2019 - The Farm

DWB · Sep 10, 2019

Thinking back, I remember it was popular practice to re-seed those old hemp fields with the seeds du jour. Some of the reds and golds back in the day were bad to the bone.

TrentL · Sep 10, 2019

Acprkit said:
That’s great to hear that you have a strain that will work, and the seed to go along with it!

Is an indoor winter grow economically viable?

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Oh I have no choice but to do winter grows, economically viable or not. I have 15 strains of cannabis we cross pollinated this year I have to do indoor potency tests on.

Mr.joe · Sep 10, 2019

TrentL said:
Also had some feral victory hemp tested recently, that we'd found. It's 100% CBDA with no trace of THCA at maturity. Holy grail of CBD production, man. I'll have enough seeds collected to plant a few acres of it next year.

How does that work? Do the seeds from that automatically produce tube same? Or is there a chance of them producing a different cbd/ thc ratio?

TrentL · Sep 11, 2019

Mr.joe said:
How does that work? Do the seeds from that automatically produce tube same? Or is there a chance of them producing a different cbd/ thc ratio?

Depends on the stability of the parents and the cross, but generally speaking they'll be all over the spectrum.

Cannabis plants have a precursor called cannabigerol (CBG) which produces CBDA, THCA, or CBCA, depending on strain.

The exact mechanism of how and when this occurs is controlled by many genomes in the cannabis plant (not a single switch, but many switches, also working in conjunction with many other switches).

But for simplicity sake, let's look at it as if it's a single switch.

In this case yellow cats are CBD dominant strains (european/North american Sativa plants) and gray cats are THC dominant strains (indian/asian cannabis plants)

Before I go on, you need to read this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F1_hybrid

and this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zygosity

to understand a couple of terms I'll use.

Homozygous (genetically stable) parents can be crossed to create a stable heterozygous filial generation 1 (F1). So if two parents are both VERY stable, genetically, the FIRST (and ONLY the first) generation (F1) will be very, very stable. This is how we arrive at so many wonderfully vigorous and high producing F1 hybrids in farming and horticulture - due to a phenomenon of both sides of the crossing contributing a wide range of genes which create specific enzymes, you almost universally have a phenominon known as "hybrid vigor" where the plants produce a bountiful yield.*

*Although, arguably, this is only because the parents (homozygous) are so genetically inbred their yield is substantially reduced over the norm.

Anyway if you re-plant the seeds of an open pollinated F1 field, you get what is shown in that picture above; regression of traits, due to having no control over which side of the DNA splits for pollen, and how it ends up being recombined during pollination of a flower.

This is vastly oversimplified as there are dozens of genomes which contribute to the enzymes that convert CBG, but consider the following basics:

tt CC = parent 1
TT cc = parent 2

If it were a simple switch, the F1 offspring would all be identical; Tt Cc

But consider this really looks like this:

Tt Cc
tT Cc
Tt cC
tT Cc

They all have the same dominant genes in positions 1 & 2, but you split the DNA and recombine it again on F2, and you get:

tt cc (low THC, low CBD) - Shitty Plant
tt Cc (low THC, high CBD) - CBD Dominant
tt CC (low THC, high CBD) - CBD Dominant
tt cC (low THC, high CBD) - CBD Dominant

Tt cc (high THC, low CBD) - THC dominance
Tt Cc (high THC, high CBD) - 1:1 dominance
Tt CC (high THC, high CBD) - 1:1 dominance
Tt cC (high THC, high CBD) - 1:1 dominance

tT cc (high THC, low CBD) - THC dominance
tT Cc (high THC, high CBD) - 1:1 dominance
tT CC (high THC, high CBD) - 1:1 dominance
tT cC (high THC, high CBD) - 1:1 dominance

Tt cc (high THC, low CBD) - THC dominance
Tt Cc (high THC, high CBD) - 1:1 dominance
Tt CC (high THC, high CBD) - 1:1 dominance
Tt cC (high THC, high CBD) - 1:1 dominance

Out of 16 possible recombinations on F2, you end up with

3x THC dominant (18.75%)
3x CBD dominant (18.75%)
9x 1:1 dominance (56%)
1x shitty decorative plant (6%)

Looking at our field, we tested:

30% high THC
50% 1:1 (or close enough, within 2:1 range either way)
20% high CBD

Compare to the numbers in F2 above?

Pretty clear what happened to us.

TrentL · Sep 11, 2019

^ That is relevant because every current strain of CBD producing cannabis plants are descended from high-THC plants, e.g. Suver's haze was begot from Neville's Haze, a famous marijuana strain; BaOx was descended from Hindu Kush, etc.

