OHL 45 TX
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[00:00:00] Kaisha: All right. It's Thursday at 4:20 PM Eastern. That means it's time for office hours. AROYA's weekly session for cultivators to hear from the experts and talk to each other about what they're seeing with their grows. My name's Kaisha and I'm your co moderator, but I don't do alone. How you doing? Hey

[00:00:14] Mandy: Kaisha, man, can you believe it?

[00:00:16] Mandy: We're already on episode 45. What an amazing community we're building here together. Speaking of, did you guys know that we're live over on YouTube right now? I'll be watching for your questions over there, so be sure you're following us on [00:00:30] Instagram TikTok as well. Um, one more important announcement to, uh, before we get going.

[00:00:34] Mandy: Anyone going to MJ BizCon in Las Vegas in a few weeks? You know, we'll be there. So reach out to us if you'd like to meet up while you're there. But you know what, We're here for your crops hearing questions, so I'm gonna throw it back to you,

[00:00:45] Kaisha: Kaisha. Awesome, Andy, thank you so much. If you're lab is here, have a question, type it in the chat at any time your question gets picked.

[00:00:51] Kaisha: We will have you either mute yourself or I can ask it for you, Seth. Jason, how's it Bellen?

[00:00:57] Seth: Very well, pretty good. Kaisha. How about.

[00:00:59] Kaisha: [00:01:00] Doing good. Nice to see you guys. We've got some questions in from Instagram and actually there were a few that we, uh, got last week that we weren't able to get to because the live questions were so on and popping.

[00:01:08] Kaisha: So I'm just gonna dive right in. You ready? Let's do it. All right. Can Ray wrote in a great question. They wanted to know where is the best location to hang your atmos? 14 at the canopy level or above it.

[00:01:23] Jason: So my general rule is within a foot of the top of the canopy, obviously, um, while your plants are growing, sometimes [00:01:30] that means it's good to raise it up.

[00:01:32] Jason: Ideally, what we're doing is getting the best sample to attribute what the plants are feeling in that room. And so obviously the closer it is to those plants, you know, within a foot of the top of the canopy, getting some of the, the microclimate in there, some of the reduced wind flow that the, the plants are push.

[00:01:49] Seth: Yeah, I mean, I, I think you nailed it there. Really close to the canopy top. We want a really average representation of what we're seeing across the room at the canopy level. So within a foot. And then, you know, if [00:02:00] you've got exhaust, fence, de exhaust fans, anything like that, probably don't put it directly in front of that, you know, source of change in the room.

[00:02:07] Seth: Cause we want to capture that average look. Not, you know, what is it right in front of my de exhaust cuz then you might go home and go, Wow, it's 95 degrees in my room. I sure didn't feel like. . So we want to get, you know, the best representation possible of what's going on at the canopy level.

[00:02:25] Kaisha: Beautiful. Thank you so much. Um, awesome. Looks like we got some sound we're gonna be [00:02:30] correcting here. Thank you guys for that answer. We're gonna move on to the next one. The chemical grower wrote in, uh, they were wondering how to start with a low ec coco, pre-soak the coco with Cal. Any thoughts

[00:02:43] Jason: there? Usually you'll just wanna soak your coco with whatever your infuriation is gonna be going into, um, veg, I mean, if, if that's what you're doing, your transplant.

[00:02:54] Jason: Um, so just use your feedy,

[00:02:57] Seth: you see. Yeah. And you know, I, one [00:03:00] thing I always can't stress enough to people, when you get directions with a particular media, try following those first. So, you know, in Coco we got a big range of brands. Some brands have a better wash than others. So if you get a brand that says, You should wash this, you know, X amount of times, 1, 2, 3, with straight water and nutrient solution.

[00:03:20] Seth: Um, you know, pay attention to that. Certain brands of coco aren't washed as well. They have high salt levels coming in, not the salts we want, but like Jason said, we want to charge [00:03:30] that up typically with our regular nutrients solutions. So that plant has access to everything it needs right off. And when we transplant into something with too low of an ec, um, once that plant takes off, it's hard to get it to stack up.

[00:03:42] Seth: You know, if we're way down around like 1.0 and that plant really needs three. Every time we try to wash it up to three, that plant might just eat, Eat it right back down.

[00:03:53] Kaisha: Yes. Set yourself up for success. Awesome. Thank you so much for that. Just a reminder to everybody's on with us live where you wanna answer your [00:04:00] questions, get 'em to the experts. So don't forget. Go ahead and post those in the chat at any time. We're gonna keep moving on through our Instagram questions.

[00:04:07] Kaisha: Um, Gonzo 3 96 was asking about thermal cameras. They were wondering if you guys could go into detail about these, the use of them and what brand works. You guys use thermal cameras. Uh, I

[00:04:19] Jason: have in the past and let me get some weird stuff with the mics. Uh, yeah, we'll echo, I think I had a FLIR that I was using and they're, I mean, as valuable for the plants [00:04:30] as they are for the facility.

[00:04:31] Jason: So I guess we could probably dive in and talk about some diagnostics that we're doing, one with the plants and two with the, the facility. Uh, really fun. I, I liked getting up on a ladder and trying to take a vertical shot of the, the canopy and you could basically get a. Count of it cuz the buds are gonna be cooler.

[00:04:48] Jason: So you get a really nice gradient showing you the hot spots on the plant. And then obviously you get, see the cooler spots where the leaves are actively transpiring. Uh, every once in a while you'll even be able to pick, pick out a, like a sick plant. [00:05:00] Um, I had one that was way warmer than the rest of the plants and I, I went down over to the, uh, substrate there on, we were in Southside coco bags and.

[00:05:12] Jason: shot the, the bag with a thermal camera as well from the bottom, and we could see that one of the drippers was, uh, clogged up so that, uh, that cooler irrigation, you can definitely see its effect and you're just gonna be like a gradient away from the, the dripper. So, uh, those were some cool things I was doing with the [00:05:30] plants.

[00:05:30] Jason: I always really wanted to, you know, build an algorithm or something that would count my, my buds per, uh, square foot or square inch based on. Trellis cuz showed up really well in there as well. Um, so those are some of the plant ideas. And then some of the facility type of stuff was monitoring fan performances, so some fans were way hotter than expected.

[00:05:53] Jason: Um, just getting an idea of the, the room layout, um, by looking at walls and, and those types of things. Uh, [00:06:00] lights you can check out if lights are Brandon A. Little bit hot. Um, kind of

[00:06:05] Seth: some of the ways that I used. Yeah, I like using them for identifying micro climates in the room. And then actually one that I've kind of been introducing a few clients, um, if you've got, you know, especially security cameras or a fixed camera within infrared capability, but let's say you're running your room at nighttime, we're trying to figure out like, well, did we get runoff?

[00:06:21] Seth: Did we not? The graph looks like we did. Was it across the whole bench? Just like you, Jason was talking about positioning it so you can see just one pot that doesn't have drippers. We can also [00:06:30] see that water go onto the. and see an effect there. So if we push enough runoff, we'll actually see that on the table, and it's a good way to just have eyes on your environment when you're not there.

