Founder Real Talk: Bosky Genetics

In 2015, Ryan Clark planted the seed of Bosky Genetics. Seven years later he started cultivation, and in February of 2024, jars of flower hit San Francisco dispensary shelves. Clark and the team behind Bosky Genetics are dedicated to breeding and growing unique, proprietary genetics, ensuring each strain stands out for its quality and distinctiveness. Their commitment to "quality over quantity" underpins a philosophy that aims to celebrate life and ignite creativity through superior cannabis products.

Best of SF was able to catch up with Clark and talk to him about Bosky and his journey thus far.

“Our Focus is, and has always been about quality, flavor, smokability, and effect. As well as providing true relief to those who consume our flower for medical purposes"

Bosky is not a term you hear all that often, how did you decide on “Bosky Genetics”? 

RC: The term 'bosky' means an abundance of bushes, shrubs, and foliage, and we felt this describes the very essence of our brand.

Was your path to commercial cannabis a straight line? What were you doing before you started Bosky Genetics?

RC:  I have been in love with cannabis since my teens, and have spent the past 20+ years growing and breeding this amazing plant. I grew up working in commercial agriculture alongside my dad as a youth and went on to open a retail hydroponic store in Visalia, CA which I ran from 2006 to 2017. In 2017 I left my business to help design, build, and operate the Central Valley’s first indoor cultivation facility as operations manager and head cultivator for 3 years before leaving in 2021 to start Bosky Genetics. All of my experiences throughout the years have led me to develop and formulate our own proprietary blend of fertilizer, as well as design and build multiple state-of-the-art cultivation facilities and irrigation systems.

So what made you decide to pursue this ‘bosky’ life and how do you juggle all that comes with being Owner and Head Cultivator?

RC:  We saw a lack of people/companies who care or have passion about growing a quality flower that is more than just a THC percentage. Our focus is, and has always been about quality, flavor, smokability, and effect. As well as providing true relief to those who consume our flower for medical purposes.

Thankfully I have my wife Jenn to help us with our budget, HR, cultivation, and compliance. Really she can do it all (including helping us build our grow benches during construction), and she is a huge part of our success.  It can definitely be difficult to separate the business side from cultivation for me. With the launch of our brand, I have had to spend a lot of my time on the road, as well as all of the meetings, design, etc that come with it. I still manage to make the time to walk the rooms almost every day (morning and night), and work with my cultivation team to steer the grow on a day to day basis.

We are truly blessed to have an amazing team, with 5 cultivators, and 7 in trimming and packaging. When we hired our team, we were fortunate to start with a couple of my employees that worked with me in the past, so that really helped to have guys that already knew our program.

Almost all of our team has worked in the legacy market before coming here, and have a true passion for cannabis which was extremely important to me because of my time in this industry. As the market changed over the years, I saw more and more guys on the traditional side start to shut down grows, so I am thankful to have been able to bring on a few of the good ones to our team that were looking to continue doing what they love. 

We have developed most of our SOP’s together since we started this grow in December of 2022, and after a little over a year, our team can run our grow with or without me here, so its definitely a great feeling to see how far we have came in such a short amount of time.

Your tag line “Spark Something New” is catchy. How did you Spark Something New with Bosky Genetics?

RC: I designed our grow from the ground up, and hired and managed all of our design team and contractors that we used for construction. My wife, and 2 of our employees helped me build our grow. We hung every light, we installed ducting, built rolling benches, and ran all irrigation in our rooms. We were able to incorporate items into our own grow that I couldn't do with the past grows. 

“We are constantly pushing the boundaries of our cultivation skills, and always testing new techniques as well as sharing info with our peers to help grow our team and company as a whole.” RC

What are some of the things you are most proud of?

RC: We have a seperate built in drainage system for water reclamation. We can collect all of our table run-off as well as condensate to bring back and recycle into our system.

We use gutter benches instead of tables in our flower rooms, and have underbench fans and ducting that blow air up through the under canopy and prevents micro climates from causing havoc to our plants

We helped design, and prototype a new fertilizer metering system for Netafim, which increased the accuracy of nutrient dosing on their fertigation skid by 10X or more.

I developed our fertilizer over the last 6 years, due to the fact that I really wanted to be able to control our inputs, as well as the ratios of fertilizer that we feed our plants at the different times of their growth cycle. We spent the last year sending in tissue and fertigation water samples to help dial in the recipe for our current grow, and now its just very fine adjustment in our irrigations and pruning to get the best response in our plants. We are very focused on the finished quality of our flower more then just looks and thc percentage, and we want the flavor and experience to be up front for the consumers. 

