Planning Next Year’s Outdoor Cultivation Operation

Show Notes

• Unless you are by the equator, you have one shot for harvest, and you have to get it right. 
• Your pre-planning is what sets you up for success at harvest time. 
• Keep learning and improving your practices. You'll learn the most from your experience managing the harvest. What is working? And where are there snags or inefficiencies that you can design solutions for next season? 
• For large-scale operations, we recommend using consistent genetics to streamline the harvest. 
• How and when do you need to start growing your stock plants (mother plants) and taking clones? Or if you're planting feminized seeds, how and when do you need to germinate and plant them?
• Where legal, outdoor operations have massive potential, especially in creating bulk oils at the lowest cost of production. 
• Four-season greenhouses will likely dominate the flower market moving forward as they can introduce supplemental CO2 and more finely control the environment, but outdoor cultivation will dominate the bulk oil and manufactured product verticals of the cannabis industry. 
• Outdoor cultivation is terrific for quality oil production because sunlight (UVA, UVB, UVC) encourages the plant to create more oils to protect herself. 
• Long term, we'll see outdoor plantations using combine harvesters and other larger farm implements to harvest massive crops for oil production. Some of the biggest plays in the future will be reaping the plant like corn and making corn syrup (cannabinoid oils) right next door. Opportunities like this will only be possible in select climates with the perfect agricultural vectors, potentially Colombia or Iowa. 
• Outdoor cultivation is the most environmentally friendly and the lowest cost methodology for growing cannabis. 

Where Do I Start?

• What varieties will you grow for your stock plants?
• Design and build a facility with optimal environmental conditions for massive mother plants and cloning operations. 
• Understand the best planting time for your specific location. Latitude, elevation, and other microclimate factors all play a role in determining the best time to plant. Typically this is between May 15 and June 30 in the Northern Hemisphere. 
• We like to consider having six different groupings of plants go into the field for more extensive operations. 
• Develop a cloning schedule.
• On average, it takes a little less than two weeks for a clone to fully root and be mature enough to transplant into a four-inch nursery container or a three-inch cow manure type pod.

Propagation

• Tissue Culture
• Seeds
• If you start from non-feminized seeds, you'll have male and female plants. Make sure you set aside enough time to identify and cull any male plants. 
• Keep a consistent vegetative photoperiod as you grow the plants out. Any interruptions now will lead to missing your timeline for preparing plants for the field. 
• If you have the time to flower out a couple of cuttings from each stock plant that you grow from seed either indoors or in a four-season greenhouse, you'll select the best varieties for next year's outdoor crop. You'll also learn about each variety's growing and harvesting characteristics, which is invaluable when planning for next season's harvest. 
• Clones
• If you use clones from another producer, make sure that you quarantine the clones after receiving them to make sure there are no signs of disease or pests. 
• Variety Selection
• If possible, review the test result from the finished flower to better understand if this variety is the best fit for your business. 
• In 2020, we've had numerous extreme weather events across the United States, from hurricanes to flooding, hail damage, early snowfall, and wildfires. The farther you are away from the equator, you'll want to select more Indica dominant varieties with shorter flowering times to at least partially mitigate these risks. 
• Make sure that you have ample time to harvest your selected variety before the first frost. I've seen cannabis plants go down to 24 degrees Fahrenheit (-4 degrees Celsius) before they died, but we don't advise risking it. 
• Select multiple varieties. Optimally with different harvest windows. If you only have a single variety, they mature at roughly the same time, which increases the chances of issues in the harvest, trimming, and drying phases that can lead to significant crop failures. Common failures around harvest season include problems with adverse weather conditions and mold. Multiple varieties are your hedge against these issues. 

Starting in a Greenhouse

• A climate-controlled greenhouse with proper temperatures, humidity, airflow, and CO2 enrichment is perfect for your stock plants and cloning operations. 
• You can also use CO2 enrichment to improve your cloning success and the vegetative health of your plants. 

Site Assessment

• What resources do you have on-site?
• Do you have enough water?
• Do you have enough power?
• Is natural gas available?
• What infrastructure are you going to need to plant, maintain, and secure your fields?
• Conduct randomized soil samples early to determine what amendments and cover crops are the best fit for your soil. You can do this by throwing a tennis ball behind your shoulder in different locations and taking soil samples where the ball lands. This will give you a better overall representation of your soil as it reduces your bias in selecting which areas to test. 
• Test your water as well. You'll need to know what you are working with to develop your nutrient and fertigation plans. 

Planting/Tranplanting

• Before you move plants into the fields, you need to plan how you will amend the plots.
• Where are you going to be planting out in the field?
• What sort of tractor would you use to help streamline your cultivation practices?
• How many rows of clones will be going out into the field? Four? Six? Eight?
• What is the spacing between rows? This is especially important if you vegetate your plants a bit longer before transplanting them into the field. 
• Plan on topping your plants and thinning any smaller arms before transplanting them into the field. You can save a lot of time by working with all the plants in a concentrated area rather than having someone walking down the field bending over and trying to top each plant correctly once spaced out in rows. 
• On large-scale operations, every additional step adds up, and proper planning can substantially reduce your labor costs. 

