EP114 Planning Ahead for Regenerative Cannabis Cultivation with guest Daniel Stein

Episode Transcript
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(00:07):
- We are passionate people.
If you weren't passionate,
you probably wouldn't belistening to this podcast.
And passionate people get excited.
And when I get excited, sometimes I want
to do all the things.
I want to do everything at once.
I don't wanna leave anything out.
I wanna have all the experiences,
and usually that works out for me.
Life can be great like that,and often it can be exhausting.

(00:30):
And sometimes I screw stuff up
because I'm trying to dotoo much at the same time.
Today's episode is about how
to build your regenerativelyminded cannabis
farm with balance.
It's about building your soilwithout blowing up the farm.
It's about staying busywithout going crazy,
and it's about building sustainable future
without being your own bully.

(00:52):
If you wanna learn aboutcannabis health cultivation
and technique efficiently
and with good cheer, I encourage you
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(01:12):
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(01:53):
Also, it is true that I'vebeen away for a minute.
Thanks for the messages from the
folks who were checking on me.
My father passed away lastmonth, and I was off the farm
and back home in Michigan, helping
with his end of life preparations.
I'm back now and back at it.So thanks for your patience.
You are listening to Shaping Fire,
and I'm your host, Shang Los.
Welcome to episode 114. Myguest today is Daniel Stein.

(02:18):
Daniel Stein was born in Humboldt County
and grew up in Hawaii.
He went to college first for engineering,
and then for soils, forestry,
and eventually environmental science.
He started farming vegetablesin cannabis in Hawaii,
doing lettuce farming
and permaculture installationswhile caretaking a citrus
and avocado orchard in thejungle on land that was part
of Terrence McKenna'sethno botanical gardens.

(02:40):
In fact, Daniel returnedto the home in Humbold
where he was born and startedgardening and farming in 2000.
In 2010, he met his wife Taylor,
and they became Priceland Forest Farm.
They started selling vegetablesat farmer's markets in 2011.
In 2016, they entered theregulated cannabis market.
In 2017,

(03:01):
Priceland Forest Farm won the
Regenerative Cannabis Farm Award.
That was a great year at Emerald Cup.
Nowadays, they grow aboutthree quarters of an acre
of vegetables, 5,000square feet of cannabis,
and a small orchard and perennial garden,
all low or no-till.
Today, we're gonna use Daniel'sparcel as an example of how
to approach growing regenerativelyon your own new parcel

(03:23):
or transitioning from petroleum
and salt fertilizers toregenerative growing.
The lessons learned fromhis parcel can likely be
transferred to yours as well.
During the first set, we'lltalk about assessing your
property for cannabiscultivation, building soil,
and choosing cover crops andcompanion plants for cannabis.
In the second set, we willdiscuss water sequestration,

(03:44):
animal husbandry, and animal fertilizers,
and if crop rotation applies to cannabis.
And we finish the episodeconsidering controlled fire burns,
long-term research opportunities
and the economics of growingcannabis regeneratively,
welcome to Shaping Fire, Daniel.
- Ah, happy to be here.
- Thank you so much for givingus some of your time on a,

(04:04):
on a busy midweek Tuesdayduring the spring.
I know that you have gotta betotally busy on the farm right
now, getting everything inplace for the summer crops.
- Absolutely. But it, it'sreally nice to have the excuse
and opportunity to sitdown for a minute, .
- Excellent. Fantastic. Um, uh, I like
that you have set up outdoors.
Um, I think you're, this isthe first time I've ever had

(04:24):
somebody set up outdoors, so,
so you dear listener canenjoy the, uh, the, the birds
of Humboldt during the interview .
- And I can too.- Excellent. So let's get right into it.
So, you know, um, I understand
that when you arrived on your property,
you knew you had a lot to do
to make your propertyinto a functional farm.
And, and I think that'sthe case with a lot

(04:44):
of new homesteaders.
What were the biggest concerns
or projects that you knew youneeded to address first off,
in order to build out your farm?
- So, I, I mean, on a homestead level,
the first thing was makingsure I had a place to stay.
But, but on, on, on the,the land level, the,
the property had been, um,

(05:06):
unmaintained for quite a long time.
So in terms of gardening,the first thing I had
to do is cle the space.
We're, we're in a forest environment,
and the forest had had re encroached a lot
of tree seedlings, uh, Himalaya,blackberry, white thorn,
various plants that, thathad re encroached on,
on historic garden spaces.
So my first order business was, was to get

(05:29):
to clearing some burning,
some chipping when Icould borrow a chipper.
I had very little resources at the time.
And then, um, forcultivating cannabis, which,
which I was really excited to do here, um,
was building a greenhouse.
When I came back onto theproperty, um, it was 2000
and, uh, we were in the two 15 days where

(05:52):
it was vague what, what the legality was,
but if you hid it in a greenhousewhere they couldn't see it
and get a warrant, youwere, you were pretty safe.
So clearing enough space,building a greenhouse.
And then as I startedto build out the garden
as it was cleared, my next order
of business was getting a soil test.
So I, I knew what I was dealing with
and knew my approach tobringing that soil in

(06:14):
that gardening space to a place
where it was productive again.
- Right on. I wanna hiton a couple of those.
Let's, let's start with theclearing. Mm-Hmm. .
So, um, I don't have a big parcel.
My, my farm is pretty small.
It's actually more like ahomestead with a big garden.
And, um, you know, I knowthat when it gets right down
to it, if I wanna clear something
and want it to be, if I wantit to stay clear, I need

(06:37):
to clear it down to the roots.
Um, yep. It sounds likeyou've done a lot of clearing
for people who are new to their property
and they, they need toclear things, um, like, uh,
like Scotch Broom where I live,which is absolutely heinous.
Um, mm-Hmm. .Um, did you learn any tricks
about clearing that, that youwould recommend to somebody
who is new at clearing?

(06:58):
- Um, do it while you're young.
- ,- Um, scotch Broom specifically,
there's great tools for that.
And, and some of those toolslike a weed wrench and,
and various tools thatare specifically for,
for small woody things under,under an inch diameter stems
that give you leverage
to pull things out are, are wonderful.
They work somewhat for Blackberry.

(07:19):
One of the things I've learnedin land development is it's
really worth just doingit right from the start.
You know, I didn't have a lot
of resources at the time I was doing this.
It would've been worth it to hire a,
a mini excavator or rent one and,
and just, just get it done from the start.

(07:41):
Do that land disturbance early on on land
that you're already transitioningfrom one thing to another,
where the disturbance won'tmake as big of an impact,
do the disturbance, and thenheal the disturbance with,
with kind of the new paradigm,uh, of, uh, of a different,
uh, biological, uh,

(08:03):
pattern happening.
- I like the suggestion thatyou're making that, like,
you know, as regenerativefarmers, we're looking to do,
in most cases as littledisturbance as possible,
but you weigh that realistically over time
and over the fact thatyou needed to be able
to get in your crops in order
to make the revenue to sustain the farm.
So you're like, all right,well, I, I can either do some,

(08:26):
you know, carefuldisturbance now and, and,
and then come right behindit with a lot of healing,
or I can wait and do itthe slow way all by hand
and then potentially miss the season,
which also will not be good for the farm.
And so you, you really weighedthe type of disturbance
that you're going to do,
and I think that clarity is important.

(08:47):
- Well, and, and even in the long term,
like there's the heavy handeddisturbance, uh, of, um,
bringing machinery onto the land,
but then if you have,say, small diameter a foot
to 18 inch diameter trees,
and you don't get the rootsout, you will be coming back in
with a chainsaw dependingon the species of trees and,
and burning fuel andusing oil again and again

(09:10):
and again, um, to keep that held back.
So it's like, uh, you know,more upfront and then,
and then, um, the lack of disturbance
or a continuous disturbanceto maintain that project,
- You know, a lot i it,your, your experience
of getting on the property

(09:31):
and then, uh, first off needing to, uh,
get a greenhouse going is
that's a pretty typical experience.
And, um, I've, I've talkedto different farmers and,
and I enjoy hearing, um,how they decided where
to place their greenhouse
because, you know, on someproperties it's obvious, right?
You put it into one placethat gets the most sun Mm-hmm.

(09:52):
. But if, if you'vegot things like, you know,
um, uh, uh, seasonal sun changes or,
or sun is available everywhereon the property, um,
there can be a lot ofcompeting, um, uh, reasons
to, of, of placement.
Uh, how did you come tothe decision of where
to put your greenhouse?
- Uh, well, um, you know,

(10:15):
I would've loved to have beenon the land for five years
before I made any infrastructurecommitments, you know?
Mm-Hmm. to, to kinda see
the pattern of things.
And, and one piece of advice I would give
to new homesteaders is really to,
to think about if youcan make infrastructure
that's functional, but not permanent

(10:36):
in the early part of homesteading.
So like, if you do putyour greenhouse somewhere
where it makes sense when you first do it,
but then it makes lesssense as time goes on,
you can take it apart andmove it to somewhere new.
Um, but yeah, I, I've seen a lot of,
of land development, especiallyaround cannabis growing,

(10:57):
make mistakes as far as that, that desire
to get in your cash crop andthe first season makes you rush
and make kind of the decisions
that you can pull off ratherthan the decisions you
want to see in the long term.
Um, and, and there's no wayaround that to some extent,
but, um, I, I'm kind of wandering off.