[00:06:40] Seth: That's where I really see 'em come in as like overnight. All right. You know that nighttime room or the lights shut off and no one's there. Okay, We can start to identify certain heat sources or, hey, where, where does all our heat? When the lights turn off, do we actually have a leak in the room? You know, we can really identify a lot of those things that, um, are hard to see and feel, [00:07:00] uh, at, in a wider picture

[00:07:06] Kaisha: all about getting greater transparency. Right. Wonderful. Okay. One of our attendees posted a question here in the chat. Um, they wrote in, When are you gonna have to recalibrate the TEROS 12.

[00:07:22] Jason: Should ever have to. So when we ship it out with it comes with a lifetime calibration. Um, that being said, you know, if you're seeing some, [00:07:30] some readings are a little bit weird, make sure that you've cleaned the prongs with some iso propanol or, or other cleaning agent.

[00:07:36] Jason: Um, you make sure you're not using, uh, something that's too abrasive, like a scotch bright pad on there. Just make sure that their knife wiped off and clean that salt buildup can cause 'em to, to read a little bit irregular. And then, you know, another thing is just the installation consistency. So make sure you are using your, uh, installation template tools, um, so that you're getting at the right height.

[00:07:56] Jason: Make sure that they're nice and fully seated to [00:08:00] the, the white body of that, uh, sensor. And, you know, make sure you're horizontal with the prongs, um, and make sure that you're not reinserting into a hole if you're in a. Cited plastic, make sure that you, you've cut out space so that Terras 12 can fully contact the substrate.

[00:08:16] Jason: So, uh, you know, that, that being said, of the 60,000 plus sensors we have in the field, I personally haven't seen much of almost any issue with, with calibration long term, uh, since we deployed these.

[00:08:29] Seth: Yeah, [00:08:30] I mean, the TEROS 12 is, like you said, has a lifetime calibration. And actually the original intent with that sensor was to be able to put it in situ.

[00:08:37] Seth: Out in the elements for a long amount of time. So during that development process with Meter, they found a solution that tends to last for a long, long time in a solid state. That being said, it is a precise scientific instrument. So anytime we're talking about, just like Jason said, sensor installation, consistency, our height, that's gotta be just perfect.

[00:08:57] Seth: You know, we're looking basically at a horizontal cross section, [00:09:00] um, as we go up in any media, that's gonna change. So we always want to be getting it at the exact right spot. And then too, you know, realize that any, any media we're working with, whether it's rockwool, Coco, Pete, uh, all this stuff is coming to you at a while.

[00:09:15] Seth: You know, we may compare about the prices that it comes at. Really, it's a, it's a pretty cheap product. You know, if, if you wanted to pay 20 bucks per pot, we might be able to get some super finely manufactured consistent product. But if you're paying a couple bucks, a compressed per [00:09:30] compressed coco, Buying one slab at a time.

[00:09:32] Seth: There's only so much manufacturing consistency that can happen. So when you get, say, one pallet of coco, you've burned through that same brand, you get another one and you get a few percent difference on your field capacity readings. That's not the sensor that you know that could very easily be that batch.

[00:09:49] Seth: They set the machine differently. It's crushing harder this time. This time it's shredding, finer, There's all these little inconsistencies. And then you know what that kind of translates into is we we're always playing a game of [00:10:00] averages. . You know, when we look across our crop, these are living things and you can see when you go to take 'em down, you know, I, I challenge anyone to bring me a, a crop where they got like less than five grams variance per plant at harvest time, wet weight.

[00:10:13] Seth: You know, that, that's like how close we have to be to have perfect consistency across this. So, you know, you can get hung up on little details like that, or remember that we can only do so much based on the technology that we have. You know, if, uh, a great example is if you have a really high flow [00:10:30] irrigation system, if the minimum you can turn on, you know, is, uh, 200 milliliters, let's say, Well, in a smaller pot size, like a gallon and a half coco, we're gonna have a really big limitation there.

[00:10:41] Seth: So, Um, as far as calibration goes, you know, it is important. Um, but the bigger thing is making sure you're using them correctly. You know, like I said, and we also do have a verification method. We have a clip that you can put on and test, but like Jason said, it's highly, [00:11:00] highly rare that we throw that clip on and get anything other than a desired tolerance.

[00:11:05] Jason: Yeah. You know, one thing I, you and I forget sometimes is that these things are sensitive enough that just the oils on our skin from uh, handling the prongs can affect their reading slightly. So, uh, that cleanliness, installation consistency are really the best things you can do to ensure that the data you're getting is exact representation of what you're trying

[00:11:26] Seth: to sample.

[00:11:27] Seth: Yeah, and you know, a big thing too that I always tell [00:11:30] people, if you're really having doubts, you know, go look around at the table, do some spot checking. If you're, if you've got your sensor plugged in into an outlier, don't worry about it too much. Like, move over and look at what you can accomplish.

[00:11:41] Seth: Feasibly. On the other hand, if that outlier is wearing you really go check it out. You might just have a plug emitter. You know, there are a lot of times very simple solutions to something that looks. like a, a cause for concern on the graph. So I guess I'll just start off with that one. Um, you're, you're not in a [00:12:00] very steerable media for the size of plant that you're producing, so what you're doing is going super generative, which is probably putting out some k pretty killer bud.

[00:12:09] Seth: You're just, you know, might be confusing why you say like, why do I have a three or three and a half gallon pot and my plants aren't as big as my buddy that's got a one and a half gallon. and what it comes down to is with that bigger media, I mean, you need a huge plant out of a three and a half gallon pot to really be able to steer properly.

[00:12:25] Seth: If we want to get that 15 to 25% dry back, that's gonna be [00:12:30] a lot. It's gonna take a lot longer to achieve that with a three and a half gallon pot and let's say a four or five foot plant. So your, the, your biggest increase honestly, would be getting off of the promax or going to a smaller pot. At least, you know, start with maybe a two gallon pot size for the size of plants you're running, and, uh, see if you can actually achieve an appreciable overnight dry back, and a decent, you know, midday, dry back.

[00:12:53] Seth: Because if you can't get, you know, faster than, let's say a percent an hour, we're not gonna be able to get that many P [00:13:00] two s. Like that's a reality for bulking, and that's kind of one of the secret sauces, I guess, to really getting that yield up is being able to get that bulking into place, which you'll never be able to do in an oversized media for the plant.

[00:13:13] Seth: Okay. Good things to keep

[00:13:15] Mandy: in mind. Awesome. Yeah. Uh, I think we got a live question in the chat, so back over to you, Kaisha.

[00:13:20] Kaisha: Awesome. Thank you, Mandy. All right. Michael wrote in. Michael, if you wanna unmute yourself to comment further, please do. When bearing a TEROS, 12 in a mom pot, seven [00:13:30] to 10 gallon pots, where would ideal placement be against the outside of the pot or a little further in?

[00:13:38] Jason: Yeah, so I've done quite a few mom pot installations and my personal preference is to to be a little ways into the media if you can. If you're in something like a seven to 10 gallon, the reason just being is, so our Terras 12 has a one liter volume of influence. So when we think about, uh, what is it measuring, it's, it's trying to measure, you know, about the size of a, you know, [00:14:00] one liter bottle or, you know, maybe a little bit bigger than a pop.

[00:14:03] Jason: Uh, around those prongs. So if that's in an area that's, um, quite a ways away from the plant and we're, you know, just at the edge of the media, we've got a ton of surface area on something like seven to 10 gallon pot, uh, a lot of times, or even, you know, the fabric sided, we're not gonna be getting a great sample of what the average of the water content in that.

[00:14:25] Jason: Container is, and that's usually what's the most helpful information. Uh, obviously if, [00:14:30] you know, we're looking at the lower 5% of, of volume, uh, based on how much water's in there, then we're usually gonna overwater that wall. Um, and so, you know, being a ways in there, I, I like to think about quadrants, right?

[00:14:44] Jason: So if, you know, we, what's the, one of the most average spots in that plant, uh, substrate that. Would represent average water content? Well, it's gonna be closer to say, a quadrant within that, uh, 10 to 10 gallon.

[00:14:58] Seth: Yeah. I wish I had my placement tool here [00:15:00] to give you an exact height on that. Mikey, I wanna say it's around three inches for a pot that tall.

[00:15:03] Seth: Depends on how tall your pot is versus wide. But yeah, just like Jason said, think about where in the pot you wanna be capturing that. You know, when we're talking about moms, we typically want to get it close, you know, even if you're bearing it right dead center in the pot. That's good. You know, if we're looking at that drag gradient when Jason's talking about overwatering moms, you know, that's why three months later you can have this beautiful mom that just craps out on you and you go grab the stem and even you don't have to break it over, it just falls over at the weight of your arm.

[00:15:29] Seth: And that's [00:15:30] just because you've got so much root rot building up in there, which is obviously not desirable even to have in your facility. Um, so yeah, you really want to get it right in the middle and just remember, Fabric pots always make a difference. So if you had a really wide shallow fabric pot, we would still be in the same boat just because it's gonna dry out around the outside of that.

[00:15:52] Seth: So

[00:15:52] Jason: logistically it makes it, you know, a little bit more challenging than installing sensors in, uh, you know, a production flower room. And this is the best time to do [00:16:00] it for your moms is when you are transplanting into that seven to 10 gallons that you can get that placement. You know, that sensor's gonna be buried in there.

[00:16:07] Jason: And another logistical challenge is when you go to kill your moms, you might, uh, you might need like a power saw to cut through the roots to get that TEROS 12 back out of there. And just be really careful that, you know, you're not including the. As AROYA that you're cutting, um, or, or even into the body of the sensor.

[00:16:24] Jason: So definitely a little bit tricker. Um, but if you are trying to optimize the, the growth your moms [00:16:30] and you are taking metrics and, and standardizing your processes, it's uh, a worthwhile venture.

[00:16:36] Seth: Oh yeah, absolutely. To get some, you know, just to get any tracking on it and, For instance, like when we're talking about a seven to 10 gallon pot, I myself would end up probably with a decently high ratio of per light in there, even up into that 20 or 30%, just because I don't want that root route happening in the center of the pot.

[00:16:52] Seth: Well, what do I know about bringing Pearl Light in? It's gonna make getting that super consistent reading across my mom's kind of difficult. Like when I look at the graph, [00:17:00] I might see some stratification, even though I think they're all relatively the same. The big thing to remember there is that we've got a few different variables that are playing that are gonna make it hard to get a super accurate result.

[00:17:10] Seth: The bigger thing we wanna see is that difference in dry back. So we want to see that we are actually successfully drying back. We've got, um, good transpiration going. Roots seem to be in good health. We've used enough water to warrant watering. Again, you know, sometimes we have instruments that are more, [00:17:30] more accurate and precise than the media we're trying to measure.

[00:17:33] Seth: Allows, you know, if you stick one of these T twelves into pure perlite, it's gonna be very difficult to get a reading at all or anything believable, just because we have so much air contact along that. .

[00:17:45] Kaisha: Amazing you guys. Uh, Mikey just wrote in, uh, I went with four inches up and two inches out from the pot edge, putting the sensor tips in the bottom of my primary root bulb.

[00:17:54] Kaisha: I'll try to bring it a little further down with the next batch. Does that sound to

[00:17:58] Seth: you guys? That sounds really good. [00:18:00] Yeah, I mean, honestly, Mike, I'd probably keep doing it the exact same way. Then you're gonna, then you're gonna establish your, your baseline and your own personal bias based on what you're seeing.

[00:18:10] Seth: But that's what's important is that you have intuitive control of those moms rather than, uh, just guessing all the time. Back to the old hand watering in a pot that you can't lift up, that you know . That never really works out too well. It's all about taking

[00:18:25] Kaisha: care of those moms. All right. Sending it over to [00:18:30] Mandy.

[00:18:30] Kaisha: I think we have a YouTube question.

[00:18:31] Mandy: Yeah. It's popping over on YouTube. Um, Iron Armor rode in, what is an acceptable VD fluctuation from day night in an indoor facility? Or is it optimal for the vpd to stay static

[00:18:43] Kaisha: day and nights?

[00:18:47] Seth: Typically static. That's the idea. But static vpd means a very dynamic HVAC setting to achieve that, right?

[00:18:54] Seth: Because we're gonna be lowering temperature, lowering humidity to maintain that vd, um, [00:19:00] ge, keep it static if you can. Uh, if you are gonna have some fluctuations. I typically like to see less than about 0.2 of a drop overnight, you know, anymore. And we start to. It gets much harder to predict your dry back line.

[00:19:14] Seth: As your plants grow, the bigger they get, the harder you have time maintaining V P D. Typically we see that overnight dry back line flatten out a little bit and at that point it's a lot harder to predict where we're gonna land in the morning and a lot easier to overwater [00:19:30] and there's

[00:19:30] Mandy: so much to learn about bpd.

[00:19:31] Mandy: We should do a whole session just. You know? Yeah, that'd be fine. Um, yeah, so I think that we actually got another question right now. Um, Eduardo wants to know any good products, suggestions for drips in grow rooms.

[00:19:48] Seth: What, what are you allowed to spray? Where you at that's kind of in this industry right now? That's what it, partially what it comes down to. Like what state are you in? Washington, are you in California, Colorado, Uh, are you in [00:20:00] Canada? Cuz that's a whole different strategy up there with what they have. Yeah, typically for trips we go, you know, the classic, uh, you always got your ax, you've got your heavy pyrethrin sprays, whether it's pgan, botanic, gar, et cetera.

[00:20:14] Seth: Uh, those are basically the nuclear option that kills as many bugs as you can. And then typically I like to bring in, you know, later in flour, try to avoid spraying. In general, we don't, whether it's safe, hti, cultural oils, I mean, do we really wanna be. Uh, [00:20:30] soybean oil or cotton seeded oil all over our buds.

[00:20:32] Seth: Probably not. So honestly, keeping your veg clean, being prepared to go nuclear in there to get rid of the drips. Um, and then, you know, with drips, the next extension, how clean is your facility? You know, do you have a lot of organic debris in your expansion cracks in your floor in the room? They're empty.

[00:20:48] Seth: You need to caulk those up. How do your corners look? How you know? Drips are an incredibly tiny little pest that can survive on all kinds of little bits of organic plant material between crop. . So part of it's being clean, [00:21:00] part of it's staying clean, developing those cleaning SOPs, and then honestly we call it ipm.

[00:21:05] Seth: That means integrated pest management, not, uh, pest extermination. So realize that, hey, we've got an agricultural crop or horticultural crop. We're always gonna be dealing with this to some extent. So what we're gonna do is typically bring in some beneficial, um, there's quite a few of those that are available for different bugs.

