Autumn Brands Brings Dutch Farming Practices To Cultivating Pesticide-Free Sun-Grown Cannabis—An Interview With Co-Founder Hanna Brand

Autumn Brands Brings Dutch Farming Practices To Cultivating Pesticide-Free Sun-Grown Cannabis—An Interview With Co-Founder Hanna Brand

Autumn Brands is one of the leading cannabis companies in California that has kept itself family-owned and self-funded. Operating out of coastal Santa Barbara County, they boast an enormous Dutch greenhouse grow operation that spans three acres. Hailing from Holland, the Autumn Brands’ family farm began there over a century ago growing tulips for cut flowers.

Using the same expertise they’ve passed down through six generations of world-class tulip farmers, they’ve been able to make a smooth transition into recreational cannabis. By only using natural sunlight, traditional farming techniques, and TLC they’re able to cultivate lush, pesticide-free cannabis. As a whole, their brand is focused on the healing power of cannabis and how it may bring balance and tranquility to an active lifestyle.

In addition to being family-owned, Autumn Brands is also 50% women-owned and operated.  Back when they were a cut flowers business, Autumn Shelton was involved with the business and the family’s accountant. When they made the transition over to cannabis they felt she was the perfect fit for the role of CFO. Hanna Brand, her brother, and father with the addition of Autumn each hold equal stakes in the company. They’re one of the first cannabis brands in California to have women in these types of leadership positions.

Hanna Brand is a young 6th generation farmer with an Ag degree taking part in the cultivation of some of California’s most potent sun-grown cannabis. After finishing school she and her brother fully dove into running the grow. Since 2015, her father is stepping back more and more, leaving the operations to her and her brother, along with Autumn. She lent healthy insight into how they’ve come to find rare, and potent cultivars. As well as how they’ve been slowly growing into their enormous space while scaling the brand.

Autumn Brands Brings Dutch Farming Practices To Cultivating Pesticide-Free Sun-Grown Cannabis—An Interview With Co-Founder Hanna Brand

Hanna Brand, Autumn Brands Co-Founder, And Cultivation Specialist Interview

From Cut Flowers To Cultivating Cannabis

Hanna said her dad saw the opportunity to start growing cannabis with all the space they had while she was still in school. “Cut flowers is a really tough business to be in, so it was a good time to make a switch,” she said. “Working with cut flowers is like moving pennies around to barely change margins.” Coincidentally, both her parents came to Carpentaria, CA at different times over 30-40 years ago to keep growing flowers and join the small Dutch community.

“It’s right next to the ocean and the foothills behind, so it creates a great microclimate for growing flowers, plants, and, yes, cannabis,” Hanna said. When her dad was initially growing cannabis back in 2015 he was building their name as cultivators by selling bulk cannabis flower. It wasn’t until almost two years ago that they came out with their own line of top-notch bud. 

Growing Methods

When you’re taking down such large crops of cannabis many would fall prey to the temptation of using pesticides. Autumn Brands has taken extra measures, albeit challenging at times, to be fully bio-controlled and never allow pesticides at any stage.

Autumn Brands Brings Dutch Farming Practices To Cultivating Pesticide-Free Sun-Grown Cannabis—An Interview With Co-Founder Hanna Brand

“We buy certain bugs to help the plants, we bought ladybugs once, and predatory wasps sometimes.” She went on to say that they have people coming in every week to take new samples and help her and her brother make micro-adjustments.

“We approach it like it’s another plant. You see what it likes, you make the right conditions, there’s no extra thing.” She said you merely need a solid coconut coir mix, proper watering, and good old fashioned TLC. To put it bluntly, Hanna said: “you find out what it likes and then you take care of it.” The reason they’re growing in greenhouses reflects Carpentaria’s city code. You can’t grow outside or anywhere near urban areas, so, Dutch greenhouses fit the bill perfectly.

The Origin Of The Banana Dawg Strain

When Respect My Region came to tour Autumn Brands’ grow during our West Coast Weed Tour, we fell in love with their terpy, nutty, gas-ridden Banana Dawg strain. “We got the Banana Dawg maybe a year and a half or two years ago, and it was just a clone we got from a nursery. It loved the conditions we grow in, and it was a sativa-dominant with a 3% terpene profile, so it was a winner.” We had a chance to review this crazy cross between Banana Kush and Chemdawg and the flavor was incomparable. 

Autumn Brands Brings Dutch Farming Practices To Cultivating Pesticide-Free Sun-Grown Cannabis—An Interview With Co-Founder Hanna Brand

Future Products

Within the last several months, Autumn Brands has come out with a line of distillate cartridges with terpenes. All of the biomass they use for extraction comes straight from their own farm. Hanna said they’ve been getting tons of positive feedback on the carts from local dispensaries.

Autumn Brands Brings Dutch Farming Practices To Cultivating Pesticide-Free Sun-Grown Cannabis—An Interview With Co-Founder Hanna Brand

Hanna spoke about creating a lotion, balm, or tincture in the near future with some of the CBD plants they’re growing and extracting. “I do want to release a CBD flower line,” Hanna said. She also made note that “health and wellness is a hallmark of our band so having a lotion or tincture would align with our values.”

Since Autumn has been on maternity leave, Hanna said their main focus has been on their flower and pre-rolls as of late. Hanna said about “8 months ago we bought Seed Genetics and we’re on our second harvest from them on a small scale.” She went on to say that “we have about ten strains in production and a few over 22-25% THC.” Over the next four months, they plan to release these strains on limited runs.

As soon as Autumn returns in the coming months, the company will surely refocus on researching and developing new cannabis products. For now, they’re doing an incredible job at cultivating potent and flavorful cannabis in a natural and organic fashion.