What do you think the hemp and cannabis industries can learn the most about the news this week pertaining to the ban nationwide of hemp intoxicating products? Don’t try to take shortcuts. And that hemp loophole in the farm bill was a shortcut. I will say one thing, it did prove to America the demand for cannabis at the adult use level. Hey everybody, what’s going on? Welcome into our latest TDR Trade to Black podcast presented by Advanced Nutrients. Big Mike coming back on in just a moment. We’re going to talk about cultivation. We got a lot of great feedback with both Kevin and Brandon Mccernin a couple weeks ago that talked about the science and cultivation side. So, we’ll dig into that. Plus, we’re going to get his take on the big news this week. Yes, this week has felt like a couple of weeks, has it not? Pertaining to the hemp ban and intoxicating products. It’s official now. So, Big Mike’s been around in the industry for a long time, a lot of decades. We’ll get his take on it. And really again, we’ll ask these questions to some of the people, seasoned veterans in this industry, what this could mean potentially for cannabis reform in 2025, 2026. We don’t know the timelines, but really, what’s next? So, with that, let’s welcome in AV as we get ready to roll on another interview. And yeah, it’s official now. It is official. Yeah, it’s uh CR passed last night. Government’s opened back up. House passed it with no uh no amendments. Um, it’s 364 days from now until that ban takes effect. Yeah. And it’s not a hemp ban. It’s a you you’ve got it right. It’s a ban on intoxicating hemp products. That is what it is. If you want to grow hemp for industrial purposes, if you want to grow hemp below the 4% threshold um per package, go right ahead. Um there’s there’s nothing banning that. Yeah, I did see some stats that showed how it’s supposed to grow the industrial hemp side of the business over the next five to seven years. And there is big growth and uh I forget who it was that tweeted that out this uh earlier this morning but um yeah the main problem the main problem with the hemp farmers is hemprete textiles etc wasn’t truly profitable for the business they were making their margin and the businesses were able to create generate profit by extracting down the flowers into THC uh not THC but CBD um distillate and isolate and then eventually breaking that down further into THC um distillate and isolate which was their main money maker for the business while at the same time utilizing the full plant. Um they could create things such as rope, hemp, hemp based textiles and hemprete. Yeah, some good takes. The big question is is now can these two industries have a unified coalition and start working with each other because we got to stop this infighting. That’s for sure. But I’d be curious to get the next guest’s take on all this. So with that, let’s welcome in the CEO of Advanced Nutrients, Big Mike, back to the podcast. Good to see you, sir. How are things? Things are well. Things are we we got the EU turned around. We’re now at a 55% growth where we were 20%. So I’m real happy about that. Positive growth all sectors globally. So we’re happy. Really? Yeah. what are you seeing I guess before we get into this whole hemp ban discussion but uh again we’ve had you on the last few times but for those that don’t understand EU what can you share because I know it’s a broad area and there’s a lot of moving parts in different countries but for the most part from what I see especially with you and I being at Mary Jane last year it feels like what cannabis was 10 years ago here in North America there’s so much upside potential it is behind in years behind us but it looks like from a medical perspective that a lot of countries countries are getting behind this and more and more countries are changing their outlook on it. That’s accurate. There’s a lot of countries now in the EU that have medical cannabis. You don’t see a lot of recreational use. You’re going to probably see that in Germany first, but uh yeah, it’s medical uh cannabis is doing very very uh you know doing well doing well in the EU. So there’s a lot of we call LPS that we’re in as well as you know there’s 2,000 hydroponic stores still left. Now we know what’s going to happen over the years. They’re going slowly and they have been there used to be 3,000 now we’re down to 2,000. It’ll be the same same thing that happened here in the US. The hydroponic stores that actually act as finance centers and uh give people terms and credits are the ones who are going to be successful and also have delivery to those facilities. And you know here’s a big problem in our in our we used to go into hydroponic stores and there would be guys they would be they would just be well medicated lit up and they’re doing this playing video games. It’s