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Seth Baumgartner and Jason Van Leuven open the mics for your crop steering and cultivation questions.
Rachel [00:00:04]:
What's up, gromies? Welcome to Arroya office hours, your source for free cannabis cultivation education. I'm your moderator, Rachel, and this is episode 118. Shout out to our live viewers on YouTube and Instagram, and to everyone tapping in on Spotify, apple Music, YouTube, or wherever you listen to the podcast. Thank you for your support, and if you like the podesthenne, drop us a review. We'd appreciate your feedback. Jason, it's great to be with you again. Seein so glad you could join us. Cian, what are you gonna show us today?
Cian [00:00:39]:
Well, so over the last, I'd say, two weeks, I've had a ton of contact with customers about issues that relate to the power sources that that are used to power both their climate station and their gateway. And as a result of just how much contact I've had on that subject in the past few weeks, I wanted to just share a really simple couple of diagrams with everyone about how to diagnose some of those power issues that may help everyone be able to understand some of those a little bit easier. So this one's pretty simple. This is the diagram of the Poe injector. And this is going to be the little power plug injector that you use to power your climate station as well as your gateways. And as this diagram shows, the bottom of this injector is labeled. This one's labeled data in, data and power out. Some of the newer ones are going to be labeled in and out.
Cian [00:01:39]:
Some of the older ones may say, I want to say WlAN in and WlaN in and Poe out. But whatever version you have, it's going to look something similar to this, and it's going to have these two ports on the bottom of it. One thing to note about these two ports is that this port that I've got circled here is the only one that is able to send power to your device. So if you're plugging in a climate station, for example, and you use this port over here on the left of the device, it is going to end up not providing any power to that device. And that may well be one of those first things that a lot of people can go check if you're diagnosing a power issue on your own. The second one that I wanted to be able to share to everybody is this next little guy here. And this thing is the poe injector's little fun buddy. Everyone sees these when they come out of the box attached to their climate stations.
Cian [00:02:53]:
And oftentimes we get questions as whether or not it's an antenna or what exactly it's doing. Once you get set up, everyone realizes this is a protected Ethernet cable. So basically what you're seeing here is the end on this left side that goes to your device climate station connector, and this center piece here is the coupling. On either side of this coupling, there's going to be a female port. This Ethernet cable, your poe connector, and one matching on the other side. If either of these two ports end up getting disconnected or have just a poor connection to begin with, you may end up experiencing intermittent or sustained power issues. One thing I've talked to a lot of people about lately is just unscrewing each side of this coupling gently and being able to then extract the cables from that housing. And then once they've extracted them, inspect the terminals to make sure that nothing is looking corroded or marred up in there.
Cian [00:03:56]:
And once you've finally finished that, just click them back into place until you hear that audible click and feel a good connection in there. That should initiate power and you should start seeing signs of that on your devices really quickly as soon as you've established a solid connection with your poe injector.
Jason [00:04:15]:
Hey, I got a question while we're still here. Thanks for breaking that down. It's very helpful information. How do we know if we are trying to diagnose a power issue on the climate stations? There light on it? Can we hear the fan? What, what are easy signs there?
Cian [00:04:31]:
Well, some of the easiest signs you're going to see, especially with the newer climate stations that have that aspirated feature with them, there's a running fan inside that climate station that's going to be running all the time. And so you can go over to them. And often I find that in the noisy rooms, the easiest way to identify this is to look up at the unit from the bottom. And if you see the fan unit sitting stationary inside the bottom of that unit, you're going to know that you don't have power running to that unit at the time. You can also oftentimes hold that unit a little bit in your hand and feel that fan unit running inside of the newer climate stations. Now, the older models, they have, at least in some of the older models that I'm used to have a little blue light that appears on the side on the body of the climate station once it's been powered on. Other symptoms you may check. If you think you may be experiencing a power issue, you might go to just your dashboard page and take a look to see if you have any communication statuses.
Cian [00:05:34]:
From those devices in that page. If you're missing your sensor communication status, that's not necessarily a signifier of a power outage to the device. It may just be an issue with the sensor unit on that device itself. The power, though. If you have an issue with that, you'll see two red check marks next to those communication statuses in that listed location in your device page. And if you see both those two red check marks, you are likely experiencing some sort of a power failure with that device.
Rachel [00:06:10]:
All right, thanks, Jason. How's it going?
Jason [00:06:13]:
Good.
Rachel [00:06:15]:
Ready for some questions?
Jason [00:06:16]:
I sure am.
Rachel [00:06:17]:
All right. From Instagram, hooker plus plus asks. Hey all, I almost never get the chance to catch one live. I was wondering about VPD. Is it safer to drop my humidity during lights off if I'm facing PM pressure, or is it better to keep it stable? In other words, would the plant be better off resisting by being healthier with a more stable VPD or what's the best approach?
