Tag Archives: ecology

June 23, 2021

Essential Elements to Set Up a Green, Zero-Waste Grow Facility

By Anthony Franciosi

Clean, ecologically sound production methods are the ideal for any cultivation or farming activity. Taking from the earth only what is needed to grow the crop and leaving behind little in the way of chemicals and land/water loss is the goal; with cannabis grow facilities, it can also be a reality.

This type of production does require some capital investment into state-of-the-art equipment and facilities, with standards that are equal to or even surpass current EPA and USDA regulations. While cannabis growing does not yet have access to the organic certification, that doesn’t mean growers can’t abide by and even go beyond the rules, to grow clean, healthy and environmentally sound cannabis.

There are a few essential elements required to make this kind of operation a reality.

Ecologically advanced use of power

For any indoor facility, one of the key elements is lighting. Using as energy efficient a system as possible is key. The best option at the moment is LEC lighting, which provides a spectrum of light that is very close to natural. This makes checking on plant progress more realistic and, with the inclusion of UV-B in the spectrum, can improve yields as well. In addition, the LEC bulbs have a long life—up to 2 years—which means lower maintenance costs as well.
The demand for high-quality, organically grown cannabis continues to increase

Another aspect of growing that tends to use a lot of power is the cooling system. A standard HVAC system will be power intensive, so alternative ones like water chilled climate control systems are just as effective and 30% more power efficient. These systems are also able to reuse wasted power by feeding it back into the system, creating an additional 10% energy reduction. In addition, when the outdoor air temperature dips below 45 degrees, a water chilled system can switch to using the outside air, creating 60—70% in energy savings.

Efficient management of water resources

Cultivators depend heavily on water to ensure that the plants are hydrated and able to absorb the nutrients they need to grow and thrive. The result for many however is an excessive waste of water. This is a problem when a grow facility is leveraging municipal water resources. A water meter helps to manage and track usage but to ensure that it is used as efficiently as possible, a “top feeding” method of usage ensures minimal water waste (5% or less).

Effective waste management

Wastewater is a byproduct of any water intensive cultivation method but there again, managing the systems to ensure that what water isn’t reused and becomes “gray water” is still as clean as possible is the ideal. A high-quality filtration system keeps sediment, chlorine and other harmful elements out of the water supply — and out of the municipal sewage system. Further, by using organic matter throughout the growing process, the wastewater that is produced will meet every federal standard for organic food production.
All plant waste in a grow facility—for example: stems and fan leaves—is disposed of according to state and local laws. With cannabis plants, that requires a certain level of security, including locked dumpsters that are only unlocked and placed outside when the removal trucks arrive on site.

Organic farming practices

Using OMRI (Organic Materials Review Institute) listed soil is an essential part of clean, environmentally friendly growing. To ensure the proper nutrients are available for each harvest, once a crop is gathered, the soil is transferred to a local landscape company to compost and reuse.
Pesticides need to obviously be avoided and all fertilizers need to be USDA approved as organic and all nutrients need to be certified by OMRI to ensure they don’t contain any synthetic materials.

Considering all of these aspects is essential to creating an ecologically friendly grow facility with tremendous yields that are clean and safe for the end consumer, as well as minimizing the impact to the earth.

June 1, 2016

Soapbox

Cannabis, Soil Science and Sustainability

By Drew Plebani

5 Comments

The average commercial cannabis cultivator seems to be following the modern agricultural paradigm. That model is based on questionable and, one might say, ineffective soil systems management.

In the high-yield cannabis world, amidst decades of prohibition, following the lead of the modern agricultural model has resulted in the adoption of cultural practices that go something like this: Use and destroy the soil, then dispose of it once it is rendered lifeless and useless due to repeated heavy applications of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and other poisons.

commercialcultivator — (Left) unimproved site soil next to (right) improved site soil. Notice the root mass developing on the right

Certainly conventional agricultural food production and the soil management systems underpinning them are faltering, evidenced by soil systems deteriorating many times faster than they are being improved. This qualifies as a failure in my book.

What will be the fate of profit margins, sustainability and medicine in the cannabis industry if we continue to follow blindly in the footsteps of chemical agriculture? Perhaps it is time to turn over a new leaf.

A little context for the discussion: scientists say the Earth has lost a third of arable land in the past 40 years, and some say soil erosion is the number one challenge facing the world today. Why? How?

Well…world agricultural production accounts for about three-quarters of the soil erosion worldwide. This steep decline in arable soil is occurring during a time when the world’s demand for food is rapidly increasing. It is estimated that the world will need to grow 50% more food by 2050, and it is important to note that, the total volume of food necessary, remains relative to the nutrient density of the food.

Time for a radical solution, and cannabis can lead the way.

Currently, cannabis is the most profitable crop per land area and very likely the most resource-consumptive crop grown (due to the current legal and regulatory climate and thus limited supply vs. demand).

As the cannabis industry continues to grow, now more than ever we have the opportunity, and I believe the responsibility, to cultivate in ecologically mindful ways, improve the end product and it’s positive impacts, increase both short-term and long-term profits, decrease or eliminate waste and lower the carbon footprint of cannabis cultivation operations.

Most importantly, we have the opportunity to fund, implement and lead the way in research and development of sustainable, medical, phytonutrient-dense crop production methodologies.

Only by implementing more rigorous scientific methods to cannabis cultivation can we hope to provide truly meaningful improvements in and contributions to the fields of agriculture, science, medicine and human health.

While dumpsters of potting soil continue to roll off to the landfill, complex health and human science and the cultivators truly engaged in science will continue to provide meaningful data regarding plant compounds and what factors influence the best outcome for the desired end product.

I am willing to bet that what is best will not be coming from the business models employing antiquated, wasteful and destructive cultivation strategies, and that in due time these models will fade into distant memories.

This is the first in a series of articles, in which we will explore topics related to the pursuit of high yield, phytonutrient-dense “high brix” cannabis production.

The next article will provide a historical and geologic context to the cannabis plant, as viewed from the scope of soil biology and the progression of ecosystems and soil types, and how maximized genetic expression, through maximized soil and plant health influence the production of high quality cannabis.