Tips for greenhouse and field cultivation

The cannabis industry is still a new market, and with that come several challenges and opportunities. Fellow growers who are navigating these waters on a day-to-day basis offer the best insights into crop production and how to be successful and profitable.

GPN recently hosted a panel discussion with Travis Higginbotham, vice president of production at StateHouse Holdings Inc.; Sean Sangster, regional director of cultivation at Curaleaf; Colin Clark, owner of Never Winter Botanicals; and Javier Garces, Ph.D., horticulture advisor at Treadwell Farms. These four growers tackled several topics, including pests and diseases, lighting, and labor.

PEST AND DISEASE

Many of the issues that arise with cannabis mirror those of other ornamental crops. “Spider mites, aphids and botrytis are our main three,” Higginbotham says. Control options, however, are much more limited, since many of the pesticides approved for other crops are not approved for cannabis and hemp.

“Everything we use is OMRI certified, so it’s certified for organic production,” Garces says. “We try to make sure that if cannabis isn’t listed there, maybe tobacco is, and we also make sure it’s OK with our state regulators before we
apply anything.”

Garces says he expected to have botrytis, mites and aphids on the crops, but he was surprised by some of the other pests and diseases, such as ants and termites in outdoor production and Southern bacterial wilt, much more commonly found on tomatoes.

“Just an observation … not a research publication just yet,” Garces says. “A certain variety that was more resistant to botrytis was more susceptible to the Southern wilt. And then the variety that was a little more susceptible to botrytis, didn’t have the Southern wilt.”

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Photo Courtesy of GPN

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