Jason [00:06:46]:
Yeah. So we do want to try and keep our VPD stable. Typically during daytime, we're trying to optimize VPD for plant growth to make sure that we're getting as much transpiration of those plants as possible. You know, the caveat there is definitely later in the cycle as, as we've got mature buds and more localized humidity environments near those buds is try and keep that VPD, you know, above one at night. Absolutely. And sometimes usually up to like 1.4 during the day. If you still are seeing PM pressures, you can up it at night, even farther as far as humidity. So one of the, you know, one of the main challenges that people see is obviously towards the end of the cycle, we've got a lot of transpiration.
Jason [00:07:30]:
The plants are adding a lot of water to the environment in there. And in general, we like applying a nighttime temperature differential. So dropping the temperature as we get into nights, sometimes dehumidifiers don't have the capacity to decrease the humidity. Right. Cause if we decrease our temperatures, we need to decrease the humidity as well to maintain that stable VPD. So a lot of times, you know, people come into those challenges where we have to start to mitigate. Well, how, how much temperature drop can I get if, uh, at the limited capacity of my dehumans, for example? And so that's one of those areas where you definitely have to, you know, take into consideration what, what your facility is capable of, how hard you're trying to drive those drops, and, you know, basically what PM pressures are existing. So, you know, when we talk about reducing chances of PM, healthy plants, sterile growing rooms and keeping those vpds up.
Jason [00:08:28]:
Those are all great options in order to try and reduce the chances that some genetics are, are just more predisposed to, um, to get in powdery mildew. Uh, others are extremely resistant of it. So it's going to be case by case basis. But as far as stable VPD, we're always trying to do that. Yes.
Rachel [00:08:49]:
Thanks for that info. You'll have to let us know if that answered your question or if you have any follow ups. Demu Garden writes, how many times should I top a plant in ten gallon pots with a six week veg time?
Jason [00:09:03]:
Sure. So for me, I try to never top plants. Um, you know that anytime we're topping a plant, we're cutting off value, that, you know, we've put time and energy and nutrients, other resources into growing that plant. So, hey, I guess some of the questions there are, you know, if you're growing in a ten gallon, typically we'd be trying to grow a very large plant anyways. And, and so for me, I. My answer is zero. Right. Let's use other control factors.
Jason [00:09:34]:
If we need to limit the plant height on that, then maybe let's, you know, reduce the frequency of irrigations or change some of our environmental factors to, to help reduce that, you know, and at the, at the very, um, the very least, if you have no other choices, I prefer just pinching or bending rather than topping, because at least then we, you know, we haven't disposed of all that value.
Rachel [00:10:03]:
All right, that's great info. Minnez Martin wants to know, with bigger pots, are we supposed to veg longer? Right. What time would you say for a ten gallon.
Jason [00:10:18]:
Comes back to what your ideal plant height is? You know, ideal plant size. Anytime that we, we are trying to grow a much bigger plant. And like I says, you know, with a ten gallon, hopefully you're growing like eight foot plants. Um, otherwise, you, you probably are just using a little bit too much media. Then you have to, uh, every once in a while, if you're in living soil, then sure, uh, you know, ten gallon is nice because then you've got a little bit more root zone to build a healthy, um, organic conditions in that substrate. Uh, you know, however, if you are in a traditional hydroponic situation, then if we are in something like a ten gallon, then, yeah, to make the most advantage of that ten gallon pot, we need to be growing really big plants. Uh, and if that is the case, yes, a lot of times it does take more veg time to grow a substantially larger plant. Um, however, uh, you know, regardless of substrate size, you know, the amount of vegetme that we have, uh, or that we should be applying to this plant is, is really related to how big, how big a plant we're trying to grow.
Cian [00:11:22]:
Yeah, give me the same thing. I was exactly going to say, how big is that plant going to need to get? And use that as a proportional judgment call. Do you add one week, you add two weeks. Really depends on just how much plant matter you're trying to have that specific pot grow.
Jason [00:11:41]:
This is where some typical sops that I always try recommending, you know, track your pint height. All right. Every, every other day, every three days at the least. Get, uh, get that in arroyo. Get that in a grow journal, excel sheet. You know, however you capture that information, you know, the nice thing about doing it in a system like arroyo is we can start plotting that against our steering, our crop steering phases, right? And so for me, with price and the most important, um, time frames of getting that plant height is, is individual. Right. Anytime that I'm trying to have a predictable plant size by the end of flower, I need to know how tall was it when I switched at, uh, when I switched from my 18 six to my 1212 light cycle.
