fbpx
A surprising oasis for medical marijuana: Oklahoma

A surprising oasis for medical marijuana: Oklahoma

When you think of Oklahoma, marijuana is probably not a thing you associate with the state.

OKLAHOMA (NewsNation Now) — Drive about 40 miles northeast of Oklahoma City and you’ll land on Chip Baker’s hundred-acre farm.

At first glance, it looks like any plot in rural Oklahoma. Spacious fields studded with work sheds and tarped greenhouse tunnels. Roosters roam freely next door.

Throw open the barn door and the golden light doesn’t reveal amber waves of grain but a different kind of cash crop.

It’s a marijuana operation and it’s all “baker’s brand.”

“Tokelahoma, cushlahoma, weedlahoma [and] gongelahoma” Baker says are just a few of the brands he sells.

“I think Lester Grinspoon said it best when he said “I smoke marijuana every chance I get.” and it’s true! Every chance, I do! ” exclaimed Baker.

Baker has grown weed around the world since he was 13. From the woods of Georgia and the lakes of Switzerland to Colorado and California.

“I love California weed, I love California growers. But there’s a certain snobbiness and we’ve done it all,” said Baker. “But like Oklahoma it’s this newness, adventure, that’s partly why we’re here.”

The 48-year-old and his wife Jessica moved to Oklahoma a couple of years ago after 57 percent of statewide voters literally greenlit medicinal marijuana through state question 788.

David Lewis is a lifelong Oklahoman and coo of Stability Cannabis, one of the state’s largest indoor grow facilities.

“I think people underestimate how much of a culture shock this was. This was a state where you couldn’t buy wine in a grocery store, yet we passed medicinal marijuana,” explained Lewis. “Born and raised in Oklahoma, I never would have thought we’d have almost 400,000 patients consuming medical marijuana. It’s shocking.”

According to the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority, there are more than 380,000 Oklahomans with active medical marijuana cards, about 10 percent of the population. That’s more than any other state in the country and double that of New Mexico, which comes in second.

In a state whose politics are as red as its dirt, the numbers almost seem wrong.

“Oklahoma and Texas are the home of outlaw country, right? Just because people are conservative or work on the land, or fish or hunt as relaxation, or even go to church, doesn’t disbar them from using cannabis and enjoying it,” said Baker.

“What I would say is look around the congregation at your church, and that’s our customer base,” added Lewis.

They’re consumers who get to come out of the shadows like Taly Frantz-Holly.

“I’ve been on the black market, as far as cannabis, as a smoker and everything from the time I was 19,” said Frantz-Holly.

She suffers from PTSD and says certain prescription pills left her suicidal. She found relief in cannabis.

“I went from taking 8 pharmaceuticals—8 medicinal pills every day. And now I’m down to 2. I only have panic attacks once ever few weeks and I was having panic attacks every single day,” stated Frantz-Holly.

Frantz-Holly says, without a doubt, the plant saved her life. So enamored by its medicinal powers, she now grows it herself.

“I literally got drug charges when I was 21 for a joint. And did 30 days in county jail. For a joint! And now I’m picking up 75 marijuana plants to go home to my commercial grow,” said Frantz-Holly.

She’s not alone. There are 7,000 other commercial growers across the state. Baker says it’s never been easier or cheaper to break into the business.

“Oklahoma just made it so easy to get involved that the average and normal person could,” said Baker. “There just no boundaries here.”

The application fee for growers, processors, dispensaries and transporters is $2,500. For patients, it’s $100. $20 for disabled veterans. Baker says it took him 15 minutes to apply in other states? He’s waited two years.

 

“Well if you look back at the political cycles, Oklahoma is the reddest of the red states. And I think what that translated to in medical marijuana was a free market approach,” said Baker. “The government wanted the free market to settle out who the winners and losers would be, and as a result you saw very limited restrictions on getting into the market and a lot of people participated.”

And many doctors, especially during a pandemic, have signed off on cards for patients suffering from anxiety, depression and insomnia.

“Oh COVID was a boom to the industry! Turns out if you’re trapped at home I guess with your kids and your in laws, you might have to medicate a little bit more every now and then,” said Lewis.

“The other thing is people aren’t sharing cannabis as much because of COVID. So people have been having their own bowls and their own joints,” stated Baker.

Baker says industry-wide, the business grew 50 percent last year.

If you’re surprised by Oklahoma’s booming numbers, Baker says you shouldn’t be. People just haven’t been able to talk about it but singing it.

“Oklahoma has a cannabis history. The cross Canadian ragweed, the famous song from 20 years ago. Oklahoma boys roll their joints all wrong. Its famous! It’s been famous for years!” said Baker.

 

How Oklahoma Became the Nation’s Hottest Weed Market

How Oklahoma Became the Nation’s Hottest Weed Market

How oklahoma became the largest cannabis market in the country

Oklahoma entered the world of legal cannabis late, but its hands-off approach launched a boom and a new nickname: ‘Toke-lahoma.’

WELLSTON, Oklahoma—One day in the early fall of 2018, while scrutinizing the finances of his thriving Colorado garden supply business, Chip Baker noticed a curious development: transportation costs had spiked fivefold. The surge, he quickly determined, was due to huge shipments of cultivation supplies—potting soil, grow lights, dehumidifiers, fertilizer, water filters—to Oklahoma.

Baker, who has been growing weed since he was 13 in Georgia, has cultivated crops in some of the world’s most notorious marijuana hotspots, from the forests of Northern California’s Emerald Triangle to the lake region of Switzerland to the mountains of Colorado. Oklahoma was not exactly on his radar. So one weekend in October, Baker and his wife Jessica decided to take a drive to see where all their products were ending up.

Voters in the staunchly conservative state had just four months earlier authorized a medical marijuana program and sales were just beginning. The Bakers immediately saw the potential for the fledgling market. With no limits on marijuana business licenses, scant restrictions on who can obtain a medical card, and cheap land, energy and building materials, they believed Oklahoma could become a free-market weed utopia and they wanted in.
Within two weeks, they found a house to rent in Broken Bow and by February had secured a lease on an empty Oklahoma City strip mall. Eventually they purchased a 110-acre plot of land down a red dirt road about 40 miles northeast of Oklahoma City that had previously been a breeding ground for fighting cocks and started growing high-grade strains of cannabis with names like Purple Punch, Cookies and Cream and Miracle Alien.“This is exactly like Humboldt County was in the late 90s,” Baker says, as a trio of workers chop down marijuana plants that survived a recent ice storm. “The effect this is going to have on the cannabis nation is going to be incredible.”Oklahoma is now the biggest medical marijuana market in the country on a per capita basis. More than 360,000 Oklahomans—nearly 10 percent of the state’s population—have acquired medical marijuana cards over the last two years. By comparison, New Mexico has the country’s second most popular program, with about 5 percent of state residents obtaining medical cards. Last month, sales since 2018 surpassed $1 billion.
To meet that demand, Oklahoma has more than 9,000 licensed marijuana businesses, including nearly 2,000 dispensaries and almost 6,000 grow operations. In comparison, Colorado—the country’s oldest recreational marijuana market, with a population almost 50 percent larger than Oklahoma—has barely half as many licensed dispensaries and less than 20 percent as many grow operations. In Ardmore, a town of 25,000 in the oil patch near the Texas border, there are 36 licensed dispensaries—roughly one for every 700 residents. In neighboring Wilson (pop. 1,695), state officials have issued 32 cultivation licenses, meaning about one out of 50 residents can legally grow weed.
The Best Tips for Breeding Cannabis

The Best Tips for Breeding Cannabis

professional cannabis growers on breeding cannabis

Breeding cannabis is a science that takes a lot of patience and knowledge of the plant.

If breeding cannabis was easy, every grower would be doing it and pumping out the next hot strain. But the truth is that breeding cannabis is a long, time-consuming process that has no guarantees. What does that mean?

You can pop 100 seeds, and not find a single plant that you want to keep. If that’s the case, you probably have bad genetics. In most cases though you may still only find a couple keepers.

Freaux from Jive Cannabis Co. in Oklahoma is all too familiar with the struggles of breeding cannabis. Jive grows some of the best cannabis available in the state, and they didn’t get there by taking other grower’s clones. Working with top-tier breeders like Dungeon Vault Genetics, Jive breeds new cannabis strains by crossing their own in-house varieties with the best of the cannabis genetics community.

Breeding Cannabis in Greenhouses

When it comes to breeding cannabis, having control over your environment is a key factor to getting the results you want. In a greenhouse, it takes more due diligence to still grow high quality cannabis. But with a strong design and consistent maintenance a greenhouse can produce cannabis comparable to indoor.

“Oklahoma is a difficult, difficult place to grow cannabis. We try to fail as many ways as possible, so we’ll know how not to do it. But man, these greenhouses, these hoop houses like this, this technology if you know how to run it right, and can play it like an instrument, because this is just a passive greenhouse and you can open up the sidewalls and open up the ends.” – Chip Baker

During this interview with Freaux, Chip and him were wandering through the greenhouses on Chip’s farm checking out all of the cannabis. Some of the greenhouses were full of clones, others full of seed plants, and others with both. But Freaux was consistently surprised by the quality. “I walked down and was looking at some of the different phenos. Man it just seems like every one looks better than the last,” he said.

Tips for Cannabis Breeding

Remember when we mentioned how some growers might pop 100 seeds and pull out a couple winners? The truth is, if you want to get a real strong idea of how many genetic variations a plant might have, you’ll want to plant a lot more.

“If you have a bit of space to plant as many as possible, I think they say it’s something like 2,000 seeds is where you’re gonna see how many genetic variations are actually in that. So as far as you can, you know, go into that, I mean, obviously, you can’t always plant 2000 seeds or whatnot. But the more the merrier, because you really want to give a good look at what’s actually out there.” – Freaux

Of course Freaux knows that not many people can or even want to plant out 2,000 seeds just to find a few of the best. For the average grower, he recommends popping just a couple packs. Since seeds typically come in 10-12 packs, it’s a good starting point for anybody trying to get into cannabis breeding. Another key tip is to plant all of the seeds in your pack, not just a couple.

Planting just a couple seeds won’t show you the full diversity of the seeds, and if you grow one plant that looks good you might think that the other seeds will grow the same. However you might end up planting the other seeds in the pack later on and realize one of them is better, and you wasted a bunch of time cutting clones from the first plant.

After you pick out a few plants that look like they’re performing well, there’s several factors you want to consider before you move on to the next step which would be taking a clone.

“Did it grow right? How was it?  What was the overall you know, smoke? Was it, did it smell good, taste good?  You know was it easier to grow, was it friendly? You know, all those little like, factors you’re looking at.” – Freaux

The Second and Third Run

After picking out your top performers, you will want to do a second run of the plant. A second run is just the second time growing out a plant, usually from clone, in order to see how the plant develops when it isn’t growing from seed. For Freaux, any plant that is getting a second run is likely a plant that will move on to become a full-production strain, i.e. a strain that is going to end up on a dispensary menu.

Freaux’s second run is the time when he grows out the mother plants and takes clones. Once these plants are fully developed, they enter the “third run”, where the plants are harvested, dried and sent out to dispensaries for patients. After that, it will be the consumer who determines if Jive Cannabis Co. keeps the strain.

For Chip, he’s been testing out some different methods for his second runs.

“I’m starting to transition though to like, a different program which is, plant the seed out and grow it enough to take a clone. Take the clone and throw the seed away. Veg the plant for a small amount of time, a couple weeks and flower, right? As many plants as you can, tend the area and to see all the pheno expressions. And then from that run, make my big cut.” – Chip Baker

Chip admits that this method might take a little more time which commercial growers may not be able to afford, but his method works for him on his farm.

Mothering Seed Plants

A debate you might not have known about in the cannabis breeding community is whether or not plants grown from seed should be used as mothers. Chip’s preference is to use clones instead.

“They don’t produce mothers as well as clone plants do. I don’t believe so much in the multi-generational thing, because I know cuttings that are 20 to 30 years old, and they still grow bomb weed. But you know, we, all of our mothers are just within a couple of years old and you know, one or two generations off the seed plant.” – Chip Baker

In his experience, Chip says that seed plants grow noticeably different from clone plants. The main difference Chip notices is that plants from seed have more symmetrical growth and their nodes grow directly across from each other. With clones, the nodes alternate with each other. Due to this difference alone Chip could tell a difference in production.

Some Final Advice

This episode of The Real Dirt was meant to be just that, an episode! However, when you try to record an episode outside, while walking through hundreds of cannabis plants, you don’t end up with the best quality recording…

Since most of the episode mainly consisted of Chip and Freaux checking out some super dank weed, here’s Chip’s advice for growing some great “organ-ish” cannabis yourself:

“If you want great, ‘organ-ish’ weed, get your plant established and growing using three-part Cutting Edge and like, a four inch pot. When you transplant it into your forever pot that’s got other organic nutrients in it, water it once or twice with Cutting Edge synthetic nutrients. Once at the start of flower, once at the end of the stretch. And man, you’ll have great huge, incredible tasting, not purely organic, but organ-ish versions. And then all the other waterings, use organic. But just like, two synthetic waterings, establish the plant with the Cutting Edge and man, that grows great organ-ish weed, for sure.” – Chip Baker

Toward the end of the tour, Freaux had seen all of Chip’s greenhouses and was seriously impressed with how the plants looked compared to your average indoor.

“I mean, if people could just see how happy these plants are out here, man. You know, I don’t have much experience. I don’t have any experience growing outdoor in this type of setting. But just to see I mean, I literally look like I’m looking at somebody’s indoor garden with the quality, so it’s crazy. The plants are absolutely loving it out here for sure.” – Freaux

The rest of this episode has been lost to the wind…literally. It was so windy we couldn’t make out the rest of the recording! Check out the transcript from what we were able to pull to get some more cannabis breeding tips, see what strains Chip has on the farm, which ones Freaux loves and more!

Transcript

Chip:  Alright, here we are. Here we are. Here we are.

 

Freaux:  Hey, what’s going on? So I have –

 

Chip:  What do you got there, man?

 

Freaux:  Man, I got Purple Gelato. I’ve got Hot Rod, and I’ve got mixed Cream Cake, which is Ice Cream Cake times Cusherman’s Purple Gelato. So out of 33 times Purple Vapor and then Hot Rods, Motorbreath 15 times Grandpa’s Breath.

 

Chip:  Wow, this is gonna be a really good episode of The Real Dirt with Chip: Baker. And today on Chip: Baker and The Real Dirt, we have Freaux: from Jive. Thanks for coming. 

 

Freaux:  [inaudible 00:44]

 

Chip:  Hey, man, let’s get into some of that weed.

 

Freaux:  Cool. Any one you want to try first?

 

Chip:  Let’s – show me the jars. Let’s see it. Let’s see it. What do we got? We got – this is Purple Gelato. This is Ice Cream Cake.

 

Freaux:  [inaudible 01:00-01:04]

 

Chip:  Oh, man. So where did all these come from?

 

Freaux:  Alright. So, the Purple Gelato and Hot Rod is [inaudible 1:12] Genetics. Those are actually his breeder cuts. The – I think a Cushman is just actually a pheno hunt that we went on at Jive.

 

Chip:  Okay, alright. And where did that genetic come from?

 

Freaux:  That’s Seed Junky.

 

Chip:  Seed Junky. 

 

Freaux:  Seed Junky, yeah.

 

Chip:  Okay. Alright. Awesome. Yeah, let’s check it out. Ice Cream Cake. Nose test, that’s pretty good. Pungent. It’s good. Right? It’s a kind of very what I’d expect.

 

Freaux:  Yeah, it’s what you expect. Kind of like, Gelato notes like, a little like, minty with the Cushmans. 

 

Chip:  Hot Rod.

 

Freaux:  It’s got that Motorbreath and the Grandpa’s Breath. It’s a little chemi to it, little chemi gas. Super heavy.

 

Chip:  It’s delicate, it has as a delicate aroma. And it smells of  Chemdog gas.

 

Freaux:  Yeah, exactly.

 

Chip:  Lineage breath. Oh man. Now, that one, that one’s pretty good. The Purple Gelato is really gonna have to do better than the Hot Rod for me to choose it first. Hold on. Let me, let me check the Purple Gelato. Wow, man. The Purple Gelato looks phenomenal.

 

Freaux:  That deals off the charts I mentioned.

 

Chip:  Oh, dude, look at this, man. This looks like it’s great. Look at that super purple leaf on it. Oh my god. There’s one little leaf in the hole. Don’t even look real, man. Oh my god.

 

Freaux:  Yeah, that’s a special one. That’s one of my personal favorites right now.

 

Chip:  Man. This looks great. And I’m sure it’s probably one of the best sellers. I’m gonna go for the Hot Rod, though.

 

Freaux:  Hot Rod? Okay.

 

Chip:  You came out on a windy day here. Thanks for coming out, man.

 

Freaux:  I appreciate you having me like always.

 

Chip:  Yeah, we’re just at the end of our harvest season here. It’s November 2020. We’ve had a great year despite COVID. This is our third greenhouse pull out of here, this year. I think you’ve seen most of them.

 

Freaux:  I have, man. I tell you what, it looks beautiful out here. All these varieties and the way it looks. This is, man.

 

Chip:  This runs fucking great.

 

Freaux:  That’s what I’ve seen, too.

 

Chip:  Oh yeah, man.

 

Freaux:  It looks awesome, man. What are we looking at here? This is –

 

Chip:  Tangie.

 

Freaux:  Tangie and Do-Si. I tell you what, there’s some absolute beautiful phenos in here. Man, I honestly, to tell you the truth, I don’t have a lot of experience looking at you know, weed growing outdoor. But this is killer, man. I mean this, trichomes – 

 

Chip:  It don’t look like the normal outdoor weed, does it?

 

Freaux:  It does not look like total outdoor weed. I mean, honestly, if you had this plant, brought it indoors you would have, I mean, it looks like some indoor to me, man. Honestly, especially some of the phenos.

 

Chip:  Sometimes it looks better than our indoor even, man. I mean, it’s when you hit it right in these greenhouses man, it’s just, it’s better than indoor. The flavor is better. The overall yield is better. The individual, the density might not be as there. The pounds will be larger. The cost of production, the man – that shit’s hard, dude. It ain’t easy.

