Cian [00:00:04]:
Welcome to Office Hours, episode 137. I'm your host, Cian and today we've got something special lined up. We're with the Powrhouse team from Sacramento kicking off a new short run project we're calling Power Talk. A cultivation reality short series powered by data and grounded in real world trials. No scripts, no sets, just a working grow team of experienced cultivators. Real time decisions that they're making using Aurora. This isn't a case study. It's kind of a transparent, in the trenches look at a commercial cultivation that we've been working with for a while and that we're all excited to see the results from.

Cian [00:00:37]:
With me today is Kevin Crouch, Sergio Picazo, Brad Wood, and our very own Jason Van Leuven. We'll introduce the facility, talk through their retrofit, share why this project matters not just for Powrhouse, but for the broader cultivation community. Talk about some of the work they're doing in the different synganic approaches that they're using and trying to scale these approaches to be able to bring their personal brand to the broader cultivation community. Whether you're tuning in for tech ops or just to see what happens when the data doesn't lie, this episode is for you. Let's get into it, guys. Sergio, Kevin, want to kick us off by introducing Powrhouse a little bit and talk to us about how you guys got started with this project.

Sergio Picazo [00:01:23]:
I'd be honored to. So first off, thank you to the AROYA team for having us on this show. The Office Hours is highly respected. When we have time, this is the show that we're plugging into. No matter what we're doing, you know, there's always great content out there. So no other platform has this level of in depth cultivation discussion. So we thank you guys for I think 130 plus episodes. Great job.

Sergio Picazo [00:01:46]:
Thank you. So all we're seeing here, like you see a lot of products, right? Like this is the foundation of the community that we've come from. So here in the Sacramento Green Zone, we have over two and a half million square feet of indoor canopy in the District 6. Over the years, you know, we've all bumped into each other, whether it was here at Endorsen Hydro where we're filming this, or over at the brewery down the street, Big Sexy. That was, you know, kind of our stomping grounds and it all transformed into this community that we have today known as the Kinect. And ultimately it's pretty fun to just be able to share war stories and find solutions with each other. And ultimately that's How Powrhouse was born, we, you know, networked and connected and all come from individual pathways, whether it's from cultivation, genetics, Hydra Shop solutions, distribution originators of some of the original licenses. Here in Sacramento, we are congregated.

Sergio Picazo [00:02:52]:
You know, this was really the fun part that you know, we all found a subject matter expertise in our, in our channel and now we've come together to put this project called Powrhouse, which is all intended to have a plant health and immunity focus with trying to grow better flower and you know, yield with quality at scale. So all these product solutions that you see as our, you know, our synganic approach, you know, something that Kevin's been working on for a long time and we've been blessed with all these manufacturing partners that understand the narrative that we're trying to increase our workflow by not having to hand water the organics or biologicals. We're trying to put everything through the drip line which we are successfully. And this is one of the things that we get to play with is just increasing the plant health and immunity with all the solutions and continuously trying to improve. That's why the word powerhouse is misspelled. We're never perfect, never will we? And I think that's the cool part around the mentality around all of our founding partners at Powrhouse is we know that we're always striving for something better and the cultivation community is, you know, it's, it's great, it's a tight pack. And ultimately when you find good people that are sharing information, we're trying to level up together which ultimately that came through. And what the Connect panel discussions that we've had over the years, I mean we just started off at the brewery, just chopping it up until one day the, you know, the bartender said, hey, can you talk into this microphone? The people at the end of their end, they're cultivators too and they want to hear what you're talking about.

Sergio Picazo [00:04:21]:
This is why we're here. You know, it kind of just spark plugged everything that's happening with, with the Connect. And you know, I gotta give huge love to Kevin Vu, you know, founder of Endorsen Hydro because he was the facilitator of the Connect, you know, really encouraging us to, to keep the momentum going and you know, having all of this support over the years is indoor sun, you know, and that's, that's how a lot of us players got together, was Kevin encouraged us to keep doing this. We're all coming off the, you know, four or five o' time frame when the Lights went off. Right. Gotta stay under that peak hour. So we all kind of met up at the brewery and hung out and just did the thing. But without going too further into detail, like Kevin, why don't you talk to the audience a little bit about your background and.

Sergio Picazo [00:05:09]:
And I'll kind of dive into the other players involved.

Cian [00:05:12]:
Sure.

Kevin Crouch [00:05:13]:
Like you said, there's nothing better. First of all, talking grow after growing all day and that was always a highlight for me is, you know, hitting the. In the brewery, getting a beer and talking about challenges and what you saw, bugs, crop steering, everything. And it was truly a highlight of the end of my day. And I got to see all these locals that felt the same passion I did. And it was just, it was great. And see where it's at now. And what we're doing sitting next to you is pretty amazing.

Kevin Crouch [00:05:43]:
You know, it's kind of a dream when you rewind five years ago. So it's. First of all, that's, that's. It's just an amazing feeling.

Sergio Picazo [00:05:54]:
When we met when you were building out. Delighted. Right. We pre. Pre build, you know, you guys were reaching out for genetics, you know, as co founder of Cultivated, you know, here in Sacramento, an indoor nursery that was, you know, trying to find a name for myself. Right. I was part of another 215feedery prior to that in Sacramento, but we didn't really have any marketing. You know, that wasn't a thing.

Sergio Picazo [00:06:13]:
So just meeting you guys and going through that process was really special because there's a lot of collaborative efforts and just talking about the facilitation and the genetics themselves and helping provide any notes that we had around them.

Kevin Crouch [00:06:25]:
Yeah, absolutely. I remember going over to the squeeze in and getting lunch and that was. Geez, by about 2018 maybe.

Sergio Picazo [00:06:34]:
Yep.

Kevin Crouch [00:06:35]:
And so you were our first clones in the building. So Dog walker OG Docilato. That was the majority of our first room.

Sergio Picazo [00:06:45]:
You guys crushed it there.

Kevin Crouch [00:06:48]:
It was great.

