Veganics is the new Organic
It’s 2014. We’re smarter than putting just anything in our bodies. With social media and the interwebs, we’re more aware of what goes into cultivating our food. Mankind has always been about staying younger longer. Quality of life is number one and it all starts with the fuel you put in your body. Whole Foods and farmer co-ops, be it in storefronts or delivery services, have brought the idea of organic food to the fore.”Is that cow grassfed?” is a question you might have received a second glance/roll eyes combo five years ago is the standard now.
This awareness is also prevalent in cannabis culture. In fact, the standard has gone even more next level: veganics. Veganics is a type of farming that utilizes no animal products products or any kind. One of the leaders in the burgeoning industry Kyle Kushman, describes veganic growing as a “living system that relies on a living root-soil food web,” in his essay “Why Veganics?” Kushman is the creator of Vegamatrix, a veganic plant nutrient company that his company calls “the evolution of agri-culture.” Kushman is well-known in cannabis culture as one of the foremost experts in grow techniques and a leading purveyor of veganic and organic growing. “Simply the purest, cleanest medicine possible” says Kushman, a former High Times staff writer, founded a consulting firm called “Karma Consulting” in 2006. He also teaches Earth Friendly Cannaculture Classes Using Organics and Veganics at both Oaksterdam University and Peace In Medicine in Sebastopol.
Growing comes down to the successful development of the rhizosphere, which is the layer of soil surround the roots and the plant itself. It is the area of soil that comes into the most direct interaction with your plant, helping to feed and nurture it through to harvest. How you approach developing that and what food you put into it, can alter everything. A plant food that uses chemicals and animal byproducts is going to take longer to decompose as opposed to a plant-based food. After decomposition, the plant is able to metabolize it. But as a result of that decomposition process residues are left behind that saturate the plant. It makes sense that the rhizosphere be fed by non-toxic, eco-friendly food instead of ACME chemicals.
For Kushman, an additional goal beyond growing a superior product is to end farmers not just in cannabis culture but in all fields dependence on chemical fertilizers and animal farming.
“We’re growing with no poop. No shit, I swear,” said Kushman in a video called “Veganic Cannabis Cultivation.” )(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_yCyK6Qt-0#t=94) of his plant-based products. “It makes for an ultra-clean finished product because there are no residues because we are just using composted, liquid plant matter.” No chemical byproducts leaves the weed free to grow to it’s fully intended potential while untainted by anything man-made. If the purpose of your cannabis use is medicinal, veganics seems the way to go.
In that same vein, the medical cannabis movement has opened the world of growing up to a wide variety of non-farmers. Homegrowing is becoming more and more legal. It makes sense that it also should be easier and healthier to do.
Aside from the obvious benefits to the planet, the brass tax is that the plants in Kushman’s veganic garden look to be yielding tremendous plants that are lush and healthy looking all the way through harvest. Buds and Roses, a dispensary in Los Angeles, CA, sells Kushman’s award-winning veganic sativa, indica and hybrid strains. The prices seem to be competitive and fair, unlike Whole Foods which charges through the yang for organic blueberries.
Weed World is still in it’s Green Rush phase. As states go medicinally legal and edge toward recreationally legal, the hope iis that this period of education at the root of the flower, the grower, takes hold and flourishes. For Kushamn the hope is that “veganic cannabis culture will spread and that good, healthy medicine will be widely available. And that people will realize that growing your own medicine is not really that hard especially using organics and veganics. And that chemicals are not the easy crutch.”
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