“Quality over Quantity” is a core value for you. What does that ultimately mean for your grow and what you look for in your finished product?

RC:  We breed and hunt our own genetics in house, as well as hunt with other brands and breeders. Being that we are a small grow, we limit our hunts to around 25-50 seeds per room, but we are constantly searching, growing, sharing to find the next best thing smoking. Some of the breeders we have hunted with are The Humboldt Seed Company, and Evermore Genetics (exclusively for Champelli). Some of the strains we have created are:

• Kookieland (Dosidos x (Forum Cookies x Candyland))

• Cadillac OG (LA Kush x Cataract OG Kush)

• Grip Tape (Kookieland x Cherry Gushers)

• Guava Berry (Guava Runtz x Cherry Gushers)

We cultivate our flower in 100% organic OMRI-listed coco using a proprietary blend of mineral and organic inputs. Our flower is dried and cured for over 30 days before it is packaged, and we take extreme care to select only the best quality flower for our packaging. Additionally, we pack our orders as they come in to ensure the most fresh product hits the shelves.

“Whenever I see some fire that someone grew, or one of the guys we are competing against wins, it's all about showing love and giving credit to all of the hard work it took for them to make it happen.”

“We have over 60 varieties in our genetic bank, and run anywhere from 6 to 10 cultivars in each flower room.” RC

You mentioned sharing with other breeders. Is there friendly competition? How does the cannabis breeder/grower community inspire you?

RC: I would compare the competition in the Cannabis community very closely to skateboarding. I grew up street skating in the central valley in the 90’s to early 00’s, and that feeling of brother/sisterhood and comradery is what I loved the most. When one of the homies landed a dope trick, we would all get up and cheer for him…slap our boards on the pavement..etc. With cannabis, its the same feeling for me. Whenever I see some fire that someone grew, or one of the guys we are competing against wins, its all about showing love and giving credit to all of the hard work it took for them to make it happen. 

It’s an amazing community. I have so many growers I have worked with throughout the years that have helped in our success. It’s all about sharing experiences and working together to elevate. There are for sure some greedy players out there, and I won't list them here, but I would like to give a huge shout out to a couple that were really there for us. 

Nat from the Humboldt Seed Company helped us so much when we first fired up our grow, and the world needs more guys like him. I am so inspired by the work he and his team do, and just the genuine human that he is. 

Chad and John and the team from Maven Genetics/Kush Alley. We bought one of their used fertigation skids and refurbished it and are still running it in our facility to this day. 

Oakfruitland was another big one for me. During our design and construction, they kept me employed by hiring me to consult for them, and help them design and install their new fertigation system that feeds their entire grow. They also shared some amazing genetics with us that we have used in some of our recent crosses that we did together.

When you are working on new genetics or crosses, what are you looking for personally and as a brand? Do you have a target demographic?

RC:  The creative, active lifestyle. People who use cannabis to elevate themselves in a creative, active, or productive way. 

We breed and hunt for effect and flavor, and look for expressions and terpenes in our plants that are different. We do it for those who appreciate the quality and experience from each strain we grow, and I feel like producing quality cannabis is an art just as much as it is a skill.

The Grip Tape being one of our in-house strains that got its name from my roots in skateboarding. It smokes similar to a headband or og, and I have always gravitated towards those types of genetics. Great for recovery or to decompress after a long day.

We grow 6 to 10 cultivars per room and harvest every 16 days, so our menu will have a constant rotation of new flavors. We also pheno-hunt our own genetics, as well as other breeders' genetics in search of new and refreshing flavors to bring to the market.

Are you involved in any community organizations or non-profits? What makes these important to your brand?

RC:  We will be donating to CBCB’s compassion program which gives free cannabis to those who can't afford to purchase it.

What I love about [their program] the most is getting the flower to people who need it. I really feel like this plant provides so much for us, and would never want to deny anyone access to it, and when Natasha and Jimi from CBCB told me about it, I got super excited to contribute. 

Finally, we can see that you are dedicated to continuously cultivating new and unique strains, where do you see Bosky Genetics in the short term?

RC:  We began selling our flower to stores in February of this year, and currently it's available in 9 stores across California. Our aim is to expand our presence to 20 to 30 stores by the end of Q2.

Thanks for your time Ryan. Now get back to that amazing grow! 

You can Spark Something New with Bosky Gentics flower at Mission Cannabis in San Francisco, and CBCB in Berkeley. Follow their journey on IG at @boskygenetics and keep up with all the new strains on their website www.boskygenetics.com.