Frequently Asked Questions about Organic Inputs

by Travis C | Oct 11, 2019 | 420, Blog, Broscience Mythbusters, Growing, Science & Technology

Not all organic inputs are created equally, and not all organic inputs are sourced sustainably.

When it comes to cultivating organic cannabis, there is no shortage of products you can use and methods to try out. That doesn’t make it any easier to decide which products to use.

At The Real Dirt and Cultivate, we aren’t the type to judge regardless of what you choose, even if it isn’t organic. But should you choose to grow organic, here’s some common questions about organic inputs and our best answers.

Can I clean my compost tea containers with bleach?

A lot of compost tea containers are made from various plastics. If you clean them with bleach, over time it will break down the interior walls of the containers, breaking down the plastics. You can use bleach to clean but you need to immediately spray down and scrub the containers with water to remove any remnants of plastic particles or bleach that could get into your next tea.

It may not be the most efficient, but the best way to preserve you compost tea containers and keep them clean is to just user water and non-abrasive sponge. With a high pressure washer you can do just as good a job as bleach without eating away at the inner walls or having chemical residue left over.

Are perlite and vermiculite organic inputs?

Yes, but not in the same way as other organic inputs like bat guano, gypsum, lime, etc.. Perlite and vermiculite both act as additives to soil, whereas the former inputs are fertilizing components. Additionally, perlite and vermiculite have almost no nutritional value on their own, and mainly help aerate soil.

However these are also mined inputs which means they’re pulled up from the land with excavators and broken down into the little chunks you get in a bag of vermiculite or perlite.

What are the best organic inputs to use?

People will argue for their favorite products all day long, but the best organic inputs are those that are renewable and sustainable. A renewable organic input is any that is produced either as a byproduct or waste product of animal and other industries.

Some of the best renewable inputs to use include Feather Meal, Alfalfa, Chicken litter, Neem Meal, Composted Chicken “shit”, Crab Meal, Kelp, Bone Meal, Fish Emulsion, Fish Bone Meal, Fish Hydroslate, Earth Worm Castings, and Soy Protein Isolate, just to name a few.

Coco coir is also a great renewable organic input that is a byproduct of the coconut and textile industries in Asia.

Chip answered more questions about organic inputs during his seminar at Cannacon in Oklahoma City in September. To hear the full talk for free, click here and listen to The Real Dirt Podcast.

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Living Soil and Organic Inputs: Understanding Your Environmental Impact

by Travis C | Oct 8, 2019 | 420, cannabis business, cannabis culture, Cannabis science, growing, Season 3, The Real Dirt Podcast Episodes

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Growing organically and in living soil might not be as environmentally friendly as you think.

Every grower should aim to grow organic cannabis at least once in their lifetime. It produces a cleaner, safer product for consumption, which means there will always be a demand for it, and it will always be a money maker for growers.

But what does it really mean to grow organic cannabis?

Organic Inputs in Cannabis

You may be hesitant to grow organic because it limits what you’re allowed to feed your plants. The reality is that there’s a plethora of different organic inputs you can use to produce quality, organic cannabis.

The real question you need to ask before you commit to the organic way of growing is how sustainable are the organic inputs you use?

Bat and seabird guano are two of the most popular organic inputs for organic cannabis cultivation. They provide great amounts of potassium and phosphorous, and even nitrogen in certain types. But here’s the catch; to get those guanos, they need to be dug up by huge excavators. They get the potassium and phosphorous rich guanos from the top layers, and dig down even further for the nitrogen rich guanos.

In other words, for guanos to be obtained they are more or less strip mined. This destroys the homes of the seabirds and bats that lived there, displacing them and restarting the cycle of guano production in that region. A lot of organic inputs are unfortunately mined from the earth, with not much in the way of renewability.

This has become somewhat of a moral dilemma in the grow community, as in order to grow organically, you need organic inputs. But certain organic inputs are not renewable or sustainable and using them is in a way condoning how they are obtained. However before you decide that organic growing just isn’t for you based on how organic inputs are obtained, there are organic inputs that are renewable, sustainable and safer for the environment.

Sustainable organic inputs

There are plenty of renewable organic inputs from feather and bone meals, to fish emulsion, earth worm castings and kelp. Which ones you choose to use are up to you, and that will take some research on which organic inputs work best.

The most organic option however is composting. You can make it yourself, turn it into a tea, and feed your plants a full serving of essential nutrients without harming any ecosystem or wildlife. But it isn’t easy.

