Off topic, but good read......
Grow Calgary's Paul Hughes sits with hundreds of planting pots donated by Aurora Cannabis on Monday March 6, 2017. Gavin Young / Calgary Herald
It’s a green gift from one grower to another.
Vancouver-based Aurora Cannabis is digging in to help a Calgary urban farming operation by donating truckloads of used growing materials along with their highly honed green thumbs to the local non-profit that provides fresh produce for local agencies.
Cam Battley, executive vice-president of Aurora, which operates a federally-licensed medical marijuana production facility near Cremona, said the company is unable to re-use the pots and other growing materials used for growing weed because of stringent rules governing the burgeoning industry.
“Because we’re growing medicine we have extremely strict protocols that say we can’t re-use them,” he said.
“We have been recycling them, but this is a step beyond that. In addition to the supplies, we’re also donating the expertise of our growers — we have some of the best agricultural experts in the country and it’s part of our corporate culture that we be super connected to our community.”
Cam Battley, Senior Vice President with Aurora Cannabis Inc., stands in one of the ten marijuana grow rooms inside the company’s 55,000 square foot medical marijuana production facility near Cremona, Alberta on Wednesday July 27, 2016. Gavin Young/Postmedia Gavin Young / Postmedia
The donated pots and propagation trays are used for cloning cannabis plants that are among the 7,000 kilograms of medical marijuana being grown at the company’s central Alberta facility annually.
And the expertise, said Battley, will acquaint the Grow Calgary farmers with some of the latest practices in pesticide-free agriculture, using so-called ‘good bugs’ for pest control as well as other cutting edge cultivation tools.
Grow Calgary founder Paul Hughes said the operation, run by volunteers on 4.5 hectares of land west of Canada Olympic Park, is almost completely reliant on donations from individuals and organizations, so the bounty in both material and expertise pledged by Aurora will be a huge boost.
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“This is one of the single largest contributions we’ve had to the growing side of what we do,” Hughes said.
“We’ve also go a lot of young people who don’t have a lot of formal growing experience, so the fact that they’re sharing their expertise in growing and plant biology in the long run may be more beneficial than the actual materials.
“They’re the NASA of plant biology.”
Now going into its fifth growing season since launching in 2013, Hughes said he expects the operation will fill about 500 truckloads of donated produce to 20 agencies that help the less fortunate. That annual yield of some 30 different vegetables comes from about 2 million seeds in the ground.
Battley added Aurora is also looking to donate rich and chemical-free compost to the Calgary growers as part of the donation.
Aurora, which already operates a 55,200 sq.-ft. legal medical marijuana operation in Cremona, has begun building a massive facility at Edmonton International Airport the size of 10 Canadian football fields, which would make it the largest such operation on the planet.
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Grow Calgary’s Paul Hughes checks on seedlings in the organization’s hydroponic area on Monday March 6, 2017. Grow Calgary hopes to get a head start on this year’s growing season by starting the plants in the converted sea container, the planting containers from Aurora Cannabis will be key. Gavin Young / Calgary Herald