There’s a saying in economics that sums up consolidation: big fish eat little fish. It can be bitter, but you can only shrug at the way the market moves.
In cannabis, the image carries extra weight. This is a militant industry where identity, ethics, and rebellion are still entangled with business—where the small grower is a cultural archetype, and the multistate operator often stands for everything the movement once opposed.
When a small, science-driven breeder gets absorbed by a corporate giant, it stirs old cultural reflexes: Did they sell out? Will the product still be real? Can corporate cannabis ever honor the plant? Isn’t MSO flower crap?
Those are the doubts that trailed Dark Heart Nursery when Curaleaf Holdings, the world’s largest cannabis company, quietly brought it under its wing.
The Beginning of a Long Relationship
Dark Heart was founded in the mid-2000s by Dan Grace, and it grew from the heart of California’s medical scene. In those years, growers hunted for viable clones the way miners once searched for gold. Most of what circulated was unreliable, as mislabeling and identity confusion were common.
“The mission was to grow clean flowers for patients,” said Richard Philbrook, now Senior Scientist at Curaleaf but originally part of Dark Heart’s core. “We realized you couldn’t get good genetics anywhere. So we thought, why not be the person who sells the pickaxe instead of mining for gold? For us, the pickaxe was clones.”
It was a simple but powerful shift. The nursery became a sort of public utility—a place where growers could find verified, healthy cuts of the strains they already loved.
“It’s fair to say if you were growing around that time, you probably got clones either from Dark Heart or through a …
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Author: Rolando García / High Times
