blue News in the cannabis plantation The stoner's Eldorado of Fribourg

You can smell them clearly even before you enter the greenhouse in the lake district of the canton of Fribourg: the cannabis plants of different varieties and sizes that are grown here legally. An insight.

It's every stoner's dream. The greenhouse somewhere in the lake district of the canton of Fribourg is divided into several segments, which are called ships here. Inside are cannabis plants of different heights. Some have only recently been planted, others are in full sap.

The greenhouse is one of two locations where SwissExtract grows hemp. The products containing THC and CBD are delivered to the corresponding pilot projects in Basel-Land, the city and the canton of Zurich.

Weed, hashish and cannabis-based oils for vapes are produced here, as well as gummy bears and chocolates, which have a lot to offer: Cannabis has long since arrived in the middle of society, Paul-Lukas Good is certain. The president of the Swiss Cannabis Research association launched the largest Swiss cannabis study together with other stakeholders in mid-March.

In the Lake Fribourg district, Stefan Strasser from SwissExtract joins him to explain how legal hemp cultivation works. "The soil is the most important thing in organic cultivation," emphasizes the trained gardener, who himself first came into contact with the plant in the 1990s. He was allowed to grow hemp in his greenhouse for the first time in 2017, but it must have hardly any THC.

Crop rotation for organic certification

Because of this expertise, the FOPH asked him whether the cultivation of more potent plants would also be conceivable, and in 2019 Strasser received a corresponding research license. In 2021, the pilot project ordinance creates the basis for the legal production of domestic weed and hash.

A number of rules must be observed to obtain the organic certificate. The plants must grow in topsoil, which is covered with either plastic sheeting or hay to keep weeds out. Fans are used to prevent fungi from infesting the cannabis - and a herb is also grown to protect against vermin such as spider mites, as the video above shows.

The cannabis is grown from around March to October. In the meantime, green manure is spread or vegetables such as radishes or lamb's lettuce are grown: Crop rotation helps to avoid polluting and leaching the soil.

Manual work, laboratory and QR codes

When the plants reach a certain size, the vessels are darkened. "We tell the plant: 'Now you have to flower'," explains Strasser. The plants are then harvested by hand: the employees cut off branches, remove the leaves and hang the rest in a trolley.

After drying, the plants are returned to the greenhouse for processing - see the video above. There is also a laboratory here where the THC and CBD levels are determined, as well as screening for contamination by salmonella, yeast or mold.

While mass spectrometers and gas chromatographs ensure quality, QR codes provide transparency: they can be used in the greenhouse to identify the cannabis variety and when it was planted. The QR code can also be found on the finished bag of weed, which project participants can buy in certain pharmacies, telling the end customer where the product comes from.

SwissExtract now processes around ten tons per year. Not all of it ends up in the lungs: the company is also a supplier to the cosmetics industry. The future prospects are green, if not rosy: demand for cannabis products is not expected to drop off.