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Seth Baumgartner and Jason Van Leuven open the mics for your crop steering and cultivation questions.
Kaisha [00:00:00]:
You all right?
Kaisha [00:00:02]:
What's up, gromies? Welcome to aroya AROYA Office Hours, your source for free cannabis cultivation education. I'm your moderator, Keisha, and this is episode 88. If you're on the hangout or checking us out live on YouTube or Instagram, drop your question in the chat, and if it gets picked, we'll cover it during the show. What's up, Seth and Jason? How are you guys doing today?
Kaisha [00:00:21]:
Well, yeah, pretty good. Good.
Kaisha [00:00:23]:
All right, let's get into it. We got this question in from Ilya. They wrote, hey, gang, got the AROYA go set up a couple of weeks ago. Blowing my mind with all the stuff I'm learning. I'm in one gallon quark grow coco with 0.3 gallon per hour drippers. And as I'm trying to get to full saturation in all bags, I'm noticing that some go up to 70% field capacity and others only 60, no matter how many shots I give them. Could it be a sensor placement issue, or is it normal for compressed coco to have such a big variance in max volumetric water content?
Jason [00:00:59]:
It sounds like you've got a pretty decent set up. Love your dripper rate. Glad to see you using a roy go to monitor this. And you're asking the right questions. So I would say don't get too concerned about it. 10% difference across the board. There is not a huge impact usually for that type of courier. We see that field capacity right at 65%.
Jason [00:01:17]:
So you got a few that are hanging above, a few that are hanging below. Really glad you're also paying attention to sensor installation. So when you think about the important things there, obviously the height from the bottom of the bag is going to be important. So use your installation template tool and then making sure that that sensor is flush into the media. Any air that is around those prongs is going to cause some amount of error in the water content reading that you're seeing. And then just because the consistency and nature the natural product of Corrier, you can see that variation as well. So if that prong hits a hard, chunky piece of corrier when it's going in and compacts it, that could cause an air pocket or a water pocket, any of those types of things. So at a plus or -5% water content and field capacity, I probably wouldn't spend too much time.
Jason [00:02:09]:
You're still going to be getting extremely good data that's powerful enough to make good decisions on.
Seth [00:02:17]:
Yeah, I mean, we look at thousands and thousands of blocks worth of coco data, and I would say that's highly expected. Even when we see a big commercial installation put in, let's say 2000 plants in a room. Once we blow it up to that scale, we definitely see inconsistencies in the coco. And an important thing to remember is it's a byproduct from another industry that's just come into horticulture in the last 15 years or so. And in order for someone to shuck that coconut, process that husk, and get you a compressed block for a couple dollars while they're producing these coconuts in India or Sri Lanka, there's an associated tolerance we accept. If we wanted every block to be absolutely uniform, you'd be paying a lot more for your.
Seth [00:03:02]:
You know, back to.
Seth [00:03:03]:
What Jason said, best practice for your sensor installation is critical. So if you're having any inconsistency when you push it in, just as, you know, a hard chunk in there, that happens quite often where we get a chunk of husk that hasn't been ground too well. And if you're feeling some excessive resistance part of the way through the installation of the sensor, it might be a good idea to move it to the other side of the pot. And then also some of these bags after hydration, we kind of see some inconsistent packing. So one of the things depending on manufacture that you can look at is dutch plant, for instance, has always recommended you hydrate the pots and don't get in there with your hands and stir it up. You want to keep as much consistency across that media as possible. So any variation you can introduce is going to affect that. And it's important to remember, too, these plants.
Seth [00:03:52]:
Even though your pots might not be hitting the exact same field capacity, your plants aren't going to be the exact same size either. Even in a perfectly run system, these are biological units. We see variation, it's dynamic. So as your plants grow, even if you started with a perfectly uniform substrate across your plant population, we see those lines start to change. And there's a few things that can influence that. In a coco, for instance, in a one gallon pot, if you're running a bigger plant, we usually expect to see that field capacity go down later in the run, just as your plant's really packing that pot out with roots and filling that pore space that would normally be occupied by water. So there's a few things to keep in mind there. And then back to what I was saying.
Seth [00:04:38]:
As your plants grow, we're looking at average trends here. If we've got, even on a micro scale, let's say 16 plants on one irrigation zone. That's the biggest granularity of control we have. So if all my plants in there are running within 10% of each other, I'm just going to keep in mind that, hey, I need to adjust my set points on what I consider actions for irrigation to reflect that thought that, hey, my sensor is plugged into the most average plant. I should expect that if I did nail the most average plant size, some of my plants are going to be a little bigger, taking up more water, some are going to be a little smaller, taking up less water. And I need to plan everything within a set of ranges, not necessarily focused on a critical point, unless I'm setting that critical point as an average point with which I need to react to.
Jason [00:05:27]:
Yeah, and we've encountered this quite a bit as people start to learn to use time series data in the substrate specifically. And really a lot of what it comes down to is kind of mentally thinking about how is these numbers changing over time. Right, so let's say you've got three sensors in, or five sensors in. Are you seeing the drybacks all at say, 15% or 20%? Are you seeing a big variation in that delta number as well? So kind of start thinking, all right, well, rather than making sure, right now my numbers are exactly matching because, well, not only is there differences among those plants and the substrates, you're just always going to have some amount of variation in what those exact numbers are. And that's not nearly as important as how is that number changing on a photoperiod basis?
Seth [00:06:13]:
Yeah, absolutely. And then if we expand to, if we're talking about dryback numbers, for instance, if you increase your pot size but not your plant size, you're not going to have as much of a dryback. So really, when you first start using this, the best thing you can do is make sure your sensor installation is good and just log that data for a while and look back. You can start crop steering aggressively. A lot of growers were, we've always been crop steering through irrigation, whether we're in a big pot watering once a day or once every other day, or in a small pot irrigating eight times a day all the way through. So use it as a learning tool more than anything, right off the bat, and start to get used to what those numbers actually mean. One of my biggest things I tell people is right away, hey, now that you've got this, for years you've probably been picking up your pots, adjusting your hand feel to the best scale you had available, right? The best tools that you had access to. Now it might be time to go in and start resetting some of those intuitive measurements to match the new scale you're working with so you can easily keep track of, like, hey, here's what this 25% dryback means on a block that's hitting 75%.
Seth [00:07:27]:
Here's what it means on a block that's hitting 65 60. And in the end, understanding that that dryback value has a lot more to do with how vigorously your plant's growing and transpiring than it does an absolute value that we're always looking for.
Kaisha [00:07:42]:
You guys, thank you so much for that. Yeah, it's all about those averages, right? Ilya, we appreciate your question. Good luck with the aurora. Go. Keep us posted on how you're doing out there. Moving on to some live questions, we got here from Instagram. It's me, you know, wrote in, they write, first time crop steering on day six of flower generative steering. Any advice?
Jason [00:08:05]:
Keep generative steering for a while.