Jason [00:12:26]:
And then I also definitely, really like to keep track of my plant height through stretch. Um, and typically, I try to align, uh, my, my generative, uh, stacking phase with how much, you know, the amount of stretch time that this plant goes through. A lot of times is that, uh, at that daily rate of plant height starts to slow down, then I can think about switching to bulking.
Cian [00:12:54]:
Yeah, absolutely. I would agree with everything you just said. And I only want to add that I actually stole, I think. What is an idea of yours, Jason, that I heard originally on this podcast quite a while back, which was installing a nice big, tall ruler that's 4ft tall in my room that has a camera pointed at it. And every day when I check some things and take any manual readings, I'll take a look and kind of see what that looks like and like. Oh, nice. Okay, it's a dollar today. Throw it in.
Jason [00:13:28]:
Yeah. Yeah, it's. It was kind of a fun practice. I don't know if it was because I'm. I don't know if I'm lazy, but I like to think of it as a more efficient way to try and capture that, especially if I didn't want to go in on weekends and I needed to measurement like that, you know, I could just remote in and take a look. Obviously, I like taking advantage of technology to make things as effective as possible. Another thing to kind of keep in mind, too. It always comes up as a point of discussion sometimes when I'm working with data scientists, and that is, you know, canopy height versus plant height.
Jason [00:14:02]:
Plant height's going to be much easier to track. You know, hopefully it's uniform enough that the numbers that you are taking are a representation of your crop. Um, so kind of keep that in mind.
Rachel [00:14:17]:
Yes. And you have great pictures in your harvest group of just that the ruler with the plant hides from Instagram. Cubby 204 asks, I'm having problems getting enough calcium and magnesium into my plants. What form of calcium magnesium do you recommend? And should I be foliar feeding or feeding a solution into the pots?
Jason [00:14:42]:
Um, yeah. Interesting. So, you know, in the old days, we always just say, add more calmag, right. If you're not adding enough calmag. You know, if the problem is that there's just not enough availability of calmag to the plant, then that's a, that's a pretty easy option. The, you know, the other things that might be going on, there is some nutrient reactions that are, are causing an issue for calmag uptake. Um, you know, one of the first things that I would probably do is also just try and get a good analysis. Is it a cal mag issue? And, you know, I've, I've looked at, uh, deficiency in excess charge for the last eight years now.
Jason [00:15:22]:
And, uh, you know, probably millions of cannabis plants. I still have sometimes a challenge making sure, you know, making a positive identification of a nutrient, uh, deficiency or an excess, you know, ends up mayo. That's actually caused by a ph issue or it's some type of environmental factor that's showing in the plants rather than a specific nutrient deficiency or excess. So get yourself a leaf tissue analysis or SAP analysis, and basically get some chemical, some scientific testing, validation that is a correct assumption of the case. Uh, you know, and then, yeah, then go in from there. Because a lot of times I would diagnose something wrong and then end up causing more problems or just end up chasing my tail. And so have having concrete evidence that that is the right route to go, then it does give you more options. You know, start to look at is it an issue with the plants uptake? Is it with an issue with, uh, actual substrate availability? Um, is there ways that I can mitigate my irrigation techniques in order to, to make more availability in there? Is everything else in the plant environment healthy? You know, there's a lot of things that we can.
Jason [00:16:38]:
We can try and make sure are we getting enough light? Do we have enough CO2 or temperatures and humidity? Do we have, you know, a good VPD? Those are all things that, you know, regardless of nutrient balance should be in check. Otherwise we're going to see some type of issues with those plants. So maybe take a step back and then I. Yeah, foliar is always a good way to get, you know, small amounts of any nutrient into the plant. So hopefully those steps are helpful.
Cian [00:17:08]:
I would just add that, you know, sometimes it's really easy to get stuck looking at one lever that you're really comfortable pulling in your grow to make your plants do a specific thing. And I. I know personally that I have looked at situations before and been convincing myself this has got to be some sort of a nutrient issue. And just like you said, as time goes on, really looking into some more of those environmental factors or some of those irrigation cues has revealed just that. Some of those other levers maybe were the culprit I needed to be paying more attention to during that period of time.
Jason [00:17:49]:
If you're using a popular two part salt nutrient from most suppliers these days, they don't necessarily need the addition of calmag. So probably one of the things also would be talk with your nutrient supplier. Any other reputable nutrient suppliers these days have pretty good advice as far as how you can modify sometimes their ab ratios during specific phases and other common tricks of the trade with their specific formula.
