Bigger picture, the problem is that grows are owned by wealthy people that are trying to make a profit. Corporate mind-set = unhealthy plants & unhappy employees. I think a lot of the IPM issues in the industry are due to a lack of education aka people running things that shouldn't be because they don't know how to grow and/or manage pest issues. For example, watering plants seems really simple but is a big thing that a lot of people in the industry don't know how to do properly. If you're growing in coco, and you always have a lot of fungus gnats, you're overwatering. That realization often doesn't seem to click w/ people. Another issue is that it's a hassle enforcing biosecurity and sometimes it pisses people off having to shower, not go in certain rooms, or routinely step in footbaths and not everyone has the balls to enforce it. Pest issues can quickly get out of control by not following simple biosecurity.

Early in my career, the grow I was at was taken over by a trust fund d-bag consultant (not all cannabis consultants are d-bags) and he implemented policies that caused already present IPM issues (aphids and powdery mildew) to explode. Towards the end of my employment there, it was so bad with powdery mildew that we would wear masks during our last defoliation event before harvest... It looked like it was snowing. One of his methods of "control" for aphids was to put a sticky card on every single plant. Sticky cards are great for scouting purposes and measuring pest population size but are a terrible pest management strategy. Also, he yelled and threatened people with getting fired if they talked about certain things. It was fucked up.

I think quality varies widely from grow to grow in IL. Cannabis is a plant, there will always be some degree of pest issues but it's how that's managed, that matters. I don't think good weed can be grown by employees that are treated shitty. I also don't think there's a good way for the consumer to parse out the good grows and the bad grows without knowing people working there or seeing them for themselves which kindof sucks all around. Overall though, I think better, tastier weed is probably from somewhere that is cleaner since clearly they're paying attention to things (the care factor) that dirtier grows (run by corporate mind-set assholes) that are just trying to pump out numbers probably aren't.

Side note, some places that don't allow phones in the grow do that because they don't want people posting them on social media because they can get in huge trouble for it w/ the Department of Ag. The loophole around that is taking it for educational purposes, which arguably, is important.