Seth [00:08:07]:
Yeah. Start measuring your plants. Keep generative steering until you top out that stretch and can demonstrate it through your measurements. Hey, daily, this has been slowing down to the point where we're less than an inch or less than half an inch a day and start working it that way. Keep running generative and also be patient and look at the media you're working with and understand where you need to start drying those dryback lines. If we're in coco, 20% to 25% is usually the bottom of where we want to dry back to rockwool early on. We don't want to go down below that 40% line.
Jason [00:08:42]:
Yeah, as always. Kind of goes without saying, do your best to document things on a daily basis. Document what you're doing, document what your plants are doing. Document their responses to the strategies that you're applying in there. So always think about croppers registration as part of your grow cycle. Obviously, these plants are typically going to grow almost regardless of what the conditions are within some pretty wide parameter because they're so tolerant. But in order to really get the best out of that crop, we got to start hitting a narrow window of environmental and substrate factors. So make sure you're taking runoff numbers.
Jason [00:09:18]:
Make sure you're attributing plant heights. Node spacing is a great one to see if your generative crop steering is successful in how that plant morphology ends up. And obviously, if you don't have any good systems to do it, get it in a notebook, start taking pictures with your phone. I always encourage start doing that in a digital manner. Get into a g drive so that you can start graphing those numbers and you can save those photos digitally. Maybe it gives you a good option to start sharing them and get better advice from other growers in the community.
Seth [00:09:51]:
Yeah. On that point, a picture is worth 1000 words and if you don't store it in the right place, I couldn't tell you how many pictures in my phone show some weird plants, but I've got nothing more than a date and timestamp on it. If I had been wise enough at the time to organize those into folders or files that classified each grow and then I put in the rest of my notes, those pictures would actually mean something because I could reference what else was going on. Whereas if I'm not attributing that to anything or organizing it right, I might look at that picture and go, oh man, this is going to take me 20 minutes to dig up where that picture even came from. Or when.
Jason [00:10:26]:
Reminds me of hours and hours of renaming pictures that I had taken with the strain name and a date. And not always some note of what I was trying to capture there. But usually the more that you can get in there to attribute it, that metadata can really help make sense of the big puzzle. Yeah.
Seth [00:10:47]:
And even if you don't have a great history of notetaking, if you do have some photos and notes, taking the time to try to organize those and then continuing to do that more intensely can also help you compare to a baseline of how you were growing before. Pictures worth 1000 words. If you've been running the same strain ten times and you've got three pictures from each run in the past, maybe try to figure out what day you took those pictures and start setting some landmark KPIs grains and say, hey, here's what it looked at at day 21 before. Here's what it looks at day 21 now, what should I be expecting? What's good, what's bad? And then go from there.
Kaisha [00:11:28]:
Yeah, we're big fans of crop registration out here. Check out last week's episode. We did a really good overview on it. And actually, speaking of last week's episode, that was episode 88. You are not experiencing deja vu. I accidentally said that this is episode 88, but we're in episode 89. So anyway, moving on. We got this comment actually on YouTube.
Kaisha [00:11:49]:
Sorry, Instagram, someone wrote, I'm having major dropout late in Bud with crop steering. What do you guys think?
Jason [00:11:58]:
Nutrient dropout?
Seth [00:11:59]:
I don't know. Plants wilting.
Kaisha [00:12:01]:
We might have to. Okay, so maybe let's look at a.
Seth [00:12:05]:
Few options of what that might mean, yeah, if we're looking at plants wilting, a pretty common thing we'll see is trying to run too generative late, which means typically for a lot of people, your plant is a lot bigger than your media. Proportionally it should be, and you're hitting a point where you can't actually run generative. So one thing we see is people going to try to ripen pretty hard. And by doing that, they're pushing that dry back line all the way down into a temporary wilting point with coco and then with Rockwell, sometimes even down to that permanent wilting point. So that's one thing to be aware of. There's a definite bottom on how far you want to dry back. And then also if we're not pushing enough runoff, we could be looking at some EC and PH issues depending on the strain and exactly how much you've built up in that pot and what the actual composition of those nutrients is. So that's just one thing.
Seth [00:12:58]:
If they want to clarify what dropout is, I'd love to hear there.
Kaisha [00:13:03]:
Yes. So we may have addressed one dropout issue, but if you have another one, please post it in the chat so we can talk about it. Awesome. All right, we got this question just dropped on Instagram. Pnw Farmer, they write, after I'm done mixing my feed, it's 3.1 ec, ph 6.4. Should I use a lot of ph down or leave it as is 105 gallon tank?
Jason [00:13:30]:
It's going to depend on your media a little bit. If you are in soil, that might be a good place to be at that 64. When we're talking about coco, usually I like to be closer to, say 5859. And for Rockwell, usually I like to be around five, six. So there's a good chance if you're using one of the more commercially popular medias like Rockwell or coco, you're going to benefit significantly by getting that ph down in there and being in a more optimal range. Oh, absolutely.
Seth [00:14:00]:
If we're not mixing any lime, calcium carbonate or azamite, any kind of buffering mineral like that, that gives us some ph stability in the root zone. It's important to remember that although there is a pot and it looks like it's dirt or in the case of rock wool, maybe a chunk of insulation, we don't have any ph control. That plant. Part of the reason we're doing that is we have full control over that nutrient solution going into the plant and we can count on it not reacting in an uncontrolled way inside the media so that ph is very important in 105 gallon tank, you're probably not going to use a lot to bring it down from 6.4. In fact, if you're post salt mixing at 6.4, that's actually a pretty good spot to be. I know, like around where we live, if you're on well water in certain areas, for instance, your ph or your groundwater might come out at 8.28.4. And in that case I might actually be using a lot of ph down to get it from a 7.1 or 7.2 all the way down to that 5859. So 64.
Seth [00:14:59]:
Not bad. And then one of the cool things about that, most of your ph down products on the market, or some of the better ones, are phosphoric acid. So you're actually adding a little bit of plant nutrition. When you do that. The only time it can be an issue is if you are trying to temper water, that's, let's say eight plus. Now you're introducing such a large proportion of phosphoric acid that it might actually be affecting your NPK ratio a little bit. And that's why a lot of farms and places will run an ro system or other water filtration, just to get rid of the things that they don't want to have. Be a variable in how they mix their fertilizer solution.
Jason [00:15:33]:
Yeah. Also keep in mind that different ph downs are going to require different amounts of ph down in order to achieve that. You know, phosphoric acid, like Seth said, that's actually one of the more effective ones. Something like citric acid or sulfuric acid is going to be the less effective where you have to add more. I think one of the most potent ones that I'm familiar with is the nitric acid ph down. So yeah, make sure that you're taking a look at what you're using and don't be afraid to change ph down if you need to.
Seth [00:16:05]:
Yeah. And be aware, out on the market too, there are a range of dilution rates that these ad like, they're all acids, they come in various options, but most manufacturers will have a little bit different dilution rate. If we're looking at, say, phosphoric or nitric acid, we've got four different manufacturers. This is just round numbers I'm talking about. They're all selling the same product. Right. So one of their ways to differentiate themselves is say, hey, we're at a 38%, a 45% concentration. Hey, we're at a 50%, we're the strongest on the market.
