Wholesale pot prices plummet. Now there starting to get better

[Daub Marley]

Since our product is in fact medicinal and recreational why shouldn't we take advantage of these same mechanisms to create value while protecting the longevity of our culture and cash flow.

You have top shelf Napa wine and then you have Gallo. One fetches a high price with large margins but a limited quantity sold. Then you have the other selling low priced/margin wine but selling a lot more of it. These are two distinct stratagies that will likely play out, and while a few favorable areas for cannabis in Cali will fetch a good price, the central valley will probably outgrow and sell them by a 100 fold.

If we can join together in a co-op we can keep the bigger money from picking us off.

So the way to avoid being picked off is to join a co-op where nobody competes? Or where everyone is under the same label/brand? Economics takes the path of least resistance like a river, and going against the natural economic progression is like swimming upstream. In this situation competition is inevitable and the current price of herb will drop considerably except for those that establish good brands through marketing and such. Just like Oceanspray for cranberries.

vertical integration or Co-Op style price setting are the way to avoid this type of "brokerage" situation. Once value is given to the soil and the region through the marketing of its terroir then profits can be truly protected.

I agree that this is the most protected route. Although at a certain point to meet capacity one must buy other farms or having contracts with farmers. Owning a bunch of farms is a distraction and contracting farmers is just like Oceanspray, Blue Diamond, and several other companies. So either become like Oceanspray, or get put under the thumb of someone like them. It's going to be dog eat dog.

 

[Shcrews]

Emphasis added. Taking the wine nomenclature and applying it to cannabis; the terroir of CA is just better than anywhere else, in the world IMO. This is why the same grapes grown in different regions and even mountainsides can fetch exponentially more dollars. California and France are on the same latitude.

not many people using regional/native soil in the top-shelf outdoor game right now though.

 

[oceangrownkush]

not many people using regional/native soil in the top-shelf outdoor game right now though.

I got a couple trees straight in the ground from seed All for persie, I bet most of everything that gets planted straight in the ground is for persie.

 

[Backyard Farmer]

It takes time to develop soil most growers want a fast return so they buy bagged soil or truck it in but no commercial agriculture farms are doing that.

The real way to do it is develop the land you have.

 

[Shcrews]

It takes time to develop soil most growers want a fast return so they buy bagged soil or truck it in but no commercial agriculture farms are doing that.

The real way to do it is develop the land you have.

what areas have the best native soil for cannabis?

 

[Backyard Farmer]

You're missing the point. You need to harness what you have , not to to where the grass is greener.

Grow daikon for a few years in the fall and let it just rot in the ground , it will break up the soil and add organic matter...spray HumaCarb , spectrum , MycoGenesis , biogenesis ... Add some paramagnetic rock , and plant.

 

[Shcrews]

You're missing the point. You need to harness what you have , not to to where the grass is greener.

Grow daikon for a few years in the fall and let it just rot in the ground , it will break up the soil and add organic matter...spray HumaCarb , spectrum , MycoGenesis , biogenesis ... Add some paramagnetic rock , and plant.

someday there will be weed sommeliers who can smoke a joint and then tell where it was grown/type of soil , climate, etc.. just from the taste. certain regions will become known for certain strains which favor that climate

 

[10ftGanja]

someday there will be weed sommeliers who can smoke a joint and then tell where it was grown/type of soil , climate, etc.. just from the taste. certain regions will become known for certain strains which favor that climate

Hydro-Soil?

 

[RetroGrow]

Exactly what I was thinking.....
He can even tell you what it was fed....
And if she was having her period or not.....

 

[warthog]

You're missing the point. You need to harness what you have , not to to where the grass is greener.

Grow daikon for a few years in the fall and let it just rot in the ground , it will break up the soil and add organic matter...spray HumaCarb , spectrum , MycoGenesis , biogenesis ... Add some paramagnetic rock , and plant.

Yep just got to add lots of green manure and let it go fallow.. I like the tip on the daikon. Animals are great too..

 

[binaryfission]

I agree that this is the most protected route. Although at a certain point to meet capacity one must buy other farms or having contracts with farmers. Owning a bunch of farms is a distraction and contracting farmers is just like Oceanspray, Blue Diamond, and several other companies. So either become like Oceanspray, or get put under the thumb of someone like them. It's going to be dog eat dog.

Exactly. We can't get caught up in the language but using Terroir is a market accepted form of protectionism. To make a long story short, it was the brokers of French wine who developed the system to divide and market the wine based on where it was grown. Presumably, taking human nature into account, some of these lands were deemed "better" arbitrarily by the biggest/strongest/most powerful brokers. The point is we as a community of growers/brokers need to start making these designations for ourselves. We need to educate the people now before we are behind the 8ball.

not many people using regional/native soil in the top-shelf outdoor game right now though.

I don't know how prevalent this is but it honestly doesn't matter. Thinking of terroir as just soil is an oversimplification. Terroir is more about the "taste of place." The soil, the sun, the air, the latitude and water used, and even the specific microbial fauna of the region. (New York Pizza and Bagels are the best because of the unique microorganisms in the air. The specific types of yeasts found naturally there in combination with the water create the unique flavor. Google it.)

someday there will be weed sommeliers who can smoke a joint and then tell where it was grown/type of soil , climate, etc.. just from the taste. certain regions will become known for certain strains which favor that climate

YES! and we can develop these protocols now, on our own. People who are doing biodynamic farming could possible charge more. No one knows. Labeling normal produce as organic is a value added proposition. We as a community already know the power of place; we've all said or heard "Its from Cali," "This is Highland Oaxacan," "Aww man this ain't Paki this is real Nepalese hash."

