The community of cannabis cultivators
has always been tight. We had to be, for most of our lives, we were persecuted, and in some jurisdictions we still are. That persecution meant that we couldn't
access many of the botanists we'd like to talk to. And that meant there were big parts of
cannabis cultivation that was kind of in a biological black box. We couldn't
see what was happening inside. All we knew was what we were doing, and
then what was coming out the other side. Now though, between the creeping partial
legalization we've got and the internet, we can now access the minds of scientists
who support our efforts to grow magnificent, thriving, and
medicinal cannabis plants. Today's one of those episodes where
we get to look inside that black box. During today's episode, we will examine the relationship between
the cannabis plant and the soil life and get a better understanding of how
they talk to each other and how they work together for mutual benefit
in this intimate relationship. If you wanna learn about cannabis health
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the newsletter and be entered into this month's and all future
newsletter prize drawings. You are listening to Shaping Fire,
and I'm your host, Shago LOEs. My guest today is Plant
biologist Sarah Lane. Sarah Lane is wrapping up her PhD in plant
and cellular biology at University of Victoria. Her work primarily focuses on root
exudates that are involved in iron uptake in plants and their
potential medicinal benefits. Sarah consults for licensed
cannabis cultivators in
Canada and is an avid living soil, cannabis home grower. Due
to her university research needs, she is also very experienced
in fog, pons, and hydroponics. Sarah has a wicked large plant collection
and is currently designing a specialty terrarium for growing cloud orchids.
During the first set of today's episode, we will focus on what exudates are, their biological mechanics and how
they interact with microbes and other residents of the rhizosphere.
During the second set, we will talk about the relationship
between dates and fungal networks, signaling varieties of exude dates, and address the challenges
of a 24 hour light cycle. We finish up the third set discussing
exudates and salt based fertilizers. Exudates and soil is growing
mediums like, like Coco core, and the misconception of using unsolved
moral assets to replace the nutrition that exudates provide. Welcome
to Shaping Fire, Sarah. Hey, it's great to be
here. Thanks for having me. Oh, yeah. Thank you so much for
joining us and sharing your expertise. So let's jump right in. You know,
I think that most people, uh, who cultivate cannabis, who
have even heard of exudates, um, only really know that exudates are
something that the cannabis plant gives off and that the microbes eat. And like, that's pretty much it. It's
the, it's the food, it's the, the plant feeding the microbes, and
that's about it. And, and you know, we know that that's actually like overly
simplistic and misses the big picture. So, so why don't we start by kind of getting
everybody on the same page and if you would, explain what exudates are. Okay. So exudates are basically all
of the different molecules and components that the plant makes in the
roots that are like given off to the cryosphere. So there's a bunch of stuff inside the
plant cells and inside the root that happens. And then ex dates are everything
that the plant makes specifically to, to transport out into the soil. And there's lots of different types
of exit dates. They can be sugars, they can be amino acids, they can be, um, specific types of secondary metabolites
which are not used for nutrition. And there's many, many different
functions of them as well. So just to give us an idea of, of like how many different
exu dates there are. Are we, are we talking about like,
like there's, there's, there's like five buckets or 50
buckets or a hundred buckets, Like how many, how many varieties
are there just, just in general? Oh, goodness, That's a tough one. There, there honestly are so many different types
of ex dates and we're just scratching the surface of what ex dates actually
are like off the top of my head, like functionally there's probably like
20 different groups of ex dates that I know of personally, but I think ex dates are extremely hard
to study because they are in the soil and the roots. So I think we'll probably
keep finding new ones over time. This is ki i I get the idea now that
this is kind of like asking you how many, uh, types of bacteria are there.
There's just like a ton in nature and, and we're, we're constantly
finding more as our, um, technology gets more sensitive. So true. Yep. That's definitely the case. . All right. So, um, like to help illustrate what
some of these ex expedites are, can you give us like, like three
different examples of exit eights that, you know, maybe you particularly like, just so that we can kind of wrap
our head around, um, you know, what, what they do? Yeah, sure. Um, so I mean, the ones that I work with
specifically are called OIDs. They're actually sort of a group of
molecules that come from the process of building up lignin, but they
have lots of different uses. Um, and those include things
like, um, some of 'em are, are complicated ones are chlorogenic acid, which is actually found really
in high amounts in coffee, so people might be a little
bit more familiar with it. Um, there's also amino acids like, um, that
not only are used for protein building, but plants can make special non-pro
amino acids that are really useful in finding out things like fishing out
iron note of the soil and that kind of thing. Um, and then the
other one is flavonoids. There's actually a bunch of
different types of flavonoids, which is a big huge supergroup
of different types of molecules, and they're involved in everything
from antioxidant behavior to, um, even signaling to mic
and things like that. All right. So, so you've
mentioned, um, uh, I think that, I think I've pulled out like three
different categories from your examples. There. There would be like, um, like
this, the only ones I was aware of, the nutrition. Right. Um, and then it's, and then you've mentioned signaling a
couple times. And then, and then, um, you've, you sounds like there
are some that actual process, um, uh, like things like
nitrogen and things like that, they're like more like, kinda
like worker bees. Um, is that, do, do all of exit dates roughly fall
into these three categories or, um, or are there many more
categories to like what they do? I think functionally we can kind of
bin them, if you wanna call it that, into a couple different groups. There's definitely like interacting
with nutrients directly, which is kind of where
my expertise is. Um, there's signaling back and forth like
talking to bacteria or fungi or that kind of thing where they interact with the, um, microbes and the microbes interact back. And then there's another big group
that are almost like anti herital or, or herital, sorry. Um, and those ones are responsible for sort
of clearing the way for the plant to grow. Um, I'm sure there's more than that, but I think that's kind of
like the big huge groups. So I think I have an overly simplistic
understanding of the back and forth because the way I normally think about
the relationship with the plant and the, um, the microbes and the rest
of the life and the, the, the RSOs sphere is that during
the daytime, the plant will, um, uh, be fed by the microbes and, and, and the rest of the players in
the RSOs sphere during the day. And then during the dark period, the plant will then turn
around and send, uh, the, the required nutrition back into
the R osse. And so it's like a, it's like a back and forth, like
a tide thing dependent on, um, you know, whether or not it is
day or night cycle for the plant, which is kind of quarterbacking
this back and forth, is how I generally
think about it. But, um, but that may very well be
way too simplistic. So, so will you kind of explain
how it goes back and forth? Yeah, so I think like the
basic idea of signaling is, is a little bit like texting. It's, it's not so much that the plants are
providing nutrition directly to the roots, although in some ca or from
the roots to the microbes, although in some cases it is. And it's not always that the microbes are
providing nutrition back to the plant. There's a lot of signaling that's
going on. And that's kind of like, if you can imagine, um, you
know, being at home and, hey, can you pick me up some milk from the
grocery store? But it could also be like, Hey, I've got cookies when you've
got home, when you come home, and that kind of thing. So that's
kind of what I mean by signaling. Um, and that signaling happens all
day, every day at any time. So there is some regulation
with light interacting. Obviously light drives photosynthesis
and that kind of thing. And when the plant is on, it's often needing a lot of
different types of activities like nutrient acquisition and
maybe it's doing some, you know, stress responses to help against
pests or something like that. And a lot of this happens in the daylight. I don't think we know enough about whether
or not it happens in the dark mm-hmm. because the roots
are always in the dark technically. Sure. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it does. Um, you know, the way that you described it, this kind of like all these
different microbes and uh, and protozoa and then the plant
exudates all kind of calling out to each other and
signaling, you know, uh, pickup milk or I have cookies
when you get home and like, and, and if everybody is doing that, I suddenly got this idea of like
this cacophony of signals back and forth and like shopkeepers calling
out what's on sale and kinda like some kind of like big Turkish bizarre and
like everybody trying to, you know, get everybody's attention. Um, is that a, is that a reasonable picture
of, of, of what's going on? It's a beautiful picture
of what's going on. I really do think that's exactly
what's happening because there, like we often think about it being just
the plant and the microbes interacting with each other, but the microbes
interact with each other too, and with fungi and with different,
um, organisms around, like, it is just a huge web
of different organisms talking to each other. And
sometimes that is like, you know, selling your chips on the, you know,
or the hotdog stand or whatever. And maybe it is advertising for sale
and it's very, very, very complicated. And I, it's something that I
think we wish we knew more about, but trying to dissect what each of
those components is contributing to the soil life or, or even just how the plant is growing in
the soil is really complicated. I like. That though. Yeah. And it's strange too because like I've
always kind of thought as of the soil as while a violent place often, um,
uh, you know, pretty calm actually. Like it's, it's kind of
serene in there, but it's, it's probably because of the
level of magnitude I'm like, I'm, I'm living on this human
level of magnitude, but if I could see really closely
under a microscope I'd be, I'd be seeing all this
activity in the cryosphere. And so it's only quiet to me
cuz like, I, I can't hear it. Absolutely. It is very barely controlled
chaos down there. Let me tell you. . So do we have a, uh,
any technology or any way to, uh, gauge the amount of, you know, rambunctious signaling that's going
back and forth? Like, there is, is there any kind of like a, you know, anything that we can like put into the
soil to gauge signaling that's taking place in the soil? Um, I think it's, it's pretty complicated, but there's some interesting
things that go on. So like, I guess it depends on what level. So what we're talking about right now is
on the chemical level. And really the, the way that a lot of people
are doing this is either bulk, so they take a big sample of soil and
then measure it for different types of organisms or different types of
signals that they're producing, but then trying to tease that out. We can tell differences like maybe between
different types of soil or different types of communities, different types
of plants, that kind of thing. Um, but I think it'd be really hard to pick
out which one is responsible for exactly which one. And so the other option is to take
an individual plant and an individual organism and see what they do
together, just the two of them. And it's one of the real challenges
with like soil ecology or, or like ecology in general
is just trying to pull out, you either have to treat it as a whole
and just accept that you don't understand the individual relationships. Um, or you have to get in there and try
and tease them apart one by one. Does that make sense? It. Does. So let's talk a
little bit about, um, a couple of these different
varieties. So, um, the, the one that we've talked about the
most so far is, or the signaling. And so we understand, you know, what they're trying to signal. Like,
like, I have this type of nutrition or, or maybe I need this
type of nutrition. Um, how are they doing that? Are they
doing that, um, primarily, uh, chemically or is an electrical
charge or what is at, at that, um, very small level? What is
the mode of communication? It is, it is chemical. I mean
there for the most part, um, it is like plants. If we go
back to the exit date thing, like these plants are making these
very highly specific molecules. They're basically, in some
cases like an invitation, and then those are actually like
taken up by the microbe in question. Um, and that changes what the microbe
can make. So it actually interacts, um, after a long signal in
cascade inside the cell, it'll interact on the genome and then
they'll be able to produce different types of molecules based on that information. And then that ends up getting made
and exuded out by the microbe. And then maybe that's an RSVP
response card back to the plant. Um, and then they kind of
do this back and forth, or sometimes it might just be like they
actually make a different molecule and that molecule is then transported
into the plant cell. Does that. Make sense? Yeah. And it's super cool
actually. I mean the idea that, that the, the, the signaling exudate kind of
like combines with the microbe and between the two of them, they develop this superpower that it's
the only way that what is necessary is produced. I mean, that's pretty cool.
