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The Importance of Sustainable Growing Methods

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The Importance of Sustainable Growing Methods In the Cannabis Industry

Growing cannabis has been a lucrative industry for decades, but recent legislation changes have made it difficult to operate a sustainable business. For the cannabis industry to continue its growth and provide safe medicine to patients, growers must adhere to new regulations designed with sustainability in mind. This blog post will outline some of those requirements and how they can be met using sustainable growing practices. 

Please read on as we discuss the importance of sustainable growing methods in the cannabis sector! If you need seeds, we’ve got you covered! Check out our seed selection here.

Why do we need sustainable marijuana growing in Canada?

As the marijuana industry continues to grow in Canada, it faces the same dilemma as other industries. Increased production means more resources being used up. The good news is that there are many sustainable growing methods to follow, but some of these options do have disadvantages that each business must address. 

The goal for every grower in Canada should be to produce a higher quality end product while at the same time producing less waste and having a smaller impact on the environment. The more people consume marijuana, the more difficult that will be to accomplish, but that’s also when it will be most important.

Our planet is in a fragile state. We’re doing everything possible to protect it for future generations. With the recent legalization of recreational marijuana, Canada sets a great example for other countries that want to enjoy the benefits that cannabis can provide for everyone. 

What does sustainable growing entail?

Sustainable marijuana growing methods are those that protect both the natural world and human society. This means finding ways to minimize waste, limit pollution, and prevent deforestation. Let’s take a closer look at how we could achieve that.

Energy Consumption

Energy is an important factor in the success of marijuana businesses. Growing cannabis indoors takes a lot of electricity. It can prove challenging to obtain the right lights for indoor grow operations, and it costs a lot to power them. However, there are many ways to fight against this claim.

Energy-efficient (LED) lights use up to 80% less energy than regular indoor grow lights and can produce great results for your plants!

The amount of carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) produced by growing marijuana indoors is relatively high where electricity is used, but this can be significantly reduced using energy-efficient lamps.

Water Consumption

As a plant, cannabis understandably requires plenty of water throughout the growing process. This can become a problem during the flowering phase when the cannabis plant has high energy demands. Multiply that by millions of plants, and you can see how significant this issue could become!

Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to reduce water consumption in cannabis cultivation. For one, growers could use aeroponics instead of hydroponic systems to deliver water directly into the root zone through an air or mist medium.

Aeroponic systems also cut down on fertilizers and chemicals because growers only use what’s necessary to keep the plant healthy. Aeroponics need less water than hydroponics, although you can take some steps to reduce this amount even more.

Cannabis cultivation should always involve recycling and reuse whenever possible. Growers could recycle water from one crop to another to minimize how much extra water is used. This means using a closed-loop system that reuses up to 99% of the water instead of dumping it down the drain.

Waste Management

Waste management has been a problem in marijuana cultivation since there’s always so much being produced! In fact, medical growers can produce 500 pounds of organic waste per acre. That’s not an insignificant amount of garbage!

In the past, growers would just toss this away in trash bags and let it sit there until someone came to collect it. This is a massive problem for the environment that unfortunately continues all over the world today. Some irresponsible people see marijuana as something you can throw away without it hurting the environment, but this is not true.

The best way to manage waste in cannabis cultivation is recycling and composting it so that there’s virtually no garbage left after you finish with each batch of plants. To dispose of cannabis waste after harvest, gardeners can use a composting system to turn the waste into a valuable resource rather than just throwing it away, burning it, or sending it to the landfill.

Pollution

Indoor growing facilities are the main culprits of marijuana-related pollution. Not only are they releasing carbon dioxide and other toxins into the air, but they’re also producing a large amount of wastewater that contains pesticides and other chemicals.

This has to stop if we want to protect our planet’s air and water supply! Thankfully there are plenty of ways for indoor marijuana growers to reduce their impact on the world around us.

The first thing is making sure that your grow room is properly sealed so that there are no leaks. This should prevent excess CO2 from seeping into the atmosphere. You can also use a cooling tower instead of a central air-conditioning system so that you don’t need to add extra chemical dehumidifiers to control the humidity in your facility.

Using pesticides is also becoming a huge problem with the growing marijuana industry. This is because many growers don’t realize that pesticides are harmful to people and animals. They also cause pollution problems in waterways and rivers, harming fish and aquatic plants!

Using natural pest control materials such as diatomaceous earth is safer for your crop than using harmful chemicals so that you can avoid this problem.

Are Hydroponics and Aeroponics sustainable?

Yes! These two methods are considered sustainable because they don’t use pesticides and fertilizers, so you’re not polluting the environment with your excess.

Hydroponics uses nearly 70 times less water than traditional farming, so this is a significant advantage of hydroponic technology.

The most important way to make marijuana cultivation sustainable is through recycling and reusing water as much as possible. Some growers even use their own greywater or wastewater from washing their hands instead of relying on clean water. This method has been debated among experts, but it’s important to discuss the topic and figure out if it is good for the environment.

Conclusion

The cannabis industry is rapidly growing in popularity. With this comes many new problems that need to be addressed if we want to maintain a clean and healthy environment for future generations! Every grower needs to do their part to try and ensure sustainability in the market, but there are plenty of things that can be done by the government as well.

That is the only way to keep our rivers and waterways clean and protect animals from suffocating on all of the extra air pollutions. We need to do something about this problem if we want to continue producing and safely consuming marijuana!

Need seeds? We’ve got you covered!

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