🐺 West Coast Cannabis Exodus, Wolfman's Exploits, and Overseas Cannabis Trade, with Sean and...

10:29AM Jan 29, 2025

Speakers:

Jordan River

Keywords:

West Coast cannabis

craft market collapse

strain talk

cultivation tips

cutting edge solutions

Wolf Man

international trade

cannabis genetics

home grow rights

industry challenges

passion for plants

cannabis industry advice

Colombia expansion

cannabis events

Greetings cultivators from around the world. Jordan River here back with more. Growcast for your listening pleasure. Today we have brand new guest, Sean from cutting edge, plus longtime friend Wolf Man. I love this episode, me and Sean and Wolf Man sit down and talk about everything that wolf man's been up to lately, what's happening on the west coast, the kind of the collapse of the craft market. Talk about old school stories, some strain talk, some cultivation, talk a little bit of everything in this episode. It's a great one, folks, before we jump in though, AC infinity, the best grow gear in the game code grow cast one five saves you 15% at AC infinity.com they've got the thick, sturdy tents with the thick canvas and the thick tent poles, the best tents in the game. They've got the fans that you need, the inline fans, the cloud Ray oscillating fans. Now again, code grow cast one, five for 15% off the best quality grow gear you can find. They've also got lights and scissors and pots and hangers and so much more. But when it comes to the fans and the tents, there's no one else out there that does it better. The inline fans, the cloud lion series are fantastic. The S series is the simple. Series still comes with a 10 speed fan controller. And the T series comes with a controller that lets you automatically dial in your temperature and humidity. AC infinity.com, code, grow cast, one, five for 15% off. They even have grow kits. They come with everything you need to expand. Get that second veg tent. Get that second flower tent you've been thinking about save with the kit and use code grow cast one five, which now works on those kits, saving you extra money with the best gear in the game. Acinity.com, they've been our partners for years. We brought these guys along a long time ago. They've really, really expanded and done a great job. Acinity.com, code, grow cast, one, five. All right, let's get to it with Sean and Wolf Man. Thank you for listening and enjoy the show. Hello, podcast listeners. You are now listening to grow cast, I'm your host, Jordan River, and I want to thank you for tuning in today. We are all over the place. Make sure you're subscribed to grow cast on Spotify, on whatever app you listen to, tune in for more amazing cultivation content. I do appreciate you guys being here. See all the action that we're up to at growcast podcast.com/action there you will find the membership and the seeds and classes and meetups. It's all there. Thank you for your support, everybody. The grow cast universe continues to chug along and move forward. Speaking of which, that is exactly what we're doing today. We're getting an update on a good friend in the Grow cast universe and much more you guys know and love, wolf man. He's been very, very busy. If you're part of membership, you've seen him on the Grow cast TVs recently talking a little bit about what he's been up to, but today we're going to catch up with him, and we're going to see his exciting new opportunities, as well as introduce a new guest. So let's go ahead and just introduce an old friend and a new one. What's up Wolf Man and Wolf man's buddy from cutting edge solutions, Sean, how you guys doing today? Doing great. Man,

great to be here. Yeah. Super excited to be on the pod. Thanks for having me, and stoked to be here with Wolf

Man, hell yeah, brother. Super appreciate it. So this is very exciting news. Wolf Man, you are a jack of all trades, and you've been all over the industry, and you've talked about before, though your affinity for cutting edge and now you are currently blah, blah, blah. You're working over there. Now you're a cutting edge Wolf. That's really cool, man. You want to talk about that for just a

second? Oh, yeah, no.

It's been fun. I mean, I've, I've had pretty much every job in the, well, almost every job in the industry, besides in manufacturing. And now I get to check that off the list. Yeah, I've been an advocate and a supporter and a user and more or less a fanboy of cutting edge for, I don't know, 18 years or so, like, almost since the beginning or almost since the incarnation of all of this. So, yeah, it's, I don't know, I was thinking about this earlier. I mean, sometimes when you get to see, like, you know, behind the curtains, you lose a little bit of luster for things. But it's, you know, it's still it's still amazing. It's still awesome. There's, you know, so much to learn and do. And this is the first time since being in Oregon, I feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be, damn

right now. So I love it. I'm excited.

That's super cool, man. Super excited to see that, to see that come to fruition. And you're right all those years ago putting me on the bayside Garden Supply program and the CES base man, that's fucking that is nostalgia right there. I love it. I love to see it. So let's introduce Sean to the audience. Sean, thank you for coming on the show. Super appreciate it. Can you share for the first time. Listeners here a little bit about yourself, what brought you into cultivation, and how you met our boy, Wolf Man,