 

Freaux:  No, I mean, I can only imagine. I mean, just looking at what y’all have going on out here, looks like a ton of work. What I’m surprised is just looking at it the outdoors, it’s just how fat these colas are. I mean, these colas are crazy fat. I mean, super crystally, lot of good color. I mean, it just looks beautiful. Y’all killed this round man.

 

Chip:  Yeah, the glands are swelling right now. It’s really starting to give that indoor appearance. And you can tell the difference between our indoor and this, but most people can’t.

 

Freaux:  No, to the average eye, if you pulled this plant and threw it under a light just for, you know, to kind of trick somebody or whatever I mean, this easily looks like some indoor weed.

 

Chip:  Well, I mean, honestly, we are inside right now, aren’t we?

 

Freaux:  Yeah, we’re in like a –

 

Chip:  Yeah, we’re in a hoop house. This is, there’s walls and a roof. It’s kind of indoors, isn’t it?

 

Freaux:  Yeah. Theoretically. Theoretically, yeah.

 

Chip:  We walked inside the greenhouse.

 

Freaux:  [inaudible 5:35]

 

Chip:  If there was a door here, we would have walked in the door.

 

Freaux:  You’re absolutely right.

 

Chip:  But it’s growing by the sun. Yeah, that’s what we mean by outdoor though. I’m just bullshitting. But like, I’m proud to call this outdoor. I’m just always testing the boundaries of what’s what, you know. What people consider what is, and we’ve had some poor quality outdoor, I’ll show you that a little later on too. Oklahoma is a difficult, difficult place to grow cannabis. We try to fail as many ways as possible, so we’ll know how not to do it. But man, these greenhouses, these hoop houses like this, this technology if you know how to run it right, and can play it like an instrument, because this is just a passive greenhouse and you can open up the sidewalls and open up the ends. There’s generally not electricity in here. But if you play it right, it sounds beautiful and you can have some beautiful product in it. But man, if you can’t play it right, if you can’t ven it right, if you know, you can’t work the passive nature of it. It’s often too hot, too humid, right, you know? And just the quality goes down.

 

Freaux:  I’m seeing this round man. I mean, it’s amazing. I mean I’m, you know, kind of walking in and looking around before you got out here. Kind of walked down and was looking at some of the different phenos. Man it just seems like every one looks better than the other. I mean – 

 

Chip:  Yeah, we’ll take a look at all of them a little later on.

 

Freaux:  Yeah, I mean, this Tangie Do-Si is really expressing itself well. Put my nose on a couple of phenos [inaudible 7:17] kind of lean more toward the Do-Si side, some more toward the Tangie, some that are kind of right there in the middle, have a good balance of both. I’ve seen some that are, you know, showing real purple. But I think overall, I think looking at all of the plants, it’s just the, man, the trichome production and the frost. Every one of these phenos is frosted out.

 

Chip:  Yeah, absolutely.

 

Freaux:  I mean this, I don’t know what I’m looking at. It looks like a couple hundred.

 

Chip:  There’s 250.

 

Freaux:  Yeah.

 

Chip:  250 seed plants here. We veg them for, planted them in four inch pots, vegged them for 23 days, transplanted them in these five gallon pots, and they were flowered immediately.

 

Freaux:  Yeah.

 

Chip:  Right. And look how tall some of these guys are, right?

 

Freaux:  Yeah, some of them are huge. I mean, everything looks beautiful in here, man. It’d be hard to man, it’d be hard to pick a winner. There’s so many to go through. But like, as I was walking down the road, I mean, it’s just one after the other showing, you know, different characteristics. The smells, the looks. Tell you what. everything in here looks ultra happy too.

 

Chip:  What do you think about it? Good times here. Good times. Yeah, man. You know, I’ve always really been fascinated with Rastafari and religion. You know, primarily because they worship cannabis or it’s part of their sacrament, you know. I guess they worship God and Haile Selassie and some other stuff too, but, you know, they’re really into weed. So you know, I researched them. And one of the things I’ve really loved about the Rastas is they almost always have their own joint. And they’re large joints too, they’re not small joints. And in this time of COVID, I think this is the perfect time for us all to switch to these extra large papers. What size are these papers?

 

Freaux:  They’re called king size.

 

Chip:  King size papers. Everybody, if you’re sitting back right now, go to your cupboard and get some king size papers. And you know, about two grams of weed. If you don’t have that, just press pause right now, and go to the local store and get it, and we’ll wait for you to get back. Alright, now that you’re back, let’s grind that weed up and roll it into the largest possible joint you can, like me and Freaux are doing. And you know, we’ll just all smoke one together. So I’ll give you all a second just to put it together as we’re twisting it up. You know, always fascinated with different people’s rolling techniques. Freaux seems like to be a master here. He brought his own papers into –

 

Freaux:  I’m not huge on the organics. I kind of like the classics just because it’s a little bit easier to roll. 

 

Chip:  No, I like the classics too. We just ran out. Could I have one of those? Yeah, they roll far better. 

 

Freaux:  Yeah, exactly.

 

Chip:  I am a professional roller, that’s for sure.

 

Freaux:  I’m still over here put it in the [inaudible 11:14], start smoking it.

 

Chip:  You know the faster you get to roll joints, the more you get to smoke them throughout the day. See, I can smoke like five times more than you right now.

 

Freaux:  You rolled another three in the amount of time – 

 

Chip:  Alright. Alright, well, hey, we’ll just take a break. We’ll walk inside to our into our medical consumption area. So we can legally consume these, the medication they call it. Actually this is just like, quality control for us right now. You know, Freaux often needs my expert opinion on how good his weed is, you know?

 

Freaux:  Yeah, I tell you what, anybody that I want to give my honest opinion is you, Chip:.

 

Chip:  Nah hey, I’ll give it to you man, that’s for sure. Alright, and we’ll just, we’ll just walk inside. Alright, now that we’re inside. The Hot Rod. Now, I love the bud structure in the Hot Rod. Do you think that’s why they call it the Hot Rod?

 

Freaux:  I think you probably call it the Hot Rod because of like, the gassy nose. But –

 

Chip:  Fuel. The fuel reference, okay, okay. It looks like it’s a grower though, man. There’s some nice nuggets in there, huh?

 

Freaux:  Yeah, the Hot Rod is definitely a grower, big, fat crystallized nuggets. I know DVG always says for the gas heads this is a strain, God’s hands rejoice at this strain.

 

Chip:  Oh, this one’s great. And this is Seed Junky.

 

Freaux:  No this is a DVG, Dungeon Vault Genetics.

 

Chip:  Dungeon Vault Genetics. Dungeon Vault Genetics. Oh man, this looks like a great one. Has a barrel, very soft taste. Like you could smoke this weed all day. There’s good flavor.  Don’t get me wrong when I say soft, but it’s, the opposite of soft will be harsh or hard. Right

 

Freaux:  Yeah.

 

Chip:  Right? 

 

Freaux:  I wouldn’t want them to be harsh.

 

Chip:  Yeah, yeah.  That’s a hard smoke. Yeah, you don’t want that, right?

 

Freaux:  It’s definitely very smooth. As far as like, the high, we haven’t got all the way like smoking it. And it’s pretty heavy. I’d say definitely can smoke it during the day. I mean, if just depending on how much you smoke. It does have a, you know it can knock you out, though if you’re not careful, if you overdo it. But I do start my day on the Hot Rod sometimes but for me personally, I kind of like to keep toward the end of the day. But when you do got to get medicated, this is the one that’s gonna do the trick.

 

Chip:  No, this is great, man. This fits excellent in our medication lounge here. What do you think about this little place? Little indoor, outdoor medication lounge?

 

Freaux:  I think it’s awesome man. I mean every facility needs to have something like this man, you know?

 

Chip:  Yeah well with the laws, you have to separate it all. And so that’s what we try to do is separate it.

 

Freaux:  No, I hear you on that. Yeah, it’s a cool little spot, you know?

 

Chip:  Oh yeah, man sitting on the back porch with Freaux, this is The Real Dirt. Yeah, you know, one of the reasons I had you over here Freaux is ’cause you know, you love to pheno hunt, you love to plant seeds. That’s kind of how we met Jacob. I mean, you’ve been a customer of ours at Cultivate OKC from the beginning. But Jacob Sarabia that handles our commercial sales, he mentioned you, that you were down here and you bought seeds, and you were into genetics. And so that’s kind of how we linked up initially. 

 

Freaux:  Oh yeah, definitely.

 

Chip:  Right? It takes people that are really into it, you know? You see lots of people plant seeds. And they’ll go buy the six pack or a 10 pack, and they’ll plant two or three, and then they’ll pick that, that one plant that’s, you know, out of the two or three. Let’s talk about why there’s a better way to do it, how there’s a better way to do it.

 

Freaux:  Yeah, I mean so like, whatever kind of like, space you have or whatnot, I want to say like, the science behind it, you need to you know, if you have this bit of space to plant as many as possible, I think they say it something where 2000 seeds is where you’re gonna get, like a, an actual, like, shows you exactly how many genetic variations are actually in that. So as far as you can, you know, go into that, I mean, obviously, you can’t always plant 2000 seeds or whatnot. But the more the merrier, because you really want to give a good look at what’s actually out there. You know, you’re gonna –

 

Chip:  I mean, I try to at least plant packs, though. You gotta at least plant a pack or, and I mean, if you can, multiple packs, right?

 

Freaux:  There’s no way that I would just plant one or two seeds out of a pack, I would definitely not do that. You know, a pack, which is like 10 to 12 is like a good starting point. I mean if you can run about two or three of them, I think that’s a pretty nice, you know, run. You know, just depending on the genetics or whatnot, I mean, you can get lucky sometimes finding stuff and, you know, planting less than that. But, I would say if you are going to go ahead and actually take the time and effort and you know, all the work that goes into pheno hunting, that you’d want to have, you know, as many as you possibly can, but definitely more than just like, one or two out of a pack. Because there’s so many different genetic variations when you’re looking at phenos. And you want to have as many options as you can when you’re actually looking at it

 

Chip:  And just to see it to learn it, right?

 

Freaux:  Yeah, just to see it to learn it. And then, because as you start planting seeds, and you get to look at, you know, different variations in the genetics, you can see how much different they are than the other. If you’re only planning like one or two, you’re not going to really see anything at that point. I would definitely recommend to anybody who’s either starting out on it or whatnot to at least plant that full pack, or one or two, if you can. I know some people too –

 

Chip:  It’s hard ’cause it’s expensive and people look at as like, “Oh, man, these are $80 packs and $200 packs,” right? And that’s how people look at it, but they got to look at it by seed and how much that seed could potentially produce for them.

 

Freaux:  Yeah, I mean, if you’re looking, I mean –

 

Chip:  Hey, let’s pick one of the plants you’ve planted a pack of seeds of this year that you’ve kept, because you’ve done that, right?

 

Freaux:  Yeah, we definitely have. 

 

Chip:  Just like, pick a random plant.

 

Freaux:  Let’s say the Ice Cream Cake Cushman.

 

Chip:  The Ice Cream Cake Cushman. So when did you plant that out?

 

Freaux:  Man I planted that probably, it would have been right after the Oklahoma Cannabis Cup. So well over a year ago.

 

Chip:  Okay, over a year ago, you bought that pack for 150 bucks, or..? 

 

Freaux:  I think that particular pack was like, 200.

 

Chip:  So you bought $200, you planted that pack, and you’ve had how many runs of cuttings off that since then? Two or three at least?

 

Freaux:  Roughly three.

 

Chip:  Right. So you’ve had three runs of cuttings off that initial investment of $200.

 

Freaux:  Yeah.

 

Chip:  Wow, that’s when it starts to make sense, right? If you think about all the pounds that have been able to grow, or all the plants that have been able to grown, 200 bucks is nothing for like, a great pack of seeds. And you got it with that too. I mean, you know, we’ve planted out other seeds where you haven’t got anything. I mean, I have. I know you have too.

 

Freaux:  That happens all the time.

 

Chip:  That’s most of the case, right?

 

Freaux:  [inaudible 19:18-19:21] find anything just because you find a female and [inaudible 19:26] really like a winner you need to grow it out and maybe run it one or you know, another time or two to actually see if it is you know, something that you’re gonna wanna keep. But yeah, if you’re talking about it from like an investment, I would look at it to 200 bucks to have your own specific strain pheno that nobody else has is well, well worth your money.

 

Chip:  Well worth the money.

 

Freaux:  Well worth the money. 

 

Chip:  Absolutely. But it’s not a guaranteed gamble though, is it?

 

Freaux:  [inaudible 19:57-20:05].

 

Chip:  I would say, let’s see. We have four strains in the 13 that we sell at Baker’s, that my wife has at her genetics dispensary in Oklahoma City, Baker’s Medical. I believe the four of them came from seeds that we planted in the past two years. And the rest of them were cell cultures, right? Or cuttings people gave us. In that same period of time, we have planted dozens of packs of seeds that we hadn’t decided the weed was worth anything.

 

Freaux:  Yeah, I mean, like we were saying earlier, it doesn’t always work out. I mean, especially too if you have like, a good lineup, which I know y’all do. You don’t want to, you know, digress from that. [inaudible 21:02] opinion – 

 

Chip:  You gotta be heartless, you got to throw it away.

 

Freaux:  You really do. And then the thing is I know, you know, I know a lot of people. You put a lot of time and effort into it, and you really want to get something out of it. But I mean, it’s either got to have it or not, and you got to kind of have the, you know, the know how or, you know, the profile as far as like, what you’re actually looking for. Because a lot of people you know, it gives genetics a bad name, when you know, you get a pack of seeds and you can easily tell like, “Hey,” you know, “that’s not a winner. That’s not gonna make the cut,” but you still continue to run it and put it out there in the market. And it just kind of like, weakens the gene pool. And then on top of that too, there’s some really good genetics out there that people just got to get in there and find them. There’s a lot of good stuff in those pack of seeds. So if you know, you don’t find something, if there’s like –  I know it’s happened with me several times, where you get a specific cross you’re really excited about, and you run a pack of them which is roughly you know, 10 to 12 seeds or whatnot. You don’t find anything, get another pack. Try it again or you know if something that you were really, really interested in –  I know that’s happened you know, with us at Jive even like, recently we had a pack that we ran, didn’t really find anything. And the cross was really, really you know, appealing to everybody. We ran another pack and it’s kind of to be determined you know, if it’s gonna make the cut or not. It could go [inaudible 22:23] too but –

 

Chip:  That’s the faith.

 

Freaux:  Yeah.

 

Chip:  Right? You gotta believe.

 

Freaux:  You gotta believe. I mean you kind of [inaudible 22:30] right there.

 

Chip:  You have to believe.

 

Freaux:  You  do have to believe.

 

Chip:  I’ve kind of given that up with weed. And I don’t believe anymore at all. I actually come to it with like, “Oh, this is probably not gonna be great. And I’m gonna learn [inaudible 22:45-22:55].

 

Freaux:  Yeah, you know with that too. I know a lot of people or some people I know, they kind of start making like, cuts or selections on stuff before they’ve actually you know, either harvested or dried it.

 

Chip:  You run it. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. A lot of clone nurseries [inaudible 23:11] all over the country but specifically here in Oklahoma,  it’s [inaudible 23:19] period of time even not just one or two runs. [inaudible 23:25], how many runs?

 

Freaux:  So, I would say after two. But like, that third just for safe measure. But like, you know, at  Jive we like to give it basically you know, one run, the initial run. And that’s kind of the you know, the initial tell as far as like you know, is it gonna make it? Should I get a second one?

 

Chip:  Did it grow right?

 

Freaux:  Did it grow right? How was it?  What was the overall you know, smoke? Was it, did it smell good, taste good?  You know was it easier to grow, was a friendly? You know, all those little like, factors you’re looking at. But the second run is kind of the you know, the you know, cement it where, this is going to make the lineup. I’d say the second run is kind of where you’re gonna, you know, cement it as far as like, “This is gonna be in our lineup. This is gonna be in our menu.” And then the third time for us would kind of be when you have enough of it, you’ve built up you know, your moms and your clones. And then the third time where it kind of be the grand finale where you’d be able to drop it to the patients. And then you know, see you know, how it reacts or whatnot, as far as like, you know, “Well, we liked it. Does everybody else like it?” You know what I’m saying?

 

Chip:  Damn. No, that’s a great way to look at it. We do it’s very similar, but for different reasons. And it’s if we grow it from seed, we just grow it and see if we like the way it grows. I’m starting to transition though to like, a different program which is, plant the seed out and grow it enough to take a clone. Take the clone or to throw the seed away. Veg the plant for a small amount of time, a couple weeks and flower, right? As many plants as you can, attend area and to see all the pheno expressions. And then from that run, make my big cut. Right? And all the way through it, it takes a little more commitment and time. I don’t think you turnaround quite as quick?

 

Freaux:  Yeah.

 

Chip:  But if you’re keeping it in commercial production, it might not be the best way to go. But, man, it’s a little easier, you know? For me anyway.

 

Freaux:  And I would say too, I know me and you have kind of talked about this before. That second time, when you actually do take the cutting, and then you, you know, you run it out a second time, you’re gonna get a little bit better expression to see like, what’s actually going to like, happen with it. And I know the last time we talked about it, you had kind of had mentioned that and I guess I really didn’t think about it, because you know, you’re more or less thinking, you know, I want to get it in and get into the rotation and stuff like that. But that second run, when you actually do take a cut and go from there kind of really solidifies it as far like –

 

Chip:  It acts like the third run.

 

Freaux:  It really does, you know.

 

Chip:  It really does.

 

Freaux:  And I would say there’s a much bigger difference between the first and the second, than there is from like, the second and third. The third run’s almost just kind of, you know, ramping it up or whatnot to actually make the menu or cut or what.

 

Chip:  It’s just the guts to throw away those plants.

 

Freaux:  Yeah.

