Hop-forward beers with complex aromas are sweeping the market. Pioneered by innovative North American craft brewers, many of the major breweries have been quick to add India Pale Ales (IPAs)—beers traditionally recognized for their hoppy bitterness—to their expanding product lines. Modern-day IPAs and other craft beers are increasingly hopped with aromatic cultivars that impart their characteristic bitterness to beer and also express fruity, floral and herbal terpene aromas and flavors resembling those of cannabis flowers. The relationship between buds and suds are often enjoyed in social settings, and the enhanced effects of consuming hoppy beers are often discussed on beer blogs. Is exploring the heightened effects of consuming hoppy beer and terpy cannabis together the natural next step?

Smoking and drinking in moderation go hand-in-hand, as any bar owner will attest. Many people relax after work with a smoke and a beer. So, what could be so special about using cannabis and drinking terpy beer compared to regular beer? Isn’t it just about the THC and ethanol?

Hop and Hemp

Humulus and Cannabis are each other’s closest botanical relatives. Female Humulus lupulus, or common hop plants, are commercially grown to produce the flowers called “hops,” which are most often dried and used in brewing beer. Hops are grown seedless to encourage the production of bitter alpha-acids and the aromatic terpenes important in brewing, much as cannabis flowers are grown seedless to encourage the production of cannabinoids and terpenes. Seeds only add to the weight, which increases the cost of the hops, while diminishing the target compound contents. And oily seeds are no more desirable in beer than they are in sinsemilla flowers.

OK, so Cannabis and hops are related. Why would consuming one enhance the effects of the other? The simple answer is that they both contain similar suites of aromatic terpenes. Only Cannabis plants produce cannabinoids (e.g., THC and CBD), while both Cannabis and hops produce a wide range of the same aromatic terpene compounds. The characteristic compounds found in hops that account for the bitter taste of beer are alpha-acids, especially humulone, which is absent from Cannabis. Humulone should not be confused with the terpene humulene, which is commonly found in both Humulus and Cannabis flowers. These closely related plant groups evolved from a common ancestor, and it is instructive to compare the aromatic contents of Cannabis essential oil to that of its near relative, and to understand which terpenes and other aromatic compounds are also shared by Humulus. (See the “A Closer Look: Terpenes in Cannabis and Hops” box below.)

Myrcene is the predominate terpene found in both Cannabis and Humulus and can make up more than three-quarters of the terpene content in some samples. Caryophyllene and the farnesenes are also found in high concentrations in both hemp and hops. Pinene is prevalent in Cannabis, while humulene is prevalent in Humulus and is one of the terpenes preferred by brewers. Limonene is a major Cannabis terpene, occasionally exceeding myrcene levels, and along with terpinolene, ocimene, carene and the phellandrenes, can have a major presence in Cannabis but usually only a minor presence in Humulus. On the other hand, bisabolenes, selinene, bergamotene, aromadendrene and spathulenol are more common in Humulus and only appear in smaller amounts in Cannabis. Brewer’s hops are usually myrcene and humulene dominant with the remaining terpenes found in much smaller amounts, and Humulus does not produce such a complex array of terpenes as Cannabis.

Without hops, beer is mostly fermented barley mash, water and ethyl alcohol. Ethanol is essentially a one-dimensional drug with limited variation of effect. The aromatic constituents of hops add a vivid spectrum to the basic shades-of-gray palette provided by alcohol alone. Sinsemilla contains predominately THC, a single psychoactive compound, as well, but supported by a wide range of aromatic terpene compounds that modify the effects of THC alone. Although Cannabis and Humulus plants share several common terpenes, others occur in both more rarely, and some are produced by only one genus or the other. Possibly cannabis adds to hoppy beer a broader spectrum of terpenes and thereby enhances a more well-rounded and complete experience. Terpenes may also create an olfactory bridge between the effects of consuming cannabis and the effects of drinking beer. The aromas common to both sinsemilla and hop flowers enhance the blending of these pleasurable experiences. In addition, subtle psychoactive effects induced by individual terpenes and aromatic blends may enhance the combined experience.

Historical Hops

Hops have long been associated with adding special properties to beers. “The Hop Farmer: A Complete Account of Hop Culture,” written in 1838 by agricultural writer E. J. Lance, informs us of the psychoactive potential of hoppy ales: “It is the opinion of brewers that the intoxicating qualities of ale are to be partly ascribed to the oil of the hop. … As a narcotic its powers are known in beer, and have been often used to produce sleep from the smell only … .”

