In 2018, Michigan legalized marijuana for recreational use. Since then, more than 600 licensed marijuana dispensaries have cropped up across the state. The legalization has also given way to the commercialization of bud, as businesses rapidly scale to meet the increasing demand. However, for the connoisseurs of quality weed, this is bad news.
The problem with large-scale commercial weed harvesting operations is that these are designed to produce the highest yield using cheap soil alternatives and are pumped with chemicals. This is often coupled with a compromise on quality, which results in subpar weed that will be easy on the consumer’s wallet but may also give them a headache.
The Gander Newsroom, a Courier Newsroom publication, recently published an article that discusses how Old School Organics, a pot farming business in Lapeer, is trying to combat subpar weed in Michigan. The article compared cheap weed to boxed wine. You can probably find this weed, like cheap wine, at convenience stores and gas stations, and while it would get the job done, it is not exactly a pleasurable experience.
The folks at Old School Organics live by a simple rule, you get what you pay for. “There’s always going to be different classes of products out there,” Jason Allen told the Courier Newsroom publication. “You can get a $12 bottle of wine, or you can get a $12,000 bottle of wine. There are always going to be products made for connoisseurs.”
Old School Organics was founded by Allen in 2008. His initial years were spent collecting helpful tips about improving the quality of his product, with one key difference. He was seeking the advice of old-school growers. He was obsessed with quality cannabis. “I realized there was this other caliber of pot that I didn’t even know existed – like it was from another planet,” he told the Courier Newsroom publication. Weed grown the old-school way is his niche.
Allen says that weed is similar to wine because, like wine, different factors influence how weed will taste. And if you are looking to get weed that is full-bodied, richer in flavor, and offers a better high, you must be ready to pay up. Despite the extra work and effort that goes into producing his ‘top shelf’ weed products, they still are reasonably considered reasonably priced, retailing at $35-40 for a 3.5g bag.
Computer systems while great for large-scale operations are not well-suited for more specialized products. Computers are incapable of interacting with a plant in the same way as a human would. Depending on how a plant is looking, Allen adapts its watering and feeding schedule to get the desired result. These micro-adjustments are what sets his products apart.
The result is weed that actually tastes different. His weed is characterized by a higher concentration of terpenes. Terpenes work with the THC in weed to produce different kinds of highs. And it is the differing concentrations of THC and terpenes that give each strain its characteristic high. While the terpene average in Michigan is below 2%, Old School Organics regularly averages more than 3%. One of his recent harvests averaged more than 4.2%. This means that a little amount of his weed goes a long way.
Old School Organics produces 75lbs of weed every 3 weeks and Allen is working to double his output come summer. His weed can be in 100 dispensaries spread all over the Lower Peninsula.
