Advanced Tips

Advanced Tips

Biofilms in your Grow Ops
Biofilms are slimy layers of microbial colonies that form where microorganisms grow and reproduce. Because microorganisms flourish where water and nutrients are abundant, irrigation systems offer ideal environments for biofilms. When biofilms develop in grow operations, they can create clogs, harbor pathogens and cause oxygen levels in the nutrient solution to drop. Preventing or eliminating biofilms is essential to growing healthy, high-yield crops. How biofilms develop Biofilm begins when free-floating microorganisms in the water supply such as bacteria, fungi, protozoa or algae …
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Clogs in your Grow Room
Clogs in emitters, feeding lines and drains One of the biggest challenges growers face with irrigation systems is clogs. Clogs can form from physical particles, chemical precipitates or biological growth, and they can occur in an irrigation system’s lines, emitters or drains. Not only do they prevent the irrigation system from functioning properly, but they can also be detrimental to crop health and yield. Figure 1 Consequences of clogs Clogging in is more than a maintenance nuisance. Because clogs reduce the uniformity of water …
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Style of Growing: SOG and SCROG
Many indoor growers are challenged by the height limitations of their lighting systems. One solution is to grow shorter plants and focus on developing the canopy, as the buds in the top portion of the plant tend to contain more cannabinoid content than those on lower branches.[1] There are two growing styles to achieve this: Sea of Green (SOG) and Screen of Green (SCROG).[2] [1] https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11010140 [2] Variously spelled “sea of green” and “screen of green” (uncapitalized), as well as SoG, SCRoG, …
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Equipment for Indoor Growing
Growers need a lot of different equipment to foster the ideal conditions for cultivating high-yield, high-quality cannabis indoors. We’ll walk you through your options, depending on your preferred cultivation method, operational size and budget, starting with the crucial decision of whether to use a grow tent or a grow room. Grow tents versus grow rooms Unless you’re a greenhouse grower, your first decision is whether to use a grow tent or construct a grow room from scratch. A grow tent provides cannabis with …
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Photos vs. Autos
Photos vs autos: a comparison In the wake of cannabis legalization, growers have more options than ever when it comes to selecting genetics and strains. An important choice to make is whether to cultivate photoperiod plants (photos) or autoflowering ones (autos). Let’s look at what makes photos and autos unique and the key differences to consider when selecting between these varieties. Photos Photoperiod, also known as photoperiodic or photosensitive, cannabis plants get their name from photoperiodism, the physiological reaction of plants to the recurring cycle …
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Cannabis Life Cycles
In the wild, cannabis goes through three phases during its life cycle: (1) seeds germinate and seedlings sprout from seed; (2) the young plants grow vegetatively, marked by the proliferation of roots, stems and leaves; and (3) the plants mature, budding and flowering or ripening, until they reach sexual maturity, when they drop seed.[1] Understanding the crop life cycle is important for commercial cannabis production. Unless a grower grows an auto-flowering variety, light is the main driver of the “flip” between …
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Starting with Seeds, Clones or Tissue Culture
Growers can start cannabis cultivation from seeds, clones or tissue culture. Starter plants are crucial to successful cannabis cultivation. They are the foundation for high-quality genetics and cannabinoid-profile consistency. But they can also introduce problems out of the gate, particularly pests and diseases. For example, hop latent viroid (HLVd), also known as dudding disease, one of the biggest threats to cannabis production,[1] can easily spread through infected propagation material. Deciding whether to start with seeds, clones or tissue culture depends on a …
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Choosing a Growing Method
Cannabis can be cultivated outdoors, in an open field, or indoors, either within the protection of a greenhouse or in a grow room, a sophisticated indoor controlled growing space that uses artificial light and other inputs. Deciding which growing method to use depends on climatic conditions, available resources and cost. Differences between growing methods The primary difference between outdoor and indoor cannabis cultivation is the level of control growers have. Outdoors, cannabis is grown like most traditional agricultural crops: in soil, often unmulched, …
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Choosing the Right Strain
The choice of strain, or cultivar,[1] primarily depends on customer preferences. Factors to consider include intended use and desired effects, as well as preferred fragrance, color and flavor. For commercial growers, yield potential is another important consideration. These factors also align with the grower’s commercial needs. After all, quality determines price per weight and yield determines quantity, or sales volume. Selecting for quality By quality, we mean fragrance, flavor, color and potency—all of which are significantly determined by genetics. Let’s talk about potency first, …
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Premium or Basic?
Basic blends don’t have what it takes A “basic blend” is typically a simple NPK fertilizer, providing nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, and little or nothing else. They often lack or contain insufficient concentrations of secondary macronutrients and micronutrients, or they are present but in imbalanced ratios. Nor do they usually contain beneficial plant nutrients (i.e., those that aren’t essential, but still provide plant benefits), let alone helpful organic compounds. And, even when a basic blend contains ingredients that go beyond the …
https://www.ekobiogen.eu/the-role-of-silicon-in-plant-growth/Advanced Tips

Silicon: The Truth
Silicon is the second-most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, and it bonds with oxygen to create silicon dioxide, also known as silica, the main component of sand, clay, granite, amethyst, quartz, glass, computer chips, and fiber-optic cables. Silica is also the form of silicon, when it finally comes to rest in plant tissues such as stalks, stems and leaves, that delivers plant benefits. But first silicon must take a long road, going through many chemical conversions—from silicate to silicic acid …
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A Little Goes a Long Way
Hydroponic nutrients need to be applied in the right concentrations at the right times in the crop life cycle. They also need to be formulated in the right ratios, so that the various essential nutrients complement and balance one another rather than work against each other. Plants need at least a minimum amount of every nutrient essential to plant life. Even if a plant gets more than enough of every essential nutrient except one, it might not thrive. If even one …
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