OHL ep41 TX 

[00:00:00] Mandy: Hello. Hello. It's Thursday, 4:20 PM Eastern. That means it's time for office hours, a Roy's weekly session for cultivators to hear from the experts and learn from each other about what they're seeing with their grows. My name is Mandy and I'll be moderating for the team for episode 41. We're live over on YouTube, so drop your questions from me please. 

[00:00:19] Mandy: If you're live with this here and you have a question, you can type it in the chat at any time. And if your question gets picked, we'll have you either unmute yourself or I can ask for you. But today we're actually here with Steph in the studio and [00:00:30] Keisha and Jason out at Hall of Flowers. Wow, look at us, you guys. 

[00:00:33] Mandy: Is this the future of podcasting or what? We're everywhere. 

[00:00:37] Kaisha: How's it going? 

[00:00:39] Seth: So, how's it going? Good. 

[00:00:41] Kaisha: Yeah. Yeah. Really good. We are at Hall of Flowers in Santa Rosa, California, in the Bay, which is where I live. And, uh, this is an opportunity for, uh, retail buyers to interact with California brands. And so the focal point is all on this as wonderful California. 

[00:00:59] Kaisha: It's, uh, [00:01:00] crop tober. So we are smelling some delicious, beautiful flowers. Yeah. Jason, how's it going for you? He's sitting right next to me, but you know, via satellite, 

[00:01:09] Seth: it's going great. 

[00:01:11] Jason: Beautiful. We're hanging out here in the smoking session and there's a lot of good shade, a lot of good bud getting distributed into the air. 

[00:01:20] Jason: I've, uh, been through one of the three exhibit buildings and I've been able to catch up with some of our big clients working with Sisi Wood [00:01:30] Wide Sea, so out there. Seven leaves. Uh, I know Cam's in one of these buildings around here, so we're to see the best of the bud. They have, yeah, lit house, um, really, really good stuff that they're putting out. 

[00:01:44] Jason: It's nice to hear that we can be contributing factor and while they consistently produce that stuff. So definitely a great show. Little bit more relaxed than the Palm Springs show. Feel a little bit bigger. Things are kinda starting to pick up right now and uh, [00:02:00] we're seeing quite a bit more outdoor bud at this one, which is really nice because we're in Northern California. 

[00:02:06] Kaisha: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. It's so good to see our clients in person, uh, especially just in the times that we're. A lot of virtual relationship building. So an opportunity to like check in with them in person, um, but then also just like, see who else is out here, what they're doing, what the flower is looking like, smelling, like what is it peeling to people. 

[00:02:26] Kaisha: Uh, purple is really big out here. Um, so I'm, I'm [00:02:30] smelling a lot of grapes and a lot of frosty goodness. Um, I'm seeing a lot of high THC percentages. That's not the most important thing, but in the retail space, that is a focal point. Um, I don't know, I just like really good flour, so yeah, it's good. It's really good. 

[00:02:46] Kaisha: Some panels too. We're gonna check in on those as well. 

[00:02:49] Mandy: Yeah, it's super exciting. We talk about seeing the success of our clients all the time, but then to go out and see it in the real world, it's just unreal. So, yeah. And are there any panels that you're looking forward to this? There's [00:03:00] um, there's 

[00:03:00] Kaisha: a social equity panel that I'm gonna dip into after we log off with y'all. 

[00:03:04] Kaisha: And then I, like, I just like to sit panels just because it's an opportunity for me to know what folks in the industry are talking about, what business owners, what's concerning them, what's on in their minds, Um, cuz our clients are among them. And then it gives us an idea from a content standpoint, um, being able to speak, to, speak the language that they're speaking, speak to what they're, what they're thinking about and focused on. 

[00:03:24] Kaisha: Um, I think Jason, you're gonna be pretty much walking the rest of the show, right? I'm gonna have to find you later. [00:03:30] 

[00:03:31] Jason: You, You bet. Uh, just making new friends in the industry always love it. When I connect up with a cultivator that's here at the show, a lot of times we're just working with the sales and marketing teams that are available to show their product here and kind of just connect with, uh, with their cultivators, if they can get ahold of us, learn about our products and crops. 

[00:03:49] Seth: Start crops. 

[00:03:52] Mandy: Yeah. Super exciting stuff you guys. Oh my gosh. So AROYA is out there. If you guys are in, uh, out in Santa Rosa, um, Please Sure. [00:04:00] To, um, reach out to Keisha and Jason. Um, yeah, You guys, do you guys wanna say anything else before, uh, y'all hit the floors again and shake some Yeah. More 

[00:04:08] Kaisha: hands. That's really it. 

[00:04:10] Kaisha: If you see us, if you recognize this, if you see the AROYA logo, come say hi. Um, we may have some swag for you. I'm just saying we're not supposed to say that, but we do. And, uh, no, just really happy to be here. We're gonna let y'all go back to the regular scheduled programming. Talk about that crop steering and cultivation. 

[00:04:27] Kaisha: Jason, anything else? 

[00:04:29] Seth: Nope. [00:04:30] We out. Great. Great show. Good 

[00:04:33] Jason: luck, Steph. Make us proud out there. 

[00:04:37] Kaisha: That's right. Hold it down, 

[00:04:38] Seth: Mandy. I'll do my best. Guys. Looks like you're having fun. I'm, I'm little jealous, but keep it going. 

[00:04:45] Kaisha: It's all good. We'll, we'll 

[00:04:46] Mandy: be out there for, We're gonna bring back Yeah, we'll be out there for MJ Bicon with them. 

[00:04:50] Mandy: So 

[00:04:51] Seth: I'm mostly jealous in beautiful weather. Yeah. Where it's about summer's almost over here in the northwest. And it's like the perfect time of year in Santa Rosa right now. 

[00:04:59] Kaisha: No, we got, [00:05:00] we got perfect weather. Super lucky. All right, we're gonna get right back to it. Thank y'all. Good to see you. And have a good show. 

[00:05:05] Kaisha: Good to see everybody who's on with us today. 

[00:05:09] Mandy: AROYA. Thanks Keisha. Thanks Jason. Yep. See you guys. Oh, that was fun. Aw. Well this is the future of podcasting. Everyone. Well back to this studio with Seth. How's it going? 

[00:05:21] Seth: Good. Good. That was, uh, that was pretty fun to have Jason, uh, Kaisha check in. That was really. 

[00:05:26] Seth: Really enjoy race. I'm a little jealous, but you know, we all get to travel a [00:05:30] little bit, so I can't complain that much. we'll be out there soon enough. We will. Yeah. Well I'm, I'm in California just a little bit, so . Oh 

[00:05:37] Mandy: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, awesome. Um, yeah, so we're here for episode 41. Super exciting. Um, we got some questions that came in over the week on Instagram. 

[00:05:46] Mandy: We're getting questions come in over on YouTube right now. Um, before we get started, Seth, is there anything else that you wanted to say? Any messages or updates or anything? 

[00:05:55] Seth: Uh, nothing that strikes top of my head right now. 

[00:05:59] Mandy: Okay. Sounds [00:06:00] good. Sounds good. I'm gonna go ahead and jump into our questions. Um, so yeah, over on YouTube live, Salty R wants to know. 

[00:06:09] Mandy: Well, they gave us a shout out. Thanks for doing these. Uh, I love them and they're wondering, I was wondering, uh, What cues you give plants under PS for the ripening stage? Just dropping PFD 

[00:06:23] Seth: help. Uh, no, typically I don't like to drop PFD unless I'm in a situation where, you know, [00:06:30] I'm got a plant that's way too big for my media and I'm drying back too fast to be able to apply a generative steering technique. 

