1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,300 I want to put the spotlight on the cannabis microbial market. 2 00:00:04,300 --> 00:00:13,300 This show is brought to you by Surgeons LLC in partnership with Ruga Monteto Feminized Genetics and Simply Professional Formal. 3 00:00:13,300 --> 00:00:16,800 For those who don't know me, my name is Ryan Boulda. 4 00:00:16,800 --> 00:00:26,300 Full disclosure, everything in this show is thought of, written and produced by myself and the staff here at our company, Surgeons LLC. 5 00:00:26,300 --> 00:00:30,300 Presented by SRGM Networks. 6 00:00:30,300 --> 00:00:35,100 This is about cannabis, microbials, and other omnambulans. 7 00:00:35,100 --> 00:00:37,300 What's going on everybody? 8 00:00:37,300 --> 00:00:47,100 If you are watching my show, today we're talking about Ruga Monteto and Simply Professional Formal. 9 00:00:47,100 --> 00:00:50,100 Alright, so welcome to the show. 10 00:00:50,100 --> 00:00:52,300 My name is Ryan Boulda. 11 00:00:52,300 --> 00:00:56,100 With me today is Josh Stewart and Robert Light. 12 00:00:56,100 --> 00:00:57,600 How you doing guys? 13 00:00:57,600 --> 00:01:01,100 What are you guys drinking on today? 14 00:01:01,100 --> 00:01:02,100 Lemonade. 15 00:01:02,100 --> 00:01:03,100 Lemonade. 16 00:01:03,100 --> 00:01:04,800 Alright, cool. 17 00:01:04,800 --> 00:01:08,300 Hardware, Palmer's. 18 00:01:08,300 --> 00:01:13,600 The Lemonade's are a bit sweet for me, so I like to knock it down with some very green tea. 19 00:01:13,600 --> 00:01:17,000 No, I used to tell you, it probably tastes good. 20 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:25,300 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. 21 00:01:25,300 --> 00:01:27,500 I already appreciate that. 22 00:01:27,500 --> 00:01:41,500 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. 23 00:01:41,500 --> 00:01:45,500 The Hub for Humanity thing didn't go exactly according to plan. 24 00:01:45,500 --> 00:01:48,500 However, everything happens for a reason, right? 25 00:01:48,500 --> 00:02:00,500 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. 26 00:02:00,500 --> 00:02:04,800 What makes you guys different than some of these other nutrient companies out here? 27 00:02:04,800 --> 00:02:16,100 Our formulas take into account all of the additives that a professional grower will add into his speed. 28 00:02:16,100 --> 00:02:21,800 We want to make that easy and accessible to the entire market. 29 00:02:21,800 --> 00:02:33,300 And so instead of going with a fully soluble salt, we go with a fully soluble, hybrid, organic mineral formula. 30 00:02:33,300 --> 00:02:57,300 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. 31 00:02:57,300 --> 00:02:59,300 Right, right. 32 00:02:59,300 --> 00:03:03,300 No, I love the way that you guys' product works. 33 00:03:03,300 --> 00:03:06,300 A lot of information. It comes with a feeding chart. 34 00:03:06,300 --> 00:03:08,300 You guys take all the guesswork out. 35 00:03:08,300 --> 00:03:14,300 We've been using Simply Professional Formula at our business location. 36 00:03:14,300 --> 00:03:16,300 Rose bushes are vibrant. 37 00:03:16,300 --> 00:03:19,300 Our shrubbery is looking healthy. 38 00:03:19,300 --> 00:03:21,300 I mean, it's looking good outside. 39 00:03:21,300 --> 00:03:35,300 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? 40 00:03:35,300 --> 00:03:36,300 Right, right. 41 00:03:36,300 --> 00:03:51,300 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. 42 00:03:51,300 --> 00:03:55,300 You guys do both hemp and marijuana, correct? 43 00:03:55,300 --> 00:04:00,300 Yeah, they're ultimately the same plants. 44 00:04:00,300 --> 00:04:09,300 Hemp is a cannabis sativa with less than 0.3 percent THC as defined by law in the farm bill. 45 00:04:09,300 --> 00:04:18,300 And from marijuana being any cannabis sativa that has higher than 0.3 percent THC. 46 00:04:18,300 --> 00:04:24,300 So from a scientific standpoint in developing fertilizers, it is the same thing. 47 00:04:24,300 --> 00:04:34,300 It's, you know, slightly different in their genetic makeup, but in the larger part, very similar. 48 00:04:34,300 --> 00:04:50,300 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. 49 00:04:50,300 --> 00:04:56,300 I really do appreciate you. That's that, right? 50 00:04:56,300 --> 00:05:09,300 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. 51 00:05:09,300 --> 00:05:21,300 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. 52 00:05:21,300 --> 00:05:26,300 And that was named by Simpro Shells. 53 00:05:26,300 --> 00:05:41,300 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. 54 00:05:41,300 --> 00:05:44,300 And so that's where the Moon Bully comes from. 55 00:05:44,300 --> 00:06:01,300 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. 56 00:06:01,300 --> 00:06:14,300 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. 57 00:06:14,300 --> 00:06:25,300 Right. Well, a lot of people think Josh D maybe only O.G. Kush and this is working with that strain. 58 00:06:25,300 --> 00:06:26,300 Right. 59 00:06:26,300 --> 00:06:38,300 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. 60 00:06:38,300 --> 00:06:41,300 But kind of like what has been happening here. 61 00:06:41,300 --> 00:06:43,300 It is legal in Arizona, correct? 