Thomas Walker is the founder and lead consultant of Walker Cultivation, a consulting firm specializing in commercial cannabis cultivation.

Thomas’ 17 years of commercial cannabis cultivation experience and over 240 crop cycles have allowed him to gain the title of Expert Commercial Cannabis Cultivator / Head Grower / Director Of Cultivation. He specializes in outdoor and controlled environment agriculture and he has vast knowledge and experience in hydroponic, organic, medicinal, and recreational cannabis cultivation.

Since establishing Walker Cultivation, Thomas has provided consultation to over 45 unique customers, from investors to license holders in various countries such as South Africa, Lesotho, Rwanda, Swazi Land, Zimbabwe, Germany, Malta, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Colombia. In addition, Thomas has facilitated successful license applications for medicinal cannabis in South Africa.

He has also provided consultation, to and for, various regulatory compliance companies based in South Africa and Lesotho. This has allowed him to gain experience in GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) and GACP (Good Agriculture And Collection Practices) production methodologies.

Below you will find some of Thomas’ areas of expertise.


Design & Setup


Facility Selection

There are a number of variables when making a decision on your facility. The two major factors to consider are climate and budget. We will assess your budget and climate to ensure a cost-effective facility is designed to produce excellent quality products, consistently. 

Facility Design

Thankfully evolving legislation has legitimised commercial cannabis cultivation and expanded the options to would-be licence holders:

  • If outdoors, we’ll explore the appropriate terrain and locate a suitable water source.
  • If indoors, we’ll assess space, height, power, water and zoning requirements.
  • If greenhouse, we’ll analyze your intended geography to ensure a favourable climate.
Facility setup

The final step is to set up the facility for cultivation. This involves everything from installing the equipment, systems and infrastructure, to hiring and training staff, to implementing standard operating procedures (SOPs) that ensure consistent quality and compliance.


Sourcing


Site selection

We allocate a 4 to 6 week timeline for setup.  Once we’ve identified an appropriate cultivation site, we’ll then assess the following:   

  • If it’s an existing facility, we assess and make the changes needed to the design, to fit production methods.
  • If it’s a new facility, we’ll design and build within your budget scope and in accordance with regulatory requirements.
Key personnel

Once you’ve been awarded a cultivation license, it’s on to the next task of hiring a production team.  In this emerging industry, knowing who and what to look for is a challenging and essential part of the start-up process.  As a seasoned Head/Master Grower, I’ll help you hire a talented cultivation team.

Genetics

Before you get to the eventual purchase of seed or clone, we’ll explore your market and environment. Do you intend cultivating recreational or medicinal cannabis? What control do you have over your growing environment? These questions will dictate the type of variety, ensuring that your product is inline with demand and able to thrive within the given cultivation climate. 

  • If growing from seed, we’ll find a legal source of reputable seeds that is in accordance with your regional regulations.
  • If starting from clone, we have access to licensed clone and tissue culture facilities that will provide the clones exactly suited to your off take agreements.
  • With our extensive knowledge in pheno-typing, we have intimate knowledge of the best genotypes for the best roles.


Training


Cultivation training

With Thomas’s extensive experience in medicinal marijuana cultivation, he offers top-notch cultivation training services to ensure that your cultivation team is well-equipped to operate your facility efficiently and effectively.

Drawing upon his 17 years of proven success in the industry, Thomas will work closely with your newly appointed Head/Master Grower and department heads to ensure they are aligned with and can command the processes and procedures that comprise the overall production plan.

Thomas understands the importance of regulatory compliance, and his training sessions are designed to ensure that your team operates in full compliance with industry regulations. To make sure that the training is accessible to everyone, it is delivered in a variety of formats, including on-site, video conference, and email. This ensures that everyone on your team can receive the training they need to perform their duties to the best of their abilities, regardless of their location.


Execution


Production plan

In alignment with the training of your cultivation team, we’ll begin to introduce standard operating procedures (SOPs) and how they relate to the production plan.

We’ll begin to discuss attainable goals, objectives and targets from which to strive toward in fulfilling a successful production plan.

Working towards targets

Often the most rewarding sight of all your hard work to this point, is when your seeds begin to sprout or your cannabis clones arrive.

On-the-job training will really take flight in this phase as we tackle targets of your production plan.

I’ll continue to work with the Head/Master Grower and cultivation team to fine-tune production efficiencies to ensure that targets are met in a timely matter.