Bringing cultivation dreams to life in a Cotati California Grow

At Mercy Wellness Cotati, working with the right partner for systems controls is a “recipe for success.”

Today, visitors to Mercy Wellness experience his dream as they enter the dispensary and view a cultivation room through picture windows as transparent as Levine’s business approach. His intention has never been to be the biggest but to offer exceptional cannabis to the 1,000-plus people who visit the business every day.

The 6,000-square-foot grow’s artisan indoor flower reflects the dedication and persistence of the Mercy team, from Levine and Director of Cultivation Ben Horner to every member of the tightly knit crew. But as the team will tell, the perfectly controlled growing environment and award-winning flower didn’t come easy — until they partnered with Priva to turn dreams into reality.

Overcoming Control Challenges and Disappointment

In building the privately owned cannabis facility from scratch, Levine intended to outfit the grow with the very best equipment so ambitions for premium, high-end cannabis could be achieved. Many companies lobbied for positions, but not all promises rang true.

“I’ve had the opportunity partly to see new equipment and use it before anybody else. But along the way, we’ve also run into a lot of challenges,” Levine says, noting many systems left disappointment behind. Environmental software controls, primarily regarding humidity, became a significant issue. The system in place had its own non-intuitive controls. The team struggled with software management and the lack of integration, while plants struggled with uncontrolled growing environments. The problem took a toll on plants and the Mercy team.

“Before Priva was installed in the rooms, we had virtually no control over the environment, mainly our humidity,” Horner says. The crew tried everything to overcome the problems. Working extra-long hours only added strain to Horner and the team.

Then Horner talked with Levine about his experience with Priva at another grow. Levine immediately grasped the impact a mature, proven system that understands commercial horticulture could have in resolving their pain points. The rest is history, Horner says.

For Levine, Priva’s reputation and Horner’s relationship with the company were key in deciding what would work for Mercy. “Customer service is extremely important,” Levine says. “We weren’t getting that from some of the other companies. We’ve spent millions on equipment and then just been left high and dry. I knew we weren’t going to have that happen with Priva.”

Bringing Precision Integration to the Grow

With Priva on board, Horner and his team can focus on precision crop steering and control strategies to perfect cultivation techniques, manipulate plant growth before it happens, and drive the quality their dream for Mercy Wellness demands.

“Crop steering for me is controlling the environment precisely throughout the grow,” Horner explains. “Priva has given me the ability to control the room, so I can steer the plants in the directions I want through the whole environment. ... It’s the entire environment together and controlling that precisely.”

Features like integrated fertigation immediately boost labor savings and crop consistency, while eliminating human error that can happen when mixing tanks by hand. Now Horner can mix tanks from home, trading worry and human error for precision with Priva controls.

“We also can trigger automations, trigger waterings, trigger things that we need at key times, when the humidity is going down, when the VPD might be too big,” Horner adds.

“Those are important for the overall control of the room and maintaining that precision control we want.”

While the partnership with Priva strengthened cultivation success, it also lowered Horner’s worry quotient. He can confidently control the environment with precision integration, trigger perfectly timed plant stresses, and maximize targets such as potency and yield.

In an industry where one simple mistake can cost $100,000, Levine recognizes that superior system controls are critical. “So it’s super important for us to make sure that the control systems operate at the level that we are also operating. It’s a recipe for success,” he says.

Building on the Power of Partner Support

Levine and Horner stress that functionality in software controls and other systems is only one consideration when looking for partners to help elevate plants and performance in their grow.

“It’s functionality and also partnership,” Horner says, noting the value of true partners who collaborate and come through with timely and transparent support when you need them, especially with highly customized systems, like Mercy’s, tailored to specific growing needs.

Through collaboration and transparency with partners, growing teams can understand problems and learn to prevent them from happening again. With some previous suppliers, Horner says collaboration, transparency, and timeliness were lacking.

“But all the while, our plants are growing in the room, and plants in uncontrolled environments are not going to thrive,” he adds, noting the burden he felt as the grower responsible for those plants. With Priva, that changed. He now has the support he needs when he needs it.

“Plants are living things, and they need attention 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Horner says. Things happen — and not only on weekdays during regular working hours.

“Knowing I can reach out to somebody in off hours and have them help me. That is the confidence I need to keep the plants happy, and that’s what most companies are missing in our industry now,” Horner says.

With Priva, he says, “Everybody working together makes it easy for me to solve problems.” Even when a problem can’t be solved immediately, Horner knows he can count on Priva support to be there for him until it is.

Maximizing the Potential for Cultivation Excellence

Horner believes the precision control he has with Priva will continue to set Mercy Wellness apart from its competitors. As evidenced by awards accumulating in the facility, including coveted California State Fair Golden Bears, the team’s ability to focus more on plants and less on equipment is paying off.

“This is still a new grow, and there’s a lot of things I need to work through to maximize yield to its fullest potential. But before Priva was here, we were significantly down on our yield because the environment was bad,” Horner says.

For Levine, choosing Priva enabled the team to take all the tools they had and make everything work together. “Priva gives us full control of everything and full insight to what’s happening so that, if a piece of equipment goes out, that we’re able to address an HVAC need or some other lighting need that might happen that we never had the window to view into without having Priva.”

Now that Priva has put the growing environment under Horner’s control, maximizing excellence in yield, quality, and consistency is within reach. “The best part about Priva is that it makes my ability to control the environment a reality,” he adds. “The sophistication of our equipment means sophisticated controls.”

Horner highlights another advantage by recalling many 15-hour days before the Priva installation: “Priva also lets me spend time with my family. That’s important. Now I’m able to have confidence that the machines will keep the environment steady for me, so I can stay home with my family on the weekends.”

As the Mercy Wellness Cotati team continues to dream bigger dreams, Priva is part of their plan to see those dreams come true. “As we grow our business, we’re excited to partner with an industry leader like Priva,” Horner says. “We look forward to growing together.”

(Article written by Jolene Hansen)

About Priva:

Priva is a global leader in innovative solutions for controlled environment agriculture, providing advanced technologies and services to optimize crop production in indoor and greenhouse environments. With a commitment to sustainability and efficiency, Priva empowers growers to achieve higher yields and quality while minimizing environmental impact.

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