That’s what this week’s episode of The Real Dirt is all about. At a live talk at CannaCon in Oklahoma City in August 2019, Chip shared his knowledge on organic inputs and the true environmental impacts of growing organic cannabis. Hear that full talk right now and stream this episode of The Real Dirt now.

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The Costs of Growing Organic Cannabis

by Travis C | Oct 4, 2019 | 420, Blog, Broscience Mythbusters, Growing, Science & Technology

Everybody has their own personal definition of what “organic” means.

For a lot of growers, organic pertains to the nutrients you use to grow. To others, organic only means planting your plants straight into the ground and growing from there.

But what does it really mean to grow organic cannabis?

What is organic cannabis?

Contrary to what the lazy grower may wish to be true, you can’t just grow cannabis in the dirt in your backyard and call it organic. You have to feed organic too. But what can you feed cannabis that is actually organic?

An organic nutrient is anything that comes from biological life. This includes bone meal, feather meals, guanos, and the like. There’s also mined organics like gypsum, pumice and other natural resources. So just using any of those throughout your plants’ life cycle should be enough.

Not exactly.

Renewable Organic Inputs

To grow as organically as possible, you want to use organic inputs that are also renewable. The problem is that these inputs are few and far between. The reality is that a lot of organic inputs are strip mined, and cause irreversible damage to the ecosystems they impact.

Take guano for example. Bat and Seabird guano are two of the most popular organic nutrient products that growers love to use when growing organic cannabis. But have you considered how these products are obtained? Strip mining.

Surveyors look all over for bats flying in and out of caves, or bird flocking to a specific cliff face or perch. They then bring in excavators and dig in, ripping up the top layers of the cave or cliffs for the high nitrogen guano, and digging all the way down for the phosphorous and potassium-rich guano that has been sitting underneath. This displaces thousands of bats and birds, and destroys any other small life that could live in the area.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t any renewable organic inputs.

While it is still up for debate among growers and suppliers alike, many would say that peat moss is renewable. The debate is due to the time is takes for peat bogs — where peat moss comes from — to redevelop. Peat moss is the result of millions of years of decomposing biological life that piles on top of itself. After it is mined, it will not replenish for a million more years. So yes, peat technically renews over time, but not fast enough for us to constantly use forever.

One of the only truly renewable organic inputs is coco coir. It is a byproduct of the coconut and textile industries in Asia. Made from the short and long fibrous hairs that aren’t used from the shell of coconuts, coco coir does no damage to any ecosystem, it doesn’t impact the livelihood of textile workers, and coconuts fall off trees every single day. Coco coir is 100% renewable, and even reusable.

Should I even grow organic cannabis?

Of course you should. The reality is that most of us are wearing clothes right now that aren’t sourced or made ethically, and we just sort of ignore it. It isn’t the best approach, and I’m sure there’s some of you out there that try to avoid supporting these companies. But the same applies to organic inputs.

If you want to grow organic cannabis, you need organic inputs. To get organic inputs, they need to be gathered through different means, whether its a renewable byproduct like coco or a strip mined inputs like guanos, phosphates and others. Sure, you could just grow in some dirt in your backyard and feed nothing but water. That is organic cannabis. But don’t expect great results.

An important ethical question growers should start considering is the importance, and difference between their end consumer’s health and the health of the environment. Organic cannabis is rising in popularity, and will most likely end up becoming a major sector of the legal industry, which means demand is going to grow. Is the consumer’s health more important than the life that is potentially destroyed in the process of obtaining those organic inputs?

The reality is you can grow cannabis with no-organic, synthetic nutrients and still have a safe to consume end product. So the decision is really up to you as a grower; is organic cannabis just a marketing tactic, or a way of life?

Autoflower Cannabis: The future of home growing featuring Chef Anna with The Pot

by Travis C | Sep 24, 2019 | 420, cannabis business, cannabis culture, growing, Season 3, The Real Dirt Podcast Episodes

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Chef Anna grows some of the best autoflowers in the game with a personality to match. But it’s not just Chef’s grow skills that make him so special.

What makes Chef Anna so unique is that he is, for lack of a better word, kind of crazy. Most people would never walk through a Walmart trying to convince elderly white folks they dropped a jar of ganja on the ground. But that’s exactly what Chef Anna does.

Chef has quickly become a cannabis community influencer on Instagram with his hilarious videos. These clips include handing cannabis out to random strangers at grocery stores, to hiding an ounce in the shelves and making a post on Instagram to come and find it for locals in the area.

However Chef Anna was popular well before he started making videos.

Who is Chef Anna?

The question over 50,000 Instagram followers probably want to know is, just who exactly is Chef Anna? Your guess is as good as ours!

You will always see Chef with a hat or hoodie on, and his signature polarized snowboard goggles to hide his face. While there probably are people out there who know who he is at this point, his persona is all people need to see to get hooked.

Chef’s original rise to Instagram popularity is due to his to book, #GROWLIKECHEF: a complete beginners guide to growing autoflowering marijuana at home. And if you didn’t get it from the title, Chef Anna is a chef of high quality, autoflowering cannabis.

Autoflower cannabis and growing at home

With more states allowing personal cultivation of cannabis at home, a lot of people are growing cannabis for the first time. Autoflowering cannabis is a very enticing option for these growers that want something easier to manage.

The genetics of autoflower cannabis allow for faster flowering that doesn’t require lighting changes to transition from the vegetative stage to the flower stage. With this unique characteristic, autoflower cannabis also grows smaller than your average cannabis plant. This makes it ideal for growing in small spaces, and for getting guaranteed yields.

This doesn’t mean autoflowering cannabis is just for the new guy. Chef Anna has been growing autoflower cannabis for years, and has mastered the cultivars he grows. And he’s been sharing his knowledge with the world for just as long.

This Week’s Episode

Chef Anna is on the forefront of evolving autoflower cannabis cultivation. As genetics get stronger, and yields get bigger, autoflower cannabis is becoming more and more popular. Does this mean that autoflowering cannabis is future for home growers?

In this week’s episode of The Real Dirt Podcast, Chip talks with Chef Anna about autoflowering cannabis, how it works, and where it’s going. Plus we get a deep dive into the Instagram personality of Chef Anna; why he does the crazy things he does, changing the perception around cannabis, and more.

Roll a fat one up, sit back, relax and enjoy this episode of The Real Dirt featuring Chef Anna.

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Autoflowering Seeds: For the grower in a hurry

by Travis C | Sep 20, 2019 | 420, Blog, Growing, Science & Technology

Whether you need a quick turnaround or just want plants that take up as little space as possible, autoflowering seeds may be the choice for you.

Autoflowering seeds are vastly different from feminized seeds and traditional cannabis seeds. Instead of a simple hermaphrodite to female breeding process to create feminized seeds, or male to female breeding for traditional cannabis seeds, autoflowering seeds are created from a different breeding process.

Autoflowering seeds and cannabis ruderalis

Cannabis ruderalis isn’t like traditional Afghanicas (indica) or Thai-based strains (sativa). Ruderalis grew most prevalent in the northern hemispheres, like central and eastern Europe, as well as Russia. Growing more north, the light cycle is much shorter. Over time, ruderalis adapted to enter its flower cycle with age, as opposed to light.

Whereas traditional cannabis follows photosynthesis and the light cycle to determine when to start flowering, ruderalis does not depend on it so heavily. This gives ruderalis a unique advantage over its counterparts when it comes to growth cycles. Obviously this gave breeders some ideas.

A cross of cannabis ruderalis with traditional cannabis sativas and indicas resulted in shorter, more compact plants, that flowered twice as fast as traditional seeds.

A new kind of cannabis

As autoflowering seeds started to grow in popularity, more people started to recognize just how useful the new breed could be. The ruderalis traits are extremely prevalent, shown by autoflowering plants’ compact size. Add to that the biggest benefit, the shortened growth cycle, and lack of dependency on light.

While normal cannabis must be switched from a 16/8 light to dark cycle from a 12/12 to induce the flower stages, autoflowering seeds don’t need to be switched. They can stay in the 16/8 cycle, or the 12/12 cycle without it affecting the plant’s ability to flower. This means outdoor growers can grow later in the season, and fit in more harvests.

But not all of the ruderalis traits are positive. Ruderalis is easily the most “weedy” looking relative in the cannabis family. Due to its wild nature and lack of full-scale cultivation like it’s cousins, ruderalis has a much lower THC content than indica or sativa, which can result in autoflowering seeds producing less potent flowers.

Additionally, with the convenient, compact size of autoflower plants comes lower yields. So while autoflowering seeds may flower in half the time, they don’t produce the same yields, and what they do produce will almost always be weaker in terms of THC content compared to it’s traditional or feminized counterpart.

