181: Why Mastering Vapor Pressure Control Holds the Key to Exceptional Crop Quality with David Sandelman

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So, David Sandelman, CEO of Canachold, thank you so much for joining me on the

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Berkeley Farming podcast. Thank you. Great being with you. Good to

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see you again. Yeah, likewise. So, for the benefit of the the viewers and

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the listener, where's home for you? We're here in Vermont, but we also

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have an office in Denver. So thanks to

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the outreach from your PR team, we got to connect at Indoor

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adcon. So I'm wondering how the rest of the conference went for you

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and if there was any insights or how much value you got from being there

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on the ground. Indoor ag was great because what we are

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exposed to other people that have different products

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in post harvest, and so they're like, ah, we can use

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this technology. And we've also been, you know, playing with the

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idea of getting more involved using our technology to maintain

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proper VPD vapor pressure deficit in grow.

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But, you know, our main emphasis was on post harvest

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of various different products. And every day we're learning that there's new

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and exciting things. We just did a trial with someone trying

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saffron. Okay. Someone's been doing testing, and we

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even use it at home for our own herbs that we grow

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for storage is great. We did a facility

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in Hawaii that does seaweed. Yeah, we'll get into all of those

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specifics because I remember you taking us through that. What I want to do

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is wind the clock back a little bit because your story doesn't actually begin

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in cannabis, it begins in a restaurant. So, yeah, take us back.

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You know, what were you doing all those years ago and what was the problem

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that you stumbled into? Yeah, so being here in Vermont

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caught. My wife and I are corporate refugees, left the big city,

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came up to Vermont, wound up in a inn and restaurant.

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And our mission was buying local. So 20 something years ago,

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we were at the cutting edge of farm to table, and

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we worked with a lot of local cheesemakers. And it was

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there that we learned that the cheesemakers were struggling

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with their aging rooms and digging into it and trying

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to understand what the issues were. It was like, well,

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yeah, cheese is very regional, its climate and

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geology specific. The herds, what

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they're feeding, all of that. And now people were here

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in Vermont trying to make any kind of cheese any time of the

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year. And it's like, wait, you know, you used to make cheddar and Cheddar

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England, and you made Romano and Emilio Romano, and

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you're trying to make this cheese in Vermont. And what was unique, it

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was those cheese were made and then

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stored in caves in the area, which was Cool. And that's where they

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did the aging. You can't dig a cave in Vermont. I think it's

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granite. It's solid. You go down a couple of feet, and that's it. You hit

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rock. You hit rock bottom. And so then it was getting to you. What's

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unique about a cave? Yeah. And then it became,

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oh, it's all about consistent, very consistent

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conditions. And, you know, people speak about

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humidity, and it's like, well, humidity is really made up of

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what's the temperature in the cave and what's the moisture content in the

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cave. And those two are extremely stable.

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So that became. Okay, how do we create an

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environment with very stable temperature and very stable

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vapor pressure. Dew point. And that's what led to the

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development of vape patrol. And so we built a couple of

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cheese facilities here, you know, retrofit their rooms. And

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they had great success. And word spread. And we were working

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with someone who was a consultant in the cheese industry. And then he took

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the technology and. And deployed it in all over

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US And Canada. And cheesemakers all over were

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winning ribbons at the cheese competition that

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had our technology. They also would come back to us and say, you know, I

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can sleep at night. I don't have to go out there and check on my

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cheese and make sure I don't have a problem. And so that's how it all

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began. From there, I went to Charcuterie. I'm curious about

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the cheese. What was it about your background that helped you understand

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the specificity of these environments that maybe other people were missing? So my

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background was and has been controls. I have many

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patents, and the very first patent I got was late 70s, early

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80s, during the first energy crisis. A digital clock

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thermostat. It was the first digital clock thermostat.

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It's the whole category today. You go into a Home Depot and there's a whole

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section of digital clock thermostats. But we're

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was developed was the first digital clock thermostat. And what was

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unique at the time is most homes at that

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time had what we call a hockey puck around thermostat on the wall.

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You turned it up and down, and it only had two wires. And so

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the challenge was, how do you run a clock and how do you have the

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thermostat turn the heat on and off? Yeah. So we're able to

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do both sending power to the thermostat and sending

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the signal from the thermostat to the heat. That's what was unique. And it was

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the first digital clock Thermostat. So my background's always been in

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various types of controls. You talk a lot. And I want to make sure

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if we get too in the technical weed, that we can bring it and simplify

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it for folks, because there's a lot of things we're talking about here that are

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important, and especially for indoor farming. You talk a lot about stability

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versus just temperature. Can you explain that difference in simple

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terms? Sure. So a lot of people are

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trying to control the relative humidity in

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a space, whether it's post harvest or

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even in a grow room. And the challenge is

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relative humidity is not a controllable

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variable. It is made up of two components.

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What's the temperature of the air? And what's the amount of

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moisture in the air, which is measured in either

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vapor pressure or dew point. If you know dew point, you

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know vapor pressure. If you know vapor pressure, you know dewpoint. But those

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are the two variables that make up what relative

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humidity is. So if you change the temperature,

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the relative humidity changes. If you change the amount of

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moisture in the air, the relative humidity changes.

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So controlling relative humidity directly

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really doesn't exist as mathematical or science.

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And best example I like to use is a bank loan.