62 00:06:43,300 --> 00:06:58,300 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. 63 00:06:58,300 --> 00:07:07,300 A fish kind of came out of my closet and started talking to people out in the world again about growing. 64 00:07:07,300 --> 00:07:15,300 And it became legal. And that was when I met Rob. And we've been friends ever since. 65 00:07:15,300 --> 00:07:23,300 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. 66 00:07:23,300 --> 00:07:33,300 There's a lot of Hump extract companies, labs, THC company, like whatever, you know, whatever you want to call it dispensaries, right? 67 00:07:33,300 --> 00:07:38,300 Well, I've noticed as it kind of has been driving the price down up here. 68 00:07:38,300 --> 00:07:46,300 The demand for it, you know, is it balanced out? Like, how is it for you guys in Arizona? 69 00:07:46,300 --> 00:08:08,300 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. 70 00:08:08,300 --> 00:08:23,300 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. 71 00:08:23,300 --> 00:08:38,300 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. 72 00:08:38,300 --> 00:08:45,300 Yeah, this is actually them right now. The body could start growing now. Anybody. 73 00:08:45,300 --> 00:08:54,300 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. 74 00:08:54,300 --> 00:09:00,300 I found it really fun. It sounds really cool. Sounds like a dream job, honestly. Sounds like a dream job. 75 00:09:00,300 --> 00:09:17,300 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. 76 00:09:17,300 --> 00:09:29,300 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. 77 00:09:29,300 --> 00:09:33,300 At the end of the day, there's work to be done. 78 00:09:33,300 --> 00:09:38,300 Well, I know you guys probably rarely clock out. 79 00:09:38,300 --> 00:09:45,300 Yeah, I tap out at the end of the day. 80 00:09:45,300 --> 00:09:54,300 Standing together of the smaller producers that enjoy the higher quality cannabis that enjoy their flavors and such. 81 00:09:54,300 --> 00:10:06,300 Similar to a beer market, large producers like Budweiser and such have a very large market share, but they have a very bland product. 82 00:10:06,300 --> 00:10:15,300 And you get into the smaller producers that are going to produce a flavorful and more robust beer. 83 00:10:15,300 --> 00:10:27,300 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. 84 00:10:27,300 --> 00:10:36,300 Right. Yeah. I like the analogy to the alcohol market because, you know, that's obviously regulated, right? 85 00:10:36,300 --> 00:10:48,300 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. 86 00:10:48,300 --> 00:10:52,300 I'm not really sure how that would affect the market. 87 00:10:52,300 --> 00:10:55,300 It needs to be scheduled first. 88 00:10:55,300 --> 00:11:13,300 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? 89 00:11:13,300 --> 00:11:35,300 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. 90 00:11:35,300 --> 00:11:47,300 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. 91 00:11:47,300 --> 00:11:55,300 That's one of the biggest important things right now is the community building. It's like a big focus. 92 00:11:55,300 --> 00:12:09,300 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. 93 00:12:09,300 --> 00:12:13,300 Yeah, I mean, that's a good business too in general, right? 94 00:12:13,300 --> 00:12:36,300 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. 95 00:12:36,300 --> 00:12:57,300 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? 96 00:12:57,300 --> 00:13:08,300 Yeah, that doesn't build community, trust builds community and the only way to build trust is to be forthright and transparent and truthful. 97 00:13:08,300 --> 00:13:18,300 For sure. So you guys are known in Arizona for your cannabis strains, nutrient solutions. 98 00:13:18,300 --> 00:13:30,300 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. 99 00:13:30,300 --> 00:13:35,300 I've been soaked about that and I really appreciate that. 100 00:13:35,300 --> 00:13:57,300 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. 101 00:13:57,300 --> 00:14:12,300 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. 102 00:14:12,300 --> 00:14:31,300 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. 103 00:14:31,300 --> 00:14:40,300 And the engineering background really brings a lot to the table when it comes to agriculture at scale. 104 00:14:40,300 --> 00:14:45,300 Let's talk about that for a second. I definitely want to dive a little bit deeper into that, Rob. 105 00:14:45,300 --> 00:15:10,300 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. 106 00:15:10,300 --> 00:15:22,300 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. 107 00:15:22,300 --> 00:15:38,300 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. 108 00:15:38,300 --> 00:15:49,300 And then from there, we got our property and built out a head farm and got into the fertilizers through that. 109 00:15:49,300 --> 00:15:59,300 And slowly developed something that was going to be easy to use and that the farm hands could easily mix consistently every time. 110 00:15:59,300 --> 00:16:08,300 And then after Prop 207 passed with recreational, we saw an opportunity to enter the fertilizer market. 