Commercial cannabis nutrition doesn’t have to be complicated. Is it time to streamline your grow?

Many growers entering commercial cannabis from legacy markets or ornamental horticulture come armed with ideas that cannabis requires complicated, labor-intensive nutrient routines. But as commercial cultivation has evolved, so has knowledge about cannabis nutrition at scale.

Growers desiring to simplify their grow—and their nutrient routine—can find support in the science of plant nutrition and a sounder, simpler nutrient product lineup.

Agronomist Jean-Pierre Fortin and horticulturist Shaye Donald have unique perspectives on the complex nutrient programs many incoming growers bring to commercial cannabis grows. As members of the technical services team at Hawthorne Gardening Company, they help growers of all kinds understand plant nutrition, simplify nutrient product lineups, and enjoy the results.

Fortin believes that marketing tactics—rather than plant nutrition—tend to propel many complicated nutrient routines.

“When you look at some of these programs that use so many different products and add up everything they’re adding, we very often can say we can do the same thing with three or four different products,” he says. “It really comes down to the nutritional needs of the plant.”

Fortin stresses that growers from all backgrounds are looking for simpler, more efficient, more cost-effective nutrient programs. One grower, he recalls, used university-devised nutrient formulations requiring 14 different soluble salts: adding more variables into the plan than what otherwise might be necessary for cultivators.

When Donald started at Hawthorne three years ago, it was common for growers to use nearly a dozen individual products in their nutrient recipes and change rates throughout the life of the crop. One grower he worked with recently had 27 different recipes, changed every few days.

“People are starting to realize that they can simplify, and they do want to simplify, especially on the fertilizer side,” Donald says. With the nutrient precision demanded in the industry, growers see an opportunity to streamline complicated regimens and gain a competitive edge.

Many trends in commercial cannabis cultivation drive the desire to simplify fertilizer programs. Less forgiving controlled environments, expanded automation, increased scale of commercial grows, and ultra-competitive cannabis markets have growers seeking sound, simple nutrient programs that complement techniques like nutrient-based crop steering and just-in-time nutrition.

Not surprisingly, growers everywhere are looking to cut production costs—and complicated, product-heavy nutrient programs are one place to look.

Donald recalls the production glut that hit Canada with legalization. “From what we hear, the U.S. is going through that a little bit now as well,” he says. “I think lowering the price per pound or price of product is always going to be the biggest driver at the end of the day.”

Growers can start by looking at their spectrum of inputs and assessing their value. What’s behind each nutrient product going into a grow?

Donald and Fortin stress that simpler nutrient routines should go hand-in-hand with solid, innovative research and science. Hawthorne, for example, tests its products in different locations, including their licensed high-THC cannabis research facility in Kelowna, BC, Canada. “It’s a continuous process, and we’re always trying to improve it and bring that to the growers,” Donald says.

Simplifying nutrient routines can help lower production costs and boost ROI in many ways. For growers shifting from liquid fertilizers to soluble salts, Fortin points out that swift returns start with transportation and storage costs.

“When people are buying liquid fertilizers, they are buying a ton of water. So, they have to ship or transport that weight. Using soluble salts is a solution for that,” Fortin says. “It doesn’t take much space. It’s easy to use and very precise.”

The trend toward automated fertigation highlights potential gains, particularly with water-soluble products designed especially for use with labor-saving fertigation systems. Donald explains that many growers—from all sizes of cultivation facilities—still deal with jugs of liquid concentrates and the measuring, mixing, and labor that goes with them.

“They’re paying someone sometimes to stand there for half the day—just mix tanks, check the EC, check the pH, fiddle with things a little bit,” Donald says. Labor is costly, but so is the potential for mistakes and inconsistencies.

“People are realizing there’s a high degree of error potential, as well as the cost in having someone there,” he adds. “When you move towards something that is automated, there’s a learning curve, but you take all those things out.”

