YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio (WCMH) -- A cannabis growing facility in Ohio is making a significant move on the heels of a hinted start date for Ohio recreational marijuana sales.
On Wednesday, Cresco Labs staff began planting around 1,000 seedlings indoors in its Yellow Springs greenhouse. The company, headquartered in Chicago, said the crops from four strains of marijuana will be sold to recreational customers after harvesting later in the summer.
The seedlings will go through a vegetative stage before sprouting marijuana flowers commonly known for their green buds, according to Cresco Labs. During the plants' growth, Cresco staff will tend to them with LED lights as well as an in-house cooling and humidification system, which mimics day cycles and seasonal changes.
At harvest time, caretakers will move the adult plants into a separate room where they begin cleaning up the buds. Cresco expects its first crop will provide more than 400 pounds of recreational cannabis.
Jason Erkes, chief communications officer for Cresco Labs, said that amount translates to a massive amount of individual products.
"The 400 pounds of flower that these plants in this room today will produce, is equivalent to 65,000 Ohio tenths, which is the way cannabis is sold here," Erkes said.
Cresco Labs has both grow facilities and dispensaries in multiple states under its belt, meaning it controls both the supply and sale of cannabis brands like Cresco, Supply and Good News. Its Yellow Springs greenhouse already packages and ships medical marijuana to its nearby shops like Sunnyside in Chillicothe. Similar to Cresco's existing medical brands, the recreational cannabis will be sold in the state's dispensaries as marijuana flower, or converted to products like vapes or edibles.
Cannabis seeds are legal even at the federal level to purchase, and Ohio's recently passed law for recreational marijuana allowed residents to grow up to six personal plants. But Cresco's crops mark the first commercial effort to raise cannabis for sale to the public in the state, as it sits in limbo with no legalized vendor.
Cresco Labs seems to be banking on a summer start to recreational marijuana sales after developments Monday on the legislative front. A lawmakers' committee over the state's agencies approved proposed rules from the Ohio Division of Cannabis Control, which would let medical dispensaries convert to dual-use.
The DCC previously estimated the shops could apply to become dual-use dispensaries on June 7, but a member of the lawmakers' committee took that further. Rep. Jamie Callender (R-Concord), co-chair of the approving committee, alluded after the hearing that recreational sales could begin at these new types of dispensaries as soon as "mid-June."
