Light Deprivation & Cannabis Greenhouse Expert Eric Brandstad
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Show Transcript
(Interview between host Kronic and guest Eric Brandstad — lightly cleaned from the SRT; filler interjections removed.)
[00:05] What's up, listeners and those tuning in from Homegrown Cannabis Co.'s YouTube channel. I'm Kronic from the Cannabis Chronicles on Instagram and YouTube, as well as the host of this amazing podcast brought to you all by Homegrown Cannabis Co. So be sure to head over to www.homegrowncannabis.com to snag any top-notch cannabis seeds you need. In today's very special episode, we have an amazing guest to interview. Be sure to follow along on whichever platform you're tuning in from to show our guest some serious love for being here to let me ask him a ton of questions for you growers here today. Today, we'll be interviewing the one and only, the greenhouse guru with over 29 years of experience in the greenhouse, farm, and cannabis industries, a fourth-generation farmer that came straight out of San Joaquin County, California. I'm introducing none other than Eric Brandstad. Eric, first off, thank you so much for coming onto the podcast and letting me just have a fun chat about all things cannabis and just ask you a bunch of questions about greenhouses.
[01:09] I really always like to start off asking the guest their journey into cannabis, whether it be did you always cultivate cannabis or did you grow up doing other agriculture? Was it kind of equal with you? Did you do other agriculture and then as a teenager break into cannabis? Kind of let us know your journey and how you stumbled into it. And then when you're done with that, I always like to know your top three favorite strains of all time that you've consumed. Yeah, right on. Well, like you were saying in my intro, I grew up in the San Joaquin County, which is a rich farming area. My family moved there in 1862 and started farming, and so basically they're still there. And so normally, most people in my situation would continue on the family farm, and unfortunately, I kind of broke that tradition because I got into cannabis and I think it was for the right reasons for the most part.
[02:06] As a young kid at 15, 16, 17 in high school, a lot of people were just passing around brick weed basically. And so I got interested in seeing different kinds of flower, and so we got turned onto kind bud at the time it was called, or green bud they would call it. And so I got interested in trying to grow it, being on a farm and growing up on a family farm and things. It was like, okay, another plant to grow. But because it was cannabis, the family or anybody, nobody in my family was into it. It was really harsh. They were worried about all kinds of legal issues, and so it was really frowned upon. And so by the time I was 18 years old and graduated high school, I decided to follow the weed basically. So I moved to Humboldt County and was going to try to go to college there or maybe even just do the junior college.
[03:03] So me and my buddies moved to Humboldt to kind of go where there was more weed basically. And so we started following different growers at the time. This was in 1992, so nothing was legal, and so we met a lot of growers and kind of got connected. At the time, we followed the Grateful Dead around, and so a lot of people hung out up in Arcata, Humboldt area and that kind of thing, and so — That's what's up. Yeah. And so I basically always was around either somebody growing cannabis or growing at least a plant of my own the entire time. And it wasn't until right around 1999 that I ended up in Lake Tahoe, California, and met my wife. At the time wasn't my wife but started dating who became my wife, and we moved to Grass Valley. And Grass Valley is just above Sacramento, and it happens to be a real popular cannabis area that I didn't even realize at the time. And so it wasn't until 2006 or '7 that I actually started doing site development for the greenhouse company that I ended up managing for 11 years called Forever Flowering.
[04:09] And then I left three years ago, and I've been just consulting and hooked up with you guys, and here we are. Awesome. Well, that segues into the next question perfectly. That's an amazing journey. That must've been really fun to kind of see cannabis through California in those various locations and also discovering that your town was actually a really big cannabis town. I'm sure that was a lot of fun. Now — It was, yeah. I always get so intrigued with all those backstories and everything like that, which you did say that your family had been cultivating agriculture since 1862.
[04:42] So did you always farm just one type of agriculture? What was it like kind of growing up on a family farm that was so established? Was it very interesting as a young age to learn about so many different types of crops, I imagine, or did your family really hone in as like we're farming corn this year on these crops and kind of do that cyclical farming? What kind of agriculture did your family do? Yeah, no, that's a great question. It's evolved over the years because certain ag areas changed their ag products because of climate change, because of just the way the markets go and things. And so it's really kind of interesting over the years. But as a kid or even before I, my family when they first moved and started farming, they were farming primarily wheat. And then it evolved over the years into other things like sugar beets and tomatoes and walnuts and a little bit of cherries.
[05:39] And so as a kid, we only had one — maybe 80 acres of walnuts and maybe 10 or 20 or 30 acres of cherries, let's say, and the rest was row crops. And so it would still be winter crops of wheat, summer crops of sugar beets, tomatoes, kidney beans, and things like that. And so as I grew up, those were the main crops, and eventually kidney beans was wiped out in our area, and they grew it further down south. Sugar beets were also kind of wiped out in our area for one reason or another, and it all turned into walnuts and almonds, primarily, in the area that I grew up. And so now when you drive through the areas where I grew up, it used to be all row crops and open fields of farms. Now it's just orchards, and you really can't see anything other than just the road that you're driving down. And so, yeah, now it's just almonds and cherries for the most part, and walnuts.
[06:36] And that's — And what was it like kind of growing those various things through the years? Was it kind of weird, not weird, but kind of like that learning curve to adapt to these different plants that are growing now in the same environment, but you're having to adapt to growing an entire crop of this brand-new thing that you might not have grown before? Yeah. As a kid growing up on the farm, the 18 years that I was there, it wasn't so much on what we were growing and why all the time as a kid working on the farm. It was like, "Okay, it's time to plant. Okay, it's time to till. It's time to water. It's time to cultivate and get the weeds out. It's time to..." It was really more of like what's next and what to do next. And so as a kid growing up, you kind of had an idea of what the crops needed, and so you kind of grew up going, "Okay, I bet next week they're going to tell us it's time to do this or it's time to go out and do that."
