For the second year in a row, Cultivators organized, with the support of GreenTech Americas in Mexico to help lead the conversation around hydroponic leafy greens in Latin America. Together with partners and speakers from across the value…
Published on 22/05/2023
Interview with Jornt Spit & Bas Nieuwesteeg
Welcome back to our Cultivation for Compounds (CfC) consortium article series! For the May release, we contacted De Ceuster Meststoffen, better known as DCM. Before we begin, for our new readers, the CfC is a four-year research and representation program dedicated to cannabis cultivation. This article is the third of this series.
We are interviewing Jornt Spit, Research Lead on Fertilisers and Substrates in the R&D division of DCM, and Bas Nieuwesteeg, Account Manager for the Biorationals team of DCM. Before addressing CfC-related questions, let’s understand the type of company DCM is. ”DCM is a family-owned company from Belgium, established in 1966, producing (bio) fertilisers, and what we call biorational products. Including biostimulants, such as Instant TD, a microgranule coated with Trichoderma, and biocontrol products, like our PMV®-01 vaccine. A vaccine against the Pepino Mosaic Virus in tomato.”
Bas says. “DCM has developed a unique MINIGRAN® technology”. Jornt adds, “producing dust and smell-free ultra-fine organic granules that contain more than forty different raw materials, sourced from different waste streams of the food industry. Each granule has a homogeneous composition, allowing for a precise and uniform spread in a substrate or soil. Generally, our philosophy is that we first feed the soil, which in turn feeds the plant. The organic fertilisers are degraded by soil life into nutrients that become available when the plant needs them.”
According to Bas and Jornt, this is the first time DCM is involved in cannabis cultivation research. The CfC project was an opportunity for DCM to evaluate its products in this crop. Unlike other crops, research done on medicinal cannabis, special permit is required. This is why we have not been able to perform tests ourselves so far. Therefore, we have joined this consortium to be able to do combined research with all the other partners.” Jornt explains. “Researching the possibilities of growing organic to a level that is expected from the medicinal market has been the starting trigger for us. However, as the research progresses, introducing benefits of organic practices and DCM products in conventional growing can also become a focus point.“
As CfC is now concluding its fourth cultivation cycle, almost a year in. We wondered about the progress DCM has made during this time. “In the first year of the CfC project, our focus has been on organic cultivation.” Bas Nieuwesteeg says. “We have already achieved our first goal as DCM. By completing a full cycle with high organic crop yields, comparable to conventional growing, both in quantity and quality.” “So far we have also been comparing fast- and slow-release organic fertilisers,” Jornt adds. “We have been optimising these fertiliser potting mixtures in the function of the crops’ needs. Taking into account the specific climate conditions that are currently used in the CfC-greenhouse. The high temperatures and light intensities used for growing medicinal cannabis are not something we experience with other horticulture crops. Therefore, we need to adjust the organic fertilisers to have a balanced nutrient release pattern, fit for this climate.“
“On top of finding the optimal organic fertilisation recipe, we will keep researching the implementation of different beneficial applications of our biostimulant products. Thereby further improving crop vigour.” Bas joined the discussion. “For example, and that’s perhaps one of our main findings to date within this CfC project, in two consecutive cycles, we observed that plants grown in an organic substrate showed greater resilience. If we can confirm these results, this is a significant outcome, which fits in DCM’s philosophy of resilient growing using organic inputs.” Jornt concludes.
CfC also has a stone wool substrate in its cultivation setup; therefore, we asked DCM if they consider looking into this substrate as well, to research the impact of their fertilisers combined with an inert substrate. “First of all, we firmly believe that growing organically has an added value, a healthy soil life benefits a healthy crop,” Jornt says. Bas joins in and adds, “As mentioned before, we’ve only been working on this for the first year. Right now, we’re focusing on organic fertilisers in organic substrates. Still, we offer products—like microbiological solutions—that can be applied to stone wool. In the future, we definitely plan to test these products for cannabis cultivation on stone wool, but we’re not there yet.”
Next, we asked about DCM cannabis market penetration; which region do they aim to serve, etc. “At DCM, we believe there is a strong market for resilient medicinal cannabis cultivation, and we aim to play a key role in developing that strategy. Our initial focus is to deepen our understanding of the crop and explore its various possibilities. By the time Cultivation for Compounds concludes, we hope lawmakers will have made progress on the legislative front,” a DCM representative said. “We want to be ready as more countries embrace medicinal cannabis.”
At the end of the interview, we asked about their general feeling about the CfC, to which Bas and Jornt responded with the following: “Overall, DCM is pleased with CfC; First of all, because of the amount of knowledge and experience we are gaining from it. We learn a lot. Of course, it can be challenging sometimes. Combining and aligning all partners’ different opinions and desires can be difficult. Additionally, as is to be expected from a research project of this size, some difficulties and technical issues arose initially. Yet, despite everything that is happening, we manage to cooperate, reach agreements, and compromises with the consortium, and things continue to improve. We learn, which is an important goal, I think all partners share.”
* Cultivation for Compounds is partly funded by the PPS surcharge for research and innovation from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate.