Mark Bolger was first in line to file his application to become a registered cannabis farmer on June 30 and was the first farmer certified as compliant by the Calaveras County Planning Commission. But being first does not change the seven-days-a-week, harvest-season grind of getting his crop to market.
“Ag is ag, you know. If you’re not willing to put in the hours and work hard and take care of business, you won’t be around for long,” he said on Saturday as he overlooked his rows of plants near Mountain Ranch.
Bolger, still only one of two operations to actually complete the county’s process to get a permit to grow cannabis, has an eye on the future of marijuana farming that will be decidedly different than the past, especially if voters pass Measure 64, which would legalize recreational marijuana use in the state.
He said he thinks that some of the hundreds of growers currently trying to register their operations with the county are depending too much on low yields and high prices to stay in business.
“That’s not going to last much longer,” he said. “I think there will be a drop in wholesale prices once the state bureaucracy comes into effect, and then there is Measure C, which could add an excise tax – and is necessary – and there are administrative fees and the list will get longer.”
“All of these costs definitely work within my business model, but unless you manage carefully, they could end your business,” he said.
Bolger has operated Rimrock Farms outside of San Andreas for about two years and it’s his second operational site. The other was destroyed in the Butte Fire. He has been building his agriculture operations since he moved to Calaveras County about 10 years ago.
He is 30 years old, employs five full-time workers and adds up to eight contract workers during harvest time. He “orchard farms” more than 160 large cannabis plants on his neat, carefully laid-out, and scientifically managed half acre. Bolger heads up an agriculture business that could realize a gross profit of at least $600,000 this year.
The gross income figure could go up substantially, but the October rains that brought the specter of mold and a running battle with a microscopic pest might be limiting factors.
But, he said on Saturday, “Business is good.”
And business is good for Bolger’s employees as well. “I pay $25 an hour for a W-2 employee or for a 1099-contracted worker,” he said. “And all, save one, are Calaveras County residents and many come from multi-generational county families.”
He said the five regular employees are hired year-around, managing the farm, checking on the detailed irrigation system and going through the labor and care necessary to maintain a successful agricultural operation in California.
Come harvest season, Rimrock Farms is busy every day until everything is harvested. Flowers are trimmed and brought into the production facility – a $150,000 building with equipment Bolger put up last year – where they are dried, sorted, weighed, bagged and prepared for delivery.
Rimrock Farms employees were working on the third cutting of the plants on Saturday. Each cutting produces flowers with slightly less marketable value. And the work is laborious. The plants are heavy and dense and workers must go through each plant and remove the ripe flowers at the right time.
As they work through the orchard, the workers remove plastic support netting and poles that hold the nets. The plants up are removed and set aside.
The kind of cannabis plant Bolger grows is more labor-intensive than others. The plants require supporting nets and posts to realize their full height and flower production. And they are dense plants and can easily fall victim to mold, which cuts the value of the final product. Mold is cause by moisture and October’s heavy rains kept Bolger and his crew inspecting the plants for the slightest tint of brown color.
Rimrock Farms sells a specific strain of cannabis knows at Goji, or “OG” in the industry. Bolger says he developed the strain for five years before going into production and it comes from Nepal. “It’s something that has been grown there for generations,” he said.
It is a hybrid plant, predominately from cannabis sativa but with a minor addition of cannabis indica. “OG” can treat pain from arthritis and other diseases thanks to the sativa part, but the indica addition makes it a good treatment for epilepsy and tremors. Bolger said is product is high in THC, which produces the psychoactive “high” from ingestion and also includes CDB. CDB is a limiting factor for the THC and can treat disorders of the nervous system. (THC means tetrahyderocannabinol and CBD refers to cannabidol, two of the many elements found in the cannabis plant.)
Bolger said his primary market is in Southern California. “I’d say 70 to 80 percent goes to dispensaries in Los Angeles and San Diego, with the rest going to the Bay Area and the Central Valley,” he said.
All of Rimrock’s plants are clones from a carefully protected mother plant. There is a test plot just outside of the production facility with 10 different female plants that could be candidates for production. Bolger said he has identified at least one strain that might be a viable product for next season.
“I look for ripening time, pest resistance, mold resistance and yield. One made the grade in the test garden after 18 months,” he said.
Rimrock Farms uses the latest irrigation system, soil combination and all-organic nutrient inputs. “We can’t be certified ‘organic’ by the California Department of Food and Agriculture or the U.S. Department of Agriculture yet, but I’m sure that will change over time,” Bolger wrote in an email on Monday.
“When MMRSA (The Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act of 2015) goes into effect in 2018, the Water Resources Control Board will pay attention to where our water comes from, and how much we use. So I put in flow meters tied to data recorders on my irrigation system. When they ask, I’ll know the answers,” he said.
He found that Rimrock uses 365,000 gallons per season, or about 1.122 acre-feet of water (one square acre, one foot deep) on his half-acre orchard. “The industry standard for water use on orchards like almonds, walnuts and apples is 2.2-to-2.6 acre-feet per season, depending on soil type,” said Bolger.
Doubling his 1.2 acre-foot use on the half-acre orchard puts him within the industry standard for water consumption at Rimrock Farms.