for sure. So my name is Sean, by the way. Sean piccher Elli. I'm the CEO of cutting edge solutions. My uncle John, who many people know, is the owner of cutting edge and he is also. My uncle, so he's the one that brought me into cultivation in kind of a trial by fire scenario. I grew up in Massachusetts, and, you know, born to an Irish Catholic family, went to Catholic High School, and when I was 14, that first summer break, my uncle asked if I wanted to come work at cutting edge in California. And I said, Sure, why not? And for some reason, my mother let me get on a plane by myself to go see Uncle John. Hell yeah. I think she regrets that decision now, but I showed up to the factory. It was beautiful, California, sunny day. And, you know, early June, we went to Harmony festival. I was playing around the warehouse a bit, and after about a week of being in Santa Rosa, John said, All right, well, we're not actually going to be working at the warehouse this summer. We're going to the ranch. And we drove up to Humboldt. We went to Big Five and bought some camping gear, and he brought me few hours into the woods outside of Willow Creek, 5000 feet up a hill, to 100 acre parcel in the middle of nowhere. And he said, you know, this is where your tent is going to be, and here's a shovel if you need to use the bathroom. And it was great. It was an amazing experience. So I show up, there's, there's four greenhouses built, and we're talking two hours from town. We're way out there. And we, we built a couple more greenhouses. We had five different gorilla gardens. We probably had clear over 10,000 plants. And that was, that was the first time I'd seen a cannabis plant I had been smoking since I was like 12. John bought me a bomb for my middle school graduation. And you know, that's kind of how the family rolls. Legend, well, at least my West Coast family, but yeah, that, that experience right there, changed my life. Was out in that tent for four months, watering, pruning, transplanting, doing everything. And the end of the summer, he told me, Go finish high school, and when you're done, you can come back out and do whatever you want to do. So finished high school and moved out to Portland, Oregon, got a degree in environmental science, and from the second I moved to Portland, I kept growing. Back in Massachusetts, I had a couple plants in my house. My mom hated it, so it was kind of like gorilla style backyard, throw a couple seeds out and make some stuff happen. But when I moved to Portland, I opened up a 30 lighter, like, as soon as I got there, in a warehouse, and had that for like, five years, and then when I graduated high school, or, sorry, college, I became the Northwest sales rep for cutting edge. So I kind of applied my my schooling, my growing experience, to to the industry, and really found a home in the

Northwest doing sales.

That is killer man, that that state of Jefferson, am I right?

Yeah, that's what's where we are now. I mean, Portland's a little

that's too far north, you're right, yeah, that's at the border. They want to be Cascadia and have

this whole liberal mindset. So, yeah, we're in Southern Oregon. Now. Love it. State of Jefferson's where we're at, for

sure. Yeah, bro, I remember that baby. I don't know if we've talked about this much on on the air, but the the state of Jefferson that never existed. They wanted to make a state out of Northern California and Southern Oregon, and you still see people fly in that flag. And you're right. It's a different mentality, man, that's really cool, that you are so deeply involved from such a young age that is super cool. And I've been meaning to get Uncle John on the show. He's your actual uncle. When you say Uncle John, you actually mean it, yeah. So for sure, he's an uncle. He's

Uncle John to everybody, but to me, He's my uncle John.

Your uncle, Uncle John. So yeah, because, you know, I ran into him at a recent event. And man, does he have some stories from those old school, NorCal humble state of Jefferson days. That's really neat that you continue that legacy there at cutting edge and just in the in, in the industry. So, so how did you meet Wolfman? That's

it. That's a great question.

So John has known wolfman much longer than myself, and just a little bit yeah, in a decade or so, decade or Yeah, and they met, you guys. Met humble, I assume,

yes, I was working at North Coast horticulture supply when I met John, yeah, when he was still delivering home tea and the 20 gallon jugs in the back of the white van,

Yep, yeah,

hum tea, was this a compost tea that he was bringing the hum tea, yeah,

it was, it was that he would brew it like at the facility, and then he would deliver it to stores, and then, you know, you threw your aerators in it, and then we would sell gallon jugs to customers. And that was. At the days before people were doing the kits so where you could have, like, you know, take it home and brew brew for yourself. But it was just like a ready to go tea. I remember that whether we gallon jug or you'd bring your own jug and just you'd be good to go.

I remember that the brewer out front. Wow, the hum tee, okay, so right on. So you met John first, that makes sense,

yeah. And then so I came back to cutting edge just three years ago. I went and did my own thing for a little bit, and moved to Santa Rosa, worked the factory, and then we moved the company to Oregon a year ago, and when we moved up here, crazy move, by the way, huge story about that, but that's, that's maybe for another day. But I was at, I was at a couple local retail stores just saying hi, you know, reintroducing myself they. I used to be the sales rep for them, and now I'm coming in as a different person, as you know, Sean, the CEO running the company. Nice to meet y'all. And I ran into Wolf Man at one of these retail stores in the Rogue Valley. At the time he was he was employed with those guys, and just kind of hit it off from the get go, and that spot was only about 10 minutes away from our current facility. And, yeah, we only got to link up a few times, and and then we were growing so much over the last couple years. We definitely needed some help in a lot of different realms. So that's kind of how we met, just six to eight months ago, maybe yeah. And so yeah, and now we're, now we're grooving, yeah, yeah. I was, I was between gigs, and yeah, I was just reaching out to everybody I knew in the industry. And yeah, Sean, Sean gave me a shot, and I'm

digging it, so hopefully I'm here for the long haul. Gave

you a shot. Yeah, man, of course, you're the you're the legendary Wolf. I'm very, very excited about this collab. That's really, really cool, like I've said on this show before. My first ever grow out there in Humboldt County, aside from, like, failing as a 15 year old planting in the marsh behind my house, not knowing anything like my first real grow out there in Humboldt, under the tutelage of Wolf Man and people he introduced me to and on that cutting edge solution base. So that's really quite serendipitous, coming all the way around here on the podcast. I'm sure everything is super full circle, right? I'm sure everything has changed drastically since I was there in 2015, or what have you. Can you guys give me a kind of realistic, unbiased estimation of what's happening in that state of Jefferson and beyond the California and Oregon markets you know what's going on? As far as craft cultivators, I know that they were being driven out and, you know, hard times falling upon them are the MSOs taking over. What's up with prices? What's happening in the in the West Coast cannabis market right

