Since the cannabis industry is still young in comparison to other more established sectors, most of the techniques and solutions come from the horticulture world, especially with regards to the current large-scale cannabis landscape. However, according to Marc Morrow, Gorilla Boost co-founder, fresh produce producers have started resorting to a solution which has always been considered as something related to the cannabis industry only. “Gorilla Boost is a buffered coco coir manufacturer and distributor. We are active in the fruit and vegetable markets, as well as the cannabis one,” Marc explains.
Gorilla Boost booth at MjBizCon 2018, Las Vegas
Coco coir usually comes in two solutions, buffered and unbuffered. “Everybody is wanting the buffered product”, Marc explains. According to him, in the past only the cannabis industry wanted the buffered product. “Nowadays, all the other industries are figuring out that buffered coco coir gives better results in terms of yield and quality.”
Marc continues to explain the difference between a buffered and unbuffered product: “Unbuffered coco coir is just washed with water. On the other hand, the buffering process involves a washing with water first, and then an additional calcium and magnesium rinse occurs to get rid of the insoluble salts.” However, according to Marc, it is difficult to find coco coir with consistent quality as “Not everybody carries out these operations in the right way.”
The devil is in the details
Marc takes care to explain that cannabis growers need to stay within a specific ph level range and necessitate the substrate to have a precise EC level. “Cannabis requires a 5.5 and 6.5 ph range. With Gorilla Boost, we make this range tighter, as in 5.8 and 6.2. It is really important to be consistent.” According to him, the lack of consistency and quality could result in a crop with different ph or EC levels which eventually can compromise part of the yield. “You don’t want your product to have variation”, he points out. “In large-scale operations, it is crucial to keep these parameters even throughout the growing facility. If the crop were off because the ph in one area is higher than in another, the master grower would face hard times to fix that. It cost time, money, and labor and there are more important things master growers should be working on.”
One of the most common problems growers ask Marc to solve is exactly regarding the widespread inconsistency within the industry. “We have received complaints by many growers that it is hard to find consistency. This is an area of improvement for this industry.” According to him, a grower would find out that the coco coir she is using is not high quality enough too late in the growing process. “You are not maximizing your yield if the coco coir is not right. A lot of growers do not know they are making this mistake: for instance, one of these problems could be that the sodium levels are too high. Also, nutrients might not be efficiently taken into the plant because the substrate is not of an enough high quality. You could be wasting more costly nutrients by using cheap growing mediums.”
However, Marc observes that “The surprising thing about coco coir is that growers do not want nutrients at all in it. They want what they call clean coco coir. They want to add their nutrient program, and if they start with nutrients in the coco coir, then they could be overfeeding the plant.”
Coco coir for organic growing
Growing organic cannabis can be difficult, because, as Marc points out, most buffered coco coir is not certified organic, and usually only non-buffered coco coir is certified organic. “Our coco coir is OMRI listed and buffered. This element, in addition to our buffering process, makes Gorilla Boost products particularly suited for organic growing.” As a last remark, Marc shares a curiosity he has been witnessing recently: “I have been receiving quite a number of requests for our product made of 70% coco coir and 30% coco husk chips. This combination allows for additional drainage, which cannabis growers seem to greatly appreciate.”
For more information:
Gorilla Boost
P.O. Box 460193
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33346
+1.954.478.2402
[email protected]
gorillaboost.com