Learn About the Cannabis Industry
First and Foremost, We are farmers
Mogu derives its name from the Chinese word for “mushrooms.” We started as a Shiitake Mushroom farm in 2011.
However we have decades of experience as farmers. We have grown cut flowers, vegetables, and mushrooms and we’ve taken care of horses, cows, pigs, goats and chickens. Farming has taught us the effort necessary to grow a consistent and quality product. It takes a lot of effort.
Cultivation
The beginning part of the Cannabis industry is cultivation.
The plant goes through 3 major stages. Seeds/Cloning is taking part of the mother plant and replanting it in a new container to start a new plant. This takes about 3-4 weeks. Vegging is when that clone is large enough to start growing in its final container for several weeks until it is large enough to flower, about 4 weeks. Flowering is when the plant is actively forming flowers up to when it is harvested. This takes about 8 to 12 weeks, depending on the genetics.
In NYS, the Cannabis plant is grown in 3 different ways. Indoor, Outdoor, and Greenhouse with lights. None is better than the other. Outdoor is typically limited to 1 to 2 grows each year. Indoor and Greenhouse can yield up to 5 grows per year. Indoor spaces never see sunlight, but they tend to have less pest and disease pressure. Greenhouses have more humidity issues and are harder to control. No matter the method, if anything goes wrong, it will affect the flowers.
Processing
After the flowers, which contain most of the trichomes, have been grown and dried, they are processed in many different ways. The most common are dried flower and pre-rolls. However, there are many other products that are made from the raw materials into intermediate materials including: hash, RSO oil, distillate oil, BHO oil, fresh frozen/bubble hash, etc. Final products like vapes, dabs, rosins and beverages are made from these.
Our Machinery
We have equipment to make prerolls, ethanol distillate and fresh frozen hash. From this we derive most of our products: Vapes, edibles and rosin.
Like any industry, the equipment is costly and the scale of production varies proportionally to the size of the equipment. We are a small batch grower. Some products can only be made with special technology that isn’t always cost effective. Thus, we don’t produce every type of product on the market.
Wholesale and Retail Sales
No matter how good your product is and how hard you work, none of it matters until it is sold. As a Microbusiness, we are able to have our own dispensary and to sell to other dispensaries. This combination is allowed in NYS to the largest growers, ROs/Registered Organizations, who can grow up to 100,000sqft indoors. And Microbusinesses which in our case is limited to 5000sqft of greenhouse space. This prevents us from growing larger and thus our products are unique and limited.
What to be aware of when purchasing Cannabis
The average dispensary is a box store. Their employees are reselling goods that are sold to them, and they know little about how they were made. The grower, processor, and dispensary need to make a profit. Then taxes are added. So there is a big mark up.
Flower products are distinct. The strain usually coincides with the genetics of the plant it was derived from, but the method of growing from indoor to outdoor drastically changes the way the plant expresses itself. Most other products are altered and not authentic genetics.
Picking a product based upon THC percentage is a trick to fool most shoppers. If you see inflated numbers, chances are the product was altered. And what is worse is that the original flower was probably low grade, thus needing the extra THC to make it marketable.
Most of the processed cannabis on the market is make by relatively few processors. Look at the label on the item you are purchasing and then look up the COA to see where the product was tested and the processor that made it.
Since most of the products are actually made by relatively few processors, the difference in quality and price are more likely related to the packaging and branding that goes into the marketing of the product.
There is a substantial difference between the processing methods used to extract THC from the flowers. Ethanol and Butane are the most common, however, there are many others. Learning about which method makes which product is key.
Questions?