Crop Steering Terms Defined

Randy's Collection of Crop Steering Terms and Levers You Can Pull to Manipulate Your Plant Growth

This post will provide an overview of common terms used when talking about Crop Steering. This post will also be referenced and linked to in future posts.

Lets see if we can capture all of the terms, acronyms, and generally whacky terms people use in cannabis crop steering, and keep track of them here!

• Volumetric Water Content (VWC%)

  • The volume of water a substrate is holding at any given time.

• Field Capacity

  • The maximum VWC% of a substrate/media prior to run off.

• Full Saturation

  • When a substrate/media can no longer hold anymore water and peak VWC% can no longer increase.

• Pore Water EC (PwEC)

  • The EC of the water within the pores of the substrate or media. This is also called Substrate EC.

• Input EC

  • The EC of the feed water, or the solution that is being fed through irrigation events.

• Shot

  • A single irrigation event

• Run Off

  • Water that is drained from the substrate

• Dryback

  • The period between irrigation events when the substrate is drying out.

• EC Stacking

  • The strategy of limiting run off and having larger overnight drybacks to increase the substrate EC.

• Crop Steering

  • “An advanced cultivation technique that manipulates key factors of growing, such as irrigation, temperature, humidity, and light to precisely guide plant growth towards desired outcomes”

• Generative

  • A crop steering strategy that means having a larger dryback, a higher substrate EC, and encourages Generative Growth, which means the plant will focus on flower site formation (stacking) and not on vertical growth or green leaf growth. Sometimes referred to as “stressing” the plant.

• Vegetative

  • A crop steering strategy that means having a smaller dryback, a lower substrate EC and encourages Vegetative Growth, which means the plant will focus on growing vertically and swelling (bulk) of the bud sites that are already there. This will also produce new green leaf growth. Sometimes referred to as “less stress” to the plant.

• P0/P1/P2/P3

  • Different phases of irrigation events.

  • P0- The amount of dryback/decrease in water content after the lights turn on, but before the first irrigation event.

  • P1- the first irrigation events after lights are on. This brings the substrate/media to “field capacity” and desired run off

  • P2- Maintenance shots during lights on. P2 feeds are how you control how much dryback you have.

  • P3- Overnight dryback, from the last P2 feed to when lights turn on again.

• Veg

  • The phase of growth after the seeding state but before flowering stage.

• Flower

  • The phase of growth while the plant is producing mature flowers

• Stretch

  • The first 1-4 weeks of the flowering phase, where most genetics will perform their “stretch” and see 2x-5x vertical growth.

• Bulk

  • Part of the flowering phase where the plant is putting on weight, typically weeks 5-7/8

• Finish

  • The end of the flowering phase, initiating senescence aka the end of life for the plant. When the plant starts to express its colors and its terpenes the most.

• Senescence

  • The gradual deterioration of functional characteristics in living organisms.

Remember the levers I was talking about in the first post? Well, here is a little more detail on those as well: