Blazing Oaks 2016

This.

Blaze said:

Actually it was Zkittlez that won.....twice.

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Bulldog420 said:

So, I talked with the head person at SClabs.........

First off, it was bad management by the Emerald Cup, and the person who had that job, no longer does.

Second, it is much worse than we thought guys...... I don't want to write everything I found out, cause strait up, it depresses me. This stuff makes me want to shoot myself.

SC labs never picked up early samples...... They asked for everybody to enter asap, but I knew they didn't pick it up. At harborside I vend once a week. I entered my flowers on 11/3, vended several times, then entered my rosin on 11/23. Flower entry was still there. So they picked up all 1200 samples, as late as possible?

Since they knew there was NO WAY they could test even 1% of the entries before the judges started their judging, they told the judges. The judges were told they could smoke the samples if they felt comfortable. Sounds like the flower judges were "ok" with this, but some "may" not have smoked unfamiliar samples. (even though it was suppose to be blind) The rosin judges, they wouldn't comment on whether or not they smoked the samples. G, wonder how somebody swept the first 10 spots? Maybe cause the judges wouldn't smoke any other samples but the samples they knew were clean..... Do you blame them?

Top that off with samples from last year that was disqualified, would not have been this year. They had faulty mold ranges, and now admit they didn't know what they were doing. So how many samples and contestants got dicked last year also?

It was a very morbid feel over at SClabs the last couple days. Poor guys and gals. With that said, I took a large blow with this. This is my life, my lively hood, the reason I pick my head off the pillow in the AM. I hand trimmed and spent about 12 hours packaging just my flowers, another 12 hours pressing and packaging rosin, entered 9 ounces of herb and 42 grams of rosin. Then I paid them $1,500 for these entries. I have harvest left to deal with, and infrastructure work that needs to begin. Instead I am putting together a very expensive "gift" for the emerald cup. Huge blow time wise, monetarily, and emotionally. I put everything I had into this season, many many 18 hour days. All working up to this, and I didn't even get judged. Makes me feel pretty empty, and maybe even a little hopeless. Hard to make it in the world with all the competition, let alone when people are seemingly cheating.

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Geeze what a cluster fuck. So my question would be why did the people at the Emerald Cup not get the samples to the lab in a timely manner? It is definitely NOT the responsibility of SC Labs to do transportation. It never is with other samples from growers, and it certainly was not their responsibility in past years or this year either.

I was wondering what would happen with the testing this year. We have worked with SC Labs quite a bit and they have always been very on point, had good customer service, and took care of things when there were problems. However they switched over to new equipment like 6 weeks before the Emerald Cup, which they seem to have had some problems calibrating. They were very upfront about this when we got some odd results from some of our first samples and they did rerun them for free and resolve this issue but it took a couple of weeks. I could tell just talking with our rep there that they were super stressed out and getting back logged because they already had a huge work load on que even before the Emerald Cup and the issues with their new equipment was slowing things down. So I can only imagine their frustration when all of a sudden the number of samples they were supposed to test suddenly went from 600 to 1200 and then they only had a few days to do it...

So, basically the Emerald Cup is a big ripoff scheme?

@Bulldog420 -- please, save others from being screwed as hard as you were, please fill us in on the rest of whatever salient information you have. I am STUNNED. You were ripped off.

Bulldog420 said:

So, I talked with the head person at SClabs.........

First off, it was bad management by the Emerald Cup, and the person who had that job, no longer does.

Second, it is much worse than we thought guys...... I don't want to write everything I found out, cause strait up, it depresses me. This stuff makes me want to shoot myself.

SC labs never picked up early samples...... They asked for everybody to enter asap, but I knew they didn't pick it up. At harborside I vend once a week. I entered my flowers on 11/3, vended several times, then entered my rosin on 11/23. Flower entry was still there. So they picked up all 1200 samples, as late as possible?

Since they knew there was NO WAY they could test even 1% of the entries before the judges started their judging, they told the judges. The judges were told they could smoke the samples if they felt comfortable. Sounds like the flower judges were "ok" with this, but some "may" not have smoked unfamiliar samples. (even though it was suppose to be blind) The rosin judges, they wouldn't comment on whether or not they smoked the samples. G, wonder how somebody swept the first 10 spots? Maybe cause the judges wouldn't smoke any other samples but the samples they knew were clean..... Do you blame them?