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All right? You get a monthly payment, and if you want to increase

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or decrease your monthly payment, there's no dial

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to turn up and down your monthly payment. You got to change the

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terminal loan, the interested loan, or the principal of the

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loan. Change any one of those three, and your monthly payment changes. But there's

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no such thing as a dial to dial up and dial down your monthly

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payment. Relative humidity is. Is the same thing. So

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while people. Oh, I'm trying to control the relative

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humidity. Well, it's nearly impossible

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because one of two variables change. And then what happens is

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they use equipment like air conditioners. And an air

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conditioner, when you turn it on, does two things. It cools the

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air and dries the air. And so

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both of the components that make relative humidity are shifting

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or they introduce dehumidifiers.

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Well, a dehumidifier removes moisture from the air,

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so it's lowering the vapor pressure, dew point, but at the same time, it's

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raising the temperature of the air. So there's this conflict.

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And very often if you've got a room that you have air conditioners

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and dehumidifiers, the dehumidifier comes

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on to remove moisture from the air. And while it's doing that,

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yeah, it's removing moisture, but it's also warming the air.

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So they're in competition with each other. Yeah. Now the air conditioner goes, hey, wait,

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it's starting to get warm in here. I'm going to come on to cool the

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air. But guess what? It's also removing moisture. And then the relative.

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The dehumidifier is like, wait, the air is getting dry

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or then I want it, I'm going to turn off. And so you wind

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up in this crazy dance of the air conditioners,

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the dehumidifiers. Now, what you might see is a

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fairly stable relative humidity. And people are

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claiming success. But what's really happening in the space is

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the vapor pressure is going up and down as these pieces of equipment

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are cycling on and off, because the temperature is doing things

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simultaneously, which sort of caused a flat line

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of relative humidity. But what we learned

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is plants, they don't care about the relative

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humidity. They're interested in the two components, what's the

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temperature and what's the vapor pressure? Because in

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growing, people talk about vpd, the

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vapor pressure difference, and that is the difference of the

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vapor pressure at the leaf surface and the vapor pressure

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in the room when they're close, the water, the

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vapor that's coming out of the stomata or the leaf is not

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drawn away fast enough because the vapor difference is

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too close. And so things can get moist under a

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leaf. And that's where stock adding mold.

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Yeah, Critters and things you don't want because it's a nice moist area

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on the other side. And when you have all those systems clocking

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on and off, it's obviously a lot of expenditure and energy as well, so.

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Absolutely, because they're counteracting each other on the other side. If your

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vapor pressure difference is too great. Now what happens is

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the plant is losing moisture quickly, so it starts

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bringing up moisture up through the roots at a faster rate. Well,

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that means it's bringing up the nutrients at a faster rate. And now

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you can wind up overfeeding, poisoning the plant with too

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much nutrients. Yeah, that's a good point. And so if your vapor

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pressure in the room is doing this, the poor plant is like,

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whoa, which way do you want me to go? And they're looking at, oh, but

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we're holding a flat relative humidity. That's a good explanation.

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Thank you for that. So you solved it for cheese and you were about to

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mention how that turned into charcuterie and dry aged steak. Yeah.

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So, you know, what it came down to is holding a constant vapor

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pressure in the space to remove the free available

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water. And with shelf stable products, they're looking for a point,

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0.6 water activity. At a 0.6 water activity,

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molds and microbes can't grow. And it's a unit of measure that

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expresses how much water is bound and

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unbound in the product. Okay. And it is the

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unbound water that things grow on

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and feed on the mole, the microbes. And once you get to

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a point six water activity, there no longer is

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enough unbound water for them to survive. And that's how you, how

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would you define unbound water? That. The concept of that, that is

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water that's not bound up in cellular structure. Okay. It's

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free, available. Okay. So it's just there for other things to

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grab onto and feed. Once you get rid of that, yeah, it's still

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in the product, but the microbes and mold

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can't get to it to feed. And then you have a shelf stable product.

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So take cheese or charcuterie, the same thing. You

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know what they're after is they want, those are about shelf stable

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products. And then you get usda, fda,

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they want to know what the water activity of that product is so they know

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when the consumer gets it, it's going to be shelf stable. And not

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when you cut into that salami, it's rancid in the middle because there

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was still unbound water for microbes to grow on. They use

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other salts and other things to help the process for

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shelf stability. But being involved in the food

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industry and learning about water activity,

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bound and unbound water, it was like, wait a second.

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Cannabis flower? Yeah. Why are they trying the

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cannabis flower? Well, you can't smoke it

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when it's freshly picked. It's too wet, it won't burn. And if

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you try and store it, it's going to go moldy. So

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people dry it. But now we've learned

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about the science of shelf stability and what's really

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going on. So that's when we said, hey, let's apply

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this technology, the vapor troll technology, which we

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called it, to a cannabis flower and see what happens. Our first

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challenge was no one was going to give us a giant room,

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a flower to play with, you know, because we were. Everything we did was on

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a large scale for sure. Cheese makers, charcuterie makers. It's

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big, big rooms with thousands and thousands of pounds of

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product in there that's drying. So we realized no

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one's going to give us that much flour to play with, nor did we knew

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what the outcome was. So that's when we built a prototype and we

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purchased a wine cooler and stripped it out, just used the

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insulated box with the door and put a couple of thousand dollars worth

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of controls on it, Gave it to a grower and said, put some

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flour in there and tell us what happens. Is it going to destroy?

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It does nothing. And sure enough, two weeks later, he's like,

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I don't know what this box is, but this is some of the finest flour

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I've ever produced. He's, like, hanging on to it. I'm not going to give it

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back. And that's when we knew we were onto something. How long did

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that process take for him to see that result? It was like a week or

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two, because you get, you know, smokable flower in about eight days.

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Okay, but interesting. You know, we've always said, oh, about eight days.

