Big Grower January 2022 - 7

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COVER STORY
THE HEMP MARKET
Aaron says they grew about 100,000 plants that first
year and by 2019 they grew 3 to 4 million plants.
Aaron speculated for 5 million clone sales in 2020, but
unfortunately, the pandemic hit. With oversupply and
not enough extractors, they only sold 1 million of the 5
million grown.
Back in 2014, Aaron decided to take the plunge into the
marijuana market. He applied for a license and created
a new company with two brothers in Colorado Springs
that owned a couple of dispensaries. They built a 2-acre
greenhouse in Pueblo to grow marijuana.
After a few years, Aaron wasn't content with the
industry and decided to sell out of the business.
However, he did not leave the industry completely. He
saw opportunity in another segment of the market -
hemp.
" I had already gone through the challenges that go
with cultivating a cannabis cutting into a rooted liner, "
he says. " It's definitely not like a petunia or a geranium,
and we've killed a lot of plants to figure out how to
propagate properly. "
After selling the marijuana company, Aaron got into
hemp initially to breed genetics. He says most of the
genetics in hemp were derived from marijuana culture
and that breeding was done indoors. " Hemp genetics
couldn't handle the wind or the rain or the fluctuation in
temperatures, " says Aaron. " We saw very early on the
need to breed better genetics. "
In 2017, they built an R&D field outside the Dutch
Heritage property to trial genetics and were able to
then offer farmers rooted clones of top hemp genetics.
" Hemp has been a bit of a roller coaster because it
is such a young, immature industry. We had school
teachers that quit their jobs and were going to become
millionaires growing hemp! " says Aaron. " Growing it in
the field is one thing, but then you had to cut it down,
dry it, harvest it, cure it. It's a very processed plant.
It takes effort at the back end - I don't think most
people understood that in the beginning. "
Aaron is a big believer that the hemp market is here to
stay. " You just have to ride the peaks and valleys, " he
says. " And the science and research are still catching
up. We've only scratched the surface on what all these
cannabinoids can do. Right now, CBD tinctures are one
size fits all. I think in the future, the market will have
specific formulations. For example, OK, you've got a
headache, here's a formula that is 10% CBD and 11%
CBC and 2% CBN and so on. "
And that is where Dümmen Orange comes into play.
Keith Cable, Dümmen Orange president, visited the
facility a couple years ago. Aaron showed him the hemp
motherstock they were growing to create cuttings
and proposed they work together to push high-quality
material out to the market. " Dümmen already has sales
employees on the ground that see growers and farmers.
So we could be the rooting station, and Dümmen could
apply their genetics technology to the hemp market. "
Aaron says they're currently training employees
about hemp clones and how the market is different
than marijuana. But he sees the partnership coming
into fruition in the next three to five years.
combination of hot water boilers and unit
heaters, irrigation booms, and ebb and flood
floors.
Their propagation house has seen the most
recent investment, which is a dry fog system
out of Japan. " It basically takes air and water
and combines them in such a way that the
water molecule is at such a nano particle that
it is no longer a droplet when it is dispensed, "
Aaron explains.
" Most misting systems get everything wet;
and we've got booms, high-pressure sodium
lights, blackout curtains, a lot of electronics.
So for our propagation houses, I'm trying to
find a way to get higher humidity because in
Colorado we have very low humidity and lots
of sunlight. It can be a very harsh environment
to grow plugs. This technology can raise
the humidity to about 80% without getting
anything wet. "
Dutch Heritage Gardens also invested in
cutting robots three years ago, and Aaron jokes
he should have made that investment 10 years
ago. " It paid for itself right away, " he says.
For perspective, he says they plant 99% of all
their cuttings now using the robots. They used
to have a 15-person sticking line. " One really
good person can do 400 cuttings in an hour,
and one robot - and we have two of them -
can do about 2,200 cuttings per hour. So, it was
a very quick payoff.
Aaron says being automated is very
important for their business model. Labor
is rare and hard to find, and there is often
turnover in greenhouse work. " It is a very
physical job with lots of repetitive movement,
so it can be difficult to find people who enjoy
that type of work. Lots of people enjoy plants
but working in a greenhouse is very different. "
KEEPING UP WITH TRENDS
As houseplants continue to rise in popularity
at the consumer level, Dutch Heritage Gardens
has definitely taken notice and plans to create
their own niche in the market segment.
" I know it's a trend that's been building up
steam, and King Soopers came to us and said
this was something they wanted to do as well, "
says Aaron. " And because of our propagation
zones with the fogging systems, it's something
that we can now tackle. "
In the last year, he says they have brought
in 200 different kinds of tropical foliage plants
and have planted them in various sizes to
monitor how they grow. " I think we have
identified 30 to 40 varieties that we want to roll
out next year. "
The goal is to roll out the program in 2022,
where they will be able to supply stores
consistently. Beyond that, the goal is to offer
up truly unique and different varieties. " I don't
want to grow anything that you can get from
Florida. They fill a need. For us, we want to
grow unique, or rare, items that may not ship
as well. "
And Rozalia, he says, is probably the most
excited of all to take on this new endeavor. She
is a houseplant lover as well, and has turned
their home into a trial garden. " I've got 150
houseplants in my home right now! "
JANUARY 2022 7
Big Grower January 2022

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