OCTOBER 2018 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC


Winfield grower has ambitious


cannabis plans Top-quality cannabis requires attention to detail


by MYRNA STARK LEADER KELOWNA – Kelowna-


based hydroponic cannabis grower Flowr Corp. is ramping up production for the start of legal recreational cannabis sales October 17. Since December 2017, the 84,000-square-foot facility on two acres in an industrial area of Winfield has produced five crops, and a sixth is underway. Four growing rooms are operational with 98 full and part-time employees. It’s a mid-sized facility for BC, home to Canada’s largest cannabis greenhouse, a 1.3 million- square-foot facility in Langley. Flowr received licensed


producer status from Health Canada last December to sell or provide medical marijuana and in August received permission to sell both medical and recreational bud. Company president Tom


Flow co-founded MedReleaf, one of Canada’s largest licensed producers based in Ontario. Tom left Medreleaf prior to opening Flowr, explains Flowr’s chief policy and medical officer Lyle Oberg. “We want to educate people so they know that we are a legitimate business,” says Oberg, a medical doctor and former Alberta finance minister. Security is tight, and those inside the building must be suited up to protect the crop from bacteria and pests during the eight to nine-week production cycle. Tables full of plants are housed in fully enclosed rooms with full- spectrum lights and fans that circulate the air continuously. Each room holds about 5,000


plants and is pressurized to keep out scents and microbes.


Soil-based mother plants


provide cuttings for new production, Oberg explains. The clippings are placed in a growing medium, Rockwool, and started in 100 plant trays. When large enough, individual plants are transplanted by hand into a larger container of Rockwool and set on long growing tables.


The tables have raised sides that allow a solution of filtered tap water and growth nutrients to flood and feed the plants through the Rockwool. Carbon dioxide is pumped into the rooms for further nutrition. The new plants remain in a


vegetative state for three weeks, with 18 hours of light at about 30 degrees Celsius. Then, to trigger bloom, they’re switched to 12 hours of light. “We’re not growing


organic, but we’re working to keep things as natural as possible,” Oberg says. Flowr works with about 100 strains of cannabis. Each plant is numbered and electronic record-keeping is in place for traceability. It also lays a foundation for breeding new strains with desired traits, work possible here because all the plants are genotyped. All finished product will be fully labelled following strict guidelines. “The biggest advantage for consumers is that they know exactly what they are getting,” says Oberg. Growing quality plants is


labour-intensive. Plants have to be tied up by hand. Once


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Lyle Oberg is a doctor and former Alberta finance minister. He’s now the chief policy and medical officer for Flowr, a licensed cannabis grower in Winfield with big plans to grow its operation. MYRNA STARK LEADER PHOTO


mature, the full plant is cut from the Rockwool and flowers are harvested by hand. Workers remove the leaves so only the buds remain for drying. “One of our biggest challenges is growing to scale,” says Oberg. “Many of our growers have been growing for 20 years so we have lots of experience but any time you have new equipment, new lights, there can be things that don’t go exactly as planned. With each crop, we upgrade, change


Are you fREADY


for WINTER


what we do and work to get a better crop. In a new facility, we’ve been very happy with what we’ve been producing.” Flowr has a partnership


with Hawthorne Gardening Co., a subsidiary of Ohio- based Scotts Miracle-Gro Co., to bring added cultivation products and experience to the production process. “They’re very interested in what is the right soil composition, the right pesticide … things from a plant point of view,” Oberg explains.


Plans for growth Flowr’s business plan calls


for 20 growing rooms in the current facility and ramping up to 300 to 400 employees. In addition, Flowr plans another building of up to 200,000 square feet. A 50,000- square-foot addition to the original facility is underway that will complete in 2019 to house offices and a research and development division. Oberg knows the


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