Nestled in Southern Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, tucked into the Front Range, you’ll find a cannabis enthusiast’s dream: thousands of terp-rich cannabis plants bathing in the Colorado sun, fed with spring water and planted in organic soil that’s custom-blended onsite.
It’s hard not to get lost in nature standing there, looking out over the farm. Even with your eyes closed, the chirps of ducks and guinea hens—or as the staff referred to them, “a part of our living pest mitigation system”—fill your ears. Not to mention the farm dog, who wandered in one day scared and cold before the staff adopted her as its own. And much like the staff, she’s all smiles these days.
Maggie’s Farm feels like something captured from a simpler time, although behind the scenes the operation is anything but simple. Inside the facilities, workers dry, cure and hand-trim the cannabis flower that will supply seven dispensaries across Southern Colorado.
Owner/CEO/fourth-generation farmer Bill Conkling sees success as deeply rooted in the tradition of farming and working with Mother Nature, instead of against her. The litany of awards the Colorado grower has received proves Maggie’s Farm is doing something right. But this cultivator measures success with science, focusing on the complex terpene profile and terp percentage of its plants.
Good Terps, Sunshine
Terpenes are one of the most important ingredients in determining the quality, flavor and aroma of cannabis.
Let’s put terpenes into perspective. Most cannabis grows aim for a terp percentage of around 2%. (If you ask Google, that’s pretty good.) The 2020 winner of the Grow-Off, a science-based cannabis flower indoor growing competition, achieved 3.08%. (That was the highest score in Colorado history.) Maggie’s Farm’s products routinely test between 4% and 8%. Remember, Maggie’s Farm is an outdoor grow. And sun-grown plants tend to have more robust terpenes (thank you, Mother Nature). You might think comparing outdoor-cultivated terps to indoor-cultivated terps is like comparing limonene to terpinolene; but when it comes to terps, more is always better.
Maggie’s Farm’s terpene percentages regularly test up to twice those of the highest score awarded in Colorado’s Grow-Off.
How? In part, Maggie’s Farm focuses on seed cultivation. Any plants testing below 4% are not reused in the next year’s grow. The seeds that do pass Maggie’s Farm’s terp test are fed with natural spring water and grown in live soil that’s teeming with beneficial bacteria.
The cannabis farm’s location is also key. Early on in his 20+ years of cultivating, Bill realized that Colorado’s cold nights, sunny days and prime elevation were major pluses for his outdoor grow.
“You don’t get that level of terpenes if you’re not growing from Mother Nature, from the unfiltered sun and the spectrum that the sun gives you… . The less filtered the sunlight, the more terpenes you can end up with, ” Bill said.
Curing with Boveda, the Original Terpene Shield™
Post-harvest, Maggie’s Farm preserves terpenes and cannabinoids by curing its cannabis with the original terpene shield™, Boveda. By maintaining relative humidity (RH) at the ideal level with Boveda, Maggie’s Farm creates a monolayer of moisture that prevents terpene evaporation.
Curing with a terpene shield locks in the active phytochemicals within the flower that give cannabis its distinctive aroma, flavor and effects. These desirable traits start to degrade immediately if cannabis isn’t cured properly at the right RH with a terpene shield.
During curing and beyond, Maggie’s Farm uses Boveda to keep flower between 55% and 65% RH, which is the range recommended for cannabis storage by ASTM International. At 55% or below, terpenes evaporate. At 65% or above, mold and microbial growth can occur. Maggie’s Farm avoids both of these risks to cannabis by integrating Boveda into storage.
Only with Boveda can Maggie’s Farm create a terpene shield, which coats trichomes in a monolayer of water molecules. This protective shield preserves the trichomes, which is where cannabis’s chemicals are generated and stored.
Cannabis buds that are cured with a terpene shield mature but don’t degrade. Think of it like ripening fruit. As cannabis cures with a terpene shield, the buds become more fragrant, more flavorful and more chemically potent.
“Boveda packs have been a lifesaver for us. We found Boveda to be the most effective product in our process—not only preserving but enhancing the terpenes over the course of a year.”
Bill Conkling, Owner, Cultivator and CEO, Maggie’s Farm
Here at Boveda we are just happy to protect the product that the folks at Maggie’s Farm are so passionate about.
“What makes Maggie’s Farm special, in comparison to a lot of other outdoor cultivations, is that we are really the only one at this scale cultivating a flower as a flower. Not a flower to be crushed into concentrates or oils. Therefore, it is a premium flower that we keep very clean and sell as a top-shelf flower,” Bill explained.
Save the Terps with Maggie’s Farm and Boveda
To find out more about Boveda, the original terpene shield, and its wholesale opportunities email info@bovedainc.com or click here. Learn more about Maggie’s Farm and its cannabis products here. And follow Maggie’s Farm on social media @maggiesfarmmjcolorado.
