"Every effort is made to ensure that each harvest is greater than the last." The 400,000 square foot facility in Kincardine, Ontario is the home of 7ACRES' production. "It is an engineering masterpiece that is built specifically for growing high-end cannabis. Each day hundreds of dedicated employees enter to work towards the future ideal of the plant." With their recently released video series, 7ACRES is hoping to share their love and knowledge of cannabis in order to educate. "We want to make the community stronger to build towards a better future."
Click here to watch the video series
Reaching the plant's full potential
"During the cultivation phase, many in the Canadian cannabis industry generally focus on producing low-cost cannabis in facilities optimized to create high-yield, but low-quality flower. This approach prevents the plant from reaching its full potential." Instead, 7ACRES believes that great cannabis requires investment and care.
It all starts with cloning and propagation. The company's rooms house hundreds of young plants that are sitting under LED lights as they prepare for their next phase. Each grow room covers 10,000 sq ft and holds approximately 2300 plants. "This is a big enough production to supply cannabis coast to coast. For this stage, we rely on HPS lighting for their high intensity and warm lighting spectrum."
The company built their grow with a sliding roof. "This creates an environment that emulates a classic indoor grow, but has the ability to harness the additional power of sunlight. We also source premium metal sliding racks from Germany that allow our staff to move up and down specific aisles. This way, we are maximizing space while minimizing brushing up against plants."
During post-harvest, the flower is never rushed. "To truly respect the plant is to respect each process it requires; with patience and diligence. Our flower is thus whole-plant hang dried in a temperature and humidity-controlled environment. In our processing & packaging stage, we package our buds as quickly as possible to maintain freshness."
The relation between genetics and quality
"Cannabis genetics are essential to our purpose. We believe a commitment to high-end products must start at the source. Our cannabis is a reflection of our diverse, robust genetics program; aimed at selecting the best possible phenotypes from seed which then undergo rigorous testing." Over the years, the company has stablished a seed bank of genetics from legendary lineages and began to test which plants would perform best in their environment. "Once we learned which plants grew well, we looked to the community to select beloved strains that carried specific traits that cannabis consumers would enjoy."
"Beneficial insects are a powerful solution"
In order to protect their cannabis, 7ACRES uses beneficial insects as a prevention. "We release them to our plants by hanging sacks on the plants, directly applying them to the soil, or by opening the package of plant defenders in the growing space. The job of these beneficial insects is to then travel across the plant and detect food; their food being the pests that seek to damage our plants." This way, they aim to prevent common cannabis pests, such as Spider mites, Fungus gnats, and Root aphids.
In addition, effective PPE is imporant to ensure biosecurity. "Sometimes it’s the simple things that matter the most. When growing live organisms, a tiny particle or insect carried into the facility can cause a devastating infestation or disease outbreak. Therefore, from the very start, we have implemented and upheld the strictest sanitary measures in our facilities." From equipping the team with all necessary uniform items to training them with the important knowledge, a lot of effort goes into the sanitary measures. "These extra sanitary precautions require some additional costs, but we believe these costs justify the end result. We produce high-end cannabis created under stringent sanitary guidelines, that are free of pests and bacteria."
For more information:
7ACRES 
www.7acres.com