. That's a very complex complex, Yeah. . I think it's awesome. I th I
think it's also important to note though, that what we're talking
about there is like, um, a pretty symbiotic relationship
mm-hmm. . Um, and there is going to be some
opportunistic stuff too because, you know, plants are making stuff that
maybe it has one purpose, but the microbes can use
it for something different. So it uses it for something different
and produces some other stuff. And those different types of
molecules have like a happy accident. The plant could use some of them too.
Like sometimes it is more like a, a free bin than it is something that's
like really organized . But, um, yeah, there can be both happening. All right. I like this idea of
invitation microbes too. Um, alright, so, so if they are all speaking to
each other through subtle chemicals, um, for, for those of us
who are, you know, we're, we're adding things to our
soil all the time, you know, this fertilizer or that
fertilizer or you know, some kind of soil drench with like
an fpj in it or something. Um, it, how easy is it for us to disrupt that chemical signaling back and forth? Um,
just like, let's say that, you know, I'm, I'm talking with a friend in my yard
and a and a plane flies over, you know, relatively low cause I live near an
airport and we just have to like stop talking for a minute and wait for the
plane to fly over. Is there anything that, that we could potentially
do as cultivators that
would be so air quotes loud in the RSO sphere that
everybody have to talk, Stop talking for a minute cuz we
just dumped something in the soil. See, I think unless it's water, like probably everything we add
is disrupting things a little bit. It's a bit like getting
a shipment, you know, everybody stops to bring in
the delivery kind of thing. I think that is also true of microbes
because they're responding to the, to whatever you've added
as well. Um, but I think, I think all of them are gonna be
disruptive. I think it's more how long, because like for example, if you're
just adding water or some nutrients, like depending on how light or how
much nutrients you're adding, um, it might be like really short term and
they can use up those nutrients pretty quickly and then they're
back to doing whatever. Um, or maybe it's more long term and you've
really altered the soil chemistry enough that like maybe something dies
off or those kind of things. I think those are all things
that could really disrupt. And I think especially with nutrients, because a lot of what we're talking about
is the plant signaling for nutrients or something related to nutrition. Um, that that's probably one of the things
that would turn off signals from a plant. Like they don't need to get it from
the microbe if you're providing it. Um, and I think that that might be something
else that would really, I don't know, that would definitely be a
plain overhead situation. Sure. Um, I wanna take one more step
along this, uh, disruption idea, um, specifically with, with water. I
mean, clearly the soil requires, uh, water so that things can have
mobility. Um, but sometimes, you know, a a cultivator will
just overwater terribly and um, and it can, you know, drown lots of
varieties of microbes or, or you know, cause 'em to cyst up in depending
on the, on the variety. Um, can we drown exudates too to
the point where, you know, we kind of like wipe out a whole, I
don't know, generation of 'em and, and the, the soil that needs to, uh, dry out and then the
plant needs to restart? I think, I think yeah, like
if you're, if you're like, uh, watering to run off and stuff like that, there's certainly stuff that's leaching
outta the soil and some things are kept more by the soil than others. So when
we talk about these molecules, um, a lot of them are charged and some of
the charged, like the positively charged, um, types of molecules tend to stay in soil
better than negatively charged ones do. Um, so you could definitely like
flush a lot of things out that way. But I think the time scale for
production of exit dates by the plant, it can replenish pretty quickly. It's
not, um, it's not on like the, you know, days, weeks, or months sort of situation. Like those cells are making a lot of
stuff really rapidly and some of the responses can happen within seconds. I don't think it'll be seconds
to make the exit dates again, but the idea that they might need to
make more of them is a pretty quick one. So I mean, it you might, you might
disrupt it like really temporarily. I think the biggest danger
with overwatering is probably
damage to the roots or like promoting the growth of anaerobic
bacteria or pathogenic species, that kind of thing. I follow. Um, so, so that was, we were just talking about the signaling
variety and so let's talk about the nutrition variety and it sounds like some
of the signaling ones actually do end up playing a role in getting nutrition
for the plant themselves as well. Um, what's the difference between like that
kind of activity and the ones that we were putting in the, um,
nutritive, um, exudates bucket? I think those ones are
more direct. So I mean, everything is happening at like a
chemical level so the chemistry of the molecules can interact with the chemistry
of the soil and just completely bypass the microbes. So for example,
I work with iron, um, iron is really hard to get outta
the soil. There's lots of it, but it's kind of like it's
locked up like a rock. Um, and so the plants will actually make
molecules that can go and sort of fish it out from the rock and interact directly
with iron molecules and then that is brought over to the root and
it can be taken up that way. Same of things like nitrogen and
phosphorus and things like that. I think there's certainly like, either they're making it a more favorable
environment for those ions to just kind of like those molecules to
just be available for uptake. Um, or they're actually able to like
drag it in some, some plants, those non protein amino acids that
I was talking about earlier. Um, some plants like grasses will make those
and they actually just kind of pick up the iron like a little basket of eggs
and actually bring it inside the cell so they can, they can interact certainly with molecules
to signal back and forth to tell them to make other things and bring it in, but they can actually just interact
with the nutrients directly as, um, as that molecule and bring
it in as well. Does that. Make sense? It does. So when, um,
when cultivators kind of like, uh, loosely say, you know, oh,
this, this fertilizer is, is plant ready or that
fertilizer needs to be, you know, processed in the r osse before
the, the plant can take it is, is it these exudates that, that
we're talking about that are, are doing that work of
coming across, you know, nutrition or minerals or whatever
in the soil and the exudates are what are, you know,
breaking it down and, and putting it into a form that can
interact with the actual root zone? That's certainly part
of it. Yeah, for sure. And like one group we haven't talked
about is, uh, low molecular weight, organic acids, um, which are
like really, really small basic, um, uh, what's one that I can think
of off the top of my head, um, like Citrix acids and things like
that, plants can make those, um, and that will just make
it easier to take up. Is that sort of what you
were talking about? Yes. Mm-hmm. . Yeah.