now? So I spent a lot of time in in Santa Rosa and north of there, over the last three years prior to moving to Oregon, really got a feel for for what was going on in NorCal. And after moving here, really saw the the changes happening here. So NorCal, unfortunately, the last couple years has just been the demise of the legacy farmer, right? I mean, John and I still have a license on our property in Humboldt, the one that I originally grew on at 14. But we've never, never grown a plant there with our license, because many factors. But we see a lot of people in that same boat. I believe the statistic is, like last year, only 25% of license holders in California actually cultivated so you assume most of those people that did not cultivate are legacy farmers, and you see really large conglomerates that are interstate companies moving in buying up old grows or or rundowns or, you Know, foreclosures and just pumping out massive volumes of cheap flour that tastes like shit, and I've seen it left and right in California, and I've seen the same thing in Oregon. When Oregon first went legal, I was living in Portland. Some of the best cannabis I've ever smoked came out of dispensaries. Now I can't go into a dispensary without walking out. I've gone in and, you know, it's a little different in Oregon, you can see jars, you can smell the flower. And I've walked into places and just literally turn around, walked out because of what qualities on the shelf. But I think a lot of that is coming from the corporate conglomerates. But in the last two years, I have seen a shift. So just the other day, I saw Pure Leaf is pulling out of Oregon period. They're removing all operations. Cookies just closed a defensery in Oklahoma City, the first one they've ever closed. All these big companies are starting to go about. The Wayside, and I always like to to compare what's happening in our industry to what's happening with craft beer. The best example that I can think of is Lagunitas. Lagunitas made some of the best West Coast IPA for decades. Amazing. Beer

tastes great. The hops

were perfect, but now they're owned by Heineken, and that stuff is disgusting. You see the corporate the corporate takeover means reduce input cost, reduce quality, sell it at the same price, and use that brand that you just acquired to push your

flour or your beer.

I haven't drank lacinitas In three years, and tiny can acquired them. It's disgusting. And I see the same thing happening in the cannabis market in Oregon, where the craft farmers are almost coming back, because people are sick of that brown wheat. And dispensary, who cares if it's 37% THC, show me a terpene report. It's point five. Get out of here. If you're not pushing 3% terpenes or more, that flower is not even usable. So I don't know. I've definitely seen a change over the last couple of years, and here in Oregon, specifically, when we first moved up here, there were 10s of 1000s of acres of illegal black market. And you know, we can go into the politics of that, whatever you want to call it, cannabis, being grown, and most of it was cartel weed using two part bases that maybe aren't even supposed to be used on anything other than an ornamental crop. People just using these heavy Chem salts on cannabis and growing 200 acres of ice cream cake and then flooding the market with $300 depths. Well, that's not sustainable. You know, people can only push so many of those packs back to New York City before New York City says we want what we had four

years ago. So we've, we've

seen a lot of those farms fail, a lot of them get busted and and the people that are still hanging on

are doing really well,

right? I mean, only the strong survive in this market that's that's wild about the cartel grows, and I know that's always been an issue, especially with that part of the world. Do you have any insight into that? You see, is it better now than it was 10 years ago on the quote, cartel grow front?

Well, it's funny, because that kind of segues into another topic. So I would say, you know, 10 years ago, the cartels were growing here and selling here, or they were moving stuff from Mexico to here, but prices were cheap in Mexico. Quality was average across the board everywhere. And nowadays, pounds in Mexico City are $2,500 people are growing really good cannabis in Mexico. So I think a lot of the cartels are actually leaving here, because the cost of production doesn't make sense. And with local sheriff agencies cracking down, I mean, Jackson County, where we are, you should see the sheriff station. They've got brand new helicopters, brand new, like blacked out SUVs left and right. They've got their own wood chippers. They've got a cannabis eradication department, so they're going after the cartels and putting the pressure on them. So basically, they're going back to Mexico because our economy is so screwed up here, too, they can make more money in Mexico growing weed. There's no point to have a grow here and sell the weed back to Mexico or even here, wow, that's what do you think?

No, that makes

a lot of sense. I mean, once, yeah, once you're once, it's easier to smuggle it across the border, and you don't have to worry about the legal side of things, release the law enforcement, or you can actually have them in your pocket, and then you're closer to home, it's a lot safer. But, yeah, I've seen some of the similar things where, like a lot of the other craft growers that are hanging on that, you know, they're doing everything in house. It's the only way to survive. And you have to, you know, do everything yourself. The Long gone are the days of having, you know, 2030 employees just run around the hill doing whatever they do. So you just gotta, you know, you're down to like you and you know, your partner, you and your significant other, maybe, like one or two other people doing everything. That's the only way to do it. But yeah, it's,

yeah, like Sean was saying the last couple years, with the crackdown of local law enforcement, and just with prices tanking, and the hemp thing kind of going by the wayside, because that was another, another way to get around growing acre upon acres. You could, you know, get your hemp license, and, you know, were they going to test? Maybe, maybe not. Or you do, you know, you do the donut. We have hemp on the outside and weed on the inside. And once the plants touch, the inspectors aren't going to go like Trump into the center of the patch to check that plant. We're just going to check the ones on the outside. So. They recently replaced the the person that was in charge of doing hemp site inspections in the in the Southern Oregon region. That person has been replaced. And not sure if he got indicted or what exactly, but he was definitely taking money on the side to show that that 200 acres of wedding cake was actually him, and it was wedding cake all day. So so it was really lacks for a long time, and now that there's more regulation on it, the county will just come in and seize your property, seize all your guns, your money, and then if you're there, they're going to deport you or put you in prison. So the ramifications are much, much higher than they were if you get caught. Jeez, man,