The uniformity, precision, and labor efficiencies that come with simplification are fueling an uptick of interest. Donald says that even highly sophisticated, advanced growers have switched to routines with simpler formulas from the days of mixing their own base salts in highly customized programs—just for the ease of use.

By simplifying your grow, including your nutrient routine, Fortin suggests you can free up time to focus on your craft—beyond just irrigating and feeding the crop. “Just do the right thing in a more simplified way, and then you can focus on your growing environment, your ventilation, on pest control,” he says.

Donald reflects on the synergy of art and science that first drew him to horticulture and eventually to Hawthorne. He describes the mystical and magical components that still enrich cannabis cultivation today.

“I think it’s really neat watching this industry evolve and move not away from the art side toward science, but you’re seeing the science side become more elevated,” he says. “When you show a grower something that they’ve known intuitively for 20 or 30 years, and then you explain the science behind it and they just go, ‘Wow.’ That’s a really good experience.”

A systems approach to growing can position you to capitalize on commercial nutrition trends.

It’s been nearly a decade since Washington and Colorado became the first U.S. states to legalize adult-use cannabis—and almost four years since Canada led the way with nationwide legalization. For commercial cultivators, today’s landscape bears little resemblance to those early days. Current trends in commercial cannabis nutrition are very different from when it all began.

With the increase in highly controlled growing environments and technological advances, growers are gravitating toward a more holistic, systems-based approach to growing. Horticulturist Shaye Donald and agronomist Jean-Pierre Fortin, members of the professional technical services team at Hawthorne Gardening Company, work directly with commercial growers to help fine-tune growing practices and product use as part of a comprehensive approach.

While cultivators in the past heavily emphasized nutrition, Donald explains that perspectives are changing. Though nutrition remains integral, it’s being seen as part of the broader whole. More growers are focusing on the integrated growing environment, with nutrition being one piece that works in concert with growing media, irrigation, fertigation, and other aspects of the grow.

“Plants, like any living organism, are complex, and so the environment in which they grow isn’t just one piece. It’s a system where they’re all interconnected and affect each other,” Donald says. At Hawthorne, the concept behind this trend is driven home with the Hawthorne 360 initiative. “It’s all about recognizing that this is a system, so we need to take the systems approach to it,” he adds.

Donald shares that crop steering—managing setpoints or inputs throughout the growing process to trigger specific plant responses—is another emerging trend.

“Crop steering is the human aspect of changing these setpoints to get a response that we desire,” he explains.

While growers understand the need for making changes during the crop cycle—from lighting setpoints and fertilization rates to irrigation practices and environmental setpoints such as humidity and temperature—Donald says growers are paying more attention to fine-tuning their setpoints with steering in mind.

“On the nutrient side of things, there’s a lot of different signals we can send to the crop, through different macronutrients especially,” Donald says. By changing nutrient ratios—particularly nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and magnesium—growers can steer plants toward desired responses at different growth stages. One simple example is increasing nitrogen during the vegetative stage to encourage and support leaf and stem growth.

“Then when you move into flowering, you want to provide more of the nutrients for flowering structures and then secondary metabolites,” Donald explains. Hawthorne’s research has focused on refining how to best feed crops to get the responses growers want most. 

The importance of irrigation has long been underestimated. But that’s changing as commercial cultivation moves toward precision automation in water and nutrient delivery—vital to optimal crop steering results.

“Trend wise, people are moving more and more towards automation,” Donald says. “A lot of these [crop steering] techniques rely very heavily on automated equipment.” It’s very hard, he adds, to reliably steer crops through hand watering.

Fortin and Donald share that many growers still hand water—especially in new markets. But automated drip irrigation, an integral part of the Hawthorne 360 approach, is on the rise. Coupled with automated fertigation and simpler, more efficient nutrient routines, growers can easily and efficiently change recipes to steer crops and save money.

Automation can run from simple to sophisticated. The most basic level, Fortin says, is simply a timer to trigger irrigation events.