 

Chip:  And, you know, maybe give them away –

 

Freaux:  It’s hard –

 

Chip:  You know. But the seed plants, there’s a huge debate over it, but I prefer not to keep seed plants as mothers. They don’t produce mothers as well as clone plants do. I don’t believe so much in the multi-generational thing, because I know cuttings that are 20 to 30 years old, and they still grow bomb weed. But you know, we, all of our mothers are just within a couple of years old and you know, one or two generations off the seed plant. It’s the seeds, though, they just grow completely different. There’s a more of a symmetrical growth, the nodes grow directly across from each other, and then the clones, they grow alternate to each other. And the plants really produced differently because of that, and act differently because of that.

 

Freaux:  And then also too, just to kind of throw that in there, like, I know a lot of people grow from seed, they might not, you know, work or train with their plants, as much as it were to see, like, you know, does it top well? Does it, you know, ven well? How does it you know, perform in kind of like a setting with like, other stuff. Whereas that second run, when you have you know, more you know, clippings, cuttings of it, you can really, you know, kind of train your plants to do what you want it to do into like, your program or whatnot. And I know, like, you know, the initial run of the seeds you’re just kind of seeing, is it good? Is it worth it? But that second run is really like, you know, is it going to make it or not? Because you’re vending it, you’re putting in a trellis, you’re staking it, you’re, you know, topping it, you really get to train it into your program, depending on, you know, what you would do or whatnot. And that second run, you know, is definitely the true, you know [inaudible 28:07-28:15].

 

Chip:  Like Fletcher, the guy I got these seeds from, he can probably see the plants different. I know he sees the plants differently than we do. It takes me two solid clone runs before I can really see the plant.

 

Freaux:  That makes total sense.

 

Chip:  Two. And part of that’s also is like, you know, the first run is I’m throwing stuff away. In my mind, I’m looking to throw stuff away. And in the second run, I’m wondering, like how the keepers are gonna perform. And so then there’s still another culling then, right? And and it’s really I guess it’s the third run that solidifes if I’ve got it or not. And by you know, starting with clone from that initial run, you do save a whole run. You know, you’re gonna go three runs. You do lose, 7, 40, 50 days.

 

Freaux:  Yeah.

 

Chip:  So that’s what it costs.

 

Freaux:  Man, it’s worth it in the end though.

 

Chip:  Well, that’s what it costs too, because you’re gonna grow that and throw it away and it’s all worth nothing, right? The rest of it’s all for nothing.

 

Freaux:  I know what you mean.

 

Chip:  [inaudible 29:37-29:40]

 

Freaux:  Yeah.

 

Chip:  That was fun weed man. Oh, man. Well hey, are you ready to go look at some weed? Let’s get up and go outside and go look at some weed.

 

Freaux:  Let’s do it.

 

Chip:  Alright. Alright, in a stroll through the garden  today with Freaux. Good to see you today, Freaux. So here it is, man. We got [inaudible 30:01] seeds, about the same time. We both ordered these seeds. I wanted to have you out. Well you didn’t quite get these seeds that we [inaudible 30:10] order and you got some seeds out of it. And so yeah, these are the, this is all Do-Si-Dos crosses from Archive. This room is all Tangie. Favorite phenos about [inaudible 30:34]. Let’s see, right here. I think this is – 

 

Freaux:  That smells good.

 

Chip:  [inaudible 30:40-30:42] 

 

Freaux:  That one’s a real big Do-Si there.

 

Chip:  Yeah, it’s sitting right next to this really quiet one. 

 

Freaux:  [inaudible 30:56].

 

Chip:  So interesting thing about this why, when – I forgot. This is a [inaudible 31:01].

 

Freaux:  That got a crazy nose.

 

Chip:  Hey, check this out, trellis. We’re planting these plants up. And one of my employees forgot to actually plant the plant. And, and it rooted in there. By the time we figured it out, we decided that we just leave it and see what happens. And so I just remembered the whole thing we just walked in here. And that’s what happened.

 

Freaux:  Man, you should run that one again. Just [inaudible 31:29] life right there.

 

Chip:  Yeah, totally. Totally. 

 

Freaux:  It’s crazy the way weed [inaudible 31:35-31:42]

 

Chip:  You know what I mean? I couldn’t like, help but wonder if like, if that was planted properly, would it look more like that plant to the left of it, you know?

 

Freaux:  Yeah, that’s a beautiful one back there. Look at all those colors.

 

Chip:  Yeah, that’s a that’s a good one too, man.

 

Freaux:  Color really came out on that one.

 

Chip:  Yeah. And when you, you know, we just stopped right at the beginning of the greenhouse. But when you look around, you kind of see the expression of phenotypes. And now we can like, walk down here and you can just pick out the kind of the ones you know, that are just right here. You’ve got this whiter one. You’ve got this one that’s going like, more purple, right? And then there’s the, this one here is like, a little leafier, it’s gonna definitely be bigger, go a little bit longer, right?

 

Freaux:  For sure.

 

Chip: More the Tangie looking.

 

Freaux:  Like you said, just right here in this small little spot right there. Man, if you I mean, the crystal production trichomes on that plant and that plant look wild, man.

 

Chip:  Yeah, man. It’s –

 

Freaux:  They look almost like, boom or whatnot. They look awesome. It’s crazy too.  If you can see right here, that one looks pretty much like that when these two are pretty much similar but different. And that one’s kind of [inaudible 33:05] right there.

 

Chip:  Yeah, absolutely. Alright. So structure on some of these are just incredible, man. I mean, you know, I mean, Fletcher really does do a great job at this. You could pick, someone could take this, you know, a six pack of this, and pick out one of all these different six plants here. They could pick any one, and it’d be great, great weed.

 

Freaux:  No, for sure. I mean, any one of these, you know, definitely will be incredible weed.

 

Chip:  But man, to get the best like, like alright, let’s play a game while we’re in here on the Tangies. We’ll start on the Tangies. And then let’s do it on the whole garden. Let’s pick up with that plant in here.

 

Freaux:  Alright, I don’t want [inaudible 33:58]. 

 

Chip:  200 plants here. That’s down to the end. 

 

Freaux:  Let’s do it.

 

Chip:  Alright, alright. So yeah, we just stroll through here looking for the girls. Alright, so we’re walking through the garden currently. Freaux, he’s feeling the stem. He’s caressing the top nugget, he’s smelling them gently, he’s looking at the structure. God, this is a really good plant right here, man. Just the plant, like, the  structure and size, you could tell that [inaudible 34:31].

 

Freaux:  Wow look at that one. Look at this one. That’s got a real good nose too. Man I think like you were saying earlier, they got some like clear cut like keynotes. You can almost see like, you know, like five different styles with obviously like, little variation of it but there’s some like, these green, fat ones or some more like, purple crystallized ones.

 

Chip:  But those white ones man. I want the white, fat ones is the one I’m looking for. 

 

Freaux:  No, I hear you.

 

Chip:  Right? Hey, and this one’s a good one. I mean just to stop and talk about this one. Like, it’s very, the colors [inaudible 35:21] really light. The nugget structure isincredible the top colas, you know it’s [inaudible the 35:30], pattern of it is really nice, has a secondary crown that grows you know, perfectly. This has a perfect shape to me.

 

Freaux:  No, that does have a really nice shape to it.

 

Chip:  But I mean I’m looking for it slightly better than that.

 

Freaux:  Yeah.

 

Chip:  But I want, I like that bud structure.

 

Freaux:  Yeah, I’d say I like this structure right here too.

 

Chip:  Yeah, I mean –

 

Freaux:  [inaudible 35:56]

 

Chip:  See now that’s a, that is a perfect grower for a vertical grow right there. See a green grow, where you were literally just planting you know, plants and trying to flip them?

 

Freaux:  Yeah, it doesn’t have much.

 

Chip:  There’s not much branching and just straight up, you can bottom that off real easy. It’s actually has a real OG type of growth pattern, if you look at it.

 

Freaux:  It really does.

 

Chip:  Yeah, this is that Tangie side to it. [inaudible 36:26-36:31] mentioned on it, but – 

 

Freaux:  Has more of a Tangie to it than those two, for sure too.

 

Chip:  Oh, man, that one behind it, man. You see all of the braided, tight, swollen calluses on that one right there? I mean, wow.

 

Freaux:  Super pretty one.

 

Chip:  That’s a pretty one.

 

Freaux:  I mean, if you just keep going down, they just keep getting better and better.

 

Chip:  It’s hard to pick man. 

 

Freaux:  I can’t believe it man.

 

Chip:  Oh, I wish you [inaudible 37:01-37:08]

 

Freaux:  Man. This whole greenhouse, I mean, like you said, like you were saying, I mean, any one of these. I mean, obviously it hasn’t been, you know, smoked or anything yet or dried, but –

 

Chip:  Just purely on growth patterns.

 

Freaux:  Just looking at them. I mean, you know, what is somebody looking for? There’s, looks like there’s so many winners in here. 

 

Chip:  You know, and this is how we used to do it before testing came along, right?  We just looked at it and picked them, and all the greatest weed in the world was chosen this way. Right? Until recently, we didn’t [inaudible 37:39] to tell us what to do.

 

Freaux:  Pretty much trial and error.

 

Chip:  It’s trial and error. But if you were so inclined, that you could pick the you know, test every single one in here and pick the one out by THC. Like, you know, that would be 250 tests of some sort. 

 

Freaux:  Yeah. No. Yeah, I mean the, I mean, that’s a lot of tests right there. Just thinking about it, yeah. I mean, obviously, you can’t do that. I don’t know, you know? It’s hard to tell just looking at it what’s gonna you know, what’s gonna have the most highs, you can’t look at it – 

 

Chip:  It’s solely for growth, man. And I mean that’s why I asked you in here, because man, it’s like, near impossible to pick it out of all of these different plants.

 

Freaux:  Well, when you look at it  talking like that, you look at different ones and you just see that. There’s some plants that are you know, look crazy have you know, crazy crystals, but you know, they don’t test high in THC. There’s some that might not look as good  and they’re high in THC. I mean, that’s why it’s kind of one of the things –

 

Chip:  That may look great, but don’t have any, like terpene expression.

 

Freaux:  No, I know.

 

Chip:  Right? Like, that’s it. That’s a common one right there. That’s a common one right there.

 

Freaux:  I know, I know, me personally with Jive, we try to get you know, terpenes are what we’re looking for particularly. So it’s one of those things where, you know, smell, taste, really, you know, aromas and stuff like that, that tends to be the ones that test like, higher in, you know, terpene content or whatnot. The THC, you know, for us and stuff like that, that’s something that we don’t try to focus on. I know there’s a lot of people like, “Hey, what’s the highest test for THC?” And – 

 

Chip:  I got that 30%.

 

Freaux:  Yeah, and you know, and then you get the weed, it’s really not enjoyable or sometimes it doesn’t even get you high. Like for which you wanna get high. It was really like, you know, classic effects like euphoric, uplifting and all that stuff, you know, comes from, you know, terpene. It’s  not THC.

 

Chip:  No, THC is just part of the story.

 

Freaux:  It’s just part of the story. It’s one of the things once it’s testing, you know, in my opinion, up to like, you know, mid, you know, mid-teens or whatever, it’s gonna give you the effect of like, you know –

 

Chip:  You smoke a little bit more of it.

 

Freaux:  Yeah. And is it is it enjoyable, though? You know, you wanna taste something, it doesn’t have a taste, doesn’t have a good smell. I mean, THC isn’t everything in my opinion.

 

Chip:  Yeah, absolutely. So yeah it’s hard to say.

 

Freaux:  Yeah and look –

 

Chip:  It’s hard to say.

 

Freaux:  It’s impossible looking at it until you actually test it, so. 

 

Chip:  Let’s try to pick the, just the best one as we walk back down this way. Now you’ve seen it, let’s just pick one.

 

Freaux:  Alright, let’s do it.

 

Chip:  Okay. God, man. I mean like, I’m not, I don’t know man. I think –

 

Freaux:  I’m still gonna tell you the one I liked was –

 

Chip:  Was down here at the back here.

 

Freaux:  Yeah. The one that caught my eye [inaudible 40:43] was either this one, or this one. If you’re going you know, maybe not off like, plant structure, just the actual like, look of like, the bud, and the cola, and it looks super frosty. It’s got a lot of good color. It’s going to have that bag appeal. [inaudible 41:00-41:13] one of the ones further back there, but –

 

Chip:  [inaudible 41:16-41:22] Facebook man. This is the Green Rush Facebook group. I don’t know if you can hear us with all this wind, but you can download this episode at The Real Dirt podcast on iTunes. Go to therealdirt.com. You can check Freaux out at Jive Cannabis Co on Instagram. And hey, we’re gonna go see another greenhouse.

 

Freaux:  Alright.

 

Chip:  Let’s see. You’re gonna walk up this one right here.

 

Freaux:  I mean, just, that’s some pretty weed right there.

 

Chip:  Here we are with Freaux. This Chip with The Real Dirt, we’re looking at the phenotype expression of about 4000 seed plants.

 

Freaux:  This is beautiful right here.

 

Chip:  I get that, man.

 

Freaux:  That’s a T1000?

 

Chip:  That’s a T1000 Do-Si right there.

 

Freaux:  Look at that. She’s loving life right there. What would you describe the nose of this one?

 

Chip:  Here, hold this. Hold this.

 

Freaux:  It’s almost kind of got like, like a very grapey maybe like, some sort of, some sort of berry fruit almost.

 

Chip:  Flower. And it’s like a tea, almost like a, this is like a –

 

Freaux:  That was interesting, whatever it was.

 

Chip:  Green. Like a green tea. That sharpness of a green tea but –

 

Freaux:  Like a very green tea.

 

Chip:  But like, jasmine pearls? 

 

Freaux:  There you go, there you go.

 

Chip:  Yeah, there we go. It’s like jasmine pearl tea. Great pick, bro. Great pick, man. Oh, wow. Just by sight, like he really did – there it is. That’s The Real Dirt. That’s why I started this whole podcast, is to get people like you to come and like, show me what was up. That’s The Real Dirt. Yeah, man there’s a bunch of great T1000s in here. You know, these all survived 33 days, 30 degrees, right? And then they’re on both sides. It’s T1000 on both sides.

 

Freaux:  That’s another really good, look at that.

 

Chip:  Yeah, this one right here with the label on it. 

 

Freaux:  I like that you got them stacked in here like this too.

 

Chip:  Yeah, you know, it’s yes, these plants will grow better if they’re topped. But the way we get so many plants in here is by growing them untopped, you know? And packing them. In this room, there’s 450 plants. And it really lets us see a lot of what’s going on. This really the first time I’ve looked in here in the past several days, man, it’s really starting to stack out.

 

Freaux:  Oh yeah. Some beautiful phenos in here. I’m really liking this T1000 process.

 

Chip:  Yeah. Oh yeah, man, this baby’s beautiful right here. 

 

Freaux:  Oh wow, look at that. 

 

Chip:  Wow, hey, check this out. This is a total purple phenomenon I’ve seen over and over again. Look, there’s one green nugget coming off of it, and the rest of it’s purple. Right? It’s not hidden. Wow, that one’s a really nice one right next to it.

 

Freaux:  That one’s really cool.

 

Chip:  Oh, wow. These are getting close though, huh? What do you think?

 

Freaux:  They do look like they’re getting real close. When are you planning on pulling these?

 

Chip:  I’m just gonna take them in as long as I can. I mean, I think the 22nd is technically 10 weeks.

 

Freaux:  I would think that this house looks a little further along than the other one. Just off of looks, you know.

 

Chip:  Yeah, absolutely.

 

Freaux:  These look like they could be pulled in like, maybe a week we can have something like that.

 

Chip:  Yeah, there’s a big storm coming at the end of the week, we might pull some of them. But yeah, that’s exactly kind of our thinking. They might get pulled a little early. But it’s a struggle we’ve had and we have with outdoors, is finishing it. And you know, sometimes the mold you’re forced to like, harvest it beforehand. This is great man. We’ve done really well on our mold prevention, right? We’ve got a really, we’re on our pH, we’re using these pots that we’re planting in now, which is a product I manufactured these plant in bags. They really keep the pH perfect, really easy to plant. But we’ve been really on our pH and water filtration and that, I feel like those couple things have really helped with our mold. We just had some problems in the past. It’s so humid and hot here, man, it’s difficult. It’s difficult. 

 

Freaux:  I mean, looking great though, man.

 

Chip:  Alright, and let’s see, Oh, here we go. This is, here is where we start the, this is the Face Off. This is Face Off Do-Si-Dos on the right. And on the left, it’s SF v Do-Si-Dos.

 

Freaux:  [inaudible 47:24-47:27].

 

Chip:  Yeah. You know, it’s either way, either with the Face Off or with the OSG, it’s, has a very backcross type phenomenon. All these plants really have a similar look.

 

Freaux:  So he’s got a really good gas nose. The type of gassy nose everybody’s looking for.

 

Chip:  Man, there it is. And there’s just so many to choose from man. You see, you see what I mean?

 

Freaux:  You’re gonna have a hard time deciding one in here. I mean, I’ve never even personally seen like hundreds, you know, ran at one time at one variety.

 

Chip:  This is the largest one for us too, don’t get us wrong,

 

Freaux:  This is crazy, man. This is a treat to be in here for sure. Just seeing all these different phenos and all the expressions, and this is really a sight to see. I mean, really getting the full expressions that you can get out of these ladies, man. Just so many types of, so many types and varieties just, man.

 

Chip:  Yeah, the, you know, talking to Fletcher about all this, the Face Off Do-Si-Dos cross, he thought we would have really good luck with it, that it would be really uniform. If we were trying to sell it for bag flower. And you walk through here and look at it, and it does really all look a similar, have a similar look. There’s a couple standouts.

 

Freaux:  Really good nose, this one has a really good nose. You could really smell the Face Off in that one.

 

Chip:  Yeah, we grew Face Off for years. 

 

Freaux:  Super crystally.

 

Chip:  Yeah, we had a Face Off just recently, but we let it go.

 

Freaux:  How come you let it go?

 

Chip:  Man, it was actually, it died out of neglect. You know, unfortunately, with large operations like this, and I’m a little bit of a math professor. Like sometimes, plants get forgotten about or like, special projects of mine and, and that’s what happened. We had a dad and it died.