Sergio Picazo [00:06:50]:
Yeah.

Kevin Crouch [00:06:50]:
And as far as for. For myself, I've been growing cannabis since 2002 and I kind of had a. An awesome crazy journey through the years. I worked nine to five as a wildlife biologist for 15 years, have a degree in wildlife biology and did that majority of my, my daytime hours and cultivated at night. And I never really stopped cultivating from O2 all the way till current. And you know, through that, seeing the transitions in the industry, cultivation styles, everything from. From hydrotone pellets to rockwool to cocoa, a little soil, but mostly stayed hydro indoors. Very little outdoor experience.

Kevin Crouch [00:07:43]:
Somewhere around 09, I kind of started messing around with compost teas and inputs into there and incorporating that into a weekly inoculant that I would put through the emitters at that point. At that time I did not use actually emitters. I used open flow quarter inch tubing. Was a little afraid of clogging. So started that about then and just kind of tweaked the recipes and and never really stopped. And it was, it was for both the indoor garden and in my outdoor veggies and fruit trees. So a massive mandarin tree. And pretty much every month out of the year I have an edible tree or plant in my backyard.

Kevin Crouch [00:08:27]:
So it wasn't just cannabis I was feeding these plants with. And I would alter a fungal tea, bacterial tea, depending on what I was planting, depending on the week and so forth. And then had a lot of early early times going to the high time events with a good buddy Vernon Phillips shout out to Phillips Rx. He wouldn't be here without him too. So we had a lot of fun doing those those events. And then around 72017 was or actually 2016 was approached to start a commercial commercial spot. And so started that facility with delighted with a group of individuals and we ran that and did the whole synganic approach there started it there. And it took some time and some trial and error trying to ensure that I wouldn't clog emitters.

Kevin Crouch [00:09:31]:
And started out small. It was a 10 room facility. So little by little and it was whether it was filtering out carriers and powders and so forth to make it go through the emitters and not clogged filters. And took took about a year and worked with Mark Irvin and Kevin Vu at Indoor to get a really soluble carrier that's in the all in one one of these buckets up here and it's completely flowable and just kind of tweaked all the different aspects of inputs to help create health, health and immunity and raise up terpene scores, trace mineral count, all that sort of thing. And been running it probably about four years now in some fashion. Obviously like anything in growing you're always tweaking and adding and finding you know a better product or altering the product to get what you're doing trying to achieve in the end product. And then where we're at now with Powrhouse is truly I get goosebumps literally if I even say that what we're doing because what cultivator does not want to be an R D facility and be able to mess with everything. They're just saying I have a super high sensor Density and allows me to crop steer just how I want and trust the data 100%.

Kevin Crouch [00:11:03]:
And so having that ability is like a dream for me. Obviously we have pressures to always get yield, but that's internal. As a grower, you're always trying to do better, so that's not a problem. But being able to test different products and push that limit is really is a dream come true for me.

Sergio Picazo [00:11:23]:
And I'm glad that you touched on that sensor density because this is how we make such precise decisions. Right. There's a lot of things that happen with R and D and at our facility we have 300 lights, we have 200 light double stacks and we have two single tier 50 ladders. And attached to that we also have a bedroom that we're still going through innovation on. But you know, ultimately every room is set up differently. You know, different manufacturer lighting configurations. Everything is outfitted with the Favin, whether it's the R8, the R8 with far red, the chroma, we get to play with it all, you know, and Kevin being one of the co founders of Favin with Tim, it's great to be able to help provide that, you know, that, that feedback and just help the overall cultivation community on how to use these powerful tools. Because it is a variable.

Sergio Picazo [00:12:12]:
If you're not utilizing under canopy lights, you're going to be left behind in terms of total grams per square footage. And again, the sensor density that we have is pretty incredible because we do have individual irrigation zones so we can make sure to steer those genetics accordingly. And we're pushing our limits of our facility. We've already hit the capacity on some of our rooms because the climate control. So now we're in the position to determine do we make an additional investment into more cooling and dehu, or do we remove a rack, remove some lights and just crank in those boxes right there with 80 lights. These are the discussions we're having, right? And having the ability to push the limit with the sensor density and the overall trust that we have in the decisions that we're making to help steer and build these genetic recipes because that's all we're doing, we're just building genetic recipes at the end of the day. So utilizing all the different solutions that we have. We're not saying that synganic is the only way to grow.

Sergio Picazo [00:13:09]:
Clearly people grow sterile and they pump out some fire. We understand that there's trace mineral count percentages that are. You're only gonna achieve a certain percentage until you start incorporating all these organic inputs. So the Synganic engine is why we like being able to plant all these solutions and making them flowable, increasing that trace mineral count.

Kevin Crouch [00:13:29]:
Yeah, you get your. We all know you can get your yield with a really bad. A balanced salt program. You know, where your ratios are really great. But who usually wins the. The smoke contest is living soil.

Sergio Picazo [00:13:43]:
Right.

Kevin Crouch [00:13:44]:
The organic.

Brad Wood [00:13:44]:
Sergio, let me ask you a question.

Sergio Picazo [00:13:46]:
Yes, sir.

Kevin Crouch [00:13:47]:
So.

Brad Wood [00:13:47]:
So let's roll back. Let's roll back a little bit. So I'm thinking about this time last year, I was in Boise, Idaho, walking back from lunch at a. At a staff meeting, and my phone rings and it's your number, and you go, hey, I got this crazy idea. We found this facility. Tell me. Tell me a little bit about that story right there. That's amazing.

Brad Wood [00:14:07]:
Just on its own, to be able to walk into almost, you know, we'd say 85%, right. And start going.

Sergio Picazo [00:14:14]:
You know, I'm blessed for the opportunity because again, through the connect community, you meet a lot of great people. And again, in Sacramento, this green zone is tight. There's a lot of crossover. So shout out to Tyler at Legacy Farms because he had a opportunity for the facility. You know, he has a type 7 manufacturing and cultivation license attached to that. So he hit me up like, hey, man, you know, I got 300 lights. Wonder if you guys know anybody that would be interested in taking them on. So I was actually with Kevin Vu, and we're like, you know what? Yeah, we'll come by and check it out.

