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Seth Baumgartner and Jason Van Leuven open the mics for your crop steering and cultivation questions.
Kaisha [00:00:03]:
What's up, Gromies? Welcome to AROYA Office Hours, your source for free cannabis cultivation education. I am your moderator, Kaisha, and we are on episode 119, shout out to our live viewers on YouTube and Instagram and to everyone tapping in on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thank you so much for your support and if you like the pod, please do drop us a review. We really appreciate your feedback, Jason, and seeing. Good to be back in studio with you guys.
Jason [00:00:30]:
How are you doing? Awesome.
Kaisha [00:00:32]:
Good.
Cian [00:00:33]:
Acacia. Great to be here.
Kaisha [00:00:34]:
Good. Yeah. Glad to be back. And I just want to give a quick shout out and thank you to Rachel, who did an awesome job moderating while I was on vacation. Shout out to our grow me, Nick, who just posted a lovely welcome back to me. I appreciate you. I got a lot of rest and we're excited to get right into it. So you guys ready to get started with our first question?
Jason [00:00:50]:
Let's dive in.
Kaisha [00:00:52]:
Let's get into it.
Jason [00:00:52]:
All right.
Kaisha [00:00:53]:
We have a visual aid. I love that. Here we go. This one came from Chillywolf. They dropped this question on Instagram and they wrote, I have a question with some pics from a fellow gromy who. Who I'm trying to get into buying an Arroyo Go. I believe this issue is down to too big of medium heavy dfoil and too much cal nitrate. Feed schedule is 30% cal nitrate and full dose part BCD from drip hydro from week two to three, sometimes four.
Kaisha [00:01:22]:
He's played with changing BPD and has the same issues in another room. To me, this looks like overwater and imbalance of nutrients due to oxygen jet oxygen depth and ph. All right, Jason and Sian, what do you guys think?
Jason [00:01:35]:
Yeah, great question here. I mean, he's got quite a few different aspects that he's trying to dig into. You know, for me, I guess it would be identifying, all right, you know, what is the characteristic that that's not ideal in that circumstance as, you know, as far as too large a media, that's one of those things that should be fairly reasonable to identify. You know, I always like to think about, all right, when my plant is fairly mature, say, you know, three weeks into flower, am I able to get dry backs that modulate the media as much as I want? Right. And so for typically when, you know, we're thinking about, you know, four foot cannabis plant, five foot cannabis plant, I like to be in one gallon. You know, if I'm at that, five foot, you know, two gallon definitely can work as well. So you Know, if you're running cocoa, you always think about those, those sizes. And then for Rockwool, you know, most, most of the time I'm pretty happy with either two or three plants on a grow Dan slab.
Jason [00:02:31]:
And you know, the reasoning there is just because we want enough substrate to, you know, support the plant physically, we want enough substrate that those roots have access to water. But we're able to, you know, steer the crop as far as what our ECs are doing. We're able to do everyday irrigations for most of the plant cycle, you know, especially most of the flower there. And that just really helps us make sure we are getting fresh oxygen, fresh nutrients in there and not, not allowing those roots to stagnate. So I guess that hits the substrate size. Heavy defoliation. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't do any less defoliation in there. It looks like, you know, that's a pretty thick canopy and always comes down to plant spacing and airflow as well as is the environment consistent throughout our canopy.
Jason [00:03:22]:
And I'm guessing that heavy default was something that you guys are doing. But, but yeah, I wouldn't go any less on that. Um, you know, as far as the nitrate thing, and I think we've got another question here that's going to dive into that in a little bit as well. But you know, you know, it's one of the reasons that major nutrient companies are kind of going with the trend here where they are, you know, cutting out their calcium nitrate and either supplementing with a calcium chloride or a calcium sulfide type of product. You know, obviously one super common on the market is, you know, fade or the fade product. And those that, you know, those are a good thing to do. Typically when we're looking at ripening a product, we want those plants to build building less sugars, less carbohydrates towards the end of the cycle. And that's just going to help us with a clean smoke and make sure that those plants are, are, are ready to be cut down towards the end.
Jason [00:04:15]:
So we want to kind of reduce the amount of nitrogen that's in there. And you know, I think that Drip hydro probably has some recommendations on how they do that. Like I mentioned just a minute ago, some are supplementing the actual chemicals in there. Some are just rebalancing our part A, B and possibly C ratios in this, for example, towards the end of the cycle he's played with vpd. You know, VPD is usually a fairly easy one for recommendations just because those curves for small conductance are transpiration. Rates are pretty, pretty easy to predict as far as their relationship to vpd. And typically, you know, I always like to have a VPD around one for the beginning of flour, say first two weeks or so and then, you know, the rest of flour. I like to be about 1.2.
