Quincy Green: Conscientious Cannabis

Quincy Green takes its mission of high-end, sustainably-grown marijuana very seriously

Story by Greg James

Photos courtesy Quincy Green

If there’s a downside to large movements in consumer behavior, it’s the potential for a lot of overkill and Madison Avenue excess.

“When Mark and I first talked about the opportunity, we agreed at the onset that there would be no expense spared that might cut quality, and no cutting corners on things like sustainability and natural farming techniques,” Leslie explained. “To us, the undertaking was about more than making money, or even just producing really good marijuana. If we were going to do it, we agreed it would be done our way, even if it meant our costs were higher than our competitors.

“A lot of people talk about a labor of love and lowering their carbon footprint, but to us we had to put our money where our mouth was,” she added.

Family Legacy

The phrases “Family Legacy,” “Responsibly Grown,” “Highest Quality,” and “Hand Tended” are prominently displayed on Quincy Green’s marketing collaterals. They are the core beliefs and central driving force behind the operation. So let’s start with Family Legacy: Mark’s family has owned the farm in the small, rural town of Quincy for more than 100 years. It sits on some of the most fertile land in the Columbia Basin, gets 300 days of sunshine a year and is a fixture in the local community.

As Leslie explains it, history and community are important to the Olsons.

“We love our community, and really wanted to have our neighbors accept this new business,” she said. “So we invited everyone to come by and see what we were doing. We hired local people to work on the farm, and have bent over backwards to be friendly and respectful of our community.”

It worked. Their neighbors embraced the new business, and have offered plenty of moral support in the process.

Highest Quality

In the marijuana business, everyone creates the highest-quality pot. Or so they say. In the case of Quincy Green, some might say its commitment to quality has been a bit over the top. Not to Leslie.

“It might sound obsessive,” she said, “but we wanted to take the whole concept of really great, boutique-quality marijuana to a new level. For example, we chose many award-winning strains, grew them from seed to establish superior phenotypes, and built a ‘smart’ technology greenhouse to provide a state-of-the-art grow environment.”

She explained that last summer, “some of our flowers inadvertently got exposed to dust. Rather than taking a chance, we sent that flower to extraction, and sold only the perfect buds that were pristine. If this sounds obsessive, it is. But that’s how the Quincy Green farm operates.”

Responsibly Grown

Lindsay Gatz, the Quincy Green designer, echoed many of Leslie’s feelings.

“We thought about the whole process of creating high-quality, low-carbon footprint marijuana, and decided it was all or nothing,” Lindsay said. “That even extended to our packaging choices. All our boxes are printed on recycled stock with soy-based ink, and our zip bags are made of biodegradable, low-density polyethylene, certified to be biodegradable 15% in the first year.”

The attention to detail with packaging is just the tip of the iceberg. The Quincy Green facility is basically two different farms in one. Outside, there are plenty of big, green, beautiful cannabis plants. They are grown naturally and allowed to develop as nature intended, in a more or less unrefined state. While they are watered and cared for with lot of attention, the Olsons’ plan called for their expansive outdoor crop to be used primarily for the production of extracts and oils. The true heart of the Quincy Green operation — and the Olsons’ pride and joy — is a state-of-the-art “smart” greenhouse that was custom-designed for them. Instead of using glass, plastic or other traditional greenhouse construction materials, the Olsons used a steel frame structure with a polyethylene weave cover that is designed to filter out harmful UV rays while also allowing just the right amount of PAR radiation to pass through. The structure is fully automated and computer-controlled. When put into practice, this means that light, heat, humidity, air circulation and several other environmental factors can be micro-tuned with the touch of a button. It also means that the farm can produce top-shelf product year-round while using a comparatively small amount of power.

Hand Tended

As with everything else at Quincy Green, the flower receives special treatment after it’s dried and cured. Every single bud that goes to market is first hand-trimmed and then carefully sorted according to size. After that, the flowers are visually inspected for any flaws. To say that Leslie is quality-conscious would be an understatement. She made it clear that the buds at Quincy Green are to marijuana what Screaming Eagle, Silver Oak and Quilceda Creek are to wine. In other words, it’s an absolutely uncompromising production environment designed with the goal of providing a premium experience in every package.

Choose your mood

When the subject turned to strains and their effects, the conversation got really interesting. While it’s widely accepted that different strains provide different experiences, the Olsons wanted to create a system that made consumer choices less confusing.

After some input from friends, employees and family, they settled on a simple five-color system that is prominent on all Quincy Green packages, and also acts as a general guide for all the various strains of cannabis.

The strain categories are Wild Fire (red), Desert Mustang (orange), Mesa Tranquility (green), Basalt Zone (purple) and Canyon Slumber (blue). Each is said to produce a different range of experiences and effects.

“We love what we do, and we wanted to take some of the confusion out of the decision of what to buy at retail,” Mark said. “In a sense, you could say it’s not unlike the way top wineries suggest food pairings and cellar times. In our case, we simply wanted to let the consumer know that they could count on a consistent result from any of the many strains in our lines. In other words, if you like what you got from a strain in Mesa Tranquility, you can be certain that another variety in that line will give you roughly the same results.

“To us, consumer trust is our number one goal. Without it, you have nothing,” she added.