlier too, I mean, you know, your limiting factor is your H Vac and how hard you can steer your environment. So you're always going to have to kind of cur what you're doing with those rooms and what your strategy is going to look like based on that.
Cory Desloge [00:15:53]:
Yeah, and that's typically, I, I would guess every grower would agree with me that that's typically the biggest limiting factor is your H Vac system. And do you have any redundancy? Do you have the capacity needed?
Cian [00:16:08]:
Good for you.
Cory Desloge [00:16:09]:
Yeah, right. And it's just not cheap. You know, once you get to scale, it costs millions of dollars to, to put in new to mechanical or new mechanical systems. And then with building wanted to see in the market these days, with prices going the opposite direction that I know almost every farmer would want them to be going, you just have to be very conscious of that because yeah, hopefully it'll flatten out and then quality will come back. But even the economic pressures are tough for everybody right now. So people want value. So that's something we try to provide here is a good genetics, quality product, very clean and something that you can get a good amount of for the price. And that's just kind of, I think we're not unique in mass in that regard.
Cory Desloge [00:16:56]:
I think the whole country is kind of feeling that, that pressure in regard to pricing.
Jason Van Leuven [00:17:02]:
So I wanted to loop back a little around to your, your nutrient mixing and custom stuff. And just because I'm a very graphical person and historically, you know, thinking is kind of interesting. You know, in the last, you know, five years, we've seen a prolification of, you know, ripening mixes. Right. Where it's like, okay, well, we've got this, this ratio of, of nutrients in the system and, and then towards the end, we're trying to manipulate that. Right. And you look at other crops, you know, tomatoes is obviously one of the first ones we look at. There are some pretty cool charts out there that they actually have plotted out where, where they think that the ideal ratio should be throughout the duration.
Jason Van Leuven [00:17:46]:
Right. So like we think about, all right, early on, right, we want to have high levels of nitrogen and over the course of it we, we begin dropping it and building out profiles like this for, you know, and then you get strain dependent as well. But you know, building out profiles like this is a very complicated process. You know, one because like you said, you know, lab wise, we don't have a lot of great ways to, to identify what this uptake needs are from the plant other than, you know, visual plant development, bud development, type of response. And you know, to make things even more complex, right, right here, you know, I've just got nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. These are just our major nutrients. These are our macros. Right.
Jason Van Leuven [00:18:35]:
And obviously, you know, just even starting with your macros can make a huge difference in your growth. You know, what we've seen with the ability to drop nitrogen levels and you know, a lot of these two part salts. I help people kind of work with tweaking what their actual A to B ratios are. Like. Sometimes, you know, sometimes we'll just start dropping out base towards the end depending on what nutrient supplier they're using. And then like you said, let's get start getting into micros. You know, we could have a dozen lines on here of, of plant metabolized chemicals that are affecting our total outcome. So props to you for, for digging into that.
Jason Van Leuven [00:19:13]:
This definitely, definitely not something for the faint of heart.
Cory Desloge [00:19:19]:
No. And again, that's something I'm grateful that Harbor House allows us to do it. You know, and we really try to have like a continuous improvement culture here. And there's a baseline that I will always operate from just to ensure we don't crop loss. But we do make tweaks to our fertility program and we'll make bases and we typically have to order a ton or two at a time when we're getting custom blends. And then we have all of our minor elements here. And again the front end of that is tough too. Just to make sure that, okay, we know what our EC target is and solution, we'll mix our stock tanks, titrate our stock tanks to make sure that our stock tanks are mixed to the proper concentration.
Cory Desloge [00:20:02]:
And then we'll tight or we'll calibrate our dosers to ensure that, you know, we're pulling the correct EC from that. So it doesn't start with just hoping it works. Right. You have to verify at each, each step to ensure that the calculator that we use, the proper PPM is within an acceptable deviation of like 1 to 2%. You know, we Want to make sure that, that we're hitting those targets and then as it gets through, you know, we're collecting there and then taking tissue throughout the lifecycle just to verify that we're hitting our targets. You know, in regard to mobile and immobile nutrients, like, that's, that's one for me that I think is, is going to really change the game on, on how the, you know, secondary metabolites are produced, the smoke terpenes, like everything, I think focusing heavy on the ripening side, but making sure that you're not overdoing immobile nutrients and becoming toxic at the wrong time. Cultural create antagonistic effects in the whole plan and then you just lock out on things that you don't want and it becomes a bigger problem. So like, keeping it simple is nice always, but I also like trying to, to find the limits of certain things to see what we can do and see how we can make it better.