like oh we give the customers whatever they want. Well, now they’re realizing that they actually have to run it like a real business and they have to come forward and do the right things. And the ones who are are going to be successful. The ones who aren’t, they’re slowly being eliminated very, very quickly. Huh. What I wanted to ask too in Europe, you know, we looked at a lot of MSOs and they chased sheer canopy are now realizing that quality, repeat purchased, and brand trust matter more than just weight. In Europe, you know, what are you seeing and hearing when it comes to quality? Are they there? are are are they there yet or are they still in the early stages? Uh and could they learn from I guess some of the mistakes that were made in North America? Yeah, they’re I’d say they’re they’re at a mid level now. They’re they’re not quite where we are in the US. We look at states like California, Michigan, uh you know, there’s really great growers in both those states. And they’re not there yet. They will get there. And yeah, they’re able to take some shortcuts because we’re teaching them along the way what not to do, you know. So it’s it’s pretty easy actually. Yeah. Yeah, Mike, in the States, I mean, you’ve been cultivating for for decades now. We saw that there was an inflection point in the in the industry. You could see it at MJ Biz back in, let’s say, 2015. It was kind of like roots versus suits. You had the legacy guys that were being integrated with the state-run operators and there was kind of a bumping of heads, but everybody 2017 2018 it smoothed out and everybody kind of started to transform together with this hemp ban. Do you think that we’ve kind of taken a step back to that kind of environment in the industry and now these two parties are going to need to learn how to work together yet again to bring the industry another step forward? They definitely have to work together. As I said, you know, previous shows, both sectors, the hemp side and and the cannabis side need to come together and join forces and fight this out. Look, hemp is probably going to end up at what regulated by at the state level. I mean, you look at Texas, $10 billion. There’s no way that they’re going to walk away from that kind of revenue. Yeah. Yeah, that’s for sure. And they How many jobs is it right now? Remember correct? 000 give or take, but I’ve seen I’ve seen people say 200,000, 300,000, 600,000. The TAM for the market has gone 20, 30, 50 billion. Um, the numbers are all up there. I mean, I think realistically it’s somewhere in the high 20 billion dollars a year in annual run rate and somewhere between 250 and 300,000 uh jobs um that it’s created. Yeah. One thing’s for sure, this this conversation just got heated up. I think it a lot of it started with amendment three last fall and then it just carried you know we saw the growth of the hemp industry and yeah there was a lot of loopholes that were being skirted but there also are a lot of people that are working this and are good actors in a lot of this to anony’s point there’s a lot of jobs there’s some livelihood and I do think like this isn’t the end of hemp not not in any way shape or form but I do think um as we had a a conversation earlier this week the two industries ries definitely need to work with each other because the big problem or the big challenge here is big alcohol, big tobacco and big farm in a lot of ways, don’t you think? Yeah. Yeah, they definitely need they got a year to work together. And when when you look at alcohol, I guess, you know, I saw your show with the the bourbon coalition came in and and and put the kibash on that. That’s really scarcity mentality. Uh if they should have just embraced it and did a rollup and things would have got would have been a lot better for them. but they chose to do the way that they did. They saw an opening. Mitch McConnell, he’s you know, he’s got one more year left and he’s gone and uh you know, they got their way. Doesn’t mean though that it’s going to end up that way. There’s going to be a lot of fighting back and forth over the next year and there’s going to be a new farm bill that comes out and when that comes out, a lot of these things hopefully will be addressed accordingly. Yeah. I think this is also the beginning of there is no more hemp and cannabis. I mean, this is the THC industry. Yeah. Like you don’t see the rye whiskey and potato vodka and rum factions within the alcohol industry. It’s the alcohol industry. Good point. It’s all intoxicating alcohol-based products. This is going to be the THC industry moving forward. It’s all governed around the THC molecule. Hemp and cannabis is no more or shouldn’t be anymore on a go forward basis. Yeah, you’re right. It comes down to a molecule. You got an alcohol molecule, you got a THC molecule. People have