“If we go up in the automation, then we can have soil moisture sensors that will sense the moisture content and some irrigation setpoints will be programmed into the software of that controller,” he explains.

Fortin emphasizes that many problems in commercial grows are related to a lack of uniformity. Automated irrigation and a better, leaner fertilizer program can help. “It’s uniformity in the water, but water is a carrier for nutrition,” he says. “So, it’s also uniformity for the nutrition of the crop—and that adds up.”

Trends in nutrient-based crop steering and automated drip irrigation tie in heavily with a move toward reduced pot sizes or smaller root zones in commercial cannabis. Automation allows for more frequent watering, which enables growers to reduce pot size and maximize the potential of nutrient-based crop steering techniques.

Fortin explains there are two main avenues to crop steering: “The first one is having a very small container for a very large plant. Obviously, you cannot supply the day’s needs with just one watering, so we have to split watering into several events.” Rockwool cubes are an example of growing media too small to hold enough water to meet an entire day’s demand.

Once automation and smaller root zones are in play, the other route forward is just-in-time nutrition. Instead of watering once a day with all the nutrients the plant needs, nutrients can be delivered throughout the day as a plant needs them. Fortin explains that with the smaller root zone, water carries nutrients closer to the roots, enabling more efficient absorption as well.

The trend toward less growing media volume allows a much greater degree of control, allowing growers to play with what’s commonly referred to as the dry back—typically the time between irrigation events or the degree of dryness allowed before the morning’s first irrigation event.

“I think that’s where things are heading towards now,” Donald says. “The general consensus is that if you have a drier root environment—if the plant kind of detects drought stress—then it will start to send signals up that can have downstream effects. Increasing flower production, for example.”

“I like to think I’m always learning, and I think the best growers are always learning,” Donald adds. 

Embracing a systems approach is part of that growth. By considering your entire grow as a system, with all aspects interconnected and working together, you can bring each of these trends in commercial cannabis nutrition to fruition as part of a more productive, more efficient, and more profitable whole.

Ridgeland, a city of roughly 24,000, could reverse course and opt in for the state’s medical cannabis program if a petition effort succeeds.

Ridgeland was one of the first two cities to opt out of participating in Mississippi’s forthcoming medical cannabis program when its board of aldermen made that decision March 1, well ahead of the May 3 deadline to do so.

Overall, officials from 10 counties and 17 municipalities in the state chose not to allow medical cannabis businesses in their jurisdictions.

But Ridgeland, a city of roughly 24,000 people in the Jackson metropolitan area, might be coming off of that opt-out list sooner rather than later.

On May 21, city residents began receiving knocks on their doors in a signature-gathering effort represented by contractor Voters Choice, the Madison County Journal reported.

That boots-on-the-ground endeavor comes more than two months after the Mississippi Cannabis Trade Association began hosting signature drives March 12 in hopes of bringing medical cannabis to Ridgeland.

Despite the votes of elected city aldermen, 20% or 1,500 of registered voters (whichever is fewer) in state municipalities may petition to put a question on their local ballots in a special election to override an opt-out.

The election must be held within 60 days from the date the petition’s signatures are validated by the Secretary of State.

Gov. Phil Scott rejected legislation last week that would have created a drug use standards advisory board and expanded eligibility for the expungement of non-violent crimes.

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott vetoed legislation last week that would have created a drug use standards advisory board and expanded eligibility for the expungement of non-violent crimes, according to the Associated Press.

The advisory board, which would have been established within the state sentencing commission, would have been responsible for determining “the benchmark personal use dosage and the benchmark personal use supply” for regulated and unregulated drugs, according to the news outlet.

The board’s work was meant to prevent and reduce the criminalization of personal drug use, AP reported, but Scott said the bill to establish the advisory board “places no limits on which drugs can be contemplated for legalization or the amounts” and incudes “absolutely no recognition” of the health and safety impacts of using drugs such as fentanyl and heroin.

