Posted on 02/16/2019 3:32:05 AM PST by be-baw
Swiping a security a card against a scanner, a worker in medical scrubs and a hair net cracks open a door emblazoned with warning signs -- and bright white light comes flooding out.
A step through the boot wash and he's inside one of 27 austere, clinical rooms at largest medical marijuana grow facility in Michigan. He's there to check on young marijuana plants, recently transplanted, that are destined for medical marijuana patients.
Every movement of his -- and of the 80 other employees at the $13 million, 50,000-square-foot Green Peak Industries headquarters -- is caught on camera.
The high security and contamination precautions are a cost of doing business for Green Peak's CEO Jeff Radway, who left his retirement from a 30-year career in the apparel industry to invest in the green wave of cannabis in Michigan.
Two weeks ago plants moved into the headquarters facility.
The company just harvested its first crop of marijuana this week from its research and development facility.
Despite the young age of his company and his relative newness to the marijuana industry, Radway has major plans for Green Peak.
"We're expanding this facility by 170,000 square feet across the street, and we're actually increasing capacity by 300 percent," Radway said.
That's to meet the demand in the recreational marijuana market, which the state will likely launch at the end of this year.
This week, the company completed its first harvest from its small 3,000-plant research and development facility at 1669 Jolly Road in Lansing.
About 800 plants in 17 different varieties were harvested, Radway said. In a couple of weeks, the company will harvest another 800 plants. They're selling it wholesale.
Much attention has been paid to the supply of medical marijuana from licensed growers to the market. In early January state regulators allowed unlicensed provisioning centers to reopen, and for caregivers to continue to supply untested marijuana to provisioning centers to address a shortage of supply for patients.
Radway -- as well as a number of state-licensed testing labs -- have opposed the move, as more than 60 pounds of untested caregiver marijuana have been recalled for contamination.
Radway said he has seen no signs of a shortage in the marketplace.
"The totals from our second harvest are not yet fully sold," Radway said. "If the licensed, legal provisioning centers needed product, they would be calling us to place orders. So I'll let you draw your own conclusion on that."
Two weeks ago plants were moved into a 50,000-square-foot, $13 million headquarters facility at Harvest Park in Windsor Township southwest of Lansing. When it's fully operational, the building will house 15,000 plants and harvest a crop almost daily.
The company is going by its retail brand name, Skymint. Soon it will be seeking state and local approvals for retail medical marijuana provisioning centers across Michigan.
Every room in the state-of-the-art facility is self-contained -- with its own air handling system and climate controls.
If there's an outbreak of a pest or fungus in a crop, workers can contain it without contaminating every plant in the building. All surfaces are anti-bacterial and anti-microbial.
Cleaning crews circle the facility constantly.
The building has 22 flower rooms where marijuana plants sit for seven to 10 weeks, depending on the strain, under bright lights for 12 hours a day.
With the lights on nearly all the time, Green Peak will become the second-largest user of electricity of the Lansing Board of Water and Light, behind General Motors, Radway said.
The headquarters facility is not yet up to full production.
Radway expects the first harvest in May.
The building is set up to handle all aspects of the business, from growing to harvesting to extracting oils and manufacturing infused products like wax, shatter and later edibles.
At capacity, the Green Peak headquarters will have 5,000 clone plants growing at a time -- which is necessary to keep the 15,000-plant-facility on its daily harvest schedule.
Right now, Green Peak is using clones to start each crop. In the future, they'll use tissue cultures.
Clones are cuttings from an older marijuana plant -- a "mother" -- that are forced to grow roots. The small branches are placed into a soil medium, and their leaves are trimmed to inspire roots to grow.
Technically, the clones aren't considered to be plants by state regulatory officials until they have enough roots.
After about two weeks, the clones are transplanted to larger pots and tagged with a unique bar code that's entered into the state tracking system -- and at that point they're considered plants.
The plants are fed a special blend of nutrients that's mixed in with the water through their irrigation system. Green Peak treats all of the water that it uses in the facility using a reverse-osmosis system.
They sit under LED lights for 18 hours a day, for about six to seven weeks depending on the strain, as they grow.
Every inch of space in the five vegetation rooms at the headquarters plant is maximized. Plants grow in double-decker shelves that roll like large library stacks, with fans specially placed to circulate air around them.
In total, the facility will grow about 30 strains of marijuana for medical patients.
After about six to seven weeks -- depending on the strain -- the plants are moved to flower rooms.
There the climate can be adjusted to be more or less humid, based on the plant's preference.
Every aspect from the watering schedule to pest management is tracked and guarded as a trade secret.
After seven to 10 weeks, it's time to harvest.
Plants are cut down and individually weighed -- a measurement that has to be entered into the state's tracking system.
After they're weighed, the entire plant is hung upside-down on a 15-foot-tall metal screen in the drying room.
During the drying process, the plant is expected to lose 75 to 80 percent of its weight.
Once the plant has sufficiently dried, Green Peak uses a machine to remove the buds from the branch.
Automation has been built into every step of the process at the facility, with machines that are made specifically for the cannabis industry.