Rachel [00:18:26]:
All right, that is great info. As always from Instagram. We have a follow up from hooker. Just one clarification beyond just pm overall, generally speaking, as a swing to the lower side, let's say dropping humidity by 15% overnight. Could that cause mold, et cetera, to bloom versus leaving it stable? I guess the root of the question is that I've heard people say VPD doesn't matter at night, but that doesn't seem correct. What do you guys think?
Jason [00:19:00]:
Yeah, I'm glad you asked this question. I can dive a little bit deeper. That's kind of what I was mentioning. As far as when we're talking about ideal vpds for the daytime, as we are targeting plant growth reasons, right. We're looking to optimize our photosynthetic rates, get high levels of transpiration out of that plant. So what? You know when I'll say that, you know, VPD isn't as important at night. Well, that's what the caveat that we aren't seeing molds, mildews, any of those. Those issues there.
Jason [00:19:29]:
And so as far as generally speaking, is a swing gonna cause that? Well, if we're lower, if a swing to a lower humidity, then you know absolutely nothing. Sometimes, though, if we are swinging, say, back up to a higher humidity during the daytime, yes. If we swing too quickly, then we can see some types of condensation, and that's defined by our dew point. This is fairly common in greenhouses, especially in the wintertime when we end up having really cold outside and higher humidities inside. As we do start to swing conditions, we can build up some condensation, and those are areas where molds, mildews and that type of stuff are really going to kick in. First, anytime that we have a localized area, if water droplet forms, then the humidity at that point is 100%. To make it simply.
Cian [00:20:26]:
Yeah, I was just going to say local to your area. The times that I've always experienced mold more frequently have been in the wintertime, and I live in a super cold area, and that's a huge factor in that. During the winter, when it's very cold outside, the air exchange to the interior ends up frequently. If the cold air mixes with hot air hitting that dew point and becoming one of those factors. And just like you said, Jason, big greenhouses are really where you see a lot of that during the colder months of the year.
Rachel [00:21:05]:
All right, Jacob from YouTube asks, is it better to let the humidifier bounce between 60 or stay constant? Sorry, let's try this again. Is it better to let the humidifier humidity bounce between 60 to 80 or stay constant at 50 for veg? Thank you guys for your output.
Jason [00:21:32]:
Uh, so during veg, I would much rather be a little bit higher humidity like that. Typically, we're running temperatures in that, uh, you know, 83 degrees range. Uh, you know, depending on your light sources and other factors, you'll definitely want to be between 80 and 85. And so in order to have a VPD and the ranges, I like to have a VPD, probably 0.7 to 0.9, depending on how late in veg we get. Yeah, you're going to have to have those humidities up there, usually around 75%, 70% to 80%. So great question. Thanks.
Rachel [00:22:12]:
All right, from Instagram, flush flowers wants to know what's the ideal PPFD in through stretch, I'm under LEDs at a fixed height. I aim for 1000 ppfd at day eleven, and my plants never get too tall, and I sometimes get minor necrosis where ppfd is at its highest.
Jason [00:22:37]:
Yeah, 1000 ppfd at day eleven is pretty good target. You know, some of the kind of most important rules for lighting intensity that I like to follow is when I come out of edge, I need to make sure that I have increased my lighting intensity that first day of flower. So, you know, we've talked about this a lot, is the plants are, you know, getting photons and during veg, when they are getting photons, it's for 18 hours. That means we have six more hours of energy that's hitting that plant. So with those 6 hours, if we go to, when we go to a 1212, we need to make sure that we're getting, you know, 30% more light intensity. That's going to get the plant the same amount of energy. Its going to stay on a growth rate and youre not going to see any, you know, transplant stresses, as they say. Um, and, and typically during that, that time, I like to start bumping up my lighting intensity till I am at that, you know, 1000 ppfd.
Jason [00:23:32]:
Uh, a couple things there to think about. Necrosis. Um, you know, more often I actually end up seeing light bleaching at those highest intensities. So I kind of ask yourself, all right, is necrosis actually due to the lighting intensity? Because usually, especially with leds where it's not specifically like a hot spot, if you will, temperature wise is, you know, the actual amount of pigment in the chlorophyll is going to be less if our, if our lighting intensity gets too high. Now, how common that is in your grow room. It might also kind of think about what your lighting design is. If you are at a fixed height, then maybe, you know, you either have to start up in that a little bit up at a little bit slower, or just raise your heights overall and then increase your led percentage at that time. So you can maintain those, those ppfds, but in a, in a more, in a better uniform lighting on the canopy.
Rachel [00:24:41]:
All right, we've got one from PNW farmer. I'm on day 23, some plants have grown into the light. Would you super crop or turn down the pbFt?
