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Dean
inspecting your cannabis plants when you’re growing is highly important. And a lot of the time is maybe something that wouldn’t pop your mind originally, today, we’re going to be chatting about a lot of the strategies that one would put in place when growing cannabis specifically related to how to inspect your plants and what to look out for. I’m joined as always by Luke, Luke, welcome back. And we’re going to jump right in with the early stages, which is the veg period, Luke inspection, like I said, is highly important. You know, we’re basically strategizing and then now we’re the sort of main overlord of the of the growth. So we’ve got to be the eyes on the on the ground, what kinds of things are you looking out for, for in the vegetative period? When you’re busy within within inspection?

Luke
Yeah. So I like to, first of all, think of when are we inspecting? And the answer to that, I think is always, you know, if you’re going to go in to your grow room, and you’re going to go and look at your plans, it’s essential to look everywhere, right to make sure that things are in tip top shape, and that you are on top of your game and that nothing is going wrong and that you are strategizing and making sure that you are putting methods and things in place to prevent, you know, the infiltration of unwanted things into your grow. And I suppose, you know, you would inspect sort of at the leaf and biomass area at the top, you know, where the sun is hitting and when you’re when your lights are hitting and a leaf the leaves along the stem of the plant themselves. And then also is which is very important, it’s looking your medium your growing medium inspection, you know, over there is is is I suppose when when key thing as well keeping up with your, your sprays, prevention sprays, so biologicals is very, very important, making sure that the biologicals of the plant around the biomass of top and in a medium is good, that your plants drinking enough water is is essential, and that you’re feeding enough water, and then also that it’s receiving its macros and micronutrients, you know, if the immune system of the plant is compromised, it allows for the infiltration of unwanted things a lot easier. So, you know, that’s definitely something that you that you have to consider. But I think going with the strategy of weekly biological sprays and keeping up with a regiment that works for you, that is manageable for you. Also allows for for use new not to be stressed, so that you don’t sort of relay those issues, onto the, into your, into your growing space, right. And that can happen, it gets very easy to get demotivated when you know things when you do pick up an issue.

Dean
And it’s very easy to also think that everything’s going fine. And then you kind of start to lay back and lay back and lay back and then all of a sudden, you’ve got a major issue. So I think the key here, the key takeaway from this conversation that we’re trying to have today is to say that, you know, growing is a daily task of inspecting, and it’s actually it seems so minimal, I’m looking at my plant, I should be, you know, mixing nutrients or, you know, doing this, that or the next thing, but inspection is the key to creating a winning strategy, and you’re dealing with a living organism. So you it’s a constantly changing goalposts that you constantly need to be on top of so a daily inspection is is literally the key. So from from kind of inspection with Howard Howard, sort of a you know, if you’re gonna break down a week, a weekly growth strategy, give me a little bit of a breakdown of say, how someone should go about thinking about what kinds of nutrients do I need to use? What kinds of IPM do I need to use? What kinds of physical techniques do I need to use? And if say we’re doing a one week period? How would you kind of break that down into words for someone who’s, who’s asking a little bit about okay, what what, what do you mean strategy?

Luke
Well, I would say, okay, you know, you need to identify what kind of issues you might encroach on. So if it’s going to be nutrient deficiency, or you see that happening, you need to adjust your, your feeding module, right? So whatever nutrient you’re inputting into your watering through, through that, you need to go okay, cool. Maybe I need to add more grow, or if you’ve got potassium or phosphorus deficiency coming on, Oh, that would mean more bloom nutrients, you know, to put it in more of a sort of simple terms there. When it comes to pests and mould, it would be like, okay, cool. I’ve got to make sure that my synergistic microbial activity is on point. So I’m going to be introducing that into a spray. Let’s say you do that the day after your watering, right. So a couple of days later, you’re going to be pet spraying for Your pest and that you can make use of various products and you know the organics is is lovely because you you’re not causing detrimental systemic changes within the plant. And you’re preventing and not wanting those unwanted pests to encroach on it. So, you know, they’re having that in a bi weekly strategy. So from feedings making sure that you’re staying on top of those through to synergistic and microbial activities and staying on top of that, and then following up with insect control. On top of that, I suppose it implementing those three things into a weekly strategy. And making sure you’re staying on top of that is is a key thing. And then obviously, in your parameters, if it’s out outside, it’s, you know, we can’t exert much control there. But if it’s an indoor environment, the more control you can exert there, you know, the better. But in dealing with normal tent, we don’t have air conditioners and dehumidifiers and stuff like that, you know, it’s not always a luxury that growers have. Staying on top of these strategies, weaken strategies for hope.

Dean
And I suppose then also, you know, like, not just with relation to spraying or nutrition, you could also have a look at okay, say I don’t have access to an air conditioner or a dehumidifier, there are some physical kinds of techniques or strategies you could put into play. Maybe more defoliation more Lolli popping low stress training on the plan to strengthen it, you know, and then increasing increasing airflow. So you know, having a having a plan going in is important. And that’s why a lot of people will date things, you know, okay, cool. I planted on this date, I went into veg on this date, I’m planning to flip on that day, because then you can on a calendar, say, okay, cool on Monday, the 23rd, or what’s their Thursday, the 23rd of the month, I’m, I’m going to be doing this specific task. So then everything’s laid out before, and your inspections can adjust your strategy. But having a strategy does really help, especially if you’re going to start trying to grow, you know, slightly more than like one or two plots, you know, when you’re dealing with a lot more leaf matter, a lot more, a lot more can go wrong, and it can go wrong quite quickly. So you’re really wanting to add enemies outdoors, you might be getting something but you might also have beneficials in your garden or a you know, really good environment. Or you might have, you might have a powdery mildew appearing maybe on different crops in your garden. And that’s why just inspecting the environment. Indoors, you’d be inspecting all your equipment is running smooth. But outdoor, you’d be running a year, as well as the plants and everything we’ve discussed. But I’ll tell you, you’re inspecting your micro environment as well that you have, maybe you’ve got tomato plants close by to your to your cannabis and the tomato is a haven for spider mites. So you might have a spider mite little farm going on another plant and you’re only inspecting your weed and then at the end of the day, you miss out on something on something vital. So the walk through the garden, helps adjust the month strategy and then put everything down onto paper so that you can better grow better growth through or stand a better chance of making it through a period without any sort of detrimental issues.

Luke
Yeah, and I think having a, you know, having a strategy, a weekly strategy that you following helps it make it more manageable, you know, the tasks that you’ve got to do going in, you know what, what’s coming, you know what’s ahead. So you’re always pre planning and that just, it makes it more manageable and easier for you at the end of the day.

