In this episode, master grower Shlomo Booklin talks to GrowerIQ about his unlikely rise as a grower guru in the cannabis industry, from his first experiences as a war veteran in Israel to his consulting ventures in Canada.
Booklin talks to us about his love of growing products and his knowledge in agriculture, which he finds is increasingly missing in today's cannabis industry, which makes him stand out from other growers. Critical of some of the newer growing types, Booklin tells us he's proud of his old-school ways.
Follow GrowerIQ's podcast to learn more about the marijuana industry, and check out our website to learn more about GrowerIQ's seed-to-sale platform.
In this episode, master grower Shlomo Booklin talks to GrowerIQ about his unlikely rise as a grower guru in the cannabis industry, from his first experiences as a war veteran in Israel to his consulting ventures in Canada.
Booklin talks to us about his love of growing products and his knowledge in agriculture, which he finds is increasingly missing in today's cannabis industry, which makes him stand out from other growers. Critical of some of the newer growing types, Booklin tells us he's proud of his old-school ways.
Follow GrowerIQ's podcast to learn more about the marijuana industry, and check out our website to learn more about GrowerIQ's seed-to-sale platform.
Hello, everyone, I'm Steven Looi and this is the GrowerIQ podcast. In our very first episode, we talked to Shlomo Booklin, commercial cannabis grow guru about his first experience with medical cannabis, and about his surprising career in the legal cannabis industry. Enjoy. I started off by asking Shlomo to tell us about his first exposure to cannabis.
Shlomo Booklin:I lived in Israel and like every other Israeli had to you know, the army service is compulsory. And unfortunately, during that time, it was '82, '83, '84, there was the war between Israel and Lebanon. You know, you probably grew up too young to remember that. However, it was a really, I mean, today, it's still considered that was still consider to be the same as as what Vietnam did for the American, it's definitely divided the nation roads, a useless road, there was no war that any any justification, maybe political gain, but nothing, you know, existing or essential, in terms of, you know, threatening the borders or any threat. It was like, political war of the Israeli government, again, against mostly the PLO, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, they used to be a terrorist group. And we were basically stationed in the north of Lebanon close to the moat of Israel border. And it was more of a nuisance and again, as I said, there was no really a justification to live the full deployment of the full Israeli army to kind of deal with a you know, couple of guys with you know Kalashnikov so however, we did go there and you know, over the next 10 years I wasn't there for their for the full 10 years but over the next 10 years probably next 2000 soldiers died for stupid and useless reason and as I said it divided the country still today say it's very very deep scar in this Israeli History During my army service you know as army can his role can be nasty I was you know facing a lot of seen witnesses a lot of things happened to very close colleague of my you know, been been really good friend of mine we were hanging in Chile you know, used to be very very good friend and close friend the last two legs and you know, I was too embarrassed to see many more not a friend of mine very close, we kind of slept in the same tent together got a you know, political his head and, you know, completely died on my shoulder. And, you know, those couple of really, really horrible stories that you know, basically I started to become, you know, I had very bad reaction to this. At that time, obviously, no one knew what is PTSD meme was basically called it the shell shock, or what that was the the native kind of....
Steve Looi:The for that kind of illness.
Shlomo Booklin:condition but basically, I was, you know, heading a nightmare. I couldn't sleep for more than 10 minutes at night, I was afraid of the dog. I slept for two hours for 10 minutes and then I woke up screaming and sweating all over. It took me probably 434 hours to calm myself down and remember one home and then fell asleep again for 10 minutes, 20 minutes and woke up again. I remember heading having a girlfriend at that time and she it happened to us twice she was just lying on me in bed and I was you know dreaming there is a dead body sitting on me and I pushed her all the way to the wall. It was because I thought you know, I was dreaming that she did bother me. And you know after twice I think give it to NPD to her she basically said you know you're not the case and she dumped me and I was definitely a bad case. No, no doubt. I obviously didn't do it in purpose and and the medication that the doctors gave me was basically made me into a zombie I was walking you know, with a probably with a look of a cow on my face and Woking aimlessly without you know, any reason or rhyme or any purpose just you know, killing time. During the ride, I was trying to sleep, I had to take a couple of fields that kind of knocked me over in the morning, probably nine o'clock I woke up took another couple of beers. And as I said, walk around the house aimlessly doing nothing.
