Sapponins & Worms- The Magical Combo for Plant Health, Ft. Riverview Ricky
6:10PM Jul 21, 2025
Speakers:
Jordan River
Keywords:
worm castings
nutrient uptake
soil biology
microbial populations
bioavailability
African night crawlers
humic substances
fulvic acids
soil moisture
surfactants
saponins
living soil
plant health
biochar
organic amendments
Jordan River here back with more growcast, a mass flow of information straight into your brain. Today we've got Ricky from Riverview living soils on the line. He's going to talk about nutrient uptake and worms in your soil. It's a fantastic episode. I know you're going to love it. Quick. Shout out to AC infinity for all your growing needs. Go grab a Grow Tent, a grow kit, some lights, fans. AC infinity.com, use code grow cast, one, five. Let's get into it with Ricky. Thank you for listening and enjoy the show. Hello, podcast listeners. You are now listening to and watching grow cast. I'm your host, Jordan River, and I want to thank you for tuning in today. Go to growcast.com to see everything that we have to offer. We're back with a fan favorite, Ricky from Riverview living soils joins us now. What's up? Ricky, how you doing? Man,
Hey, thank you. I appreciate that. Man, super appreciate that. Ricky from Riverview living soil, if you haven't heard his first episode, go and check it out. It was a banger of an episode. Man, people really liked that one. I got a lot of good feedback, and you dropped a few gems that were just out of control, as far as like, people over lighting their plants early when the plant is young and just home. Grower tips about growing in soil. Really great stuff. I want to thank you for being a great guest and a friend of growcast now a code at Riverview living soil that's r, v, L, S, M, o.com, code growcast for 15% Thank you, Ricky, yeah, friend of grow cast,
man, I appreciate you in the community. For sure you
got it. You absolutely listen. You absolutely crushed it last time you've been up to a lot of stuff since we last spoke, my understanding is that you've entered a new foray of worm farming.
Yeah, yeah. We again, kind of something we've been wanting to do kind of since we started. We had a plan on implementing that sometime in the next year or two, and the way things aligned, we needed to get in it a lot sooner than that, when we had a good opportunity to get the things we need to start that ultimately, the reason we were so eager to get started is we can control a lot more. When we control their bedding, we control their feed, we control their population rates, again, it allows us to create a more consistent product. So even though we're testing once to twice a month on a lot of these mixes to make sure we are being consistent in what's getting bagged, it's really nice to have that really standardized based on your own SOPs and how you run that compared to how somebody else is, because even if they do a really good job, it's just like when you're not in control, you don't you don't have that level of performance and kind of what you're making, and it ultimately what ends up in your soil, and what ended up into our into our product bio Boost, which is primarily made of worm casting. So it's something for us that was a big goal. Early, we had an opportunity to do that sooner than later, that made it hard, because we're having to fit a lot of stuff in a little space right now, until we're able to get another barn built here this fall to house that. So again, I think it's something that's going to be a big game changer for us, and honestly, for the past, since January, any soil that anybody's purchased has been made with our castings. So I feel like it's really made a big boost to how our soil performs. And I'm really excited can kind of dive into why exactly worm castings are seen as, like the black gold in horticulture and gardening. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it seems like a huge thing in the cannabis industry. You look at compost portions of these top dresses, and vermicompost is like everywhere, everywhere you look. And I know that not all worm castings are created equally. And I'd like to dive into this, the benefits of worms and what you're doing as well. Maybe we'll start there. What type of worms did you select? And why?
Yeah, so we use African night crawlers. Those are different than the red wigglers or the Euros. Again. They are a species that prefer much higher temperatures. They do really well between like 75 and 80 degrees. And what these what ANC? So African night crawlers, just ANCs for short. So what they bring in is it's a higher microbial population and a lot of diversity in those castings, because that comes from a few different reasons. So one, when you have the higher temperatures, right, that helps boost microbial action, right? And it's like, Why? Why? Things really slow down when you start getting 7065, 60 degrees with microbial populations like that. As soon as you're able to kind of raise those temperatures, they get cranking right. So being able to run your bedding warmer helps those microbial populations, um. Um, thrive, really. And that's, that's probably our biggest thing. I know there's a lot of research that shows they're higher in humic and fulvic substances. And I remember, was a cool one, and I had never actually looked into specifically, when we were on your show, um, last week sometime, it was just somebody had made a quick little comment, and it talked about how ANC is also are higher in the bio slime they produce. And again, all this stuff goes to reducing compaction, helping create these soil aggregates, to create more space for gas exchange at the roots. So again, it that's exactly why we kind of pick those species. They reproduce like crazy. They go through a lot of that bedding and worm Chow really fast. So when you're talking about needing a lot of production, that's why we chose that those that those African species. So
that's really cool, man, because I know a lot of people, when you order worms, you see a lot of people selling red wigglers and, like you said European night crawlers, but I know they all have their own special properties. Worms, in general, though, I'd like for you to talk more about what they do to the soil, because I know that they're so beneficial for living soil, but it's a broader picture than just like, hey, they do this. It seems like there's a lot that goes on when you add worms to soil, and all of it's beneficial for the plants. So can you talk about what they're doing down there?
