Despite the onset of new medical and recreational cannabis programs like Minnesota’s, there is still no set of regulated, standardized best practices for growers in the U.S. For growers in Minnesota establishing new operations, optimizing their grows for quality, yield, and cost is paramount.
As the state’s cultivators better identify customer needs and ultimately seek to advance their production methods, it is critical to identify and explore the interconnectedness within a grow’s comprehensive environmental makeup. Understanding best practices for productive commercial environments—such as dialing in light intensity, deploying multitier production, shortening veg cycles, and more—will enable cannabis cultivators to grow smarter and bring the highest-quality plants to their customers.
This presentation, led by Fluence horticulture service specialist and experienced cultivator Taylor Kirk, will break down best practices for both the cultivation and business side of the house to help growers break through in a nascent market. Using data from recent cultivation trials as well as proprietary crop research, Kirk will demonstrate how real growers have improved cultivation performance.
Taylor Kirk, Cultivation Advisor, Fluence
Taylor Kirk is a cultivation advisor for Fluence, where he strives to help the world grow smarter by concentrating on consulting growing partners and collaborating with researchers and other cannabis industry leaders. He brings more than twenty-five years of experience in agriculture to the company, with a diverse background in agronomy and a bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University. Following the legalization of medical cannabis in Texas, Taylor shifted his professional focus to cannabis production, breeding, R&D, cultivation facility design and project management in his roles as vice president of operations and director of cultivation at Texas Original Compassionate Cultivation (TOCC). In these roles, he developed a strong cannabis cultivation program for the company, planting the first legal seeds under Texas’ medical cannabis program and developing medical cannabis cultivars for TOCC’s specific product needs. Also, an experienced hemp producer, Taylor owns and operates 4K Pharm LLC, a craft hemp farm in Texas.