West Stockbridge — With a 100,000-square-foot canopy, the marijuana farm is considered by Jon Piasecki to be a “big” farm and houses slightly more than two acres of product, or 4,000 plants in production. The tract is more than 20 acres. According to Piasecki, the facility was designed to shunt smell away from the northern side. At the time of the tour, harvesting was in full swing, except for the site’s research garden that’s home to about 200 experimental plants, “crossing strains from all over the world,” he said. That science may enable the crops to resist the moisture and diseases plaguing the Northeast, Piasecki said.
As for how much product will be harvested, that answer remains to be seen as the farm is in its first year of operations after opening in June, but he said there will be “many thousands of pounds.” After harvesting, the product is put into vacuum-sealed plastic bags and locked in a freezer at -20 degrees Fahrenheit, he said.
“We are a wholesaler, so we sell to people who need big masses of product, different manufacturers,” Piasecki said, adding that currently the entity’s activity is growing the marijuana as a farm.
The site—with its crop field dug 20 feet below grade for odor and visual separation—is located between the Massachusetts Turnpike, a 500-acre swamp, a 70-acre vacant tract, railroad tracks, and a gravel pit, he said.
Piasecki said Wiseacre is “really top notch.” The facility’s seeds are propagated on site, and the cannabis is grown outdoors to cut down on pollution that emanates from the indoor-grown cannabis produced by much of the state’s cannabis industry, he said.
Things are happening at Wiseacre: “High Science,” a reality television show, is currently in production featuring the farm as well as an article to be published in an upcoming edition of Cannabis Now, Piasecki said. A patent is also in the works for a growing light, he said.
According to Piasecki, More than 25 people are on Wiseacre’s payroll.