yeah, I know now I think they're also like you as a property owner, can get in trouble even if you have a lease to someone. So if someone you lease your property to someone, and they're growing and they get busted, the state or the county can come back and actually, like, go after you and take your property for taking paperwork and, like, the legal lease or rental agreement to protect yourself. Because, yeah, those that was another thing that I knew a lot of people did back in the days, when you get sick of growing yourself, you know you can rent that your property to somebody else, and they can do everything, and you're somewhat insulated. But, you know, things are, things are changing.

Jesus, that's wild. Man. I never knew it would be such a such so problematic these types of things, you know, the problems we face now, I can only imagine what we're going to face, you know, down the road. Interesting. What you said about the the MSOs kind of reaching their breaking point and the tide pulling back. I really, I'm really going to think on that and continue to observe. We have a whole big thing on cura leaf planned. I'm so excited about that. So so stay tuned. Listeners. Are you a fan of grow cast? Of course you are. Well, have you heard about our membership program, the order of cultivation open now this week at growcast podcast.com/membership if you love this show, you are going to love grow cast membership. We have a ton of bonus content. Every single week, we do a web show on Wednesday night called Grow cast TV. It's the greatest show in cultivation. I'm in the member discord every single day. Mary Beth Sanchez will solve any plant problems you have. Mary Beth is basically exclusively hanging out in our membership. Plus you'll see a bunch of guests of this show. Steve raisner is hanging out in their rooted leaf is hanging out in their breeders. You hear about on the show, our membership is the core community of the Grow cast universe. And I love all the members, all the moderators, like they are my own children, because they comprise this positive group of growers. We have the amas. You can ask us anything we will solve your garden problems. You get members only discounts, not only on grow cast seed, co seeds, but on products you love, like Dino, Myco, rain, science, grow bags and more. It's really a tight knit family of positive growers, and I am very, very proud of the community that we've built. So if you want to get in on the action, get discounts on classes and products and seeds, and come to the members only meetups and get in on the live streams and the giveaways and all the community go to grow cast podcast.com/membership, we're open this week. You can check it out. I appreciate all you listeners, and I super appreciate every single one of you members. We just finished up the community Pheno hunt, so we're distributing those seeds as we speak. Stay tuned for more grow alongs. More giveaways. We're doing it big in membership. Don't miss out, everybody. Grow, cast, podcast.com/membership, the order of cultivation. I'll see you there, everyone, let me. Let me drill down on something here, because you are mentioning the the, you know, fields of ice cream cake. I love talking about strains, and specifically how kind of markets drift towards and and tend to have tendencies towards certain cultivars. What's being grown right now? I know you probably see a bunch of grows with the cutting edge solution, what? What on the West Coast is hot right now? Or is there no one hot thing, and it's just kind of scattered over all these different poly hybrids?

Yeah, I mean, that's, that is kind of the thing. The last four or five years, I can't even keep up with the new strain names, right? You know, people, people are doing all these different breeding projects themselves, and we work with a lot of breeders that are doing really good work. But when you get to a, you know, a retail level, a wholesale level, I don't even trust half the string names anymore, right? Like, pink Jesus. Like, what is that? You know,

what am I working with here? It's interesting. You said, right, the death of the legacy grower, because there is also the death of the legacy breeder. I feel that's the simultaneous story that's happening you talk about NorCal. And first of all, there's literally people who have passed away since then, who did a bunch of work and are now no longer here. And then there's all these people who moved to a different state, they moved to Oklahoma, they got out of the game entirely, and now they do fucking, you know, investing, or whatever it is. It's kind of a crapshoot with the genetics. Yeah.

Yeah, but at the same time, there's people doing good work. You know, in NorCal specifically, we worked with finest, they're one of the largest tissue culture nurseries in North America. They're putting out really good work. Also, Christian, who was with finest, he moved over to concept nurseries now, and he's doing really good work there. And then, you know, a lot of the people that are still doing

great genetics work, they don't have a company, you know,

they don't have a they don't have a name brand. Some of them are on the BM side, or the free market side, as I like to call

it, and they're doing great things. But I was

joking around with Wolf Man earlier, and I was like, you know, one thing I want to talk about is the fact that runs is finally dead, at least, I think, is that true? You know, can we put, can we order the tombstone?

All right, the obituary, you get the tombstone.

I still have somebody to trim up. It's

still around. It's still around. I mean, there's the Skittles cross, there's the, you know, all these different things. I mean, when you get a company like cookies and, I mean, I'm not just gonna bash these, these big corporate companies all day, although I love to, yeah, but lot of their original genetics, I mean, they came from my friends, and they're my friends, that they had people come tour their gardens, and all of a sudden, a few tops are missing, and all of a sudden, the same strain is being marketed as Girl Scout cookies, but it's really bred by someone in Portland that this was their prized genetics, and now cookies stole it, and that's what they built their whole business model off of. So people that are doing good work or hiding their work, too. And we've brought a lot of different strains into other markets. And specifically, we've been doing a lot of work in Colombia. And you know, Colombia was very interesting from the get go. When they started allowing cultivation there, they only allowed Dutch genetics, which is insane, because some of the best cannabis land race strains come from the cawca Valley, Santa, Marta, Beran Kia, the whole like Colombia has every micro climate that you could possibly have in one country. So they have some of the best natural strains there. And we've been working with people that, you know, back in the 80s were down in Santa Marta and brought back some original land races, and have been keeping them alive here, just to bring them back to Colombia, because all the no one wants amnesia. Hayes, are you kidding me? Like that shouldn't even be grown in Amsterdam, man.

