Throughout the vast majority of the millennia-long relationship humans have had with cannabis, the plant was cultivated exclusively outdoors in natural sunlight, allowing it to fully express its aroma, flavor and potency.
The new breed of underground growers perfected the art and science of cultivating top-shelf cannabis under lights, crossing varieties of the species and carefully selecting for new strains that performed well indoors.
And a study from Colorado State University recently published in the journal Nature Sustainability estimates that growing only an ounce of cannabis indoors can have the same environmental impact as burning seven to 16 gallons of gas.
To that end, the company recently fielded a who’s-who-in-cannabis panel of experts to judge an event dubbed the #Sungrownchallenge that pitted sustainably grown cannabis from its top-quality line Farmer’s Reserve by Flow Kana in a head-to-head competition against indoor bud.
“The #Sungrownchallenge is a creative way we hope to inspire cannabis consumers to start voting with their dollar.
The participants in the challenge included a group of cannabis enthusiasts, journalists, influencers and industry types more than two dozen strong including Jon Cappetta, vice president of content for High Times, Bobby Black, columnist for Leaf Magazine California, Forbes writer Jackie Bryant, and Mary Jane Gibson and Michael Glazer, co-hosts of the podcast Weed and Grub.
The competition is reminiscent of the 1970s Pepsi Challenge, a blind taste-test between the second-best selling cola brand and its archrival Coke, and Stephen Spurrier’s 1976 Judgement of Paris in which wines from California’s emerging industry beat out some of the best vintages France had to offer.
“Like the Judgement of Paris, we’re seeking to challenge the industry’s misguided obsession with THC as the ultimate arbiter of potency, quality and consequently, price point,” Davis said.
“But I’d argue that outdoor can be just as good, sometimes better, than indoor,” she writes in a message about her experience.
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I’ve documented stories about legalization and the cannabis industry in my home state of California, the nation’s largest legal marijuana market, and beyond, receiving input in the process from a host of sources including C-suite executives, congressmen, illicit cultivators, and sack slingers.