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Seth Baumgartner and Jason Van Leuven open the mics for your crop steering and cultivation questions.
Kaisha [00:00:08]:
What's up, gromies? Welcome to AROYA office hours, your source for free cannabis cultivation education. I'm your moderator, Kaisha, and this is episode 101. Shout out to our live viewers in the hangout, YouTube, and on Instagram, and to everyone tapping in on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for your support. If you like the pod, please drop us a review. We appreciate your feedback. Team has been on the road for client lately, so it's been a couple weeks since our last episode. It's great to be back on the air with you.
Kaisha [00:00:36]:
Seth. How you doing?
Seth [00:00:37]:
Good, Kaisha? Yeah, it's great to be back. It's been a pre hectic couple weeks trying to get everyone together.
Kaisha [00:00:42]:
Yeah, that's facts. And, like, you know, that's one of the benefits of having our AROYA corps, is you get, like, FaceTime with Seth and Jason. So glad to have you back in studio. All right, we got a lot of questions in the bank, so let's just get the party started here. We got a write in from Franco Sativa. They had this question in a controlled environment. Mother room with led lighting, a room temperature of 81 degrees fahrenheit, leaf surface temperature of 76 degrees fahrenheit, relative humidity level of 60%, and absence of CO2. What PPFD would you recommend?
Seth [00:01:20]:
You know, usually what we're looking at when we talk about CO2 is about, you know, PpFD plus 250 in terms of pPm. So if you don't have supplemental CO2, one important thing is to find out what is your ambient CO2 like in your area, and then figure out, okay, am I going to have to pull in outside air to accomplish this? Because if I have a sealed room, those plants are going to use up all those CO2, and it's going to be down very, very low. So if you have no supplemental CO2, you know, 5600 ppfD is typically what we're looking at. Maybe up to seven. Going above that, you're not going to see a whole lot of yield or quality increase. You're not going to see a benefit. So, um, and the. The hard part about this, and actually, Cn, one of our client success reps was working with a customer, trying to figure out some CO2 ratings.
Seth [00:02:08]:
And, you know, we actually had to look up, like, hey, what is the ambient CO2 in these different areas? And, you know, we're kind of looking at. It can range a lot, you know, anywhere from down by 200 to up to five or 600 ppm if you're in a fairly big city with a lot of traffic and CO2 output. So that's probably one thing to determine. And if you haven't looked into it yet, I would look at buying just a handheld CO2 meter so you have some baseline and know that, hey, um, we're going to have to replace the air in this room, possibly every hour, day and night to keep those CO2 levels high enough to support good plant growth. Um, if you don't have that option, this is where a CO2 system would pay itself off pretty quickly, especially in a small grow. And then on the flip side, you know, if we're talking about greenhouses, for instance, um, again, we're looking at ambient CO2 in the particular area you're in. Where I live is fairly rural, so we have two to 300 ppm of CO2. If you're growing in the greenhouse here, that's certainly a limiting factor.
Seth [00:03:09]:
So we have to look at having enough canopy square footage to cover our yield goals, in spite of the fact that we can only pump it so high without supplemental CO2. In that case, you can start looking at what are your light inputs, what's it take in your greenhouse to actually achieve 600 ppfd. And oftentimes it's far less supplemental lighting than we would have thought. You know, at least that initial build out and spacing your lights, figuring out what, you know, how high of intensity the lights to run if you're running led versus hps. So, short answer, I'd probably cap it at about 600 ppfd.
Kaisha [00:03:46]:
Fantastic. Seth, thank you so much for that. And Franco Sativa, good luck. Thank you so much for writing in. All right, we're going to keep it going. Jody dropped some questions in the hangout a few weeks ago, and we've gotten a few questions coming in about our AROYA go, why people are looking for a little bit more of an overview of the software features and then also just what the upgrade possibilities are. So, Seth, can you give us a little overview of AROYA go software?
Seth [00:04:12]:
Yeah, absolutely. Let me. Oh, boy, too many tabs. I was going to share my screen a little bit here.
Kaisha [00:04:18]:
Been there, there all the time.
Seth [00:04:22]:
All right, so AROYA go is the same hardware that we use in commercial applications. So high quality, great precision, great accuracy. And the biggest difference is for the go package, as you can see, compared to, let's say, the regular core package, we have stripped down a lot of the features that are, you know, more useful to bigger clients. You know, if you're, if you're running a small homegrow or a five or ten light unit, you probably don't necessarily need things like task management. So what we've done is pared down a lot of these bigger enterprise features and go more towards a simpler model that is data focused. So in AROYA, go. And this is a blank demo. I haven't actually plugged this into any plants yet.
Seth [00:05:08]:
I just want to show you the software so I'll warn people there's no data that's going to flow through here. We start out, you got a basic facility map, which this doesn't have, but we can add. You've got your basic room dashboards, just like you would in regular AROYA. There's no devices assigned, but we would see the exact same graphics that you see in AROYA in the core platform, along with, you know, the ability to break out individual graphs, use your journal, take notes, etcetera. The setup is super easy. You get your devices, you go in, hit, activate, and then you'll activate your gateway first using the sticker attached to it with your serial number and key. And then you can start to add other devices once your gateway is installed. So, super simple, plug it in, activate it, and as long as you don't have a very difficult firewall to get through, very, very plug and play.
Seth [00:06:03]:
And then also, if you do buy an Oregon system, we have a sensor entitlement. So if you buy the basic system, for instance, you're getting a climate station gateway and a dual nose or dual sensor nose, you can add up to ten substrate sensors total to that package. So you're getting two. You can add eight more singles or four more dual nose or dual sensor noses to go up to that size. And if you do decide to upgrade the number of sensors beyond the basic package, it's as simple as ordering them, unboxing the devices next to your gateway, and adding them through this menu and settings. The primary difference in terms of data is that AROYA go gives you a rolling 60 days worth of data, so you can't go farther back than 60 days before where you're at. That's the one limitation. And as far as upgrading is concerned, the best route there is to just call our wonderful sales team.
Seth [00:06:52]:
They can guide you through that process. There's certain situations where we highly recommend it, situations where we don't, and some that are in between. So give us a call. That's my best advice on upgrading there.
Kaisha [00:07:05]:
Fantastic. Yeah, thank you for that, Seth. Yeah. So basically, AROYA go. We got AROYA Enterprise solution. We have a solution for whatever you got going on. So definitely contact us if you have any questions? And we'd be happy to walk you through Aurora. Go the full AROYA platform.
Seth [00:07:21]:
You want to bring up something, too, Kaisha? I think we don't talk about as much on this show. We've touched water activity a few times, but, you know, we, we kind of COVID everything from the home grower all the way to post production. So we also help people with their curing processes, dialing that in, trying to make sure you're not over under drying your product. And then, you know, we sell the same water activity meters that a lot of certification labs use. So it allows, you know, cannabis producers not to do their home state certified in house testing. But you can get those results faster than you would if you send it off to the lab and be confident in your processes and check them along the way with the same tool that the labs using, because that's one frustration we run into, is clients that are, you know, using various different moisture analyzers, but their analyzers aren't operating on the same scale or with the same accuracy as the lab they're sending it to. And that can be a constant challenge, trying to chase down that perfect cure. And, you know, as we all know, it's horrible to spend three months growing this plant from cut to harvest and have it all get too dry or rot in the dry room.