 

Freaux:  Yeah, some of that, and then that’ll happen. I mean, but hey, that’s why you got all these varieties out here now, find a better one, huh?

 

Chip:  Yeah, to find a better one. Absolutely. These were all feminized seeds. We had a couple hermaphrodite show on them but man, like, well above the 99.9%. Right? But you plant out so many seeds and you’re gonna see it. You know, it just happens.

 

Freaux:  I mean yeah, pretty much nature, you know? Man, this Face Off is pretty special man. I’m getting some really good aromas off these ladies.

 

Chip:  Yeah, so here’s the problem, right here. You see the mold?

 

Freaux:  Yeah, I see it.

 

Chip:  Yeah, that’s caterpillar damage. You can pick that off and you’ll see a little hole down in there, right? From where the caterpillar was eating it away. So, that’s our problem. That that will force us to harvest before the plants are ready unfortunately. But on our indoor runs, we get to take it all the way. We got a Rosie up in here so yeah, man. Well, I tell you, I want to take you over to the Lemon G house.

 

Freaux:  I’d love to see it.

 

Chip:  Let’s go see it. Let’s go to the Lemon G house. Ah, it’s just over and over again, huh? [inaudible 51:10-51:48] R&D at the greenhouse. [inaudible 51:50-52:02]. Watch out for this puddle.

 

Freaux:  Man, that Lemon G’s got a good nose.

 

Chip:  Man these things, so resilient. Huge, huge yield.

 

Freaux:  What would you describe like, a Lemon G nose as?

 

Chip:  Well man, that G13 has this own like, thing. I can see it in some of this stuff, right? But the it’s rind, it’s not lemon. It’s the rind, or like the outs like, it’s not the cut lemon. It’s not like that. That’s the rind.

 

Freaux:  No I think that’s a good way to describe it. We have a strand Sunshine Lime, has got Lemon G in it. And it has like, it definitely like a lemon citrus but like you said, it’s like a, there’s something else there. It’s like a rind like you said. I could definitely see that easily.

 

Chip:  Well yeah, look at this here man. There’s some just huge nuggets in here man. Like producer, this is the producer for sure.

 

Freaux:  I was literally about to just say that. This is definitely, the colas are the fattest in this house for sure. I would definitely say, man these, some of these, there’s double the size as some of the other houses we went through.

 

Chip:  Double, triple. Yeah, totally.

 

Freaux:  Man, that’s got a crazy nose right there.

 

Chip:  Yeah, these plants are all, a lot of them are five foot tall. There’s a few that are six foot tall. They were literally vegged for 23 days in a four inch pot from seed. Planted the seed in a four inch pot, 23 days later put in this pot and flowered it. And that’s how much these guys stretched. I mean, they were all about a foot or more tall, but like, still like.

 

Freaux:  Man, you got some Louisville sluggers in here man.

 

Chip:  Dude, totally man.

 

Freaux:  Straight up baseball bat.

 

Chip:  Yeah, right here. These guys, I can’t even see to the top.

 

Freaux:  I mean, that’s, I mean, I got a big arm. It’s double the size of my arm, some of these fellows. Look at that.

 

Chip:  Ah, it’s been fun, man. I tell you. We’ve got a couple other Facebook lives. Some Green Rush group now, this is The Real Dirt podcast in the season, I’m a little hot and sweaty. But man, we love showing you guys some of our videos this summer. We haven’t really shown them other places, but we’ll try to put some more out here on this channel. Oh, yeah, this one. This one right here has that lighter green color, right? A little bit more less leaf, more calyx development.

 

Freaux:  Yeah, that’s crazy. Look at that. You’re like psycho production too.

 

Chip:  Oh it’s sticky man. It’s sticky.

 

Freaux:  This is the first one I’ve come across that had some. I like that little expression of color. Although there’s something with me –

 

Chip:  You like that purple, you from the south, aren’t you? Wait a second. I can hear the Lana or is it Nashville in your voice. What is it?

 

Freaux:  I spent a lot of time in New Orleans and Atlanta – 

 

Chip:  Atlanta, ATL.

 

Freaux:  Spent a lot of time in Atlanta, I was out there for quite a while, spent there pretty much  – 

 

Chip:  They like that purple up in there.

 

Freaux:  They do.

 

Chip:  Yeah, give me that purple, smells like purple.

 

Freaux:  Yeah.

 

Chip:  This is my native tongue. I’m from Georgia. This is the way we all speak there. I’ve worked hard to mask my accent to sound like a straight, straight gentleman.

 

Freaux:  Yeah, you pinned that right. They definitely do like colorful weed out there.

 

Chip:  Man. I mean and everywhere, but this is a great one. Wow.

 

Freaux:  That’s got a good nose right there. I love that Lemon G nose. I think this is gonna be just from what I’ve seen so far from everything, this is probably gonna to be the terpenes’ most unique profile, I think. I’m really getting some unique smells out of here.

 

Chip:  Dude, you know what my plan is? I’m gonna take this house and one just like it, and turn it all into sauce.

 

Freaux:  Oh, man. That’s gonna be tasty right there.

 

Chip:  I know, I know.

 

Freaux:  People are gonna love that.

 

Chip:  I might, we might keep some of it for smoking. But we grew this for sauce.

 

Freaux:  I gotcha. People are gonna love the taste of that.

 

Chip:  Oh, this is gonna, there will be no better. But we really love it, man. It’s a great strain to grow. So yeah, man, we got some big nuggets. I feel like we, you were really able to see it in here. We’re gonna walk directly over to our other Lemon G house that was grown under a clear tarp. You ready to go?

 

Freaux:  Sounds good.

 

Chip:  Alright, here we are now. This is the greenhouse with just the clear tarp, right?

 

Freaux:  Wow, man. This is, what strain is this?

 

Chip:  This is the Lemon G, same strain. Same strain. I planted 600 seeds. This is 300, 300 over there.

 

Freaux:  Man, these are crazy fat in here. I like it. Man, this is even fatter than the other house.

 

Chip:  This is even better than the other house. But you know, let’s walk through it and see it man. Go, go, go. Go on. So the plants are maybe a little bit more uniform growth in here.

 

Freaux:  I could definitely see that. It looks like, it seems like the other tent it was like, man. I guess my initial thought would be there was like, a lot of fat nuggs. But then there’s you know, some other stuff. You look in here, just boom. Each bulb, everything’s prepped.

 

Chip:  Yep. And the diffusion of light works great in here. I’ll tell you, here’s the difference. You’re not as, over there, it’s so sticky. Right? That’s the difference. Like feel, like, when you walk through here, that is not as sticky.

 

Freaux:  It’s not.

 

Chip:  It’s not as sticky. It doesn’t have that smell either. And that’s how we noticed it initially, it was just the smell, right? I haven’t scoped it, but these buds like, look like they look more uniform, which we’ll make bigger. I think they’re a little further along though. Right? Like that blue house is, seems a little earlier.

 

Freaux:  Yeah, I could definitely see that. I could easily see that.

 

Chip:  But the buds are looking better in here. But they’re earlier and maybe more resinous in the blue tarp.

 

Freaux:  No, I could definitely see that. Just looking through it like halfway through it. I think there was a little bit of resin production in the other ones. But like you said, these do look further along. And I mean, I mean every plant in here is crazy fat. I like how you scroll down with –

 

Chip:  Yeah, totally. Totally, totally, totally.

 

Freaux:  Little trading right there.

 

Chip:  Yeah, that’s how we keep the bugs down right there. We’ve got these Boston terriers, French Bulldogs trained to track down any and all bugs. They also lick PM clean that bottom branches. And they do a real good job of that, because they have such low fur. They don’t bring any dirt, or debris, or bugs in.

 

Freaux:  Man, this Lemon G man, is beautiful. I really like this plant.

 

Chip:  Oh man, it is now one of my favorites.

 

Freaux:  I can’t believe how fat it is in here, man.

 

Chip:  Oh dude, it’s huge. It’s huge.

 

Freaux:  I mean, these are literally two times the size of my arm. Some of these colas are literally double my wrist.

 

Chip:  Yeah, huge nuggets, so uniform. Like, some of it, you see the DoSi purpleness in it.

 

Freaux:  There goes me with my purple again. 

 

Chip:  Yeah,  there’s your purple. There’s the purple.

 

Freaux:  I like the way that plant looks a lot.

 

Chip:  A little bit of caterpillar mold in here. But man, just incredible, incredible nuggets. So do you do use, what type of spreadsheets? Or what type of cataloguing do you use to keep track of your phenos when you’re..?

 

Freaux:  I mean right now –

 

Chip:  I just walked down to almost the end, I’ll show you my favorite one. Well you got to keep a list of it somehow.

 

Freaux:  It’s just like, by hand right now. I mean, we just, pretty much just writing it down on paper, taking some notes on it as far as like, you know, what we like, what we don’t like. But I don’t have any like, uniform the way, I should get more organized and put it in like a spreadsheet or whatnot. But I’m pretty much just you know, piece of – oh wow. Look at that one. This is the one you’re talking about?

 

Chip:  This is one of the ones I was talking about, right here. Look at this. Yeah, dude.

 

Freaux:  Damn. Oh, that’s got a nose on it too. That’s gonna be some heat right there man. I like that a lot. That’s got a great nose right there

 

Chip:  Yeah, purpley leaf –

 

Freaux:  This is your favorite?

 

Chip:  That’s one of my, I got another one like, right around here. Oh yeah, this. Let’s see this, one of these white ones right here, because this is the purple one. And then there’s a big white one long, but it might be like, I see, I think I see it further down here. We got that purple, we got the white. Yeah, I’m not very much of a [inaudible 1:02:55] but…

 

Freaux:  Beautiful, beautiful weed in here, man.

 

Chip:  Oh, this is it. This I think is my favorite right here, this one.

 

Freaux:  Did you say these were fems or they’re [inuadible 1:03:06]?

 

Chip:  These are all fems. Lemon G fem, Lemon G Do-Si-Dos.

 

Freaux:  It’s got a lot of uniformity in this particular shelf.

 

Chip:  Oh yeah. Just as far as like, plant growth production, man I often choose plants just on like, how they grow more than like the nuggets they make.

 

Freaux:  So man, this particular plant? So all the other ones are you know, big and everything. But this particular plant it’s big and swelled out, but it’s just crazy dense.

 

Chip:  It’s so hard, man. It’s like a –

 

Freaux:  Man, that’s got some good, good density to it. And all the other ones are like big and spread out, but then this is, that feels nice man.

 

Chip:  Yeah that’ll produce. That’ll produce. Sweet, yeah. Let’s walk out into this next house. 

 

Freaux:  Oh wow.

 

Chip:  Here we are, Chip Baker with The Real Dirt. I’m with Freaux, we’re in house number 412345 here, and once again, we entered a house with saying, “Oh wow.”

 

Freaux:  This looks great. In every one we’re going into, there’s something different.

 

Chip:  Yeah, it’s just, I know man. It’s so cool to see it all.

 

Freaux:  I like you got this one trellis too.

 

Chip:  Yeah, you know, we, this is all Sour D on the right. And all Sherbadough Do-Si-Dos on the left. And it just became real easy for us time and space to do it. The other plant, the other ones, I’m really looking at them. And so we left them go a little longer before we you know, staked them up and. If you want to trellis stuff, you really need to put it in early, putting it in there late is a pain in the ass so. But all the rest of the stuff is trellis pretty much from here on out. Yeah. So, this is the Sour D on the right and the Sherbadough Do-Si-Dos on the left.

 

Freaux:  So the Sour D and then –

 

Chip:  Sour, Sherbadough, Do-Si-Dos.

 

Freaux:  That’s got straight Do-Si structure. That’s how [inaudible 1:05:14].

 

Chip:  Here’s that purple for you. Let’s get a close up on this purple.

 

Freaux:  That’s got a really nice color on it. Sherbet Dosi is what, Sherb times Do-Si?

 

Chip:  It’s Sherbet DoSi –

 

Freaux:  Times Do-Si-Dos. 

 

Chip:  Do-Si-Dos.

 

Freaux:  Gotcha.

 

Chip:  Yeah. So yeah, there’s the Diesels over here. You know, Diesel is one of my favorite plants of all time. And it’s a little later, it’s just starting to come around. But there’s some good phenos in here. I think this one right next to us right there, it looks pretty good in front of you. But yeah, this stuff’s all got weeks and weeks more.

 

Freaux:  Man, all the time I’ve ever ran a Sour Diesel, I don’t know how real the cut was or whatnot. But look like, that thing could have gone 12 weeks easily. If we cut it at nine or something like that, just to –

 

Chip:  Let it go. I’ve seen it go to 77 days many times. 70 days is the way you grow Diesel. But you can get five crops a year on a 70 day Diesel man, you know? Oh, there’s Wyatt, our farm manager slash head grower. What’s going on, Wyatt?

 

Wyatt: Just growing great weed, hanging out. 

 

Chip:  Oh, did you vote today? Who’d you vote for? Is that [inaudible 1:06:40]? 

 

Wyatt: I voted for [inaudible 1:06:42].

 

Chip:  [inuadible 1:06:44] for president. [inaudible 1:06:45] for president.

 

Freaux:  There you go. Have you seen anything that has like, a really good traditional like, Sour D nose? I mean, Sour D’s got –

 

Chip:  And it’s just starting to come around, man. It’s just, but this cut, I’m pretty sure Fletcher got this cut from me years ago. And this is the Sour Diesel, East Coast Sour Diesel cut. Right?

 

Freaux:  That’s some of the best smelling weed known to man right there.

 

Chip:  Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And one of the first branded weeds. OG, Diesel, they are about the same. Same time, right? Oh, dude, this a nice, nice purple one’s got some nice colors here. And some braiding.

 

Freaux:  That’s kind of, that’s kind of crazy.

 

Chip:  Yeah, this is all cutting edge nutrients. Our soil, we added an organic complex to it. We’ve used both their synthetic line and their organic line.

 

Freaux:  Which one you like better?

 

Chip:  Man, here’s my advice for people. If you want great, organic weed, is get your plant established and growing using three part Cutting Edge and like, a four inch pot. And then when you transplant it into your forever pot that’s got other organic nutrients in it, right? Water it like, once or twice with Cutting Edge synthetic nutrients. Once at the start of flower, once at the end of the stretch. And man, you’ll have great huge, incredible tasting, not purely organic, but organish versions. And then all the other, all the other waterings, use organic.  His Organic, His Sonoma Gold Organic, right? But just like, two synthetic waterings, establish the plant with the Cutting Edge and man, that grows great organish weed, for sure. And that’s kind of what we have here, right? This is both John’s Sonoma Gold, and the Cutting Edge three part, and organic product in it. It’s now just getting water and will get water for the rest of his life. So I like a combo. I don’t have to be a purist anymore. Oh, you like that pure, pure, purple nugget though, don’t you?

 

Freaux:  Man, this might be the best col I’ve seen on any of the houses –

 

Chip:  Oh nice.

 

Freaux:  I really like the way this looks. It’s got some nice density. It’s got the color, color bag appeal. Good nose. Just really caught my eye as far as looking.

 

Chip:  Yes, oh man.

 

Freaux:  I mean everything down to the –

 

Chip:  I mean what I really like about it, is even the nuggets near your knee are the same maturation kind as the nuggets towards the top, you know? I mean yeah of course it –

 

Freaux:  It’s got the Do-Si structure too.

 

Chip:  Yeah, yeah. Yeah the Diesel has a reputation for having you know, more feathered buds, right?

 

Freaux:  Diesel always kind of had like you know, you get a bag of Diesel, it’s usually like, kind of smaller popcorny, almost like, kind of like this nugget looks right there. You know very, doesn’t really come on being the huge biggest nuggets, but to me Diesel’s always had one of the best nose and taste there is.

 

Chip:  Yeah, man. You hit diesel right and that Super Skunk comes out it, and it just grows incredible man. I’d say the nugget by your elbow is more like Diesel like, there’s a, man it’s really taken on the hybrid appearance. I think in the next coming weeks, we’re really gonna see the Diesel come out of it.

 

Freaux:  It almost has that like, traditional Diesel look, like, you know, that orange and the light like that and the –

 

Chip:  Yes. Totally. And I think this nugget’s gonna look like that. It’s just, you know, it just needs a few more weeks. Right? Yeah, so we’ll give all these like, maybe two more waterings with the Sonoma Gold I think. And then these will be done, man these  Sherbet Dosis, I think they might just be on water. Oh, look at this purple.

 

Freaux:  Yeah, there’s a couple different similarities with these purple ones that you can kind of see as it stacks down, like a lot of similarities you know, genetic wise having that like, look. That’s another one I like a lot. I still think I like the one down there that’s a little fatter, but I really like the way this looks right there. This one pretty much if you’re looking at like one of these types of phenos, that went down there that like filled out better, stacked a little fatter. You know, down there would probably be, obviously you gotta smoke it and, you know –

 

Chip:  Yeah, yeah, right, right, right.

 

Freaux:  Just for the look, that would be the, if you’re looking for the purple, looking for the thickness, you can easily see that that particular type of pheno down there would be almost like, all the good attributes of it, you know?

 

Chip:  Yeah, there’s so many more to choose from. Like, this is a good hybrid of a yield or like, that’ll be a purple for sure. But it’s just a little further behind than these other ones.

 

Freaux:  Man, this is crazy. This is a treat to see the, I mean just all the –

 

Chip:  I’m glad I could share it to you man.

 

Freaux:  Man, I mean –

 

Chip:  Do you people understand it, they’re just like, “Look at the buds, man.” But like –

 

Freaux:  We’re pretty much directly in one of your, you know, one of your houses. And as far as you can see the right, as far as you can see the left, and just, I mean, hundreds. What is there, 500, 600 plants in here?

 

Chip:  550 plants, right.

 

Freaux:  Yeah, I mean, just man, this is crazy. Seeing all the expressions that –

 

Chip:  Oklahoma, man. This is where it’s at. Oklahoma gives us this freedom because we don’t have square footage, and regulations, and we don’t have plant count regulations, and people might complain about the market. But man, I’m here for the weed, they say make good weed if you grow a lot of it.