spoken, they prefer the THC molecule. Okay, great. You’re a beverage company, right? Okay, just switch the active ingredient very simply instead of going there and just trying to smash the industry. Work with us and uh everybody wins. And I do believe I I do firmly believe, Mike, and you bring up a pretty good point why the liquor companies and the whiskey companies didn’t just do some sort of roll up and just get to M&A versus ban. I think if we were not sitting at schedule one right now and there wasn’t such roadblocks in terms of the implications on their licensing and their businesses, alcohol and pharma would be buying companies right now, left, right, and center. Um, if it wasn’t a schedule one environment that we were living in right now with the THC molecule. Yeah. I believe Trump’s going to still do it. Go schedule one to schedule three. And uh, we’re going to see a lot of undulations and changes over the next 12 months. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. on that. Well, whether you like it or not, there’s more transparency from Washington, uh, as what we found out this week. And with that, you believe that this could be a step closer to actual full cannabis reform. Yeah. Look, it this is a loophole. A loophole. Yeah. And they got they got about four years out of that. God bless all those hemp guys. They made a lot of money. they did it and and showed America that there’s this huge demand for cannabis products. So yeah, hopefully that uh these states learned the lesson. They saw the opportunity and they’re going to move forward with eventually basically we had a recreational model adult use all over the country that correct. So we did. You know, Anthony brought up a good point. You don’t see rye, whiskey, all these different alcohol brands, you know, basically working, not brands, but you understand where I’m going with this. You don’t see them. They’re all working in conjunction with each other. You’ve been in the industry since like the 80s and you’ve probably have seen so much. And let’s face it, for any industry to go, there’s going to be trial and error. So, when you look at this as the big picture, is there in some ways you just look at this and go, you know what, this is just all part of the process and this is just the learning curve to eventually become what alcohol has become now 100 years later? Yeah, it it is part of the learning curve for everybody and we’re going to do it. You’re gonna see we’re going to be there’s going to come some things are going to come up that we didn’t even expect that we’re going to have to deal with over the next 12 months. Good point. It’s a very good point. When you look at today’s legal market, I want to talk about the science cultivation side with all the pressure with price and quality. We just had earnings season just completed. Uh what problem do you think right now you’re solving for cultivators right now if for uh those that are trying to really understand and improve their yields? Yeah. Well, higher profitability look with quality, higher profitability, but also higher yields. So, you know, we we always produce higher tur tarpen, higher canabonoids, higher yield. Those are the three things that they’re looking for and those are the things that we accelerate at at Advanced Nutrients with with the conversation that we had last week with the medical genomics guys um with both Brendan and Kevin um McCern. I mean there’s a lot centered around smart extremely smart. A lot of it was centered around genetics. Yeah. Not really patenting those genetics but being able to create a marker at a certain point in time to trace the origin of those genetics. And as they dive deeper into genetics and genomics of the cannabis plant, does that have any effect on product development on your side of the industry? It’s good that you they got on the blockchain and you you got a you know a time stamp and and when you develop that particular strain. So that helps that helps defend in court when that day comes. Right now it’s not federally legal. So it’s hard to to go in there and and and fight the good fight that you’d like to fight. Yeah. Yeah. Are you like behind the scenes like how much of your formulation work is actually driven by this kind of genomic data and plant profiling right now? So much of it. I mean, when we go to CAM, you know, we’ve been sponsoring for 10 years, and the reason why is, you know, science reveals the truth. And uh it’s it’s just we’ve done very very well. We’ve learned all kinds of things. You know, there’s no way that no one knows everything, but there’s enough the science brain trust of cannabis is at Canmet every year. And if you’re not going, there’s a big hunk of information that you’re missing out on. There is so much that we’ve learned. is like, “Oh, we want to talk about uh