Seth [00:16:33]:
So paying attention to that is pretty important and that's going to affect how much you have to put in. Usually old school method like on 105 gallon tank. Go slow, be patient, and as always, take notes. If you have a particular mix that you're putting in, like let's say you're 3.1, pay attention. If you notate how many milliliters of ph down you put in post mix, you can start to replicate that every time. And then it's not a stand there. Put in a few drops, mix and wait and test. Now you can nail it every time provided your incoming water is the same.
Jason [00:17:08]:
Yeah, shoot, man, I remember many a times where it's like, all right, let's get some ph down in here. And then you watch it rise back up as it gets mixed into dilution.
Seth [00:17:18]:
Oh, absolutely. And particularly if you have fairly hard high ph water. I've had a lot of luck in the past when I am dealing with high ph water input. Once I figure out how much ph down I'm going to need post salt mixing, I'll actually put about half of that or maybe even the whole dose in before let that mixture homogenize and then add my salts because I don't get as much fallout. Mixing in the mid five range versus mixing up at like, let's say seven plus.
Jason [00:17:46]:
Yeah, and I mean, that's just going to depend on what type of mixing equipment you have. Obviously, if you're in a dosestron situation, that might not be the easiest solution.
Seth [00:17:55]:
Absolutely. They did mention 105 gallon tank though, so I think they're hand mixing. The best you can do is take notes and like I said, really understand that water quality has a lot to do with how you're going to approach this and realize that amount is going to be maybe not necessarily totally unique, but you can't compare those amounts of ph down to what other people are doing necessarily. You've got to establish how much you need in your specific application with those specific products. And when you switch from something with say a 45% to 50% concentration, those are two easy ones I can think of off the market. You're going to have to get used to adding a little less if you switched up to the 50 or a little more if you switched down to the 45.
Kaisha [00:18:39]:
Amazing, you guys. Thank you so much. Pnw farmer. Good luck. Let us know if you have any other questions. All right, on the subject of nutrients, I got this question in from Cesar. They write, how often should I feed nutrients in coco? I'm currently using Athena proline at 3.0 EC. But I noticed my runoff EC was in the double digits which caused my media ph to spike down, which caused many plants to not fully develop.
Kaisha [00:19:06]:
What do you guys think?
Jason [00:19:08]:
I mean, I'd break this down a little bit. Usually when I see ph level or, excuse me, EC levels a little bit high, it typically is not going to affect your ph level significantly unless you've run into an imbalance in there in which you're going to want to analyze some other things that are going on in there. As far as feed EC at 3.0, Athena, in this case fertigating on a daily basis in coco, that's pretty regular for a fairly stable fertigation regiment. So you might check out some other impacts that are going on in there.
Seth [00:19:42]:
I mean, give the token advice here. Get some root zone monitoring so we can see what's actually going on inside your root zone. All we know is that the EC is high. Right. But an important thing to think about once you build up to those higher EC levels, if you've been maintaining appropriate runoff and replacing your negative ions as they get consumed by the plant or uptaken, we shouldn't see very much ph shift at all because we have a higher concentration of ions. So when we change that balance just a little bit from positive to negative, it's not as impactful as at a lower EC state. If I'm looking at a balance of, a balance on 2000 ppm of nutrients in there and I remove 500 of that, that's much more impactful than if I have 8000 and I remove 500 to the total balance. So going back in time and looking at probably your runoff strategies as you built up, that's a common thing we see is people really wanting to push that high EC, especially under high light, high co2 situations.
Seth [00:20:37]:
The new world of LEd growing, a lot of the focus is on getting that EC number up early on. And if we're not giving it appropriate runoff while we're trying to stack that, then over time we can hit that low ph scenario. And at that point, if that's been a persistent problem that's been building over time, then it is much harder to correct. So that's part of why getting your daily runoff readings, reading ph and then maintaining my general rule is 5% to 10% of my irrigation volume. I want to be runoff every day. If I'm pushing runoff that day and if I'm trying to build my ec, I'm going to go no more than two or three days without runoff. That way I can push some runoff. Check my ph and make sure I'm not pushing that down as I'm trying to stack it up.
Seth [00:21:19]:
I think the fundamental thing there is understanding that when we just put the salts in, we have full control over that ph. What we're dealing with is what the plant's doing with that nutrient solution after we introduce it to the media and then looking at that trend over time in ph.
Kaisha [00:21:38]:
Love it. Cisar. Good luck. Do you need some assistance with tracking and monitoring your plants? AROYA knows something about that, so hit us up. All right, YouTube, we got a question from Dr. J related to feeding. They want to know, should I feed till the end or back off on anything the last two weeks?
Jason [00:21:59]:
Yes, I think we've hit on this one quite a few times. We'll get into it briefly here today. Obviously, there's lots of products from pretty major nutrient suppliers these days that are encouraging a decrease in nitrogen towards the last ten days, two weeks there. So I always like to call that the ripening phase of the grow cycle, just because we've got a lot of different approaches there, but everything's got the same goal, right? Reduce the amount of carbohydrates in there so that we get a little bit cleaner burn doing that by reducing some of the nitrogen and implementing more generative types of strategies. And so a lot of times what I like to talk about is nutrient levels based on whether we are changing our nutrient blend or not. So if I am changing up my nutrient blend, a lot of times I'll stay at the same ph or, excuse me, the same EC or drop to maybe three quarters. If I'm not, then a lot of times I'll drop to half, to three quarters towards the end of the cycle.
Seth [00:23:01]:
Yeah, the big thing to look at there is whether we're actually using a finishing product or we're using a one mix flower solution, that the only way we can control that nitrogen is by actually lowering that feed EC. And then the challenge becomes right back to root zone monitoring, being able to see when that plant has really started to enter senescence and is not feeding very much anymore. That's one way we can dial. Like, hey, we're not needing to replace as much ions with our nutrient feed every day to maintain that ph and EC. And as we see that. So over time, this is something that you shouldn't really hammer hard on one run, but rather analyze over time, looking back, and really start to nail when we can either drop that feed EC or ideally on certain more fickle strains. Hey, we need to maybe look at a product that allows us to lower that nitrate ratio a little bit earlier, because we're seeing a plant that has some sensitivity to it. So it really depends on what line you're running, how complicated you're making your mix, and then really remember that you've spent.
Seth [00:24:01]:
At this point, if we're 50 days into the growth cycle, we've spent 50 days acclimatizing this plant to a certain EC level within the root zone. And we always have to maintain ph, even in ripening. We don't want to see that tank out or go too high. So we're kind of just balancing, keeping the plant in a comfortable zone where we're not going to totally lock it out because we're tanking the ph down below five and we're not basically changing the EC, the salinity in the root zone too radically, because, again, we spent two months building this plant up to tolerate that EC zone. Rapid shifts in that the plant can't really react. You know, when you go back to the old days of the two week flush, no nutrients. The problem is we've built up a bunch of EC. The plant's roots have adapted to it.
