Written by Becca Stine
Above: A budtender at Doctor’s Orders Dispensary in Colorado Springs cradles marijuana on January 23, 2014. Catalyst File Photo
As the cannabis industry grows larger and more popular in the U.S., marijuana production, like most other commercialized products, is focused on being bigger, better, stronger, and faster. “Marijuana is an incredible plant,” said Jim Parco, an Economics and Business professor at Colorado College: it is a plant that can arguably grow more efficiently and produce more crop yield than most other herb or vegetable plants. The question becomes about whether those involved in the cannabis industry can continue to produce enough crop to meet the high demand in a sustainable manner.
Parco discussed the differences between methods of growing cannabis commercially verses independently. In his article titled “Higher education in the cannabis industry,” Lukas Barfield, a writer for Marijuana Venture, recounted Jim Parco’s story: “They began their excursion into the cannabis industry in 2014, when Jim went on sabbatical, making cannabis the research focus of his professorship.”
Parco decided to work for a medical marijuana business to learn all there was to know. “I swept floors, washed buckets, trimmed, managed inventory, and simultaneously learned about the cannabis laws in Colorado,” he said. Now, Parco and his wife own and run a small enterprise called “Mesa Organics,” where they grow around 300 plants in a hydroponics system, a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil.
In April 2015, Parco and his wife were granted a permit to open their small business in what used to be an abandoned restaurant in Pueblo, Colo., and by January 2016, they had the six state licenses needed to produce, manufacture, and dispense both medical and recreational marijuana.
When asked about sustainable methods of growing, Parco spoke about hydroponics, describing it as “the right way to grow for the future.” Not only does a greenhouse hydroponics system allow for year-long harvests, but Jim also argued it is more environmentally sustainable. When it comes down to a sustainable system, Parco stated that it’s all about “how we use power.”
In his hydroponics system, he uses approximately 600 gallons of water across a three to four week period. Regular soil-based and commercially practiced growing methods use approximately 2 to 4 gallons of water per plant per day, accumulating around 1,000 gallons of water in total each day. Parco believes that water is the second most prevalent issue in terms of sustainably growing cannabis, the first being electricity.
Light is an essential element in growing cannabis. Exposing a cannabis plant to 18 hours of light and 6 hours of dark a day allows it to stay in a perpetual vegetative state, whereas days consisting of 12 equal hours of light and dark bring the plant into a flowering state, where it can then be harvested.
Parco described that even the slightest manipulation or disturbance of the dark cycle can cause the plant to become hermaphroditic—both male and female in one, preventing the growth of buds. The plant’s sensitivity to light creates intensity and attention focused on light and electricity usage in the cannabis industry. Cannabis industries use large amounts of electricity to power the high-intensity lights necessary in the growing process, often spending close to $50,000 on electricity bills. In his hydroponics system, Parco uses LED lighting as a more sustainable alternative, but hopes to switch to solar panels. “One day I’m going to do that,” he said.
As the cannabis industry is still not federally funded, these larger businesses are not permitted to utilize “federal water,” meaning they are charged 4 to 5 times more to buy water to feed their cannabis plants. Not only would a hydroponics system save an immense amount of water, but also a large amount of money for these commercialized businesses.
Parco argued that a hydroponics system can only work successfully for smaller scale, homegrown cannabis.
“If something goes wrong, it goes wrong quickly,” he said, recognizing the way in which larger scale production would not be conducive to such a sensitive and easily disrupted system. The interconnectedness of a hydroponics system could lead to issues, Parco said, “if one gets infected, they all get infected.”
The amount of energy, power, and water that goes into growing and manufacturing cannabis on a larger scale is detrimental to our environment, and the industry and demand is only growing.