 

Freaux:  Yeah. Man, you’re doing a good job with this. This is, is super impressive. Chip:. I mean –

 

Chip:  No, thanks, man. It’s been fun, dude. You know Wyatt, he’s, you can follow him at [inaudible 1:13:22] on Instagram. I don’t know if you do, but he’s a big fan of yours. And he’s been in charge of growing all this weed. He’s made all this stuff happen. I mean, you can look at it and you see there’s the random yellow plant, right? The health of the garden is impressive to me. That’s for sure.

 

Freaux:  He’s doing a great job. This is super impressive. This is some bubbles right here?

 

Chip:  And now we get to the, this is the Bubba –

 

Freaux:  Bubba Dosi?

 

Chip:  Bubba Diagonal. 

 

Freaux:  Bubba Diagonal.

 

Chip:  Dosi. Bubba Diagonal Dosi in here.

 

Freaux:  Oh, that’s got that like chocolatey, kind of Bubba like, that’s got a crazy nose right there man.

 

Chip:  Caterpillars. Caterpillars. Yeah, so Bubba Diagonal crossed with Dosi, this was also a suggestion, all these that I’ve shown you so far were suggestions from Fletcher. He suggested the Diesel because he knows how much of a Diesel plant fan I am. But I was like, “Hey, man, I want to buy some bulk seeds out of all the stuff you got. You know me, I like stretchers. I want fuel. It needs to be like great, you know, mold resistant, plus resistant,” and he kind of like picked all this stuff out for me. And this is one of the ones that he thought had the most promise but he hadn’t really planted out a lot of it. So I’m glad I got to do it first here. We got about 300 different seeds of it that we planted out of this one. We’ll see in the next greenhouse and kind of here they’re on both sides of the aisle, I believe. Yeah, both is Bubba Diagonal. So they’ve all got this nice stretch and – watch out. Watch out.

 

Freaux:  It’s got a good nose. Pretty much every one I smelled had a good solid nose on it.

 

Chip:  Yeah, alright. Let’s see if we can get out of here. Let’s see. 

 

Freaux:  Damn. What are these? Holy shit man. 

 

Chip:  Alright, here’s our clone house. This is a kind of the start of the clone house. We’ve got –

 

Freaux:  That’s got to be Purple Punch.

 

Chip:  Purple Punch on the left. Look at that.

 

Freaux:  Man. That’s super impressive, man. That looks awesome.

 

Chip:  Dude.

 

Freaux:  You mind if I get a picture of this one?

 

Chip:  Of course bro.

 

Freaux:  I definitely want to get a picture of this one. This is –

 

Chip:  Yeah, you can take pictures of anything here. Man, we love this Purple Punch. People gibe us, Fletcher was like, “Don’t let people hear you say you like the Purple Punch.” But I like growing it. I’m growing the weed for the plants. And on the right is the Mac 1 man. And both of these plants right now are kind of my favorite growing plants. Right? I love the Mac 1, on how it has this like, cactus-like uniform growth. I like the high. It’s really great medicinal high to me. The Purple Punch is just incredible plant to grow. I love the way it looks. “Smells like Purple, man” has been one of my favorite like, phrases for years, and that’s exactly what that is.

 

Freaux:  Man y’all killed this Purple Punch, man. This is super impressive, Chip. Seriously.

 

Chip:  Ah, man, it smells so good too man. It smells so good.

 

Freaux:  It’s got a great nose on it.

 

Chip:  Yeah. Have you seen much Mac? Do you know much Mac here?

 

Freaux:  I’m not too familiar with the Mac. I’ve never actually grown it. I mean, I know it’s a really popular strain. It looks great, though. I mean, it looks great right here. 

 

Chip:  Yeah, I haven’t quite figured it out. But you can see it’s got a really leafy bud structure. We’re gonna see how it finishes out. But I mean, this is Thanksgiving-ish I think, if we’re lucky. These Purple Punch, we’re gonna take real soon though,

 

Freaux:  Man, y’all got that Purple Punch dolled into a pin right there, man.

 

Chip:  That shit’s good, dude.

 

Freaux:  I mean, if people could just see how happy these plants are out here, man. You know, I don’t have much experience. I don’t have any experience growing outdoor in this type of setting. But just to see I mean, I literally look like I’m looking at somebody’s indoor garden with the quality, so it’s crazy. The plants are absolutely loving it out here for sure.

 

Chip:  Man, this is, you know, I love growing clones. And I tell people all the time, like the beauty of light depth, the beauty of greenhouses, and the beauty indoor, is you can if you replicate it all the same way. The learning curve just like, explodes. But people think it should all be different, but as you, this looks like indoor room the way it’s set up

 

Freaux:  No, it really does. I mean, we’ve grown Purple Punch. I mean, we still grow Purple Punch. I mean, it looks just like an indoor plant. I mean, I literally I mean, you go through some of the houses and you can see you know, the, you know, the different utility that’s been you know, and you know, outdoor light depth and whatnot. But you look at this Purple Punch, and there’s really no difference of how it would grow outdoor opposed to indoor. I mean, and you know, with myself being familiar with the plant, I’ve seen it grown a bunch of times indoor, I feel like I’m looking at an indoor garden, seriously. I mean, this is awesome. This is some serious, serious quality right here, man.

 

Chip:  This is, I mean, iI ove growing clones. It’s fun. I’m really into the seed plants and growing things like that. But man, when you see the uniformity of the monocrop like this, it’s one of my favorite things.

 

Freaux:  This is, this house right here is very picturesque. I mean, anything you look is nice, even Canopy, super, super uniform, super color.

 

Chip:  Anybody would be proud for this one.

 

Freaux:  Yeah, this is a great one right here, man.

 

Chip:  Yeah, I think my whole crew is really stoked about this –

 

Freaux:  Y’all killing this one.

 

Chip:  We’ve got like, we’ve got eight greenhouses, and there are eight hoop houses and all of them look good, but man, this one looks great.

 

Freaux:  This one’s smashing man. Absolutely smashing.

 

Chip:  Yeah, you know, if I was forced on a veg scenario out on my bed scene to veg them just for one week after cutting, and the Purple Punch, it really needed about two, right?  What it needed is to go into this five gallon pot that’s maybe 7 to 8, 9 days and go into the five gallon, it’s for another week. And then it really knocked it out, and it just needs to be a little bit taller. And I kind of say the same for almost everything except this house next door. This is the Gilz Nilz. And man, it just kills it here man. Oh my god. And we’ll go look at that other Gilz Nilz on the other side too, but I, these literally, they were just clones that were barely rooted that we stuck in here as like, they were literally in 50 sheets, and put them in here like that. I know, look at that shit, right? Now, they loved it man. And this is some, this is currently some of my favorite weed to grow. We’ll walk around here, and let’s walk down here and look at these –

 

Freaux:  To me, I can always tell if it’s Gilz Nilz ’cause they got that very like classic, almost like witch hat look, almost like a triangle, you know what I’m saying? They grow almost like witch hats.

 

Chip:  Oh yeah, see my guys got to get some. We’ve had a couple dripper issues. Yeah, but just the perfectness of it. So this is where a bunch of flavors start. So let’s see. What do we got here? We’ve got –

 

Freaux:  Melonade?

 

Chip:  Melonade, melonade.

 

Freaux:  Smells good.

 

Chip:  Yeah. That, okay, there’s something wrong here. This isn’t Melonade. Let’s see here, here, here. Reach down there and grab one of those tags. It’s in the pots and see what those say. It doesn’t say anything, alright. These I’m pretty sure are mislabeled, and they’re Granddad Dogs. Right here, these like nine plants right here. 

 

Freaux:  I see a number on these, and these are just red.

 

Chip:  Yeah, just yeah, I just see the color right. And then the Melonade starts. Right? And yeah, they’re kind of on both sides. And then for Mac and you see all this Mac really purpled out. 

 

Freaux:  And that’s a pretty plant man. 

 

Chip:  Mhm. And then, so all these plants I literally just took from a 50 sheet and planted directly in this whole greenhouse, hit right seed it green style.

 

Freaux:  How long did you grow them for?

 

Chip:  They were in, they, I rooted them. They were in a slab of 50 rockwool, they stayed in that slab for three or four days after they were rooted, and I just transplanted them in. And they just went right to flower, all these plants.

 

Freaux:  Man.

 

Chip:  Right. I know, they did great, huh?

 

Freaux:  They did awesome.

 

Chip:  This is a Cookies and Cream. Now I’m going to take you next door to a room they got the beds for one week, and you’ll get to see the difference. This is back to the CC4. This is CC4.

 

Freaux:  Man, that’s a pretty plant. 

 

Chip:  Yeah, I got a house next door. That’s that we vegged for a week, CC4. Yeah, let’s go see it. Oh, we’re back in the Lemon G’s. These were all the ruts. These are the ruts huh?

Cancer, Cannabis and Cultivation [ Jim Gerencser Pt. 2 ]

Cancer, Cannabis and Cultivation [ Jim Gerencser Pt. 2 ]

how cannabis helps with cancer

It’s all too common for someone to enter the cannabis industry for personal or medical reasons. Jim Gerencser is one of them.

Jim’s son Eric has had a rough battle with cancer throughout his entire life. From the time he was 8 until he was 18, Eric underwent regular brain scans to determine if the tumor in his brain would end up being fatal. After beating that cancer, another was found in his abdomen, and it was even more serious.

But because they recognized Eric’s condition early, it was easier for doctors to find and eradicate the cancer before it grew to a dangerous level. This victory inspired Jim to create E.R.I.C., also known as Early Recognition Is Critical.

The E.R.I.C. Program aims to educate people about the early recognition signs of various cancers so it can be fought before it spreads. And now Eric himself is a teacher to young students about how to take care of themselves. But cannabis was a major factor.

Eric was on 9 drugs during his Chemotherapy treatments. With the help of legal cannabis oil, Eric was able to cut out 5 of those medications, down to 4 with the help of cannabis. That’s what inspired Jim to enter the cannabis industry.

Jim meets Chip

When Jim needed an expert to help him plan out what he wanted to achieve in the legal cannabis industry, Chip was the first name to come up among his friend and business circles. Once they connected, the rest was history.

If you don’t get the vibe from their conversations, Jim and Chip have become great friends that are working together to change how cannabis consulting works.

In Part 2 of their conversation, Jim and Chip talk about Eric and how E.R.I.C. got its start, how they started working together, the importance of R&D in cannabis cultivation plus some more in depth cannabis talk!

Learn more about Early Recognition Is Critical (E.R.I.C.)

Learn more about Greener Consulting Group

Follow and Subscribe to The Real Dirt Podcast:

Instagram

Facebook

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Get great deals on grow gear:

CultivateColorado.com

Instagram

Facebook

Transcript

Chip: And we’re back, Jim.

Jim: Yeah. I love Cultivate.

Chip: Oh man, I got a great crew.  Like, if there’s anything that I’m proud of,  it is my crew and how they work together, and work with other people, right? I have worked on that and we have cultivated that. 

Jim: No pun intended.

Chip: Yeah, I am most proud about that. I’m impressed with my whole crew, man. I’ve got maybe 30 people, not a bad apple among them. Any one of the people would sit down and chat with any of you about cannabis, or sports, or whatever you found common in your life. And they’re not arrogant or ego driven just you know, all really good, good people that support cannabis.

Jim: So the way Chip proposes we’re added as Ganja U in Oklahoma and it’s summer solstice –

Chip: That’s our nickname. That’s our nickname for our cannabis farm out here, Ganja U, because we just keep learning.

Jim: So we’re out there, and we’re out there on the summer solstice and Chip’s whole crew from Cultivate Oklahoma shows up. So, Chip is an amazing, he’s not like a boss. He doesn’t boss people around. He’ll jump in there and do it first. And he’s a leader. So it’s been fun watching how you manage people. Chip. You’re totally a remote kind of guy, but you’re a hands-on person. But you can manage it remote, because you have a good team in place already. So yeah, give Cultivate a call. I’ve met half the crew, looking forward to meet the other half. I highly agree with what he says, he said that it’s a hell of a team. Call him up, man. So especially if you do it yourself, if you want to put together a little package which I’ve done in the past, a lot of times you got to go to three or four different stores. Cultivate will take care of it for you right there. So yeah, good stuff. Hey, the reason I’m into this is like I said –

Chip: Yeah, let’s talk about ERIC. Let’s talk about ERIC.

Jim: ERIC is a cancer prevention charity. I started it back in 2012. And Eric had gone through two brain tumors. One of them was a reoccurrence from a misdiagnosis. We brought him to the doctor when he was eight years old six times, and the doctor basically did everything but get him a CAT scan, calling it sinusitis. And I was bringing him to a buddy of mine, he’s a chiropractor, awesome, Ultimate Frisbee friend. His name is Dr. Scott, big shout out to him. But Dr. Scott was adjusting Eric just to help him feel better. And he said, “Why don’t you go get a CAT scan?” So CAT scan. Thirty minutes later, we’re sitting in the office, Eric’s got a big tumor in his head. It’s almost a golf ball size, because it was misdiagnosed for so long. So long story short, everything was good with that. Ten years later, he got full clearance on his brain tumor. Finally, from the time he was 8 to the time he was 18, he had to have annual scans that would basically be like a death scan. It was like, “Is it coming back or not?” Because we had already seen it come back. So when he was 18, he had full clearance. A month later, he had some weird, something going on with his abdomen, he couldn’t pee, went to the doctor. The poor kid had another type of cancer happening. And so at the age of 18, he goes in and starts chemotherapy. And at that time, I had a friend whose mom was going through Stage IV Non-Hodgkins lymphoma and Eric’s type of cancer he had this time was Non-Hodgkins Stage II. And ended up, her mom passed away the second day of Eric’s chemo. So we were blown away. We were fucked up, and we had no idea what we were gonna do. And we just knew we needed to support Eric, we need to take care of this. My friend’s name is Cassandra. And we needed to take care of Cassandra and Cassandra’s family and ended up starting a charity. And we didn’t know what we wanted to call it. But we knew one thing we wanted to do, was we wanted to make sure that we could introduce cancer symptoms earlier to people, because her mom had Stage IV, Eric had Stage II. Eric was still alive, her mom was not. So, we started coming up with names and I came up with “Early” and “Critical,” and my cousin came up with “Recognition Is.” So we came up with Early Recognition Is Critical based off E-R-I-C. So here we are, eight years later, 2020, ERIC has been teaching kids cancer symptom education. The hardest thing to do is go into schools anymore. So I am taking ERIC out of the youth space, and moving it into the adult space. And I’m going to be focusing on using fully extracted cannabis oil to fight cancer. So this is the official coming out party and I want to thank Chip for allowing me to do it.

Chip: Yeah, man. Let’s fight cancer. 

Jim: Let’s do it. 

Chip: Hey, ’cause and one of my best friends named Greg, he’s says, “Fuck cancer!” 

Jim: Fuck cancer!

Chip: Right, Greg? Greg Davidson.

Jim: Say it out loud.

Chip: Fuck cancer! Alright, one, two three.

Both: Fuck cancer!

Chip: Fuck cancer.

Jim: Yeah, say it again and keep saying it. And don’t be afraid to say the word cancer, because the way to beat it is to add “fuck” to it. Fuck cancer. So, right now we’re officially fighting cancer with cannabis. And if you have any questions call me direct. Hit me up on Facebook. I’m on Facebook, I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Greener Consulting. You can find me, G-E-R-E-N-C-S-E-R. There’s not many of us around. So yeah, thanks, Chip. It feels good. I’ve had it in the closet for eight years. I’ve been wanting to merge the two forces together. I’ve been doing survivor stories for both sides of it. I’m just out doing survivor stories. So if you’re a survivor, hit us up. Go to our website, early recognition is critical. Tell us your story. Tell us if cannabis helps you save your life, or if it helps make skin cancer go away like it did me. I had a basal cell carcinoma on my arm. I went to a dispensary in Santa Cruz. I also own a professional Ultimate Frisbee team called the Dallas Roughnecks, and we’re big supporters of cannabis curing cancer, to be honest. And I had a spot on my arm and I used fully extracted cannabis oil, they refer to it as FECO oil. This FECO oil dissolved that cancer within two weeks, with no side effects whatsoever, and there’s absolutely no sign of it. So man, I am pumped about this, as you can tell. I’m ready to talk about it. We’re gonna fuck up some cancer. And we’re gonna – it all started right here on The Real Dirt. So there we go.

Chip: So in the past, let’s talk about this early recognition portion of ERIC, and why that’s so important.

Jim: So you know that the key to beating cancer is recognizing it early. I hear that all the time, but nobody really pushes it. If you have Stage IV, what that means is that the cancer has metastasized across your body. And it means that it’s moved from where it originally came in, which would be either your lymph nodes, or some of your more sensitive infected parts of your body, and then it starts spreading. And as it spreads, and if it gets up into your chest, that’s basically Stage IV. And it’s kind of what they used to refer to as a death sentence. Stage I means that they found it exactly where it started, and it’s contained in one specific area where they have multiple different ways to be able to treat it. Like you can do chemo, they can do radiation, they can do surgery. Eric’s Burkitt’s lymphoma, we did surgery, and then they also did chemo. So he went through a surgery, they did the biopsy, and then they also did chemotherapy. But Eric did cannabis the whole time he was doing this, and it allowed him to be able to continue eating. And when Eric came home from the hospital, this is really important. He was given nine prescriptions. And after he used cannabis oil, he was able to eliminate five of those. So a lot of the medicines are all these different –

Jim: Wow man, five out of nine.

