Cultivation Quick Start Guide
Thank you for partnering with AROYA. Our cannabis production platform will empower you to consistently cultivate more and higher-quality product, every time.
We’ve created this Quick Start Guide to give you a full rundown of everything you need to know to get growing. Part glossary, part instruction manual, these are the core tenets of intelligent cultivation.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE GROWTH CYCLE
- PHASE OF GROWTH
- VEGETATIVE GROWTH
- VEGETATIVE STEERING
- GENERATIVE GROWTH
- GENERATIVE STEEERING
WATER + IRRIGATION
- VWC (VOLUMETIC WATER CONTENT)
- WC (WATER CONTENT)
- FC (FIELD CAPACITY)
- SHOT SIZE
- HOW TO MEASURE SHOT SIZE
- LEACHATE (RUNOFF)
- DRY BACK
- EC
- CONTROLLING WC AND EC THROUGH IRRIGATION SHOT SIZE AND FREQUENCY
APPENDIX
TABLE OF RECOMMENDED READINGS
PHASES OF GROWTH
1. Propagation: The process of creating a new plant.
- From seed
- By taking a cutting
- Tissue culture
2. Vegetative Growth/Plant Development: The period of time between propagation and flower
3. Flower: The plant develops flower and seed if pollinated by a male plant
4. Harvest: The act of cutting a plant down to dry it
WHAT IS VEGETATIVE GROWTH
1. When plants are vigorously producing leaves, stalks, and shoots.
- During this phase plants are building new shoots/branches, large leaves, and strong stalks for optimum photosynthate/assimilate production and to set up a strong supporting stem to hold the weight of the flowers to be created in the next phase of growth.
- These assimilates are the sugars/carbohydrates that are produced by the leaves through photosynthesis, and are used to fuel growth.
WHAT IS VEGETATIVE STEERING
1. Vegetative steering is when you promote rapid growth by removing any and all plant stressors. This is done by making water as easily absorbable as possible (lowering ECpw and not allowing for as large of a dryback to occur), while still providing adequate nutrition in the nutrient solution.
2. Every Irrigation event/shot is a vegetative statement, it signals the plant that it is time to take advantage of currently available and plentiful resources and grow as
much as possible during that time.
3. This steering technique can be used to;
- Promote upward growth of leaf and stalk during veg and (with certain short/bushy cultivars only) during the first week to 10 days of flower
- Bulk flower during peak production
- These tactics should only be used in weeks 1-3 of flower under very specific circumstances and for very specific cultivars, otherwise these techniques are reserved for the Veg room and later flower, roughly weeks 4-7.
4. Vegetative steering cues.
WHAT IS GENERATIVE GROWTH
1. In the literal sense, generative basically means reproductive. The Generative phase of growth is another word for the Flowering phase. However the word
Generative is also used to describe a steering tactic that promotes focus on reproductive plant parts by the plant.
WHAT IS GENERATIVE STEERING
1. The use of intentional, targeted stressors to promote more compact growth with a greater plant focus on reproduction and the plant parts necessary to do so.
2. This steering technique can be used to;
- Tighten your nodes in veg and early flower (weeks 1-3 or 1-4)
- Initiate early flower onset in outdoor environments without exact photoperiod control capabilities
- Create more bud sites per length of stem than would occur if plants were steered vegetatively during weeks 1-3
- Ripen your plants at the end of flower
3. Generative Steering cues.
Note: Vegetative and Generative cues can be used in both veg and flower to guide plant structure and direct their focus to the desired growth. When Generative
steering is used in veg the plants will grow more compact with shorter internode spacing. When Vegetative steering is used after week 3 of flower, it helps to bulk the
flowers up to a larger size than they would achieve otherwise.
WHAT IS VWC?
VWC stands for Volumetric Water Content. VWC is the quantity of water held in a substrate such as Coco, Rockwool, or natural soil. This is the volume of water per
volume of substrate, expressed as a percentage (%).
WHAT DOES WC REPRESENT?
WC (water content) represents the volume of nutrient solution (water + nutrients) in the substrate.
WHAT IS FIELD CAPACITY (FC)?
1. This is the point after/during irrigation at which a substrate can no longer hold any more water. It has reached its water holding capacity. Any more water added
after this level of saturation has been reached will come back out of the bottom of the container as runoff, also called “leachate”
WHAT IS A SHOT SIZE?
1. A “shot” is an irrigation event, and its size is simply referring to the volume applied during that shot. That volume is usually either expressed in total volume
(mL) or as a percentage of the total media volume. A “3% shot” simply means the volume of the irrigation water applied is equal to 3% of the total substrate
volume. In the above 2 gal coco pot example, a 3% shot would be 227 mL applied during one irrigation event.
2. Shots should not be more frequent than every 15 minutes, and that 15 minute break is usually termed the “rest period.”
3. In typical indoor cultivation environments, shots should not be larger than 10%. In certain specific scenarios with large plants growing in small containers outdoors,
that maximum is less able to be adhered to, especially during use of generative
steering tactics.
HOW TO MEASURE SHOT SIZE
1. The easy way: Shot Volume = ((N x Q) / 60) x T
- N = number of drippers per plant
- Q = Flow rate per dripper (in either liters or gallons per hour)
- T = Time in minutes that the drippers are running during a shot
- This gives you the total volume of a shot per plant. To get the shot % of total substrate volume, divide the Shot Volume by the total substrate volume of one plant (in liters or gallons, whichever you used to calculate the Shot Volume).
2. The longer but more thorough way:
- Take the number of drip stakes assigned to a plant and place them into a measuring cup. In the drawing below there are two 1.2 L drip stakes per plant
3. Turn the irrigation on for 5 min. Then measure that volume.
4. This is your shot size for a 5 min irrigation. Divide that volume by 5 to get your irrigation volume per plant per minute of dripper run time.
- Note: It’s recommended to set up several of these measuring cups to check the uniformity of your irrigation system.
5. Catch cups are also a great way to check your feed EC, PH and Volume.
- This data should be entered as often as possible. You can record this data in AROYA in Readings
WHAT IS LEACHATE (AKA “RUNOFF”)?
1. It is the solution that is not absorbed by the medium during an irrigation event, typically after the medium has reached its maximum potential saturation (VWC).
- It is good practice to check and record the Volume, PH and EC of the leachate
- This can be recorded in AROYA using Manual Readings
This is an example of how one grower catches their runoff to measure daily
WHAT IS YOUR DRY BACK?
1. It is the difference in VWC from the last irrigation event of a given day (maximum saturation) to the first irrigation event of the following day (lowest VWC level). It is
measured as the decrease of VWC% during that time.
In the example above you can see the WC on 4/23 is 68.7% then before the irrigation events start it is at 33.2% so the Dry Back would = (68.7%-33.2%) = 35.5%
IRRIGATION CALCULATIONS
1. The dry back above is 35.5% of a 6x6x6(3.38L) block, which would = 1.199L or 1,199ml
2. In this example it would take 5 irrigations of 240ml per shot to reach saturation
WHAT IS EC?
1. EC is a measurement of dissolved fertilizer in a solution, and is determined by measuring the ease at which electricity can move through the water, called
“electrical conductivity”, which is what EC stands for. ECpw, which is what the Aroya substrate sensors report, is a measure of the concentration of fertilizer
in the nutrient solution that is held in the pores of the substrate, and so ECpw stands for the Electrical Conductivity of the Pore Water. It is a direct measure of
the water that the roots have immediate access to and are using for transpiration and growth.
Original pdf can be found here
