I want to put the spotlight on the cannabis microbial market.
This show is brought to you by Surgeons LLC in partnership with Ruga Monteto Feminized Genetics and Simply Professional Formal.
For those who don't know me, my name is Ryan Boulda.
Full disclosure, everything in this show is thought of, written and produced by myself and the staff here at our company, Surgeons LLC.
Presented by SRGM Networks.
This is about cannabis, microbials, and other omnambulans.
What's going on everybody?
If you are watching my show, today we're talking about Ruga Monteto and Simply Professional Formal.
Alright, so welcome to the show.
My name is Ryan Boulda.
With me today is Josh Stewart and Robert Light.
How you doing guys?
What are you guys drinking on today?
Lemonade.
Alright, cool.
Hardware, Palmer's.
The Lemonade's are a bit sweet for me, so I like to knock it down with some very green tea.
No, I used to tell you, it probably tastes good.
I'm going to tie you into this a little bit too, Rob, I had it kind of focused on Josh a little bit, but I'm glad you're here and I'm glad you made it.
I already appreciate that.
I definitely want to learn about you because your story definitely inspires me and for those who don't know, me and Josh and Rob came together to do an online fundraiser we call the Hub for Humanity.
The Hub for Humanity thing didn't go exactly according to plan.
However, everything happens for a reason, right?
So we've gone into a new direction where we're going to start teething up with local restaurants, you guys got involved and it kind of brings me to my next point.
What makes you guys different than some of these other nutrient companies out here?
Our formulas take into account all of the additives that a professional grower will add into his speed.
We want to make that easy and accessible to the entire market.
And so instead of going with a fully soluble salt, we go with a fully soluble, hybrid, organic mineral formula.
Where we begin with concentrated micro consortium, start adding in molasses, seaweed, amino acids, yucca, silica, all on top of a well balanced nutrient profile that's going to give the average grower above average results.
Right, right.
No, I love the way that you guys' product works.
A lot of information. It comes with a feeding chart.
You guys take all the guesswork out.
We've been using Simply Professional Formula at our business location.
Rose bushes are vibrant.
Our shrubbery is looking healthy.
I mean, it's looking good outside.
And I can speak to it not only being a cannabis focused product, although, you know, that's probably where, you know, most would lean or most would use the product for, right?
Right, right.
Well, cannabis is a high value product. And this is the nutrient that helps bring the most valuable assets forward in the plant. And it's great trees, veggies, everything else.
You guys do both hemp and marijuana, correct?
Yeah, they're ultimately the same plants.
Hemp is a cannabis sativa with less than 0.3 percent THC as defined by law in the farm bill.
And from marijuana being any cannabis sativa that has higher than 0.3 percent THC.
So from a scientific standpoint in developing fertilizers, it is the same thing.
It's, you know, slightly different in their genetic makeup, but in the larger part, very similar.
From working with you and with the whole fundraiser and like the direction that things happened with it, we wanted to spin it into like a positive, you know, I'll have to kind of give a shout out to Yoni on this one for connecting us, you know.
I really do appreciate you. That's that, right?
But we saw we got, as far as like the Ruga Monteto strains, my personal favorite, I really liked the Moon Bully, which is cookies, runts and Skywalker.
That's right, Ryan, we got the Skywalker Cross with Runts and then that plan was then hit with a them and I Josh B cookies, Holland.
And that was named by Simpro Shells.
She's a Taurus and so the bully comes to a light for her and with the Skywalker being a bit, you know, in the in the celestial vision.
And so that's where the Moon Bully comes from.
Because originally, I'm not going to lie. Josh had explained to me that Josh, you know, the Josh D story. And originally, I had thought that, you know, it was kind of named after Josh, you know, you.
I thought that was kind of funny. I like my miss a little bit of my misunderstanding, but you know, learning a little bit more about it. That's actually, you know, definitely like an homage someone who is important to the industry for sure.
Right. Well, a lot of people think Josh D maybe only O.G. Kush and this is working with that strain.
Right.
I like it, man. I like it because I like a lot of the names of your strings. I think we're allowed to have six plants, you know, for personal use and you're allowed to travel with two ounces.
But kind of like what has been happening here.
It is legal in Arizona, correct?
It's been recreationally legal since about November of 2021 here in Arizona. Or the first of the year of 2022. I started to remember 21.
A fish kind of came out of my closet and started talking to people out in the world again about growing.
And it became legal. And that was when I met Rob. And we've been friends ever since.
That's definitely a cool story with you guys. So the thing that I've noticed are a lot of companies. There's a lot of genetics companies.
