Flora Farms in Humansville Delivers a Huge Amount of Marijuana as Recreational Sales Begin!

In their three years of operation, the Flora Farms production facilities in Humansville have never had a single day ship more than a thousand pounds of marijuana. Hendren, president of Flora Farms, stated that the 1,200 pounds included flower, “popcorn,” or little parts of bud, and “trim,” or pieces retained for manufacture.

With the legalization of recreational marijuana usage in Missouri in November, a cultivation operation about an hour north of Springfield began storing goods. I think we’re going through it quite quickly,” Hendren added. Hendren estimates that between sixty and seventy unique strains of marijuana are being cultivated at once in the Humansville facilities.

The specific proportions will be determined by consumer demand and Flora Farms’ projections for the next months. Hendren explained that they aim to strike a balance between the many strains that they grow based on consumer demand.

Customers are notoriously fickle, making it difficult to predict their behavior. Today, we’re attempting to foresee what products will sell well four to six months from now. Hendren estimates that it takes around three and a half months, or 110 days, from the moment a clone is cut from its mother plant until the product is shipped.

The Marijuana Timeline: Seed to Sale

Marijuana can only be harvested once a year in the wild, however, at Flora Farms, the plant is picked four times a year (and occasionally more often). Hendren stressed the significance of light, both in terms of intensity and frequency, while recreating natural circumstances for marijuana. Mother is the root of all success.

Clones are grown from mother plants, which are cannabis plants that remain in a vegetative state all year. Hendren stated that there are three to four mothers kept each strain at the Flora Farms production facilities. Over two-hundred mother plants are on hand, each with the potential to reach a height of 10 feet and a lifespan of 5 years; there are 60-70 different strains in total.

Hendren mentioned that every 60 days, the mother plants get “haircuts,” which entails cutting off clones, or little plants, from the moms. During the 30-45 days that a clone is kept under low-light conditions, it is grown in its own dedicated vegetation chamber. The clones are exposed to 18 hours of light and 6 hours of darkness daily to make it seem like summer.

In a growth chamber, clones are given 12–24 additional inches in height. For two months, plants spend their time in “flower rooms,” where they are subjected to a cycle of 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness to mimic the season of autumn. Both the light and the humidity are amplified throughout the entire two-month procedure.

When a plant has matured to perfection, it is dug up and put somewhere else to dry out and cure. According to Hendren, this procedure takes two to four weeks, or as long as it takes for the plant’s moisture level to drop below 15%. Marijuana is ready for processing once it has been dried and cured adequately.

As a first step, the bud is bucked (taken from the stem) and then the plant is trimmed (the bud is removed from leaves and other unwanted pieces). Marijuana is sorted by trimmers into three distinct forms: bud, popcorn, and trim. Flora Farms Trim Manager Sara Volavong estimated that daily marijuana harvesting at the production sites amounted to 40-60 pounds.

After being sorted and trimmed, the marijuana is delivered to be hand-packaged and labeled. A third-party lab is given the products to evaluate. After items pass quality control at Flora Farms’ lab, they are distributed to one of the 175 to 180 dispensaries in the state.

Marijuana Plants Tracked from Stage to Stage

Keeping tabs on your progress during the growing cycle is crucial. According to Hendren, “we need to monitor every plant in Missouri from seed to sale.” “Once a plant reaches a height of roughly (12-24 inches), it must have it (a tracking number) for the rest of its life, including packaging, transport to the dispensary, and sale to the customer.

If there is an issue, they can issue a recall and track the source back to the factory. Hendren claims that the sole distinction between medical and recreational marijuana-producing facilities is the means by which the final products are acquired from retailers.

For both medical and recreational sales, the cultivation, drying, curing, processing, and packaging of marijuana are identical. Hendren claimed that in the three years since Missouri legalized marijuana, not a single product has been recalled.

Harvesting Marijuana in Humansville

Since 2020, Flora Farms has been running its growing facilities. Flora Farms has had three cultivation licenses authorized, allowing them to open a third facility in Humansville. Hendren has stated that he anticipates the third plant would be ready in two to six months. Approximately 200 people are employed between the two locations.

Hendren explained that he thought the increased competition for cultivation licenses in larger cities made it wise to settle in Humansville. Hendren explained that a blind application scoring process was used to award licenses in the state of Missouri. It’s estimated that 2,508 people applied for the 350 licenses that were made available.

In light of this, the state government has chosen to use the distribution of marijuana licenses as a means of aiding regions with particularly high unemployment rates. They gave you more points toward winning your application if you agreed to locate your facility in a region with a high unemployment rate. Hence, we settled on Humansville.

Where Can You Purchase Recreational Marijuana in Springfield?

There are now ten dispensaries in Springfield that can legally sell recreational marijuana, as of last Friday.

• BD Health Retail 2 at 2126 E. Dale St.
• MO Retail Products Group at 1868 S. Glenstone Ave.
• BBMO 2 at 2868 S. Glenstone Ave.
• Old Route 66 Wellness at 2823 N. Glenstone Ave.
• Revival 98 Dispensary at 2782 W. Republic Road
• Ozarx Botanicals at 3800 W. Sunshine St. Suite 100
• OWG I (The Farmer’s Wife) at 2935 E. Chestnut Expressway
• Bloom Medicinals at 751 S. Glenstone Ave.
• V3 MO Vending 5 at 850 E. Kearney St.
• Grassroots OpCo MO at 1306 N. Stewart Ave.

Other approved dispensaries in the area include:

• Missouri Joint Ventures “MOJO” at 202 West St. Suite 1 in Nixa
• Easy Mountain at 7827 W. Farm Road 174 in Republic
• Old Route 66 Holdings at 1421 W. State Highway J in Ozark
• COMO Health at 18490 Business 13 in Branson West
• Grassroots OpCo MO at 201 S. Wildwood Drive in Branson
• SW Retail Holdings at 18490 Business 13 in Branson West

To keep track of which dispensaries have been given permission to sell recreational products, the Department of Health and Senior Services Division of Cannabis Regulation maintains a continuously updated online database.