Rooted Leaf Agritech

Call Directions Website Contact the business

Rooted Leaf Agritech Powered By Plants | Do As Nature Is
Engineered With Sustainable & Organic Inputs
Designed From Scratch
Made in Arlington, WA

10/20/2026

Some of the aroma we prize in a plant is chemistry it makes to defend itself. Nik explained on Tea & Terps that Oriental Beauty oolong is made from tea shoots that tea green leafhoppers have bitten, and that its honey and flower notes come from the plant's response.

The leafhopper pierces the leaf with needle-like mouthparts, feeds on sap and leaves saliva behind, and the plant responds to both the wound and the saliva. In tea plants under leafhopper feeding, researchers have measured the defense hormones jasmonic acid and salicylic acid rising, terpene genes switching on, and more linalool coming off the leaves as the linalool synthase genes step up. Processing then turns some of that linalool into linalool oxides. Tea made the same way from unbitten leaves comes out less fruity and more bitter, which is why the farmers hold off on sprays and let the leafhoppers feed.

Linalool is one of the most common floral terpenes, and depending on the insect it can deter or attract. Cannabis builds and stores the same terpene in the glandular trichomes on its flowers.

Practical takeaway: when you compare aroma between runs, keep notes on pest pressure next to cultivar, light and feed, since part of what you smell is chemistry the plant made in response to what it went through.

Full episode on the Rooted Leaf YouTube channel. Learn more at rootedleaf.com.

10/20/2026

Nik's rule is that more light and more fertilizer only pay off when the carbon supply keeps up. He explained why on the Bioactive podcast.

A plant builds itself out of carbon, and nearly all of it comes from CO2 in the air. More CO2 lets a leaf fix more carbon and send it down a chain of pathways to sugars, terpenes and resin; in cannabis leaves, photosynthesis ran about 50% higher at 750 ppm CO2 than at 350 ppm. Nik compares a plant to an engine: light is the spark, CO2 is the air, and water with dissolved nutrients is the fuel. His rule is to turn up the carbon whenever you turn up the light and the EC.

The best known resin molecule is C21H30O2, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen with no nitrogen, phosphorus or potassium, so extra nitrogen can't become resin. In one medical cannabis trial, more nitrogen lowered the flower concentrations of the two main resin acids by more than 60%, while flower yield stopped climbing above 160 ppm. Nitrogen's job is to help the leaf capture light; magnesium sits at the center of chlorophyll and activates Rubisco, and phosphorus carries the energy in ATP.

Practical takeaway: when you raise light or EC, check that your CO2 keeps pace, and if you follow Nik, raise nitrogen only a little with the extra light while watching how the plants respond.

Full conversation on the Bioactive podcast. Learn more at rootedleaf.com.

10/19/2026

Plants recharge their antioxidants and put them back to work, which costs far less than building new ones. Nik explained on Tea & Terps how that plays out for two of them.

The first is glutathione, a small sulfur-carrying peptide that plants cannot survive without. It protects the cell by giving up electrons. Once it has soaked up oxidative stress it sits in an oxidized form until an enzyme, glutathione reductase, recharges it with electrons from NADPH, the carrier that photosynthesis fills. The enzyme's FAD cofactor is made from vitamin B2 and NADPH from vitamin B3, which is why Nik credits B vitamins with donating "that reduction power." The same loop also keeps vitamin C topped up.

The second is the anthocyanins, the purple and red pigments. They work as a light screen in the cell vacuole, absorbing excess high-energy light before it reaches the chloroplasts and releasing it as heat within trillionths of a second. The pigment comes out intact and can do it again. Plants can still break anthocyanins down when they choose to, as Brunfelsia flowers do when they fade from purple to white.

Practical takeaway: when leaves show heat or light stress, fix the cause first, since a well-lit, fully fed plant can recharge its own antioxidants once the pressure comes off.

Full episode of Tea & Terps on the Rooted Leaf YouTube channel. Learn more at rootedleaf.com.

10/17/2026

Purple leaves and buds come from anthocyanins, pigments a plant builds from carbon it has fixed. On GrowCast, Nik described seeing purple in cannabis leaves rather than roots, and explained why he thinks the deepest purple can cost you terpenes.