Yeah. Um, because you know, most of the time we just talk
about that, uh, you know, you know, casually using like
contemporary language and, and not the science specific
language. So to kinda like, you know, accidentally come across it,
it's kind of kind of exciting. It's like, oh, this is what we're talking about all
the time and we don't know what we're talking about. That's great. . And there's definitely
like this big component of, of like, when we talk especially about living
soils and things like that, there's, there's everything at the
end of the day is salt, even if it's from an organic, um,
material or something like that. It's being broken up into these little
tiny ions that we call salts. And, um, and the, the, I guess it's just a matter of whether
it needs help to get to that state or whether we're providing it as that state. And any time we're talking about
these like exit dates helping, like, they're basically trying to put it into
that form so the plant can take it up. So then, um, the third bucket
we were talking about, um, were, um, I don't know, for lack of a better
term, I'll say allopathic, they're, they're, they're kind of like,
like, I don't know, almost military. They where they, where they go and they are
herding the plant enemies. Is that like the general idea? Sort of, Yeah. Um, so a allopathic chemicals are these
sort of natural herbicides that some, and not all plants make them, but some plants make these types of
ex dates that basically act as like a herbicide or a fungicide or
something like that to clear the way. So it's made by the root, the root's going through the soil and
like leaving this material that behind that is really toxic to some plants and
that kills off neighboring roots and that kind of thing and
lets it grow better. And invasive species are often really
good at making these kind of things. And the plants that are here already,
uh, don't have any defense against them. And so it just kills them off. So I know I asked you that question
in kind of like a general way. Have we found cannabis plants
making this particular kind of war making exudate yet? Do we, do we,
have we seen that in cannabis? I mean, I know we're still just
learning what cannabis puts out, but have we found that yet? Not to my knowledge. They're pretty unique
situations when this is a thing. Um, like for example, walnut
trees, black walnut trees. You cannot grow anything under a black
walnut tree for a huge radius because that's how toxic it is. Um, but cannabis, you can plant quite a few
plants right next to it. It doesn't seem to do anything. So
if it is, it would be on maybe like, I don't know, maybe it would be
antifungal or something like that. But it, I don't think it actually has anything
like this that would kill off plant roots like. That. That's a great example because
that's actually what I was thinking about. I was thinking about, oh, maybe, maybe this is why some of the companion
planting that we put with cannabis is more successful than others. Maybe the, the cannabis plant is actually
trying to choose its neighbors. It certainly can. And like all of these
root things that we're talking about, like it influences the soil environment
and that environment is going to be hospitable to some other plants
and less hospitable to others. Maybe not because it's directly
killing off the plants, but just because maybe that plant doesn't
enjoy those kind of conditions the same way. Mm-hmm. . All right. So we talked
about the signaling kind and
we talked about the, the, the, the, the allopathic
kind and we talked about the, the processing that are gonna go and,
you know, free up nutrition in the soil. And then I think the last category
that we haven't covered is, is are the ex dates that are
themselves nutrition? So, so what kind, tell us a little bit about
the exu dates that the plant puts off. That is nutrition itself. These ones are kind of complicated
cuz I guess it depends on what, what isn't necessary, but a lot
of things that are carbon based, cuz carbon is basically
what we talk about, like, like sugars and things like that are
what end up being used to make energy. So I think that a a lot of different
types of root egg dates could be nutritious to other organisms provided
they can break them down and use them. Um, so I think like, um, a lot
of the metabolites I work with, we think might be getting, um, eaten
up by bacteria, which are like the, the acids and things like that. Um,
anything that has a sugar attached, because a lot of these molecules are
combinations of these different types of groups. So you can have an acid that's
attached to a sugar, for example. Like all of those would
be possible nutrients. Since you brought up carbon, um, I
want to ask you, uh, uh, a question. It's kind of a, um, I don't
know where this might take us, is what I wanna say is that, go for
it. Last night I was talking to, uh, soil biologist Layton Morrison on the
phone about how excited I was about our interview today. And he is
like, Oh, exos are great. They're like liquid carbon and, and
I wasn't sure what he meant, but I, I figured I would ask you about him and
say, Are exudates like liquid carbon? A little bit actually. So
a lot of, um, like there's, there's a huge number of atoms
out there in elements. Um, but the ones that are most common in
organic chemistry and and life are carbon, oxygen, nitrogen,
phosphorous, um, hydrogen and, uh, sulfur. And so most of these
tiny, like it's just those six. Like there's, and obviously
there's other things like iron and, and plants need manganese and magnesium
and all these other different metals. But like a lot of these molecules that
we're talking about today are based off of those, um, those six. So when
we're talking liquid carbon, like the, a lot of these molecules
have a carbon skeleton, so they're mostly carbon and as long as
something can break the carbon apart and use it in their um, in their biology
though, that's food. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. . I get it. So, so I
want to talk a little bit about the, the nature of the signaling. Uh, I'm
curious to know whether it's more, more push or pull, um, when the signaling happens
and perhaps it's both. Is it more like putting out
a sign that says, you know, I have cookies for sale if you
want cookies come over to me. Or is it more like placing
an order where one, one side of it, either the
microbe or the plant will, will put out a request to the other
side for what they specifically need? I think it's, it's sort of both and it really depends
on which specific interaction you're talking about, but I kind of like to
think of it more like a conversation, like there's gonna be some asking
questions and like, I need this, but there's also gonna be like, I'll
give you this too. Um, and so I, and it also happens over multiple cycles. So it's not just like a one message
in one message back sort of thing. Like these cycles can have
multiple signals back and forth. Does that make sense? Yeah. It does. So where in the
plant are the exudates made? Are they made like in in one
particular exit eight factory? Or is it like made all all over
the plant in in many places? I think, to be honest, I think
it's complicated. . I think that our general understanding
of where exit dates are produced is usually the root tip because that's the
growing part of the root and it's the one that kind of has to be the most
responsive to the different things it's encountering as it's moving
through the soil. Um, as far as like where
on the route like it's, it's gonna be on the surface cells
mostly because they're the ones that are directly next to the mesosphere,
which makes sense. Um, but I think a lot of different types
of molecules and signals to make those molecules can come from
all over the plant too. Like different parts of the root
can ask for different things. Um, different parts of the chute, like the growing part of the plant
that we see all the time. Um, that can also trigger different
things to be made as well. Um, but I think like the cells right on
the outside of the root are the most responsive to that kind of stuff. And it's different too cuz above that
growing zone, um, there might be, there's still exit dates being produced, but they might be different because
there's different needs if you're already there. Um, with all the different needs and
all the cacophony and how small this is, I can imagine that there are so
many exit dates next to each other, next to each other, next to each other that they're nearly
tripping over each other cuz there's so much activity happening. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Of
a little bit of a soup. Yeah. . Um, so the, um, are the ex dates like stuck
where they are and they, they're only mobile if
there is water around? Or do they have some kind of
solution for mobility for themselves? That kind of depends on the
chemistry. So like in general, they're gonna be mostly right next to
the root and then they're just going to kind of diffuse, um, to places
where there's less of them. Same as like if you were to dump
a bunch of salt into the glass, eventually the salt would
all dissolve into the water, but they would be most concentrated
in the bottom unless you stir it up. So it's kinda like that, if you imagine the bottom of
the glass is like the cells, so it's being made right at the bottom
there and then kind of diffuses up and eventually it'll get pretty far
away, but, but not too far. Um, and then it depends on the type of
molecule because they're mostly water soluble. Um, but there can be
some that are kind of more, um, lipophilic or like oil loving mm-hmm.
that might move differently. They might be more likely to stay next
to the cell that's more like that. Um, and maybe don't, don't travel as far away
from the route. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. And, and it doubly
makes sense because, um, you know, the theme of all of your answers have
been it's complex and it depends on which one. And I'm starting to
realize that, you know, most of, most of the generalizations
that we might make about exudates, um, really don't
apply to everybody. Like, like it's hard to make generalizations
about exudates. So, so I guess, I guess we'll kind of like wrap
up this first set with, um, what is it about exudates that make them, uh, be exudates? Because if, if they all act in different ways
and move in different ways and signal in different ways and do different things, there's gotta be something that
they all have in common that makes them exudate. So what, what is that? Honestly, it's just location,
um, I think is like the, the biggest thing that connects all
of them because as you say, we have, there's lots of different functions for
them. There's lots of different types. They have lots of different, different
jobs and interact with different things. Um, but they're all outside the route. They're all made by the plant specifically
for being out in the reo vSphere, and that's the thing that ends
up connecting all of them. So, so the exudates are
created outside of the root or, or it's made in the root and
then it's shoved out of the root. It's made in the root and shoved out.
Like I, like I was saying earlier, like those, those cells that are
right on the surface of the route, they're making them inside and then
packaging them and then sending them out into the REOs. Weere. Hmm. That kind of reminds
me of the, uh, of the, um, endophytic bacteria that we talked
about. Uh, a couple shows back about, you know, the thing that
makes the, makes it an, uh, a bacteria endophytic is that it
spends some amount of its life inside of the plant. And so it goes, you
know, it'll go in and out of the plant. And so perhaps exudates are, you know, things that start in the roots and
then, and then they are pushed out. Um, is there is does that, Yeah.
