How to Plan and Execute Successful Cannabis Harvests

Cultivating cannabis can be extremely rewarding and deeply challenging at the same time, especially when it comes to commercial-scale grows. Each step in the process has its own unique challenges: jumping through hoops to get a license, selecting the right strains, tending to them from clones or seedlings all the way to full maturity, and finally harvesting the plants for sale. All of these factors vary further depending on each grow’s environment, whether it’s outdoor, indoor, or greenhouse-based. It’s easy to make small mistakes that critically reduce the value of a harvest cycle. In this Rx Green Technologies article, we’ll walk readers through how to successfully plan and cultivate their harvests no matter where they’re growing. 

Cannabis plants nearing harvest at an indoor grow

Goal-Oriented Planning for Cannabis Harvests

One of the easiest pitfalls to avoid at harvest time is failing to establish a thorough plan or standard operating procedure at the start of each cultivation cycle, and aligning it with clear operational goals. What is the desired end result, and realistically, what quality of cannabis is the garden going to produce? How much of a given room or field is going to be dedicated to extraction? 

Figuring out the answers to these questions first and foremost starts with your environment and strain selection. Although plenty of outdoor-grown cannabis can be excellent, it typically delivers a lower price per pound than indoor, is subject to seasonality, and requires more resources to pull down in bulk. On the other hand, with year-round indoor harvesting, higher prices mean teams have to be ready to process mature plants every couple of weeks or sometimes more frequently, depending on the facility’s size. 

The location and type of grow environment also come with their own unique integrated pest management strategies. Assuming the garden won’t encounter mold or bug problems because it hasn’t happened before is a surefire way to run into trouble. Does the team have a backup plan in case any of these factors impact harvestability? If so, what is it, and when does a decision get made to pull the plug if the IPM plan isn’t working?

Genetics and their cultivation simplicity (or lack thereof) also play a significant role in harvest activities. Finicky exotics typically take more time and energy from the team during growing, and  can also be more difficult to trim; so unless your team is ready for that kind of challenge, tough-to-grow “hype” strains aren’t always worth it. The same line of thinking extends to intelligent strain selection between indicas, hybrids, and sativa-heavy cultivars. 

For example, some hybrids and especially heavy sativa strains tend to have extended flowering times, which can reduce the number of cycles indoor growers get through per year, or run right up to the very edge of the season for outdoor, which poses its own weather risks. That doesn’t mean they should be avoided entirely; but that adequate preparation is needed early so there are no surprises when a given row of plants needs 3-4 more weeks to finish than another. 

Most cannabis grown today is intended to be sold as dried flower, which demands a carefully regimented drying and curing process that is often the single biggest hurdle for operators. The plants look and smell incredible in the garden, and then two weeks later, if not processed properly, the entire post-harvest room can smell like hay. This disappointing result is all too common for newer growers, and the reason is usually poor environmental control in the drying process or attempting to dry the crop too quickly. 

Very dry and very humid locations each have their own challenges that further compound the difficulty of a quality dry and cure program, so paying special attention to this well ahead of time is extremely important. Leaving drying to chance is a huge mistake – it’s trickier than it seems, and a slow, careful dry combined with at least a two-week cure will yield the best results. Don’t ruin months of work because of impatience to get weight to market faster.

Finally, in the event cannabis plants are being cultivated exclusively for extraction, there are additional considerations that require careful thought. In many cases, flower grown for concentrates can fetch top dollar if sold as fresh frozen instead of dried and cured, so having enough cold storage space is essential if that’s the plan. 

For outdoor operations, this often means having refrigerated conexes that go well below freezing, which require their own hefty power sources or generators to keep at the correct temperatures. Extraction wholesale purchasers are typically either looking for bulk trim to turn into distillate or specialty, terpene-rich whole flower to produce concentrates. In addition, when it comes to solventless processing specifically, not all strains yield well in ice water hash applications, so strain selection is even more important than ever in these instances.