If you grow out F2+ on any of those plants, open pollenated, you are very likely to arrive at high THC offspring within a generation, and the population density of high THC plants will increase with each subsequent generation; unless you take the time to fully stabilize the new strain.

The pilot farm bill was passed in 2014. There's only been 5 years for companies to work with (legal) CBD genetics - and there are not many stable strains out there. ANY company which re-sells F2+ open pollinated seed, or uses F2 breeding stock in their breeding program, is putting farmers at risk of THC regression.

Mr.joe · Sep 11, 2019

Wow. I wasn't expecting that answer. Sounds like you have a good handle on what's going on at least.

Ruid · Sep 12, 2019

Mr.joe said:
Wow. I wasn't expecting that answer. Sounds like you have a good handle on what's going on at least.

That seems to be true even when things are falling apart.

TrentL · Sep 12, 2019

Tuid said:
That seems to be true even when things are falling apart.

Hell, things fell apart the moment it started raining this spring and didn't stop for two months.

Ruid · Sep 12, 2019

The weather boned everyone that so much as stuck a seed in the dirt this year.

TrentL · Sep 21, 2019

Quick update. We've got seeds harvested from the greenhouse, they've been curing on wax paper for a week or so. We have to get through the last few weeks of growing and destroy the hemp crop, then I'll get the new seed inventory added to the online store. I know you southern growers are probably already starting to think about what you grow next season, since you germ so early, I hope to have the new seed catalog done before you drop seeds in Dec.

Meanwhile, I do need to clean out old seed inventory. If anyone orders seeds from the *existing* seed catalog of open pollinated seeds from last year, I'm going to dump a TON of extras on you.

www.lawrenceproduce.com

Mr.joe · Sep 21, 2019

Website says no shipping peppers to California, seeds are still ok tho right?

TrentL · Sep 21, 2019

Mr.joe said:
Website says no shipping peppers to California, seeds are still ok tho right?

I quietly removed the shipping restrictions of peppers to CA from the behind the scenes shipping system.

Seeds are and always have been fine to ship to CA.

Use discount code CLOSEOUT for 33% off. Trying to get rid of last year's open pollinated inventory before we stock new stuff on the site in Nov.

Devv · Sep 21, 2019

A nicely done explanation of the F traits Trent.

I sure wish this year had gone better for ya though!

TrentL · Sep 22, 2019

Devv said:
A nicely done explanation of the F traits Trent.

I sure wish this year had gone better for ya though!

Thanks man. I sure wish it had gone better, too. But, it is what it is, learn from it and move on. I just hope I can keep the bills paid over the winter, to be able to survive to next spring.

I'm over 1 mil of losses in to this farm now. Any sane person would have walked away. I doubled down and bought another farm though. Spread out risk.

Mr.joe · Sep 22, 2019

Wow trent, we all wish the best for you. Two farms, since you have all that spare time...

TrentL · Sep 23, 2019

Peppers stocked on the store

https://lawrenceproduce.com/collections/peppers

TrentL · Sep 23, 2019

We shipped over 200 lbs today, and have about 200+ more already on the shelves ready to go for tomorrow, plus several hundred more pounds ready to pick out in the field.

GLOG discount code is THISYEARSUCKED for 20% off fresh peppers.

simp3204 · Sep 23, 2019

Order #1121, looking forward to the seeds for next year! Sorry to hear about the MJ losses.

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TrentL · Sep 24, 2019

Mr.joe said:
Wow trent, we all wish the best for you. Two farms, since you have all that spare time...

This year was a bust because we only had one plot of land and half of it was underwater. Nothing grew where it flooded; or within 100 yards of where it flooded; soil went anaerobic. I planted 2,000+ peppers out in the organic pasture and 100% died. We planted 1800 on what little high ground we have, and only took 10% losses.

A second farm may be a bit more work but if we end up having the same problems again (or different problems) at least we'll have continuity of operations. Losing 50% of our revenue is more survivable than losing 100% with all our eggs in one basket.

With the loss of the hemp crop I've now taken over 1 million in expenses with essentially no income over the last 2 seasons. We made a few thousand this year and it cost a quarter million to do it, since I lost basically every crop save 3/4 acres on high ground. Hell, I fed over a hundred thousand dollars in veggie transplants to the chickens.

Most expensive birds, ever.

TrentL · Sep 24, 2019

Plus, now that I know we can prep and transplant an acre a day with the equipment, and not have to worry about weeds, next year will go a lot easier.

So most of the acreage will be raised beds w/ plastic mulch. We'll limit intensive veggies to what we can reliably work, and plan more perennials which are low maintenance. (Note, strawberries are not low maintenance. Good god I've lost my ass on those.)