Many Canadians have started to take cannabis cultivation into their own hands. Contrary to what you might think, though, this isn’t because of the legalization of recreational growing. The recent Cannabis Act legislation allowing Canadians to grow 4 recreational plants from home is only partly to thank.

The real reason that more Canadians have taken to cannabis cultivation is the ACMPR. The ACMPR is the government legislation that rules over all things medical marijuana, and this includes growing medical plants from home.

Many Canadians assume that receiving an ACMPR license would be close to impossible, but this isn’t the case. Actually, the application process to grow your own medical marijuana in Canada is a lot easier than you would think. To get you started here’s all the need-to-know information about ACMPR license and growing.

The ACMPR: What It Is and How It Works

The name Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations, ACMPR for short, says it all. This program quite literally gives growing access to license holders who need cannabis for medical purposes. Medical marijuana became legal in Canada back in 2001, and since then, it has just become more and more legit.

By legit, we mean that medical marijuana research is on the rise, and a lot of this research has only good things to say about the holistic treatment alternative. Although there are always risks involved in any type of treatment, many people have come to support marijuana for its health benefits.

Because of this, the ACMPR program has seen a boost in its number of applicants, especially within the past few years. Part of this is thanks to the increased support and research regarding marijuana, especially for the treatment of conditions like chronic pain, cancer in many forms, and anxiety.

But the other reason? It has to do with the fact that the Canadian government doesn’t make it impossible to become licensed. Even after medical marijuana has become legalized, some governments make the process of getting licensed so difficult that it’s just not worth it. This isn’t the case for becoming a registered ACMPR grower.

The ACMPR Application Process: How to Get Licensed

Now that you know just how easy it is to get a license to grow medical plants from home in Canada, you’re probably wondering how to actually start doing it. First of all, there are four requirements for applying, these include:

• You must ordinarily live in Canada
• You must be at least 18 years old
• You must attest that you have not been convicted of a cannabis-related crime
• You must not already be registered

Anyone who meets these requirements is welcome to apply, but first, a few things must be done. The first step, even before glancing at the paperwork, is to receive a medical marijuana prescription. Without one, it would be impossible to prove to the Canadian government that you actually do need to grow your own medical marijuana from home.

Are Doctors Willing to Prescribe Marijuana in Canada?

Even though it’s completely legal, many medical professionals fear that there will be repercussions if they start prescribing their patients with weed. The other issue for some ACMPR applicants is for those who lack a thorough medical history. If you can’t prove your medical history relating to your condition, then getting a prescription will be difficult.

That being said, it’s certainly not impossible to acquire an RX. The trick is finding a doctor who is willing to prescribe the amount you need for treatment. Once that is completed, an ACMPR applicant can move on to the next step - filling out the government paperwork, sending it in, and awaiting approval.

Why Grow With an ACMPR License (and Not Recreationally)

So, you know that the process is easy, you know how it works, and now you might be wondering what’s the point? More specifically, the question on a lot of Canadians’ minds is, why grow with a medical license when recreational growing is now legal under the Cannabis Act?

Good question. The main reason to grow with a medical marijuana license is, well, for medical purposes. Recreational growing laws only allow for 4 plants per household, and a lot of patients who require medical cannabis for treatment will agree that this just isn’t enough.

Take someone suffering from chronic pain as an example. No matter the reason for the pain, treating it requires regular use of cannabis (if that’s the treatment route the patient has chosen). Four plants might sound like enough to a novice cannabis user, but for every day, regular use to treat pain, it’s not.

The real reason to apply to the ACMPR, medical purposes aside, has to do with accessibility. Government-run dispensaries are known for their ability to experience shortages, and they’re also known for overpricing their products.

Both of these things can be avoided with an ACMPR license to grow medicinal plants at home. And the best part? The process is a lot easier than you think!

Cultivation lighting is one of the biggest challenges a cultivator needs to overcome with regard to climate control in a grow operation. Lights alone consume a lot of energy, and with that comes heat. To mitigate the heat for proper climate control in the facility, even more energy is required. While this is fairly common knowledge in the industry, many cultivators aren’t aware that cultivation lighting can help maintain proper environmental conditions in a grow room in addition to saving cultivators money and energy by aiding in maintaining proper humidity.

An explanation of how this works is coming, but first, here’s a little background info to create a full picture.

The Science

In a cultivation environment, management of humidity is a bigger challenge than managing temperature. While cultivation lighting produces 3.41 BTU/kW of sensible heat for every hour that it’s in use (regardless of the type of light), cultivators also understand that their plants transpire nearly every bit of water they consume back into the environment. This requires substantial amounts of energy dedicated to the removal of that water from the air to maintain correct relative humidity. While maintaining both temperature and humidity are critical to a consistent, quality crop, poorly maintained humidity is the bigger risk of the two for failed testing, diminished harvests, and even total crop loss—this means managing humidity is absolutely critical for any successful grower.

Designers of HVAC systems for cultivation must consider both latent and sensible heat in their load calculations. Sensible heat is the amount of heat produced in the space that contributes directly to an increase in room temperature. Sources of sensible heat are primarily cultivation lighting, but include solar gains/envelope loads, fans, pumps, nutrient chillers, and other electrical equipment in use in the cultivation space. Latent heat is the amount of heat absorbed by the climate control system during the process of dehumidification. When the air in the cultivation space passes over the cooling coil of the HVAC system (or dehumidifier), sensible heat is removed. If enough sensible heat is removed to reduce the air temperature to below the dewpoint temperature, moisture condenses from a gas to a liquid state, collects on the cooling or dehumidifier evaporator coil, and drains out of the room. Just as the evaporation of water absorbs BTU’s (and creates a cooling effect), condensation of water releases BTU’s, and creates a heating effect. That heat is absorbed by the cooling medium in a climate control system but does not translate to cooling of the space—instead, that energy is used for dehumidification. This means that in most instances facilities get some indirect dehumidification as a byproduct of sensible cooling, because when cooling a cultivation space, growers are dropping the air temperature over the coils to below the dewpoint temperature. It also means that they get sensible cooling as a byproduct of dehumidification, because they have to reduce the air temperature to wring out the moisture.

Light and Dehumidification

So, where do lights come in? First and foremost, when the lighting is enabled, the climate control system is in operation to maintain temperature setpoints—so, it’s going to be dehumidifying as a byproduct when it’s cooling in typical garden parameters (if a grower deviates from the industry standards and looks for exceptionally cold or dry parameters, this may not be the case—but that’s a different discussion for another time). Climate control systems have a specific maximum sensible capacity and a specific maximum latent capacity at any given cultivation set points. If the system is running for the purposes of sensible cooling, it’s also dehumidifying. So, while the heat from the lights promotes plant transpiration and creates a humidity load in the room, the heat they produce also helps to remove that same humidity.

Wattage and What it Means for Mechanical Systems

When lower wattage lights are in use, most cultivators look to raise ambient temperatures to maintain the same vapor pressure deficit (VPD) that they would have had with higher wattage lights. In those cases, water consumption per kW of light will typically increase. For instance, a cultivator who previously grew under a 1000 watt HID light at 76-78 degrees F and irrigated 1 gallon per day per mature plant, might switch to a 650 watt LED and bump up his or her target temperatures to 82-84 degrees F to maintain VPD in the absence of the more intense radiant heat produced by the higher wattage lamp. In that case, the cultivator will likely be irrigating close to the same volume as they were under the higher wattage DE bulb, but with less heat produced by the bulb. In these instances, well-engineered HVAC systems need to be able to dehumidify the air without necessarily reducing the room temperature overall via net sensible cooling, in order to maintain these humidity setpoints. Popular methods for humidity reduction without cooling include items such as standalone dehumidifiers (electric or desiccant) or reheat via “free” energy from the refrigeration circuit in order to reheat the air after cooling below dry bulb to dehumidify. The reheat can come in the form of direct refrigeration reheat in a packaged unit or hot water reheat via a secondary heat exchanger in the case of a chiller or co-gen process.

Other Considerations

Changing system parameters also impacts the performance of the climate control system— no matter what type of HVAC system is in place. The warmer and more humid the space, and therefore entering air to the unit, the greater the capacity of the air handler or fan coil will be to absorb sensible heat and likely increase its dehumidification capacity as well. Surna has always advocated for energy efficiency in cultivation facilities, and certainly isn’t advocating for higher wattage lights—the point here that there is far more to consider than just a reduction in light wattage when considering facility design and overall energy efficiency.

