As recreational sales begin, Humansville's Flora Farms ships a record amount of marijuana
The Flora Farms cultivation facilities in Humansville shipped more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana Wednesday, the largest shipment day in the facilities' three-year history.
Flora Farms President Mark Hendren said the roughly 1,200 pounds of product included marijuana flower, "popcorn" or small pieces of bud, and "trim" which are pieces saved for manufacturing.
The cultivation business about an hour north of Springfield began stockpiling product in November, when Missourians legalized recreational, adult-use marijuana.
"We're running through it pretty fast," Hendren said.
The Humansville facilities, which opened in 2020, grow between 60-70 different marijuana strains at once, Hendren said. The exact mix depends on what is popular with consumers — and what Flora Farms expects to be popular months down the road.
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"It's a supply and demand thing for the different strains, so we try to balance what we're growing based on what the consumers want," Hendren said. "That's kind of hard to figure sometimes because they (consumers) change their minds. We're trying to think today what we'll be selling in four to six months."
The average timeline from cutting a clone from a "mother" plant to shipping out a product is 110 days, Hendren said, or about three and a half month.
The marijuana timeline: Seed to sale
In the wild, marijuana can only be harvested once a year, but at the Flora Farms cultivation facilities, marijuana is harvested four times a year, sometimes more. Hendren said the most important component of simulating natural conditions for marijuana is light, both its intensity and its frequency.
It all starts with the mother. Mother plants are cannabis plants kept in a vegetative stage year round so that clones can be harvested. Hendren said the Flora Farms cultivation facilities keep three to four mothers per strain. With 60-70 strains on hand, that's more than 200 mother plants, each of which may grow up to 10 feet tall and live for up to five years.
Every 60 days, the mother plants receive "haircuts," Hendren said, which is when clones —small plants — are cut from the mothers. Clones are kept in their own vegetation rooms for 30-45 days with low intensity light. To simulate summer, the clones receive 18 hours of light and six hours of darkness each day.
Clones grow between 12-24 inches before they are transported to a flower room. Plants live in flower rooms for two months, receiving 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness to simulate fall. Throughout the two-month process, the light intensity and humidity are increased.
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Once a plant has reached ideal growth, it is removed from its soil to dry and cure. This process takes two to four weeks, as long as necessary for the plant's moisture content to fall below 15%, Hendren said.
Dried and cured properly, the marijuana is ready for processing. First, it is bucked (the bud is removed from the stem) and then trimmed (the bud is removed from leaves and other unwanted pieces). Trimmers separate the marijuana into bud, popcorn and trim.
On average, the cultivation facilities trim 40-60 pounds of marijuana a day, Flora Farms Trim Manager Sara Volavong said.
Trimmed and separated, the marijuana is sent to packaging, where it is hand-packed and labeled. The products are then sent to be tested by an independent laboratory. Once approved by the lab, the products are shipped off to the 175-180 dispensaries in the state that Flora Farms supplies, Hendren said.
Marijuana plants tracked from stage to stage
An important part of the entire cultivation process is tracking.
"We have to track every plant in Missouri from seed to sale," Hendren said. "Once a plant gets to be about (12-24 inches), it has to have it (a tracking number) through the rest of its life, all the way through packaging, all the way until it goes to that dispensary and then until someone buys it. That way, if there is a problem, they can do a recall and trace back to the mother plant."
When it comes to the difference between medical and recreational marijuana, Hendren said the only difference as far as the cultivation facilities are concerned is how the products are purchased at dispensaries. All marijuana, whether purchased for medical or recreational use, is grown, dried and cured, processed and packaged the same.
Over the three years marijuana has been legal in Missouri, a product has never been recalled, Hendren said.
Harvesting marijuana in Humansville
The Flora Farms cultivation facilities have been operational since 2020. Currently, Flora Farms operates two cultivation facilities in Humansville and was recently approved for a third cultivation license. Hendren said he hopes for the third facility to be completed in two to six months. About 200 employees work among the two facilities.
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As for why Humansville, Hendren said choosing the small, rural town benefited his chances of receiving cultivation licenses.
"The licenses in the state of Missouri were issued through a blind application scoring process," Hendren said. "There were about 2,500 applications submitted and only 350 licenses (distributed).
"The state decided, as part of that application process, they would use the granting of the marijuana licenses to try to support the higher unemployment areas in the state. If you were willing to put your facility in what they considered to be a high unemployment area, they awarded you bonus points toward winning your application. That's why we picked Humansville."
Where can you purchase recreational marijuana in Springfield?
As of Friday, 10 Springfield dispensaries were approved to sell recreational products:
BD Health Retail 2 at 2126 E. Dale St.
MO Retail Products Group at 1868 S. Glenstone Ave.
BBMO 2 at 2868 S. Glenstone Ave.
Old Route 66 Wellness at 2823 N. Glenstone Ave.
Revival 98 Dispensary at 2782 W. Republic Road
Ozarx Botanicals at 3800 W. Sunshine St. Suite 100
OWG I (The Farmer's Wife) at 2935 E. Chestnut Expressway
Bloom Medicinals at 751 S. Glenstone Ave.
V3 MO Vending 5 at 850 E. Kearney St.
Grassroots OpCo MO at 1306 N. Stewart Ave.
Other approved dispensaries in the area include:
Missouri Joint Ventures "MOJO" at 202 West St. Suite 1 in Nixa
Easy Mountain at 7827 W. Farm Road 174 in Republic
Old Route 66 Holdings at 1421 W. State Highway J in Ozark
COMO Health at 18490 Business 13 in Branson West
Grassroots OpCo MO at 201 S. Wildwood Drive in Branson
SW Retail Holdings at 18490 Business 13 in Branson West
The Department of Health and Senior Service's Division of Cannabis Regulation is updating a live list of dispensaries that have been approved to sell recreational products. This list is available on the department's website at bit.ly/3HxVdAF.
This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Flora Farms cultivation facilities ship record supply of marijuana
