Premier Cannabis LLC - LED run Tier 1 in WA

[SirStynkalot]

Pic update time while we wait on the last couple things. The LCB lost our initial paperwork so I had to redo it for them and there was one other hitch somewhere with them and two or three with Building and Planning. We'll get there eventually...

Also, we put panda plastic up on that back concrete wall. Reflected lumens ftw...

Flower room 1

Flower room 2

Veg room

Watering hallway - CO2 tanks have since been bolted in place

Inside the storage cabinet (still need to install secondary containment required by B&P, will be handled this coming week, this pic is still missing 3-4 bottles that have since been put in and labeled)

 

[SirStynkalot]

Aaand last one for now since I don't think people care too much about pics of bubble bags and I took a pic of the business office but got embarrassed by the mess:


I GOT THE POWER!

 

[Mikell]

All that investment and he installs a hot water tank

What nutrients are you planning to run? Don't think I missed it, but memories a bit dodgy at times.

 

[SirStynkalot]

GH 3 part with some additives. I was originally planning on Canna but found that literally no one cared about the nutes you use, just the quality of the end product, and they base that judgment almost entirely on THC percentage. Smell and flavor play in to that a little bit but very few people can taste test the difference between fert lines.

 

[CannaBossFarms]

Veg room

Did you guys build those metal tables or buy them?

 

[SirStynkalot]

pg 1

As for the tables, yep, they're custom built. My brother and the building contractor put them together over a few days out of horse fencing and what I believe are leftover metal studs from building the walls. Painted green to seal, small casters on the bottom. Should last for 20 years at a fraction of the cost compared to buying premade units. Took a lot of cheap elbow grease from more skilled hands than mine, though.

 

[SirStynkalot]

Quick update with nothing important: we're supposed to be moving in in a couple more days. We need an engineer to sign off on our hydroseeding for our certificate of occupancy and our paperwork with the LCB has been in limbo for over a month since our final inspection but we've been told it's coming back out of limbo by tomorrow. Incidentally, I ran out of molar to grind sometime last week...

 

[fonzee]

Great project, I'm tagged.

GH 3 part with some additives. I was originally planning on Canna but found that literally no one cared about the nutes you use, just the quality of the end product, and they base that judgment almost entirely on THC percentage. Smell and flavor play in to that a little bit but very few people can taste test the difference between fert lines.

I tend to disagree.
If it's all about the THC% why even bother with multiple strains?

Smell and flavor, or in other words terpenes, phenols and other volatile substances are what shapes the high and fertilizers contribute to their formation.

If using mineral fertilizers why use soil and not a soil-less medium? You will have so much less problems with molds and humidity with a high plant count (high water holding capacity of soil) and require a friction of the substrate volume.

As for pest control, you can introduce predatory mites, Amblycius swirskii, and banker plants, castor bean, to the grow room for a constant mite control.
Lady beetles, Coccinella septempunctata, are also a good weapon for a long term control (will not do much to a heavy infestation) and do not consume the Ambylcius swirskii.
When there are no bugs the predators will eat pollen off the castor bean plants.


Great luck with your journy,
-Fonzee

 

[SirStynkalot]

OH THANK GOD!!! WE'RE COOKIN WITH GAS NOW, BABY!

"Your license has been approved for the following:
MARIJUANA PRODUCER TIER 1
MARIJUANA PROCESSOR
This license is valid through November 30, 2015.
You must post this letter in a public service area as your temporary operating permit."

Move in pics to come tomorrow!

 

[SirStynkalot]

Great project, I'm tagged.


I tend to disagree.
If it's all about the THC% why even bother with multiple strains?

Smell and flavor, or in other words terpenes, phenols and other volatile substances are what shapes the high and fertilizers contribute to their formation.

If using mineral fertilizers why use soil and not a soil-less medium? You will have so much less problems with molds and humidity with a high plant count (high water holding capacity of soil) and require a friction of the substrate volume.