Modulating hot gas reheat systems and 4-pipe chilled water systems both have an integrated dehumidification option. These systems don’t just dehumidify as a byproduct of cooling; they also have the ability to run in dehumidification mode, to a specific humidity set point. In both types of systems, the cooling coil is enabled when temperature is satisfied but dehumidification is needed, and a reheat coil is enabled to reheat the leaving air temperature to match the entering air temperature. This allows the cooling system to operate as a dehumidifier without subcooling the space (which is possible at any time during the day, but of particular concern during the night cycle when there is no offsetting heat load from the lights). In both types of systems, the reheat is accomplished by reinjecting the sensible heat removed from the room as a byproduct of dehumidification back into the airstream before returning the air to the cultivation space. This is recovered through a reheat coil in HGRH systems, and via water side heat recovery from the condenser in chilled water systems. From a dehumidification standpoint, all climate control systems benefit from the heat produced by lighting during the “day” cycle in cultivation environments, but HGRH and 4-pipe chilled water are best positioned to take the most advantage of it.

With 4-pipe chilled water systems, the benefits can be even further reaching, as the heat produced by cultivation lighting can also be utilized to supplement heat in lights off rooms because it is captured indirectly and pumped via the hot water loop, unlike packaged units which are not connected to each other, or common areas of the building. In later bloom, when humidity targets are generally lower and watering rates are generally higher, all or most of the sensible heat produced by lighting is usually needed in the space for the purposes of dehumidification. But in veg rooms and the first several weeks of flower, there is excess sensible heat that can be recovered from the condenser side of the chiller that isn’t needed for dehumidification in the room from which it’s recovered. It’s important to note that all heat recovery is done through the water or refrigerant in these systems, and not by mixing of air in any space—all cultivation spaces are isolated from each other and common areas at all times. The nature of chilled water systems allows for cooling and heating energy to be distributed anywhere in the building. So, when excess sensible heat is available, it can be routed anywhere in the building (or campus)—including common areas, and for reheat in lights-off rooms when the facility is operated on a flip. This is another area where the excess heat produced by the lights can actually help growers—not just with maintaining humidity in their cultivation spaces, but possibly even helping to reduce ambient heating needs in the rest of the building.

It’s All About Design

When a grower is cultivating in a controlled environment, what they’re really creating is an ecosystem, and there are interlocking relationships between every design decision a grower makes. There are likely to be impacts that they haven’t even considered as they weigh options—and as with anything, the answers aren’t black and white. That’s why Surna is always available to help.

Growers Network would like to thank Brandy Keen and Surna for contributing this valuable info to the blog. What do you think growers? How do you manage the climate in your grow? Head on over to forum and tell us! No a member? Just click one of the "Join Now" buttons on the page. Hope to see there!

Commercial cultivators are continually honing their craft so that every harvest produces only the best crop. However, staying at the top of the market means improving all the time. Without continued refinement, whatever competitive advantages growers may have seen will quickly disappear as a once novel formula becomes just part of the day-to-day at a facility. If growers want to stay at the top, they can’t become complacent. They need to keep the improvements coming.

Staying competitive in a growing market mean growers may have to get out of their comfort zone, and since refinement is the result of trying something new, growers need to be willing to leave their comfort zone when it comes to their grow strategies. To stay ahead of the curve, commercial growers need to be open to experimenting with new products, technologies, methods, amendments, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and of course, their own new innovations. By evaluating strategies and products under controlled conditions, growers can dial-in what works best for their facility and continue improving quality. The most streamlined way to achieve this kind of control is with a test room.

Test rooms are a great place for growers to not only hone their craft through experimentation, but such a space will also allow them to stay on top of the latest industry practices they want to use to increase profits - either an improved product or simply by using the data to drive costs down. For this reason, test rooms are a must-have for any facility that wants to remain competitive in the booming cannabis market. Therefore, investing in a 10-20 plant test room in a facility is one of the best investments a grower can make in their operation.

A test room is not meant to replace or compete with a grower's facility, but rather to be an exact (albeit smaller) replica of the facility. A test room allows growers to try new products and strategies without worrying about affecting the rest of the grow. So, whether the tests fail or succeed, the facility's proven commercial crop methods won’t be affected.

