Analysis
While options abound when it comes to media selection, the majority of cultivators who participated in the study (72%) use just one to two mixes throughout their grows. Twenty-two percent work with three or four media options, and about 7% use five mixes or more in their cultivation operations.
Less commonality exists among growers’ buying practices. While nearly half (47%) say they purchase standard mixes from growing media manufacturers, many cultivators prepare custom mixes either in conjunction with their manufacturer, or in house. One-quarter of respondents implement manufactured mixes as well as their own in-house mixes. Cultivators who rely solely on their own growing media mixes in house comprised 19% of our research sample.
As far as where cultivators obtain their growing media of choice, most purchase directly from a growing media manufacturer (41%) or from a local retailer (42%), and 18% rely on a regional distributor to supply their mixes.
And regarding locations from where peat is sourced, 34% of cultivators choose peat from the U.S. Just under a quarter of respondents said they source their peat from Canada, and 5% have their peat shipped in from Europe. However, 36% of cultivators report that they aren’t sure where their peat is manufactured, so those numbers could fluctuate with more information.