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But as now there's more and more of this technology

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out there, more and more people are using it. We're starting to learn a

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lot of interesting things because now there's a reference standard.

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You can. It's repeatable and consistent.

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So now you can do experiments because at

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least you know, the dry cure is always going to be the same.

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Okay. And so what's come out of this is now

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people are starting to see that different

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cultivars need different amounts of time

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until they're optimum and they're at their peak. So

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early on, we said, yeah, four days will get you to your point. Six water

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activity. And you like to see another four days before you got nice

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smokeable product. But once we started getting to

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a broad global audience, people, well, you

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ruined my flower. I had it in the eight days. It's terrible.

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And then we started learning, oh, that cultivar might need 30

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days. Now all of a sudden, we're like, oh, you know what? We're not much

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different than the wine industry. Then the cheese industry

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and Bridget, you know. Yeah, this. You pay

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a premium for longer age, Bridget. Yeah. Than young

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prosciutto. Yeah. And a wine. The fine. You know, certain

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wines age better over time. Not all.

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Guess what? Cultivar specific. Now people are starting

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to learn. The same thing applies to cannabis. It's an

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agricultural product. And cultivar to cultivars. Different take

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different time. You also mentioned trichomes. Can you explain what those are

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and why preserving them is so critical? Well, you know, just

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like you grow a vineyard and you have your

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grapes and you squeeze, you know, you're going after the

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juice in the grape. And a cannabis plant,

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the trichome is where the THC and

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CBDs and terpenes and all of those are

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produced. They these little bulbous Glands,

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they're on the ends of stalks. A lot of people have seen trichome

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pictures. Pretty much all plants have trichomes.

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Even a lemon zest, you know, you're breaking into the outer

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trichomes. And the trichomes and plants are a

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defense mechanism in multiple ways. Different fronts, different

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plants. But part of it is the terpenes are good

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because they smell. And certain predators, bugs,

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whatever, might not like that smell. And so when the little

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trichome heads burst, the little exploding bombs,

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the predator who touches it goes, this is nasty. And leaves

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also, it's sticky and they might get trapped there and

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they're done. So they're also on. The cannabis plant

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are known to protect the plant from UV light.

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It's sort of like a whole forest of little sunscreen

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things there. But what do we grow the plant for? We want to

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harvest what's in the trichome heads, whether we smoke

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it, whether we press it, whether we extract it.

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But that's where it is now, what we're learning.

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So it started with we did that first unit and it was like,

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wow, this is some of the best flower I've ever produced. And then did another

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and another and everyone kept coming back. This is amazing. The flower

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smokes amazing. It's, it's not over dry, it's

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consistent, it tastes great. So the first thing we did is

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we went out and did some side by side analytics and

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saw that at terpenes were much higher than

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the way people were conventionally trying and curing using

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air conditioners, dehumidifiers, hanging in a barn, hanging in the

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basement, whatever. Yeah, we were consistently higher in terpenes, which is also

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a bonus. Yeah, yeah. For cannabis. So then

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we're like, why? And so then we started doing the research

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on the whys and it took quite a bit of time.

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But ultimately what we learned is when you try

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with conventional methods, the little trichome heads,

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which are called the cuticles, ruptured. And that was where

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the loss of the terpenes and everything was going.

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And we did it two different ways. The researchers one

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first stumbled upon this by doing grid counts under a microscope

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using vapor troll technology for drying flower

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compared to conventional like 60, 60 method of drying. And

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they like, wow, 25 to 30% of the trichome

295

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heads are ruptured conventional. And only 1 to 2% of them

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are ruptured using the vapor troll technology.

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Then they re approached it using chroma photography,

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knowing that ruptured trichomes change in color. And

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that backed up what the grid counts were. Okay, so now we

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knew we have higher terpene retention because

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of the non rupturing of the trichome heads.

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Now that raises the next question,

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the next why? Yeah. Okay. And

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what we don't know yet is whether the trichome

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heads are rupturing because in conventional

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systems the vapor pressure is fluctuating

307

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up and down. And is that causing the trichome head

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to flex? Every time the vapor pressure goes down around

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it, it expands the vapor pressure around that goes up, it

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contracts. And is that fluctuating vapor

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pressure causing stress fractures? Because it's

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only two cell walls thick to break, or

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we're maintaining a constant stable vapor pressure.

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Is it allowing the cuticle, those two cell walls to

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either harden or ripen? We really don't know. Or a

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combination of both. And you're able to do the measurement

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of tracking or maybe not yet of the vapor pressure as it

318

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fluctuates? Oh, yeah. At the same time, while you're, you're

319

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looking at the, at the cell walls that we haven't gotten to. Okay, all

320

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right. Okay. We haven't. This is only the results.

321

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Yeah. That it's subject to fluctuation or

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constant over a period of days. So you're still doing. So further

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testing is every day we're gutting

324

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further and further into us. In the past in Legacy,

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there was dry was a step

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then cure and. Well, why? Well, because

327

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if you put it in a barn, if you put it in a room

328

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with air conditioning or dehumidifiers, it's constantly

329

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going to dry. The water is going to keep leaving it and

330

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you're going to wind up with overdrive dust. So

331

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at some point you got to make the call and say

332

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it's dry enough and move it into

333

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some sealed containers to arrest the drying process.

334

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And up until now that has been a touchy

335

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feely, you know, snap the stems.

336

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When do I. Because if you don't go by instinct. Yeah. You're

337

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gonna over dry it. So you gotta then put it in jars or

338

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totes or bags. Yeah, turkey bags. So the curing

339

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is essentially halting the drying process. You're

340

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removing it from the drying area to stop the drying process. Yeah.