[07:33] And so there wasn't a lot of science being taught, like, "This is the fertilizers we use and why," and certain things. If you asked, of course, they'd tell you. And all of us in school took ag classes, so we learned a lot of ag through ag class. And then we'd just go out into the field and do the work that we had to do. So it was a little bit — So it was kind of more application versus actually science-based applied. It was, unless you really were interested and asked a lot of questions. Otherwise, as a kid, you were kind of like, "Okay, what do I got to do so I can kind of get done for the day and go play with my friends or go hang out at night or whatever?" And so, the bigger the farm is, the more of kind of like the job it is more than it is sometimes the learning aspect. You learn the job, but you don't necessarily imagine somebody living on a family farm or a small family growing food. And even my little garden, I go out and teach my kids how to plant the seed, and here's how it sprouts, and that kind of thing.
[08:31] And on a big, giant commercial farm, it's so go, go, go that you learn as you go, and you ask questions as you want to learn. Yeah, instead of that one-on-one experience. Well, that kind of is a good segue because I did want to know, did a lot of those various skills that you kind of picked up through your childhood, even though if they weren't science-based, did it help you when you ended up moving to Humboldt County to go to college for, I believe you went to college for cannabis and all things related to cannabis, correct? Well, I went to college as you graduate high school, everybody says, "Okay, where are you going to college?" And so me and my buddies were like, "Well, we just want to go up to Humboldt." And so, there's a junior college up there, so we didn't really set our sights on HSU, the Humboldt State University, as much as we were just going to College of the Redwoods. And as 18-year-old kids moving out and following the Grateful Dead and following cannabis growers in Humboldt during those times, college got less and less important.
[09:30] And so we really didn't focus too much on that, and really took the grassroots approach of learning the cannabis outlaw lifestyle, I guess you could say. And a lot of that had to do with growing. But growing up on a farm kind of clued me in to, okay, this is the things that I want to know or understand, and I was able to develop, I feel like, better questions or a skill set based on where I grew up just because I did have a knack for being around plants and growing things, but it was a little bit more dialed in once we got older because all those little things that you noticed started kind of cluing in to like, "Oh, okay, this is what we need to pay attention to, and this is why." And oh, we started learning some — If you think back of what your family had told you over time, you're like, "Oh, that little bit of info that I was told makes more sense now later on that I'm actually applying some things." Yeah, that application kind of rounds off that knowledge. So you really kind of had the hands-on from the veteran growers, then you got to kind of get your feet wet and kind of work with them in a sense and actually learn that way, which is honestly, that's such an amazing journey to hear. Well, then that, I guess I'll stray away from any college questions since I guess you were following the Grateful Dead more so, which is even cooler. I would love to hear some stories.
[10:48] I want to take a second and just ask a question because I always am a huge fan of the Grateful Dead, Slightly Stoopid, just basically anything that era and just kind of fun music and just vibes.
[10:58] What was the Grateful Dead like? What was that scene like? It was amazing, honestly. I kind of caught it towards the tail end because I started going to shows in the early '90s — '90, '91 in Sacramento when I was still in school. And it was just kind of an eye-opening experience of this different culture, basically. And as I got older and moved away, like I said, up to up north and stuff, there was a big community of Deadheads. It wasn't like we all just met up at the show. It was actually where people lived in communities that were fans as well. And so Arcata, California was one of those places. And so a lot of Deadheads congregated there, whether they had a home or they were homeless or not. And a lot of people traveled in their vans and things like that. And so it was a community that did a lot of things without a lot of stuff. And everybody was very resourceful in the sense that there was people on the lot that committed to touring that made clothes.
[11:58] Some people made food, and some people — everybody had their own little niche. Of course, there was also people that had cannabis and everybody had a little something to bring to the table so that they could sustain their life on the road, basically. And it was always kind of eye-opening to see how people were able to do that and sort of be a part of it. Like I said, I was towards the tail end because when I moved away in '92, Jerry Garcia died in '95, so the small window I had towards the end there was a great experience and I loved it. And basically, it kind of helped forge our ways of being as adults, I guess you could say, and our community spirit, so to speak. And I think what we evolved after that was a deeper community for cannabis, especially in California. A lot of people still held onto a lot of the same core beliefs, and we still had a lot of the same gatherings. Reggae on the River up in Humboldt wasn't necessarily a Grateful Dead thing, but it was another cultural event that gathered all the people and the community vibes.
[13:06] And now with — I love everything you said because it's so true because reggae really — Grateful Dead, I know, has been a huge impact in just the psychoactive community in general, whether it's cannabis or any other psychoactive substances. They really have been heavily influenced in that world, and they did kind of create this subculture that was just completely different than really any other subculture that musicians have created to this day. Burning Man being a prime example of that subculture really coming to light, and that is a really — Honestly, I love hearing those stories because it kind of gives someone like myself who wasn't there a little chance to peer through that perspective of what it was like. So thank you so much for sharing. Now I kind of want to move back into the topic of cannabis and the times during cannabis.
[13:52] What was it like being in Humboldt County, kind of running around doing those sketchier activities or living that outlaw lifestyle in a time where raiding really was happening pretty heavily, where the DEA was really cracking down? There was this war on drugs going on. They were really aggressive towards it, and California was like pin — There were helicopters flying over constantly. So what was that feeling like? Was there a point where you're like, "Holy s**t, I'm kind of scared." Was there ever any head turn moments, or was it pretty stress-free for your journey? I wasn't actually a grower when I went to Humboldt, even though I hung out with them, and I actually was with people to be in the trade of cannabis at the time. I was more on the purchasing and just maybe the distribution side, I guess you could say — allegedly. But nevertheless, the growers really were impressive at those times.
[14:53] What they had to endure and to go through was nothing that I could imagine. And for what I had to do was more of the risk in driving around and trying to just not get profiled because people in Humboldt or in general, Grateful Dead stickers on your car, people driving up and down the 101. It's easy to get profiled in general. And so how to be sneaky was really important, how to fly under the radar, so to speak, and so that was really kind of the thing that we had to learn how to do. And being able to go out into these different parts of the mountains in Humboldt without Google Maps and without cell phones and to get directions written on paper, take a left here, go two miles there, or follow somebody out to the hills that knew where they were going and then hope that you could find your way out without getting lost or something happening was always a challenge, and that was the cool part.
