Schedule of Events

There is no question that these are volatile times in the industry. To some operators, this does not come as a surprise; rather the inevitable market evolution. Be it wholesale price compression, shifting regulations, supply chain pressures, inflation, or consumer behavior and spending – there are organizations that are ready and eager to tackle anything.

The key premise is understanding all of the major drivers and impacts to your business; control what you can, and plan for the rest. It is a fundamental shift from reaction to executing on a plan. In a sense moving from surviving to thriving. In this session, learn how to look for the interdependencies in your business, to create a living budget, how to evaluate your fixed and variable costs, and how to streamline your production, post-harvest, procession, packaging, labeling, (and so much more).

Flushing, or applying clear water and restricting nutrients during the final weeks of flowering, is a common practice among cannabis cultivators, but many approach it differently. Some believe flushing improves smoking quality, and others may use it as a strategy to prevent excessive fertilization or to save on fertilizer costs. But how does flushing affect yield, nutrient levels, and cannabinoid content? How many weeks should you flush? Should you bother flushing at all? These are some of the guiding questions Clemson University researchers asked themselves when designing experiments to understand the plant’s physiological responses to flushing. In this session, Ph.D. student Michael Alden will present exclusive findings on flushing as well as studies testing other common cannabis cultivation and crop steering practices, including the 12/12 photoperiod schedule in flower and how altering the plant’s shape and controlling height impacts production. In this session, you’ll learn:

• How to adjust flushing schedules to meet specific, desired cultivation goals, including increased yield, decreased nutrient costs or increased cannabinoid content
• How to apply poinsettia production practices to cannabis production, i.e. the “cann-settia” method, and the potential benefits of controlling height, including improving irrigation efficiencies and maximizing space
• Why growers may want to consider a different photoperiod schedule than the 12/12 industry standard

Bruce Bugbee, Ph.D., of Utah State University, calls his recent research yielding a new definition of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) the most significant finding of his career to date. Although Bugbee and the USU team are well-known for their cannabis lighting studies, they also investigate other areas of cultivation, including how cannabis responds to different nutrient concentrations and how to optimize temperature at different phases in the plant lifecycle.

Bugbee will once again share his latest research with Cannabis Conference attendees in this back-by-demand, highly anticipated session, which will include key findings on:

• Bugbee’s new definition of PAR, how cannabis responds and how growers can adjust their cultivation practices to maximize light penetration without stretching plants;
• the relationship between light intensity and cannabis yields;
• the ideal rates of phosphorus and other cannabis nutrients to maximize growth;
• how the micronutrient copper plays a role in disease control;

… and more!

Raising capital remains one of the greatest challenges many plant-touching business owners face. In this session, attendees will learn from experts the ins and outs of the search for funding, how to decide which options are best for their businesses and how to increase their chances for securing capital in the highly competitive and under-funded cannabis industry. The expert panel will share insights into:

• how to find sources of capital
• how to evaluate various paths to financing – from “traditional” paths such as equity or debt financing to less traditional means such as crowdfunding, and the risks and benefits of each type
• how to increase your chances of success whichever path you choose

… and more.

More and more breeders are doing licensing deals with cultivation operations, though many growers continue to develop and introduce to the market their own, unique cultivars. Regardless of your approach to genetics, common questions and challenges plague growers:

• How do cultivators decide whether to work to develop a partnership with a breeder or create their own breeding program? What are the pros and cons?
• How do you carefully balance market trends (re: high THC, for example) with creating unique genetics to differentiate yourself in the competitive market, as well as avoid chasing the newest cultivar trends only to find that by the time you get the trendy cultivar to market, the trend is either over or too many others are flooding the market with the same cultivar?
• How do you reconcile consumer demand/trends with a cultivars’ agriculturally preferable traits?
• Will agronomic traits — such as ease of growth, flowering time/time to market, disease and pest resistance — play a larger role in the future?