In leaves, anthocyanins can help shield the chloroplasts by absorbing excess visible light, and strong light and UV can switch them on. Making pigment uses carbon the plant has fixed, and in Arabidopsis seedlings, sucrose has been shown to switch on the anthocyanin genes. Nik says you need a high carbon load coming in to make the most of that pathway.

In his own grows, Nik finds that deeper purple often comes with lower terpene expression, because pigment and aroma draw on the same carbon. In one university study of a purple line, constant cool temperatures brought out the most flower pigment, and anthocyanin and C*D percentage were uncorrelated.

Practical takeaway: compare purple and green plants at similar maturity under the same conditions, and judge aroma with your nose rather than by color.

Full episode on GrowCast. Learn more at rootedleaf.com.

10/13/2026

The P number on a fertilizer label counts phosphate, P2O5, and only about 44% of it is elemental phosphorus. On GrowCast, Nik worked some recommended PK booster rates through that conversion and still got 100 to 150 ppm of phosphorus, which he calls too much.

Cannabis trials support the direction. A flowering trial put peak yield near 59 ppm phosphorus, another found 30 ppm already gave 80% of maximum yield, and a third saw no gain in yield or cannabinoids from 25 to 75 ppm, while more phosphorus washed out in the runoff. These trials fed steady phosphorus through flower rather than testing a late boost; raising that steady level didn't reliably add yield and sent more phosphorus into the runoff.

Nik emphasizes phosphorus in the first three weeks of flower, during the stretch, when a plant can double in size, then adds a calcium push once stretching stops. He says the facilities he works with get better density that way. Calcium is built into the cell wall, cross-linking pectin, while phosphorus moves around the plant as it's needed.

Practical takeaway: multiply your booster's P2O5 figure by 0.44 before you add it, and try steady phosphorus through flower instead of a late boost.

Full episode on GrowCast. Learn more at rootedleaf.com.

10/12/2026

Blue light is one of the signals plants use to make light-screening compounds, such as anthocyanins, which can screen excess light. Nik explained on the Future Cannabis Project why he finishes the last couple of weeks of flower under a 10K spectrum.

A 10K lamp is rated at a color temperature of about 10,000 kelvin, which means blue-leaning white light rather than a single color. In Nik's experience the blue finish lifts bag appeal and changes the trichomes and the monoterpene fraction, and he says growers who harvest early for hash will see it.

He ties it to an overlap between that sunscreen chemistry and the chemistry of cannabinoids and terpenes. Cannabinoids and flavonoids both use a building block called malonyl-CoA, and cannabinoids and monoterpenes both use geranyl diphosphate, but each is made on its own route. Studies on spectrum in cannabis disagree: blue-rich LEDs shifted cannabinoid profiles in some, and in another more blue at the same light intensity cut yield without changing cannabinoid concentration. A final-two-week trial added blue and red light, but did not test a 10K lamp swap at equal intensity.

Practical takeaway: if you try a bluer finish, change only the spectrum, keep light intensity the same, and compare against a section left under your usual light.

Full stream on the Future Cannabis Project. Learn more at rootedleaf.com.

10/10/2026

Many pH Up products are a potassium base, such as potassium hydroxide or carbonate, so the bottle you use to raise pH can also feed potassium. Nik called it an unusual suspect on GrowCast, and warned that some cheaper ones use sodium instead. Most crops don't need added sodium, and it can accumulate in a reused reservoir, so check the ingredients rather than the price.

Plants take potassium in big amounts. Nik cites 400 to 600 ppm from his experience, with phosphorus in the same feed at 30 to 50 ppm, about a tenth. His 400 to 600 is not a tested target: cannabis trials have run up to 240 ppm potassium in veg and 60 to 340 ppm in flower, where flower yield didn't respond to potassium, and they put phosphorus around 30 to 90 ppm.

Potassium carries one positive charge, and it is one of the cations that move up to the leaves alongside nitrate. As the leaf reduces that nitrate to build amino acids and protein, organic acids such as malate build up to balance the potassium and other cations. As Nik puts it, "it's really the potassium that creates the charge balance for the plants."