[00:06:36] Seth: So, under hps, uh, it's really, you know, when we're talking about ripening, one of the bigger things is gonna be running your diff pushing that generative strategy in the last two to three weeks of flour. And, uh, that's, that's about it. I mean, as far as lowering your PFD goes, typically, I wanna keep that pf d nice and high right up until the end. 

[00:06:55] Seth: Uh, again, though, there, there are considerations, right? Like if we're looking at week [00:07:00] eight, maybe week nine, if you're looking up to run nine weeks, you might be running into a situation where that last seven days to 10 days, you know, you're, you're drying down so fast, you're like, Man, I have to put on like three or four shots a day. 

[00:07:12] Seth: Or three or four P twos just to keep this plant from wilting. And that's, you know, what we really want to avoid in the end game. So when we're talking about, uh, hps for instance, uh, you might run, look at running like a slightly bigger media sometimes just to be prepared for that. So you go, Hey, we're going into ripening. 

[00:07:27] Seth: I know my target plant size and based on [00:07:30] my experience, I know that's, say a one gallon pot was too small for this plant size, so I'm gonna go with the two gallon, but flip that smaller plant just like I would've in the one gallon, but give myself that bumper room so when I go into ripening, I can actually achieve the results I want to, especially if it's with a strain that I know is sensitive to that late cycle vegetative cues. 

[00:07:48] Seth: You know, some strains will tend to loosen up and put out some more vegetative growth and, you know, that's what we really want to avoid. So as long as you can push a generative queue in terms of, you know, having a two [00:08:00] hour irrigation window in the morning about two hours after lights on, ideally, and then running that 22 hour drive back. 

[00:08:06] Seth: Now when you can't do that, which is, you know, very common, the best you can do is try to space out the end of your p one, the dis time, distance, and time from the end of your P one to your first and hopefully only P two, which would be a corrective shot later in the afternoon. And ideally, you'd wanna stretch that out to about two hours before lights off, and then correct either at minimum the amount that you wanna see your, uh, [00:08:30] dry back point raise two in the morning, or bring it all the way back up to field capacity. 

[00:08:35] Seth: Um, you know, in the case of someone growing in, let's say like a six by six by six, Hugo, um, you, you're all too familiar with this. You know, by the time ripening occurs, you're watching your water content, just take a nose, dive mid. Topping it back up, watching a nose dive again and then possibly topping it back off one more time before nighttime. 

[00:08:57] Mandy: Great, thanks Seth. Um, yeah, if there's [00:09:00] any other follow up for that salty r please do do let us know. Um, we had a couple questions come in over on Instagram this week. So Mitch, by all wants to know, when do you typically use amino acids in silica when growing? 

[00:09:14] Seth: Uh, you know, I don't really push amino acids super hard. 

[00:09:17] Seth: Um, although I definitely think they can have their benefits. Uh, but both that and silica I usually push during stretch and about a week after. And what that really does is help me beef up plant structure and establish those nice, uh, [00:09:30] stiff branches so we can hold up some big buds. Um, you know, going beyond that, I've noticed that running silica later on, I don't really get a huge benefit from running it past when I'm setting that plant structure. 

[00:09:43] Seth: So That's a good point, you know, To pull it back. Um, and another thing to consider too, with certain silica supplements, uh, some of 'em can tend to be a little chunky and hard to mix up. So if you are running those and you're hand mixing, especially, you're gonna wanna take and probably try to dissolve that in some warm [00:10:00] water. 

[00:10:00] Seth: First, make a stock solution, dump it into your tank, make sure it's stirred in, and give it, you know, 10 to 15 minutes between mixing your silica and adding any other fertilizer to your tank. If you're in an injection system, uh, you might wanna really look into, you know, the maximum, uh, strength that your stock solution can be and work with the limitations that your injector has. 

[00:10:21] Seth: I know silica can be pretty tough on dose of trons, particularly, um, definitely other injection systems as well. [00:10:30] Awesome, Thank you 

[00:10:32] Mandy: for that. Um, we did have a question come in through the chats. Um, Diane, I'm gonna ask for you. Um, so Diane wants to know. Can you ask, uh, why do we use higher ec in the media during stretch, and why do we have low, uh, why do we have to lower our media EC in bulking? 

[00:10:49] Seth: So during stretch, we're using two different strategies to try to inhibit the actual. Elongation of plant cells. So we want those cells to divide rather than stretch. And there's [00:11:00] two ways, ways we promote that. One is by, you know, limiting that oxygen injection to the root zone to a short amount of time, so we're not continuing to stimulate vegetative production. 

[00:11:08] Seth: And the other way is by running some higher osmotic and stress on the plant. So as that solution outside the roots gets more salty, it becomes more and more difficult for the plant to take water and nutrients into the roots. They've gotta build up sugar content in order to deal with that osmotic imbalance. 

[00:11:24] Seth: So when we're running a higher ec, we're effectively restricting how much water and nutrients the plant can uptake. [00:11:30] And when we look at, you know, Our irrigation window. What we're doing is promoting growth early on in the day and then restricting it throughout the day more and more as time goes on with that rising ec. 

[00:11:40] Seth: So when we get to bulking, if we suddenly have a plant that's adapted to a higher ec and then we lower it slightly, we don't totally reverse that osmotic balance and a high shock. But the idea is we're lowering the amount of salt outside the plant and the plant can have a much easier time up taking water and nutrients. 

[00:11:58] Seth: So then we get that, [00:12:00] uh, more quick growth pattern that we want. And the idea there is, you know, we're working with a plant that once we flip from, uh, you know, 18 hours to 12 hours or changed the photo period, that switched it into determinate growth pattern. So now we can work with timelines on knowing when the plant is growing different parts of it, and try to apply these strategies in a way that's gonna actually bulk up the flour. 

[00:12:25] Mandy: Perfect. Diane, you'll have to let us know if there's any other follow up questions for that [00:12:30] one, but, uh, thank you for that. Uh, we're gonna go back over to some of our Instagram questions that we got. Cap Inc. Cap and rode in and wants to know what's the lowest you'll go in Rockwell slabs in water content during generative steering. 

[00:12:44] Seth: Uh, if we're talking about generative during stretch, typically I plan to hit 40%. And that's because I know if I'm going below about 35%, I'm gonna promote dry pocket formation inside the media and reduce my field capacity. And one of the big benefits of running Rockwell [00:13:00] is that, you know, not only do we have a really consistent media, um, very uniform across, you know, Any given batch, but also it's that we can run that high water content. 

[00:13:09] Seth: You know, there are some cocoa brands out there that will get up into the sixties and low seventies. Rockwell reliably is 65 to 75 volume percent while volumetric water content at runoff. What happens is when we go down below that, we'll form hydrophobic pockets inside the media. And basically the way that works is, you know, Rockwell is millions of little fibers crammed into this space.[00:13:30] 

[00:13:30] Seth: We have continuous contact on those fibers with water. Once that surface tension breaks along the fiber, the tendency is for the water to move away from that break and surface tension towards other parts of the media. So once you create that little dry pocket in there, this little bubble, we're, we're not getting water to go back in because it's wanting to leave it. 

[00:13:48] Seth: There's no surface tension, no cohesion inside of there. So yeah, short story, long . I, uh, call 40% at the bottom of my planning and that's because, um, [00:14:00] I know that. Never have I had to grow where every plant is exactly the same. I'm always, you know, if I'm doing real good, I've still, even in Rockwell, got a two to 5% variance in where, you know, my different plants are in the room in terms of water content. 

[00:14:14] Seth: So always set it safely and give yourself a little buffer room. You know, remember you're playing the game of averages. And with Rockwell, what we want to really do is not blow out that field capacity early on. We want to maintain that. That way when we get through bulking and into ripening, we still [00:14:30] have that 55%, 65% field capacity. 

