Upward Organics Founder Nate Burdick grew up doing landscaping and odd jobs. After attending business school and feeling unfilled in his career path, Nate took up an offer from some college roommates to help with their small grow in Maine and was inspired by the state’s natural beauty.
It felt like a full-circle moment as his grandmother was born in Portland and adopted by a family from Massachusetts that regularly vacationed in Maine. After two generations, it felt good to put the family roots back into Maine soil.
Upward Organics now has a farm in a town that is 98% wooded and home to a population of 1,600. The garden site is a quarter-mile off the road and at an elevation of about 500 feet. Sloping west and south, it has ideal exposure to prevailing winds and sunlight. This complements their 100% sun-grown and solar-powered operation and is essential to maximizing the plants’ potential with as small a man-made footprint as possible. They are also one of three Cannabis cultivators in the nation that have partnered with 1% for the Planet, with one percent of revenue donated to environmental nonprofits. After four successful years of growing flower and live resin, Upward transitioned to making single-source solventless products “because we felt it was the best representation of our terps for the market,” Nate said.
This year was one of the best seasons Nate can remember. They planted small and, later in the season, managed the 45 unique cultivars selected for full-term production. The year’s challenge centered more on managing the different needs of so many unique plants, all grown from seed Upward made in 2024. “We had no idea when they would trigger or finish. This made my job as the gardener the most fun yet,” Nate said.
Asking which new flavors surpassed the team’s expectations this year, Nate said it was like “asking a parent to name a favorite child. It seems like this year the terps and resin quality were turned up on everything. Maybe it was the weather, but I don’t recall full-term being this loud, and the resin quality looks like greenhouse [quality].”
He did note a few standouts, including Hot Tropic (Sour Candy x Top Banana), Strawberry Peels (Blowpop x Top Banana), Supernova (Huckleberry Space Queen x Starburst 36) and Canned Heat (Paradigm Shift x Top Banana).
While harvest, drying and processing are the primary focuses this time of year, I asked Nate what Upward does in the winter and spring seasons to prep the land and the plants for future seasons.
It was a timely question, as Nate is transitioning from 300-gallon grow bags to 80-foot beds. “Our neighbor has a sawmill and will make boards from trees on our property for raised beds,” he said. “Usually, in the offseason, we pop lots of seeds. It feels like an arms race to develop a menu of loud, powerful and unique genetics. This off-season, however, we feel we are at a point where we have 20 standouts to run at scale next year. We will carefully select five or six varieties of seeds to explore instead of the usual 30 to 40.”
