The Next Crop
A few years ago, the cover of GrowerTalks asked the question, “Is marijuana your next crop?” At the time, I was thinking that my home state of Florida would be the 54th out of 50 states to approve any use of marijuana for any reason. Once again, history has proven my predictions to be completely wrong. That’s how Kerry Herndon, owner of Kerry’s Bromeliad Nursery in Homestead, Florida started his April article in Green Profit Magazine.
On May 2, 2014 The Florida Senate passed a bill to legalize a brand of marijuana known as Charlotte’s Web which supporters say could help thousands of children suffering from epileptic seizures. Charlotte’s Web is high in CBD but considered non-psychoactive due to its extremely low levels of THC.
Kerry Herndon goes on to write: In places like Colorado and California, all this stuff [ Marijuana ] is produced in warehouses using artificial lights. This may sound crazy because it is crazy. Greenhouses are much more efficient production units. The intense artificial lights require huge amounts of energy and more to cool the buildings. Six times more energy is required to remove heat with air conditioning than creating the heat. By becoming involved, I hope to have some input into the regulations that are part of the law.
It looks like Kerry has succeeded in promoting greenhouses for marijuana growing in Florida. According to the bill sitting on Governor Rick Scott's desk, only Florida commercial plant growers who have been in business for 30 years or more and are currently growing at least 400,000 plants will be allowed to compete for the five state licenses to grow, process and sell medical marijuana products in Florida. This reduces the field of horticultural candidates from over 7,000 to only 21.
While Governor Scott has said he will sign the Charlotte’s Web bill into law, he intends to vote against the proposed amendment on the ballot in November that would allow patients to obtain other strains of medical marijuana. And entrepreneurs hoping to be a part of the blooming Florida Marijuana industry are concerned that this first initiative may satisfy public opinion, and halt the passing of a more all-encompassing Medical Marijuana law.
For the five or so greenhouse growers who decide to get licensed to grow Charlotte’s web, there are certainly numerous good reasons that Marijuana should be grown in a greenhouse, there are also some real benefits to warehouse marijuana production, particularly for pharmaceutical grade cannabis which requires more control and tighter quality tolerances in line with GMP standards for all medical products. For both warehouse growing systems and greenhouse/nursery modifications Contact The GGS Experts to build the best medical marijuana business.