341

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But then what's happening there? Well, people would move

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out of the drying space and if they took it out too soon

343

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or if the big Kohlers still had

344

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unbound water in it where the smaller didn't and they

345

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put it in a sealed vessel, well, they might get mold

346

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because they haven't dried it sufficiently. So what do they. Do

347

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they burp? They open the jar to let out that

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extra moisture. But I ask them, yeah, but in

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Florida, in August, you open the jar, which way is

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the water going? Added a jar into the jar, versus

351

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Minnesota in January, where the air is

352

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so bone dry, that flower might be perfectly dried. You're going to open the jar

353

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and whatever moisture you have left in there, you're going to let out and then

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seal it and the flower is going to further dry. I'm in Minnesota, so I

355

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can vouch for that. Exactly. But what we're doing by

356

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holding the vapor pressure constant, there's no

357

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ending the drying process. The flour comes to

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equilibrium with the vapor pressure in the space and just stays

359

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there. So you no longer have to move it. Okay. You don't have to.

360

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And so now drying is a

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continuum. Right. Into cure and

362

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store. Yeah. You eliminate that labor, you

363

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eliminate the guesswork. We like to say it's sous vide

364

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for weed. Oh, anyone in the restaurant industry would

365

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know about the sous vide. Right. Because it doesn't matter if you got a little

366

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steak or a big steak, you put them into the tank of water at your

367

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finished temperature, they both get there and are in equilibrium.

368

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And you can leave them there. They don't get overcooked. We're doing the same thing

369

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with vapor pressure with a flour. That's great.

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So what was interesting is that I imagine this results in higher

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yield, better quality, longer shelf life. Like all of the above. All of the

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above. A reduction in labor, and then that all turns

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into, well, okay, higher yield. That interests people.

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Because we'll go into a facility and measure their current flower that they're

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shipping and seeing they're drying it to maybe a 0.5 water

376

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activity instead of 0.6, and they're walking away

377

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5 to 7% of their top line revenue by

378

00:23:21,240 --> 00:23:24,800

overdrying. And a lot of them are doing that because they're

379

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concerned about mold. So they're willing to sacrifice

380

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all that revenue knowingly or unknowingly?

381

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Yeah. So when you're having these conversations and you're heading into

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00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:39,840

these meeting with these, these farmers and these growers, is

383

00:23:39,840 --> 00:23:43,400

it like a light bulb moment for them? What's the real world impact that it's

384

00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:47,160

having? What's interesting is to see the nodding heads

385

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as you explain the challenges of pulling it out of the

386

00:23:50,780 --> 00:23:54,220

dryer room and someone goes in there on Friday and goes,

387

00:23:54,220 --> 00:23:57,900

wow, you know, if we leave it till Monday, it's going to be overdrive.

388

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But we can't pull it now. Do we bring people in over the weekend? Do

389

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we leave it? You know, and then all of a sudden it's like, that's no

390

00:24:04,900 --> 00:24:08,700

longer a discussion, it's no longer an issue. Just leave it there till Thursday,

391

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Friday, whenever. If you follow the sous vide example,

392

00:24:12,620 --> 00:24:16,330

higher yield. Yeah. That drops right to the bottom line. You

393

00:24:16,330 --> 00:24:20,170

spent the money on energy, labor, your genetics,

394

00:24:20,170 --> 00:24:23,850

your nutrient, every. All your overheads are paid, and now you have

395

00:24:23,850 --> 00:24:27,570

an opportunity to pick up another 5 to 7%, depending on how

396

00:24:27,570 --> 00:24:31,290

much you're overdrying the flower. And then more important

397

00:24:31,930 --> 00:24:35,730

is the quality of the flower. You know, the industry has been going

398

00:24:35,730 --> 00:24:39,450

through a race to the bottom. And yeah, look at

399

00:24:39,450 --> 00:24:43,110

the beer world 40, 50 years ago when

400

00:24:43,110 --> 00:24:46,670

you had the Budweisers and the Pabst Blue Ribbons and,

401

00:24:46,830 --> 00:24:50,270

you know, just the major beers. And then came about

402

00:24:50,590 --> 00:24:54,310

craft beer. And quickly, guess what? A consumer

403

00:24:54,310 --> 00:24:58,150

today will pay more for four cans of beer that they will for a

404

00:24:58,150 --> 00:25:01,870

whole suitcase of Budweiser. Of course. Yeah. All right. And

405

00:25:01,870 --> 00:25:05,550

so, yes, the consumer is willing to pay a premium price

406

00:25:05,870 --> 00:25:09,530

for quality product, but you need to deliver a

407

00:25:09,530 --> 00:25:13,370

quality product. You just can't say it's a quality product. And when you deliver

408

00:25:13,370 --> 00:25:17,090

it, when they come back for more, it's got to be the same quality product.

409

00:25:17,730 --> 00:25:21,170

And with conventional systems, there's too many variabilities

410

00:25:21,650 --> 00:25:25,489

because of what time of year is. It has a great impact

411

00:25:25,490 --> 00:25:28,730

on their dry rooms where we give them

412

00:25:28,730 --> 00:25:32,490

consistent product year round, no matter what the climate is. So all of

413

00:25:32,490 --> 00:25:35,900

a sudden now you can start seeing the Coca Cola

414

00:25:35,900 --> 00:25:39,540

model for the msos. So someone who's growing

415

00:25:39,540 --> 00:25:43,300

and using our tech for dry cure in Florida will

416

00:25:43,300 --> 00:25:46,980

be able to deliver exactly the same product in Denver, Colorado, which

417

00:25:46,980 --> 00:25:50,620

is known for Colorado crunch. That's huge. It seems like

418

00:25:50,620 --> 00:25:54,140

obviously, like a lot of agriculture is still operating on a tradition

419

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of approximation and using traditional tactics.

