While Mendocino is normally known for its world class sungrown cannabis, Wood Wide is some of the county’s finest craft indoor and it’s about to hit the rec market hard with a new lineup they hunted themselves. 

Great genetics are the backbone of commercial viability at this moment in cannabis, as cultivators walk over the bodies of their peers that fell to the overregulation and high taxes of California’s recreational market. You’re either hunting heat perpetually or have the best Runtz cut possible in hopes of making it to the point you can sell eights in the Dubai Mall, which is looking closer than ever, given the news from the U.S. Senate yesterday. 

This past weekend, when we headed to Humboldt to celebrate Northern Nights, it was with the intent of celebrating great outdoor, and technically we did. Now a few days removed from that full-sun party, we want to note Wood Wide’s pot was without a doubt some of the finest we saw all weekend. Even better? The team is actually from Mendo and have been growing up in the hills since they were 15 and eventually made the move indoors after college. 

They sold a of white label product to other brands in recent years. Now the farm is ready to drop its own branded batches of great cannabis with its name on the bag.

First off, the Biscotti was just a ripper. It was an absolute hurricane down memory lane of some of the best dessert weed terps we’ve seen over the last decade. It was stunning and would easily hold up to any Biscotti currently in the marketplace. The real challenge would likely be finding one that’s even nicer. 

From there, we started to look into the pheno hunt. But cofounder Michael Strupp didn’t have the full spread at that moment. After we parted ways at the festival, we’d link back up a few days later to look at all their cannabis. It was exceptional. 20220721 133604

They recently popped about 90 seeds and have been whittling down the pack. As we went through some of the favorites, The Galactic Runtz #2 stood out as an absolute banger. We enjoyed their other offerings, but the Galactic Runtz was just in its own ballpark. The only thing we’ve ever seen close to it was the best Cherry Punch phenos that placed third in The Emerald Cup in 2018.

“I had a big pheno hunt and got rid of a bunch of stuff,” Strupp told L.A. Weekly. “I’m sitting here still with 25 phenos. I don’t want to have 25. I want to really narrow it down.”

Strupp hopes to find six or seven from the pack he can put into production. “I have just way too much and not enough time in my life, and not enough tables in the world,” he said with a laugh.

As we were meeting, they’d just finished packaging the first 10 pounds of Mendo Crumble for the rec market. LA Pop Rocks are on deck for the next drop, with a carousel of other terpene profiles to follow. Some of the fantastic offerings we saw in person included the Marilyn Monroe #8, and a great pheno of Bubblebath. 

As Strupp toured NorCal with his new flavors, he noted the personal bias he has about the plants makes the second opinions all the more important.

“I also lean toward things that I like in the grow room and it kind of skews my opinion on things I really like growing,” Strupp said. “I like it more than I should, versus someone who doesn’t have any opinion on its growth style and they can look at it for how it smokes, how it makes them feel, what it tastes like. And that’s the most important because I’m the only one who’s going to grow it and hundreds of people are gonna be smoking it.”

And it’s all the more important he finds the flavors people love with the scale of the operation. Wood Wide’s 72 lights are battling against some monster facilities trying to carve the market between the pack. The fewer the lights, the more important it is for people to like your cannabis. 

If it’s mediocre, it’ll have to fight against the corporate mega grows pot. If you end up growing the same quality as they are in less than a hundred lights, you basically left the lube at home at that point. But again, the pot coming out of Wood Wide’s water-cooled LED setup is awesome. 

Strupp dove into what it’s like being an “indoor guy” in the famous sungrown region. 

“For me, I love outdoor. I’ve been born and raised on outdoor,” Strupp said. “There wasn’t even deps, really. We didn’t even know about deps back then.”

Strupp noted many light deprivation cultivators have found that perfect golden zone where they’re far enough away from the coast to prevent things like bud rot. The cool nights and plants not baking make for primo cannabis harvests. 

But even with those success stories, it’s hard to do it well on the coast.

“We can do it, but we have never competed with the guys in Laytonville, with the guys in Southern Humboldt, with the guys in Willits and Ukiah. They grow the Dankest weed,” Strupp said of the outdoor market. “It’s like they get that hot summer, and when it comes ripening time, they get the cool nights, and it’s just, it’s perfect and it’s dry.”

Keep an eye out for Wood Wide all over California soon. 

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