MJBizMag March 2023 - 41

of their time was devoted to growing,
processing and running the marijuana
retail business. They also entered a
second state, Massachusetts, in 2019.
It wasn't until about three years
ago that Huron, at the behest of his
cultivation director, Heath Byington,
decided to create Good Chemistry's
own line of strains and resurrected
the company's breeding efforts in
earnest. That included leasing an
18,000-square-foot building devoted
exclusively to breeding.
" When you're doing breeding, you're
dealing with pollen. And you can
pollinate plants that you don't want to
pollinate. And then production rooms
can end up having seeds and stuff,
which is not really sought out by a
consumer.
In essence, you can mess up your
production, " Byington explained.
Having a facility dedicated to breeding
" was a huge step forward for us,
because it takes a tremendous amount
of time and space to get from Point A to
Point B. "
The result of the effort is GC Uniques,
a branded line of flower that Good
Chemistry launched Dec. 15 with eight
original strains, including 5280 Gravy,
Capital Chills and Lift Ticket.
The company expects to release four
more varieties in April and May and
then another 10-15 during the second
half of this year. Good Chemistry has
another 25-30 strains " in the ground "
that, if successful, should come to fruition
in about two years.
CREATING 5280 GRAVY
Good Chemistry's growers didn't know
5280 Gravy was going to have that
name when they began the breeding
process, which started with the simple
desire to cross two breeds they really
liked.
" We have this really special cut
of Gravy that we crossed with a
phenomenal cut of White Mac, and
we wanted to see what happened, "
Byington explained.
Mature seeds feature a prominent line that cracks where the stem root pops out.
To get the seeds, they took pollen
from White Mac and pollinated Gravy,
resulting in a " ton of seeds. "
Byington likes to pollinate plants
between the third and fourth weeks of
flowering, when the seeds are mature
enough to receive male pollen.
About five to six weeks later, the
team collects seeds when the plant is
dried post-harvest. When the time is
right, germinating those seeds will
sprout new plants.
Some growers put a male plant in
a room full of females and turn on a
fan to blow pollen all over the space,
pollinating every plant.
But Good Chemistry prefers a
less messy and " more meticulous "
method, Byington said. The company's
personnel don Tyvek suits before they
enter a room with female plants. Once
inside, they walk around with small
vials of pollen, which are applied to
female plant pistils using " little modelcar
paint brushes, " Byington said. Then
the plants are tagged so the team can
easily revisit pollination details.
Personnel leave the room through
a dedicated one-way exit and remove
the suits before going elsewhere in the
facility.
" That way, there can't be any
accidental cross-contamination in any
SCOURING FOR SEEDS
Female plants can produce thousands
of seeds that appear in cannabis
flower, so Good Chemistry developed
a machine to separate the seeds from
other plant material.
They take the ground, broken-up
flower as well as seeds and stems and
pour it through a funnel with a fan that
separates seeds from other material.
Good Chemistry plant breeder Nick
Fallon and his team look through the
seeds to find the best, most mature
ones, which typically present as
larger, hard, brown and striped like
watermelons. Mature seeds also feature
a prominent straight line that cracks
where the stem root pops out.
" That's something that we're always
looking for, " Byington said. Immature
mjbizdaily.com | March 2023 41
of the other rooms, " Byington said.
" Pollen can get out very, very easily.
" Our breeding lab, where we are
doing the pollinating, is completely
separated on the other side of the
building from the flower rooms where
we're growing all the different phenos
and pheno hunting, because you could
still pollinate one of those by accident.
... That room in particular has its
own HVAC system; it's sealed off from
everything else. "
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