Jim: Five, gone, off the list, do not need them anymore. They were basically drugs that were gonna make you feel not nauseated. And then you had to have, you have another pill that would make you feel not nauseated from the pill that makes you feel not nauseated. So that’s just a bunch of crap. And that’s what Health Camp Buddy’s all about. And so recognizing cancer symptoms early, we recognize it because Cassandra’s mom had Stage IV, Eric had Stage II, he’s still alive today. So I just did the math. And I started realizing that we could use Ultimate Frisbee as a way to teach people to speak up. I think “speak up” is our best message. One night, I woke up in the middle of the night. And I was like, “Speak up, tell someone.” And my friend was like, “What the hell’s going on?” I was like, “It’s all about speaking up. You can recognize it early. But if you don’t tell anybody, it’s nothing’s happening. You have to recognize it. And you also have to speak up.” Ultimate Frisbee is a great sport that I have been part of since I was 19. And part of Ultimate that’s cool is you call your own fouls, all the way up to the pro level, they have reps in the pros, but all the way up till that point, you call your own fouls. So you have to speak up. So we use these Ultimate Frisbee clinics, we would go into the schools, and we would work with 5 to 600 kids in one day, which is fun as hell but also tough as hell. And teach them to speak up if something’s wrong with your body. We simplified it down to giving them some really basic symptoms. Eric’s symptoms were headache and vomiting. You can have a headache, and headaches aren’t normal by the way. If you have a headache, something’s wrong. Go to get it checked out, and don’t just accept it as a headache. But then he had vomiting too, which was nausea and actually vomiting. And what was happening was his brain tumor was causing his blood fluid to not be able to drain, and the only way he could get it out was to throw it up. And it was vile basically coming out, and it’s not normal. So that is a cancer symptom. And also not being able to pee. Come on, you should be able to pee. You should be able to go to the number two, you should be able to use the bathroom without it hurting, without it being uncomfortable. So if it’s not, speak up. So that’s my ERIC speech. And like I said, early recognition is critical. That org, I’m really proud of it. It does save lives. I’ve had multiple people call me up saying that they’ve gone to the doctor because of what we’re doing. And they caught their cancer at Stage I. End of story. It works.

Chip: Yeah, that’s dramatic, man. That is absolutely dramatic.

Jim: So yeah, we’re, we’re loving it. And it’s cool. It’s really cool to be able to combine cannabis with it, because I know that that’s where I think I could do the best, do the most damage, save the most lives without pills. It’s kind of a concept I wanted to start, plants over pills. If you ever listened to an article on a commercial for like, anything but Viagra, they tell you all these symptoms. Yeah, you could take this pill for high cholesterol, but you might commit suicide and you’re definitely gonna probably have diarrhea, and you probably won’t sleep at night, and you’re not going to be hungry anymore. But good for you, you don’t have high cholesterol. But there’s other ways to do it. One way is to eat healthy. I’m probably not a great example of that. But – 

Chip: We all struggle with that one, that’s for sure. No matter, the most healthy of us still have their issues.

Jim: You’ve helped me out a lot there, Chip. You being a vegetarian definitely has made me aware of it.

Chip: Man, and yet now you got the vegetarian chili going.

Jim: How about that? Yeah.

Chip: Yeah, let’s talk about your vegetarian chili recipe.

Jim: You got to taste it man. So I start off with, I sauté garlic, onions, celery, carrots and bell peppers. And then I put it in a crock pot and add a bunch of beans, and a bunch of tomato sauce, and tomatoes, and a lot of spices, a lot of curcumin, and oleander, and a lot of parsley and paprika in there. And a lot of chili, I love chili pepper. And then I cook it for about three or four hours. And then I take about a quarter of it and I’d mix it up in my little bullet to get the consistency right. But I add a lot of bell peppers. I love jalapenos, basically throw anything I’ve got in the kitchen that’s a vegetable. I’ve had broccoli, I’ve had asparagus. It’s amazing, man. I make it every week. My daughter and wife hate beans, but they love the chili. Little do they know it’s like, 70% beans. So it’s all presentation I guess, right?

Chip: Yeah, totally. Totally, all presentation.

Jim: So what’s your recipe? Give us a recipe.

Chip: Man well, okay, so my cheater recipe is with cans, right? I’ll just say the cheater recipe. Okay, so one can of chopped tomatoes, right? One small thing of tomato paste, two cans of beans of assorted – I like the chili beans that, I get the organic chili beans from our local store, can’t remember what brand it is. But they’ve got a couple of different types of beans in it. Onion, garlic, paprika, chili powder. Here’s where I got a little non-traditional for some people, or maybe so but like man, I put some powdered onion powder in it as well, right? Just like, gives it this boost of flavor. Even though we sauté actual onions. Then I take some oil, I sauté the onions and the garlic all together. Man sometimes I’ll put in like, a vegetarian sausage or impossible burger or something like that. We’ve got some like, mushroom type of burgers too. We’ll like, chop that up a little bit at that point.

Jim: Is it possible that your favorite protein is that [inaudible 13:57]?

Chip: No, no, no, I’m a cheap vegan, Jim, right? And I’m a vegan at heart, because I’m lactose intolerant. But I still like, love cheese pizza, I had it for dinner last night. Yeah. Right. And I’ll eat the cheap shit too, I’m not you know.

Jim: If you’re hungry, you gotta eat.

Chip: I’ll eat it all but like, I eat cheese pizza and I’m lactose intolerant. So like, I have to eat some lactose enzymes and, then I love butter, because I’m from the south and everything’s double butter, double sugar. But I eat fish man, I’m a fisherman. Now that I’m in Oklahoma, we buy fish. When I lived in California, I tried to catch most of my fish. We’ll eat fish like, four times, five times a week.

Jim: What’s your favorite fish?

Chip: You know, I have a few favorite fishes and favorite dish, favorite fish recipes. Black cod, which is a deep water cod. Its texture is just incredible. I think that’s what one of my favorite fish, right? If you get true Blackwater cod –

Jim: Did you use to get that up in Northern California?

Chip: Yeah, yeah, it comes out of Alaska.

Jim: Oh hell yeah.

Chip: And you can get it, you get it all over. 

Jim: Do some people call that ling cod?

Chip: Ling cod’s different. And ling cod,  they are cod, but you also catch them higher in like, 100 feet of water, 200 feet of water. Where like, the black cod they’re deep. And so the pressure of the water changes the consistency, their consistency, right?  Different fish, man. Great, great fish. If you’re ever in Denver, there is great, great sushi in Denver. And I know it’s totally environmentally inappropriate, but farm raised Croatian tuna, the Toro on this stuff is so good. And you can get it in a couple of restaurants in our area. Izakayaden is the one we go to. Otherwise mostly-

Jim: You’re a big sushi guy though.

Chip: I eat sushi for sure. But in Oklahoma, I haven’t really found the sushi spot.

Jim: Yeah, there’s not one.

Chip: I hear there is, actually. But I haven’t gone there yet. I mean, because most of the sushi is flown in overnight. So it’s all about your connection wherever you are. I love shrimp and lobster and crab, Dungeness crab and crab cakes.

Jim: Stonecrab claws.

Chip: Yeah, I’ll eat all of that. I mean, in the north coast up in Trinidad Westhaven like, we could fish for a lot of that stuff. Like the Dungeness crab, a great fishery for that up there. Tuna, cod, salmon. I mean, you go out and catch rockfish, and ling cod limit any single time you want to go out during the fishing season, you’ll probably  limit.

Jim: What are we going to get to pass a joint again, man.

Chip: Oh, well, I mean, I quit that a while ago. I don’t, and with the people you hang out with? I don’t know if I can smoke joints with you anymore.

Jim: Oh.

Chip: Jim is frequently trying to pass anybody who will look at him in the eyes a joint.

Jim: That’s a bad habit.

Chip: Compliment, compliment. No, it’s a compliment. I know. Well, I mean, I haven’t really spoke about COVID too terribly much on our podcast. I’ll say plandemic pandemic, it’s a storm in the horizon, and I’m trying to avoid it. I’m also a private pilot, and you see a thunderstorm, you avoid it. And there are limits that you should get to it close to it, there’s a reasonable limit for your plane size. 30 miles, I believe is what they say. That’s what I’m trying to do is just stay healthy, stay away. I’m not sure what all the facts are. I don’t think anyone knows what all the facts are. It just is such a new problem. Every day, people guess something different about it. Now, I just have had to turn my ears off a little bit. When we go into any store in Oklahoma, we mask up like everybody else, pretty much. There’s usually one or two people that don’t. And hey, whether regardless of what you believe, plandemic, pandemic, like I said. I mask up, man. I go in the store. I respect the other people around me, because I don’t want to cause them fear or harm. And it doesn’t have anything to do with being a sheep. It’s all about just respect for your neighbors, respect for your fellow humans, respect for the scenario and situation. right? Like, no conspiracy theory. It’s just, man, it’s just kind of how it is. You got to like, deal with it.

Chip: Yeah, I think it’ll teach us all a lot of like, barriers and the space between each other in general, you know? It’s just like ,respect the boundaries, man. Everybody should have boundary, right? And everybody’s is different. So –

Jim: Have you flown yet?

Jim: You know, I haven’t, man. And that’s amazing, right? I’m a flyer and I have not, I just had a grandkid. He was born March 22nd. Can you believe this? Snoop Dogg for a grandpa? His initials are OG. I don’t think that was intentional. Knowing my son and daughter in law I’m pretty positive, that wasn’t intentional. And I only tried to pull the OG just enough to get the people that know what’s up. But yeah, but I’m proud.

Chip: You are very Snoop Dogg. Do you listen to hip-hop?

Jim: I don’t. 

Chip: Do you rap at all? You don’t listen to any, no Snoop Dogg for you?

Jim: No Snoop Dogg, man.

Chip: It’s alright. We’re gonna get you to a Snoop Dogg playlist.

Jim: You saw I have a record player. And I’ve got some rock and roll. I’m a Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin freak. I saw Led Zeppelin in 1977 in Fort Worth, Texas.

Chip: God. Wow. 

Jim: It was awesome. Holy shit.

Chip: What size venue was that?

Jim: It was like, maybe 17,000. Something like that. Yeah, it was awesome. And my brother stood in line and got in like multiple fights throughout the night, and got tickets. And somehow, my buddy and I got front row, first balcony, center. It was amazing. But I had smoked way too much weed. I think I smoked, I know we rolled like, 90 joints. I actually –

Chip: What were you smoking? What were you smoking, do you remember that?

Jim: Probably, it was good Mexican weed back then. II was always – 

Chip: You were in Texas.

Jim: I was in Texas, but I had connections. One of my best friends was a grower even back then. And he ended up growing, going to college at Texas A&M. And then he got a job at Teledyne, it was one of the [inaudible 21:16] out in California. And his job was to go check on the oil rig. So the first thing he did is start big farms by every oil rig. So he was growing killer weed in Southern California back in  I think, ’81.  So we were smoking Mexican weed, but we smoked 90 joints, man. And I ended up getting in trouble at football because like, I ended up having to quit football, because of the penalty that they put on me. Texas football. I missed one day of practice. Yeah. Now, granted, we did get caught –

Chip: You gave up your football career to go to Led Zeppelin. Hey man, you had your priorities straight, bro. That was the smartest decision you ever made. If you have not done that, that would have shaped your life forever, and you wouldn’t have been who you are.

Jim: I would have been three –

Chip: You chose, oh, dude, you chose an experience that, you have told this experience 1000 a million times. It’s probably one of the most important things that’s ever happened to you.

Jim: Yeah. It’s something that many people have done.

Chip: That’s life, right? That’s how it turns, man.

Jim: That’s what it’s about. It’s not about how much money you have in the bank, it’s how many stories and memories that you have. My lifestyle’s kind of based on time rich, we’re actually doing a movie. It’s called The Ultimate Charity. And it’s all about ERIC, and how we got so many eyes on ERIC so quick. And we started the ultimate frisbee team and they ended up winning the championship in 2016. And we went all over the world. I mean, ERIC’s actually right now in Colombia, Venezuela, Slovakia, Hungary, Germany, Italy. It’s all over the world, man. I’ve done an amazing job of blowing it up and not really even knowing it. And I think it’s just organic. I just kind of got out of the way, and started something really cool and run with it. So good stuff, Chip. This has been awesome, man.

Chip: No, no, no, man. It’s great, dude. I’m glad we’ve been talking about this for a minute. And I want to do some other podcasts with you, too. Here’s the three podcasts, you guys. Here’s what me and Jim are going to do in the future. We’ve been talking about this for a minute, because we both really love business, and I analyze my business, and other people’s business, and help my friends with their businesses all the time. And we’re gonna analyze some sort of cannabis business on a podcast here soon, right? Yeah, totally, totally. And man, I started when I was young, Jim started when he was young. I’ve been doing this like, I’m 47 right now, Jim’s 65. Like we’ve been doing this ever –

Jim: 60.

Chip: 60. Hey, I was trying to give you more experience, bro. Not call you older. So you still can’t get the discount, then

Jim: Oh, no people are discounted at 55 now, man.

Chip: Oh, okay, good. Let’s go to Ryan’s and get some food. 

Jim: That’s terrific. Hey Chip, that’s a freaking great idea.

Chip: It’s a great idea, though, isn’t it? Yes, I should do that. Because we just both love to do that. That’s such a fun thing for us to do. People will learn about it. We’ll go over a whole PL, BL, we’ll just pick a cannabis business.

Jim: Yeah. And if you want us to do your business, why don’t you send it in? We’ll start a little application process.

Chip: Yeah, absolutely. That’s what we’ll do. If you have a cannabusiness with a PL BL, it doesn’t even have to be a current one. It could be last year’s. We need this. We need you to be sure of your numbers. We need, you’d have three years of these numbers. And you’d be willing to get on podcast with us and talk about it. And I mean, it’s simple. We’ve been in business for three years and been running some sort of financial management software. We use QuickBooks but whatever we’ll generate a PL and a BL for three years straight, so we can actually see what the business has been doing, and generate some good conversation. It’ll be fun. I really love to do this. I know businesspeople like, “Oh, PL, BL. No.”

Jim: They don’t get it, we can talk –

Chip: They don’t get it dude.

Jim: We’ve done so much that a lot of people would love to hear. I used to do all my own taxes. I wouldn’t do them, I wouldn’t have my account layout five different scenarios of different cash flows, and different ways to spend money on some things. And we can all talk about a lot of fun things, and honestly, we could bring some specialists on. I’ve got a guy that’s a tax guy. Or we could bring in a, you know, specifically based off of what kind of company it is. Yeah, I love it.

Chip: That sounds fun, man. We’ll do that. It’ll be a Greener Group Excess episode, we’ll start doing that. 

Jim: Did you just think of that?

Chip: It just came off. We’ve been talking about similar stuff. But like, I mean, we talk about it all the time. I mean, I deal with PL BL all the time. It’s how I run all of my businesses. And if you’re not running a profit and loss statement, or a balance and ledger statement on a monthly basis reconciling them, then you’re really missing out on understanding how your business works and being able to see where you can go with cash flow, where you can go with tax –

Jim: How to anticipate things yeah, how to save money on tax. I’m a specialist at that. I understand cash flow. I understand cash basis versus accrual basis. I’ve converted, I think Jeff and I both have just recently converted from cash to accrual. That’s a big thing. It happens only if you hit a certain revenue amount, the IRS requires you to do it. Been there, done that. I survived, so we do it. I’ve started businesses left and right. Chip has had great exits. Hey, let’s  schedule that in. I’d look forward to-

Chip: Yeah, man. We’ll have to schedule that in. Hey, let’s find somebody though. Hey, we’re reaching out. Any type of cannabis business, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing. From if you’re a class one or class three, if you’re a dispensary or an attorney, if you’re an ancillary company selling products to the cannabis industry, or if you’re in the cannabis industry extraction to hemp, anybody’s peel. But you have to have three years’ worth of reconcile, balance, ledgers, and profit, and loss statements.

Jim: Hey, it’d be awesome if you have like an idea of where you wanted to go too. Like, what  we’re trying to help you with? Are you wanting to scale? Or you want to sell? Are you wanting to make more profit? Are you wanting to like, give us some ideas? And basically, we’ll suggest for you, but come up with an idea. Bring your company to the table. We’ll come up with the name of this probably next time we talk and smoke one.

Chip: This is great. This is great, dude. I’m loving it. We might we got a whole ‘nother like, this is literally like, both of our like, I shouldn’t say hobbies, but we get excited about it.

Jim: It is. I know [inaudible 28:21]. Do we not have anything else better to do than this?

Chip: Yes. Like, I’m gonna find the 1%, I’m gonna find 1%. That’s often my motto is like, stack up the 1%, man and get 1% profit coming out of it.

Jim: I’m always better helping other people than helping myself. I hate to say that. I don’t know what you call that. But it is what it is.

Chip: Yeah, I’m similar.

Jim: I think it’s called just giving. You know, when you’re a giver, you want to help other people, it’s almost a codependency. You want to help other people more than you want to help yourself. Even on the airplane, they tell you if we’re going down, put your own mask on first, that way you can help more people. It’s a good point. 

Chip: It is a good point.

Jim: But we’ve already done that, Chip. I think we both have our mask on already, you know what I mean? We’re very comfortable with each other and we’ve never brought up money. It’s never been like, it’s not like, we have to make money or we’re, I’m broke I need I’ve got – because money is one of those things. If you have too much or too little, you’re in trouble. There’s somewhere in between there that you’re comfortable. And I think both of us are comfortable. I think we’re comfortable in our skin. And a lot of times skin is green. It’s how much passion.

Chip: Hey man, I spend all my money on weed and I always have, and I’ll probably always will. Any of my friends out there listening to me know what I mean about that. I’m either gonna invest it all into more businesses that are weed associated, hire more employees and I do whatever I want, but like I also work 10 hours a day.

Jim: So Chip I used to always say back in the day it’s like, all my friends would say, “Why do you have weed?” I was like, “I always buy enough so I don’t run out.” And I always referenced, I could always turn weed into money, but I cannot always turn money into weed.

Chip: Money into weed. That is very freak brother quote right there. Hey, let’s talk about weed, Jim. You were smoking some Humboldt, what do you mean by that? Is it indoor? It’s indoor?

Jim: Yeah, indoor. I’m a big fan of indoor. Honestly, I got some fresh outdoor but in this greenhouse, but I guess I’ve learned from Chip, greenhouse weed is outdoor. I’m just not a fan of – 

Chip: Even though they might call it indoor.