Jason [00:24:55]:
Day 23, yeah, I'd raise the lights. That's probably not an option in this situation. That's why they wouldn't be asked. That's why they, they wouldn't be asking that if they could do this. Uh, yeah, you know, at this point I, I'd probably just end up um, given the old, the old pinched turn down, um, and then start thinking about what are ways that you can better control that plant height later on. Uh, you know, we were talking earlier here in the show about sops on crop registration specifically for plant height. Uh, you might be able to just cut a couple days off veg for that strain. You know, certain strains are theydeze, they multiply at different levels, uh, you know, post veg.
Jason [00:25:36]:
And so make sure you are getting some documentation on that strain. So next time you run it, shave a couple days off of veg. Um, and that can be super helpful. Right. You know, another thing to kind of think about is how are we applying some of our crop steering strategies in order to reduce the actual vertical stretch in the plant. Right. Uh, allowing our ecs to stack up, um, which is effectively reducing our osmotic differential in the plant. Um, and giving it, you know, a better chance to develop flowers early on.
Jason [00:26:08]:
That, that's a great tool to, to help reduce stretch as well. So, you know, think about the options that you can work with it because a lot of times those are, you know, those are actual benefits of, of a strain is it's. It's fast growing.
Cian [00:26:21]:
Yeah. The only thing I'll add is for right now since you can't probably, uh, raise that ceiling on them too much. Just like Jason said, pinch them, turn them and watch the heats. It gets hot right there. Once those plants are right up next to the lights and that's where you're going to start seeing a couple of those potential issues of necrosis from burning.
Rachel [00:26:44]:
All right, we'll have to have a follow up on that one. PNW farmer, let's see how that goes for you. Let's see. Canna frog or, sorry, cannog 420 asked, does the go package support a cocoa soil mix?
Jason [00:27:01]:
Sure does. Yeah. So, you know, nice thing about the go kits, it's same hardware as our commercial options. You get in the teros one, which is great for coco. You know, pretty much all hydroponic media. It is the best sensor on the market to use for looking at water contents and ecs in the substrate. So, you know, as far as the popularity, I think 990 percent of our clients are in some type of cocoa blend. Straight cocoa or rockwool.
Rachel [00:27:40]:
Yeah, Roy, go. You can use it for a lot of different substrates. Let's see. Chiliwolf from Instagram asked, if I'm running single cultivars per four by four table, would individual table runoff monitoring be appropriate or should I still look to test the odd individual plan on a regular basis? Of course, if I see a plan that has an issue, then I'll check one, that one individually.
Jason [00:28:09]:
Yeah. Check out my growth behavior video on YouTube. It's going to break down some of the challenges of running multiple strains in a small area or in one environment. You know, I guess it depends how much energy you have and what are you really trying to get out of this. Right. If, if your, your goal is, is just to try and find the, the, you know, some of the better expressions of the strains that you're getting at, then you can probably get away with, with just taking one runoff reading. Uh, if the strains are not alike and you're trying to basically optimize that genetic potential of those, then you probably are going to want to spend the time and do some readings per plant. Um, you know, for me uh, you know ec of the runoff is, is really not very important after I've gotten used to using substrate sensors.
Jason [00:29:05]:
When I'm using a substrate sensor, I get to see the dynamics of EC throughout the, your irrigation period, throughout the dry back overnight. Uh, and, and I can make much better judgment decisions than I can with the EC of the runoff. Uh, you see the runoff, you know, it's very dependent on how much runoff do I have. Um, you know the thing about the uh, ph, you know, by plant is going to be helpful because certain plants actually take up different nutrients. And you know, depending on, depending on the balance of that runoff, uh, you can make some judgment decisions on if we need to up our EC or make other changes to it. So if you are already doing individual treatments to those plants then it is probably worth taking runoff readings from each.
Rachel [00:29:58]:
Always great info from you. Jason from Instagram santabuds twelve asked what's the main difference between the teros one and the teros twelve?
Jason [00:30:12]:
Teros one has two prongs. The teros twelve has three prongs. That was a joke. It's not a joke. Like actually does. That is one of the differences. Like if you're just looking at them, the teres one is going to be a little bit more accurate, specifically with EC at low water contents. So the terros twelve is a capacitance type sensor.
Jason [00:30:34]:
A long tested technology. I've, I've had them in fields for years at a time. Super solid, super durable. The terros one also has those characteristics. You know, it's extremely rugged built. We manufacture them here in the United States right, right out of Pullman, Washington, um, not far from my sitting position here. It's just uh, about, I don't know, 70 or 100ft. Behind me is where those are manufactured.
Jason [00:30:59]:
They're epoxy, uh, hermetically sealed. So a great sensor, you know, stainless, stainless steel prongs. Yeah. So those are some of the main differences. You know, what, what is nice about the terrace ones is it is a round sensor. And so if you are in a hard pot, you can just use a hole saw to punch through those. Obviously, try not to disturb the substrate too much, but that hole saw is a nice, quick way to get it into a substrate.