Seth [00:24:49]:
Now we wash away all that EC, our osmotic differentials reversed. Now there's less ions outside of the root than inside, and it's really hard to get water to go up into the plant. So we really just want to keep the plant comfortable and not torture it and kill it too much. By putting it out of health ranges, we're looking at stressing through irrigation, not the roots, essentially.
Jason [00:25:13]:
Yeah. And just a quick clarification on those numbers. I was using it, say 50% or three quarter. I'm talking about as a percentage of your typical feed strength. Right. So if I was feeding it four for most of the flower cycle, and then I wanted to be at 75% strength, that would be a 3.0 uc.
Kaisha [00:25:35]:
Fantastic, you guys. Thank you for that. All right, Ian just dropped this question on YouTube again. I think we're still on the nutrient topic, but they wrote, how do you guys feel about using power si bloom and flower? We're using Athena proline with one gallon coco. Thanks. Any experience with.
Jason [00:25:54]:
I mean, so power size, a very reputable silica additive on the market. There has been some studies that show it does increase the durability of cell walls in application. A lot of times, what we see is a little bit better pest resistance.
Seth [00:26:13]:
Yeah, I think what they're talking about a little bit is power Si has expanded into selling base nutrient salts as far as that goes, I personally have not run them. I've used power si silicate in the past. That was a great product. Most likely, depending on your water quality, you're going to see quite similar results between the two, so long as you operate both of them within ranges that they work and where that comes in with different manufacturers. And that's one thing to ask if you are talking to a representative from these manufacturers. Questions like, what ph do I need to be mixing this fertilizer at? Is it sensitive to high ph, producing a lot of fallout? So I'm going to have trouble with my. I'll keep mixing up a certain amount of nutrient and not getting the EC that I'm after. So that might mean I need to mix that one a little lower ph and just basically getting familiar with how to operate it.
Seth [00:27:05]:
We're pretty fertilizer agnostic. Between those two brands. I doubt you're going to get one that is a bad fertilizer. So for you, it comes down to what brand do you like, what's easier to use in your system, and what's the most cost effective?
Jason [00:27:20]:
Yeah, kind of. As a general rule of thumb, if you are in a commercial facility, it's probably good to do a couple of test runs before you switch over your whole production line.
Seth [00:27:30]:
Yeah, I mean, one thing if you're operating on a commercial level, that can be hugely beneficial is having a test bench in a room that you have the ability to run a different nutrient line on, whether that's a 55 gallon drum in the hall with an airstone that you're hand mixing to basically feed one bench or a little bit more advanced system. Either way, it's best to do these trials side by side with the same strains in the same room and figure out what the results mean. Because if we protracted over, hey, here's my averages on. I'll just pick it on Athena and power si here. But here's what we get running Athena, and then we just switch a whole room over to power si. That doesn't account for any of the variables that can happen anywhere along the way with the grow. So if I had one round that everything went off perfectly, I was running Athena, and then, hey, we got a different veg manager in, and we had two rounds of veg plants that were not healthy. Well, that's not really a fair evaluation of the fertilizer there.
Seth [00:28:25]:
So anytime you're evaluating that, eliminate as many variables as possible and make it as much of a side by side comparison as you possibly can.
Jason [00:28:35]:
And one of the big challenges that I find when testing out different nutrient manufacturers is that not always am I going to see the exact same results at the same EC from new treatment manufacturer to new treatment manufacturer? Yeah, that's kind of a baseline of where to start, but it's not necessarily going to mean that, hey, when I'm at three five in Athena, I'm optimizing my plants, that when I'm at three five with power si, my plants are going to be optimized as well. So that's kind of a curveball that a few test runs might give you the chance to learn more about.
Seth [00:29:06]:
Yeah, it's important to remember, too, when we're talking about fertilizer, there's only so many plant essential elements out there, aka nutrients, and there's only so many sources of those particular nutrients in terms of the chemistry and how they come in salt form. So when we're looking across manufacturers, we're looking at production quality, how consistent, smooth and pure is that particular product, and then what are their various nutrient concentrations within that. So each company is going to have a little bit different formula in terms of how much NPK, and then all their micro ratios they're giving. So that's part of what ties into why different ones perform differently at different EC levels.
Jason [00:29:47]:
And then end user, obviously, accessibility and costs are going to come into play as well. So it's one of those things that, all right, maybe if I'm using half as an expensive nutrient, but I'm still getting three quarters of the results. It kind of depends on what market you're in. If I'm doing bulk and we're doing distillates and extracts, then maybe that's actually a more profitable route to go. So when you're thinking about those, you kind of got to get holistic and compare those results with what your expectations are for that business.
Seth [00:30:19]:
Yeah, I mean, it's a good thing to look at is there's a handful of companies in the past that had very complicated nutrient lines. Right. We're talking about six plus different products that we need to mix in our tank to work. Did those and do they continue to produce great results? Absolutely. But if I have an eight or ten part nutrient mix that I need to figure out how to inject in a commercial skid, that's not necessarily practical, and I might actually spend more money making that system work, or lose more money when it plugs up or doesn't work. Right. And I start killing plants. So there's definite operational risks associated with any different thing you do anytime you're going to change something.
Seth [00:31:00]:
And it's important to evaluate those before you make that jump. And some of them are easier. If I'm going from hand mixing eight different parts every morning to having three dose of trons and a ph meter, that just takes care of my batch tank for me. Hey, I might have saved a lot of money and maybe I get the same yield, but a little bit lower turp concentration, let's say. Or turp quantity. Okay, well, did that make a price premium on my actual end product? And sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes it's no. So that's the whole thing is basically your grow has to align with your business plan or your business plan has to align with the style you want to grow in. But if they don't, it's going to be very difficult to be successful in the long run.
Kaisha [00:31:42]:
That's right, Joe, trying to make sure we get that return on investment. Perfect. Thank you guys for that. All right, I've gotten a couple of questions in. People are describing their set up and their situation and want to get you guys insight on it, so let me get to those. This first one came from Kenny. He just dropped this on YouTube. He writes, I have a room that stretched ten inches in between weeks.
Kaisha [00:32:02]:
Four and five plants usually stop around 40 to 45 inches. But these are almost 60 inches. What would cause this? I haven't changed plant count or veg time. Sounds like a nice problem to have.
Jason [00:32:17]:
Assuming that you are working with the same cultivar within a cultivar here. Obviously maybe any changes in fertigation strategies would be probably one of the first ones that I see. There is a chance was working with a client recently that where their HPS bulbs were just starting to lose intensity and that resulted in a different morphological expression from the plant than they had in the past. First, truly, I would look at perdigation strategies. Did we have any changes in there that would encourage that plant to continue stretching longer in the cycle? Things like light intensity. When we talk about lower light intensities, kind of counterintuitive. But lower light intensities usually make the plant stretch more. That's because they're doing some apical dominance.