Seth [00:08:26]:
You know, there's nothing worse than that, really, from a cultivation standpoint. And that final cure is super important to bag appeal and nose. So, you know, I've run into plenty of people that produce some amazing cannabis that, you know, unfortunately, in their facility, the dry, the dry room part of it and cure room were the afterthought. You know, when we're first setting these businesses up, one of the, one of the inclinations is to say, hey, my flower room is where I make my money. Which is true, to an extent, absolutely. But if everything else is not optimized, you know, that's kind of pointless. Like your flower room can't perform as well if your vedroom isn't optimized. Your veg room can't perform as well if your mom and clone process process isn't optimized.
Seth [00:09:12]:
And your final weight and quality are going to suffer if you're not optimizing that post production dry cure phase. So I just want to bring that up. We don't, we don't talk about it enough, I think, and we're starting to see this particular topic becomes very, very important in the industry as we get to a higher and higher level of competition that is facts.
Kaisha [00:09:31]:
I actually love that you brought that up, Seth, because we did get a comment and we hadn't gotten to this question for a couple of weeks. So I'm going to go ahead and drop it. Our quincy dropped this comment saying we have been having an issue with getting bud rot in our drying room. We have been pulling down massive colas that are super dense. What is your guys process of drying? Do you break them up and dry on racks?
Seth [00:09:55]:
My preferred process is not to hang whole plants. I try to break it down into a two to three foot long branch, hang that individual branch. Now, in some states, this can pose some compliance issues if they want you to have your tags on the plant itself. So that's certainly a consideration. One of the big things we see, you know, mold popping up in the dry room, there's a, there's a few things to look at, you know, number one, how clean is your dry room and how well regulated is that environment? If you've got, you know, $230 hygrometers in there monitoring it, you probably need to get, you know, something like our climate station to help you monitor those conditions and ideally have to, ideally have testing. But I have seen many cases where, you know, if you have three hygrometers in the room and you set high low and you check it every 12 hours or so, all youre getting is the high and lows from those 12 hours, you dont know how often it was bouncing between those. You dont know exactly when they occurred sometimes. So thats a huge part of it.
Seth [00:10:50]:
Another one is just overall plant health going into the dry room. So when were talking about plant health and especially mold, any type of fungus, especially an external fungus thats going to attack a plant, has to get in through the epidermis of the plant. So what happens is the cells on the outside of the plant are just not as strong. They dont have a strong cell wall. And a lot of that we see comes from not having appropriate amounts of silicate earlier on in the growth cycle to really beef up that plant and make it tough. But basically, if the cell wall of the plant is, or the cell wall in the epidermis is properly formed and very rigid, those mold spores can't actually infect the space between two cells. So number one, plant health, if you have a very healthy, robust plant that you harvest, that's good. And then you mentioned having very big colas.
Seth [00:11:40]:
I personally been in that situation in a greenhouse where we struggled in certain parts of the greenhouse, especially with dew point control. So some of that is saying, hey, or recognizing something that's really hard to catch sometimes. Because that dew point occurs when lights go off. Right. And sometimes the change is so fast, that's why it's happening. And you might not have a completely raining. It might not be raining in the entire room overnight, but you might be getting some condensation drips, especially overhead, if you have conduit light fixtures, anything that's cooling off that. That moisture can condensate on, particularly, uh, you know, AC registers, air handling ducts, anything like that, that has cool air going through it and really does produce that condensation.
Seth [00:12:21]:
Little tiny drops on your buds, even on healthy plants, will promote aspergillus growth. And a lot of times, what we see is, uh, you know, I've got this bud. It's been getting dripped on. It's super wet, but the plant's actually kind of healthy. It's not molding out in the grow room while it's getting wet. But the moment I chop it, that plant's starting to die. So its immune system also is starting to die. And then when we get into the dry room now, we've got a mold infection issue.
Seth [00:12:48]:
And even in a dry room that was sanitized very, very well and has, let's say, even HEPA filtration. And it's like a surgical room. If you're bringing mold in there, we've got a problem. And then one of the final ones that I run into a lot, um, especially with, you know, some of the big cola strains, is, uh, you know, right back to our dry room being sometimes kind of the last thought. Uh, so when you go to harvest, there's a very popular trend or action, which is to strip as many leaves as possible off the plant right before you take it down. Now, when you do that and you start pulling those leads off the base of the buds, especially those big colas, where that. That petiole is going, like, potentially in between two buds, because the nodes are stacked up so tight, a lot of times when you pop that off, especially if it's, let's say, you know, one to three days before harvest, you're creating a wound in the abscission zone at the pace of that petiole. And that does two things.
Seth [00:13:41]:
You know, number one, it actually does affect the dry cycle, uh, how evenly the bud dries fairly well. Cause we're ripping out some xylem and phloem and not letting water pull out of the bud the same way as it would if that little bit of petiole was still there. The other thing is, when you create that fresh wound and then harvest the plant right away, anytime you have a wound like that, we're going to have. It's going to exude some SAP, right? So what is SAP? It is sugar water. Lots of sugar water. So if I pop that leaf off in that, you know, where I popped it off is right. Like I said, in between two buds, it's a little buried wound. I get a little SAP on there.
Seth [00:14:16]:
Well, now I've got a nice little bit of sugary SAP for mold to grow on, where the plant has absolutely no possible defense, because I have an open wound, and the plant's relying on the integrity of that epidermis to keep it safe from mold. So I created that wound. I've got sugar from the mold I eat, then I shove it into a dark room at 60 degrees fahrenheit and 60% humidity, where if you throw a piece of bread in there, it's going to mold. So that's kind of one thing to think about in the dry room for ultimate quality, we are. We're really pushing down into a territory that mold likes to live. Right. That's part of why those first few days are dry. We're usually putting our set point for humidity down really low, depending on the system.
Seth [00:14:55]:
Because, you know, if you're. If you've done a good job and your facility is designed five years ago, at this point, you are likely producing a lot more weed than you planned on. So you're having trouble maintaining that temperature and humidity, and that's where that monitoring comes in, too. So you can understand, like, hey, we're great for the first three days, or we're not. You know, day four is when we really hit our ideal control. Okay, well, those three days that we didn't have control is too humid. You know, at 60 degrees and 80% humidity, we're going to see mold, period. You're not going to be able to bring them in.
