Reservoir stability is an issue growers are always facing with our nutrient solutions. Are your nutes res stable? For how long after mixing can we expect your nutes to remain properly mixed?
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Hi Joel. Iām curious, what are your favorite cultivars to grow and what are the traits that make them a favorite?
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Thatās a great question, but thereās actually no sacrifice. Iāve found that, your plant isnāt going to finish faster by half producing its volume or skipping resinous oil production or anything of that sort.
Iāve personally found that when the plant is pushing its production itās because the plant is expressing everything it is genetically capable of.
Our last lab test for example, had over 37% raw (acidic) cannabinoids and something like 1.2% terpenes (not nearly as high as we usually get, but Iāll explain this below), which is nearly the entire 40% ceiling of resinous production we currently believe the plant to be capable of. In D9-THC that equaled 32%, which was 5% higher than their control. Iām not going to call them out by name, but this person is on our network.
Now the 40% possible expression shows itself in many ways, and some of the compounds that add to the flavor and effect of cannabis, we do not currently have testing parameters for. So you will see wildly different results based on genetics, sometimes terpene profiles of up to 6% so far as well. But I feel pretty confident at this point the plant is doing everything that it can when it is finishing faster (foggy trichomes for max potency, 75% or so orange hairs is my rule of thumb for my harvest window) and still producing 3-4 lbs per 1k watts of light for example.
To me that is the biggest advantage of the faster harvests is the genetic expressions.
Of course other advantages could obviously be return on investment related, weeks spent running electricity per harvest, and in larger facilities this can speed up their cycle, particularly with multiple rooms, this can add up to extra harvests every 1-3 years.
It can also be useful for outdoor growing in harsher environments, such as on the East Coast, where the temperature drops suddenly and drastically in the weeks leading up to regular harvest times.
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I am working on collaborating on some university studies that Iām not going to get too in depth with in case it does not go through, and you have a great point. Thatās why I like people to try out the line and see for themselves.
As far as the biological processes Iāve discussed, we have pretty much done all of the studies on Potassium Acetate use in agriculture, besides one study from 1986 that showed itās foliar absorption rate being 5x that of potassium citrate.
One of the biggest challenges I have, in my opinion, is sounding believable when I explain the results we are getting. But if they werenāt verifiable by the growers we work with, we wouldnāt be around for very long. It still gives me chills every time it happens.
I will dig around for some scientific data regarding Potassium Acetate and Acytal CoA for you when this is done.
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Great question, they were Gavita 1k HPS lights.
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Growers are skeptical after years of being sold snake oils, as @aardvarx mentioned. You are facing an uphill sales battle in many ways. How do you overcome this challenge?
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Thatās basically exactly whatās happening. The maturation of the trichomes seems to have to do with percentages of resinous oils that have developed in them. I believe that during the foggy stage they have the highest levels and I think that as they amber some degrade into other materials we simply do not test for. This is a key point for me, we absolutely do not have parameters to test the plant for everything that is contained in the trichomes that add to the effects and flavors. I think that this will change in the near future as labs figure out more about the plant.
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@joel_keygrow so my question to this is with our bulbs we see an average of two weeks shaved off on veg timeā¦NOW we are seeing the same 2 week average shaved off of flower time with some strains. We have the highest UV output in the industry to my knowledge. This UV in the early stages of growth has been proven to help plants produce 15 needed proteins that make them healthier and make the transition from veg to flower easier on them. Do you think that faster veg and flower times could be a result of plants in perfect or near perfect health as a result of lighting?
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For me personally, terpenes are more important than THC percentage, and I like anything with a lot of terpinolene and limonene. Things that are really creative and energizing. I also like esters and lactones in my flower, which give them kind of those strawberry gas or black licorice scents.
I have my own cross that contains heirloom Chocolate Thai x Green Haze that was then crossed with a Killer Grape and it gives me that old chocolate flavor and effect with tighter buds and a shorter flowering cycle. Itās kind of designed for my own tastes if you will.
But as far as enjoying the grow, I love anything from Alien Genetics. Those plants are just monsters. They grow anywhere, even outside in 120 degree heat, they eat up that sun and can take heavy feeds and just explode with growth. Try their Alien Dust sometime, itās just really fun to grow.
I just started a new pheno project and Iām trying a bunch of different breeders so, Iāll have a lot more to say on this topic with some of the newer strains here soon (really excited about this Ethos and 707SeedBank stuff I must admit).
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Thatās a great point, of course there are variables here. They will stay fairly stable indefinitely as long as say, you do not leave the calcium and the phosphorus sitting together for a long time without at least being agitated. One thing to consider however, is that any product such as ours that contains beneficial biology, you will have a slowly rising pH if the mix is left sitting for too long. So there may be some necessary pH adjustments if they go alkaline. And of course any mix that is left sitting for too long runs the risk of becoming anaerobic without the proper aeration.
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I grow an Alien X Golden Goat that is phenomenal. Great choice!
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Do you have any favorite aeration strategies that seem to work particularly well with your product? Nano bubbles? Electrolysis?
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I have heard reports of LED light spectrums shaving time off of grow cycles as well. Iām not an expert on lights by any means, but I imagine it has something to do with the photons being easier to process during glycolisis, or that perhaps these spectrums make the plants choose an easier pathway for processing. I would love to collaborate on an experiment to see if combining these types of technologies makes a difference, or whether we hit a ceiling that is just able to be addressed multiple ways.
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We are happy to provide the tech for the tunable LED experiment 
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Doing anything with cannabis nutrients is an uphill battle these days! 
Even if I collected data, and I could show charts in a booklet, it would just be another booklet showing our plants vs. another plant and of course weāre always going to show the better plant, right?
All I can do is keep getting it out there and proving it on a case-by-case basis. This might be a good place to mention, that I will pay for any lab tests with a professional cultivation facility willing to do a comparative analysis.
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Letās definitely talk!
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Iāve honestly never even thought far enough to compare aeration strategies. This is how I get ideas, I steal them from all of you! 
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We will talk! What we have seen in our own trials so far is that implementing a proper dimming strategy has also the potential to significantly shorten grow intervals by reducing stressā¦
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I think adjustable lighting spectrums are the next frontier in manipulating the plant, in many different ways that Iāve heard about.
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@joel_keygrow we manufacture CMH lights. We offer our customers LEDs as well but the results are not even in the same ballpark when you put one against the other. I am open to collaboration. Please feel free to message me at your convenience. Letās see what we can make happen.
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