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Please watch our newest episode: "Central Oregon Cannabis Growing - Growing Exposed Season 2 Episode 8"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbtUdsta_z4 --~--
--- VIEW FULL EPISODE HERE ---http://www.growingexposed.com/episode-7-acres-upon-acres/
This 7 acre natural sunlight greenhouse production facility located in California is a field of dreams for medical cannabis growers. Producing strains such as Sherbert, facilities such as this one will dictate the future of medicinal cannabis production for all of the USA. Our tour guide Justin, a 20 year veteran in the hydroponics industry, takes us through this impressive and massive facility to show us the prime of top-notch greenhouse cannabis production from germination to harvest.
What makes natural sunlight greenhouses superior to other forms of cannabis production? First and foremost, it’s the utilization of natural sunlight that slashes energy costs and the temperate climate of California that allows for extremely large scale cannabis production. But, that wouldn’t be possible without the labour. With lots of cannabis plants, an immense amount of space, workers need to be able to move and tend to plants. Thankfully, this facility has an ingenious method in making the workers’ jobs simple as possible. Each row is controlled by a lever that moves the entire row side to side to maximize space.
This facility also has excellent air circulation, proper trellising to keep plants stable without the need for stakes (which would increase labour cost and time), and top notch PPM/EC and pH in their irrigation. Nutrients are delivered to the plants in two separate methods: for veg, the nutrients are delivered through a top-spray nozzle system and in flower, plants are fed through a drip-feed drain-to-waste system using 4 dripp meters on a timer. The systems this facility has adapted allows for minimal run-off for maximum efficiency and immensely reduces waste.
If you’re growing in a greenhouse, however, you’re going to need some control over the lighting, especially when flipping plants from veg to flower. To solve this problem, this facility has massive light deprivation sheets to manipulate the photoperiod of plants. Huge canopies are covered with massive black tarps that induce “night” or “lights off”. This allows optimal control over the light needed to induce vegetative and flowering stages of growth at different times of the year, guaranteeing consistent all-year cannabis production. In veg rooms, this facility uses small fluorescents on top of natural light that keep plants in veg for an 18 hour light cycle, especially during shorter daylight hours during winter. A small amount of light is all these plants need to stay in veg and remain healthy and lush.
This facility has a massive humidity room that is kept at a constant 90% humidity for thousands of babies. Cuttings thrive in a high-humidity environment, as without the humidity to stop transpiration, cuttings will dry out, wilt and die. Justin shares the best method of doing a proper cutting:
“Take the fastest growing tip off the plant, also the area where the auxin hormone is most present, and cut it off at a 45 degree angle. Dip the area you cut in a rooting solution and put it in a rooting medium such as Oasis, Rockwool, Peat, Rapid Rooters, or any type of cloning medium you prefer. Once roots come out of the medium, the clone is ready to transplant into a larger pot and go into veg. We grow for however high we want, to reach desired size, and then we determine how much that plant will flip. This determines how much size it will get in flower. If I want to finish at 4 feet tall, I veg for 2 – 2 ½ feet tall, flip into flower with a 12 hour photoperiod, and wait for final production. Once flowers fill out at about 4 feet, it’s ready for harvest.”
When in flower, Andrew from GeoPot takes over to explain how this grow operation benefits from fabric pots in flower, and why they’re better than traditional pots for root aeration. Flowering plants are spaced out to maximize light coverage, which reduces the amount of “popcorn” buds on plants. The plants are quadruple trellised for optimal support and planted in 65 gallon Squat GeoPots, with 2-3 plants per pot in King’s Mix medium from Royal Gold, a high-quality and trusted quality-controlled potting mix. Nutrient solution is fed into the plants using a dripping irrigation system through four separate drips, and subthermal heat mats keeps roots warm during the winter season. The benefit of the Squat Pots is that not only are they shorter, but they allow for more top production which is beneficial to growing cannabis for consumption, as tops are what the grower wants. The fabric is durable, with marine-grade stitching, and allows for aeration to the roots for extremely healthy, happy plants.
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