5 Signs You’re Getting Old Soil that Could Hurt Your Crops

Recently, there have been a lot of conversations about soil manufacturers shipping old, poor-quality soil to cannabis cultivators. As an example, on the West Coast, excessive rain has left raw materials and manufactured products that are stored outdoors waterlogged (for the record, bio365 never stores any inputs or product outdoors, but more about effective quality control measures later).

Manufacturers that use raw materials that were stored outside or store their own products outside have two options if they want to continue selling. They can either continue to make their soil and sell waterlogged product, or they can stop manufacturing and only sell old soil that was made before the excessive rain problems started.

Based on the conversations we’ve heard online and offline, manufacturers are choosing both approaches. Some are selling waterlogged bags of soil. Others manufactured too much soil in 2021 in anticipation of huge sales in 2022 – which didn’t happen – so now, they’re selling their old soil that is 2+ years old. Either way, cannabis cultivators lose.

Top 3 Problems with Selling Waterlogged and/or Old Soil for Cultivators

The problems for cannabis cultivators with both approaches manufacturers are using in 2023 are lost money, lower quality in terms of potency and efficacy that hurts plant health and crop yields, and a higher risk of contamination and pH balance fluctuation.

Even if manufacturers are offering waterlogged and/or old soil at deep discounts, it’s still the cultivators who end up on the losing end of the deal. Let’s take a closer look at each of these three problems that cultivators are facing.

1. Lost Money

There are two primary ways using waterlogged soil costs cannabis cultivators more money. First, waterlogged soil bags that have been stored outside will cost more to ship to you from the manufacturer because each bag and pallet weighs more when it’s waterlogged. You’ll end up getting less soil and paying more for transportation. Second, if the soil is nutrient-dense, water can wash out some nutrients. That means you’ll pay more for soil with fewer nutrients when you buy waterlogged soil.

2. Lower Quality

The potency and efficacy of soil degrades over time. This is especially true for living soil made from compost. Think about gardeners who have to augment and revitalize their gardens over time with a fresh bag of soil. The same is true for cannabis cultivation, and old soil just isn’t good enough.

3. More Risk

Raw materials and soil bags that are stored outdoors are at significant risk of increased contamination from the elements, water, and so on that wash in from rain and exposure to the environment. Water and other elements can also change the pH balance of the soil.

5 Signs You’re Getting Old or Waterlogged Soil

Here are five things to look for to determine if your soil manufacturer is sending you old or waterlogged soil:

1. Look of the Bags

If the soil bags are faded or the packaging is marked up, it’s a sign they were stored outdoors and accrued sun, wind, water, and other damages from the elements.

2. Weight of the Bags

If the bags are heavier than they should be, it’s a good sign they’ve been waterlogged.

3. Fewer Pallets or Cubic Feet Delivered than Usual

If you expect to have a certain number of pallets or cubic feet of soil delivered, particularly if you receive regular orders of a certain number of pallets or cubic feet, but the truck brings fewer than usual, the soil has probably been waterlogged.

4. No Promised Expiration Date

As mentioned above, soil degrades over time. If a manufacturer won’t give you an expiration date, then it’s likely that the soil you’re buying is old.

5. Wildly Long Expiration Date

Again, all soil degrades over time. This is particularly true for living soil. If a manufacturer gives you an expiration date that is two or three years in the future, they may be selling old soil.

3 Critical Components of Soil Manufacturing Quality Control

Quality control in soil manufacturing is essential to cannabis cultivators’ outcomes. There is value in using premium soils - even for outdoor cannabis growers. Typically, a cultivator that grows in higher quality soil can get better results and sell their crops for a higher premium than cultivators that grow in low quality soil.

With that said, the soil market is filled with a very wide range of “quality,” so it’s up to you to confirm that the manufacturer you buy from actually has the processes and systems in place to deliver the quality product you need to get the best outcomes.

We published an article about 8 steps to assess your supply chain quality control processes earlier this year, and it’s filled with questions you should ask your suppliers, quality control evaluation tips, and more. Read it and follow the steps to vet all of your vendors and suppliers, including your soil manufacturer.

To help you get started in identifying whether or not a soil manufacturer has adequate processes in place, here are three critical components of a soil manufacturing quality control program:

1. Consistency

A quality control process is only useful if it guarantees products will be manufactured exactly the same way every time and customers will receive consistent products from batch to batch, pallet to pallet, and bag to bag. For example, all bio365 soil is made in controlled environments and undergoes a rigorous 42-point quality control process. This ensures consistency and quality – always.

2. Testing

Testing is essential to quality control because things could go wrong at any point during the manufacturing process. At bio365, we test and track inputs, and we test and track every batch to ensure consistent quality. Every shipment of finished product can be tracked through the production process to the raw materials ordered, received, and processed.

We also test production equipment and calibration of final packaging equipment to ensure package and volume consistency. We even work with our customers to test and provide Certificates of Conformance, Certificates of Analyses, and documentation that regulators or certifiers require. For customers who use their own labs for testing, we’ll share our reference samples.

3. Expiration

All soil should have a reasonable expiration date because it degrades over time. The problem is while regulators require that soil manufacturers stamp an expiration date on all products, they don’t require testing or validation of the date. It’s an honor system, so cultivators have to do their own due diligence to determine if expiration dates are trustworthy or not.

At bio365, we have a one-year expiration date for all products and will never ship any soil that is over one year old. In fact, we try to only ship soil that is less than a couple of months old. With that said, bio365 has tested our products as far out as 18 months and found that they perform the same as our products tested at one month old. Bottom-line, the data shows all bio365 soil products hold their quality for 18+ months, but to ensure our customers only get perfection, we still remove products after one year.

Where other manufacturers stretch their expiration dates, bio365 shortens ours – even though we have concrete evidence showing we don’t have to. It’s just one of the many ways we go above and beyond to ensure our customers get exactly what they expect from bio365 – the best quality soil.

Key Takeaways about Old Soil and Waterlogged Soil

The lesson to learn is deeply discounted soil is cheap for a reason, and even outdoor growers should insist on quality and consistency if they want to get the best results. Be careful of buying old soil or waterlogged soil. When you start with poor quality soil, you limit the potential of your crops and your revenue.

Ready to test bio365’s consistent, high-quality media at your facility? Contact us to learn more or request a free trial.