Yeah, so a few big things here is we talk about the bioavailability of nutrients in these organic systems, right? Because you can add all this, but until it goes through that process of cycling, it's not available to the plant, right? And so, like, kind of what is like bio available mean, and why? Why is that important? So as these nutrients pass through the worms, right? There's a lot of these digestive enzymes and microbial populations in the worms gut. And what that does is it breaks these complex structures down into more simple ones, again, and as that happens, that's what you talk about, bio avail. That's a mouthful. Bio availability. So as it passes through the worms digestive system and gets pooped out as a casting, those nutrients are much more accessible to the plant. And I know like one in particular, it's really tricky. We've talked about this a lot, whether it's soluble fertilizers that we've we sell, or even like recommending using, like high phosphorus fish hydrolysate or liquid bone meal, or any things like that or phosphorus solubilizing bacteria, things that make peat available. And as these worms eat this bedding, have nutrients pass through them. And then our bedding, we actually add more phosphorus, right? Cal FOS, which is, again, big bank account, not necessarily very plant available, but as again, as those pass through the worms, now you have phosphorus rich castings. So again, more bio available. The second big thing, again, is the production of these humic and fulvic substances. So what these do is they act as key laters, right? So when you think of a key later, you want to think of like a key. So what this does, it allows for easy uptake and easy distribution to support different plant processes. So these things really are kind of what makes castings magical in terms of nutrient availability to the plant. But as we all know, right, in living soil systems, it's not just about nutrient delivery, right? It goes so far beyond that, because now we're kind of cultivating and raising a diverse and robust microbiological systems in our soil, right, which again, now we're getting redundancy in nutrient cycling, getting redundancy in path and pest path, pest and pathogen pressure, right? We get to reduce that through overcrowding and out competing more anaerobic pathogens, right? So now, not only are we making more nutrients bio available, right now, we're also out competing pathogens in the soil space, right through the productions of these castings in biological communities. So it's just like the benefits are, it's really hard to kind of understate how important it is to have high quality compost and castings in your soil.
You know, it brings to mind a lot of things here, especially when you talk about the aerobic bacteria, the thermophilic bacteria, you know, these microbes that like things high in oxygen, aerated, and they like things hot, you know, moving and grooving and churning in there. And the worms do so much in that regard, like you said, the enzymatic digestion and the releasing of the castings, but also just the churning of the soil, the carrying of nutrients throughout the soil. You know, a lot of times things can be pocketed here or there, and the churning that worms do, not only bringing more air down into there, but also just kind of homogenizing everything. Yeah, really the unsung heroes In the 24/7 Laborers of the garden. You know what I like to say, Ricky? And maybe you can tell me if you agree with this, or if you vibe with this. But we take a look at us as humans, and we have our digestive system, and we have, like our microbiome and our bacteria in there, and then you've got the Earth, which also has like fungi and bacteria as part of its kind of digestive system, but then it also has these larger organisms known as worms, like earthworms, and those are the kind of the same things helping the whole digestive system of nature of Mother Earth run. So I don't see any reason why not to add them to your soil.
No. I mean, it's big. And one thing you mentioned specifically that is wildly important is you talk about the transportation of nutrients within the soil, right? And again, phosphorus doesn't move a whole lot, and now you have these organs that help distribute that throughout the soil more evenly and bring it again within the plants roots. What's really cool is, again, you pull up a root ball and you've got worms in your soil. Look where all of them like to congregate. You know, there's a lot tied up in the root zone of these plants, and they're bringing and moving these nutrients throughout the soil and dispersing all of that while making them more bioavailable, while making a boost in the microbial populations. And again, all the enzymes involved in this too, that help break down complex things into more simple ones. So it's the other thing too, especially if you're dealing with like garden soils, or, let's say, soils that you're trying to remediate heavy metals and toxins. They help bind those out right and make them unavailable, right? When you talk about that's why biochar is so nice, too, because it helps remediate toxins, right and toxicities and heavy metals. So as these things pass through the worms, as these things get tied up in biochar and all this stuff, it also is now not something that's going to be taken up into your plant. So it's just the benefits, just are that again, it's kind of again, once again, hard to understate how important they are to have in your beds, in your pots, whether you're top dressing them yourself, whether you're creating your own soil blends, whether you're kind of bringing back to life. Soil that you've used for a few runs right? Add some castings back, some organic amendments, and it just brings right back to life, even if you leave it for a while. How many beds? Like there's a greenhouse that I've run every year, and I've just, this is one of those years I just do not have time. It's just fun. We'll just, like, throw some different things in there, some veggies, cannabis and whatnot. But there's no time, and that soil all is just bone dry, just it could not be any more hydrophobic and dead right now. But it is not hard to bring back to life when you talk about different bio stimulants, when you talk about getting castings back in there, talk about reintroducing moisture, which is like, again, the key to life, a key to a lot of things, is having even soil moisture throughout an entire soil profile, because that hydration is again unlocking soil biology, unlocking access to nutrients, but the key is getting the biology back in there, and getting the biology that might be either dead or dormant in there back to life. And it's really not, not too hard. You can let soil sit for a long time, and it is not hard to bring it back. It does not take long, like it's really robust these microbial populations once they have the right situation, once they have the right conditions, they thrive. It does not take long to bring it back.