Does that make sense? I don't know. I'm making it up. Yep, a hundred. Percent. Yep. Nope, that works for me. That's as good a
definition as any . All right, great. Okay,
let's go ahead and take, uh, a short break and be right back. Uh, you are listening to Shaping Fire
and my guest today is Plant biologist Sarah Lane. And, you know, without these advertisers shaping
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Fire. I am your host Shang Golo, and my guest today is
Plant biologist Sarah Lane. So during the first that we talked a lot
about kind of exu exudate mechanics and and and what they are so that, you
know, we could get an idea of, you know, get our heads wrapped around this, this interesting chemical that's
in the R osse and and what it does. And so on on, during this
set, we're gonna focus more on, um, on what they actually do
and how this, I don't know, cacophony or symphony, uh, takes place. So how specific are the signals for, um, either nutrition or the, the signals to telling exudates
to go out and like, you know, mind some manganese or something. Um, are there specific exudates
for all of these processes or, or is it like when, when
you tell somebody, Hey, would you pick up bread? But I
don't tell them what kind of bread. I'm trying to get an idea of how
specific the, the requests are. Oh, another theme of the day, it's
complicated. Mm-hmm. , I think that in some cases
it's extremely specific, especially when we're talking
about symbol like, um, symbiotic relationships like rizo
or in legumes or Michi and that kind of thing. It's like very specific to
the point where it's species specific. It's a specific molecule that has one
job and that is to go and signal to mic fungal, um, interactions and things
like that. So it can be that specific, but there's also some that have
sort of more of a, like a broad, like it has multiple different
types of chemistry. Um, it might be maybe a more complicated
molecule where one end does one thing and the other end does another thing. Um, and sometimes the plant can make
multiple things to do the same job. So some of the, the tasks that that
the exit eights do, especially the, the ones that are sent out for nutrition, and probably similarly the ones
that are sent out for, uh, like, like inert things like manganese
or iron or whatever, um, those jobs sound familiar or, or similar to the role of
Mike Iza. And, and you know, we often talk on this show about how the
fungal networks are like super highways that are, that will go out and
source these different, um, nutritions that are needed by the plant
and then kind of, uh, bring them back. And there's, there's
this relationship there. I would think that since this
this task is very similar to the exudates or at least
how they're described, there's probably a lot of exudate
interaction with the fungal network. Is this true? Yeah, I, I would say that's
true. So I think there's like, there's two components, like one,
the exit dates can do a similar job, but on a much more, um, tiny scale
cause they don't travel very far. And so if they need to go
farther out for the nutrients, then the ex dates would interact
with the micro is directly. And a lot of that is basically
initiating infection. It sounds weird to say infection
when I don't mean pathogenic. Mm-hmm. But essentially the plant has to
invite the michie especially, uh, endo michie, uh, to infect it. And that's a very specific signal
that's sent out to interact with the, with that fungus, um, to allow
it to come and join the plant. And it has to be in a situation
where the plant would need that. So I think like if the plant is
deficient in phosphorus, for example, it might interact with Mic I Moore, whereas if it's not that deficient or
if there's plenty of phosphorous next to the root, maybe it interacts with that less and the
ex dates that it makes for itself will do the job. Does that. Make sense? Yeah, that
does make sense. Um, is it possible to like
overtax the exudate systems? So if the plant is, you know,
making these ex dates and, and everything that the plant, uh, does, takes some amount of, I don't know,
energy or life force or effort, depending on what level
we're looking at, um, if the exit eights are so busy, um, can the exit eights be be
working so hard that it makes the plant, uh, less thriving? I think that kind of depends. So
I think if the plant is unhealthy, that might be true. Um, we often talk
about things like a carbon budget though. So there's a certain amount of carbon
that like given amount of plant, um, can fix. Uh, and there's a given amount of nutrients
it can take up just based on its biology and physiology. Um, and so carbon budgeting depend that, that means that different parts of
the plant will be allocating carbon to different places. So if, for example,
it's suffering a massive drip wave, um, it will be busy making carbon
containing compounds to deal with that mm-hmm. and it
might make less ex dates. Um, but if it's perfectly healthy,
all things considered, it will make what it needs, um, and it'll
make the amount that it needs. Does. That make sense? Yeah, it
does. Um, so it, it, hmm. So where, what I was going
to ask was that it, you know, are there things that we can do
that would stress the exudate process and, and signaling exchange and then you
threw the thri thing on the end. So perhaps the answer to the question
that, that I was gonna ask is like, anything that stresses the plan is going
to call on the exit dates to have to do more work. So don't stress your plant. Basically. Yeah. Or it's going to divert the
resources of the plant elsewhere. Um, I think like there's a certain
amount, we call it basal or base. There's a certain amount
of like maintenance level
things that the plant makes everywhere. Um, but it will respond to different
stresses by taking as much carbon and nutrients as it can to whatever that is.
So if it's, if it's happy and healthy, then it can like pump up those
base levels and everything's great. If it's really under
stress somewhere else, it might take what it would
normally make in the roots. It might take some carbon from that
and and send it somewhere else. And that might mean that you have, there's still probably gonna
be some exudates there, um, but it'll probably mean that there's
less of them. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. And so for somebody
who's listening to what you're saying, like me and, and my brain
goes to, um, you know, what can I do to not stress
out the exudate creation? Like that's a, that's nice that I'm
thinking about that level of my plant, but really that's, that's
not really necessary. I really should go up a
level of magnitude and, and think about not doing things
that stress out the plant and then just let the exudates manage themselves. Essentially. Yeah. Like, I think if you take care of your soil and
you take care of your, your plant and, and they're both in good shape, then you shouldn't have to worry
about it for sure. Okay. I mean, making sure that your soil is healthy
is definitely a big part of it. Um, making sure the plant isn't,
you know, being, as I said, maed by drips or something
like that is also helpful. I don't think anybody wants that anyway.
But, um, those kind of things, um, making sure it's getting enough water,
it's not overwatered, um, you know, all those, all those things that we generally try
and make sure our plants have anyway. If your plant is healthy, there's not
really anything extra that you need to do. Um, I think we, we've, I think compost teas are one thing that
you can do to kind of help with soil life and things like that. Um, and that
might help with the exit date situation, but most of the time it's
really out of your control. Well, it's kind of nice to
have something that, you know, we're learning about this process, but it isn't another thing that we have
to like technically worry about, right? Mm-hmm. , if you do
your, if you do your regular, um, your regular living soil
kind of stuff, like, like this will take care of itself, which is great because we already
have enough to worry about, right. ? Yep. Um, we'll talk more about, uh,
compost t a little bit later, but, um, I want to wade into, um, a, uh, a a pretty fierce debate
in the cannabis world. And, um, and I'm a pretty heavy participant in
it, and, uh, I have been looking for, um, someone like you to weigh
in on it. So, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna pull you into this debate,
and this is on 20 hour light cycle, so, Okay. The, the, the debate
is generally about, um, does the 24 hour light cycle, is it best for the plant
or does it, uh, starve the, the soil from nutrients? And, and
the idea kind of goes like this, Um, uh, some growers like to use
24 hours light because it causes the plant to grow more
quickly and you can either, uh, grow a bigger, high,
higher yielding plant, um, during that time or during, you know,
its regular life cycle, um, because, um, um, you know, because it's
just getting more light. Um, or you can actually shorten the
cycle by using more light, which, you know, allows you to perhaps get in
another growing cycle over the year. And so a lot of people use 24 hours
of light. Now, the flip of it, which happens to be where I stand, is that no 24 hours of, of, of light indoors is not going
to create the best plant because while it makes it grow faster, um, you're not allowing the
back and forth of the, the, the light phase and the dark phase. Both, both phases are necessary
so that the, the, the exudates and the signaling and all
the processes that happen when the, the plant is awake with the light,
it needs to have some dark times. So the contrasting, uh, signaling
and exudates can happen. So you, you need both. So all varieties of exudate
signaling can happen and, and all of the varieties
of, of nutrition and, and those things can go back and
forth. So I have a feeling that the, the answer is, is probably
somewhere in the middle. Um, but specifically to this
24 hours of light question, how does 24 hours of light impact this relationship between the
plant and the mesosphere? As far as the exudates playing a role? O that is a spicy debate, isn't it? Yeah.