you know the the the tarpine uh pathway.” Okay, fine. And we have questions, we can they’ll answer it for us. I mean, one thing about these scientists, most of them are all open book. And if they do get to a point where they have a a patent or something, they’ll tell you, “Hey, I got a patent on that.” And sometimes they still tell you. Good point. Um, you know, we talk about this this hemp crackdown. like if we move towards this one plant solution like how does that change cultivation norms on the ground because there’s going to be changes obviously it’s inevitable there’s there’s an alliance called one plant alliance now that just right came out well it that would be great if they could do it I mean everyone would everyone would win I don’t see that happening there’s you know human nature I mean you had you had Jim Hickden from Cornbread today who was talking about potential for what it looks like on a go forward basis. And I mean, in his own self-interest, and I don’t blame him because it’s his own self-interest, but he was talking about a I think it was a representative from Kentucky bringing a bill forward that looked a lot like the Widen bill in terms of governing cannabonoids. And he prefaced it with central Kentucky being the epicenter of cannabis for the future. I mean, let’s be real. In a descheduled world, the epicenter of cannabis is California. It’s never not going to be California. It’s always been California and it’ll continue to be California. I I I don’t see hemp sticking in terms of cultivating and using it for input products. If there’s a one plant solution, THC is gumbered and you can use cannabis in the traditional sense for all of these products. It’s a far superior plant in the flour and and and the byproducts that come off of it versus hemp derived. You’re you’re right out of the money. It is. I mean, it’s just going to be a THC play and correct by some rare canabonoids or whatever. And then comes in gene editing, you know, that’s going to be the f the future. Uh, you know, we’re already doing a lot of work in genetics. That’s the future. Uh, you know, with triploids and tetroploids and, you know, we’re working towards octoploids right now. Yeah. So, you said it earlier, uh, Anthony, that Brendan from Medicinal Genomics told us a couple weeks ago they’re putting cultivator fingerprints on the Bitcoin blockchain so growers can prove ownership, defend themselves and IPS, and still share genetics with n nurseries without getting ripped off. They’ve already had at least one court case settle using that genetic evidence. So, you’re working together with them right now. So, I guess what is that? I guess what is it they’re doing? Sequencing plants, cataloging up microbes, like what exactly is being done here? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like they run, you know, they do genetics tests so they they can, you know, oh uh they they sequence the entire genome of what 2,200 different cannabis strains already. So they’re building a huge datab bank and that datab bank will be able to instruct our industry where to go to make the cuts in gene editing. Wow. That’s how advanced it is now. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. People have no idea what’s actually going on in the science side except the people who go to Canet of course do. But all the other ones they have no idea. At what point in the industry do you see that scientific innovation scaling and being like a norm within the industry? Are we are we far from that? Yeah, it’s it’s we’re getting closer and closer. It’s it’s a tough it’s a tough go. There’s you know science is for a lot of people are really exciting. For a lot of people, it’s really boring, but it’s it’s necessary and essential if you’re going to move forward and make the right choices for your patients. You you have to like if you don’t, you’re you’re selling yourself short. Yeah. So, we move from folklore to in marketing claims to more measurable biology. That’s where we’re headed. And you know, for those that aren’t adapting to this, like you can understand that you adapt or die. And so what is the like how do you how do you educate people on this to spread the the word and message as to where this industry is going from a science cultivation standpoint? Well, at first it’s it started out was a lot of bro science here in the United States and then along came Canid and set the record straight so so to speak and so more and more people are are coming on board and they’re understanding the benefits of CANMED. uh it it hasn’t got what I call the critical mass yet where the entire industry realizes that this is a vital part of their information that they have to gather but we’re getting closer and closer to that. Yeah. So is the study of cannabis genetics you think the single most important driver