(11:19):
I forgot the, the aim ofthe question at first. Oh,
- That's, that's all right.
You know, I think thatyou make a good point
that the first step on thenew parcel is not to dig, uh,
the first step on the new parcel is
to put down your chair inthe middle of the, of the,
of the area and look atit with notes and, and,
and really like, think and dream and plan

(11:42):
before you dive into making things.
And, um, uh, that planning part,
you don't wanna short shrift
because, you know, it kind ofreminds me of, you know, uh,
the whole measure twice cut once idea.
Exactly. You really don'twanna build the greenhouse
and then have to move thegreenhouse in the same season.
It's really better tospend a little bit of time

(12:02):
that you think youmight be able to, might,
should be doing something else, and,
and really plan outwhat you're going to do
for the season. There.
- I, I can't even countthe number of times I,
I've confidently made a design
or a decision aboutsomething like irrigation,
ordered a bunch of parts, spentmoney, put it all together,
and then realized the areas

(12:23):
where it falls short . Yeah.
- So a lot of people, um, whoare coming to their property
also have got limitedresources like you did.
And, um, they really struggle.
I have really struggledon the, okay, it's,
it's my first season andI, I need to get going.
Um, I can either do a, afast and cheap greenhouse,

(12:47):
or I can build somethingthat I'll be proud of
and will last me a long time.
And, and, you know,
perhaps I can go even later in the season
because if I get an,uh, an unexpected snow,
I'll be able to handle it.
You know? How how did youweigh that for yourself?
The, the, the wantingto not waste resources,
but needed to get something up,

(13:08):
but also not having the resourcesto just throw money at it
and make something, you know,
make a castle greenhouseright outta the bat?
- Well, I mean, there'sa bunch of approaches.
I, I was very fortunate in thatI had access to a wood mill,
so I made a, a wooden greenhouse.
Um, but since then, various approaches, I,

(13:29):
there's a lot available onlineof, of used, uh, materials.
You could, you can get onCraigslist, you can find, um,
galvanized conduit, things like that.
And you can get a, a conduit bender to,
to make your own greenhouses relatively
inexpensively these days.
Um, but the way my first greenhouse here,

(13:52):
I believe I found a,a old pile of used PVC
at somebody's in somebody's yard,
asked them if they were using it
and made it a quick PVC hoop.
And it was the following yearwhere I had actually had time
to fell a tree and mill itand, and build a greenhouse.
- I like this idea of not onlyupcycling your materials in

(14:15):
the short term, because
that way you can feela lot easier about, um,
building a temporarygreenhouse immediately.
And then, and then as you're able
to collect the higherquality, um, materials, do
that the next season or,
or further on, um, if you're,
if you're gonna do somethingshort term, um, it's great
to be able to, to get thingsfrom, from neighbors or,

(14:38):
or shared online so that youdon't have to spend that money
and, uh, you know, and alsocreate new plastic, right?
- Yeah. And absolutely.
And maybe you don't need agreenhouse the first year.
I mean, I did 'cause I was hiding plants,
but, um, if you don't use a greenhouse,
you start your plants a little bit later,
it gives you extra time to prepare your,
your outdoor garden.
And, and then you plant that and,

(14:59):
and you have a cropthat you can use towards
building a greenhousethe, the following year.
I mean, uh, I, I, I can give this advice.
It hasn't always been adviceI've taken myself .
Um, but to, to bite off
what you can realisticallychew based on your, your budget
and your, your time, et cetera.
I mean, I, I have thebad habit of jumping out

(15:23):
of the airplane and thenimagining I can sew the parachute
before I hit the ground .
But, um, I, I've, I can't say
that it's always worked that well,
- Well, you know,that I think that is one
of the challenges for thoseof us who are like, you know,
optimistic, visionary type folks
because, um, we,
we we're always bitingoff more than we can
chew . Yeah.

(15:44):
- Yeah. It, it all looks so good. Yeah.
- So, so let's talkabout the, the real star
of the farm, your soil.
So, mm-Hmm. ,um, if I understand the,
the story, um, when you got to the farm,
it had not actually, I mean,it wasn't even really a farm.
It was, it was a parcel and, and the,
and the soil had not beencared for in a long time.

(16:04):
Um, you know, most of us imagine
that the soil in Humboldt Countyis like, you know, infused
with magic and like good all by itself.
Was, was your soil alreadygood to go when you arrived?
Or did you know immediately
that you needed to do soil building?
- Um, it's actually a combination
because generally the, thesoil in Humboldt County

(16:25):
and around here, I is avery thin clay soil as,
as far as the top soil goes.
And, and here we have a vein of,
of really quality soil in termsof, of the soil structure.
Um, the, the place we areis relatively flat and,
and it has a vein of alluvial soil where,

(16:47):
where two creeks had comeback and forth across
and deposited some soil.
So, so it has a, a slightly sandy loam
strip through part ofthe, the flat area here.
That being said, it was covered in brush
and was very acidic,
and, um, it, it needed a lot of work.

(17:10):
Um, so the first order ofbusiness definitely was testing
that and, uh, adjusting the, the pH to,
to bring it back to, to neutral.
Um, and then as we expanded the farm,
we reached out into more of,of the clay pore soil areas
of the farm and, and startedworking on those soils.

(17:33):
- So as you, um, you know,once you got the pH back
to neutral from all the,all the acidity Mm-Hmm.
, um, why don'tyou, uh, kind of illustrate
for us a couple of theprocesses that you did
to like build fertility into the soil?
Um, because, you know, as weknow, it takes more than just,
um, you know, a good pH the,the soil we want it, um, uh,

(17:57):
imbued with, with, with microbes
and beneficial bacteria and fungi.
And, and I'm sure
that you were probablyexcited about that part of it.
'cause because I mean,it's my favorite part
'cause you get to do a whole bunch
of really cool living projects, you know?
Yeah. So, so why don't, whydon't, why don't you just kind
of like, uh, go through someof the, the projects like that,
that you did, um, to just increase the,

(18:20):
the life force in the soil?
- Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I was relativelylucky in that generally,
unless a soil is really bare, you,
you have a lot of life force in it.
We, we, we have a forest soil here, so it,
it is infused with life.
The, the, the challenge here in humble

(18:41):
and in similar Mediterraneanclimates is that it gets so dry
during the summer that it, it, it's kind
of like the winter wouldbe if you were in Michigan
or something where the,the, the season that,
that the life kind ofgets put on hold in, in
that most active layer of thesoil here is in the summer

(19:03):
because it dries out.
Um, so a big part of that for me was
developing the organic matterso that it could hold moisture
and, and there could be life there
throughout, throughout the season.
So, yeah, a a big part ofit was, was building a,
a stable organic matter in the soil.

(19:25):
And, and stable organic matteris very different than act
of breaking down organic matter, both
of which you need the act
of breaking down organicmatter is the food
for the biology in the soil,the stable organic matter.
I kind of think of as the,um, the housing .
It, it's, it's the buffer,it's the well that, that you,

(19:47):
your plants can draw from.
Mm-Hmm. and, and the place, the,
the pantry, if you will.
So that is a relatively slow process.
One of the early ways Istarted putting stable organic
matter into the soil,
and this is when I hada much smaller garden.
The farm didn't comeuntil, until later, was,
was through biochar.
I was doing a lot of, ofburning here on the property

(20:09):
and learning how to, a, asI did, um, fire safety work
and thinning in the forest,learning how to make burn piles,
um, in a way that preserveda lot of the charcoal, then
soaking that in like a worm, casting tea,
and then putting that in the soil.
So then you have this, thisrepository, uh, of, uh,

(20:30):
moisture holding and nutrientholding within the soil.
And early on I was, um,managing the soil with,
uh, a biointensive stylerather than a no-till style.
That's where you like doubledig everything all the time,
which was incredibly tiring.
But it also really allowed me to,
to build up organic mattervery, very deep in the soil.

(20:55):
Um, I hadn't heard of no-till yet.
I was, I was reallyexcited when I discovered
that about a decade later,
- , you're like, oh,I'm already doing that. I'm
- Like, I, I'm, I, I don't have
to dig everything every year.
And, you know, at thatpoint I was, I was digging
with a shovel and a fork tobe able to do the same kind
of a thing of like keepingsoil structure while aerating,

(21:17):
um, and,
and discovering techniquesto be able to do that without
as much work was, was mind blowing to me.
- I didn't understand itwhen you first, uh, suggested
that idea, now that I do,that must have been a really
fabulous moment when you,when you read a, you know,
a defense of not double digging
and realizing that, thatperhaps it was time for

(21:40):
that to end all that.
And that's particularly backbreaking work.
You must have felt Oh, yeah.Felt like, oh, I'm free. You
- Know?
Yeah. Well, I, it, it was amazing.
'cause it, it kind of came with,
as we expanded into being alarger farm, um, Taylor, my,
my wife and I, as,
as we expanded into a largerarea here on the property, the,

(22:01):
the first thing we did was like, we, well,
we obviously can't doubledig an acre, so we're gonna,
we have a tiller for ourtractor, we're gonna till,
and it just felt so wrong.
And then we tilled and we werebasically gardening an acre.
And, and we had this awareness like this,
we can't garden this much.

(22:21):
We have to learn how to farm and,
and farming is a differentthing than gardening.
And, and how can we farm in a way
that feels like we'retaking care of the soil?
And, and we discoveredvarious literature about it
and discovered techniques to do that and,
and become efficientat the same time as, as

(22:42):
becoming better stewards of the, the soil.
- This, this idea that,
that farming is different than gardening.
That's a very provocative statement.
My, my best understanding of
what you're saying there wouldbe that with, with gardening,
you're doing thingsthat can be inefficient
because you're not scaled.
But when you're scaled to a farm, you have
to be far more efficient.

(23:03):
Is that what you mean by that?
- Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Um, if you're farming, um, you know,
unfortunately you'reinteracting with, with a,
an economic reality where, um,
you can't lose money the way you can
having a hobby, you know?
Yeah. You can have ahobby where you spend $10
to make a beautiful heirloomtomato for your kitchen.

(23:26):
Um, that doesn't work ifyou're, if you're trying to,
to make a living selling that tomato.
So, um, that, that's kind of been the,
the constant challenges.
How, how do you scale in a waythat you can provide food in
a environmentally friendly way, in a way
that leaves your land in abetter state than you found it,

(23:47):
and at the same timeis economically viable.
Um, and, and it is a kindof a constant push and pull
and, and there's, there's no way to do it.
Perfect. Uh, uh, we, we talkabout being regenerative,
but really when it comes to it, we're all
of us striving towards thisidea of being regenerative.

(24:08):
Mm. And, and it, it's, it'snot something that's easy.
You, you can't, um, in, in permaculture,
we talk about a closed loopsystem where, where the outputs
of your farm become theinputs of your farm,
and it's a self-sustaining ecosystem.
Well, that, that's a lot harderwhen so much of the output

(24:29):
of your farm is leaving your farm never
to be returned. Hmm.
- So, oh, so, so when you were,um, you were describing how,
uh, you were, you were,um, double dig digging
until you learned about no-till
because, um, you know, while,while that's, while that's an,
you know, an ancient process,it's, it's relatively new

(24:51):
to trending again, I guess I'll say.
Mm-Hmm. . Um, I can imagine
that at the beginning also,you were probably doing things
that, that we all know asregenerative farming, just
because you had low resources.
I I was talking with a guy,I never did get his name,
but, um, at a, uh, at agolden tarp several years ago.
And, uh, he said, he says, he says, oh, I,

(25:13):
I've been regenerativefarmer my whole life,
but when I was young, wejust called it being poor.
Mm-Hmm, .Yeah. And, and because like,
he was focused on using the materials
that are on the property, um, and, and
because he, he, he couldn'tafford, you know, the,
the fertilizers that you'dget from town in the same way,
I want to ask you, like,you know, you, you described

(25:34):
how you wanted to bothincrease the microbe life,
but then also increase the, you know,
what we're gonna call housing
or structure that, um, that protects and,
and gives, um, a placefor those microbes to, to,
I, I wanna use the word procreate,
but that's not scientifically accurate,
but make more, incubate them.

