GLEN ELLEN, Calif. — For many people, Sonoma County conjures up images of rolling hills, world class vineyards and weekend wine tasting getaways, but there’s more than just grapes being grown there. There's also a blossoming cannabis industry.
"It's got its challenges, like growing cannabis anywhere. It's hard to find the perfect environment anywhere to grow cannabis," said Erich Pearson, a cannabis grower in Sonoma County and CEO of SPARC.
From Mendocino and San Francisco to Sonoma, Pearson has grown cannabis in California for more than a decade.
"This year has been great," Pearson said, speaking on the weather in Sonoma County. "It's been extremely dry, a little bit hotter than we like, but with that we get drier evenings and drier mornings and that results in less mold pressure and that results in us letting the flowers fully mature to really get a ripe fruit."
Like most things grown in Sonoma, occasional fog, molds and temperature swings pose natural challenges to the cannabis crop. The heat has become more of a concern in recent years.
Temperature plays a part in the color and taste of the cannabis. Extended periods of heat mellow out the flavor.
"It's hotter, it's just hotter. We've never had 102, 105 (degrees)," Pearson said. "So that's unusual. That's not great for the flower production, but at least if it's hot, it's not wet typically and so that's a good thing."
With the calendar approaching November and the nights getting cooler, the harvest is in full swing. Following a great growing season, there’s a lot of work to be done.
Workers haul trailers full of freshly picked cannabis into what's called "the barn," where more workers will trim up the leaves to begin the drying process, which also happens onsite.
Bins full of freshly picked cannabis are coming in all day.
"This is gonna be probably a 10 to 12 hour day, and we'll do about six to eight of these (days) a year," said Max Bowen, another Sonoma County cannabis grower and CEO of Apex Direct. "We cut it the size of the bins so it fits exactly on the hangers as we need it to, to maximize every square inch. And when we're in here, a lot of the workers are able to spot issues."
He added they hand trim all of the plants instead of using machines like most farms.
Once the cannabis is trimmed, it's hung onto huge racks and moved to large drying rooms on site.
"We have these awesome racks that we're able to double stack, and we have this amazing facility that we're able to actually control all the temperatures and variables, which is half the battle in maintaining good cannabis," Bowen said.
"We aim to get the moisture content of this plant down to 50% as quick as we can, really to stop any molds that may be hanging out," Pearson said. "And then after we get it down to 50%, we ease back the system a little bit to let it dry slower so we get a better cure, preserves more of the terpenes, which is what creates the smell of the cannabis."
During ABC10's visit, the room smelled the most like cannabis. The plants in the field had that distinctive smell, but it was more amplified in this confined space. Pearson said it’s a good thing.
"You trim it, you put it into a bag and then when you open that bag, you want it to still smell," explained Pearson. "You can get a lot of cannabis to smell in the field, no problem. A lot of it will still smell here. But as you get further down the process and closer to the bag, it gets more and more challenging to preserve those terpenes and preserve that nose, and you want that. The consumer wants that smell, whether it be something more along the lines of like a diesel or fuel, or something more tropical, like a lime or lemon."
The cannabis will stay in the drying room for 10 to 14 days. From here, it gets trimmed and shipped to Santa Rosa to be produced and packaged. If it passes strict safety testing, it’ll be shipped to dispensaries across the state. If it doesn’t pass, they have to discard the entire batch.
"We have such stringent testing that it's down to the parts per billion in the plants, and if we even tried to use something, it would come up in a test and we'd have to throw it away," Bowen said. "One of the biggest issues for a lot of farmers here in Sonoma County is when they're next to vineyards. The stuff that are neighboring the fences all start testing dirty. It's a real problem."
But the weather and vineyard pesticides aren’t the only challenges these growers face.
"We have a canopy tax here that's charged locally," Pearson said. "I think it's like $35,000 an acre. We've got that reduced significantly last year."
Pearson and Bowen say unlike cannabis farmers, grape growers face far fewer taxes in Sonoma County and have extensive subsidies, giving wineries in Sonoma a competitive economic edge.
"Why would you want to tax your businesses a whole bunch in your county and make them less competent on a state level?" Pearson asked. "When I have a cultivation tax, I have to pay here, I have to pass that through on the product that I sell. And I'm selling my product up and down the state of California. That means my product when it gets to L.A. is going to cost more money than that product coming from a county that doesn't have a cultivation tax."
Pearson said reducing taxes is a relatively easy change that would help immediately.
“Not necessarily politically easy, but in theory, an easy law to change," Pearson said.
Another element of cannabis law Pearson would like to see changed regards tourism — being able to invite the public to the farms — something not currently allowed under county law.
"Allow me to be able to say, 'You know what, you can come on up and take a look at it. You can buy cannabis from our little farm stand here. You can come out, you can have a nice afternoon.' That would be hugely beneficial to us," Pearson said.
Pearson said he and other growers are working with the county to make changes.
"There are some new rules and regulations around the corner which is going to create more public access to these farms, potentially retail sales on these farms. And so Sonoma County is headed in a quite progressive direction as it relates to, to cannabis and tourism," he said.
When reached for a statement, McCall Miller, the County of Sonoma Cannabis Program Coordinator, said the following:
“The County of Sonoma is committed to supporting the legal cannabis industry and has been proactive in working to establish a regulatory framework for the legal cannabis market that is consistent with state law and built on input from both public and industry stakeholders. In 2021, the County launched a comprehensive review of its cannabis program to help inform the development of policy for unincorporated areas. Annually since 2022, the Board of Supervisors has amended the Cannabis Business Tax rates to mitigate financial hardship for local operators. In 2024, the Sonoma County Cannabis Equity Program awarded grant funding to eligible local operators who were impacted by the War on Drugs. Also in 2024, the Board of Supervisors strengthened penalties for illegal cannabis and established a grace period for zoning violations committed by permitted operators.”
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