[15:53] It was really the journey to get there and to get back and to accomplish something like that, and it wasn't a lot of big movements either. Sometimes it was to get a pound of weed from southern Humboldt up to northern Humboldt, was just a little bit of a challenge at times. And so just being able to map that out and get it done was fun. And so, back then, growers were excited if they could grow 50 pounds, and maybe if they were lucky, 100 pounds, and that was an amazing feat at that time. And they used to grow a lot of the cannabis up in the trees because the cops looked at the ground. I've seen that. That's so cool. And if they grew them up in the trees — Yeah. So that was really an interesting thing back in the day for a lot of the farmers to be having burlap sack bags strapped to big oak trees and water lines going up the oak trees in order to do gravity irrigation and things like that. Was really hard to believe even, but there's still people that circulate pictures from back in the day of old sacks and lines still hanging in trees and things like that. And so yeah.
[17:01] I still remember, I think one of the biggest grows they caught was, I think it was seven or eight plants in one tree that they had caught, and it was in the, I think, 1999 or 2000 or something like that, is the picture. But yeah, that — just such a neat thing that you're talking about, the gravity-fed stuff. It's so unique how those farmers really kind of try to push back against all of this stuff and like, "No, we're going to do this guerrilla grow style." They were going to get it done one way or the other. There's no question. Absolutely.
[17:33] So now you obviously were more successful than some people in the sense of you didn't have the law or the hands of the law come cracking down on you, thankfully. And we're happy for that because you went on to manage a very successful greenhouse company for 11 years, and I want to kind of segue into that and talk more about the greenhouse and what that experience is like. So did you ever expect coming out of college and being in Humboldt, traveling and following the Grateful Dead, that you were going to work as a greenhouse manager or manage this company? And what was it like when you first started managing these greenhouses? Did all of that kind of childhood farming kick in, and did you kind of pick up new tips and tricks along the way, or was it a big learning curve at the start? That's a great question. Basically, it kind of started out organically in the sense that I was almost getting out of the biz, I guess you could say, because I just had my first kid recently in '01.
[18:37] And so I was a new dad, and I thought that I needed to kind of figure out — I wasn't up here. There was growing up here in Nevada County where we were, but because I had a kid, and I kind of wanted to take a safer approach, I went for the going to get a job and do the paycheck thing. And, I got into construction, so I became a licensed contractor for earthwork and paving. Because I grew up on a farm and I knew how to drive tractors, I was like, "Well, how about I drive tractors for doing dirt work type stuff?" And so I got into that during the big housing boom, in the Sacramento area, and I'd got the work experience, and then I thought, well, instead of commuting, I'll start my own excavating company and I'll do it up here. And I just grow my own plants, and that's all I need to do. I got my plants in the summer for me to take care of me, and I got my construction company I'm starting to pay the bills type of deal. And so, Forever Flowering kicked up in about 2006, and some of my buddies were going to be the installers and stuff like that.
[19:43] And so I was definitely kind of interested. And so I was able to work my way into being the contractor that did the site development for the company that was actually doing the installing of whatever greenhouse that company sold at the time. And so, as I got into the site development, I kind of noticed that maybe... Well, the other thing was, is the economy started to crash. Oh, yes. It started to get tough on the contracting side in 2006, easily. And so I went to the greenhouse company and said, "Hey, if I could get some of the flyers to pass around in order to help you guys sell greenhouses, it'll get me more jobs contracting or doing the site development thing." And so at that point, the company said, "Hey, we really needed somebody. This is actually good timing. Would you be willing to take on a role in the company?" And I could still do my contracting on the side because the company was still building up.
[20:40] So I basically sat on the tractor answering the phones at the same time. That's awesome. I could really tell that something big was going to happen just in the industry itself with the way California was going in the early 2000s. I really saw something special. It was kind of one of a kind, too, at the time. There was no other greenhouse companies offering that kind of stuff. And so it wasn't so much me growing up on the farm that got me ahead in the greenhouse game because there was no greenhouses where I grew up. No farmer where I lived knew anything about a greenhouse really. Other than the — So this is all new to you, technically. So you kind of stepping into a new world of growing and actually setting up these things. Exactly. I really knew nothing.
[21:30] And so basically we were working with a greenhouse company out of Ontario, Canada, called Cravo, and they were the first company to help make the blackout system because none of the other companies wanted to mess with anything related to cannabis whatsoever. And so the R&D to get something like this done was massive. And so all that stuff got done. But more importantly, the president of Cravo put out a lot of YouTube videos about their greenhouse technology at the time. And so I had to really wrap my head around the idea that greenhouses were really made for wintertime, and cannabis growers, especially all my clients, only wanted a greenhouse in the summertime, and that was it. And so it was like, wait a second, now we have a contraption that's supposed to be for winter. We're trying to primarily only use it in the summer because back then growers would take the winter off. It's only now in legalization that people grow year-round. And so it really was confusing to me because we had all these basically hostile environments with a lot of different greenhouses.
[22:25] If it wasn't our greenhouse, other greenhouses going up for cannabis and whatnot became these really hot, inhospitable places that grew kind of s****y cannabis. And it was just great because it held up the frame for this dep cover. And so I knew that there needed to be more figured out on that part of it, and so I spent a lot of time reviewing any literature and YouTube videos that this company was putting out based on their greenhouse technology using it in the hot summer sun for tomatoes and bell peppers and other crops. And so I basically followed their philosophy and I started trying to figure out how to apply it to the greenhouses that we were doing. Not even the Cravo houses because eventually we moved on from the Cravo houses to other ones. And even the hoop house that I'm sitting in right now. The method to the madness is the same, but how you execute it from greenhouse to greenhouse is a little bit different, basically model to model. And so that's what I really honed in on.
[23:25] So it just differs with size and variation, I'm guessing, and just shape and everything. Well, the way that we ventilate, and so the way that we look at the greenhouse.
