The Way It Used to Be
Do you remember the days of flipping to the back of a High Times magazine and seeing all the grow ads? Think way back, I know… It was a long time ago. Maybe you remember walking into just about any grow store in the ’90s or 2000’s, from Florida to Colorado to California, and seeing products upon products, old and new, all geared and focused towards a common solution: “A higher quality of product”.
The days of walking aisle to aisle, searching and hunting through different plant products with advertised combinations of nutrients and foliars, all showing the science on how this would stimulate your plants to make the flowers taste better, contain more resin, smell more fragrant… even have better overall color.
There used to be an overwhelming amount of products focused on new and old formulations to stimulate resin production, terpene inducing foliars, flavor, and looks. Organic additives, specialty sugars, and quality enhancers were all geared towards the goal of better overall quality flowers. You would see aisles of products advertising “more resin and more terpenes” “stickier flowers,” “more flavor,” “better color,” all with one common goal for the grower, an overall increase in flower quality was the main topic of conversation.
Flash Forward
Today it seems those days are gone. For those of us who can remember the constant strive for better and better quality, those days aren’t forgotten… yet. But there’s a vast change happening slowly. Something in our culture has shifted. Do you smell that? I don’t either because flower quality has taken a massive hit over the past six to eight years. Nowadays every lighting and nutrient company hitting the market is basing their advertising and “science breakthroughs” on two things: cost of production and overall yield.
Let me make it super simple: You can grow way more flowers for way less! Well what about the quality?!
New lighting spectrums and LED inventions are hitting the market monthly, and you see one focus from all these companies…yield increase. Two tier, three tier, more tier, cry tears, because what’s coming is all this abundance of lower tier product for less. Just what’s advertised, way more for way less.
What Really Matters
But what about the quality?! New breakthroughs geared towards dry backs are specifically focused on one thing: yields. What about the quality?! Beneficial foliars these days are an afterthought for most growers unless it’s a fungicide or pesticide. What about the quality?!
Don’t forget the days of hunting down the best solutions to the biggest prize: quality. The goal was always a higher quality product and letting the rest fall in line. You remember the days of letting your bag speak for itself. Letting the goal of having the dankest flowers in your city or town rule your dreams.
Don’t forget… It was always about the quality.
