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[00:00:00] Kaisha-Dyan McMillan: Hi everyone. Welcome to AROYA office hours live. This is a chance for all of you, whether you're AROYA customers or you're curious, or just super into growing and existing in this exciting industry, to share your stories and get all of your burning cultivation questions. Each week, we'll spend an hour sharing our findings, walking you through some interesting features and having a lively conversation about what you're doing, what you want to know, and even help you share your own stories and connect with other people who are passionate about the plant and its potential. 

[00:00:33] Kaisha-Dyan McMillan: My name is Kaisha. I'll be your moderator for today's discussion, and we're going to be talking about electrical, conductivity, and sensors. If you have any questions for us and you're on the call, please go ahead and submit them in the chat anytime. We'll do our best to answer them during the broadcast. 

[00:00:47] Kaisha-Dyan McMillan: But our Instagram community gifted us with a bunch of questions on this week's subject. So Scott, Jason, you ready to go? 

[00:00:55] Scott Campbell: Yeah. So we are, thank you, Kaisha. And I also want to [00:01:00] welcome everyone to today's broadcast, but especially my dad, Gaylon Campbell, who put together some information on the irrigation of plants and controlled environments that. 

[00:01:12] Scott Campbell: Then we're going to use as reference material for today's discussion and also is really the the reason why our business even exists. He ha was a researcher at Washington state university for three decades in soil physics. And during that time also founded Decagon devices, which eventually became meter group about seven years ago. 

[00:01:36] Scott Campbell: Welcome to my dad, Gaylon, and we're going to start off talking about AC and we have some great questions from our from people in the Instagram community and our customers. Do you have to run a high EPC to achieve better product? And what ECC ranges do you want to stay in? And should I decrease EC later in flour? 

[00:01:56] Scott Campbell: Those are all great questions, but we have to start off first and define what EC [00:02:00] is and to do that. I'm just going to share my screen. And so dad, I have this slide deck here, so I'm just going to do that and show this so how has it defined here? And how does nutrient concentration effect electrical conductivity? 

[00:02:20] Jason Van Leuven: Gaylon? I think you're a. 

[00:02:24] Scott Campbell: Yeah, it's the scourge of the of the pandemic is the mute button. 

[00:02:29] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: It's a linear relationship between the electrical conductivity and the concentration of the nutrients. 

[00:02:37] Scott Campbell: Okay. Yeah. So the more the higher, the concentration of nutrients in solution, the higher the EC that we're going to get. But and one of the places where people get messed up is on this difference between bulk EC and poor water EC. 

[00:02:56] Scott Campbell: And is this a good slide to, to explain that [00:03:00] difference? 

[00:03:00] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: Yeah, I think so. We do I go ahead 

[00:03:03] Scott Campbell: on that please? 

[00:03:06] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: No, the sensor itself, the TEROS 12 measures the bulk electrical conductivity. So if you just put it in some water, it'll measure the conductivity of that water correctly, but if you put it in, in the. So Elara horticultural substrate, there articles in there, the old, but water that the substrate itself. 

[00:03:34] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: So that interferes with its ability to conducting electricity. And then if the substrate is unsaturated there airspaces, that also interferes with this. At a given concentration the the electrical conductivity of substrate that a lower water content could be under as much as the conductivity of the water [00:04:00] that's in it. 

[00:04:01] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: And what we need in all is the conductivity of the water that Cena would call that or water 

[00:04:07] Scott Campbell: AC. Is it correct to say that poor water is essentially what the roots are feeling? The stress or lack of stress from osmotic potential that the roots are feeling at any given time. 

[00:04:18] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: Exactly. 

[00:04:21] Scott Campbell: And so this is the first problem that we overcome through converting bulky sea to pour water. Is that if you're just measuring bulky, see, you actually don't know what plants stresses are being created. So that's really critical to know the difference between the two and also to know that in a AROYAa we're measuring poor water EC and writing that to the the cultivar record, the cultivars cultivation. 

[00:04:47] Scott Campbell: This is how the the poor water C is related to the bulky C and. I wanted to talk about redistribution actually [00:05:00] just really quickly let's talk about the sensor itself. And we did get a question on this that we will get to after explaining the basics of the TEROS 12 and why it's special. 

[00:05:09] Scott Campbell: We got a question. Hey, what is the difference between a TEROS 12 that has three prongs on it and a Grodan gross sense sensor that has six prongs on it. Gaylon, can you explain a little bit more about the TEROS 12, where it came from and how it works? 

[00:05:23] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: Okay. The TEROS pile has three prongs on it measure the dielectric of the substrate solution between the center prong and the end prong, and really measured the electrical conductivity. 

[00:05:39] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: Of the solution between the center prong and that, that base prone. And they, the broaden sensor essentially has two of these TEROS 12s, and it measures at two different levels in the substrate. And so if you view as two of the , [00:06:00] so you would have the same thing. At two different levels in the substrate, you'd have the same thing as you have with, for measurement purposes is you have with the Groton sentencing. 