Steve Looi:Were you able to work or study during this period?
Shlomo Booklin:No, nothing. I remember myself quoting myself one time sitting in front of the washing machine and trying to change the channel on the thinking that it's TV couldn't care less what is the program? Should Sure, we're laughing at it now...
Steve Looi:Oh, no, yeah, I can only imagine.
Shlomo Booklin:I was totally, totally disconnected. So I was you know, as I said, quote myself sitting in front of the washing machine and trying to change channels with a remote control. And then I said, you know, you know, kind of, I realized that I hit rock bottom as much as I had some kind of, you know, awareness of myself, right. And, you know, something needs to be done. Obviously, as a soldier, especially in Lebanon, and you know, as a young key that you used to have a lot of what they call harsh, so we used to smoke a lot of hearts, but it basically didn't do much to me, I just was in high I remember my first time smoking harsh I was so often I counted the tiles on the floor. You know, and obviously when I get to 20, I didn't remember where I started. So I had to start again and again, so as didn't do much to me apart from definitely, you know...
Steve Looi:No kidding, tile counting.
Shlomo Booklin:Yeah. So it wasn't very productive. So that's what I remember about hash. And, and then that's that is some stage. My older brother said to me, why don't you try canopies. And I thought kind of bees in houses probably the same and it is the same in a way but probing right kind of this is not as pure and toxicated as his house right?
Steve Looi:What gave your brother the idea?
Shlomo Booklin:I don't know. I don't know he was smoking on a you know. He was smoking. I don't know he's older. He was older than reading in three and a half four years.
Steve Looi:Okay, so he just had experience with it and figured it might a little trick
Shlomo Booklin:so he gave it he gave it to me once and yeah, I don't know. I mean, I managed to sleep well after smoking. So I smoked it for a couple of weeks without taking my so called Night medication and I slept quite okay and then I said to myself Wow, I don't need it anymore and you who I am and then two probably three Four days later I kind of hate it you know the you know will do stuff to to creep back on me so I'll remember I knew that I have to be on that kind of canopies for longer and my my brother is to buy from me I don't know where did he get it? I don't know. He just bought it for me and you know you know gave it to me I don't know where you got it and what was it even but I know that really he kind of we used to take some of the tobacco out of the cigarettes and instead of putting the highest like we used to before he pulled out the the leaves of the of the canopies. Just normally if we didn't smoke I think at that time we didn't smoke the flower just smoking delete. Really? Yeah, go well, we didn't smoke.
Steve Looi:And it was still potent enough to help.
Shlomo Booklin:Yes. See, yeah, it wasn't it wasn't a you know, potent enough to make me count the time but but it definitely helped me sleeping. So again, it was really interesting. Yeah, it was probably very low dose and the leaf probably again, it's very hard for me to say at this some stage later, we basically we used to buy bird food in the supermarket and basically going through the packet and and collect the kind of the seeds out of that. Yeah. Yeah, so We used to buy those food for bird bags. And then it was 200 300 grams. We used to take all the canopies. How?
Steve Looi:How many seeds? Would you have in one of those bags?
Shlomo Booklin:Probably 50 100. Really? Wow. You know, I said it's a it's a, it's a bag, like, you know, it's definitely 234 and handful of seeds. Sure. And we can, we could definitely find 3050 of them are random. We had to go over when you know, when we could, we could see, you know, by the shape. What is the kind of be sent? What is not? We use to germinate those plans. So those seeds, and once they reach to about, I don't know, 1520 centimeter we took the leaves, we put them in the oven dry them in any kind of toaster. Sure. And then we caress them and we put them into cigarettes.
Steve Looi:And it works. We oh my gosh, yeah.
