Fly over a field towering with lush cannabis plants, as Michigan harvest begins October 9, 2023 - MLive
VAN BUREN COUNTY, MI -- Cannabis plants thrive in the rich farm soil of Southwest Michigan. At Grasshopper Farms north of Paw Paw over 6,000 plants grow outdoors in ascetically pleasing rows.
In mid-September MLive toured the outdoor cannabis farm, which spans 32 acres, surrounded by a tall blackout fence. The leafy green plants, which were nearly ready for the October harvest, were 8 to 14 feet tall. Many of them 3 to 5 feet wide.
In the video above, drone footage takes you from ground level up to 400 feet above the farm.
Michigan’s fruit belt, with its sandy soil and lakeshore breeze, is proving to be fertile ground for cannabis crop.
“A lot of people compare it to being a Christmas tree farm,” said Will Bowden, CEO of Grasshopper Farms as he took MLive on the tour.
The farm grows its cannabis with near-military precision: rows are spaced evenly apart to allow for light breezes, an irrigation system pumps well water directly to each plant, farm trucks have a green film covering headlights and a map details the strains in all 20 beds.
Growing outdoors means workers have to constantly inspect the plants and be prepared for whatever curveball the environment may send their way.
“It’s three things: weather, pests and pathogens,” Bowden said. “All three of those can be managed with a high degree of control on any indoor cultivation.”
n Michigan, most cannabis is grown indoors – where lighting and temperature can be tightly controlled – some growers are planting outside to cut down on costs and shrink their environmental footprint.
Bowden, who is a California native, said after extensive research he saw many reasons to focus on growing outside. One 2011 university study he read said that indoor grow was occupying 1 percent of the U.S. power grid. Bowden doesn’t think that is sustainable.
Grasshopper Farms broke ground three years ago on 160 acres of former corn and soybean fields in southwest Michigan. At the farm, cannabis starts as cuts from a mother plant. After growing into 8-inch sprouts in a greenhouse, thousands of plants are moved outside, placed under a hoop house, a plastic covering, and then replanted into 100-gallon fabric pots, where they grow thick and tall under the bright summer sun.
As daylight hours shorten, the plants begin to flower.
As October rolled around, farmworkers have begun harvesting; chopping arm-length branches off the plants until only a trunk remains.
“It’s like giving the plant a haircut,” said Adam Rollinger, Grasshopper Farms’ director of business development.
The leafy branches are then hung in long curtains to be dried, processed and sold to retailers across the state. In the end, farm workers will harvest an estimated 20,000 pounds of what Bowden calls “premium sun-grown flower” this year.
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