Name: Travis Higginbotham
Location: Salinas, Calif.
Title: Vice President of Cultivation, StateHouse Holdings
One word to describe your cultivation style: Progressive
Indoor, outdoor, greenhouse or a combination: Greenhouse
Can you share a bit of your background and how you and your company got to the present day?
My background comes from working in commercial ornamental production and being formally trained in horticulture for both my bachelor’s and master’s [degrees], after which I had the opportunity to travel the world consulting for cannabis growers of all shapes and sizes, leading a technical team with Fluence. Harborside has a rich history in the industry, and together now with StateHouse, we have adopted proven traditional growing practices grounded in science and continually innovate in collaboration with many research partners. The motto of our cultivation unit is “Make measurable progress in reasonable time.” I am happy to say we have and are just getting started.
What tool or software in your cultivation space can you not live without?
Priva, Excel and Canix.
What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your business in the last six months?
Fertilizer samples.
What cultivation technique are you most interested in right now, and what are you actively studying (the most)?
Timing of pinching and topping as well as crop density in relation to seasonality.
Right now, we are in the most challenging time to date for plant-touching businesses, as price compression, competition from the illicit market, high taxes and more continue to be a challenge. How can cultivation teams respond to these retail/wholesale market pressures?
Focus on quality and costs by optimizing your environment and re-think how you can utilize your limited and fixed growing area. Most growers have a steady cost burden, especially on a perpetual crop schedule. With this being the case, I recommend you investigate the latest applied research from universities and cannabis research groups, partner with other growers and learn from one another, and challenge your thinking to enable innovation and progress. Focus on the science (accurate and validated science), let it guide you, increase your yields, increase your turns [and] reduce your plant count, all without sacrificing quality while reducing your cost [per pound], maintaining margin and enabling you to stay alive. If growers can survive growing petunias and tomatoes—you can [survive] growing cannabis.
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours?
“Don’t be lazy in learning.” - Jim Rohn, [an American businessman and self-made millionaire said]. I take this quote to heart because one of the best tools [that] enables learning is failure. Don’t be afraid of challenging what you think you know but make sure it is not careless. One of my most impactful failures in cannabis was switching substrates too quickly without enabling the team to adjust and acclimate first when supply chain issues hit. Now we have learned more than we ever thought we would about the ideal water and porosity needs of cannabis substrates due to this “failure.” We now fully understand our options and levers.
What advice would you give to a smart, driven grower about to enter the legal, regulated industry? What advice should they ignore?
Trust what you have seen with your own eyes. Be incredibly skeptical of claims without first trialing yourself. Lean on proven horticultural scientific principles and practices based on valid research to guide your actions and your direction in learning. Make sure you do your homework on who you will be working with and make sure you can trust them and learn from them, otherwise, what is the point? … Be willing to humbly be part of a team.
How do you deal with burnout?
Burnout is due to a lack of joy and improper personal and professional routine management and discipline. I also feel burnout can be prevented when you treat your body with care, prioritize your time, workout, eat healthy. …. Lastly, read! Make time to read and continuously learn, as this will constantly enable you to fuel your drive. Be eager to learn and allow yourself to find joy in it. It will usually solve your problems and give you direction.
How do you motivate your employees/team?
Through team accountability, team learning and team transparency. Together we win, and this strategy motivates everyone to constantly be better. We sit at a roundtable.
What keeps you awake at night?
Nothing. Sleep is critical to a clear [the] mind and when you sacrifice it, you sacrifice your sanity, your routine and frankly, everything you have been working for. Be smarter than that. If you know you have done everything you can, you deserve to sleep.
What helps you sleep at night?
Reading [and] learning. [I’m] currently working through “Never Split the Difference,” [a] fascinating read written by [Chriss Voss,] a former FBI negotiator on the science of human nature. And a glass of Pinot Noir.
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