Jason Van Leuven [00:21:17]:
It's a fine balance because, you know, with any, with most any system, the more complicated it gets, the more likely you're going to have some type of catastrophic failure. But obviously you have to have some complexity to stay competitive. You know, we're very, very simple. Then we just, we can't compete. And so like, like I said, it's one of those things that, you know, when I, when I started working at a royal, it was refreshing that I love being in the garden, but it was refreshing that I wasn't staying up late at night checking to make sure that my new programming on the greenhouses was going to work all night and we're going to just nuke things out. And it's like, all right, well, you know, when we get in there, it was stupid simple. Like, you know, we had a grower that go in there and open vents and close vents and stuff. And it's like, well, that's not necessarily sustainable.
Jason Van Leuven [00:22:11]:
It's not as repeatable. But if we introduce the complexity of programming these set points based on, you know, temperatures and humidity, well, now our sensor needs to work right? And you know, all of that stuff has to occur and we need some type of redundant system to check that this added complexity is going to function. Because even if, even if I am the redundant system, right, I might fail at some point too. So it's like, how do we get this full feedback loop to really get us to the next step? So really, really cool that you guys are sending out leaf tissue samples throughout the round in order to, to kind of analyze whether those targets are achieved or not.
Cian [00:22:53]:
For sure, it's also like, you know, how are you going to tell whether or not those results are what you were really looking for and what you were shooting for if you're not taking those leaf samples and you're not collecting that data the whole way through? So you know, it goes to show you're not just trying to iterate new ways of doing things. You're also tracking and trying to, you know, take an honest accounting of what works and what doesn't. So you guys can keep employing that from a, you know, substantiated numerical perspective rather than just throwing the dart at the wall and hoping she works for sure.
Cory Desloge [00:23:26]:
And again, I think, you know, focusing on your inputs in this market and then, and then just in general it's smart business practice because of the price. You know, right now it's, it's, it's getting very competitive and if you're not looking at things like that, to me I think it's a bit of an oversight.
Cian [00:23:47]:
But what are the prices like these days out in, out Mass?
Cory Desloge [00:23:51]:
The last report the CCC put out, excuse me, the price per gram was 3.31 which was down. It's the lowest it's ever been. I actually have it pulled up right here. The last report from March, the month prior is at 4.28. So it dropped almost a full dollar in a month. Some would say it might be the 420 sales that happened in April, but don't know because even though the April prior it didn't drop like that. There's unfortunately been some bigger companies that have shut down I guess fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it. But there's a lot of people who've lost their jobs because of the prices are dropping and Massachusetts once was a great market for people to be a first mover.
Cory Desloge [00:24:45]:
Now it's kind of, you know, who's consistently putting out quality product that tests well and has a good reputation. Like those are the people that can stand the test of time and but yeah, there's a, there's been a flood of product hitting the market just because of some big MSOs have shut their doors and you know, they always have a different reason to do it. I'm not exactly sure why but yeah, it's hurting the state price that's for sure. Just because there's so much product now hitting the market and they're just trying to recover whatever money they can. And again kind of the economic pressures like it's a tough time in the country for a lot of the working class to make ends meet. And they just. Everybody wants to still smoke weed. You know, that's the value of a vice product in any climate, you know, and weed will always sell.
Cory Desloge [00:25:38]:
But I think right now the consumer is asking mainly for the most, for the least. And I understand it's tough because I always, you know, ever ask what, what's. I will never ask what's the most potent weed and what's the cheapest. I'll just, I want to know what, what are the genetics? Does it, is it grown well? Does it smoke well? You know, like those are the, the kind of targets that I look for. But I feel the, the volume, consumer, majority of the consumer CCs, they're not, they're not asking that entire tough.