[00:06:13] Scott Campbell: Okay. Yeah. And we do make both of those sensors, so we understand very well how each one of them works. And the TEROS 12 and the reason why it's so useful in. Hydro hydroponic growth media indoors is that it does a better job than any other sensor that we've ever tested at measuring poor water EC while also getting accurate moisture content reading. 

[00:06:38] Scott Campbell: And which probe do you know? Which probe is the the temperature sensor in. 

[00:06:43] Scott Campbell: Okay. Yeah. So there, so those are the three readings that come out of the tariffs 12, which are water content from the dielectric E C which is poor water EC and temperature. Let's look at data, trace that a, an array customer might see just from watering their plants. And why don't you talk [00:07:00] about what's going on in this time series graph and the concept of redistribution. 

[00:07:05] Scott Campbell: The AC, 

[00:07:06] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: okay. The blue line is the water content. The orange line is the the electrical, the pour water, electrical conductivity the yellow lines show the irrigation shine. Individual shops that are in the irrigation event. And so you can see here, as soon as the irrigation starts, the water content immediately starts to climb and it climbs to the high point that you see here. 

[00:07:40] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: And then it doesn't continue to go up from that even. It continue to be giving irrigation shots. And that's because that additional water you're giving is going to drainage. And you can see that initially as the irrigation starts, the electrical [00:08:00] conductivity or water electrical conductivity increases. 

[00:08:03] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: And this is an indication that the plants have used up nutrients from the The substrate solution. And so the the irrigation Yvan replenishes those nutrients. And then when drainage starts to happen, why that, some of that is moved out. 

[00:08:25] Scott Campbell: And Jason, can you share your screen on On what a a typical Aurora customer sees on their software when they're looking at at this, these irrigation events and how poor water ISTE and water content look in, in the actual platform. 

[00:08:40] Scott Campbell: Yes, absolutely. 

[00:08:41] Jason Van Leuven: So in this case, we're looking at entire growth cycle including the Vedge and power phases. So it's just starting off to the left side. We can see that during the. There's a just a rough consistency, as far as those irrigation events. Whenever those plants are growing in early [00:09:00] stages, it's nice to really monitor on a daily basis and keep an eye on how much replenishment you're getting. 

[00:09:05] Jason Van Leuven: What's going on with your ECE. Are we looking at rECng? Are we looking at decreasing at, do we need to get to an established baseline for that plant growth and actually then here. The May 13th, mark will notice that these sensors got moved into the slot. So they went from that the four by four cube into the slot and some some running in type action for a few days here. 

[00:09:29] Jason Van Leuven: And then we'll notice the, at the beginning of regular generative irrigator. And as I was talking this is a development time where the plant is rapidly growing. It's increasing surface area, transpiration rates are going up and we can see a decrease in the overall water content. As that static irrigation schedule doesn't necessarily keep up quite with the growth rate of the plant. 

[00:09:52] Jason Van Leuven: What we can also see here is that that EC begins to stack right around this May 26th. [00:10:00] Marker. Water content that your education schedule was actually increased to try and keep up with the plants uptake. We're still looking at generative irrigation shots that short irrigation window, but we can also see that by the quick rise of that you see that this plant is pulling water very quickly, right? 

[00:10:18] Jason Van Leuven: These are dry backs in the probably 25, maybe 30% area. That's indicating very healthy growth rate. And that's also indicates. That the plant is feeling some generative steering, by the way, we see the slope of that EC climb very quickly. Now, some of the kind of questions that we get is what do you recommend for EC ranges? 

[00:10:40] Jason Van Leuven: And that's a very generalized question. And there's a lot of variables that are going into there. What types of lighting are you looking at? What's what are some of your environmental parameters? Are those things. Et cetera. And so also it makes that more complicated. When we talk about timeframes and steering intentions, the EC can be very dynamic [00:11:00] during your generative shots. 

[00:11:01] Jason Van Leuven: So in this case we're looking at anywhere from seven to. Over 20, because those plants are being driven very generatively and their growth rate is indicating a major drop in water content from a day to day basis. Now, on the right side, we can see a little bit more of that, that vegetative irrigation, in which case the ECE is much more stable. 

[00:11:22] Jason Van Leuven: As your chart showed more irrigations we have through a day, the more likely that you see it's going to stabilize, we're replenishing it with new nutrients, whether that's keeping the year or that EC a little bit lower or a little bit higher, it's going to depend on your feed, etc. And what's occurring in that root zone. 

[00:11:40] Jason Van Leuven: So in this case, some of those vegetive ranges, maybe in the four to seven range, And like I said, there's a lot of other variables that go into play. So if we're looking at LEDs where there's a little bit of less radiation coming off the lights, then the ECS can be played [00:12:00] around with a little bit to be tailored for the exact parameters of that growth environment. 

[00:12:04] Scott Campbell: Yeah. Yeah. And just when people ask about average DC, so let's talk about a couple of those those questions. Do you run a high EPC to achieve a better product? It's not quite that simple. It depends on the phase of growth that you're talking about. It depends on what you're trying to achieve in that phase. 

[00:12:20] Scott Campbell: So yes, in certain times, higher ECS are better. If your goal is to stress the. So let's say it is a genetic that takes stress. During that early flower period, when running it generative is going to increase your yields and increased budget. Then yes, high ECS are better. And those are a team typically through drive back where you see that you see spike as Jason was mentioning. 

[00:12:43] Scott Campbell: And then when you go into the bulking phase, a lower average GC is better because you're trying to keep the plants generative and bulk on those bud sites. And then there was also a question about late in flower and late in. Is typically when a girl will try to achieve ripening, [00:13:00] which is achieved through more aggressive drive backs and pushing the plant more generative, we would expect to see a higher average DC during that time. 

[00:13:07] Scott Campbell: The EC that you achieve is going to be different based on just a variety of things just the time of day will change what your ECC is. Based on when your waterings are, or when your drive X or how. But on an average, if we look over a whole day, generative steering is a higher average EC vegetative steering is a lower average EC, and let's dive into to a slide now that zooms in on one, on a particular part of a day. 

[00:13:36] Scott Campbell: And Gaylen, if I could ask you to to talk about EC and plant transportation, 

[00:13:42] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: Okay. 

[00:13:44] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: And again, where the blue line here is showing the honor content, the orange line the electrical conductivity. And now in this case the electrical conductivity. At the end of the [00:14:00] dry bank period is barely high. And as soon as the irrigation starts, the water content goes up and they like trickle conductivity goes down because the nutrient solution is more dilute than the substrate water at the end of irrigation. 

[00:14:18] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: Start the drive back. You can see that. The electrical conductivity increasing and increases over that old dry back period. And that's the result of the concentration of the water. The plant takes out a lot more water than it does in proportion, the nutrients that are in the water during this time. 

[00:14:45] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: And so the the concentration in the solution increases during that. 

[00:14:51] Scott Campbell: Yup. Yup. And I think sorry, go ahead. 

[00:14:55] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: That is in fact, one of the things that you're looking for generative[00:15:00] steering is to that that ramping up of the electrical conductivity during the drive by. 

[00:15:08] Scott Campbell: Yep. Yes. 

[00:15:09] Scott Campbell: And I noticed when Jason talks about stacking, I noticed when I was growing my own plants in a tent that when the plants are relatively small, their ability to take up water from the substrate is way more limited. The root masses is smaller. The surface area of the leaves is smaller. 

[00:15:26] Scott Campbell: Transpiration rate is lower and you can only achieve even with longer dry backs and smaller plants, you could only achieve so much dry back during. During that dry back phase and you won't see those EC start stacking until the plants get bigger and increase their their transpiration rate. 

[00:15:43] Scott Campbell: Okay. Let's jump to some of the other questions. You had this one's we have a question here. Should the TEROS 12 be used in every plant or is it okay to use in every tray? This one? While we would love as a company that actually makes substrate sensors, we would love it. If every [00:16:00] single plant had a TEROS 12 minute, that isn't necessary. 

[00:16:03] Scott Campbell: And is. You just have to get a representative sample. And typically we talk about here getting good ECC on water content readings from an irrigation zone. It'll depend on how big your zones are, but you need to get a representative sample from that zone. And our recommendation is for indoor growing one sensor, every a hundred square feet to get a representation there. 

[00:16:26] Scott Campbell: And that might be. What would you say, Jason, one sensor, every for talking about flour about typical flour density, one center, every 50 planets, is that about right? 

[00:16:37] Jason Van Leuven: Sure, absolutely. And one of the things there to consider as well is looking at the variability of what you're operating, what you're trying to analyze. 

[00:16:46] Jason Van Leuven: And if you check out the YouTube. A video I did on sensor density, talking about normalized distribution curves, just applying some simple statistical analysis to think about, Hey, what is a significant [00:17:00] number of sensors for me to have? So if I'm using multiple bars in a row then you'll need more sensors to attribute the different types of population genetics can behave differently. 

[00:17:11] Jason Van Leuven: Any other differences in there? Maybe you don't have a great light consistency. Maybe one, one of the walls in your greenhouse is. Some sunshine in one of the sides of the corners of that room. If you're playing with multiple types of substrates, you'll definitely need more sensors because any of those differences across prop uniformity are going to require a better picture. 

[00:17:30] Jason Van Leuven: They're going to have different growth rates. They're going to have different population curves and you'll need to want to segment those out so that you're not necessarily. Trying to analyze multiple variables with one type of average. Yup. 

[00:17:45] Scott Campbell: Okay. And I have a I have a question about EC generally as it relates to plant nutrients. 

[00:17:52] Scott Campbell: And this wasn't on our list that was submitted, but something I've always been curious about, I've heard about many years ago in Holland, they tried to get an eye on [00:18:00] specific. Sensor that could just tell them the concentrations of everything nitrogen potassium, phosphorus, boron every single thing manganese, everything that was going to be in the water. 

[00:18:12] Scott Campbell: And EC can tell you a lot about nutrient concentration. It doesn't tell you anything about your nutrient formula. Is am I correct there? Or what what do I need to know about the formulation of my nutrients versus EC? 

[00:18:27] Jason Van Leuven: Yeah, that's a, that's an awesome question. And the composition of your nutrients is not necessarily can't, it can't be seen by electrical conductivity. 

[00:18:38] Jason Van Leuven: So things that you can do to help keep an eye on that. Nutritional balance, making sure that the right ions are being pulled up by the plant easiest would be a PA trigger runoff. So making sure that you're not seeing too much of a rise in your pH that's going to indicate that the nutrient balance is good and the plant is not necessarily running out [00:19:00] of negatively charged ion nutrients. 

[00:19:02] Jason Van Leuven: Another great practice for this is sending in leaf tissue analysis. So getting some The results that indicate what nutrient levels are in that sample itself. Most labs are going to give you some recommended ranges, which is great idea of keeping track of the different components in that competition. 

[00:19:22] Scott Campbell: Yep. That's so that's always helpful to know in that leaf tissue analysis is pretty common in other industries. It is rarer amongst cannabis growers, as far as from what I've seen in talking to people. But the people who are very scientific and nerdy about growing do send a tissue samples into to get that constituent nutrients and analysis in there. 

[00:19:46] Scott Campbell: Let's talk a little bit about somato conductance. Cause we did get a question on that. And specifically, let's talk about the model conductance and EC like running high ECS or stressing the plants. We've got this question. Does, do we, so us the [00:20:00] model conductance sensor and the answer is yes. 

[00:20:02] Scott Campbell: And since this has the theme of a a family broadcast already, I'll say that Darcy, the model conductance sensor was designed by my genius brother many years ago and is a great way to measure the to get us to model conductance reading, and look at the photosynthetic activity of the plant without buying a full blown. 

[00:20:22] Scott Campbell: Photosynthesis analyzer and we do have customers that are using bees and seeing really interesting getting interesting and important results. Gaylon, what would you expect to see on from a Stamato conductance from our parameter, we call it a leaf parameter. What would you expect to see at different phases of plant growth? 

[00:20:44] Scott Campbell: Let's say maybe when you're steering the plant generatively versus steering the plant vegetatively. 

[00:20:49] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: I wish we had enough data to we're in the process of collecting that kind of engine now and having gotten a very complete bacteria [00:21:00] Some species are well-studied and a lot of data around, but I've not found a lot of data in the literature that shows that but in general stolemates are more open in the day than at night. 

[00:21:15] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: So the conduct and society in the light, in the dark. And the, we would expect if the plant was stressed, that the stone mines would close. So during a generative steering, we would expect to see a lower speed model conductances and usually a sleeps age. The conductance goes down. So we would expect closer to harvest to see lower conducted. 

[00:21:48] Scott Campbell: Yeah. Yeah. Anecdotally having, and when I take the leaf parameter and have taken it into cultivation facilities, I see lower stemmata conductance on plants that are being stressed [00:22:00] and higher somato conductance on plants that are that are being steered vegetatively. But it it will take some some use of that. 

[00:22:09] Scott Campbell: Leaf prompter and getting comfortable with it to say what those readings mean. And you can log those in the the ArAROYAo journal, the readings, the somata conductance readings that you take. The key thing about the parameter and the reason why we sell it is that instead of looking at what conditions the plant exists in, you're actually taking a primary measurement of what the plant is. 

[00:22:32] Scott Campbell: And so this is a reason why it's an important reading it's it, but it does take some expertise and dedication to, to get that to make that information useful. And I'm going to, 

[00:22:44] Jason Van Leuven: I'm going to chime in here just a little bit more to talk about what what is driving that's to model conducted. So when we talk about small conductance, the higher your model conductance, the more water vapor leaving those. 

[00:22:55] Jason Van Leuven: And so that's going to be transpiration rate, typically higher [00:23:00] transpiration rates, meaning that we can build biomass faster. And what's pushing that to model conductance is a multitude of factors. So it's a good balance in your environment and a good nutrient relationship with how the plant is. 

[00:23:13] Jason Van Leuven: When we look at ways that you can modulate or change that stomatal conductance and attempts to get it up there as high as possible is definitely looking at your VPD. So vapor pressure deficit is going to be talking about how much vacuum is the environment applying to that leaf surface. And that's going to really dictate how much those models can be open or closed. 

[00:23:36] Jason Van Leuven: If we've got a environment that's too hot and, or too. Or the combination of the two, the estimates are going to close up to the leaf can retain water and not wilt when our VPD is too low. So in an environment that's too cold and, or too humid, there's not necessarily enough pressure in that environment to be pulling water out of [00:24:00] transpiration. 

[00:24:00] Jason Van Leuven: So getting a good VPD balance and looking at VPD charts to hit. Right humidity for the temperature that's desired in that plant is one of the ways that you can go to optimized model conductance. So going in the room, taking the model, conductances over a good sample in the room, analyzing that model, setting that as a baseline. 

[00:24:22] Jason Van Leuven: And then when you do make any changes to environmental conditions or a nutrient, what the substrate fields get an idea of, Hey, is that based on. My improving on that baseline or is it going down? And that's a great way to understand if the changes that you made were felt appropriately by the plant for improvement. 

[00:24:42] Scott Campbell: Yep. Yeah. So if I understand you correctly it's a diagnostic tool that you can use to look at potential problems with your environmental conditions in your rooms temperature and VPD being the key ones that would affect how that the work rate of the plants in the. 

[00:24:58] Scott Campbell: Absolutely. Yeah. [00:25:00] Yeah, probably more important than for diagnosing those problems then for looking at the plants and seeing if the steering is having an effect on the Stamato conductance rate. Okay. We do have a question about the . So the S two is a inline. So you can think of the TEROS 12 as measuring the electrical conductivity in the substrate, and a lot of questions that we get have to do with what's happening in the PDC. 

[00:25:28] Scott Campbell: And this is something that was hard for me to understand in the beginning, because Many people that we talked to run their feces at totally different levels. Some people down at 1.3, I've heard as high as four before as well. And it's you know how come there are so many different opinions on this? 

[00:25:46] Scott Campbell: And and let's just say about the IES to these two as a way, just to stick a sensor and a pipe and measure what your feed DC is, which is helpful to know because that's driving what's happening in the substrate. It doesn't it doesn't just follow [00:26:00] that if you're running a higher fee DC, that you're going to have higher EC in the substrate. 

[00:26:05] Scott Campbell: Am I right about that? 

[00:26:08] Jason Van Leuven: Yeah. The nice thing that the ESU is providing is an understanding of an input, right? So when we're looking at a substrate it's what the plant is doing. It's a very dynamic. Area, when we're looking at the IES to sensor that DDC, it's nice to have a line of comparison, right? So if we are feeding it, say three to Siemens per meter, we can see is that substrate floating nominally about four EC, or is it normally a floating about five EC things like can exchange capacity and your media type can affect what that, that difference is and that fluctuation, yeah. That's exactly right. You're seeing your substrates, not always going to follow the EC from your fertigation line. 

[00:26:51] Scott Campbell: Yep. Any, anything to add on that? Gaylon and maybe I don't know if this graph here is helpful to look at [00:27:00] any additional points on PDC versus substrate DC and why they're doing. 

[00:27:04] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: Oh, look, the we can think about why the substrate EDC would be lower than the feed. And that would have to be because the plan was spanking up nutrients and it's higher because the err on the plant takes up in proportion, more water than the nutrients. And so you could. C toward the end of the day, this shows that one day period with an irrigation event and then a quick drop in water content during the light period. 

[00:27:43] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: And then you can see about three quarters of the way across the Water content stops dropping minutes. When the lights go out that you couldn't see that the DC goes, the poor water AC is going down during that time. [00:28:00] That the only way it can go down is if the plants take up nutrients. That's, it's an indication of the nutrient uptake by the plant. 

[00:28:09] Scott Campbell: Let's 

[00:28:10] Kaisha-Dyan McMillan: see, gotten Jason. I actually have a question here on the chat. Yep. Ho Jose wrote sometimes on the graph, we will notice the EFE data cruECng along a certain EC or the water content will do what it usually does. Going up and drying back. Would this have something to do with how the plant is responding or is this more than likely the placement of the sensor? 

[00:28:30] Jason Van Leuven: It could be both. It could be a combination of both. We do send out sensor placement tools, templates with all of our kits. We absolutely recommend that be used. When we look at the volume of influence in this sensor, we really want to try and get an average of that substrate volume. What is. 

[00:28:51] Jason Van Leuven: Expected value. The bulk of those ruts are feeling. So when we took it, look at a perched water table or the gradient of water from top to bottom of the substrate, [00:29:00] it's imperative, that sensor be placed in the right vertical level to capture that. If we've got it too low, it's likely going to read higher than the bulk water content of that substrate. 

[00:29:12] Jason Van Leuven: If it's too high, it's probably going to be a little bit drier. So shooting for that range based on our recommendations. Sensor template tool can avoid any placement issues. That being said, if it is in the right area, it could definitely be an indicator of that plant responding. Maybe not necessarily being very active as far as pulling nutrients or possibly pulling the exact amount of nutrients that you're supplying to. 

[00:29:37] Scott Campbell: Yeah. And also Jose, if you're interested, I'm happy to look at your specific needs. With our customer support team because it could be that there is a problem with the sensor. The, those are really uncommon, but but it would be easy and looking at your data to say whether that might be a placement issue, or it might be an issue with the sensor itself. 

[00:29:58] Scott Campbell: And[00:30:00] as Jason said, it is really important to use the alignment tool. We call it an alignment tool to consistently place those sensors in the same location in the substrate every time. And that's one of the critical pieces to getting good repeatable data. I will say though, that in all the times that I've looked at my data from when I'm irrigating the plants and looking at the recent. 

[00:30:24] Scott Campbell: The, in many cases most of the cases that I've seen, the ECC is changing when the water content changes it, it's not necessarily for sure that it's opposite to water content. Although with the consistent irrigation events, you will often see EC moving in the opposite direction from water content. 