Seth [00:15:28]:
I mean, there are some facilities that may be clean enough, you know, where the entire thing is completely filtered, and we actually have really low counts of spores. But aspergillus and botrytis are fairly ubiquitous to the environments around us. Um, there's some places you can live with a little bit less, you know, out in the desert, Mojave and stuff. But other than that, like here in the Pacific Northwest, east coast, uh, northern and coastal California, we have hosts for these. Hosts for these little diseases everywhere around. I joke with people, I can't walk outside of my house. Or office, throw a rock and not hit an apple tree in Washington, while apple trees host botrytis. That just.
Seth [00:16:06]:
It's real, it's there. And the best we can do is try to keep that dry room parameters outside of it and introduce robust, healthy plants. So if you are having trouble with mold on some of those bigger buds, it's two really good options, especially if you feel like, hey, we're at capacity, we got to get as much by, like, we don't want to waste any energy drying leaves. And I totally get that. Um, we're looking at more like five to seven days before. Before harvest, using the. Using snips, cutting the petiole, giving that appropriate time to dry back and seal off that abscission zone so that we've actually created a scar that not a scar callus, but looks like a scar, but basically that, that can actually protect the plant from introducing mold right there. So few different things to look at.
Seth [00:16:48]:
And another one, depending on your growing situation. You know, some strains are way more susceptible to mold than others. There's. There's a great gradient and resistance that if you've grown enough strains and you decided to especially always go back to the greenhouse because they're great mold screens here in the Pacific Northwest. Will your strain mold? I don't know. Give me three months, I'll tell you. But, uh, you know, some of those strains, like, if you've got, you know, top colas that are as big as this water bottle. Okay, what.
Seth [00:17:17]:
What kind of environment are we in? We're looking at, hey, inside of this nug, it's really hard to get airflow. So if that ever gets wet, we've got an immediate problem. Also, if I can't get the kind of control I need, I don't have the airflow. I'll look at alternative strategies. You know, if I, uh, if I have a plant that I've grown ten times, it's molded out every time, but I identify that, hey, every bud bigger than, let's say, my fist molds. Okay, well, a couple options there. 1st, 1st route is to go in before harvest, cut out all the stuff that you know is going to mold, and throw it away. Um, that's not fun.
Seth [00:17:52]:
That's always sad to take trash bags full of top nugs out to the garbage, right. What I like to do is either pinch or top around week two, middle to the end of week two, and just eliminate those growth sites. So, you know, my yields going to be depressed slightly compared to growing at full bore. But if I can't make my environment dry enough and have enough airflow for this or clean enough for this particular strain not to mold, then my best chance is reducing that nug size because then I can get better airflow through the flower and possibly avoid some of that mold. And, you know, then on the backside to strain selection for your environment. I know years of greenhouse growing here, there's just strains that I will not grow because it puts the rest of my room at risk for failing a mold test. Right.
Kaisha [00:18:40]:
A lot of considerations just for the drying, curing part of things. Thank you for that, Seth. That's great. Great overview. All right, we are starting to get some live questions in golden child posted this on YouTube. They write, hello, I am having issues with low ph in my runoff about midflower. I flush them and my EC comes way down to almost input EC, but my ph won't rise. What else could be causing low in pot ph? I also run the same nutrients right down the street at another facility and run the same program.
Kaisha [00:19:14]:
But I don't see the five ones, five, two phs at that spot.
Seth [00:19:20]:
Well, an important thing you look at is the difference between EC and PH, right. EC is the actual level of salt or ions that we have in solution. PH is looking more at the ratio of positively charged to negatively charged ions. So when you actually do a straight ro or water flush, you're going to wash that salt out, but you're not going to change the ratio of salts in it is the best way to put that. So a straight ro flush will wash your salt down, but it won't fix your ph problem. In fact, it's kind of a non intuitive. The solution is actually kind of non intuitive. And that's usually to feed heavier.
Seth [00:19:51]:
If you're at a 3.0, feed it a 3.5 and essentially flush with that nutrient water because that's actually changing the ph by flushing out negative or flushing out positive ions and introducing negative ions to reset that ph balance. So kind of nonintuitive. And if you're seeing it in mid flower, typically that's because you've been underfeeding. You haven't been pushing enough runoff in the lead up to that. And as that plant eats those negative ions out, we're seeing that ph slowly drift down over time. And by the time you hit 5.051, you're one or two weeks past when you should have taken action to correct that. So keep in mind, I guess, that those two things are not connected. And, you know, we're.
Seth [00:20:32]:
What episode are we on? Kaisha 101, 102. 101. Okay, so I'm going to say we've said not to flush at least 200 times on this podcast. Just stop it and look at the science of what's going on, and then also realize, you know, a big thing we run into is this lack of understanding, not just in cannabis, but in horticulture at large, especially if you haven't studied soil science very much. And that's that. You know, when we're talking about coco, it isn't soil. It's a hydroponic media with very low cation exchange capacity. So the idea there is your coco is not dirt, it's not soil, it's a sponge.
Seth [00:21:09]:
It holds the plant and it holds the water that we control the state of. And the challenge there is like, if we want to build up to a certain EC and maintain ph and not feed at that high seed EC and just flush it through and waste a lot of money on nutrients, we've got to really monitor that ph and make sure we're getting enough ion replenishment, enough negative ion replenishment to reset that ph. So it's a complicated problem with a very simple solution. And if you're having these problems, you know, obviously you're taking those ph readings. Another thing to keep in mind is that your runoff readings really need to occur at the end of your p one cycle. So my rule of thumb is, never go beyond three days without getting runoff. And then when you do want to get run off that next day, don't push water through with the intention of getting runoff. Run your normal p one s.
Seth [00:22:00]:
If those aren't adequate to hit field capacity and produce about five to 15% of total irrigation runoff, then you're not feeding your plant enough. You're bringing it up close to field capacity. But because you didn't get runoff and you didn't get that replenishment, your ph is drifting down. So again, complicated problem, simple solution. Unfortunately, it's one of those ones that once it occurs, the corrective measures are not necessarily optimal to your end output. You know, you're putting a band aid on, but it's not going to fix the problem. You're going to have a yield depression or some performance loss because you lost, you know, what? If you're, if it was drifting from 5.6 down to 5.1 over two weeks, we've, we've lost a certain percentage of efficiency that entire time, and we're not going to gain that back in the rest of the run. So the important thing is next time monitor your ph and when you see it start to drift down, even if it's like, hey, feed of 5.9, now it's coming out at 5.7.
Seth [00:22:55]:
Push just a little more runoff, you know, it might be only one more percent of total irrigation volume or total pot volume, and that might solve that problem. But if you don't catch it early, the amount of feed we have to put on to correct that problem generally will not, generally will affect our ability to stack EC. And then when you start flushing like that, that Ec down that generally, unless you're at a very low EC state, in which case that would actually contribute to your ph drop quite a bit, um, you're killing roots whenever you flush out. Basically, you know, that plant has to build up sugar content to maintain that osmotic balance with the salt on the outside so that it can pull in water and nutrients. Um, if I, you know, remove that gradient, if it's just zero on one side, now water wants to go out of those roots, and that's where we, you know, on a microscopic level, these little root cells explode. There's no other ways to put it. And when you do that, it's obviously taking energy away from the plant, making the plant want to produce more roots, which is not our goal at a certain point, we want to have the plant producing more flowers than roots. That's part of where we grow in a small pot.
