* Kelsey Landis at the BN-D…

As the state grants more licenses this year, growers will continue scaling up. Operations such as 4Front Ventures will try to fill the maximum square footage allowed by the state, [Kris Krane, president and co-founder of 4Front Ventures] says.

Cultivation centers can grow up to 210,000 square feet of canopy space, or the amount of space dedicated to growing plants. In July, the state will award 40 licenses to “craft growers,” who can cultivate up to 5,000 square feet of canopy space.

“Grams per square foot of canopy space” is becoming the industry standard for measuring output, Krane said. 4Front Ventures has built out 14,000 square feet of its 94,000-square-foot facility near Chicago. Cultivators can produce 425 grams per square foot in 6,500 square feet of canopy space.

To meet demand, Krane said his company would need a 400,000 square-foot space.

“Nobody’s able to keep up with demand right now,” Krane said. “It’s just not possible.”

Dude is using just 15 percent of his available space and less than 7 percent of his legally allotted space and yet he’s talking pie in the sky plans about needing a space that’s more than four times as large as what he has now.

Fill up your own grow center first, my man. Then get nearer to the state max. And then maybe start talking about a need for larger options. Until that time, I don’t want to hear about it.

* I asked Joe Kienzler at the Illinois Department of Agriculture about some chatter I’d heard that growers may be deliberately not cultivating as much product as they could. Why would they do something like that? Perhaps to pressure the state into doing what Krane suggested above - and doing it before the state approves social equity applicants. Paranoia will destroy ya, so I’m not buying into that yet without some hard evidence. Here’s Kienzler’s response…

The Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act allows cultivators licensed for adult use to expand from 100,000 square feet to 210,000 square feet. While most did expand in anticipation of legalization, on the whole cultivators did not expand to the full 210,000 square feet right away, in order to wait for the market to adjust to have the necessary capital to fund a full expansion.

Construction and expansion cost money. I get that. The growers should do what they can to reach the max as quickly as they can and not even mention their desire for more until they complete those basic steps. /rant