Over the years, David Holmes, CEO and co-founder of Los Angeles-based Clade9, has grown plants in everything from deep water culture to rock wool.
Holmes was growing in deep water culture when he first met famed photographer and cannabis author Mel Frank, whose books Holmes had read when he was first learning to grow two decades ago. Frank had been looking for a grower with a precise setup to help one of his colleagues conduct an “experiment … on the effect of UVB ultraviolet on THC production, whether it enhanced it or did anything,” Frank recalls.
“Deep water is pretty sensitive,” Frank says. “A lot of things that can go wrong with it. Equipment failures, microbial problems, stuff like that, because basically you’re just growing a plant in pure water. It needs oxygen being bubbled in. Temperature has to be monitored very closely.”
Frank recalls thinking immediately, “Well, this guy’s got this together. If he’s able to operate this and bring a crop through this, he knows what he is doing.”
Today Holmes grows in rockwool at Virtue’s Las Vegas facility and at his L.A. operation.
“I like rockwool because it’s really clean …, it’s lower labor,” he says, whereas if you’re growing in soil, for example, “it’s really messy, it’s everywhere. And then there’s a lot of labor and potting, and it’s heavier.”
Plus, as a self-described “precision cultivator,” Holmes says, “I just like the fact that it starts with basically a zero cation exchange capacity, so you can essentially set your nutrient solution precisely from the start.”
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