Practical takeaway: read the ingredients on your pH Up, count a potassium product as part of your potassium feed, and choose a potassium-based one over sodium, especially if you reuse your reservoir.

Full episode on GrowCast. Learn more at rootedleaf.com.

10/09/2026

An RO membrane holds back a percentage of what is dissolved in your water, not all of it, so the dirtier the water going in, the more is left in the water coming out. Nik explained on GrowCast why that puts the RO unit after the prefilters.

RO needs water pressure to push water through its semipermeable membrane, and you can't run it on low line pressure. In Nik's experience, a very high-ppm feed can still leave 25 to 50 ppm in the so-called ultra pure water.

His order: a sediment prefilter first, then a carbon filter, coconut shell or activated charcoal, whose huge internal surface area holds organic contaminants. With a larger load of heavy metals, he adds an ion exchange filter, which can trade sodium or hydrogen ions for metal ions such as lead when a water test calls for it. The RO membrane goes after them, so maintained prefilters cut the silt that fouls it and the chlorine that damages thin-film membranes.

The membrane is the expensive part, while a sediment cartridge runs about $20 in Nik's experience, so reducing the load on the RO saves money.

Practical takeaway: test your water first, then check that the prefilters suited to it sit ahead of the RO membrane, built into the unit or upstream, and change them on schedule.

Full episode on GrowCast. Learn more at rootedleaf.com.

10/09/2026

A blue hydrangea gets its color from aluminum bound to the pigment in its flowers. On GrowCast, Nik used it to show how a plant can take up a metal that's toxic to most crops and hold it by binding it.

Pink and blue hydrangeas carry the same anthocyanin, delphinidin 3-glucoside. Blue appears when an aluminum ion and a colorless helper molecule called a co-pigment lock onto that pigment inside the cell's vacuole. Researchers measuring single cells found blue ones holding roughly one aluminum ion per pigment molecule and red ones holding almost none. The colored parts are technically sepals, which do the job petals do on most flowers.

The aluminum comes from the soil. Acidic soil dissolves more of it into a form roots can take up, so in responsive cultivars acid ground favors blue sepals and liming favors pink.

Dissolved aluminum stunts the roots of most crops. Hydrangea binds the ion, to pigment in its flowers and to citric acid in its leaves, which lowers the free ion and helps the plant tolerate it. Nik's point is that a plant that ties a metal up this way can store it safely. Binding a metal ion to an organic molecule to change how it behaves is the idea behind chelation.

Practical takeaway: when roots look stunted in soil, test pH before blaming your feed, since aluminum dissolves as soil acidifies and most crops can't store it the way hydrangea does.

Full episode on GrowCast. More plant chemistry at rootedleaf.com.

10/08/2026

Nitrate has to be reduced twice, to nitrite and then to ammonium, before a plant can build it into protein, and both steps need reducing power from photosynthesis or respiration. An amino acid taken up by the roots arrives with its nitrogen already reduced.

On the Future Cannabis Project, Nik was asked whether nitrogen is just nitrogen. His answer starts with nitrate's strengths: cannabis does very well on it, and a study of medical cannabis found flower yield and plant height highest when all the nitrogen came as nitrate rather than ammonium. But in Nik's words nitrate takes "the most amount of energy" to turn into amino acids, so he tightens the ratio of nitrate to amino acids as plants approach flower, especially for genetics that stretch or are prone to mold and mildew.

In his experience, amino acids keep node spacing tighter, but their upper limit is much lower than nitrate's, and plants are less likely to burn on nitrate at the same ppm.

Practical takeaway: if you test Nik's ratio advice going into flower, keep your total nitrogen measured, change the amino acid share gradually, start amino acid rates low, and watch stretch and node spacing.

Full stream on the Future Cannabis Project. Learn more at rootedleaf.com.

Address

Arlington, WA
98223

Telephone

+12063314700

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Rooted Leaf Agritech posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Rooted Leaf Agritech:

Shortcuts

Share