Shlomo Booklin:So I like I said, I you know, after those two weeks, I kind of went back to smoking. Especially at night, I used to smoke probably one or one or two cigarettes before I went to sleep and it helped me sleep quite well. And I had I didn't need medication anymore. So after probably I would say two or three months, I started to gain myself, you know, you know, you know, become your old self, he became myself again. Yeah, to myself. Okay, so what do I do with my life? At that time, the Israeli government had the system that if you are a veteran soldier, the government will pay you your tuition in the universities, so I went to that place where you know, you can register as a as a released soldier. And they said to me, okay, so what do you want to study? So I said, I don't want anything to do with people. I don't want to see. I want to be adventurous. Let me be, you know, taking care of Katherine and sheep.
Steve Looi:Sure. Interesting. Yeah.
Shlomo Booklin:They said to me that, you know, the vet for that the vet program for that year is full already. But if I want I can wait for the next year, well, I'll get definitely a sport for next year. But and they but and then they say, by the way, if you want to study agriculture, tuition and unemployment, for the whole, for the whole duration of the of the course.
Steve Looi:Sounds like a good deal. So yeah,
Shlomo Booklin:of course. I said, Where do I sign and file I started to be that's how I started to work in. In agriculture. I study I was a good student, I the good marks. And basically, probably after a year, after, you know, finishing the couldn't study during the study, I definitely did smoke during the night to be sleep. And then I started walking, so I was very tired. So after about a year, I said that I don't need it anymore. And I stopped both cigarettes and and, and kind of be so together. As I said, How should I stop even before that, because, you know, just didn't resonate? Well with me? Sure.
Steve Looi:Were you able to maintain the quality of life afterwards? Um,
Shlomo Booklin:yeah, yeah. I mean, again, once I started to walk in, I had a good job. And I had a good interest in life. I was very busy. I worked hard, you know, agriculture is a very physical, demanding job. So you know, working in nurseries and greenhouses all day, the heat makes you tired. So as I said, probably after, I would say, a year I don't remember exactly when I basically stopped without even, you know, taking into, you know, making into a kind of, you know, on dead day, I'm going to stop smoking. Right, right. And today, I just didn't need it anymore. And, you know, you do it.
Steve Looi:Pretty good, actually. I mean, it guides you and helps you transition. But yeah, it's not something you had to continue to take.
Shlomo Booklin:You know one day or three days or four days then I realized, well, actually I haven't smoked for two days then. Probably I don't need it. So I stopped and, and that's it. And I started to work in a very big facility in Israel, very big company they exploited to all over the world and, having a good, very good name in the industry. And probably a year later, I don't remember exactly the time now, but probably a year later I got to cross someone that was looking for a grower in Australia. So actually, it was the commercial attache for the Australian embassy in Israel, and I went to his house for picnic. And, and, you know, actually, I was I knew some because I went to his son for a picnic. And then I got to talk to his father. And as I said, he was the commercial attache to the Australian embassy in Israel. And he was he had a request from some company in Australia that they needed some it's really cool. Obviously, Australia is a similar weather to, to Israel in which, you know, it's very hot.
Steve Looi:I imagine there's the same level of water scarcity.
Shlomo Booklin:Yeah, exactly. So the company that they had in Australia was actually importing glass house from Poland. So now that the, that's greenhouses are designing in a way that they keep the heat inside. And so in Australia, it was 35 degrees outside and it was 55 degrees inside. So then then realize that they need some someone that have experienced in, you know, walking in a hot condition. And this how they, as I said, got into contact with Australian attache in the committers of the commercial attache and Australian embassy. And basically, when that guy, you know, heard what I do, and I knew where I work, he asked me if I would consider speaking to those people in, in Australia, and, you know, obviously, as a young boy, very, he gets to see the world. How can I refuse it? So I spoke to them, and they basically hire me to come to, to Australia, we went there at the time, I was already married. We went with my I went there with my wife, and we stayed in, in Australia for three and a half years. Our first son was born in Australia.