innovation right now? Yeah. And I’ll tell you I’ll explain why. So in our triploids there’s guys are getting two and a half pounds of light. They’re now getting four and a half. guys who are getting three and a half. There’s, you know, one guy hit 5.88 pounds per light. So, you’re talking an extra two pounds of light. How does that work? Person who who can do that has a lot of say what what what’s going to happen. And by the fact that you can take one of our our tetroploids. We can license it to you. You have your strain that’s a dloid and you can breed them together and and create triploids. Someone’s going to break crack the six pound uh mark with with triploids for sure. when you can hit 5.88. Oh, by the way, also the turppines were when we measured it was almost 6% turpps and was 34% Yeah. 34% THC, 39% uh canabonoids. So, they they yield a lot more too. It was just like sugarcoated the bud. It was incredible. And then, of course, we have to sample it. And it was it was very potent. It was nice. Very potent. I could imagine. I was going over some of the notes that uh Brandon and Kevin share with us and they said one of the most interesting points they made was that growers are trying to move from clones back to stable seeds and they claim that if they get it right cutting clone labor and stabilizing seed lines can drop operating costs by 20% which is a major massive swing. You’re seeing that? Yeah. Yeah. The the future of cannabis will not be cutings. It will be double haploid seeds and the first person that gets the double haploid seeds is is going to just sell a lot of seeds. A lot of seeds because you’ll have a very ubiquous crop every single time. Okay. So, when we look at your playbook, like how much is it different from say seedbased programs versus say clone heavy programs? Oh, you’re going to save. He said 20%. I think you’re going to save a lot more than than than that. They got machines that lay the seeds in and they pop and boom, you put them in. They have more vigor. They’re going to be already, you know, female seeds. So, yeah, that’s just look at look at corn, look at soybean, look at any of these these other crop. They’re all seeds. No one’s putting cutings in the ground. We are. Keep everything simple, right? Yeah. We will we will get there. What interests you? What excites you the most right now as far as like, you know, the global opportunity here? Any countries, any specific areas that you’re focusing on that really grabs your interest and you see growth? Middle East. Middle East. Yeah. Middle East. middle middle east and some of the uh ex caucuses of Russia right there. You know, we got Armenia is is doing its thing. There’s 11 license holders. They’re getting ready to start building and doing their thing there. And Kyrgyzstan is same thing and Kazakhstan’s talking about it. So, it’s interesting to see develop. Yeah. I’m doing this new weekly segment. I prevent or present the uh biggest developments on the international level. You’re seeing Lebanon, you’re seeing Morocco, you’re seeing all these different countries that are developing and changing for those that don’t get a chance to travel abroad like you do. It’s just how how can you best verbalize what the global movement is towards cannabis? Well, as you go to these other countries that are that waited longer and longer to get in, you see that there’s we’re from the future. Like we have the answers. We know exactly what’s going to happen, where they’re going to go pretty much. And they benefit from all the mistakes that our industry has made. So maybe they were smarter for waiting a little bit longer because each, you know, country’s got their own built-in marketplace. Yeah. You go first to make the mistakes and we’ll learn from you, right? Have the most arrows in their back as they say. Yeah. Look at Canada, right, Anthony? Look at Canada. Everyone’s got key learnings from Canada. Yeah, absolutely. Very key learnings. Um, what else do I want to talk about? You you see the world I I guess like serious cultivators. are running in real time genomics and pathogen testing side by side with their feeding programs. Correct. Um, you know, how would how is Advanced Nutrients looking at pairing nutrients with that kind of IPM toolkit so growers can really understand what their feeding points are and what they’re really trying to learn here? Yeah. Well, we’re we’re we have a total programs. We’re coming up with a great IPM product that just kills those little bastards real fast. Eats basically the eCo ectokeleton off off the insect. But uh we’re really excited about that. But yeah, it’s you know, we got to have all the solutions for pretty much all the solutions for the growers. And that’s what Advance is moving towards. Uh where we weren’t into uh you know, IPM, we’re moving into that now. Where