I would actually like to drill down on that for a second, but to put a bow on it definitely add living worms to your garden. I think a lot of people could fall short there. And there's so much from, like you said, the distribution of minerals within your soil, to aeration, to all the things we said, add those good quality worm castings, and if you can get some worms in there. So I would definitely say that's that's a takeaway point from this episode. But yeah, I want to drill down on what you said, recovering from old, sometimes hydrophobic potting mix or soil. What's your go to move are you? Are you getting in there with your hands? If it's a small enough volume, are you using some of those saponins that I've heard you talk about? Yeah, tell me about rehydrating soil.
So both, honestly, that using both alongside each other help a lot. So and honestly, everybody's probably hadn't experienced this, whether it's a raised bed that sat for a while, whether it's a pot that sat for a while, whether it's just a bag that was on a shelf a little long that, I mean, even though so, every bag that we put into or every bag is made sure to have the right soil moisture when it is packaged. But depending on when that bag is sold, right, it might sit on a shelf for a couple weeks, and just depending on what conditions are like that can dry out a little bit, right? It doesn't mean anything is bad. And just with any potting mix, that's just kind of how it goes. But one thing that helps a lot, and we even like, kind of, when we were playing with some of the sapping and stuff, and kind of how to teach people how to rehydrate, we let some stuff, again, get, like, bone dry. And one. Thing I have found is the best way to rehydrate soil, better than saponins or any surfactants, is literally just agitation, right? Like, what I'll do is, like I had it was like a, like a seven and a half gallon bag, like one cubic foot. I would just put it in one of the black and yellow totes, just dump it in there, and then I'd put some water in there and just mix it up with my hands, a little bit, mm. Bit. That works so much faster. Because even if you're using an absurd amount of surfactants, right, and you water, it's still probably going to hit and run off quite a bit as well, until it starts to slowly soak that up. And I'm not saying you don't have to sit and tote and work forever. It's literally just maybe like 30 seconds to a minute that agitation does a really good job at distributing that moisture and breaking soil tension, or that water tension to help it be absorbed into that soil. That's a big one. But surfactants also help too. It's just the best way I found to do it quickly, whether in a four by four bed or a pod or just a bag that's dried out a little bit, that maybe you bought for a big bulk buy, and then it just sat for a couple months. Oh, and now I'm ready to use it. Oh, shoot. It's kind of dry, literally. Just dump it into a tote, add your water, mix it up, see if you like it. Add a little more water, kind of agitated it, and then soon enough, it starts taking up water, pretty quick.
I like that, man. So that's that's great that you recommend this, because that's kind of what I've been recommending. But I like your style a little bit better, which is, for me, when I think about hydrophobic material, what's the best way to get water back in there? The mistake a lot of people make, like you said, is just pour water onto it. But in my mind, what you need is pressure. So I usually get in there and I kind of like, start squeezing, you know, but that's only a little handful at a time. Though. I like your method. If you're agitating it, you're kind of getting that pressure. And maybe you could use a an implement and not get your hands in there, even necessarily, I don't know. I think that's great. Agitation is just another form of that, that kind of pressure, because you got to push that water back in, right?
Yeah, you're exactly right. I mean, that's when I'm talking about just mixing up in a tote. I'm just thinking, just get your hands and you just mix it, grab the soil, put it, just play with it, right? We've all played in the dirt, so it's literally just doing the same thing, and it works faster than anything I've done. Right? Is just agitation, like when we're mixing up a yard of soil. Granted, the castings have moisture. Compost has moisture, but that PEAT is when I'm talking bone dry, when we're putting it in there for the first time, is lip. There's no moisture in it. There's really none. And we only hit it with, like, for an entire yard, maybe a 30 or 42nd shot of like, filtered water that hydrates the entire yard very well, but you have a mixer that is doing that for eight to 10 minutes, right? So it doesn't take a whole lot, but agitating it and working it in with your hands a little bit, or even, just like if you have a larger amount, I guess you can get something to kind of do it for you. But really, just your hands work really well.
And then that goes back to the or to the worm thing, which is that's really what the worms are doing while you're sleeping. They're doing that 24/7 they're agitating the soil. It's great stuff, but I want to drill down on the SAP and in thing, this surfactant thing, I would really like to start from a 30,000 foot view and then work our way down to maybe a little bit more of a Advanced Exploration. But tell me first, like, how should we be thinking about surfactants and making Water Wetter?