Seth [00:24:06]:
And then it's also putting energy into trying to pull up water. You just lose efficiency with those roots. And then also, once you have dead root mass in there, what does dead plant material do? It rots. We're either going to see a fungal or bacterial rot start to occur in the root zone. And that being said, you can do all these things to a plant and still get it to finish, but it's not going to be as good as if you had properly maintained that strategy all the way through. And if you're seeing it at one facility versus another, then go check your emitters. Go see like, hey, our one facility, the irrigation is brand new. The other one, it's a year old.
Seth [00:24:44]:
Go throw some drip cups out there and see if you're getting consistent, you know, irrigation that you're planning on. If you say, I should be giving this 120 ML, but you're giving it 110, and you're just barely not hitting field capacity for one to two weeks, that's going to throw your ph down. So there's a lot of little nuances into controlling that ph. And a lot of it comes down to understanding the relationship between your shot size, your pot volume, and then making sure you're getting adequate nutrition. And that's part of why, um, substrates, sensors in general, especially EC in the substrate, are such a huge game changer, you know, because if you're just seeing runoff, we can get, we can get some good information out of that. But seeing that time series data about what the plants doing, you know, after I would collect runoff in the time in between, is part of what helps me really decide if I have a low EC problem, if I have a high EC problem or a ph problem. If I see that EC being just consumed by the plant and it's not reacting in the inverse way that I want it to at the end of my dry back, that tells me I need to go look at my ph. My ph is drifting down.
Seth [00:25:50]:
That tells me I need to feed more, push a little more runoff, and reset that balance.
Kaisha [00:25:56]:
All right, there it is, y'all. So really a more whole taking a more holistic approach as opposed to flushing, that's really, that's the way you want to go. But good luck. We appreciate that question. All right, we are going to keep it moving. We got another live question here on YouTube. This one came from JC. They wrote, my plants are exuding water from my stems, bedsites, and it's causing me to mold repeatedly.
Kaisha [00:26:21]:
Why is this happening? I'm currently using AROYA. Go. What are some considerations, Doctor Justin?
Seth [00:26:27]:
I would probably start looking at a couple different things. Number one, what's your humidity doing throughout the day? Do we have a point at night where we have a massive drop in humidity? That's one thing. Certain strains, too, are more subject to gutation. It happens. And then some of the other ones are things like pushing, you know, heavy nitrate late into flour that's upping that sugar production and making that SAP production go up as well. Um, first thing first, though, and I say this, I've been growing a lot of different strains over the years. Grow a different strain and see if it happens to that one, too, and then we can start to peel apart, like, hey, is this a problem where we're pushing too much sugar production, we're not pulling enough water up through the plant, we're pulling too much water up through the plant. Or is this just a trait that turns out is pretty undesirable and pops up sometime in these certain lineages, particularly if you're running a smaller grow and you're in the space where you're buying seeds, for instance, rather than clones.
Seth [00:27:29]:
If I buy a particular feminized variety, there's still a little bit of genetic recombination there. Sometimes, if it's a cross, definitely there is. If it's a self clone, you can still get some mutations and see this pop up somewhere in the. Sometimes in these populations. So that, that would be my advice. Try a different strain first. And then also, if you have a way to go. Yeah.
Seth [00:27:48]:
Make sure you're not, um, you. You have the technology now to make sure that overnight you're not raising your humidity, dropping out that VPD, make sure everything's in line. And then, like I said, that that might be one where you just throw away the strain. Uh, the other thing is, it sounds like probably you're having some high humidity issues, late in flour, and, uh, that's super common. You know, a lot of us build out a room and then suddenly we grow way too much weed in it and we can't get that humidity down. Just don't have the dehumidification capacity. And I would say, particularly for home or small scale growers, that they don't quite have a big enough room to justify installing commercial sized equipment. It's pretty easy to surpass, you know, any dehumidifier that you have on 110, 120 volts, for instance.
Kaisha [00:28:39]:
Excellent, Seth, thank you so much. All right, I'm going to keep it moving. Despicable dabs just dropped into the hangout, but they also submitted a question. All good. Good to see you both on Instagram on the hangout. We love it. All right, they had a question. They wanted to know, what's your best advice for someone without a sensor? How do you know when you hit that? 40% to 50%.
Seth [00:29:01]:
So when you don't have a sensor, it's going to be tough. You know, hopefully, though, you have a scale. So if you have a scale, what you can do is take your dry media, weigh it, hydrate it, and then weigh it again. Now, 1 gram of water equals 1 ML. If I know the volume of that pot in milliliters, I divide the grams of water. Well, first take that total wet weight, subtract your dry weight so you have the grams of water. Once I know that, I know how many milliliters the pot has actually absorbed, especially after I've, you know, let it fully soak up, let it run off for a couple minutes, make sure it's not dripping anymore, and then I'll just weigh it and divide my grams of water by my total milliliter size of the volume. So that's also where, you know, don't ever trust the pot that you got from a producer, from a supplier right now, hydrate it and measure it.
Seth [00:29:49]:
You might find that your one gallon, you were planning on 3785 ML, as your total volume might be more like 4400 ML or 3.1 liters, potentially 3100. So part of that is establishing, you know, what is your actual pot size. And, and now we know that volumetric water content and the, let's see if you have the scale. One of the best ways you could do it is map that a few times or you can just do a calculation. Scales are great, but one of the other things you can do if you don't have a sensor is still use your good old hands, you know. But I really like to use that scale test to make sure that the media I'm using is achieving the saturation that I want it to. Um, you know, if I'm running like a 70 30 mix, uh, probably don't want to be running in a one gallon pot unless I'm growing a really small plant because I can't hold that much water in it. Conversely, it's a great idea, especially playing around with medias to measure that and go, oh, this particular one goes up to 80%, that's way too wet.
Seth [00:30:49]:
Um, if I drop a clone into that, it's probably going to rot and die. So that, that's my best advice. And then honestly, uh, especially if you don't have a sensor, I typically recommend people grow in more like a two to three gallon pot. That way we're giving ourselves enough capacity that's unlikely, we're going to over dry. And that's where, you know, we did see a prevalence early on in production of, of the 70 30 coco perlite mixes. Because if you don't have insight, it's always a little easier to over water at a higher feed rate to get your plant the nutrition and let what it doesn't want run out the bottom. And also if you have enough water holding capacity for your pot size, and this, and this is part of why, you know, uh, if you just set up a light in your basement, some CO2, and have a few plants and five gallon puck buckets or pots with holes drilled in the bottom, of course, um, it's easy to grow really high quality cannabis because you're probably not going to ever hit a point where that plant would wilt. And then once you bring the perlite into the equation, we can't get the pot wet enough to truly rot out the roots.
