Salinas, California, the largest city in Monterey County, is known across the world as the “Salad Bowl of America.” A cultivation powerhouse for lettuce, spinach, broccoli, and tomatoes, this fertile valley grows the majority of salad greens for the country. With economic pressures inspiring change, some farmers in Salinas Valley are considering a diversification of their greens.

Salinas Valley is one of the most agriculturally rich valleys in America —  beyond greens, it is also known as the “Flower Basket of America,” because the climate and long growing season are perfect for the traditional flower industry. This moderate, warm climate is also what attracts cannabis growers from all over the coast to this abundant valley.

With California’s legal cannabis market set to explode next year, many traditional flower farmers are beginning to consider trading in their crop for cannabis. With the required infrastructure already in place, it’s a relatively simple transition that could provide farming families with a much higher profit margin than the average tulip.

In the 1980s, at the peak of the cut flower industry, the Salinas Valley was booming with flower farmers, each attempting to outdo one another with the size and savvy of their greenhouses — sound familiar? Things were great until South America proved their region could produce quality flowers at a far more competitive rate. It wasn’t long before South American farms took over the global market, leaving the flower farmers of Salinas Valley empty-handed.

Former active greenhouse complexes were abandoned, sprinkled across the valley like micro ghost towns. Sadly, the crash had such an impact that the recent unemployment rate in the area is more than 11%, towering above the California state average of 5%. In America’s most mature marijuana market, Colorado, unemployment is near 3%.

While it’s been a rough two decades for those who went down in the California flower industry, this new “funny flower” has been breathing fresh life into the valley as entrepreneurs prepare themselves to compete in California’s recreational marijuana market.

Those same dilapidated greenhouses that have been withering away over the last few years are now skyrocketing in value as growers are retrofitting them for cannabis production. Aaron Johnson, a local cannabis-friendly lawyer, told KQED News, “Literally within a period of two weeks I saw the prices go from $50,000 an acre for undeveloped industrial land to about $300,000 an acre.”

This switch has generated tax revenue for the county like they haven’t seen in years, boosted local employment, and attracted new people to the area who are spending money with local businesses.

Dave Potter, a supervisor who helped develop the framework to bring cannabis cultivators into the valley, told The Sacramento Bee, “I see a conversion of greenhouses that were growing flowers to greenhouses that are growing cannabis as nothing more than crop rotation.”

Currently, Monterey County only allows medical marijuana cultivation, the medicinal crop must be grown in greenhouses or existing structures. Regulators don’t want to threaten the thriving vegetable and vineyard industries in the area by allowing outdoor cannabis cultivation to overly disrupt other markets. While regulations have not been set in place for California’s adult-use production, it should be one wild ride for Salinas. Let’s just hope history doesn’t repeat itself in this new flower boom.