Jim: They might, yeah. That’s the thing about the industry is we’re all outlaws and some people don’t care that much. So some people just make shit up and yes, but other people are really concerned about it. The genetics is really, so I’m a big fan of indoor. I like the flavor. I do a maintenance process. I smoke a lot of just, a couple hits here, a couple of hit there throughout the day, all day. And it allows me to relax. I don’t have to do any ADHD pills. I use cannabis to manage that. It’s called self-medication. And I’m a big, I have my medical cannabis card in California. So I’m legal. So if anybody’s wondering, I believe that this medical cannabis deal is a beautiful thing. I think there’s, how many states are legal right now, Chip? 33 or…?

Chip: I mean, there’s more legal than not right now.

Jim: We should celebration of like, a special little song. [inaudible 31:40] a cannabis song.

Chip: Smoking weed makes me feel fine. Legalize another state.

Jim: You gotta put an auto button for sure. Give your host a stop button too.

Chip: Like a hook.

Jim: What are you smoking, man? What are you smoking?

Chip: I’m smoking right now, I’m fixing to roll up some Kush 19. It’s from our light depth here in Oklahoma.

Jim: Hey, so one of our customers, we were meeting them, they hadn’t bought the business yet. I was looking at investing in it. We all took a break and we all rolled joints up. But Chip made a comment. Remember that you made a comment that, “Hey, this weed is from a buddy of mine.” Right? And the investor said, he told me off record, “I will never invest in somebody that doesn’t smoke their own – ” 

Chip: Smoke their own weed.

Jim: It was a really funny statement. So that’s kind of what we’re dealing with here, this guy –

Chip: They’re nice people. They just didn’t understand what was going on.

Jim: They did not get it.

Chip: Like hey, Chip’s looking for the best weed in the world. He’s not ever gonna buy any of that shit. I was coming to see Jim, so I looked for the best weed I could find. And because man, I don’t have it all the time. And even though I’m smoking our own cultivated weed right now, in the other room I also have some variety of weed from [inaudible 33:26] Genetics, a local Oklahoma company. Man, I love their Grandpa’s Breath and their [inaudible 33:28], big up the jive. If you’re in Oklahoma, look for them at your local dispensary or come to Bakers Medical and ask for it there. They have great weed.

Chip: I smoked it. I’ve smoked it for sure. Yeah, I just smoked a couple hits of that outdoor. The thing about indoor, it seems like the whole joint, you can taste the flavor of it. I guess is that’s the terpenes that you’re tasting or what is it?

Chip: Oh, Jim. Man, you just got to get good outdoor, dude. It is the full flavor, like that really good, greenhouse, organic grown outdoor. That’s the flavor all the way down? Oh my god dude, it’s just so good, right?

Jim: Prove it.

Chip: Hey, I’ll tell you what, I got terpene tests that say that my outdoor here and my greenhouse does prove it. And it is higher than terpene test from indoors of the same strains, right? So we actually do have that proof. Man, the extract –

Jim: What causes that? Does the heat bring up, do you think the heat causes, creates a –

Chip: Man, especially in the greenhouse, it’s in this natural environment that’s still protected, right? And part of the terpenes and the secondary compounds are to like, fly off the plant and either act as an attractant, or repel pests, or be a memory to an animal that eats it. Right? It’s like, “Oh, don’t go near that funny smell and skunk weed, because we got high as fuck last time, we’ve had to eat the seeds out of it.” Right, that’s the initial purpose of it all. But then like, we’ve like, “Oh, I like the myrcene, I like the limonene, and breed that in there. And select for that. And that’s what we, as humans have done to increase it. So in a greenhouse, they’re contained, and they don’t blow off so much, but they still get the natural sun. But then you use a UV resistant plastic on top of it, that that pulls out a bunch of the UV.  And that whole accumulation of things, I believe makes greenhouse weed have the highest terpene. I mean, I’m not the only person saying it. I’m pretty sure it’s already been proven. Now, you cannot, you can get the worst terpene profile out of bad greenhouse operations, or bad genetics, right? ‘Cause that happens too.

Jim: Okay, well I have to be more openminded. I’ll see –

Chip: Hey, man, I’m not claiming to have great weed right now. And, we’ve been growing our outdoor for extraction. We’ve just pulled some, light depth is pretty good. But I’m just gonna say it’s pretty good. I got a high opinion of it all. And man, it was real rough here this year. It was wet, it was humid. At almost every harvest period we had throughout the summer, because we had multiple ones, whether it was auto flowers light depths, traditionally powered outdoor, it’s just been so wet, man. And –

Jim: What you’re doing is people don’t, and a lot of people probably understand, that is much R&D that you do.

Chip: Oh, it’s all R&D. Oh, yeah, totally. It’s all R&D. And that’s the beauty of Oklahoma is that we man, I mean, we’ve grown so many different weeds. Five or six different techniques, greenhouse, outdoor, clones of seeds, light depth, late season planting. I mean, we’ve planted 20,000 seeds this past year, kill off a bunch of seeds, threw a bunch of stuff away, extracted it all. And the point was, we’re looking for genetics that thrive here in Oklahoma, under several conditions. Light depth, early planting, light planting, full season, indoor, and that’s kind of part of it all. It’s just like, I am absolutely a shotgun approach guy to it, and just plant out shit ton as much as you can in Oklahoma. I’ve never been able to plant out this much. So we planted out more than we could control. Man, we’ve seen some great, great, great, great returns out of it. We’ve had some plants that didn’t survive at all. We had some auto flowers that didn’t work out at all. We had some auto flowers that worked out great. We’ve planted every single month, March, April, May, June, July, August, September. And it really, really learned a lot about what’s going on here.

Jim: Bring up a couple of like, a couple of the obstacles that you did and how you pivoted, maybe an example of how –

Chip: Well man, I’ll tell you that the biggest obstacle we had this year was material supply early in the season. COVID had hit in March, everything was fucking crazy. Looking back and oh it was just nuts, man. We’re gonna be feeling that PTSD for years. But couldn’t get materials, couldn’t get supplies. Everybody was weeks out of stuff. And so we had planned on putting 40,000 square feet of hoop, right? We got to 19,000 and I just couldn’t put up anymore. We had been delayed because of, and we had started in February putting this stuff up. We had a hard time getting employees, man. We had a hard time getting farmworkers. We had about 12 different people come out and the heat just crushed them. Because man, if you’re not used to working outside, the heat here in Oklahoma will crush you, right? Hands fucking down. And we’re even like, cautious about it all. But still, it’s a hard job, man.

Jim: It’s farming.

Chip: Yeah, it’s farming. We’re at the ranch. We’re not convenient to any of the big cities. We noticed this man, that many people wanted to come out and work, but they had childcare issues, right? Because their kids couldn’t go to school or couldn’t be under the assistance with their grandparents or whatever it normally had been. And we lost, a bunch of people just couldn’t hang with driving an hour or an hour and a half, and like, having to deal with their kids, right? The kids were I don’t know, just kid stuff, dude. Like, “Oh, babysitter didn’t work out. I’m not feeling good. Oh, you know, this, that, the other.” And because everybody’s kids are home, the normal daycare wasn’t working. We had a problem getting employees here. And I had planned on having six employees for 40,000 square feet of hoop, and 20,000 ish, well, 50,000 square feet of outdoor, that was my plan. That’s what we were prepared for. But we could only get two workers trained and kind of up to speed before like,  the season started. And at that point, I decided I wasn’t going to build any more greenhouses. We weren’t going to plan all the outdoor, and we went with just I think, 60,000 square feet, 20,000 square feet of outdoor, and then 19,000 square feet of greenhouse. And then we had another 20,000 square feet of shade out. So we just kind of left all that be. And three people, it was still too much for three people to handle. And that’s three people plus Jessica and me, my wife and me, when we could, when we weren’t working our other jobs, or doing podcasts. So labor was really a big, big problem for us this year. And it threw off my plan. And of course looking back on it, I should have done it differently. But I’ve always been able to get employees and get people to work. And usually, they stay for a long time. And it was just, it’s just been difficult this year, man. That’s been the biggest problem for me this year, was employees at the farm.

Jim: Labor. Labor is tough right now, man. We’re dealing with that big time with our companies. Nobody wants to work. The government gave out. It’s really weird because in March –

Chip: Well, it’s more complicated than nobody wants to work, that childcare issues that they deal.

Jim: Yeah. Yeah, it is.

Chip: Like, I’ve literally had employees, because we’re an essential business. We never stopped working Cultivate Colorado, Growers Coco never stopped working. And we’ve had some employees that have had to quit to take care of the kids.

Jim: That’s sad. But it’s not it’s not the worst thing for the kids. The parents can deal with it. But I’ve heard there’s a lot of parents that aren’t dealing with it very well. I mean, I used to do those clinics at these schools. And what they actually did more than I’ve ever done is drink margaritas afterwards. It’s like, holy shit. That’s, it’s hard to be, teaching kids all day every day. And like, we didn’t have to go. We were like, grandparents. We didn’t have to go back the next day. And it was still not easy. But if you got kids, certain kids, I’m sure you don’t get along with everybody. And if you got to go back to the same environment every day, oh my god. More power to the teachers. They don’t make enough money.

Chip: Oh, teachers. That’s the hardest job, man, that one. More power to you, man. It’s changing, this whole thing’s changing education, that’s for sure

Jim: It’s got to be better. We got to get better at – you know what the cool thing about is, Chip? I think we can now we can spread our wings a little better and get the best teachers, and give them the best platform to teach more kids.

Chip: Yeah. Oh, yeah, man.

Jim: That’s what it all is. It’s like fucking, it’s opening up that opportunity. It’s like a, it’s a beautiful thing, really. Sad, but true. We should take advantage of it, because now Zoom, and dude. You called Zoom, I bought Zoom.

Chip: I should have, oh man. That was a good call, wasn’t it?

Jim: Chip, I sold most of mine and kept just 10 shares, but I’ve made so much money on that. And I had 50 shares based off of what you said, I bought it the day you said it. I said, “Wow, that’s it.” And that’s every day, people should have business partners like us. They could brainstorm for 10, 30 minutes, whatever it is, and little shit like that comes up. And so yeah, the idea,  I can’t wait for the next podcast, dude. Let’s schedule it. If you got a company that you’re interested in reviewing, be the first company. We could go, we don’t have to name your company. We can keep it generic, neutral. We can [inaudible 44:33]

Chip: Well, you know, there is the thing is people are scared to talk about their numbers, often, right? You can be anonymous. Like, I was thinking about just pulling up one of my businesses from like, five years ago or something. I could probably feel comfortable talking about stuff from way back then.

Jim: We would definitely do it anonymous. I mean, there’s no reason to, and we can even keep the owner’s name – 

Chip: Unless you didn’t care. Unless you didn’t care.

Jim: Yeah, maybe you just sold your business and it doesn’t matter. Or there’s something like you’re getting ready to sell it, and you want some help. We’re going to give you free help. I’m going to include my CFO, his name is John Beasley. I call them John 420. Have him help us out, let him evaluate it. And 420 John and I’ve got, we got Erin. 

Chip: For all those who love the weed, roll it up and smoke it now.

Jim: This has been really good chip. I hope we can –

Chip: It’s been great man. Thanks for coming on. I know we kind of just started babbling here as soon as we started smoking weed. This Kush 19 is great, man. Oh,  it’s a novel kush, it’s 707 Kush seeds that we planted in 2019, sussed it out. This is really great, great kush variant for Oklahoma.

Jim: What’s your dispensary called?

Chip: Bakers Medical. It’s actually my wife’s dispensary. Yep, yep. Wife dispensary, Baker’s medical. She’s there every day, we sell clones.

Jim: And healthcare insurance.

Chip: And yeah, if you want a health care camp shirt, go to Baker’s Medical. This Kush 19 wow, it’s coming soon. This tastes good. It’s not great, though, man. It’s just good.

Jim: Oh it’s just okay?

Chip: It’s just good. I’m not, no, no, no, no, no, it’s good. It’s good. It’s good. It’s good. It might be okay weed, but it’s okay. 

Jim: Better than okay?

Chip: No, it is not okay okay. Okay okay? Okay no, okay okay.

Jim: That’s okay good. 

Chip: No, this is good. This is okay, good. This is good okay.  This is good okay. There we go. Okay okay, good okay, great okay.

Jim: And that’s how it is.  Already scheduled for the day.

Chip: Yeah. And man hey, I do have some great okay, dude. This Durbin Thai Highflyer. It’s a strain we grew 15, 20 years ago maybe? We got a cross that in this other seed 99 from Brothers Grimm seeds. Super up. Oh, awesome, awesome, awesome high. “Sativa” high. This Apollo 11 also from him, super, super, got really buzzy, electric weed, man.  I know you’re more of the medical medicinal side, but I really love that buzzy electric high man. 

Jim: I need to try that more In the morning.

Chip: Yeah, totally. Well, it’s been great having you Jim. Thanks a lot for joining us on The Real Dirt. Give me your contacts, how do people get in contact with you or want to hear more about your story?

Jim: Best way to contact me is jim@timerichcbd.com

Chip: There we go. And you’ve got some LinkedIn? 

Jim: LinkedIn, Jim Gerencser. Facebook, private message me. Google Jim Gerencser, you’ll find me.

Chip: You can check his bio out at greenerconsultinggroup.com.

Jim: You’ll get Chip and I right now. At this stage, you get Chip and I, and all the introductory calls. So we’re excited to be talking to everybody. Have a good 420. Good deal, Chip. Awesome job.

Chip: Yeah. Thanks for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode would like to listen to others, download The Real Dirt podcast on iTunes or Spotify. Hey, just subscribe. That’s the best thing that can happen to you and the best thing that can happen to us. But the more that people that listen, the bigger our network grows and the better this whole community gets. So once again, I really enjoyed this episode. I really enjoyed talking to you guys. And if you all do something for me this week, man is give a brother or sister a call randomly if you haven’t talked to them in a while. Give ’em a call. And just tell ’em that you love ’em and you wish you could burn a fat one with them. Thanks, this has been the real joing. Real joint. This is the real joint. This has been The Real Dirt. Thanks again.

Jim: See y’all later. Have a great day. See ya, Chip.

The Real Dirt on Oklahoma Cannabis

The Real Dirt on Oklahoma Cannabis

oklahoma medical cannabis news

Oklahoma ain’t no joke when it comes to cannabis cultivation.

Chip has been living in Oklahoma for the last year, and has gotten to experience first hand the trials and tribulations of cannabis cultivation in Oklahoma.

Since legalizing medical cannabis in 2019, Oklahoma has exploded with cultivators, dispensaries and license holders. In fact, Chip argues that Oklahoma holds more licenses than every other state combined. When it comes to Cultivation, Nevada might have Oklahoma beat. But for total licenses including processing and dispensary licenses, Oklahoma sits at the top.

This week’s episode of The Real Dirt is a catch-up for our listeners on why The Real Dirt has been away for a while and what Chip has been up to in Oklahoma. Here’s your hint: it involves growing a lot of ganja.

Plus Chip gets into the dirty details about the pros and cons of growing in Oklahoma, how the industry there compares to California and Colorado, and why he thinks Oklahoma is a great place to grow cannabis.

[Transcript Below]

Stream on Apple Music

Stream on Spotify

Stream on Stitcher

Follow us on Instagram

Join our Facebook GROUP!

Some Topics We Discussed Include (Timestamp)

4:07 – Growing cannabis in Oklahoma

11:13 – Outdoor cultivation in Oklahoma

18:05 – The pest pressure

21:04 – Preventive measures for infestation

27:58 – Challenges in growing in OKC

 

People Mentioned / Resources

 

Connect with  Chip Baker

TRANSCRIPT

Chip Baker: This is Chip from The Real Dirt. Once again, you’ve reached another fabulous episode of The Real Dirt with Chip Baker. I’ve been a little slack lately guys, and I want to start the episode off by just, oh mankind of apologizing and also just a little we’re all in this COVID scenario together and it’s just kind of been a little difficult to put out some podcasts. We tried to do some zoom recordings, but man, if you guys heard those or saw those, they just sound awful. And you know, I really liked the sound. It was incredible. 

We put a lot of work into the post-production and into the overall production of the show in the past and Wow, man, that zoom connection just didn’t quite work for me, maybe really easy to do it. But we’re going to try to get some more audio episodes going here and maybe change a little format a bit. You know, it’s hard. Previously we’ve had like the past three years on The Real Dirt podcast. If you’re just new to the podcast, go check out some of our older episodes on iTunes or Spotify, The Real Dirt podcast, please subscribe. You can get some old material that’s new to you. 

We spent an incredible amount of time doing production and really learning how to make a great quality podcast. When COVID hit, we went to zoom recordings partially because we didn’t want to, we couldn’t be close enough with people to make a podcast. Now regardless if you think this is an epidemic plan Dimmick, fake or real, I’m a pilot, private pilot. And the first thing that I really learned in aviation is, if you take chances, odds are you’re going to die. So aviation is always about being perfect and correct. And even though there is a feel to it, there’s a considerable amount of math and exact and preciseness to everything with aviation. But the big thing is don’t take chances on, and you know, I’ve put that in my life, my business, and that’s what we decided to do with COVID, too. 

We thought we could just have a radio, just phone interviews or zoom interviews, and man, it just hasn’t really worked out. So I’m sorry, I had anticipated putting out about 25 episodes by now, 50 episodes by now, and I think we got 12 or 13 in the can so pretty much failed on that one. But you know, we got to, wanted to crank it up today, and have a little porch session on Sunday is often a relaxing day for us. As many of you know, we now live in Oklahoma. Previously we lived in Northern California for about 25 years 20 years, and on and off still it spent a good amount of time back there I love the place, and you know we moved to Colorado and set up some great grow stores Cultivate Colorado, Cultivate Garden Supply and moved down here to Oklahoma this past year to kind of do the same thing. Expand the grow shops, expand Cultivate Garden Supply, expand distribution of my potting soil growers, coco growers soil and in Oklahoma has been really really really really great for us. But you know, it’s a unique environment. 