And now, now the genetics have traded directions in the way, in the ways that they're flowing, but that's why we need people doing this preservation work that shows how important that is. I that's really cool. Man, I love that story. Exactly.

It's, it's super important, you know, because at the end of the day, all we really have left is are the people that are passionate about this industry, the people that are passionate about the plants and care about the plant, and the people that care about money don't care about the plants. And that's a fact

period. That lens of perspective, you know that we're

going to have five major strains, and it's going to be Budweiser, Budweiser light cores, cores. I mean, the, you know, it's going to be just like that, just some, some airy booth weed. And that's not what we want as smokers and growers. So the people that are doing the good work, I hope they keep hiding, yeah, until it's time to shine. You know, that's

right, and that's why we just need to protect home grow rights so that they can't completely, you know, like they did with brewing, they outlawed home brewing for a while, and people had to fight to either prevent that or get the rights back. I forget exactly how it went down, but that's what's going to happen next. I think that that's a that's a fair analogy,

yeah, because, you know, the reality is, cannabis is not legal in one single state in this entire country, whatsoever. It's not legal one place in the entire world. As far as I'm concerned, legal means I have some black creme tomatoes, and I want to trade my neighbor for his purple zucchini that he's growing, that we don't have to file any government paperwork or how many plant counts on that, and we can do what we want. That's so true,

so true, free.

It's just regulated in tax, which then incentivizes the government to stop the people that are doing it in the freeway, right? And that's what's happened to the cartels. For better, maybe. But the same thing's happening to the legacy growers. You get a flyover done at your property at Humboldt, oh, you're growing two plants there. Well, you didn't file paperwork. Now we're gonna red tag your property.

It's, you know, they've replaced criminalization with this new regulation. And that's, that's the new model. They just need a way, yeah,

make it illegal again. Come on. Yeah, better the way it was. Can

we talk about this, though? This idea, the. New markets coming online that you might not expect, especially outside of the United States, Thailand just coming online. Colombia, doing work, Mexico doing work. El Salvador is coming online right now. Costa Rica, this is insane. Yeah, yeah. So is cutting edge present at these places. Are you send in wolfman as an ambassador to these how do we? How do we, you know what I mean, how do we get down there? And let me queue you up for this. And then I want to hear about all the international travel. What's going to happen is the creation and evolution of a market is becoming more and more accelerated. So you take a look at California and how slowly it went through all of its phases. And then you take a look at now when a state comes online, or even a state like Oklahoma, and how the same things happened in a lot of ways, but it just happened at light speed. This is going to happen in other countries. So my thing is, we got to do our mission as soon as we can, as fast as we can there. So for instance, I need to figure out a way to we're literally working on grow cast Espanol right now. I'm figuring out a way to get there teach people to home grow, preserve home grow rights, because it's all going to go by like that. It's going to go by in the blink of an eye. But you tell me what is, what is cutting edge doing? And what countries are are we going to

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I was, uh, was trying to book a flight for Wolf Man, and they wouldn't accept Wolf Man, you know, has to match the passport. It got really complicated. So American doesn't filing for a new passport as we speak. Yeah, we haven't gotten there yet. And then they wanted to take his picture. I'm like, Oh, come on, right? So many realities, but so currently cutting edge. Over the last couple years, we've done some pivoting, and we've always been California centric, West Coast, USA, period, period, period. Last year, we opened an office in Bogota, Colombia, and we also opened a warehouse in Leo and Mexico. That's so cool. And we did that on the premise of watching the market. And you know, we're the only fertilizer registered for use on cannabis in Mexico, and we're one of two fertilizers registered for use on cannabis in Colombia, and we have employees in both countries, and we're really focused on those areas, because, like you said, you know, California took so long to lay out the foundation, and now, as these other states came online, it was light speed. Well, you think these other countries aren't watching what we've been doing, and they're way smarter than us. Colombia is a prime example. Colombia one they don't have. I mean, they have provinces, they don't have states. So you can, you can move product around the whole country all day, no problem. But what they have that we don't, they have exportation. You can export cannabis from Colombia to Canada, Germany, Australia, and I believe

Bulgaria

has that is so true, though it's like the same model they're using for coffee. They know this game, right? They know about producing a crop that people want around the world that's really fucking crazy. And

they have, like I said before, they have the micro climates to do it. They're on the equator. It's 12 and 12 all year, all year round. In Medellin, it's 78 degrees. Low of 50 every single day. So high

bedroom, low altitude.