[00:21:24] Seth: And then look at like, okay, what is our economic. Threshold, You know, how much do I have to see before it [00:21:30] warrants paying a lot of money to take care of it? So, you know, with the drips, you're gonna be battling it chemically at first, but then a lot of it comes down to just super deep cleaning and they're, they're hard to get rid of.

[00:21:43] Seth: You know, these are, these are a pests that can go in and ruin a tissue culture lab because they are small enough to actually get through gaps in para film and things like that. If you're seeing 'em, you know extermination is good, but remember, it's just gonna be a dynamic thing you'll probably be dealing with to a certain extent all the time, [00:22:00] especially in this world we live in, where you're not gonna run your same six strains for the next 20 years.

[00:22:05] Seth: You're gonna be switching them out due to market demand pretty regularly. That means taking chances sometimes and bringing in outside cuts and all the risks that come with.

[00:22:15] Jason: Yeah, that, I mean obviously once you, once you have 'em, it's a lot harder to get rid of 'em than it is to think about, uh, prevention for next time.

[00:22:23] Jason: But that anytime I'm doing ipm it's, it's the thought of where, where did this come from? Why is it introduced into the plants [00:22:30] now? Uh, was there some recent changes that are going on at the facility? Is there, uh, some health of the plant concerns that was much more attractive to predation? Uh, just trying to, trying to break down what are the, the steps.

[00:22:43] Jason: I take to mitigate the challenges right now, uh, get getting that process started for facility or plant

[00:22:48] Seth: improvement? Yeah, and honestly, step number one, one of the biggest things I see people, uh, who are new to commercial cultivation, struggle with, don't go from your oldest flower room [00:23:00] backwards in your cultivation process ever.

[00:23:03] Seth: If you leave veg in the morning to go into a flower room, you're not going back and. If you go into a room that's two weeks old, you can go into a room after that that's four weeks old, that's fine. If you go into a four week room, you're not going back to the one week or two week room. So it's just developing SOPs like that and then having, uh, the fortitude to stick to them, you know, among your teammates.

[00:23:24] Seth: Cause it's always, it's always tempting to just be like, ah, I'll just, I, I won't go deep in there. I won't [00:23:30] go in by the plants. I'm just gonna go fix that pump or whatever. Rather than find someone else who hasn't been contaminated or go change and shower and all that fun stuff. So, I mean, a lot of the, a lot of IPM in general just comes down to keeping on those SOPs and not fal.

[00:23:46] Seth: Did, did you leave

[00:23:46] Jason: the water on in the

[00:23:47] Seth: bedroom? Yeah, exactly. . You know, and that's the thing, something like that, right? Like, hey, I cracked it on, walked out. Someone said, Oh, can you come look at this in flower too? Well, okay, now I, I just, I can't make the excuse. I gotta [00:24:00] go find someone or call someone that's in the bedroom, be like, Hey, you know, go turn that valve off for me, please.

[00:24:05] Seth: I, I responsibly, shouldn't go. , man.

[00:24:09] Mandy: It's such a reality for so many growers. Um, I actually have a question, Eduardo. That was an amazing question. Um, can you guys gimme like a quick rundown or maybe just a little definition of what a drip is? Um, yeah. Like

[00:24:20] Kaisha: what is that?

[00:24:22] Seth: Ooh, you almost gotta bring up a picture.

[00:24:24] Seth: Their wings actually look like feathers, which is pretty cool. They are these 80 bitty bugs. [00:24:30] Let's see if

[00:24:30] Jason: we can, uh, share my screen here. Trips.

[00:24:35] Seth: Yep. But basically, you know, sucks sap outta your plants and slowly try to kill it. Um, you know, you see signs of 'em basically they're larvae, not larvae, but it young stage.

[00:24:46] Seth: They really eat the leaf up and you can see their gray little

[00:24:48] Jason: poop ball over it. Yep. And great way to obviously verify that they are thrips is put 'em under your microscope. and, uh, if they're not drips, that's another easy way [00:25:00] to identify what they are.

[00:25:02] Seth: Yeah, the, uh, if you scroll back up, Jason, that one diagram there with the fluffy wings, if you get 'em under a loop, you can usually see that much detail.

[00:25:10] Seth: That's a straight up tip off that you've got drips. And generally they are quite a bit smaller than most of the things you're gonna see on your plants.

[00:25:19] Mandy: You guys know, I love talking about integrated pest management. So can you guys tell me how, how does AROYA help in a situation like this where you might find these in

[00:25:27] Seth: your facility?

[00:25:29] Seth: Well, I [00:25:30] mean, you know, the biggest thing I see is attaching that information to harvest groups and then keeping track of your IPM applications and what pests because, uh, as we go through, you know, repeated cycles of, you know, sometimes the same strain's, sometimes different. If you're at any facility that's sizeable, you're running so many crops through, it's hard to, you know, keep that straight in your brain sometimes and you're like, Hey, we've got all these different strategies going.

[00:25:53] Seth: We got 10 different rooms. We're trying to treat all these different things at once. Um, it's really easy to let data slip through the cracks and [00:26:00] forget things like, Oh my God, we just saw an aphid, but we are in a greenhouse and it is October. Like, Yep, that'll happen. They're all trying to come inside. , we need to respond on this crop.

[00:26:13] Seth: But you know, maybe when we start in December, might not have to worry about it. We might have a whole different IPM strategy at that point. So that's, that's the biggest way I think AROYA helps people with ipm. And then also just maintaining the right climatic environment, you know, that's too dry. That definitely helps.

[00:26:29] Seth: Or [00:26:30] not too dry. If it's dry enough. That helps with certain bugs. And then also, you know, when we talk about petrius, powdery mildew, root rot, any of the common things we see as far as disease and cannabis, Um, generally speaking, once we move to a controlled environment, the best way to avoid disease is to not provide an environment that can cultivate it.

[00:26:50] Seth: You know, if you wanna run 65 degrees overnight and you can't get down to 45% or so, humidity, well, we've created a, a perfect place to [00:27:00] culture some mold. So , you know, that's what we gotta be aware of. You know, there's certain things that we. inadvertently create a beautiful environment for, you know, and, and same thing goes with, uh, like, let's say irrigation lines.

[00:27:14] Seth: You know, if we've got, uh, a compost tea, we run through there, sometimes a biological additive and then a nutrient soup that's sitting at, you know, 75 to 80 degrees all the time. Most of the time, yeah, we're gonna get some biofilms and stuff's gonna grow in there. There's not a whole lot we can [00:27:30] do to change that other than adjust our inputs.

[00:27:32] Seth: Perhaps start using some, some, uh, some hypochlorous, you know, change. Change what we do physically and procedurally, because anytime we've gotta introduce an extra input, that's money we're either not making or losing, depending on how, on how you wanna look at it. .

[00:27:49] Jason: Yeah. So kinda just breaking down into simple terms of what you're saying is, uh, re is most helpful for IPM in observational logging and plant health.

[00:27:59] Jason: Uh, plant health [00:28:00] to obviously keep them less susceptible to, uh, predation. And then observational logging. Things like communicating within our interface, taking pictures of severity and logging, uh, pesticide applications.