Growers should think of their test room as a lab to test and isolate any new horticultural strategy, technology or product while keeping the other variables in the facility consistent. Whichever condition a grower considers changing and improving should be the only difference between what’s happening in the test room and what’s happening throughout the rest of the facility. A test room allows growers to benefit over the long-term by creating the freedom to test incremental changes and variables over time. This lets the grower implement new strategies when they work and discard strategies that don’t.

Growers should be sure to use the same metrics throughout the regular harvest cycles to measure variables such as growth, weight, and potency and then make an informed comparison by comparing it to the metrics of the test room.

When growers compare their facility results against the same test room metrics, they can zero in on subtle differences. Every harvest now provides data that will help determine the experiment's efficacy, as well as identifying new opportunities to improve the grow.

1. Shine a little light on the subject

The light technology for grow operations is constantly changing and improving and it seems like every new light manufacturer makes the same claim that their technology is “the closest thing to real sunlight.” Smart and savvy growers, however, know that throwing out a few numbers doesn’t make the claim true, and without real data, they probably won’t be eager to switch over to another manufacturer.

Even though cultivation experts aren't necessarily lighting experts, they definitely recognize lights are a major driving force in any operation. That’s why it’s important to take advantage of them as indicators of the operation’s energy consumption and operating costs. It’s in a grower's best interest to find a light that performs best for them in cultivation while also providing lower maintenance costs and high energy efficiency.

In a test room, growers can test a new light they're interested in and by performing their own research, see if it’s something they’d like to incorporate into the facility. In this particular experiment, the new light is the variable.

As mentioned previously, test rooms only need to be large enough for 10-20 plants. It’s important that these plants in the test room are the same cultivars growing in the rest of the facility. Again, test rooms needs to be set up as a smaller scale copy of the rest of the facility to make any meaningful comparisons, so feeding/watering schedules, media, and environmental conditions should be identical in both spaces. With everything else controlled, a grower can test the new light (being sure to follow the manufacturer’s directions and installation guidelines to maximize the results). There are some key specs growers will want to measure through the duration of the test to help them establish a baseline:

• the power consumption of the new light in kW;
• the average PAR (Photosynthetic Photon Flux) for the footprint of the light;
• its luminosity in PPFD (Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density). PPFD measures the amount of PAR that actually arrives at the plant canopy;
• and most importantly, the total weight of the flowers from each plant wet and dry, along with potency (THC and CBD) and overall perceived quality.

Lighting companies that only publish the PPFD at the center point of a coverage area are likely overstating the true light intensity of a fixture. A single measurement does not tell growers much, since, depending on the efficacy and quality of the fixture, many horticulture lights are generally brightest in the center. Light levels decrease as measurements are taken towards the edges of the coverage area (light footprint). To ensure growers get actual average PPFD values over a defined growing area, they must test the measurement distance from the light source from multiple points at canopy level to ensure accurate values.

So, a test room is perfect for this application before the young plants are introduced!

Then, if the light performs as expected (exceeding the results from the present lights), a new test can be initiated during the next cycle to see how well it performs with another strain.

The variable in this case will be the strain itself. Certain light brands perform better with certain specific strains.

It’s important to note that a plant’s metabolism is impacted by a number of complementary variables (lighting, feeding, temperature, humidity, CO2 levels, ventilation, and other factors all influence plant behavior and harvest results). When a grower changes just one variable, they might not get the results they’re looking for without then adjusting the next variable, and the next, and so on. This would not be feasible in a production environment, but with a test room, growers aren’t limited by the need for a successful harvest—instead, the motivation is to continuously improve the specific “recipe.”

2. PUTTING DOWN ROOTS

Growing media directly affect the health and bounty of the plants in any given facility. As the old adage, “The Bigger Roots, The Bigger the Fruits” goes, a commercial grower owes it to their bottom-line profit margins to use test rooms to experiment with different forms of media. This is especially true for growers who prefer to grow in soil. Talk to any commercial grower whose media of choice is soil and they’ll report there’s practically an infinite number of paths to create the perfect soil mix recipe. Growers who cultivate in soil often consider their recipe to be as important as any other element in the environment. To test and perfect requires a test room. The recipes for the ingredients and especially the proportions (the key to any recipe!) of each ingredient is a jealously guarded secret for most commercial soil growers. So much so, that they remind journalists that they don’t feed their plants, they feed their soil! They develop and test their recipes in a test room where the recipe of ingredients added to the soil base becomes the variable.

New hydroponics and aeroponics systems are perfect fodder for a facility’s test room as well. This is because for hydroponics, the media of either peat, coco coir, clay pellets or rock wool is often not the main variable being tested. It is the new hydroponics system itself that becomes the variable! For example, growers who strive to be on the cutting-edge of every new development in commercial cultivation improve their operations substantially, and just have plain old fun experimenting with a new hydroponics system in their test room every time one is introduced onto the market. It’s all fun and games before somebody figures out that from their own carefully calculated experiments using their test room, many “die-hard” soil growers have made the complete switch from soil to hydroponics when a particular hydroponic system employed in their test room has proven itself to be more efficient, economical, and impactful to the bottom line.

3. PLANT NUTRITION CAN BE FINE-TUNED IN A TEST ROOM FOR “FAT” BUDS

Especially suited for hydroponics growers, a test room is ideal for trying new hydroponic nutrient solutions. Although nutrient producers carefully define the exact ratio of nutrient in an irrigation tank, depending on the stage of growth, large commercial hydroponics growers need to be very careful when trying a new pre-mixed nutrient product since one reservoir can water and feed over a thousand plants in the main system. Even the slightest error in nutrient dosing can result in catastrophe, especially in hydroponic applications where there is no soil or soil-less media as a buffer.

Flowering stage can pose even greater challenges since many cannabis strains require a special mixture of nutrients that most nutrient companies don’t account for. In many cases, one size just doesn’t fit all. Some cultivars will consume more of a particular element than others, some will produce higher quality with slight tweaks to the recipe. The list is nearly endless. With a test room, hydroponics growers can experiment with nutrient solutions when sampling a different brand, using their existing preferred brand with a new strain, or mixing their own to come up with a proprietary and targeted recipe for a specific strain.

Testing of this nature isn’t feasible without a testing room. If production plants do not get enough (or get too much) of a given nutrient, quality and harvest volume will be negatively impacted, which will devalue an entire crop and hit growers right in the pocketbook.

A test room can offer a buffering zone with only a small number of plants where new nutrient mixes can be applied, and then fine-tuned until a perfect solution is reached and then synchronized with the flower development stages before it is fed into the main feeding system of the facility.

These are only three key areas, and growers know the variables and ideas that can be tested are nearly endless. Therefore, growers can use their test room to measure a wide variety of specific applications that promise improvement. KNOWING is far better than guessing, and with a test room, growers will know what to expect once they're ready to introduce new discoveries into their production SOPs.

Growers Network would like to thank Brandy Keen and Surna for this in depth look at the benefits of using a test room in your facility. What about you readers? Are you using a test room in your facility? We'd love to hear about your experience. Join our forums and start a conversation! Just click one of the "Join Now" buttons on this page.

Mold, Mildew, and Pests are common problems most cannabis growers will encounter at some point in their garden. In this article we are going to discuss creating an IPM strategy, common mistakes that can occur and some tips on how to avoid them in order to grow and provide access to the best and cleanest medicine possible.

IPM or Integrated Pest Management is a holistic approach to growing crops and managing pests. The International Code of Conduct on Pesticide Management provides the following definition, “Integrated Pest Management (IPM) means the careful consideration of all available pest control techniques and subsequent integration of appropriate measures that discourage the development of pest populations and keep pesticides and other interventions to levels that are economically justified and reduce or minimize risks to human health and the environment. IPM emphasizes the growth of a healthy crop with the least possible disruption to agro ecosystems and encourages natural pest control mechanisms.”

Well devised IPM strategies will result in reductions in pollution from pesticides and pesticide run-off, reductions in worker exposure to toxic pesticides, and most importantly for cannabis consumers, controlling pesticide contamination in consumed cannabis and cannabis products. This matters significantly to the consumer. In states that have legalized for recreational purposes it matters equally to the producer since regulations are in effect requiring cannabis products to be tested for a variety of pesticide residues which have been banned for cannabis production. Every rec state has a list of banned and allowed pesticides for cannabis production. And in every state, the banned list dwarfs the allowed list. Conventional pesticide approaches tended to involve the use of products such as neonicotinoids which take a nuclear, “kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out” type of approach to pest management. This type of strategy in agriculture has created massive reductions in global insect populations over the last 30 years. From a greater environmental perspective, good IPM practices result in healthy insect populations, which ultimately are at the base of the entire global food chain. IPM really is all about acting locally and thinking globally.