Among beer lovers, the effects of hops are increasingly discussed. A brief survey of beer blogs discovered several effects attributed to hop-forward craft beers—especially those brewed with the particularly aromatic American hop varieties—including more vivid dreams, euphoric happiness and sedation.

Lance also writes that Georgian- and early-Victorian-era hops were smoked for their flavorful terpene content as well as their medicinal effects: “In a productive year any means of using up the hops will be of service to the growers, it is therefore recommended to be smoked instead of tobacco, or it may be mixed therewith; it is grateful to the taste and smell, and moreover will cure rheumatic pains by using in this way.”

These observations add credibility to the hypothesis that drinking hoppy beers can produce subtle effects above and beyond those from alcohol, and that an abundance of aromatic hops can enhance the experience of drinking beer.

Craft brewers have become increasingly transparent in their presentation of the hop and cannabis relationship. Some make subtle wink-wink, nudge-nudge allusions while more bold brewers leave no doubt where they stand. Hop Valley Brewing Company’s Bubble Stash IPA label encapsulates the cannabis persuasions of their intended customer base: “Our brewers reached into their secret stash of mosaic cryo hop resin to create a tropical dankness in this new age IPA. Take a hit of these bright sweet fruit notes in the easy drinkin’ bubbler. You won’t want to pass this one!”

Aromatic sinsemilla flowers and hoppy beers are a marketing match made in heaven. There are so many ways to present the relationships between both plants to the modern marketplace. We will surely see many innovative business models succeed. Our future is on our doorstep!

What’s All the Fuss About?

Regulated cannabis environments generally prohibit publicly smoking otherwise legal cannabis. Consumers can buy cannabis from a licensed retailer but must take their purchase off-premises to even open the package. Most hotels, bars and restaurants do not allow smoking, or any cannabis consumption for that matter. Smoking while driving is illegal, and street consumption is certainly uncool and can result in fines. So what are honest cannabis consumers to do?

Demand for mixed consumption venues is high. In several jurisdictions, strict adult-use laws segregating consumption of food and drink from smoking of any kind are yielding to mixed consumption venues where cannabis can be purchased on site and smoked in designated areas. We believe food, alcohol and cannabis consumption will begin to occupy the same commercial spaces. Given the reservations of policy makers toward smoking, it likely will be quite some time before permits are issued for mixed consumption venues—but we already see mixed consumption at conferences and concerts where food and alcohol are served and smoking is tolerated within defined areas. Co-consumption is what consumers want, and they usually get their way. As we always say, just follow the money! As profitable co-consumption business models begin to unfold, they will rapidly gain in popularity. It will soon become increasingly important to more extensively explore and understand the synergistic relationships between Cannabis and Humulus plants and their products.

We are just now learning how the numerous aromatic compounds synthesized by Cannabis plants help shape the effects associated with various cultivars. It would be naive to assume that the terpenes in cannabis products do not interact synergistically with foods and beverages, as well. Our as yet limited understanding of the “ensemble effect” among cannabinoids, terpenes and myriad other compounds contained in Cannabis plants is already opening the door to understanding the complex chemical interplay sculpting the effects achieved by using cannabis products. Although in comparison to cannabis consumption, terpenes may play a lesser role in shaping the inebriating effects of beer drinking, it would be equally naive to assume that they exert no effect at all.

Our preferences for various cannabis and hop aromas are rooted in our associations with other plants and our previous experiences. The sustained popularity of modern, highly aromatic “loud” cannabis and the proliferation of hoppy IPAs are strong testaments to the complex role plants and their various chemical constituents play in consumers’ lives. Understanding how certain aromatic compounds potentiate, modulate and regulate the actions and effects of other active ingredients and the influences of these effects on forming individual aroma preferences presents a mountain yet to climb.

Robert C. Clarke is a freelance writer, photographer, ethnobotanist, plant breeder, textile collector and co-founder of BioAgronomics Group, specializing in smoothing the transition to a wholly legal and normalized cannabis market. info@bioagronomics.com

Mojave Richmond is the developer of many award-winning varieties such as S.A.G.E., which served as a springboard for creating many notable cultivars. Richmond is a founding member of the international consulting company BioAgronomics Group.