As for pest control, you can introduce predatory mites, Amblycius swirskii, and banker plants, castor bean, to the grow room for a constant mite control.
Lady beetles, Coccinella septempunctata, are also a good weapon for a long term control (will not do much to a heavy infestation) and do not consume the Ambylcius swirskii.
When there are no bugs the predators will eat pollen off the castor bean plants.


Great luck with your journy,
-Fonzee

Hey Fonzee, thanks for commenting.

We're bothering with multiple strains because we haven't tested them ourselves, because we're concerned some will perform differently under LEDs than they do under HIDs, and because you're right that THC isn't everything. We're trying to cast a wide net early on and lock down maybe three strains tops that we want to keep, with maybe a few mothers for limited runs or breeding purposes with really special characteristics. We have about 20 moms to test right now, I'm going to go pick up at least another 30-40 this coming weekend, and we have a few hundred non-feminized seeds for whatever we decide to do after we run through those. Just running out all those moms will probably take a couple years to not screw with overall production, but the eventual goal is to only have a couple of moms we love and that we do really well. We chose to build the op and dial the strain to it instead of picking strains and trying to dial the op around them. Hopefully that approach will have better long term results, even if it is stretching our dial in time from two or three crops to about ten.

Regarding substrates, I'd prefer a soilless mix too. We're getting soil for the first crop because a friend of ours who owns a small greenhouse accidentally ordered too much soil this season and needed to get rid of it. It'll work, it's just a bit messier and tougher to work with than coco. We're planning on switching to coco as soon as we go through the pallets we bought.

Regarding pest control, I use UC Davis's IPM website pretty much exclusively, but I can only use treatment options that are permitted under I-502. We have a couple things we're doing above and beyond that (cleanliness, cleanliness, cleanliness...) but other than that I feel like working on this scale we have our work cut out just trying to follow best practices in commercial ag. I've tried predatory insects before, but we're trying for a sterile environment instead of trying to maintain biological controls. Just a difference in theory, but it's what we built toward. Not to say predatory insects don't have their place in an IPM strategy, it's just not the primary mode of action unless you're treating severe infestations. We can't use class 1, 2, or most class 3 pesticides (including all systemics), so if stuff gets bad enough we have few legal options to cut down populations to where pyrethrins and neem oil will work except predatory insects. I forget the name of the common one, but most of what we get around here are just huge populations of two spotted spider mites. Whatever eats that (not ladybugs, the other one that eats spider mites primarily instead of as a starvation food) is going to get ordered in if, gods forbid, we get an infestation bad enough that we need them.

For reference:

UC Davis's recommended Integrated Pest Management strategies for commercial agriculture in California:
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/crops-agriculture.html

I-502 permitted pesticides:
http://cru66.cahe.wsu.edu/labels/Labels.php?SrchType=A

 

[fonzee]

I found the problem to be properly testing the smoke of so many moms, not growing the buds.

Amblycius swirskii eats two spoted spider mites, this is why I recommended them. They also eat some other pests but to a lesser extent.
Lady beetles are helpful for small population so keeping a community in the grow room will guard your place from the beginning.

Thing is predatory beasties can not survive without feed. If the prey is not present they require a source of pollen, like Castor Bean.

 

[SirStynkalot]

Gotcha. Yeah, testing is $100 per 5 pound or less batch per strain. If we run a single plant and get an ounce, we usually have to spend $100 to test $120 worth of weed. That's why we're spreading it out so far - we have to hit a balance between getting big enough crops to be worth the testing costs and to be worth a retailer buying (they don't want to buy small runs, if customers ask for more they want to be able to give it to them) against mom hunting.

We're starting out with staples like Cinderella 99, Alaskan Thunderfuck, and Cherry Pie for half or more of our production and rotating about six other strains at a time through the other half. That means we're really only testing six strains per crop and the runs are still going to be a bit small for what I'd like to produce to try and interest retailers in longer term relationships. We're shooting for 4-8 lb test batches. That's where I get the 10 crop dial in time figure from - 60 moms, testing 6 new strains per crop. After that it's breeding and pheno hunting using our favorite 3 of the 60 moms and 300 seeds. We're settling for a 95% hack rate on the dispensary-bought mothers and bumping it up to a 99+% hack rate on our in-house crosses. I'd be surprised if the second step took less than a few years. Soooo... there's our 5 year genetic maintenance plan in a nutshell, lol.

