
In conversation, many cannabis cultivators will say their area of focus to ensure they grow healthy plants is managing their growing environments.
So many responsibilities of a cultivation team include reading sensors and charts detailing every environmental input, from light intensity, temperature and humidity, to wind speed, vapor pressure deficit and daily light integral (DLI). That’s not to say that regular plant contact is not critical to a cannabis cultivation operation’s success—daily pest and mold inspections are vital in staying ahead of potentially costly problems—but how those tasks are done is highly dependent on how successfully growers can keep their environment within target ranges.
To understand how growers control their cultivation environment, Cannabis Business Times, with support from Hawthorne Gardening Company and in conjunction with third-party research firm Readex Research, conducted exclusive industry research in the second “State of the Growing Environment” report. To ensure the report reflects meaningful results, only data from controlled-environment-agriculture operations is included.
There are multiple variables to take into consideration when buying equipment to control a facility’s environmental conditions: Research participants in this year’s study cited facility size, target temperature and humidity levels, number of lights and plants as important factors when shopping for HVAC systems.
But HVAC systems are not the one-stop shop to a grower’s every environmental need. Airflow has become an increasing area of focus, as evidenced by the significant investment Portland, Ore.-based Meraki Gardens made its indoor facility. With its airflow now figured out, Meraki is growing Clean Green Certified cannabis with little to no pest problems.
The case study on Washington state’s Grow Op Farms shows how historical environmental data can be used to fine-tune cultivation rooms and see problems before they affect crops. “We need to get away from the reactionary side and be as preventative and proactive as humanly possible,” explains Tyler Miller, Grow Op Farms’ facilities manager.
The benchmarking data and case studies presented in this report are important to help advance this industry. Additionally, this intelligence can help cannabis growers who want to collect their own data and make better informed decisions in-house.