Sergio Picazo [00:14:45]:
It was just a couple minutes down the street from Indoor Sun. So we hopped in the car, checked it out. The facility was built to the T. Awesome job that they did. So between Tyler and Jameson, they built the whole thing out. So they knew every nook and cranny, every. Every facility competency behind it. So we knew that we were walking a really well built facility, just needed some equipment and different racks.

Sergio Picazo [00:15:08]:
And that's exactly why we're like, okay, calling Matt Caputo. Matt was somebody that had come through to the connect and just hung out, just, you know, vibed with us as cultivators. And I knew of Tara International, I didn't know that Matt Caputo was that Tara International here hanging out with us, super humble. And when Matt's like, hey, man, anytime you guys want to get an R and D facility going, give me a call. I think the world needs to understand what you guys are talking about at a greater scale because we get deep into these cultivation discussions on the panel discuss. And that's when he was like, all right, Let me know. Fast forward a few months. That's, you know, we walked out of the facility.

Sergio Picazo [00:15:50]:
Kevin and I were like, let's hit up Matt, see what he thinks by far. Just called him and asked, you know, do you. We found your R and D facility, man. You still down? His first response was, let's go. So at that point, we started talking about the partners that we want to work with, right? The. The leaders in each category, and we respect them because we've used these product solutions over the years. These are the things that we really want to hone in and refine on because that's. That's the direction we wanted to head into, because ultimately it's about continuous evolution.

Sergio Picazo [00:16:26]:
What are the manufacturing partners that want actually get the constructive criticism, how do we build together and how do we continue to elevate? So, Brad, yes, you're that. That absolute, like, top of the list call, man. We knew that we needed to have sensor density, and ultimately there's the trust in the data. So when you saw the vision for we were putting together, man, this was really exciting because we needed that level of confidence behind all these different trials that we wanted to put in. This is the best part around having the. The Arroyo platform, you know, the environmentals and the substrate monitoring. Now we get to play around with the drip and drain system. We got lighting senso.

Sergio Picazo [00:17:01]:
It's a dream come true. Like Kevin was saying, I'm getting goosebumps just talking about this. We have so many different solutions that we get to try, and we get to forcefully just try to, you know, make it better. Like, that's. That's our best part. And I think that's really cool because, you know, working with Jason and seeing and just really evolving with the team and, like, getting feedback along the way, it's really fun to just spitball on some stuff. And, you know, that. That was.

Sergio Picazo [00:17:28]:
That was great. So, Brad, you've been a heavy consideration in the Connect community. Like, you've been part of this journey with us. You've been on some panels already. You killed it on the Boston panel as well, man. This was part of the evolution. We want to continue to grow together.

Jason [00:17:44]:
I think that's one of the reasons I've enjoyed knowing and working with you so much over the years. You know, you're always presenting a level of transparency that we really don't see in any other form in this industry. And, you know, whether it comes from the network that you've built or the practices that you push, the level of that transparency really helps everyone Become better, like you were saying. And that level of transparency is something that Aurora has kind of always been for a lot of cultivation facilities. Sometimes it scares growers at first, having their secrets exposed or really what their practices are. But the ability to share that, to have that documented, is something that's let us really become ingrained in the processes, especially in MSOs, especially in tight knit communities like there in Sacramento. So I guess the question for me, let's start this off is, you know, how do you get, how is it that you guys feel so comfortable being transparent? You know, you've built this knowledge, you're putting all this energy in. What is it in you that says, let's just share it with the world and see, see what happens?

Sergio Picazo [00:18:53]:
Well, this for me personally goes back to starting a nursery. Right. I knew that Kevin Jodry, back in the day had put out some videos on YouTube about Wonderland. And I love the transparency that he was showing because genetics is the key to everything. And so when I made that decision, it was probably 2016, Christmas Eve, and I was watching YouTube with my parents and showed them this video. I'm like, I want to do a nursery like that. I want to be a part of the community to help grow genetics with such expansive reach. And that's what Kevin Jodry was doing.

Sergio Picazo [00:19:26]:
And so, you know, ultimately the whole goal was to have a trustworthy, breeder verified selection that we can share with the world. So let's fast forward to post. Liquidating my 401k, selling my house, selling my car to fund the bill that I cultivated. That's what it was. It was, it was a transparent model. So Node Labs was. I was one of their early on nursery partners because I told them exactly what I wanted to do was bring in clean, validated genetics and then be able to disperse those. So trust and transparency had to be part of my narrative.

Sergio Picazo [00:20:01]:
It's exactly what I wanted to do. And of course we're gonna have pressures, we're gonna have pathogens, we're gonna have pests. But how do you handle that situation? The moment that you have to run into a circumstance where you have to take care of an issue, that's when it truly defines you as a business. And to me, I come from the hospitality industry, right. I love to cook. I wanted to be the next General Lagasse coming out of high school. So just being form of entertainment, but also showing people your love because you get to feed them, that was the perfect blend for me. But restaurant wasn't necessarily my pathway.

Sergio Picazo [00:20:35]:
I got into the Hospitality sales and distribution side of it. But that's where I learned a lot more around the skill sets of distribution and, you know, product development and all of these different things that have crafted my narrative along the way to run a nursery. So coming into a facility like Kevin's to start you guys off knowing that I had to give you a trusted product solution, I had to stay stand behind that. So ultimately that's how I felt compelled to be able to build up so much trust and transparency around the business model I cultivated. I mean, shit, I was documenting everything. Every day I was in that facility. I was on Instagram, I was on TikTok. Shoot.