Growing Cannabis in Oklahoma

And we’ve learned stuff everywhere we’ve gone and grown in the country in the world about cannabis and how it performs. And Oklahoma has its unique set of challenges and advantages. And you know, we were learning every day. I was on Oklahoma medical patients thread the other day on Facebook. And someone was commenting on maybe all the bad weed is because all the bad growers and there’s a lot of novices and new growers here in Oklahoma, I definitely don’t think it’s all bad weed, but people are really just learning how to do it. And we don’t really have the culture here in Oklahoma. The ganja smoking West Coast, Colorado culture, it is a little different here. 

But people will get better at the craft, and they will learn, and honestly, I think Oklahoma is really set to produce some fine quality weed in two or three years from now when all of the smaller growers have had a little bit of success, and they’ve gotten better, and they started talking to their friends, and they’ve seen better weed, and they’ve sold more medical cannabis in the shops and the shops tell them what they want and local genetic starts to develop, or local cultivars become in demand. When all those things happen, better quality cannabis is going to get here. 

But you know, the thing about cannabis is and in anything, is when you have multiple people working on the project, you get exponentially better, and in Oklahoma, there are more cultivation licenses than anyplace else in the country. Now, I would bet there’s more. I mean, someone could check that fact, if someone knows this fact, let’s hear it. But I don’t, I’m just going to make it up. Okay. I bet that there are more legal cultivation licenses in Oklahoma than in the rest of the country combined. That’s right. 

 

There’s just a few thousand in California, like just a few thousand in Colorado, and those are the states we think about the most I don’t even think there’s 2000 in Oregon. So, there’s a considerable amount of people growing all at once learning all and what man they’re going to get exponentially better. As long as they dropped the grower ego and realized that they could, there’s probably someone doing it better than them they can probably do it better the exponential learning that’s going to happen over all those six 7000 commercial growers and when I say commercial growers here in Oklahoma you can have a two-light grow and be a commercial grower you just apply for the license it’s a great environment to work that in. 

So I think it is going to get considerably better and fast and in a couple years Wow, man, Oklahoma’s going to have some great weed. So besides the sheer number of new people to this industry, there are a lot of experienced people like myself that have moved here, and I’ve been growing cannabis all my life and only recently got back into medical cannabis. It is a difficult environment in many aspects. I mean, I’m from Georgia where the humidity is high every single day you know there’s not a dried day in the year. It’s subtropical down there. The humidity is not as bad here as in Georgia. I mean at our farm, we have 50% average humidity frequently. And 50% humidity 90 degrees temperature and for outdoors and that’s a really great environment for ganja plants. 

They really like that. Yes, so does the mold. The mold and mildew start to grow at that 40 to 50%. It’s the perfect environment for it, but it’s also the perfect environment for cannabis to thrive. And from my experience, the terpene levels of the outdoor greenhouse cannabis here are far superior to what I’ve seen in Colorado simply because it’s just so dry. It’s just so dry. Yes there are days like today where the humidity is high. It’s been raining the past few afternoons and the humidity has gotten high at night. In the 70s you know the state is very diverse though and you know if you’re on the eastern side, east of Oklahoma City far more water, far more moisture. 

If you’re on the western side of Oklahoma City, far drier way more high plains. And right in the middle, you get a lot of rolling hills, and there is lots of farmland where vegetables are grown. And there’s even some sort of grape and an olive culture here in Oklahoma too, which are indicator species for cannabis. So you know, the humidity is not impossible here, and I’ll tell you if you think the humidity is impossible to grow cannabis in, while Florida has quite a large cannabis industry currently, and you know, they have their difficulties, but they’re able to do it, and it’s totally possible not only possible. 

But honestly, cannabis likes those 40-50% humidity ranges, and that’s what it is in the coastal areas of Humboldt and Oregon too, or Colorado, California, and Oregon is in the coastal areas you get that perfect 40% humidity and yeah rages a little bit at night, but that’s the kind of the beauty over there is it drilled consistently in temperature might only drop a few degrees. The daytime to the nighttime makes an incredible, incredible cannabis growth. That’s what y’all those huge, huge, huge plants you see those are West Coast plans. Rarely do you see any other plants like that in other areas, even though I have seen some large plants in Michigan, the same large plants. 

Outdoor Cultivation in Oklahoma

The big thing about outdoor cultivation here in Oklahoma is latitude like we are so low down here that our light cycle is completely different from all of our strains. All the strains that we’re mostly getting are West Coast strains either bastardized in Colorado. Hey, I don’t mean to hurt feelings. One often Colorado and you know, Colorado has its own special element too, but they’re almost all indoor. The West Coast has so much outdoor that if strangers developed there, they’re often we’ll go outside or greenhouse or light up you know, regardless were like the Colorado strains they may never see that or may never see it at volume. 

Wow, man, these strains. Most of the clones most of the seeds have a really different reaction down here than they do up at the 38 to 41st degree north, plants grow in that latitude. It goes all the way across to like Afghanistan, India, we were all on this ride that same ridge and the light cycles just kind of perfect for cannabis in that region. Right, you can plan it. There’s long enough light in the early spring in order to get the plant to vegetative growth. The summer has the right amount of light. Also, to keep it in bed into, you know, August, mid-August, and then it’ll initiate a flower. Initiate flower. 

Now the interesting thing is this is all like in 30 minutes, 45 minutes of darkness that’s going on because that’s how cannabis flowers are darkness. So it’s just, you know, a few minutes more light, a few minutes later or a few minutes more like a few minutes earlier, it really does affect the plants that were growing the genetic stock we have, which I think is a huge opportunity for Oklahoma. Don’t get me wrong, mostly the plants aren’t growing and traditional veggies and flowering manners that we’ve seen at higher latitudes. Even in Colorado, the plants act really similar. They’re a little earlier. And here’s what I mean, so, the farther South you go, the earlier your season starts to begin, but also the earlier it ends even if you have good weather.

This is due to the fact that cannabis is mostly you know flower by light cycle, night cycle specifically, and I found that most cannabis will flower at under 14 and a half hours of light. You get under that, and most of the modern cannabis will flower. Now I know there are some people out there that are claim all this other stuff about photoperiod cannabis, but I’ve just been growing this stuff my whole life you know, it’s there’s absolutely a critical nightlife for every single strain and then there’s also a series of stressful or events that can also cause the plant to go into flower when it’s around that critical nightlight. For instance, if you’re in a one-gallon pot and you’ve got a four-foot tall plant, and it’s in early July here, it will probably flower. I would even say in late June, and it will probably flower due to stress factors of being in that root bound small pot and light cycles changing. It’s right there on the cusp. Right. 

Mostly what we see here in Oklahoma is that you can plant outside two to four weeks earlier than you know we would have in Northern California. And that also the plants are coming out two to four weeks earlier in the fall time. There are tremendous advantages to all of this, Oklahoma, and there’s no canopy size, no plant size, you just get your limit and go under your regulations of security and fencing. And you can grow as many plants as you want. So, the idea is I’m going to grow these huge 5-10 pound plants, you know, no one it’s really unrealistic here in Oklahoma. And honestly, in other places, it’s just such a pain in the ass to grow those big plants. That small plants are definitely the way to go here. I would bet the quarter half, the quarter and a half-pound plants the one pound plants are probably perfect for this environment. 

It’s so nice here early in the spring that so many people want to put clones and plants out. I mean, we had our first harvest of tomatoes in April. Before April 20th, we were eating tomatoes and cabbage and chard and onions. And I mean you know, it’s we started growing in February here our vegetable garden but that light cycles just off. But it does offer you an opportunity in the early spring just to put plants out and flower them immediately without them growing you get a sea of green outside. You don’t have to tarp it with the natural light cycle. And in many strains, you can force flowers by just bending them under 24 hours of flight and then putting them outside in that early spring. You know, I would suggest March is probably the best month for this in some strains just won’t work, but you know, we’ve seen like several strains just start flowering and not stop here. And of course, those are probably bad also for full season planted production here and in Oklahoma. 

The Pest Pressure

The other real limiting factor here that’s been brought up is the pest pressure. And I mean the pest pressure is pretty, pretty strong here. But it’s not undoable for outdoor cultivation and for indoor cultivation, but for outdoor cultivation, you’ve got a series of pests that want to devour your plants every day. I mean, there’s rabbits and rats and deer and mice and grasshoppers and looper worms, cabbage worms, tomato, hookworms, tomato worms, garden worms. I mean, these guys are so destructive, it’s unreal. There’s definitely powdery mildew, and you know botrytis as well like you know there’s more humid down here you get those big buds, and those big, dense buds and the botrytis likes to grow inside them. 

So there are numerous problems, but man, all those things I just mentioned are really you can control them. Numerous biological products you can get at cultivatecolorado.com and cultivateokc.com or go to your local supply store. DiPel is a bt product, almost any bt product I think works. DiPel is considered like the commercial one is what people use for you know, corn and whatnot. We mix it at a really strong rate far stronger than they call for it. I don’t think you can overdo it with the DiPel because you are just colonizing, you know, the [inaudible], I think, is the BT. So the more you spray, the more volume that you put in per gallon, just, in my opinion, increases your, the ability for the bt to grow on the planet. 

You know, you’ve really got to get this stuff early too, you really want to get it growing on the stem, you know, early on the plant’s growth, you want to make sure that it’s on that first little bitty flower that comes out in pre flower. I would suggest you know, making sure you got a really good collonation started a week or two before flowers—great, great, great strategy. You can hear the wildness here, huh, man, lots of bugs. Hear them, grasshoppers, they haven’t been terrible much of a problem for us, but grasshoppers will also eat all the leaves off your plant, so they are locusts. 

Preventive Measures for Infestation

We try to do a lot of mechanical control for IPM. We make sure all the grass is cut, we till as much of the ground, we disk as much of the ground around our outdoor gardens as we can. And we do these organic preventative sprays in it. It really does help, and they’re also like the things that you can use that aren’t harmful that you know don’t show up, in the end, use cannabis products. You have to do and preventatively though you can’t just start seeing the problem and spraying, and it’ll never work. You know that goes for powdery mildew. We suggest people spray regalia for that and just start your plants. Young and you won’t have a problem. If you see it, then you’re going to be battling it. And that’s, you know, that’s just how it goes. Every state differs on what pesticide products they can use or pest control measures they can use. 

 

Oklahoma’s, it’s actually pretty strict when you actually look at the letter of the law or talk to the Department of Agriculture, but just the way they test for it isn’t strict enough. So it allows for lots of variation and a lot of variables. People have all kinds of strategies on how to use certain pest control method measures that won’t test, and they’re in test, and I don’t suggest or advocate any of that just, you know, try to follow the law and have a proper Integrated Pest Management Program, which always includes these elements. Mechanical, well identification. 

One, you got to identify what you got. Okay? And it’s not that hard. You don’t have to like to get to the encyclopedia. You just Google it, you got to think about it. More than likely, if it’s a soft-bodied insect, you can treat it all the same way. If it’s a hard-bodied insect, you are treated kind of all the same way. You know, we like the biological controls. I won’t even get into the pronunciation of everything. But botanic guard and DiPel are some of our favorites. You can get all these cultivatecolorado.com online, just look us up, give us a call, Cultivate Colorado, Cultivate OKC just walk into the store and say, Hey, Chip said I need to come and get some DiPel because I’m going to have worms grown out of my buds here in the next month. Can you help me out, and Chris will say Oh, yeah, bro. I got a packet of DiPel right over here. We’ll be glad to help you out, show you how to spray it appropriately. 

But right now is absolutely the time to get on that DiPel and get on your biological controls for flower production. I can’t say it enough, man do preventative measures. And the best preventative measure is identification to walk through your gardens. Look, if you think you got a problem, look at it, don’t overanalyze it, but think about it and then say hey man, I do have a problem here. And I need to control it and then use the identify the proper controls, we always suggest mechanically, and that is absolutely the number one thing to do. If you have one plant that’s riddled with the infestation of something, just kill the plant and get it out, man. As soon as you see a leaf or a plant that has bugs like, man, start thinking about it now. I’m not saying go chop your garden down, even though I have more than once, and I just recently did it too. You can easily control outbreaks of many different types of pests with just removing the worst plants in your garden, trimming back all the leaves of the infected areas of the other plants. One it reduces the overall surface area so that when you do some sort of biological control, then you have less surface area to spray. 

Then lastly, is the biological control now whether what method you use to kill the bugs, it’s all you know, you’re all just trying to disturb their biology or disrupt their life cycle. I suggest trying to stick to all organic methods, or methods involving bacterias or other molds to combat the problems. Other things that many people use are H2O2 where botrytis or powdery mildew are concerned. With a direct spray, a spot spray directly on the affected area works excellent. I don’t suggest dipping your plants in it after you harvest it. It just harms the color of the look, the taste, all of it. I mean, H2O2 is caustic, and you can see it when you put it on your skin. It turns white; it does the same thing to your nuggets except it just turns on brown. 

So if you need, if you’re concerned about botrytis, man, it’s actually better to spray the plants down a few days before you harvest it. Let it dry completely in the plant-like absorb it. Far better off doing that. So identification, mechanical and biological controls, that’s how you deal with almost any pests. If you have any questions, you can always call us up at Cultivate Colorado, Cultivate OKC, chat with us online, ask online join our Facebook group, and we’d be glad to help you.

Oh man, Oklahoma is windy. Oh yeah, it’s windy here. It’s windy here in Oklahoma. Now some places aren’t as windy as others, but those places had the humidity. So if you want the lower humidity, then you’re going to have to suffer through a little bit of wind, and I picked kind of a ridge location for our farm specifically because we came through here when was flooding last year and all the places that weren’t flooding, well, those are probably going to be pretty good places. 

Challenges in Growing Cannabis in OKC

In the place we got, the farm we got a real real good farm, but it is a little windy. Not as windy as others, not as windy as being in the South or on the plains out there, West of Oklahoma. But the wind is definitely an issue. You definitely have to stake up your plants take up your pots, make sure you really double pot down your greenhouses like you really have to go through the effort, you’re more of a mariner here I think with all the wind and the rope and the knots and the like bracing then you are farmer almost. The things you’ve done to combat the wind, greenhouses, shade houses, big plants in front of small plants, perimeter fencing using tree lines to break the wind like we’ve taken a number of strategies to make this work and it has to some degree. But man, you know when it’s 114 degrees, and that wind picks up wow you better be on your irrigation man because it will melt some plants. Stray, melt them. 

So I mean it’s definitely a difficulty to overcome, but it’s part of the game, and every place you go has its own set of rules or its own circumstances, and here in Oklahoma there is the wind and the heat is definitely two of the major ones that’s for sure. But Amen, people have been breaking wind, haha. People have been disturbing wind flow using wind blocks of some sort for millennia. 

The other problem we’ve had here in Oklahoma is getting good employees man getting good people that can work. We came here last year and man there’s only a handful of cannabis people here, to begin with. Most of the people here are new to cannabis. Some of them just don’t know if they want to be in it or can do it. And we’ve had a little bit of a problem finding employees. So hey, if you’re in Oklahoma, if you are fit and willing to work outside in a greenhouse, outdoor environment, man, you know drop us a lineman. You can email me at chip@chipbaker.com. And we’ve been taking resumes and applications for a moment. But we’re really looking for some good people that want to learn about the operation, workup and stay with us for a number of years. That’s generally how we do all of our operations. 

In Cultivate Colorado, I got people to work with me for ten years. Cultivate OKC, I mean, Chris has worked with me for more than ten years. Overall, Chris helped me develop all the product lines, they helped me source all the raw materials, they’re using and all the testing and now he’s the manager at Cultivate OKC. So yeah, if you’re interested in employment, if you’re interested in being part of a great team, just drop me an email chip@chipbaker.com. I am specifically looking for hard workers people with backgrounds in mechanics and electrical and construction and irrigation and farming, vegetable farming, yeah give me a call, if you’re interested, man, we’re good people and we want to bring some great people on. 

Well, that’s about it for today’s Real Dirt Sunday edition. It’s a sun starting to come out now we have a nice bog later this morning, so it’s getting hot here on the porch. You’ve heard all the birds and the roosters and other insects in the background, a little piece of Oklahoma. If you liked this episode and others, please download and subscribe, go to iTunes right now, look up The Real Dirt podcast and subscribe. 

Hey, I want you to check out all of my websites. If you’re interested in coco fiber, man, growersoil.com. We make the stuff in Colorado is the highest quality coco fiber potting soil on the planet. I put my heart and soul and wallet behind that statement. We all made inside it treated it like a bakery. Everything’s broken out, manufactured in one day and patched up the end of the chance for cross-contamination and bugs is almost minimal. I mean, it is fresher than a hostess pie when you get it that’s for sure. Cultivate Colorado, Cultivate OKC, Cultivate Garden Supply, cultivatecolorado.com. You can order anything you wish for your hydroponic indoor-outdoor garden local deliveries throughout Colorado and Oklahoma commercial deliveries throughout the known world. 

For instance, man, we just had a deal going on in like Malawi, or someplace like that. And you know, everybody was a little nervous about it. But yeah, we got a good shipment of stuff shipped over there and helped some hemp farmers get started, man. Hey, I also wanted you to check out my new project, The Greener Consulting Group. I’ve developed a consulting group, The Greener Group, it is an accumulation or it is a team of the top experts in the industry and we can solve anyone’s problem if you’re having if you’re going into the cannabis industry. Man, you should really think about talking to us about a two day deep dive. If you’re in the cannabis industry and you’re having some problems with it, it doesn’t matter if it’s banking or IPM or umpiring, or I’ve got an expert that can help you out. And it’s really really, really reasonable. You’ll learn more in a day spent with us than you will in 5-10 years failing at it on your own.

So, a great place to stop growers group, growersconsultinggroup.com. Of course, I have to mention bakersmedical.com, our Oklahoma dispensary and cannabis operations where we operate a clone nursery, a commercial clone nursery, and a dispensary. The dispensary has been closed for a minute but opens soon. Hey, I want to thank everyone for listening. I appreciate all your help and support. We’ll get a couple more of these porch episodes going and maybe get more real dirt on some more stuff. Real Dirt!

Subscribe & Review

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The Real Dirt. Don’t miss an episode, click here to subscribe on iTunes and let me know what you love about this show.