. Um, , I think, again, to the theme of the day,
it's complicated. Um, I have have not ever
seen anybody be able to, because of the complexity of TheraSphere
and all the stuff that's going on there, I haven't seen anybody actually be able
to put this into a scientific study where we're able to say definitively,
if you give a plant 24 hours of light, the eggs date suffer. Um, so it's really in the middle. I think. Um, there's a couple different things that
I can think of off the top of my head. If, if it's okay if I ramble for a second. No, please. We want to
get into this, so go. Ahead, . Perfect. Okay. So
light cycles, um, light cycles, I think lots of things are turned
on by the plant rather than off when light is on. And that's
because light is driving water, transport and nutrient uptake, and
it's also driving photosynthesis. So I think that too much dark
is as bad as too much light is, if that makes sense. Like you're seeing the growth and the
yield increase because the plant is doing a lot of stuff during that time. Um, and there is a circadian clock in plants
where there are different things that happen in the daytime
and in the nighttime, and they actually are different for
the root part and the shoot part. So they actually operate on different
clocks, but they do talk to each other. So, um, I guess where
I'm going with this is, is that there is a circadian rhythm, but we don't know enough about
it to be able to say that, that having light on the
top of the plant, um, is going to affect the roots in the
way that I think this debate kind of goes. Mm-hmm. . Um,
because if we think about it, the roots are always in the dark. They're
never in the light. They're not, like, there might be a small amount of light
that makes it to the, to the root, but not enough that it should matter. Um, but they can still sense it a
little bit. Um, man, that is, that is a very. Deep so, but, but topic. Yeah, it
is. And, and so when, if, if the, maybe I'm thinking too
top down about this, because even though the light doesn't
specifically reach their roots, right, during the light
mode, the plant, I'm, I'm, I think of it as the plant is
giving commands through the roots. And so even though the
roots aren't, um, lit up, the roots are responding to needs
and commands from a plant that is actively photo synthesizing, and
then, then in the dark cycle, those, those commands and needs of the
photosynthesis are no longer taking place. And so I imagine that the,
the roles and the tasks of, of the root zone change
when the plant is, is, uh, is changing modes from photosynthesizing
to, you know, the, the, the processing of nutrients
that it does during the dark. Mm-hmm. .
Exactly. I think that's, and I think the keyword there is change
because if they take up a bunch of nutrients during the, the daytime, then a lot of those exit dates that are
helping with nutrient acquisition should be active. Like they're,
they're actively like, you know, fishing out the different components that
it needs and putting it into the plant so the plant can continue to grow. Um, and those would change if the light
is gone. And they do have, like, we even know from like, you
know, those green potatoes, like roots themselves can sense light, um, both outside like sources of light, but also the inside sources that we
were just talking about, like the light, like the light that the plant above
is sensing is also like notified. They notify the roots that
they need stuff. Right. Um. I think this is, I think this
next question is, is, is the, is the seal the deal question
that I've been looking for? So, so if the, if the root zone is doing
different tasks when the plant is experiencing light
because the plant is asking for things involved with, you know,
photosynthesis, production during the day, those types of tasks, and then,
and then when the light is gone, the root zone changes to
different sets of tasks. That would seem to suggest to
me that it needs a dark period. So those dark period tasks can
happen. So maybe, maybe I'm right, but for the wrong reason, for,
for a reason. I didn't realize, I thought that during the
dark the exudates would stop. And maybe that's not it, because
exudates happen around the clock. Maybe it's that the
exudate and signaling that happens when the plant
above is experiencing dark, those differentiated tasks need to
have an opportunity to happen to, to have a thriving plant. Yeah. Yeah. I think that could be a,
a reasonable way to go about it. I think that there's also two things. I guess there is dark reactions
and they're like evening onset, um, types of, of things that
change in the plant, um, that are responding to
a lessening of light, at least when we're
not talking about like, growing light when we have actually like
changes in light over the daytime as well. Mm-hmm. , um, you know, your plant on the balcony or whatever. Um, but there's also light
independent reactions that
tend to happen kind of at any time. And what I mean by that is
like photosynthesis is light driven. Like you absolutely have to have
light for that whole series of, of chemistry reactions to
happen. Um, whereas the, like other types of reactions
don't need light like that. So they might be happening
24 7. What I really think, for my own personal opinion,
definitely an opinion, um, is that, uh, a little bit of darkness
helps because one thing that, uh, light is, is a stressor. It creates all
these like, fast happening reactions. It's quite powerful. It can make really reactive molecules
that if they're present in too much, they can damage the plant,
Um, and those kind of things. So I think having 24 hours of
light constantly would Yeah. Maybe mean that you don't have the
downtime that you need to take care of any kind of damage that's coming from
light and that kind of stuff. So for, I guess my, my way in on this would be
like, a little bit of dark is helpful, I think. Mm-hmm. ,
Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. And I'm grateful
to hear it . Um, so, um, this idea that there can
be too much light, um, is, is interesting because,
you know, most of us, or, or folks who grow indoors
anyway, um, you know, while, while I've been historically
an outdoor grower, I've been, I've been dabbling in indoor
just to, to learn new stuff. And most of the time, cultivators are looking to blast
the plants with as much light as is possible without bleaching
or burning the plant. And what I'm hearing from you
is that there really is a, uh, a top end of how much light
we necessarily wanna give the plant. Um, because there is, there is
too much, there's a, there's a top level. Yes, there is. Um, I think
especially with like, I, I have most of my experiences
is growing inside. Um, and I think there's different
things to think about, cuz you can definitely
have too much light inside, but it's not like an
overall amount of light. There's all these focal lengths
that come with bulbs and it kind of, it's like shining a laser, you know,
the magnifying glass on the, you know, something flammable in the, in
the sun kind of thing. Like, it focuses all the light from
the bulb to a single point. And if you're growing in that
point, it's really strong, but like, just for that little area,
and that's too much light, but there's so much sun out there, I don't think any indoor bulb at this
point has ever gotten to the point where it can compete with the
sun. Um, it's just too dim. The spectrum isn't strong enough and a
lot of the damaging wavelengths that we, we think of with light like uv,
uh, B or C are just not present, uh, in the same quantity
unless it's like, you know, a UVC light or something like that.
Does that make sense? Yeah. And. So. There's, there's too much point light
and then there's too much general light. . Yeah, I was making
an overgeneralization
about the too much like a, as if it was all sunlight. But that's,
that's true. Like all, you know, no matter what kind of bulb,
uh, we are talking about, um, it is, it is some degree less than
sunshine. And so that's probably those, those that gap between sunshine
and whatever the personality of the bulb is, that's probably where
the hitch and the giddy up is. Right. Is is somewhere in what the bulb is
lacking when compared to the sun. Mm-hmm. .
Yeah. So I think in indoors, like most of the light stress
that I've seen is like, you turn the lights on right after you
spray something on the plants and you get some like lens burning where the lights
just kind of magnified and focused at a point. So you get like
little point burns outside, you can definitely see a lot more types
of light damage and stress because it's so bright out. And if it's hot too, like the plant just has a really hard
time managing that level of light in, in that those poor little photo
systems get a little stressed . Mm-hmm. , when, when we talked on the phone the other day
kind of preparing for this discussion, um, you used a term
that I, I really liked. And I don't know if it's if it's it's
a scientific term or if it's just something that you were using to
describe to me because you, you've, you used such fantastic examples,
but you used this phrase, uh, free living microbes and, and,
and I remember talking to you, I, I remember like, Oh wow, I never, I never really thought about microbes
that were in the soil but weren't really interacting with the plant. Would you just talk about free
living microbes for a moment? Absolutely. So essentially when we think about
ecology and like what's happening in the, in the soil, there's, we definitely talk a lot about
microbes that interact with the plant, but there's a couple different
levels they can do that. There's symbiosis where
they need each other, and then there's kind of like
opportunistic sort of interactions where they don't, So when I talk
about free living microbes, um, we generally use that term to mean
things that kind of, that, that are just, they're in the soil too. They don't
have to be next to a plant. They don't, like if you remove the plant, they go on
living, they, they do their thing and, and they, they, it's not
the same. And if anything, like maybe the plant needs them more
than they need it, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm. , but
if they're free living, they, they can complete their entire
life cycle, um, without a plant, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm. . So, so that also brings up an interesting
question about the opposite. So, so you said, Oh, there are
some of these microbes that, that wouldn't exist
without the plant. Um, is, is this one of the reasons why it is, it is so helpful to the cannabis
plant to have other companion plants around because, uh, these,
these other plants are, are helping support these, these, uh, free living microbes and it just
makes the entire r osse more complex and more thriving
and more abundant? Oh, I'm sure that's true. Yeah,
because like cover plants for example, essentially what they're
trying to do, um, is, is improve the soil life. And
that happens either through, uh, like providing a matrix, like all those roots provide
basically housing in a lot of ways, like a little scaffold for different
things to live on and in and under. Um, but it also might help with, for
example, maintaining humidity longer. Um, so that if there's microbes in the soil
that prefer to be wet all the time and they don't like drying out, then
you might have that layer is, is happier because there's a plant there
keeping the moisture locked in. Um, maybe they don't like a lot of light and
they're kind of shading the surface of the soil a little bit. So maybe the fungus can get a little bit
more close to the surface or something like that. Like I, I'm sure there's dozens of different
things that a companion plant, and we also plant like,
uh, I personally plant, uh, clover because it tends to also, it has an interesting relationship with
bacteria that actually lets it take on and fix more nitrogen than
a lot of other plants do. But it also brings the benefit of having
that nitrogen fixing relationship with these bacteria that also benefit
plants around it. So the, the cannabis plant itself doesn't do this, but the fact that there's a plant near
it that does improves the nutrient nutrients in the soil. Mm-hmm. , Um, one
of my favorite reasons, and the, and the first reason I started
companion planting, um, uh, for my cannabis is I had a, earlier
in, in my cultivation history, I had a, a tendency to water
incorrectly. I was doing, uh, too much, not often enough. So I needed to water
mm-hmm. less, more often, but less. And, um, I had
a tendency to get, uh, hydrophobic soil. And, and for
folks who aren't familiar with that, that means that the, the top of your
soil container, um, gets kind of hard. And then when you go
and you, you hand water, the water just kind of slides off and, and goes down the side instead of
actually, um, soaking into the soil. And this happened to me all the time.