Cultivar Details:

Plant physiology: Snake Eyes has relatively short internodal spacing, medium to broad purple leaves and finishes 3.5 to 4 feet tall if vegged for 3 weeks.

Average yield: Snake Eyes is a low yielder at around 0.07 lbs./sq. ft. of canopy.

Flowering time: Nine to 10 weeks

Ideal light-intensity setting: 600 to 700 micromoles (umols)

Ideal cultivation environment temperature: It likes moderate temperatures in the low- to mid-70s (Fahrenheit).

Ideal cultivation environment relative humidity: It likes moderate humidity in the 55% to 65% RH range.

Water needs: It’s a slow drinker. On-demand watering using a tensiometer would be the best way to feed her. Or you can track the daily feed volume and keep the runoff at 10% to 20% of saturation.

Nutrient needs: Snake Eyes feeds heavier in the stretch phase but normalizes its diet during the finishing stretch.

Cannabinoid profile: 21% to 24% THC, 1% CBG

Terpene profile: Top four (in order): B-caryophyllene, limonene, linalool, and B-myrcene

Susceptibility to diseases/conditions: Snake Eyes has some minor light sensitivity. Keeping light levels around the recommended 600 to 700 umols range should help cultivators avoid light burn.

David Holmes is founder/CEO of Clade⁹

The first time I really considered the problem of genetic diversity in commercial cannabis was in a policy discussion about some important goals for the cannabis community and industry. Among the proposed goals was something like “promote and enhance the genetic diversity of cannabis and avoid monoculture.”

A monoculture is a crop of a single type that is grown in a large area. In its most extreme form, a monoculture crop is not only of a single type (such as corn or potatoes) but is also substantially the same at the genetic level (such as all of the crop being russet potatoes or a certain variety of corn).

Before we get into the proposed goal of genetic diversity in cannabis, let’s examine monocultures. First, what is good about monoculturing?

The farmer has a very uniform crop that has been bred to be highly productive and predictable in how it’s farmed. Many things about agriculture are unpredictable—two big things being weather and market prices at harvest time—so it’s understandable that farmers want some predictability going into a growing season.

The limitation of a monoculture is that it’s a total commitment to one strategy. If a new virus or other pathogen reaches a monoculture crop that is susceptible to it, the entire crop is uniformly susceptible and can be wiped out. We are all living through the emergence of a new virus, so we know the outbreak of a new pathogen is something that really can happen. If our human population were a genetic monoculture highly susceptible to the new coronavirus, everyone would need to be in an intensive care unit. Fortunately, for every person who needs advanced treatment, there are many more who show no symptoms when infected; and others are somewhere between these extremes. This dynamic can also exist with crops—a genetic monoculture that is susceptible will be affected uniformly by a new pathogen, while a genetically diverse farm will have a more robust and varied response.

Historic examples of this problem include the Irish Potato Famine in the 19th Century, the “Panama disease” wipeout of the Gros Michel banana variety in the 1950s, and the southern corn leaf blight of 1970. In these cases, monocultured crops had no resistance to new pathogens, which spread widely and caused massive crop failures.

Another downfall of repeated monoculturing is its effect on the land and nearby habitat. Each crop has its own interaction with the soil and the organisms around it. In a sense, each crop takes something from the soil and some crops put something back into it. If, year after year, all the “taking” is of the same kind, then whatever is continuously taken can be depleted. This is a common problem of nitrogen-depleting crops that traditionally were rotated, in a given space, with nitrogen-replacing crops the following season. Nitrogen is essential for things like photosynthesis, protein production, and other vital aspects of plant health and productivity. In the absence of effective crop rotation, the soil can become critically low in nitrogen and unsuitable for farming.

In addition, the monoculture can affect nearby populations of insects, wildlife, soil microbes, etc. Some will thrive from positive interactions with the monoculture—to the point of a population explosion or other form of overgrowth—while others will dwindle because they do not interact well with that particular crop. The net effect is that a prolonged monoculture almost inevitably distorts the environment around it. For example, an analysis of more than 450 data sets and more than 50 insect species demonstrated that “variance in plant nutritive traits substantially reduces [insect] performance” and “increased [diversity] within agricultural crops could contribute to the sustainable control of insect pests in agroecosystems,” according to William C. Wetzel, lead author of the paper “Variability in plant nutrients reduces insect herbivore performance” published in the journal Nature in 2016.