[23:34] And so most people would look at a greenhouse and maybe say, "I want a controlled, sealed environment." And that's okay, but sometimes a sealed greenhouse is only as controllable as the weather outside. So if it's hot and humid, typically it'll bring that humidity inside because we're always exchanging air, unless we really have a fancy greenhouse that might have really sophisticated dehumidifiers and cooling systems, which actually cost a lot of money to run. And if you're in California, that's not the most affordable or best idea to go for. You want to have a low cost of production. So, when you look at a hoop house like this, a hoop house can be a fairly easy summer greenhouse because what I do is I take away the greenhouse effect. I have no end wall on the end of this greenhouse. I have no end wall at the other end of the greenhouse, and the sides are up four feet off the ground. So what I've done is I've taken away the greenhouse effect, right?
[24:29] It can't be a greenhouse by definition, but what it is is a canopy that holds up this cover.
[24:35] And a lot of times I like to look at greenhouse cover as much like a reflector of a light. Indoor lights, 1,000 watt light might be the same bulb from light to light, but what's different from manufacturer to manufacturer is the reflector, the hood — how it spreads the light uniformly. Well, greenhouse covers are almost like the reflector of a light. And so basically some greenhouse covers transmit more light, create more exposure, and other greenhouse covers like the one behind me spread the light and scatter infrared. Infrared is what brings the heat. So — And that allows the PAR penetration through the canopy as well, so that's going to allow for more of those lowers to actually get more of the actual PAR. Yes, but what it does is it lowers the leaf surface temperature. So even on a high air temperature day, I'm lowering the leaf surface temperatures, kind of like shade cloth would do in spreading that light uniformly, so the cannabis plants actually grow really well in high heat and high humidity because they're not up against the grain. They're not being put in a greenhouse that already has solar gain, a greenhouse that's already more humid inside than it is outside. It's okay if it's humid outside as long as the greenhouses are, or the plants themselves aren't being beat down by the heat and creating more humidity. Because again, how does a plant cool itself? Transpiration.
[25:55] Right? It's just like us. We sweat, plants sweat. So if you put me in front of a fan, I'll cool down without an air conditioner. And the same thing can happen with a plant. If you open it up and let some fresh air blow through, we put the right greenhouse cover on. Now my plant temps are down even though my air temps are high. And that's what really gives people the extra benefit of being able to grow in a basic greenhouse. And so then we level up to the next style, which is a Gothic frame greenhouse. So then you can have a roof vent on the top. You can leave the end walls on. You can have roll-up sides and a roof vent, and now we can have a greenhouse that might go more year-round than a hoop house like this. Okay. And the reason you say more year-round than the hoop house is because you have to lower the bottom in the winter and make sure it's sealed up for the winter, correct? And I got to put the ends up. Yeah. I got to put the ends up. And then even better for a hoop house in the winter is a double inflated poly because then...
[26:54] In the wintertime, if I start to warm it up in here and it's cold outside, we're going to get condensation that wants to drip down from the tent effect, I call it. Kind of like when you go camping, it's cold at night, you're in there breathing really heavy, and you wake up in the morning and there's all that condensation in your tent dripping back down. Yeah. So you would have another layer on top. The same thing happens in a greenhouse. Yeah, and the inflate — it gives us that insulation that we're trying to benefit from, and reducing the amount of condensation you'll get in the morning. And so that's why I've really had to coin the definition or terms winter mode greenhouses and summer mode greenhouses. Because again, greenhouses were invented for winter, and most suppliers and greenhouse manufacturers are giving you something that is winter mode. But cannabis is the real summer mode crop out of the whole situation. Sure, there's other crops people grow in the summertime, but if you think about cannabis, they are all in on the summer, and greenhouses are like a number one go-to these days. Yeah. They're fully stocked in the summer, and then they'll run other stuff in the winter, I've seen, to make up for just profit loss and everything.
[27:54] So that is actually a really good example... Not an example, but really good advice for all these growers listening. And I learned some stuff myself as well, so thank you so much.
[28:15] And that kind of brings me into my next question, which was it during this time when you were learning through the various sizes, shapes, and learning all these techniques that you discovered this light deprivation technique that you're so known for? Because that is one of the big things that you got very big in this community for, was you created these light deprivation techniques with greenhouses that were so revolutionary, and everyone just can't stop talking about them through the industry. So give us some insider details of what that was like. Was it kind of a moment where you were sitting there smoking like, "Huh, I wonder if I did this, will this s**t work?" Or was it like a chat with somebody else? What was it like discovering it? No, it was really living up in Humboldt. And so at the time in '92 when I moved up there, people were doing a technique called black boxing. And even in the mid-2000s, people in Canada still called it black boxing. There's been a lot of terms for light dep over the time, but black boxing might've been one of the first in a sense. And what that meant was is people were getting boxes that maybe a refrigerator, washer, or dryer size big box would come in, and in order to trick their plants into flowering, they would just go put the box over an individual plant.
[29:20] And so — That works. Yeah. And so originally, and how I found this stuff out is going to the Emerald Triangle, not only when I lived there, but afterwards when I was doing my greenhouse career. I spent a lot of time doing community events and speaking and hanging out and just smoking joints with people, and learning from old-timers and people in that community that really kind of pioneered everything. And so what they had done in the early '70s, and because at a certain point when they were growing cannabis in the Emerald Triangle, they hadn't started pulling the males yet. And so some of the first green bud cannabis coming out of the Emerald Triangle still had seeds in it. Somewhere along the way, in the late '60s to early '70s, someone started culling the males, and when they did that they had the seed-free bud, and it started becoming more popular, worth more money, and so on. And so — Less powdery and started becoming more trichome-covered.
[30:15] I do remember the "High Times" pictures and everything of all that. Yeah. "High Times" has definitely documented the evolution over time, and so that's a great point. And so basically, what they wanted to do is, because as most people know, when you plant your seeds, sometimes you get some males and sometimes you get some females, and the bummer part is that you might fill up your garden with seeds and plants, and then all of a sudden you start popping males, and you're like, "Oh, I'm down one plant. I'm down two plants. S**t, I'm down three." And if it's a really bad genetic lineup or whatever you're dealing with, you could have mostly males, and you're f****d, and you only have one female or something. So in order to navigate that, what the old-timers would do is they would sex their seeds by black boxing them. So they would take their small plants, take a smaller box or whatever size, put their plants in the dark for 24 hours one time, and then they would sex, and some plants sexed right away, and some plants took two weeks to sex. And that would kind of give them the leg up at the time to know, "Okay. Well, I'm planting all these out there, and it's a little bit more of an insurance policy."
