Shedding light on cannabis cultivation

Mercado was hosting the first tour of Dark Heart Nursery's new 70,000-square-foot research and production facility on Frenchmans Creek Road. The facility, which received a license and began production in late January, is set to be fully operational by mid-March, but will remain closed to the public. 

Dark Heart spokeswoman Elana Cohen said that the facility will help the grower "get into the nitty gritty of strains" and focus on the science behind cannabis cultivation.  

Dark Heart is currently leasing the space from Half Moon Grow, and has plans to expand its production with new technology in the coming months. Dark Heart CEO Dan Grace said the majority of the space will continue to be used to grow cannabis from the seedling stage to what they call "teens," and finally, to "moms," which are non-flowering plants, the cuttings of which are used to produce more plant clones. But Grace is also looking into expanding the breeding work and experimenting with seed crosses to produce hardier and higher-yield plants. 

"Our core business is still the nursery production," Grace said. "We also have some other ideas up our sleeves as well."

Moving through the maze of greenhouses, staff monitor the plants, opening and closing vents to control the temperature, watering and checking for pests. Some were hard at work burying tiny seeds into long black trays. Mercado said automated pot fillers and seeding machines should arrive in the next few weeks.

The facility, which was formerly used to grow orchids, is already outfitted with some cultivation technology and has a fully functional water capture, treatment and recycling system. Other pieces, like the climate control system, need updating. 

"Within the next couple of months, it will all be completely automated," Mercado said.

In another room, taller plants bask under the light — but not too much light, or they will flower. Because the cannabis plants never flower in the facility, they don't give off the typical strong odor. Mercado explained that clippings of the "moms" are harvested to create clone plants and sold to retailers or to licensed growers.

"The moms are the heart and soul," said Director of Nurseries Mark Vukelich. "In about six weeks, they'll be producing around 30,000 to 40,000 clones per week. ... That's a lot of babies."

Dark Heart's mission is to keep the strains as controlled and clean as possible. That means they are checking the genetics of the plants and making sure they are healthy. The biggest threat is the hop latent viroid, which stunts plant growth and creates flowers that are "duds" — and became a problem as legalization increased mixing of plant genetics. To make sure their plants don't carry the pathogen, greenhouse staff send clippings to their lab for testing.

"When we heard about the viroid, we knew we had to do something," Mercado said. "We're really excited to open this facility because every single plant in here has been tested and is viroid-free."

According to Mercado, what's unique about Dark Heart is that it offers to test customers' plant genetics and will even store customers' "mom" plants for them. She said the company takes its oath to provide clean plants to customers very seriously.

"We're the start of everybody's grow, so we take that responsibility to heart," Mercado said. "We could help our growers thrive or we could really hurt their gardens if we're not on top of our game." 

Mercado said the transition from an indoor facility to greenhouses has been a steep learning curve, but that new experts on staff have been key to getting production up and running so quickly.

"We're focusing on dialing each room and really using all the horticulture knowledge we have on staff," Mercado said. "It's been a dream to move to a greenhouse.

Source and Photo Courtesy of Half Moon Bay Review

Source: Half Moon Bay Review