Dry farms are uncommon in California, however the outcomes folks like Chrystal Ortiz of High Water Farm are in a position to pull off with out watering their hashish vegetation all summer time are fairly wonderful. Sure it takes a Goldilocks sort of microclimate in the midst of Humboldt County simply off the Eel River—the identical neighborhood that hosts all of the state’s dry hashish farmers—however what these farmers are in a position to do is fairly spectacular. It is actually a leap of religion to start out. Ortiz described the trauma of her first season making an attempt dry farming as she watched the vegetation wilt earlier than they adjusted to their new life on the dry farm, nevertheless it labored out. These days she pumps numerous the product popping out of High Water Farm in bulk. She estimated about 70% p.c of her product goes to manufacturers that may use the flower to fill their jars, and the remainder goes to hash corporations. Dry-farmed hashish has loopy terpene profiles that make for excellent hash.
Ortiz additionally holds again sufficient product to ensure she has sufficient hashish to run nice half-ounce offers at her store, Herb & Market Humboldt in Arcata, which she runs when she isn’t splitting farm duties together with her husband Noah Beck.
“We’ve had great weather so far,” Ortiz instructed High Times of the 2023 season. “We started super late because the field was wet pretty late. And so we didn’t get the plants in the ground until a week after [summer] solstice.”
Moisture retention in dry hashish farming is vital, however for younger vegetation an excessive amount of moisture can nonetheless result in numerous points. This yr, Humboldt’s wet winter led to the newest begin at High Water Farm since they began dry farming in 2018.
How Dry Farming Works
The subject, the standard of its soil, and the native microclimate all play a large position in what is going on at High Water Farm.
Ortiz defined that dry farming is right of their space as a result of the undisturbed redwood bushes maintain the water desk, or the layer of water beneath the soil, in place.
“When you come in from the coast and you get to the very first Avenue of the Giants exit, you get just past the fog bank,” Ortiz mentioned. “And then you’ve got old-growth redwoods that are like holding the water table. That’s really what I think is happening between the river and the old-growth redwoods on the Giants. They’re keeping water in the water table. So the fir isn’t drinking them all up like everywhere else where there’s been so much heavy logging, and we get that 20 to 30 degrees warmer than the coast. Yet, we’re still like 10 to 15 degrees cooler than Garberville.”
Every day the solar heats the soil, releasing saved up moisture from the night time earlier than and the morning fog. That moisture travels up via the roots and hydrates the plant, which retains the soil ridiculously tender.
First, the soil is prepped within the winter. It might want to maintain all of the vitamins that the hashish vegetation would require to get via the season since they gained’t be getting watered. One of the issues in Ortiz’s favor is that the property is on an previous alfalfa farm. Alfalfa is widespread as a canopy crop to assist enhance soil high quality for hashish farmers that plant straight into the soil. Ortiz and Beck develop alfalfa within the winter after which until it into the soil within the spring to assist the soil maintain nitrogen. They additionally use goats to eat the duvet crops, and their droppings get tilled again into the already superior soil.
Why is the soil at High Water Farm so dope? Essentially the identical factor occurs on the Nile River in Egypt, the place once in a while a giant flood deposits a large layer of silt alongside the banks, numerous the silt that washed down rivers in Humboldt consists of sawdust from logging operations and mills. The final large flood in 1964 left a 10- to 15-foot layer of silt alongside the Eel River’s shores the place the farm sits.
Ortiz mentioned whereas they don’t discover many rocks after they put together the sphere every spring, previous branches from previous floods appear to work their means again up via the soil. They’ve taken to constructing little shrines with redwood branches that they uncover across the farm.
The silt, along with the alfalfa-eating goats, is the spine of the farm’s plant diet profile.
“It’s just this kind of little Goldilocks zone where the river meanders through and it’s coming out just about sea level. We’re almost at sea level and so [the river is] coming out to the mouth pretty soon and it’s just swift and cold,” Ortiz mentioned.
Always Improving
Every yr there may be nonetheless room for enchancment. This yr options some new {hardware} from one of many neighbors, a transplanter instrument, that made getting the vegetation within the floor a cinch.
“It was even crazier than usual where we have our plants and little foragers and we shook all the dirt off and had them bare root exposed,” Ortiz mentioned. “We just pulled the transplanter behind and dropped the plants in the trowel, and they planted. We planted the whole 20,000 square feet in less than six hours.”
