Why You’re Not Getting the Air Porosity You Think in Your Growing Media

Air porosity matters so much in cannabis cultivation. Without adequate air porosity in your growing media, cannabis plants’ root structures won’t grow as big as they need to in order to take in enough food and water. That means your plants will be more susceptible to pest and pathogen risks. In addition, inadequate air porosity means cannabis plants won’t get enough oxygen to grow optimally. As a result, they’ll grow more slowly.

Bottom-line, inadequate air porosity in your growing media leads to less healthy plants, smaller yields, and lower profits for your business. Unfortunately, many growing media options for cannabis cultivators don’t have enough air porosity, and cultivators end up paying the price in the long-term.

The Dire Relationship Between Some Growing Media and Lower Air Porosity

There are some growing media options that don’t provide the consistent levels of air porosity required to achieve the optimal plant health and growth that cannabis cultivators in competitive markets need. Manufacturers of compressed, dehydrated blocks of coco and compressed peat bales tell cannabis cultivators that their media contains a certain percentage of air porosity, but what they don’t tell you is that the air porosity was measured in a perfect environment.

The bad news for cannabis growers is that no cultivation environment is perfect in the real world, and the air porosity quoted by the manufacturers of dehydrated coco blocks and compressed peat bales is unlikely to be achieved in practice. The true air porosity is entirely up to what each cultivator can do in their own facility.

The problem dehydrated coco blocks is that coco hydrates unevenly, which means some areas of the compressed blocks of coco won’t be hydrated correctly when they’re rehydrated. Therefore, the cultivator will have some areas of higher air porosity and some areas of lower air porosity in the coco block. The result will be poorer plant health and limited growth.

The problem with compressed peat bales is a bit different. Air porosity is contingent on the ability to shave the peat bale in the right way. If it’s churned too much, the peat fibers will be damaged and the perlite will be crushed, which creates fine particles. These fine particles clog the larger pores that are supposed to be present for air. If the peat bales are not churned enough, clumps will develop, which means there will be less air by definition.

It’s hard to hit the perfect middle ground between over- and under-churning peat bales, and in the real world, facilities are unlikely to get it right. Compressed peat manufacturers can only get the air porosity they claim in a lab environment.

Buying dehydrated blocks of coco or compressed peat bales can be a cheaper solution for growing media, but these products leave it up to the cultivator to get the hydration right, which isn’t easy. Cultivators think they’re saving money, but ultimately, they’re getting an inferior product and have to do the hydration on their own.

For cultivators, the work isn’t done when the compressed blocks of coco or peat are delivered. In fact, the difficult work has just begun to get adequate hydration and air into the media in order to deliver the plant quality and yields the business needs.

Don’t Risk Your Crops on Inadequate Air Porosity

Cannabis cultivators can get the right amount of air porosity to optimize plant health and growth by using the best growing media. For example, bio365 does the work for you when it comes to air porosity by offering a hydrated product that’s ready to go out of the bag.

All of bio365’s growing media is engineered to have the right air porosity, so it’s consistent within and across every batch, yard, and bag. There will never be significant variation, so you’ll get exactly the air porosity we tell you. With bio365 growing media, cultivators get something much better without all of the extra work and risk that comes with rehydration.