Sergio Picazo [00:21:13]:
I think my TikTok account had several hundred thousand followers because I was just pumping out content of the nursery. And it was pretty exciting at that time, being able to show the world how we were growing in deep water culture and have these massive roots and super healthy clones coming out and getting to work with people like Kevin and the other killers around the industry. You know, same thing with Joe Cimino down at Los Angeles, Good Greens. You know, he was one of the first guys that I saw that was really crop steering and following the Arroyo platform to really understand, like how to bring out the most genetic potential. And that's what really started this whole pathway of. That's the. I have to unlock the crop steering recipes for each of my genetics if I want to be an extension of somebody's cultivation. And that's what I strive for.

Sergio Picazo [00:21:57]:
I wanted to find as much trust and transparent matter of, of course, within reason of showing parts of the facility that I can help others learn how to grow these genetics. And that's also what transitioned to having these panel discussions. Kevin was my first panelist along with Bobby Bags, you know, Tim Kroll, co founder of Fabian and Joe Samito, you know, from Good Greens now out in Massachusetts. So it was really cool to be able to have the homies talking and like, just like showing all these different solutions that we're talking about. And that's why Matt Caputo, coming back to why, like, yo, when you guys are ready to get an R and D facility, let me know because you guys are talking about something that you need to show and that's what's Powrhouse. So we're able to show people these solutions that we're working on. And of course, I'm sure you've seen the posts that we have on our Powrhouse page. The metrics, right? How do you reverse engineering? How do you get those.

Sergio Picazo [00:22:49]:
Those. Those numbers? Right? We're averaging over 105 grams a square foot, you know, and we just came out of the gate with our post renovation, so. So how do we continue to increase that yield with quality being the main focus?

Brad Wood [00:23:03]:
So, Sergio, you said something I think everybody ought to hear. So you're at 105 grams per square foot, and that's on three runs. Total.

Kevin Crouch [00:23:15]:
Runs in the facility.

Sergio Picazo [00:23:16]:
Second full run that we just completed after power.

Brad Wood [00:23:19]:
Yeah, but that's pretty amazing.

Sergio Picazo [00:23:23]:
This. So this is the part, like, we took the facility over in June of last year. We all we did was upgrade the lighting, threw in the synganic recipe that Kevin was comfortable running, and at that point, we just wanted to see what the facility was capable of. So at that point, I think we hit around two and a half pounds of light. That was actually the batch that we submitted into the Lumpy's competition with the Lip Smackers Shout Out Good Grains. We actually won first place with the hybrid category with that cut with that first run. So coming out of the gate, yeah, we knew that Kevin knew what the hell he was doing. And ultimately, we just wanted to push the boundaries.

Sergio Picazo [00:23:59]:
And at that point, you know, we started renovation and started, you know, really dialing stuff in, you know, getting proper lighting, getting the under canopies throughout everything. And the arroyo system really tuned in with Kevin's approach. I mean, right off the bat there, you know, we're running.

Brad Wood [00:24:17]:
Yeah, yeah. I think the most amazing thing of walking in there is being with you guys as you were standing up the facility. And I don't think anybody can quite conceptualize when you said doing construction, like, beside the plants, you were making fundamental changes in the grow on a day by day basis. And you're still producing. You know, in these second runs, you guys are well over three pounds per light. And it's just. It was kind of really fun to watch. Like, it's this really chaotic environment that's going on, and you've got fire going out the door.

Sergio Picazo [00:24:50]:
It really is special because, again, that goes back to plant health and immunity. We're making the plants stronger. They can there. They can be more resilient. And that's. That's the great part about this. We know we can push harder. We just harvested our double stack, and we probably hit four pounds per light per tier.

Sergio Picazo [00:25:07]:
It's. You know, we're still sifting through that. You know, the mold is an issue. And because we knew that, we had to push to understand what our facility competency was. So ultimately, we're making some decisions whether it's increase the H VAC and Dehu or do we reduce the plant count, which we have done.

Kevin Crouch [00:25:22]:
Or even this round we're trying a 45 day strain and get a harvested two weeks before the rest of the round.

Sergio Picazo [00:25:29]:
Yeah.

Kevin Crouch [00:25:30]:
And so hopefully reduce that humidity down a little bit and be able to finish without any mold issues.

Sergio Picazo [00:25:36]:
Right.

Cian [00:25:37]:
I also kind of wanted to point out that you guys are really doing a great job of mastering is that you have several different types of strategies running alongside each other simultaneously and one roof. And it takes a lot of awareness of what you're doing to be able to be successful. And even just one of those, let alone to have competing simultaneous strategies that require mastery in different forms happening all at the same time. And so I kind of wanted to point out that one of the things that you guys are doing by making all of this data available is helping people in multiple different types of. It's not necessarily, you know, this is how it's done with just multi tier led. This is just how it's done with hps. You guys have a wide variety of different implementations and it allows you to have an option that fits anybody's specific implementation that they already have going.

Sergio Picazo [00:26:51]:
Glad you pointed that out Cian because that's exactly why we want to have different variations of lighting setups and configurations. Different racking, different. I mean the checkerboard room power two is exciting. Right. We can grow big plants in there and having that HPS and LED combination paired with the under canopy lighting soon to come side lighting in there like we're gonna hit some crazy numbers. And it's, it's all about maintaining the quality. Right. It's easy to pump out yield, but maintaining that quality and that leap to Calyx ratio to make sure that the finish is there and also improving the, you know, the finishing agents in there.

Sergio Picazo [00:27:25]:
There. Right. We understand that calcium chloride is one of those product solutions that is preventing a full on senescence, but it's affordable at a commercial level. So as we start to continue to work on and evolve the recipe, hopefully it's something that does work and it's affordable for cultivators that want to go through and actually get the best quality smoke while maintaining yield. You know, and that's, that's the fun part is having all these different configured rooms. Whether it's high PPFD or different type of light doesn't really matter. We, we know that you can control the irrigation strategy with each irrigation zone and Kevin's able to read the data every single day to make those adjustments.