420

00:25:58,140 --> 00:26:01,340

And we're moving to a world where everything is becoming

421

00:26:01,420 --> 00:26:04,960

controlled and predictable. Yes. And that's key, is getting

422

00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:08,720

proper control over it. A lot of people think they

423

00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:12,280

have control. Yeah. But really when you dig into

424

00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:15,320

it, it's a false sense of having control.

425

00:26:16,120 --> 00:26:19,920

When you really start digging into the numbers and graphing what's

426

00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:23,520

going on with the vapor pressure in the space, what's going on with the temperature

427

00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:26,920

in the space, a lot of it is dependent. If you think about the wine

428

00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:30,610

industry and teas industry, you know, people who probably have

429

00:26:30,930 --> 00:26:34,610

tons of experience or just knows an olfactory

430

00:26:34,610 --> 00:26:38,370

sense that is like way above, you know, normal, or the people that work in

431

00:26:38,370 --> 00:26:42,210

perfume industry, like, they have this sense of smell, so they can operate on instinct

432

00:26:42,210 --> 00:26:45,930

because their. Their. Their. Their senses are so heightened. But that's not

433

00:26:45,930 --> 00:26:49,330

the case. And you can't really replicate that because it's dependent on one person.

434

00:26:49,570 --> 00:26:53,330

That's an amazing point. And, you know, you talk about the person at

435

00:26:53,330 --> 00:26:57,100

facilities, the turnout, really good flour, and

436

00:26:57,100 --> 00:27:00,060

they're the person that says, okay, it's dry enough.

437

00:27:00,780 --> 00:27:04,580

Let's arrest the drying process and move it to cure. And I equate

438

00:27:04,580 --> 00:27:08,220

that to someone who's on the line cooking steaks at a

439

00:27:08,220 --> 00:27:12,060

steakhouse, and he's been there for years. And every steak goes out

440

00:27:12,060 --> 00:27:15,900

exactly the way the customer wants it. Medium, well, medium rare,

441

00:27:15,900 --> 00:27:19,700

rare, you name it, he never misses. And then he gets sick one

442

00:27:19,700 --> 00:27:23,350

day, and they get grabbed the guy on the dish line

443

00:27:23,910 --> 00:27:27,750

and say, stand here. Put the steaks on the grill.

444

00:27:27,910 --> 00:27:31,310

And then there's if, you know, in the restaurant world, it's like you point to

445

00:27:31,310 --> 00:27:34,950

your hand, and if the steak feels like this, it's medium. If it points

446

00:27:34,950 --> 00:27:38,150

like this as well. The thumb test. Right. Well, guess what?

447

00:27:38,470 --> 00:27:42,070

Probably more than half the steaks are going to come back. Oh, yeah. Because they're

448

00:27:42,070 --> 00:27:45,830

not cooked right. So, yeah, it can be done, but then you're depending

449

00:27:45,830 --> 00:27:49,630

on the. This one person. Yeah. Versus point of failure. Yeah. Back

450

00:27:49,630 --> 00:27:53,270

to sous vide. You put them in, they can be cooked Exactly. To the right

451

00:27:53,270 --> 00:27:57,070

temperature. Not that sous vide is a substitute for what you can

452

00:27:57,070 --> 00:28:00,150

do on a grill, but you get the concept there.

453

00:28:00,630 --> 00:28:04,070

So at indoor Icon, you know, obviously, as you were moving and

454

00:28:04,070 --> 00:28:07,750

explaining the benefits for the cannabis space, were you able to have

455

00:28:07,750 --> 00:28:11,190

conversations with other growers? Do you see applications, or are people

456

00:28:11,190 --> 00:28:14,950

interested in doing this? Are there other crops that are coming up? I'm curious

457

00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:19,120

what your insights were, what those conversations were like at the conference. Yeah. One that

458

00:28:19,120 --> 00:28:22,680

we'd love to find someone to work with is hops.

459

00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:26,360

Okay. Turns out hops and the cannabis plant are very

460

00:28:26,360 --> 00:28:29,640

closely related. You know, when you start understanding

461

00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:33,440

terpene profiles, there's many beers. If you take a good

462

00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:37,120

smell, you're like, oh, that's got a lot of cannabis terpene

463

00:28:37,120 --> 00:28:40,840

notes and stuff like that. And the hops has a lot of terpenes in

464

00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:44,370

it. But what is the industry doing now to dry

465

00:28:44,370 --> 00:28:48,170

hops? They're heating it, and terpenes boil

466

00:28:48,170 --> 00:28:51,210

off at fairly low temperature. So they're probably

467

00:28:51,690 --> 00:28:55,450

boiling off a good chunk of the terpenes in hops.

468

00:28:55,450 --> 00:28:58,530

And so what we're trying to do is find someone that we can work with

469

00:28:58,530 --> 00:29:02,130

that's willing to take a batch of hops, dry it with

470

00:29:02,130 --> 00:29:05,770

our technology and make some beer with it. Now, what might

471

00:29:05,770 --> 00:29:09,450

turn out is people go, this beer is disgusting.

