Organic Growers Sweep Oregon’s G.O.A.T. Cup Sungrown Category
In Creating the Greatest of All Time Flower competition, did the G.O.A.T. Cup organizers also create the Fairest of All Time?
Anyone that reads my work with some regularity knows that I prefer to dry herb vape and love the flavor of sungrown, organic cannabis. While I have a high degree of brand loyalty, I’m always happy to sample a bit from a farm that I’m interested in, or a strain I’m excited to try. Overall, many fellow cannabis users are now investing the time to educate themselves about what strain names mean, what terpenes are, what THC and other cannabinoids can mean, and how all of this interacts to impact a cannabis experience.
2021 is an extremely challenging time for making these choices in cannabis. The natural volatility of the flower market due to the seasons coupled with the adjustments we had to make during the pandemic have made an extremely challenging environment in which simply asking the budtender “what’s good” often isn’t good enough to find the right product for you. The specific genetics and cultivation of each strain gives a flower its unique blend of cannabinoids and terpenes, and the way these interact with a consumer’s metabolism is an extremely individual experience, and difficult to find the best fit in the best of times. The ever-expanding cannabis industry is able to offer a massive variety of strains, cultivation methods, and information to consumers. Sometimes, that variety is an overwhelming barrier for people trying to choose the right strain.
The organizers of the 2020 G.O.A.T Cup recognized these challenges and wanted to create the ultimate flower competition — they wanted a competition that would highlight the wide spectrum of available cannabis flower while showcasing the variety of skills and talents of Oregon’s exceptional cannabis producers. They also wanted to create a contest that would examine the competing strains from an assortment of perspectives, while being mainly grounded in the science of cannabis.
To foster consistency in the testing results, ChemHistory, one of Oregon’s top cannabis laboratories, performed all of the testing for the competition. They tested over 100 entries from over 70 growers and gathered the data into three THC potency categories: mid range (18%-20.99%), mid-high range (21%-27.99%), and a high range ( 28%+) for the indoor competition. To acknowledge the exceptional sungrown market that Oregon has, The G.O.A.T. Cup also established separate sungrown awards. ChemHistory measured both cannabinoids and terpene percentages to create a specific potency profile.
These lab results consisted of 70% of the overall score, while the last 30% of the judging came from scoring the aroma, appearance, and overall attractiveness of the flower on a scale from 1 to 3: 1 being average, 3 being outstanding. Scoring 70% of the Cup based on the lab results was only one way that the G.O.A.T. Cup differentiated itself — In an interesting twist, the judges were selected from the growers themselves, instead of judging being performed by consumers or connoisseurs.
Alex Hoggan, Director of Business Operations for ChemHistory, pointed out that using the growers as judges helped differentiate the G.O.A.T. Cup from other competitors, but also offered some surprises! “ Ironically the growers didn’t even know their own strain because the judging was blind. There was a number assigned to them. We had them in the different ranges in the different jars so they were separated that way. It was interesting to see how they didn’t notice their own product for some of them.“
The choices about contest design directly attracted the talented winners that swept the Sungrown category — 54 Green Acres and Ebb and Flow. Both of these exceptional growers pointed out that it was the contest design and its dependence on test results that attracted them to enter.
“We enter competitions that focus more on the data, and we were particularly interested in the fact that terpenes were included in the totals for potency. We always test our flower for terpenes and seek out cultivars with unique terpene profiles and high levels. We also appreciated that the contest wasn’t solely based on highest THC, that there was a place for the lower total THC varieties, as we believe it’s not always just about THC potency that makes for the most enjoyable experience.” explains Amy Parscal, Ebb & Flow’s Co Founder and Director of Operations and Soil Science.
Vin Deschamps, owner of 54 Green Acres, expressed similar sentiments. “We like science-based competitions, and we have staked out a claim to produce the highest combination of terpenes and cannabinoids in the state of Oregon if not in the country. When we heard of a contest that was going to be adjudged on the combination of terpenes and THC because we were all in — that means 70% of it will be based on science.”
When commenting on the sungrown category, Alex Hoggan confirmed how a science-based and terpene-focused contest design could encourage sungrown entrants. “People don’t realize the sungrown stuff has a higher amount of terpenes. Through the different wavelengths of sun [sungrown cannabis] gets the different rays and wavelengths and it produces a different types of terpene than what you’d get from the same genetics under the lights.”
Lisa Denney, Co-founder and Director of Cultivation for Ebb & Flow, addressed a similar point. “During our first few years of growing we experimented with both indoor and outdoor cultivation. We grew the same clonal varieties in both environments and compared the two. The flower grown in sun and soil had more terpenes, better overall color, texture and taste than the indoor, soilless grown flower. The sun grown flower also had a much longer shelf life when stored the same way as the indoor flower.”
The nuances about the benefits of sungrown cannabis are often lost in competitions that purely based on a high THC number. Alex Hoggan explains, “It seems like all the growers we work with are always gunning for the highest number. Unfortunately, there’s only a handful of strains that will get to those high 20’s and low 30’s. Then you have the huge rest of the market that often gets overlooked. “
Another fascinating point about the winners that swept the sungrown category is that both farms are organic-focused: 54 Green Acres is a Certified Kind organic cannabis farm, and Ebb and Flow is a permaculture-focused farm with a deep interest in regenerative farming that is pursuing Sun+Earth certification.
Andrew Black, the founder and Director of Certified Kind and Executive Director of Sun+Earth Certified was not surprised to find that two growers swept the category. “It’s no surprise that these farmers that go the extra mile to farm in a natural way and spend years refining their growing methods have high level terpene and cannabinoid content and win awards for unique cannbinoid and terpene profiles. It shows the power of their farming practices and the power of farming under the sun and in the soil.”
Amy Parscal of Ebb & Flow further explained how the focus on the soil relates to contest winning terpenes: “We’ve definitely noticed that the terpenes express themselves when the plants are in an environment that allows them to express their full potential. We’ve found that plants grown in balanced, mineralized living soil under the complete light spectrum of the sun, consistently produce flowers that have the most diverse and highest level of terpenes, which we believe provides the most pleasurable experience. There’s a whole ecosystem below the ground that symbiotically support the plants and do most of the work of bringing these elements to the plants, we just need to provide all the necessary ingredients and the microbes do the rest.”
It is the marketplace that is currently stuck on the THC number, and it’s a frustration point for many people in the industry. “Oregon’s got some of the best growers in the world, and they get overlooked because everyone is trying to chase this high number,” Alex said.
It is this consumer focus on the THC number that Vin Deschamps and 54 Green Acres has been investing in to change. ”Right now, 10 or 15% of the recreational smokers know anything about terpenes. Two years ago that was 1%. It’s important that the numbers are increasing, and I think we’ve helped educate the consumers by annually putting out a brochure that focuses on the terpenes and benefits found in our flower. If the public understood the impact of terpenes, they would be less concerned with THC percentages, which might give them a buzz but not much in the way of benefits.“
By designing a contest based largely on the best science in the cannabis industry today in addition to more traditional subjective and experiential methods, the G.O.A.T. Cup attracted two fiercely competitive sungrown entrants that are not only committed to creating the most terpenes, but also the most sustainable cannabis in the market.
