Cannabis plants have basically three growth stages in their life cycle: propagation (whether from tissue culture/clones/seeds), vegetation, and flowering. Each of these stages has different requirements to maximize the crop’s potential. Environmental conditions, production methodologies, and horticultural techniques all vary depending on where the plants are in their development.

In the first part of this three-part series, I present my top tips for successful cannabis propagation. Parts 2 and 3 will share tips on vegetating plants and flowering crops, respectively.

Given that there are different requirements for outdoor growing, indoor growing, and mixed-lighting settings, the tips presented here may favor one environment over another, but all have relevance to multiple environments.

1. Start with more tissue cultures/clones/seedlings than you need. Having too many plants might be difficult to manage at first, but the plethora of options can allow you to cherry pick only the best specimens to transfer to vegetation (stage 2). The more options you have, the easier it is to eliminate any undesirable plants (such as any male plants or any plants that do not exhibit quality traits) in favor of only the ones best suited for your production needs.

2. Remove any unnecessary plant material. Whether propagating from clones or seed, it is best to remove the lower leaves early so that the energy and resources the plant otherwise would have allocated to keeping that unproductive lower foliage alive can be employed to make the existing vegetation that much healthier. On a 6-inch clone, anything below the top two leaf sets and the top shoot can be trimmed or eliminated.

“Lollipopping,” as it’s called, is a common practice in many forms of agriculture. Tree farmers, for example, regularly remove lower branches on a tree trunk or sapling at the base of a tree (commonly referred to as “suckers” because they are useless and “suck” energy from the tree).

3. Cover rockwool or media to prevent algae growth. Algae can grow on the surface of rockwool, perlite, and coco fiber-based growing media. Light, combined with moisture and a food source, encourages algae spores to grow and bloom on the media’s surface and can sometimes cover the entire top surface. On rockwool, this algae growth can prevent the media from absorbing maximum amounts of moisture. The algae also will compete for nutrients which can cause nutrient deficiencies. Algae also encourages fungus gnat proliferation.

Therefore, the media should always be covered or shaded to prevent light transmission. Multiple products made to prevent light from contacting the media are available, including simple black plastic strips (2-4 mm thick).

4. Let your roots breathe. Many growers are aware that plants “breathe in” CO₂ through leaf surface pores in the photosynthesis process. What often gets overlooked is that the plant’s root system needs oxygen. If you don’t believe it, you can test it by placing a plastic bag around a plant’s root system and only pump CO2 into the plastic bag; the plant ultimately would die.

A rooting plant is not trying to photosynthesize to replicate more vegetation. A rooting plant requires elevated oxygen levels to aid in root production. This is not to say the plant only requires oxygen in stage 1, but to clarify that a rooting plant needs more than just CO2. When rooting clones, it is beneficial to periodically exchange the air in the cloning environment, whether it is a whole room or simply a small cloning tray. I prefer to exchange air twice a day.

5. Never place an unrooted clone under intense direct light. A clone does not require intense light until it has formed roots. An unrooted clone exposed to excessive light levels will attempt to photosynthesize, but it cannot do so without roots to uptake moisture and nutrients, so it will sacrifice and cannibalize its existing leaves in an attempt to produce new vegetation.

Unrooted clones require approximately 800 lumens per square foot of grow space, and a rooted clone requires no more than 1,500 lumens per square foot. That said, all cultivars are unique and some may tolerate different light levels during the rooted clone stage.

Tissue cultures have a similar lighting requirement as a clone, except that radiant heat is an additional concern in tissue culture, so minimal lighting is preferred (under 800 lumens per square foot). Delicate seedlings require little lighting when initially germinating, but as roots form and leaves multiply, the lighting requirements ramp up in intensity.

6. Keep temperatures cooler compared to stages 2 and 3. Ambient temperature is the temperature of the air that surrounds you. Radiant heat is the hotter temperature that radiates from an object (e.g., the hood of your car when left in the sun). Neither clones nor tissue cultures nor seedlings prefer elevated temperatures. Always monitor the air temperature surrounding these delicate plants, as well as their media temperatures and, if possible, the air layer at the tops of the plants to ensure there is no elevated radiant heat near plant tips. I prefer to keep propagation rooms between 70 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

7. Adapt your watering schedule to your propagation method. Seedlings and clones require periodical watering, while tissue cultures require no watering until they are moved to a media.

After a watering, clones and seedlings should be allowed to slowly transition from wet to damp—but they must never fully dry out. The key is to keep the media moist enough to encourage root development and growth, but at the same time not kill them with kindness by overwatering them. Overwatering can both stress out a clone or seedling as well as encourage mold, mildew, and disease. Slowly drying out the media encourages oxygen to be drawn into it, and the oxygen, in turn, aids in root development and growth. Never overwater or underwater seedlings or clones. Oxygen-rich water should be utilized for all stages of plant growth.

8. Acclimate your propagated plants prior to moving them to vegetation. Regardless of the method, all propagation plants require hardening off (or acclimatization). The light levels and temperatures required in stage 2 of plant environments are different than stage 1; therefore, after the plants are rooted and begin to photosynthesize, they need to be acclimated to the new environment slowly to be able to tolerate the increased light and temperature levels.

A good way to do this is to slowly increase light levels in the clone area over the course of the final propagation week. Another option is to have a specific hardening off area in the stage 2 room where light levels are minimized to mimic the stage 1 area at first before slowly increasing them over the week.