 

[fonzee]

I meant smoking the weed to test the weed, not lab test it.

Why keep so many moms and not just get them later?
Keeping a mom for 3 years before you run it? That's plain extra work by my book.

 

[SirStynkalot]

it is. It's a lot of extra work and we may scrap that if it gets to be too much. But the main reason is that we can't bring in new seeds or plants, we're only allowed to buy genetic material from other 502 growers. If we want something fresh and don't want to gamble on our competitors' generosity, we basically only have this fifteen day window to get it on site until marijuana is federally decriminalized.

Plus, we built in a way-oversized clone factory and there were a lot of growers who didn't build in veg rooms or just prefer to buy clones. There's a huge market for clones right now inside the 502 industry. We're hoping to offer enough variety of decent, independently tested past strains that we can keep cloning going as a side business for a long time to come. That's the other reason for just having mothers on the shelf. Other growers can have their choice of flavors if they want to buy from us. We're doing the same thing with processing, too. Overbuilt bubble hash facilities.

So if anyone wants to buy some clones or sell some trim or otherwise unsaleable finished product and they're legally permitted to buy or sell with us, you know how to find my contact information It's on the public record right next to yours.

 

[FunkBomb]

I can't wait to see this operation up and running. The grow rooms look really nice too. Best of luck to you.

-Funk

 

[fonzee]

it is. It's a lot of extra work and we may scrap that if it gets to be too much. But the main reason is that we can't bring in new seeds or plants, we're only allowed to buy genetic material from other 502 growers. If we want something fresh and don't want to gamble on our competitors' generosity, we basically only have this fifteen day window to get it on site until marijuana is federally decriminalized.

Plus, we built in a way-oversized clone factory and there were a lot of growers who didn't build in veg rooms or just prefer to buy clones. There's a huge market for clones right now inside the 502 industry. We're hoping to offer enough variety of decent, independently tested past strains that we can keep cloning going as a side business for a long time to come. That's the other reason for just having mothers on the shelf. Other growers can have their choice of flavors if they want to buy from us. We're doing the same thing with processing, too. Overbuilt bubble hash facilities.

So if anyone wants to buy some clones or sell some trim or otherwise unsaleable finished product and they're legally permitted to buy or sell with us, you know how to find my contact information It's on the public record right next to yours.

Sounds good. You could also find out which strains to keep by selling clones and tracking the market.

 

[SirStynkalot]

Phoan pix y u no work... Coming soon I swear...

We've cut clones for half of the op. We have Blackberry (labeled as Nebu's but I'm not sure it's legit), Purple Jolly Rancher, and Alaskan Thunderfuck rooting. About 250-300 cuts of each. The PJR is starting to show roots and we'll start hardening them off in another couple days. ATF is a couple days behind PJR and Blackberry was just cut this weekend.

I believe for the rest of the op we're doing Orange Creamsicle, Cindy 99, and a half-and-half table of Cinex and Cherry Pie.

I would also like to state for the record that taking a thousand cuts in a warm, humid room while wearing a chem suit and rubber gloves really sucks. Also working 14 hour shifts doing nothing but cloning really sucks but with our limited manpower we just can't get enough done in 8 hours to be worth doing.

Ended up with I think 21 moms moved in so we have a good 10 months of mom testing at least before we break into the seed stash.

 

[hush]

Tagged.

 

[MrBelvedere]

Congrats on your progress!

 

[Yes4Prop215]

hate wearing rubber gloves for long periods, really sucks. is that a 502 requirement that you need to wear the full protective gear during any gardening indoors or outdoors?'

such bullshit how WA only allows strains brought in before a certain date, its just more legal headache that producers have to deal with.

good to hear your experience though!