Yeah, every altitude. Perfect veg. Your plants inside under lights or in a greenhouse under lights, turn off the lights now you're flowering. So they've already got and they've got the infrastructure. They're one of the largest agricultural countries in the Western Hemisphere. Colombia has 90% of its food that's used in in you know, everything from grocery stores to restaurants, is all small farmers. They don't have industrial farms like we do here. We have the exact opposite, where 90% of our food comes from these monoculture, terrible chemical farms. So since they've already gotten the the exportation down and then figured out how to make it work, we as a country are light years behind. We don't even have interstate trade, and by the time we do open up international trade, I guarantee you that not a single farm in the United States will be able to compete. As far as price is concerned, the Colombian peso, four, 5000 pesos is $1 and an average living wage there is the equivalent of, like, 100 bucks a week.

Yep, us 100% it's going to get to razor thin profit margins. Yeah, much like coffee. And you know, the worst part is we drove out all of our innovators. So guess who's down in Colombia right now, working on finding poly hybrid. Cultivars to breed with the local, Colombian cultivars and make the perfect, you know, variety to grow commercially. Breeder, Steve, you know, a guy from, from Canada, who, you know what I mean, who's who's world renowned, and he's gonna go where, where the action is, right. He's gonna go where the money is. He's gonna go where people are gonna allow him to do his fucking craft. That's the most important thing. And so that's Columbia now. Thank you America for fucking locking down everything so that people like him and you know, just potent. Ponics is over in Thailand right now. It's, it's very interesting to see the results of these regulations.

Yeah, yeah. Cookies actually open a dispensary in Thailand just two weeks ago.

Thai cookies maybe. Yeah, that's, that's what, man, the cookies dispensary up on Northwest expressway. I don't know if that's the one that closed or not. Here in Oklahoma City, that thing is always empty, and I'm driving by and Mrs. River, my my wife, my wife goes, that's the strangest looking cookie store I've ever seen. I swear to God she said that. She thought it was a cookie, an actual cookie store.

Oh my gosh. It

was good stuff. It was good stuff. I'm sorry. I'm sorry where nobody

needs to take the building and just sell real girl scout cookies out of it.

That would be the move. Probably be more profitable at this point. Oh yeah. So yeah, Wolf Man, are you? Are you down? We headed to Columbia, is that the plan? Yeah,

one day,

yeah, maybe in July. So, so we've been, like I said. We've had office down there for a little bit, and we've really been bringing some of the best genetics we've been working with. You know, the guys from Humboldt Seed Company, Cora genetics, sure fire selections, one of my friends, Reggie weed man, bringing a bunch of really good things down there, and who we give them to is Carlos V base, Jr. He is in Santa Marta. He's opening up a 10 acre facility in Argentina in the next couple months, and I'm actually going to go see him in about a month. But he's the son of Carlos Vives, the singer that just won a Grammy for Best tropical album. And this dude, Carlos, is very much an OG grew up in Miami, super intelligent, passionate about the plant, and he's doing things that, you know, we wish we could do here. He's got few acres right now under his black tuna Seed Company label. And he's doing things that, if you, if you were in his grow and you didn't know you were in Columbia, you think you're in California,

that's cool, man, I'd like to talk to this guy. Yeah.

Well, anytime, anytime. And so in July, Wolf man's gonna have to get his passport put a picture of a wolf on it. You know, do all the things cartoon. And we're throwing a Cannabis Cup in Colombia. It's called the Caribbean cup, or Copa cut it in Spanish.

It's gonna be in Santa Marta.

And we're inviting everyone that's in the Caribbean. So, you know, technically, Florida could be considered. And then a lot of the Central American countries, we have people from Mexico using our products that want to enter, people from Colombia. And, you know, we're not being picky with who can enter, but it's going to be one of the biggest events in South America. And it's going to be a real testament of the mixing of our minds and industries, because so many people from California are coming and Canada. And it's going to be, you know, it's going to be big. It's going to be something that high times will be envious of. You know, it's in Santa Marta, which is on the north eastern part of Columbia. It's on the Caribbean ocean. Beautiful venue to mama, kind of resort. July 22 feel free to come. Anyone that's listening, wow. Our Page very soon. But that's that's going to be really cool to see what they've what they've done in Colombia.

That sounds like a blast.

And like you're saying, there's more things going on Thailand, Spain, spanabus is happening again this year, and our next move is to go towards the European market and towards the Asian market. So we'll be registered in every country in the Western Hemisphere by the end of this year, and then Thailand is on the list. We're going there in April. We're going to Spanish in March, and then Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Costa Rica, and Mexico all in the next couple months.

Wow. Man, that is absolutely killer. Yeah, you got to practice your Spanish. Hola, Maya

mo Wolf, man El lobo. Um gringo Lobo, that's all you need to

know. No, it's Mota, tequila, Banjo, cerveza. You don't need anything else.

That's a good start. That's a good start. Okay,

the beer, the tequila, that's it. So it's all you good. That's all. It's dead. Man,

Wolf. Man, what are you growing right now? Brother? Man, just really quickly, I thought runs was dead. Are you growing runs?