[00:14:33] Seth: And at that point, if we wanna push, let's say, you know, a 30% dry back, well we need to still be up at 65 if I wanna dry all the way back to 35 and not start chasing my field capacity. So, you know, it, as tempting as it is to want to push the really high Dr the really tall drive backs during generative stretch, um, we've still gotta work with, you know, how well the media can [00:15:00] operate and its properties. 

[00:15:01] Seth: Um, that's a, a classic thing that actually throws people off of Rockwell when they first make the switch from cocoa, is they have one bad over drying event during stretch, because those plants are growing. And as all of us know, you're in there adding a little bit of water every day or every other day trying to keep up with the plants' needs. 

[00:15:20] Seth: Um, it's really common. Hey, we took a weekend and coming on Monday and the plants are all way too low. Like we gotta get 'em back up. But you'll notice like if those hit 20%, [00:15:30] your plants are still gonna look great. In fact, they might look beautiful, but now you might only hit 40% field capacity or 45%. And at that point, Now we really just narrowed that window that we can dry down into and kind of gave, you know, took away our ability to steer through irrigation. 

[00:15:48] Mandy: Yep. Super important stuff to keep in mind. Um, Diane came back with a couple of, uh, follow up questions, so, uh, yeah, I'm gonna go through those real quick. Um, why are people using 1.2 [00:16:00] GPH Drippers or 0.3 gph instead of 20 gph sprinklers? Why is it important to water our plants in lower rates? Do you have advice? 

[00:16:10] Seth: Uh, well, yeah, actually, so, uh, really the reason to, you know, bring that so far down into the small, small area like 3.51, 1.2, um, is because there's a limit to how quickly we can put water on the media and have it distributed effectively throughout it. You know, we're dripping that on at one point. It's gonna [00:16:30] move downward, but it's also got a, um, wick outwards. 

[00:16:34] Seth: So if we're putting it on too fast, what happens is the water, you know, literally picks up so much velocity inside the soil that it'll channel down through and come straight out the bottom. And we won't get two things. Number one, we won't get even saturation. We won't be flushing the things we wanna flush out out, cuz we're only effectively saturating a small part of the pot. 

[00:16:54] Seth: And then, you know, where that really, where the rubber hits the road, there is a 20 gallon per hour sprinkler is, uh, that's [00:17:00] great on, uh, the ground or a 20 gallon pot. But if we're using a one or two gallon pot, we've gotta change things accordingly. Um, and at the end of the day, it all comes down to efficiency and the ability to build that ec. 

[00:17:13] Seth: If, uh, you have a 20 gallon per hour sprinkler in a two gallon pot, you're gonna be barely cracking that thing on before you have to turn it off again in order to get a shot small enough that it doesn't run off prematurely. And that also isn't going field capacity and [00:17:30] flushing media out almost every time you turn it on. 

[00:17:34] Mandy: Awesome. Diane, you'll have to let us know if you have any other follow ups for that. Um, Michael also posted a question in the chat. Um, Michael, do you wanna ask your question or I can ask for you. 

[00:17:47] Mandy: I can definitely ask for you. Um, so yeah, Michael wrote in, Oh, uh, Michael, you wanna Yeah. Take it over. 

[00:17:51] Seth: It is. Um, 

[00:17:53] Guest 1: so I actually have a good enough connection this time, . 

[00:17:55] Seth: Nice. Um, 

[00:17:57] Guest 1: so accepting that everything has a [00:18:00] lifespan. How long do you like to run equipment under ideal conditions? Like, uh, basic stuff like drip emitters, your water filters, uh, air filters, obviously every run, you know, But, uh, everybody has a different kind of standard on it, you know, like the light company's gonna sell you on new bulbs every run, you know. 

[00:18:19] Guest 1: So what are your basic standards for equipment change 

[00:18:22] Seth: out? So, I mean, uh, you know, basic for drip emitters, uh, I like to change out the lines, the emitters, every, you know, five to [00:18:30] 10 runs max. Um, a good way to look at that is I like to take drip cups and when I'm, you know, let's say flushing my lines out, I'll go put some drip cups under some emitters and just do like 10 of them in the room and see how much variance we have. 

[00:18:43] Seth: You know, if you hit a point where you're over 10 to 15% variance from one, one cup to the next, we each with the same number, let's say two emitters in it, then we're starting to hit a point where you're like, Okay, I can't effectively control what my water content is anymore. So there, there is no hard line rule on that. 

[00:18:59] Seth: A [00:19:00] lot of it depends on your, uh, you know, what fertilizer you, you're using, what your water quality is like. Uh, I recently was going through this with some people. We were finding, you know, interesting old parts of the system that hadn't been cleaned yet versus, you know, newer parts that had, and I was like, Oh, where's this chunky stuff? 

[00:19:16] Seth: Oh yeah. Obviously there, that's not, you know, so there's quite a few factors. If you were gonna, you know, start from everything being perfect, I would probably swap those out on average every five runs. Um, there's no emitter out there that I've found [00:19:30] that is totally resistant to being broken down by salt water. 

[00:19:34] Seth: Unfortunately, you know, where a lot of this technology, it's, it's newer to the cannabis cultivation industry, but it's, it's not new tech in terms of like the EMS and some of the basic corti cultural tools we're using. So, You know, Netafim 30 years ago, never thought about anyone feeding at a 3.0. I can tell you that, you know, uh, I know a lot of people in, you know, general horticulture that use the same products and they're tating like [00:20:00] three to five times a year in nurseries and stuff. 

[00:20:03] Seth: So it's, it's a little different ballgame depending on where you're at. Or if you talk about like, grape growers, yeah, they might get 10 years out of a set of em, dripping, only filtered water through 'em ever, you know, so there's that. As far as bulbs go, usually a year is pushing it. Uh, in my opinion, that's where I start to, you know, potentially see failures and stuff. 

[00:20:23] Seth: So either six months or a year depends on what you can afford. Um, LEDs, uh, I haven't seen [00:20:30] the long end of those. Usually they start to fail. I've noticed before you get a whole lot of brightness reduction, just general heat related failures. You know, 40,000 hours a use, things like that. Uh, water filters, 

[00:20:45] Seth: Yeah, well that's, I they fail epically just like other bulbs. Uh, water filters his often as neat as, as needed, man, you know, in my experience I use like a lot of the disc micron filters from Neti fm and you don't have to replace 'em as often, but I'd [00:21:00] clean 'em every day just cuz where I was working. We have some water quality issues and if you've got a series of filters that are kind of your last line of defense before it hits sir emitters, you wanna make sure those are clean and flowing well, you know, even if it's three stages, like if, uh, if you have a screen that plugs up and blows out, suddenly you might as well just throw the screen away, you know. 

[00:21:22] Seth: So, , let's see, what was that last one there? Uh, water filters, air filters. [00:21:30] Same rule. You know, I try to develop a kind of a program and how often we wanna change 'em. A good example is if you get a big old de hu and you walk in, like, here's my experience in the greenhouse a little bit. You walk in and there's a giant hole in the filter, or part of it sucked through. 

[00:21:43] Seth: You went a little too long. In an indoor facility, typically you shouldn't have to change those filters too terribly often, you know, once every couple runs. But that's all dependent on dust load. And then, uh, carbon filters, if we're talking about growing in like an urban area, I [00:22:00] guess personally I haven't had to grow, uh, on a commercial scale in town, so I couldn't really tell you how long to expect those to last. 

[00:22:09] Guest 1: Uh, we, we do have to out here in the middle of the mohabi, we do have to cycle our air filters out a little more often. Uh, usually every run, if not if we're lucky, every other run. Okay. Uh, there's just too much dirt in the air. Um, and our, our local municipality requires, uh, a zero smell drift. So we have carbon filters on everything so far. 

[00:22:29] Guest 1: We've gotten about a [00:22:30] year outta each set. 