How do farmers address these challenges so they can enjoy the benefits of a monoculture without the negative effects? Generally, they restore whatever the monoculture depletes with fertilizers or other supplements. They avoid the total wipeout from a pathogen or pest with pesticides or other chemicals created to prevent various kinds of pathologies.

The Founder Effect and Erroneous Assumptions

Back to the policy meeting. As we were discussing the need for biodiversity in cannabis, I pointed out the numerous varieties that are commercially available. I made the point that I have never seen a restaurant offering flights of different varieties of corn; however, when I go into a dispensary, I certainly see a wide selection of cannabis choices. While that is true, it is not the whole story.

Even though there are many different cannabis varieties, most of those that are commercially available have been developed from a relatively limited number of ancestors. When a large number of individuals all descend from a small number of ancestors, this is referred to as the “Founder Effect.”

Here is an easy way to visualize the Founder Effect: Think of the castaways stranded on Gilligan’s Island. Suppose the island had been very large with abundant resources, the castaways never left, and no one else ever came to the island. Instead, the original seven inhabitants had children, their children had children, and so on.

Many generations later, there could be millions of people on the island. But all those people would have the same ancestors. No matter how many branches in any family tree, the entire population of millions of people still would have no more genetic diversity than the original seven people, unless an occasional mutation occurred and was passed on to subsequent generations.

This example demonstrates the error in my thinking—assuming that, because there is a large number of individuals (or cannabis varieties), this means that there is proportionally great diversity within that large number. When a Founder Effect exists, that assumption is not accurate; and the Founder Effect is definitely present in most commercial cannabis.

This makes sense because prohibition limited what was available for people to breed with, and the desire for a certain effect was what people were breeding for. This is why most varieties of cannabis are dominated by THC and myrcene. Varieties with low THC or those with other terpenes present certainly exist; but such varieties are nowhere near as common, and they are more difficult to develop from the readily available gene pool. It may also explain why certain kinds of pathogens seem to pose problems for many or most varieties of cannabis—resistance genes that may exist in a wider gene pool are rare or absent due to the Founder Effect.

What we have in currently available cannabis varieties is a wonderful—but narrow—slice of a very large pie, genetically and chemically speaking. The genus Cannabis has the genetic potential to do so many things that we are not fully enjoying yet. For example, everyone knows about THC and CBD, and we may have heard some things about “minor” cannabinoids like CBG, THCV or others.

But it is still relatively difficult to find a cannabis variety in which something other than THC or CBD is the dominant cannabinoid, even though the genus has the capacity to make dozens or even perhaps hundreds of others. And it is still a relatively unusual variety that is low in myrcene and high in some other terpenes with different effects. When measured by cannabinoids or terpenes, currently available cannabis is far less diverse than it could be, which makes it more susceptible to diseases and pests.

Sources of Genetic Diversity

The future of the cannabis industry and of plant medicine lies in the rich diversity that exists in the many sources of genetics outside the Founder Effect. This is available in the seed collections gathered by some of the giants of our community, not all of whom are famous or yet recognized for their work. It is also available in landraces that exist all over the world. Renowned cannabis researcher and CBT contributor Robert Clarke described landraces as “varieties maintained by local farmers in concert with the natural selective pressures of the local environment. [They were] usually selected for a particular end use, whether it was for marijuana or for hemp seeds or hemp fiber,” in the 2016 article “Cannabis Conversations” published on ProjectCBD.org.

These seed collections, and the landraces or landrace hybrids that many of them contain, are sources of greater genetic diversity that represent a major value to the cannabis community, the cannabis industry, and the world as a whole.

In many cases, based on my conversations, they are eager to share the rich diversity within their collections. What they want and deserve is acknowledgment, some fair form of compensation for their life’s work and contributions, and a say in how their collections are used. By sharing their collections, they can promote diversity in cannabis and contribute to the development of new plant medicines.

Standing on Others’ Shoulders

Just as today’s plant breeders stand on the shoulders of the giants who came before, the seed collectors and other pioneers of our community stand on other shoulders—the communities of farmers and consumers of cannabis plants around the world; the many places and peoples from which came the various landraces. When we define an indigenous cannabis variety as a landrace, that can seem to imply something that naturally evolved and to which no person has a claim of ownership. This was also how many people thought of plant medicines found in rainforests or gleaned from the ancestral knowledge of indigenous peoples. The discipline of ethnobotany explores the traditional knowledge and customs of a people concerning plants and their medical, religious, or other uses. Ethnobotanists have studied and documented these practices, and that work has led to important advances in medicine.