Rachel [00:31:31]:
All right, the Fireman 505 wants to know, can letting my cocoa dry until pots are super light be okay? No wilting, just really dry?
Jason [00:31:43]:
Sure, yeah, that's fine. Like, you know, you know, one of the hard parts about that is defining what really dry is. Um, you know, and if you are trying to scale, being able to scale and the definition of really dry is, is a major challenge. You know, that's one of the reasons that using this type of substrate technology like Roy is so effective. When we start growing hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of plants at a time, and, uh, you know, having investors expect a projectable out output as far as commercial profit goes, when it comes down to smaller scale, really nice. When we're trying to perfect a genetic, when maybe we don't have enough time to go in and pick up all the plants and make sure that we're seeing dry back uniformity and we are looking for, you know, consistent output. So, yeah, and if you really, you know, if you really want the easy way, you can start, you know, kind of using a scale and, and then making some assumptions as far as plant weight goes. You know, in certain greenhouse applications, they've used load cells with some programs in there to try and basically evaluate.
Jason [00:32:58]:
All right, how much biomass am I adding onto there? And then using weight for water content. Definitely a much more challenging approach and not quite as accurate as using substrate sensors. So, you know, if it works for you, if you don't have a lot of plants to have to do it to, and you don't have to have, uh, you know, you don't have to share that with someone, be like, hey, well, is that one dry or not? Because it's different to everybody. Right? Um, so, sure. You know, and I guess the, the point there is if, if you're not seeing wilting, then you're not hitting temporary wilting point, right? And basically, for any of these plants that we're working with, a temporary wilting point is what happens when the plant has to work too hard to pull water from the substrate. So the matrix potential is what we're looking at in that substrate, and the plant's applying a vacuum to pull water out of it. And when we have to apply too much vacuum, so too much negative pressure and that plant can go into temporary wilting point.
Cian [00:34:03]:
I'm just going to add that asking that question is pretty much what led me to Arroyo in the first place. How do I walk this thin line where I want to get my plants really dry, but I really don't want to kill any of my root zone?
Rachel [00:34:23]:
Right. Great advice. A post from YouTube. Why does nobody talk about, eh, Reddick's potential, the measurement of the availability of protons, since it's the other side of the ph coin.
Jason [00:34:39]:
Hmm. Why does no one talk about it? I guess there's probably just a little bit less known about it. Might be one of the reasons we got enough stuff to look at that we know quite a bit about. Redox potential is important and there are good ways to measure it. So if you're at that point, then start writing some scientific documents for us so we all can learn about it, too.
Rachel [00:35:08]:
Definitely sounds like we need more info. There a question from Dan from Instagram. Hi, guys. Any tip to increase aroma? I have a strain that has all the chicks, but it does not smell as a very light odor. I tried to grow it more generative, but this time it still has the same outcome.
Jason [00:35:29]:
Yeah, you know, more generative is probably would have been my first step. Um, you know, if the plant looks super healthy, you know, there is a chance that, you know, doing some foyers, um, of some micros, just making sure that you've got a good, good micro supply to that. I've found that, uh, making sure that we've got a sufficient supply of micros helps with the terpene profiles. And in plants, um, I don't necessarily have any secret sauce. You know, genetics got limited potential and it's unfortunately, uh, there's been a lot of genetics that have not made it, not made the cut because they have, you know, one checkbox they're missing.
Cian [00:36:11]:
I've thrown away many packs of seeds. Well, and I shouldn't say I threw away the packs of seeds. I've, I flowered them all the way out, but there just wasn't a single winner in the packs. And, you know, that's, uh, that's the gamble we take, dude.
Jason [00:36:27]:
You can't throw seeds out. You got to throw them in your neighbor's bushes.
Cian [00:36:32]:
Good advice to follow.
Rachel [00:36:34]:
Just see what pops up. Another question. Final product consistency has dark red hairs. Using salts and leds. Following the program, what's your first thought?
Jason [00:36:51]:
I mean, again, it could be related to the genetics. If it's a genetic that you've run and you haven't seen that. I guess one of the. One of my favorite procedures was as I started getting close to harvest, I would capture a microscope picture. So I had a USB microscope and I would take a look at the color of the trichomes and the hairs and, and actually spec out, you know, what exactly day I expected a specific strain to be ripe at. And since we were harvesting in pretty large greenhouses and didn't have a big staff harvest usually take us between two and three days. And so we would actually line up our harvest schedule with which strains were actually, you know, at a better ripeness at. At that day, you know, 70 rather than 71 or 72.
