There is always a lot of energy in the air in northern California when the fall harvests start coming in, and Ganjapreneurs can use this as an opportunity to educate their clients about the differences and misconceptions between indoor vs. outdoor cannabis.
Lots of people feel that indoor pot is more potent and flavorful than outdoor. However, grown in a good area under the right conditions, outdoor cannabis can rival or even surpass indoor crops.
After all, it’s hard to mimic nature with her pure sunlight and moonlight. The unique reaction of the earth on the phenotypes creates a brew of the different cannabinoids and releases the terpenes. The unpredictable moods of the weather, the cycles of the natural world, all contribute to the unique complexity of outdoor pot.
Legalities have forced many growers who might prefer working with the earth inside. And there are definite advantages to growing indoors. You can control the environment. It’s easier to keep a handle on insect infestations.
Indoor grows also lend themselves to experimentation. New high potency strains that are constantly cropping up in collectives are the result of innovative indoor farmers applying their creative vision to their gardens.
Sometimes growers will start their plants in a controlled inside environment then move them outdoors.
Insanity Strains, a boutique facility in northern California, this year created two strains in this manner: Insanity OG and Hannibal Nectar. They kept their operation small to better monitor the results. At this writing, the buds are still drying, but early tests indicate that these two strains are nearly as potent as the high-quality indoor plants they used to create them.
Throughout California and the nation, growers are doing the same. It’s a good time for pot farmers and Ganjapreneurs in general.
For one, it’s a chance to broaden the perspective of your customers. Whether the weed was grown inside or out is less important than its other qualities. How does it smell? Taste? What are the effects? Is it organic? These are the questions you want your customers to ask.
It’s also an opportunity to look at marijuana’s cultural and social history. Most people use pot, not as a way to get high but to cope with some deeper issues like anxiety, PTSD, sleeplessness or chronic pain, and prefer a natural alternative rather than the cocktail of drugs most doctors prescribe.
For most of history, outdoor is how the plants came to us, and as the industry emerges from the shadows we can expect higher quality, flavorful and more experimental outdoor pot as well.
Trimmed up, outdoor plants look as lovely and neat as their smaller, indoor counterparts.
But in the ground, with buds shimmering like alien bottlebrushes and their green leaves the color of health itself, they are truly one of the most beautiful and practical plants around.
Photo Credit: Insanity Strains