From Seed to Sale: Mindful Marijuana

Product specialist Ry Prichard buttons up a white lab coat, motioning for me to do the same before taking me on a tour of Mindful’s 40,000 sq.ft. warehouse dedicated to growing the most unparalleled pot in Colorado.

Every week, the facility churns out about 100 lbs. of product, housing more than 5,000 plants with 250 different strains. As I’m lead into the vegetation room where the entire process begins, Ry tells me about Mindful’s not-so-secret weapon — lead grower Phillip Hague.

“He’s known worldwide for what he does,” says Ry. “He’s created close to 100 strains of his own, and he’s been breeding for the better part of 20 years. We’re really proud to have him as part of the operation.”

Ry explains how the vegetation room serves as a sort of genetic library where different strains are tested and cultivated, grown either from a seed or as a clone clipped from one of the mother plants.

“Phillip is able to create varieties that are more dialed in toward specific ailments, toward specific smells and flavors, and that can only happen from seed,” Ry explains. “Once you find what you want, then you want the clone.”

After 7 to 10 days — once the plants are well rooted — they are moved into the propagation room where they’re blasted with light 24 hours a day (to bolster growth) and are fed a tightly-regimented diet to perfect the product. “The cool part about our facility is that we use a fertigation system,” says Ry. “Basically it’s a big, computerized feeding system that we can dial in for specific nutrient programs for specific times for specific rooms.”

After two to three weeks, the plants are moved to one of the 11 flowering rooms, some of which can hold as many as 800 plants at a time.

I follow Ry into one of the flowing rooms surrounded by marijuana plants as tall as I am, large clusters of sticky, frosty buds populating each plant. He eagerly shows me a couple of different strains, including Mob Boss, Lavender Appalachia, Head Trip, and Triangle Kush — his favorite. “When it’s full grown and you smoke it in a joint, you taste it the entire way down, and there are very few strains that do that.”

For six to eight weeks, the plants are fed with the fertigation system as the light in each room is cycled on and off every 12 hours. The plants are then harvested and prepped for trimming. Ry walks me through a room where about 20 people wearing blue scrubs (to prevent contaminates) are quietly trimming away on the latest harvest.

  “Hand trimming is a lot more delicate,” says Ry, emphasizing how Mindful’s higher-end products are trimmed by hand rather than by a machine. “You’re retaining the original structure of the bud, and you really taste and feel the difference. If you go into a dispensary and everything sort of smells the same, they probably machine-
trimmed them.”

The product is then dried, inspected, tested for THC content, vacuum-sealed, and shipped to one of their stores. The entire process takes 12 to 18 weeks depending on
the strain.

And Mindful also works to grow community ties. There’s a vegetable garden out back, the produce of which is given away at the Hiawatha Davis Recreation Center. “We go out there with a big tent and give away all the produce to people,” says Ry. “We like to give back however we can.”

Learn more online at BeMindful.today.