When Fig Farms took first place on the 2017 NorCal Hashish Cup, it was with the flowers from a single plant. That Banana Fig, a cross of Purple Fig with Banana Break up, was distinctive sufficient to propel the corporate to what it has grow to be immediately—one of the crucial well-respected and prolific creators of latest sorts of hashish. I’d be remiss to not say upfront that the distinctive cultivars put out by Fig Farms rank among the many most beautiful indoor pot I’ve ever smoked.
“Profitable that cup was particular to us,” Keith Healy tells me from an workplace inside his Oakland, California develop facility. “It modified our lives. The subsequent day we bought supplied this area.”
And the area, which Healy and his spouse and enterprise accomplice Chloe run collectively, is an extremely spectacular operation. Throughout from the big boardroom desk the place we’re sitting is a fridge full of 12 completely different sorts of hashish pollen, and Chief Gross sales Officer Mike Doten is pulling giant plastic luggage of yet-to-be-released pressure combos for me to look at and scent. Fig Farms just isn’t solely a hashish flower model, it’s additionally the birthplace of latest sorts of pot by its intensive breeding program.
“Each two-and-a-half, three months, we’re popping 500 seeds,” Keith says. “We attempt to pop about not less than 50% ours and 50% anyone else’s. I believe that the largest hurdle is that we’d discover one thing that’s extraordinarily particular to us however doesn’t have the very best THC. Or we discover issues which can be simply so particular like proper now we’re coping with like 20 vegetation the place we will’t determine which one we’re going to place within the market.”
Keith admits he has a hoarding drawback with regards to amassing hashish genetics. The Fig Farms room for mom vegetation comprises greater than 300 several types of marijuana. Once we stroll inside this room whereas touring the ability, I don’t even initially spot a number of folks as a result of they’re hidden behind a wall of pot vegetation.
“Certainly one of [the phenotypes we grow] could also be one thing that had a extremely excessive terpene profile of this one terpene, however the THC [percentage] wasn’t good,” Keith says in clarification of protecting so many mom vegetation round. “And so we’re ready till we discover the proper male to pollinate that feminine.”
Massive & Stunning
You’ll know the Fig Farms flower once you see it. As an alternative of tight, dense buds, Fig Farm’s buds are sometimes formed like foxtails, frilly and elongated like a fox’s tail. Whereas many growers see this irregular, slender, and taller bud form as a flaw to appropriate, the Fig Farms model values and promotes this form. The foxtail buds make the Fig Farms flowers stand aside in a line-up of extra typical hashish nugs and supply a visible indication of the individuality of the cultivars.
“The cool factor about us is that we’re distinctive and never afraid to be distinctive,” Keith says.
Moving into one of many develop rooms at Fig Farms appears like coming into a tropical paradise. It’s humid and scorching, and the air is extremely perfumed with the scent of flowers.
“I give it some thought like when you have been in Hawaii, a plant would specific itself actually in a different way than when you have been in Northern California,” Keith says of the rising surroundings. “I need a plant to precise every thing that it has to point out. I don’t need to suppress it and preserve it actually chilly and have it simply form of tight and squeezed collectively. I’d slightly have it’s large and exquisite, and I believe the aromas, the flavors, every thing comes out extra once you’re pushing out a plant in a Hawaii-style surroundings versus a really chilly surroundings.”
A Treasure Map to Independence
Again round 2014, Keith was rising and promoting strains like Gorilla Glue #4 and XJ-13 for 2 medical marijuana dispensaries, Harborside and the Berkeley Sufferers Group. These dispensaries have been receiving lots of Gorilla Glue #4 from completely different growers, however Keith’s stood out. A dispensary worker inspired him to start out branding himself and popping seeds to promote extra distinctive strains.
Keith bought the breeding bug and commenced amassing a set of hashish genetics in a warehouse. When the DEA raided the neighbor’s warehouse, their landlord, who thought he could be doing them a favor, reduce down all of the vegetation and crammed the area with tomatoes and greens. Then Keith and Chloe, eight months pregnant on the time, came across a scavenger hunt observe from their landlord instructing them to go to a different location, the place they acquired one other scavenger hunt observe with a treasure hunt map on it. The motivations behind the owner’s odd technique to allow them to know he had destroyed their vegetation is unclear.
