About Scout & Seed
Scouting the Perfect Genetics and Cultivation Team
Who do you want joining your cultivations' dinner party?
Scout & Seed may be the newest genetic hunting cultivation to hit the Missouri scene, but scouting for seeds and genetics is nothing new for this team. From the moment founder James Christensen first got his driver’ s license, he was hitting the road to chase his first cannabis genetic connections.
“I go back with these genetics to the early 2000s when I was moving packs from Northern California,” explained Christensen.“ My first run was to Northern California as a 16-year-old in 2001. I had just gotten my driver’ s license and told my parents I was at a sleepover while I really drove from Phoenix to Northern California and back. It was pretty gnarly. My best friend in the world’ s older brother had moved up there and had a farm with Mandelbrot and Ras Truth, with Emerald Mountain Legacy, and they were growing OG Kush and Sour D. My buddy’ s brother maintained the seed bank after Mandelbrot passed away.”
Many years later, when Arizona passed legal medical cannabis, Christensen’ s reputation in the legacy market was harnessed to carry the culture into the state’ s first legal greenhouse in 2014.
In 2019, his team landed a retail license and an MIP in Missouri, but they knew it wouldn’t be sustainable without a cultivation license. After several years, they finally secured their new genetic-hunting cultivation license with a powerhouse of industry team leaders.
Every newly commenced cultivation facility in the Missouri market has ONE full year to bring in clones during what the state calls their“ Immaculate Conception” phase. It is rare to see cultivators already sourcing seed genetics during this first year, when it is much easier to bring in clones from cannabis plants that have already proven their worth. Although Scout & Seed did take advantage of this immaculate conception of clones, they were already popping seeds from day one of operation.
Since the goal was to scout out the best seeds and the best qualified cultivation experts, what better name than Scout & Seed? Each one of the Scout & Seed team leaders boasts not only an extensive resume but also deep connections in global genetic hunting circles.
Christensen is the perfect Martha Stewart dinner party host of the Scout & Seed team. He not only cultivates the“ legacy” culture through his seed genetic relationships but also scouts out the ideal guests( team) to be around for the perfect cultivation dinner party. Who would you want to be sitting at your cultivation facility’ s dinner party table?
You definitely want a cannabis professor at the dinner table. One to cut through the bioscience BS you see all over the internet with wannabe growers and AI misinformation. If you take a quick look at St. Louis Community College at Meramec’ s website, you’ ll see that Sarah Moore( Scout & Seed propagation manager) not only aims to do that as a cannabis cultivation professor for the college, but she is also the one who created the curriculum for the class.“ Our program at Meramec focuses on the cultivation of cannabis and hemp and also manufacturing cannabis products,” explained Moore.“ It aligns best for our horticulture degree. What sets our program apart from other schools is the hands-on learning portion and labs in our classes. Not only do we have new state-of-the-art facilities for our students, but the horticulture program also has its Hemp Cultivation License from the USDA, which allows our students to work with real hemp plants.”
Meramec’ s horticulture program is the highest-enrolled horticulture program in the nation. Because Meramec’s administrators and staff work closely with the Saint Louis area’ s cannabis horticulture industry, most of the program’ s students either have job offers lined up after graduation or gain a job in the industry while enrolled in the program.
Along with Moore, Scout & Seed also has two plant managers, both at the director of cultivation level, who bring their own extensive resumes to the dinner table.
The Double Roberts Powerhouse
Along with Moore, Scout & Seed also has two plant managers, both at the director of cultivation level, who bring their own extensive resumes to the dinner table.
First, there is RJ. Robert Riccius-Gilbert –( RJ), head of cultivation for Scout & Seed, has three agriculture degrees, including a BS in organic agriculture, a minor in horticulture, and a minor in soil science from Washington State University. It also helped that Washington’ s cannabis legalization took place just a month after RJ graduated.
RJ immediately landed a job at an indoor farm. Shortly after meeting a new group at Canna Con, he moved to Othello, WA, to manage nine separate licenses for a year. Next, he moved to Omak, WA, and managed all the outdoor farms for Northwest Cannabis Solutions, which covered 2.5 acres. He increased the farm’ s harvest from around 4,500 pounds to 8,000 pounds, and then the following harvest grew to over 10,000 pounds.
Once Scout & Seed saw what RJ had to offer, it was a no-brainer.“ I am always looking for new genetics that fit our system well, are labor-friendly, productive, and have unique terpene profiles and flower morphology,” explained RJ.“ My primary focus is finding a better middle ground between mass producibility and genetic uniqueness than what is currently the industry standard.”
Next, Scout & Seed brought in Robert Quick to work alongside RJ as the head of cultivation. He has over nine years of experience working in the legal industry, and 10 years growing on his own.
At just 20 years old, Quick moved to Colorado to become a post-harvest trimmer, then became the trim manager for Kayak Cannabis. His work there gained the owner’ s attention, who later sent him to work on behalf of Kayak with Emerge Cannabis to do vertical farming on walls. Next, he moved to a shipping container farm in Utah, then blueprinted shipping container farms for Standard Wellness in Vandalia, MO. After dialing in shipping container farms in Vandalia, MO, Quick became the propagation manager for BeLeaf for three years before being picked up by Scout & Seed to be the cultivation manager.
When asked about his plans for introducing genetics, Quick said, he is“ helping to bring in Capulator, known for the Mac 1 strain, and I lean towards modern-day hybrids, but my favorite is Point Break by Surfer genetics.” Quick is also extremely passionate about legalization.“ I’ ve never lost sight of what we are trying to do to end prohibition. The one thing I really stand on is how passionate I am about this craft, and the only way I got here is by teaching other growers how to do this correctly. I wouldn’ t be in the position that I am if I didn’ t have people teaching me along the way, and that is what I want to pass along to other people learning how to grow quality cannabis.”
That’ s one dinner party I would sure want to attend!
Here are the seed genetic companies that Scout & Seed is currently using:
- Blockhead
- Bloom Seed Co.
- Brother Mendal
- Cannarando Genetics
- Capulator
- Cloud Berry Reserve
- Compound Genetics
- Exotic Genetics
- Emerald Mountain Legacy Co.
- Fiya Farmer
- Grand Daddy Genetics
- Humble Seed Co.
- Masonic Seed Co.
- Oni Seed Co.
- Pacific Coast Seeds
- Seed Junky
- Terphogz
- Thug Pug
- TreelFour
- Wizard Trees
Originally written by Clayton Stallings for the EVOLUTION Magazine
November 2025