Photo credit: Cole Vandermause
Bill M. Fuchs speaking at the 2020 Wisconsin Cannabis Expo on Saturday, Feb. 8, at the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee, Wis.
Myriad challenges can arise when growing hemp indoors, from lighting, to climate control to space layout. Seeing a need in this emerging industry, Bill M. Fuchs, of Logical Green Solutions, built a network of strategic partners to offer guidance for those issues and more.
Fuchs has been in the construction industry for more than 30 years. In 2008, when he became interested in LED lighting and energy saving technology, he began offering that as a value-added service for his company, Total Team Construction. In 2011, he spun off Logical Green Solutions as its own entity. Shortly after, he developed a mild interest in hydroponics and cannabis grow lighting. When the 2018 federal farm bill passed, which legalized industrial hemp throughout the United States, Fuchs started looking at the hemp market more earnestly and saw a need for a more of a business approach that helped farmers, growers and processors with due diligence throughout the growing process.
“We’ve been helping farmers and indoor growers from seed to sales since last fall,” Fuchs says. “We have seeds with certificates of analysis that are legitimate, which is a challenge in the industry.” In addition to seed sourcing, Fuchs and his network of strategic partners offers consulting for building layouts, revenue streams, LED grow lights and irrigation systems, climate control, racking and facility parts. Through Total Team Construction, he has the ability to also offer construction management in any part of the country. He also has partners to consult for grow management, cultivation, cannabis crop insurance and financing.
Cannabis Conference Networking
Fuchs is also setting up a network of processors. He’s met most of his partners at conferences, pre-pandemic, and through word-of-mouth. Recent endeavors include a project for a Minnesota client that’s converting a vertical indoor grow farm to hemp and switching to LED lighting. Fuchs also works with growers and farmers in states with full cannabis legalization: a current project they are working on in Massachusetts is for a traditional recreational cannabis grower with a 125,000 square foot building they are retrofitting for indoor high-end cannabis grow. “That’s a complete system, so we’re helping them with racking, facility panel utilization and layout, water treatment, CO2 climate control system and the LED grow lights,” he explains.
Fuchs, like most consultants that rely on building partners and clients through trade shows and meeting with people, are temporarily stymied by the pandemic. For now, he’s mostly relying on the phone. He will also host a webinar on June 3 designed for real estate owners, developers and building owners looking for new uses for their large buildings. Fuchs will demonstrate indoor hemp growing concepts in one of those facilities.
Overall, Fuchs sees great opportunities for growing hemp indoors, as long as growers do their due diligence. “An upside for indoor grow facilities is that anyone who gets their indoor grow facility running, cuts their teeth on that end and learns proper methodology in indoor hemp growing is that they will be ready when Wisconsin approves medicinal or even recreational in 2021 or 2022,” Fuchs says. “If you have an indoor hemp grow facility and get your license in order, all you’ll need to do to switch crops is change your seed strain.”
For more information, visit logicalgreensolutions.com.