There's a lot of Hump extract companies, labs, THC company, like whatever, you know, whatever you want to call it dispensaries, right?
Well, I've noticed as it kind of has been driving the price down up here.
The demand for it, you know, is it balanced out? Like, how is it for you guys in Arizona?
So that doesn't really affect us that much, but we have seen a drop in prices across the board here in the wholesale market as well. And the answer to that is that a commercial facility needs to really step up their game to raise their product above that subbar standard that everyone is floating at.
And that's where a product like ours comes in, where they can increase their turntine production and their THC resin production will increase and it just makes their job easier.
It's really cool that you guys make it really easy for people to follow, you know, to follow along and it kind of is a very educational. Guys, it sent me a lot of like feeding schedules and information on your product.
Yeah, this is actually them right now. The body could start growing now. Anybody.
Which come with every single order that we ship out. That's Josh and Rob's company. They spent a lot of time on it.
I found it really fun. It sounds really cool. Sounds like a dream job, honestly. Sounds like a dream job.
Let's see, you know, it is a business and in order for a business to be successful, it does have to make money. And so being a dream is, you know, the dream is to build a successful company that you do things daily that you enjoy.
You get down into the trenches. It's still a business. It's still competitive. There's a lot of nutrient companies that are on the market, each lying for customers.
At the end of the day, there's work to be done.
Well, I know you guys probably rarely clock out.
Yeah, I tap out at the end of the day.
Standing together of the smaller producers that enjoy the higher quality cannabis that enjoy their flavors and such.
Similar to a beer market, large producers like Budweiser and such have a very large market share, but they have a very bland product.
And you get into the smaller producers that are going to produce a flavorful and more robust beer.
Same thing in the cannabis market. The smaller producers will most likely be the higher quality products. Unfortunately, it may not be the highest market share.
Right. Yeah. I like the analogy to the alcohol market because, you know, that's obviously regulated, right?
I marijuana probably has some time. Your cannabis in general has probably some time still to go before we get some type of regulation on it, which I'm not really sure.
I'm not really sure how that would affect the market.
It needs to be scheduled first.
They have simply professional formula and Ruga Montetto. They work both, you know, the product is more or less simply professional formula and Ruga Montetto working together to deliver this high quality product, right?
Ruga Montetto is kind of the byproduct of testing the nutrients, growing and collecting amazing strains and working with local cultivation cultivation facilities to strains and help them hunt for good strains and working with other local breeders.
We have a big team and circle that we work in partnership with. It brings together a lot of really good things and it's a good community.
That's one of the biggest important things right now is the community building. It's like a big focus.
Everybody has more friends they can trust and when you do build a community, you have the opportunity then to build personal relationships, stronger friendships and that's a good quality of life.
Yeah, I mean, that's a good business too in general, right?
We have to do good business. There's too much competition out there to be deceitful, not deliver a good product, right? It's about transparency and openness, being able to deliver what you say you're going to deliver.
I definitely have noticed the same thing. People don't like even the slightest, you cannot give the slightest inclination of you being deceitful at all because it not only does it turn that person off, they'll probably tell somebody and that's the start of your reputation, word of mouth, right?
Yeah, that doesn't build community, trust builds community and the only way to build trust is to be forthright and transparent and truthful.
For sure. So you guys are known in Arizona for your cannabis strains, nutrient solutions.
Definitely for somebody, an inspiring entrepreneur to look up to, in my opinion, just from working with you guys, you guys have made it really enjoyable. We get to do this interview.
I've been soaked about that and I really appreciate that.
It's our pleasure. It's been working on a good project now with their head for humanity and we think that's something that we can get behind. We also have a homeless problem in Arizona that needs help and if we can help you guys out there and get our name into Michigan, it's a win-win.
Yeah. You know, Josh, thank you for your service. I definitely don't want to talk about that or dive any deeper into that but I do think it's important for, you know, it speaks a lot to your character. It speaks a lot to how you run your business.
It works with the team. Rob's an engineer by trade and he's very good at lining out processes and I'm very disciplined when it comes to following those. He's definitely the brains behind all of this.
And the engineering background really brings a lot to the table when it comes to agriculture at scale.
Let's talk about that for a second. I definitely want to dive a little bit deeper into that, Rob.
Optical systems. So I got a degree in imaging science, worked for private companies that developed the Department of Defense systems. So I was in LIDAR which is laser imaging and such. So I worked in that field for, you know, the 20 years.
In between, around 10 years of working full time, I kind of ventured out on my own, did consulting work and began to do some entrepreneurial activities.