Top that off with samples from last year that was disqualified, would not have been this year. They had faulty mold ranges, and now admit they didn't know what they were doing. So how many samples and contestants got dicked last year also?

It was a very morbid feel over at SClabs the last couple days. Poor guys and gals. With that said, I took a large blow with this. This is my life, my lively hood, the reason I pick my head off the pillow in the AM. I hand trimmed and spent about 12 hours packaging just my flowers, another 12 hours pressing and packaging rosin, entered 9 ounces of herb and 42 grams of rosin. Then I paid them $1,500 for these entries. I have harvest left to deal with, and infrastructure work that needs to begin. Instead I am putting together a very expensive "gift" for the emerald cup. Huge blow time wise, monetarily, and emotionally. I put everything I had into this season, many many 18 hour days. All working up to this, and I didn't even get judged. Makes me feel pretty empty, and maybe even a liFolks in ttle hopeless. Hard to make it in the world with all the competition, let alone when people are seemingly cheating.

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seriously bulldog..screw the emerald cup. If you can vend at HHC for an agreeable amount..why bother with a train wreck? Lots of folks who aren't clean green certified sitting on stuff they can't even move. I'm seeing promotion is bigger biz than anything else this year. That makes the cookie fam rapper crew literal geniuses. Self promotion is where it's at. Is there not a gigantic gap where people could step it up and run a legit event? I smell opportunity. How many folks just like you feeling the sting of what went down? Growers choice cup would fit better..who else could judge better? These faux cups are just semantics anymore

I like the idea of smaller cups, or of 'tasting events' like the one Organicann did earlier in the fall. More places need to apply the wine tasting model so popular in NorCal to cannabis, it works great. It was a much smaller even of course, but way more chill. They contest was much more informal - the guests were given a wooden token to vote for what their favorite was. So the feedback was totally unbiased and done by the people actually at the event, which I really liked.

On a more positive note we had our final inspection from the county building department for the light dep greenhouse today, and got everything signed off. I got some of my questions answered in regards to what I need to do to make sure the 500 square foot nursery greenhouse we are planing on building meets code. Sounds like it should be pretty simple, I just need to sketch out some plans and submit them.

We are looking into get agriculture power for the ranch as well. I want the light dep greenhouse, nursery greenhouse, mother room, and drying shed to all be on a separate meter so we can get a cheaper rate, and finally separate our domestic use from our business use. Hopefully we will be able to get a barn built in the next year or two so I can finally have adequate storage for materials and equipment and a real workshop. Sounds like it shouldn't be too difficult to get the ag power hook up, the inspector we had up today said he would be more than happy to answer questions and helps us get it all set up if I come down to the county office sometime.

Nice.. Congrats on the permitting approval. We got a new barn last year for storage and processing and it maid life so much better.. Having adequate space is so important as I'm sure you know..

How cool would it be to have a tasting room built on your ranch. You could have a pomegranate infused cocktails from your pom trees.. Some weed olive oil for cooking from the ranch... Cheese plates, beer and wine available.. Custom tours around the garden showing off the monster outdoors.. The big thing i think that would be awesome would be to show them the light dep of say the urkle wreck and having them be able to smoke the same thing as they get to touch and smell being grown alive on the plant.. people love to look at beautiful cannibus.
Ive been thinking about this for a little bit. Kinda a cool idea.. Escpecially if you could provide tons of awesome fruits and produce from around the farm... Same idea as wine tasting like you mentioned above.. You could have pickup parties every time a dep run comes in.. Have little cannibus tastings and competitions with some neighboring farms.. Could be cool..

theft and bringing in bugs would be some big concerns

You would need to have the production and growing at a separate location for the above reasons but that sort of model is EXACTLY what we are aiming for. It has worked well for the micro-breweries and the wineries, and I think it could work well of us. Frankly I think it is the only way smaller farms will be able to survive.

There is no way we can outgrow the big corporate grows that will start to pop up in the next few years, at least as far as outright production is concerned. Our best bet is to not directly compete with grows like that. I don't have the space to grow 100 acres, or churn out thousand of pounds, and quite frankly I don't want to. That's not our niche.