Jason [00:33:05]:
They're looking to try and capture as much light as possible. And how do they do that? You get closer to the lights.
Seth [00:33:10]:
Yep, anytime your plants are short on light, they're going to stretch more. One thing to look at, just as Jason said, fertigation strategies. If you have been pulsing those plants harder than you previously have or switching strategies earlier, that's another common thing we see switching from generative over into vegetative too early, because what we're trying to do is work with the plant's natural cycle. Every strain we work with has a certain amount of time that it's called determinism in plants. Basically, once we go to 1212, that plant is on a timed life cycle, right? There's a certain amount of days it wants until it dies. Anything in there is going to be determined by energy inputs on how long that actually takes. But if we're maxing out all of our energy inputs, that lifespan should be about the same. Every time we grow that strain, within that strain, we've got a stretch period, a period where it's setting flowers and a period where it's bulking up the flowers, and then we have our ripening period.
Seth [00:34:04]:
So we want to adjust our fertigation strategies to reflect those different growth phases of the plant. So pulsing too hard in certain strains too, especially if you've been growing them for years with a pretty conservative strategy, and now you're rolling over into trying to crop, steer them harder and produce more yield. There's certainly, I don't want to say a huge, but a reasonably large subset of strains that do not respond to hard bulking signals or some of the more high nitrate fertilizers in the way that we want. Those signals tend to push them to continue to stretch. And that's kind of a sign that sometimes, hey, we need to evaluate. Was our irrigation strategy on point for this run? And then holistically, were our lights bright enough? Did we have enough co2? Did we have enough inputs on this run compared to the others to match the performance? But overwhelmingly, we have seen a lot of, especially as HPS bulbs become more expensive, harder to find recently, a big problem with people know in a commercial facility or even a non commercial facility, your bulbs don't all pop at. So a few years into operation, a lot of times you've kind of got this checkerboard pattern or rough checkerboard of some lights that are brand new, some that are three months old, some that are a year and a half old. A lot of people aren't changing them until they pop, which sounds good financially, until you factor in that, hey, year in, we're seeing a lot of these HPS bulbs lose 30% plus of the PPFD they're putting out at canopy level.
Jason [00:35:37]:
Yeah, I was just kind of thinking of trying to get a strategy on there. Maybe you just write the date down on the ballast when you change the bulb. That might be a simple thing. Obviously, it's what I do with my oil changes. Just trying to keep track of things that you're not thinking of. Just get it right down when you do it.
Seth [00:35:55]:
Yeah. Another great strategy is if you don't already have a PPFD meter of some sort, number one, it's great to get a fairly accurate one. The biggest thing you're looking for is precision. But map out your room a little bit, go around there every run at like three different points, and say, hey, at the canopy, am I getting this ppfD that I know I need? And if I'm not reaching that number, why is it sometimes we'll see plants even like, hey, why did my Mac one not produce as much? It's not a stretchy plant, but it's like, oh, well, it's shorter than normal this time. And when we double light distance, it doesn't half your light energy. You have about a quarter as much. So the farther inches make a difference, I guess, is what I'm getting at when it comes to the amount of light energy hitting your plant. So right back to crop registration.
Seth [00:36:44]:
Holistic approach. Right? Document everything.
Kaisha [00:36:48]:
Good luck out there, Kenny, with your massive plants. Yeah, it's tough out there. All right. Lucky Farms wrote in. They wrote, sometimes when I water, I notice I struggle to reach my max water content of 60% with drip irrigation. Many times I'll get to 50% to 54%, but I know it can go higher because when I hand water with the same amount of water, it seems to saturate the media up to 60% to 65%, based on the sensor readings. I know challenge channeling could be a possibility, but the pot seemed adequately saturated when using drip irrigation, and I never dry back more than 15% to 30%, depending on which phase of flower. Any thoughts?
Jason [00:37:33]:
Basically, what I'm hearing is, the question is, all right, when I hand water, I can get a slightly higher field capacity than when we're running on drip. The question that I would come to is, all right, how much runoff are we getting and how fast do we get that runoff? Right. So you might actually be above field capacity. If you're hand watering and you're going to see some readings up there at, say, 65%, there's a chance that our substrate is super saturated for a short period of time, and some of those readings are coming through. So that would be my intuition as far as why you could see that.
Seth [00:38:04]:
Yeah. When we're talking drip on any different kind of media, it's important to look at is it coco? Is it Rockwell, is it rock wool that we've over dried at any particular point? Because 30% might be kind of pushing it for most of the run on your Rockwell dryback. If it is coco, I think one of the first indicators I'd look for is am I getting any runoff before I actually hit field capacity in my p one watering cycle. So if I've got five p ones, but I start to notice a little bit of runoff after my third event and a little 3rd, fourth and fifth, I've got runoff. But I'm still seeing my water content going up. That means I'm putting it on too fast and a certain portion of each irrigation is not reaching the plant. We want to shorten those irrigation durations or spread them out a little more in time until we can see that, hey, we're hitting field capacity without achieving any runoff. And then another distinction is whether or not you're using a time series data in terms of automated collection or are you using something like the solas and stabbing that pot right after you water.
Seth [00:39:06]:
Because if we're leaving a sensor plugged in over time, what we typically see with people, and I think some of the Rockwell examples I wish I had a graph to show you right now are great. Like, hey, I just went in and hand watered, tried to get these back from 25% up to my 60 70%. It'll go up and then 20 minutes later it's right back down. And that on the graph is what that super saturation just jason was talking about. I'll never do that again. You can slap me. I was thinking of somebody who had this issue, but that's what it looks like sometimes that media does take time for that water to travel down through the media and actually run off. And then another thing to consider, just like we talked about at the beginning of the episode, when are we looking at this? If we're in coco and you're hitting week six, seven, that's actually expected.
Seth [00:39:55]:
If you're growing a healthy plant, that's really overtaking that whole media. So it is what it is. Sometimes you're locked into a range you don't expect, but at that point you have to kind of play with that range and work within it.
Kaisha [00:40:13]:
Appreciate you guys. Thank you for that. Okay, I'm going to move on. We've gotten two questions regarding pot size because as we know, pot size matters. So I'm going to start with this one from Mr. Mary Jane. They wrote in, I'm currently in a three gallon floraflex matrix system. Pot.
Kaisha [00:40:29]:
I'm only getting a ten to 13% dryback. Would you recommend downsizing to either a one or two gallon pots? He's actually looking for a size recommendation.
Jason [00:40:38]:
I'd probably step down to a two gallon as your first step, and that'll give you a little bit more flexibility in your crop stirring strategies.
