Those new to the world of legalized cannabis may not know what to expect. Pecos Valley Production (PVP), based in Roswell, New Mexico, has become a leader in the industry with 22 retail locations across New Mexico.
PVP is now one of the largest and most respected cannabis cultivators and sellers in the Southwest. The company currently expects to employ 400 people — in cultivation facilities and in dispensaries — and have 30 dispensaries by the end of the year.
Visitors will find a welcoming environment, great products, and friendly employees ready to show customers what PVP has to offer. One added advantage of buying from a dispensary that also grows its own products? Customers can expect consistency and know what they’re getting.
“We know what we’re doing at our facility,” says PVP head of production and expansion Clinton Greathouse. “We know how we’re growing, so we are able to provide that from seed to sell and give customers exactly what they’re getting.”
Growing Legal Cannabis in Roswell
The Greathouses are pleased to be a home-grown, New Mexico family business. They also know that Roswell, located in the Pecos Valley of southeastern New Mexico, can be a great place to grow cannabis.
Clinton and his brothers Kyle and Jason grew up in Roswell and love basing the business in the area. It’s been rewarding to keep their family farm alive in their hometown.
The city receives more sunshine than almost any city in New Mexico with an average of 281 sunny days a year. This is great for the operation’s greenhouse and outdoor growing operations. The sheer amount of space the Greathouses have on the farm, 140 acres, allows them to grow their operation even more as demand for the product increases and as they open more dispensaries.
Like any agricultural business, however, there are risks. Storms and other unforeseen circumstances can damage crops and growing efforts. The National Weather Service notes that 75% of severe storms with tornadoes occur in eastern New Mexico and are most likely between April and July. Greenhouse growing can provide the best of both worlds and that’s where PVP continues moving toward — plenty of sunshine, yet plenty of supervision of the growing process.
“The positive thing is that we’ve built out more indoor space to at least help us out if something did happen like that,” Clinton says of potential storms and bad weather. “We will always have an outdoor space, but I think we’re going to go more toward another greenhouse space to really keep everything indoor and we have more control of it.”
Cultivation Process
PVP wasn’t always the major producer it is now. After securing a license to grow cannabis in 2015, cultivation was out of a trailer house on the property. The company continued to build in the intervening years. That included recently adding a new 40,000-square foot state-of-the-art greenhouse to PVP’s existing 15,000-square foot facility.
The Roswell farm also houses several indoor cultivation rooms as well as an outdoor cultivation facility with 1,500 plants producing New Mexican sun-grown cannabis on two acres in the fertile Pecos River Valley.
Growing a fine product isn’t as easy as just planting seeds and adding water. One facility is used as a nursery for growing younger plants. Once these are rooted, they are moved to larger pots for the vegetative stage and into flowering greenhouses.
The plants can also be cross bred for differing stains that can help with various maladies a person might face, Clinton notes, as more people look for natural solutions for medical issues. Harvesting is a continual process as some plants become mature while others are only in the early stages.
The product is then dried and cured for seven to 10 days, depending on the strain, before being trimmed. Oils may then also be extracted for use in differing products and applications.
“We really focus on a lot of these things because we want to provide a very good product for patients,” Clinton says. “At the end of day, again, it’s customer service. If we’re not providing something good to customers, they’re not going to keep coming back to us.”
Once the cannabis is harvested, there are additional areas of the farm for packaging, labeling, and other processes that are undertaken before these are sent to the company’s dispensaries for purchase by consumers. Much of this entire process came with trial and error, but the company has now fine-tuned production.
“We had to figure out these different processes and we had different people coming in with different ideas,” Clinton says. “It allowed us to sit back and really understand the different processes, what we need to do better. This is how we’ve been able to capitalize on the expansion and growth that we’ve had in the last six years.”
Story Sponsored by Pecos Valley Production
Posted by Ruidoso.com
