Tribal cannabis operations in Minnesota reached the market ahead of the state-licensed system, and at Waabigwan Mashkiki, that head start went into infrastructure, SOPs, and staff training. “It allowed us to establish our infrastructure and our SOPs, and with the building we have, we keep expanding on what works best for us, for our team and for our cultivars,” says Jake Hanson, head cultivator at Waabigwan Mashkiki. “It let us get to consistency quicker than other companies, because when you build a facility, you need time to dial it in.” The White Earth Nation company was producing while the state framework was still being assembled, which put the process work ahead of the sales pressure.
“We coordinate with White Earth Tribal and Community College and we’ve put people through Oaksterdam University,” Jake says.
“We had green employees for whom this was a first job in cannabis, and a course going through the nuts and bolts of horticulture, HVAC, lighting and scheduling, was hugely beneficial, as this lets us keep establishing our foundations. Employees see we are investing in them, that they are not numbers.” A perpetual harvest leaves no gap for teaching, so the training ran as its own funded program.
“We have 9,000 square feet of flower canopy across eight production rooms, and one is a small R&D room for nutrient, undercanopy light and cultivar trials,” Jake says. “Flower rooms are single tier, veg rooms are double tier and perpetual, with 2,000 square feet of veg canopy. We keep a mother stock and clone from it, and we have 40 cultivars in house, 32 in perpetual production. We’re partnering with a tissue culture company as an insurance policy on our genetics, so they stay clean and we see no genetic drift.”
Mother stock accumulates pathogens and drift across generations, so the tissue culture arrangement is a stored clean copy of the library. “We’re looking at yield, cannabinoid content, COAs, terpene profile and the overall effect, but the other one is perpetual production, so we need pest resistance,” Jake says. “A cultivar can yield great, but if it’s susceptible to botrytis that’s a problem. If we see signs of hermies we pull them, however much we like the cultivar.” One seeded run reaches every flowering room.