Crop Steering for Max yield and THC - Aroya Bull$h¡t?

Indoor Growing
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So… a bunch of known growers (greengrenes, sharkmouse, pdxplantgirl, kevinjodrey etc) follow Aroya on Instagram. I know this doesnt validate them, but it made me curious so Ive been reading their content, and one of the main things they push is this idea that in order to maximize yield and thc content, you need to “steer” your crop to send generative signals after veg which means:

In veg:
higher frequency of irrigation, higher water content (ample runoff), lower vpd, and lower light intensity.

and in late flower:
less water content (less runoff), or higher dryback, higher EC, higher VPD, and higher light intensity.

They claim this change is interpreted by the plant as a cue to go into regenerative growth, and they even talk about “regenerative or generative signals” that produce higher thc content and yields.

illl leave a video

I know many already do some variation of this by default (some increase Phosphorous, others just increase EC and VPD according to charts) but im more on the fence regarding the whole “generative signals” discourse…

Your thoughts??

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Agree with…

More light
Stronger nutrients
And a adjusted VPD…

Definitely not the less water thing though as the plants needs will increase with the higher metabolic rate due to more light, nutrients…and usually Co2 in flower…

Just my opinion though

Alaskagrown

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yeah that is totally counter intuitive for me too… they arent very specific either, but in general less water in flower to me sounds weird.

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Whether we know it or not we all practice some form of crop steering, changing the lights to 12/12 is the major generative cue.

Since I use a living soil I don’t have a lot of control over the EC, but in general I use the following targets:

Vegative PPFD 400, Generative PPFD 600
Vegative temp 84°F, Generative temp 81°F
Vegative RH 70%, Generative RH 58%
Vegative CO2 600 PPM, Generative CO2 800 PPM
Vegative moisture 120 milibar, Generative moisture 150 milibar.

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Def not bullshit.

A lot of the best growers that I follow are now growing this way / starting to grow this way and a lot of them have reported massively increasing their yield and quality. You need one of those moisture meters (teros 12 or growlink) to do it properly though and there’s a lot to it.

There’s a thread on another forum that I’m on where a lot of people who don’t own businesses have switched to it (after buying a meter) and are reporting not just crazy yield increases but quality too.

By having a meter to measure volumetric water content and pore water EC you’re able to fine tune your irrigation practices (with automation) and steer the plant to either produce more leaves during veg or more bud during flower.

As far as the less water content during flower it just means letting it dry out more in between each irrigation and letting the volumetric water content of the media drop and the pore water EC rise to a certain point before giving it another irrigation without going too far (which is not a good thing). Not necessarily giving it less water, hence having one of those meters to tell you when as doing it by feel is not really possible. A lot of fine tuning but as far as I’ve seen once you get it dialed in it’s pretty remarkable.

I know people that are feeding at 3.5-4.5 EC and flowering (aside from last few weeks) at 75% RH and crushing it and most people would have a heart attack seeing those numbers :stuck_out_tongue: The results speak for themselves though. Once my room is more dialed in I’m definitely gonna get a teros 12 and start to learn myself.

Some growers to check out who are using this method
josh_neulinger
jidoka (sacredcowconsulting)
tyler_incognita
craft_farmer
overgr0wn
jenijam16
jonslablab

Probably many more but only so much I can remember.

Edit: there’s a guy currently working on some controller that works with all these moisture meters plus a lot of other things to really fine tune your grows and a few people are testing it and it looks awesome. It’s called pinnacle systems (pinnaclesystemsethoscontroller)

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I think I’ll pass on the $500 Teros 12 moisture meter… :open_mouth:

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Yeah some grow equipment is expensive af but I figure some things end up paying for themselves eventually. Some of these grows I’ve been seeing are getting 3.5-4lbs per 4x4 :face_with_monocle: with co2 of course.

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“Crop Steering” is just the current “trendy” new way to talk about optimizing growing conditions per stage of growth…it’s nothing new really!

Some folks have been achieving yields like this for decades…. :wink: Even back when the best lighting available was magnetic cap/coil ballasts, Hortilux Super HPS 1000 w bulbs, and Super Sun hoods…with todays lighting and growing technique some pretty amazing yields are possible!

Alaskagrown

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Secondary metabolites are basically what we’re after when we grow. Terpenes and cannabinoids exist to protect the plant from various things, biotic stress is from living organisms like insects and fungal pathogens, and abiotic stress which are non-biological stressors like UV light, temperature, LST, and yes, dryback or drought-stress. These things will increase the plants need to protect itself… make more secondary metabolite, e.g. cannabinoids.

