My company has had failed test after failed test for cadmium. Our states limit is .2ppm and these failed tests are hurting the business. We’ve tried to wrap our heads around this for months and have tried more than a few things. Any thoughts?
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More info needed:
What type of soil/media are you using?
If you use cubes and other consumables, are you properly rinsing them first? Did you test all inputs for Cd?
Was the soil tested prior?
Have you looked into chemical or phytoremediation?
Have you tested your water? Do you use RO as input?
What are the few things you have tried?
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We use coco loco, we had it tested since they wouldn’t release the coas, there was cd in there but not an outrageous amount. Our grower is currently using an enzyme on the plants that he just started. We use regular water that been filtered 4 times including a heavy metal filter for everyday watering and RO for flushing. We tested the water for cd recently and have seen an improvement since the first time we tested it since the heavy metal filter. We recently started to try and grow the plants taller so the nutrients are more spread out, and trying out a new soil Coast of Maine Stonington Blend. Its frustrating because we have to wait to see if these things will actually work.
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Hemp and cannabis are bio accumulators. They’ll pull the metals from the soil and concentrate them more in specific tissues.
If time permits maybe run a burner crop that you can either sell or trash. Snapdragon is a good one according to google, offload them at smaller growth stages to home depot and lowes for $5-10 a piece and let them mark them up.
Look up chemical remediation too.
I am not a plant guy so I am going to back off now.
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Well thanks for the input, I’ll look into it.
Just looked this up and saw it contains some ocean products. Kelp/seaweed and seashells can be really bad for heavy metals as they are also accumulators. They also tend to bring more sodium along for the ride than you probably want. We grow in organic soil and had to stop using anything with these ingredients. Also be careful with any rock dusts and have them tested. Don’t trust the vendors COA, we’ve found 45x more Cadmium in a product than the vendor COA listed.
There’s some research around silica helping to block/prevent heavy metal uptake. Its mostly researched in other crops like rice but it may help. A less researched theory proposes that having adequate levels of molybdenum will prevent heavy metal uptake.
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Plant growth regulators can cause the problem. Any organics can be hit and miss. And similar to what was said above about silica, fulvic acids have been shown to make heavy metals harder to absorb in people. Just a guess, but probably in plants too. You could ask our forum member @AgTonik and see what he says.
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Wow,
Anybody else in your area with failed exact test (cadmium) ?
Any product recalls ?
Would the test show contamination thru root uptake or topical exposure ??
A quick search on subject describes “sources of cadmium exposure” via
man made hot spots that contaminate air, soil and water. Definitely track it
down.
I have helped several growers eliminate heavy metal contamination issues (including mercury, chromium, cadmium and arsenic). Send me a message if you’re interested in consulting to solve this problem.
Switch your media.
Cannabis pull heavy metals from whatever substrate they are in. Organic like kelp are chock full of it.
I’d switch labs too.
Hydro Tube System: I once had a medium size fountain pump go bad and it
left an oily film in reservoir. With curiosity… did a search on the net cadmium is
used in some lubrication’s, but not all.
Regarding the pump, I switch to a Mag-Drive that has no lubricating oils in product
description (spec’s).
Regards,
Chem trails?
Might be a battery that was exposed to water? If a lithion batt gassed off in your grow room it might show up.
If you’re interested in trying some clean coco from dutch plantain dm me i can line you up with some samples .
Heavy metals are tricky because it’s entirely possible there is no one smoking gun, and contamination can come from unlikely sources. For one client, it took us a solid three months to finally track down and eliminate the sources of their Nickel fails. You should start by testing all of your inputs and consumables, and swap out everything that comes back hot. You’re also right that management can help, but growing bigger plants is pretty much the opposite of what the scientific literature suggests you should do.
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Strengthen your quality control measures to prevent cadmium contamination during the manufacturing process. This might involve tighter controls on raw materials, more frequent equipment maintenance, and improved training for personnel handling cadmium-containing materials.
Put everything for extraction. Been having some stellar results with cadmium staying in the bio mass and not coming through with the tane.
Process to distillate and all heavy metals will disappear.