Cian [00:26:08]:
I mean, you know, like if any of us go into a dispo today, I mean our questions are going to be like looking at the people like, what's your favorite in here? What makes you happy when you smoke it? And unfortunately that's not necessarily the, the question that the majority of consumers are going into the dispo asking the, the tenders these days. So you know, we do have to play to people's preferences to some degree in that regard. And unfortunately with the price compression, it definitely makes things a lot more competitive to be able to bring, you know, really fire str are different to the market and be able to actually get those sold. But at the same time, you know, it, it does I think in some ways open the door for some of these brands that have been putting out really solid, really consistent product over and over again for years. Because one thing I am seeing is that even if their people aren't particularly brand loyal, a lot of people will develop taste preferences that don't seem to go all over the map necessarily. They'll buy in a lane pretty consistently over and over again. And if you can meet their consistency needs, I mean that 9 times out of 10 will, will get you a repeat customer.
Cory Desloge [00:27:27]:
And for sure.
Cian [00:27:29]:
How do you think you guys have been dealing with that? I mean, I know you guys have a handful of selected strains that you guys try to run on a consistent basis. Is that part of that kind of that philosophy?
Cory Desloge [00:27:39]:
Yeah, yeah. You know, like we, we have a few that are tried and true. Like Albarino is one shout out to our guys at Firefly Organics in Maine. Melting pot farms. They're the ones melting pots, the one who, who bred it. And then Firefly is the one who blessed us with that cut. And yeah, I mean we have a stable of genetics like our Albarino Kosher Kush. It's also from the Firefly guys, the motor breath cut from them.
Cory Desloge [00:28:07]:
And then I brought in some of the Aspen og. Our Cold Creek K is a cut that I used to run a lot out west. Sara Tangy. And then we're bringing in the chem 91 and some chemD just to try to get some of the, the. The Gassier nuts onto the menu. But yeah, I mean, it's definitely something we try to do is just offer consistent varieties that people can become a bit more loyal to. And we, we found that. But even then, the, the loyalty thing is.
Cory Desloge [00:28:38]:
Is tough on some people. Like, I feel a lot of people are loyal to potency. So we do have customers that always shop here, and they always want the kosher, they always want the aspirin, or they always want the Albarino. And that's what they'll always want, regardless of potency or pricing. But that. That is a part of the current market. It's like there. There's little loyalty to certain brands, and they're loyal to the potency, right? It doesn't matter.
Cory Desloge [00:29:09]:
They'll walk into any shop and say, well, what's the most potent? Like, okay. And again, and I think whether it's from economic pressure or just being a new industry, and I say that, you know, we've been doing it for 15 years. You know, there's a lot of education that still needs to be done for the consumer. You know, for example, like, if you compare it to wine or beer, you know, in order, when you walk into a liquor store, just like, whether it's a package, you know, a bag store, just like a standard liquor store, you're not asking the guy behind the counter, like, what's your favorite? You know, like, you'll go to a winery or a brewery or a distillery, and then talk to the people who obviously have a passion that you can engage in. And I think, you know, there's certain states that are creating settings like that California is trying to do consumption lounges. And sure, there's a couple other that I'm forgetting, but I think that's also another opportunity in this industry for growth is to create a regulation or at least setting to where, you know, you can talk to the people behind the bar or the person brewing it or the grower and engage with them to try to learn the process. And I feel like a lot of dispensaries that have been popping up, they're designed to get the customer in and out. And I don't think that's a bad thing.
Cory Desloge [00:30:28]:
You know, like, people are excited. I'm still stoked that you can go to a store and buy weed. You know, like, I think that's a huge hurdle, but I think an opportunity which takes time and regulation and legislation and all that jazz is just creating a space where you're not trying to rush that customer out. In fact, you want them to stay, to ask questions, to ask, well, what's the best way to smoke it? What's the best way to roll it? Like, how do you cure? What are you feeding? Like, what. What's your ideal environments? And just kind of learn. But that setting isn't. Doesn't exist everywhere yet. And I think that's, again, an opportunity.
Cory Desloge [00:31:03]:
I don't want to say it's a bad thing, but there's opportunity for this industry to kind of level up. Once we create those spaces, that will allow the customer to be engaged and not feel like they're being rushed out because there's another customer behind you, and we need to make the money again. That's all important, but I think that's also opportunity for us to get better, to help encourage the. The customer. Because no one was drinking IPAs 30 or 40 years ago, at least across the country. I'm sure the people who were brewing them were sharing them with their buddies and stuff, but it wasn't on the store. And it's like. But once breweries started popping up and, you know, people growing at home or, you know, brewing at home kind of opened a different avenue for the consumer, Whether it's just because it's now cool or what.
Cory Desloge [00:31:49]:
To me, I just think it's. It's. It's a. It's an awesome space to be able to teach somebody the nuances of the process and why it's better or not. But even going into Coors Brewery, it's fascinating. You know, if you like engineering and seeing all the technology, like, that stuff is awesome.
Cian [00:32:05]:
Come in. You ever get a chance, go take a tour of the Jose Cueva distillery down in. Down in Mexico. One of the coolest tours I've ever taken in my life. So, you know, I totally understand that, and I am on board with that idea, honestly. If we could get more consumption lounges, you know, are scattered around the country for people to start being able to have more personalized experiences, I think it would potentially open up some of those, you know, let's call them, like, flavor preferences that people don't necessarily know about yet. Because, like you said, before IPA hit the scene, a lot of People out there were potential IPA customers probably would end up loving them. They just never knew it was an option yet.
Cory Desloge [00:32:47]:
Exactly.
Cian [00:32:48]:
And so I think that there's a road to travel yet in our industry where, you know, we, whether that's consumption lounges, whether that's, you know, I've, I've heard someone mention the, the Johnny Appleseed model, where essentially you, you grow out like a, a small little batch of something that you're excited about your passion project and essentially just expect to not make a whole lot of money back on that, but be able to spread the, the flavors around a little bit so that, you know, you're giving people an opportunity to create a taste preference in those ways that, you know, handing someone an IPA for the first time when they hadn't had one before, opening up their flavor profile a little bit.
Cory Desloge [00:33:32]:
Yeah, I, I think a lot of it still is. You know, there's a lot of us that want to create those spaces, but the, the red tape around the legality and, and in social consumption or things like that, there's still some hurdles that need to be jumped, but I think in time it will, as long as we use sensible regulation and an understanding of what's going on.
Cian [00:33:54]:
I think so too, man. In the meantime, I might still keep handing out a couple of, you know, fun, odd flavors, green packs to people every once in a while and see if I can get some good reviews just to mix up the available flavors in the marketplace. You know what I mean?
Cory Desloge [00:34:09]:
Yeah, no, kind of to build on that. One thing that, you know, I'm from the east coast originally, born and raised in Virginia, but green weed still has a place in the, in the east coast market. You know, I spent some time out in California and everybody wanted candies, and there's killer OGs out in California, and, and there were times when you couldn't sell a pound of OG for, you know, over a thousand bucks. I, I, I have been told by some people out there that OGs are kind of demanding a higher ticket these days out west, but it's just nice being on the east coast where we can still grow, you know, OG's and sours and people are willing to pay for them and not just say no. I want it purple and I want it. Does it have gelato or not? And again, I'm not, I love, I love all good weed if it's good. And obviously that's all subjective too, but, like, if it's good, sure, I'm, I'm not going to hate on it, but I Certainly have an affinity for, for green weed. Yeah, we were actually, Tina and I were talking earlier, like one of my favorite genetics, I would say even to this day is the flow out of Colorado.
Cory Desloge [00:35:16]:
When I was out there in 2010 and 11, there were a couple cuts floating around and there was like a purple flow and a green flow. And here I am talking on purple weed. But I love that flow. And it's such a unique genetic and you know, may not fit commercial production models because it's a little bushier, just squattier plant. Definitely a pain on post processing. But it's amazing weed. And I feel like in order to get those sort of genetics to the people who care or the piece of the pie that I would consider connoisseurs, you need to create space to educate. And you know, they're harder to grow, you know, so they should demand a bit higher ticket, similar to wine or beers that are smaller batch or tougher to produce.
Cory Desloge [00:35:59]:
Like the price kind of is reflected on, you know, the process and not necessarily the hype, you know, because then you could go out there and there's a lot of super hype varieties that are super expensive. But that doesn't mean, you know, Blue Dream at one time yielded a ton of, excuse me, yielded a high ticket, but it also yielded a ton of weed. And I think that kind of died real quick. But that's what I'm trying to say is I think there's a lot of varieties out there that, that have kind of fallen to the wayside because they don't fit modern production models for commercial production. And they not only put strain on the system and the grow, but downstream. And I think some of those genetics are some of the most special and difficult to grow, but hopefully those are never lost and we'll be able to create a space.