As ethnobotany and other disciplines brought traditional knowledge and medicines into streams of global commerce, some of these medicines created value and intellectual property for pharmaceutical companies. Correspondingly, a new public awareness developed as to the ethics of this kind of value-creation. This was most fully codified in the Nagoya Protocol, which is part of the larger Convention on Biological Diversity. It is an important framework to ensure that—where value is created from local sources and/or traditional knowledge—a fair amount of that value ends up back at the source.

Thanks to the great genetic diversity available from landraces and private seed collections, the coming decades will bring major advances in plant medicines, according to Dr. Ethan Russo, who has been involved researching and developing medicines from cannabis and the effects of the endocannabinoid system in many capacities for decades. This genetic diversity will also bring into the available gene pool better resistance to pathogens and better overall agronomic properties. The global reach and significance of these advances will depend upon taking full advantage of the vast genetic potential and traditional knowledge that are available. This will overcome the genetic bottleneck of the Founder Effect, to the benefit of patients, users, and growers everywhere. And, if handled ethically, there will be significant collateral benefits to independent plant breeders and local communities worldwide.

Dr. Dale Hunt is the founder of Plant & Planet Law Firm, where he practices IP law in cannabis, agriculture, medicine, other life sciences. He also has a doctorate in molecular biology and a bachelor’s degree in botany.

After Oklahoma voters approved State Question 788 to legalize medical cannabis in the summer of 2018, the industry boom was swift, and it hasn’t let up for a moment.

Reid Colley, CEO of Resonant Cultivation, recalls the night of the election: “All of us kind of held our breath. We really didn’t know how it was going to come out.” In the end, 57% of voters approved the measure. A resounding success and an auspicious beginning.

By the next morning, Colley was on a mission to build the founding team of Resonant Cultivation: Thomas Vaughn, Matt Venable, Joe Hendrix and himself. The four men brought different experiences and complementary skill sets that supported Resonant’s stated mission of providing the highest quality medical cannabis to the patients of Oklahoma. They were excited. The way the ballot measure was written, and the way the state legislature would enact it, the state of Oklahoma was going to swing open the gates and loosen all barriers to entry. If you were an Oklahoma entrepreneur who wanted to try your hand at cannabis, you were as good as in. At that point, Resonant Cultivation was created and born in the small city of Pauls Valley, just south of Oklahoma City.

As of July 1, 2020, the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA) lists 5,970 active cultivation licenses, 1,407 processor licenses and 2,113 active dispensary licenses. By the time you read this, the state will have issued even more.

Halfway through this year, Oklahoma has been the second-biggest source of new licenses in the cannabis industry—beaten out only by the behemoth California. Together, both states accounted for a full 92% of all new U.S. cannabis business licenses this year through May.

The supply side of this sprawling market supports the nascent demand of 313,638 patient licenses (again, as of July 1, and, again, a number that expands with each passing day). This is roughly 8% of the state population.

All that in less than two years.

“What followed has created an open platform: If you’ve got capital and you’ve got expertise and you’ve got some persistence and willpower, you can have a business here,” Hendrix says. “It’s been really interesting to see what’s going on right in front of us. I think the next five years will be very interesting to see what Oklahoma looks like.”

For now, Oklahoma looks like a vast landscape of new ideas and risk-taking small businesses. Resonant Cultivation is one of them, a small, 15-person team finding its home in a state-of-the-art facility replete with living soil beds and organic practices borrowed from legacy growers in Oregon. Matt Venable and Thomas Vaughn, the company’s lead cultivation team, grew up working with farmers in the Washita River Valley, the great stretch of fertile land surrounding Pauls Valley. They’ve learned fast what it takes to grow the sort of cannabis that will change how medical patients think of medicine.

But it’s not like they’re alone in this: The intent among those thousands of licensed growers in Oklahoma is surely something similar. Quality. Growth. Success.

“We wanted to come to this market with clean medicine,” Colley says. “We put a group of individuals as a team … together [to] try to build something to help Oklahomans.”