(25:55):
Mm-Hmm. . Andso what, what were some
of the natural inputs thatyou found, um, you know,
on the parcel or nearbythat you could wildcraft
and put to work in your soil building it?
- Well, early on in buildingthe soil, I didn't really have
the awareness of, of wildcrafting inputs.

(26:16):
So I think that kind ofthe, the Juda KNF kind
of input, um, awareness came, came
to us maybe 10 years ago.
Um, early on, I, I had a lotof wood, a lot of wood chip.
Uh, I wasn't doing Hugobuilding with, with large wood,
partly because I, I had really nice soil

(26:39):
and I didn't feel like Ineeded to, to put wood in the,
the lower profile of it to make that work.
But what, what I did have is a lot
of wood chips for doing mulching.
Um, and
although I didn't haveanimals myself early on,
besides, um, chickens for eggs,
and that manure wentback onto the farm, um,

(27:02):
I did have friends and neighborswho had cows and horses
and, and goats,
and was able to put a lot oforganic matter in the form of
manure and wood chips from,from the area onto the soil.
And I mean, that, that really is like,
the input you want is, is organic matter,
especially in a place like Humboldt.

(27:24):
The flip side of, of
what we were talkingabout earlier about the,
the dry season being a timewhen, when microbes kind
of go dormant, if, ifthe soil isn't kept moist
and there's not goodmoisture holding capacity,
the flip side of it isthe wet season here is, is
80 plus inches of rainduring, during the years.
So if you don't holdthose nutrients, somehow

(27:48):
they, they wash out all, allof the soluble nutrients.
So some of the biggest issues
for us over the years havealways been like, how do we
create nitrogen?
How do we hold nitrogen?How do we find sulfur?
How do we hold sulfur?
Um, uh, and some of, of the micronutrients
and minerals things that wash out

(28:09):
of the soil here just aren't there
unless you find ways to putthem in and to hold them.
Um, and the, the over thecourse of gardening here,
the single largest way that we've found
to build soil is, is throughwintertime cover cropping.
And, and it's, it, it just is incredible

(28:30):
how much soil you can build,
because the winter herewhen we're not able
to grow crops is, is fourto six months of the year.
So you, you're actuallygrowing a full crop during
that wintertime season, entirely just
to put back into the soil.
And once you start doing the,the no-till version of it,
you're, you're not justputting it back on the top,

(28:54):
but all of the roots ofthose cover crops get to stay
where they are in thepathways, in the soil
that they've opened up.
That becomes a porousstructure of the soil.
And the exodus of the rootshelp create kind of a,
a glue that glues the soilstructure together and,
and then makes a, a porous environment.

(29:16):
So if you take a cover crop
and you lay the, the, thegreen matter on the top
and let that decompose naturallyinto the top of the soil,
and that the roots decomposedown in the subsoil
and in, in, in the soildeeper where they are,
you really quickly buildorganic matter deep
into the soil. That was
- A beautiful explanation,Daniel. That was top notch

(29:38):
- .
Yeah. I mean, like the, theengine for all of it, right?
The engine for organicmatter is photosynthesis.
And, and to, you need to take advantage
of the photosynthesis potential
on your garden soil all the time.
And it's either you're,
you're taking photosynthesisfrom another area in the form
of straw or hay or wood chips,

(30:01):
or even animal manure fromanimals that have eaten that
and bringing it to you oryour, or, and really not,
or you are creatingphotosynthesis in place.
And that the, the lovely thingabout that is it's so simple.
It's there. You're not wheelbarrowing it,
you're not moving it around,
and you can have it, um, benitrogen fixing so that it,

(30:23):
it also creates, um, creates fertility.
- That's great. So, um, Iwanna hit one more topic,
or it's actually the same topic,
but I wanna ask you one more question
before we go to the firstcommercial, which is, um,
you know, the,
what the specific over wintercover crop is going to be, um,
is gonna be differentdepending on what part

(30:44):
of the country that we live in.
So, so everybody's gonnahave their own local plant
that tends to work best for them.
What I'm curious to hear youspeak to is, is number one, um,
did you choose one cover cropand go solely with that ever?
Or did you pick a fewdifferent cover crops and,
and plant them together for variety?
And two, how does thatcrop cover crop fit into

(31:09):
like, all of the plantsthat are on your property?
So on your property, I'm assuming
that you're gonna have these,these seasonal cover crops,
but then also you're gonnahave, um, uh, uh, the food
that you're grow growing for market,
and then you've got the cannabisprobably in the greenhouse
and outside of it, and thenyou've got your ornamentals
that you just grow aroundyour property for fun.

(31:30):
We, we all know as regenerative farmers
that these plants are all interacting
with each other at abiological level, even,
even if they're not plantedright next to each other.
I'd like to kind of like,hear, hear about like,
what was the melody for thedifferent types of plants
that you chose for the farm,um, as you, as you settled in
and figured out what was gonna be best
for the farm? Mm-Hmm.

(31:51):
- , um, Imean, we have a, a number
of different managementstrategies that we have developed
and are developing
and will, will change overtime for, for different goals.
Um, how we manage beds forcannabis is very different than
how we manage beds for lettuce.
And, you know, the big factors are

(32:12):
the crop that you're growing.
Is it a quick turnaround?
Does it suffer from, fromcompetition from weeds,
or does it do fine with that?
And, and again, like we youjust said, how does it interact
with the plants around it?
So, um, in our perennial gardens,
we just do a lot of deep mulch.
We have a variety ofplants, both for, for beauty

(32:35):
that we like, for medicinaluse for ourselves,
for beneficial insects.
Um, and then the, the cannabisis kind of somewhere in
between a perennial gardenand an annual garden.
Cannabis is such a long lived annual, it,
it really plays well with perennials.
Um, and, and the way we managethat tends to be, uh, an in

(32:55):
between where we, wegrow, grow a cover crop,
but we manage it throughcrimping and mulch.
And, and the edge of thecannabis beds has, has a,
a perennial garden of sorts.
And, and that garden tends toentirely be beneficials, um,
for insects that arepredator insects for cannabis

(33:16):
or trap crops or, or things like that.
Um, and then the annualvegetable production de,
depending on the cropthat's gonna be in an area,
gets a different management technique and,
and needs longer to transitionfrom the wintertime cover
crop to being a, a very clean
blank bear slate bed thatwe could use cedars or,

(33:39):
or transplanting tools on.
And what I've reallyfound that I like in terms
of cover crop is doing a cover crop mix,
and you can find a mix thatthat works for your environment
and works for your needs.
But, but we actually buya pre-mixed cover crop
that is a combinationof, of, uh, fava, uh,
vetch peas and oats.

(34:01):
And, and what I like about that is,
is there's an inherentintelligence to, to plants
and their interaction withtheir environment and,
and, um, you find different expressions of
what germinates and whatthrives in different beds.
In beds that tend to be low in nitrogen

(34:22):
after a year of growingthe crop you've had on it.
The, the legumes in thatcover crop mix really thrive
in beds that have a lot of nitrogen.
The, the grass really thrivesand it's able to grow a lot
before the heaviness ofthe winter rains comes and,
and hold a lot of that nutrientin, its in its structure

(34:43):
versus the legumes, which arebuilding, building nutrient
through, um, its relationshipin, in its roots.
Um, so, so having a mixof cover crop really helps
it thrive in whicheverenvironment you put it in.
And that changes year to year.
It's not something I'vebeen able to wrap my head
around predicting whatwill do well in which

(35:05):
area at which time.
Um, the one aspect we'restarting to discover in,
in the cannabis zones,especially where we use crimping
as a technique to integratecover crop, is that,
that there's a benefit ifyou're, if you're using crimping
as a technique to having cover crops
that come into flour at the same time.

(35:27):
'cause um, crimping as a techniquereally depends on timing.
If, if you crimp while aplant is in its most vigorous
growth time, it's goingto grow right through that
push its way throughthe mulch you put on top
of it and continue growing.
Versus if you cover crop, um,
right when a plant's putting all

(35:48):
of its energy into flowering
but hasn't produced seeds yet,it, it tends to actually be
killed by the crimping technique
and start its decomposition process.
And so the cover cropmix we've been using,
which we've still usedthis season, the, the

(36:08):
oats flour at a latertime, then, then the vetch
and the, um, the fava beans,
so the oats continue to grow.
Or if I were to wait for theoats to flower, the, the fava
and the vetch will have already seeded,
and that could be a benefit.
And, and I know farmers
who are effectively usingalready seeded cover crop

(36:33):
and dry farming somewhat.
So they, if, if you arearen't overhead watering,
say if you have your irrigation under
where you crimp your cover crop so that
after you do your cover crop,it, it, it kind of dries out
and becomes mulch, you canhave a fully seeded cover crop,
let it dry out and become mulch,
your irrigation lines are under it.

(36:55):
And then when you getfall rains, it causes that
to germinate again
and you're already plantedin cover crop. Ooh,
- That's nice.
- Yeah. And that's, that's theoretical.
I've heard, um, some,
some really amazingfarmers talk about that.
Um, but I have not tried that. You really
- Gotta nail that.
You really gotta nail that timing.
- You just gotta nailthat, you know? Yeah.
And, and, and getting it torese and, and all of that.

(37:19):
It's something I'd love toexperiment with at some point,
but, but haven't gotten to yet as it is.
I'm now looking for an earlier flowering,
um, grain grass that I canmix in with, with my, my batch
and, and my fava beans
to have them at least comeinto fruition at the same time
for effective crimping.