Good IPM strategy involves being able to identify pests and problems early, evaluating the damage or potential for damage to occur (both environmentally and monetarily) and understanding and evaluating the options available for managing the situation. These options are commonly understood in IPM strategy as falling under the headers of: Cultural Controls, Mechanical or Physical Controls, Biological Controls, and Chemical Controls.

Implementing an IPM strategy is more about critical planning and harm reduction than anything else. It begins with implementing very simple common-sense approaches to crop production. One of the first steps to good crop management involves the concept of Cultural Controls. This can involve annual crop rotation, symbiotic companion planting, and choosing crops or strains that are well adapted to the environment. For cannabis producers, critically examining the length of your season, typical annual humidity cycle, and temperature ranges in your locale and choosing cultivars that are well adapted to that environment is key because this choice ensures healthy plants which are less susceptible to pests. Choosing good companion plants is one of the easiest, cheapest, and most beneficial Cultural Control options to be considered. Choices involve co-growing plants with your cannabis that either thwart and repel pest species or alternatively, plants that may be preferred by pest species so that the pests choose to congregate on those plants rather than the cannabis. Yarrow, marigolds, chamomile and sunflowers are common annual choices and many common herbs such as garlic, thyme, and peppermint will contribute their essences toward the cause of pest free cannabis.

Mechanical or Physical Controls are mechanisms that can be utilized in both indoor and outdoor environments. It involves using tools like indicator cards (sticky traps) to help in early identification and diagnosis. Other tools that can be used both indoor and out are using tools that create barriers (fencing, screens, or even sound wave generation.) In indoor environments this can include the use of Tyvek suits and shoe covers, a clean room with a windscreen to prevent pests from entering grow spaces, hermetically sealed grow rooms, quarantine areas for observing new plants that could be vectors for pests etc. It can also take the shape of utilizing humidity control relative to the preferences of specific pest species; i.e., during a spider mite outbreak increasing relative humidity to control the growth of the population, or transversely, reducing humidity in response to mold or powdery mildew growth.

Biological Controls involve utilizing living organisms to control pest outbreaks. This includes things like culturing an environment for and introducing various beneficial insects, fungus, or bacteria. Beneficial insects which prey upon pest species include predator mites, ladybugs, and praying mantises. There are also beneficial bacteria which exhibit pesticidal characteristics such as Bacillus thuringiensis, which is commonly used to treat caterpillars. Beauveria bassiana is a fungal species that will infect certain pest species and can be helpful for treating aphids and thrips. Beware that as a cannabis producer the product testing required for cannabis products in many states require a TYM (Total Yeast and Mold) test. The TYM tends to only broadly test for total micro biological content without making distinctions between beneficial or not, so the very presence of the beneficials can cause a producer’s entire harvest to be at risk of being refused market entry and possibly even being confiscated and destroyed. Utilizing these biological controls can also be difficult because the environment needs to tailored to harbor and be hospitable for them. If a ladybug or preying mantis sees greener pastures elsewhere, they will readily depart. Predator mites like the pest mite species are sensitive to environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity, so creating a hospitable environment for the predator mite also requires creating a hospitable environment for the pest species.

Chemical Controls, rather obviously, entail the use of chemical pesticides and in most IPM strategies are the option of last resort. In conventional agriculture, the term “Preventative Maintenance” describes the application of a broad spectrum, systemic pesticide that typically goes against all IPM strategy and really connotates a “take no prisoners, kill em all” approach to pesticide application. In cannabis, most of those types of pesticides are not allowed for use at all and the application thereof will typically cause a producer’s entire harvest to again be at risk of being refused market entry and almost certainly being confiscated and destroyed. The lists of approved pesticides for cannabis in every rec state include biological controls (although some of these will cause TYM test failure) and FIFRA 25B exempt products. These products are items that the EPA has labeled as minimum risk pesticides and typically involve the use of horticultural oils, insecticidal soaps, and essential oils. In the cannabis arena specifically there is a new understanding of the use of the term “Preventative Maintenance.” It has come to mean using these minimum risk pesticides preventatively, or applying a low dose of these types of products on a re-occurring basis in order to be proactive rather than reactive. Hence, FIFRA 25B exempt product will often have instructions for 2 separate distinct specific dilutions for the product: one for treating infestations, and another for preventative maintenance applications.

