Learning As We Grow: A Look at Innovative Cannabis Growing Techniques

Written By: Kayla Zadow

There are a LOT of people out there growing great cannabis with drastically differing views on what will yield the healthiest, most desirable crops. This isn’t new. Humans have always competed with each other and with mother nature, trying to manipulate and cultivate the most fruitful possible outcome. Through all of this passionate disagreement around grow methods, there has never been a consensus reached. In some ways I hope there never is, because competition does breed some pretty amazing innovation. The best part is that, ultimately, this will always come down to each unique stoner, deciding their stance by what provides them with the experience they love.

One of the coolest thing about legalization is how much more discerning we’re all able to be with such an abundance of choice and availability. You can go to your local dispensary and ask for the specific requirements that you like to see in your cannabis grows. Do you prefer organic cannabis? Or, cannabis grown at a micro scale, where master growers separate their carefully-hunted cultivars into small rooms for a higher level of accuracy and attention to that unique plant profile? You have the power to ask for that now!

It all comes down to the soil.

When we think about cannabis plants, it’s easy to get focused on what’s happening above ground, neglecting the small but profound steps that produce our big beautiful buds. Over at Coast Mountain Cannabis, they compare the importance of soil health to the human body. “Soil is similar to the human digestive system, where millions of different bacteria and enzymes work to break down food so the body can uptake nutrients and minerals.” (CMC., 2023).

Concocting and feeding soil that is full of bacteria and living matter promotes nutrients that the cannabis plant can then absorb and use to grow and prosper. This way of farming is even more important when you start to think on a global, mass production scale. As is the case in the smaller-scale agricultural industry, there is a rise in cannabis growers adopting more sustainable and regenerative methods, allowing them to grow year after year without depleting their soil of its nutrients. This regenerative style of growing actually allows for an overall increase in the quality of the soil after each grow.

Examples of this type of regenerative farming can be found at a number of cannabis companies growing for the legal market today. Instead of repeatedly using the same depleted rockwool grow medium, necessitating the re-introduction of nutrients, we’re seeing a switch back to cannabis’ original growing “roots”: in soil. Interestingly, as the team at Coast Mountain Cannabis points out, it’s not as simple as organic = regenerative. “Not everything grown organically provides the full regenerative benefits to the soil or the earth. Soil health affects everything from plant health to human wellbeing to the future of our planet. Using regenerative organic indoor practices allows the soil to repair itself to stay alive and healthy, harvest after harvest, without being depleted. In fact, these regenerative best practices not only maintain soil health, but improve it over time. That is the true meaning of sustainable “living soil” (CMC., 2023).”

Many companies, like Coast Mountain Cannabis, Simply Bare, Good Buds, Reef Organics, TGOD and 1964, have implemented various sustainable growing practices by incorporating the local ecosystems around them. For example, Coast Mountain Cannabis feeds their soil with local nutrients drawn from British Columbia's native ecosystems, sourcing Douglas Fir from the Sunshine Coast, kelp from the shores of Salt Spring Island, and glacial rock dust from Whistler (CMC., 2023).

On the P+L team, we have a couple of keen home growers that have been experimenting with their soil practices. Sarah and her husband Kevin have attempted a couple different growing methods in hopes to increase the quality of their cultivars. “Initially when we started growing in 2020, we were growing synthetic, and that was okay but we wanted to explore some other options, including going the organic route and using our own living soil. Notably, we have observed an incredible difference in the smell, taste, and bud structure since switching things up.”

In looking for advice online, Sarah and Kevin found Mr.Canucks Grow on YouTube to be a great resource. They have adapted their approach to organic growing practices by incorporating living red worms to their soil, feeding their soil various fruit, vegetables and egg shells from their home compost. They also recycle their soil after every grow, topping up the remained with Gaia Greens 4-4-4 and 2-8-4.

Keeping like with like

Let’s talk grow rooms. On average, cannabis grow facilities are typically around 10,000-20,000 square feet. Micro facilities, like the ones under Carmel, grow within multiple 2,100-2,400 square foot rooms. Carmel’s head grower Drew Lian prefers this hands-on approach. “In the larger scale facilities, you transplant the plant, you put it in the [grow] room and you don’t come back until harvest.”

The micro-grow room model enhances growers’ ability to interact and check on each individual plant. Larger scale facilities, where grow rooms can exceed 500,000 square feet, simply make it impossible to have the same level of consistency and attention to detail. Most cannabis micro-producers will design grow rooms to suit specific cultivars, to allow for the utmost precision. Joi Botanicals is an example of a small batch grow facility that practices single strain rooms, tailoring the environment in each room to match the unique needs of each individual strain.

This is certainly not a practice exclusive to Joi Botanicals and producers like Carmel and Coterie also use a similar grow room approach to get the most out of their plants. Organnicraft also separates their grow rooms by strain, running multiple batches of each cultivar until they reach their level of satisfaction and have fine-tuned their environment.

Our store manager Tiffany, who grew with an ACMPR license once upon a time, also agrees that small batch, single strain rooms are the best way to grow cannabis, stating, “I always recommend growing one cultivar per room. All plants are not the same and therefore like different growing environments, room temperatures, watering schedules, etc. It is better to grow one variety really well vs. a bunch of varieties that don’t do well together. Then you just end up with a room full of mediocre plants.”

Heavy hitters, with a light footprint

Reef Organic is Canada’s very first Clean Green Certified producer. The Clean Green Certified program was created in 2004 as a way to regulate legal cannabis products that label themselves as “organic” and developed a program to help farms and products obtain a certification based on national and international organic, sustainable, and regenerative standards. They are the longest running, largest, and most award-winning organic and regenerative cannabis certification program in the world, and are recognized globally. Other recognized certification programs exist within Canada, such as the Fraser Valley Organic Producers Association (FVOPA) that many farms like Good Buds, found in British Columbia, are certified under.

The way that Reef Organics regenerates the living soil they grow in is quite unique. Building off a traditional aquaponics growing system, they engineered a closed-loop aquarium system that houses koi fish, filters fish waste from the water, then purifies and returns the water to the aquariums (Admin., 2022). The fish waste-rich water is used to naturally fertilize the soil they grow in.

There are a number of other producers using various closed-loop watering systems or recycling rainwater to implement more sustainable practices, like Good Buds, The Green Organic Dutch Man, Simply Bare, Jenn’s OG and Stewart Farms, to name a few.

A Holistic Management Approach to Farming

Hog Wild Farming Co., a cannabis micro cultivation farm in Creemore Ontario, is run by wife and husband team, Brandi and Chris. Holistic health enthusiasts, with professional backgrounds in care work, Brandi as a physiotherapist and Chris as a strength coach and fitness trainer, they share a passion for personal health and the quality of their food.

They took the leap to start farming full time in 2018. They now possess “a micro cultivation licence to grow cannabis and […] are raising 100% grass fed/finished beef, pasture raised pork and chicken. We are perpetually adding dogs, cats, ducks, bees and all kinds of furry friends to our homestead. ” Our team was fortunate to meet Chris recently on a tour of their farm. His dedication to his farm is truly inspiring. It’s reassuring to see the person behind the business, especially when they’re willing to get down and dirty with you in a pig pen and share their love for smelling good soil. Chris is the real deal, no doubt about it!

Taking a look at what other mass production growers are doing and learning from it, Chris and Brandi have implemented a diverse eco-system on their farm to allow nature to balance itself out. They did so by planting 3,200 trees, including a small fruit orchard, establishing a 1/2 acre pond with plans for additional wetland areas, and replacing former practices of crop rotations with permanent perennial pastures for rotational grazing of their livestock. “The robust diversity of both flora and fauna means there are multiple different predators and/or competitors for any problematic pest species. The diverse ecosystem has a tendency towards balance.”

This way of farming aligns with their ultimate goal of being stewards of the land, respecting the eco systems that exist and have existed for millenia before us and leaning away from the human tendency to try to fix or control what mother nature has already perfected. This way of farming allows for the complete opposite of control, as the range of diversity increases, the risk of pest outbreaks, unwanted molds, depleted soil nutrients are lessened, as the ecosystem is able to sustain itself healthily.

Chris and Brandi have found a way to utilize all the beneficial byproducts that come from taking care of animals in growing various types of agriculture. Each animal on their property fills a specific niche in an ecosystem and the amount of care they put into each step of farming truly speaks to why their whole system works so well and will continue to do so for many years to come.

Learning as we grow

Learning about the many, many ways cannabis can be grown can feel at times like a bit of a rabbit hole. But that is the joy that comes with knowledge-sharing with various like-minds who all share the same end goal of perfecting their cultivars. It brings me so much inspiration and excitement for the years to come, as we have the privilege to watch closely as this green legal industry flourishes and finds its rooting. Our hope is that, with this guiding purpose of growing great bud, we will also see more and more growers using methods that preserve our planet, and maybe even leave the land a little bit better than the way we found it.

I implore you to explore these diverse approaches and find the ones that speak to you, your values, and suit your green thumb! Whether these methods are something you choose to bring home to your own grows, or perhaps all this has piqued your interest in exploring a product from one of these unique companies, I hope this has left you feeling inspired with what’s to come in this amazing industry. Happy growing, happy toking!