(37:39):
- You know, one thing thatis underlying this, this, um,
this philosophy that you justshared is that when you're,
when you're just establishingyour farm is regenerative,
whether or not you just got the parcel,
or if you're switchingfrom petroleum farming
to regenerative farming, um,sometimes the first few years
as you're getting your legsunder you, it's, it's okay

(38:00):
to use the same kind of likeoff the shelf, like, uh,
cover crop mixes
and other, other thingswhere, where you don't have
to reinvent the wheel.
Like you don't Oh,
- Absolutely.
- You don't have to beinventing all new farming
techniques your first couple years.
There's reasons why, um,these, some of these seed mixes
and, and other tools are, you know,

(38:21):
are things that everybody uses.
And, and so just, you know, go ahead
and follow the crowd on some of this stuff
until you get established
and you can really, uh, fine tune it
for your own particular parcel.
- Well, and it, and it goes back to
that biting off more than you can chew.
I mean, you're right, I, Ioften still use cover crop mixes
because I don't havethe time to wrap my head

(38:42):
around every aspect of the farm.
And farmers are doing it, especially now.
There's so many small farmsout there, there, there is
so much thought being put into this.
And therefore there are alot of products out there
that are made by farmers with the thought
of, of helping farmers.
And especially like in the tool realm and,

(39:03):
and things like that,there's a lot available.
You don't need to do it all yourself.
You couldn't, even if you tried.
And, and part of learning tofarm was learning to focus on
what we're good at and,
and to let other peopledo what they're good at
and be collaborative about it.
- Right on. That's good. Thoseare good words of advice. So.

(39:24):
Alright, so let's take ashort break and be right back.
You're listening to Shaping Fire
and my guest today isRegenerative farmer Daniel Stein.
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That's humboldt csi.com. Welcome back.
You are listening to Shaping Fire.
I'm your host Shang Los,
and my guest today isRegenerative Farmer Daniel Stein.
So before the break wewere talking about the,
the initial things to do,

(45:44):
or at least considerations as you are, uh,
setting up your farm tobecome regenerative, whether
or not whether you are, uh, post petroleum
or if it's just your firsttime on the property.
Now, one of the things thatDaniel hit on was that, um,
you know, if you'rebuilding up all this soil,
you don't want it all to get washed away.
And so that's what we'regonna start with, Daniel.

(46:06):
You know, water retention isreally important, you know,
across the country, butespecially where you live
because you, like I we havethis, this drought portion
of the summer and um,
and there's lots of, there'slots of laws rurally about
what you can and can't do with water.
And if you find yourself without water

(46:27):
and you're far out, like you are off grid,
it's not like you canjust turn on the faucet
and then suddenly there it is.
Absolutely. And and you alsomentioned that, um, you know,
not only do you want to retain the water,
but you also need tocontrol the flow of water so
that the water doesn'ttake away all the nutrients
that you're putting in all this

(46:48):
effort building into the soil.
So I'd like you to talk through, um, yeah.
Let's, you know for certain,use your property as example,
but I'd like you to talkabout it more theoretically.
So it, so it appliesto many people's farms.
Talk about water retention, meaning how,
how you can sequester thewater on your property, uh,

(47:08):
strategies to do that so the water stays.
And then second, howyou control the flow so
that it doesn't wash all the good hard
work you've done away.
- Yeah, well there there'sa number of strategies
and it really depends on, onyour individual situation needs
and, and what you'regoing for for your farm.
I mean, the answer to so many of,

(47:32):
of the issues is organic matter.
Organic matter is how youcan hold water like a sponge.
It's how you can holdnutrients, it's how you can,
you can buffer highrainfall, high water events.
Um, it it's, it's the answer to
so much when it comes to, to farming.

(47:53):
Um, and then in, interms of, of water flow,
if you're try, if your sitedoesn't get enough water
retention throughout the season,the main thing you wanna do
is, is get more water to it.
And, and so doing thingslike swales where,

(48:14):
where you slow down the watercoming across your property
and get it to go into, intoyour system, help that.
And that's in my environment,
that's not something I'veever really had to do
with 80 inches of rain, everything
that can get saturated getssaturated without the help
of bringing more water into it.
And as a matter of fact, doing swales is,

(48:36):
is something you have to be careful about
because if you super saturateareas you could deal with with
landslides if it's in thewrong, wrong kind of an area.
Mm-Hmm. . Um, we do use some
of those techniques lessabout retaining water
and more about slowing water down in areas
that we have plantingsthat can uptake some
of those nutrients that thatwould flow out with water.

(48:57):
Um, so low on our property,we have some swales that are,
are planted in, in comfort
and other things that are deep rooted
so it can slow any water down and,
and we can hopefully removea lot of the nutrients
that would be flowing out with that water
and turn them back into plantmaterial that we can harvest
and bring up to, to thetop of the system again.

(49:17):
Uh, but it definitely is organic matter.
Organic matter is the sponge.
It, it reduces water speed flowing
through sandy soil.
It increases the drainagecapacity of clay soil.
It, it brings everything into balance.

(49:38):
- I believe this nextquestion you've just answered,
and it's gonna be organic material,
but I'm gonna ask it anyway
because a lot of people runinto it, you know, a lot
of parts of the country and,
and it's probably evengonna become more common
to have a drought periodduring the summer.
And when that happens, you know,the, the top soil gets, um,
you know, dusty and, and, and many places.
It gets hydrophobic so thatwhen the rain does start, um,

(50:02):
it doesn't immediately go into the,
the top soil and it and it runs.
And, and so people reallyrely on, on these, uh,
permaculture solutionslike swales, um, mm-hmm.
to, to guide it and to,
and to also slow it down.
Do you find, like, thequestion is what do you,
what strategy do you most liketo, uh, fight the likelihood

(50:27):
of, um, hydrophobic soil so
that when the rains firststart for the year, um,
you don't lose a lot ofimportant soil and soil chemistry
before the soil opens up?
- Well, mulch being kindof the best when it,
when it's somethingthat you can work with.

(50:48):
Like if, if you are in a cropping system
where you can do a heavy mulch,if you can afford to either
bring a quality straw on
or use wood chips for mulch
that will break up thewater, it'll slow it down.
Um, that works for much ofour farm for a lot of the,
the vegetable side of it.

(51:09):
You know, we, you can'tmulch around radishes
that are in the ground for fourweeks and then pull a mulch
and replant each time.
So we do have a lot ofbeds that that end up being
relatively bare soil, even though there,
there's cover crop planted inthem that will sprout quickly
after the first rains.
Uh, one of the main things wedo for that, where we don't,

(51:32):
we don't have control of itthrough something on the surface
of the soil, is making sure that all
of our beds are on contour.
So in a way they act like swales. Hmm.
So our beds are on contour
and even though we don't havemuch of a slope, um, the,
they're on contour
and they're slightly raisedabove the pathways so
that if we do lose any soil from erosion,

(51:54):
it goes into the pathways.
And then every coupleyears we, we come through
and we put the, the, the soil and,
and broken down wood chip mulch
and various things that havebuilt up in the pathways back
on top of the beds.
And it acts like a, aanother kind of a boost.
It's, it, it's like putting compost on top

(52:16):
of the beds. Mm-Hmm. .
- So earlier youmentioned, uh, trap plants
and um, uh, in addition to that, and, and,
and perhaps you can explain the kind
of trap plants that you like.
Um, how do you managepests on your property?
- Um, well, differentpests, different ways.
I mean, there, there are pests
that we can manage effectively through

(52:39):
encouraging the natural balance.
And then there are pests thatcome out of balance, um, pests
that we can deal with effectively
through the natural balance.
We, we encourage, uh,plants that are, are, uh,
an ecosystem and environment
that encourages natural predators.

(53:00):
And often for us,
those are our humbles thingslike Queen Ann's lace, sweetly,
um, various flowers.
Um, one thing that I ia lot of people don't,
don't realize is that the,
the stage of, of muchof many of the predators
that attack pests, sayif it's aphids or thrips

(53:22):
or something like that,a lot of the predators
that attack those pestsare the larval stage.
Mm-Hmm. of, of the predator.
And that the adult stage that you need
to have a round in order tolay the eggs in the right place
to have the larval stage eat nectar
and pollen from specific plants.
So, so when you talkabout beneficial plants,

(53:43):
it's all often you're providing the food
and the environmentfor the adult stage of,
of a beneficial insect that will then
go lay its eggs in aphid bodies
or lay larvae that thencrawl around on the plant
and, and eat rips.
Um, things like that.
Um, the, the trap cropsare, are interesting

(54:05):
'cause the idea of a trapcrop is having, having a plant
that your pests desiremore than your cash crop.
And one of the main oneswe use in our cannabis is,
is actually catnip works really well for
mites seem to prefer catnip over
cannabis any day of the week.

(54:26):
And, and it provides an environment.
So if we do have somethingoutta balance, we can,
if we're using beneficial insects,
we can release the beneficialinsects into the trap crop
where there's a, a large population of,
of the pest and they caneat the pest, they can breed

(54:47):
and then they can branch out from there.
Where if, if you're, if you're buying a,
an expensive beneficial insect
and putting it on say acannabis plant that has a, a,
a smattering of a pest, not,not to an epidemic proportion,
you're wasting a lot of, alot of that insect, they'll,
they'll mostly die off
of starvation if they can't find

(55:08):
their food. Mm-Hmm. ,
- I, I like this idea.
And, uh, uh, that is commonin, in regenerative agriculture
that, that these pests are usually coming
because the garden is, uh, out of balance
and it's, it swings one way
or another too dry, toowet too, too whatever.
And, and, and when it's out of balance,

(55:30):
it creates opportunitiesfor certain pests to expand
and then you've got a problem.
And, um, I think it's really fun
because when I tourregenerative farms, there's,
there's just such adiversity of plants, right?
It's, it's, it's, it's the
complete opposite of a monoculture.
Yeah, of course we've got, we'vegot these, you know, fields
of cannabis, but then you'vegot, you know, you know,

(55:51):
all these smaller plants andthen, and then cover crops
and then, uh, ornamentalsthat are are just pretty
for the farm and, and they're all growing.
And then in the summer,
which is normally when I do mydoers, they're all flowering
and gorgeous and they smell good.
And you can, you can feelthe balance of the farm.

(56:11):
And, and I, I think thatthe, the number one solution
for pests on regenerativefarms is just to grow a lot
and a lot of variety
because I certainly have got great, uh,
results from addingbeneficial insects as well.
But, but you're, you'respeaking the truth man.
When you, when you saythat if, if you, if your,

(56:33):
if your garden isn'talready out of balance,
there might not be enough foodfor the beneficial insects
to keep them going.
And so it's really going to bebetter for you to, instead of
of spot trying to fix a problem,
really focus on the biologicaldiversity and the flowering

(56:53):
and plant diversity so that,um, the plants that you want,
they choose to come to your farm
and they choose to do theirlifecycle on your farm.
And then you can save somemoney on the biologicals like
beneficial insects, um, forwhen you actually have a problem
and, and you need some first aid.