Irrigation and Fertigation Systems

• Consistency in your genetics helps you to optimize the fertigation and irrigation systems for each variety. 
• Build and test your fertigation and irrigation systems before planting into the field. 
• Have your pumps been serviced? Are your pumps producing the necessary water pressure for consistent irrigation? 
• Are the water temperature and pH consistent throughout the irrigation system?
• Do you have retainment ponds or reservoirs on site for water storage?
• We've seen many different irrigation systems used for cannabis cultivation, including furrows, pivots, drip systems, and hand watering. 
• We advise avoiding overhead watering systems, especially in late summer and fall, as dense flowers are particularly prone to mold. 
• Furrow irrigation is pretty inefficient from a water standpoint. 
• Most commonly, we recommend using an automated drip irrigation system, with drip tape running down each plant row. 
• We recommend having multiple pulses of water and nutrients each day rather than once a day. 
• Keep excellent records and logs. This information is invaluable to improve your operation over time. 

Biomimicry

• The most important thing we can do as cultivators in the cannabis industry is biomimicry. 
• Soil health is a product of diversity. The diversity of plant life creates fungal and bacterial diversity, which supports healthy nutrient cycling and optimal plant health. 
• What cover crops will you plant in the fall after your harvest?
• You don't want the soil to be exposed. It needs a living ground cover. 
• What variety of cover crops will you plant in the spring?

Learn from Local Farmers

• What techniques are they utilizing successfully?
• Remember, they've dealt with everything that you will face.
• What are the most common pests?
• What are some of the regional things that you need to plan for?

Techniques Specific to Large Scale Outdoor Cultivation

• When coming from an indoor or greenhouse mentality, many growers believe that you need to love the plants. Yes, this is true, but it does not mean wasting your time on every plant. When you are growing at this scale, you can't. Your job is to love the soil, provide everything the plants need for success, and let nature take its course. 
• Complete as many preventative treatments, topping, training, thinning, inoculating, etc. before moving plants to the field. Doing so will significantly reduce the amount of labor you're going to need compared to completing this work in the field. 
• Staking and Training
• Indoor/Greenhouse techniques of staking each plant's arm do not translate to large-scale outdoor production. 
• We recommend starting with consistent genetics that are topped and thinned to relatively the same size. Then utilize techniques used by commercial tomato growers or vineyards.
• We prefer adding T-posts every 20 feet or so along your plant rows then running a string line from one post to the other. As the plants start to grow, you can use tomato clips to hook them to the string line. You'll add more strings throughout the season and weave them around each plant in the row. Over time this creates a netted wall stabilizing and supporting all of the plants. 
• For outdoor, your goal is to create the most volume of plant material with the fewest touch points. 

Planning for Next Season

• What materials need to be ordered?
• What equipment can help streamline your production process? Trim machines? Drying and curing facilities? 
• What infrastructure do you need for your stock plant and cloning operations? Your fertigation and irrigation system?
• How much labor do you need?
• Where are you going to source your genetics?
• When do you need to take your cuttings?
• When do you hope to get them into the field?
• What sort of implements and machinery are you going to use? 
• Products made for small indoor operations are not fit for commercial production. Look to agricultural equipment manufacturers for solutions. 
• What preventative measures will you utilize to control pests and diseases?
• What cover crops and guardian plants will you use in your field? Biodiversity is vital.
• Many growers use plastic in their rows. We're really against plastic except in certain climates. 
• What amendments will you use? Earthworm castings? Greensand? Azomite? Your soil tests will inform you of what amendments you need. 
• How will you incorporate amendments into the field?
• Focus on biomimicry! The healthier the soil, the less you need to feed the plants. 
• How will you introduce beneficial bacteria and fungi into your soil? How will you feed and maintain the environmental conditions to keep them thriving? 
• Many large scale farmers use salt-based nutrients. These are terrible for the health of your soil and can be very costly. Build and nurture your soil health. 
• Water filtration, like reverse osmosis, may not be feasible for large scale outdoor cultivation. You may need to look into creating settling ponds and larger reservoirs to meet your needs. 
• Avoid using municipal water when possible. There are residual chlorine and chemicals in municipal water that are not the best for maintaining a biologically healthy soil ecosystem. 
• Take the time to plan. Most of the disasters we've seen are the result of a lack of foresight and planning. There are more things to consider when planning for tens of thousands of plants, and a small mistake can be devastating on this scale. 
• Create contingency plans for each plant-life-supporting system as well as your harvesting, drying, and curing techniques. 
• If a weather event is threatening your harvest, how can you manage harvesting large amounts of plant material from the field quickly? 
• Avoid hanging full plants or branches in a big barn. There are more efficient and precise procedures for large scale harvests that will help to mitigate any risks of mold while using less space.
• You'll want to consider large scale industrial trimming machines, buckers, implements for sorting buds, UV lights to kill any potential yeasts and molds, and other equipment to streamline your harvesting method.
• Do you have enough capital to get what you need before you plant your fields?
• While it varies based on the local climate, we typically start selectively harvesting flowers from the plant's top and middle sections the first week of September in the northern hemisphere. 
• If you are used to flowering cannabis plants indoors or in a greenhouse, your variety may reach maturity 55 days after switching to 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark cycle. Since days progressively get shorter outdoors starting on the summer solstice, they take longer to trigger flowering and finish later outdoors. 
• It would be best to have a plan for where and when you will sell your products. Every fall, there is a massive surge in supply from outdoor operations. You'll need to plan to sell enough right away to cover your cost while also having proper storage and techniques to cure and maintain your product's quality before it is sold. 
• Creating value-added products is a great business opportunity for outdoor cultivators. Whether this is pre-rolls, extracts, or formulated products, this is a great way to get more for your harvest while also providing more affordable products for your end customers. 
• Next year, many of the problems you faced will be non-existent if you can sit around the fire this winter and develop a thorough operational plan.