These minimum risk pesticides often contain some type of nontoxic oil or oils. Soybean oil, peppermint oil, and mineral oil, are common and typically coupled with a soap to act as an emulsifier. Many of these products make claims that they can prevent and treat a broad range of pests as well as mold and mildew. Unfortunately, most of them don’t contain the variety of oils necessary to achieve these results.

In our experience there is one product that all the pros are using and is definitely worth an honorable mention. That product is Trifecta Crop Control. Trifecta Crop Control contains a wide variety of essential oils including Thyme, Clove, Garlic, Peppermint, Rosemary, and Geraniol, as well as Corn Oil which constitute a product that is scientifically proven to be effective against a broad range of pests as well as mold and powdery mildew because each ingredient has separate and distinct functions. Peppermint acts as a reproductive inhibitor. Clove oil kills mold and mildew. Garlic, rosemary and thyme are powerful repellents. Corn oil acts as a suffocant.

Trifecta Crop Control is also unique in having been made with special equipment that creates a nano-emulsion out of the oils. When the product is being mixed it goes through a propriety high shear milling process that makes the oil droplets nano sized when they disperse in water. The result is a crystal-clear diluted product that does not separate in the applicator tank. Therefore, it does not need constant mixing to stay together. When it applies to the plant it goes on in a uniform even manner, while the tiny droplet size prevents the oils from choking off the plant’s ability to respire.

When creating an IPM strategy in conventional agriculture, typically one looks first to every other option; Cultural, Mechanical, and Biological before choosing Chemical. Fortunately, minimum risk pesticides such as Trifecta Crop Control allow producers to find an agent that complements and works directly with each of the above strategies without the negative environmental and safety repercussions that occur with indiscriminate use of conventional pesticides.

As noted earlier, companion plants are one way to exhibit Cultural Control. A product such as Trifecta Crop Control contains essential oils from many of the companion plants that could be cultivated. When applied as a preventative maintenance application, there will be a similar effect upon the cultural environment.

This low dose, minimum risk pesticide approach also works well with the utilization of mechanical controls. In both indoor and outdoor environments, indicator cards are a producer’s best friend - allowing them to stay ahead of the pests and catching them while the populations are low before full blown infestations happen. Using indicator cards will allow you to decide to transition from a preventative maintenance dose to an infestation dose before an infestation gets completely out of control.

It is also very helpful to be able to utilize control of humidity when spraying minimum risk pesticides like Crop Control, which can greatly increase the treatment’s effectiveness by simultaneously creating environmentally inhospitable environments for the specific pest species. For instance, when treating spider mites, use whatever mechanical controls are at your disposal: increase the humidity, turn off all air circulation and utilize the moisture to your advantage. Conversely, when treating Powdery Mildew, aim for low humidity. Increase air movement and circulation, turn on every fan at your disposal, and spray an hour or so before the light cycle starts so that the water from the spray evaporates rapidly. In outdoor environments this can translate to spraying for Spider Mites at dusk and treating Powdery Mildew at dawn.

Trifecta Crop Control can also be used in conjunction with some biological controls. It is gentle enough that ladybugs and praying mantises are typically not impacted by it. When using other biological controls such as predators or beneficial microorganisms, rotation with a minimum risk pesticide and allowing a week or two without any spraying while the beneficial species does its work can be necessary.

This type of preventative maintenance application is ultimately very economical for high value crops such as herbs, flowers, grapes or cannabis. Trifecta Crop Control uses a ½ to 1 oz/ gallon dilution for most preventative applications and 2 oz for treating most infestations. The Trifecta company has calculated that it costs $.40-.80 throughout the entire life cycle for a large outdoor cannabis plant to be sprayed with a preventative maintenance dose. It’s a small amount of revenue to spend for a whole lot of peace of mind.

Keep in mind that these products are not panaceas. There are some pest species that they are more effective against, and other that they are less so. As a preventative, they do a great job keeping most plants clean but some infestations are easier to treat than others. Sometimes beneficials are needed in the rotation. This is why overall IPM strategy is so important. Careful planning, understanding your environment and picking the correct strains and companion plants can save you thousands of dollars. Building out functional systems, identifying problems clearly and early, and bringing all the systems described in this article to bear in a systematic way are so crucial to success for the modern cannabis producer.