[31:25] I know indoor growers, and I've been on a "Hash Church" talking to Sam the Skunk Man and some of those guys. Sam, yes. And I had done it indoors. I was trying to get my light dep ready, and I wanted to sex a bunch of seeds, and so I actually turned them to 12/12 for four or five days. This is before I got the memo. No, a bunch of them sexed, but a bunch of them went reverted, got all f****d up, and it wasn't until the "Hash Church" that said, "No, just..." I think he might have... Don't mark my words on this podcast, everyone. Maybe go back and check the "Hash Church." But it was either 12 hours of darkness, or it was 24 hours, but I did it way too long. And so the shorter amount of time was to sex the plants. And so then fast-forward to the '90s, and people started doing it to force flowering, not just to sex their plants. And a lot of people were just trying to beat the flood, beat the harvest. So if you were actually doing your black box run just in time to harvest two weeks before everyone else, you were capturing the better price of the market.
[32:26] But at the time, the cannabis was bad and didn't look good. The black boxing techniques and the way it was being done, and maybe it was the genetics. It was rough. It was nothing to write home about. It's that brick weed. Yeah. I was at a house, and I kind of learned about it, and I was like, "Cool story. Bye." And then turns around 2006 or '07, it all of a sudden is about to become my career. And so at that point, I started really going, "Okay, I need to pay more attention to this. Okay, people are doing 12 on, 12 off." Makes sense, things like that.
[33:05] But then we really had to define, and the old-timers in Humboldt also told me a trick on how to dep your plants without covering all night long, because most people, let's imagine, would cover their plants at 7:00 PM at night, uncover them at 7:00 AM. And in a basic hoop house like this, they're going to be suffocated all night. There's no fresh air coming in or anything like that. Maybe if you dug a tube underground, you could put a pipe underground to try to force some fresh air in — Oh, yeah, like some ventilation or something like that. Yeah, but it was really most people, what they did is they got up at midnight, and they'd burp their plants. They'd open the greenhouse, let it burp and then they'd close it again. And so then you got everybody going, "F**k light dep. I've got to work all night. I'm seven at night, midnight, 7:00 in the morning." There's just, "I'm not doing it," type of thing. And so what I was told is that if you take a lux meter, you can use an app on your phone, or just like photographers use the lumens. We're not necessarily trying to determine how powerful the sun is, but our eyes are more sensitive than a plant.
[34:05] And so when we see color in the morning, it doesn't mean the plants are awake just because we see a sliver of light coming up on the horizon. And so — It takes a certain amount of lumens to actually wake the plant up. Exactly. And so how do we figure that out? If our eyes see color and plants don't, do we look at the newspaper and say, "Okay, sunrise is at 6:15," and that's what we say our plants go by? No. It has to be a little bit more accurate. And so using the light meter, we could go out to the garden first thing in the morning, and we'd only have to do this at each round. We didn't have to do it every day. We were just setting up our times for that particular round, right? And so maybe May 1st, we're coming out here, and we're going to go first thing in the morning before the sun comes up and put our light meter out, and we're going to wait. And as soon as that light meter goes from zero to something, means the plants are awake. So the light meter might zero out and then go to one or go to 12 or jump from zero to 30. Whenever it jumps from zero to something, at that moment, we need to look at our clocks and go, "Okay. Well, 5:25 AM is my first available light for the garden.
[35:12] That's when my plants are awake." So in order to force the flowering and not f**k it up, we got to cover it in 12 hours, which means it's 5:25 PM. And that might mean that the sun's up pretty high. But we also prefer — I recommend using white exterior dep covers because that reflects the heat. The black encourages it; they don't suck it in. Yeah. So even though it seems a little bit early and the sun's out, if we close at 5:25, that's our 12 hours. Then we go out to the garden one last time in the evening to watch for the sun to go down. And when the light meter goes to zero, that's when we can uncover, and what is a tough pill for people to swallow is when it goes to zero, there's still enough light that you don't need a flashlight. You can actually come out here, no flashlight. You could even probably tend to your garden a little bit, water, maybe do a little plant trellising or maintenance because there's enough light for us as humans to do our thing, but according to a plant's eye, it's dark to them because the light meter says zero.
[36:15] And so basically we're only — It's like that dusky time of day or whatever — Exactly, when you can kind of see. And like I said, it's a tough pill for people to swallow because they're really focused on our eyes, and what we see as light and dark. But if we use instruments to measure it, it gives us a little bit more. And so when people go, "Okay, well, at 5:30 I got to cover my plants and uncover them at 8:50 or 9:00," that's like dinner time and bedtime, especially if you have kids. And so most of the time people are home, even if you have a 9:00 to 5:00, maybe you're home by 5:30. Throw it on just before you go to bed, take it off. You're done for the entire night. You don't have to go back out there till 5:25 PM the next day to dep it. And so the plants get to breathe all night. There's no suffocation.
[37:00] There's no condensation that builds up because we kept our plant temperatures in check from our diffused cover all day. We've kept our plant temps down, and plant temps don't have to be at a crazy number I'm looking for. If it's 100 degrees out here, our plant temps can be in the high 80s. In Oklahoma, I have customers, 104 degrees, their plant temps are 93. So all we're trying to do is get those plant temps low. Now with that, I wanted to ask a little snippet, not to cut you off. With those high temperatures with cannabis, do you like to use cover crops that are a little higher in CO2 emission, or are you not worried about CO2 because you have a lot of plants outside around your greenhouse? Because I know CO2 does help with cannabis as well, kind of taking in that heat stress and that light stress. What are some tips or tricks that you use in your greenhouse as well with the cover crops that if you do see your plants having some stress, what do you do next? Or do you just wait, kind of make sure that you get the cover crop in or the cover over a little sooner?