Cian [00:36:43]:
Honestly, I think that's one of the great tragedies of our industry these days is the narrowing and homogenization of the gene pool that we're working with across the country these days. And I mean, excuse me, there's only so many ways you can cross and back cross, you know, gelatos into themselves before you've just, you know, bottlenecked. Yeah, bottlenecked the genetic. And there's not really a whole lot of anywhere for it to go until you start introducing new diversity into that genetic lineage. And I mean, if we keep breeding out and selecting for things that are only able to finish in a 63 day window, as much as I'm of a commercial 63 day flower window, you know, if we leave by the wayside a lot of the varietals that, you know, take, let's say 68 or 72 days to finish out, that is going to narrow our genetic lineage availability in our industry quite a bit. And as time goes on, I think that, you know, if the only things people are crossing are, you know, candies, well, that's going to mean that our, our available genetics really are limited to what's been kept around in that, in that particular varietal.
Cory Desloge [00:38:05]:
And I think it kind of, that ties into our education though. Right. Like as long as we, we let people know what it is and the lineage isn't just 40 different names, it's actually like indicative of high mountain Afghani or you know, Paki or you know, from Africa or, or you know, Burma. Like there's lots of areas of the world that have native land race varieties. And I think education is going to be one of the most important parts of that for the consumer to want to ask for it. I mean, I was excited. There's a group of dudes down in Virginia that are only growing 12 week plus varieties and it's a very small batch approach. You know, they're not, they're not blowing it out one because of Virginia's laws, but there's, yeah, they're putting a brand out there that's only long flowering varieties and again they're going to play to a certain customer.
Cory Desloge [00:38:53]:
But to me, I think, you know, know there it's important to do things like that to help educate the customer. You know, like I think, and also to your point, genetic diversity, you know, if, if the customer demands it, it's only going to encourage something that's going to keep the gene pool diverse and less bottlenecked with everything that we're starting to see now. So yeah, I don't know, man. I think genetics are also, that's what keeps it exciting for me. It's like it's, there's so much to still discover and you know, where there's companies mapping genomes and trying to understand what's going on and then setting markers and these are all fun ways to breed quicker, you know, and not have to rely on time. But I think there's still the intangible part of a cultivator who has an attention to detail that's hard to kind of replicate through a series of numbers. Numbers are very important. But I think that's what's exciting for me, at least in cannabis, is being able to discern what's, what's good or bad through my own experience.
Cory Desloge [00:39:59]:
And I think every cultivator can agree with that. You know, because there's no what I like doesn't mean it's what you're gonna like. But I think better and good and bad is all relative to what you've experienced in life. And if I say it's good, it doesn't mean you're gonna like it.
Jason Van Leuven [00:40:16]:
But.
Cory Desloge [00:40:17]:
But hopefully I'm holding a standard as a cultivator that I can stand behind what I'm putting out and be happy about the product regardless. Maybe that was a bit of a tangent. Not bad.
Jason Van Leuven [00:40:30]:
I'm pretty sure there's a lot of customers out there that are happy with your product.
Cian [00:40:38]:
But I think it's interesting that you're talking about how there's some places out there that are kind of breaking the mold a little bit and chasing a different approach, you know what I mean? Because I think that's part of what it takes is some people to be bold and to realize that like, you know, maybe opening up that 12 week only place, they might not be shooting for wild amounts of yield, they might not be shooting for the same types of varieties that we're seeing a lot of other places grow. And as a result, there is going to be a limitation to how big they can grow in the marketplace. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you're not going to run a successful business doing that. And I think that, that that's kind of the thing, right? If people are willing to take chances and go out there and try something a little different and run a business that is unique comparative to what else is out there in the marketplace, I think that's going to start opening the doors a little bit and help, you know, bring people around to the idea that there is more diversity out there to be messed with and that there's going to be a variety of different taste preferences that people might develop over time. Because I mean, I personally do love those IPAs, but I've got some friends that won't drink anything but a stout, so.
