Plants vs Zombies: New Mexico Producer Licenses Continue to Drop

New Mexico’s once-booming cultivation landscape is in retreat. The latest plant count data shows the sharpest contraction since adult-use legalization, with long-standing operators closing, merging, or selling off assets as national firms move in to scoop up distressed properties and equipment for pennies on the dollar.

More Plants, More Problems

Southwest Greenhouse, one of the state’s largest producers, has cut nearly two-thirds of its canopy since March 2025—falling from roughly 40,000 plants to just 15,526 in October. Across the state, total plant counts have dropped from 669,000 plants across 650 grows in May 2025 to 497,000 across 419 grows in October, marking a 25% decline in only five months. That’s the lowest participation rate since the early rollout of New Mexico’s adult-use program.

Legacy Roots

The contraction isn’t just about plant numbers—it’s about ownership. HVST Foundation, one of New Mexico’s oldest legacy producers, was recently acquired by True Roots (Potato Road LLC). Both Southwest Greenhouse and HVST were among the last of the state’s early independent cultivators, their transitions potentially signaling the end of an era. Sources within the industry suggest at least one multi-state operator from Oregon has quietly begun acquiring land once tied to illegal grow operations on native land, further cementing the outside influence reshaping the state’s production base.

Trickery

As New Mexico’s reported plant counts plummet, it’s worth asking whether the decline reflects real farms going dark — or something less tangible, digital farms. A digital farm is a phantom grow — a licensed operation that exists only inside the state’s tracking system. No soil, no lights, no harvest — just fabricated data designed to make it look like real plants were grown, harvested, and sold.

Producers running these schemes could “hit” full harvests every time by manipulating traceability records — inflating yields, duplicating batch numbers, or entering crops that were never planted. And don’t even get started on kief rolled or cherry picked test samples.

Chicory

What’s emerging is a consolidation wave that looks less like market correction and more like survival of the fittest, not the biggest. For those still planting, the game has changed—efficiency and endurance now matter more than expansion. The next phase of New Mexico’s market won’t be about who can grow the most, but who can grow the best. This contraction could be the break small and mid-tier producers have been waiting for. Less canopy means less product flooding the market. But there’s a darker interpretation, too. This downturn could just be the water pulling back before the tidal wave — a breather before more larger corporate players roll in with deeper pockets and industrial efficiency.