I found this short write-up regarding Ryan Hedrick
Post# of 85577
If marijuana is going to be successful as a crop, it's going to fall to people in charge of cultivation and extraction, like Montgomery County applicant Bunker Botanicals' Vice President of Operations Ryan Hedrick, and PharmaCannis' director of cultivation Brendon Hershey. Across the state, would-be cannabis farmers are seeking people with expertise to grow efficiently as soon as the seeds hit the soil.
Hedrick is a Delaware County native who graduated from Kutztown University in 2013 with a degree in electronic media. Farming was the last thing this suburban kid planned.
"I had never grown a plant in my life," he said. "I had never really tried. If you had asked me what a plant needs in a vegetative state I would have not known nitrogen."
After winning a Mid-Atlantic Regional Emmy as a student for a documentary on Eastern State Penitentiary and then working in radio, he followed a cousin to Boulder, Colo., where medical marijuana was legalized 2000. While there he met cannabis guru Adam Dunn.
Dunn got his start in the heady world of cannabis genetics in Amsterdam, before returning to the United States to consult on medical marijuana operations.
Hedrick became a cultivator for Dixie Elixirs in Denver, Colo., where he was thrust into a garden of 500 plants in 1,000 square feet. He learned growing from the ground up. They preferred his inexperience over a know-it-all backyard grower.
"They wanted someone to shape and mold the way they wanted," Hedrick said.
He learned it all: feeding, soil, lighting, clones. Yes, clones. While it's common knowledge in the cannabis world, many outsiders don't realize marijuana plants are dioecious, meaning there are male and female plants. Very few flowering plants exist this way.
Tired of making a waiter's wage working for someone else, Hedrick started Extracted LLC. The company, which has lcoations in three states, makes rosin concentrates, otherwise known as dabs.
They like big buds
Cloning female plants gives cultivators greater control over the end product in terms of THC and cannabidiol, or CBD, the ingredient thought to have medicinal but not psychoactive properties.
Plants are cloned with offshoots from mother, or stock, plants. Plants are groomed so they don't waste energy growing too many leaves, focusing the plant's energy on making big, cannabinoid-packed buds.
At the Hudson Valley PharmaCannis facility, mother plants are kept in their own greenhouse and last about four months before their propagation ability weakens, said Hershey.
http://www.readingeagle.com/berks-country/art...es-forward