Kevin Crouch [00:28:03]:
Yeah, it's My goal at the end of the day, whether I'm testing a 5 1/2 inch kayak or against a 6 inch or a mother's earth bag, is be able to steer that plant to the maximum potential of that substrate and not have it hinder the end results. So in the end you should be able to have the equivalent data amongst all of them if I'm doing my job correctly. So that's, it's great to see the maximum potential of those. You know, what's the, the, what the, the field capacity and how do you manage your P2s in this versus that? And so that's this, this, the, it's the fun part.

Sergio Picazo [00:28:47]:
It really is. And that's, that's our job, is to be able to showcase how they perform. We're not here to say what's good, bad or indifferent. It's. This is how they perform. So we are open to the collaborative aspect of this. And you know, all, again, all these manufacturer parties that you see is what you get when you start to put everybody into a collaborative environment. If you're shut off from constructive criticism, this isn't your place.

Sergio Picazo [00:29:09]:
We want to evolve. We want to continue to build the best commercialized solution to produce the healthiest plants. And the firest weed that's making their.

Kevin Crouch [00:29:16]:
Products better too, not just taking what they have.

Jason [00:29:20]:
It's really cool having Kevin in there. I think it also answers my earlier question in a different way than I was thinking about it, that transparency is really just an extension of what Kevin's doing in the garden. Having that data documented behind him, allowing him to have insights on so many different variables rather than being any type of liability when he shares it. It's an extension of his liability level of cultivation, the dedication, that work that he puts in there every day and allows him to step that game up.

Kevin Crouch [00:29:53]:
Yeah, and I really like to help people as far as the reasons how it's just easy to hand out. This information is coming from the 215 compassionate use days. It's, you know, it's a plant and we share, share that plant and how to grow it best and provide medicine. And ultimately that's kind of overtaken every part of even a business sense. I know this is a. But it's, it's still sharing and I, I go there first regardless of money and probably to a detriment.

Sergio Picazo [00:30:27]:
No, it's, it's, it's so rewarding, man. And like, you know, shout out to Anthony Jones, the historian, the producer of the Kinect, the producer power talk, he's also Mr. T at powerhouse. He's the one that's putting in the inoculate and doing the foliage twice a week. And he's just, he's engaged. Like, we're all, we're all talking so consecutively throughout the day, late night, early morning, it doesn't matter because we're always challenging, asking each other about this process because we do have a lot of people outreaching, looking at, trialing the solution. You know, that's. That's all we're here to do.

Sergio Picazo [00:30:57]:
We're not here to sell anything. We're here to show you how the solutions work. And if the commercial market is adhering to some of these product solutions, they want to give them a shot. We're here to help.

Brad Wood [00:31:09]:
That's awesome.

Cian [00:31:11]:
Love the passion you guys bring to the table on pretty much all areas of what you guys are doing with that operation, because it really shines through. And I think that's one of those key things that I honed in on the first few times I met you guys. And especially when I came down to see the facility. You really care about what you're doing. And I think part of that is why it's so easy for all of us to talk shop at the end of the day and get lost for an hour going over the little details of what's happening inside the facility. And, and I think that that attitude is a huge piece of why you guys, you guys choose to share so readily and so much with all of your potential clients is that it makes you happy to do so. It's your passion. It feeds them being able to listen to you guys and it feeds you to have them there to bounce solutions off of and talk to.

Cian [00:32:18]:
And it's part of the joy think keeps all of us involved in this industry problem solving too.

Kevin Crouch [00:32:25]:
You know, you get to a level in cultivation where you're. I would say you're a glorified problem solver. And that's a highlight of my days is having a problem and how do you fix it? I may not be mechanically inclined, but getting the process figured out and how to achieve the. The, the solution to the problem is the best part.

Jason [00:32:46]:
Sounds like you've also found the solution on how not to clog derpers with synchronics.

Sergio Picazo [00:32:51]:
Yes, we are proud of that solution. You know, I'd love to touch a little bit on some of these products because Hycien is one of those that the fundamental baseline of Syngen is you gotta keep your red soon alive. You gotta make sure that Those microbes have food to eat and they stay alive. Well, what's gonna kill those microbes is the line cleaner or hypochlorous acid or any sort of oxygenated products and PAA that's going down there. So we're able to make sure that we have clean procedures during the process run. But, Kev, talk a little bit about your line holds and room resets because this is super important to make sure that we start off the run with the clean setup.

Kevin Crouch [00:33:28]:
Yeah, definitely. And I would not recommend putting a lot of organics without the proper setup. And number one before any product we talk about is having flush valves and as many as you can have staged throughout the flow.

Sergio Picazo [00:33:48]:
So room.

Kevin Crouch [00:33:50]:
If you're in a double stack, your drops and then at the end, single stacked. If you can do a table, a room table and three is what I would recommend. And you can stage the cleaning at room reset. So you clean the first portion from the tank to the room and you get the majority of residual material out of there because those pipes are generally bigger. So they're going to be coated with more organic. So you flush that out. I generally start with a paa. You can run with a green clean acid if you wanted.

Kevin Crouch [00:34:25]:
But generally an acid is what I start and that, that breaks down the salt residue that could clog the emitters on the back end. So I start there and then you kind of push that through in the stages. So room or tank to room and then room to drop and then drop to the flush valves at the end of your runs. And so that way you're pushing it all out in stages, so it's not going to clog those emitters. Emitters at the end. And I do that for both an acid acid first and then an alkaline. So green clean alkaline, which it removes more soil, sediment, humics, kelp, all that. A lot better than an acid from what I found.

Sergio Picazo [00:35:12]:
And how many hours are you holding each product?

Kevin Crouch [00:35:14]:
PAA generally 8 hours to overnight, if I can. And then the alkaline is usually about four. And when you release all these, I do what I call water hammer. So you have that ball valve and you, you, you go back and forth with it and you're modulating that pressure and it works more effectively with an alkaline solution with the surfactant because it's, it's almost like dish soap action where you're, you're moving your plate underneath the soapy water and it's gonna, the back and forth motion is gonna pull out more material So I do that for, I don't know, until it turns clear. It depends on your system, your flow, all that sort of stuff. But you'll see it, it'll be clear, brown, clear brown and then it'll go mostly clear. And then I know that segment is clear, then I go to the next. And so by the time you get done, it'll be clear.

