Lean in cannabis · cultivation · mothers to harvest
Grow what sells.
Cultivation sets the pace for the whole building. What goes into propagation this week is what dry, trim, packaging and the store will be handling months from now. The wastes here are slow to show and costly when they do: mildew found late, a flower room that sits empty between turns, a strain nobody reorders. These are the 8 wastes from the mother room to harvest, with how to measure each one and the first thing I'd try. Written for head growers, cultivation techs, and whoever plans the rooms.
DOWNTIME · mothers to harvest
The 8 wastes of cultivation
For each one: what it looks like, how to measure it, where to look, and one thing to try first. Measure before you change anything, so you can show the difference afterward.
Defects
What it looks like
- "Clones didn't root." A tray of cuttings lost, and the cut has to be done again.
- Powdery mildew or bud rot found late in flower instead of in the first weeks, or a hermie found after it has seeded the room.
- "Tag's on the wrong plant," and the room no longer matches the tracking system.
Measure it
Clone strike rate: rooted clones as a share of clones cut. And scouting hits per room per week, with the stage where each one was found.
Where to look
Propagation, sticky cards and scouting reports, tag moves and corrections in the tracking system.
First thing to try: a check at the source. Scout every room on the same route and schedule, with sticky cards and a loupe, and post the hits on the room door that day. Check mothers and clones the same way before anything moves to veg, and hold whatever fails.
Overproduction
What it looks like
- Cutting more clones than veg has room for. The extras go to what one crew calls "the clone graveyard."
- Keeping mothers of strains nobody asks for.
- Growing strains nobody reorders, because they've always been on the schedule.
Measure it
Clones cut against open spots in veg, for each cut. And harvest by strain, next to sales by strain.
Where to look
Propagation and the mother room, next to the sales report by strain.
First thing to try: level at the clone cut. Biology sets how long a plant takes, so the cut is where you match demand. Set each cut's strain mix and count from what sold, and cut to the spots open in veg. When I built planning from retail back through the nursery and new-strain selection, stockouts on the core line went down while volume grew.
Waiting
What it looks like
- Veg is ready, but the flower room isn't turned.
- A spray on hold until someone IDs the bug.
- A harvested room waiting on the cleaning crew.
Measure it
Room turn time: days from harvest to next plant-in. And days in veg against plan.
Where to look
Veg rooms, empty flower rooms, the IPM tech's open findings.
First thing to try: SMED for room turns. Walk one turn and split the work into what needs the room empty and what could be done before harvest: trellis netting cut, supplies and media staged at the door. Move that work ahead. Don't cut the cleaning, move the prep.
Non-utilized talent
What it looks like
- Experienced growers doing tag data entry instead of walking their rooms.
- Trimmers and budtenders who know how a strain trims and sells, and their read never reaches the keep-or-cull decision.
- Feed recipes and strain notes that live in one head grower's head.
Measure it
Keep-or-cull decisions made with a read from trim and retail, out of all the strain decisions made.
Where to look
The strain review, the trim room, the store counter.
First thing to try: two questions on every strain review: how does it trim, and does it sell? Ask the trim lead and a budtender before any keep-or-cull call, and write their answers next to the grow numbers.
Transportation
What it looks like
- Plants moved room to room more than once because of the layout.
- Plants parked in a hallway because the next room wasn't ready.
- Nutrient totes carried across the building to the rooms.
Measure it
Room moves per batch from clone to harvest, and the distance each one covers.
Where to look
One batch's move history in the tracking system, and a floor plan.
First thing to try: one rule: a batch moves when its next room is ready, and it moves once. Mark every move one batch makes on a floor plan first, so you can see which ones the rule removes.
Inventory
What it looks like
- Mothers nobody cuts from.
- An overstuffed veg room waiting on a flip.
- Expired IPM product on the shelf.
Measure it
Plants in mothers and veg against the spots the next room has. Plants in flower don't count here. They're work in process in a stage biology sets, though they still have to be counted and tracked.
Where to look
The mother room, veg, the IPM cabinet.
First thing to try: a limit on veg. Set the plant count in veg to what the next flower room takes, and post it on the veg room door. When veg is full, nobody cuts.
Motion
What it looks like
- Walking every room to read meters by hand.
- Hunting for pruners, tags or the printer.
- Walking back to the fertigation room for a meter or a part.
Measure it
Minutes a day on meter rounds, and trips out of the room per task. Count them once.
Where to look
The meter rounds, a flower room during defoliation, the walk to the printer.
First thing to try: point of use. A shadow board or cart for each room, with the pruners, tags and supplies that room's tasks need, checked and restocked at the end of every shift.
Extra processing
What it looks like
- A second defoliation pass because the first was light.
- Hand-watering plants that are on drip.
- A batch split nobody planned, and the re-tagging that comes with it.
Measure it
Second passes: tasks done twice in one room in one cycle, like defoliation or watering. And batch splits per cycle that nobody planned, since each split adds records to reconcile in the tracking system. Confirm what a split requires in your tracking setup.
Where to look
Defoliation sign-offs, the drip lines, batch splits in the tracking system.
First thing to try: a picture of done. Photograph a plant defoliated the right way for each strain and post it on the room door, so the first pass is the only pass.
Before you cut anything
What isn't waste here
- 1Plants in flower. A full flower room isn't waiting stock. It's work in process, and biology sets how long it takes. You can't push a flower room faster, so don't spend your first kaizen trying. The plants still have to be counted and tracked.
- 2Level at the clone cut, not at harvest. Once a plant is in the ground, its harvest is mostly set. The work in progress worth attacking sits in mothers and veg, and the place to match demand is how many clones you cut, of which strains, and when.
- 3The compliance steps. Tags, logged moves and phase changes, destruction records, spray records: whatever your license and the state require stays. The waste is the rework when those steps go wrong, and anything done beyond them.
If you only measure two things
Where I'd start
- 1Room turn time. Days from harvest to next plant-in, for each flower room. Write both dates on the room door for the next few turns. Biology sets the time in flower, so the turn is the part you control, and a steady turn is what lets a fixed harvest cadence hold.
- 2Canopy utilization. Occupied canopy as a share of licensed canopy. Once a week, measure the canopy under plants the way your license counts it, and compare it with what you're licensed for. Empty rooms, half-full benches and plants parked in the hall all show up here.
Free · one page · print it
The cultivation walk sheet
One printed page: the eight wastes as they show up between the mother room and harvest, where to look, the question to ask, and room to write what you saw. Follow one batch or one room through a cycle, write it down, and bring the sheet back to your team before anyone proposes a fix.
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