[00:30:42] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: Make a quick comment. If you think about the processes that are going on, that the electrical conductivity he'd or being the assault, being leached out when you have drainage the assault being taken up [00:31:00] by the plant, the substrate being either leach to replenish by. Water coming in. 

[00:31:07] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: All of those processes are going on at the same time. And what will happen to the pour water AC over the period of the day will depend on the, some of those things. And if you've chosen that the AC that is just sufficient to. Supplied the nutrients that the plant is staking out by the trickle conductivity won't change very much over the period of the day, even all the water content does change quite a bit. 

[00:31:40] Scott Campbell: Yep. Yes. Thank you for that. And just a 

[00:31:44] Jason Van Leuven: fair clarification here. We've got a common asking about placed vertically and I just wanted to clarify that verbology terminology that I used there and I'll share. Just a quick view from our installation guide. The sensors should be installed with the [00:32:00] prongs horizontally. 

[00:32:01] Jason Van Leuven: What I was talking about is a critical vertical height that, which those prongs are inserted vertically. So hopefully this this clears any of that up and you can see that installation template tool that we recommend for different sized medias. 

[00:32:13] Scott Campbell: Yep. Thank you. Let's go to sensors reading zero, zero ECE sensor. 

[00:32:21] Scott Campbell: What does that usually mean? 

[00:32:22] Jason Van Leuven: So if we're looking at zero it could be. Where there's absolutely no nutrients in the solution. One of the things I do like to keep an eye on is if we've got a really low water content, it also could mean that ECS is so high that we can't read it. 

[00:32:37] Jason Van Leuven: So our sensors, we cap out that reading at 30 deaths, the Siemens per. It gets too much too much higher over 30 desk Siemens. Sometimes that graph will show it at zero. So you do see zero. Does Siemens look at your water content? If it's really low, it's probably talking about, Hey, we've got a serious salt concentration here that [00:33:00] the sensor can't accurately read outer range. 

[00:33:02] Scott Campbell: And I would like to point out to that relative to water content we have had people say I just took my AROYAal sensor and I dunked it in a bucket of water and it didn't read a hundred percent. And that's because the vast majority of our growers are not growing in buckets of water. 

[00:33:16] Scott Campbell: So the sensors are created to use in a in a hydroponic media and even in soil, although if you are looking at a water stress in soil, It's going to you're going to be much more interested in major potential than you are in the bulk or sorry, the poor water, etc. That's something to definitely keep in mind, but yeah, if you dunk a TEROS 12s in buckets of water you're not going to get a hundred percent reading and the we do have a related question on what is typically the highest water content that we see in. 

[00:33:50] Jason Van Leuven: So with Coco specifically looking at the chip and pith sized. So manufacturer to manufacturer, there is differences in that field capacity, [00:34:00] that saturation point at which we do see runoff for most of the Cocos that I've experienced looking at ranges of say 48, 40 5% all the way up to about 55%, depending on capacity. 

[00:34:13] Scott Campbell: Yeah. And Coco as Jason mentioned can show a lot of variability. And in some cases when the chunks are massive they can even create large air gaps in the substrate, which are not necessarily conducive to growing or good readings either. 

[00:34:29] Jason Van Leuven: That's exactly right. And just like some of the irrigation channeling that we've talked about in impact. 

[00:34:34] Jason Van Leuven: Video's here when there is big pockets. And I think one of the questions was a little bit about per light in here as well. If you've got large chunks of perlite that are sitting right next to the prongs, if that thing turns into a reservoir for water, or it turns into a reservoir for air that sensor may not necessarily be great representation. 

[00:34:56] Jason Van Leuven: The substrate. And it's also a Testament to some of the ability [00:35:00] of Rockwell being very homogeneous. Substrate is the centers work very well and very predictable because that a continuity with the substrate, that the way that this substrate is consistent around the prongs, right? And it's not necessarily a big issue with a good poco manufacturers because they do have a consistent product. 

[00:35:24] Jason Van Leuven: Across that bag, but in any hand mixed types and anything that Scott soil or amendments, you definitely want to take into consideration. Some of that, especially during your installation. 

[00:35:36] Scott Campbell: Yes. We have an unrelated question to EDC, which is a wire Aquila water activity, meters, so expensive. And I can tell you that being a small manufacturer of customized devices, which is which is what a meter group is a meter group and a AROYAa within meters. 

[00:35:54] Scott Campbell: It's really hard and very difficult to make an instrument that measures [00:36:00] things correctly every single time. And that's the dedication that we put into products like Aquila that measure water activity. We'll probably talk about what our activity on a different office hours, but let me just say that that yes relative to something like a. 

[00:36:15] Scott Campbell: A wood moisture meter that you buy at home Depot that you, that uses two prongs and that you shove into a two by four an Aqua lab precECon water activity meter that's accurate to zeros or three water activity. Units is expensive. I do agree with. But the key is that by measuring what activity you can protect your crop and increase your quality while improving your profitability as well. 

