Mendocino County Agriculture
Sep. 28th, 2010 03:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snousleIt's that time of year again - the hardware store has a huge stack of microtip pruning shears in front of the cash register:
Why, you might ask?
What else, the cannabis harvest. We don't grow ourselves - software is actually more lucrative - but about 30-50% of the ranch residents do, mostly under state medical marijuana permits. The climate here, with its consistently dry fall months, turns out to be ideal for growing top-quality outdoor bud.
When you can sell a pound of bud for $1000, and the crop grows like, well, a weed, you might think it was easy money. Not so much in practice. It does bring in a good bit of cash for many of the locals, but it's a lot of work. When harvest time comes, the amount of traffic on the road more than triples, but otherwise life becomes strangely quiet as entire households stay inside and trim, trim, trim.
Although the plants themselves are huge, often more than three feet wide by six feet tall, only the sticky buds at the end have any market value. The buds themselves are concealed by lush foliage, which must be trimmed back until only the tightly bunched floral parts remain. Unlike the larger leaves, which have relatively little THC, the buds are covered in sparkly crystals of resin, and are a beauty to behold.
Trimming is finicky business. One large plant takes a whole day of work. The goal is not just a more concentrated product, but one that looks good and is nice and smooth when smoked. It's a lot like haute-cuisine vegetable prep.
Once trimmed, the buds are arranged on racks to dry.
The finished bud is stored and weighed for sale. When dry, it's not very heavy at all - these containers hold about two pounds, the product of one or two plants.
A rare and interesting byproduct of all this is "finger hash" or "scissor hash", the resin scraped off of the trimming scissors. It has a beautiful aroma - something between sage and mint - and is uniquely potent and pleasant to smoke. Not available in stores!
Small buds rescued from the trimmed-away components are collected and given away as "welfare weed". Though not as strong, it's perfectly good to smoke, particularly for occasional users. (The top-quality weed tends to leave inexperienced smokers somewhat incapacitated.) There are places in America where the local potheads would cry if they could see what ends up on the compost piles here.
It looks like Prop. 19, a state initiative legalizing marijuana, just might pass this November. The locals have mixed feelings about this - at present, enforcement against large, illegal operations has left the small "medical" producers to enjoy substantial price support due to the restricted supply. A side-effect of this has been to make hiring during the fall months all but impossible. When you can earn $25 an hour and all the weed you can smoke with no skill or experience required, young people aren't so excited about working at Wal-Mart. Local shopkeepers complain about this a lot. A "yes" vote could result in a collapse in prices, bringing trimming down to the level of all other agricultural work - i.e. busting your ass for peanuts. The effect on the county as a whole is less than clear, but I suspect that high taxes would result in a substantial gray market. This might end up being almost as profitable as outright prohibition.
Why, you might ask?
What else, the cannabis harvest. We don't grow ourselves - software is actually more lucrative - but about 30-50% of the ranch residents do, mostly under state medical marijuana permits. The climate here, with its consistently dry fall months, turns out to be ideal for growing top-quality outdoor bud.
When you can sell a pound of bud for $1000, and the crop grows like, well, a weed, you might think it was easy money. Not so much in practice. It does bring in a good bit of cash for many of the locals, but it's a lot of work. When harvest time comes, the amount of traffic on the road more than triples, but otherwise life becomes strangely quiet as entire households stay inside and trim, trim, trim.
Although the plants themselves are huge, often more than three feet wide by six feet tall, only the sticky buds at the end have any market value. The buds themselves are concealed by lush foliage, which must be trimmed back until only the tightly bunched floral parts remain. Unlike the larger leaves, which have relatively little THC, the buds are covered in sparkly crystals of resin, and are a beauty to behold.
Trimming is finicky business. One large plant takes a whole day of work. The goal is not just a more concentrated product, but one that looks good and is nice and smooth when smoked. It's a lot like haute-cuisine vegetable prep.
Once trimmed, the buds are arranged on racks to dry.
The finished bud is stored and weighed for sale. When dry, it's not very heavy at all - these containers hold about two pounds, the product of one or two plants.
A rare and interesting byproduct of all this is "finger hash" or "scissor hash", the resin scraped off of the trimming scissors. It has a beautiful aroma - something between sage and mint - and is uniquely potent and pleasant to smoke. Not available in stores!
Small buds rescued from the trimmed-away components are collected and given away as "welfare weed". Though not as strong, it's perfectly good to smoke, particularly for occasional users. (The top-quality weed tends to leave inexperienced smokers somewhat incapacitated.) There are places in America where the local potheads would cry if they could see what ends up on the compost piles here.
It looks like Prop. 19, a state initiative legalizing marijuana, just might pass this November. The locals have mixed feelings about this - at present, enforcement against large, illegal operations has left the small "medical" producers to enjoy substantial price support due to the restricted supply. A side-effect of this has been to make hiring during the fall months all but impossible. When you can earn $25 an hour and all the weed you can smoke with no skill or experience required, young people aren't so excited about working at Wal-Mart. Local shopkeepers complain about this a lot. A "yes" vote could result in a collapse in prices, bringing trimming down to the level of all other agricultural work - i.e. busting your ass for peanuts. The effect on the county as a whole is less than clear, but I suspect that high taxes would result in a substantial gray market. This might end up being almost as profitable as outright prohibition.
