The medical cannabis industry is still in its infancy stage with many theories and methods available on how to cultivate it. But if growers want to be competitive and grow their business, it’s important to adopt the best practices of a well-established horticultural methodology. If you combine that with newly generated crop knowledge and leading technology, you've got a successful medical cannabis business at hand.
When growing medical cannabis, regular crop protection products are out of the question. Therefore, climate control is critical not only to create optimal conditions for plant development, but also because it serves as your pest management system. A combination of structure components, supported by sensors and a smart controller, control and maintain the correct humidity and temperature to avoid mites, mildew and other fungal infections.
Achieving the highest possible return on your medical cannabis project requires the ability to maximize crop cycles and optimize every square meter of greenhouse space. Therefore, it’s critical to manipulate day length and control flowering. The inevitable challenge you’ll face when utilizing light deprivation systems is maintaining full control of your greenhouse environment, in terms of both temperature and humidity, during blackouts. To buttress your light dep screens, you’ll need smart solutions for preventing the sun from entering through ventilation components or via your fan and pad system. Automation based on radiation sensors is also crucial to maintain precision, since maximizing photosynthesis without compromising flower induction is the key to high productivity.
The two production stages of medical cannabis require very different irrigation protocols. The first stage, propagation, needs light droplets, high humidity and a system that supports small containers. When the new plants are mature enough to be transferred to the production area, they require a system that can uniformly irrigate large containers with high frequency and zero added humidity.
Our special PC CNL drippers make a noticeable difference in the production area. They are not only pressure regulated but also non-drainage, so they eliminate draining effects that disrupt uniformity and allow several irrigation cycles per day with perfect water distribution across the entire farm.
Together with NetBow™ or other special manifolds and drop guides, the container is evenly watered and root development is optimal.
NetBow™ is an innovative, user-friendly container irrigation multi-outlet dripper arc developed to address the needs of high-value soilless pot-irrigated crops such as Medical Cannabis, that require unique irrigation and fertigation knowhow.
While customized premixed cannabis nutrients are available, using them for a commercial operation is an economic burden. Fortunately, medical cannabis is less complicated to fertilize than popular opinion proposes. The 18 nutrients that medical cannabis needs to thrive significantly overlap with the fertigation needs of many other crops; the key is in your ability to adjust flexibly the ratios based on development stage and environment.
The ideal dosing system will use six to eight channels: three for N-P-K, one for calcium and magnesium, one for a microelement blend, and the last to control pH. Too much more and you’ll experience complexity and over specification, bogging down your operation. Your system should support a tank mix for the final solution to give you uniform, consistent results.
The Netaflex medical cannabis fertigation system is an exceptionally precise, state-of-the-art open-tank dosing system, designed to place medical cannabis plant nutrition directly into the palm of the grower’s hand.
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Medical cannabis is not like growing corn or tomatoes. As a grower, you are held accountable for quality and required by the pharmaceutical industry to ensure that your production process is documented and traceable. Medical cannabis fertigation, irrigation and plant protection specs need to be available on demand for any given plant.
With Netafim’s digital farming and monitoring tools, not only do you have a better handle on what’s going on with your crop at any given moment, but traceability is built-in.
Check it outWhile drainage is often an overlooked component of the agricultural process for any greenhouse crop, managing drainage is actually a great way to grow better crops with fewer resources. Since growing in soilless media requires irrigating with drainage volume of 30% or more, reusing drainage can save you 30-40% on your fertilizer expenses and water use. Additionally, the drainage volume measurement is a great way to monitor and control irrigation. Measuring nutrient content in your drainage can tell you a lot about your plant uptake and how to tweak your plant nutrition plan.
That’s true for any crop, but medical cannabis drainage carries legal obligations. Because of its narcotic nature, drainage can’t always be conveniently flushed into a river. Legislation demands 100% water recycling for some facilities.
Drainage reuse, whether optional or mandatory, requires the right water treatment system. You can avoid spreading of pathogens with water treatment systems like the Netafim NUF system, and control the nutrient content in drainage with our ec/Ph monitoring and our nutrient systems.
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Without expert know-how, even superior technology will deliver only mediocre results. But when it comes to medical cannabis, it’s complicated to find “the right expert”. Medical cannabis has only recently become accepted as a standard crop, so well-vetted, global knowledge relating to professional cultivation is naturally limited. On the other extreme, any “expert” with years of experience growing medical cannabis is likely lacking foundations in modern horticulture and agricultural technology.
Netafim has been doing large scale, hi-tech greenhouse projects for over 50 years, and has accumulated a significant track record in all crops including solutions for growing medical cannabis worldwide.
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Pressure-compensated drippers designed to make sure you can deliver a uniform flow rate no matter how difficult your topographical conditions are. They’re ideal for greenhouses, vineyards and orchards with uneven land and are a great solution for irregular plant spacing.
Pressure-compensated drippers – with an optional anti-drain feature – designed to give you 100% uniformity of water and nutrient distribution. And they’re constantly self-cleaning to prevent clogging. Ideal for greenhouses and nurseries.
Lower your fertilizers’ costs and get better and higher yields with our advanced fertigation solutions. Watch this video and learn how you can get faster ROI.
Want to maximize productivity and get better and higher quality yields? You’ll need more than a great greenhouse. You’ll need a holistic approach with world-class technology, agronomic know-how, and the right team to accompany you from design to success.