do you see the biggest opportunity in the US or is it pretty much anywhere right now? You know, obviously the the the states that don’t have any kind of medical or adult use that those are the biggest opportunities and then the ones that are have medical, how do we get them to adult use? Yeah. Right. Right. What do you think if you look at this the whole environment that once rescheduling does happen and that’s something I’m going to ask Kevin next time we have him on, but you know, once the announcement is made, okay, great. then there’s going to be all this um structured, you know, approach with the FDA, uh what the government’s going to expect. Like, are there things that maybe we’re unaware of that you could shed some light on as to like what the next steps would be even after the announcement is made? Well, you know what? It’s hard to say because we don’t know what the next year is going to bring us in in the in the fight for cannabis. And I’d just be making wild speculations if I were to do that. It’s it’s let’s we’re going to have to take it literally week by week, month by month, and put on there there’s I have not seen an easy path to cannabis legalization in the 40 some 43 years I’ve been doing this. It it it just no, it’s it’s a fight and there’s a lot of different uh factors and factions that have their self-interests and and and want to, you know, either pro or against cannabis. So, it’s going to be very, very interesting. And be prepared to to to slug it out, which means that our entire cannabis industry has to get together and we all have to donate money on a monthly basis and we have to spend it wisely and we can make a huge difference. That’s the thing about alcohol. You go those bourbon guys out of out of Kentucky, they’ve been doing this for 70ome years, 80 years. They they’ve got, you know, been dealing with Washington. They have the the network, the connections. I mean, look what happened, right? It’s like, oh yeah, sure, [ __ ] Yeah. Put that in there. Yeah. One of the things we also touched on with Kevin was about how, you know, whether these indoor cannabis facilities eventually look like dark factories, like fully automated. I cannot believe how much automation is changing the whole industry, is it not? Yeah. You’re going to see more and more automation. I keep looking at those humanoid robots that Elon Musk has, those Atlas ones, and I go, when are they going to be deleafing and doing things? I I don’t know. I don’t know. They’re going to be doing five years, seven years, 10 years. It’s going to be very interesting to see how that plays out. Yeah, they’re going to be doing it very quickly, especially because you can you can remote operate those as well. Yeah. Um with human if you don’t if it can’t do the task that you need it to do. I can just look at V I can just picture village farms as facilities just optimist walking straight through them. Um no no people whatsoever. And I mean Kim’s pretty much already got that at Jeffco. Yeah, I was going to ask about that. Like, have you seen that? Have you been in there? What does that look like? I’d love to I know very few people that have actually been in there, but they say it’s almost eerie. Like, there’s no people. I I’ve I’ve had tours of some robots walking around, but there’s no people. Um, everything is pretty much automated and everything is pretty much just How do they How do they deleaf? How they they use a laser or something or like how how’s that happening? I I’m not sure. I’ve That’s one place I’d love to get into. Well, when you do, give me a call. Come with you because I would love to. So, I’ve got a brother-in-law and he does automation. Like, you know, these have these massive greenhouse facilities, but they have tracking systems and it’s all automated and it just brings it into like, you know, the cutting room, but never ever is there people inside the actual grow area. And these green houses are massive. We’re talking like a mile long. So, this is the kind of sophistication that’s taking place. So, with that, and I think that’ll only advance. What do you guys think a state-of-the-art facility will look like? Pria Pria can pretty well do that, right? From from mainstream a and I’ve seen it. There’s a there’s a facility out in the desert here, C4. It’s 300,000 square feet. I swear you look down the roads, they got to be 100 yards. And the tables are probably about 16 feet long, 20 feet long, and whatever, like four feet wide, five feet, six feet wide. And it it comes in on a conveyor to a room where you have workers. They do whatever they got to do and it goes right back to where it’s got to go or wherever you want to move it to. It’s it’s an incredible system. Incredible system that are out there. But you still got humans doing the deleafing and all this other kind of stuff. It’s like I was going to say, do you still is there still value in five years from the old school grower? Yeah. Yeah. The future the thing is the thing is the future of the industry it can’t really be indoor grow. Indoor grow is way too expensive. It’s way too power intensive and it’s way too carbon intensive. There’s going to be, you want to talk about what Mike said with unintended consequences over the next year. Cannabis gets legitimized. There’s going to be an increasing spotlight on the sensitive areas of the industry. And one of them is indoor grows suck. like indoor grows from from an infrastructure standpoint and just from a from a from a carbon neutral clean standpoint, they’re not efficient at all. They take up 10% of the power grid in Massachusetts. Massachusetts’s adult use cannabis industry uses 10% of power. You’ve got people complaining about Bitcoin mining and data centers and the the energy suck and the carbon footprint that those things give. Indoor cannabis facilities are just as bad. They’re just not in the spotlight right now. So outdoor is the standpoint. Yeah, for he’s right. It’s going to be hloid seeds, double hloids growing and it’s going to be outdoors and with gene editing right now. It’s you’re not going to see so much because the indoor is, you know, they grow superior cannabis. But what you’ll see eventually, you’ll see outdoor cannabis look exactly like indoor cannabis. And the reason why indoor cannabis looks like the way it is because they bred it that way. They didn’t want a lot of leaves. And so you’ll be able to do the same thing outdoors. You want pink buds, purple buds, a mixture of both, you’ll be able to literally gene edit that plant any way you want it. And it’ll be an outdoor crop. And you know where it’s going to grow? California. California. That’s where it’s going to grow. You’re not going to grow that kind of outdoor cannabis in Florida. And you sure as hell are Colia, some of the foreign countries, they can they can grow it places in Africa. They can grow it uh you know at probably the lowest cost per gram and from there it’ll go. Same with tea. They grow most of a lot of that tea is growing in Africa. Yeah. I was going to say as the global opportunity opens up and let’s say countries change like will California be the place to be for a certain period of time that eventually it’ll pivot. It’s not like wine. Yeah, it it this is this is the epicenter of cannabis and it will be that that way for a long long time to come. So with your approach in science, like are you trying to bring the outdoor plant indoor to prove yields for a lot of companies? Like what do you what do you say to that? Well, we’re doing the the the triploids and so you know the math tells the truth. Like it’s it’s going to be triploids, it’s going to be tetroploids, it’s going to be octoploids. So you you do that and you get hloids out there and gene edit, you know, then there’s going to be GMO eventually is gonna like we we’ve we’ve literally sat down, one of our top scientists figured out how to get rid of hopsight and vyroid, but it’s a GMO plant, but it’s not like you’re taking some kind of DNA from a mammal or something and sticking it in there. It’s just another plant and you know, do a knockout, put it in there, and you’re off to the races. G editing plants is almost clean compared to uh the other GMO things. Correct. Correct. That we see and that got a bad rap. Yeah. You know, by the way, the big operators at the end of the day, I don’t think they’re going to care if it’s GMO. As long as it’s not some weird thing, they’re going to go, “Okay, this is normal. It’s efficient. It’s going to be cheap.” Yeah. Yeah. How long’s that last though for you? Does it last? What? just as far as like if it’s going to be cheap and efficient when it comes down to a product itself, like is that a long-term solution? Well, branding is Yeah. Comes on branding at that point. And I mean, think about think about the input products that go into beer, into soda, into tobacco. Like this is mass market. Like there’s going to be indoor super high quality moa style cannabis that always exists. Yeah. But the if you want to reach scale like what we just saw with the hemp industry and THC beverages and edibles and eventually you’ll have pre-rolls in packs next to cigarettes at 7-Eleven. That’s going to be GMO outdoor grown at scale cannabis. That’s not going to be these high yielding cultivars that are delicately grown indoors um for a $60 ETH. Yeah. But that $60 a’s never going to go anywhere. it’s always still going to exist um for a certain consumer. Every customer has their own preference. That’s for sure. One thing’s for sure though is that Big Bourbon spoke this week and they wanted this hemp ban and they understand that their market share is being eaten into