Seth [00:31:47]:
So if you're growing without sensors and you've got plenty of time. Go out there and grab pots a few times a day. Um, even if you don't have a Roy go. One tool I always recommend to people is the solus unit that we sell and that's our good old t twelve connected to a little bluetooth dongle. I like that word. It's funny. And that'll allow you, I mean it's a little over $500.05 to 600 depending on where you get it. You always get it from us, but you can go stab individual pots and it's a pretty cost effective way.
Seth [00:32:17]:
You're not going to get, you know, 24/7 data, but you can really quickly determine everything I'm talking about without having to use a scale. And it's going to allow you to get, you know, we're, our perceptions only as good as the tools we have and the scales we have to compare it against. Right. Uh, here in the States, you tell me what a foot is. I know what a foot is. You tell me what a meter is. I have to remember that it's a little over 3ft, right. But if I looked at meters all day long, I would, that's where my mind would mindset would be.
Seth [00:32:48]:
So making sure you have a good scale to compare your hand scale to. You know, a lot of our commercial cultivators, um, they will have two or three sensors on a 20 to 60 foot bench. Actually pretty good coverage. They still go in and do their irrigation walks every day because you, unless you have a sensor in every plant, you won't know if something plugged up until you see a plant dying. So you want to go make sure your pots are getting wet every day. And part of that too is pull out your phone, look at those values on your sensed ones, pick them up and see what's going on because you can do, you can crop steer quite well if you have the time to be there all day, uh, completely without sensors. I've certainly done it plenty. But do you, are you going to be there all day to try to apply your irrigation with this kind of precision? And that's where the, that's where the challenge really comes in.
Seth [00:33:38]:
If I've got, you know, 24 plants, let's say, and I can go in that room every day and I can be there for every p one irrigation a few times a week to make sure that like, I'm hitting saturation, I'm not getting channeling. And then I'm also there in the afternoon and bulking when I'm putting my p two s on to make sure that I'm not getting any afternoon runoff. I can hit all the same goals, but it's just not scalable. So what I always tell people they're trying to get into this, try some of these principles. Look at the irrigation strategies we talk about. You know, we talk about generative 2 hours after lights on, you have a two hour irrigation window, 22 hours dryback. Make sure you're getting appropriate runoff. If you don't have a sensor, run a little higher feed EC and get run off every day.
Seth [00:34:20]:
Just like we've always mostly been told when it comes to feeding salts, right where it's a drain to waste system, that's how we have to run it. So good for you. Keep doing it and, you know, hopefully you can progress your grow enough to be able to buy some of these tools that do help make life easier. You know, we actually work with quite a few people that still operate under the caregiver giver model across the country in smaller 20, you know, 20 or less light grows and, you know, for those types of customers, you just don't always have a lot of cash. So hey, if you want to put the sweat equity in to building up a little bit of capital and then, you know, reap the benefits on the backside of that, that's probably the most sustainable business model right now because you can't go to a bank and get money for it.
Kaisha [00:35:12]:
For real. Thank you for that. Despicable dabs, we appreciate your question. I dropped in the chat here. We have a crash course on testing field capacity. Check that out. And also just in general, take a look at our education guide. Sometimes it's just like understanding the basics of this stuff and then figuring out how you can calculate it.
Kaisha [00:35:31]:
And appreciate your comments, too. Thank you so much. All right, we're going to keep it moving. We got this question from a couple people worded in a couple different ways, but I'm going to read this one from root and branch. They want to know, is it possible you could tell me how I work out dryback percentage if my volumetric water content is 70% and I want a 25% dry back? What's the equation, please? Is it 25% of the 70%?
Seth [00:35:58]:
So when I'm talking about drybacks, I'm always talking about volumetric water content. I like to keep it in one scale. So a 25% dryback if you had 75% vwc, which would indicate to me that you're using either a poor quality coco or you're freshly transplanting to some Rockwool 25% dryback would be down to 50% vwc. So we're not trying to make this more complicated by making a percent of a percent. VWC is a solid value. It's not relative, like saturation. 100% saturation is relative to wherever the field capacity is on that pot. We're not talking about that.
Seth [00:36:31]:
We're talking volumetric water content, because we can easily convert volumetric water content into milliliters.
Kaisha [00:36:39]:
All right, thank you for that. And then on that note, Tortuga etoro wrote on YouTube, what is the downfall of overdry back?
Seth [00:36:48]:
The downfall of drying back too far. Yeah, well, you know, when we're, when we're talking about plant health here, we, you know, there's a lot of talk around plant stress in the cannabis community, right? And we're actually, like, by the scientific definition of plant stress, we are actually applying very little stress to these, you know, true, true dryback stress, aka drought stress, would hit when we go down to what's called temporary wilting point. And that's where we see, you know, negative effects from overdriving. But even before you hit temporary wilting point, if we look at the matrix potential curve of coco, for instance, the lower we go, you know, the harder it's holding onto that water. So there's a, you pass a point of diminishing returns. And our goal with generative steering specifically, is we want to elongate that time between waterings, because we're not forcing the plant to respirate and grow quite as much. But we're not actually, like that dryback percentage. I don't want to say it doesn't matter, because we do want to get a minimum of ten to 15% just for good root zone aeration.
Seth [00:37:47]:
Um, and, and it's a sign that where our plants growing at an appropriate rate for our pot size, uh, if we're going too deep, we're going to push potentially down to that temporary wilting point zone. And, uh, when I blow this up across a room, and I know that I've got, you know, about a 10% variance on my plants across that table, if I set my dry back goal way down to, like, 18%, I've probably pushed a good amount of those plants down to, like, you know, 13, 1210. And at that point, with coco, we're starting to see, you know, some of these plants hitting temporary wilting point. And then if it goes even lower, let's say we got a plugged emitter. That's when we actually pass permanent wilting point and the plants die. Now, when we talk about that, and that's just coco. Now, if we get into rockwool, for instance, there are some pretty severe consequences to overdrying that are tricky to see when it happens right away. So, Rockwell, one of the cool things about it is the curve on its, on its matrix potential is it's all low.
Seth [00:38:46]:
It's always low matrix potential. We don't see a temporary wilting point in rockwool until down close to that, two to 3% or even lower, at which point it's actually even tough to sense with probes like you want to scale to measure that, and you never want to be there, because if you're at 3% and you hit, your plant starts to wilt, you've got like a very short amount of time until you pass permanent wilting point. But with Rockwool, when I overdrive, push that dry back too far, especially early on in early flower generative phase, I'm going to knock down that field capacity. So, uh, actually, Chris, do you, I'll use the whiteboard. Oh, shit. I should have grabbed that from you. I'm going to bring it next week. Okay.