Cory Desloge [00:41:44]:
Exactly. And there's something for everybody, you know, and again, kind of like to what I was just saying, it's like just because I like it doesn't mean another person will. But as long as it's done well and the process is done well and clean. And I think again there's, there's a lot of opportunity for growth and it's still very young industry, even though it feels like it's been a lifetime.
Jason Van Leuven [00:42:08]:
But it's fun, man.
Cory Desloge [00:42:09]:
I Can't complain at all. It's the problems we pray for. Heard that from a good friend of mine. And, you know, some people don't agree with what I just said, but it's like I've loved weed for quite some time, and I get stoked every day being able to grow it and learn everything. You know, there's a movie called the Gardener, and there was a saying in there. It's a quote that says, farming is belief in the future, that everything will go to plan. And it's like, you know, it's true. I love it.
Cory Desloge [00:42:38]:
And not everything goes to plan, and we learn a lot, but it's fun. Not everybody can say that about their job and what they do. Again, work is work, and there's always stress. I don't think that ever disappears. But it's fun working in this industry and being able to work with you guys and other people who are in this space that are willing to think outside of the box and try to push the limits to see how we can change it rather than fit in a square into a square kind of thing.
Jason Van Leuven [00:43:10]:
It's kind of interesting. I've been. You guys are talking a lot, which is great. I've been thinking, just thinking about a lot of anecdotes over the years of different dispensaries that I've been in. And probably not even just over the years have they changed. But probably the biggest difference was locations. You know, in some of the. I think it was like big, surreal, you know, really relaxed, chill dispensaries.
Jason Van Leuven [00:43:38]:
And then, you know, in some of the shadier spots, spots, they're like pushing you through like. Like cattle, you know, it's like this loop and. And if you want to go back to the beginning, you know, you gotta come back in to. To check things out, you know, up. Up here, Washington side. They've. They've always been pretty relaxed, pretty low populist area and not. Not a huge risks.
Cory Desloge [00:44:00]:
Yeah, there's actually. Sorry, go ahead. There's actually a dope spot. Shout out to Kyle Heritage. Hashtag. They're up in Ukiah and they built out an experience. It's like a hashery where you could go through and you. It's.
Cory Desloge [00:44:18]:
It's like an open kitchen kind of style thing. And they produce a ton of amazing hash. And I think it's. It's definitely a first of its kind, but not many people go to Ukiah. Ukiah is out there. It's some of the most beautiful country in our nation. But what. What he did and he's busted his ass the whole time to get it where it's at.
Cory Desloge [00:44:39]:
But I mean, I just, I. I personally haven't there. I've just seen what they put out online and it's just, it's something that I look forward to seeing and encourage anybody and everybody to go check that out because they do my next itinerary.
Cian [00:44:53]:
For travel up that direction.
Jason Van Leuven [00:44:54]:
Yeah, yeah.
Cory Desloge [00:44:55]:
Heritage around there.
Jason Van Leuven [00:44:57]:
Yep. Heritage hash. Cool. I've one time I was fortunate enough to go to a wine museum and they had. It was two floors and they had just immersive experience. And I learned way more about wine than I have in all the rest of my life combined. You know, they had different experiences where they had all the different smell notes on a table, you know, and you, you could, you know, close your eyes and, and you'd get that smell and then you'd be like, oh, well, you know, that's. That's a sweet smell or that's a honey smell.
Jason Van Leuven [00:45:31]:
Yeah, one of them, one of them, they've got an old, old leather shoe or old leather book inside of the thing and it's like, oh, yeah, that's the, that's the musky smell. And you know that education is really important to also help people choose the right products that they want. Right. There's so much of this where we're like, okay, cool, we got lucky. We bought so many different types that we got lucky and we knew we liked this one, this one, this one, this one. But that education helps us understand why, and then it also helps us choose the next one. And it's like back in the days before I even drank much wine. It's like a red wine or a white wine.
Jason Van Leuven [00:46:09]:
It's like, okay, I want a Sativa or Indica.
