Best Practices in Cultivation -- Rainwater Catchment
Cultivating cannabis is hard work. All good things take hard work. At Casa Humboldt, we are committed to staying the course, producing top quality trustworthy sun-grown medicine with regenerative farming and biodynamic production as our top priorities.
Our practice of rainwater catchment as the way to source water for Casa Humboldt's cannabis cultivation is a sensible and ecologically attuned methodology, with virtually no impact our land. Given Southern Humboldt County's rainy wet winters and hot dry summers, this is indeed one of our Best Practices in Cultivation, as detailed by Bart Schaneman in the most recent edition of Marijuana Business Magazine.
Best Practices in Cultivation
As Featured in Marijuana Business Magazine September 2019
p. 142-143
Rain Catchment
In Humboldt County, California, David Digiallorenzo, owner of Casa Humboldt, sources his water from the sky.
It rains enough that if Digiallorenzo can collect rainwater properly, he'll have water all year long.
Digiallorenzo's tanks can hold 80,000 gallons of water -- enough to irrigate two 10,000 square-food sections. He's never had to use supplemental water to make it through the year.
"That's the interesting part of regenerative farming," he said. "You're guided by the elements, the rainy season."
Digiallorenzo uses a Netafim drip irrigation system that is buried in the ground, under the plants.
"That's the best method for conserving water because you don't have evaporation," Digiallorenzo said. "If you're watering on the surface of your plants, you're going to have evaporative loss of moisture and water."
The underground system causes the roots to stretch downward, he said, which causes some stress on the plant, but this way the roots aren't looking to the surface for water.
"If I took you on a farm tour, you would go, 'Oh my god, it's so dry,'" Digiallorenzo said. "But if you scratch the soil down about 4 inches, you'd see some elements of moisture far below the surface.
-- Bart Schaneman