There’s an art to craft cannabis cultivation. When you’re trying to curate a premium quality product, many conventional practices just won’t do. This understanding inspired one Canadian brand to return to a traditional solution to an age-old problem: pest management.

DOJA is a craft cannabis producer located in British Columbia’s fertile Okanagan Valley. Already, their small-batch, artisan cannabis stands out from the crowd. But, what’s even more unique than their plants themselves are the methods DOJA uses to cultivate them. 

In this episode of It’s in the Details, Kevin, DOJA’s Fertigation Specialist, Integrated Pest Manager, and Section Grower shares his system for managing pests naturally. 

It all starts with bugs. 

“The benefit of using different insects is that we’re not having to spray chemical pesticides, which can then be stored in the tissue of the plant and affect the quality of the final product,” explains Kevin.

Pest management is an important aspect of any agricultural endeavor. But, you don’t need to use chemical fertilizers to keep your flowers away from hungry insects. Instead, bringing beneficial bugs into the garden or grow room is an organic and sustainable way to keep cannabis plants both pest and chemical-free. 

In a plant’s natural environment, predatory insects like ladybugs, praying mantes, and spiders help protect plants from herbivores or disease-carrying insects, like fungus gnats, aphids, thrips, and spider mites. 

Kevin mimics this natural system on a small scale at DOJA.

“Starting in the clone phase we’ll use nematodes,”  he says. “which protects the root zone from bugs preying on the roots.” Beneficial nematodes are tiny soil-dwelling insects that consume potentially harmful insects and microbes.

And there’s more—Kevin shows how to use insect sachets to ward-off pests while the cannabis is growing, protecting delicate young leaves from infestation. He sprinkles beneficial mites onto the tops of plants to help control insect larvae. 

It may sound odd to the conventional gardener, but, the end result? Cannabis plants that are completely free from synthetic chemicals.

Watch & learn more in the video above.