Cory Desloge [00:46:12]:
Well, exactly. And I think that's where we're at right now in the industry, you know, because even at least to, to me as, as a cultivator, it's like Sativa and indica, and that those are more indicative to physical traits, not necessarily like psychoactive traits, you know, like I look at a plant that's tall and stretchy, like, yeah, that's growing like a sativa. But sometimes the high is very sedative. So it's like, I think, you know, the industry's kind of laid that framework out to help the consumer humor. But I think when we create these spaces for education, like a winery or a distillery or brewery, like, there's going to be a different, different angle use when we try to discuss, you know, cannabis in more detail. And just create a space that can be done like that, like that winery you just had an experience at, Jason, you know.
Jason Van Leuven [00:47:03]:
Yeah, and I think what is it? BSD analytics that does quite a bit of terpene profile libraries where they try to kind of maybe, I don't know, so many companies that flop around in.
Cory Desloge [00:47:15]:
My head, I know there's abstracts that dude Max has been doing a lot of work with trying to isolate terpenes, but also new smells, you know, Miyabi, Riley, these two other chemist doctors, scientists that are in the space really trying to figure out and broaden the understanding which again, as it gets more legal and more widely accepted, you know, that's where money can be put in the right place to further our understanding. And right now I think there's still just unfortunately some red tape that limits that. And again, there's a lot of risk takers willing to push the limit. I think we all are part of that group, but I think yeah, there's a lot of things that need to change in the federal level. Again, I don't want the federal arm in it any more than it already is, but let us create some cool spaces to be able to educate the consumer. I think important for the safety and even just the experience itself, I think.
Cian [00:48:13]:
It'Ll come around too. I mean, you know, people forget, but if you think about where we are compared to where alcohol is, we're in the 10 year period of time right after prohibition ended, you know what I mean? And there's not probably a ton of big changes that happened right after prohibition ended in terms of how alcohol was being moved and how it was being talked about in terms of production in different parts of the country. But getting past that first 10 years, that's where a lot of the people who were learning how to run these businesses cut their teeth and figured out what was working and how to do it. And I have a feeling that the next decade of cannabis industry is going to be where we see a lot of interesting things start to happen that, you know, have been kind of gatekept from us a little bit as this industry has been in its infancy. So I'm really, really hopeful that the next few years we start to see some of those legislative changes that allow for things like, you know, the winery model or you know, consumption lounge model to take root a little bit more and for that educational process to begin.
Cory Desloge [00:49:27]:
In earnest and I, I to, to kind of tap onto that. It's like the, I think, think logistics is a big part of the whole industry and flower Has a shelf life. A lot of people will say, oh, and again, this is preference and somewhat controversial, but it's like curing your weed's important, but when you cure weed for a year, it's going to brown out. There isn't, at least to my knowledge, outside of nitrogen packing, there hasn't been anybody who's created a process that at room temperature, temperature, you could keep jarring a weed for a year and have it look exactly as it did going in. And you know, with wine you have cellars, right, that are very constant, but it's a liquid that almost gets better in time and again. Who am I to tell somebody that brown meat is, is good or bad? Maybe they want it cured that long. And if it's brown and it has these, you know, all these other converted cannabinoids, it may give you a different experience. And we may be talking about how in a year this is what we want to smoke.
Cory Desloge [00:50:30]:
I mean, me personally, I don't, I'd rather smoke something that's been plant, you know, two, three months max. Obviously you still need to have, have good intent with your processes of drying and curing to remain the greer, retain the grease and everything. But I think that's another thing, you know, hash, hash is something I think will, will fit the wine model well just because it can age without extreme degradation and certainly when you go to packaging it and how you store it. But flour, you know, it's, it's, it's a different thing. And I think it, it, hopefully I'm proved wrong. Hopefully there's people who can have these processes that will age cannabis perfectly over time and it can only get better in time. But I've just found on a personal level, like when you hold weed for too long, if, even if it's stored in a nitrogen pack like I, I've, I've had bad experiences where I think there's that sweet spot for flour. Ash is a different beast.
Cory Desloge [00:51:29]:
You know, if you're making liquid, you know, drinks or something like that, that again, different beast. But flower, in my opinion, has a window of where it's going to be what you want. And again, everybody's preference is different. So if you like stuff that's a year old and brown, again, I'm not going to tell you it's bad, but I think for me personally there's a fine window for flour and it makes it tough because with wine or even liquors, you're saying, well, this is from year 90 and that was the best year, and it's like, well, we're growing indoor, you know, so indoor is a little different. Now. If we were just doing outdoor farms and we harvested year after year, different batches and you know, your 98 year was great. It's like, well, how can I store that flower so that it is preserved in a way that I want it to look the same way it did in 98. Yeah, I know there's an opportunity to learn that, but I, I haven't found it out yet.
