Starting a grow operation in Alaska

K

KodiakStoner

New Member
Greetings people,
I just joined this cool site. As you all know, Alaska is going to be a legal place to grow commercially real soon. By August 2015, we should have some guidelines in place. I own property on Kodiak Island both on the East side and the West side. The East side is pretty wet, about 90" of precip a year. Kodiak city is on the east side and would be easier to do retail. The town property is also big enough do a grow operation and zoned commercial. On the west side I own 10 acres that is very remote (no neighbors) and the rain fall is more like 30" a year (probably less mold problem). I would prefer to grow outdoors and I think I will have the option to do so in either location. If need be I can set up a store in town and grow on the other side of the island but that seems like it might be quite a hassle. Kodiak is at about 57 degrees north latitude. Am I foolish to try to grow this far north outdoors?

I was thinking of growing auto flowering breeds... Purple Power and Hollands Hope look interesting. It seems to me that it would be a lot cheaper putting up a fence and having a small grow room for starts rather than forking out for the costs of lights, blowers, heaters and a building etc.

My question for you experienced growers is what would you do in my position. This might be all wrong, but I am anticipating that Alaska will give licenses that allow outdoor growers 3-4000 square feet of growing space and indoor growers about a 1000 s.f. From what I've read it would cost a small fortune to outfit just 1000 s.f of grow space and then the .14 per KWH is not a fun thought for when the market becomes saturated and we are already on the hook for $50 an oz tax. Doesn't it seem wiser from an economic stand point to keep cost down to a minimum?

Is it realistic to think that i can produce 5000 ounces from 320 plants of bud on 3500 s.f of sunny ground? How much money should I expect to spend on fertilizer? What is the better option, growing on my highway frontage commercial acreage in town or growing out on my ocean frontage on the west side with no neighbors? If i grow on the remote property or near town outdoors, I will just do one planting per year and spend the off season marketing. If I grow on the east side near town and do an indoor grow operation, I would be on a tread mill of growing year around. The town location might be more profitable if we aren't allowed more grow space outdoors but I'm more into lifestyle than big bucks. The remote property also has the potential to be a bud and breakfast with a sports fishing lodge for 420 enthusiasts. Thanks for taking the time to read my introduction and I look forward to hearing from any responses.

Mucho aloha, KodiakStoner
 
Wow so much info. I'd wait a Lil till guidelines are closer to being in place. Also get a lawyer. Washington was crazy when the gates opened for applications for licenses. Be prepared

But more importantly welcome to 420 man
 
Dutty Panty said:
Wow so much info. I'd wait a Lil till guidelines are closer to being in place. Also get a lawyer. Washington was crazy when the gates opened for applications for licenses. Be prepared

But more importantly welcome to 420 man
Click to expand...

Thanks for the welcome...yep I know I need to wait until the laws get more defined but at the same time I'm of the school of thought that, the first to grow on a larger scale in Alaska might have a chance to do pretty well. My expectations are that after the third year there will be so much of it on the market that prices will drop like a stone. So I'm just trying to be as ready as i can in advance. Any thoughts on the best outdoor strains for Alaska?
 
I just read that growers are holding ten times the pot needed by retailers for sale in Washington right now. I tend to think the market will drop pretty quickly too. However the first year in Alaska if you're ready might be a bonanza.
 
Incorrect information as well. What has happened is the liquor control board is holding 250,000lbs and won't release it. It's "quarantined"

Recreational stores have 1/10th the product or variety of the medical dispensaries. I grow medically about to go recreational. I currently consult for 2 recreational grows. I'm speaking from first hand knowledge

Yes the price is going to come down to match Oregon and to run the medical out of business. What will happen is it will end up at about 3$ per gram for the grower to receive for there product and at the retail stores it will be about 12-15.
We are talking 20,000 Sq ft indoor operations that supposedly are gonna get even larger,do the math at even 1$ per gram theres profit. And as for the Indians having a secret way to get control or whatever good luck it won't be them running the big grows it will be big money or big pharmaceutical companies owning them.
 