Jason [00:05:07]:
Uh, obviously if I do have mold and mildew concerns, we'll, we'll up that to like 1.4 towards the end just to help reduce those chances of crop loss. Uh, as far as, you know, if it looks like an imbalance of nutrients due to oxygen depletion and ph. Yes. So I mean, that can come back to actually, actually oxygen depletion could come back root zone size, you know, that, that substrate size, excuse me, if it's too large, sometimes you just not get enough irrigations in there to supply good oxygen. As far as, you know, other ways to get oxygen in there, it's just ensuring that our tank temperatures or our water input is, you know, at a reasonably cool temperature. I like to be around 66, 67. The cooler that our liquid is, the cooler that our fertigation is, the higher the solubility of gases are in there. So that'll help get us oxyge, you know, things like air stones or bubblers in there.
Jason [00:06:02]:
Making sure that our Ferguson is well mixed and well aerated is a good way to do it. And then also, you know, some type of hyperchlorous injection is a good way to also increase the amount of dissolved oxygen and fertigation. Ph obviously should be something that I like to check at least, you know, three times a week during the flower cycle. Mostly there I'm just looking to make sure that it's not doing anything too weird because that is a great indicator of nutrient imbalance. If we see those phs rise or lower too much coming in the runoff, then we know that the plant is selectively feeding on certain chemicals in our nutrient supply. So that is a great indicator of it. As far as, you know which nutrients, then your ph isn't going to exactly tell you that. A lot of times you have to go out and get a leaf tissue or SAP analysis in order to really diagnose what specific ions or cations are being eaten, eaten up more than the other and causing that ph amount.
Cian [00:07:08]:
You really touched on every single major point in that question and you did it beautifully. Um, every time I thought I had something to add to that statement, you immediately jumped right into the next point. Um, I was just gonna say that, you know, it seems like you identified on your own all of the major pieces of that puzzle correctly. And, you know, if your media is too big, you may be holding too much water saturation and not being able to uptake nutrients the way you want to and dry back the way you want to, like Jason was referring. You know, if you are watching those PH concentrations and they are raising or lowering some indications on, you know, your plants wanting to uptake some nutrients versus others in. I really agree with Jason, though. You shouldn't go less on that defoliation. I think that what you did there was entirely appropriate.
Cian [00:08:12]:
And the range of what plants can come back from with beautiful results. And defoliation, if there's just one major event can really be pretty broad and you fall right in the center of that spectrum. And I would definitely say that going less on the defoliation would probably have been more of an issue in terms of your plant. Plant's ability to uptake nutrients and use its supply adequately.
Jason [00:08:39]:
Yeah, you know, and one of the. One of the cool parts here about if substrate size is the issue, it's pretty easy one to fix. Right. Obviously this round you're not going to get to do anything about it, but next round just, you know, just probably drop that down if that tends to be the issue.
Kaisha [00:08:57]:
Dang. Thank you guys for both of your insights. And actually we got a response here from, I think the original poster they wrote. Thanks for the answer, Jason. It's the weird clawing he starts getting at day 21 after a default at day 16. And I think it looks like he dropped some more pics. We'll see if we can get those on the screen share. But they also wrote, I think he's feeding too much too fast, getting run off from channeling, et cetera.
Jason [00:09:24]:
Yeah, you know, that, that definitely could happen. If he gets a Roy go, it's going to be way easier for him to take a look at how he can reduce how much total irrigation that he's applying in there. And that'll help him one, reduce how much nutrient he's adding. He can still probably get some good stacking and then also, you know, reduce some of the amount of runoff. And then, you know, he can watch his low water contents to make sure or try to do his best to avoid channeling.
Kaisha [00:09:56]:
Wonderful. All right, thank you guys so much for your insights into that. Thank you to the gromy for asking the question. If we can, we'll get those pictures up and see if we can bring the topic back up, but appreciate you. Wonderful. We're going to keep it moving. And Jason, since you referenced this question. Let's get into this one from Raphael.
Kaisha [00:10:13]:
He wrote in how do you work the nitrogen through the end of flower? How early do you start removing it and how low do you go? And what about calcium? Since most nitrogen comes from calcium nitrate. What do you guys think?
Jason [00:10:27]:
Yeah, so you know, when we're thinking about the plants needs, when, when we look at the different component elements to how the plant grows, nitrogen is usually going to be helping it build leafy material basically get, get its good infrastructure going. And so obviously almost every nutrient brand that I've worked with out there currently has at least their ve and their, their bloom as separate formulations. And a lot of times really the only difference between those two is the amount of nitrogen that is in there. And so what you can do and actually for a couple of brands, they actually will recommend this in their, their feeding schedules. Sometimes I even, I even go a little bit farther, but that's just adjusting those ratios. You know, some of the easiest brands are like one to one. One of the most popular ones is like 60 40. And you know, a lot of times by for that 6040 brand, I like to go to 70 30.
Jason [00:11:26]:
By about week four, week three or four, I like to be at 7030 already, which is reducing our amount of nitrogen. So kind of just staging it a little bit and then typically for either the last three or four weeks, I'll start to supplement that with a calcium chloride in order to drop the amount of nitrogen completely out. Well, mostly completely out. Typically we still have trace elements in our feed, but, but you know, but that's also one of the reasons that we don't necessarily talk about flushing with our programs because just, just as, you know, just as those plants are still growing, we don't want to starve them of all the nutrients. We're just trying to reduce the amount of sugars and carbohydrates that they're building and help those buds finish out. So I think that hits that question beautifully.