Steve Looi:Oh,
Shlomo Booklin:yes. So then after that, we went with the Australian project finished, we were looking for another project. I didn't want to go back to Israel, because it's, again, Israel is a beautiful place, but it's very politically charged. Right? You cannot really say, you know, in your nose or your mouth, you must take a stand either to the left or to the right. So yeah,
Steve Looi:it must just permeate every every facet of life,
Shlomo Booklin:essentially. So yeah. Everything in your life. So basically, we didn't want to go back to Israel. Again, me, I don't want to go back to the, to the old memories of war and, you know, right. You know, having to think that my son will live to go to the war, because this is the, you know, reality in Israel. I said, Okay, let's try and find something else. And we came across the project in Portugal. It wasn't the same company, but just another company. us so we move to Portugal, and we lived in Portugal for 10 years. Wow. Yeah, that's a long time. Our second son was born in Portugal. And then, we used to export very big amount of flowers, plants, sorry, from Portugal, mostly to England and Poland. But, you know, exporting into England it's at that time. Still today. It's very strict regulation of quarantined and what they call fitosanitario. So you have to be on top of everything you cannot, you know, truly strict regulation. Right. So I did it for as I said, For about 10 years we export about probably six, seven to 8 million plants every season. It was very intense. It was 250,000 plants a week. Everything has to wore like a, you know, like a clock, like, you cannot really miss one because I remember, I had to book the truck a month in the head a month in advance, but it took me 12 days to make the plans. So I already booked the truck two weeks before I have the plants in the ground. And you know, when the track is climbing, is it today, I cannot ask him when the plant is not ready Come tomorrow. Right. So it has to be very, very well organized to be
Steve Looi:And you have to be very confident in your growing,
Shlomo Booklin:in the growing and also very organized. Because again, when you think about this scale, you're obviously giving yourself probably more than 10% mortality rate. And if you will have to produce an export 250,000 plants, you're probably going to make 270 or 280,000. And allow yourself some throwing away some 20 30,000 plants, you know, which is nothing in the grand grand scheme of thing. And as I said, we did this for about 10 years, and then the project was about to end most of those clients of mine. At that time, Portugal was just getting into the EU or the part of the United European Union. But so it was relatively cheap place to grow and work, it still is compared to the rest of Europe. But it started to be a little bit more expensive. And at that time, my competition was mostly in Kenya, Uganda and Africa. Other places because, you know, when you when you ship small plans, you know, the airfare whether it's four or five hours from, you know, Africa or three hours from this phone, it's you know, relatively the same. So, the cost of production is the, you know, is a factor and I cannot compare the cost of production in in Portugal compared to Kenya or Uganda. So my competition was starting to migrate to to Africa. And that's where my contract in Portugal finished. And we at that stage, I hit a couple of offers a that offered to go to China. I had an offer to go to India. It was you know, after the second Gulf War, so one No, sorry, the first call for it was a 91. Um, so someone actually offered me to go to Kuwait. And yeah, offer me I don't know what kind of German take passport or some kind of fake of identity for a German identity card. But my wife couldn't come with me she had to stay somewhere else. Right.
Steve Looi:And that makes things difficult.
Shlomo Booklin:Yeah. So my wife put a veto on all of those places. And we chose to come to Canada. So we immigrated to Canada in 2002. I worked a couple of years in BCat the time I lived in Vancouver. We lived about a year about eight years in Vancouver and in 2009, after that big recession, they altered the agriculture industry and Vancouver was, you know, relatively decimated because most of the Vancouver or the BC production was went to across the border for Seattle, Washington, I guess but when the recession hits America, you know, and the dollar was par with with the American dollar. There was not much of export to Seattle. And as I said the industry in one quiver were relatively decimated. So the only place I could find a job was here in Ontario. So we left BC and we moved to Ontario. I worked in Ontario I don't know if you know it's a very big company. It's color show you the nursery. Yep. Wow.
Steve Looi:Oh man. I mean my mother spend way too much money at most garden centers. Oh my god.
