I could have posted in cultivation, but I think this may be a better question for some of the vertically integrated live resin makers out there…
I built out an 8000w indoor Living Soil room more or less as a test lab. Honestly, the entire setup is an experiment in itself, because it’s my first time running true living soil (worms and all).
I also built the space with identical side by side beds/soil/lights/etc as a structure for 1 variable testing of new products and practices.
I’m pulling next month, and trying to decide what the first experiment would be the most valuable taking into account that the end product is live resin. I’m using mostly BuildaSoil products, so my first thought was to test their full recommended system of additives, vs. a scaled down version for wet weight and resin yield.
Any other ideas? There is so much research on flower yield, but I’m I’m really interested in what specific products/practices affect resin production.
Far Red and UV-B lighting. There is alot of great research around UV-B and increased resin production. The idea is that the resin is basically a sun screen type protection. The head of the trichome refracts the light down the stalk of the trichome converting and capturing the energy for the plant.
If you aren’t using PAR lighting CMH/LED I suggest trying that, or even supplementing UV-B with some desert terrarium bulbs. Going from output lighting (HPS) to PAR (CMH/LED) almost doubled my watt to gram, and made everything twice as frosty.
My next suggestion or test would be a little extra heat and co2.
LED’s were mediocre until they realized the importance of full spectrum first with CMH lamps and then translated them to LED. The next step is to hit the 660nm wavelength, which ramps up plant metabolism. After that, I would worry about IR and UV. Make sure the ppfd is appropriate for your canopy as well.
Doing inputs from BAS, you probably have higher brix, which will help pest and disease resistance and increase terpene content. The next step is to make sure they are chelated and available with a (shameless plug) high-quality fulvic product like AGT-50.
The last big factor is environment. VPD is good to follow with proper circulation, temp and humidity control. Eliminate micro-climates as much as possible, which can cause environment, pest and disease pressure.
Interesting. I was wondering the opposite, about running intentionally cooler, but that may be more related to terpenes than to resin.
The living soil is a neat idea. I would guess that it would not like being cold, as it compromises the bacterial balance.
I have been trying to plan a grow that would bring out the most red coloring in the strain red hot cookies. Led and uv light, probably aeroponic, and I was thinking cold temperatures, but that is just a guess.
This lava is a stretching bitch. 82 or so day about 72 night. Seems to work alright. Still gets color but the dwc with 62 degree water seems a little better but lest yield
I am gonna guess @vortal was suggesting CO2 and heat because if you add CO2 and do not raise the temps you will not get full use of the CO2. Cold def brings out the terps though.
This will be tough in my setup anyway, since it’s all one room to maintain as little variability as possible and isolate what I’m trying to experiment on. Probably best set up to adjust practices and additives/feeding rather than environmental stuff- since it’s a shared room. May have been good info for the initial post.
The increase in environmentally influenced resin/terpene production needs to be metabolically sustained through growth. Although low temperatures can help PRESERVE terpene content, it has the opposite effect on production.
well resin production is the plant’s defense mechanism, so ive tried a lil stressing and higher temps as well as letting the plant’s be open to allow pests to scare them n winds to push em.around a bit, all the environmental dangers will have those babies pushin out trichs like fuuckin wild
A quick cut. As soon as the heads are ready I cut asap and have noticed an insane difference in quality both fresh and after a long cure. I’ve noticed if you force increased resin production via unnatural means suddenly it tastes like shit - chemical or otherwise. I get thick white swirls in my cold cures now and straight up candy-like tastes after quicker cuts just going about my normal, simple-ass routine with GH nutes (running the clock out on my stock before I put an order for Jack’s). Hell, i’m getting ghost white chunks in all my cold cures since if I keep the rosin raw when I jar and toss it in the wine fridge. I also switched from a wet cure to dry curing and my god it makes a huge difference in jar-stank and taste alike but i’m also a mutant that thinks some strains make better flower rosin