Attendees to this session will gain key insights into successfully balancing the agronomic and business/market aspects of genetic selection.

Sponsored By

For thousands of years, the Aloe Vera plant has been revered for its natural medicinal and herbal qualities. Now, for the first time in history, this miraculous plant is being used in agriculture and has been proven to be a powerful bio stimulant for use in horticulture.

Coats Agri-Aloe is the developer and manufacturer of GroAloe as well as Aloe420 for the cannabis market. This is a 100% Aloe Vera natural horticultural product that has been awarded two patents, one for usage in all agriculture, and the other for the unique whole-leaf process. This process concentrates the complex mixture of compounds, macro, and micronutrients already found in Aloe Vera to provide maximum health and growth for plants.

The benefits of using this patented whole leaf Aloe Vera in agriculture are numerous. In addition to boosting plant growth and immunity, the soil health is also improved by increasing microbial activity and nutrient retention. This, in turn, leads to healthier and more nutrient-dense crops. No matter what grow medium is used (coco coil, etc..), the same benefits can be achieved through foliar spray and/or feed systems.

Here are a few topics to be covered in this session:

• The Science behind agricultural Aloe Vera and how it was discovered.
• Explanation of natural compounds, macro, and micronutrients, found in agricultural Aloe Vera which combine for effective growth stimulation, insect repellant, and anti-fungal properties.
• Overview of the research and completed studies on agricultural Aloe Vera and its effects on plant and crop growth.
• Agricultural Aloe Vera reduces reliance on chemicals and provides an organic product that leaves no residual harmful chemicals.
• Why Aloe Vera & Cannabis are meant to work together to help heal our planet.

Chris Ball, CEO of Ball Family Farms, knows the hardships of the cannabis industry. From his experience with the painful repercussions of the failed war on drugs to his transition from a legacy cultivator to a bootstrapped social equity founder in the newly legal landscape in California, Chris knows the challenges of succeeding in cannabis. Even today, as new economic pressures hammer away at legal cannabis businesses, Chris knows that this is not an easy place to work—but he knows it’s a worthwhile endeavor. He shows up every day at Ball Family Farms with that conviction. With his entrepreneurial spirit and passion for the cannabis plant, Chris knows the value of building something for the long term in this industry.

In this candid Keynote Address, Chris will share:

1. how cannabis entered his life and embedded itself in his future,
2. details about his incarceration for selling cannabis at a young age and its impact on his life,
3. his transition and journey into to the legal market as one of the first Social Equity licensees in Los Angeles,
4. the steep learning curve he faced as a CEO of a startup cultivation operation in the world’s largest cannabis market (California … As some say, if you can survive in LA, you can survive anywhere!),
5. how he built a team while balancing family dynamics and professional relationships as the business grew rapidly,
6. his evolution as CEO as he worked to manage revenue and profit, costs and spending decisions,
7. his experiences and innovations in cannabis genetics, cultivation and the value of a brand,
8. lessons he has learned from the market downturn and how to adapt, and
9. his predictions for and insights into the cannabis industry’s future.

Don’t miss this heartfelt, inspiring story about the realities of the cannabis industry, from prohibition to profit … and how the most passionate and persevering can succeed.

Faced with a turbulent market, continually plummeting prices amid widespread inflation and long-term uncertainty, two craft companies (East Fork Cultivars and Peak Extracts) decided to merge to benefit from each other’s strengths while gaining major cost and operational savings, among other advantages. East Fork acquired Peak in late 2022, and many other small and mid-sized businesses can benefit from this uncommon story.

In this candid session, East Fork CEO Mason Walker will share how the merger enabled both companies to reduce overhead by sharing costs for compliance, insurance, payroll, legal and other administrative and professional services, which come at a premium for cannabis companies. As Cannabis Business Times reported, “[Katie] Stem, [founder of Peak Extracts,] and Walker estimate these costs together run each company about $200,000 each per year—including $13,000 in adult-use licensing fees, $10,000 in hemp licensing fees and $14,000 in banking fees to carry checking accounts for each entity. They estimate these costs eventually will be cut by at least 40% with the merger.”