[00:36:38] Scott Campbell: And we'll talk about that a separate time, but. But if a grower says that that water activity is expensive I would say it's way less expensive than having to recall your product because of a mold problem. Price is what you pay. Value's what you get and the value of water activity and of crop steering, for example, is just in how it affects your productivity [00:37:00] as. 

[00:37:00] Scott Campbell: So I have a another question about, Hey, I have an eight light setup. That's not automated. How would the array a sensor benefit my growth? For the most part right now AROYA is a a business to business product. You do have to have your your, we do ask you for your license number. 

[00:37:16] Scott Campbell: We, we sell licensed growers. So assuming you're a licensed grower with the nightlight setup The the array system can benefit what you're doing, but it's not as useful if you don't have irrigation automation, if you're if you're hand watering things still there are a lot of benefits that you could get by starting to capture data and look at how you're steering your crops and even make decECons. 

[00:37:38] Scott Campbell: If you are hand watering, should I go out and water and how often, and with what with what duration. Even down to how your cultivars are grown. So mostly th the power of a AROYAa is much higher with automated irrigation, drip irrigation systems, but it can still apply to smaller cultivators. 

[00:37:57] Scott Campbell: It's just maybe [00:38:00] less powerful as is my opinion. Jason, any thoughts? 

[00:38:04] Jason Van Leuven: Yeah, absolutely more difficult. Get to the point that you want without that automation. So obviously being able to have insight into your substrate and understanding of what you're doing currently is very important because you can make small modifications to how you're creating those plants. 

[00:38:20] Jason Van Leuven: But without automation you would have to spend be spending maybe all day in there giving the water shots at the right time so that you can achieve the types of prop steering that you want. Now let me see. That is on the. Performance side of things. If you want a system that just can monitor and help you alert when parameters are going way off the wall, then any type of sensor system is going to be helpful to keep an eye on what's happening in there. 

[00:38:47] Jason Van Leuven: Yep. 

[00:38:47] Scott Campbell: Okay. We're down to a general questions here. I have a question. Why a AROYA over Growlink? So that's a question about a competitor, a competing system. And I think the way that we think about [00:39:00] competitors at AROYA is that we love it when other people are out there seeing what we're doing and excited about something like crop steering, and saying that it is important. 

[00:39:11] Scott Campbell: And I think we see a lot more interest in the marketplace in something like crop steering, seeing that we that we broke that ground. And help the industry to understand how important it is to get in good yields. The biggest difference between us and other companies and the simplest way that I can explain it is that TEROS 12, it's a sensor that we have spent the last decade perfecting. 

[00:39:34] Scott Campbell: We started out with it in soil, but started working with some of the largest indoor growing companies in the world. And meeting their requirements in terms of accuracy, performance, and durability for a sensor that is going to deliver results. And at the end of the day, the most important thing for achieving results is getting accurate ECC readings. 

[00:39:56] Scott Campbell: And as I mentioned before, the TEROS 12 is the only sensor that I've ever seen that can [00:40:00] measure with accuracy and consistency in they can measure with that high of a level of accuracy and consistent. In a hydroponic growth, medium Stonewall or like cocoa. That's the foundation of what we do. 

[00:40:15] Scott Campbell: We are a group of scientists. The company was founded by my dad out of academia and we bring that spirit through to the product. We're not a controls company. We're not a. W we're we are not a an ERP vendor, we focus on increasing yield for our customers. And that's why we're having this conversation around the science of ECE. 

[00:40:39] Scott Campbell: So I think that's the biggest difference between us and other people is the TEROS 12. And I can tell you, I'm sitting right now in Pullman, Washington, and that's where we make the TEROS 12 as well. And a hundred feet away sitting a hundred feet away right now from where those sensors are made. 

[00:40:52] Scott Campbell: And they came from our researchers and they and we make them and send them out to growers all over the world. So that's what I think [00:41:00] the big differences. And 

[00:41:01] Jason Van Leuven: I might just add the second next step to that. And that was pairing that tomorrow's 12 weeks. Easy to use system. And when I talk about easy to use, I do absolutely emphasize the software. 

[00:41:13] Jason Van Leuven: We've got a lot of investment in developing this next to our growers. We've got years of research with projects where we go out, vECt people, use designers, use UX, UI. Professionals and implement the tools that the client needs based on how they're operating. And on the hardware side of ease of use, we have a system that is quickly deployed. 

[00:41:36] Jason Van Leuven: So the wireless sensors themselves are a very unique solution to boardrooms that may already have a lot going on. And I was recently at a facility where some some of the wires on a competitor system. Severed by the rolling benches. They had some knots in them et cetera. When we think about having a reliable system, it needs to be easy to use, easy to [00:42:00] implement, and the wireless solution of those substrate sensors keeps the configuration simple and it makes rooms. 

[00:42:10] Scott Campbell: Yep. Yeah. And I I do appreciate that. And I will also say that that w another big difference, and I mentioned this before, but Gaylon, Jason, people like that that have experienced and take a scientific approach to growing that's the difference as well. So it's the simplicity that that Jason mentioned. 