If the Oklahoma medical cannabis story mirrors the Land Rush of 1889 that kickstarted the state as we know it today—and if the state continues to greenlight new businesses like it has so far—then a fair question emerges: How will upstart companies distinguish themselves in this free-for-all marketplace? What’s it going to take?

“Some of the tips of the trade we learned from other industry folks were things like: Control your destiny,” Hendrix says. “If there’s one lesson that I’ve learned that reinforces itself, it’s ‘How do we control our destiny?’”

A Bank and a Building

The first thing the team figured it needed was a building. But even before that—before the questions of real estate leases and purchases—the business needed a checking account.

“It’s funny when you high-five your partners because you opened up a bank account,” Hendrix says. “How silly is that?”

All of the Resonant partners are seasoned business owners or professionals in their own right. Under normal circumstances, establishing a banking relationship is as simple as providing some documentation, signing some forms and making an initial deposit, of course. However, establishing a banking relationship for a medical cannabis enterprise requires much more due diligence, persistence to move along the process and transparency by both parties, something that new cannabis businesses across the country have learned is a sort of gauntlet.

To build a successful medical cannabis banking relationship, Resonant has always viewed the bank as an additional business partner. Hendrix says the key is to treat that relationship with respect and integrity.

Such is the nature of a new commercial landscape in a federally illegal industry. Nothing is simple. Nothing is taken for granted.

From the jump, the Resonant team started looking into leasing and retrofitting a warehouse closer to Oklahoma City. The idea was straightforward: Keep costs low and get this project moving. But, upon careful inspection, the long-term safety net was quick to fray: What if the building is sold to a less sympathetic landlord? What if a skittish owner gets scared off by an insurance company? The second-guessing piled up.

Hendrix says the right move for them was one that would take longer to execute, and this became something of a mantra for the business.

“Let’s do this the right way: left foot, right foot, brick by brick,” Hendrix says, blending the many exciting metaphors of commercial enterprise. “It’s tough sometimes, if only because so much of cannabis can feel like a road race.” The Resonant team slept on it and decided that they wanted to own their land—a nice plot on the northern hemline of Pauls Valley—and wrangle their destiny back into their control.

“It made sense to design a facility, custom, to exactly what we wanted,” Colley says with a warm Okie drawl. “We did not want to come in and retrofit anything from a cleanliness standpoint. We wanted a new build.”

With all eyes on this emerging industry, Colley and the team knew that cleanliness was going to be a priority. A new build would allow them to create their own protocols from the ground up. And now, sure enough, each day, Venable takes a sweep of the entire building and ensures that all sanitation standards are met—and exceeded.

After each harvest, the Resonant team morphs into a cleaning crew with no surface left untouched or unsanitized. Light fixtures, wall coverings, dehumidifiers, trellises, electric boxes, circulation fans, filters, sensors, ducting, tables (to name a few) are all sanitized and cleaned before the next crop is planted. Maintaining a clean environment is a top priority for the team—top to bottom.

This became the fundamental value system of the Resonant team: No shortcuts. No impulse buys. No rash decisions. This whole project would be a team effort built by careful deliberation of the end user: Ultimately, what can this business do to best serve the patients of Oklahoma? That question informs everything.

And when you’ve got one question guiding your day-to-day operations, things become simple. Not easy, maybe, but simple.

In a landscape dotted by nearly 6,000 cultivation license holders, that is one way to stay true to yourself and stand out from the pack, Hendrix points out. If cannabis is a land rush, as it often is, and if Oklahomans know land rushes, which they do, then the careful, judicious plan of a confident business team is already a point of distinction. It’s the story of the rabbit and the hare, reimagined for psychoactive horticulture.

Then, just when things looked as bright as can be for the new Resonant build, the rains blew in over the western horizon. “The weather around Oklahoma is pretty finicky,” Colley says. During those first few months of construction, in early 2019, rainfall created a series of delays. That was all right, though; the team decided that the long way was still the right way.

“It’s a simple design, but it’s highly functional,” Vaughn says of the facility. “We implemented rolling bench tables, which allows us to have more space for the canopy than if we would have just gone with stationary tables. One thing that we were given advice on as well was to have a great deal of veg space.”

And as the facility was coming together, the team turned from the building itself to the plant material that it would soon house.

