The “what,” “how” and “why” of fertigation

As the cannabis industry matures, the skills of growers become increasingly sophisticated. Innovative techniques and technologies are developed, enabling growers to optimize their crops. Here’s a look at fertigation, a practice already widespread in horticulture that is quickly gaining in popularity within the cannabis industry.

What is fertigation?

Simply put, fertigation is a combination of irrigation and fertilization, providing the plant with the nutrients it needs through watering, hence the term “fertigation.” Widely used in horticulture, this method is now being adopted by cannabis growers, who see it as a way of optimizing their crops. Automated fertigation also has many advantages.

In the plant, cannabis is grown in an inert substrate. Unlike the potting mix in your garden, which is teeming with microbial life and rich in biodiversity, the perlite that is used to grow the plant does not contain all the necessary nutrients. Thus, our cannabis needs more than just watering for nature to do its job.

Promoting healthy growth

You may think manually adding a cocktail of nutrients to the substrate would do the trick. After all, that’s what you do with your little vegetable garden at home in the summer, and your tomatoes look great, right? Well, a professional athlete should eat a healthy diet but also needs to get as many nutrients as possible and assimilate them as efficiently as possible.

The same goes for cannabis. Watering the plant to provide nutrients directly through the roots ensures optimal absorption: While fertigation allows for uniform distribution, if you add fertilizer manually to the soil, its concentration will vary from place to place. More efficient and rapid assimilation through the roots means a reduced loss of fertilizing agents, and steady, vigorous growth.

It’s also a question of dosage: High-frequency fertigation, for example, involves irrigating the plants several times a day, which improves crop yield and quality.

Why did we start using fertigation?

If you know anything about us, you’ll know that Origine Nature sets the bar high when it comes to cultivation and that one of our main objectives is consistency, that our products offer the same level of quality with each harvest, and that their effects and appreciation are the same every time they are consumed. When working with a living product like the cannabis plant, achieving such consistency is challenging, and techniques like fertigation help us reach this ambitious goal. It’s one of the secret weapons in our arsenal!