472

00:29:09,850 --> 00:29:13,690

Because they never had beer with that many terpenes

473

00:29:13,690 --> 00:29:17,410

retained in the hops. Or the other side

474

00:29:17,410 --> 00:29:21,170

might be, oh my, I've never had a beer this good. This is

475

00:29:21,170 --> 00:29:24,970

amazing. Because they never had a beer that was able to express

476

00:29:25,290 --> 00:29:29,050

all the terpenes that were originally in the hops. We don't know

477

00:29:29,050 --> 00:29:32,330

which way it's going to go, but it's definitely worth a try.

478

00:29:32,730 --> 00:29:36,570

What was your take on the indoor farming, the broader indoor

479

00:29:36,570 --> 00:29:40,270

farming industry, from seeing all the vendors there and you know, all

480

00:29:40,270 --> 00:29:43,830

the challenges people are having. And obviously there's been a lot of

481

00:29:44,150 --> 00:29:47,750

news about failures in the space. And I think because people were coming at it

482

00:29:47,750 --> 00:29:51,350

from a technology play as opposed to realizing, hey, it's actually, you're a farmer, you

483

00:29:51,350 --> 00:29:54,750

need to grow. Yeah. And you need to have a crop that's profitable. So I'm

484

00:29:54,750 --> 00:29:58,470

curious what your take on the overall industry was. Wait, you know, I

485

00:29:58,470 --> 00:30:02,270

was walking around because, you know, we're doing all this work on vapor

486

00:30:02,270 --> 00:30:06,000

pressure VPD on the grow side and quickly

487

00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:09,600

learned the space is pretty crowded with people bringing

488

00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:12,800

in controls into the space. And I think

489

00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:17,120

there is a gap between, as you said,

490

00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:20,959

the farmer growing it and the people who are doing

491

00:30:20,959 --> 00:30:24,800

controls. And very often that control

492

00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:29,360

thought process backgrounds comes out

493

00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:32,510

of the comfort cooling and heating

494

00:30:33,150 --> 00:30:36,670

side of the world. You know, if you look at the industry, the

495

00:30:36,670 --> 00:30:39,870

bulk of equipment sold air conditioners,

496

00:30:39,870 --> 00:30:43,710

dehumidifiers, they've always been built and designed for

497

00:30:43,950 --> 00:30:47,710

comfort cooling. And then now people are modifying them

498

00:30:48,030 --> 00:30:51,830

for indoor ag, greenhouse, that type of

499

00:30:51,830 --> 00:30:55,510

thing instead of taking a whole new approach as,

500

00:30:55,510 --> 00:30:59,260

okay, what is the process requirements? And that's what

501

00:30:59,260 --> 00:31:02,540

makes us unique is we are a process

502

00:31:03,500 --> 00:31:07,020

system that's designed for the process of

503

00:31:07,020 --> 00:31:10,780

getting your proper product to the right water activity

504

00:31:10,780 --> 00:31:14,380

for shelf stability versus applying conventional

505

00:31:14,780 --> 00:31:18,620

comfort cooling equipment to accomplish it. Because, well,

506

00:31:18,700 --> 00:31:22,540

we had the discussion with air conditioning all over the place and fire

507

00:31:22,700 --> 00:31:26,430

no where, you know, what our technology was developed and

508

00:31:26,510 --> 00:31:29,870

does, is gives and our patents are about

509

00:31:30,270 --> 00:31:33,550

is independent control of what's called latent and

510

00:31:33,550 --> 00:31:37,230

sensible heat. Sensible heat is the temperature of the air.

511

00:31:37,630 --> 00:31:41,310

Latent heat is the amount of moisture in the air. Conventional air

512

00:31:41,310 --> 00:31:45,030

conditioners and dehumidifiers have a fixed sensible

513

00:31:45,030 --> 00:31:48,710

latent ratio or can be moved slightly. We give

514

00:31:48,710 --> 00:31:52,510

independent control of the two. So you create really zero in on

515

00:31:52,510 --> 00:31:56,230

what the plants need or what the product that you're

516

00:31:56,230 --> 00:31:59,710

doing post harvest needs. You also hinted at something bigger,

517

00:31:59,710 --> 00:32:03,510

layering AI on top of this environmental control. What would that

518

00:32:03,510 --> 00:32:07,110

unlock? It's going to. And what we're looking at is the

519

00:32:07,110 --> 00:32:10,910

AI to analyze what the plants are doing

520

00:32:11,390 --> 00:32:14,990

as a feedback for the control system. Okay.

521

00:32:14,990 --> 00:32:17,940

Yeah, but it's still a little early because

522

00:32:18,660 --> 00:32:22,340

first we have to get the controls in

523

00:32:22,340 --> 00:32:25,940

place and working and then you use AI to

524

00:32:25,940 --> 00:32:29,780

tune it. In the end, do you see a future where these environments are essentially

525

00:32:29,940 --> 00:32:33,700

self optimized based on the crop? Yes, it will get there,

526

00:32:33,940 --> 00:32:37,540

but like anything else over the years,

527

00:32:37,860 --> 00:32:41,220

it's going to have to do with sensor placement and

528

00:32:41,460 --> 00:32:45,130

how the sensors are reading. Because as we all

529

00:32:45,130 --> 00:32:48,850

know, garbage in, garbage out. Yeah. And if

530

00:32:48,850 --> 00:32:52,570

you have sensors that are not getting the right readings or the readings

531

00:32:52,570 --> 00:32:55,690

are skewed or off for whatever reason,

532

00:32:56,330 --> 00:33:00,130

well, your result is not going to be optimal. Yeah, it seems

533

00:33:00,130 --> 00:33:03,930

like the future looks really interesting when you combine

534

00:33:03,930 --> 00:33:07,490

precise environmental control with machine learning over

535

00:33:07,490 --> 00:33:11,220

time. Yep, that's going to be good. But it still needs some

536

00:33:11,220 --> 00:33:15,060

tweaking. What I learned early on when we were playing with

537

00:33:15,140 --> 00:33:18,900

VPD in grow rooms, asked about, well, how

538

00:33:18,900 --> 00:33:22,580

does the plant express itself if your VPD is

539

00:33:22,580 --> 00:33:26,100

too high or too low? And then it came back to,

540

00:33:26,100 --> 00:33:29,780

well, those are the same symptoms as too

541

00:33:29,780 --> 00:33:33,380

much or too little nutrient in the plant. Yes.

