From Boat Factory to Craft Cannabis Facility

Welcome to Dan Trocki Farms. This is our craft cannabis, our premier brand. This facility has been within the family for over 20 years—we were building luxury craft yachts here for over 20 years. This is a brand new 34-footer that we just launched at the boat show. This all started off just as a dream and my uncle’s passion from the beginning.

I remember being there as a kid and really just sitting there talking to him, and he’d say—before it was even legal—”we need to do a weed grow.” I just wanted to become a part of something that was bigger than me, and that was my family’s business. That got started right after my graduation from the University of Tampa.

My brother-in-law, Dan Trocki, was at the forefront of wanting to do cannabis when it was medical. The whole idea was always to bring craft cannabis to the New Jersey market—that’s what Dan Trocki Farms is all about. It’s an honor—my uncle, who recently passed away, we’re taking his name to the next level. Legends truly live forever, and we’re going to prove that, and make people feel that they’re supporting something real.

And the product speaks for itself, too. I came across Joe and CannaCribs on YouTube—a lot of my early knowledge on growing commercial cannabis came from watching those informative videos. You’re looking at a facility spread out over about 100,000 sq. ft. It was designed to build boats—it was never anywhere near designed for the electrical infrastructure or water infrastructure needed to grow cannabis.

Joe came on board when we were just starting the development of our architectural plans. Joe and GrowersHouse, including Sarah, were incredibly instrumental in the development of our plans—working with our architect, working with our lead of cultivation, and most importantly, working with ownership. All of this was literally just an open-room boat factory. The whole multi-level aspect of this facility was also another challenge that needed to be worked through.

Because you either need a stairway or an elevator to get plants upstairs from, say, the mom room or the clone room—this is what we call “engineering on the boat level.” Everything you see here that’s been built was built in-house. All the walls were constructed in-house. All the metal work done for the HVAC was done in-house.

Every one of the guys we currently have working on the boatyard side is a master craftsman—whether it’s metalwork, fiberglass, glasswork, anything, these guys can literally put together anything. So my father-in-law said, “I don’t want a normal elevator—why do I need a normal elevator when I can engineer a lift that’ll do the job for a fraction of the price?”

So Joe’s been here from day one with me—from breaking ground, working through problems, even laying out electrical. We were still waiting on parts, and Joe made sure that even though we had to search the nation for certain components, we got them next-day and had everything ready for our inspections.

This is obviously the heart of the whole setup. Even just the flow of the room was a challenge—there are a lot of mechanisms in here in a very tight, confined space. Joe and GrowersHouse were involved down to the strategy of planning from the architectural side—laying out the best, most optimal setup, where to put the well so we could tie in easily with RO without taking up a lot of plumbing space, setting up each one of the tanks.

Joe was also very mindful of budget. Obviously, as a family-oriented business, we don’t have an MSO budget. It’s not just a sale with Joe—it’s literally like a walking dictionary. Down to helping set up our SOPs and dialing in all the equipment, dialing in the dosage on the Dosatron wall. This facility has eight rooms total—one being the room we’re in, which is our dedicated mom/prop room.

That leaves us seven rooms—we veg and flower in those, with roughly a 21-day veg and about a 60-to-62-day flower. We’re a small crew here, under 15 people. Everybody jumps in, knows all the areas, and is cross-trained across the whole facility. We’ll start with a two-week flower food just to pull a little bit of the nitrogen out from the veg food.

We’ll take about 25 cuts, mainly from the top of the plant and the outside, then apply the rooting gel. Honestly, we’ve seen roots pop out by day four after cuts—I’ve never gotten roots in four days with any other cloning gel. It’s just a lot easier to use with the applicator on the bottle.

We’re really proud of the Lemon Batter—it has a nice nose to it. You’re also looking at a lot of teamwork in this room—the lights were part of the teamwork with Joe and the team, and the fabric ducting was a connection through GrowersHouse too. Even getting to the right dehumidifier and air movement in here, making sure the cannabis is in an optimal environment—

that was a back-and-forth calculation with Joe and Quest, throughout the whole run—not only the pints-per-day we needed to calculate for the plants, but also according to the electrical side. Under Brett’s leadership, we’ve been able to refine that process and make sure we’re constantly on schedule with flipping the rooms and getting the right dehumidification set up.

We even changed the way we’re trellising. With Joe’s help, we went to a smaller trellis grid on the bottom to help with the stretch and get the training going before the plants get too large. So the smallest grid is on the bottom, which helps spread the plant out optimally—about one branch per square.

Then higher up, if you have two branches per square, it won’t crush the bud—so there’s still room to expand. But down low you can really get that nice shape and format on the plant. Joe’s basically on speed-dial with me—I think I talk to Joe more than I talk to my girlfriend, following up on all the little details. But that’s the level of support you get when you work with GrowersHouse.

What we really want to do here differently is grow craft cannabis and make sure the cannabis speaks for itself. We genuinely love and care about what we do—everything we produce is quality, top-tier stuff, and I’m proud to stand behind it in my uncle’s name.