[37:56] Or are you going to try to put a fan on that plant? What are you going to do if you see a little stressed plant? A lot of times the stress in this type of a situation mostly will come from underwatering. And so a lot of people that are doing beds or bigger pots or things like that, especially with organic soil, historically speaking, most people over-water, and so the art of drying out is really where it's at. So my stressors typically come from when I miss a watering more than anything. Because I use a living soil, it's well-balanced. I don't have to do crazy feedings all the time, and I don't have to water twice a day or three times a day. It's kind of an easy way of growing for the most part. And so most of my stressors come from getting s****y clones or something like that. It's a pretty stress-free environment as long as the soil's good and the waters aren't missed. We glide right through it, and I get a lot of feedback from people about the same thing because most people have been growing in a greenhouse that was either sealed up and encouraged solar gain, or you can have a greenhouse like this that's opened up, ends open, sides up, and have too clear of a cover.
[39:05] And what happens with a clear cover is more exposure. More exposure heats up the solar panels, the leaves. As the leaves heat up, they have to sweat to stay cool, and so you get condensation in a hoop house on a day and the greenhouse is kind of opened up, it's a result of plant sweat.
[39:21] When you pull your dep curtain — And is that a big way people get botrytis and bud rot and various things? Definitely. They get too-hot of plant temps. They pull their blackout cover on, condensation forms immediately. Condensation is a result of plant transpiration, but you can't see a plant sweat. You can't see a plant dripping sweat like we can off our forehead, right? How we see plant sweat is the result of it sticking on the top and dripping back down. And so anytime people have condensation in their greenhouse, daytime, dep time, or whatever, their plants have been overheating, and they need to either get more opening up, natural ventilation, the proper greenhouse cover, and maybe some circulation fans. I'm able to avoid circulation fans because I get enough fresh air and I don't really worry about that kind of thing.
[40:12] But plant temps can go down three to five degrees. Now does that also come in line with the way you set your greenhouse? Because I know if you set your greenhouse a specific way, it will help air flow if you do have a property that is the right. Is that something you take into consideration when you set up your greenhouse? Definitely. There are some windier areas than others, and so somebody might have one side wall that's only open two feet, and the other side might be open four feet because they get a good burst coming from the west side or the north side or whatever. So take in account to wind and making sure that that isn't too much because we can get into areas where there's too much wind. And so wind is definitely our friend, but we got to be able to protect the plants. And so what I like to say about greenhouses is they're not necessarily a controlled environment as much as they are a supportive environment, and it's up to us to figure out how to create that support, so ultimately the plants can thrive and do their thing. Because we're not just growing plants too, by the way. We're growing terpenes and cannabinoids, and those things can easily get zapped away, melted away. UV, things like that, can disrupt its production and disrupt its quality and longevity.
[41:15] And so the supportive environment is really, in my opinion, the way to, I guess, control, if that makes sense. No, it definitely makes sense. I like that. So basically you're letting the plant do its thing while you maintain the environment around it for it to be happy. You're creating that controlled environment and a structure that keeps it safe during this crazy environment wherever you're growing. Because for those listening, we have to take into consideration because you are a teacher, and that leads me into my next question about your actual cultivation journey and teaching and going in the classrooms and stuff. What has it been like stepping into that world of teaching various growers from around the world? How has it been traveling to, I think I saw Macedonia or somewhere over in Spain that you went and consulted, and then you've traveled abroad several other places. So what are those experiences like coming from your state and your comfortability of growing?
[42:15] Is it a completely different environment, or are most of these environments relatively similar? Or has there ever been a place where you're like, "Damn, dude, this is the hardest place I've set up a greenhouse yet"?
[42:26] Yeah. No, for sure. My education side of things, I think started or came about when I was with the greenhouse company. And with legalization, more and more greenhouse companies are jumping in. The competitive nature of things was really kicking in, and it was getting tough out there. And so what I decided to do to try to bring attention to the company was doing the public speaking. And so, I really had, I feel like the stuff that we've discussed isn't something that you hear at a lot of trade shows or people speaking about. A lot of times it's business stuff. So I wanted to bring the cultivation aspect and maybe the greenhouse aspect and what we've learned and explain a little bit of something new, I guess you could say, or from a different angle. And so basically I did the public speaking and then interned at Oaksterdam University. I hit them up, and we created the greenhouse class. And so that educational piece started five or six years ago, and I still do that to this day. But with the consulting company, it really turned into the on-site education or coaching.
[43:30] And it could be from anywhere from helping people with their greenhouse design and picking the right supplier and greenhouse design for that particular area or method of growing that they're trying to do that supports it the best, all the way through that to the rescue, I call it, where people are having a tough time. They can't dial everything in, and they really just need somebody to kind of help them out. And I don't know all the answers, but if I don't know the answers, I usually know who does. And so I just try to bring me and my Rolodex to the table and try to get them all the help that they need. And it doesn't come from me. Like I said, when I bring my Rolodex, I'm letting the best of the best speak on behalf of those things. People that are either behind those companies or behind that technology. I don't like to be a middleman. I'm not really trying to sell anything as much as I'm trying to educate people so they can make their own decisions. And whatever decisions they go with, I usually can support them on that. But again, there's pros and cons to everything, and that's what we try to flush out.
[44:34] I like how you approach that because that's one thing I always try to talk about on every podcast is just the staying humble and humility or having humility as a grower because I think too many growers in this industry think they know everything, and it's absolutely right. You might not know everything, but that's really amazing that you're bringing that Rolodex to the table of, "Hey, if I don't know this, I'm going to call somebody who literally this is all they do, and they're going to tell you exactly what you need." So that's amazing, and I think it's awesome that you've been able to go and public speak and help so many people, which I wanted to ask. Has there been any maybe specific moments or a specific person that you tutored, mentored, or helped in a greenhouse that you, that memory or that specific moment really stuck with you because you watched them kind of get the information, it clicked in their eyes, you saw them kind of pick it up, and you saw the application kind of take place? Has there been any moments in the classroom like that or in the field? I get little bits of that a lot over the course of time. I've put out so many videos with different entities and things over time and interviews that I just got a DM last night saying, "Without your help or without a lot of the you and some of the other people out here as info, we wouldn't be able to do what we're doing." And so I'm really humbled by all that because I feel like I've just been doing what I needed to do, and I feel like I've just been basically trying to be out here and create something that can provide for my family because, at the end of the day, this is my passion, but I do got to pay the bills.
