Te Rito Hāpori: Integrating Medicinal Cannabis Outdoor Cropping Within Established Farming Operations in Southland

As an emerging option for farmers, commercial outdoor growing of medicinal cannabis remains a relatively new and somewhat untested endeavour, particularly in the Otago-Southland region. As a result, considerable knowledge gaps and uncertainties remain which hinder development and growth of this potentially high-value, low-carbon, chemical-light, niche sector. The Te Rito Hāpori research project sought to respond to the most obvious knowledge gaps and uncertainties by capturing and sharing knowledge from a commercial growing operation in Eastern Southland during the 2022/2023 growing season. A number of key outcomes were derived from the Te Rito Hāpori research project including:

• Validating the potential for outdoor grown medicinal cannabis cropping in the Southland region.
• Identifying a range of regionally relevant best practice crop management techniques.
• Identifying a range of regionally relevant factors for integrating medicinal cannabis cropping within existing farm systems.
• Establishing plant and crop performance baselines against which future medicinal cannabis cropping operations can be benchmarked.
• Identifying a range of potential future research focus areas