Yeah, okay, so again, with surfactants, what we're trying to do is reduce water tension, okay, and basically help it spread more evenly throughout the soil profile, all right? And when we have evenly moist soil, it allows us to have access to greater microbial diversity, greater microbial populations, better root growth, better nutrient access, because everything that goes on in the soil is very reliant on water, right? It doesn't work without it, you know. So, like, the goal with these kinds of products is, again, to create even soil moisture, okay? And to get a little more detailed, we talked about, like three we briefly touched on this, like the very end of the episode last week, and basically, again, plants take up soil moisture like or soil nutrient really like three different ways. We have what's called mass flow, we have what's called diffusion and root interception, okay? And all three of these rely on soil moisture to function effectively. Okay, so mass flow, okay, if you think about like your like pore space, the spot in this like places in the soil with moisture, right? Liquid nutrients are dissolved in that. So when you think about plants as giant transfer. Machine, machines as they transpire, right as they transpire, what's happening is at the same time all this water right charged. It's like in a line going up into through the plant, right into the roots, through the plant, and dispersed out through the stomata, carrying nutrients, right? But as water is pushed out, it is also pulled up because it's again, linked, okay, so most of your nutrients are taken up this way through mass flow. Nutrients and solution are taken up through the root, distributed through the plant, okay, another one is diffusion, all right, where the plant depletes nutrient levels in the rhizosphere around the root hairs, okay? And then what happens is areas of high concentration move to low concentration. So let's say we have phosphorus around the root hairs. Okay, plants take up all that pee now there's low concentration around the root hairs and high concentrations elsewhere, okay, and through diffusion, you have nutrient movement from high to low concentration to where now the plant can take that up, okay. But again, you need these, like soil, moist, like moisture, films, like films in the soil, for this to happen effectively, all right? And then a third way, and this is really important for highly immobile nutrients, is root interception, so roots actually physically grow into contact with these nutrients, right? But again, for roots to be able to easily grow through the soil and push and work their way out, you need soil moisture, right? Or it helps that process happen a lot more effectively and efficiently, right? So all these different reasons why it's important to keep soil evenly moist and help all these little nooks and crannies where fine root hairs can go through and mycorrhizae, all this stuff is supported by moisture, so using surfactants helps support that process and keep again, Water Wetter, which will unlock more nutrients. Like, Well, I wouldn't say it will unlock access to more nutrients that are there in the soil. And that's kind of why, why we're wanting to key in on a product that we recently received all the individual inputs for. And we're going to start trialing some different formulations of putting together a diverse group of kind of SAP, SAP and enrich plant compounds and a diverse group of bio stimulants combined with fulvic acids. Because we talk why that we talked earlier, why those fulvic acids are important. So what we're trying to do is create kind of an all in one product that uses a diverse array. Again, everybody knows yucca, or at least, like again, not everybody. If you've been doing this for a while, and it's something you've stumbled onto, you've probably heard of it. Another big one that people have been on the past couple of years more is Kiah ha right? Is another high SAP and containing right plant compound, okay? And there's two other lesser known ones that we're also incorporating into this, and that is so port powder and licorice root powder, who also it's more mild, it doesn't contain quite the level. But when we're talking about these soil systems and why we use a diverse array of inputs and a diverse array of different kinds of biochar that we put in their particle sizes, right? Everything. Redundancy is key. Diversity is key. So using a lot of one kind could work, but by using a diverse array and still getting everything we need can help support different microbial populations that we might not really know get supported by that more, right? And what's really hard is you, kind of, you start to learn enough to be dangerous, but you don't know it on that level, right? But, and that's kind of, I feel like that's kind of where I reside. I know enough to be dangerous but, and I at least know that, but it understanding how things operate at that level biologically, that is something you could in get into for years. So again, with my philosophy, with at least my knowledge and skill set, what I'm trying to do is just use a diverse array of inputs that kind of accomplish the same thing again. So I'm really kind of hedging bets that all these different inputs will help support different processes while achieving the same goal, right? Saponin surfactants is the goal. We have big ones with yucca and keahan. We have supporting roles with licorice root and soap work powder, right? And then on top of that, we talk about a lot of things, a lot of the bio stimulants that really help right, supercharged soil biology, whether it's through like, like, like a food source, or like, like, carbs, sugars, amino acids, things like this. Will help give that a boost or that, whether they bring in, let's say, like, plant growth hormones, right? We talk about like, like oxen, a very popular one, like, that's why people love using kelp. You have a diverse array of micronutrients, bio stimulants and plant growth hormones, coconut powder, right? Another one, aloe vera powder, another one. So right? What we're trying to do because when you start naming off all these and if you've brought bought them before, you're like shit, right? This, they're expensive, especially when you're buying them at two or four, maybe eight ounces per packet. So we're trying to do is eliminate people from having to buy like seven different things that all do have benefits when used moderately, right? It's really easy to overdo stuff sometimes, but what we want to do is do all of kind of the grunt work and trial work on what's too much, what's not enough. How can I take all these really good natural compounds and natural extracts, and put them all into one product. So it's like we talked about, like bottled lines. And one thing I really don't want to do is create some wildly complicated system where I'm like, Hey, we sell cell port powder, we sell licorice root powder, we sell kiaha, we sell yucca, we sell this. I need you to use this at a half teaspoon a gallon, one gram per gallon, one tablespoon per gallon, and mix it all up and add it in. That's it's a lot, right? So what we want to do is introduce all these different bio stimulants and surfactants, right, but in a complete package at a much, much lower price point than people are accustomed to paying for this stuff, and that's ultimately what our goal is. And I know we can hit a really good spot price point. We did a lot of work finding high quality inputs at a certain right Bulk Rate that help gets our cost down. So then we get it either directly to you or to retailers, and then ultimately the end consumer right? It helps save people money, because you're not having to buy eight different things. You buy one where it's all together with all those benefits. And honestly, like I, I'm super excited about our new soluble formulators for veg and for veg and flour, but this one especially for people that don't want to feed. And I totally get that. I totally get that. But this will help unlock the potential of your soil more through evenly applying moisture throughout the entire soil profile, again, for the benefits that we spoke of earlier. I yeah, I get, I get really excited about that. It's going to be fun.