[46:06] And so that's the tough part is following your passion, creating a business, monetizing all these things, but at the same time realizing that you've made an impact on things. And that's the toughest pill for me to swallow is to realize that I've made some kind of an impact or done something. But it's nice to get those DMs and to be at events and people tap me on the shoulder and say, "Thanks for something," or there's been some piece of something in one of those videos that clicked with somebody that made the difference in their farm. And yeah, I work face-to-face with a lot of farmers and farms in general, and a lot of people see me go to a lot of these bigger farms and doing bigger things nowadays. And my heart's still with the small farmers. I still deal and have a lot of farms in the Emerald Triangle I consult with. And the bigger farms really, though, I don't go to work with the corporate structure. I don't go there to sit at the boardroom and help make decisions. I'm put as boots on the ground to go work with the head grower and the cultivation team most of the time.
[47:04] And a lot of times the head growers are the people that really want to grow better cannabis, and they can't figure out sometimes where these little hang-ups are. And so it's all the little things. And when we dial in a lot of the little things and people turn around and do look at you and go, "Holy st." You know what I mean? And a lot of times it comes up against the wall. Not everybody believes me or realizes, or I'm not saying I'm always right either. I'm like, "Have we tried this? Should we try that? Have you done this? Have you looked at this? Have you analyzed this?" And a lot of times the analytics that people do are post-harvest. If you don't analyze the recipe, if you don't analyze the drip and the drains, it's called, when it comes to the hydroponic systems and just evaluating your recipes, checking everything all the time, it's hard to really know what's happening until the plants show some weirdness and you go, "Oh st, something's wrong." And by then you're up against the wall. We need to be a little bit more proactive and have the skills to be able to hopefully forecast a little bit. And so I try to bring some of that to the table.
[48:07] And really the teams end up taking off and making it happen. All I do is just kind of give that little push of advice or thought to the process and then here I am going, "Wow, we did that as a team." And it's an amazing feeling because I'm here for the plant. I'm not here — I love the paycheck, don't get me wrong, but I love helping people help their plants. I love seeing cannabis that's having a tough time turn around and do better. That's what's in it for me, is to be able to see this s**t, see all the rest of the teams go, "Wow," and to go to farms that have been like, the morale can be down. Even the trimmers are bummed when they're dealing with s****y cannabis at a farm. You'd be surprised at how the morale is boosted when trimmers are trimming dank weed. It doesn't just happen in the farm with the growers and the people dealing with it. It trickles all the way through the organization.
[49:03] And so that's the funnest part, is to see people get a kick out of cannabis, and not even people that smoke it. They just work with it and enjoy it, and they know when better is better. That's awesome. And I love that too, because I think it's great hearing your humility towards your own superstardom in the cannabis industry. Because you totally do have some stardom in this industry, and I think it's amazing. Well, thank you. And you are very humble about it, and it's really nice to actually sit back and listen to someone who actually — I can very much tell you have a passion for this. You got in it to help people. Yes, there is money. I have to pay bills myself, the same thing. I really started the podcast because I wanted to be able to help share some of the knowledge I had, whether I know completely rounded, and if I don't, I'm going to keep learning and tell you guys. But I wanted to bring interviews, like guests like yourself, to the public to allow you to share your passion, allow you to teach and open up those topics, and allow the viewers listening to go and find you and go experience your services or your mentorship if they go seek your service through consulting.
[50:27] Which my next question kind of leads into, I guess, feeling of stardom or more so of what it has been like up and coming in this industry and being invited on judges' panels of the Emerald Cup to talk about pesticides on stage. What was that like in 2017? It was crazy. None of those people got back to me. We're supposed to check in and kind of make a little bit of a game plan, meet each other, and stuff like that. So it was the first panel that I thought was really important, but at the same time, all those important people on the panel weren't replying to my email. And so I was totally freaked out about that particular panel. But we met right before we went on stage and kind of went over it a little bit and talked, and we got through it. But it was really humbling. Like I said, I kind of got into the cannabis community way back when I was early, and so I'm surrounded by people that I feel like are way smarter than me and have way more to bring to the table and whatnot. So, for me, it's just the little guy or whatever that kind of just got into this and was trying to make my way.
[51:25] Like I said, sometimes I've got to pinch myself, and other times I go, "I don't even know what I'm doing here." "I'm just going to get through this." But that's been the great thing, is that we're all learning together and whatnot. And we all might specialize in one thing or another, but none of us knows everything, and so that's what makes it still a good community. Even though the industry kind of overshadows the community, the community's still here at heart, and this is a community event that you're putting together now with these educational pieces and things like that. I appreciate that. I think it genuinely helps a lot of people. More people are growing now than ever, and there's not enough of us going around to be able to help everybody. And so the more people that can get online and find some factual info that resonates well with them, that gives them a good peace of mind, is really going to be great for a lot of people to grow their own cannabis, especially.
[52:21] Maybe people won't grow their own to fill their own or to completely supply their own of what they need, but I think everybody deserves a chance to give it a shot. Absolutely. And I really appreciate that. Thank you so much, because that's been my goal. And I think that's awesome hearing that you kind of stumbled into the Emerald Cup stage and you kind of got through it. No, that's really cool. I love that video. It was great topics. You guys had a lot of amazing information. If you guys have not seen that, check it out. He has a whole panel on pesticides in 2017, talking with the judges. It's really great. But yes, absolutely. I think there are more people who need to start teaching education. I see a lot of big platforms not really sharing education. They'll make a video, this is how you grow weed, and it's literally just really big bassy music, and it says nothing on education.