Take a look at how North Coast Brewing or Germain Robin has run their businesses. Those are the guys I look to to model our industry after. They aren't the biggest, not by far. But they never gave into the bigger is better bullshit, even after 30 years. They never compromised the integrity of their product just to make a buck, and they never produce a product that is not top notch, and most importantly, not over-priced. The owners make a darn good living for sure, and they pay their employees well, but being the biggest was never their goal. The result is they have a very dedicated following (myself included) that want the best, and will settle for nothing less. That following and reputation extends from right here in Mendo, to literally world-wide.

Bulldog420 said:

So, I talked with the head person at SClabs.........

First off, it was bad management by the Emerald Cup, and the person who had that job, no longer does.

Second, it is much worse than we thought guys...... I don't want to write everything I found out, cause strait up, it depresses me. This stuff makes me want to shoot myself.

SC labs never picked up early samples...... They asked for everybody to enter asap, but I knew they didn't pick it up. At harborside I vend once a week. I entered my flowers on 11/3, vended several times, then entered my rosin on 11/23. Flower entry was still there. So they picked up all 1200 samples, as late as possible?

Since they knew there was NO WAY they could test even 1% of the entries before the judges started their judging, they told the judges. The judges were told they could smoke the samples if they felt comfortable. Sounds like the flower judges were "ok" with this, but some "may" not have smoked unfamiliar samples. (even though it was suppose to be blind) The rosin judges, they wouldn't comment on whether or not they smoked the samples. G, wonder how somebody swept the first 10 spots? Maybe cause the judges wouldn't smoke any other samples but the samples they knew were clean..... Do you blame them?

Top that off with samples from last year that was disqualified, would not have been this year. They had faulty mold ranges, and now admit they didn't know what they were doing. So how many samples and contestants got dicked last year also?

It was a very morbid feel over at SClabs the last couple days. Poor guys and gals. With that said, I took a large blow with this. This is my life, my lively hood, the reason I pick my head off the pillow in the AM. I hand trimmed and spent about 12 hours packaging just my flowers, another 12 hours pressing and packaging rosin, entered 9 ounces of herb and 42 grams of rosin. Then I paid them $1,500 for these entries. I have harvest left to deal with, and infrastructure work that needs to begin. Instead I am putting together a very expensive "gift" for the emerald cup. Huge blow time wise, monetarily, and emotionally. I put everything I had into this season, many many 18 hour days. All working up to this, and I didn't even get judged. Makes me feel pretty empty, and maybe even a little hopeless. Hard to make it in the world with all the competition, let alone when people are seemingly cheating.

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Damn man! That hust just reading it.

sooooo......... Can I jump in again and bitch a little?

Got my remaining test results back...... They say they kept it back because I failed pesticides..........

I didn't use any pesticides other than some essential oils. (certified organic pure oils) I did spray with spinosad, but in veg. No way that is still detectable. The flowers I tested were clean, but the concentrate showed very high levels. Wouldn't the pesticide be present in the flowers, even if not as high as in the concentrates? Not to mention I failed some other pesticide I have never even heard of, let alone use. I am very tight on what I use, and I am very confident these tests are bogus. I had to be a dick to get my last three rosin results, and sure enough, they all come back with pesticides I didn't use......... Dirty machine or a wrench in the gears?

Tests are as follow

Bulldog420 said:

sooooo......... Can I jump in again and bitch a little?

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No.

Bulldog420 said:

sooooo......... Can I jump in again and bitch a little?

Got my remaining test results back...... They say they kept it back because I failed pesticides..........

I didn't use any pesticides other than some essential oils. (certified organic pure oils) I did spray with spinosad, but in veg. No way that is still detectable. The flowers I tested were clean, but the concentrate showed very high levels. Wouldn't the pesticide be present in the flowers, even if not as high as in the concentrates? Not to mention I failed some other pesticide I have never even heard of, let alone use. I am very tight on what I use, and I am very confident these tests are bogus. I had to be a dick to get my last three rosin results, and sure enough, they all come back with pesticides I didn't use......... Dirty machine or a wrench in the gears?

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False positives with lab testing is unfortunately fairly common from what I have seen. Could be the machine was not cleaned properly, could mean it is not calibrated properly, could mean the chemical signature was not interpreted properly. As I've said before these tests are no where even close to as reliable and accurate as the companies that run them make them out to be.

Did you ask them to rerun the results? We had false hit for bifenzanate, something that we have never used, which tested clean the retest. We had some hits for spinosad as well which also tested clean on the retest.