[00:22:31] Seth: Okay, that's, that's not too bad then. That's pretty livable honestly. And yeah, you kinda nail that they're with the dust. It depends on where you're at. Like you hear in eastern Washington, you know, growing in the greenhouse most of the year it's not bad. Uh, July, August, September hit when they're cutting all the wheat and garbanzo beans and you're blowing through filters left and right. 

[00:22:49] Seth: Your pad vents are like literally have mud on them and things, you know, all that. Suddenly maintenance is a huge issue. You don't even really have to worry about too much the rest of the year. And it just sounds like you [00:23:00] guys have that too dry. Part of the year is just rough. You're gonna be changing out filters more in general. 

[00:23:05] Seth: Yeah, pretty much. Thank you very much. Yeah, no problem man. 

[00:23:10] Mandy: The struggles of a grower. Sorry, . Uh, thank you Michael. Uh, it's good to see you. It's always good to see you. Uh, we had a couple questions in the chat. Uh, we, I d if this is a question, but I'm gonna ask it. Uh, I was asked today if you could bury the, the TES 12 sensor in Coco. 

[00:23:28] Seth: Yes. Oh, you can. [00:23:30] Okay. That is the answer. But you've got to, So like, if we're talking about a much larger pot, number one, you're gonna, you know, five, 10 plus gallon, you're gonna wanna use your installation tool, try to set that height and then, you know, possibly build your own tool that might help you bed that, but you're still gonna wanna bed it horizontally, all at the same height off the bottom. 

[00:23:48] Seth: And then realize that, hey, you know, when we were looking at our initial calibrations, we're looking at smaller pots. This is still gonna be accurate. It might not be quite as accurate, and let's say as in a one or a two gallon pot. [00:24:00] But the biggest thing is gonna be, you know, depth placement and then how hard you can pack that cocoa in around it. 

[00:24:07] Seth: And then just understanding like, you know, for instance, if we're running, uh, yeah, I know Welton a little bit. So I'll just say if we're running a big pot and we're looking at like, all right, we are really trying to monitor moisture content once one thing we did to even it out, uh, maybe we're looking at putting perlite or a bigger cocoa chop or something to try to help with that oxygen penetration, then you wanna start to think about, okay, [00:24:30] how are we gonna get a consistent reading? 

[00:24:31] Seth: If I've got something barky in the bottom of the pot that's really chunky, I might have bad contact. So yes, you can bury 'em. Uh, you know, just be as consistent as possible and don't always try to equate those readings to the exact same type of style that you would use, or the exact same, uh, meaning as you would in your normal pots. 

[00:24:51] Seth: You know, be a little more patient, be a little more conservative. Um, and don't forget they're in. Because they will get [00:25:00] really, I've, I have done that before a few times, and they get so interlocked with roots that it's quite a project to, uh, get 'em outta that root ball later. Great. 

[00:25:09] Mandy: Thanks Seth. Um, sorry Walton then. 

[00:25:11] Mandy: I thought that was a joke. I don't know why bearing this sensor was funny to me, but, um, Okay. There we have a little bit of clarification on that one. I learned something new on this show every day. Uh, he says, Thanks you guys. Uh, we got a question that came in over on YouTube. Greg wants to know, um, UV light is more [00:25:30] important. 

[00:25:30] Mandy: What do you think is best for indoor growers? 

[00:25:35] Seth: UV light is more important. Um, well, I mean, there's a few things to look at here. Number one, you know, the last 30 years or so of hps technology has kind of shown us you can absolutely grow good cannabis without the presence of uv. You can sit under that hps all day and you're not getting the sunburn. 

[00:25:51] Seth: You're gonna get hot, but you're not gonna get a tan . Um, number two, I do think it's quite beneficial. So some of the modern lighting spectrums coming out, particularly the [00:26:00] LEDs with UV supplementation and far red supplementation for the end of the end of the cycle, um, I think have a lot of benefits. 

[00:26:07] Seth: Right now, there is not, you know, as each technology comes out and we march forward in time, we have more and more data to look at, right? So right now evaluating something like UV supplementation, um, it's tough to put a number on how that's gonna affect your yields. Personally, I think you can look at potentially increased quality from something like UV [00:26:30] supplementation, you know, the closer and closer to the sun we get. 

[00:26:32] Seth: The, uh, more we're harnessing everything the plants evolved to take advantage of over the last couple million years, but that all comes outta price, right? So I think it's really hard to quantify now. However, if you're in the market for new lights, it's never bad to go with some of the more high end tech and set yourself up to be, you know, there ready to go. 

[00:26:54] Seth: As the market moves forward into that next phase where that, you know, like UV supplementation now [00:27:00] is a little more rare in grow lights, but as we go forward, it's gonna become more and more common, just like far red, just like full pet spectrum. You know, we're not, not very many people are producing or buying the, uh, classic Blurple lights anymore. 

[00:27:12] Seth: And, uh, that's, that's for a reason. And I'm not saying they're terrible by any means. You can grow some great weed under Blurple too. But um, you know, science kind of always marches forward and it's never bad to be on the cutting edge just so long as you're looking out like, okay, it, you know, I don't wanna reactionary say, [00:27:30] Hey, I had just outfitted my facility with all these LEDs last year. 

[00:27:33] Seth: These 720 watts, they're great. The new ones came out. I need to go get 'em now. Like, it's very dependent on where you are at with your grow and where you're at with, uh, your finances and investments. Cuz it's not always worth it to just always upgrade to the cutting edge if, uh, you're not actually getting ahead financially on the deal. 

[00:27:54] Seth: Unless you're just doing it purely for the joy of watching these lines on the graph, then, [00:28:00] then by all means, please do it. . 

[00:28:02] Mandy: Yeah, I mean, if you have the money, uh, investing in cultivation is so important, but uh, yeah, it does come down to. What resources you're working with and how much money you got. Mm-hmm. 

[00:28:11] Mandy: Um, , we had a couple questions that came in through the chat. Um, Diane wanted to know, um, what's better? Calcium nitrate, uh, calcium carbonate micronized or calcium chloride? What's the better product in your opinion? 

[00:28:28] Seth: Um, it depends on what you're mixing it with [00:28:30] and what you are trying to do. Like calcium, nitrates, great. 

[00:28:33] Seth: When we wanna provide a nitrogen source. Of course, calcium carbonate don't, I mean, the micronized version can be good. That's a decent calcium supplement. Calcium chloride can be used to sanitize. You're also getting some calcium in there. Um, I like to use potassium silicate myself because most of your commercial fertilizers already contained, uh, calcium nitrate. 

[00:28:54] Seth: So typically I'm not trying to add a lot more nitrogen when I'm supplementing calcium. Uh, especially if I'm, you know, it's a [00:29:00] little later on in flour. It's not early. So, Is any better? Depends on what you're trying to use it for. I would say, you know, completely, if you're at a point where you're worried about, you know, if you're mixing your own several part salts, um, you might probably wanna look at what some of the more successful commercial fertilizers are doing in terms of what nitrogen and calcium sources they use and try to start mimicking that. 

[00:29:26] Seth: Um, you know, there's no, the [00:29:30] only secret sauce and fertilizers are really the people who are designing them and figuring out how to manufacture them so they dissolve well or clean and easy to use and provide everything you need. And fortunately with things like, uh, msds there, they have to disclose the majority of what goes in there. 

[00:29:46] Seth: So I, I would evaluate it that way, honestly. 

[00:29:51] Mandy: Great. And, um, he also had a follow up question. Um, This might've been context for the question. I'm also going in growing in three [00:30:00] gallon pots and my plants are six, uh, to six feet tall. Uh, is that a small pot for that big of a plant? I'm in cocoa and perlite. 

[00:30:09] Seth: Oh no, not at all. 