Huge shout out to stash blend. Thank you so much from the stash podcast for sending this stuff over. I'm loving it. I'm using it my earthboxes right now, and my plants are responding fantastic. This has a lot of good stuff in it. Not only does it have soluble seaweed powder for a bunch of potassium and micronutrients and all sorts of good stuff that that brings, but it's got humic acids. It's got beneficial bacteria. It's got silicon and more. It's also got corn steep liquor in it, which interestingly Ricky talks about in this very episode. So the corn steep liquor is interesting because it's a byproduct of the corn milling process. So you're taking a waste product and you're turning it into plant magic. And the corn steep liquor has nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, a bunch of minerals in it, plus it stimulates microbial activity. So you can get your stash blend@growershouse.com use code growcast for 10% off. That's growershouse.com they'll ship it right over. I'm never using soluble seaweed powder again. I don't see much of a reason, if ever, to use soluble seaweed instead of this, because it's got more good stuff mixed in there. So growers house.com, grab your stash blend. You'll thank me later. Use code grow cast for 10% off now, thank you from the stash podcast. Go and grab that stash blend. Everybody, you're going to love it. I can't wait to try that combo powder, because I could not agree more on the redundancy thing, and I actually want to dig more into that, but, but first, just to drive home what you said, the different methods of nutrient uptake are mind blowing. Like you said, the mass flow will saponins help all of them, right? When you're dealing with the mass flow, which is just taking up dissolved nutrients that are in the water while making that Water Wetter, slide easier, right? Is going to obviously be a benefit. And then diffusion, you know, minerals moving from one portion of high concentration to a portion of low concentration. This happens almost acting like a slip and slide to help them slide where they need to go, right, exactly, exactly. And then the direct contact, the plant mining one, the root mining one, you need that area to be wet too. So you need to have that down in there. It's almost like adding oil to the drill. So it's, it's, it really came together, in my mind, how those three things work, and how both worms and saponins really would make so much of a difference in allowing those three methods of nutrient uptake to optimize. Yeah, really, really eye opening. Man, definitely something. Not going to look at that differently after this episode. So, very, very cool and and, okay, so let me ask you about this redundancy thing, specifically when it comes to microbial food and things like sugars. Because, you know, you take a look at the living soil system and the economy of exchange, where microbes are breaking down the minerals and exchanging for plants who exude those sugars as currency, right? And one of the things that happens when you switch to synthetic fertilizers, as a lot of listeners know, is is the plants stop producing those sugars because they don't need them. They're taking up the minerals as they need right? Then you take a look at the living soil system and the idea of just adding sugars, like, what if we just dump sugars on it? And people obviously have good results. But like you said, I'm excited to see your test results. How much is enough to get them excited? How much is too much to where maybe the plants are gonna stop working so hard? Like, Is that something you've thought about, or have you basically only seen good results from adding natural sugars back to the soil. Yeah.