Jason [00:37:45]:
We were pretty long cycles back then. So, yeah, you know, there's chance that it is just a little overripe. There's a chance it's simply that genetic. Um, it could be environmental factors at play here as well. Uh, it's gonna kind of have to come down to a breakdown of. Have you seen that strain grow differently than that?
Cian [00:38:06]:
I was just going to say the same thing. I, uh, just recently had a harvest come down where a strain that I've grown several times with wonderful results and a really great balanced color came out really similar to other times, but with a hair more orange to the trichome structure. When I started looking at it under a scope. And, um, you know, there were obvious environmental, environmental factors in that room, during that run, in that area that, you know, I can see now where they contributed to how that plant, uh, ended. And then I probably harvested it about two days later than I have in any of the other rounds. And that can also be another one of those contributing factors just based on how long that plant wants to be run.
Rachel [00:38:53]:
Kind of going down the same road. Rocket buds farms ask trimming free during or after caring.
Jason [00:39:03]:
Yeah, this is one of the things that, you know, can kind of come down to the logistics of your facility and what some of your limiting factors are. You know, I definitely liked having a pretty good strip before we cut the plants, you know, simply just to help with the processing, the quickness of processing, how much we could fit in our dry room at that time, and just helping make sure that we were able to get a good drive through there. You know, ideally, I would say that bucking at drying and having some pretty good cleanup so that your, your nugs can all cure together is probably one of the ideal processes there, but it still has to come into play of what, what y'all can get done at the site.
Cian [00:39:50]:
Yeah, I was gonna say, you know, ideals sometimes can go out the window when it comes to what you can accomplish with the resources that you have on hand. And we all would love to live in ideal situations and have the perfect ability to walk through a perfectly designed, preordained process. But sometimes we're all just working with what we have in terms of the resources that you can summon to be able to accomplish getting any of those single tasks done in the timeline that you need to get them done.
Rachel [00:40:27]:
Let us know if you have a follow up for that one. Rapid bugs farms. Finley, 88, reached out on Instagram. I have noticed that my dried nugs are way denser growing and one gallon cocoa quick filled bags. When I grow the same strain in six inch hugos, I can't figure out why I like to stick with rockwool, because it's cleaner, but I prefer the dense flower I get with cocoa. Any thoughts on why this might be?
Jason [00:40:57]:
I'm guessing it's going to be related to what kind of water contents that you can see and what your Ec is doing. Track what your runoffs look like in both of those, and also start to track how quickly your EC is stacking in that cocoa. There's a good chance that you're able to stack your Ec a little bit better in that coco. That's why you're getting a more generative response from those, those buds, and then also, you know, make sure that it's not an environmental factor. I think a couple weeks ago, we were talking about on here how, you know, nighttime differentials can help buds get dense. You know, making sure that we do have high intensity light levels across the canopy and through the depth of the canopy as well. You know, it's one of the reasons that under canopy is taken off as a popular trend is simply making sure that we have the uniformity at the right environmental levels to ensure uniform, healthy buds.
Rachel [00:41:59]:
All right, Jedi little had a question. A suggested process to clean reservoirs. Any magic reliable products to help clean the residue using a 275 gallon IBC tote, for better or worse.
Jason [00:42:18]:
Uh, let's see, the magic secrets is, yeah, hard workers. Um, elbow grease. Yeah, yeah, you know, making sure that it hasn't been dried on there for too long so, you know, don't. Don't leave the tank dried out for. For way too long and then just try and go in and scrub it, you know, and if you do that, maybe try to spray the walls down. Um, you know, use a cleaning agents like bleach, hyperchlorous acid, hyperchlorous acid, chlorine dioxide. Um, um. Any of those things are going to kind of help break down any of the.
Jason [00:42:50]:
The mineral buildup in your batch tank and sterilize it.
Cian [00:42:55]:
Yeah, I was just going to say, don't ever let that stuff dry on there hard. You will, uh, you'll be very upset with yourself about that decision.
Rachel [00:43:05]:
Yep. Scrubbing Mike is looking for advice. Planting density for one gallon quick fill cocoa bags.
Jason [00:43:19]:
Yeah. Not quite enough information there to make a really helpful recommendation. Kind of as a general rule of thumb for my growing style is usually around 0.6 plants per square foot. It's going to be extremely genetic dependent. It's going to be dependent on what my lighting looks like, what my airflow in the room is. You know how long I'm trying to get this stuff turned. Yeah, think. Think of those things.