[00:30:10] Seth: I mean, you could go down to a two gallon pot easily enough if you switched away from the per light and went and it straight cocoa, maybe even down to a gallon and a half. Um, when you've got cocoa and per light, that puts us in a, uh, lower water content range. So you're probably only hitting like the low forties in terms of volumetric water content. 

[00:30:29] Seth: So what that means [00:30:30] is, although we got great root oxygenation, it's harder to go generative and control that stretch or riping at the end because if we're only hitting 42%, the three gallon pot does, does give us some buffer room. But with a six, six and a half foot plant, it's still probably drying down fairly fast at the end of the run. 

[00:30:47] Seth: But again, that also is, will be dependent on, you know, what your ppfd and vpd look like. If you don't have enough light and we don't have enough, you know, negative pressure coming from the air, pulling up through the plant, we're not gonna get that much transpiration. [00:31:00] Um, I think depending on what your current situation is, uh, like I've grown in three and a half gallon pots a bunch, they're great. 

[00:31:10] Seth: There's a lot of room for air. Um, it is pretty easy to go generative for the most part. And if you're feeling like you can't, excuse me, go generative to ripen, you know, just flipping the plants a little smaller might be pretty easy as well. 

[00:31:26] Mandy: Awesome. Thanks for that. Um, yeah, so it's a [00:31:30] little quiet, um, over on YouTube, but, um, you guys here in the chats with us, please let us know if you have any follow up questions. 

[00:31:36] Mandy: Um, I know we're kind of chatting about some lights in the chats. Um, you know, if you guys wanna act, actually, you know, start the discussion, uh, with Seth, we can go ahead and do that. Um, but I'm gonna go over to, um, an Instagram question that we had that came in from baby got drive backs this week. Um, so she wants to know, like in your experience with some of our clients that have our system and some of our sensors, um, you [00:32:00] know, like what are some like yield increases that you've seen, um, with some of those? 

[00:32:04] Mandy: Uh, and like, you know, what are some of the basics that some of, uh, the smaller operators, uh, can get to start seeing some yield increases? 

[00:32:12] Seth: Yeah, so, um, it really depends on where you're at. You know, if we're down in, especially we're talking about smaller operators, a lot of people are talking about pounds per light. 

[00:32:20] Seth: You know, if we're down in that one and a half range, Uh, there's a good chance that just tightening things up, you know, using the sensors to quantify the changes we need to make can get you into that two and a half to [00:32:30] 3.2 pound range. Pretty easy, provided you're using a thousand wat hps or equivalent. 

[00:32:35] Seth: Um, what I do find very, very nice about, uh, working with some of the smaller growers is, you know, when we're talking about making some of these changes, you know, typically when I come in, one of the first things I see is, uh, under, under dehumidified. So that means they've hit a point where we've out, we've already outgrown how much humidity the system can handle. 

[00:32:54] Seth: So that is, that is one bummer. You buy a bunch of sensors and the first thing you do is notice like, Oh, oh, I gotta spend more [00:33:00] money. But when you have a smaller grow, um, sometimes that quantity that you have to spend is not nearly as much. If we're talking about 2000 square feet of growing space versus 20, suddenly that humidity problem is not quite as scary. 

[00:33:14] Seth: You know, like if we're in a big greenhouse and it's gonna take $10,000 to buy. Not even too Ds to barely do anything in here. Suddenly that's a huge problem. But on that smaller level, we can affect things. So number one is humidity. Uh, number two, on a basic [00:33:30] sense, just, uh, like what Diane was asking about earlier, getting a pressure, compensating, you know, very controllable drip system because we've really got, in order to be able to meet the EC goals, we've really gotta be able to moderate that runoff to a very precise level. 

[00:33:45] Seth: So that's a huge part of it. If you don't have the control or, uh, let's say you're limited to, um, the whale school, limited to like eight irrigation events a day, okay, well then that's probably not enough at that drip rate to be able to [00:34:00] accomplish what we want to in terms of, uh, you know, bulking steering. 

[00:34:04] Seth: So those are, those are two of the big limitations. Um, I do see people, uh, consistently run into, um, another huge one honestly is crop consistency. It's really tightening up those cloning SOPs, making sure your plants are all coming out at very, uh, even heights. So by the time you get 'em rooted in and you can flip 'em, you have really good consistency across your room. 

[00:34:25] Seth: And then, uh, you know, kind of, kind of identifying like [00:34:30] a lot of those smaller points that are costing you time and money and starting to, you know, get rid of some things that maybe aren't helping out or, uh, again, just tightening up, you know, a lot of your veg protocols in early Flower, I, I've met quite a few people that are environmentally have the capability and control. 

[00:34:48] Seth: They're nailing it. The thing they're battling is like, Oh, how do I get my clung consistency? Good. How do I get out of veg with a high enough light intensity to, uh, hit the [00:35:00] ground running and flower and not take a lot of time ramping my lights up? You know, there's, there's a few things to consider. Um, a big one, another big one I've run into is that light intensity deal. 

[00:35:08] Seth: So I. If I come out of clone with all of my lights, you know, maxed out at like, I'm getting 400 PFD on the plants, that means it's gonna take me time and flour. And this is very class acknowledge. I think every growers probably experienced this if they haven't, they have been worn not to. But uh, you know, when you take those plants that develop leaves under that low pf d environment and move them [00:35:30] into a much more intense environment, you just sunburn 'em essentially. 

[00:35:33] Seth: So what we want to do is try to raise that pf d and veg to the point where we're basically matching DLI and veg to flour. And the idea there is we're building leaves that have a higher content of chloroplast. So therefore, for chlorophyll, they can actually absorb that light energy and do something with it. 

[00:35:50] Seth: You know, the, the real classic example is you, you know, coming out at 400, going in trenders like rock 800 right away leaves, you have look burnt and yellow. And [00:36:00] then a few days later, new dark green leaves start growing darker than the ones that were there before. And those ones are hardened off to that higher ppf D environment. 

[00:36:08] Seth: So, Um, in terms of what, you know, AROYA, where AROYA comes in with that, uh, that 24 7 data logging allows you to see like, okay, exactly what kind of fluctuation we're having in Vpd and when it's happening we can dial, you know, our heat in the room. Basically. It just gives visibility on a lot of these things that we're hard to quantify. 

[00:36:28] Seth: And also, you know, when you're [00:36:30] upgrading from, let's say, you know, the classic hardware store hydrometer that's got plus or minus five degrees and plus or minus 8% of humidity, well we get that down to one degree and plus or minus 1%. Now we're talking some actual, you know, precision agriculture. You know, if, if we have plus or minus five and that's a 10% swing on temperature, I, I can't help you dial in your vpd very well cuz we can't actually see what that temperature is. 

[00:36:56] Seth: And the same thing with your humidity. So without having the tools [00:37:00] to really dial this in, it's very, very difficult. And you could end up in a situation where like, hey, you are. You've got a beautiful facility that's just built amazingly and it's, everything's really easy. Well now you move to one that's got some compromises. 

[00:37:14] Seth: Being able to quantify what's actually the problem suddenly becomes difficult cuz you might not realize how important certain aspects were at the previous facility where everything just worked nicely. It's 

[00:37:26] Mandy: all about being able to dial in on, uh, what needs to be [00:37:30] improved. Thank you for that set. Um, yeah, Michael opposed a question, posted a question in the chat. 

[00:37:34] Mandy: Do you wanna go ahead and take it over? 

[00:37:37] Guest 1: Uh, so obviously like nutrient lines, uh, many companies have, you know, a light that works beautifully, but, uh, what are your, uh, call it your top three recommendations for an l e d fixture and what are you looking for to recommend 

[00:37:52] Seth: those? Um, well honestly, right now I just kind of nerd out on the features and then one of the next big things I look [00:38:00] for in a commercial setting is build quality. 