Cian [00:12:18]:
Again, the answer that I was kind of thinking of in my head is, you know, by around week four at the max, usually I want to start tapering and then going into my bud set. Kind of like what you were saying there, Jason. I try to draw the nitrogen levels by supplementing with some sort of non nitrate calcium source those last couple weeks. And that generally helps to draw that down a little bit without starving the plant out of all of its nutrients in traditional flush, as a lot of people will call it.
Kaisha [00:13:00]:
Awesome. Thank you guys again for your. Yeah, anything to add to that, Jason?
Jason [00:13:03]:
Nope.
Kaisha [00:13:04]:
Good. Awesome. All right, Raphael, thank you for your question. Keep us posted. Good luck. Going to keep it moving. As a reminder, y'all, if y'all have any live questions, now's the time, drop them in the chat. But we do have some great ones we can get to.
Kaisha [00:13:16]:
This is a really good one dropped by Trent on YouTube. He wrote, I work at a fairly large scale facility where we veg about 2,200 plants per week. We use Grodan Rockwool. I notice there are large inconsistencies in the development size of the plants after two weeks which carry through harvest, where as much as half the plants are stunted, 20 to 30% shorter. We use a dripper emitter system for watering. We have a small amount of sensors for monitoring the EC and pH, but there's only one sensor from one genetic or roughly 300 plants. My question is what is the process of elimination for creating a better consistency in veg? Or rather what are the most likely to least likely causes of this issue? Let me know if we need extra information. I watch every week and we'll update you with the results or any suggestions you have, which.
Kaisha [00:14:10]:
I love that. All right, Jason and Sienna, what do you think?
Jason [00:14:13]:
Yeah, I'm going to kind of hit this with the top three ways to improve consistency there. They may not be necessarily in order of what's most likely at your facility, just probably ones that I see most commonly. And you know, clone cutting practices definitely comes into role there. We, you know, we, we've seen a lot of facilities where, you know, they may not have the cleanest processes in cutting clones. You know, I always like to have a good 5, 6 inch clone and make sure that, you know, all your staff, that is cloning, if you're 2200 a week, you probably have a couple people that are taking those clones and making sure that your tools are all sanitized. So I like to have, you know, a few different scissors, a few different sets of knives. I like to have kind of all of that just sitting in a cup of san sanitization, whether that be bleach, hyperchlorous acid, any of those are usually a good enough solution. There's probably one that's ideal, but really I like to change those tools out.
Jason [00:15:16]:
So obviously, you know, we want to take, make sure we're getting 5, 6 inch clone cut off the plant itself. Let's get those into a cup of water and get prepped. Well, prepped, I mean just stored for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever it takes for you to get the clones off that plant and then make sure you're getting a good nice 45 degree razor cut on there. I personally haven't seen a lot of huge differences in clipping the ends of the leaves either. If you are doing it, then do it with all of them. If you're not doing it and then don't do it at all. I'd probably lean on doing it just because it seems to be the most popular practice in the industry. And next up, probably making sure that the substrate that you're going into is been wet up as uniformly as possible.
Jason [00:16:04]:
So that can definitely cause some distinct differences in how quickly plants root. You know, we want to make sure that that rock wool has all been fully saturated, but may not necessarily be at saturation point when we plug our clones into our plants. You know, making sure that you are using a fresh anode butyric acid probably as your rooting agent. You know, whether that be Clonex is one of the most popular in the market or other suppliers, make sure that you know that you're using pretty fresh stuff. If you do buy it in bulk. You know, I try not have that stuff too much older than maybe a month or two old when I, when I am using it. So maybe don't buy in too big a bulk. But yep, at 2200 plants a week, you probably are going to be buying in bulk in some degree.
Jason [00:16:51]:
Yeah. So let's see, as far as making sure that substrates wet up. So, you know, for those type of things, I like to make sure that I have it submerged in water for at least an hour. You know, that sometimes can be a logistics issue, but for me it's just so important to establish that, rule that out as a possible case of uniformity issues. And then another one might actually be, you know, something like a virus in there. And if you are seeing 20 to 30% significantly stunted for the entire run, there is a chance that hop latent could be in there. If you're doing testing and that's not the case, then you might move forward. Another possible chance is just environmental and lighting uniformity in there.
Jason [00:17:38]:
So making sure that those plants don't have some relative relationship to environmental microclimates and make sure you have CO2 availability in there. All of those can cause some stunting or lack of uniformity, if you will. So those are the places that I would look probably. First, the chances that your EC or pH is different amongst the emitters, not likely. But you always will want to be making sure that your emitters are exhibiting the same flow rates because just as different water levels in in our substrate when we start, if our drippers have different rates, it's going to be hard to keep up all the plants at the same same amount. So after each run I like to, you know, put some clear solo cups around, put my drippers in them and do some irrigations and just give a quick visual and see if anything is real low.
Cian [00:18:34]:
That's exactly what I was going to add. Jason, I was just going to say, you know, the biggest differences in plant size and rock wall that I've ever experienced are from your first suggestion there at propagation. If my plants do not get good rooting right off the start and are not uniformly sized right off the start, I will not have a uniformly strong canopy and canopy height across my room. And then the other big one that I've seen is, you know, if you forget to go out and do that field test of your irrigation drip system and make sure that your irrigation system is running cleanly and that all of your drippers are emitting the right amount of water that can really, really quickly lead to those types of inconsistencies that you're talking about.
Kaisha [00:19:26]:
Awesome, you guys, thank you. And actually in our YouTube here there's a little conversation going on around different insights into different substrates. So love the resource sharing on top of that. And also Trent, thank you so much for the question. We love that you're going to keep us posted on your progress so let us know what's going on next week. All right, we're going to keep it moving. We got a live question here on Instagram. This came from Datraptor.
Kaisha [00:19:50]:
They posted, you guys say more light equals more yield. We got 2.8 per light with 3 year old Gavita HPS only 750 to 800 PPFD high quality. What's the trade off? Perhaps quality with lower PPFD versus yield with higher ppfd.
Jason [00:20:11]:
Um, I mean hopefully with your three year old Gavita hbs as you've been changing the bulbs out, but maybe if you're at 7:50,800 you haven't might be, might be worth paying off real quick. If you are hitting 2.8 of light at 750 to 800. Well there is a chance that, you know, that genetic just does really well at lower light levels. There's also a chance that, you know, there's quite a bit of potential that's being left on the table there as well. As far as a trade off, usually light levels aren't necessarily going to have any effect on yield versus quality. Typically we can, you know, we can do selective environmental and crop or irrigation crop steering cues in order to lean towards yield or towards quality. And typically either which way of those we choose are going to be more proficient, you know, better performance at appropriate light levels. And the appropriate light levels are strain dependent.
Jason [00:21:07]:
You know, there's. We got a lot of strains out there that will eat up, you know, 1100, 1200 PPFD. As long as we're supplying the right amount of CO2 in there, certain strains are actually, you know, happiest right about 900. So I know there's a couple out there that'll take it even higher. But. But yeah, you know, if you do have the opportunity to play with that specific strain and a little bit higher ppfd, you know, there's good chance that you could get higher quality and hit that same yield and. Or, you know, same quality and a little bit higher yield in it.
Cian [00:21:44]:
I don't really have too much to add to that. I think you touched on all the major points again there. You know, really there's a number of different reasons that you can see what you're seeing there. And like Jason said, it can be dependent on so many different factors there. And you could be, like you said, leaving something on the table if you are only getting those types of PPFD levels and haven't necessarily changed your bulbs out recently. But depending on your canopy height and a few other factors, that could actually be an appropriate PPFD level for that strain. And it's hard to say exactly which one of those it is.
Kaisha [00:22:31]:
Fantastic. Datraptor. You heard it. Let us know what's going on. Good luck. All right, we're going to keep going here and shout out to the Grammys who are joining us live. Good to see everybody. I missed you guys.
Kaisha [00:22:42]:
When I'm out of town. Okay, we got this question. Justin posted it on YouTube. He wrote, so I'm towards the end of flower and I'm trying to create feminine seeds for my favorite strand. I was able to germinate the only seed I have left and successfully pollinate some of the buds. I have no problem we revegging, but will the seeds finish? Also, how do I create an environment suitable for seed ripening? Should I start feeding more nitrogen and increase the humidity? One last thing. I'm starting to see seeds pop out of the calyxes, but they are still green. If I re veg, will the seeds continue to ripen? Okay.
Kaisha [00:23:19]:
I've been waiting to ask that. That's royal. What do you guys think?
Jason [00:23:23]:
No, that's awesome. Pretty cool that you were able to keep that genetic rocking and rolling. There is a good chance that you can get those seeds to ripen up to be ready if you've got enough time. That's basically what's going to happen there is once that plant is generative, once it's built some seeds, it's going to try and get those seeds to maturity before it's going to get to its own timeframe based death. Most of the time with production, we're always trying to cut things short. But obviously if you're really doing your best to save this genetic you might be at 10, 11, 12 weeks in flower before you're you're able to get those seeds. It's going to be worth it, right? If you're trying to save this genetic. As far as increasing nitrogen, I probably wouldn't, um, you know, usually during this time we are looking at trying to, you know, make sure that that plant stays as, as generative as possible so that those seeds are ripening up.
Jason [00:24:22]:
I wouldn't, I also wouldn't cut it out as much as you would in a typical ripening circumstance. Probably just keep with my, my typical flower formula in that case and let things ride out revegging. No, I wouldn't do that either. I'd stay in your 1212 and try and make sure that that plant is got a consistent cue to be reproductive.
Kaisha [00:24:47]:
How about you sand anything to add?
Cian [00:24:51]:
You know that one. I will just say that, you know, reveggling has a couple of really specific times where it has helped me and so many more times where whenever I'm facing a situation of do I reveg or do I not revege? I. I've learned the hard way that being able to carry through sometimes nets me those results a little bit easier than having to go back into that reveg. Especially if you know it's already seeded. Like Jason said, that plant is going to try to follow its natural cycle to mortality and if those seeds are already present, they're going to mature on the plant.
