I had a client with a severe case of septoria. They were in Maine. The consensus from regional farmers was that their crop wasn’t going to make it. This was an important crop of Medicinal Cannabis with many children showing incredible reductions in their brain cancer. All under the watchful eye of a Harvard-educated doctor, and monthly scans performed at Saint Jude’s and Duke’s. Fortunately, Cannabis is my specialty due to having commercial-sized cultivation experience since the 1970s.

I had very few options since the farm already had flower set. It’s not uncommon for a cannabis farmer to water multiple times daily. This farm was only able to water 3 times in 8 weeks due to rain. This wasn’t your average rain; this was rain every 3 days. One 24 hr period had 6 inches, many days had 2-3 inches.

While my initial focus is usually managing the Ions under the Albrecht system, the farm didn’t have a budget for SAP analysis, even though I was donating my time. The only thing I could do is manage the soil microbiology. This entailed stopping all practices that were putting pressure on the nutrient cyclers. In their case, it was citric acid, hidden in an enzyme wash. Then I searched for a diverse compost with nutrient cyclers. The only thing I could do was focus on nutrient cyclers. This farmer was blessed by consistently harsh, cold winds to dry the flowers.

Normally, my focus on soil redox is on keeping the soil dissolved oxygen levels over 8 ppm, and keeping nutrient cyclers in the appropriate ratios to the nutrient fixers. I do see in some of the posts above they discussed tillage. I have never used tillage and would not try. What I have used on a small scale is holes from ¾ inch concrete form stakes. Lots of holes. They work as ventilation shafts to reduce the moisture level, and they quickly fill up with healthy roots. My theory was Gopher holes.

The end result with the cannabis farm is they had a successful harvest and the medicine still retained its efficacy. The children have experienced full reversals, and scans are still showing no regrowth. If anyone wants to see some of the results they can be found on Facebook under Prey for Grey and Old School Farm. For those that want to learn about soil microbiology try and find information on an Austrian couple that used to come to the state under the name Lubeke. And I would recommend reading the USDA paper Microsoft Word – Krasil’nikov – Soil Microorganisms and Higher Plants – V02…