[00:38:03] Seth: And warranty . How confident are they to last? Cuz I have definitely seen some out there that I really like, Um, think grows one that I've been playing around with lately. Uh, if I had to go buy a hundred of 'em at once, I might feel a little differently about that. It's a good way I'd put it, you know, in that 1300 bucks a light range. 

[00:38:21] Seth: And I know with any, every company, when you buy more, you can usually pull the price down a little bit. But, uh, you know, I've seen good things outta Foy, [00:38:30] Gavita think grow, uh, science, LEDs, uh, a lot of 'em out there right now are really good. And another important thing to remember is there's only so many producers of LED chips in the world. 

[00:38:41] Seth: So a lot of these lighting manufacturers, especially when you're looking at some of the newer ones coming out, they're using really good high end components. A lot of 'em from the same factories. So the difference you're looking at is build quality again, warranty, how well they're gonna last in a commercial setting. 

[00:38:57] Seth: And usually they'll boast about what chips [00:39:00] they have, , you know, And 

[00:39:05] Guest 1: then, uh, what are your, uh, what are your standards for, uh, pf that you're looking for and your par spectrums that you're looking for? Are you looking for something with that, uh, UV additive at the moment? Are you looking for something with that red influence? 

[00:39:19] Guest 1: Uh, where are you trying to steer your lights? 

[00:39:21] Seth: Uh, I like having the UV supplement. I do like having that far red, especially for ripening, you know, Cause if you think about it in the fall, the earth's earth's tilting away, The [00:39:30] sunlight's going through more of the atmosphere. That's where that red color comes in. 

[00:39:33] Seth: So I like having that, um, on a commercial price point. I don't know if it's worth it to focus more on that. Personally. I would rather be seeing myself getting a light, like, uh, like the 1930 s that can push up to, you know, 1700 plus Ppf D. Yeah, that's 

[00:39:50] Guest 1: tough. What we're running commercially and they, they run fucking predominantly. 

[00:39:53] Guest 1: They're little warm, they 

[00:39:54] run 

[00:39:55] Seth: great . Well, and you know, the other thing is like the, like the seven twenties and stuff. [00:40:00] They're, they're awesome. They're great. But what, what is your facility like? Like man, if you got 20 foot 16 or 20 foot ceilings and everything's suspended and it's just a pain in the butt to even get a ladder up there, uh, yeah. 

[00:40:11] Seth: You probably want to go with the more powerful fixed light that you're not gonna mess around with. If you got the seven twenties, man, if you want to crank some weight, you're gonna have to be getting them down and really fine tuning that. You know, you gotta set up 

[00:40:21] Guest 1: one of those fucking rack systems, . 

[00:40:23] Seth: Yep. 

[00:40:24] Seth: And, and that's, you know, more that's coming out like, uh, think Grow actually put out a little light [00:40:30] winch, basically I'll call it or hoist. But it's a little self-contained unit that's a lot more cost effective than going to like Grainger or something and buying, you know, electric hoist, which is something I've seen and been like, There's a lot of thousands of dollars to raise and lower those. 

[00:40:43] Seth: I mean, it adds up quick for that type of stuff. So I, I think that's a big thing that can take into consideration, you know, what, what can we achieve here? If I'm in a, in a room with eight foot ceilings, I'm growing small plants, like, okay, yeah, let's get some cooler lights and get 'em right down on 'em and work that way.[00:41:00] 

[00:41:01] Seth: Awesome. Thank you very much. Yep. This is a good question actually. Thank you. 

[00:41:06] Mandy: I love talking about lighting. Thanks for your question, Michael. Um, Welton, Rodin, uh, what's the highest EC you've successfully ran for strains like diesel throughout the entire flower cycle? Have they had a successful run when the sensor is consistently maxed out at that 30 ec day after day? 

[00:41:27] Seth: Uh, that's definitely pushing a [00:41:30] little high values for sure. Um, have I seen successful runs where the meters maxed out? Absolutely. Does that mean it's ideal? I don't really think so. Would be a good way to put that. Um, on the other hand, one important thing to remember, you know, especially if you're having irrigation issues or let's say plant consistency issues on the same zone. 

[00:41:52] Seth: Uh, you know, especially running in Rockwell as that plant, or not as the plant, but as the pockets dryer and dry, we're coming down in water [00:42:00] content that ec spiking, spiking, spiking. And part of that is, you know, we hit a point in that low end of the equation where the equation kind of starts to fall apart because we don't even have continuous contact along any of the probes in terms of moisture. 

[00:42:13] Seth: So the lower we get to each end of the range, you know, the less accurate that EC reading's gonna be. So if I'm, you know, seeing a plant that's drying down to let's say 10%, what I probably want to do is go look and see if I can remove that sensor or move the sensor to another plant, pull it out, wash.[00:42:30] 

[00:42:30] Seth: Replace it in a different spot on the cube or move to another plant and just try to use like a spot checker on that particular cube. Now, because at that point, if you have stabbed into one of those dry pockets, you're gonna continue to see that spiking every time it goes below a certain water content, just because suddenly the probe dries out and it shoots up exponentially, and also your water content will be less accurate because suddenly it's dried out. 

[00:42:54] Seth: Then that's shouldering off real quick too. 

[00:42:57] Mandy: Awesome. Thanks for that set. Uh, we had a couple [00:43:00] questions over on YouTube. Uh, Hassani Red wants to know, is there any benefit to lowering light intensity last week or week two, 

[00:43:11] Seth: last week or two? Um, last week or two. Yeah, sorry. Okay. I was like, if it was week two, definitely not. 

[00:43:16] Seth: Um, last week. Yes and no. Uh, personally, the sun doesn't really get much dimmer unless the clouds go by in the day. Uh, we're not typically running our plants so late into the fall that we see massive light intensity reduction [00:43:30] unless, I mean, I'm guessing this could be wild guess, but there's probably not many people in this, uh, listening to this program. 

[00:43:38] Seth: Maybe we got some Canadians, but probably not many that are growing above 45 degrees north. You know, there's a certain point above in latitude where we start to see light intensity to depreciate quite a bit later in summer. Uh, we're not really seeing that in most places now. Where that does come in and indoor growing is, uh, how is our dry back looking in those last two weeks and how much have we bulked up? 

[00:43:59] Seth: [00:44:00] You know, typically in ripening we wanna see a plant that's slowly sliding into senescence. It's ending the, the end of its, you know, time that wants to be or is supposed to be alive. But, you know, another consideration there is we're also running a lot of different genetics and when we're compressing everything into eight or nine weeks, Some plants might be totally done adding bulk at that point. 

[00:44:23] Seth: Other plants might actually still be able to take advantage of that sunlight to bulk up. You know, in a range. Genetics, there's also like, you know, what [00:44:30] we consider a finished plant, that doesn't mean they're all in the same point in their lifetime. So, um, that lower p ppf D is nice when your drive backs are pushing so hard that you can't go generative. 

[00:44:45] Seth: So right back to what we talked about earlier, if we're hitting that point where, uh, our irrigation strategy for the last two weeks looks very similar to our irrigation strategy for bulking and that we're hitting field capacity, but then we're [00:45:00] having to keep putting on these maintenance shots to keep it from over drying in the day, that's when it might be beneficial to turn down that light intensity a little bit and slow that down Now, That's only responsible if you can have enough capacity to maintain that p d for instance, if you've got HP LIP and we turn 'em down 20%, that's 20% less energy being distributed through the room in the air. 

[00:45:23] Seth: Less, less burn off effect in the humidity. So if you have [00:45:30] enough vpd in your pot sizes or enough D capacity and your pot size is correct, typically you do not want to turn down the lights during that time period. Would be a good way to put that. But there are times when it can be beneficial. 