And, um, I eventually learned, uh, during the shaping fire, water and watering episode
that if you use a, um, a, a companion plant or, or in this case,
what we would consider a, a cover crop, um, with that has lots of roots, say,
for example, a clover or, or, you know, some types of grasses, um, they not only can provide like the, the, the canopy, if you will, to create this little moisture
vapor area between the tops of its leaves and the soil. So the soil
just generally stays more moist. But also, I was going for the fact that all of
these roots that go down in the soil all are providing like small tunnels for
the water to actually go into the soil itself. And, you know, I actually solved my poor
watering just by adding, um, a, a, a multiple, uh, root,
uh, plant. And then that, that problem just went away. Yep. That's, and, and the other wonderful thing that
you're doing is you're also introducing different types of exit dates, which
improves your, your soil life. Um, so then you're just getting, it's
just more all the way around. . Uh, so, so are there,
are we aware of any, um, you know, either, either companion plants in,
in cannabis? Of course we use these, we use the idea of companion plants to
often be the idea of like a bigger plant that's we're planting nearby
like a, you know, like a, like a ca cabbage or potatoes
underneath it or whatever. And then, and then we kind of use the
term cover crop, even though we, most of us in cannabis use that term, not how it's traditionally
used to talk about, um, lower plants, that
there's a lot of them. Um, I'm kind of backing into this question,
but what I want to ask you is, um, are there plants that you
are aware of that share, um, exudate flavors, complimentary exudate flavors with
cannabis plants that we should grow about can around our cannabis
plants simply because they increase the vibrancy of the kinds of nutrition
our cannabis plant is going to want, thus suggesting, Oh, you should grow these plants because
it too will attract the kinds of nutrition and, and make it more
buffet style for your cannabis plant? Ooh. I think that the, the honest answer to that one is I don't
think we're anywhere near that level of detail in the exit date,
Uh, scientific realm, like even just to identify exit dates
is super challenging cuz you can't, you can't even grow them in soil
to be able to collect them. Um, so all of my experiments, for example, are done in a fog ponic setup
that I made, um, so that I, I can actually access the roots without
the soil because of course otherwise you capture all the exit dates from
all the bacteria too. Um, so I, I don't think that we could
get that, that specific, but I do know that they've been doing
a lot of interesting research with, um, with crops and companion plants and
crops and the running theme there is usually, um, something
that fixes nitrogen, um, really helps because it brings in not
only the, the nitrogen fixing aspect, which is usually the limiting
factor in plant growth, um, but it also brings all of its,
its symbiotic bacteria with it. But I think as long as you, as long
as you have, uh, a cover crop as, as we were just talking about, that's
improving your soil, um, texture or soil, um, health in general, I think that
you're good. And so for me, like the, the anecdotal answer would be
something like, uh, we plant, uh, clover partly for the nitrogen fixing, um, but we also plant things
like basil or, um, marigolds that can act like trap
plants to kind of give us a sense of, of whether or not we have pest
things to worry about, um, and that kind of thing. Or, or anything that helps like pollinators
come in and that kind of thing. Cuz uh, that usually, I dunno, more
life is better usually. Does. That make sense? Yeah, I follow
that. You know, this, the, the example that you gave, um, I had not really considered how
difficult your research must be because I figured there was just some way for
you to, you know, grab the exu dates, you know, you know,
scrape 'em off, scrape, pull up a plant and scrape some off the,
the roots, you know, that were in soil. But, but that's right. There's all
everybody else who's in there too, especially the bacteria
mm-hmm. , they're all laying out exudates too. And so it's just like a mess
and you can't tease them out. And so you're using this
fog ponic system, so the, so the roots are just dangling
and there's not soil life interacting with it. So
in, in an odd way, you're, you're like an exudate rancher. Like
you've got to you, you've gotta, you've gotta do this ponant so
that you can collect them first. Yep, that's correct. Yeah, we
have other couple other ways, but they're all like, really,
they're all complicated. Um, you can do sterile culture
like, um, tissue culture, um, but then the necessity of that is you
have to have a plant you can grow in tissue culture. And if I was
working with, with, um, cannabis, I think it would be easier because it,
it does grow in tissue culture, uh, which would be nice. And then you
can just sample the media and, and extract the me the ex
dates from the media. Um, but there's lots and lots of plants out
there that don't like tissue culture that won't grow in a little
tiny box, um, or, or trees, some of which I'm working
with right now that, that just defy defy hydroponics
in general. So yeah, you gotta get clever about it for sure.
And it is very much like ranching, . . Right on. All right, cool. Um, so let's go ahead and
take our second break, uh, during the third set Stick with us because
we're gonna be talking about, um, uh, uh, salt based nutrients and exudates
hydroponics and exudates and uns sulfur molasses in and exit
eights. So come on back. Um, you are listening to Shaping Fire
and my guest today is plant biologist Sarah Lane. As cannabis regulations become more
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that you can check out for free. So go to youtube.com/shang golo or
click on the link in the newsletter. Welcome back, you are listening to Shaping
Fire and I am your host Shangle Los, and my guest today is
Plant biologist Sarah Lane. So let's talk about a couple
of the applications of, of exudates, um, uh, with, with with common situations that we
deal with as cannabis cultivators. And um, the first one I want to
talk about with you, Sarah, is, is salt based nutrients. So, you
know, on this show, we, we generally, not generally, we very specifically
support living soil, um, you know, a biomimicry of, of, you know, the natural world and, um, are are not big fans of salt
based nutrients generally, but, you know, I always know
I need to give them a, a fair shake when it comes
to science cuz that's, that's really what we're listening to is
the science not my own biases. So, um, I'm curious to know, um, what kind of a relationship
that that using, you know, bottled salt based nutrients
has on the exudates, um, and their ability to communicate
and the, and the community I guess. I think that's, um, I think most of the time when
we're talking salt based nutrients, like it doesn't really go
very well in living soil, which is my preferred method
of growing too. So, um, we're on the same page there. I
think, um, with salt based nutrients, there's sort of two things
that happen. One is, um, like we were talking about earlier, it
can really disrupt the signaling. Um, or at least that's my, my theory because you're introducing a
huge amount of nutrients to the plant, um, that it would've been making all
these wonderful little ex dates to try and tease out from, as we were saying earlier,
microbes or, or the soil itself. Um, and you're just flooding it. So I think that it would pretty
significantly disrupt the ex date type, at least, of what's
being produced. Um, the other thing it does is it really kind
of messes around with the chemistry of the soil. So, um, like if you're
only feeding salt based nutrients, you end up with salt buildup and stuff
like that. And that can happen in a, in a living soil system too. And usually those conditions aren't
really conducive to microbial life or root health and you end up just getting
a lot of compounding problems. Um, so, so it's, it's less about, um, the salt based nutrients
somehow masking the, the chemical signatures or anything
that it's just that, um, the, the people who are normally, uh, uh, giving off the exu dates and
receiving the exu dates, um, they're generally just not there. Yeah. Like I think, I think the plant, if, if it's got all the nutrients it needs,
it's gonna put its resources elsewhere. And um, and I think if you're
compromising the soil life at all, then a lot of that signaling would
would be as, as we were saying earlier, probably dampened would be my guess. Mm-hmm. dampen, that's
a good word. Yeah. Um, you know, a lot of the, um, you know, a lot of people are playing with
soilless mediums that are increasingly more and more, um, uh, you know, cocoa based coco quo to the point that
some folks are just like, like they, they don't have soil in their
substrate. Right. It's, it's, it's not really hydroponic, it,
it's, but it's just, uh, it's, it's cocoa and it's nutrients. And, um, I'm curious if these, these types of coco and
soilless mediums, um, have any impact on the, on the signaling capacity
of these exudates? Um, I, I guess what I'm asking is,
is the, is the soil component, um, key to the ability of the
exudates to be able to do their job? That's actually a really good question. And I was just thinking about that cuz
of what your previous question was. There are circumstances, so I think the real problem I have
with so salate nutrients is if it's in combination with living soil,
because they're in living soil, you're relying on this microbial life to
help provide nutrients and it just gets all out of whack. But like
for example, in my research, I have to use salt based nutrients
because I need a very defined set of nutrients that, um, to be able
to repeat my experiments. Um, and in that case, with the fog
pons and that kind of thing, it's, it's not necessarily like
the ex dates are going away, it's just that the types of ex dates that
I'm looking at are nutrient based and not microbial based. So I don't
notice a difference. And in that case, I think in coco or peat
or something like that, as long as you're not relying
on the bacteria that, or, or fungus that are present to
assist you in the nutrients, it wouldn't make as much of a difference. I I think it would change the
expression of the ex dates though. Like the types of ex dates that
are produced would be different. Does that make sense? Yeah. Cause
you're still gonna be producing them. And it's really interesting for you
as a living soil cultivator at home, but needing to use, uh,
salts in the lab, um, that puts you in a unique
position to be, um, you know, comparing and contrasting them.