Seth [00:40:48]:
Yeah, start down in a two gallon for sure. And then also maybe look at like, are you dropping a clone straight into that three gallon pot? If so, you're probably not getting the best root development throughout veg just because that's a lot of effort for that clone to really overtake that pot. So look at a few strategies. And for reference, if you're in a three gallon pot, I mean, what would you say, Jason? Nine foot tall plant in a general crop? 910 foot tall plant in a general crop steering scenario. For reference, the first time I switched down to like a one gallon pot or a three liter biochar, we were flipping plants at 36 inches, roughly the same as we were in a three and a half gallon pot. But now, instead of getting 5ft tall, those plants were pushing eight and a half feet tall because we had to water them so aggressively just to keep up with their needs. So start with your two gallon, and if you're still not getting the control you want, you can go back to a one gallon.
Jason [00:41:43]:
Yeah, I'm really glad you brought up the transplanting thing there because I've seen it both ways out there. We can go right into a coco bag from our clones, and that's obviously going to save us a little bit of time, a little bit of money, and then obviously just less labor overall. And so it really comes down to how well can you manage that irrigation strategy during your rutting in period? Obviously, in a three gallon, it's going to be extremely difficult to go from a clone into a three gallon just because you're going to have so much reservoir water in there that we're not going to get a lot of dry back, a lot of activity that we're pushing for when we want those roots to seek out the water in the media. So when you are going to two gallon, if you're still transplanting into a veg cube, hopefully it is a coco core cube. Just because I like to stick with similar types of medias, no big deal. If you are at a four inch Rockwell, those also transplant pretty well, just a little bit different into a two gallon or three gallon coco bag. And so obviously I would keep doing that. If you're in a one gallon, you want to start getting wild, save some time, save some money.
Jason [00:42:56]:
There's a chance that you'll get good results in a one gallon getting the coco or the clone right into the coco one gallon. Yeah.
Seth [00:43:04]:
If I was in your position in the three gallon, I would go with an intermediate. I mean, I know Jason used to grow in three, three and a half gallon medias as well. And we're always running a four inch intermediate media before we transplanted into the bigger three gallon. If I were you, I would look at either Rockwell or just like Jason said, a coco intermediate substrate. That way you're putting in a plant that has a lot more root mass and a lot more transpirational ability to really aggressively root in. And one of the main ways we push that rooting in practice is by successive irrigation while in the three gallon, if you over irrigate that little clone, you're going to drown it. Right. We need to get some oxygen down into that root zone.
Seth [00:43:43]:
So I would play around with options. If you are in a space where you're trying to grow the biggest plants possible, which I'm jealous, that would be pretty fun. I think I would probably try to grow them fairly big in veg, transplant them, and by big 2ft, two and a half, transplant them and then give them a week and flip them.
Jason [00:44:02]:
Yeah. I was actually kind of thinking about something. I don't think we've hit too much in the show yet. And that is some of the application differences between plastic bags and mesh bags in a coco. And it's kind of amazing how much difference that can cause in water loss. And really what's going on there is mostly evaporation from the side of those bags with that mesh bag. And so when we think about, all right, maybe I need to be between a one gallon and a two gallon, but I don't get quite enough water loss in my two gallon to get as many irrigations in there as I want. And you might actually just move into a two gallon with the mesh sided before you go all the way down to the one gallon and vice versa.
Jason [00:44:44]:
Maybe I'm in a one gallon, but I have other reasons that I don't want to move up in media size and you're in a mesh sided. I got to store a little bit more water in there. Let's go with the plastic side of bags. Yeah.
Seth [00:44:55]:
And it's important to remember, too, there's a pretty good rooting indifference between mesh and plastic. When I've got a mesh bag and I've got all that air pruning going on at the side of the pot that's affecting how those roots are actually structured. Doing that, the roots branch off a lot more. We don't have nearly as long of a space. And because those roots have a shorter distance from the root to the stem or the root tips actually where the water uptake happens, because water uptake is happening just on the very tips of the roots, I'm building a much more efficient root system that has way more points to uptake that water from. So that's another thing to consider. A lot of times I can get a bigger plant out of a one gallon mesh than I can plastic bag, but I'm giving up that steering ability.
Kaisha [00:45:38]:
That's a great point. Thank you guys for that overview. Okay, here's the second pot size question from chronic Sosa. Over on YouTube they write is twelve plants in one gallon or nine one gallon pots best for a four x four micro drip setup with a 650 watt hlg scorpion diablo with far red.
Seth [00:46:01]:
You guys think depends on how tall you're flipping them and what strain it is. Those are two of the densities that we find some of the best performance in. A lot of it just comes down to how bushy does that plant get inside of that particular cultivar, get in that setting? Some are definitely want to grow upright more, so they can be crowded a little more. Some want to spread out. And then what's your overall goal? I know if it were me in a one light setup with a single four x four, if that's what you're running, I would probably be running more around that nine plants a light just because I'm not going to have to do as much pruning work and I'm going to get better light penetration and a higher ratio of a to b bud. Obviously we talk a lot about commercial production here and reducing pruning plant touches. That's a big part of it. But another thing we found is for a lot of strains, backing off from 16 down to twelve down to nine, and then adjusting your veg to produce similar biomass results in a much higher product quality and much more consistent bud size farther down in the canopy and lower inputs.
Jason [00:47:12]:
Anytime that I'm growing less plants, I've got a little bit less labor into cloning, a little bit less labor into media.
Seth [00:47:21]:
Yeah, and then that's not even counting. Especially if we're talking about a smaller, more micro grow staying within your plant count, your allowed plant count in whatever state that you're in. I know different states. Some you might be able to run twelve some, we might be stuck at six. That's a little bit different of a strategy.
Kaisha [00:47:42]:
Fantastic, you guys. Thank you for that. And thank you for those pot size related questions. That's an important topic. All right, we got this question about the solus grow. Plum wrote in, hello. Can you keep the solas in the soil in the same spot for a couple of days or will it hurt the device?
Jason [00:47:59]:
Should be good to know. Any of our commercial systems, they're in there for two months at a time, most hopefully without the sensor really ever moving. Cellless is the same exact sensor head prongs on there as our commercial systems. In agriculture application, those get left in fields for years at a time.
Seth [00:48:21]:
The one caveat, though, don't let your. God, I love the word dongle, bluetooth dongle. Don't leave that in the bottom of your tray and let it get flooded. One of the best practices is if you want to leave it in there. And what we actually have seen plenty of people do over the years is leave one or some guys will go buy three or four solaces and they'll install it in such a way that the little Bluetooth unit is either off the side of the bench somewhere where it's not going to get wet, or they'll just unplug it and take it out and then just go plug it back in, take their reading and then leave the room again. But actually leaving it in situ like that, if you can, is preferable because that plant is growing around those prongs in the soil. And if you ever were in a situation where you had data loggers in place that are never moving and you're trying to compare your quick spot measurements with your data logged measurements, you'll notice a little bit of difference between those two even if you were stabbing the same pot.
Kaisha [00:49:21]:
Fantastic. Thank you, guys. Good luck at their growth, plum. All right, Chuck dropped a couple questions. Chuck, I'm going to take one at a time. We got a lot of questions in, so I'm going to try to do my best to get as many from everybody as I can. So we're just going to start with this first one here. They want to know for ph, are you supposed to up your input feed from 5.8 to six? 6.3 during flour in coco?