Cory Desloge [00:52:27]:
I've definitely. I mean, a freezer, you, you can, you can store weed differently to pres. Its color. But you know, I would love to be able to walk into a cave of weed one day. And it's just, you know, my cellar and I have dope ass weed that's been there for years and I can open jars up to show my friends.
Cian [00:52:44]:
And you find someone who's able to put a stopper in that whole oxidation thing.
Jason Van Leuven [00:52:49]:
Yeah, I am on board.
Cian [00:52:51]:
I'll build a seller too.
Cory Desloge [00:52:52]:
You know, like that that's a dream one day is to have a seller not of just wine and other awesome. Some substances, but cannabis. That's the dream.
Jason Van Leuven [00:53:02]:
So it. I was being serious there. There's a product out there called space weed and they flash freeze dry it.
Cory Desloge [00:53:08]:
Okay.
Jason Van Leuven [00:53:09]:
And it reminds me like, it's definitely a different product than what you're used to from flower. It kind of reminds me of like those ice cream bars that you get from REI and like. Yeah, like.
Cian [00:53:24]:
Yeah, okay. It's crazy.
Cory Desloge [00:53:25]:
I don't know how long it retains its. No, it retains its flat like its structure. Like I've. I've freeze dried lots of weed and again, there's still a balance on that. Like you could over dry it. But what I've noticed the biggest, the, I guess whatever. What I've noticed most, it stands out the most is that the flower doesn't deflate. Like it almost.
Cory Desloge [00:53:50]:
It keeps the structure that it had on the, on the plant.
Cian [00:53:55]:
What's the texture like when you snap that nug open?
Cory Desloge [00:53:58]:
Well, again, if you over dried it, if you over freeze dried it, it's gonna be too dry. Like there's a, there's a.
Cian [00:54:03]:
Just imagining like snapping the, the freeze dried ice cream sandwich. That like styrofoam kind of, kind of texture.
Cory Desloge [00:54:10]:
Yeah. And see, I think there, there's a, there's a balance. You can overdo it, but there's also, you know, depending on the genetic intensity, like there's a fine line of doing it just right. But again, I don't know Jay Like I don't know if it would stand the test of time. We would see. You know, I'm willing to buy and park it for a little bit just for research and development purposes, but.
Jason Van Leuven [00:54:33]:
I.
Cory Desloge [00:54:33]:
Know there's people trying to do the, the cryo approach or the freeze dry approach. And I'm all for it because it'll help mitigate microbials. It'll help a lot of things, but I'm not sure if it's going to prevent it from degrading because oxidation is oxidation and time's not on your side when it goes through that process.
Cian [00:54:49]:
You freeze dry a couple of, couple of nugs. And next time Jason and I'll come out, we'll all three break them apart, and we'll render a verdict.
Jason Van Leuven [00:54:56]:
Sounds good.
Cory Desloge [00:54:59]:
Sounds good.
Cian [00:55:00]:
Well, I know we said we weren't going to keep you the full hour, Cory, but here we are just right past an hour, so I probably ought to bring us on home for the day. Everyone who's tuned in, thank you guys for joining us for episode 144 of Roy Office Hours. We'll see you all again next week on episode 145. As always, welcome cultivation questions drop many time in the AROYA application. Email us at salesroyaa, IO, dmsv, Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn. We want to hear from you and answer any of your cultivation questions. You guys got burning. Smash the like button.
Cian [00:55:31]:
Leave us a review on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, or wherever you listen to the podcast. We appreciate your feedback. And Corey, thank you for hopping on today, bud. It's been a great, pleasant pleasure, fellas.
Cory Desloge [00:55:41]:
We'll talk soon.
Cian [00:55:43]:
That we will.
Cory Desloge [00:55:44]:
All right, take care.
Cian [00:55:44]:
See you guys on episode 145.
Jason Van Leuven [00:55:46]:
Y.