Kevin Crouch [00:36:12]:
And I've cut open drip lines after this whole process and they been, been like clean as a whistle. It's pretty wild. And I've gone through different versions of this. In a perfect world and you have enough time. I would go acid, alkaline acid. And that would give you a little bit more of an insurance policy that you got everything. And if you don't do this, you're going to start getting clogged emitters at the ends of your runs. So if you have a 45 foot run and you have your last eight foot table, you're probably going to start getting clogged emitters in the last four foot of that.

Kevin Crouch [00:36:48]:
And you can tell that it has to do with the lack of flushing because all that sediment and all that organic salts is building up at the end of that run. And so if you're flushing that after your inoculant within 24 hours or right after you, you put your, your organics through, that won't have a chance to build, build up. If you wait a week, you might be good. You wait two weeks, you're probably going to start having clogged emitters.

Sergio Picazo [00:37:18]:
We want to say just flush after you inoculate. Like just make it a habit and making sure that you're flushing for what, 15 seconds with your nutrient water to push through, push everything throughout. Don't get in the bad habit of waiting. Like we don't want you to think that it's, you're gonna chill until something happens. No, just get in the habit and be clean.

Kevin Crouch [00:37:37]:
You'll regret it.

Sergio Picazo [00:37:38]:
And also the disc filters, right?

Kevin Crouch [00:37:40]:
Yep. And, and generally if the disc filters, if you have pressure gauges, you can see the pressure differences in your tables and you can see when those start to be, you know, need to be changed. But generally depending on your products you're putting through, they don't normally get crazy dirty. I would say, you know, once every couple weeks. Weeks is, is what seems to work for me. Now if you have fallout from salt products or you have other issues, not necessarily organic, I've had bigger problems with those dish filters getting clogged from, from fallout of calcium, you know, with you know ph of potassium hydroxide issues. But organics, it generally does not clog that. Now if you go with something that has like a Talca car carrier and you don't filter out that tau, it will be clogged.

Kevin Crouch [00:38:37]:
Your filters will be white. So that's why we have the products that have a flowable carrier like lactose and it. And it's also micro food too. So it goes right through the emitters, does not get caught in the disc filter. So with these products I'm not as concerned with the dish filter.

Sergio Picazo [00:38:55]:
And that's why we've curated this recipe. Because all this stuff is flowable. We trust that it's going to go through the system and it's not going to gunk your system up. Um, and again, like you can run Saganics with any.

Kevin Crouch [00:39:05]:
Yep.

Sergio Picazo [00:39:06]:
Salt mineral program. But we've been rocking with United Nutrients. Super stable. It's soluble. No. No issues on this man. It's. And it's the foundation.

Kevin Crouch [00:39:16]:
Yep. Great ratios really get you the yield potential and then you add the organics. You get the terp. Terp profile and the quality of flour in addition to the yield.

Sergio Picazo [00:39:29]:
Yeah.

Jason [00:39:30]:
This is one thing that really amazed me when I really started deploying Aurora across facilities. And that was the simple inconsistency of readings that I was getting from the system. I look at the data and it was almost unusable. I have to go through the checklist of all right, installation consistency, plant consistency and an unreal amount of times was it issues with the irrigation systems. And the clients would hate it when you tell them you just got to rip things out and put a whole new system in really at this point. And so it's super cool. I'm so glad Kevin started that by saying this synganic approach isn't for everybody. It's definitely a more advanced tactic to getting that next step up.

Jason [00:40:21]:
Let's go one level above a great two part blend and give us those trace elements.

Sergio Picazo [00:40:28]:
Absolutely. Because your cost is going to increase. Right. Are you trying to build the Toyota? Are you trying to build the Ferrari? Right. We understand we're only talking probably the top 1% of the cultivation community that wants to understand how to continue the plant health and immunity evolution with yield increase. Right. We that that's why it's great to work with partners like Favin and being able to continue that evolution of increasing that overall cubic square footage. We know that we're gonna hit yields but it's the quality that we're looking for.

Sergio Picazo [00:40:54]:
So the, you know, coming up In July, we're gonna be doing the Chroma launch and talk red and the dosing of that to really increase the overall yield and quality. And that's why it's going to be fun running that system with, with all these different increased components and seeing what kind of a quality expectation we can have.

Brad Wood [00:41:13]:
Let's jump in, talk about just for a minute. I want to go back on what you said. When you're talking about quality increase and it's not for everybody, and I would think that like that, but that's where we're going because we're in this super crowded market. Right? Right. California is incredibly. So you guys are feeling price compression as much as anybody is in the entire industry. And so, you know, you guys have heard my, my whole scenario is like what the output of California is. It's a billion joints, right? So how do you raise your joint above the noise? Right.

Brad Wood [00:41:41]:
And the way that you guys are able to do that and rising above the noise is getting above bulk price point. You know what people are paying and get a premium for that is the quality that you guys are producing it. And what I think is that you're showing is that for a little bit of added cost and a little bit of extra care in the garden, you guys are now able to put out not only a super high quality product, and when we say high quality, it's like it's, it's fire from a potency standpoint. It's got great terps, it's got good bag appeal. Everything about it raises it up. So when a buyer is looking at that, they go, wow, I'm going to pay you two times market for this because I know that we're going to be able to get $40 an eighth. Right. And sell it at that all day long.

Brad Wood [00:42:26]:
I mean, ultimately, I love waxing poetic about the plants, but as you guys as business partners in this venture, you guys, you guys all want to make money, right? So we're growing the most valuable plants, the most dollars that we possibly can. And this program that you guys have put together executes on that. And that's what's amazing to me when I look at it from how, how you're going to market is that you guys are three runs in and you're getting a. For your product. You've increased your costs a little bit, but you're also dialing in down your costs across the rest of the grow. I mean, we've all been there. You guys are running this. It's not like you've got 20 people running around this grow.

