A Growing Evolution

Stiiizy Senior Director of Cultivation Arthur Mazloumian shares tips and considerations for designing an ideal growing environment, taking into account short- and long-term goals, geographic conditions, automation, and more.

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Designing and building out a cultivation facility requires a number of logistical and capital considerations.
All photos courtesy of Hawthorne Gardening Company

Crop health, yield, and quality are at the heart of any cannabis operation. Building out and maintaining a consistent, clean, and efficient growing environment to optimize those attributes, however, is easier said than done.

To succeed in this endeavor, considering both the minute details and the long-term vision when designing the ideal facility and growing environment for an operation is essential.

“One of the most common challenges, first and foremost, is consistency of design,” says Arthur Mazloumian, senior director of cultivation at Stiiizy, a Los Angeles-based, vertically integrated cannabis company. “When we’re designing facilities, we have to keep longevity in mind, we have to keep [the facility’s] ability in mind, [and] we have to keep replaceability in mind.”

Mazloumian emphasizes the importance of planning ahead before building out your facility, saying cultivators should consider their production and workflow processes.

“If you’re going into automation, set your threshold of where you think your stop point is,” Mazloumian says. “If you’re going go into multi-tier cultivation, set your threshold as to how much canopy you think you can handle, consider where your stop points are, and then really start to build out based on how you envision yourself five or 10 years from now.”

Mazloumian also says, however, that it’s important to understand a facility’s limitations, noting that more equipment does not always equate to better results.

“A lot of times whenever novice designers go in, it’s about throwing in as much equipment as possible, throwing in as many complications as possible,” he says. “What we found is usually keeping it simple is a lot better. You go in with a set strategy, with the buildout in your mind, [and] your set threshold for whatever you’re looking to do.”

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Stiiizy has a number of retail dispensaries throughout California, with products also available in Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and Washington.

Environmental Considerations

Before deciding on which equipment to purchase, first consider your facility, its location, and the related environmental factors.

“What are the conditions in our area? How many seasons are we going to actually see per year? Are we like California where we’re seeing hot and then sort of cold? Or are we in Michigan to where all four seasons [experience] drastic changes?,” Mazloumian says. “Depending on what kind of area we’re in, we’ll go ahead and sort of buffer our environment using different types of equipment.”

As the industry has accelerated its growth in recent years, the equipment cultivators implement has adapted to the changes, as well. Automation has become widely accepted across the industry, for example, and has allowed cultivators greater control over their operations.

“Two or three years ago, I had to go set thermostats for my HVAC system, I had to go set irrigation schedules on a system—nowadays, all of that is in [one] centralized system,” Mazloumian says. “If I want to turn my de-[humidifiers] on, I just press a button on a computer and [they] turn on. If I don’t like how they turn on or they’re turning on too immediately, I get to control how quickly I want them to power up and down. When you have finite levels of control on something, as on something previously not looked at as needing a finite level of control, you can start applying the model to everything.”

As one example, Stiiizy strives for consistent water usage and fertilization across its cultivation.

“It’s really all about consistency. You have to put your measures in place. You have to treat it like a medical facility, essentially, in terms of cleanliness.” – Arthur Mazloumian, senior director of cultivation, Stiiizy

“We applied the same model to our fertigation,” Mazloumian says. “We use medical-grade dosers, [which] are accurate to the second or third decimal place.”

Mazloumian adds that while automation can help with production consistency across growing environments, consistency in processes is equally important and especially crucial when monitoring and mitigating pests and diseases.

“It’s all about cleanliness, it’s all about procedure, it’s all about consistency,” Mazloumian says. “You have to be in a full onesie before you even walk into the building. It might seem excessive, but the pests that we’re talking about are so small, you can’t see them with the naked eye. How do I know a contractor coming into a facility doesn’t carry it on their shoulder? How do I know one of my employees doesn’t have it on a shirt from the night before?

“So it’s really all about consistency,” Mazloumian adds. “You have to put your measures in place. You have to treat it like a medical facility, essentially, in terms of cleanliness.”

Slow and Steady

As the cannabis industry continues to evolve and adapt, so, too, will cultivation operations. While perfecting cultivation may be a lofty task, improvements can be made over time to fine-tune your cultivation—just be sure to take a slow and steady approach, Mazloumian says.

“Keep all your experimenting down to one variable at a time,” he says. “The scientific method works for a reason. We try to follow it as much as we can. If we’re experimenting [with] the differences in different brands of LED lighting, for example, we would cross-compare using the same genetics, the same grow room, the same environments, and all we would change would be the lights—nothing else. If we’re experimenting for one specific variable being changed, we have to make sure that we’re always testing in that specific direction.”

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