Kaisha [00:25:33]:
All right on. Thank you guys. Okay, thank you for that question, Justin. And it started a discussion on the chat here. A restrain versus strand versus varietal. I love that that conversation continues. I've heard cultivar so many different names, but yes, thanks y'all for that. And then we got Seth in YouTube chat.
Kaisha [00:25:56]:
So anybody that's chiming in on YouTube, you might be hearing a respons from the man himself. So I love that. Look at us, we're multimedia. Okay, moving on. We got this question from Mighty Mouse. They're wondering what your take is on infrared, especially as it pertains to security cameras. I haven't been able to find any real science on this issue. Just general bro science.
Kaisha [00:26:17]:
I have also seen it mentioned that infrared can even force plants to go into sleep mode faster. What do you guys think?
Jason [00:26:24]:
Yeah, so hopefully I'm not too pro science on this, but I did quite a bit of research on it. Just happens I was in charge of the security systems there at one of our grow facilities. And yeah, I was always worried about infrared and I ended up looking at it and there are different security cameras at different levels of infrared that they're utilizing. And so, you know, to be specific, I guess I'll pull up one of our fun old charts that you guys have probably seen too many times here on the show. But since I do love light and I love spectrum, let's go photosynthesis spectrum in Google and hopefully this one will pull up some of those, those cool far red reactors like phytochrome. There's a good one.
Kaisha [00:27:35]:
I love it when Jason's nerding out over lighting.
Cian [00:27:40]:
All right, I was gonna say this is definitely one. I don't have a whole lot of scientific, you know, evidence in one direction or the other. And Jason's looking like he has got it pinpointed for you here.
Jason [00:27:53]:
Yeah. So the security cameras that I were using, they were, I think somewhere in the 760, 780 as far as far red. Right. So any of the plants reactions to this are. Is not going to be in our, our primary photosynthesis elements. So those are chlorophylls A A and chlorophyll B. Those are our primary photosynthetic reactors. And when we're looking at things like phytochromes, carotenoids, cryptochromes, those are our secondary metabolites.
Jason [00:28:29]:
So they're building on the ATP chain. That's already happening with our A and our B. And in this case, if we take a look at where 760, 780, the only thing that is reacting is that phytochrome far right bread. Right. And in actually, you know, in most cases, these, you know, these phytochromes for this case, a lot of times they're actually increasing the potency, the terpene profiles, thc, the actual, the anthocyanin production, some of the beneficial characteristics of our plant. So as far as you know, is this an issue during the day? Absolutely not. And when we look at the actual, you know, the total levels of it, the number of photons that are hitting PPFD intensity, whatever, at that selected spectrum or at that selected wavelength, you know, it's very, very small. So the, you know, the amount of change there is not going to be beneficial to a huge degree.
Jason [00:29:24]:
It's also not going to hurt us at all. You know, as far as what that is doing at night, it is, that's the discussion out there. The reason I start out with the caveat of too much bro science because I don't necessarily know what it's doing to those plants at night. If our, our primary metabolites, our primary photosynthetic agents aren't active, is our secondary metabolites doing anything? Not likely. But you know, I can't put it out there without some scientific evidence, without some research and some actual field trials as far as what that's doing. That being said, I did mention I did a lot of research on this early on. And there are some securities cameras out there that are using infrared way out there at 900 nanometer range. And my guess is that when we're way out there, it's not affecting the plants at all.
Cian [00:30:20]:
Yeah, I was just going to say that, you know, I have heard that above 700 nanometers, it can start potentially influencing the plant to move into a sleep mode more quickly, kind of, you know, pushing it faster into its nighttime cycle, basically. But again, total conjecture there. That is not, that's not me having any sort of actual science to back that up. But it is interesting and I think that there are some people out there trying to study the effect of whether or not that is having a measurable effect and increase on the, on yields. And you know, one more reason to use Arroyo Track all those metrics and write down everything in your program so you can actually have a, some real data behind that.
Jason [00:31:13]:
Yeah. And you know, I think the two considerations that made it so I never did much about it was one, you know, the amount that, you know, the total intensity, the amount of exposure from those security cameras, those infra levels are just very, very low. So there's, there's probably, you know, other places in the growth system that I could be spending the energy on. And then probably the worst part about it was I didn't really have a choice whether I was using security cameras in the day or night. So what was our options at that point? Right.
Kaisha [00:31:51]:
Boom. Thank you guys so much for that. Sorry we so much activity Happening. Great answers. Thank you for that overview, Justin. We appreciate your question. All right, we've got some more live questions to get to on YouTube, but real quick. Or sorry, Instagram, but real quick.
Kaisha [00:32:07]:
Seth clarified over on YouTube here. Plants that are propagated through cuttings are known as cultivars. And horticulture plants that are produced via seed are known as variety varieties, sometimes called varietals, came from bacteria and fungi. So I love that. So great.