[53:17] And that's what led me to make the channel, make the podcast, was because you know what? I want to break this down. I want to break down why simple sugars are important, why carbs are important. Why are we feeding our plants calcium or magnesium, and helping those novice growers that — a lot of times, most of my novice growers are usually in the age range of 55 and up, and they're trying to get into it because they do want to get off a dispensary bill. So it is definitely rewarding, and I know you probably get messages daily of people saying, "Hey, you've helped me." And I'm sure through your time and travels, you've met so many people that have impacted this industry. Which leads me into my next question for you, which is what are some of the coolest stories, you could pick two stories or one story, that you share with some of the various industry leaders?
[54:07] Because I did check your website, and you have some pretty sweet pictures with people like Nikki Lastreto, Swami Chaitanya, Farmer Tom, the Pot Brothers at Law, Ed Rosenthal. So what are some of the fun stories that you have, or pick a couple that you'd like to share. Let's see. I've got a lot of great stories and things that I've been through. Kevin Jodrey's always got great stories, and I've been a part of some of the fun things that he's done. But I think maybe you bring up Swami. The most recent story with them was the Emerald Cup this year for judging flowers. I'm an Emerald Cup flower judge, or I have been the last four years. Nikki and Swami are the only ones that have been there since day one. And so it's a sun-grown cup, which means everything can be in greenhouses or outdoor. There's no indoor that's been allowed this entire time, and so this is the first year that they've allowed indoor entries.
[55:02] And so that was cool. And so they had a few more judges this year than normal, and because of COVID, we couldn't meet like we normally do, but we did have one in-person meeting where we all got together and got to get our samples and kind of meet up. And if most of you guys know Swami, he's really known as an outdoor grower, and if you look at all of his videos and pictures, he's outdoor, not even a greenhouse. And so when you see Swami go over to the indoor table and him and Nikki try to figure out how to judge indoor flowers, it was almost like he didn't know what to do. But the final judges meeting, because the rest were on the phone, he actually had an appreciation for indoor flowers and got to get a little bit more intimate and know more about it, and it was a funny story, though, to see him kind of just go, "Indoor flowers? I don't even..." I don't know if he smoked much indoor, and so he got very exposed to indoor from this Emerald Cup, and his appreciation, he said, grew for indoor flower. I don't think that he's going to be buying any lights soon, but there has been, over the course of time, a love-hate relationship with indoor versus outdoor and that kind of thing.
[56:12] And then the other story that's kind of funny is that Ed Rosenthal has been around a long time. And I have bumped into Ed Rosenthal many times. Really? Yeah, I bumped into him quite a few times, and then he teaches at Oaksterdam as well, and so do I. Oh, that's right. Yes. And so our names float around. When I was with the greenhouse company, we sponsored one of the pages in his books. So I had talked to him over the years about a greenhouse that he was going to get that he didn't get. He used to come up to our trade show booths and whisper in my ear, "You're not going to have to do this for much longer," because he was coming out with some light that would avoid you having to pull tarps anymore. And that never really came to fruition. It was some type of red light, and I go, "Well, can you use the light any time to veg?" And he goes, "No, just in August. It helps force the flower." I was like, "Cool, you're not wiping me out of s**t." But I had all these little interactions, you know what I mean? I thought maybe I was familiar. He's familiar to me. But again, he's Ed Rosenthal. So here we are in 2019 before the pandemic, and Ed and I are keynote speakers in Arkansas at a cannabis trade show.
[57:16] We're both on the front page of the program back to back. And I go to the bar that night, and I was going to go over and give Ed a dab. I snuck my Puffco Peak into the Arkansas bar, super low pro, and I'm going to go over in the bar and give Ed a dab under the table. And I don't know if he had a few drinks or what, but he looked at me, he goes, "Who are you?" Or, "I don't know you," or something, and just kind of ran into this weird whatever, and he had no clue
In this feature-length episode of The Homegrown Podcast, Kronic interviews Eric Brandstad, a fourth-generation farmer from San Joaquin County, California — where his family has farmed since 1862 — and a greenhouse and light-deprivation expert with over 29 years in the industry. Eric shares his path from row crops and orchards to Humboldt County in the early '90s and the Grateful Dead scene, then 11 years managing Forever Flowering Greenhouses and working with Cravo on some of the first blackout systems built for cannabis.
The conversation gets practical fast: why sealed greenhouses struggle in hot, humid summers, how diffused covers scatter infrared to keep plant temps down, condensation and the 'tent effect', and the history of light dep from old-school 'black boxing' to forcing flower. Eric explains how to time your dep with a light meter rather than the clock, how watering stress and plant temps affect a dep crop, and how pulling tarps and poor airflow can lead to botrytis and bud rot. He also covers teaching the greenhouse class at Oaksterdam, speaking and judging at the Emerald Cup, stories with Swami and Nikki, California's falling prices and cost of production, and his top advice for growers: vet your people and your equipment before you invest.
Topics
Intro — Meet Eric Brandstad 0:05
Eric's Journey into Cannabis 1:09
Growing Up on a Fourth-Generation Family Farm 4:42
The Grateful Dead Scene & Deadhead Community 10:58
Humboldt County in the Prohibition Era 13:52
From Contractor to Forever Flowering Greenhouses 17:33
Cravo & the First Cannabis Blackout Systems 21:30
Why Sealed Greenhouses Struggle in Summer 23:34
Greenhouse Covers — Diffusion, Infrared & Heat 24:35
Condensation & the Tent Effect 26:54
The Origins of Light Dep — Black Boxing 28:15
How to Time Your Dep with a Light Meter 33:05
Plant Temps & Watering Stress 37:00
Pulling the Dep Curtain — Botrytis & Bud Rot 39:21
Greenhouse Orientation & Airflow 40:12
Consulting, Oaksterdam & Greenhouse Education 42:26
The Emerald Cup — Pesticide Panel & Flower Judging 50:27
Industry Stories — Swami, Nikki, Ed Rosenthal & Tommy Chong 54:07
Biggest Mistakes & Business Lessons 59:31
California Prices & Cost of Production 64:56
Eric's Biggest Success Story 67:41
Advice — Vet Your People & Equipment 73:01
Where to Find Eric & Cultivars With Character 75:16
Outro 77:09