Shlomo Booklin:Yeah. So yeah, so the nursery is definitely a very large team. So they have 10 or 11 garden center because the GTA and they have a place in jobstown where they produce everything. Photograph out and center. So it again it was very large scale facility. And I was the headquarter for a couple of years. In, in Sheridan in, as I said in Georgetown that was in around 2014. If I remember right, at that time, Tilray was the first LP that got a license, they had couple of goals that you have to do 20 plans, city plans, you know, one big master grower that grew 50 plants, but no one knows how to do 5000 plans of 50,000, right, because it's definitely different scenario different, weaken different, you know, everything. So they asked me to join them. And I moved in 2014 and moved to BC into Nanaimo to help them basically start the operation, I had to do the floor design, the floor plant room, the irrigation system, to me, it's still is agriculture product product. And, you know, in the base of it, it is still the same you the plants need water light, and condition to grow. So whether it's cucumbers, strawberries, or tomatoes, you know, I, to me, it's a plant at the end of the day. I did it, I joined Tiilray for about a year, and I had them set up the facility, mostly training people to take it in a professional matter in any way that, you know, it's not about weed and growing and smoking. And it's more about production of good production, good standard good, following, you know, pipeline, making sure yes, and make the production as smooth as possible, if you can save to five seconds from a plant, once you multiplied by 50,000 plants with to man's job or two, full time job. So basically, that was the my role there, I have a lot of conflict with the traditional growers because, you know, they don't know what calcium means what a potassium is what, you know, everything because they grew all their life kind of BS and, you know, they don't really accept me as an outsider to tell them how to grow kind of BS, because I never smoked it. And I never, you know, I remember one of the guys there was so proud of his, you know, his record in the cannabis industry that he also say that, you know, he was also two years in jail for because of that. So he's proud of that is proud of that. Yeah, it's probably his curriculum that he was put in jail. So it it for him. It's a show of, you know, you know, I mean,
Steve Looi:it's a badge of honor. Yeah. So that's an interesting, that's an interesting point. So a lot of Canadian growers and American growers, or all these new growers or facilities, they have this tension between sort of flat black market, former black market growers, and then they tried to bring in you know, proper horticulturalists. How do you see that dynamic? Is that a healthy tension, though? No, because,
Shlomo Booklin:you know, they, again, I don't have anything personally against them, but you know, the lack of basic understanding of, you know, plant nutrition, plant health. And they, the whole concept of rules and regulation is weird to them. Right? You know, they never did it, they never to comply with any rules. So, you know, you tell you don't tell me now what to do. I, you know, I do it, I did it for the last 20 years or 15 years or 10 years. And I never had a problem of selling my, my product, you cannot tell me now that I cannot do that, and I cannot do that. So,
Steve Looi:right.
Shlomo Booklin:It's very, very, you know, and still today again, I am no disrespect, but, you know, I don't have any tattoos. I don't smoke, or I don't smoke today, I smoke when I was, you know, 30 years ago. And I don't, you know, belong to the same culture of, you know, Grace and peace and you know, you know, I am very, very professional growth. I know that plant needs calcium, potassium, nitrogen, you know, whatever, I know how to recognize those, you know, deficiency or if there is too much, I know how to do, you know, soil analysis, I know how to read report from the lab. You know, it's technical, it's scientific, it's just, you know, this is what I learned.
Steve Looi:Exactly. And perhaps most importantly, you know how to do that at scale.
Shlomo Booklin:Yeah. So, and again, when I speak to someone, any, you know, you know, ease assessment is how the plants look and how the plants smell. Again, no disrespect, but you cannot spray this, you cannot spray that you cannot, you know, just feel like you're giving this kind of, you know, fertilize, because that's what you think it's the best thing. I mean, I worked in a very analytical, and as I said, the scientific way, if I do soil analysis, and it shows that I have lack of calcium, I will give calcium, I don't care what you know, because this, you know, we're in the lab, right. And obviously, if I see the leaves steady, getting a little bit yellowish, and I recognize that it's a, you know, lack of iron, then I'm going to give some iron to the plants because I, you know, this is what I do, and it doesn't matter if it's tomatoes, or, or, you know, anything else. I mean, if my job as a grower or anything else, is to produce, I don't know, 40,000 kilos of tomatoes for service, I don't need to bite each one of them to make sure it's yummy. And it's good. I rather made to, to make sure that the good and I have to comply with the safe and food safe. Of You know, one, when is the last time I can spray before the harvest and anything like this because I have renewed responsibility to the customer.