“Earlier than we all know it, we’re at some water tower on a mountain climbing path that we’ve by no means been on in our lives and Chloe’s like, ‘Is he going to stab us?’ And I’m like, ‘No, that is going to be one of the best factor,’” Keith says of pondering he is perhaps getting a novel clone reduce. “And he comes as much as me and he says, ‘I killed all of your vegetation.’ And Chloe simply began crying. I imply, these have been issues that we had been rising for 5 or 10 years. Issues that we have been holding on to that we couldn’t have [gotten] wherever else.”
This devastating information began Fig Farms on a path in direction of creating its personal sorts of hashish and the invention of its unique cultivars, Purple Fig and Pink Fig.
The Fig
Keith grew up in Southern California close to Figueroa Mountain (positioned in Santa Barbara County), and when he was in highschool, one of the best hashish in his space was referred to as “the fig.” In his beginnings as a hashish breeder, one in every of his first creations reminded him a lot of that style and aroma profile he remembered that he determined to call the corporate Fig Farms.
Fig Farms began as a model title within the medical marijuana market in 2016 and has since expanded from California to Illinois. Initially primarily based out of Sonoma County, when Keith and Chloe entered the Hashish Cup in 2017, that they had simply had their second baby and Keith wasn’t even certain he needed to enter the competitors as a result of they have been so busy elevating a household. The cup was earlier than California’s 2018 transition to an adult-use hashish market, and after they did determine to go forward and enter the Banana Fig, which has about 20% THC, the road to enter the cup was across the block.
“All people that had just a little develop of their two-car storage had a hashish enterprise,” Keith explains. “[The Banana Fig] is a pressure from yesteryear. It doesn’t check excessive sufficient to compete within the trendy market. It’s one thing we preserve within the mother room to have it for the day the place folks aren’t so caught on THC.”
The Fig Farms Cultivars
In relation to in search of new sorts of hashish to launch, Keith says, “the weirder, the higher.” He’s in search of unusual and distinctive hashish combos that put Fig Farms in a unique lane than different hashish cultivators. On the identical time, the crew at Fig Farms additionally has enjoyable displaying folks what they will do with extraordinarily widespread strains, corresponding to Gelato #41.
“We need to be tremendous distinctive, however we additionally need to present what we will do with issues that everyone already has,” Keith says.
Fig Farm’s Holy Moly! is likely one of the extra distinctive strains it has created. On my day’s go to to the develop, Doten pulls some Holy Moly! out to point out me. The buds are fully frosted over with trichomes and are such a darkish purple amethyst colour that they nearly look blue.
“I believe it’s bought form of a cognac scent. It smells like the within of a Tootsie Roll pop a bit,” Doten says. “That may be a cross of the Hashish Cup-winning Banana Fig crossed to a male present in an Animal Mints pack from Seed Junky, and miss Chloe made that pressure.”
Together with that Tootsie Pop middle style, the tasting notes on this pressure embrace bitter cherry and mole sauce.
Subsequent, Doten brings out 5 completely different phenotypes of Gelato #41 crossed with LD95 (an I-95 and Legend Canine cross) and I get to play the sport of selecting a pressure by in search of issues like colour, construction, and scent. Every of the samples seems and smells unimaginable. It’s not a straightforward job.
Selecting which phenotype to develop and put available on the market is severe work at Fig Farms. A pattern of Orange Cookies crossed with Sherb Crasher bursts with a tangerine aroma so thick my mouth begins to water. All of the hashish I’ve seen in improvement is worthy of any hashish connoisseur’s head stash, and the work to create new distinctive sorts of hashish reveals no indicators of stopping.
“We nonetheless have the unique Purple Fig from 2015 in our mother room,” Keith says, noting that deciding on a pressure finally comes right down to its THC share and the way it smokes. “Like a chef that doesn’t eat his meals or a winemaker that doesn’t drink his wine, a breeder and popper that doesn’t smoke their pot, that’s a crimson flag.”
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This text seems within the August 2022 concern of Excessive Instances. Subscribe right here.