Leo at Mount Katahdin, Maine
Leo Bolduc
Leo Bolduc, founder and CEO, has a strong love for the state of Maine, having been born and raised here. He is a husband, father, and last but certainly not least, farmer. Raised by a hard-working family, he has ambition and dedication in his blood. Leo has been tending his own vegetable gardens since he was a teen, continuing this into his adulthood, and exploring many different approaches to organic gardening. Although living an organic, healthy life-style Leo became weak and sickly in his early thirties. At a loss, Leo began to study agronomy, chemistry, and nutrition. While researching he came upon Dr. Carey Reams, who explained organic gardening doesn’t always produce healthy plants. In fact, organic produce can be less healthy then inorganic produce because it’s lacking a balance of minerals. By finding Dr. Carey Reams teachings, Leo was able to find food as medicine, by growing and consuming the high Brix produce. He then used this information to better his medical marijuana cultivation.
What is Brix?
Brix is the measure of sugar (sucrose) in plant sap. It is a numerical expression that can be an indicator of plant health. The higher the Brix level, the healthier the plant. High Brix is a measurement of 12°Bx or higher and is achieved by balancing the mineral content in soils. The higher the sugars, the higher the mineral content in the plant and the more disease and insect resistance the plant has. High Brix also allows a cannabis plant to produce secondary metabolites. These secondary metabolites allow a cannabis plant to have a greater medicinal value, cleaner and clearer high; as well as, the best possible flavor.
We measure Brix 2 hours after the lights come on, by pressing the plant sap out of the highest, first full size leaf, and placing a few drops onto a refractometer. A refractometer instantly reads Brix, by measuring the degree that light passing through the sample is bent. The more sucrose in the plant sap, the more bending of light. When a plant has all the nutrients it needs it will photosynthesize more efficiently; therefore, producing more sugars.
12° Bx is a good healthy plant, 15° Bx and insects cannot live on it, and 20° Bx is quite rare but can be achieved in cannabis. Most of what we harvest, is between 14°- 16° Bx.
How we grow high Brix:
After every harvest of each room, we take a soil sample to be tested for mineral content. A soil analysis report will test for Humus, Nitrates, Ammonia, Phosphorus, Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium, Sodium, pH, Copper, Iron, Zinc, and Manganese. You can also pay extra to have the Formazan (Microbial Activity & Soil Index), Boron, Organic Matter, and Sulfur tested too. We test the Boron and Sulfur levels at least once a year. We have spent the last 10 years increasing and decreasing these mineral values, finding out what cannabis likes best.
Every week we test the EC (Electrical Conductivity), pH, Na (Sodium), NO₃ (Nitrates), and Brix of all the flowering plants to ensure we are in our correct zone. When not in our correct zone we use different feeds to correct any of these values. We feed the soil with liquid drenches, top dress with minerals, and we also feed through foliar sprays
Why we grow high Brix:
We grow in a high Brix fashion because it produces a better quality plant that is more insect and disease resistant and can reach its full genetic potential and medicinal value. It also is easy on the environment because we are mimicking nature in our grow rooms. We do not throw our soils away, we just amend them to make them better. We also mulch our vegetable gardens with or compost all plant debris so there is no waste created from the plant.
As far as cannabis goes, growing high Brix creates a cleaner and clearer high with the best possible flavor. Cannabis grown in an unbalanced soil can appear healthy but give you an uneasy, less calm type of high.