542

00:33:33,620 --> 00:33:36,980

Well, then it was like, well, wait, if your VPD

543

00:33:37,140 --> 00:33:40,960

is too high, the plant's going to take up more

544

00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:44,560

nutrients, so you're overfeeding the plant.

545

00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:48,000

So now is it the result of your

546

00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:52,480

ratio of nutrients to water or do you fix your

547

00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:55,440

VPD to get it in place and then fix.

548

00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:59,840

But both of those the plant expresses in

549

00:33:59,840 --> 00:34:03,600

its tips of the leaf and color and stuff similarly. So

550

00:34:03,930 --> 00:34:07,650

an AI, you know, is it going to adjust the nutrient level

551

00:34:07,650 --> 00:34:11,410

or is it going to adjust the VPD level? Because either one

552

00:34:11,410 --> 00:34:14,570

of them can cause a similar result if you're not.

553

00:34:14,970 --> 00:34:18,730

And that requires to some degree a good

554

00:34:18,730 --> 00:34:22,330

farmer who talks to his plants and is going to walk in there and goes,

555

00:34:22,490 --> 00:34:26,010

hey girls, you're happy or you don't look happy today,

556

00:34:26,090 --> 00:34:29,890

what's your problem? And they know, they'll know. All right, this

557

00:34:29,890 --> 00:34:33,410

is what we need to tweak. And so they can tweak it and then teach

558

00:34:33,410 --> 00:34:36,929

the AI a lesson. Yeah, because it's hard to

559

00:34:36,929 --> 00:34:40,569

replace that industry knowledge, that crop knowledge, that decades and

560

00:34:40,569 --> 00:34:44,329

decades of experience being in a grower, you know, it's. That's

561

00:34:44,329 --> 00:34:47,289

not something you can easily translate. You know, it's a Lot of it is instinctual,

562

00:34:47,289 --> 00:34:50,929

but over time you have a gut call like, and they are living things and

563

00:34:50,929 --> 00:34:54,609

you're engaging with them as living things. And I think that's important to

564

00:34:54,609 --> 00:34:58,329

remember. Yeah. Just this past weekend, being a

565

00:34:58,329 --> 00:35:02,130

bit of a science and food nerd, went to an Alton Brown

566

00:35:02,210 --> 00:35:05,650

show, who was the celebrity, and he

567

00:35:05,650 --> 00:35:09,410

spoke about AI can't cook. And it

568

00:35:09,410 --> 00:35:12,970

was great. He, you know, took a hundred index cards of various

569

00:35:12,970 --> 00:35:16,730

ingredients, mixed them up, pulled out 10 and said to AI, okay, give

570

00:35:16,730 --> 00:35:20,370

me a recipe. Yeah. Using these 10 ingredients. It was

571

00:35:20,370 --> 00:35:23,650

hysterical, you know. Yeah. I can't imagine what turned out.

572

00:35:23,890 --> 00:35:27,690

So where is an industry or application where you think this technology will show up

573

00:35:27,690 --> 00:35:31,530

next that people wouldn't expect? Oh, and

574

00:35:31,530 --> 00:35:35,250

you know, in post harvest, we're looking at tea. Oh, yeah.

575

00:35:35,250 --> 00:35:38,690

It's fascinating, you know, starting to look at

576

00:35:38,770 --> 00:35:42,530

tea as, you know, white tea, green tea, black tea.

577

00:35:42,609 --> 00:35:46,370

And then we learn it's all the same plant. And what differentiates

578

00:35:46,370 --> 00:35:50,170

them is the steps during post harvest. Yeah. And a lot

579

00:35:50,170 --> 00:35:53,930

of these steps that have been going on for hundreds,

580

00:35:53,930 --> 00:35:57,570

thousands of years. And we're watching and it's going, oh, we thrash

581

00:35:57,570 --> 00:36:01,370

it. Oh, no, you're not, you're breaking the trichome heads.