Yes I guess there is a profit for the big guys if growers do in fact get $85 per ounce. I'm kind of hoping the State of Alaska takes a different approach then Washington. If the average Alaskan consumes .4 oz of legal pot per year, it translates into about 350,000 ounces. It wouldn't take too many 20,000 sq ft grow operations to chew through that amount of weed in a year. My guess is around just 3 growers each with 20,000 square feet would take care of the entire quota.

What Alaska should really do is make it only legal to have one (1000 w) grow light for starts in the spring and then limit growers to 4000 square feet of either in door (greenhouse) or out door growing space. The money wasted on infrastructure and electricity consumption
would be enormously reduced and the amount of future bankruptcies would be hugely diminished. In 4000 square feet, growers would have a happier life with a half year growing routine. With each grower using all 4000 sf of grow space they would produce about 6000 ounces per year, at $85 per oz and $50 tax per oz they would earn $220,000 each. It would produce a community of about 58 growers if they all grew 4000 s.f. of weed. My hunch is that Alaska will no doubt create a quota system and indeed restrict the number of permits (as they have in commercial fisheries) Most likely they'll issue around 100 grower permits and half the growers will produce a lot less then 6000 oz's per year.

I would not venture into the biz, unless something along these lines does not become law. I don't want to be road kill trying to compete against huge corporations with big grow operations. Am I wrong to assume the cost of just the lights of an indoor grow operation will be more than $60,000 per every 1000 s.f.? The biggest problem for legal Alaskan growers that are saddled with a $50. per oz tax is to displace the growers that are now growing illegally. Most of these folks are growing indoors with lights now and would benefit hugely if electric grow operations become the norm. They already have the infrastructure built. It may be that the state of Alaska will realize this. They really don't want to create a lot of bankruptcies. My thinking is that the state would love to come up with a plan than would hurt rather then help the pirate growers. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame illegal growers for what they've been doing but a bureaucracy that awards the same characters that they've been trying to stop for years, is not likely. I think the public would scream bloody murder if they did.

In Kodiak, electricity is about .14 per kilowatt hour (lower than most places in Alaska because we have wind turbines and a hydroelectric dam. At those rates, just for the lights and not including heat and fans, the cost of electricity in just a 1000 sf grow space would be over $3000 per month. Maybe a grower with 1000 sf of grow space might get lucky and produce 6000 oz indoors in that 1000 s.f. per year. If he is netting $35 per oz. His gross income after taxes and before electricity, labor, seed, fertilizer etc. is $210,000. The average Alaskans electric bill would certainly be over $50,000. With the other fixed expenses it's possible that a grower with a 1000 s.f. indoor operation working with just 2 helpers might be able to survive. But 100 grow operations like this will be wasting $5 million dollars worth of electricity a year. It wouldn't surprise me if the bureaucrats prefer to contribute to global warming and bankruptcies but it sure doesn't make sense to me.
 
OP. Many years ago before I moved away, I grew in a similar climate to you I think- a little south of you but not far. The right auto flowering strains are key. It was wet, and often got wet in mid summer, the worst time. If that's what it's like on Kodiak, the cold I think is less of an issue than the mold. The mold was always the killer. A plant in full bud just can't do well in the rain for long in my experience. A greenhouse keeps them drier- but that's a very different can of worms than just putting them in the ground and letting nature do most of the work. In my opinion you'd be lucky to get decent bud. Growing outdoors for personal use and fun is a truly wonderful thing- but commercially I don't think it would be worthwhile for the work. Even in remote areas people are used to smoking good strong indoor herb and probably wouldn't pay much for outdoor smoke. just my 2c anyway. Good luck and congrats on the legalization!
 
Weaselcracker,
Thanks for the response. On the west side of Kodiak Island it is really dry and sunny. It only gets about 25" of rain a month where my property is ...so probably about 2 inches a month in summer or less. That's drier than most places on the west coast but then again if the temperature is to cold perhaps they won't produce enough. Maybe the way to go is a green house eh? 5/16" Polycarbonate at under $2.00 a sf seems like a good investment. My sister grew a plant years ago in Juneau but it wasn't sinsemilla and Juneau is really wet. It grew to be 17' tall over the course of the summer outdoors.
 
