Hacker News Reader

Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

>>...talent and infrastructure to support weed sales.

It is a plant, a crop like any other. As a practical matter it is no more difficult than farming apples or corn. (It actually grows wild over much of Ontario.) The only specialized infrastructure is that dictated by regulation. Sure, Canada does have a jump on building out the regulatory infrastructure, but that isn't something we can sell. We aren't going to be exporting that infrastructure to other countries because they will have their own regulations demanding a different infrastructure.

As for supporting weed sales, there are "experts" on selling pot in every country in the world. That skillset is well understood. UBC will not see a wave of foreign students looking to lean the mysteries of how to sell weed. We aren't going to see Canadians flying around the world establishing new markets and trade links. This stuff is already being grown in closets from Dubai to Alaska.

View on HN

I'd suggest that it is closer to hops than apples or corn. The primary metabolic end products are volatile oils contained in a flower rather than carbohydrates produced in a fruit/vegetable.

Metabolic engineering via genetic alteration has much more potential here since the types of oils produced can vary significantly, making the biotech aspects of growth more important than conventionally farmed produce.

The growth infrastructure will have to interface with the same plant and will have significant similarities regardless of the scale and accounting requirements you are limited to by regulation.

It's no more difficult, but farming apples is not the same skill set as farming corn. Yes, many skills will transfer but the details need to be worked out. There are many questions that need answers before being successful -- especially on an industrial scale.

One thing Oregon has spent a ton of time dealing with is how to test pesticide levels, THC, and CBD. There are apparently technical issues that make testing difficult and it sounds like it is still needs improvement. Apparently heavy pesticide use is almost universal in growing marijuana and quite a bit remains in the final product. Developing better pesticides would be one thing a national legalization might help with.

It is my understanding that Canada has world-class expertise in greenhouse cultivation of edible crops, including tomatoes. Many of the out-of-season crops, such as tomatoes available to the US comes from Canada (though here in Phoenix, much of that comes from Mexico).

That expertise has also been exported, to people trying to set up greenhouses in Minnesota (US).

I used to be a member of a CSA (community supported agriculture, basically buying food direct from farmers) that was setting up a new greenhouse every year, mostly for tomatoes and cucumbers - popular crops that are vulnerable to the challenges of Minnesota weather.

As an aside, they also raise heirloom-variety turkeys. Minnesota is the #1 turkey state in the country, great area for it, and 99.9% of the turkey sold is a single breed. The heirloom breeds are rare (and delicious, and expensive) treats.

There's a lot more to the weed market than just plant, harvest, sell. When I was in Seattle, the legal weed stores often stocked close to a hundred different strains of the plant alone, plus a huge array of food, candy, beverages, accessories, etc. Selecting your inventory and dealing with suppliers takes knowledge and skill, just like managing a grocery chain.

A street dealer who may, on a good day, have half a dozen random strains available may have a small head start, but there's a lot more to it than that.

Most plants lie in a group that are harvested differently to other plants. Is it like tea, where different leaves provide different grades, or do flowers and leaves and stalks get separated? Presumably the more woody parts will go to hemp-like products (clothing, paper, beer, whatever!). The industry around that exists already but will presumably be developed ahead of other countries if demand makes for a lot of 'waste'.

Presumably, modern farmer techniques like indoor vertical farming might produce better yields.

The valuable part is the flower. Plants need to be carefully groomed (preferably in a closed environment) to sex them immediately and kill any males, to prevent seeding. (Seeds are a sign of poor quality control.)

Stems, leaves, and trim are probably just composted, although I suppose leaves might be processed to extract oils.

I recently visited Colorado on vacation, and got to visit a few legal dispensaries with my pothead companions (I'm not, but they are). It was a remarkable experience. Everything is totally focused on quality, and product differentiation for the marijuana itself was all about the best possible product with particular desirable characteristics. With few exceptions, price was a flat rate of $220/oz across the state. So maximizing yield is not nearly as important as maximizing quality. This is a connoisseur market. There was also a strong market for edible products (cookies, candies), oils, and other extracts.

It's also mostly an indoor crop. When I was in Oak Creek, a tiny town in the mountains, my host pointed out four different "grow room" buildings, basically urban farming operations.

It was interesting to talk about it with my host's fiance, a retired cop from Detroit (who is a part-time local cop there now). He thinks it's great, and marijuana laws in most states are just wasteful and stupid.

Ontario winters are too cold for any wild / feral plants to survive.

"Despite industrial hemp factories shutting down the plants previously cultivated for fiber, the hemp plants have naturally re-seeded and now grow wild in states like Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska, Indiana, and Minnesota."

https://greenrushdaily.com/wild-weed-wild-cannabis-exist/

If anything will convince people that global warming is real, it will be wild pot plants surviving Minnesota winters.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com