Be mindful of the process, as the increased light levels will also bring higher temperatures and humidity as plant transpiration increases. Do not try to harden off your plants too rapidly—like the tortoise, slow and steady wins the race.

Good clones make good plants, which in turn make good finished product. That said, the vegetative plants you take clones from are just as important to your propagation success as following these tips.

Kenneth Morrow is an author, consultant and owner of Trichome Technologies. Facebook: TrichomeTechnologies Instagram: Trichome Technologies k.trichometechnologies@gmail.com

In January 2021, a major cannabis business acquisition in California resulted in the launch of The Parent Company—a vertically integrated suite of brands that includes Caliva and Left Coast Ventures, as well as Jay-Z’s MONOGRAM and Roc Nation. Through M&A and organic activity in the past year, The Parent Company is in 80% of legal California jurisdictions as of Q4.

Cannabis Business Times spoke with Chief Development Officer Steve Allan to learn more about The Parent Company’s first year in business.

Eric Sandy: The Parent Company just acquired Coastal Dispensaries. What does that mean for the business now?

Steve Allan: We’re thrilled about the opportunity to join forces with the Coastal folks. We’ve been looking at opportunities to expand our direct-to-consumer footprint. We really believe, in the nascency of the cannabis days, that direct-to-consumer interaction is incredibly important. When you look very specifically at California, we really have an access problem out here for California consumers.

Coastal was so strategically well positioned in high-traffic locations. A lot of cannabis dispensaries, unfortunately, have been positioned in some less desirable locations. I think that just happened as local administrations were getting more comfortable with cannabis, and you’re now seeing newer [administrations] that are understanding that you really want to put these in what we call “Class-A” real estate. That’s something Coastal was focused on, and it excited us when we went in and looked at their storefronts [and] locations, and mapped out the existing dispensaries against future licensing.

ES: Vertical integration is almost a de facto requirement in California. How does that help in brand development?

SA: There’s still a vast majority of people who are not cannabis users or who fall into the canna-curious bucket but not the canna-educated bucket. A lot of the ways consumers are receiving education are through conversations with budtenders or wellness consultants within dispensaries or retail outlets. The ability to provide meaningful, transparent, accurate information to the consumer to help them make an informed decision is important because you really have limitations on marketing. You even have constraints on where you can stick billboards.

The reality is if you don’t have that retail or direct consumer footprint to provide that on an omni-channel, statewide basis, it may actually be difficult for your consumer or potential consumer to access your products. Now, 10 years down the road, are we going to be having these same types of issues? No, because the marketing messaging and education components will have matured. We’ll see a much more reliable and typical CPG environment melding together with a retail environment.

ES: Earlier this year, MONOGRAM launched an awareness campaign around some of the legal and historical context of the plant and this industry. Can you elaborate on the role of a campaign like that?

SA: We are battling a 50-year war on drugs. “Egg-in-a-frying pan,” “Just say no,” some of these images are indelibly marked in people’s brains. There’s a lot of misinformation and ignorance around what that was, and erasing that isn’t something you can just do overnight.

Being able to take cultural icons such as Jay-Z and the talent within Roc Nation to help with that education will cause people to ask questions like, “Should I be more curious about this?” Or, “How can I go learn more about this?” We look at it as part of the role and responsibility and opportunity that exists for The Parent Company and our partners.

Editor’s note: This interview is based on the transcript from the Oct. 29, 2021, episode of the “Beyond the Show” podcast, and has been edited for length and clarity.

One notable contrast in this year’s “State of the Cannabis Nutrients Market” report, compared to the 2019 study, is that fewer cultivators indicated they are confident in their nutritional knowledge. On a scale of 0 (not knowledgeable) to 5 (very knowledgeable), 66% of this year’s participants selected 4 or 5—compared to 76% who did so in the 2019 report.

As far as what cultivators prioritize when choosing which nutrients to use, “results/performance” is key—two-thirds of cultivators noted this as an important factor when selecting a nutrient line. This is in contrast to “product claims,” which just 8% of cultivators noted as among the most important factors in selecting nutrients. This could indicate growers rely on proof-of-work more than marketing in their decision making. “Price” is also significant in decision making, rated as an important factor by 42% of cultivators in this year’s study. More than one-third of participants indicated that nutrients being “organic” was an important factor in nutrient selection.

The vast majority of cannabis cultivators (85%) amend their base nutrients with a wide-range of supplements. The most commonly used supplements are “bloom enhancers/boosters,” which are in use by more than half (53%) of cultivators who participated in this year’s research. Fewer growers in this year’s study reported using “kelp” and “humic/fulvic acid” compared to 2019 report results—34% of cultivators noted they used “kelp” in 2021 vs. 45% in 2019, and 36% indicated they used “humic/fulvic acid” vs. 47% in 2019. In contrast, “silica” was cited more often in 2021 (43%) than in 2019 (30%). That said, more research is needed to confirm whether these are trends or sampling biases.

A plurality of growers (41%) indicated they cultivate cannabis using an “organic living soil/compost”-based media. Reported “outdoor field/soil” use dropped this year (23%) compared to 2019’s report (39%). “Deep water culture (DWC)” and “nutrient film technique” also saw drops in use compared to 2019’s report (down 4 percentage points each), but as with the supplements growers use, more research is needed to confirm or contradict a trend.