That sounds way better than the situation I had. And one thing about the north, the long daylight hours allows crops there to catch up with the southern ones mid summer. A greenhouse (obviously) brings with it a bunch of work- mostly in that you probably have to do more watering and climate control. I think the right strain would be the very most important thing. Has to be auto. Other members should be able to help you with that. When I grew it was for personal fun- a dozen different mostly mystery strains. Summer temps never got above 20 Celsius ("very hot day") and probably down to about 5 at night. They grew fine. Just had mold troubles once the buds got half size. A buddy of mine did well up there last summer with some strain he claims is called Northern Indica (?) & he's sending me some seeds. If that happens in the next couple months I can mail you some, assuming we will have the honour of being allowed to pm by then.
 
I'm also on Kodiak. I think starting indoors and moving to a hoop house in early May will give about 5 months of growing. Should be able to produce some full figured girls with that time frame..
 
Weaselcracker,
Yes I'm hoping to find the right strain. Purple Power sounds pretty interesting...big plants and mold resistant. Ideally I would like to grow 3 different strains. One 50/50 indica saliva, One predominately indica and one predominately saliva. I do like the idea of growing outside. Kodiak is blessed with wind which i prefer to paying for electric fans and the soil is rich! Were you growing in South East Alaska?
 
I've got a few to try out next summer. A friend who has grown commercially in Petrolia CA since the mid seventies has gifted me some seeds from his grow last year. No strain name but he's been growing all these years and trading with his neighbors and they have developed a strain that works very well for them both outdoors and in a greenhouse. I'll try a couple of his and I've ordered some blue dream, green crack, og kush, and purple trainwreck feminized seeds. between my wife, a friend, and myself, we'll be allowed 9 plants in flower. I'll try a couple of each in a greenhouse this summer, see which work best here and go with those the following year. Should be fun to be legal.
 
delacruz,
Yep being legal will be much nicer... are you considering trying to get licensed and grow commercially? Are you growing on the town side or on the west side. Sounds like having drier weather might be a real positive thing what with mold occurring in wet climates. I'm starting to lean toward growing on the west side of the island. Are your seeds auto flowering or are you planning on taking sunlight away form them part of the day?
 
KodiakStoner said:
Weaselcracker,
Yes I'm hoping to find the right strain. Purple Power sounds pretty interesting...big plants and mold resistant. Ideally I would like to grow 3 different strains. One 50/50 indica saliva, One predominately indica and one predominately saliva. I do like the idea of growing outside. Kodiak is blessed with wind which i prefer to paying for electric fans and the soil is rich! Were you growing in South East Alaska?
Click to expand...

Next country down but could see Alaska out the window on a nice day. You are pretty damn far up there. I hope you post some stuff about your growing experience if it works out. Another trick is to top your plants creating more but smaller buds- less prone to mold.
 
Weaselcracker,
I actually own some property not far from where you must have been growing...good to know stuff grows down their too but yes it is a lot wetter than Kodiaks west side.
 
KodiakStoner said:
delacruz,
Yep being legal will be much nicer... are you considering trying to get licensed and grow commercially? Are you growing on the town side or on the west side. Sounds like having drier weather might be a real positive thing what with mold occurring in wet climates. I'm starting to lean toward growing on the west side of the island. Are your seeds auto flowering or are you planning on taking sunlight away form them part of the day?
Click to expand...

Mine aren't autoflowering. I had a few random girls that I put in the greenhouse about the first of Sept. last year. During September and the first half of October they really put on bud weight just from the natural decrease in daylight. I looked up the daylight hours here and in August we have 16 hours going down to 15, Sept. 15 going to 12, and in October 12 going down to 10. Some strains start to flower regardless after a certain amount of time even if lighting isn't ideal. I'll see what happens next summer and make more permanent choices after that. I talked with the state of Alaska dept. of commerce recently and they said the timeframe for handing out licenses was May 2016. Up until then it will probably be chaotic coming up with all their rules and regs. I'll definately keep my eye on things and throw my hat into the ring for growing when the time comes. Until then I'll just enjoy not worrying about getting busted. I'm going to stay on the east side as I live and work here. It wouldn't work out for me to spend a summer on the west side unless I leased a setnet permit or something like that. I think I can control the humidity in my hoop house with ventilation and who knows. Maybe next summer will be as dry as the last one. We're certainly getting our share of rain this winter.
 

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