582

00:36:03,130 --> 00:36:06,770

So that could be a very interesting world for us to really start to

583

00:36:06,770 --> 00:36:10,170

explore next. But for us, the most

584

00:36:10,170 --> 00:36:13,970

exciting part is watching the cannabis

585

00:36:13,970 --> 00:36:17,810

industry start to realize that, yes, there's

586

00:36:17,810 --> 00:36:21,300

been so much work done growing the plant and yet

587

00:36:21,300 --> 00:36:25,100

nothing done on post harvest. Yeah. So

588

00:36:25,100 --> 00:36:28,100

I'm curious about your kind of day to day. You probably wear a lot of

589

00:36:28,100 --> 00:36:31,820

hats in your role as CEO. And there's always challenges, as

590

00:36:31,820 --> 00:36:35,339

there are with any exciting project like the one you're working on now. What's a

591

00:36:35,339 --> 00:36:39,180

tough question you've had to ask yourself recently? Well, first, thank you for

592

00:36:39,180 --> 00:36:42,900

the promotion, CEO, coo. The

593

00:36:42,900 --> 00:36:46,670

tough question is how do we

594

00:36:46,990 --> 00:36:50,550

get the legacy folks to embrace

595

00:36:50,550 --> 00:36:54,270

change? And what we see is so many people who

596

00:36:54,270 --> 00:36:57,950

are doing really well with their legacy methods,

597

00:36:57,950 --> 00:37:01,790

who can do much better, are afraid of change to a

598

00:37:01,790 --> 00:37:04,910

degree because they're not 100% sure

599

00:37:05,550 --> 00:37:09,390

why what they're doing is working. Because it might not all be

600

00:37:09,390 --> 00:37:13,240

backed in science. It's back to that touchy

601

00:37:13,240 --> 00:37:16,800

feely, the farmer feeling. But here we've got

602

00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:20,280

more science going for you to get you more repeatable

603

00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:24,240

and consistent results. Yeah. So for someone listening

604

00:37:24,240 --> 00:37:28,080

who's a grower, an operator or a producer, what's the one

605

00:37:28,080 --> 00:37:31,240

thing you'd want them to rethink about their current process,

606

00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:34,680

to see what current Science is available

607

00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:38,920

and their science and other industries that have been

608

00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:42,590

around for a really long time are proven and work. For

609

00:37:42,590 --> 00:37:46,070

example, water activity, the food industry

610

00:37:46,310 --> 00:37:50,070

for decades, the pharmaceutical industry for decades,

611

00:37:50,310 --> 00:37:53,870

even museums look at water activity to make sure their

612

00:37:53,870 --> 00:37:57,510

rare documents aren't devoured by mold. Yet

613

00:37:57,910 --> 00:38:01,590

in the cannabis world, people are still talking about percent moisture.

614

00:38:01,910 --> 00:38:05,630

And it really is not a good unit of measure to

615

00:38:05,630 --> 00:38:08,310

know you have shelf stable products.

616

00:38:09,330 --> 00:38:12,810

So it's shifting away from those legacy

617

00:38:12,810 --> 00:38:16,290

methods and going into the more solid science of this.

618

00:38:16,450 --> 00:38:19,410

That makes a lot of sense. Well, I really appreciate your team. Again, like I

619

00:38:19,410 --> 00:38:23,130

said, reaching out and this deep dive into understanding, you know, a lot of things

620

00:38:23,130 --> 00:38:26,970

about this growing process is there. You know, obviously you've got your hands full

621

00:38:26,970 --> 00:38:30,810

with cannot troll. But as a tinkerer and as a scientist and as someone

622

00:38:30,810 --> 00:38:34,490

who likes to learn new technologies, are there other things that

623

00:38:34,490 --> 00:38:38,240

you're kind of working on in the background should. Why are you

624

00:38:38,240 --> 00:38:42,000

thinking new ideas all the time? I imagine right now it's here. This is all

625

00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:45,640

consuming, but it's different platforms.

626

00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:49,320

Okay. And different configurations of the technology

627

00:38:50,040 --> 00:38:53,880

to fit different market segments, you know. So

628

00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:57,640

we have our cool cure home grow unit, which is good

629

00:38:57,640 --> 00:39:01,240

for the home grower. It'll take a plant of about a little over two

630

00:39:01,240 --> 00:39:04,310

pounds, two and a half pounds. And then we got our first

631

00:39:04,790 --> 00:39:08,582

kits, but those start at about 160,

632

00:39:08,838 --> 00:39:12,470

180 pounds. So we're coming out with

633

00:39:12,470 --> 00:39:16,270

products to fill that gap, which is going to be more

634

00:39:16,270 --> 00:39:20,110

targeted to, let's say the social clubs in Germany, to people

635

00:39:20,110 --> 00:39:23,950

who have larger home grow. So that's where a lot of our

636

00:39:23,950 --> 00:39:27,350

time is right now, to get all of these new products out the door.

637

00:39:27,670 --> 00:39:30,710

So you do have a unit for a home grower or a solo home grower?

638

00:39:31,030 --> 00:39:34,710

Yes, that's our cool cure unit. Yep. Okay. Yeah. And we've shipped those all

639

00:39:34,710 --> 00:39:38,350

over the world. Okay. Yeah. I'm sure the people who might want to try their

640

00:39:38,350 --> 00:39:41,990

hand at the tech, that'd probably be a good place to start. Yeah, absolutely.

641

00:39:41,990 --> 00:39:45,590

Well, David, thank you so much for your time. I really enjoyed our conversation. Where's

642

00:39:45,590 --> 00:39:48,670

the best place for folks to learn more and to connect with you? If they

643

00:39:48,670 --> 00:39:51,990

go to our website cannot trolls.com with an S.

644

00:39:52,310 --> 00:39:55,590

We have lots of white papers and scientific information.

645

00:39:56,720 --> 00:40:00,520

So when we say it's better, we won't say it's better unless we

646

00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:03,200

have technical documents that

647

00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:08,000

prove and explain what the outcome is and why we can say it's better. That's

648

00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:11,200

all on our website. We're also on all the social media

649

00:40:11,360 --> 00:40:13,840

platforms, LinkedIn and

650

00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:18,720

the whole round of them. We're there. Well make sure all those links are in

651

00:40:18,720 --> 00:40:21,880

the show Notes. Thanks again for your time. I really enjoyed this conversation and for

652

00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:25,360

sharing your insights with our audience. It's great and I look forward to meeting again.

653

00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:26,800

Likewise. Thanks.