Steve Looi:Along with that, that was kind of your story on how you got into cannabis. Did you ever think at the beginning of all of this, that you would end up in cannabis?
Shlomo Booklin:No, never. Never. I mean, as I said, to tell you, I was actually planning to be a vet so.
Steve Looi:Right. So could have gone quite differently.
Shlomo Booklin:Yeah. So you know, it's, uh, you know, right. Like, you know, sometimes life gives you terms that you don't really expect, I never would never, never think that I would grow canopies. Again, for me at that time, especially, you know, 30 years ago, kind of it was kind of something that you you hide from your parents, you know, even though, you know, it helped me a lot. My parents never approved. Oh, I didn't even bother to tell them what I do.
Steve Looi:Even even your peers, it must have been people you didn't want to tell about?
Shlomo Booklin:Yeah. So it's not something I was proud of. And, you know, today, it's something that I do, like, you know, like, everything that you do as a teenager, if you smoke or drink or you know, go to parties, you kind of grow up o t of it. And it's a kind of pha e in your life. So I never thoug t that cannabis is going to e crop. I would never plan to o that. With all honesty, if t wasn't for tilray, I probab y wouldn't got into i I don't know. I mean, as I said, I just basically you know, always I was very ambitious, and I wanted to be good in what I'm doing. And when I finished at Tilray, I came back to Ontario, and I join another company called Medreleaf. They also very, very big and, you know, they also grew and as it happened that you know, after walk in a year it anyway and another year at medreleaf, I became that, you know, superstar. Yeah, having, you know, both of those companies under my so called belt. You know, I became very popular and I get a very good name. I had lots of companies wanted me to help them with application with production planning with, you know, to be a master grower, whatever you want to call it. And I worked with a couple of them and they all basically wanted to Keep me for themselves. And we're not allowed to speak to anyone. It's a, you know, that mentality of the cannabis industry that, you know, if I have something better than you, then I must not tell you about it. Right. So I was not allowed to speak to anyone apart from my peers, it's those companies and that's, you know, I try with a human interaction I try with talking to, you know, colleagues, you know, at that time with that I was at tilray, I had a very good friend. He is name is Ryan Douglas, he was the master grower for Canopy. And although we work for, you know, very fierce competition between Tilray and Canopy, we on a personal level, we got very well, we had the same issues, we are the same difficulties, we had to go through the same sort of all old-fashioned, you know, bores that didn't want to look at the, you know, calcium and potassium. So, you know, those are the things that we kind of shared, without definitely without necessarily telling him about Tilray bank account, and he's telling....
Steve Looi:Sure. Marketing strategies.
Shlomo Booklin:Collaborating with colleagues as pure, you know, wishing. So, at that stage, I started to, you know, to think to myself, well, there's too many people who watched my head, I'm not allowed to talk to them, because then I'm breach of contract. Why would I just quit and become a consultant? Of course, it's not as easy as it sounds, you start giving advice to people, they never pay you. They always say that later, and, you know, they will go on guy that ran out of money, and he wanted to give me shares instead of payment. And, you know, it's how I told him, you know, it's Monopoly money where it's 5% or 50%. If the company was zero, it's still zero. So, you know, again, I had to go through a couple of those, you know, places where you work hard and definitely don't get anything for it. So anywho basically get kind of, I would say knows, to start in the different between the BS and the genuine people.
Unknown:And basically, that's how I started. That was Shlomo Booklin who chatted with us about his introduction to cannabis, and his unlikely career and legal cannabis cultivation. Stay tuned for a second episode, where we continue to chat with Shlomo about the future of the plant. growing it internationally.