Two other major problems are 1) there are no set standards for testing in California and 2) there is virtually no research into what levels are actually safe when present in cannabis. I have a hard time believing that a few parts per billion of something like spinosad are actually dangerous.

The trend seems to be to test for as much as possible without much concern for accuracy or actual safety of product which puts undue burden on farmers. Just look at some of the micro tests that are often run. The yeast and mold tests are certainly questionable, and the plate test is total bullshit. It has absolutely no relation to the safety of the product and is in no way based on any science what-so-ever. It's just another test that can be thrown in to charge people more money.

Here is one of the few studies I have found on this topic. Ironically there are some pathogens that can be dangerous that are *not* tested for in California, while at the same time we test for things like yeasts and molds and plate counts which there is considerable proof is neither needed, nor poses any threat to health and safety:

I asked for a retest. They are going to get back to me on Monday, supposedly.

You killed it this year man. How is the pineapple guava ?I just planted one.

Just started to harvest fruit from it actually. They came in really late this year for some reason and my persimmons came in really early. They are great plants - drought and pest resistant, easy to care for, they look pretty and they produce delicious food, what else could you ask for? They do grow slow and take quite a few years to bear fruit though, so be patient with them.

OK time to wrap this thread up before we get too far into 2017....

Got a handful of lab results back from more of the outdoor crop.

Archive OG (not the best picture of it) tested at 26.77% THC, 27.97% total active cannabinoids and 3.77% terpenes, for a total of 31.74. This is considerably higher than we have ever hit with this cut for both THC and terps.



Probably the new stand out winner this year was what we have dubbed 'Sour Melons though'. It is our Watermelon Rancher crossed with Sour Diesel. It smells and tastes like a mix of sour candy and muskmelon, the lineage of both parents really shine through. It has been my favorite for personal smoke this year.

The best pheno of it tested at 27.71 THC, 29.66% total active cannabinoids, and 5.52% total terpenes, for a grand total of cannabinods + terpenes of an incredible 35.18%, a new record for us. So far the highest THC we have ever hit was with OG Twist at 29.98% THC, and the highest terpes we have hit was 6.2% with my Guava OG. Nothing so far has had a combined total as high as the Sour Melons though.


The Guava OG we grew in our greenhouse tested lower than the outdoor Guava OG, which continues the trend we have seen over the last two years of full season outdoor consistently testing the highest even with the same clones, same IMP methods, and same or very simial soil mixes and amendments. In general our outdoor tests 3-5% higher on THC and 2% higher on terps compared to light dep and greebhouse. Honestly though I am not surprised, even though the greenhouse ad light dep always looks a lot more frosty, is more dense and has that more 'indoor' look and better bag appeal, the outdoor always smokes better to me. I trust my pallet, and the lab results always seem to confirm what I already have concluded on my own just form smoking it.

The recent major rains have at long last put and end to the California drought and it is great to see all the ponds full again and the steams flowing. Hopefully we don't get too much more flooding though!



The Natural Cannabis Co did a write up on our farm recently, which was a nice surprise. Our signature strains like the Watermelon Rancher, Guava OG, and Sour Melons are now available for purchase through their locations in Hopland, Santa Rosa, and Oakland:



All in all 2016 was one hell of a crazy year for us and a major game changer on every level, and 2017 is going to be even bigger and better. We have a lot of projects ahead of us, including finishing the auto-dep system for the greenhouse, upgrading the ranch to a 600 amp hook up and commercial power, creating an IPM program, becoming OSHA compliant and forming an IIPP (injury illness protection program), plus continuing our education and training for everyone in our collective. If all goes well, one year from now, we will have our state issued cultivation permit, and be ready to rock and roll like never before.

Bulldog420 said:

I asked for a retest. They are going to get back to me on Monday, supposedly.

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I had a bad experience with SC Labs as well this year. (November)
Turned a few samples over to my local dispensary who deals with SC. They were mailed in and the tracking order confirmed they had received it. It takes me two weeks to find out they lost the samples. Bummer. I have the dispensary send the samples in again. This time it takes about a week to get the results. They failed the pesticide and mold tests. Bullshit. I took samples from the first cut bags that had barely been rained on before that wet October we had.
Anyways I had it all re-tested at CB Labs in Novato. Everything passed 100%
Don't think I'll use SC again. But i guess the distributors are going to be required to do all the testing from here on out anyways.