Once the buds are free from the branches, they get a manicure: extra leaves are trimmed off. Employees use both a machine and scissors to get the job done.
The dried leaves trimmed off the buds aren't thrown away.
They're collected for extraction -- a process that results in a concentrated THC oil that can be used in vape cartridges, infused into edibles or further distilled into waxes and shatters.
Green Peak has an entire processing lab built into its headquarters for this part of the business.
The 50,000-square-foot headquarters facility is just the beginning for Green Peak Industries.
The company is vertically integrated -- which means they own and control every aspect of production from growing and harvesting the plants, to extracting oils and making cannabis-infused products, to selling medical products to patients at its own brand of retail stores, Skymint.
Though Radway just moved plants into the headquarters building two weeks ago, he's already planning to build another facility triple the size to meet the demands of the recreational market.
Plans to expand
Radway also has an ownership stake in Harvest Park, the industrial park where the Green Peak headquarters building sits southwest of Lansing.
The industrial park is specifically for cannabis businesses. It straddles Creyts Road. For now Green Peak is the only occupant -- but the lots have been sold, according to company officials.
On the west side of Creyts Road, a solar park for the Lansing Board of Water and Light is planned. Next door will be a brand new 170,000-square-foot Green Peak facility, where Radway plans to grow for the coming adult-use marijuana market.
Maybe the only saving grace will be a whole new wave of high tech farming that will spring from all this tech applied to growing, I'd rather it be Broccoli, Basil, and yes Tomatoes...
In New Jersey growing tomatoes is an art.
Dude.
Anybody that puts together a sentence like that is clearly stoned as hell.
High without a care in the world while the muzzies get elected to congress and gain control, nice plan
Check out a Narcotics Anonymous meeting some day. Doctors, dentists, nurses along with the tweekers and crackheads. Your mileage may vary.
Legal pot....
When we were in college 1969-1973, pot was illegal. Girls could buy beer at age 18, boys at age 21. They changed that law (Okla) so that everyone had to be 21. Yet boys were drafted and shipped off to V.N. at age 18. Many didn’t come back. Then some of these boys ground up aspirin and smoked it in V.N. I was told this by someone who did come home again from V.N. But in Oklahoma if you got caught with pot you either went to prison or you became a Narc, an informant. Those were such scary, crazy times!!! Nothing made sense.
So did they go back and let all those kids out of prison, did they wipe their record clean? I hope so. I also knew guys who rant to Canada back then. Lost track of all of them.
BTW we all warned against The Establishment. We didn’t realize how right we were. Now it is called The Deep State.
http://www.idealmedicalcare.org/why-are-so-many-male-anesthesiologists-dying-by-suicide/
https://www.physicianhealthprogram.com/addiction-news/alcoholism-drug-abuse-doctors/
Share your concerns, but gave up arguing about it on FR. I will say that tomatoes, basil and SOBRIETY are a beautiful thing!
The speed limit in Michigan keeps going up too. I think it is 75 now in most of the state. This and bad weather is going to be a problem. I love Michigan and hate to see the current political situation wrecking the future of this state.
I was in high school in OK 68 - 72. Senior year we had girls buy us beer due to the 18 year old girl’s ability to purchase the bee.
Of course that was just the 3.2 beer available in convenience and grocery stores. The stronger stuff was 21 for everybody. But contrary to opinion the 3.2 gets a person drunk.
Went to OSU starting in 72 and you could get pretty much anything in a bar with a student ID. Then I got a hold of a fake draft card and the liquor stores opened up.
Liquor laws were a lot more lax in college towns back then.
Pot and other drugs were pretty common too.
Just another facet of a crumbling civilization.
Since religion isn’t the “opium of the masses” anymore, let’s give the masses something a bit closer to real opium...
“with machines that are made specifically for the cannabis industry.”
A modern day Eli Whitney.
L
What is the CO2 level at these operations?
It is 1500-2000 ppm at a facility near here. How will the greenies combat CO2 production?
“Seriously folks, this whole MJ thing scares the bejezzus out of me,”
I went to High School in the 1970s. The stuff was everywhere. 50% of the students and a significant portion of the teachers smoked it. But most of us grew up and stopped.
Those that didn’t, well, life deals with stupid in its own ways.
Personally I think the drug war is stupid, counterproductive, and rife with corruption. It’s also been used as an excuse to carve out huge chunks of the Bill of Rights. It’s over and the government lost. Badly.
It’s time to rethink the entire thing. Prohibition didn’t stop alcohol use. In fact it went up. And it left the production and distribution of alcohol in the hands of vicious criminal gangs which is almost exactly what we have going on today.
The purity of the product was sketchy and people were sickened or died from it. Sort of like what is happening today.
The Miller guys ain’t shooting it out with the Budweiser guys over street corners. We should learn something from that.
But we won’t.
L
Show me even one case of anyone ever dying from ingesting marijuana.
There is little hope for the state now that morons elected that commie ***CH governor.
All she’s worried about is how her fat belly looks on TV, and raising every tax she can.
Wishing for the death of someone isn’t a conservative value.
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