Dean
Yeah, because I mean, we’re all busy. It’s a lot of hard work going going good weed. And I suppose moving a bit forward. If we were to look at the flowering, the flowering stage here in the veg stage, Luke mentioned a lot of the things that we might look be looking out for. And in the flowering stage, you do start to adjust everything as everyone knows, firstly, your life cycle starts to change so maybe you can’t work so late or so early anymore. Then also the kinds of things you start to look out for are different, you know, you’re looking you’re not getting so much leaf leaf growth anymore and you probably will get some yellowing on some of the leaves so you’re starting to sort of inspect the bad more so than the leaf itself as as an indicator still looking for pests, you know, physical bad, looking at the bad clothes, maybe using your camera phone to zoom in a little bit to look a little bit closer, maybe opening up the bad at some sites a little bit just to eye inside to see if anything’s going on on the inside. Because you get all sorts of caterpillars and moulds that develop inside the inside the the flower, for an example have been doing quite regular inspections on some of the others. plants and a couple different outdoor plants, all different strains, and everything was fine, except for the one which was a strawberry cough, which seemed to have attracted a load of caterpillars. And it’s, yeah, it’s pretty bad. So like, you know, I maybe wasn’t inspecting that much I was batch inspecting and not inspecting every single one and different strain attracted a different pace, which has now negatively affected that specific plant, you know. So the flowering strategy, I think is, is heavily based on Okay, cool, I’ve made it through to this period, you know, you you, we hope that you strategized while in your veg period, and you did your defoliation and, and those sorts of techniques, but in your flowering strategy, you’re now wanting to, if possible, adjust your humidity downwards, you know, increase your light intensity, if you are indoors, outdoors, that’s all going to happen naturally for you, you know that radiation from the sun is going to change and, and sort of push more push more of a beautiful flower. And then you’re also going to want to strategize related to your, your nutrients quite heavily, a lot of the time, I found you know, a lot of the craft substrates and stuff like that are very manageable through the veg period. But when you get to the flowering period, and the plant starts to become incredibly hungry, you all of a sudden do need to start cranking the cranking of the feed a little bit. And it can yield incredible results, you know, so strategy wise, I would still keep up with some kind of IPM and more along the lines of the biologicals and less along the lines of sort of any maybe oil extracted based even if it’s organic nutrients, you know, you can’t do a lot of, of heavy spraying, but you can still use some biologicals into the mid, the mid flower period, you want to look at the intensities of your feed, you know, your plant is going to start drinking more water. So you do want to feed more regularly and increase the phosphorus and potassium, so that you can really still get the most out of your beds. And then finally, you’re gonna want to investigate your airflow and your humidities as much as possible. Outside, it’s obviously more, it’s more in the elements, but, you know, regular inspections on the back on the plant, on the leaves on the stem and in the beds is going to be important. Because if you are starting to get, especially if the beds get really big, you do start to stand high risk of bad rot or caterpillars with inside the bed. And that can also in the long in the long run negatively affect negatively affect the effect the grow. So guys, I mean, it’s a you know very much about strategy. And, and trying to kind of develop a calendar, we haven’t gone too much into products today, because it’s you know, we have done a lot of other content more sort of directly related to what products to use for for what instance, this was just more of the sort of thought provoking discussion related to strategy and how you know, improving as a grower does come down to planning and sticking to a plan. And you know, sometimes recording the sometimes it’s the pot calling the kettle black, because sometimes it’s it’s impossible to you know, and you do end up missing out on a week or something like that. But if you’ve had a solid strategy, and you’re putting it into play, it does, you know, a mistake here on there isn’t going to be the end, whereas if your plants already weak, it might be the sort of last nail in the coffin. But looking closing, do you have any sort of thoughts on that you’d like to share a share with us?

Luke
Yeah, just touching on the end of what you said that you know, once all of those parameters or especially on end or if you can control them as much as possible, stay on top of your spraying stay on top of your differentiations as well. You know day 21 Or flower do a little bit of big fan leave defoliation and Lolli popping day 42 Follow that up with a big defoliation you know that you’re just setting yourself up to make it a little bit easier and to not allow those things to creep in and contaminate your crops. So yeah, it’s great to have a discussion like this and as you said, you know, we don’t sometimes always stick to the strategy, it’s sometimes impossible. But as long as you’ve got those methods in place and you stick to them as much as you can, you’re setting yourself up for for success or more success at the end of the day,

Dean
there’s nothing worse than then getting disappointed and then falling out of it guys so put a little bit of planning in in beforehand. Maybe if you if you guys have some interesting strategies that you may have put into play Let us know down in the comments below. We will be creating a lot more content related to some products as well you know, specific products for specific instances. Maybe eventually bring up a presentation have a nice sort of comprehensive strategy that might take a bit of design work. Bear that guys as always, thanks for making it to the end of the episode. Thanks to Luke for sharing his knowledge with us. And, as always remember Better to like and subscribe hit that bell and till next time guys peace