Jason [00:32:26]:
Thank you, Seth.
Kaisha [00:32:28]:
All right, we're going to keep it moving. We got this question on Instagram from Frozen Acres. They are asking, is there an EC that you were looking for at the bottom of the plant versus the top of the canopy? I always worry that I'm not defoliating early enough to activate bud sites.
Jason [00:32:46]:
EC or ppfd. Yeah, ppfd. There we go. Yeah. So obviously, the. Typically, the more PPFD that we can get down at the bottom of the canopy, we want the best canopy uniformity that's going to give us the best bud uniformity. And it's typically what we see responsible for larfier buds in the bottom. Less.
Jason [00:33:07]:
Less mature, less. Less well ripened. So typically larfier, less color. Uh, usually it's related to the amount of light that is hitting lower in the canopy. And that's one of the reasons we see under canopy lighting becoming kind of a popular trend is because it is usually very effective at increasing how much under or lower canopy light that we have. So therefore better canopy uniformity without necessarily a really heavy stripping or defoliating of the plant. Um, so, yeah, you know, those light levels, like we just mentioned, the question a little bit ago was typically anywhere from 9 to 12, 13, 14, hundred for the really heavy plants. But it is strain dependent.
Jason [00:33:48]:
You know, there's some strains we'll start to see photo bleaching if we get up above 1000 PPFD. You know, certain strains start to just not be quite as effective when we go way up there.
Kaisha [00:34:04]:
Yeah. And Jason. Yeah. You saw their later comment in regards to ppfd. Is there a certain level of light you're trying to get your buds activated by, say, day 16?
Jason [00:34:13]:
Yeah, you know, that's a great question as well. So, you know, kind of my general rule of thumb. Yeah, we put those out there just because you gotta start somewhere like there. You know, there is differences as far as, all right, what lights we're using and on what our strains are preferring, how long we're trying to veg for that type of stuff. But usually, you know, at the End of veg. So when I'm still in my 186 light cycle, I like to try and be up 500 to 600 micromoles for my PfP PFD. And that lets me get into flour, you know, starting at say 7, 800 pretty easily and having a nice happy transfer from 186 to 12 12. In that case, if I'm trying to shoot, shoot for, let's say I'm trying to shoot for that 1200 mark, I'll usually up, say, you know, 100 PPFD every two or three days in order till I get to max intensity.
Cian [00:35:10]:
Yep. I'm just gonna say the same thing every time I'm flipping into flower. I'm gonna be trying to do that, you know, at 7 or 800 and oftentimes increasing that light level every two days until I'm reaching that 1200 threshold. And um, so ideally I'm, you know, by day 16 of flower, I'm already, you know, sitting at that light level.
Jason [00:35:35]:
Yeah. You know, and logistically speaking, if you can do 50 PPFD a day while you're increasing, that's great and wonderful too. Uh, you know, if you have to go in a 200 PPFD increase and probably not quite as good as a 50 or 100, but hey, you know, depending on your ability to control those lights and set a program that you're gonna be able to achieve, you know, I'd way rather be a little bit off and get it done than try to be perfect and screw something up.
Kaisha [00:36:06]:
Beautiful. Thank you guys for that. Thank you, Frozen acres. Good luck. Okay, on we, on we go. We got this question from Long Point Winery. They're asking for your thoughts on why peak water capacity would jump from about 65% to 85% for the first three weeks of flour and veg, max water capacity was around 65%. Now my readings are saying 80 to 85% using Solus One in a two in two gallon fabric pots, 100% cocoa hand packed.
Jason [00:36:40]:
Yeah, so we've seen this actually quite a bit. And I don't have a proven theory, but I think what's going on there because most of the time we see it in cocoa when we do see a significant one. And then I guess it didn't just jump, jump like 65 to 85 one day, it gradually increased. And what's going on there is obviously your solace is reading the total amount of water in a certain volume in that substrate. That volume is called volume of influence. It's about one liter. Um, but what's going on a lot of times that, that I think I've seen is those roots are compacting the cocoa in there, right? So we've got, you know, got amount of pore space, if you will. And as the plant gets larger and larger, it's a, roots take up more of that volume that they're actually holding more water because the roots are compacting the cocoa.
Jason [00:37:32]:
And if, you know, if we thought about how much space this cocoa is taking up as a total, well that amount of space is actually getting less and less as those roots compacted. The sensors are reading the water that's in those roots. So I always like to kind of think about, all right, if I had a, a container of, I don't know, I guess I was trying to make a good simile here and I'm not doing a great job. But if we imagined a container and we had a balloon that we were filling up with water, it's compacting the, you know, whatever else is in that container and then that amount of volume is actually going to be increasing, right. So that substrate can hold more water. If we think about those roots as a vacuole full of water.
Cian [00:38:21]:
I was going to say your description there is wonderful, Jason, because we get this question actually I think quite often these days from people and you know, it's really frequent I think these days more as a result of kind of a lot of us moving into these smaller mediums. And as the root systems develop really aggressively in these, you know, like 1 gallon cocoa pots or your Hugos for Rockwool, you can kind of think about that roof root system as starting to take over the total available volume of space. And you know, what once was that full gallon of pore space is being reduced and compacted over time as that cocoa gets pushed into a smaller volume of space and that sphere of influence hasn't changed. And the sensor, well, it still thinks that the total volume of water that you're applying to it is the same. So it just thinks you have applied the same volume of water to a smaller amount of space now, which is where you end up getting that high percentage from.
Kaisha [00:39:31]:
Great overview. Thank you guys for that. Long Point Winery. Thank you for your question. Let us know if you have any others. And there's a lot of discussion happening in the chat. But you guys, unfortunately I don't know what to answer answers going to which questions, I'm not going to read them out loud. We're just going to keep on moving.
Kaisha [00:39:49]:
We got some live questions here on YouTube. I'm going to keep this one moving to Mitchell's. They wrote, hey, guys, what do you think about CO2 burners versus CO2 tanks? And Mitchell clarified during discussion with one of the Grammys here that they're working with a roughly 1,000 square foot room.
Jason [00:40:06]:
Yeah, I mean, if I'm indoor, I'm pretty much always going to go with the tank setup at some greenhouses where it may not be cost effective to run a tank. Sure, I'll do some burners. The tough thing about burners is you don't necessarily have a guarantee as far as what gases are coming off of there. Hopefully you're getting nice, clean carbon dioxide burn. It's typically why we always want to see a good blue flame coming out of our injector inside of that thing. If it's old and it gets dirty and you may not be getting this cleanup burn, sometimes we'll get things like, you know, carbon monoxide, which is definitely not good, might actually be worse than having, you know, it running at all. So, yeah, that is the same thing.
Cian [00:40:54]:
I've, you know, heard from lots of people is just be careful of that carbon monoxide factor as those things start to age and get old and watch the color of the flames, because you can really easily find yourself in a situation you do not want to be in. Just as an anecdote, one of the people that I've known up in my area that's been growing for a long time, told our group of friends that he woke up on the floor of his grow room just after going in and going in to leave for an hour. Luckily, someone had come in and was like, hey, are you all right? You doing okay? What's going on? And that's that carbon monoxide factor, you know, I mean, you, you burn things indoors, it will off gas some things, and as that starts to age and the system is less efficient at burning, you're going to kind of run the risk of having those carbon monoxide issues and failures, and that's scary. So in any chance that you get to use a system that's run on tanks, I mean, you're going to be safer and better off that way. Although, you know, if you do have to drag them up a hill, I feel for you.
Jason [00:42:05]:
Yeah, either way, you're definitely want to. Gonna have. Gonna want to have some way to monitor how much CO2 is in there. I have commonly found that our CO2 burners would blow out. And I didn't necessarily have a great way to monitor CO2 in the beginning. And it Was hard to detect when I needed to go relight that. And then, you know, a good example for, um, you know, I don't know that it would have gone off for any, you know, CO1 carbon monoxide levels, but there's a chance that those CO2 levels were pretty high as well in there. And making sure we're never getting too high, never getting too low with those CO2 levels.
Jason [00:42:45]:
I guess it's the. Just my answer.
Kaisha [00:42:48]:
Yeah, I mean, human safety first. Y'all be safe out there. Okay, I think I've pieced this together. These are comments related to the infrared question. And Seth clarified. The plant needs enough nutrition to build tissues, especially chloroplasts, inside that tissue that can utilize the incoming light radiation. Bleaching is usually low EC unless the plants are almost touching LEDs. Danny wrote, from what I understand, bleaching is when you have more than 600 PPFD bread in your spectrum, like 660nm or a certain percentage of the spectrum maybe.
Kaisha [00:43:24]:
Can't remember exact details. Bruce Bugbee did a study on it for Athena. I think we're big, big fans of Bruce Bugbee. So anything else y'all want to add to that?
Jason [00:43:34]:
Yeah, you know, Seth. Seth. Seth's kind of nailing it as far as. A lot of times it is related to ec. There's dozens of instances and facilities I've been in where we just. We just were able to help them tweak the EC up a little bit and reduce how much photo bleaching. That means that it can just happen when there's just too much light. So when we are that close to.
Jason [00:43:56]:
If we are getting really, really close to an led, um, there's gonna be too much light. Also been in facilities that didn't have their reflector set up appropriate, and they had a uniformity problem across the canopy. There was some pretty hot spots as far as what PPFD was hitting the canopy. Um, yep.
Kaisha [00:44:17]:
Cool. All right, let's see. We got this question on YouTube from Rich. They wrote, I was wondering, what are your thoughts on a foliage spray like Athena stack? Are they worth the extra dime? Any noticeable differences in your experience? Welcome back, Kaisha. Hope I spelled that right. You really did, Rich. I appreciate you and thank you. I'm glad to be back.
Kaisha [00:44:38]:
All right, what do you guys think? Foliage spray?
Jason [00:44:40]:
Yeah, you know, foliar sprays can be beneficial. You know, really, it kind of comes down to what is available in the plants substrate. As far as uptake. I mean, that's our. Our main factor. Of, of absorption. Obviously these plants can absorb directly through the stomates. So if we need to supplement something there, a fuller freight spray can be beneficial.
