Regulating Water Use
Giving Tree has a 10,000-square-foot indoor growing in north Phoenix with 1,100 plants in pots and organic soil as well as coco. The plants collectively require about 700 gallons of water per day, with larger ones consuming about a liter each daily. Because of the company’s sky-high electricity bill, it is expanding by building a greenhouse about two hours north of Phoenix, where power costs are cheaper. The new facility will have about 30,000 square feet allocated to growing flowers and another 15,000 square feet dedicated to propagation, genetics, and vegetation. While Giving Tree’s grow space is quadrupling (the plants will also take a direct hit from the hot Arizona sun), its water use will increase by only about 1.5 times. That’s thanks to a variety of water-saving strategies – two of which the company already uses at its indoor grow site in north Phoenix, plus some new ones. The combination of these strategies should help Giving Tree keep its water costs in check. Inside the north Phoenix grow site, Giving Tree uses an automatic drip irrigation system where water circulates slowly into the plants over the course of the day. The system also has instruments that measure the moisture and nutrient levels in individual pots three times per hour. If a plant is found to have sufficient moisture, the irrigation system won’t deliver additional water to that plant. That is more efficient than dumping large amounts of water into the plant periodically, which may result in excessive runoff. “It’s not a huge expense but it’s a one-time expense,” Power said. “If you look at the agricultural world, there are plenty of other people that do that. We’re not reinventing the wheel. We’re just bringing it to the cannabis industry.”