So one thing I'm always really careful with when I'm putting things into the soil is making sure it is in moderation, right? There's, there's all these things that we've spoken about are great in moderation, but any one thing added in excess, you can start to see there's problems, right? Like molasses, a great simple sugar to boost microbial populations, right? That's why people love using compost teas. I like watering it into the soil. But if you go put a gallon of molasses into a 20 gallon trash trash can and water it, that's is too much, right? It's too much. So with anything, it's always better to add less than you think and then kick up frequency, right? And then, if you see that, okay, then you can go back and start adding a little bit more, right? Where your rate goes up right after your frequency goes up less more often, has always worked better, at least in my experiences, okay? Because you're you're protecting yourself from yourself, right? Because a lot of times the problems we see in our garden, or we are just you kind of look around at who you can kind of be like, who did this? And you're like, I did, and I've done that looking
at the cat, you're like, did you write this? SLP, yeah. Have you ever
seen it? Was like a little funny cartoon block of a little stick figure riding a bike, and then he takes a stick and shoves it in the front wheel and falls and then says, blames, oh, Obama, like, something like that. It's just that, right? It's that, it's
like it's living soil. It's you going, is it living soil? Grower to going down the Yeah,
it's like a lot of our problems we create ourselves just by doing a little too much, right? So that's why it kind of goes back to the point where I was saying earlier, is like, I, one thing I don't want Riverview to become, is having a lot of different things that just get confusing. And I know even like off air, when we we've spoken, it's just like we both want to find simple solutions where we can address a lot of different unique issues that people have, whether in fertilization, inoculation, just things like that, but without getting complex, while keeping things simple, but having a diverse array of products that people can use seamlessly in whatever system they have. So that's really, really what I would say works well when you're talking about bio stimulants and things like we were talking like, Okay, how do we save the plant metabolic energy? Right? Kind of, circling back to the exudate stuff, okay, plants use a lot of energy to produce those right? Again, plants are highly intelligent soil engineers, right? I think sometimes we all like, do recognize, yeah, the plants are highly intelligent. They're adaptive. They can like, read stimuli and have a response. And it's just like it can go, I understand that on a very surface level, and it's just crazy how deep you can go with that to understand just how intelligent a lot of their responses are from their own production of certain compounds with like organic acids to make things more available in the soil, to releasing of carbs, sugars, amino acids into the soil, to attract and cultivate different microbial populations, to communication via roots and through the air. There was one, and I actually had a short conversation with this. He's a researcher at Truman State, and they're doing a lot of stuff with hemp. And there was a study that we were talking about it a kind way farms event earlier this spring. They had two different plants not connected with completely separate soil. Oil systems, completely sealed environments. They introduced aphids, or it might have been spider mites, some pest or pathogen, pest or pathogen, to one of these plants, and they only opened it up to where there was a screen way too small for those pests get to get to the other side. And I think it's like one of these deals where you can make certain things radioactive, and as this plant put out communication in the air right to this other plant, and what they saw was this plant started creating a lot of this systemic acquired resistance, where it's like, Okay, I've got a neighbor that's in trouble. I need to kind of get my shit together, right? I understand that these are probably going to come this way, and I need to have my defenses ready for when that happens. So again, the plants are wickedly intelligent in how they communicate and how they respond to their environment, but our job is to again, just like how saponins, like, grease the wheels for nutrient uptake through again, mass flow, diffusion, root interception, like it is our job to grease the wheels, not necessarily, like, do everything for it, because at times, stress is good for plants, right? It is just part of their natural cycle. We talk about the production of secondary metabolites through the stimulation of the jasmonic pathway, right? It's there, but they're all stress responses, right? Because when we look at secondary metabolites and what they're primarily, primarily used for, they're defensive compounds, right? Either aromatic defensive compounds or like physical defensive compounds, like, through the production of, like, trichomes and resin and all these different terpenes, right? That all have, like, people like, oh, well, Mint is really good for this, and cinnamon is those are all plain compounds, right? So stress helps produce those, and that's really what we're after, right? When you talk about flavor, aroma, right? So stress is a good thing, but again, the big word, the big M word, moderation. So yeah,
and it's just like humans. You know, I had a really interesting run this last run, and my plants were really, really healthy and happy the whole time. And I try to always take away one thing, Ricky from each run, if there's, like, one thing that I can learn, one kind of piece of philosophy or principle that I can go forward with from that point on, I think that it was a win. And then I really think that each run is about learning something, rather than, you know, necessarily getting your numbers up each time after the next. But, but anyways, um, I realized I didn't push my plants hard enough. They were really Instagram happy. They were like, perfectly healthy, no deficiencies, praying every day, praying through their dark cycle. But, but my yield wasn't quite where it was. It wasn't my best run ever, still a really good run, don't get me wrong, but it was not my best run ever, even though they kind of were acting like they were healthier than any other run, and I think it's because I didn't push them quite hard enough, I didn't crank their PPFD soon enough in flour, I didn't hammer them with as many nutrients as I could have, because I didn't want that little bit of tip burn or whatever it was. And so I think, like you're saying it's like a human you got to exercise those muscles you don't want to exercise to the point of burnout and blowing out your shoulder and having an injury, but if you never push yourself, you're never going to be your optimal physical form. So I think that's exactly the same with cannabis
