Stop Saying Sungrown Weed Ain’t Shit

June 5, 2026
By Jessica Reilly-Chevalier

This article first appeared in the Flower edition of Fat Nugs Magazine, published in fall 2024

A Plea for Sungrown Weed

I am so tired of “weed professionals” professing one “cold hard truth” about cannabis: that it must grow inside to be quality.

Must apples be grown inside? Are potatoes inferior for growing in the dirt? Does your brewery charge more for beer made from indoor-grown hops? Are you Icarus, ready to challenge the sun for dominance? Watch your wax wings and LED lights, lest you burn out.

THC potencies have flown too close to the sun. Highly potent, THC-dominant, indoor-grown weed gives me headaches. What we need, both recreational and medical consumers, is flowers with more balance. A bigger presence of minor cannabinoids and a robust terpene profile are easily tested for, and indicate other compounds we don’t test for, like flavonoids and cannaflavins.

All of this goodness can be found in weed grown the way Mother Nature intended: outside.

Weed on the East Coast

I have traveled the country in my van, visiting 32 states to date. I was most impressed on the East Coast with the market in Maine. Maine, much to many people’s surprise, was the fourth state in the nation to legalize a medical marijuana program in 1999, and it remains one of the strongest in the nation today, even after recreational legalization.

Here I found the golden duo: affordable prices and low THC percentages. I was able to buy eighths for $35, $30, once even $25. I bought weed that had 18%, 15%, even 12% THC. When I smoked that 12% I found much to my dismay that it was not work-weed, I was chillin’ high. Blame the entourage effect of the terps and other cannabinoids!

Weed on the West Coast

I got to California in early June. In the mecca of weed, prices are unaffordable, and quality is often low–just look at the recent article in the LA Times on the state’s pesticide problem. I skipped the dispensary visit (tried it back in 2021, left unimpressed) and instead headed north to the Emerald Triangle to find out if the best weed in the world really does grow there.

I was welcomed to Sol Spirit Farms, an earth-conscious cannabis farm, by Judi Nelson and her husband Walter, who have been growing cannabis in Trinity County for over 20 years. This farm came highly recommended to me by many of my peers in the industry, and I was excited to see the plant in its natural habitat.

Walter is the lead farmer, and he takes his work seriously. Cannabis is planted outside under hoop houses into living soil that has never been tilled, co-planted with flowers and herbs. In this hot summer, the plants are tenderly hand-watered. When temps are cooler, the plants have a drip-feed from lines running through the beds. Each plant is tended to carefully and meticulously.

Tailoring Cannabis Varietals to the Region

One of the most important parts of growing any plant outside is ensuring its suitability for your region. The US is composed of many growing regions, each with its own weather patterns and soil peculiarities to navigate.

When New York legalized cannabis but mandated outdoor growing, the backlash was swift and brutal.

“You can’t grow shit outside in New York – especially not cannabis.” “LOL – have fun smoking mids” “NY’s weed is gonna be trash. Keep importing from the West Coast.” “Short autoflowers with no THC and 9% tax rate – yeah sounds great.”

Have we really removed ourselves so far from the earth? Cannabis originated in cold mountain climates. How warm do you think it got on the Tibetan Plateau 7,000 years ago?

The Emerald Triangle, home to cool winters and sun-baked summers, has emerged as the premier cannabis growing region– but not all strains grow well under these conditions. The key is finding the genetics that thrive in the region you’re in.

Mother’s Milk, Burmese Mimosa, and Headband do particularly well on the slopes of Sol Spirit, flourishing in the warm air and shade of the canvas. The plants were still small when I visited, but I could picture them in a few months, 6, 8, 10-feet tall and swaying in the breeze, a heavenly aroma emanating.

I chatted with Walter in the mornings as he and his team of farmhands (this year entirely composed of Ganjiers: Melissa, Brooks, and Rob) carefully tended the plants. We talked about the importance of living soil, the exchange of nutrients from co-planting, and their first year using JIDAM, a fertilizer used in the Korean Natural Farming method.

The extent of Walter’s knowledge is evident in even a short conversation. He cares deeply for his plants, his land, and the earth as a whole. We talked about Indigenous fire methods and how carefully tended this land was before 1850, when the gold rush happened. He showed me how carelessly replanting commercially forested land led to many of the problems California and the entire West Coast are having with fire today.

It was never wilderness, he tells me. There were always people here caring for this land.

The same cannot be said today.

The Balance of Sungrown Weed

Sol Spirit grows a lot of plants, although cannabis is their main focus. I ate plums picked fresh from their trees, basil straight from the plant, and of course, smoked a lot of their weed.

While I smoke weed regularly, it’s easy for me to overindulge and find myself with a headache. I have to monitor my dose and ensure spacing between seshes.

Perhaps it was all the time I spent outside, perhaps it was the fresh mountain air, or perhaps it was the balance of compounds found in sun-grown weed, but I smoked myself silly that weekend and never had an issue. And research has started to confirm what Walter and Judi have known all along: outdoor-grown weed is better.

“Comparison of the Cannabinoid and Terpene Profiles in Commercial Cannabis from Natural and Artificial Cultivation”, a study published in 2023 tested two identical strains from the same mother plant, one grown inside and one grown outside.

The study found that the strains grown outside “were stickier to the touch and were much more pungent than the indoor samples.” These strains also had “more unusual cannabinoids” and “a greater preponderance of sesquiterpenes” (like caryophyllene and humulene).

The Entourage Effect in Sungrown Weed

Nature loves balance. The earth and all who inhabit her are carefully designed to work together in harmony. The prey eats the grass, the predators eat the prey, and the predators (and fire) feed the grass to keep the cycle going.

Cannabis is no different. This plant has been used medicinally for thousands of years–not because of the intoxicating qualities of a single molecule, but because of the effects that the entire plant works to deliver. When we smoke THC-dominated, poorly-cured, and transported flower, the effects are not as positive or as effective as they otherwise could be.

We see this most clearly in tinctures. Full-spectrum tinctures are more highly recommended than broad-spectrum, which are more highly recommended than isolates. How many of us have been smoking broad-spectrum weed, hardly even knowing what we’re missing?

The prohibition of cannabis led perfectly into the commercialization of the plant. Grow as many plants as quickly as you can, loaded with THC. Sell them for a profit and repeat. But as many venture capitalists were surprised to find, cannabis doesn’t play nice with this business model.

Consumers want quality product. And the most quality products are grown in small batches, carefully tended to, harvested, trimmed, and packaged by hand, like the flower at Sol Spirit.

Remembering Where Life Comes From

Not every state allows for outdoor cannabis cultivation, and some go as far as to specifically prohibit it– a seamless continuation of the legacy of the “War on Drugs” and the profit protection of the pharmaceutical industry. There is always home grow, but this too is often outlawed when cannabis is legalized, a notion as ridiculous as outlawing growing your own zucchinis.

The cannabis industry must de-shrine the idea that the best cannabis is grown exclusively indoors. It is a wasteful, short-sighted aim that fails to see past prohibition times. Cannabis is famous for helping people shift their mindset and their lives. She can do this for us collectively if we let her, letting go of outdated laws around cultivation and notions of what a “harmful drug” is.

Cannabis is central to Walter and Judi’s life, and so is the land they tend to grow this plant. They manage their own forest, grow much of their own food, and compost the land to return nutrients to the source.

I am not suggesting that everyone implement compost toilets (that would be radical) but it’s time to accept the molecular superiority of sungrown weed. I hardly think recognizing the perfection of nature’s design is a radical idea.