The bill also fails to acknowledge the role of law enforcement in stopping drug dealers, Scott said in his May 19 letter to the General Assembly, according to AP.

On the bill would have expanded eligibility for the expungement of non-violent crimes, Scott said in his veto message that he determined the legislation was “inconsistent with the state’s responsibilities to keep the public safe,” according to AP.

“We are not talking about reducing penalties for violent crimes or changing expungement eligibility,” Rep. Selene Colburn, P-Burlington, who supported the legislation, told the news outlet. “We are simply talking about treating people who have used drugs and who have struggled with substance use disorder with dignity and respect and the basic belief that their lives are valuable.”

Scott signed an adult-use cannabis legalization bill into law in 2018 that eliminated criminal penalties for the possession of up to an ounce of cannabis and allows residents to grow up to two mature plants and four immature plants at home for personal use.

He then allowed legislation to become law without his signature in 2020 to legalize commercial adult-use sales in the state.

Vermont’s Cannabis Control Board issued its first adult-use cannabis cultivation license earlier this month, and sales are expected to launch in October.

The legislation takes aim at those who operate heavy machinery, use weapons or any employee whose cannabis use would “put the public at serious risk.”

New Jersey’s end to cannabis prohibition came with 67.1% of support from voters in the November 2020 election, but now state lawmakers are attempting to scale back that reform.

Earlier this month, Assemblyman Edward Thomson and Assemblywoman Beth Sawyer—both Republicans—introduced legislation, Assembly Bill 3870, that aims to allow employers the ability to prohibit cannabis use by certain employees, even while they’re not working.

Under the proposed legislation, an employer shall prohibit the personal use of cannabis for the following employees:

“This bill amends the Cannabis Regulatory Enforcement Assistance, and Marketplace Modernization (CREAMM) Act to prohibit certain categories of employees from the personal use of recreational cannabis,” according to a bill statement from the sponsors. “Specifically, this bill permits an employer to prohibit any use of cannabis if the person operates heavy machinery or weapons, or whose use of cannabis would put the public at risk. Further, this bill permits employers of law enforcement officers to prohibit use of cannabis.”

All employees prohibited from cannabis use under the legislation would be subject to employer policies as it relates to drug testing.

That legislation is just one of three bills introduced this month that attempts to restrict off-the-job cannabis use by certain workers.

Assemblyman Louis Greenwald and Assemblywoman Annette Chaparro—both Democrats—are sponsoring A.B. 3914, which would permit law enforcement agencies to prohibit recreational cannabis use by law enforcement officers.

And Democratic Assemblywoman Gabriela Mosquera, who signed on as a co-sponsor for A.B. 3914, introduced her own legislation, A.B. 3868, which aims to prohibit paid first responders from engaging in recreational cannabis use.

Those bill filings came on the heels of state Attorney General Matt Platkin issuing a memo April 13 to law enforcement leaders reminding them that New Jersey law allows for police officers to use cannabis when they’re off duty—a note that came just ahead of the state’s April 21 launch of adult-use sales—the New Jersey Monitor reported last month.

“To be clear, there should be zero tolerance for cannabis use, possession or intoxication while performing the duties of a law enforcement officer,” Platkin said. “And there should be zero tolerance for unregulated marijuana consumption by officers at any time, on or off duty, while employed in this state.”

Sawyer—who’s sponsoring the bill that takes aim at limiting cannabis use by law enforcement and those who operate weapons or heavy machinery—took issue with Platkin’s memo, specifically stating that cannabis remains federally illegal as grounds for her opposition to his memo’s directive.

“Anyone who wants to work in public safety must be held to higher standards,” the assemblywoman said in a statement. “Our men and women in law enforcement have the responsibility to make life-altering decisions on a daily basis, for themselves, their partners, for the public. I want to trust that they are at their best when doing so. The attorney general’s directive on CREAMMA leaves much to be desired.”

Sawyer and Thomson’s legislation was referred to the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee, as were the other two bills.

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