When can you sex your cannabis plants? Well, the earlier you attempt to determine the sex of a plant, the harder it is because until the reproductive structures appear, there's not really a visible difference. Some growers will say you can use characteristics such as height and girth, but this isn't always, if ever, truly effective. Additionally, different cultivars will vary based on their phenotypes so what might make a good identifying characteristic for one type of plant, wouldn't necessarily hold true for another variety. Even investigating the genetic origins of your cannabis seeds will be very little help.

The most common way to sex your plants, is to examine the reproductive parts. If you see little, round pods at the nodes where the fan leaves attach to the main stem, you're looking at pollen sacs and you have a male. These sex organs begin to develop around the time you want to move to flower so make sure you check them every day and remove males as soon as you identify them. You can distinguish the male pods from the female pistils because the male organs tend to be extra rounded and plump. The females' pistils are longer, thinner, and hair-like.

Female Cannabis Plants

As mentioned above, female cannabis plants exhibit their first sex characteristic about the time they are ready to enter the flowering cycle. At this time, the thin, hair-like pistils emerge at the nodes where the flowers will grow.

Depending on how long your vegetative cycle is, your females may start producing their pistils before you move them to flower. So, if you see wispy white hair developing on the plant late in veg or as you begin flowering, you have a female plant.

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Male Cannabis Plants

Male cannabis plants sex organs look like tiny little spheres growing on the nodes, the same location as your pistils. If left to mature, the pollen sacks will open and pollinate your females, the way flowering plants reproduce in the wild. More than likely however, you don't want your males to pollinate your females. Most growers interested in growing quality flower remove the males as soon as they're identified to keep their buds seedless and potent. which develop and fill with pollen. Like with the female plants, you'll notice the males' pollen sacks developing late in veg or early in flower. You still have a little time before the males are mature enough to spread their pollen, but you should remove the males as soon as they're identified.

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How to determine female plants if starting out with regular seeds

You don’t have to wait for the flowering stage! There are two proper ways to use to determine a plant's sex in the vegetative stage. Of course, this step can be avoided with feminized seeds, but if you have regular seeds, read on!

1: Examining the Pre-Flowers
Pre-flowers expose the gender of your plant by around 6 weeks from seed, and as early as 3 weeks from cannabis seed for some plants. In this expanse, you’ll find pre-flowers packed at the nodes of the plant.

2: Using Clones
The following process can help you distinguish the gender of a plant even before pre-flowering. If you’re just growing 1, 2, or 3 plants, it can be unbearable to find out all your plants are male, and you need to begin over to produce buds so the earlier you can sex your plants, the better!
When cannabis seeds are still in the germination stage, there’s no way to determine which plants are male or female. You have to “wait and see.” Male cannabis plants eventually produce their pollen sacs, and female cannabis plants begin to develop white hairs that spread into the flowers that contain THC and other cannabinoids.

How to Sex Your Plants from Clones
You can wait until your plants simply show the earliest signs of their gender and then exclude all the males, but that means you have to inspect the plants continually until the first signs of their reproductive organs appear. A downside to this method is the time and energy wasted nurturing male plants. Again, unless you're breeding, get rid of all male plants right away.

• Take a clone from an unverified cannabis plant
• Mark both the clone and the mother plant, so you recognize which clone originated from which the corresponding mother. If you don’t label them clearly, then all your work will go to waste
• Once the clones have developed roots, grow just the clones into flowering mode by giving them a photo-period of 12 hours on and 12 hours off.
• The clones should start exposing their gender in a week or two. Males will start forming balls, and females will begin producing white hairs.
• Once you have determined the gender of your clones, you should make sure you remove and destroy male plants.

As a final thought, you need to be proactive and get rid off the male plants before they begin releasing pollen. You don’t want to waste your time an energy tending to plants you're going to get rid of anyway and you probably don't want your flower full of seeds. If this sounds like you, remember to sex your plants!

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Growers Network would like to thank Shanta for providing this contributor article. What did you think? How do you sex your cannabis plants? Join our community of growers and start a conversation. Just click one of the "Join Now" buttons on this page. See you there!