(57:13):
- Yeah. And Abso absolutely,
and even even there within that, our farm
isn't an island.
It, it is in a greater environment.
And so as we've seen more proliferation
of large cannabis farms as we've had
to move towards using clones,things like that, more,

(57:35):
more pests become an issue.
Like the, the hemp aphiddid not exist for us
in any way many years ago
and never would have if wedidn't have some large cannabis
farms in our area that proliferated them.
Um, and that,
that particular pestposes a unique problem

(57:56):
because our,
the way our environment will is bringing
that pest into balance, isthrough a number of predators,
but one of the primary ones is the surf
and fly, uh, or hover fly.
And they're those little thingsthat kind of look like bees,
but they're shaped like fliesif you've ever seen them.
For sure. And, and they're wonderful.

(58:19):
The, the issue is
that the hemp aphidcomes late in the season
during budding often or early budding,
and the surfing flies follow them.
And the way the surf fly, um, feeds on,
on the aphid is by, bylaying eggs, which hatch
and develop into larva,which then crawl around

(58:42):
and or squirm around.
They kind of look like maggots and,
and eat aphids and aphid eggs.
Now, the issue with that is itis bringing it into balance,
and it is getting rid of the aphids.
Oftentimes, there's no aphids left in on,
on plants where, where thecircuit flies have worked,

(59:02):
but they also leave eggs
and larva inside of buds.
So the, the most extremeversion of this is, um, a number
of years ago, um, Iknew of a jar brand and,
and the, the surf
and fly larvae will remaindormant at certain temperatures,

(59:24):
but then develop at room temperature over
the course of two weeks.
So there was a, a jarred brand that,
that had organicregenerative cannabis in it.
And because it was organic
and there were aphids, there was surf
and fly larvae that had,
once it was put on the shelfin the dispensary at room

(59:45):
temperature had hatched andbecome flies inside of the jar.
- Oh, what a, what a
- Terrible, which reallymakes for bad branding
- .
Yeah. That's a really badbrand experience for sure.
- So that, that particularbalance does not work for us.
We can't encourage surfing flies
as the answer for aphids,

(01:00:06):
even though our natural environment wants
that to be the balance.
Um, so we do have to workwith, with beneficial insects
to control the aphids earlyon so that we don't have what
is essentially a beneficialinsect, um, hurt the,
the quality of our flower down the line.
- Wow. That's really thoughtful.

(01:00:26):
Um, not only so, so the, so theaphids are the original pest
and the surf it flies arethe original beneficial,
but due to the nature ofthe surf, it flies the surf.
It flies, actually becomes a pest
because of their larva in the flowers.
And so actually you need a third party
outside beneficial insect.

(01:00:47):
Yeah. That will take out the aphids
before the aphids get so significant
that they track the surf. It flies.
- Yeah. And so , wedo introduce green la swing,
which are natural here,
but never seem to build up enough
of a natural population fast enough.
Mm-Hmm. to dealwith, uh, the, the hemp aphid,

(01:01:07):
which doesn't exist herenaturally along with cannabis,
which also doesn't exist here naturally.
So it makes sense that, thatit, it is sometimes hard
for the natural system tocome into balance with these
essentially exotic plants.
Um, they, the, the larthe lace wing isn't able
to build up a populationquick enough to deal

(01:01:29):
with just the incrediblyrapid rate at which, um,
hemp aphids proliferate.
- Wow. So, um,- And hemp aphids do, like, there's,
it comes to variety there.
There's, there's strains thatthey seem to like, no matter
how healthy they are, thatthere's something about them they
like, and there's, theydon't seem to like, and,

(01:01:52):
and not all,
oftentimes it is there isan imbalance in the farm
that causes a pest to, to like something.
But there, there'softentimes pests that, that
do really well, uh, um, attacking plants.
And, and it might not be thatthe plant's outta balance,
it might just be that thatplant has not developed

(01:02:14):
with a resistance to that particular pest
because they known eachother long enough. Mm.
- Ah, I mean, that makes sense,especially with, you know,
some of these, uh, the, the,the newer strains that, that,
that are like a far cry awayfrom, uh, land races sometimes.
Sometimes they just, yeah, absolutely.
So they just don't have that depth of, uh,
of genetic protection.

(01:02:34):
- No. They've, they've never seen, uh,
the sun even even much
- Less that they've never beenoutside of indoor .
Yeah. Yeah. Um, so let, let's,let's, uh, shift gears to,
um, uh, to animals on the property.
Um, so far, uh, you havementioned, uh, chickens as far
as animal husbandry goes and,
and using, uh, manurefrom neighbors farms,

(01:02:56):
but that, that was way in the beginning.
So, Mm-Hmm. . So, so now
that you are more established,
perhaps you have other animals too, but,
but whether, whether the animals are yours
or whether you're bringingthem from elsewhere, um,
speak a little bit, if youwould, to, um, how, uh, animal,
um, inputs, if you will, uh,whether it's their manure

(01:03:17):
or their, their, their body, uh, how,
how those are being incorporated into
the cycle on your farm.
- Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I mean, number one,it's the, the relationship
with humans and animals
and farming, it, it allkind of evolved together.
Right. And the,
the way I see it is animalshave developed incredible

(01:03:40):
microbiomes, um, to be able to digest
and process raw rough food
and come out with a fertilizer basically.
Mm-Hmm. . Uh,so goats are the, the primary
large animal we have on our farm.
And our goats free roam, a large area a

(01:04:01):
around our homestead,they're not fenced in.
Our homestead is fenced.
And, and the goats have everything else.
Um, and what they dois, is they gather food.
They, they go around, they, they eat a,
a wide variety of food.
They, they come back tothe barn three times a day
and where they pee and they poop, and,

(01:04:22):
and they, they make a,a incredible compost
that we can gather and,
and add to our intentionalcompost piles every year.
And it's another way
besides wood chips, which arevery slow, slow to degrade
and, and don't have a lot ofnutritive value in terms of,
um, in terms of macronutrients.

(01:04:44):
Um, it's another way forus to, to gather biomass
from our surrounding area,bring it here onto our farm,
and process it into kind of a,a super fertilizer, um, and,
and an inoculant of microbiology.
- I wanna, I wanna poke at that bit.
Did you, did you reallymean to suggest that the,

(01:05:04):
that the goats comeback to the farm to poop
and that they, they don't just drop
it wherever they are walking around? No,
- They, they absolutely drop
it wherever they are walking around.
Oh, okay. No, no. So they,they come back to the barn.
They're, they're always pooping
- .
Right on. Okay. I wasgonna say, I was gonna say,
- Does this, a lot of theirpoop ends up at the barn.
What they do is they'll roam around

(01:05:24):
and then they'll come back and loaf
and hang out at the barn and drink water.
And during that time, they're
continuing to poop. Alright, great.
- The way I heard I go,like, do they come back
to the barn is a toilet?
I've never heard thatabout goats, but, but now I
- Understand.
We're, we're really developingour, our animal training.
Like, bring don't pee. Not yet.
- No. Yeah. Hold it till youget back to the barn. Alright.
I, I understand more clearly now.

(01:05:45):
They're just, they're justalways pooping and, and,
and they naturally comeback to the barn for shelter
and water and they dropa load there too. Yeah,
- Exactly.
- Very good. Very good. Um, so do, when,
when you bring in manurefrom another property Mm-Hmm,
, um, how suspiciousare you of that manure?
Like, like how much do youwanna know about those animals

(01:06:08):
before you're willing to bring the
manure onto your property?
- You, you wanna know a lot.
Um, you know, early on Ibrought horse manure on and,
and there's a coupleaspects with horse manure.
Horses are basicallypets to a lot of people.
Most people worm theirhorses continuously.
And, um, so wormer horses things kind

(01:06:30):
of pass straight through horses.
So if somebody is givingtheir horse horse wormer,
you basically have wormer in the manure.
Yeah. So you want to askthose kinds of questions.
Are your horses being fed any medication?
Another aspect with horse manure is
because things pass through horses, um,
something about the waythey process you, they,

(01:06:51):
they don't process a lot of magnesium.
So horse manure is high in magnesium
that will build up over time if
that's the one manure you're using,
and you'll get an imbalancebetween the calcium
and magnesium in your soil.
Um, right now, one
of our primary manure inputsis from an organic dairy
where we, we get probably40 to 50 yards of,

(01:07:14):
of dairy manure solids Wow.
From an organic dairy, which is wonderful.
It it's great material.
Um, one of the challengeswith that is that they,
they dust the feeding stalls in the barn.
So, so the way that works is,is the, the cows get milked,
they go to, to a largebarn with feeding stalls,

(01:07:34):
and then they go back out to pasture.
And while they poop in the feeding stalls,
that gets washed in into, uh, a trough
where the solids areseparated from the liquids.
We get the solids,
the liquids get wateredback out onto pasture,
but they dust down thosefeeding stalls with wood ash.
So now that we've been usingthat manure for a while,

(01:07:56):
we're starting to seea, an intense buildup
of potassium salts from the wood ash.
And so we're having to managethis, this great, um, biomass
that we're able to get at, ata good price, um, delivered
to us with dealing with potassium toxicity
as, as a potential outcome of that.

(01:08:17):
If we don't manage it properly.
- What does management of that look like?
That's a pretty exotic concern for me.
- Um, it's actually surprisinglycommon with a lot of,
of heavy compost applications
and especially manure applications.
Mm-Hmm. . Um,
but the, the way it works
for us is we just make sure weage the compost really well.

(01:08:41):
And we don't add potassiumin any other facets.
It's like we used to addpotassium in our amendments
to our farm, and we justdon't do that anymore.
We make sure that doesn't happen.
And if we see signs, um,I believe one of the, one
of the aspects of potassium toxicity is a,

(01:09:01):
a reduced uptake ofmanganese, I believe it is.
And a reduced uptake of manganeseduring the first few weeks
of, of a flower cycle oncannabis could cause really small
buds, especially at the top.
So when you see like largerbuds lower down on your
flowering stock, and as it comes towards
what should be the nice topcola on a stock, it kind

(01:09:24):
of flattens out and,
and stops developing into alarger bud that could often be,
be a manganese toxic,uh, a lack of manganese,
which either could bea potassium toxicity,
it also could be themanganese uptake didn't happen
because the temperatures weretoo low for the uptake for
that particular strain
during its first few weeks of flowering.

