Challenge: Test a novel formulation of solid plug media, applicable to various crops, to reduce time to rooting, without compromising plant health, for Quick Plug Solution: Determine rooting time of cuttings grown in two different formulations of Quick Plug’s solid plug media Impact: Successfully identify a Quick Plug formulation of plug media that promotes faster rooting with more roots than other plugs
Formed in 2018, Quick Plug is a producer of a wide variety of rooting substrates for commercial growers and wholesalers. The solid plug growing substrate produced by Quick Plug is a novel foam-like medium, which is a blend of sphagnum peat moss and a proprietary foaming ‘glue’. This differs from conventional ‘loose’ growing media in that it provides a straight entry for a cutting, is predictably uniform, and can be formulated to adjust air and water porosity to suit each crop’s needs.
The unstable nature of loose media can potentially allow a young cutting to struggle, by remaining too wet or even dry out too quickly, leading to reduced crop success or plant death. These varying factors can negatively affect the time a crop of cuttings takes to develop roots as well as the percentage and uniform growth of successfully rooted cuttings.
Uniformity and predictability of a growing media effectively increases grower success and helps reduce the cost of production. Media for plug production is a competitive market, with a shortened time to root development high in demand.
Quick Plug wanted to produce a novel formulation of solid plug media applicable to several different crops, which would effectively reduce time to root emergence, ‘rooting’, without compromising plant health. Quick Plug turned to Niagara College’s Horticultural & Environmental Sciences Innovation Centre (HESIC) to conduct growing trials to evaluate two of their novel formulations.
“The College has the resources for that, depending on what the needs are. They’re good people. They’re smart. They were professional. They were organized. They absolutely did what they said they would, so how can you complain?”
With the objective to determine rooting time of Cannabis sativa cuttings grown in two different formulations of Quick Plug’s solid plug media, a small crop was propagated in the Niagara College (NC) CannaBunker, located in Niagara-on-the-Lake (NOTL), Ontario.
Throughout the trial, the HESIC team confirmed that Quick Plug’s formulations, versus a traditional peat moss-based media, saw more success in rooting Cannabis than traditional media.
Bill Maartense of Quick Plug highlighted that working with HESIC allowed their company to get production and other business solutions right and freed up their time and resources.
“The College has the resources for that (production and business solutions), depending on what the needs are,” he said. “They’re good people. They’re smart. They were professional. They were organized. They absolutely did what they said they would, so how can you complain?”
This project was funded by the Government of Canada through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario.
Visit Niagara College’s Horticultural & Environmental Sciences Innovation Centre page to learn more about its resources and capabilities.