[00:42:29] Scott Campbell: It's the design thinking that we've put into a system that can be. In a matter of hours you can be up in live getting data streaming into your, to your platform to the science that is sits behind the sensor itself. All those are critical in terms of delivering results. And the, everything that we do, all of the efforts that we make is focused on one thing, which is to increase grams per square foot per year for our clients. 

[00:42:54] Scott Campbell: The last question on our list is plans. What are your plans for rolling out a [00:43:00] system for personal or small rooms? And I will just say yes to to what are your plans because we don't really have anything to share at this point, we would like for the system to be how should, how could we put it self provEConed or self self deployed. 

[00:43:19] Scott Campbell: And right now, if you buy a system, We set up your facility our team sets it up and then we deploy it by provEConing it in house before it ever goes out to your facility. So it makes the process really simple for you. But if we were to do things for and focus on smaller growers, smaller producers we would have to get something that was a lot more. 

[00:43:41] Scott Campbell: A lot easier to deploy them that, and we are working on that. We don't have anything to share at this point, but we do understand just because we check our Instagram. We do understand how badly people want this. I don't know if you have anything to add. I don't. And Gaylon, did we miss anything in the ECE? 

[00:43:57] Scott Campbell: And let me just say that Gaylon [00:44:00] gave a presentation on ECC. That was a tremendous, and I just showed a few slides from that today. We will link in the description that entire seminar, if you're interested in watching it, because it's chock full of great information for. And was specifically formulated for people who are growing in controlled environments, which is what our customers do. 

[00:44:21] Scott Campbell: But Gaylen, did we miss anything you wanted to hit before we sign off? 

[00:44:25] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: Probably not. There's with respect to the diffusion parameter and model conductance there's another and other. Webinars in that same series that talks about how to use those kinds of data. Yeah. 

[00:44:42] Scott Campbell: Yeah. That's the exciting part. 

[00:44:43] Scott Campbell: It's not just this one seminar on that, but it's a series of four seminars. I think the, I think what are you on number four coming up soon. Is that right? 

[00:44:54] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: We've just done. Number three, number 

[00:44:58] Scott Campbell: four. [00:45:00] Yeah it's meant to be a comprehensive look at the foundational technologies that make that make a AROYAal possible. 

[00:45:07] Scott Campbell: And yeah. Is really a lot of great information. And one of the most important things explained in a way that that people who don't necessarily have a scientific background like me can really understand. So 

[00:45:20] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: one other question I saw at least that we could address the question was what's the relationship between parts per million and electrical conductivity. 

[00:45:35] Scott Campbell: And 

[00:45:36] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: that that relationship is specific to the, whatever salt is in the solution. But For a nutrient solutions that are at least for a couple of nutrients solutions that are used for cannabis and pretty easy that something [00:46:00] like a thousand parts per million is about one desk per meter. 

[00:46:05] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: But that if you, yeah. Table salt, for example, why a thousand parts per million, it'd be two to Siemens per meter. So it depends on the salt that's in there, but it's not a difficult thing to do. Determine that relationship. You just makes up a few different solutions and measure their electrical conductivity. 

[00:46:30] Dr. Gaylon Campbell: You can work it out for whatever solution you happen to be working. 

[00:46:35] Jason Van Leuven: Yeah. And just to expand upon that, on how some of our growers use it these days I will like to start off that EC is the native measurement that the electrical connectivity is measured in. So we. We would need to derive PPM from a conversion factor. 

[00:46:53] Jason Van Leuven: One of the things that I always talk to growers about when they're used to using PPM is that understand, [00:47:00] Hey, you might as well go from the natively derived measurement and the fact that there is also a number of PPM scales. And so that can get confusing. If you're talking about PPM, but there's not necessarily this scale that is specified it's easy to be way off in that nutrient con. 

[00:47:16] Jason Van Leuven: That nutrient concentration and with EC, you've got only one measurement type that's one, one ratio and it's uniform across whatever you're talking about. 

[00:47:30] Scott Campbell: Yep. Okay. I think that about, does it kill. 

[00:47:35] Kaisha-Dyan McMillan: I think you're right. Scott, Jason, and our special guests. Gaylon. Thank you so much. What a great session. 

[00:47:40] Kaisha-Dyan McMillan: Thank you to everyone who joined us for this week's AROYA office hours live it's our last one for the year. But this is your time. Any questions that you have about a AROYA, how it can be used to improve your cultivation, production process, any topics you'd like us to cover in future office hour sessions? 

[00:47:56] Kaisha-Dyan McMillan: Please let us know. Feel free to put that in the chat. Shoot us an [00:48:00] support.aroya@metergroup.com or send us an Instagram DM. We definitely want to hear from you. We record every session and we will email everyone in attendance, the link to the video from today's discussion. It will also live on the Eroica YouTube channel, please and subscribe while you're there. 

[00:48:17] Kaisha-Dyan McMillan: And if you find these conversations helpful, definitely share them. Share the video with anyone else who might find this infamous. Useful. We look forward to seeing you all in 2022. Happy holidays, everyone. 

[00:48:28] Scott Campbell: Happy holidays. Thank you. All right, 

[00:48:34] Kaisha-Dyan McMillan: recording.