(01:09:45):
A few things like that. But,
but it's like payingclose attention to, to
what we're seeing on, onthe, the growing end of it
and seeing if we're seeing those effects.
- Right on. So we've been,
we've been talking a lot about specifics.
I wanna, I wanna pull backour focus for a minute.
Um, and, and kind of giveyou an opportunity maybe

(01:10:06):
for a little bit of storytelling,
because if we go back to, you know,
where we are now in talkingabout your, about your farm
and using it as a, as an example farm.
Um, you've got very,uh, sophisticated and,
and experienced rich solutions,whereas at the beginning
of the show, we were talkingabout your very young
and immature farm when andwhen you had no money and,

(01:10:29):
and like doing the best youcan with what you've got.
And so we know that overthe last 25 ish years, your,
your experience has been increasing
and the farm's depth has been increasing.
And which sets us up for this question.
I'm curious if there were,you know, were there, uh,
any milestones that youexperienced which told you

(01:10:51):
that you were having areally positive impact on the
biological diversity of the farm
and that things were gettingbetter, like in the soil
and in the, I don't know,the biosphere of, of,
of your farm when, uh, you know,signs that when you saw it,
you just like kind of stopped
and you're like, oh man,we're we're doing it,
we're doing it .

(01:11:13):
- I i there's a lot of that.
I mean, I, I kind of walk around every day
and feel that like, oh myGod, this is, this is amazing.
It's, it's happening, it's working.
Um, I remember specifically,uh, the, the first
or, uh, regenerative cannabis conference.
I don't, I don't know if you were there.
- I wasn't at the first one. No.

(01:11:33):
- It, it was, it was righthere in my neighborhood.
It was at, at, uh, beginningsin, in Priceland here.
And it was relatively small
and I, uh, I had a fewpeople who were there, A few
of the presenters come up anddo a quick little of the farm.
Um, and,
and one of the presenterswas, uh, a mycologist
who focused on Michal mycology.

(01:11:56):
And he said, oh, this is cool.
You've been growing cannabisin the same area for,
for 10 years or whatever it was
at that point, probably more than that.
Can I take a sample and and doa psychological study of it?
I was like, that, thatsounds amazing. That
- Sounds bads. Yeah.
- And so he got back tome about a week later

(01:12:17):
and he said the, um, the spores
of the specific, um, michal
fungi that have relationship
with cannabis are denseenough in this soil
that you could cut it by 10 parts
and sell it as an inoculate.
- Wow. That must affordyou. That was like, I

(01:12:41):
- Was just like, what the heck?
Well, I, I didn't know.
And I was like, well, does thatmean we're doing a good job?
Or that commercial inoculatesare ridiculous ?
And he said a little of both. Right.
- Yeah. That, that is fantastic.
And to, to know that, um,that, you know, it was your,
your soil was that fungal rich.
Um, it really gives you,um, an understanding

(01:13:04):
that you've got likeroom for error, right.
Because you, you're notbarely getting by your,
your soil is actually bursting.
- Mm-Hmm. and,
and you know, I, some of it,I, I think you just end up
with a lot of happy accidents.
You know? Um, like I,I have thought a lot,

(01:13:24):
you know, while I'm on my way to bed
and don't have a piece of paper
or things like that of,you know, the idea of of,
of michal relationships.
Now there's a differencebetween, um, spores
and active michal that,that are in the soil.
Mm-Hmm. . Andthere's active mycorrhiza on

(01:13:45):
the cannabis ra roots.
What, what makes mycorrhiza go into kind
of a suspended state is nothaving those relationships.
So if you go into a wintertimewhere your soils bear,
the mycorrhiza that's alive no longer is,
there's spores Maybe maybeit'll build up again,
but it'll take longer tobuild up again in the spring.

(01:14:08):
And I've, I've been curious,
and I actually haven'tdone the, the research
or looked at it, it's like,is there specific cover crops
that, that have the samemichal relationships
with the same speciesas does a cannabis crop
or a crop you're growingfor that summer so
that you can encourage acontinuity of those species?

(01:14:28):
Because, you know, we see alot of, um, you know, if you,
if you go on Instagram
and you look at people'saccounts, everybody, um,
posts these pictures ofincredible mycelium in their soil.
And, and a lot of thosespecies are wonderful.
They're good to have in your soil.
They're the species thatbreak down, um, woody material
or unbroken down organic matter and,

(01:14:50):
and provide nutrients from it.
But then the specific fungal mats, the
specific michal relationships that,
that directly benefit the cannabis, um,
in a more direct relationship way,
how do we keep those alive?
How do we proliferate thoseand, and are there cover crops
or, or perennial plantingsthat share enough

(01:15:12):
of the same species to beable to be the, the kind
of safe space for,
for those living speciesto, to over winter?
- Hmm. Yeah. 'cause you don't,you don't want the, the,
the really beneficial ones forcan cannabis like intercedes
to suddenly be outcompeted by like, um,
wood digesters, uh, uh, only you
- Know.

(01:15:33):
Exactly. And and that'smostly what you see, like, no,
no shade on anyone.
I, I love posting picturesof, of all my, you know,
michal mats when I find them,
but almost always it's wood digesters.
Yeah. Whether it's,you know, wine caps or,
or the safaria kind of mushrooms.
Um, that that's what you see a lot
because there, there, the waywe're gardening the way we're,

(01:15:57):
we're doing things, whetherit's through Hugo beds
or through a lot of, uh, ofaddition of carbon in the form
of mulch really favorsthe wood digesters. Yeah.
- Right on. Alright, so let's go ahead
and take our second, uh, short break.
We'll be right back. You arelistening to Shaping Fire
and my guest today isregenerative farmer Daniel Stein.

(01:16:18):
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(01:18:29):
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Welcome back. You arelistening to Shaping Fire.
I am your host sheo,
and today my guest isRegenerative Farmer Daniel Stein.
So Daniel, during this lastsection, I want to talk about,
um, some macro ideas, um,around land management and,

(01:21:47):
and let's start with crop rotation.
Um, you know, we talked a lotduring the first set about,
um, the, the joy of planning the farm and,
and how that plan canevolve over the years.
And you know, that you don't have
to do everything the first year.
Um, but you know, one of the challenges
that people get into is theyreally kind of fall in love
with their farm designand, and where things go.

(01:22:10):
And so everything has a place, but,
but as regenerative farmers,we also know the benefit
that comes from crop rotation.
So we're not trying to feed the same crop
with the same soil all the time,
but gosh, um, it's reallyeasy to not rotate, um, crops.
Um, different farmers I'vespoken to will either rotate
and some will be like, well, I just choose

(01:22:32):
to amend and not rotate.
Um, I'd like to hearwhat your thoughts are.
- Um, I think my thoughtson this is, is do
what you can see, see whererotations are important for you
and, and where they aren't.
Um, and sometimes it, it's self-limiting.
For instance, withcannabis, we couldn't rotate

(01:22:52):
because we had such a hard time explaining
to the regulatory agencieswhat crop rotation is,
and we didn't feel like redrawing
and resubmitting our maps every year.
Oh. Um, and
but what's interesting isthat led us to a discovery,
which is that I think cannabis likes

(01:23:12):
to grow in the same spot.
And when I started thinking about it and,
and imagining cannabisgrowing in the wild, you know,
like a ditch weed, for instance,cannabis produces a ton
of seeds that fall right thereand, and regrow right there.
Um, so I think cannabis asa plant is used to growing

(01:23:36):
in its own shadow, I guess you would say.
Um, and, you know, thatdoesn't change the fact
that crop rotation canreduce pest pressure,
especially pests that tendto over winter in the soil
or things like that, orwouldn't be beneficial.
But I, I think for us,for our different crops,

(01:23:56):
we weighed the benefit of croprotation versus the challenge
of crop rotation and decideindividually on each thing.
Um, you know, for instance,in our vegetable farm,
we have a block that is lettuce production
that we don't rotate
because the infrastructurethat it takes for us
to have year round lettuceproduction in this hot arid

(01:24:19):
climate doesn't lenditself well to rotation.
And lettuce doesn't seemto be a problem in terms
of nutrient use or pest.
And with rotation things like, um, garlic
and tomatoes and carrots,we tend to rotate
and primarily are rotation forthose isn't nutrient based.
'cause we are so well

(01:24:39):
provided with nutrients through compost.
Our rotation tends to bewhat crops do a good job
of reducing weed pressurefor the next crop.
That doesn't do wellwith the weed pressure.
Like for instance, carrotsmight come after zucchini
because zucchini reducedthe, the seed bank of weeds

(01:25:01):
in that area, and then carrots can come
after them and things like that.
So, uh, it's one ofthose things, uh, cover
it's more important to plant stuff and,
and get it in the groundthan to get it just right
because, um, at the end of theday, you'd rather have a, a,

(01:25:22):
you know, carrot that'snot perfect than not
to have any carrots, .
Um, and it's similar to how I feel about,
uh, planting with moon cycles.
Like plant it out, try toplant with the moon cycles.
If you don't miss it, if youmiss it, don't wait a month
to plant again, because it's better
to have it growing a month than to
to hit it on exactly the energetic cycle.

(01:25:44):
Um, that,
- That bit that yousaid about do your best.
Right on. Do your best.That's good theme for today.
You know, that, you kind ofblew my mind at the, at the top
of your answer when you,when you pointed out that
cannabis seeds when matureare pushed out of the flour
and just dropped to theground at its own feet
and start next year's plantsright there at its feet,

(01:26:04):
you know, they're, they're, they're not,
they're not air distributed.
And, and while, while theycould be distributed by birds,
that's, that's really not their main
shtick, they really are.
- No birds crack 'em open
- And then there you go.
So, so they don't even, theydon't even survive the process.
So, um, yeah, that, that reallykind of sets crop rotation
for cannabis in my head in a totally,

(01:26:25):
in a totally different realm.
I, uh, I'm already envisioningthe, the next time I talk
to a microbiologist aboutthe difference between, um,
the root structures of, of, ofplants that need to be cover
or not cover crop need to berotated versus ones who don't.
Because I'm sure
that life in the rhizosphereis entirely different

(01:26:46):
for plants that are, are built
to be the same location every year.
- Yeah. And, and that microrisalrelationship is there too.
It's like the roots of theprevious year are there with all
of its microbiology whileyou plant the next year.
- Yeah. And they must havevery burly exudates too.
- I'd imagine so. Yeah, sure.It does seem like it. Yeah.

(01:27:08):
- Right on. So, so let's, let'stalk about another variety
of land management otherthan crop rotation.
So, you know, we, we've beentalking about different parts
of your parcel and how they relate,
but really if we, if we pullthe, pull the camera out,
your whole whole parcel is one big, um,
land mass of growing as well.