Walker will also share the details of the entire process, from finding the right partner to setting deal terms to the cost and logistics of merging the company (legal fees, regulatory approval process, etc.) and important lessons he learned along the way. Attendees will take away a deep understanding of the M&A deal and whether a similar arrangement would be a viable opportunity to breathe new life into their businesses.

The post-harvest process is one of the most important in cultivation, and many seasoned cultivators even call it an art form. Whether you’re a small-batch producer or a larger commercial grower, it’s critical to fine-tune your process to protect your cannabis moisture levels and terpene and cannabinoid expressions to come away with a desirable and compliant product. In this session, you’ll take away valuable insights to help you:

• Properly build-out your space for drying and curing, while avoiding common pitfalls;
• Understand the drying and curing methods today’s operators are using to achieve their product goals;
• Establish climate-controlled temperature, humidity, and airflow set points to avoid over- and under-drying your cannabis flower; and
• Develop a plan for continual fine-tuning and improvement to your post-harvest process.

The medical potential of cannabis (Cannabis sativa L.) is based on its complex chemical profile, comprising hundreds of secondary metabolites including cannabinoids, terpenes and flavonoids. Environmental and cultivation conditions affect plant function and biosynthesis of the secondary metabolites in cannabis. Understanding regulation of plant response to environmental conditions is key for development of optimal chemical profile for modern cultivation. Little science-based knowledge is available regarding regulation and responses of 'drug-type' cannabis plants to cultivation practices. Such information is essential for the optimization of agri-high-tech cultivation for production of high-quality standardized material, as well as for development of plant products containing specific desirable phytochemical profiles.

In this ground-breaking session, Professor Nirit Bernstein will share her team’s recent discoveries concerning the potential of physical and chemical effectors imposed during cultivation to regulate plant development and the profile of active secondary metabolites in ‘drug-type’ cannabis. She has recently uncovered an interaction between plant structure, function, and chemistry in cannabis, and demonstrated a longitudinal variability in secondary metabolites. Mineral nutrition has a large effect on secondary metabolism in cannabis. Under controlled conditions, she demonstrated induction of changes in the cannabinoid and terpene profiles by nutritional supplements, and identified genotypic variabilities in the effects of K, P, N, Zn and Cu on secondary metabolism. For the key macronutrients, N, K and P, required supply for optimal yield quantity is higher from the levels needed for optimizing yield chemical quality; while a similar supply of Mg supply is required for best yield quality and quantity. Findings from Prof. Bernstein’s lab also characterized effects of plant architecture manipulation (pruning and leaf removal practices), planting density, and light quality on yield quantity and secondary metabolite production in cannabis.

Making buying experiences more engaging, interactive and immersive is the future of retail. Dispensaries across the country are tapping into the psychology of a sensory marketing and making their bricks-and-mortar not just a pit stop on a customer’s cannabis journey, but a destination. Learn how dispensaries are venturing out into experiential retail, while also ensuring returning customers have a simplified path to purchase, and take home action items to implement in your own store to increase customer engagement and loyalty.  

Building an extraction lab before understanding what is relevant and sustainable long-term in your market(s) is like putting the cart before the horse, and you risk going to market with products that are irrelevant and won’t sell. If launching an extraction business or expanding into extraction is in your sights, they are key things you should consider at the outset. In this session, you will:

• Gain an understanding of different extract products on the market and the methods used to create them (e.g., CO2, hydrocarbon, ethanol, solventless extraction)
• Learn how to evaluate product demand, price points, trends and opportunities in your market
• Understand your goals (to produce CPGs, wholesale to other CPG brands, diversify your revenue channels) and whether it makes business/financial sense for you to build your own lab
• How to use a data-driven approach and market analysis to determine the business case (market/consumer demand analysis) for which products
you will create and what equipment you will need

… and more.