dude, and because sometimes, and I was like, this early too, and a lot of the emails and messages through Instagram I get, it's like helicopter parenting. It's like, it's like people see everybody's perfect leaf, perfect bud. That's the only thing that's ever posted. So it's just like, the curse of social media, no matter what sphere you're looking in, is everybody only sees the best, so all the sudden, well, shoot, I've got some tip burn, like, what's going on? How can I fix this? What's wrong? I'm like, for one thing, again, we've talked about this before. That could be a lot. There's it's just like, it's a common symptom that has could have a lot of different causes. Deficiency in the leaf does not always equal deficiency in the soil. There's different processes, again, that can kind of impact that. So don't be afraid to push stuff. If leaves are a little discolored or there's a little tip burn, you can dial stuff back. Make a note of it, modify it going forward. But if you're having trouble finding that you're getting, like, the yield and quality you want, but plants overall look pretty happy. Like, I'm not sure where stuff went wrong. Kind of start pushing some levers, right, but don't do too many at once, right? Just saying, if you're sitting in front of, like, I just how it was in my brain, if I'm just in front and I've got like, 10 levers that I can try and do different things, you. If I take this and I push all 10 forward and something goes wrong, I'm like, Okay, I don't even know where to start. If you start to push maybe one or two at a time and just a little bit and then again, because, like, what we're all after, because no matter where you are with what you do, whenever you start something for the first time, you are not good at it, and that's just the fact of it. But as you continue to refine your own process, and you learn from those mistakes where you were trying something right, but again, you note it so you don't do it again, but it's just like again. The goal is consistent, small improvements, day to day. And then when you look back in a couple of years, you're like, Damn right? I've come a long way, but it comes from consistent amounts of just small work, not four hours one day, and then I don't touch it for two weeks, right? It's just like in terms of, let's say you're studying, let's say I just want to learn about how more plants like. More about how plants operate. I want to learn more about like soy biology or soil nutrition, right? Studying once every two weeks for four hours, you're going to get less than if you studied for four hours, but split that evenly every day, because it's you're just you're around it. It's exposure. It's like learning a language, right? You go somewhere, you live there, you speak it, you're about it. You're going to learn it faster. Let's say, like, I spend a lot of time coaching kids with basketball and, like, it's very obvious the kids and I'm not the same, like, some of these kids are young, so I'm not like, hey, you need to go do this two hours a day. Little Johnny, right? It's like, just 10 to 15 minutes every day, small, consistent steps forward with your own process. But as you're learning, you just need to be cognizant of what you're doing and why, and then seeing what happens from that. And then you slowly start to learn. And again, it becomes what your process right? Because what I do might not work for you, Jordan and Jordan, what you do. It might not work for me, but as we start to try and talk, and that's what's great about the community that you have, is everybody is talking and you're communicating. You're sharing what works and you're sharing what doesn't. So it's just it's crowdsourcing all this experience and sharing that. And so we can all kind of learn from it and take what works. But again, it's just consistent work is a lot more than a lot of work at one time. You get a lot more from it. I
think that's a great piece of advice, and it's interesting. You say that because you're absolutely right, and that's why we've always supported all grow styles at growcast. That's something we've always been really like passionate about it. Grow cast is including all grow styles, because of what you said, what works for some might not work for others. However, I realized, Ricky, that's a really bad pitch for a very new beginner, someone who's not growing yet and doesn't even need doesn't even know they need to be growing. And so that's when we came up with the Beginner's Guide, which is somewhere I want you to start, which is going to get you to a harvest, and you're going to be hooked. And then from there we will help you on whatever you want to do. If you want to switch to Coco, if you want to do deep water culture or aeroponics, you do whatever you want. But the style that I start them on Ricky is a Sub irrigated planter, like an earth boxing you were gonna say that with a nice living soil like yours, it just works and and as far as getting people to the end of their first run, like you're gonna have a fire harvest, if you grab some Riverview living soil, you throw it in an EarthBox, there's a lot we could add from there. There's a lot of, like you said, biostimulants and different types of microbes and even other forms of nutrients. You can play nutrients you can play around with, but start there with a good soil and a little top dress in an Earth Box, and you will be hooked. So just really quickly, if anyone is watching this and you're not growing, grow cast.com/guide start growing today. And while we're talking about that, let's show Riverview living soil, you know, because I do say Ricky to some people don't have a good soil around them, so they need to order it, and that's why I'm going to show your website right now. But also to everybody in Missouri, I really recommend people go to their local grow store and see, just because it's cheaper than shipping it, it's,
right, yeah, that's we do five gallons online, because if we keep it under 20 pounds. Oh, my god. I can't wait for this new website. So we are so close to releasing an updated website, which it's just funny looking at this now, we've just been working on this so much, I almost forget what the old one looks
like. Well, I did see the new bags. Let me show them really quickly. These are the new bags.
Yeah, yeah. Like, that's just, we're just polishing everything. But to your point again, if we're available in a shop close to you, you will save money buying it directly from a retail partner of ours. There's just you can't get around shipping. And it's just kind of, it is what it is. But a lot of the. Valuable stuff revive, which is the dry amendment fertilizer. Bio boost is available a lot of shops as well. Make sure you call ahead for that one more starting to carry it. But not all of them do yet. But again, you guys all have that discount code, so make sure to put that in when you're checking out. To make sure we give you guys all grow cast a discount on support, and we appreciate that.
Thank you. Man. Thank you so much. And then really quickly, talk about the soluble formula.
So the solubles with the old formula we actually, I've been this is a formula I had used for a long time and tinkered with it from the recommendation from somebody who, like, told me to use these inputs years ago, and then from there, just kind of went and played around with how much of each and that's exactly what that formula is. But would have been earlier this winter, sometime this winter, I was down at, we get a lot of stuff from custom hydro nutrients against sporting other Missouri stores down in Neosho, Missouri. And if any of you have ever had the chance to talk to Brian, he you will find out how intelligent that man is. He is really, really good at what he does and understands things on just like, you know, we were talking about how, like Nick was on here, and you just hear somebody talk who had just has a much deeper understanding of the chemistry behind everything, and to an amateur guys, it's, it's it that's not necessary, but when you're talking about what he does, then it's completely necessary. So it's, it's really fun to get help from people like that. And I was down there, and we were loading up the products that we normally get. And I noticed another one, we get a lot of stuff from Ferdy organic. They make really good water soluble organic fertilizers. And that's where a lot of our stuff that we formulate from comes from the really good company. And I noticed this other one. It was called corn steep powder. And again, one of the tricky thing in organics is finding soluble peat. That's why, like liquid bone meal is great, or like soluble high P fish hydrolysate. I've always recommended that, but I saw that corn seed powder brought in a lot of phosphorus, and it is very soluble. It is just annoying to work with until we get some gypsum in there, because it cakes. But the gypsum helps prevent that, which is nice, which is a good thing, because we have that in there anyways,
but acting as an anti caking agent,
exactly. Yeah, yeah. Because, like, when we're working with it, like, we have to make sure you keep that bag sealed, because we don't want to get humidity in there. But once we get gypsum Incorporated, it's it's it's a lot better, like it doesn't have that issue. But that soluble phosphorus that we've added to both formulas is killer, right? It's killer. It will help a lot immediately build to your plants roots, unlike the dry amendment fertilizers that just take 10 to 14 days to break down.
It sounds like the delivery guy is here. Do we need to let you go here?
Got a load of biochar coming in, so I got to go hop on the forklift and unload
that. All right. Growcast.com, Riverview, living soils, yeah,
thank you. You guys have now got to meet the dogs, rocky core and patches. Take your job very seriously. But again, hey, grow cast, thank you, Jordan. I appreciate you, man,
you got it. You will let you go, and we'll wrap up the show here. Thank you so much, Rick
You're the man. I appreciate you. Guys. Have a good one. Super appreciate
you, Ricky, everybody, Ricky from Riverview, living soils. He's the man. Everybody. I know. You love him. We're gonna have him back on soon. I mean, we only got through a few of the points guys a wealth of knowledge, and he's a busy man, as you can tell, so I appreciate him making time. It's R, V, L, S, M, o.com, Riverview, living soils and use code growcast for 15% off. So that's all, folks. That's the show for today. Of course, you can go to growcast.com, see everything we're about. Check out the events. We got the natural farming immersive coming up. Don't miss this immersive it's going to be incredible. Okay, it's two separate days. They're the same class. Okay, so come to whichever one you can make the second day is geared a little more towards return, slash advanced students, but you can check it out now at growcast.com/events for that one, and just growcast.com for everything, the podcast, the seeds, it's all there. Make sure you jump into membership. Everybody would love to see you in there. I'm hanging out every day, and that's where I'll be until next time. That's all for today. This is Jordan River and Ricky from Riverview living soil signing off, saying, Be safe out there, everybody, and make sure to join membership so you never have to grow along with grow. Cast peace everybody. Bye. That's our show. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you to Ricky from Riverview living soils. If you liked Ricky's episode, be sure to go check out his past episode on this very podcast, go to YouTube or go to your favorite podcast app and search for Ricky or join membership, because we got a bunch of grow cast TV appearances when he talked about being on the show. Last week that was the member show, grow cast.com/membership, you'll get access to weekly live streams that only the members. Get direct access to these guests. You can call in and talk to them. It's a really great time. Plus, you get to plug into a worldwide network of growers, just like you come and join your cultivation family, get your resources and your members only discounts and all this good stuff that's waiting for you at growcast.com/membership What are you waiting for? Come and join us. We'd love to have you everybody. Growcast.com you'll also find the seeds there. Members, of course, get a discount on those and the classes coming up. Don't miss out on the Okay, calyx immersive. This is going to be an incredible class. Growcast.com/events you'll find it up there. Don't miss it. If you're a return student, DM us. We have a 40% off code for you. And if you're a first timer, don't sleep on it. We're going to send you home with so many natural inputs, as many as you can carry. So I'll see you there. Everybody until next time. Be safe. Love you all. Never grow alone. Stick around with growcast. Bye, everybody.
