25 June 2020
 Categories: Business, Blog

Medical cannabis cultivation is a complicated process that requires a careful consideration of your environment, materials, and local market. There are many advantages to craft growing over large-scale production and of these, a better ability to guarantee high quality products can be key for your cannabis business. One way that you can ensure a higher quality is to choose the right growing method for your crops. These options can include gardening soil (of various qualities) and so called "neutral" or "nutrient-dependent" growing mediums.

Gardening Soil

Gardening soil is an easy choice for many craft cultivators. It is very easy to use as it is commonplace and also considered a forgiving medium. It does not require the complicated set-ups inherent to hydroponic growing, and it's easy to ensure that the pH balance of the soil is exactly what you need for your medical cannabis crop. There is a wide range of gardening soil available to the craft grower in terms of price, nutrient content, and type of soil (loam, silt, clay, etc.). If you aren't interested in picking between various types of gardening you can simply make your own. Some find it easier to tailor their soil to what their specific cannabis crop thrives best in by adding in various other nutrient-rich substrates.

"Neutral" Substrates

"Neutral" or "nutrient-dependent" substrates are those that rely on the kind of additions common to many home gardening soils. The cannabis seed is planted solely within these nutrient-rich materials, and little to no soil is actually involved. Typically, this involves coconut fibers or "coir" made up of the fibers between the internal coconut shell and it's outer coating. Peat moss is also an option, as is some combination of coir and peat moss and other substrates make a sort of artificial "soil" for your medical marijuana crop.

However, these materials can be difficult to work with. For example, coconut fiber needs to be fed coir-specific nutrients on a daily basis, and it can hold on to nutrients such as calcium and magnesium. These requirements can be easy for a more mainstream cultivator to fufill, but the home or small-business grower may find themselves overwhelmed.

Other nutrient dependent substrates such as perlite (small rocks meant to increase drainage) and rock wool (rock and chalk that have been heated up and made into strings that are then matted together) are typically used in coordination with hydroponic systems when not used alone.

Conclusion

Substrate is a fundamental part of the growing process. There are a myriad of options to pick from for every cannabis cultivator, and within these options a million ways to adjust the materials at hand. Medical marijuana cultivation requires a careful review of what your specific crop needs to thrive along with what materials or capital you have on hand. With caution, the craft medical cannabis cultivator can easily surpass the large-scale producer in product quality.