[00:45:42] Mandy: Good notes out there for growers. 

[00:45:44] Mandy: Um, okay, another question came in salty R wants to know, uh, what about weather in rooms for righting under hps? So things like temperature, relative humidity, and p d, Do you have any advice for them? 

[00:45:57] Seth: Yeah, so, you know, under hps we're gonna [00:46:00] be the biggest difference between HPS and L e. Is how they influence leaf surface temp. 

[00:46:05] Seth: Um, with an hps, we have a lot more radiant energy coming out and striking the leaf surface that's causing the leaf surface to heat up. And that's influencing the vpd around the leaf surface itself, which is what as cultivators we need to actually be caring about. That's what's affecting how open or closed those tomato are and how much air is being pulled up through the plant now because, uh, there's not currently a good clip on leaf temp [00:46:30] sensor that wouldn't, you know, be hanging leaf down. 

[00:46:33] Seth: Um, we don't have a real time, you know, idea of what leaf temp is. So how we calibrate that is you go out, use a laser thermometer, measure your leaf temp and say, Okay, my leaf temp is like with an hps typically anywhere from like three to six degrees above the ambient room tempera. Because it's getting that radiant heat, it's tanning. 

[00:46:52] Seth: Even though I said you can't tan, but there is more radiant heat under hps. You can feel it on your skin if you're under there. Um, when we get to the L E d, a lot of [00:47:00] times that leaf surface temp will actually be colder than the ambient room temp. So what we're trying to do at any point in the, in the points life cycle is correct for that differential, right? 

[00:47:09] Seth: We want the leaf surface temp to be at an ideal temperature. So when we're talking like stretch, you know, typically 80 82 or 78, 84, you know, widen it up. But what we're really tuning the room temp to is that leaf temp. So if we're looking at ripening in an hps room leaf temp, we're gonna wanna shoot for, you know, daytime [00:47:30] 75 or so. 

[00:47:31] Seth: Nighttime. We want good expression down at 65, uh, degrees Fahrenheit. If we're talking about humidity, we wanna maintain above a 1.1 to 1.2 day and night. And that's where it becomes difficult and ripening sometimes, you know, if we've got really big chunky buds. We might even be wanting to run up to a 1.6, 1.7, 1.8 in the daytime just to ensure, especially if you're an area that's known forr, uh, like a lot of the northwest, anywhere that's got orchards so much [00:48:00] of California too, um, at that point then we've gotta, uh, make sure we can pull that vpd or pull the moisture outta the air at night. 

[00:48:10] Seth: So in the daytime, you know, we might be talking about like mid fifties humidity, low fifties, but in the night, you know, at 65 degrees to maintain a 1.2 plus bpd, we're gonna be in the low forties for humidity. And that's where sometimes the challenge comes in and pushing this large amount of biomass in a room and getting it to ripen without having [00:48:30] mold or powdery mildew problems. 

[00:48:34] Seth: Awesome. 

[00:48:35] Mandy: Thank you for that set. Um, yeah, so we actually, I totally, um, Forgot to mention earlier, we had a question come in through our, um, app, through the AROYA app, um, clients that have AROYA, uh, I don't know if you guys know this, but you can submit questions to Seth and Jason in the resource center. Um, and we had a question come in this week from Mark at Green Theory Cultivation. 

[00:48:57] Mandy: Um, they wanna know what's the [00:49:00] al what's the optimal in pk, calcium, magnesium, uh, what, what are the optimal, um, nutrients for each stage of cannabis during the growing cycle? Uh, the flowering cycle, Excuse 

[00:49:12] Seth: me. So, uh, there is no opt totally optimal mpk. We're looking at typically a ratio of like two 11 at the max, Not two 11, but two to one to one. 

[00:49:23] Seth: So twice as much nitrogen as the other two early on, you know, for more like a veg. [00:49:30] Fertilizer. But as it goes on, um, typically the biggest thing you wanna look for in a fertilizer regimen is you want a good, clean nitrogen source for your first, you know, stretch when we really need that nitrogen. And then you wanna be, be able to have the ability to pull that nitrogen back and pump up your p and k ratios. 

[00:49:47] Seth: So, I wish I had a solid advice or solid answer for you. Um, but the reality is that is a, it's a kind of a broad subject, and we could run a bunch of different fertilizers right next to each other, [00:50:00] use tissue analysis and still not see a lot of statistical significant or statistically significant differences and what the plants actually look like. 

[00:50:09] Seth: So it's about application, it's about how clean they are. And then again, it's about looking at, can I pull that nitrogen out? What, what are my options with this? Because at the end of the day, each plant at each plant, but each strain is gonna have a different preference. So it's going, okay, how can we manipulate what we've got in our system to actually [00:50:30] work with this? 

[00:50:31] Seth: Uh, and you know, for, for example, I, I have plenty of clients that are mixing their own salts, eight and nine part formulas. We've got people buying jacks, we've got people buying Athena, we've got people on front row, uh, hydroponics research just about every nutrient. And the biggest difference I see between success with different nutrient alliance really comes down to, uh, water quality, EC levels and strains. 

[00:50:58] Seth: So, certain [00:51:00] areas, uh, certain formulations won't work with your water very well unless you filter it. I know I've experienced that with some, you know, variable quality water from around here, where at different times of the year, the pH comes out different. Sometimes it has a lot more, uh, like carbonate content and other things in it that tend to bind up with the nutrients. 

[00:51:16] Seth: So it's difficult to get it to mix. Um, yeah, I, I wish I had a straight answer for you on that one, but one of the biggest things is finding the one that works for your facility, aka your [00:51:30] water quality, and actually mixes well and plays nice with your equipment, and then determining, Okay, do I need to run this at a higher, lower ec? 

[00:51:39] Seth: And unfortunately, um, we go back 10 years. Yeah, A lot of what I learned in college, Hey, you can take most fertilizers and start at half strength and go from there. Well, one thing we discover with cannabis is you can try that, but once you've got these sensors, you'll learn that that's not really, that's a pretty imprecise way of monitoring that. 

[00:51:59] Seth: You [00:52:00] know, sometimes I can take a plan and say, Wow, that's looking really deficient. Let's just, uh, ramp up the EC in the root zone. We'll go up two points and we don't notice any more deficiencies. It's 

[00:52:12] Mandy: all about dialing it in for your different strains. Um, thank you for that. Yeah. We're rounding out our hour here with Seth, so if anyone has any questions here with us live, please do post 'em in the chat. 

[00:52:21] Mandy: Um, I'm gonna try to get to the YouTube questions really quickly. Um, Okay. So Nana wants to know, I'm curious why [00:52:30] salt based fertilizer products are running such dramatically higher EC numbers. Have you seen that set? 

[00:52:37] Seth: Uh, yeah. I guess, uh, I'll, I'll really break down. Part of its marketing in my opinion, um, if you're buying liquid fertilizer, that means you can afford it, which means you might not be on the commercial size of cultivation. 

[00:52:52] Seth: That a lot of, uh, salt, you know, people that buy salt fertilizer are, um, what it comes down to is a lot of brands, you know, [00:53:00] they'll have a liquid and a salt formulation. If you look at the two feeding schedules, one is showing a lower cdc. The reality is the person buying the liquid nutrients probably doesn't have, you know, something like AROYA. 

[00:53:11] Seth: Some do, I do have some customers that use liquid nutrients that tend to be in a lot smaller facilities. But with the way EC works, you know what, what AROYA allows you to do is keep your EC inside of a certain range and actually, you know, reliably do that day after day. And without that, um, [00:53:30] it's a lot safer to run in the lower EC ranges because what plant, what really hurts plants in terms of EC are sudden spikes up and down, you know, like we talked about earlier. 

