# Lafayette's Centennial Seed produces marijuana seeds, not weed



## FruityBud (Mar 22, 2011)

A marijuana-grow operation, tucked into an industrial area in south Lafayette, produces an unusual product: seed, not weed.

Centennial Seed Company grew out of the difficulties Ben Holmes had obtaining high-quality marijuana seeds when he first started growing his own marijuana.

Holmes, 46, of Boulder, sought out a marijuana recommendation to help with his gout. (Today, with marijuana and other lifestyle changes, he said he lives nearly symptom-free.)

It was the dark ages of medical marijuana, before there was a dispensary on every corner, and like just about anyone else buying seed, he ordered from European companies that advertised in the back of magazines.

Growing up, Holmes said he was a "science geek," but after college, he found himself on Wall Street. He made some money and moved to Boulder, where he also has a data service business.

Growing marijuana gave his inner scientist a laboratory in which to experiment. But the early attempts were less than satisfactory, he said.

The black-market seeds had poor germination rates, and sometimes the strains were not as advertised. Plus, many home growers use clones -- new plants started from a cutting of an old plant.

Holmes is not a fan, to put it mildly.

"They have been through a major lifecycle disruption," he said. "They've been starved. They've been stressed. It slows them down and they never fully recover."

Through trial and error and the resources of an open-source online community of growers, Holmes learned how to obtain good seed and grow good plants.

Holmes saw an opportunity after the growth in the medical marijuana industry, starting in 2009.

"You have a new industry, based on plants," he said. "And now we have a maturing industry and that's where the seed becomes more important."

Holmes obtained a seed license from the Colorado Department of Agriculture -- the same as the license held by corn or carrot-seed producers -- and expanded his experimentation.

He formally launched Centennial Seed Company in October 2009. His business partner is Samantha Sandt, 23, a 2009 University of Colorado graduate from the Leeds School of Business.

Sandt was an intern in Holmes' other business while in school, and she got sucked into Holmes' research.

"I was like, 'Why am I doing this? What's a female seed?'" said Sandt, who said she went into business school hoping to become an entrepreneur but never guessing she'd work with medical marijuana.

The offices of Centennial Seed Company have plants growing in tiny rooms, where seedlings push through the soil or clones (yes, Holmes has some of them) and put down new roots in a large warehouse -- where female plants tower more than six feet high.

In an area separated by a hoop house, Holmes shows off male plants grown from seeds gathered by a trekker at the base of Annapurna in Nepal.

"This has never been grown in the United States," he said. "This is an heirloom plant. That's what's missing from our stock here. Everything is based on Dutch genetics and Canadian genetics."

Holmes is crossing the male plants from the Nepali seed with known female varieties to develop new strains.

All the smokeable herb is destroyed in the seed-extraction process, and the leaf is less potent than marijuana grown for consumption. Allowing the plants to reproduce means the THC is much less concentrated.

Holmes is working on other innovations. He's growing his plants with regular agricultural fertilizers, instead of the expensive, specialized additives. He wants seeds that the average home gardener can use with ease.

While Holmes plays with the plants, Sandt handles the business side. She put more than 20,000 miles on her car in six months, as she visited conventions and trade shows and pitched the seeds to dispensaries -- the only retail outlet where the seeds can be found.

Sandt would love to get Centennial's seed packets into Colorado hydroponics stores, but there are legal barriers.

The state's medical marijuana regulations make it difficult for Centennial to sell directly to customers. Just this month, they finally launched a shopping cart feature on their website after developing a way to verify medical marijuana license numbers against the shipping address.

And of course, the company can't use U.S. mail and can't ship out of state.

The barriers don't dampen Holmes' passion for the plants or his sense of optimism. He has obtained licenses in Hawaii, Arizona and California, in anticipation of one day being able to sell seed there.

"It seems stupid to be taking money and sending it out of the country, when we could be having an industry here," he said. "If it were any other plant, we'd already be there."

*hxxp://tinyurl.com/48zom8o*


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