and you know it is uh it’s we are on the verge of a tipping point and you know a turning point I guess for the industry because consumers especially 30 and under drinking is going way down and people are consuming cannabis uh whether that’s through tinctures, beverages, gummies. Obviously, we’ve got to do this the proper way with proper testing, proper labeling, but uh that’s not going away. That train has left the station. I think one of the biggest things with this this hemp is that they never was never regulated. And that’s probably one of the biggest downfalls to it is it’s who knows what the hell you’re you’re consuming. Yeah. The problem with hemp was that they were finding they were finding flour that was sprayed with 70. They were finding vapes that had 70 in them and contaminants and whatever. If hemp was regulated, if the end product for hemp derived products was regulated from day one and they had congruent regulations to what we see in the cannabis industry, that ban doesn’t happen last night. Yeah. And they’re probably still just crushing it coast to coast. Yep. You know, and I was at Mary Jane. We’re doing her podcast. We’re doing one interview after the other. I had to look over at your booth and it was packed all day, every day. People approaching you and talking to you. How do they find you? What is like, you know, who like people just randomly come up to you all the time and having conversations, but yeah, I’ve been doing this for 26 almost 27 years old. Like we’re we’re a Yeah, it it was we’re a picture in cannabis and they know it. Yeah. But the presence of your booths are pretty uh impressive as well. The smaller ones and you have these big ones. But the one thing I was you were doing business all day, you know, for the two or three days that you were down there. Where were you before that? Weren’t you at that uh event? I was Yeah, I had like literally got off the plane, walked straight into the show. I was when you interviewed me, I was so tired, but it worked. Your eyes were a little red, but I couldn’t tell, man. You did fine. Thank you. All right. Well, the last thing I’ll leave it off is just, you know, and I think this is a lasting message for anybody that’s out there representing companies. It’s all about consistency. Is there anything you want to leave with us as far as you know just the consistency in the future of this industry and how you guys can help? Yeah, you know well for first like there’s this kind of belief out there that advanced nutrients is is is too expensive to use in commercial uh growing and that’s absolutely not true because during COVID we really expanded our our infrastructure had a big capex spend and uh our production infrastructure now is huge and so we have economies of scale that we could we didn’t have before. So, we’re we’re priced just like everybody else and uh the quality is better. And by the way, we have 10 million of these triploids coming out in January. And the good thing is we fixed a lot of times they’re herphidetic and so we don’t have that issue anymore with with our trips. So, we’re all happy about it. Looking forward to January. Quality and consistency. If not, you’re dead in a CPG world, aren’t you? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Big Mike, always good catching up with you and uh good to get your perspective on uh some of the uh things that we’ve learned along the way and still the things that we still need to learn moving forward. But again, let’s hope these uh two industries become one and it’s the THC industry, not the cannabis and hemp industry because that’s where this needs to go. But always good catching up with you. Okay. Okay. Great. Thanks. Thanks, Mike. Hey everyone, thanks again for watching here today. Listen, if you’re getting value from us here at TDR, make sure to check us out at TDR Plus. It’s our exclusive membership community. Why? Well, you’ll see CEO interviews that go beyond business, showing a personal side that you won’t find anywhere else, including the biggest names in the industry. Plus, you’ll get insights from analysts and day traders on where the industry is headed, both short-term and long-term, and a direct chat group with our team. It’s only $7 a month, just 25 cents a day, and it helps support everything we do here at TDR. If you want to join, just click the join button below and become a TDR Plus member today. And once again, a big thank you for being part of our community. So that’s it for today and again, thanks for watching and I’ll see you next time.
Video Tags: intoxicating hemp ban,federal hemp crackdown,THC industry,Advanced Nutrients interview,BigMike Straumietis,cannabis cultivation science,cannabis genetics and genomics,triploid cannabis yields,outdoor vs indoor cannabis,cannabis automation and robotics
Video Duration: 00:36:22