Brad Wood [00:43:04]:
Right. So your labor costs are really low, and you've managed the rest of your nutrient costs down, that your cost per pound is pretty low. Right. And so the profitability that you guys have on the wheat is great.

Sergio Picazo [00:43:16]:
Well, you hit it on the head with compression, and this is probably one of the toughest things for cultivators going on in this very moment. They cannot sustain the lower price points that are getting offered to clear something out. As you start to increase yield, you increase the quality. Yeah, you can absorb a little bit more of that pricing decrease in the bulk market. Not everybody has a brand to put on the shelf and run the majority through that. This is one of our partners, Steve Squagli at Friendo. You know, he's one of the original cultivators, licensed cultivators here in Sacramento. He's got a foundation behind the bulk market, but also a lot of representation with this brand, Friendo and Amplified.

Sergio Picazo [00:43:53]:
So there's two great examples of how somebody that has been doing it since the very beginning has scaled a bulk program, but also getting the retail into component as well. And that's one of the things, Brad, that you touched on is how do you get that consistency? How do you build that brand narrative, build those evangelists? It's got to come through the consistency and the repeatability. I know everybody's defined by their last batch, but when you have this amount of data and this amount of protection to make those decisions, you're gonna have a better solution outcome. Because we are not hobbyist cultivators. We are commercial cultivators. We are building livelihoods for people and their families. We want. We enjoy what we get to do.

Sergio Picazo [00:44:33]:
This isn't work for us. We understand that cultivation is a very hard job. So shout out to all you cultivators out there that are under the lights out in the farm. This is an incredible duty that we all have because we've been brought together by this beautiful plant. And this is what we all have a passion to drive for. This is not for the faint heart. If you're in here trying to make money, try another industry. You have to sustain the passion because ultimately you aren't.

Sergio Picazo [00:44:56]:
You're not going to get the product outcome that you're looking for unless you're putting in the passion.

Jason [00:45:01]:
Yeah. If you want to learn more about Steve and Friendo, you know, we've got some content out there. We did a case study with Steve a few years ago. It's on YouTube there. We were just working with, with Willie on office hours. A few, few weeks ago or a few, a month ago here and it's been, been a great journey down there.

Sergio Picazo [00:45:21]:
It's incredible.

Kevin Crouch [00:45:22]:
Yeah, Steve's a legend.

Sergio Picazo [00:45:24]:
Steve is a legend. We all strive to be like Steve, man. He's, he's, he's got to figure it out. Such a cool dude, great demeanor, but extremely successful on commercial cannabis. Like, he's, he's who we want to emulate. So being able to share thoughts and get Steve's perspective as we continue to grow as a management company, powerhouse management is what we're building. Like this is exactly how we're going out into other markets. We want to copy and paste these, copy these powerhouse models all over the world.

Sergio Picazo [00:45:49]:
These are showing showrooms. We wanna help educate and showcase all these different solutions. I mean that's what we spend a majority of our time doing, is talking to other cultivators all around the world how to put the trial into place. It's not comfortable being able to put the, these organics or the emitters. So we're here to help. We're putting out more content. Again, shout out to Anthony Jones because he's able to help us produce these videos and getting the content out, we gotta do more because there's, there's plenty of questions that are still out there. But ultimately we wanna be able to have a platform where you have the basics understood.

Sergio Picazo [00:46:22]:
You can start to tweak the recipe. Every chef can have their own dish. It's how you execute on that dish. And again, going back to the data, you got to have that repeatability factor because this is a commercial business.

Brad Wood [00:46:34]:
That's right.

Kevin Crouch [00:46:35]:
Keep costs down too.

Brad Wood [00:46:37]:
I think the other thing that's amazing for you guys is that the power tours that you do, so when you talk about transparency, it's like you can talk about it on YouTube and we can produce all this content. Content. But you're very much like, you know what, come here and show up, walk through the facility. Like, touch the plants, see what we're doing. Like. And so this. Talk to me a little bit about the whole power tour thing that you do and how that opens up and, and, and, and, and how you drive transparency in the market with that.

Sergio Picazo [00:47:07]:
No doubt. I mean this is a extension of the Connect community. Right. This all goes back to the cumulative, the, I'm sorry, the, the nature of transparency around just showing, not just talking about it. So yes, we hold these Power tour typically, you know, once a quarter before the Connect community events that we're doing here at Industry and Hydro will invite Some cultivators and manufacturing partners to come through, learn the current processes that we have going on, because the system's always evolving. And, you know, like this last power tour that we did, we did a demonstration on how to do the inoculation. So Tony Anthony was mixing the barrel product by product. We were talking about every single solution and why they're in there.

Sergio Picazo [00:47:50]:
And we wheeled that barrel into the room, connected it to the hose, and we inoculated the plants with people in there so they can see the process and understand, ask. Ask questions with Anthony just to be able to be comfortable walking out of that room. And you're absolutely right, Brad. The retention spa that people have when they come into the farm and actually watch the process. It's important, empowering, because we do trust that what we're doing is a practice that works. We've been doing this for a couple runs already, and in this short year that we've been in this facility, we've already improved. We've already continued to find areas of further improvement. Again, we have so many different things that we haven't even tried yet.

Sergio Picazo [00:48:31]:
We've done pretty cool substrate challenge and really just learned a lot more about the planting density than anything, as opposed to just the composition from 100%, 70, 30, and 50. 50, 50. We learned much more about just overall airflow and pathogen prevention. And just planting density is gonna be more impactful than just the overall composition. So just little things like that.

Brad Wood [00:48:56]:
Super cool. The other thing is, why don't you share with everybody? I mean, it's not just people from Sacramento. Where was the farthest away that we had people travel in at the last one?

Sergio Picazo [00:49:05]:
New York, Oklahoma, Texas. So we have trials going on all over the country. Country. I mean, this is the cool thing. We are an open book. If you want our recipes, you just go to our Instagram page, click on our link in the bio, and it's all there. You know, if you want to sign up to be a commercial cultivator to trial these solutions, we can help. That's exactly why we're doing this, so we can help the manufacturing partners that have helped us.