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The tenasiometers that I’ve used are the Blumat digital moisture meter - these are nice, durable, and give a quick, digital read on moisture. Under $80 at Sustainable Village.
Irrometer Tensiometer (Low Tension - LT) is a very nice, very sensitive, analog meter. Altough they take a lot more care, these are the ones I prefer. About $100 at Sustainable Village.
I grow in organic soil-less media

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I made a soil moisture meter with an ESP32 and a sensor. Granted, its not the quality of a $500 meter, but it also only cost about $12 to make :wink: Bet it gets kinda close… “Good enough for Government” as they say.

Raising VPD during flower scares me though, especially if you are heavy on the dense indica nugs. How do they deal with mold and botrytis with the higher humidity? MAD air flow?

I would have thought lower humidity promotes trichomes as a protective measure against overdrying. Seems logical but I’ll admit its just a guess…

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Talk to @advancedbuffalo he’s got actual data on it. Gigantic buds, big yields.

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I’ve been following Escobars steering his plants.
I got into my self. I went old school though.

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Hi brother, are you the maker of the Eskobar Tribute Amnesia Haze x Choco Rain f2? I picked up a pack and will be trying them soon. If so, thanks! peace

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It works but the steering has to be purposeful. At the core of all of this, we are altering the expression of the plants genetics through environmental manipulation. Steering should be used for expressing specific cultivars in the best way possible. Then you record that sensor data and repeat it for consistency. Or nudge certain variables to see how it changes expression.

Sure, you can just be all “high frequency irrigation go brrr vegetative steer for swell”, but a lot of times it reduces terpene expression in exchange for dry flower mass. Whether or not that is a good thing depends on what your goal is. But that is the primary method used in crop steering. Generative for tight node stacks during stretch, vegetative during swell, generative to finish.

Keep in mind that a lot of people using this tech are large grow ops where yield is a very high priority. And commercial growers are not the type of people to admit when their quality drops, especially when income is higher. Also, its hard to see a quality drop when the quality has always been terrible. Lots of these places pump out absolute trash.

After collecting data for a long time on this, I think steering is very useful for making the plant do things. Steering is just a verb, and what matters is the end result. You can use data collection to identify the variables that lead to the best expression of quality, or the best expression for yield. Some plants have genes that allow them to do both pretty well, others not so much.

I have hunted through a little over 1k seeds in the past year and Quality does seem to trend downwards with size. But there is a sweet spot where size and quality are at their maximum. I like adapting planting density to increase yeild per ft^2 rather than blowing up boof balloons.

Also… Those massive ass colas are a huge mold risk when used for dry flower. You absolutely need to have excellent ventilation to avoid getting mold growth during the dry period. If any spores get inside one of those buds during swell, thats a nice moisture trap.

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@eskobar has some very interesting things going with data and crop steering. His thread is well worth watching…

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letting it all sink in! thanks. Is there a place where you share more info like this? I viewed your profile but couldn’t find a log.

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thats what it sounded like, but the watering thing just seemed counterintuitive. Reading all the responses below has been quite illustrative.

Thank you for all the awesome references, i have already started to check them out.

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Aroya, new side company of Metergroup (ex Decagon)
The mother company Decagon/Metergroup is here allready long time.
In agriculture and scientific research they are used often.

Aroya uses the sensors from Metergroup. They only coded different read-out software.
The sensors are:
Atmos, for VPD, RH, TEMP and Presure
Teros 12, for Medium Temp, Pore Water EC, Bulk EC, Saturation Extract EC
ES-2, for EC (bulk) measurements in reservoirs and pipes.
The 4th sensor is from Apogee but you can also integrate them in the Aroya data software.

Those are the 4 main sensors.
You do not need Aroya to make this work. The company itself, Metergroup also has a Zentra Cloud where you can read out data in graphs. It does cost 180$ a year for a subscription.

Aroya did not invent crop steering, they only adapted it to cannabis growing. To make the data easier to read.
Crop steering is a very common thing in agricultural world.
Crop steering is a fancy word for growing in controlled enviroment.

In my ops, i have adapted the high frequency irrigation system into an eb en flood system.
The results are there. Better quality, high yields of very dense buds, potency and the most important are the terp levels.
I do not finetune to one strain, i grow ‘allot’ of strains mixed. It works very well.

You give ec, you see what stays in the medium and you see the drain values.
You see what gets eaten by the plants and the speed.
Steering VPD, controlls the EC uptake from the plants and grow speed/shape of plants.

In large commercial operations, its important to keep control. They need the data to know whats going on because they do not have an overview.
In small growing operations, its magic to get even more control and finetune to the limit.
Perfect visual and follow up on the plants because its small + the data = i do love it. It works

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Damn I’m gonna have to read through this when I get home from work. Thanks boys :sunglasses::pray:!

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