Steve Cantwell

Owner & Operator
GLP – Green Life Productions

In the spirit of Croptober and celebrating the people who make the harvest possible, we interviewed GLP Owner and Operator Steve Cantwell! Check out Steve’s video interview and blog below to learn more about how some of your favorite Nevada strains like Zelly’s Gift, Miss X, and McLavin are grown!

Give us an intro and tell us how you got started in cannabis cultivation?

Hi, I’m Steve Cantwell, Owner and Operator of Green Life Productions. I was always into cannabis growing up, and then when I retired from mixed martial arts, I was introduced to the Nevada medical marijuana program. So I immediately got my medical cannabis license to grow my own, because there were no dispensaries to purchase from back then. Started in a 4×4 tent, expanded to think it was a 6×4. Then we got our first house on the East side built out. My first room had a six-lighter going, and I ran that for about three years. And that’s where I kind of really started honing out my craft from hydroponic, to organic nutrients, to the living soil. Just the whole routine curing, drying, the whole hustle. And then the whole cannabis industry start blowing up. We talked to our former sponsors from my MMA days, and they backed us. And we started growing commercially with no-till, living soil, the first in the state to grow like that.

Do you have a favorite cannabis mentor or someone specific that you learned from?

Yeah, I had a couple of people who helped me early on. I had one lady called the “Godmother”. She was the first one of the medical marijuana patients, she helped me get my card and kind of introduced me to how to grow cannabis and have a decent little hydro set up. She ended up moving, she actually donated all her equipment to me, so she actually helped me start my first garden. I also had a hippie homie named Jordan. He was the one who kind of taught me the organic routine before he got me off the nutrient salts and first introduced me to growing organically. Those are my two  early on mentors. Cannabis wasn’t really cool back then, there wasn’t a whole lot of people talking about it too much. I really didn’t read High Times all that much. But nowadays I have a lot of mentors.

What’s your favorite Grow Style/Method?

So my favorite style of growing, I obviously have to say it would be anything organic, as close to nature as you could possibly get. So a lot of the Northern California seasonal crops I actually enjoy as much or even more than indoor. At the end of the day, there’s something more natural and organic about outdoor growing. And not just like spoon fed organics, like a real living soil organic system where you can really see the plant express itself, how it wants to express itself. Obviously, that’s always my favorite type of cannabis to consume.

Other than that, anything quality with love and good intention to it. I lean towards more sativa genetics as far as the more uplifting effects. I like to smoke cannabis all day. I can’t be taking weed naps and being lazy, I got way too much stuff to do. So I definitely I’m like a 95% Sativa, 5% Indica. Honestly, the only time I get indica, I really want to sleep good. But if I want to sleep good, I just quit smoking sativa and I’m out like a light.

Do you think growing cannabis is an art, or a science?

I wish I had more time to think about my answer to this question. I think it’s a good question and I’d have a better answer with more time. But obviously I think it’s both. I think it’s art because we have passion in what we do. Folks are not just the numbers, but obviously the plant expressions and the natural aspect of it is really beautiful and unique to me.

But then obviously it’s a business too, so that’s where the science comes into play. That’s when numbers do matter and being able to quantify, measure, and make adjustments makes sense. So I think it’s a solid 50/50 on that one, I would say for sure. Sometimes you got to be able to stroke your paint brush and sometimes you got to your business hat on.

Any last message to consumers out there?

Smoke more GLP. Simple.