[00:53:39] Seth: The plant has to adapt to that, that osmotic balance or imbalance. And it can't do that in just a few minutes or a few hours. So when we're running, you know, lower ec the whole way through, we're adapting the plant to that lower ec and, uh, not putting ourselves in quite as risky of a situation. In terms of how you see, [00:54:00] Um, that's, that's really I think what it boils down to. 

[00:54:04] Seth: Cuz otherwise we're talking about the same product. Uh, again, usually just end user is different. Great. 

[00:54:12] Mandy: Thank you for that. Um, I think that this is, uh, the last question we'll have time to cover today. Um, so 5 0 5 Colt wants to know, um, so for crop steering, uh, cocoa versus Rockwell, what are some pros and cons that you've seen out there? 

[00:54:29] Seth: [00:54:30] Oh, that's a good one. I like it. Um, so with Coco, we'll just start there. I'll start with the cons of cocoa. Cocoa is a big blanket term. It is one product type. It's got the same material, but the way it's processed can vary widely from manufacturer or processor to processor, I should say. It's grown, not just manufactured, but in any event, you can get cocoa that will range from, you know, premixed with per light. 

[00:54:54] Seth: That's, you know, in the mid thirties for water content to fairly fine cut cocoa. That's, you know, [00:55:00] prepackaged in a block that'll hold 65 to 70% volumetric water content. So cocoa's awesome. The big downside is that variability. So if you have a lower quality cocoa, um, or certain brands and certain brands or certain lines in certain brands, I won't say which. 

[00:55:19] Seth: Um, ones that tend to come in with really low water content are much more difficult to crop steer with because we can't run nearly as generatively in the same size pot. So [00:55:30] Coco's awesome, but there's that limitation. Now Rockwell, we've got a really consistent, reliable product. Um, it tends to be a little bit more expensive that you're paying for. 

[00:55:40] Seth: But what it allows us to do is consistently know that we're gonna be able to run that high water content easily control that dry back. Um, again, it's pretty rare you get an off pa batch of Rockwell. The downside to Rockwell is that, um, if you over dry, that goes right back to that field capacity problem we were talking about earlier. 

[00:55:59] Seth: Like let's say we [00:56:00] went with, uh, some original Rockwell tech kind of outta the vegetable growing world from a decade ago. Like, Hey, we hydrate our Rockwell and then we wait until we see a 50% moisture content lost by weight to water again when we're trying to root in a plant or start seeds or whatever. 

[00:56:17] Seth: And traditionally that was done by weight. Well in, If I do that in my final growing medium, like let's say my slab or my Hugo and I dry down from 70% down to 35%, I'm [00:56:30] already risking damaging the integrity of the media by promoting the formation of those dry pockets. So that's, that's the downfall of Rockwell. 

[00:56:38] Seth: Like a lot of people do struggle because they will get the Rockwell at some point in stretch, have that excessive dry back, then they start chasing their field cap down. And then once the field cap's gone, you've got a few choices. You can either, you know, not push much runoff, go super generative, but that's probably not gonna work cuz you're just gonna be drying out super fast. 

[00:56:58] Seth: So effectively you start [00:57:00] bulking, you know, pretty much for, from, you know, a day or two after that dry down event for the rest of your run, you're just gonna be bulking because you have to keep it wet. And when we're talking about, you know, creating big yields, there's three main factors. There's light, carbon, and water. 

[00:57:15] Seth: So when we take away any of those three main pillars of plant production, it doesn't matter what nutrients you're running, like the plant doesn't care how much those cost, it doesn't care what media you're in when those things aren't in abundance. We're not producing the same growth. So [00:57:30] that's what a lot of people run into with Rockwell. 

[00:57:31] Seth: They essentially stunt the plant early on by limiting the water capacity of the media. Now, when we talk about cocoa, here's a beautiful thing. If you have a me a, uh, irrigation system that is less than reliable in your experience, cocoa can save you. Because if you drive down in cocoa, you know, all the way down to 20 or less percent, I can still get that media back up to field capacity and retain those qualities. 

[00:57:56] Seth: Is it great for the plant that I got a close to wilting? Potentially, maybe [00:58:00] not. But do I lose the benefits of running that media after that one dry down event? No. So cocoa is a lot more forgiving. Um, downside, There's some more sweeping to do. , it's messy, you know. 

[00:58:15] Mandy: Oh man. I feel like there's so much more to talk about as far as, uh, substrates. 

[00:58:19] Mandy: We should do a whole topic on it. 

[00:58:21] Seth: Yeah, that, that would be fun actually. And by the way, Mandy, thank you for bringing up the, uh, the question submit form. Oh yeah. I should have dropped that at the beginning and I totally [00:58:30] forgot about it as well, but No, I wonder people do as much as possible. I think that's the easiest line in. 

[00:58:35] Seth: Yeah, 

[00:58:36] Mandy: no, it's super new. Um, yeah, so if you guys have the app, just check out the resource center down in the lower left hand corner and, um, yeah, you can submit questions and you can learn more about the updates going on in AROYA. Um, yeah. Any other messages you wanna say, Seth, before we sign off for today? 

[00:58:51] Mandy: What a great 

[00:58:51] Seth: show. No, just, just enjoy crop to, and I'm actually gonna screen share and show everyone where to. 

[00:58:56] Mandy: Oh, that's a great, I guess 

[00:58:58] Seth: quick. This [00:59:00] is the future. Yeah. Why not just show it, right? 

[00:59:03] Mandy: Yes. Yeah. We're super excited about what we're able to add, um, into the app to help our clients. Um, and this is one of the newest things. 

[00:59:11] Mandy: Oh yeah. 

[00:59:11] Seth: Always. 

[00:59:16] Seth: So if you log in, good old Vandalay Industries in here, our nice demo. 

[00:59:23] Seth: Go there, sit up there. Here's our plus button right down here in the corner, we've got this little question mark. [00:59:30] And if you go in here to support form, that's gonna give you our general support staff. Go to knowledge base here. You can submit a question for office hours, YouTube link, and then some of our other video series that you can check out. 

[00:59:44] Seth: But please utilize those resources. Um, I don't point 'em out as much as I need to. 

[00:59:51] Mandy: Well, they're super new. They're super new and we're adding to them, uh, it seems like every day. So, um, yeah, check back for that stuff, you guys. Um, awesome show. [01:00:00] Thank you Seth, for holding it down. I'm sure we'll be glad when Keisha and Jason are back. 

[01:00:05] Mandy: Um, but yeah, I had a great time. What about you? 

[01:00:07] Seth: Oh, I had fun. Yeah. Yeah, the questions were really good this week. I liked it. 

[01:00:11] Mandy: Yes. Thanks everyone for joining us and submitting their questions. Um, yeah, if anyone was new to the chat and submitted a question, please do leave your email address for us here. 

[01:00:20] Mandy: But without further ado, I'm gonna go ahead and sign us off. So Seth, thank you for another great conversation. It's always fun getting to hang with you and learn about growing. Uh, thank everyone for joining us for this [01:00:30] week's AROYA Office Hours. We do this every Thursday, and the best way to get answers from our experts is to join us live here. 

[01:00:36] Mandy: If you have questions about AROYA, we do encourage you to book a demo with our experts. We can tell you all about how our software and our sensors can help improve your cultivation production process. As always, please let us know if there's a topic you'd like covered on future office hours, se office hours sessions. 

[01:00:52] Mandy: Uh, you can just post it in the chat. You can shoot us an email at support, do AROYA meter group.com or you can send us an Instagram dm. We'd [01:01:00] love to hear from you. We record every session and we'll be emailing everyone in attendance a link from the video. From today's discussion, it'll also live over on the AROYA YouTube channel, so I can subscribe while you're there, and if you find these conversations helpful, please feel free to share with your network and spread the word. 

[01:01:15] Mandy: We'll see everyone next time. Thank you guys.