I always enjoyed horticulture and such. About 10 years ago when I quit drinking, I got right back into organic gardening. It really helped with the process.
And then from there, we got our property and built out a head farm and got into the fertilizers through that.
And slowly developed something that was going to be easy to use and that the farm hands could easily mix consistently every time.
And then after Prop 207 passed with recreational, we saw an opportunity to enter the fertilizer market.
And with my entrepreneurial desires, I went for it. We had to get our labels registered, get packaging, start the whole process of production.
Yeah, so the background as an engineer gave me the tools that I needed to develop the formulas.
Because developing the formulas isn't, say, cooking a pot of sauce, right?
Or you just kind of throw a couple of things in and, yep, we're good.
Here, it took more of a mathematical approach, determined the proper nutrient ratios that we wanted to achieve and then designed the formulas from that perspective.
I enjoy using your product because you guys focus a lot on microbials, I think a little bit.
It's a main focus, helps the plant communicate and really absorb those nutrients, right?
I think it helps. You guys definitely have probably a more scientific way to explain it than I do.
That could be pretty simple. Yeah, I mean, it can be that simple.
Okay.
And the mycorrhizal really do help the roots interact with what they're eating.
The pH range that will operate in is much wider than a traditional salt-based, bottle-based watering system where you have to get your pH at a certain place before your plants will even be able to use it.
I think we've got formula operates in a wide range from 5.5 to 7.5 and in time.
Depending on how our customers are going to use our formula, there's different systems to build. We had our in New Mexico customer come to us, one of you simply professional, and he had the finest net-a-thin emitters, the smallest orifices and things of that sort, very prone to clogging and such.
So with simply professional being over 50% organic inputs, we do, and soluble, we do have some fluctuation that occurs as the solution is there sitting, the microbes are going to spawn, they're going to begin to grow, you got to make sure things stay aerated and or circulated.
And so we had to build systems that did the proper filtration prior to delivering the nutrients to the emitters, which then would go to the plants.
We needed to create something that was going to be efficient, effective, and have a lot of uptime without clogging and such.
So our formula is when utilized for proper filtration, you can be ran in the highest systems.
So one of the main reasons I wanted to meet up and do this interview with you guys in the first place was to talk cross-pollination, right?
Rugomante, your seeds across them into, you know, your own. It takes a lot of skill. It's Joshua, Rob, you know, either one of you can explain this one to me.
When we're talking about creating seeds, you want to make a differentiation between someone that's going to create seeds and then a breeder.
We don't want to take any consideration away from the breeders who spend a lot of time working individual parent lines.
So they may have a Centiva-based line that they're trying to extract some really nice characteristics from.
And it takes so many generations of selected breeding along that line to have those traits become dominant to the surface.
And then on the second line, potentially an Indicup, that they're going to be spending time again working that line many generations with back-crossing to get those dominant traits to be prevalent.
And then when they bring those two lines together to create a F1 hybrid, you know, that is many, many years worth of work and effort.
And so those F1s that are prized and have really strong dominant traits that they bred for, that's very special.
For us, what we've done is we've taken strains and genetics that have expressed high terpenes, good growth structure, amounts of THC that the market is looking for.
And we will bring two of those together to create a feminized seed that is going to show expressions across the spectrum.
And so in doing so, we'll take two different genetics.
One will be the pollen donor.
So it's a female plant.
We have to treat it with a silver to block the ethylene.
The ethylene is the female hormone which promotes flowering.
When you block that within the female plant, that plant will create pollen sacs.
The pollen within that sac is going to have female chromosomes.
And so when a seed is created from that pollen, that will be termed a feminized seed, which comes out to about 99% feminization rate or higher.
Wow.
No, and you're definitely a well-senial drama.
I have to say, even from my perspective, people don't really know terpenes has been a really big topic lately.
And like I would say the last year, terpenes, flavonoids and all, you know, people are starting to kind of get a little bit more educated on the different cannabinoids, right?
You know, like you said earlier, it's all cannabis, right?
It's just, you know, the government that kind of sets those differentiation between hemp and cannabis.
Hey, I appreciate you guys, Josh and Rob, for stopping by.
Just a reminder, all the products we talked about, you can find on our website, www.surgeonsolutions.org.
Use the code RUGA, that is R-U-G-A, to save 20% on seeds all throughout August.
Next week, I'm meeting up with Mike Karma, definitely well-known in the Michigan glass pipes industry.
We're going to meet in Bay City at what is called the Friendship Shell, which is, I think, really cool, symbolic.
So, all right, you'll talk to me soon, you'll see me soon.