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Home My WebLink AboutClinton News Record, 2016-08-31, Page 1818 News Record • Wednesday, August 31, 2016 Kincardine's 7 ACRES hybrid greenhouse marks first harvest of medical cannabis Troy Patterson Postmedia Network The first harvest of medi- cal marihuana at Kincar- dine's 7 ACRES hybrid greenhouseis setting the stage for what the company aims to be the largest capac- ity legal production facility worldwide. Staff marked the cutting of the first medical canna- bis plant during a 'stem cutting' ceremony that included a number of gar- dening staff and manage- ment present on Aug. 15, 2016. All of the plants from the 16,500 -square -foot 'Phase Zero' test greenhouse area are the first set of cloned strains of cannabis being dried, processed, packaged and shipped for third -party laboratory testing required by Health Canada. About 100 grams from each of the two harvests, as well as 100 grams from each strain of cannabis, will be tested for potency, con- sistency, contaminants and overall quality standards set to protect what will be the future medical mari- huana patients buy from the Kincardine -area green- house. "The lab testing is going to tell us the strength of the medicine, and then we can do more fine selection," said Peter Herburger, 7 ACRES' director of opera- tions. "Potency is very important. The reason going forward is so we have at least 99 per cent assur- ance that the plants we grow from one mother are the same potency and consistency." 7 ACRES allowed Post- media exclusive access to Phase Zero to document the first cut of the compa- ny's harvest and showcase the development that has occurred since the com- pany started cultivating cannabis in March 2016. Walking into the stretch- ing 'Phase Zero' area revealed a vast numbers of skunky, eight -week-old budding cannabis plants lined in rows, cared for daily by gardening staff. Fans circulated the air and the sun shined in through adjustable blinders above, past the grow lights that combined allow for about 12 hours of sunlight, or 18 hours earlier in life in the nursery growing area. Herburger allowed lim- ited access for photos of both Phase Zero and the nursery growing area, which holds both the 'mother' plants and the cannabis clones in their earliest stages. Plants are harvested using detailed procedures and a custom built drying rack. During the first cut- ting, staff proudly posed for photos beside cut cannabis plants hanging on drying racks, similar to anglers posing with a fish caught during a good day on the lake. Whole plants are then placed into drying cham- bers, where they are dried for 10-14 days, which the company said improves the quality of the buds. 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Pictured: 7 ACRES director of production Matt Rogge, vice president Sarah Herburger and director of operations Peter Herburger celebrate the cutting of the first medical marihuana plant on Aug. 15, 2016. divided into batches and placed into specific packag- ing to ensure quality in storage. Finally, the com- pany must take 120 gram representative samples that are kept for more than two years as a record of the product's quality. The facility has a series of security and environmental controls that staff must strictly adhere to, as the pharmaceutical facility must regularly demonstrate to Health Canada compli- ance to many regulations, from sanitation to record keeping and more. The federal regulator shows up for inspections regularly to ensure all sys- tems continue to meet reg- ulations, making for a full day of work for staff to demonstrate compliance, Herburger said. Matt Rogge, 7 ACRES' director of production, said clones allow for consist- ency in production, as the plants are identical in nearly every way aside from environmental impacts, which they are able to avoid in the controlled environment. "We can make several thousand, all from the same mother (plant)," Rogge said. "What we're doing here is growing out all the different genetics from our different mothers. And we're going to select the best one and move for- ward with that production." The best 10-12 plants are analyzed in a lab for things like potency, and the smell it will create, of the current nine strains of medical can- nabis they carry, across more than 300 sets of genetics. "We'll use that analytical data, in combination with the physical traits we can observe - yield, flower time, resistance to pests," said Rogge. By the time its Phase 1 is licensed, the company plans to have about 20 strains of medical cannabis growing for medical patient costumers, Herburger said. They also plan to increase to over 30 staff this fall, of the 100 total they hope to have at full production in the coming years, and are currently looking for a number of staff to fill posi- tions from record keeping, IT and grower assistants. Supreme Pharmaceuti- cals CEO John Fowler said the harvest came nearly three years to the day since 7 ACRES, formerly Advanced Medical Mari- huana Canada (AMMCan), set out to refurbish the existing 340,000 -square - foot Bruce Energy Centre Greenhouse property as a subsidiary owned by Supreme Pharmaceuticals. "The first harvest is a milestone event for Supreme and 7 ACRES, and everyone in Kincardine and Bruce County that was behind us, said Fowler. From a capital market perspective, Fowler said, the company has been doing "very well" both in terms of stock price and management's ability to raise capital to fund the 80,000 -square -foot, multi- million -dollar expansion of the greenhouse's Phase 1 growing space. "When Phase 1 is com- plete, we expect to be pro- ducing a capacity of 10,000 kilograms per year, which will cement our position as one of the world's leading cultivators of legal cannabis," Fowler said, who added they have had international interest in their business but their focus is within Canadian borders. "Our focus is on one thing, building out the entire greenhouse in prep- aration for recreational sales, as well as the growth of the medical marihuana market here in Canada," he said. Asked whether the US Drug Enforcement Agen- cy's recent announcement to continue categorizing marihuana as an illegal Schedule 1 drug, along- side heroin, LSD and ecstasy, may impact the company's business, Fowler said it allows Can- ada's medical marihuana market time to grow with - o u t American competition. CONTINUED > PAGE 19