Seth [00:39:27]:
Okay. So, uh, basically, if you could picture, you know, on a microscopic level, your rock walls, like fiberglass insulation, right? We've got all these different strands that are, you know, blown in together, kind of like fiberglass insulation or hard pack cotton candy, right? When that, when that is fully soaked, I've got water continuity along the entire length of each of those strands. Now, as that water dries back, I'll start to break that continuity along individual fiber. Now, water being a polar molecule, it's cohesive when it's together. But if I put two drops from this, this bottle on the table, that's a small enough drop. If I push one drop towards the other, it'll actually repel the other one. So what's happening on a, you know, microscopic level in there is we're starting to develop all these little pockets that are hydrophobic. They're actually, you know, not letting water enter them because we have polarity working against itself.
Seth [00:40:21]:
So if I overdry that repeatedly and break all those cohesive, all that water cohesion inside of there, I'm developing more and more of these little dry pockets, which if I'm pushing that over and over really quickly, I'm going to knock my field capacity on my rockwool from 65. Let's say I drive back down to about 25, 30 that next day, you're going to get, your field capacity is going to be like 55. Do it again, it's going to go down to 50, and then eventually you'll chase that down to where you're operating in the like 18 to 28 or 30% range. And at that point, the media can't actually hold enough water and have enough water availability to support, you know, healthy plant growth. So what we'll see is, uh, typically, you know, deep drybacks with Rockwool early on, we're, uh, dumping that field capacity down, you know, and it becomes harder and harder to go more generative. So instead of being able to go generative for three or four weeks, we're only able to do it for like a week and a half, two weeks because we're drying back too far. And now we can't not bulk. So a couple things can happen, you know, depending on when that overdrying occurred, I might have to start bulking too early, which is going to encourage my plants to just stretch and stretch and stretch and not put on, you know, the type of nug size, density, and quality that I want.
Seth [00:41:36]:
Um, the other, if it tends to happen a little bit later, is that, hey, if I've got, you know, 28% VWC holding capacity instead of 55 to 65, I've got much less available water. Much like the tomatoes out of my garden here. I can, I can not water those. And they'll, uh, they'll still grow, right? There's water in the ground, but if I water them, they get bigger. Having more water potential and water availability for the plant means it has more water to utilize. Once we've got that over dried Rockwell, that's when we see, uh, you know, a lot of growers that say, want to move from Rockwool to co or coco to Rockwool because they're like, hey, that's, that's new, it's clean. All that fun stuff. If they're not aware of this over drying factor, one of the biggest things I hear is like, man, why did I get like half the yield when I tried that Rockwell run? Like, that stuffs garbage.
Seth [00:42:27]:
And it's like, no, you just have to operate in different parameters, especially if you moved from something that was like, let's say a 70 30 mix, 40% to 45% VWC to that rockwool. You've got to adjust your own ranges to deal with that and start to master the art of like, hey, I can't put quite as big of a shot on the rock wall. Has to be more space in between and start to figure out some of those nuances, you know, and those differences you know, we always talk about coco and Rockwool, but even coco, depending on your chunk size, how well the pith is ground and how tightly it's packed in, all of that can affect our water holding capacity. So it's very, very important to test your media as it comes in for VW. See, you want to see how high it can get. If I'm buying anything in bulk, I'm always going to hydrate at least one or two, tear them apart, see what's going on. They're going to go in the trash, I'm not going to use them, but I want to see what's in that media, what the consistency is like, and investigate if I'm going to potentially have any problems. If I've got a media that I know is going up to coco, let's say it's going up to 65 or 70%, I might make the choice to not ever drop a clone into that.
Seth [00:43:32]:
I might go with an intermediate media because I know that my root end success is going to be a lot better from clone to my intermediate media. And then if I have that high water content holding coco, I'm going to treat it more like Rockwool, like in Rockwell. That's part of why we stack a small cube onto a slab or a bigger cube is that it has high water holding capacity. So if I just stab that clone right into the slab, I'm not going to see a lot of dry back and a lot of those clones are probably going to die. So these little nuances are something to definitely keep in mind. And it's frustrating, I think, for the grower because, you know, just now that cannabis is going to greater and greater markets. You know, before you'd go to the grocery store, you'd buy something. If you didn't like it, well, throw it away.
Seth [00:44:17]:
Now, companies are much more able to go out and talk to these growers and figure out what people are doing and supply products that they need. The reason I bring that up is right back to that media volume size, depending on brand. We've seen a lot that just are not the advertised volume, partially because of a metric to imperial conversion. However, we're starting to hit a point where manufacturers are advertising their volume in leaders, which is what we want to be working with. And then again, just always verify it. You know, one thing about coco or even Rockwool, you know, there's not a whole lot of money that goes into making it. Otherwise it would cost you a lot more to buy. So we have to accept some level of manufacturing tolerances surrounding it.
Seth [00:44:59]:
And, you know, we're working with plants. Everything's dynamic. Nothing static. So when we think about that, that means everything we do is like that. You know, no matter what we're doing, we're operating inside of a dead band. So if you have that variability, you look at it and go, it's acceptable. You know, I'm just gonna be conservative with my dryback ranges and make sure I'm not pushing into a territory where this media is gonna let me down.
Kaisha [00:45:27]:
Outstanding. Thank you, Seth. Just dropping the science. I also am still reeling. I guess we're gonna bring a whiteboard onto the show. It's gonna be a game changer.
Seth [00:45:36]:
We're gonna do it.
Kaisha [00:45:38]:
Look out, y'all. Okay, moving on. We got this question from Harry Hussels on Instagram. They wrote, what are your thoughts on using the technology of reheat with the air conditioner versus quest aid and dehumidifiers, which is better and why? Got any thoughts on that?
Seth [00:45:57]:
Yeah. Part of it depends on where you're at. Are you in a hot environment where you can really blast that ac and take advantage of it? Then we can probably get some better cooling. Personally, I think it's a great system. It's a little bit energy intensive, but so is running Deus. So it's. It's kind of a six one way, half dozen the other. And what's more cost effective in your direct application? Typically, reheat systems are a little bit more expensive than just having dehumidifiers.
Seth [00:46:22]:
But, you know, if I've got, like, an HPS room, those reheat systems are awesome, because I have to condition that heat no matter what. If I've got a straight led room and I'm growing in, I don't know, beat British Columbia, let's say interior. Um, if I've got leds up there, I'm probably actually needing to introduce heat to the room a lot of the year. So it's. It's very situational on where you're at. And, uh, also, what's, you know, what does your facility look like? So, de hues are pretty standard. You go hang them in the room. A lot of reheat systems.
Seth [00:46:56]:
There are those that are in room air handlers. But I would say a de hue is much easier to retrofit, whereas a reheat system is something I'd be looking at at a new build out. And with a lot of our new build outs, the standard way to go is a warehouse space, DPF panels. If I have a lid on there. With the DPF panel, I can start to move all of my h vac equipment to the top of the room and not have it hanging in the room where it's competing for light space. And I'm not able to optimize my airflow because I just have these big units blowing it out into the room. If I get that outside the room, I conduct it and have a lot more control. Not to mention, when I go to clean that room, I'm not spraying my expensive air handling equipment with a pressure washer.