Sergio Picazo [00:49:30]:
We're all here to work together, and that's ultimately, again, how we utilize the connect community to help share this education. Yeah, it's.

Brad Wood [00:49:39]:
It's. It's amazing. I was. I was really surprised to see all the folks, especially we had a couple Canadians come in and just a level again, showing everybody what we do and letting them play with all the toys and. And take that away and come back and Ask questions. It's super unique in the industry, but I think is what's going to get us to the next level that where that quality plants are what's going to drive a premium in the market. And those that are driving a premium are going to survive. Because everybody knows it's no great secret.

Brad Wood [00:50:06]:
I mean with the compression, I mean there's some folks struggling and this is going to be the force multiplier that keeps them, keeps it going.

Sergio Picazo [00:50:13]:
A lot of keys left on the porch.

Cian [00:50:15]:
I think it's impressive too because Sacramento arguably is probably one of the most competitive markets in the world right now with the quality of competition that is in the valley down there right now and the sheer number of growers that are in that market. So for you guys to be able to maintain the price point dominance that you do and be able to get the renown that you do, when people smoke your product, it definitely sets the something. And I think it also speaks volumes when you have people come tour the facility and they get to, you know, as we said, be a little more hands on and see up close and personal how all of that is happening inside your facility and then be able to pair that with the full force of the data that you've collected on all of these different strains so that if they do decide to trial, you're able to give them a step by step, this is how this particular implementation is supposed to work best for you. And you can help guide people make choices that are informed based on data.

Sergio Picazo [00:51:22]:
Couldn't agree more. The crop registration in Roya is a powerful tool. Right? We are eventually gonna have our nursery license up and running. We just gotta finish renovating the bedroom so we can get that process going. So if people want to grow the lip smackers, they can grab the cut. And here's the irrigation strategy. Along along with it, here's a rhizosphere strategy, here's a lighting strategy. It's not just irrigation anymore.

Sergio Picazo [00:51:43]:
We have so many cool toys that we can share the data on. And by the way, here's a genetic fingerprint for my Floridna so you know that you're getting a validated cut. And ultimately we just want to help people grow heat.

Brad Wood [00:51:56]:
That's amazing. That goes back to like the. When I think about the old days of the nursery and we go back in time, it was like, hey, here's a cut, good luck. And now it's hey, here's a of couple cut. And here's exactly how you should treat this plant for stonewall, for stonewall on cocoa for pure cocoa for pea Perlite. Because you guys are running all those trials. So it's not just, hey, here's your cut. Good luck.

Brad Wood [00:52:21]:
And maybe if you're running cocoa, you can do it this way, is that you can give them a full portfolio of instructions based off the substrate that they're growing in. And the other thing that's really important about that is being able to ask them, well, can you maintain these environmental parameters? And they go, no. We'll go, hey, maybe this isn't the cut for you, but this other one is. Maybe Lip Smackers isn't gonna do it for you. But you know, this, this other particular candy might. So that's the, that's the other super cool thing about this.

Sergio Picazo [00:52:48]:
Absolutely right. Facility competence number one. You know, what's your facility capable of? And being able to guide you towards success within your parameters. Not everybody's gonna have the luxury of adding extra decent. You know, this is just one of those things that we've come across and especially with the build out process. And as we invite Arroyo to join us along that journey as we, you know, expand into other markets and other buildings, join us for the build out, you see how we make decisions with data and ultimately what we've learned at this facility already with decades of cultivation experience behind what's happening and ultimately the data metrics that we can rely on to make those increased decisions for people, future growth.

Brad Wood [00:53:28]:
Right on.

Cian [00:53:32]:
Well, I think we're probably right around time to wrap up this episode for the day. Guys. Before we wrap up, I want to give a big thanks to all of you guys joining us today. Kevin, Sergio, Brad and Jason, thanks for joining on this episode. It's awesome to be able to get to talk with all of you. I mean, the people in this room represent quite an impressive bunch in the current industry as it stands right now. And it's awesome to be able to have all of you gathered in one place to pick your brains. Stay tuned for more.

Cian [00:54:07]:
Sorry, sir. Jim, go for it.

Sergio Picazo [00:54:08]:
There definitely have a couple of shout outs because this couldn't be a thing without the people behind the scenes, you know, at the Connect community alone, we got Gina Marks, our director of operations, who is the foundation behind a lot of the organization between all these, you know, relationships that we've got going on. Anthony Jones, our producer, also powerhouse, Mr. T's, you know, that's, that, that's amazing to see what's happening as people evolve throughout the the event process in the community of networking. Everybody at Powrhouse, I mean, we have such a great team. Everybody contributes. You know, our manufacturing partners like Kayakore, Hygrezyme, United, Faivan, you know, the list goes on, guys, there's so many to think, but ultimately we are not here unless we're working together. Big shout out to AROYA. Thank you guys for having us on your platform here to share our journey and looking forward to continuing on the evolution with you as well.

Kevin Crouch [00:55:05]:
Absolutely.

Cian [00:55:06]:
Thank you guys. It's awesome to be in partnership with you and I mean, I know I'm not alone in this, but really excited to see where the partnership goes and to see the results of a lot of your fun experiments down there. It's been one of the the most interesting things I get to look in on a regular basis and I really look forward to it every time I go down to see you. To learn more about AROYA, how it can help you optimize your grow, visit Arroyo I.O. to book a demo. Our sales staff would be happy to walk you through how our system can help you guys grow fire product. Just like Anthony, Kevin and Sergio here at Powrhouse. If you have questions about your cultivation, reach out through your Arroyo app or email us at Salesroya IO if you enjoy our series.

Cian [00:55:52]:
As always, let us know by leaving a review wherever you listen to our podcast and subscribe to our YouTube channel for future episodes. Thanks for tuning in and see you guys next time on episode 138 of Arroyoff Office Hours.