Nutrient diagnoses, turgor refresher, generative irrigation strategy, & More!

The growmies came through with the questions and Seth and Jason got right to business – dropping knowledge about everything from how to approach a gen irrigation strategy, to getting to the heart of what crop steering is really about, to the ins and outs of navigating nutrient issues, and so much more!

Check out these nuggets of wisdom from the episode:

Wise Words

“Don't let the crop steer you…Every run we do, we need to make some small tweaks, but those shouldn't be major reactive decisions. Those should be on a scale of less than 10% change, typically, unless something really bad has happened. So keep that in mind when we say it's crop steering. The goal is we're trying to control it for a desired outcome, for some stability in the yield and quality of these products.” 

– Jason

Data Completes The Picture

“You can really glean a lot by looking at your whole system and just finding out: where am I short on my inputs, what is out of balance here? And that's usually a good sign to point you in the right direction…Getting that time-series data on what your environment is doing day and night: do your lights go out and you're getting no transpiration overnight because the humidity goes completely too high? Is that causing us to not get enough water and nutrients up to the plant?... There's a whole host of things, but that's why we always preach crop registration, time-series data. Pay attention to everything and you can usually find weak points there without jumping to some crazy conclusions.” 

– Seth

Nutrient Excess or Deficiency?

All right, “I think I have a nutrient deficiency.” Well, are you seeing that because your PHs are off or are you trying to recognize that from your eyes? If your PHs are off, if you recognize it with your eyes, look at your time-series data. Are your plants eating more nutrients than you're feeding them? Easy fix: up the nutrient levels. If you work through these things and you still find that there's a problem, or you just want to validate it, then get that leaf tissue analysis that's going to tell you what is in excess, what is too low, not that you are. You should be identifying that with simpler, faster, more effective means.”

– Jason