(01:27:29):
Um, what kinds of forwardthinking, big picture
land management do you useon the parcel as a whole?
I'm thinking stuff like controlled burns
and things like that that can
regenerate the property itself.
- Yeah, exactly. Um, so
our homestead is perhapsfive to 10 acres of,

(01:27:52):
of the overall parcel.
And we're on 170 acres.
Most of it is forestedand relatively steep.
Um, and here in, in northern California,
our, our native forestenvironment has been very affected
by, by extractive land management

(01:28:13):
and the exclusion, uh, ofnative cultural land management.
Um, so when we're lookingat the overall property,
we're trying to understandhow we take it from this state
where it's out of balancebecause, uh, of logging
and fire suppression
and get it back into itsnatural balance, which

(01:28:34):
for this area is, isa natural fire regimen
and more of an old growth,less, less trees, more space
between the trees, more biodiversity.
Um, so yeah, we're, we'relooking intensely at that.
We've, we've partnered with,um, some local nonprofits
that work on, on watershed restoration.

(01:28:55):
We're doing some bigin-depth studies of, of
how groundwater movesthrough the, the soil here.
Basically in this area,geologically, we have a,
a bedrock layer that'srelatively impenetrable
by water on a lot of it,
and then a 20 to 30 foot deep

(01:29:17):
soil sponge on top of that.
And, and, um, we don't have aquifers.
Our summertime water is thewater that slowly moves through
that sponge from, from the ridges down
to the creeks and out.
So where we have groundwaterwells, where we're studying
infiltration from rain, howlong it stays in the soil,

(01:29:38):
where it moves through the watershed.
And then we're gonna bedoing some, some, um,
forest restoration work,thinning and living and,
and just kind of every
bringing it back into balanceforest restoration work we
could do in that area, and seeing how
that changes the water flowthrough that watershed.

(01:29:59):
And then moving on
after we get to studythat for a couple of years
to doing a prescribed fire in that area
and seeing how thataffects water infiltration
and does it affect thepH of the groundwater
and how does that changethe soil structure,
uh, and things like that.
So that's kind of the longrange is looking towards

(01:30:20):
how we get this largeparcel back to a place
where we can manage it through the use
of prescribed natural fire.
And then also
what land management techniquescan use on a closer level.
And that's where things likethe goats come in, they're kind
of like a biological firewhere they consume a lot

(01:30:40):
of the biomass around, aroundour area and keep it down.
So, so not only does itget into a better balance,
but it keeps us fire safe.
We, we are in a, a fireprone environment and
because of this out of balancewith fire that we have,
it is, um, it,
it's very catastrophic when it happens,
as we all know. Yeah.

(01:31:01):
- Um, you know, the way
that you talk about thesebigger projects, which, um,
it's amazing that youare able to find time
or create time to do somethingthat, that, that is that big
and future minded versusjust the daily demands
of a farm, but really thatextra effort that you put in it,

(01:31:23):
it's, it's like thefarming, um, equivalent
of generational wealth.
You know, it's like, it's like you're,
you're doing these studies andyou're learning how, how the,
the, the farm, uh, parcel willbe, will be better over time
with your eye on 20
and 30 years out so that the, you know,
you can be a participant inthe evolution of the nature

(01:31:45):
around you, but also that, um,
your farm has got a reliable backbone, uh,
you know, in in case in case your,
your kids wanna take it overin time or something like that.
Yeah. And I think that's, I think
that's philosophicallyreally, uh, important
to regenerative farming and, and,

(01:32:06):
and often given short shrift.
- Well, and, and land ownership is funny.
It's like, um, you know, I'm here now.
Maybe my kids will be here.
Maybe they won't, but thisland will be here either way.
Mm-Hmm. And in terms oflike, time to do this, I'm,
I'm super fortunate.
I, I have great partnerships.
Um, I am do some grant writing,

(01:32:26):
but I'm working with local nonprofits
that are doing the grantwriting, actually doing the work,
and I'm just coordinating with them
to see that it's happening. Oh, that's
- Great.
Um, so it's wonderful having people like
that working on your behalf, .
- Yeah, it's incredible.
And you know, to some degreeit's the openness to it
and the, the the engaging inthe community constantly in

(01:32:50):
these spheres of, youknow, a a a big part here.
A as the, the economy is shifting here as,
as cannabis economy has changed
and gotten integrated into this larger
broken economy. Oh, good.
- Saying it's shiftingis like the, the, the,
the nicest possible way to putwhat's going on around you.

(01:33:12):
- Yeah. I mean, think it, it's, honestly,
it's coming into balance,
but unfortunately it's coming into balance
with a broken system. Yeah,
- It sure is.
- And that's, that'skind of the way it goes.
But one of the economies thatis starting to take some of
that, um, burden is, isthe restoration economy.
What we have here is anincredible amount of,

(01:33:35):
of beautiful forested land in our area,
and it, it needs work,
it needs restoration if we'regonna have healthy fisheries,
if we're gonna be a firesafe community, et cetera.
- So, um, you kind of set me up perfectly.
These next two questionsare, uh, economics based.
And the first one is, um, uh, you know,
what is the economic impact of switching

(01:33:57):
to regenerative farming?
You know, on a small farm,you know, you weren't,
you weren't petroleum basedto begin with, so it wasn't
that much of a swing, but,um, you certainly stopped,
you know, double digging and,
and other, uh, potentiallylaborious, uh, practices,
but you probably also traded those
for other laborious practices.
And, and okay, you're, you'resaving money on, on a lot

(01:34:19):
of inputs that a non regenerative farm
would be buying in town.
But then, but then youalso have to buy materials
to do other types of projects.
There's like all of these, uh,
trade offs in both directions.
And so, um, so forregenerative farming, I think
incorrectly is, is assumedto be so much more expensive

(01:34:42):
to do because you don't getto use the shortcuts of, of,
of modern farming, which is also happens
to be poisoning everybody.
So I'd just like to hear,um, how you, how you kind
of like weigh it out aboutthe, the economic impact, um,
for you specifically onregenerative farming, regarding some
of the other options thatyou have in front of you.

(01:35:04):
- Yeah, I, I mean, I think forthe options I have in front
of me, regenerative farming is by far
the most economically feasible.
It's like when you align your values
and your goals with whatnaturally wants to happen anyway,
you are not needing the products
and the, the physical energyto fight against the flow,

(01:35:29):
um, on a larger scale.
Yeah. Industrial farmingbenefits from economies of scale.
And that's something that's,that's hard to do on our level
of regenerative farming.
I know there is regenerativefarming at scale, um, that
that does take advantage of some
of those economies of scale.
But I wouldn't have an economyof scale in our type of farm,

(01:35:51):
even if I were to spraypoison on everything
and rode to till thecrap out of it .
Um, you know,
and when it comes downto it, it's like it has
to work economically ifyou're doing it as a business,
otherwise it doesn't work.
Um, but it also has towork, you know, you couldn't

(01:36:13):
pay me enough money tospray poison on my land.
I live here. Mm-Hmm. .
Um, so it, even if
that worked economically,it wouldn't work.
So you have to draw yourboundaries somewhere.
And luckily with,
with regenerative no-tillfarming it, it does work.
It is less work to nottill it is less work

(01:36:35):
to not spray poison.
Sometimes you do lose crops to, to pests.
Um, as, as one of my great, um,
farming mentor friends, CaseyO'Neill from Happy Day says,
when, when you're sellingproducts to, to customers
and your kale has a nice hole in it,
it's like the kale is delicious

(01:36:55):
and the hole doesn't tastelike anything .
It's like, it, you, youget the products you get
because of the way you farm.
And they, it's a benefit.
It, it, it really is abenefit economically.
- So, um, I know that I'm kindof inside of a bubble that,
that I'm probably in with you
because the people that I roll with,

(01:37:17):
uh, literally roll with.
Um, we're all into regenerativelygrown outdoor flower.
Right. That's what we smoke and Yeah.
Um, and we're not gonna, we don't,
we're not gonna spend our,our our our money, um, uh,
buying, uh, you know,
a plus B flour from a dispensary,

(01:37:39):
and we're certainly notgonna grow, you know,
salt sodium flowers.
We're, we're gonna do itregeneratively and outdoors.
Um, that said, we are in a bubble. Right.
And there, there is amarket as, as a whole.
And so, um, I'm curious to know, um,
have you seen an increase in demand
for your regeneratively produced cannabis?

(01:38:01):
Because, you know, assomebody in journalism,
I'm certainly helping, youknow, raise the profile
of regenerative and all of uswho are in regenerative smoke,
regenerative, but, um, I II'm not familiar with like,
how much of the market isbeing purchased regenerative,
and there you are on the front line.

(01:38:21):
So are, are you seeing anincreased demand for your,
uh, quality of cannabis flour?
- Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We are.
Um, and it, it's an engagement thing.
It, it, it, it's havingdirect contact as much with,
with bud tenders, uh, as with customers
and our brand, whichwe share with a number

(01:38:44):
of other regenerativefarmers is, is farm cut.
And what we've noticed with that is,
is the product we're coming to customers
with sometimes is a hard sell.
We're selling top shelfflour, minimally processed,
so basically un trimmed to it
and, uh, in quarter ounce amounts.

(01:39:04):
And it, the, the,
the hardest part isactually getting customers
to try it the first time,
because nearly across the board customers
that try it come back for more,
because objectively there is
a difference in the experience from it.
So, um, the, the challengeis definitely engaging

(01:39:29):
with Bud Tenderers whooften push indoor flower
or brands they're familiarwith, uh, whether out of habit
or out of market dynamics.
Um, but I, I feel like wehave seen an increase in,
in people seeking out regenerative flour
and, uh, an in definitelyan increase in the people

(01:39:50):
who do seek out regenerativeflour coming back for our brand
after they have an experience with it.
- Yeah. The proof reallyisn't a pudding, isn't it?
Like af af Yeah. After you smokeoutdoor that was, you know,
carefully grown regeneratively.
It really, it really does open up, um,
what you think cannabis can be
because of the wider terpene profiles

(01:40:11):
and, you know, the burs in general.
- Well, and the challenge for us
and why we created that brand is you,
you can grow the bestregenerative flower in the world,
and if you don't cureit right, it's not great
and you can cure it perfectly.
And if it makes its way tomarket in a way that doesn't
preserve that and bring itto the customer in its best

(01:40:33):
possible form, then youalso lose that quality.
And we kind of createda, a a way to get it
to the customer in the way we enjoy it.
And it blows people's minds.
It's like when you, whenyou open a jar that's been
vacuum sealed and, and not trimmed,
and you, you break itopen for the first time
and break a couple sugar leafs off of it,

(01:40:54):
it's overwhelming like the smell.
And then when you smokeproperly cured properly stored
flour, the experienceis, is just different
and more full and more layered
and nuanced than the experience from
some fast dried indoor
- .

