This post is presented by our media partner Grow Opportunity
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This year, Grow Opportunity welcomes 2022 Top Grower Award winner Alexandre Gauthier, director of cultivation at Origine Nature, to the panel of Top Grower judges alongside Av Singh, Stacie Hollingworth and David Kjolberg.
Last year, the 2023 winner Genevieve Newton, sat down to discuss winning the award and achieving her five-year goal in two.
“It’s funny,” she says, recalling the first award winner back in 2019. “[Gregg Wigeland] used to be the master grower at Sundial when I was a lowly grunt,” she says. “He won that award when I was still cleaning up plant piss off the floor; I remember him winning that!” Newton found time to discuss her well-earned spotlight, eight years in the making: “It means so much to me,” she says. “It was a sign I needed that I’m still needed in this industry.”
Newton is a second-generation farmer, having learned her gardening skills from her dad and grandpa growing up in Saskatchewan. She knew her dad was also growing in his closet, but weed wasn’t her thing at the time.
“For four years while I was sober, I was searching for happiness,” says Newton, “something to replace my addictions, my drinking. That is how you stay sober – you replace that with something you love,” she says. “I tried all these things, and it was this thing. That was what it was.”
This post was originally published by our media partner here.