In this session, Tom Forrest, the Co-Founder and Cultivation Director at Puro New Zealand, will deliver a presentation on how the company is growing organically outdoors at scale while meeting pharmaceutical standards for New Zealand-made prescription medicine. The largest medical cannabis operator in the country, Puro NZ has multiple cultivation sites, including a 25-acre, Good Agricultural and Collection Practice (GACP)-certified farm. This multimedia presentation will cover Puro’s site selection and integrated pest and disease management processes, as well as how the company germinates seeds and produces clones organically; fertigates and manages crops; and harvest, processes and packages 40,000 plants at GACP-accredited standards.

The lessons learned from this cultivation approach—which embodies a unique crossover of sustainable agriculture, permaculture, biodynamics and modern production horticultural science—will provide the knowledge needed for growers interested in going this route, and whether it holds an economically viable future.

Building (or retrofitting) a greenhouse structure for cultivation provides tighter environmental control than an outdoor operation, but also maximizes the use of natural resources, like sunlight. Learn from seasoned cannabis greenhouse operators the intricacies of building a structure that is highly efficient yet keeps production costs low.

In this session, you’ll take away tips on:

• Climate location factors;
• Materials selection (e.g., glass, polycarbonate, aluminum, galvanized steel, etc.);
• Designing for tight environmental controls and workflow efficiency;
• Automated equipment and technologies to consider (e.g., HVAC, odor control, supplemental lighting);
• and much more.

Cannabis growers across the country report that pest management continues to be a top cultivation challenge, according to Cannabis Business Times “State of the Industry” research data. Despite stringent protocols and dialed-in integrated pest management (IPM) strategies, fungus gnats, russet mites, spider mites, thrips and aphids continue to plague even the most careful cultivation businesses. Raymond Cloyd, Ph.D., professor and extension specialist with Kansas State University’s Department of Entomology, works with growers to remediate outbreaks and get successful IPM approaches in place. Cloyd will return to Cannabis Conference this year to detail the challenges growers are facing throughout the U.S. and how they both addressed pests and implemented programs to prevent them from coming back. In this session, attendees will walk away with:

• strategies for successful biological control programs to combat the most prevalent pests,
• various solutions to control pests, including biopesticides and their viability in managing insect and/or mite pests in cannabis.

Even in an up market, it can be challenging for cultivators and brands to gain access to retail shelves, especially in states with limited retail licenses, unlimited cultivation licenses and/or high competition. In a down market with major price compression, even the most savvy and skilled cultivators can struggle.

What are those gaining shelf space and/or finding new opportunities doing from both a product and business perspective? From initial approach to face-to-face time with budtenders, terms, differentiation through genetic and inventory offerings, communication and marketing/brand support, and critical partnerships, this session will share what leading cultivators, brands and dispensaries say are the key to getting and staying on dispensary shelves. Plus, learn what successful cultivators, processors and brands are doing to more successfully collect on deliverables or manage accounts as they navigate challenges throughout a strained supply chain where many retailers are struggling to pay cultivators on time … or at all.

Everyone creates brands—but few companies are successful in creating brands that cultivate staying power with consumers. Many entrepreneurs, not just in the cannabis industry, but in all consumer segments, get excited about the idea of creating a brand, and jump straight to designing a logo. But that’s a big mistake, according to experts, especially as brand power becomes increasingly important in the ubercompetitive, rapidly expanding cannabis industry.

This session will help determine what your ideal customer should look like, how to build out the demographic, and how to conduct important research. Presenters will also outline how to determine your company’s points of parity and/or differentiation in the marketplace, what your brand stands for, and what types of emotions you want to evoke. Then, they’ll provide building-blocks for design and more traditional branding ideas. They will also dive into how to evaluate these concepts for both medical and adult-use markets (as these applications should be handled differently).