Kaisha [00:47:38]:
All right. Amazing. Thank you, Harry hussles, for that question. All right, we got this one on Instagram from jjams. They write, what if I'm seeing a drop in EC throughout the day after my p one? Does that plant want a higher feed EC?
Seth [00:47:55]:
Yeah. If your EC line is ever approaching parallel to your water line, it would be great to know what EC you were at. But typically, if we're under about a 4.0, well, see that EC line be start to become fairly parallel with that water content line. And that means we're on the ragged edge of plant nutrition, that plants taking up just about everything we're putting in that day. And that's a situation where back to ph. Earlier on, I would really start to try to push runoff. Check my ph. I see that my ph is starting to drift a little low.
Seth [00:48:24]:
Or even if it's not, um, you know, especially there. There's a few things to consider. Number one, I like to bring plants into the flower cycle with a 4.0 or above ec in the root zone. Um, that way, I'm a. I'm already ahead on my stack and I have adequate nutrition. A lot of times if I bring plants in at a 2.5, I won't be able to stack up without feeding, like above a 4.0, which is just not economical. We don't. We don't need to do that.
Seth [00:48:48]:
Um, very, very few situations you ever go above a 4.03.0 to 4.0 is kind of where we play, but a lot of that depends on that incoming cube. If I'm already starting off at a deficit and I'm trying to stack up, but it's going to be really hard to get ahead of.
Kaisha [00:49:05]:
Boom. All right, thank you, jams. Appreciate your question. Keep us posted. Let us know if you have any other questions. Okay, Bud on the leaves had a question. It's in reference to what we were talking about a little bit earlier. They want to know, can you explain leaf senescence and how flushing plays a part in that.
Seth [00:49:23]:
So when we look at cannabis, you know, it's a, it's a photoperiod plant. It is indeterminate in a certain life, certain light cycle, 18 hours when we go to twelve and twelve now we go into a determinate mode of growth. So each strain has a certain number of days from 1212 that it wants to live before it enters senescence. And senescence is the natural die down of an annual plant, right? Like cannabis isn't perennial. It's not a bush that sprouts back up. It dies every year. That's going to happen eventually. Regardless of, unless we just keep pumping it with nitrate or leave it on 18 hours of light, it's eventually going to try to approach death.
Seth [00:49:59]:
When we talk about the effects of flushing on leaves, that is not senescence, that is malnutrition. So basically when you go to flush, particularly at the end, a lot of times we are in a fairly low ph situation. I flush. That does nothing with the ph. And then also I flush and that drops that ec down, takes away that osmotic pressure. Now my water, my lovely sugar water inside my roots is trying to go back out into the pot because I just removed all the force that was holding that sugar inside those roots. So usually, you know, when we talk about like flushing, a popular term used to be, hey, it's starting to turn colors. Like, no, you're just killing your plants.
Seth [00:50:37]:
So, uh, when we're talking about flushing, that's not senescence. That's, you know, the plant might be more, a little more sensitive at the end of its life cycle. So when we shock it that hard, it's already on its way out. That's the senescence. It's not seeing those leaf strapped. True senescence would be, hey, I've got a healthy plant in a healthy media and I'm just riding it out. And you know, you can, you can see that more. You know, before we were using silver to feminize, make feminized crosses and stuff, one of the good old ways was just to leave one plant in the corner with the a light on until it eventually herms because it's, you know, 1415 weeks into its flower cycle and it's looking pretty ugly.
Seth [00:51:16]:
But, um, that, that. So yeah, in terms of senescence by I'll double down on this. Do not flush. That's, that's not senescence. That's plant death. And actually when you're seeing that, that's when we see those plants that are molding in the dry room particularly because when I cut that plant down, it's already starting to die. You know, we're already in an unhealthy state. The immune system's compromised.
Seth [00:51:38]:
And that's a lot of times when you'll go in and see aspergillus and botrytis form on the interior of the bud moving outward from the stem.
Kaisha [00:51:48]:
Do not flush. Thank you for that question. Bud on the leaves. Good luck out there. Okay, we got this question in on Instagram from KvAR 207. They write, I'm going from clone straight to two gallon coco bags and vegging for 1421 days before flip. Should I building up my, should I be building up my ec I for flip or should I build it up when I flip?
Seth [00:52:17]:
So in veg, you know, particularly in the two gallon pot, I would probably recommend against that. You're going to have a little bit better success in a short veg by going with something like a four by four by four rockwool block or just a small coco pot. Little four inch guy, 0.3 gallons. And that's just going to make that root in easier, a little more consistent. However, in terms of veg, what we want to do is I, you know, one of my favorites is I'll charge up that two gallon pot at a 3.0. My cube that I set on top of it will be at a four to five ec. Set that on those roots are going to seek that lower Ec pretty quickly and then I'm going to have enough nutrition in that pot that once I start my p one s in generative phase, I am going to be stacking that Ec up. But general rule of thumb is that clone needs to be in something that's a 4.0 eclipse at your wettest point of the day before you flip.
Seth [00:53:06]:
Just to stay ahead of plant nutrition. You know, I've seen a bunch of scenarios where, hey, we went in and all the plants were at about a 3.0 because we're feeding 3.0 and veg and it's, we're just hammering it. So we're flushing it essentially. To washing it, I'll say not flushing it. We're washing it to 3.0 every day, basically. But when we get in, into veg or into flower, that plant starts taking off and we're just, you know, that 3.0ft is sometimes not enough and also our stack going into it gets consumed very quickly. So rule of thumb, get your veg plants up to a 4.0 ec, particularly if you have CO2 and you are in the 800 plus ppfd range. That's also going to help.
Seth [00:53:47]:
And another part of that too is matching your DLI between veg and flour. Not always possible, but is ideal because part of that too is we can start getting that stack going and veg come in with a more robust plant, cut down on the time that we're tapering the lights up. And then if we have that higher, you see, and the plants actually already used to it, it's adapted it, it can take up nutrients faster and build tissue much faster. So optimizing that transition is great. And that transition from veg to flower is very important. And nutrients, definitely nutrition, sorry. It's definitely a big part of it.
Kaisha [00:54:27]:
Awesome. Thank you so much for that, Seth. Thank you, Kvar, for the question. All right, so last few minutes of the show, this question was submitted earlier. I thought it was a great overview that we could tackle. So Tyrese wrote in, I'm coming up on my fourth year of cultivation. Just made the switch from organic to coco gorilla tent with four two gallon pure coco. They're looking for best tips for new growers.
Kaisha [00:54:52]:
Also, you know, any best tips for seeds and seedling phase with coco and then just your favorite nutrition program with pure coco. So let's do a little focus on coco right now.
Seth [00:55:04]:
Yeah, for sure. So, you know, number one, if you're growing in coco, great. That's a, that's, I don't say it's a great beginner media. It's just a great media and it's got a lot of forgiveness to it, which is, I think one of the best things you can do, trying to get in, you know, talked to plenty of people who cut their teeth with rockwool and never used coco. And the early part of their growing career was rough. Like they had to actually power through and not lose interest, you know, because they got so frustrated. So it's great that you're doing that. Um, as far as feeding in that two gallon, you know.
Seth [00:55:33]:
Right back to the last question, I would probably go with an intermediate media. Um, if two gallon coco, if you're using pure coco, they also offer a 0.3 gallon, uh, small block to set on top. My favorite way to pop seeds generally is a root riot or equivalent coco plug. You want to make sure your source, you know, ideally trying to source them from a more professional place than the hardware store down the road. Although sometimes they have good brands too, but basically starting in a little coco cube. Best way to go. You're going to pop that seed, grow it up to you know, four to six inches, drop that in your 0.3 gallon coco pot, veg in that for ten to 18 days, and then you're going to drop that seedling right on top of that two gallon. And for, I mean, it depends on what you're doing.
Seth [00:56:22]:
Um, pheno hunts, I don't ever to really expect to maximize yields out of, but it depends on what you want to do. If you're popping four different seeds, try them out. Keep your winner take cuts of all of them, keep them on the side. And then once you find some strains you like, getting into cloning really, really speeds things up. It's highly worth it. Especially, you know, if you're not out there trying to buy a bunch of strains, you're not trying to build up a massive library. Let's say you just bought a pack of six seeds, you popped them all, pick the best one. And one thing I like to do, if I have the time on that front, is I'll pop my seeds in a veg space, take a cut or take a couple cuts off that seedling, clone them, and then I'll actually flower those clones because that's going to give me a better representation of what that plant looks like in a clone setting.
Seth [00:57:10]:
Because some plants, you know, we sprout them from seed, they grow into a huge Christmas tree. That first next generation of clone, it grows into a bush. Okay, well, the bush is a lot more desirable than the Christmas tree in terms of, especially if you've got, you know, four plants in a small setup. We want to maximize the number of branches. Your, your tent is your main limitation is the actual space you have. Right. Like, if you had a bigger room, we could spread them out and grow a little bit bigger plants, but we're trying to really pack it in and maximize that space. Um, as far as nutrition goes, um, keep it simple.
Seth [00:57:43]:
You know, there's, there's a few good products out there. Uh, I like front row quite a bit. Um, Athena and HGV are also good. But, hey, there's a bunch of people that mix their own salts and have success, too. In your particular application, I would probably be looking at, uh, and it just depends on what you want to grow, too. You know, what, what is your desired outcome? Because when we talk about certain, you know, single mix nutrients front, you know, beginning to end, those are going to work for 60% to 70% of the strains all the time. You're always going to have a certain amount of strains that just won't finish with a high nitrate load later. In flowers.
Seth [00:58:17]:
So that's something to consider, is going with a nutrient product that allows you to pull back on that nitrate. And no matter what program you choose, follow the directions your first time around. Don't, don't try to reinvent the wheel. Just follow it to a t. You know, I have growers that love to use house and garden, the old, uh, their old liquid formulations, and, and they're fine. Uh, my, my only argument against that is you're potentially shipping water if you don't have a hydro store in your town, and the shipping might get a little expensive. Um, otherwise, most, uh, nutrient programs actually work really well when applied correctly. I think a lot of what I find is growers going in, they read a lot and say, oh, I need to add cal mag.
Seth [00:58:59]:
I need to add, uh, a micro supplement. I need to add silica, like, no, just look at what that has. If you, if you go to the grocery store and buy something that is very specific for cannabis nowadays, uh, guess what? Those fertilizer companies are allowed to market to us so they can produce a product that is very specific and has everything we need in it. And most of your companies now are offering a complete line. So you might get your ab bloom and, uh, or ab micro, depending on the setup. And then, you know, front row, for instance, has a silica supplement. They have an enzyme supplement. So, probably look around and see, you know, what fits your grow the best and what, what's the easiest for you to use, you know, and that's, that's where reading those instructions is great.
Seth [00:59:43]:
You know, if I go back like ten years and I went to, like, an eight part nutrient, that I've got to mix up eight different things and try to not get them to fall out or anything like that in solution, that's setting me up for failure. If I pick something that has two parts in the direction, say, to mix one stir, wait five minutes, and mix the other stir, and then ph, well, that's pretty simple. And you're going to have a better time with a simpler nutrient program, even if it is limiting on some strains that you can grow and finish the way you want to. But you know that parts going to work, particularly if you follow some basic irrigation instructions. I always recommend people like, in that two gallon coco pot, you're going to have a great time. Just make sure you get your feet heavy enough. And by that, I mean between a 3.0 and a 4.0, you get a little bit of runoff every day. And the two gallons, there's probably a good chance, depending on your irrigation system, you don't really have to go into a bulking mode very hard.
Seth [01:00:35]:
And that's one thing I think that especially for people just trying to get into it or grow on a small scale. Man, if I've got four one gallon pots and I have six foot tall plants and I need to water them a lot, and if I don't have an irrigation system that can put on 1216 1822 irrigations a day, that might not work out. But if I have a two or three gallon pot and I can go put on a couple fat shots in the morning, dry back 22 hours, I'm going to have a short, bushy, really high quality plant. And if you're growing for your own purposes, you know, like I always like to tell people, I don't even use CO2 at home. I'll have some, uh, some beer going, some mushrooms, something like that to boost my CO2 a little bit. But with my light setup in my room, I can get 1.8 to 2.2 reliably without CO2. So do I need to grow more than that for myself in that situation? No, that's plenty for me to have and share with my friends before I get another round pumped through my room. So there's always that trade off, too, when we're talking about cultivating for personal use.
Seth [01:01:35]:
And part of, for me at least, personal use when I'm growing for that, I don't care about yield. I don't have to. I'm not making money on it. So that's sometimes where I will go with the bigger media and try to go with the most low effort path to high quality cannabis that I can.
Kaisha [01:01:51]:
Keeping it simple and shooting for those target outcomes. Fantastic. Tyrese, thank you so much for that question. Seth, thank you for holding it down. It feels so good to be back on air with y'all. We miss you gromies when we're not on. So thanks, y'all, for being patient with us over the last couple of weeks. But, yeah, thank you, Seth, so much and producer Chris, for another great session.
Kaisha [01:02:12]:
Thank you all for joining us for this week's AROYA office hours. To learn more about AROYA, book a demo at AROYA IO and our team will show you the ins and outs of the ultimate cannabis cultivation platform. If you have any crop steering or cultivation questions you want us to cover if we didn't get to it, don't you worry. Submit them again. I got a question bank. You can drop them anytime into the AROYA app. Email us at salesroi IO. Send us a DM on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
Kaisha [01:02:37]:
We want to hear from you, and if you're a fan of the pod, please leave us a review on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. We appreciate your feedback and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you never miss an episode. Thanks y'all, and see you at episode 102. Thanks a lot. Bye.