[farmerlion]

Gastrointestinal Grower, There is about 800,000 people in the state. 1 in 10 smoke cannabis. From what I've understood. I have no desire to be the biggest grower unless I'm still able to be the best grower. I don't see having that kind of experienced help here. Peace

[Earlmarne]

As a teenager I could find straight killer bud pretty well anywhere.
Just recently started smoking again to attempt to move away from narcotics for medical issues.
Stopped into a local store and got a gram or 2 of a handful of strains. Got home and it all smelled and tasted like the beasters that we all tried to get rich off 15 years ago.
Went n got my med card to handle my own medicine.
This shit in WA now reminds me of those days. Fucking knuckle heads driving the prices down trying to get their foot in the door. Hopefully all reaches equilibrium eventually .

[farmerlion]

Ok, I re evaluated my opinions and reasons behind them. (quality & Preference) In post #7 I was a total hater of auto flowering plants. So I did some research and have learned a few things. While some are just chasing the hype about AUTOs being the newer thing on the market. There has been some serious breeding efforts taking place and some very good plants being produced. So this season I'm making about half my grow semi auto flowering and auto flowering strains. There is some real advantages about plants starting to flower after 4 or 5 weeks of growth. I grow in 35 and 45 gallon grow bags. This is also very helpful for autos to have better growth rates. My kiss of death reference was regarding landrace strains and the pollution of genetics. I still don't want to see that in any case. For the people of this state to be able to grow their own outside here in North Dakota. They will need semi or full auto flowering genetics.

So I was faced with the question. Do I really want to just grow cannabis or help people who need it? So as I stated I'm running several semi and autos this season. I will do a full open pollination of these genetics for a seed run. I will further test and refine so I have quality seeds to donate to those that need it. Live and learn. Peace

[therevverend]

I think it might be a typo but you said there was 800k people in the state. There's 7.5 million people in Washington state. That comes out to around 800k cannabis users. That might be what you meant. This state has changed so much, not too long ago it was 3.5 mil. I liked it a lot better then.

[therevverend]

My take on autos is that they will always be a niche market. Almost every grower uses clones. Autos are impossible to clone. Which means making seeds every crop. Something most commercial guys don't mess with.
Yield is extremely variable and usually quite small. The genetics are unreliable because of the low THC Ruderalis genes. You could have anywhere from high THC to low THC, usually somewhere in the middle.
Washington summers are drier then they used to be. There's no longer a need for strains like '90 day wonder'. Medical grows all have plant counts which means growers are choosing the biggest yields possible. Once again Autos fall short.
All the trends are going against Autos right now. A lot of things would have to change for them to come into demand again. During prohibition there was quite a bit more interest.

[frostqueen]

Originally Posted by grassyknoll

Producers with deep pockets push the price down undercutting the smaller guys, driving them out of business. Whoever can afford the biggest losses wins.

This is Oregon's story. Pass laws that allow any out of state asshole with big money to come right in and set up massive grow warehouses, driving small farmers out of business simply due to being able to outlast them. Take the strains that small growers have spent the last 20 years developing and make them your product.

It's happening everywhere. Drive the wholesale/grower prices into the ground, but then run a dispensary and gouge customers for top dollar there to cover production cost losses. And the local customers who formerly said 'support your local farmer!' don't: instead they drop their local farmer like a bad date and go directly to the big dispensary and pay those big prices, because wow, look at all of these options.

Can't get your 100 pounds a week warehouse crop to sell to a dispensary? Ship it back east and sell for similarly bargain basement prices, thus ruining any small farmer black market options, too. Yay!

End of an era. I am thrilled that it is legal and people aren't in jail: that is the most important thing to me. But as a small farmer and breeder, it looks as if this gig is over for me now. I can't say that I am surprised, but I sure am disappointed.

[purplepassion]

National Growers Union needed. Maine’s being messed with by all the people who can’t make it out west. They are learning real quick it’s even harder to make it here. I see small vertically integrated farms as the only way for survival, and that’s if your state doesn’t team up with big money first.

[Jellyfish]

Originally Posted by frostqueen

This is Oregon's story. Pass laws that allow any out of state asshole with big money to come right in and set up massive grow warehouses, driving small farmers out of business simply due to being able to outlast them. Take the strains that small growers have spent the last 20 years developing and make them your product.

It's happening everywhere. Drive the wholesale/grower prices into the ground, but then run a dispensary and gouge customers for top dollar there to cover production cost losses. And the local customers who formerly said 'support your local farmer!' don't: instead they drop their local farmer like a bad date and go directly to the big dispensary and pay those big prices, because wow, look at all of these options.

Can't get your 100 pounds a week warehouse crop to sell to a dispensary? Ship it back east and sell for similarly bargain basement prices, thus ruining any small farmer black market options, too. Yay!

End of an era. I am thrilled that it is legal and people aren't in jail: that is the most important thing to me. But as a small farmer and breeder, it looks as if this gig is over for me now. I can't say that I am surprised, but I sure am disappointed.

It's not that different, really, than when Wal-Marts started popping up every fifty miles or so, and killed all the small towns. Most town squares are dead now, and all the commerce is out by the interstate.

Nobody cared about quality then, and Made In USA didn't mean shit. Same shit, different day.

[frostqueen]

Here's another interesting aspect: the effect upon garden/grow stores. I recently talked with a local grow store owner (he has maybe 4 retail locations total). He told me that their business is about HALF what it was before full legalization in Oregon. This really surprised me. He attributed this drop to the fact that commercial producers go directly to manufacturers for their supplies, and with small growers now having or choosing to quit growing, their business was taking a serious hit from it. I would guess that online sales are having quite an impact on storefronts, too. Amazon is pretty damned convenient, and you can get anything on there. I just saw bubble bags... on Amazon. It's surreal.

[farmerlion]

Revere , I was talking about my state of North Dakota has 800,000 people. I have family in Spokane so I try to keep up with what's going on through here. Sorry for the confusion.

FrostQueen, very insightful posts. ND. doesn't have anything implemented yet and they chose to screw it up before they even got started.
Peace