(01:41:14):
Yeah. . Um, you know,
there are two otheraspects I wanna, um, uh,
economic regenerativeaspects I wanna focus on.
Um, one you've already mentioned,
which is the relationship with budtenders.
Right. Um, because it isinteresting that, um, you know,
bud tenderers do have alot of control in, uh, uh,
influence in, in where they drive people
for their purchases.
So having a good relationshipwith budtenders is important.

(01:41:38):
And in a lot of ways, like, you know, um,
that friendship is also aregenerative farming p practice in
a way, in that it's, it'screating community and outreach
and, and, uh, reachingout with, um, you know,
your philosophy ofregenerative growing and,
and what that meaning is.
But, but also, and,
and where I wanna focusmore is, um, the cooperation

(01:42:03):
and community spirit thatyou, um, need to have
with other farmers on a basiclevel when you are trading
resources like, oh, youknow, I'll trade you,
I'll trade you hay for manure,
or whatever the trades may be,or, or, or sharing equipment.
Those kinds of relationshipsbecome really essential in

(01:42:23):
regenerative farming whenyou're trying to, um, you know,
be very resourceful.
But then also you, you mentioned,uh, farm cut cannabis, um,
the brand that you've puttogether with, um, you know, uh,
looks like four different farms
and yourselves, where, um,you know, you, you kind
of get the benefits of beinga scaled farm without having

(01:42:46):
to do the, the negatives of a scaled farm.
And, and, and that synergyonly comes together
because you get togetherwith these all small farms
and then market and distribute as one.
And we all know that,that that was, you know,
that was attempted at thebeginning of, of, you know,
proposition 64 days byoutsiders where they're, oh,

(01:43:09):
we're gonna pull togetherall the small farms.
And then it ended up being a big crock.
Um, but, but, but nowin kind of like the dust
of the brokenness of, ofthe cannabis, uh, system in,
in California, we're seeingfarmers come together,
like really, like over thedinner table in a, in, in,
in a smaller, less grandiose way.

(01:43:33):
And it appears from the outside, uh,
uh, um, that it's working.
So, so maybe talk a little bitabout this partnership with,
um, you know, that you,
that you all are callingfarm cut cannabis.
- Yeah. So that, that,that partnership is,
is five farms, including ourselves.
It's ourselves, WhitethornValley Farm, happy Day Farm,

(01:43:54):
Emerald Spirit Botanicals in Mendo
and Downham Farms in Nevada City area.
And, um, it's just wonderful.
We're, we're like-mindedfarmers who came together.
We couldn't exactly create a co-op,
but we created a brandtogether that we can share,
and like you'd said,share resources, share,

(01:44:16):
share the burden of the tasks.
Um, Joseph from ALD Spirit is our, our,
our primary salesperson.
And he, uh, because other members
of his family are takingcare of the farm, he's able
to travel a lot and, andvisit dispensaries and,
and talk to people about, about farm cut
and about our products andmake those relationships.

(01:44:37):
And, and we've playedto all of our strengths
and been able to develop systems
and processes that, that work for us,
whether it's sharing equipment
or pooling our resourcesto be able to say, um,
we have packaging thatsays Standard Mason Jar,
and we could not finda good childproof lid
for a standard mason jar thatdidn't have plastic in it.

(01:44:59):
So we were able to createone to, to go to a factory
and say, we want plant-basedchildproof lid for,
for this size jar and, andcreate that and bypass in bulk
and things like that.
And it, it's heartening, it's, it's, um,
in this economic system whereit's going towards integration

(01:45:20):
with the kind of dog heat,dog venture, capitalist,
capitalist world, the,the cooperation, uh,
and the building somethingtogether gives us a lot of hope
and a lot of a goodfeeling, especially doing it
with people we just like seeing
and being around. Anyway,
- That Yeah, totally.
The, uh, doing business with people

(01:45:41):
that we actually like really
makes all the difference in the world. Oh,
- It's so great. You
- Know, it'd be really funnyif this, um, if this, uh,
new childproof cap for masonjars that you all invented,
that, that, you know,that the patent for that
actually ends up becoming popular
because that's actually areally novel, useful idea

(01:46:02):
and ends up making you all more,
more income than thecannabis itself. You know,
- There was, there wassomebody already doing it,
and we were, we were getting those, um,
and they were great products.
They, they were on the pricey side.
Uh, but the main thing that,that we wanted is something
that didn't have any plastic.
And the one we had initiallystarted with our brand is made

(01:46:23):
with a flax fiber and a recycled plastic,
and we wanted one thatwas entirely biological.
Yeah. Plant-based material.
And, and that's where we got into it.
And yeah, who knows what the,the long, long term of that,
I'm, I'm just right nowkeeping my fingers crossed that
that California could be abig enough market that we can,

(01:46:43):
we can sell a majority of ourproduct through this brand
that is, is a joy to, to be part of.
And, um, we're not there yet,but we're doing really well.
- Excellent, excellent.Well, it's nice, it's nice
to see good people comingtogether in a good union, uh,
for, for shared benefit.
- Yeah, it feels great too.
I mean, it's, it's, we get such incredibly

(01:47:07):
positive feedback from, from customers
and dispensaries about it thatit e even just that alone,
besides the businessaspect, it's like, um,
it's a good feeling toknow that the thing you put
so much energy into creating well
and taking care of well is, is received
and acknowledged for beingwhat it is in the world.

(01:47:27):
- And, and alsospecifically the, the farms
that you have partnered with,I know several of the folks
and you know, like who, whodoesn't wanna be in partnership
with regenerative farmers whoare generally happy go lucky
people anyway, you know, I mean, you know,
I I probably know Casey the best
and, you know, great success
to all of it, you know, . Exactly.
- Exactly. Great success. Yeah.

(01:47:48):
- So, so let's finishoff with this question.
You know, like we intentionallydesigned this episode today
so that we could talk aboutyour farm, um, in detail,
but really as an example of
what can happen on everybody'sfarm who's listening, right.
Whether or not they're transitioning from,
from petroleum farming or,
or if they're just comingto their parcel and,

(01:48:09):
and I think we get a did agood job of that, um, but,
but really like the directadvice really could be
profound and inspirational.
So, so let's finish with that.
So what advice would you give to a farmer
with a new parcel,
or who is transitioning,who is just starting out
with regenerative practices?

(01:48:32):
- Hmm. I think the best advice, um,
would be kind of go
if you've read The Hitchhiker'sGuide to the Galaxy.
Yeah, for sure. The best advicein the world is don't panic.
- Oh, I thought you were gonnasay to bring a towel ,
- That that's not a bad idea.
Uh, no, don't, don't panic.Don't stress. Do what you can.

(01:48:55):
None of us are, are on an island there.
There's no such thing
as a complete closed loopsustainability system.
Look at your farm, do your best.
Find, find the resourcesthat you have available
and adapt to them.
Find the markets you haveavailable and adapt to them.

(01:49:19):
Don't be too hard on yourselffor the things that don't work
and, and don't imagine that, that
we can be pure
or to keep, um,
that we can do everything we dream
as regenerative right from the start.
I'm, you, you introduced meas a regenerative farmer.

(01:49:42):
I'm not a regenerative farmer.
I don't think anybody isa regenerative farmer.
I I think all of us arestriving to align our farming
with natural process
and balancing that with the needs
of being a human on earth right now,
and what is available to usand what the, the constraints

(01:50:02):
and the, the, the burdens that, that,
that we have to deal with.
So find that balance.
Don't get squeezed betweenyour ideals and your reality.
Make make your way the paththat that is best for you.
And then see where you canimprove it towards natural

(01:50:24):
systems towards more sustainability
and make some improvementthat is possible for you
with each season and go in that direction.
- Beautiful. Well,Daniel, thank you so much
for sharing your, your depth of experience
and your passion for farmingand doing the right thing and,
and your vision for your,you know, your own parcel

(01:50:46):
and your own family and your own life.
I think that, um, youknow, through these words,
hopefully we've given somepeople some new ideas for things
to do on their own parcels
and also, uh, you know, just, just
put regenerative farmingmore into the realm
of the possible insteadof the realm of the ideal.
So I know your time is valuable

(01:51:08):
and I, I really thank you for spending it
with us on Shaping Fire.
- Yeah, thank you. It's,it's been really enjoyable
and I just hope everybody gets out there
and gets their hands dirty this spring.
- Fantastic. Okay, dearlisteners, so if you want to, uh,
know more about PricelandForest Farm, where, uh,
where Daniel is owner withhis wife Taylor, um, uh,

(01:51:29):
you can find out that at Priceland Forest
Farm on Instagram
or on theirwebsite@pricelandforestfarm.com.
And Bri Lynn is B-R-I-C-E-L-A-N-D.
And, um, we would love itif you would, uh, you know,
if you live in California, if you're,
or if you're traveling thereto stop at your dispensary

(01:51:51):
and buy some Farm CutCannabis, um, their small farm,
uh, community group.
And, uh, if you wanna followalong with them, um, you on ig,
that's Farm Cut Canna
and, uh, on the interwebs,that's farm cut cannabis.com.
You can find more episodesof the Shaping Fire Podcast
and subscribe to the show@shapingfire.com

(01:52:14):
and wherever you get your podcasts.
If you enjoyed the show, we'dreally appreciate it if you
would leave a positivereview of the podcast.
Wherever you download yourview will help others find the
show so they can enjoy it too.
On the Shaping Fire website,you can also subscribe
to the newsletter for insightsinto the latest cannabis news
exclusive videos and giveawayson the Shaping Fire website.

(01:52:34):
You also find transcriptsof today's podcast as well.
Be sure to follow on Instagram.
For all original contentnot found on the podcast
that's at Shaping Fire
and at shingo los on Instagram, be sure
to check out the ShapingFire YouTube channel
for exclusive interviews, farmtours, and cannabis lectures.
Does your company wannareach our national audience
of cannabis enthusiasts?

(01:52:55):
Email hotspot@shapingfire.comto find out how.
Thanks for listening to Shaping Fire.
I've been your host, Shang Los.

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