No, no, it is dead. Some runs that I haven't trimmed from, like, two or three runs ago, and I finally just smoked the last bowl of the runts that I was smoking with you at last year's cup. Yeah, buddy. But I've got, I've got four plants going right now. I think I've got like two weeks or so left. I've got one slur cane, one truffle, truffle keg on those Windsor Ridge sent me, and then I've got two, I think Brett's calling them the crystal Cush, um, from heart and soil. But yeah, I think I'm like, Yeah, two, three weeks out. I think they've got, like, one eight week one nine week strain in there. So it's going to be fun trying to let some go or cut things down earlier, figure out how I'm drying all of this. But yeah, yeah, man, yeah, everything's looking great. This is the first, first run that I've actually used the Uncle John's blend in my cutting edge mix. And I'm kicking myself for not adding that to my mix years and years ago, because it's definitely the the the key ingredient that, you know, helps everything else work better, and just things are just so crystally and awesome, nice. Yeah, I think the other the last week, I mixed my res, and then I went down to the garage, like, in a couple hours later, and I was like, wow, it's like, my plants smelling that, like, it smells super, like potent right now. And then I was like, oh, it's the sugar green the uncle John, so they're just overwhelming my garage. So it's, you know, it's good to have those flavors in the in the mix, the

sugary, that's right. Oh, man, it's, it's very nostalgic Wolf. Man, I'm back there with you. Man, I'm glad you got another harvest coming that's going to be killer, just in time for the cold cup. Like you said, yup.

We were talking about Uncle John's blend. And one of the cool things about Uncle John's blend that you only get when you listen to a podcast or hear us talk in person is is actually what's in the product. Because, you know, government regulation, we could beat that dead horse all day, but every state in the country wants a specific verbiage on their label, so we have to dumb it down as simple as we can so that we can get our products registered. Uncle John's blend, you look at the label, it's a 002, it's a potassium supplement. Well, it's kind of misleading, because, yes, there's complex organic potassium in it. However, the key ingredients that really make Uncle John's blend, what it is, is the comp, the chelated manganese, iron and zinc that are all derived naturally and organically. It's not a certified organic product. However, these things are organic that go into it. And what the point of the manganese iron and zinc are is a really bio available form of those ingredients. And the manganese is the key. And we'll have to ask John exactly why manganese is the key. And he can tell you the story of his favorite soil composition that he found in 1982 and how he brought it to a professor from University of Vermont that was studying cannabis, which explained to him why manganese is so important, and it's the elemental building block for terpene production, manganese, calcium. Without those two things, nothing's happening as far as resin production, flavor, flavonoids, all of those things. So it's very important to know that. It's very important to know how to use manganese as a tool, and John will fill us when you get him on the pod next time.

That sounds great, man, I think it's an over, overlooked micronutrient. It's funny. You were saying that I was just on that slow nickel guys page, and he was talking about manganese and cannabis specifically, so it's been on the radar. Yeah, and absolutely, we want to have John on talk about that and and much more. For sure, some of that guy's stories are, absolutely,

he's putting out some really great information, a lot of information, without looking really hard. And you know, he's, he is opposed to a lot of the quote, unquote, chemical fertilizers out in the world, and there is a degree of knowledge associated with that that's really important. Oh yeah,

man. I mean, we support all growers here at grow cast podcast, but we like when, when we see these educators getting into the nitty gritty and talking about some of these things that, you know, what might change the way that a listener gardens a little bit, change their gardening strategy, which they may not have changed for years, but then they hear something. It makes sense to them. They try it. They like it. I'm all for it, man, I'm all for it. So, so yeah, absolutely. We would love to have you back on Sean and John anytime as well. Now, before, before we wrap this one up, though, there is a question that comes up quite a bit in the Grow cast audience, which is. Is people want to get into this industry one way or another. They want to make it their profession and their job. I would love both of your takes. It's something that me and Wolf and have discussed, you know, before in the past, but But it's been a while, and I love hearing your thoughts. If somebody's looking to get into this industry, what advice do you have for them, as far as tips or turn around and run, or whatever your true thoughts are. I'd love to hear them.

So I have kind of a blunt answer to that. So if you're thinking of being

coming a part of the cannabis industry, getting a job at any level in this industry, whether it be a bud tender, the person cleaning pots that it grow, or, you know, Master grower, whatever it may be.

If you don't love the plant, stop right now and just don't, just don't

go any further. There's no there's no more room for people in this industry that don't love the plant or care about it, or enjoy what it does for you on a physical, emotional, mental or

health level.

And if you don't respect the process of growing the plant, you know, looking at what your inputs are, what your energy usage is, what the environmental impact of what you're doing is, if you don't have those, you know, pillars of foundation in your heart and soul. This is not the industry for you. But if you love the plant and you're passionate and you want to learn, follow people like slow nickel, listen to podcasts like this, keep learning, keep learning. Start growing, or keep growing, and the right opportunity will come to you. But if you have that energy that you're putting out into the world of loving the plant and enjoying it and sharing those experiences of cultivating or smoking with the people around you, go all in, quit your day job and do whatever you can do to become a part of this. But there's no more room for people that don't care.

That's, that's profound advice, man, and a lot of people are let down at the end of the day, and without that passion, you're going to feel let down. And with that passion, you can maybe drive through and, like you said, make your dream career happen. That's, that's a, oh yeah. Really good point. I

have so many flood trays for other people for an hourly wage just to learn what they're doing and why they're doing it. I can't I've been in the bottom, the bottom bitch in every row, and imagine, and it helped me appreciate the plant more. You know, I would way rather be scrubbing trays than doing dishes at a McDonald's the same price, right? You know, or

sitting at a freaking computer in a cubicle, yeah? Not hating I know some people that are happy working on computers. It's just, it's not. I totally see that. What about you, Wolf Man, you've been through so many different positions now, like you said, now you're working at this, this, dare I say, dream job. What are your thoughts for somebody who's thinking about doing something similar to what you've done? I mean,