With the future of cannabis looking to be strain specific terpene profiles to treat specific ailments or create certain flavors there will be enormous amounts of diversification. If we link the quality to the place it was grown it will be harder for people to "patent and profit." Meaning that you can't just copy Chateau Lafitte's procedure when the grapes are grown in China. You can make sparkling wine in California but it will never be Champagne. You can grow OG in Arkansas but it might not ever taste like it does from the Triangle.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Daub Marley]

Exactly. We can't get caught up in the language but using Terroir is a market accepted form of protectionism. To make a long story short, it was the brokers of French wine who developed the system to divide and market the wine based on where it was grown. Presumably, taking human nature into account, some of these lands were deemed "better" arbitrarily by the biggest/strongest/most powerful brokers. The point is we as a community of growers/brokers need to start making these designations for ourselves. We need to educate the people now before we are behind the 8ball.

The concept of certain areas that will be marketed as being able to produce superior or unqiue cannabis will no doubt occur. I think that the market has somewhat already branded the emerald triangle area the best in the country, and for good reason. It has a unique climate that is the perfect summertime temperature for large indica dominant plants. Not too close to the bay where the fog and humidity is a problem and far enough away from the heat of the central valley.

The central valley has much more agricultural land available, but only the sativa structured plants can yield a good product. Its way too hot out there. It would take some time to find a quality strain that works out there really well.

 

[Grass Lands]

The central valley has much more agricultural land available, but only the sativa structured plants can yield a good product. Its way too hot out there. It would take some time to find a quality strain that works out there really well.

If the rain and snow pack doesn't come there wont be much growing of anything here in the valley. been here 50 years, born and raised and never seen it quite this bad. my pops was a ditch tender for years so I seen the good and the bad of the irrigation woes of the valley.

at current usage they estimate a 2yr supply of water is left...

 

[binaryfission]

The concept of certain areas that will be marketed as being able to produce superior or unqiue cannabis will no doubt occur. I think that the market has somewhat already branded the emerald triangle area the best in the country, and for good reason. It has a unique climate that is the perfect summertime temperature for large indica dominant plants. Not too close to the bay where the fog and humidity is a problem and far enough away from the heat of the central valley.

The central valley has much more agricultural land available, but only the sativa structured plants can yield a good product. Its way too hot out there. It would take some time to find a quality strain that works out there really well.

I agree. I think we just need to take it a step further and set up some frameworks to keep things the way WE like them and not have the politicians or the future Cannabis InBev to take advantage of us.

 

[Yes4Prop215]

You have top shelf Napa wine and then you have Gallo. One fetches a high price with large margins but a limited quantity sold. Then you have the other selling low priced/margin wine but selling a lot more of it. These are two distinct stratagies that will likely play out, and while a few favorable areas for cannabis in Cali will fetch a good price, the central valley will probably outgrow and sell them by a 100 fold.

great discussion folks! love the comparisons to AG and especially wine. funny thing is my pops sells grapes to Gallo, and daub is totally right. we grow the SAME grape varietals not even 1 hour from Napa County, at very similar elevations and climate. but because we aren't technically in napa county, prices are way different. 1700-2500 a ton for the best Napa has to offer…meanwhile we are getting around 1300 or so. our grapes end up in bottles that sell for 20 bucks, whereas those Napa ones go for 50-150 to even higher for the special stuff. when we bought the vineyard it was setup for total commercial production with little concern for quality and the future owner was only getting 800 a ton for reds. we made some changes and upped quality so our tonnage price is more, but yields are also less. its fuckin crazy how similar real farming can be to weed in terms of investment and handwork, but 1 acre of cannabis can yield more profit returns than 50 acres of vineyards. one of the 20 dollar blends that had our cabernet sauvignon in it finally broke 90 points this year, not bad for a county that most Napa winewhores know only for the tweakers.


there will always be in house production grows, that grow and then market their final product either by selling to dispensaries or owning their own dispensary. and there will always be bulk farmers who just want to grow and offload it to the wholesale brokers...

 

[Yes4Prop215]

how do people feel about AB 1262, should probably be a whole thread of its own.

cliffnotes - 8,000 dollar permit fee, with local county approval for grow sites
seed to sale tracking system
all people with prior drug trafficking/distribution charges are banned from the business
might end up shutting down many dispensaries

 

[furrywall11]

I think that would be pretty cool. It would cut down on the amount of low quality cannabis out there by not letting people in trailer parks fill their backyards with ganj. There would be more of an investment/stiffer requirements to getting involved and the focus would shift to growing the best out there which would lead to tons of innovation in the business. At the same time I think it should be everyones right to grow and smoke their own herb..... So yeah, that might be cool---reduce the number of plants allowed in residential or low acreage settings and increase the investment required for starting your own large scale cannabis agribusiness....start taxing it. At that point it could be compared to small to medium sized local breweries vs buying your own beer making kit on the internet.

 

[z-ro]

Only thing I don't like about these legalization bills is they all call for no felony convictions/sales charges etc...I don't have anything like that so it's not a huge issue for me currently, but what if something happens between now and then? So people that built this industry into what it is are going to be barred from it if they get caught driving some of their harvest off the mountain between now and then? That's the only thing that doesn't sit well with me in all this.

 

[mapinguari]

Y4P215, don't forget that 1262 hands all control to localities: if your county decides to go "dry," you're out of luck--you need a note saying you are in compliance with local ordinances.

Oh yeah, there's also the part where it says localities can tax cannabis literally as much as they want, specifically exempting cities and counties from state law limiting levels of taxation...

It's a really shitty bill.

 

[mapinguari]

by the way, z-ro, 1262 is not about legalization, it's about regulating the medical market. But you're right, it includes language disqualifying those who have been cited for ordinance violations in addition to actual criminal convictions.