Oregon Inspiration

Agriculture is a backbone of Oklahoma, and both Venable and Vaughn’s families have been involved in farming for decades, growing corn, soybean, alfalfa and wheat. They see the medical cannabis market as an opportunity to hone their skills and learn more about their own legacies.

But cannabis, as a crop, isn’t even the knee bone of Oklahoma, so the Resonant team trucked up to Oregon to gather intel.

Vaughn traveled to High Noon Cultivation, just south of Portland on good vineyard land, for about a month in 2019 to learn the company’s business model. There, the High Noon Cult crew, led by Tyson Lewis, showed off the perks of growing cannabis indoors using living soil beds. It was an attractive concept. High Noon had developed a plan that incorporated dry organic amendments and liquid organic supplements such as kelp to fulfill a cultivation style that produced rich, high-quality cannabis plants. Vaughn says the Resonant team looked around Oregon and other states but could not find anything finer in the marketplace. They were sold on High Noon Cult’s methodology.

“We looked to Oregon, a more mature market, and we’ve seen how prices have collapsed and who’s successful out there—and we’ve developed our model around that,” Colley says. High Noon had built an indoor facility that allows the company to manage costs more efficiently in a wobbly consumer market, something that Colley says the Resonant team wanted to keep in mind, long-term, as the Oklahoma landscape settles.

Back home in Pauls Valley, it was time to begin plotting the first harvest. The Resonant team was growing, and Venable and Vaughn were demonstrating what they’d learned up north. They had a blank slate, in a way, with cannabis being so new to most everyone in the state.

“A lot of people have absolutely no experience like that at all, because in Oklahoma obviously we didn’t have a cannabis market,” Vaughn says of the young, earnest cultivation team.

The work is not difficult, per se, but Hendrix points out that business owners must be precise and pay attention to details. Early training involved teaching employees how to thin plants properly or manage the transition from veg to flower. In Resonant’s flower rooms, for example, the soil beds are all the same size. So, it dawned on the team: Why not design a template for transitioning plants? Once you ensure uniformity through standard operating procedures (SOPs), each subsequent transition is simply a matter of following the process. No anomalies. No time wasted.

“One of the things that we continued to go back to, over and over and over, was ‘No shortcuts. Focus on quality,’” Colley says. “When we started looking at different growing techniques and methods, we feel like the living soil organics produces the best, cleanest, most effective medicine. And that drove every single decision for us, as far as the vision.”

Venable agrees: “What better way to emulate than what Mother Nature has done for millions, billions of years? She has perfected this. All we need to do is emulate that … as close as we can.”

But defending that natural process from pests and pathogens is also vital, so the team has implemented materials to protect their investment. For example, in the facility’s two large flower rooms, mold-resistant wall coverings line the length of the space.

Before every harvest, the Resonant team reamends their soil beds with dry amendments such as worm castings and bat guano to introduce nutrients back into the soil.

“These nutrients are feeding a microcosm beneath the soil,” Venable says. “The plants are the ones that bring this bacteria and fungus to come and feed. We’re feeding this ecology beneath the soil, so that they come and feed the plants.”

Vaughn is quick to underscore the point: “We’re growing soil, so the soil can grow the plants. We’re soil growers.”

Resonant’s first harvest in mid-February was a great learning experience.

“Luckily, we have such a diverse team that brings so many attributes to cannabis from different industries, such as distribution and workflow optimization, agriculture, food and entertainment, technology, accounting and finance—it’s put us in a position where we were able to avoid some of the pitfalls,” Colley says. “We’ve surrounded ourselves with good people. With the first harvest, really, it went very well.”

With every harvest since then (the company’s fourth and fifth grow cycles were entering various stages of flower at press time in late July), the bottlenecks have cleared up. The team identified opportunities for improvement along the way.

And, so far, the patients have followed them on their journey.

Resonant’s first three harvests were pre-sold in full. Some caretakers and patients are now helping the team to closely identify certain terpene profiles in Resonant’s lineup that have been most helpful.

A Land of Opportunity

The deeply conservative state of Oklahoma typically is not thought of as a cannabis market. There was none of the illicit infrastructure to match the strength and know-how of California’s cannabis landscape, for example. And while Oklahoma regulators are now matching California’s licensing pace, the two states’ cannabis stories couldn’t be more different.

In Oklahoma, we’re seeing the very beginning of something truly new in an industry not exactly short on novelty.