111 00:16:08,300 --> 00:16:22,300 And with my entrepreneurial desires, I went for it. We had to get our labels registered, get packaging, start the whole process of production. 112 00:16:22,300 --> 00:16:31,300 Yeah, so the background as an engineer gave me the tools that I needed to develop the formulas. 113 00:16:31,300 --> 00:16:37,300 Because developing the formulas isn't, say, cooking a pot of sauce, right? 114 00:16:37,300 --> 00:16:41,300 Or you just kind of throw a couple of things in and, yep, we're good. 115 00:16:41,300 --> 00:16:55,300 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. 116 00:16:55,300 --> 00:17:02,300 I enjoy using your product because you guys focus a lot on microbials, I think a little bit. 117 00:17:02,300 --> 00:17:08,300 It's a main focus, helps the plant communicate and really absorb those nutrients, right? 118 00:17:08,300 --> 00:17:17,300 I think it helps. You guys definitely have probably a more scientific way to explain it than I do. 119 00:17:17,300 --> 00:17:20,300 That could be pretty simple. Yeah, I mean, it can be that simple. 120 00:17:20,300 --> 00:17:22,300 Okay. 121 00:17:22,300 --> 00:17:29,300 And the mycorrhizal really do help the roots interact with what they're eating. 122 00:17:29,300 --> 00:17:46,300 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. 123 00:17:46,300 --> 00:18:03,300 I think we've got formula operates in a wide range from 5.5 to 7.5 and in time. 124 00:18:03,300 --> 00:18:30,300 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. 125 00:18:30,300 --> 00:18:54,300 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. 126 00:18:54,300 --> 00:19:04,300 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. 127 00:19:04,300 --> 00:19:14,300 We needed to create something that was going to be efficient, effective, and have a lot of uptime without clogging and such. 128 00:19:14,300 --> 00:19:23,300 So our formula is when utilized for proper filtration, you can be ran in the highest systems. 129 00:19:23,300 --> 00:19:33,300 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? 130 00:19:33,300 --> 00:19:45,300 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. 131 00:19:45,300 --> 00:19:54,300 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. 132 00:19:54,300 --> 00:20:03,300 We don't want to take any consideration away from the breeders who spend a lot of time working individual parent lines. 133 00:20:03,300 --> 00:20:12,300 So they may have a Centiva-based line that they're trying to extract some really nice characteristics from. 134 00:20:12,300 --> 00:20:23,300 And it takes so many generations of selected breeding along that line to have those traits become dominant to the surface. 135 00:20:23,300 --> 00:20:39,300 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. 136 00:20:39,300 --> 00:20:51,300 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. 137 00:20:51,300 --> 00:21:00,300 And so those F1s that are prized and have really strong dominant traits that they bred for, that's very special. 138 00:21:00,300 --> 00:21:17,300 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. 139 00:21:17,300 --> 00:21:28,300 And we will bring two of those together to create a feminized seed that is going to show expressions across the spectrum. 140 00:21:28,300 --> 00:21:33,300 And so in doing so, we'll take two different genetics. 141 00:21:33,300 --> 00:21:35,300 One will be the pollen donor. 142 00:21:35,300 --> 00:21:37,300 So it's a female plant. 143 00:21:37,300 --> 00:21:42,300 We have to treat it with a silver to block the ethylene. 144 00:21:42,300 --> 00:21:46,300 The ethylene is the female hormone which promotes flowering. 145 00:21:46,300 --> 00:21:53,300 When you block that within the female plant, that plant will create pollen sacs. 146 00:21:53,300 --> 00:21:59,300 The pollen within that sac is going to have female chromosomes. 147 00:21:59,300 --> 00:22:14,300 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. 148 00:22:14,300 --> 00:22:15,300 Wow. 149 00:22:15,300 --> 00:22:19,300 No, and you're definitely a well-senial drama. 150 00:22:19,300 --> 00:22:26,300 I have to say, even from my perspective, people don't really know terpenes has been a really big topic lately. 151 00:22:26,300 --> 00:22:36,300 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? 152 00:22:36,300 --> 00:22:40,300 You know, like you said earlier, it's all cannabis, right? 153 00:22:40,300 --> 00:22:48,300 It's just, you know, the government that kind of sets those differentiation between hemp and cannabis. 154 00:22:48,300 --> 00:22:53,300 Hey, I appreciate you guys, Josh and Rob, for stopping by. 155 00:22:53,300 --> 00:23:03,300 Just a reminder, all the products we talked about, you can find on our website, www.surgeonsolutions.org. 156 00:23:03,300 --> 00:23:13,300 Use the code RUGA, that is R-U-G-A, to save 20% on seeds all throughout August. 157 00:23:13,300 --> 00:23:21,300 Next week, I'm meeting up with Mike Karma, definitely well-known in the Michigan glass pipes industry. 158 00:23:21,300 --> 00:23:29,300 We're going to meet in Bay City at what is called the Friendship Shell, which is, I think, really cool, symbolic. 159 00:23:29,300 --> 00:23:44,300 So, all right, you'll talk to me soon, you'll see me soon.