Pot grower’s secret

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A Hamilton-based medical marijuana producer is taking a different approach in growing his products.

Warren Bravo is a third-generation concrete and construction worker, but nowadays he spends his time in a gated facility on a farm in Flamborogh. Green Relief is the 13th licensed medical marijuana producer in Canada but how Green Relief grows the marijuana is quite unique. They use a farming technique called aquaponics.

“We have about 1200 fish in a room.” Bravo.

When the fish release waste, the water is sent through several tanks and enriched with growth-friendly nitrates. That water is then circulated to the marijuana plants.

‘”The plant roots take out the toxicity that the fish don’t like which are the high nitrates and just so happens to be their food which they do like. So the plants thrive and do very well and then the water goes back to the tank purified for the fish. The same water can be in the system for up to 5-10 years it makes no difference because it’s a balanced ecosystem that we’ve created.”

And he’s not just growing pot, in another room Green Relief is producing kale, lettuce, peppers and gigantic beets at twice the rate of most green houses. While the veggies are being sent to second harvest for now, Bravo says his sole focus will be on medical marijuana. He already has plans for two new facilities that are that he says will produce tens of thousands of pounds of medical marijuana a year.