I can't really,

I don't know, but I can't really elaborate more. Sean, Sean, hit it on the head. I mean, you really got to love what you're doing. I mean, I feel that like my tenure, because I think I got into the industry 20 ish years ago or so. So, like I the things that I've seen in my experience are going to be different than people getting into it. Now, that's true, because back in the day was more, you know, black market, gray market. You know, you could survive on a an eight liner to travel the world and just enjoy yourself. But now, with everything changing, like, you really have to have that drive. You really have to have the love for it. And you know, you're not going to make a million dollars, you know, like the the people that get into it just for the money aspect, it's just not there anymore, not that it really ever was. But I mean, like when I started, I just wanted to grow for myself, and eventually I got a little bit bigger, and I always try to maintain that my quality is, like, I don't want to grow something for other people that I wouldn't want to grow and smoke myself. So I've tried to maintain

that same I don't

know what the right word is, yeah, that value, that that principle,

that same value in things. But yeah, though, like Sean said, I mean, if it's something you really love at the end of the day, go for it. I mean, if you want to do it, go for it. Just, just know that things are going to be tough. You might not make you might not be able to cover your bills every so often. But just, you have to think about all those different things, like, I wouldn't go after it if I've got like, six kids that I'm trying to, you know, put through college. But if it's just you and you just want to go for it and do it, and it's something you really enjoy, your heart, your soul is in it, rock and roll.

That's, that's a great piece of advice, man. It's, it's like a lot of things in life. You know, if you don't have that, that high paying opportunity, that that you get to work a job and be happy with your paycheck, and you have to choose your career, choosing one you're passionate about. It's a hack, because even if you don't become a mill. In there, you're still going to be happy. So that's, that's what it's all about. At the end of the day, you know, put a roof over your head, put some food on your table, and get to spend time with plants every day, or spend time talking about plants every day. That's, that's a blessing, man, that's a blessing.

Yeah, happiness is worth way more than than that. You know, 40 or 4000 square foot house for aluminum, and you get to see it, you know, three hours a day when you get home to sleep? Yeah,

that's exactly right.

At least. At least.

I like that. I like that advice you guys. This was a great episode. Thank you for coming on the show. Wolf Man as always, Sean, you are wonderful. First time guest. This was a really unique and cool episode. I know the listeners really liked it. So thank you,

awesome. And hey, once again, thank you for having us on. Really appreciate being able to talk about what's going on in the world with the community globally, and really excited to show some some new cutting edge stuff that we're doing the next time we talk. We've got some cool products in the pipeline, and I think we're going to revolutionize a lot of things, and at the end of the day, John and I are doing what we're doing because we love the planet. And I don't think there's a lot of other companies that make products like ours that can say the same thing.

That's dope, man. I'm really excited to speak to the man himself, of course, cutting edge solutions.com Thank you, Sean, you rock, CEO of cutting edge solutions, crushing it. Over there. Really, really cool guest appearance today. Man, you killed it. And Wolf Man, people can find you in the discord you're gonna create that Instagram ever is that just not gonna

happen? Um,

I don't know. It's it's been coming into my thoughts more and more recently. If I can, if I can scrounge up some time in the near future I might actually, I might actually do it and try to post some things and let the people a little bit more into the world of the wolf. Yes, the world of the wolf. I'll hold him

to that. And of course, you can find him, uh, in our Discord at the order of cultivation, grow cast podcast.com/membership, so thank you. Everybody. Stay tuned. We got more coming at you. As always. Grow cast podcast.com/action, to see all the stuff. You know what to do. And if this is your first time listening, make sure to subscribe. Hit that subscribe. We're on Spotify. We're on all the apps everywhere, and we're here for you in your garden. So this is Sean from cutting edge and Wolf Man and myself, Jordan River, signing off. Saying to you out there, Wolf Man,

stay safe out there. People got it much

love y'all grow smarter. That's our show. Thank you so much to Sean and Wolf Man and thank you audience member. We do appreciate you tuning in before we wrap it up. Of course, I got to tell you about all the action going on. You know where to go. Grow cast podcast.com/action, membership is open right now. You can jump in. You can check out all the bonus content and all the benefits. Seed CO is bumping. Growcast podcast.com/seed, CO will bring you right there. The Oreos FEM drop is live. You guys already gobbled up the box set and a couple of strange thank you so much for your support. The fems are available. Everyone. Check them out that Oreos pollination is going to be fire grab the banana punch if it's not gone already. God dang, that's going to be a fire cross. So shout out to rise. Oh rich and all the work that he's doing. And of course, our classes, you'll also find growcast podcast.com/classes we got the pest class that's going to be up there very shortly. We've got the breeder class going on tour. And of course, the community cup May 7 in Oklahoma City. Tickets are on sale now. Grow cast podcast.com/community, it's an incredible day of education, plus a Cannabis Cup and home grower showcase. Brandon rust is going to be there, OK? Alex is going to be there. Touched by cannabis. Rise of rich is going to be there. I'm going to be there. Farmer John, everybody's there. Come and see us. Grab your tickets. Grab a judges pass before those are gone, so you can actually vote in the cup grow cast, podcast.com/community, the judges passes are very limited. Go ahead and grab one, and you will not regret it. Enjoy a wonderful flight of cannabis and day of education. Lots of good stuff happening. So stay tuned, everybody. I love each and every one of you. Hope you're doing amazing things in your garden. Talk to you later. Be safe out there, everyone, bye, bye. You

runs is finally dead and.