Um, let's talk about like, if, if, if you're using a, if you're
using salt fertilizers in a, you know, in a soilless medium
like cocoa and you just said that if you were in that kind of
environment, it wouldn't, that the exudates wouldn't be there. It, it would be that there would be
nutrition based exudates, um, you would just be changing the
variety of exu dates that are there, that are being expressed.
My question would be, would that impact how the
plant expresses itself? It, it seemed to me that if we are,
are changing the exudates that are, you know, part of the cacophony in the
soil that we're gonna get, you know, uh, different colors on the plant,
different terpene profile, maybe a difference in quality of thriving. It seems like the plant would express
itself at the top level. Is there, is there any weight to that? Yeah, I think so. I think like if we were to go back
to our bizarre metaphor from earlier, when you, when you feed
salt based nutrients, it's kind of like putting in a really
big box store or something like that. It really changes the flavor of
what's happening in that location. And I think that changes the
personality of, of the soil. And I think like to borrow a, I
don't know, personifying my soil now, but you know, like the, like the, the
conversations that are happening, um, and the types of players that are
there changes pretty significantly. And I don't doubt that that would
also change the, the plant itself. The plant is very flexible. It's going to do its best to grow and
to thrive in whatever circumstances that you put it in. But when you
change those circumstances, it's going to change itself
to fit. And so, um, and, and I know lots of people that anecdotally
say that terpenes are different and, and like cannabinoid profiles are
different when you grow in living soil and stuff like that. Whereas like
when you're feeding salt based, maybe you're going for weight and the
plant is forced into putting more weight on cuz it's got these extra
nutrients and maybe it makes less. And I don't know that for sure
cause I haven't studied it myself, but I think that anecdotally
I've seen that happen mm-hmm. . Right on. So, so even, even though you haven't seen
the science for it, it makes, it makes intuitive sense. Mm-hmm. . Yeah, I
would say so. Right. And like, one of the reasons I like living soil is
because it sort of gives the plant its own options. Like it's,
it's complex. It's, it's kind of a fun way to think about
ecology too in, in a pot, you know? Um, but it, the plant is really able to pick and
choose a little better than kind of, I don't know, force feeding
salt, if that makes sense. Yeah, for sure. And we talk a lot on,
on shaping fire about the importance of, you know, a a a complex and thriving mesosphere
to have a complex and thriving plant so that you have a complex
and delightful terpene profile and, and the more you're
simplifying what is in, uh, the pot, say for example, using a cocoa soilless medium
and salt based nutrients, um, I think the example you used was put
just putting 'em in a big box store, so you're gonna get big
box turfs out of it mm-hmm. and not necessarily
the, a full range perhaps. Yeah. I think that's totally
reasonable. And again, like this also ties into carbon
budget because when you're, when you're forcing a plant
to grow in a specific way, you're also asking it to allocate all
its resources in that direction too, which generally means it
has less for other stuff, which maybe is stuff that
we want like terpenes. . Right on. Um, uh, let's
talk a little bit about, um, uh, I think what I think I can probably
group hydroponics and fog pons together, but if not, tease them back
apart for me. Um, uh, I'm curious because, uh, you know, we've, we've, we've talked
significantly on this show about the, um, soil food web and then
somewhat about the water food web and a hydroponics solution and a, I'm assuming a fog solution. We're
talking about the water, food web. And, um, I'm wondering if there, the quality and number and
variety of the exudates that are in those systems sound like
there's going to be less since you initiated this by saying, Oh, I use, I use a fog pons because
we're trying to, um, ranch these particular exudates
and in soil, there's just too many. So I'm assuming that in
hydroponics and in, in in fog pons, that there are going to be less exodus
based on what you had said earlier. And so with hydroponics
with this same, um, idea, um, crossover from the
soilless mediums, that, that there may be reasons
you want to use hydroponics, but in the end there are
going to be less, uh, varieties of exudates and, you
know, signaling conversation, taking on, uh, take, you
know, going on and nutrition. So you would run into the same problem
with hydroponic systems that you're not aggressively, um, Yeah.
Supplementing, I guess. I think. So, Yeah. Mm-hmm. . Yeah,
I think that's fair. I mean, for me, the difference between fog, pons and hydroponics just quickly
would be just like the, um, I don't know, dryness, if that makes
sense. Mm-hmm. , because, uh, the fog pons is, even though
it's nutrients, it's very dry. Like the roots aren't sitting in water,
they're not, um, they're not like soggy. So anything that's really
intolerant of flooding, um, I've been able to grow more
successfully in fog phonics, um, as opposed to hydroponics where
a lot of hydroponics, your, your plants are really sitting in
water or constantly sprayed by water or a lot of stuff like that. But
it's a really subtle difference, I think because the nutrient solution
I use for both, um, is the same. Um, so as, as far as like it
compares pretty well to soilless, I think the biggest
difference, at least for me, wouldn't necessarily be in exit dates. It would be more in like root
architecture because, um, the plants in a, in a like peat or cocoa, it's, it's more
like soil for like how they can grow. Um, but on the exit date level, I
think that the same is probably true. There's gonna be a, a more
defined set of exudates. They're probably coming
mostly from the plant and you, you miss out on some of those interactions
with bacteria and fungus and stuff like that. And there's still maybe some that
can grow in those kind of conditions, but a lot less than would be growing
in soil, at least as far as I can tell. Right on. Um, I also wanna, um, add a little something for
all my hydroponics people
who are listening who are now like pissed at me because I'm,
I'm, I'm underselling their craft. I wanna be clear that I do understand
that, that some hydroponics, um, you know, there's a lot of varieties of
hydroponics. I mean, we had, we did a really great, uh, soil food
web show, uh, couple years ago with, uh, Steve Reisner. And, and you know,
he does the, you know, first of all, he is heavy into, uh, bringing
in, uh, you know, water with, uh, with mom and fish poop
in it mm-hmm. . So there's a lot of complexity there.