Jason [00:45:06]:
Is it worth the time? It kind of comes down to how much does it cost to do it and how much did it improve your overall price or your overall fetching price on that product?
Cian [00:45:18]:
Yeah, I was going to say these types of questions frequently are why we have people that jump on and sign up with us because they are trying to get some definitive answers for themselves and understand did this product I spent money on actually improve my quality or yield and have some real numbers to back it up.
Kaisha [00:45:42]:
Data makes all the difference. All right, Rick, thank you so much for your question. All right, y'all. Well, we got a few minutes left, but I'm going to ask this one. It might be our last one. We'll see if anything else comes in. But we got this from Super Cottonmouth on Instagram. They wrote, I'm having an issue where my de Hues are not keeping up with the set points.
Kaisha [00:46:00]:
Later in flower, we're dropping down the temperature and I'm only able to hold around a 1.01 VPD. My question is this. Is it more important to drop the temperatures to achieve the purpling and preserve the terps, or is it more important to have higher vpd? If quality and yield are the concern, my market likes tight, rock hard nugs with a loud nose.
Jason [00:46:23]:
Yeah, this is one of those tough questions where limitation at the facility can put you in between a rock and a hard place. If we want to think about what your options there are, obviously you've kind of defined them. If you've got a strain that is mold and mildew resistant, then run it at 11 1.0 bpd and getting that, that nice nose, good coloration, high quality is going to be where, where you want. If you, you know, end up losing half of the crop to mold and mildew because you aren't able to drop those humidities when your temperatures are low, then you're just going to have to make some, some compromises as far as, as, well, how, how much quality can we get at at those, those levels that prevent mold and mildew loss? It kind of comes down to what your strains are running, how much output you have. Is it worth just investing in a little bit more equipment and not working against the compromise? I guess those are all the long term questions that you have to answer.
Cian [00:47:24]:
Yeah, I was just going to say it may be time to start considering as unattractive as the solution is sometimes grabbing an extra ground de hue and just putting it in there, you know, be able to supplement that extra capacity that you need when you need it.
Kaisha [00:47:43]:
It's always about trade offs, isn't it? As a consumer, I'm a big fan of quality, but grow has got a lot of tough choices to make. We appreciate you asking that question, Gromy. All right, we have another one that just came in live here on YouTube. Somebody wrote in week 6 with 2 gallon pots, PPFD 1000 CO2 1200 ppm. I have no sensors. What should I flush plants with ecph if I want to adjust high runoff and low ec.
Jason [00:48:16]:
Yeah. So let's see. You know, again, my general recommendations as far as what my ripening looks like at the end of the cycle. I typically like to be about half of my normal, normal pdc, half to three quarter of my normal PDC depending on if I'm supplementing my calcium nitrate or not. So you know, if I am supplementing calcium nitrate, I usually shoot for about three quarters of my nutrient strength by the end. Um, if I am not supplementing, then I'll, I'll be at, you know, around half or a little bit less than that. As far as nutrient strength, uh, let's see. Recommendations for ecph.
Jason [00:48:55]:
I guess it's going to depend on, oh, let's see. And low ec. Just reduce the amount of runoff that you're getting. It should fix your problem if you're low EC and higher runoff.
Cian [00:49:09]:
Yeah, I was just going to say drop your runoff a little bit and you may see some improvements in that. But yeah, I was going to say I generally like to kind of stick between that 0.8 and 1.0 range for those last two weeks, depending on where I've been running my plants and what type of performance I'm seeing out of them and you know, what results I'm looking for out of that last two weeks. And generally I don't usually ever have to drop too far below that. Even running into, you know, the last.
Kaisha [00:49:43]:
Days of my harvest, increasing that distance from flushing. I love it. Amazing. You guys, thank you so much for your insights. We're going to go ahead and wrap up just a few minutes only early. But before we do, I want to remind everybody or is nominated for the MJ Awards Cultivation Software of the Year. We dropped this link in the chat. You can click on that every day.
Kaisha [00:50:03]:
Vote for us from now through November 16th. Show us some love. We really appreciate it and we thank you so much for your support with that. Jason C.N. thank you so much for this episode. Seth, thank you for holding down YouTube questions. You're amazing. And of course producer Chris thank you.
Kaisha [00:50:20]:
Couldn't do this without you. Thank you all so much for a great session and thank thank you for joining us for this week's Arroyo office hours. To learn more about Arroyo, book a demo at Arroya IO and our team will show you the ins and outs of the ultimate cannabis cultivation platform. If you have any crops during your cultivation questions you want us to cover, drop them anytime in the Aurora app. Email us @Salesaroya IO shoot us a DM. We're on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn and we definitely want to hear from you. If you're a fan of the pod, please leave us a review on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcast. We appreciate your feedback and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you never miss an episode.
Kaisha [00:50:56]:
Thanks y'all and see you in episode 120.
Cian [00:50:59]:
Bye.