Q: On about 19 acres of farmland on the north side of the Sakatah Trail and just west of Blue Earth County Road 12 at the northeast corner of Mankato, many small trees were planted several years ago and now many yards of chain link fencing have been installed. Is this a new apple orchard?
A: Yes it is. But, it turns out, that’s not all that is — or will be — growing on the parcel of land on the edge of town.
And while the reader who sent that question was the first to notice the fencing going up around the orchard and adjacent land, he was far from alone in inquiring about the increasingly strange appearance of the development.
This came from a newsroom colleague of Ask Us Guy … .
“A friend had noticed an odd fenced in area behind the Walmart distribution center and wondered what it might be,” said the colleague.
“I took a drive Sunday to find out. After circling the area for about 20 minutes, I found a minimum maintenance road and followed it to a new ‘no maintenance road’ that led to the area with tall fences covered with masking material. Let’s just say the area looked secure. As I approached I saw trucks parked nearby, then noticed someone walking in the distance. I turned around, but feel like my car’s description and license plate number are probably in a data base somewhere.”
His instincts about being watched were justified, but more on that in a bit … .
“I came across a pedestrian I’d seen when I drove in and asked if they knew what the area was,” the Free Presser continued. “The retiree who built nearby said it was a legal cannabis-cultivation area, currently not operating at full capacity.”
So, apples or cannabis?
“The property is both an orchard and a cannabis plot,” according to Paul David, the city of Mankato’s communications director.
David had checked with Community Development Director Mark Konz, who said the city had issued a permit for the fence installation.
While licensing of cannabis operations is handled by the state, the business does need to meet local zoning requirements.
And cultivation of cannabis is a permitted use in an industrial zone, which is what the northeast side of Mankato is.
The Minnesota Office of Cannabis Management has issued cannabis cultivation licenses in Mankato between June 26 and July 17, according to OCM’s database. In addition, lower potency hemp can be grown without a license from the OCM, according to Jim Walker, a public information officer there.
“The state’s industrial hemp program and related licensing is overseen by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture,” Walker said.
The cannabis licenses — issued to Frank Little, Mathew Little, Pure Jade LLC and John Dinse — don’t specify precisely where the crops are to be grown.
Even as Ask Us Guy was making inquiries, trying to verify who was behind the development and what their specific plans for the property might be, another question arrived.
Q: I was biking the Sakatah Trail the other day when I observed something unusual.
At the very east end of Mankato, sandwiched between the trail and railroad tracks, there appears to be some kind of plant-growing operation. The plants are protected by a chain link fence with barbed wire and there are security cameras guarding it. What on earth is going on there?
A: Land records and business filings suggest that the project is associated with Mike Drummer and his family. The Drummers are major housing developers in town. They’re also the folks behind Drummers Garden Center.
The 19-acre parcel was purchased in 2013 by Noah Holdings, LLC, and the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office has some details on that corporation. Mike Drummer is listed as the registered agent, and David Drummer is the manager of Noah Holdings.
The address for the corporation is the same location as another of Mike Drummer’s businesses — Circular Strategy Holdings.
The website for Circular Strategy Holdings contains a bit of information about its purpose, although there’s nothing about fruit trees. The site describes Mike Drummer’s agricultural upbringing on a southern Minnesota dairy farm, his creation of a landscaping business after college and his later entry into the construction industry and then real estate development.
“More recently, alongside industrial and residential development, he began one of Minnesota’s first vertically integrated hemp businesses, allowing hemp products to be created and traced from seed to soil to consumers,” the site states. “With Circular Strategy Holdings, Mike continues to emphasize the importance of strategic relationships, synergies and grit to propel our network of businesses to success.”
Neither Circular Strategy Holdings nor the Drummer name show up on the state cannabis license list, but it’s possible one or more of the other license-holders is leasing a plot at the property on the northeast side.
Ask Us Guy went out to the site, scoping it out and shooting a few pictures from the public Sakatah Singing Hills State Trail, and he could see what looked like young apple trees on the eastern side of the property. Farther west, the reason for his newsroom colleague’s paranoia became clear. Either the Drummers are really, really protective of their Honeycrisps and SweeTangos or they are producing, are renting space for others to produce or are preparing to produce a more coveted crop.
Dozens of security cameras were mounted on posts among the numerous rectangular plots, particularly along the barbed wire-topped perimeter fencing of the property.
The plots were covered in some places by sheets of plastic, apparently to eliminate weed growth, with openings cut in the plastic for the crop being cultivated.
Emails and phone messages left with Circular Strategy Holdings and Drummers Garden Center were not returned, so Ask Us Guy can’t offer anything from the growers’ mouths about what products will be coming out of the property and when. But if they follow up with some info later, it’ll be included in a future column.
Contact Ask Us at The Free Press, 418 S. Second St., Mankato, MN 56001. Call Mark Fischenich at 344-6321 or email your question to mfischenich@mankatofreepress.com; put Ask Us in the subject line.