[00:28:13] Seth: Yeah. And that's a great way if you go and look at a run in the past and you go, Wow, uh, that is way more applications than we normally have.

[00:28:20] Seth: What the heck was going on? Cause like I said, it's really easy to do these things reactively and then, you know, sometimes if we're, you're facing a lot of problems in your grow. It's such a whirlwind [00:28:30] that even on the next run you don't. You're still being reactive. You, you're not saying like, Hey, we did this program that works.

[00:28:36] Seth: It's just uhoh bug, bug spray, spray, . You know? So registration of everything you're doing is the best you can do. You know, treat, treat all this if you can, like you would be treating any kind St. Scientific study as much data capture as possible and capturing it and organizing it in a way that you can actually.

[00:28:59] Seth: Nice

[00:28:59] Mandy: living and [00:29:00] learning. Uh, thank you guys for that. Um, Eduardo did have a follow up that makes so much sense. I've been going into, uh, flower, which is week three, going into the bedroom and so never thought of cross-contamination. Dang. Um, yeah, we also got another question over on YouTube. Um, burnt burn tires, burn trees rode in, uh, sorry I'm late, but if sugars are higher, won't that naturally prevent drips and other problems?

[00:29:24] Mandy: What do you guys have to say?

[00:29:28] Seth: No [00:29:30] trips, love sugar. Um, I, I get maybe where you're coming from on an osmo difference, but the way trips work is they have a, a mouthpiece that they actually puncture, you know, the epidemics of the plant with and suck the sap out. So a sturdier or hardier plant, stem and surface of the plant can definitely help resist that, but all that's gonna do is make 'em concentrate on that softer leaf surface.

[00:29:56] Seth: Awesome. But if we wanted to use, if we did want to use bricks level [00:30:00] or sugar as you know, a uh, evaluation of plant health at a given point in the growing cycle, we might be able to conclude that plants that are producing more carbohydrates, more sugars, do have a better immune system just because they're a healthier plant.

[00:30:17] Mandy: Awesome. Yeah, you'll have to let us know if you have a follow up to that, uh, question for entire burn trees. Um, but yeah, that's it for YouTube right now, so I'm gonna pass it back over to you, Ka. .

[00:30:26] Kaisha: Awesome. Thank you. Mandy. Yeah. Trips. Hot topic here. Um, [00:30:30] Mikey wrote in trips, love to hide as a max with a little H 2 0 2 on all services every three days in strict room isolation.

[00:30:38] Kaisha: The western flower drip is a terrible thing and uh, he also spoke to those leaves being tastier, when shoulders are present. , so yeah, threats. Who. I learning something every time, . Awesome. All right, we're gonna keep it moving to our next, uh, Instagram question here. Lock key wrote in. Can you elaborate on the [00:31:00] growing cues we send to the plants when introducing dissolved oxygen to the root zone?

[00:31:05] Kaisha: Is it manipulating respiration rates?

[00:31:09] Jason: Um, very likely going to be. So obviously roots are one part of the plant that need oxygen and, and what we're doing there is, is keeping a healthy, fresh supply of it so it's solved. Oxygen in your irrigation is definitely going to help keep that, uh, in aerobic environ.

[00:31:29] Jason: Um, [00:31:30] rather than an anaerobic environment in which you can start to see rot and, and, uh, other issues in the substrate. So, uh, you know, obviously ways that you can increase dissolved oxygen in your feed would be lowering the temperature of it. Obviously, we don't want to go lower too far because that can shock the roots cause plant issues.

[00:31:47] Jason: Um, and then also things like airstone. .

[00:31:51] Seth: Yeah, I mean in basically Jessica nailed it there. You know, when we put that dissolved oxygen in, we're really up upping the rate of cellular respiration [00:32:00] inside of those roots. So we're kicking 'em into overdrive. All those root functions are functioning at a higher level than if we don't have that introduced oxygen.

[00:32:09] Seth: And that's part of why during generative steering, we're u utilizing that spacing out of that, introducing oxygen to really slow down the plan. If that makes sense. You know, so if the roots can't breathe quite as well, they can't, you know, force the plant to build as much structure up above. And we're talking about stretch, for instance.

[00:32:29] Seth: Uh, [00:32:30] there's a hormonal condition inside the plant that dictates morphology. So if we give it more oxygen at that point in time, we're gonna produce, you know, more stem growth, bigger plant structure overall. And that's kind of the cues we're working with There is when the plant's wanting to grow.

[00:32:47] Seth: vegetatively or build structure, that's when we're gonna try to choke it down and limit that level of respiration production.

[00:32:58] Seth: Yes.

[00:32:58] Kaisha: Thank you for that. [00:33:00] Excellent. Lucky. Thank you for that question. All right, keeping it moving here. Just a reminder to on with who everybody's on with this slide we have about, we're rounding the hour off, so if you have any questions now to the time to drop those in the chat. Blockhead buds wrote in.

[00:33:14] Kaisha: I've tried no CO2 on multiple grows versus width. Maybe it's my environment, but I haven't seen a noticeable difference. Why would that be, do you think? And they're wondering if it matters if you're in a tent sealed space, et cetera. Obviously with a tent [00:33:30] you wouldn't use exhaust fans. Got any thoughts on that?

[00:33:33] Kaisha: Sure.

[00:33:33] Jason: So let's just break down the science of photosynthesis and when we look at the um, equation, the dome equation, you have water and CO2 catalyzed by light, and that's gonna be producing sugars, which obviously the plant is using for growth. Um, that being said, obviously co. Probably one of the most critical elements that we can add to a grower room.

[00:33:56] Jason: If, like you had said, environmental factors are right, [00:34:00] including especially amount of light that you have on your plants. So if we can balance all three parts of those equations, uh, amount of light, amount of water and co2, then we're gonna have as least amount of waste as possible going into that equation.

[00:34:15] Jason: Um, does it matter what type of. Environment, like as far as the tent, greenhouse, that type of thing? Uh, not really. I mean, that's obviously gonna change how you can keep the CO2 in your room. [00:34:30] Obviously, when we're working in, uh, closed loop HVAC, indoor type of situation, when we add co2, uh, all of it is going to either be used up by the plants, recirculated or leave when, uh, a person enters or exits the door, which.

[00:34:44] Jason: Really nice. We don't have to, uh, add quite as much CO2 to maintain the appropriate PPM levels. Uh, and a greenhouse definitely can be tricky. Obviously we've all seen greenhouses where we're using, um, propane or natural gas burns to add co2. [00:35:00] Uh, anytime it's something like that, we'll definitely want the injection in the front of the room so that, uh, you know, if it's, if it's a horizontal air,

[00:35:09] Jason: Um, if it's a, like a vertical vented, then we'll definitely probably want those as low into the canopy as possible as well. So, uh, greenhouse is a little trickier, something like a tent in your house. It's just gonna depend on how much circulation you have to run through and how you're conditioning

[00:35:24] Seth: your Yeah.

[00:35:26] Seth: You know, that, that's what I was gonna say. Since the tent got brought in, um, [00:35:30] You know, if we're talking about specifically growing at home, you know, your ambient CO2 levels outside and indoors, most places around four to 500 ppm. So what we usually see, you might live in an area where that's elevated due to, you know, industrial activity or something like that.

[00:35:44] Seth: But what it'll really boil down to is, uh, Hey, if you're going with a 600 wat light at home, you probably aren't pushing PPP D high enough to really hit the point where that CO2 is gonna make a big difference. And then also, um, I don't know how it goes, how [00:36:00] many people are in your house? What's that like?

[00:36:01] Seth: Do you have a bunch of dogs? Do you have a lot of co two producing elements there? Do you have a, do you brew beer in your basement too? , you know, But really what it comes down to is that Ppf d so, you know, if you're in a situation. Let's say you've already invested into your grow, you've got your lights set up, your hvac, everything, and you're thinking about co2.

[00:36:24] Seth: Get a light meter. See if that's something that you really even need to approach yet, because there there is a potential chance [00:36:30] that after you've got your whole light, your light set up, ready to go, got your spacing down and everything that you might not have uniform, 1200 ppfd coverage. You know, at the end of the day, if the majority of your room is down at five or 600, just because your lighting, placement and choices, CO2 is not gonna help you out at all.

[00:36:51] Jason: Yeah. So, uh, you know, what is the easiest way to raise CO2 in your room? You can spend more time in it as a person. Mm-hmm. , surprisingly, humans actually produce [00:37:00] quite a bit of co2. Uh, may not be the levels that you want, but, uh, kind of just a fun way to help your plants.

[00:37:07] Seth: Yeah. And I think, you know, that's, that's another one of those things like we've talked about, uh, you know, if you.

[00:37:14] Seth: Go out and try to grow some weed in your basement or in a small scale, you can have pretty good success for variety due to a variety of different factors that are present in that particular environment. Um, moving outta that environment into something that's fully controlled is often a big step. And that's [00:37:30] where some of these little things like CO2 come in modulating our light levels more, having more control over temperature.

[00:37:35] Seth: Cuz I know. When I go to grow at home, I don't really like it at 80 where I'll keep my veg plants, but I know my flower plants do great around 70 degrees where my house likes to be, and it'll be just a few degrees warmer inside that tent. So food for thought, for sure. I.

[00:37:53] Kaisha: I mean, I know I could sit in a grow room and just stare at the plant to let my CO2 help them out.

[00:37:58] Kaisha: I don't know if, I don't know if it'd [00:38:00] be enough .

[00:38:01] Seth: Yeah, if you're just, If you're just there, you know, if you're a situation where you got like, let's see, you got four dogs that live at your house, , those suckers are producing all day.

[00:38:11] Kaisha: Excellent. All right, Mandy, I think we've got something over on YouTube.

[00:38:15] Mandy: Yeah, we're getting some more questions over on YouTube. Mr. Grinch, Rodin, any tips for dealing with spring tails? I'm doing flood and drain in Coco. They end up floating in my reservoir. I cleaned and left my tent empty for a month and they eventually

[00:38:28] Seth: come back. [00:38:30] Hmm. It sounds like you have, uh, a local population of 'em nearby that that is probably migrating into your tent.

[00:38:38] Seth: Um, I would for sure check a bunch of, uh, if you have house plants, check those out. You, you gotta deal with the source, . I mean, it's unlikely that it's coming in with your media, although that is possible. You didn't tell us whether you're using pasteurized press media, organic, what you know, what, what you're going with.

[00:38:56] Seth: But typically something like springtails, once they're in, [00:39:00] we've got 'em in the facility. And uh, IPM is no different than any other Soilborne bug.

[00:39:07] Mandy: Is everyone just dealing with pests right now? Everyone just Yeah. Drop, Drop the pests that you're dealing with in the chat. Yeah, it's,

[00:39:13] Seth: it's the fall. They're all trying to come in from outside, is what's going on.

[00:39:17] Seth: Everything you can imagine wants to stay warm.

[00:39:20] Mandy: Never ending. Yeah. Mr. Grn Schaff to let us know if you have a follow up, but, um, that's it over on YouTube right now. Sit back to you Kaisha.

[00:39:26] Kaisha: Thank you, Mandy. Yeah, this is the pest control episode. So yeah, [00:39:30] please let us know what pest you guys are dealing with.

[00:39:31] Kaisha: This is really interesting stuff. I, I don't even know what a spring tale is

[00:39:34] Jason: either. Yeah. Just to, you know, remind everybody, uh, that the best advice that you can, if you are looking for advice is find a, a best management, a license, best management person, uh, in, in your. That, you know, that can give you technically and legally that advice to apply specifically what you need to apply.

[00:39:56] Jason: Uh, you know, we're just talking about things that have worked for people in the past. Uh, [00:40:00] things that are, are general processes that can be helpful. But the, the best thing that you can do is, is get some, uh, professional, uh, advice to drop in. Take a look at what you're dealing with, and then they can specifically recommend the chemicals.

[00:40:13] Jason: You may. If, if, if that core, uh, predatory bugs, if, if you're lucky by chance.

[00:40:19] Seth: Oh, ab, absolutely. I agree. Jason, I, full disclaimer, I've only taken the test for the northwest, so Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. When I go to other regions, um, sometimes these [00:40:30] conversations kind of fall apart a little bit because they are not allowed to use most of the products that I'm used to using, for instance.

[00:40:36] Seth: So the only pre way I can help 'em is say, Okay, I know these certain beneficial bugs seem to have worked for me on certain pests, but you know, as an example, if I just go four or five hours north of where we're at, the whole game, , you know, can't use pyrethrins, can't use a bunch of different products that we are allowed to use down here.

[00:40:53] Seth: So, that changes the game. Um, but at the end of the day, you know, most of it comes back to [00:41:00] cultural practices, SOPs in your facility and being rigid with them. You know, it's like, uh, and, and looking failure right in the eye and sometimes, and being willing to admit that there's a flaw. You know, if you've got a route AFI issue, but you've also got your mom's in your bedroom.

[00:41:17] Seth: I don't care how much money you spend on. Or drenches, like, we're gonna probably continue to deal with that issue because while we're running the facility, it's hard to not have moms, right? We gotta keep our clones going, [00:41:30] and if we don't take and build a separate space where we can really actually isolate those moms and make sure we're not bringing any of those, uh, root AITs out, then we're just gonna be chasing our tail.

[00:41:40] Seth: You know, there's, there's almost no point in acting on that other than basic remedial. I. because unless you're willing to change the source of the problem, you know you're never gonna fully solve it.

[00:41:54] Kaisha: Yes. S uh, Bian wrote in here, basic pests over here, Nats and Leafhoppers from [00:42:00] outside, they're all over the property on the vines gonna need to start using predatory butts.

[00:42:05] Seth: Yeah. And honestly, that's like one of the best things you can do is work with a predatory bug supplier. And make sure, you know, once you get on a program with them and you're getting really fresh, viable bugs, introducing 'em at the right time, not exposing them to a, you know, freeze out situation.

[00:42:22] Seth: Don't stick the wrong ones in the fridge. And Yeah. You know, when they come in a box and it says, Apply within, within 24 [00:42:30] hours of receiving, do that, you know, follow those directions to a t the beneficial insects are actually incredibly effective in most situations. Yeah, and

[00:42:38] Jason: I was at a conference recently here in Vegas where they were talking about how important it's to actually check the bugs that you have received.

[00:42:46] Jason: So if you, you know, get a package of predatory. Bugs, open up a package, look at 'em under the microscope and, and get an idea, Hey, you know, maybe I've got a 10% death rate in this package. They're good to deploy. But if I've [00:43:00] got an 80% death rate in there, then uh, you know, talk to the supplier of those, Get yourself a fresh batch and, and you're not gonna be doing much by deploying something that is not in a condition to mitigate the,

[00:43:13] Seth: the past.

[00:43:14] Seth: Yeah. And, and, you know, Yeah, exactly. Definitely realize that a bunch of stuff in our industry has expiration dates. And those expiration dates are very, very important. You know, even if we're talking about things like hypochlorous acid or SaniDate, all these cleaning agents that they expire, they lose efficacy over [00:43:30] time.

[00:43:30] Seth: So you want to keep that fresh. The same with your pesticides and your bugs. You know, we wanna stay on top of it, stay as fresh as possible, and then, you know, like Jason said, check him out. If you've got a bunk supplier, call him out on it. You know, I've definitely done that a little bit in the past with.

[00:43:46] Seth: Microbial input suppliers, you know, send someone an email with a picture of a Petri dish and you go, that, I don't, I don't count many colonies in there, but it's exactly one or zero . That's not what the label said should be in there. Um, and then you can [00:44:00] determine, okay, well I'm not gonna use that product unless I can actually get the freshest version of it and test it again first.

[00:44:06] Seth: You know, there's a lot of, uh, hey, this is an industry, you know, there's a lot of different ways to make money, and there's a lot of different approaches in how to do this. The more you search for specialized products that do very specific things, hopefully the more you're gonna find,

[00:44:23] Kaisha: That's great reminder.

[00:44:24] Kaisha: It's all about those SOPs. So doing your due diligence is important, especially [00:44:30] maintaining longevity of your business. All right, Mandy, I think we've got a lot of action on YouTube. Sending it over to you. Yeah. You

[00:44:36] Mandy: know what's going on over there? Um, Diane wrote in a couple questions. Um, on the topic of, uh, pests, what should I use against.

[00:44:43] Mandy: If it's,

[00:44:46] Seth: again, where do you live, . Cause uh, I'd love to tell you an answer that you cannot use in a lot of places. And then at the end of the day though, safe answer, clean your, be clean and veg and, uh, get [00:45:00] some beneficial. There's a whole host of, uh, predatory bugs that can be used against aphids. Um, the, the key thing is to just try to keep that population down.

[00:45:10] Seth: Any kind of a knockdown spray you can do in between veg and flower, for instance, right when you move into the flower room, is gonna be super helpful. Um, but yeah, like Jason said, the best thing you can do is probably talk to someone or go yourself, you know, if you're invested into this business, go take an IPM class and get certified to buy and [00:45:30] apply pesticides in your region.

[00:45:32] Seth: You know, at the, at the very worst, you're gonna spend, you know, a couple weeks studying your butt off and learning a lot about chemical. and, uh, at the best, if your weed farm folds, you can go be a pesticide applicator . Wow. Do you wanna talk about my backup plans?

[00:45:51] Seth: But you know, that's, that's the best you can do because really the regulations change even, uh, Even in how we have to record this stuff, like what I have been required to do in [00:46:00] Washington in terms of the way we record it, the forms we use, and how long you have to keep that data on site, what you have to submit for the state.

[00:46:07] Seth: Totally different than California, which is totally different than Michigan, which is totally different than Colorado, for instance. . So do your due diligence and make sure you're compliant. And another thing to remember with Pesticide Law, a lot of it's retroactive. So basically, you know, no matter what state you're in, they say, Hey, keep these records so that if someone says You messed up, then we'll come check and [00:46:30] find you.

[00:46:30] Seth: There's not a lot of out front, um, the state isn't a consultant usually that you just call and say this or that. They'll say, Go read the eggs. , read the label, see, learn your classes of pesticides in your region and how they need to work.

[00:46:49] Jason: And we all gotta study up. Sorry, go ahead, . Anecdotally, uh, I know of a few places that have called the state with questions and the state will gladly send out a compliance officer to [00:47:00] check on your facility recently after you submit those questions.

[00:47:03] Jason: So, um, definitely be cautious on, on how you're trying to find the, the right answers to those

[00:47:08] Seth: sources. . Yeah. And you know what? Honestly, a great resource for a lot of this is, uh, what, whichever state uni, usually land grant university's out west, but I know back east that works a little differently sometimes.

[00:47:20] Seth: But whatever your state ag school is, generally they'll have an extension program with someone you can talk to for free and really get a scope on what you're allowed to use, what you're not, what [00:47:30] kind of application. . And then honestly, especially if you're gonna use that resource, if you've got access to an area with an entomology department, talk to them.

[00:47:39] Seth: They are very excited to educate the public. You might be able to get hooked up to that pesticide applicator certification program through that, and you're gonna get access to, uh, people that have done. In many different industries with a lot of different species of bugs, and they know specifically the mode of action behind a lot of these chemicals and can [00:48:00] actually help make a recommendation or help you wade through and say, okay.

[00:48:03] Seth: Look, this class of chemicals does not work with this genus box. So even though I'm not a weed expert, I can tell you this solution is not gonna solve your problem. And that's again, a whole different specialization than what Jason and I have. You know, people study for many years to get to that, so you might as well utilize it and guess.

[00:48:24] Seth: We're talking about those, uh, you know, state ag schools, you, you pay taxes to have access to that free [00:48:30] information. Utilize it. That's what extension programs are all about. I worked in one years ago, and guess what the state paid me to go talk to Farmers and help 'em grow better crops. It's pretty cool.

[00:48:41] Kaisha: That

[00:48:41] Mandy: is really cool. I did not know that. Um, that's so interesting. Uh, I, there's just so much to learn about pest you guys. Uh, it's very clear. We need to do a whole episode just for that too. Um, but yeah, we're, uh, we got a couple more minutes. Diane had a couple more questions too. Um, so he wants to know, is there a point top Dr to top dress with [00:49:00] dolomite Lyme or gypsum in my coco?

[00:49:03] Mandy: Um, instead of that, can I just add them in the tank?

[00:49:07] Jason: I wouldn't add 'em in the tank. Uh, that's kind of a recipe for signing up for clog emitters and tearing out your irrigation system and putting a new one in. Um, pretty much anything of, of that consistency would be better. Top rest. Absolutely.

[00:49:22] Seth: Yeah. The last, uh, the last injector I saw to inject it like liquid lime concentrate into soil was a lot more than you wanna.

[00:49:29] Seth: to actually [00:49:30] have it function, trying to push something through, and the materials you'd have to buy as far as like micronized, gypsum or stuff or something like that, incredibly expensive. If you do want to use those as amendments, you mix 'em into your coco before you plant, basically. You know, if you're gonna make, if you're gonna build your own soilless mix, there's very few things that you're gonna top dress that are really gonna be that effective.

[00:49:51] Seth: You know, even if we're talking about. Top dressing with guano or something like, yeah, we want a timeframe, you know, it's way better than top dressing. Blend that stuff [00:50:00] up into a T and get it down into your root zone. Yeah.

[00:50:03] Jason: And both of those sound like, probably just purposely to try to fix some type of pH issue, uh, in that substrate.

[00:50:09] Jason: Mm-hmm. So, um, you know, just keep that in mind. Maybe it's something you can avoid, uh, by modifying your. Uh, pH as well.

[00:50:16] Seth: Yeah. You know, years ago before I wanted to even, like when I first started with coco, that was in recommendation using azomite and gypsum to help buffer that pH. If you're using tap water still, just, you know, maybe first step, invest [00:50:30] in, uh, a nicer pH meter than maybe what you currently have or get one and.

[00:50:34] Seth: start making sure you're pH in your input water and start paying attention to your runoff water really hard sometimes. Uh, making adjustments for that local water quality just ends up being necessary, especially if you're blowing up to a, a more commercial level. You know, you, depending on where you're sourcing your aite in gypsum, those aren't necessarily incredibly expensive things, but water filtration might be a more sustainable long-term solution [00:51:00] if that's what you're dealing with.

[00:51:03] Seth: Awesome. Thank you guys

[00:51:03] Mandy: for that. We had one more question, um, over on YouTube. Um, Diane also wants to know, um, and I might pronounce this incorrectly, uh, is pioneer it, uh, does that pass the lab test?

[00:51:15] Seth: Uh, So if you're, if you're spraying any kind of pyre, and there's like several different kinds, a lot of them actually have natural plant sources.

[00:51:23] Seth: Um, the, the answer is yes, if you spray it too late, any pesticide we put on, like Peans especially have a [00:51:30] limited half-life. So that's where like our REI required entry interval comes in. So basically, you know, when you spray that on, it does have a half life. So after 12 hours, enough of that product has degraded that it's not gonna be neurotoxic to you or I.

[00:51:45] Seth: That doesn't mean that there will be undetectable quantities. So if you're dealing with pests after about week four, week three, you know, once you start to get bud set, you really don't wanna spray that with anything. If you can help it, whether it's a pyrethrin, [00:52:00] because then you risk failing the test, even though maybe the concentration's so low that it doesn't present a health problem.

[00:52:06] Seth: But you know, even moving on, like when we talk about horticultural oil, Do we want to have, you know, cotton, seeded oil, mint oil. I mean, there's a whole host of aromatic oils that are used h culturally. , we're trying to produce terpenes for specific wonderful smells. I don't think I need peppermint in there to mess it up, you know?

[00:52:27] Seth: And not, not only that, but [00:52:30] theoretically, you know, it, it just doesn't, you could maybe see parts of it on the bud. I don't know about that. But I think it, it can do something to the end quality and should be smoking traces of those oils as well. You know, maybe we're not totally sure on that. Um, and then, yeah, as far as.

[00:52:48] Seth: Py Hans go Not good late. And you know, same with different kinds of compost ts and stuff, man. If you fail an e coli test, uh, quit spraying the compost ts back off and clean the crap outta your [00:53:00] groin.

[00:53:02] Jason: I don't about you, but sometimes I think I would be rather be smoking the bugs than the pesticides using to kill the bugs.

[00:53:09] Jason: Yep. Well,

[00:53:09] Seth: I can see those bugs. Even if I get in the jar, I'm just like, Oh, hey buddy. Break the dog open and scrape it.

[00:53:16] Mandy: So true. And sorry for butchering that word so badly you guys. Um, but yeah, that's

[00:53:20] Kaisha: a weird one. . .

[00:53:23] Mandy: I'm gonna have to practice it. Um, but yeah, I think that's it over on YouTube for now. So back over to you Kaisha.

[00:53:28] Kaisha: Awesome. Mandy, thank you so much. Gosh, [00:53:30] so many good questions. This week we have one more from Instagram, so we'll close out our hour with this one. My body, 45, I think it was Mr. Body, 45. 45 burden. What percent of dry back is too low?

[00:53:44] Seth: Ooh. Depends on your media size for sure. If you have an a, let's say, um, normal size plants, normal size media under 10% is pretty concerning to me.

[00:53:55] Seth: You know, if I, if I see under 10% and I, and you tell me, Hey, I'm in a one and a half gallon pot [00:54:00] with a four foot tall plant, five foot tall plant. If I see 8%, let's, we need to start looking at your. , you know, you have, you have some other issues. That's a, an unhealthy rate of transpiration for the plant, or not optimal anyway.

[00:54:13] Jason: Yeah. And just some caveats on there. You know, if we're thinking about, if the plant was just transplanted into a new media, don't necessarily get too concerned about, uh, a low dry back amount. We're talking about, you know, a rooted plant that we would expect at that time to be hit in the, say, 15 to 20% dry backs [00:54:30] like we would do do in generative or vegetative steering.

[00:54:33] Seth: Yeah. And then also, you know, media size is a, is a huge part of that. Again, if you. Oversized media for your undersized plant, we're not gonna see that big of a dry back. It's just physically that plant, there's a bigger reservoir that plant needs to pull more water out of to show that big of a dry back.

[00:54:50] Jason: Yeah, sure. I mean, if I'm in a 10 gallon substrate Yeah. And, uh, you know, my plant drinks a gallon in 24 hours, that's still only a 10% dry back, [00:55:00] which, uh, you know, gallon would sustain or would sustain a very.

[00:55:04] Seth: Cannabis plant. Yep. And then, you know, at that point we're getting into, uh, potentially all sorts of problems with not properly flushing nutrients out, with not getting oxygen to the places they need to go in the root zone.

[00:55:16] Seth: And that's something that's important. You know, when we're talking about running straight coco or rockwool, some of these higher water concentration holding media. , Um, we don't want to keep it back up. We do want to get that 10 to 25%, even up to [00:55:30] 30% dry back, because what that's doing is pulling oxygen into the root zone and making sure that it stays aerobic.

[00:55:38] Kaisha: Awesome you guys. Thank you so much. That's our last question submitted, uh, on Instagram. Mandy, anything else coming in over on YouTube? Um,

[00:55:46] Mandy: I think that that was it. Yeah. Thank you guys for submitting all your questions

[00:55:49] Kaisha: over there. Awesome. Yes. Thank you so much. And, uh, Jason, Seth, before we wrap up, any final words.

[00:55:57] Jason: good luck getting through this fall. Things should, [00:56:00] uh, settle down with the bugs when it gets, uh, cold enough.

[00:56:03] Seth: Yeah. Yeah. And remember crop tobers over. Hang in there. . The New Year's just around the corner, .

[00:56:09] Kaisha: That's right. Everybody hang in there. Jason said thank you so much for another great conversation.

[00:56:14] Kaisha: Mandy, thank you for co moderating with me. Thank you to everybody who joined this week's episode of Office Hours. We do this every Thursday, and the best way to get answers from the experts is to join us. Do you have any questions about AROYA? Feel free to book a demo. Our experts will walk you through it, show you how AROYA can be used to [00:56:30] improve your cultivation production process.

[00:56:31] Kaisha: But as always, if there's any topic you'd like covered in a future episode of Office Hours, post questions anytime via the AROYA app. That's a newer thing. Uh, you can also feel free to drop them in the chat. Shoot us an email at support.aroya@metergroup.com. Send us a DM on Instagram. We wanna hear from you.

[00:56:48] Kaisha: We record every session. We'll email everybody an attendance link to the video from today's discussion. It'll also live on the AROYA channel, a YouTube channel, like subscribe and share while you're there. And if you find these conversations useful, please do [00:57:00] spread the word. Thank you all so much. We'll see you next time, and we will see you at MJ BizCon.