Jason [00:49:47]:
Sometimes I'll let it drift up a little bit towards the very end of the cycle. That being said, usually it's not a huge goal when it comes down to it. I mean, we're talking about maybe six total, six at the high end, at the very end of the cycle. So you're talking. All right, we'll start the cycle at five, eight, and at the end, we'll be at six. Really, the only thing that's going on there is just trying to change a little bit of the nutrient solubility to encourage ripening.
Seth [00:50:18]:
Yeah, I've never seen a huge reason to do that. Part of what's affecting that ph change in the root zone is plants feeding or not feeding. And I can regulate that through strategic application of nutrient solution on there. I personally like to set whatever my feed ph input is, whether that's a 565859 or 6.0, and keep it right there, because then that's not a variable that I'm trying to figure out how it's impacting my root zone. Especially, like I said, when we're looking at that ionic charge balance, it's tougher to. And we only have so many times that we can influence that. Right. We're putting these small irrigations on throughout the day.
Seth [00:50:57]:
We're not taking that pot, dunking it in the reservoir till it stops bubbling, and just resetting it. So eliminating variables, I think, is best. Sometimes we'll drift that ph up a little bit to try to correct some low ph in the root zone, but not always recommended.
Jason [00:51:15]:
Yeah, I think one of the themes that goes with a lot of what Seth and I recommend on the show, and I know it comes know a lot of the people that I've learned these things from that are masters in the industry as well and that. Right. What parts of this cycle can we simplify as best as possible? And which parts do we need some detail into to really optimize the plants? And when we talk about. All right, we can actually do a feed Ec pretty much input feed Ec the same over the entire cycle. And we can also do ph the same over the entire cycle. What we can't do is obviously the same irrigation schedules and durations over the entire cycle if we're trying to optimize these plants.
Kaisha [00:51:58]:
Fantastic, you guys. Thank you, Chuck, for that question. I'm going to do my best to get back to your second one, but let me get to some more visitor questions first. We got this question here. Can you keep led grow lights, height the same throughout the entire grow and just change power to achieve the correct ppFD?
Jason [00:52:19]:
Depends.
Jason [00:52:20]:
Yeah. If your light is powerful enough. Absolutely. Yes.
Seth [00:52:24]:
I mean, the best thing you can do is get a meter, start playing with different levels that you're taking that reading and different light strengths. See where you're actually getting to the percentage on what PPFD, a particular led puts out at 60 versus 70 versus 80 versus 90 is not an industry standard constant. So really dialing that in for the light that you have is best. In my experience, I haven't been able to do that if I want to maintain optimum PPFD, but that's just my two cent with a 630 watt panel led.
Jason [00:53:01]:
Yeah, kind of. Just to go further on what Seth's talked about here, with those percentages not being the standard in the industry, they're also not actually a percentage of PPFD that's coming out of the light. So most of the time that 60%, 70% is actually talking about an input power that the power supply is supplying to those diodes. Diodes have a little bit different efficiency at different power levels as well. And so it's also important to put your lights at those levels and document what your PPFD looks like. So to put some numbers on it, let's say we've got an led that's typically 1000 ppfd at four foot from the light or five foot from the light. The distance doesn't matter. Let's keep that constant here.
Jason [00:53:44]:
But if I say, all right, let's turn that light down to 50%, that doesn't mean that it's at 500 ppfd. And that's going to be different from manufacturer to manufacturer. So make sure you go through and get that documentation down. And then really from there, it's just kind of simple. It's like, all right, well, we know what power we need to be at to hit that BPFD.
Seth [00:54:03]:
Yeah, absolutely. And then the next thing to balance is how hard is it to move your lights? If we're looking at being as electrically efficient as possible, you're going to keep those lights close so you don't have that light loss over distance if power is not a factor, or it's not going to be as much of an impactful factor at the scale you're at, and labor is going to cost more to move those lights up and down. Well, there you've got your answer. That being said, a lot of the newer facilities out there that are coming online, especially as over time five years ago, we all wish we could get ten or 20 strains and grow those forever, right, and really nail them down and have ones that work in the facility now the game's changed. You need to be building out your grow to grow whatever the market is demanding at that point in time. And as people approach this, we're looking at some OD genetics out there, some that get really tall, some that don't get tall at all. So some of your investments in the future might be looking at systems like not light movers, but light hanging systems that I can go in and adjust that easily and quickly. Engineering for profitability in the future is something that should be in everyone's mind whenever we're looking at equipment inside of these facilities.
Jason [00:55:21]:
Yeah. Wind systems for lighting, probably with HPS stuff. I would say it's a really advantageous option with a little bit better efficiency out of leds, I'd say, yeah, you're exactly right. For certain strain options, for certain building designs, it is a good way to go, but not necessarily as important as it would have been with in HPS situations.
Seth [00:55:47]:
Absolutely. When we look at some of the same light panels being used in double stack scenarios versus single stack or single plane growing, if I've only got four or 5ft overhead from the top of my pot, that I'm hitting the light right there, probably not as much of a concern as if I have anywhere from seven to 10ft above the bench in which that light can occupy.
Kaisha [00:56:16]:
Wonderful. Thank you guys for that. All right, we got a couple of minutes left. I'm going to ask this one question because I have an announcement at the end. This one came in from Julius. They wrote, if I'm feeding at 3.0 EC and coco from start to finish, how much runoff milliliters should I be aiming for to avoid nutrient lockout? What would you guys recommend?
Jason [00:56:37]:
Yeah, so kind of just my general rule of thumb is monitor my ph for making sure I'm not getting any nutrient lockout type of issues. And so that's not necessarily directly related to how much runoff that I want. So I always want to make sure that I'm avoiding nutrient lockout by making sure my ph out of runoff is good. And that being said, what I'm doing modulating runoff for is actually for keeping track of what EC levels I'm at. So typically during know, you can take like Seth's strategy where you're not getting any runoff for a couple of days, but make sure you are getting it at know every third day. I personally, I like to get at least a little bit enough runoff every day to get a ph measurement. So I am keeping that in check. And that being said, I've got some clients that are really well dialed in and they don't actually have any runoff.
Jason [00:57:34]:
They're modulating their EC levels very well during that stacking period. And they've just got a keen enough ability. Oddly enough, some of those clients are nutrient manufacturers as well, but not for any specific names, but they're very familiar with how to avoid that type of lockout and so they don't have to monitor it. But for, I would say 99% of the growers out there making sure that that runoff ph is in check and then using runoff to modulate your EC. So at a 3.0 EC, you're probably towards the lowest feeds that we see as commercially successful. Granted, all other variables are optimized in the facility. So good environment, co2, plenty of light. And so sometimes that makes it more difficult to stack and you might not have the option to run enough runoff as you'd like to in that situation.
