At an organic farm a couple of hours east of New York City, the marijuana harvest is in.

Freshly picked buds on Long Island — recently hung out to dry in shaded greenhouses — provided a perfect backdrop for New York cannabis officials to pose for a photo op Tuesday afternoon. The state’s first fall harvest is a major milestone for the legal, recreational marijuana market that’s been assembling over the past several months.

“Everything you see in this room, all this product will be going onto the shelves of our [first] dispensaries,” said Damian Fagon, chief equity officer at the New York Office of Cannabis Management.

But the selection of products that end up on dispensary shelves will likely be limited at first. That’s because New York’s cultivation program has made some sacrifices to the look and quality of the bud being produced in the name of equity and environmental sustainability.

Other regulatory and economic hurdles are still in play, despite New York regulators legalizing marijuana more than a year ago and scheduling the state’s recreational industry launch for the end of 2022. As the farm’s owner showed a gaggle of reporters around, he asked that both his name and the name of the farm be withheld because marijuana is still illegal on the federal level — and he’s worried about losing access to his bank.

Meanwhile, the early legal marijuana that’s harvested may not be what New Yorkers are used to getting from other legal states or the black market, especially in these early growing seasons. Most of what the Long Island farmer and others statewide have reared this year is biomass — plants that aren’t considered attractive enough or potent enough to be sold as smokable flower in the contemporary market.

“So, that means for extraction, for concentration, and [that is what’s] going to wind up in edibles, topicals, infused products, vapes, et cetera,” the farmer explained. Because marijuana is illegal at the federal level and can’t be transported across state lines, all states that regulate the plant have to set up their own cultivation programs in order to supply the legal market.

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