Piyush Patel is quick to praise the hard-working team at Resonant Cultivation. He’s an investor who helped get Resonant going when the team was scouting warehouse space for lease. These days, he says his favorite part of working with the Resonant team is that he gets to walk around the facility and admire the plants, the products, the processes.

“These are some of the most intelligent and humble people you will ever meet,” Patel says with a smile. “It’s not about ‘How much money can we make on our first harvest?’ It’s ‘What kind of change can we make in the long term?’ Everything that these guys have built, they haven’t built it for now. They’ve built it for the future. They’re not thinking in terms of one or two harvests. These guys are really thinking, ‘How can we change this industry to make it better?’”

Resonant’s goal is to be a vertically integrated company, but, before that, the team is working closely with select retailers to help bridge an immediate gap: education.

Sales trends are still somewhat murky, but the Resonant team says that flower dominates. “It’s all about THC right now,” Vaughn says. “It’s a young market.”

Like other young markets, part of what makes Oklahoma such an interesting place to work is the opportunity to explain things like terpenes, cannabinoids and consumption methods to new patients. Through their marketing efforts and their budding relationships with retailers—including matching charitable donations based on flower sales at one dispensary customer, which supported the American Civil Liberties Union and a local nonprofit—Hendrix and Colley are able to set the tone of what medical cannabis patients can come to expect from the plant. They can set a standard.

Even now, in a state afflicted by opioid addiction, Colley says that patients are eager to embrace a potential alternative for chronic pain and other ailments. He and the Resonant team make sure to distribute the company’s educational pamphlets to dispensaries alongside Resonant products.

And already, Colley says he’s starting to hear questions from patients about terpene profiles.

To meet curiosity about and anticipated demand for CBD, Resonant is planning to develop some Type-II cannabis genetics. The idea is to bring a healthy dose of variety to a market that’s still getting its footing with the THC-rich plant.

The main task is to create a consistent experience for patients, whatever they’re looking for. That’s what Hendrix and his teammates are talking about when they reiterate that each decision dovetails back to the end user.

In this way, Resonant continues to do what it can to control its destiny—as much as it can.

“My worry is as opportunities present themselves, that the market changes with more out-of-state [investors] that are viewing more of the bottom line and not the top line,” Hendrix says. “For us, that’s where it is: How do we give back to the community? How do we educate our patients? How do we work with the industry to make it the best it can be?”

This idea is something that’s baked into the very blood and sweat of Oklahomans. In the wake of the April 19, 1995, federal building bombing in downtown Oklahoma City, out-of-town responders and journalists noticed a powerful wave of community support. They called it “the Oklahoma Standard.” According to the eponymous organization that spun off from this charitable wave: “Despite this unspeakable tragedy, among the most lasting memories are the tenderness of the response. The people of Oklahoma banded together in a community-wide display of spontaneous altruism. Trucks became ambulances. Strangers became neighbors. People donated the shoes off their feet. That spirit of generosity—of giving until there’s no more to give—has been part of the DNA of the state ever since it was founded.”

“That really was a triggering event,” Hendrix says. “I was 11 years old. I lived outside Oklahoma City when it happened. I heard it, and I had a neighbor who was killed in it. Our community rallied around that—supporting people.”

The years went on and opportunities to exercise the Standard came again and again. In the decades since the bombing, Oklahoma’s erratic weather patterns brought a series of tornadoes that dramatically altered the greater Oklahoma City landscape—particularly during the nasty 2013 season. Once again, residents emerged from their own shaky lives and helped their neighbors.

“These are people we don’t know, but we want to help them.” Hendrix says. He sees the Oklahoma Standard gelling once again in the early years of the medical cannabis industry.

This is an unprecedented weather pattern in its own right, if only metaphorically. The state’s economy is bolstered largely by the oil and gas industry, and now here comes this boom that promises riches of another stripe. The entrepreneurs that make up the OMMA’s ballooning license counts are comparing notes, Hendrix says, learning from one another and generally trying to create a business landscape where everyone can flourish. Whether that happens is something that remains to be seen.

“This is a blossoming industry,” he says. “I think that’s the exciting thing, is there’s competition but there’s enough for everybody. So, let’s do it the right way and do it right the first time.”

Eric Sandy is Digital Editor of Cannabis Business Times, Cannabis Dispensary and Hemp Grower