Natural Mystic Farms works to fine-tune its process using light deprivation
By Garrett Rudolph
Mike Graham is no stranger to high-competition, low-margin businesses.
Graham and his brother were part of the trucking industry for about a decade before selling their company within the past couple years. While long days in the office have been replaced by even longer days at the farm, there’s something to be said for fresh air in your lungs, dirt beneath your fingernails and the arid Eastern Washington sunshine beating on the back of your neck.
Graham is the owner of Natural Mystic Farms in Ellensburg, Washington, a state-licensed grow operation located on a historic piece of farmland with the century-old barn and homestead still intact. To one side of the property, the wood skeleton of the original homestead cabin sits as a reminder of the land’s semi-forgotten heritage. A hundred years ago, the acres were probably full of wheat and livestock; now, thousands of cannabis plants thrive under hoop houses.
Natural Mystic was one of only a small handful of outdoor farms to receive its license in time to harvest a crop last year, but cutting through the massive amounts of red tape made for a hurried, frantic growing cycle — nowhere near enough time for a well-nurtured final product. Graham was able to put some of his product on the market, but it was minimal compared to what he’s planning to harvest this fall.
The great outdoors
Mike Graham loves farming.
It’s different than indoor growing, he says, where conditions inside are the same regardless of where it’s being grown.
He enjoys the challenge of dealing with a living, breathing environment, the ever-changing nature of dealing with the elements.
He’s grown marijuana both indoors and out. There are obvious advantages and disadvantages to both. While growing cannabis indoors, under artificial lighting in a highly-controlled environment still requires a green thumb, it’s just not the same as farming.
There’s an element of uncertainty, risk, but there’s also a payoff when everything comes together just right.
Graham is still trying to figure out the best timing and techniques for his sun-grown crop. He’s not entirely sure whether he can fit two full light dep crops perfectly into a single growing season. It’s just another step of adapting to one’s environment.
With outdoor cannabis farming, every region has its own peculiarities, and every season is a little different than the last. It’s a constant process of learning and adaptation. Everywhere has its advantages and disadvantages. Some a little hotter and drier, others more humid. Last year provided near-perfect growing conditions for most of Eastern Washington. This year saw an early heat wave that required extra attention to keep the plants from wilting under triple-digit days.
In the Kittitas Valley, home of Natural Mystic Farms, Graham has to contend with the gusting wind, which can make for some interesting moments as the crew wrestles with blackout tarps and invisible forces of nature that blow in from the western corner of the property.
The real fun starts every morning at 7 a.m., when Graham and his team peel back the blackout tarps and let the morning sunshine bathe thousands of flowers.
Twelve hours later, the crew reverses the process, pulling the tarps back over the hoop houses for 12 hours of sheer darkness.
Graham and his team have got their method down pat. It takes them about 25 minutes to manually pull blackout tarps over 10 hoop houses. On a late July day, as Natural Mystic Farms forced an additional 10 hoop houses to start flowering, the three-man crew pulled all 20 blackout tarps in 42 minutes. While his cost of production is significantly lower than indoor grow operations, Graham said a lot of people don’t realize how significant the processing costs are — between the hand trimming and packaging that needs to be done. However, he also sees merits in being able to market the “terroir” of sun-grown cannabis. It’s part of the back-story that more and more consumers are looking for.
Trucking
There are a number of similarities between the cannabis and trucking industries. Margins are low, competition is fierce and everybody is doing what they can to capture a piece of the lucrative market.
Graham and his brother owned and operated Freight Wing Inc. before selling the business in 2013. The company invented and patented the plastic fairings that go underneath semi-trailers to improve aerodynamics.
In trucking — much like the cannabis industry — operators are looking for any way they can gain an incremental edge to lower their cost of doing business. Increasing fuel efficiency, even by just a couple percent, can mean big savings over the course of a year, particularly for long-haul trucking companies. Depending on a number of variables, the Freight Wing fairings were capable of increasing gas mileage by 2-7%, but the cutthroat nature of the trucking business also made it almost impossible for the company to protect its intellectual property, Graham says.
In a similar manner as trucking companies, cannabis growers are hell-bent on seeking out incremental increases in yield, potency, quality and other factors to stay ahead of the competition while traveling an unbeaten path.