Conception Nurseries: California Cultivators’ Partner in Propagation

As California’s regulated cannabis market becomes increasingly competitive, businesses in all sectors of the industry are seeking new ways to cut costs and boost profitability. To that end, many cultivators have farmed out propagating new plants to cannabis tissue culture pioneer Conception Nurseries.

Kevin Brooks, the CEO of Conception Nurseries, is a veteran of the California cannabis market. He got his start in the state’s medical marijuana industry before the legalization of recreational weed, eventually leading some of the most iconic brands in cannabis.

“My background, before I got into tissue culture, was overseeing some of the most super premium hype cannabis to ever come out worldwide, like the Cookies genetics at that time, the Connected, Alien Labs,” Brooks says in an interview with IgniteIt. “These are some of the most sought-after, super-premium brands that ever existed. Our strains were in rap songs. We had actors, athletes, and musicians constantly promoting our strains. It really changed pop culture as we knew it.”

Brooks launched Conception Nurseries in Oregon in 2018 and expanded to California in 2020. The company has since ceased operating in Oregon to focus on growers in California, one of the most competitive regulated cannabis markets worldwide. The company creates new plants for growers using the advanced cloning method known as tissue culture, a process that cultivators of many food crops already employed.

“It was pretty clear that if cannabis was going to catch up with traditional agriculture, we wanted to see disease-free, pest-free, pesticide-free, true-to-type, genetically identical clones that growers could count on to produce the same yield, same attributes, over and over again without any kind of degradation,” says Brooks. “And that’s really where Conception was born from.”

“Conception has grown to be, as far as we know, the largest cannabis plant producer in the world,” he adds. “We put out around, call it 300,000 to 400,000 plants per month.”

Conception Is Cultivators’ Partner in Propagation

To take advantage of Conception’s services, cultivators share plant material from their strains. The nursery then optimizes the genetics before producing new clones for the grower. The process enables growers to eliminate the space and resources required for propagation, streamlining the operation to reduce both risk and costs.

“Our customers give us their genetics. We clean them up. We remove some of the systemic issues with the plant, some of the contamination load, and then provide it back to them at a scale and price point that is a fairly easy, justifiable ROI,” explains Brooks.

The plants produced are clones of the genetic material provided by the grower. The new plants are also free of sources of contamination that can significantly impact cannabis yields.

“They’re all genetically identical,” Brooks says, adding that, “They’re all guaranteed pest- and disease-free.”

Conception Nurseries is at the forefront of clean cannabis production, adding further value to the company’s services. The business is certified by the Environmental & Consumer Compliance Organization (ECCO), a program that is stricter than California cannabis regulations and the certified organic designation. ECCO ensures compliance with its comprehensive standards for cannabis agriculture through monthly random product tests for more than 100 contaminants and other measures, giving consumers confidence in the cannabis they buy.

“We are the only nursery that is ECCO certified,” Brooks notes.

For more information on Conception Nurseries, visit the company’s website.