And, um, and, and he was describing, you know, the, the great flowers
that he pulls from his setup, but, but he also has some soil
in the mix, right? So he's, he's like flooding and draining the
soil and he's got the fish poop. And so he's making this like incredibly
biologically active environment that makes, you know, flowers with terpene
profiles that, um, that he says we, we, we don't even get in, in a, in a straight
soil medium. So I wanna be clear, when, when, when I'm talking about
the limitations of hydroponics, I, I'm talking about, you know, the kinds of stuff that people are
generally either doing, you know, in, in their, in, you know, in the extra
room, in their house, or at, you know, wild scale of corporate cannabis, I absolutely appreciate the fact
that there are really tasty ways to do complex hydroponic. So. That totally makes sense. And I would like to add there that like
each of these growing methods has its place and the plant will grow
regardless. Um, and so I, I know I've had some really
good hydroponic weed before. I know that I've had some really
good living soil weed. Like they, they all have, they all have
their way of doing things. And I also think that there's ways to
make hydroponics more accessible to bacterial life. And like
you were just saying, with a different terpene profile that
you don't get with either of the other two. And that just kind of goes to prove the
point that what you're putting on your roots does change. And, and same with the type of life that
you're growing changes what the plant is able to do. And sometimes
that's for the better, depending on which method
you're using. So definitely, like whatever you're growing your plant
in is better than not growing your plant at all. . Yeah. There,
there you go. And you know, that's one of the challenges
that we ran into, um, during these like 24 hours of
lights debate. People are like, I grew a huge as plant that was absolutely
beautiful and totally got me high. And, and, and every all my friends
bought it from me, and that was great. And they're all like, Why are you telling me that I I
shouldn't be using 24 hours? And, and, and my response is always, it's, it's not that I'm saying that you can't
grow plants and that your plants are gonna suck if you, if
you do, you go 24 hours, I'm saying that you're probably
leaving some quality on the table, um, by doing it 24 hours and your terpene
profile could be better and the plants could be better, and
you could be more press, more pest resistant if you just, uh, gave it four hours of, of sleep or six
hours of sleep, it would be helpful. Um, but, you know, internet debates
are rarely that nuanced, you know. . Oh, it's so true. And
I, I, I do think that like, even, it doesn't really at the end of the day
matter if you're growing a plant that suits your tastes like however
you're doing, it's great. I mean, unless you're dumping like illegal
pesticides on it or something like that, maybe, maybe don't do that. But you know,
like, I think at the end of the day, everybody's gonna have a way
of growing that works for them. And there's absolutely, these debates
are all like trying to tease out the, the finer ways of growing and
like the best way to grow. And that's gonna be very much personal
preference at the end of the day. Um, and I personally prefer the
taste of living soil weed, but I've had really good weed that's been
grown in every other condition you can imagine. So I'm, you know, Yeah. Here,
as long as you're growing a plant, it's fine. . Yeah. I, I'm with you there. And,
and it also gets me when, when people are demanding
that, you know, their, their recipe of how they grow is, is
the best and one and only. And I'm like, that's that, that shouldn't
even be coming out of a, out of a cannabis cultivator
mouth. You know? It, it really depends on what your particular
needs are and your resources and your location. And, you know, I would, I
would love to grow differently than I do, but I also don't live
in California, you know? No, totally fair. Yeah. Yeah. Which, which, which pushes me towards things like
short flowering thing in auto flowers, right? Mm-hmm. , um,
you know, if I lived in California, I would probably still be focusing
on my own cultivation on photos. So, All right. So fair. The next
thing I wanna talk about is, um, is unsolved molasses. So, um, it is, it is a pretty common in, um, in living soil for, for folks to, um, think that they can
make up for not giving, I guess I'll call it like whole nutrition,
like whole amendments, like, um, let's say like, um,
like, like fish meal and, and crab shell and maybe alfalfa meal. All all of these amendments that
we love to use in living soil, um, to have an, an abundant variety of nutrients
there for the, uh, the, I guess the exu eight processors to chew
through and then give to the plant. So, and, and so the exu eights come back
and then they feed the microbes. And this is beautiful relationship. And
it is not uncommon for people to say, Well, you know, I don't, I don't need to do all of that to take
care of my microbes because I just, I just feed the microbes with
unsolved molasses and, and you know, that that pains me because, um, I, I, I have a gut feeling that just
pouring sugar into the soil, um, is not a great idea. And, and, and molasses is kind of uni dimensional, whereas micro life is so, uh, so vastly complex and, and I get
where they're coming from, right? Because when we are
brewing a compost tea, um, we will often add a bit of
unsolved molasses to that so that the, um, the microbes have, have something to eat so that we can, uh, incubate them and have a whole bunch of
them in a small place that we can then pour onto our plants. So I, so
I get where they got the idea, but I think that is a misapplication
of the understanding of what effect molasses has on the
microbe life in the RSOs sea. So, so as somebody who, who has an intimate
relationship with exudates, what are your thoughts on
an adding unsolved molasses directly into the substrate as part
of some sort of nutritive root drench? I am gonna go back to the
theme of the day, which is, it's complicated. And
it depends, I think, um, I think that if you are trying to recover
your soil life just with molasses, that it really depends on the health
of the soil that you're adding it to, because that molasses, just
like it does in compost tea, is, does have sugar in it. I'm sure things
will like to eat what's there and grow. Um, but that means that anything in your soil
you're adding it to is gonna grow too. So if you've got some nasty,
you know, anaerobic bacteria in, in your soil already, like that's gonna
love it as much as the next thing does. Um, and the other thing is like a
lot of the amendments we add, um, provide different, um, I don't know, different opportunities for different
types of microbes to come in. So if you're only feeding molasses,
and that's how you're getting your, your microbial life, like, it
might get there eventually, but it's also going to be the microbes
that specifically like molasses and you'll miss out maybe on some of
the, the kelp or the crab meal type. And again, this is all kind of
conjecture because truthfully, the science isn't there to, to be able to specifically identify each
different bacteria that come with each of these. But, um, that's, that's
what my gut feeling would be. Um, if you're already, if, if you're health of your soil is really
good and you're already adding compe, compost ts and things like that, if you're diluting a little bit
of molasses in water, I don't, I don't think it's, it's
harmful. Um, but again, like I, I do think that the biggest factor on
whether that's a good idea or bad is probably the health of your soil
to begin with. Does that make. Sense? Yeah, it does.
So, um, yeah. You know, is there anything that we can
do to encourage healthy exudate creation by the cannabis
plant? I mean, we've talked, we've talked a bit about like just
generally keep your soil healthy. Got it. But is there anything that we
can do, like a, uh, is there, is there any kind of a, a a, a fermented plant juice
or a supplement or, or in anything that we could do
to encourage exudate creation? Because they really do
seem to be a, um, a, a baseline to a thriving
plant where, um, if, if you've got poor exudate activity, everything that happens
more complex than that, um, is going to be limited by the, the sad exudate system. So is there anything that we
can do that's pro exudate that, that we should consider? Ooh, that is a good question. Um, I mean, I think the best answer is probably no and yes. Mm-hmm. , um, no, there isn't a magical thing that as
much as it would be nice to just like promote root health and the
healthiest roots you've ever seen, just like sprout out of the, um, out
of the soil and you're good to go, um, because really it actually ends
up being about root health. Um, and that's where the yes part comes in
because you can support root health by, um, like the type, like you
were talking about earlier, proper watering technique, um, where you're making sure the roots aren't
like super dry and they're not super wet or anything like that. Um, you can
promote root health with soil texture. Um, you can add these compost
ts and things like that, like we've been talking about, to promote the type of microbes
that you wanna be there. Um, you can give them lots of space to grow. Obviously more roots equals more ex dates.
So if you have a nice big root ball, I'm a big fan of big root balls
though, cuz it's my thing. So mm-hmm. , um, that, that's
probably what I would say is like good, good root health. And so, um,
yeah, I think that's, but I mean, again, it's so hard to say how to get good
root health and it's sort of trial and error. So philosophically speaking, these kind of conversations help too
because you'll find people all over the place that have different ways of
making sure they have healthy roots, and maybe one of those ends up working
for your particular strain or type of plant. No surprise that you're a big fan of ru
balls being up there in bc the land of Natasha Riz, who's been on this show
talking about ru balls as well, . Mm-hmm. , my
Canadian friends all love the, the love the cannabis ru ball, um, good. Roots equals good plant . Totally. It's so nice to come to an end of
an episode without anything new we have to do. You know, usually when we go through these episodes
at the end there's like, Okay, I need, I need to learn about this and I need
to start adding this and I need to learn how to start, you know, making
this Korean natural farming prep. But really at the end of the story, we've learned a whole ton
about exudates today. So, so a we stop repeating bro science, and b we have like a more intimate
relationship with an understanding of the biology of our plant. But really if, if you're already studying
living soil and trying to have a healthy soil, like the exit eights
will take care of themselves. And it's, it's so delightful to just be able
to get new understanding without new tasks. It's true. Root health
is just, you know what, just keep doing what you're doing and
go the healthiest plants that you can. And, uh, and the, the plant is
very good at taking care of itself. So if you give it the opportunity too,
then you won't have to worry about it. Fabulous. Well, Sarah, thank you
so much for sharing your time and, and expertise with us, uh,
today on Shaping Fire. You know, I mentioned this in the introduction
to the show that, um, you know, you really do have a, uh, a rare specialty and to find
somebody who is, you know, doing this at the, at the PhD research level
and also is a home cannabis cultivator, um, makes you exceptionally unique to be
able to bridge between the academic science side of Exudates and
our beloved cannabis plant. And so thank you for, you know, taking
two hours and sharing it with us so that, uh, that we can all become
more familiar with Exudates. It's been absolutely my pleasure.
Thank you so much for having me. Fabulous. So, um, if you want
to, uh, keep up with Sarah Lane, uh, the best place to do that is, uh, uh, through her Twitter and her
Twitter account is Exude Rootly, so that's E X U D E T T E R O O T L Y. So that is a great place to keep up
on her research and her interests. Um, if you happen to have a, like a more of an elaborate
question or comment perhaps, uh, then a, you know, a Twitter
account will allow, um, she also, uh, invites you to send
an email if you'd like. And that is s lane, s l a n e, at u vic.ca. So that's u v I c.ca. You can find more episodes of the
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I've been your host, Chango Lowes.