Jason [00:43:49]:
And I guess one of the easiest ways to know whether you have done a good density or not is by looking at light penetration. So are you seeing lots of life on the buds below? Are you getting any powdery milled mold? Yeah, those things. There's just not enough airflow through the canopy. Right. And we're not seeing uniformity because we have too much canopy density. And then also have to consider how much labor do you have to spare for doing deleving practices and pruning practices. Right. And if we don't have a lot of that, then we are going to have to end up with a wider plant spacing.
Cian [00:44:30]:
Yep. I was just going to kind of go along with that. I've experimented quite a bit the last few rounds that I've run with the one gallon cocoa bags and kind of gone back and forth. But the answer I've come to is pretty much the same. 0.5 to 0.6 /sqft seems like the magic number where the labor is reasonable, the airflow seems to be manageable and I don't have to go through and have people touch the plants quite as much as I do at some of the other densities. And it seems like everything grows with just enough space that it can be happy and get that airflow and be able to have those uniform temperature differentials that Jason's talking about.
Rachel [00:45:15]:
All right, on the topic of bud rot, what's the line between Botryatus and an ok VPD at a higher temp and humidity? I just found bud rot on one bud and didn't see it on the others, but I'm concerned. We lost ac and the tent's been struggle busing.
Jason [00:45:34]:
The old struggle busing yeah, I don't, I don't know, it's probably, you know, there's always that fine line, especially if you are running unlimited equipment. You know, sometimes as we are getting towards the end, it's better to, to thin out the buds, you know, send some of that to a blowout, concentrate it, whatever, than it is to end up with that and all of it and try to try and salvage a poor flower crop. So as I mentioned earlier, you know, certain strains are going to be much more resilient to botrytis. And, uh, you know, certain growth facilities actually have a facility down the road where they, you know, they specifically run genetics that are much, much more resilient to that type of stuff. Um, so yeah, I don't know where that fine line is. You know, it sounds like probably here and it is worth getting, getting your ac tuned up though, so that you have a little bit better, better options and you aren't putting yourself in a tough position where you have to make a decision of what to do with the crop.
Rachel [00:46:40]:
We've got a live one from YouTube. Tommy in the trees wants to know if you have to start flower at a low PPFD, around 400. What is an ideal daily increase in PPFD?
Jason [00:46:55]:
Um, I guess I would first ask myself is why do I have to do that?
Cian [00:47:01]:
I was just going to say that same thing.
Jason [00:47:05]:
But I guess that doesn't answer the question. Very good. Yeah, I guess it depends also what you. Why did you have to do that? I like to be at, you know, around 1000 ppfd by day ten of flower, definitely. So you know what, that's going to be 50 ppfd a day or, you know, 100 ppfd every couple days to get you there. Yep.
Rachel [00:47:37]:
Tommy in the trees. Any follow up on that one, let us know. Can only get up to around 350 in bedroom.
Jason [00:47:46]:
Yeah. So you know, you're fortunate enough here, you actually get to use the one of those principles that I was talking about of increasing your light intensity by 30%. Um, so let's see. Yeah, 30% on 350. So yeah, I'd be comfortable starting my flower in around 500 ppfd, um, if I was at 350 in veg. So it's a little bit of help.
Cian [00:48:11]:
Maybe I was going to say. Yeah, pretty similar. Mine go from, uh, about 350 to 400 in their veg into their flower. And I usually start that up at about 500 to 550 depending on how resilient the plants seem and how well they've done with transitioning into higher light quicker in that particular cultivar before.
Rachel [00:48:39]:
All right, Eric Berkholder asks when is the last time I should water before harvest?
Jason [00:48:47]:
You know, some people have, you know, talked about not watering the day that you harvest. That's fine. It's great and wonderful. Sure, you can save some, some water and maybe a little bit of nutrients. I honestly don't think it's going to make, make a big impact, you know, in something like rockwool. I definitely wouldn't go any more than the, you know, I would irrigate it the day before you harvest, for sure. And cocoa. Irrigate the day before you harvest.
Jason [00:49:16]:
Absolutely. You know, the last thing that we want is some amount of, um, of, of plant unhealthiness right before we harvest because that, uh, that can definitely cause some hotspots for molds and mildews. Her botrytis as those plants are drying.
Rachel [00:49:37]:
All right, well, with that, I think we're going to wrap it up here. Thanks, Jason and Sam and our co producer, our producer, Chris. I'm like the co moderator. Sorry, guys. Hang out with me here for another great session and thank you for joining us for this week's Arroyo office hours. To learn more about Arroyo, book a demo at Arroya IO and our team will show you the ins and outs of the ultimate cannabis cultivation platform. Got crop steering or cultivation questions you want to cover? Drop them anytime in the Arroyo app. Email us at salesroya IO or send us a DM via Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
Rachel [00:50:20]:
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. And we'll see you at episode 119.