When planting they are going to combine a bit a handful of TerraVesco worm compost and a few type of good natural dry amendments. In the previous they’ve additionally included Perfect Blend, Dr. Earth, or Royal Gold. Royal Gold has a brand new product referred to as Crown Jewels that Ortiz used final yr. After a bit handful within the planting gap, and that’s it for the entire season. Ortiz estimates she solely purchased 10 or 12 small baggage of amendments this yr.
We requested what has modified probably the most about her mentality as she heads into her sixth season with none irrigation for her vegetation. She was fast to level to the deficiencies available in the market that stop her from going loopy with a bunch of various strains.
“The game has changed so much like trim, people need 200 pounds of one varietal,” Ortiz mentioned. “We’ve really had to scale back on the excitement around a bunch of different flavors as weed smokers and realize we need to do what does really well in the dry farm.”
A Rare Breed
Ortiz estimates there are about six permitted dry hashish farms in the complete state, and they’re all situated on both aspect of the river in her neighborhood. Some of her dry-farming compatriots close by embrace Sensiboldt in addition to longtime farmers Rosie Reynolds and Beth Dunlap. Better generally known as Farmer Beth, Dunlap has been cultivating on her dad’s previous farm for 38 years, it’s the place she grew up.
These three farms—High Water Farm, Sensiboldt Organics, and Cann-Do Attitude—collaborate on the Dry Farm Cannabis model collectively.
“And we put a lot of stuff out under Dry Farm Cannabis, we put pre-rolls out, we put jarred weed out, we put bulk weed out,” Ortiz mentioned. “And so that’s kind of an exciting collab because then between the three of us we can vend directly to consumers at different events and stuff.”
Ortiz mentioned a part of the explanation it’s thrilling is as a result of it’s simply extra enjoyable and simpler to not must be on the market tooting your individual horn. You could make an area and share it and every rep for one another.
Holding Space for Small Farms & Saving Humboldt
After spending a few years deep within the coronary heart of Humboldt County politics as authorized hashish emerged, Ortiz now considers her principal activism because the dispensary, Herb & Market Humboldt, the place she holds area for these small farms making an attempt to carry on.
“We don’t have a ton of customers. We’re not super busy. But you know, there’s also like 100 dispensaries in Humboldt County and it’s like selling sand at the beach,” Ortiz mentioned. “But it is a space where farmers can learn. They can directly interact with consumers and see why their packaging doesn’t work. Why their labeling doesn’t work.”
Ortiz’s dispensary permits farmers to have an expertise that’s actually laborious for them to get outdoors of the area within the protected setting Ortiz affords after which go do occasions in different places down south the place the direct-to-consumer money is.
“So they get to try it here and I see them. I see it work,” Ortiz emphasised.
While Ortiz has loved serving to out native cultivators, she expects issues to ramp up politically over the approaching months as Humboldt County appears like it is going to have a culture-shifting poll initiative that would rattling the county’s hashish trade without end.
Humboldt’s hashish farmers allege that the poll initiative, at the moment labeled the Humboldt Cannabis Reform Initiative (HCRI), was written by NIMBYs in Kneeland, California which might be anti-cannabis and are means behind the occasions within the county.
“They went into the community and they lied to the community to get enough signatures,” Ortiz alleged. “It was pro-cannabis for farms 10,000 square feet or below only and blah, blah, blah, and turns out that they got enough signatures to get it off the ballot through nefarious ways. And now [the ballot initiative] is a really poorly written, really devastating proposition that threatens every single legal farm in Humboldt County.”
One of the scariest issues in regards to the initiative is it could grow to be statutory regulation that will require one other election to vary. Some of the dangerous concepts embrace banning further constructions on hashish farms, so cultivators wouldn’t be capable of make any adjustments reminiscent of putting in water tanks or photo voltaic panels. Arguably probably the most devastating a part of all can be that the initiative would solely enable for one cultivation allow per individual per parcel, affecting many individuals who’ve spent years constructing out onsite distribution or manufacturing. The initiative would damage them and the county’s hashish trade.
The HCRI poll initiative is slated to seem on the March 2024 poll. Ortiz went so far as to say that it is going to be the top of Humboldt County’s licensed hashish trade if it passes. There are so few licensed farmers proper now as so many have already gone out of enterprise. Ortiz thinks it’s going to be laborious to see how a lot compassion we now have from the hashish group about conserving farms alive. She plans to speak to different enterprise homeowners and be aware that in the event that they assist HCRI there gained’t be any hashish {dollars} left to spend at their institutions, interval.
This article was initially revealed within the November 2023 issue of High Times Magazine.
The submit Dry Farming in Humboldt first appeared on High Times.