Jason [00:58:35]:
And so you might end up seeing, hey, maybe if I go to a three three or a three four in my grow cycle, I can get a little bit of runoff there, ensure that I'm not hitting lockout and still have the stacking ability during the generative phases there at the beginning and then obviously during vegetative, it kind of comes down to what do you see in the dynamics of those ecs? If we need to make sure that our ecs are pulled down lower, closer to our feed EC, then a little bit more runoff is going to do that for you. If you see that your acs are dropping below your feed EC in bulking phases, then it's an absolute easy indicator that you're going to need to up your feed levels. Those feed EC levels need to supply more nutrients to the plant.
Seth [00:59:18]:
I think you touched on something really important there, Jason, and that's for years and years and years, we always talk about lockout. We all know that means the plant's not feeding. We've prevented it from doing that somehow. Right? Most of the time in hydroponic situations when we see nutrient lockout, it is generally that ph drifting down. Typically in practice, usually 5% to 10% of your irrigation volume as runoff is about what you want to shoot for as a rule of thumb, especially if you're not having any monitoring equipment. One thing I really love to do, and even if it's just a solace, is try to get a root zone EC measurement off of the same plant that I'm taking that runoff sample off of. Because if I take a runoff sample off one plant and test one across the table and that one just happens to have twice the amount of EC in it, the conclusions I draw from that aren't going to be very helpful. Right.
Seth [01:00:09]:
So basically looking at like hey, I'm seeing my EC going up and my ph is fine. That's actually a trend we oftentimes see. If we're looking at time series data, one of the bigger trends we see is actually underfeeding. So feeding at a 3.0 but pushing either too much runoff or not feeding enough and not being able to stack above what the plant actually needs. So basically we're putting in that 3.0 every day. But even without runoff, that plant's pulling that EC down to let's say a 2.6 or a 2.5. And at that point, like we've talked, that low EC state, if I'm pulling 500 ppm out of 2000 or 500 out of 1500, that's going to be very impactful to my ph balance right there. So the old drain to waste is basically that's what we're all using these days.
Seth [01:00:57]:
You're replacing what the plant put in, you're pushing out the things that it doesn't like. And if you really want to dial it, the only way to do it is going to be to get some pretty heavy sensor monitoring. So you can really start to dial that in super precisely. And having the rest of the system, if I've got a 2000 square foot room with eight tables and one irrigation valve, I'm not going to be able to have the granularity to really dial that in. I'm going to have to go with a little more runoff just to make sure that all the plants are inside of an acceptable range. So that's probably one of the first places to start is how much control do you have if it turns out a lot, if you have a valve for every twelve plants in your basement grow, sure, we can really start to dial that in. If we're running 100 or 200 plus plants on one valve, we've got to start talking about, okay, what's the best practice to make sure that all these plants are receiving somewhere between two and 10% runoff when we want it and that all of them are being held inside of an acceptable EC and pH range?
Kaisha [01:02:01]:
Wow. I mean, I'm sorry, Jason, go ahead, you're good.
Jason [01:02:04]:
I was just going to say sample sizes. Obviously if you have taken a statistics class you're familiar with, the in number is and then that's just basically the number that says hey, I can attribute this population within a standard to deviation if I have enough samples. Right. And in most cases getting that statistically significant number of samples is not a financially viable option. And so we have to kind of think, let's make some assumptions in here about the consistencies in our grow room and say, all right, well, if I get five samples per 100 plants, that's enough for me to feel confident based on what I'm seeing across this system.
Seth [01:02:43]:
Yeah, I think that's a good point to talk about, too, in relation to automatic irrigation. That's part of why it's really tough to actually have that work on a large plant population level without enough sensor density. So if I've got a room and one valve and one sensor, that's a pretty small sample size, it's really hard to draw good conclusions and make good choices. So I need a statistically significant representative of that population in order to decide what my actual ranges are. And that's part of why we've seen a pretty slow progression when it comes to AI irrigation, for instance, because, hey, we can do a lot of computer modeling. We can do a lot of if and then programming. If you don't have enough sensors and valves for the program to actually work with, you're not going to have success on that front. So that's part of why we look at, well, that's part of why we're not as directly in controls.
Seth [01:03:40]:
Our focus is on getting that great data quality and being able to make these good choices, which is, hey, that's data, not direct control. Even though we do control the open sprinkler, it's something to think about long term for your facility. Some of that doesn't just go back to soil sensors or substrate sensors or environmental sensors. Hey, if you're really invested in this, you might want to invest in some nice handheld environmental sensors, too, to just be able to go redundantly check different things you have going on in your system. Anytime we're relying on technology, that technology can break. So we need to build our operations in a way that hopefully has some redundancy. That way we're, number one, covering our back if something does break. Number two, always say you don't have good crop insurance in this game.
Seth [01:04:31]:
So when something does break and you suffer some crop loss for it, it's a lot more penalizing than it can be in other businesses.
Jason [01:04:39]:
Yeah, AROYA's got a YouTube video out there. I think it's called sensor density or growth behavior. It kind of just breaks some of this down with visuals on why it's important to take these considerations when growing at scale.
Kaisha [01:04:54]:
Way to end this episode on a high note, you guys. I think this is our longest episode ever, too. Look at us going a few minutes over. Thank you guys so much for all of this great information. Before we go, though, I wanted to let everybody know AROYA Office Hours live is heading to Sacramento, California. We're collaborating with the connect to bring crop steering and cultivation conversation live and direct to Sacktown. Guess who's going to be on the panel? Seth and Jason. Guess who's co moderating with Sergio? Me.
Kaisha [01:05:20]:
So the whole team is going to be there. Y'all should be there, too. We're going to drop the RCP link in the chat. It's a free event, but you got an RSVP. And if you're in the area, we would love to see you. We hope you can come out. But Seth and Jason, thank you so much for a great show. Shout out to Chris, the producer, for holding it down.
Kaisha [01:05:37]:
Thank you so much for this great session. Thank you all for joining us for this week's Aroya AROYA Office Hours. To learn more about Arroya, 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 crop steering or cultivation questions you want us to cover, drop them anytime in the Arroya app. Email us at sales at AROYA IO or send us a DM via Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn. We want to hear from you. If we didn't get you to your question today, don't worry, we got you. We got a little bank.
Kaisha [01:06:05]:
If you're a fan of the pod, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you never miss an episode. We'll see you at the next session. Thanks, everybody.
Seth [01:06:12]:
I just got to say, keisha, if anyone plans on coming to those connected events, try to RSVP early. I know we don't organize it, but for Sergio's sake, it's really tough when you get a lot of demand just a few days before the event because pretty tough to change that venue last minute. And they're really exciting. We love to see as many people there as possible. It's a good time.
Kaisha [01:06:32]:
That's a good point. Thank you, Seth. Yeah, we want as many people to come as possible. Sergio hosts amazing events, but, yeah, definitely RSVP because are popular. I'm dropping this in the chat here. We'll drop it on YouTube, too. So we'll hopefully see y'all in Sacramento. Bye.