What are some of the biggest disasters or difficulties you’ve had to work through in your grow operation? What did you learn from those trials by fire?
One thing we hear at Surna from growers is that they often undersize the systems they need for climate control if they go to traditional HVAC companies. Most HVAC companies are not knowledgeable in the unique needs for growing cannabis.
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I’ve heard of some cannabis companies going to HVAC companies that design specifically for data centers / server rooms. What are your thoughts on that?
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I was listening to this podcast and he made the same point about underestimating air conditioning needs, especially in warmer climates like southern California:
http://www.cannainsider.com/cannabis-growing-tips-harry-resin/
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I once had mice get in and eat about $750 worth of germinated and freshly planted seed in the greenhouse in one night in spring. A whole summer’s worth of plants gone…
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I can only imagine the words that came out of your mouth when you made that discovery.
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I really hope those mice had the time of their lives before their summary execution. 
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Once I dealt with the mice and established new seedlings and was taking mid season clones I had something that would come into the greenhouse and just pull up fresh clones - nibble the tops and leave them there… After about 1 week I saw a Chipmunk in the greenhouse. A week later I managed to shoot it with a bb gun. No more losses.
Rodents are definitely an issue in outdoor/greenhouse natural grows. They love the raised garden beds and awesome organic ganga.
And crows. I once had a couple of crows uproot a bunch of freshly transplanted seedlings in an outdoor patch. Netting fixed that issue.
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Do you take any proactive measures so that will not happen again in the future?
It’s tough in an outdoor operation. There are always losses to pests etc. We have rodent cages for clones and seedlings now after such fun - seedlings aren’t put out too early and are much more mature to prevent that. But we budget at least a 30% loss from seedling to final plants for animals, disease, mold to ensure we have a buffer.
Crows however are just funny animals. They like doing shit just to fuck with you. I caught one pulling out all our plant identifiers from each pot and just throwing them in the path…
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Yeah crows are smart, and can hold a grudge, apparently:
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Crows are probably some of the smartest birds out there:
Making tools.
Using cars to crack nuts.
Banding together to fight predators.
And of course, best friends.
It’s no wonder they’d mess with you if they thought you wronged them somehow. Or maybe they enjoy it for some other reason.
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We’ve got a bigger version of the crow up here. The Raven… They’re notorious just like crows at doing stuff just to piss you off. They sit in the trees and watch you all day curious and formulating their plans. As soon as you leave the area they go to work… They’re so big, even the Bald Eagles leave them alone.
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Bumping this topic for the newer folks.
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