Equipment and Resources Needed for Successful Harvesting

Speccing out all of the fine details for a cannabis harvest also requires correctly scaled labor and equipment for success. Every pound matters, and very few operators can afford to let any of their crop go to waste due to inadequate staffing or machine bottlenecks. There’s nothing that’s worse for a grower than to get their plants to the finish line only to not be able to bring them to shelves quickly due to harvest mismanagement.

Knowing how easy or difficult each strain will be to de-fan, buck, and trim is critical to have either enough hand trimmers summoned for the job or buck and trim machines on deck to get through it in a timely fashion. This isn’t always possible with new genetics that the team hasn’t run before, but at least investigating the lineages of each strain grown, as we discussed in our Driving Smarter Growth blog, is worth the effort. Many operators these days can’t rely solely on hand trimming due to its cost-to-results ratio. However, at the same time, relying exclusively on machines for trimming can also be problematic because certain calyx structures do not always come through with enough bag appeal due to the aggressive shearing action many automated solutions deliver.

Another hurdle is that many new commercial growers tend to underestimate the amount of labor that’s needed to efficiently harvest their plants. This is why seasonal or temporary workers are so important to most cultivators; otherwise, the harvest-created backup can cascade and start affecting other aspects of the business. Make sure to have enough hands ready to go before trichomes reach their fully maturation point; otherwise, scrambling for help that’s only available at “I need it now” prices will eat into margins or delay deliveries. This is an especially acute problem for outdoor harvests given their scale, so if greenhouses or large fields are part of the facility’s available canopy space, make sure to have more than enough help contracted well ahead of time. 

Sales and Retail Planning

So, every plant has been pulled down, processed, dried, and cured (or frozen), trimmed, and packaged – now what? On top of all the primary harvest activities that need to be accounted for, how cannabis actually gets sold at the wholesale level is the next obstacle that demands additional brainpower. It’s true that in many brand new markets, dispensary shelves are wide open for the taking, but that changes quickly. And in mature markets, the fight for that space is intense. That’s why having a solid sales roadmap in place is also mission-critical. The goal in most cases is to have each harvest pre-sold, so waiting until the last minute to find buyers is a good way to ensure pounds sit longer than they should.

All of this circles back to what quality level comes out of the garden. In tastemaker circles, it’s all about “premium” and “exotics,” but the vast majority of flower that’s sold across the country falls in mid- to economy range price points. Being realistic about where a particular harvest cycle’s end value will fall in each individual market is important so that pricing is set appropriately to encourage buyers to make decisions quickly. Nearly every dispensary is looking for at least a 100% markup, and most likely  isn’t looking to move another five packs of Blue Dream. 

Once retail partners have been secured, it’s especially important for operators conducting indoor perpetual harvests to ensure they have something available to keep their hard-won shelf space. Running out gives competitors the chance to take it, and once that happens, it can be exceedingly difficult to get back. Keeping weight flowing consistently has to be at the top of virtually every cultivator’s goals, if at all possible. 

For outdoor-only cannabis growers, it can be a different struggle since their product is available in much larger quantities but in a more cyclical fashion. In order to maximize every harvest, allocating a portion of it to extraction is seriously worth looking into since concentrates, vapes, and even edibles have a significantly longer shelf life than dried and cured flower. This allows for each grow cycle to extend the lifespan of its value in many cases. 

New clones planted in Rx Green Technologies’ RTU bags

Tying it All Together to Make Every Harvest Successful

Although there are a head-spinning amount of steps to account for with each harvest, after dialing it in, future optimizations become a lot easier. Teams become accustomed to the ebb and flow of finishing plants. Even if things are going well, it’s never a bad idea to do an analysis and try to find ways to make improvements. Marginal increases in efficiency and final product capture add up over the course of a year, which means more profits retained and more financial flexibility.

One of the best things any operator can do to ensure harvests go smoothly is to have every other aspect of their grow cycles dialed in, too, from growing media to fertilizers and beyond. Having big harvests to worry about is a good problem to have, and if the typical grow supplies aren’t delivering the results a cultivation team expects, Rx Green Technologies offers affordable alternatives that help operators maximize the value of each and every harvest. If your operation needs help, we’re here to help. Contact us today to talk to one of our experts about our full range of solutions for any type of cannabis grow.