Not a sure thing

When it comes to autoflowering seeds, it is important to note that just because the seeds are guaranteed to “flower”, doesn’t mean they are female. A lot of seed companies will sell “autofem” seeds, which are feminized, autoflowering seeds. However, your average autoflower seeds may contain some males, which is why it is important to know your seed genetics!

This can cause some problems in the garden if you don’t know they’re male until they start producing pollen next your females. So, similarly to traditional cannabis seeds, make sure to keep a close eye on plants that start to show signs of being male. Luckily, with autoflowering plants, the plants will reveal their sex much more quickly than traditional seeds due to their shortened growth cycle.

Learn more about seeds from one of the most well-known breeders and seed experts in the world, Caleb, founder of CSI Humboldt and the Pirate of the Emerald Triangle. Hear him talk about breeding elite strains, feminized seeds and more on The Real Dirt Podcast! Listen to the full episode right here on the Real Dirt, or stream it on iTunes and Spotify!

High Times Cannabis Cup or Fyre Fest 2.0?

by Travis C | Aug 27, 2019 | 420, 420 Culture & Travel, 420 News, Blog, Growing

It was the first high Times Cup in Oklahoma, and very likely the last.

The hype before the event wasn’t any bigger than past cannabis cups. Just your average instagram posts from local dispensaries and brands that were going to attend, telling customers and attendees to stop by their booth.

But what people anticipated, and what actually happened at the High Times Cannabis Cup in Oklahoma are two very different things. And not for the better.

The Background

High Times has always had a somewhat iffy reputation among the cannabis community, mainly for the company’s poor event planning year after year. Due to the nature of the event, hosting a cannabis cup in a medical only state can cause some problems on its own. Oklahoma happens to be a medical only state.

But that’s not all.

Oklahoma also has the most progressive and fastest growing medical cannabis industry in the country. The state’s medical laws allowed, and even encouraged, outside growers, processors and retailers to bring their experience and knowledge to the new state industry. And boy did they.

As it stands now, there are over 130,000 registered patients in Oklahoma, with over 1,300 dispensaries to service them. Oklahoma is the fastest-growing medical marijuana market in the average number of daily patient increases, and MMJ patients represent 4.1% of the state’s total population – one of the highest rates in the nation. Growth is bolstered by low barriers of entry, including the fact there’s no list of qualifying conditions for patients.

Unprepared, overwhelmed, and even dangerous

To say that the venue was under prepared for the first day of the Cannabis Cup would be a massive understatement. With a huge portion of attendees coming from out of state, and just as many in-state patients, Real Dirt sources on the ground estimated around 40,000 people in attendance.

Other than the fact that it was probably the largest cannabis cup attendance in history, it was also the largest shit show. VIP entrance began at noon, with hundreds of people waiting well past 2 PM to get in “early”. General admission began at 1 PM, which only added to the chaos. Thousands of people showed up at once, making parking a nightmare.

A photo from the line at the Cannabis Cup in Oklahoma, about 1/4 mile from the entrance. Photo by @OKCannaCo on Twitter.

After the parking lots filled up in the first hour, attendees began parking down the street, some well over a mile from the venue. On top of that there were insanely long lines, stretching over half a mile around the outside of the venue, through the parking lot and beyond. Keep in mind this is in 80+ degree weather with extremely high humidity.

With excessive wait times, high heat and no water, people became very unhappy, very quickly, with plenty of evidence on Twitter.

One person eventually got into the event, only to find that there was hardly enough food or water for everybody:

oklahoma cannabis cup problems

Others spent all day just waiting in line:

oklahoma cannabis cup 2019

But for a lot of people, the Oklahoma Cannabis Cup was reminiscent of the extremely hyped up, and extremely unsuccessful Fyre Festival:

high times cannabis cup in oklahoma was another fyre festival

While the High Times Cannabis Cup in Oklahoma may have been a huge success for the organizers and vendors that were able to make it, there were still hundreds if not thousands of people who paid for tickets and never even got into the venue. For those that got in however, the event was a blast and a great way to connect the local and national cannabis community in Oklahoma.

Day 2 of the Cup was inevitably less crowded due to many just avoiding it all together to save the hassle of another long day in line, and so it raises the question, will High Times be back to Oklahoma?

Probably. They vastly underestimated the Oklahoma cannabis community and the interest in cannabis in the state. If they High Times wants to return to Oklahoma, they will need to make some serious changes to the venue, entrance protocols and a lot more. If they do have another cup in Oklahoma, you can bet The Real Dirt will at least try to get in.