Growers and Growing

Gretchen Schimelpfenig is a Senior Energy Engineer at Energy Resources Integration, LLC where she implements energy efficiency programs and provides direct consulting services. She is the former Technical Director of the Resource Innovation Institute and manager of the organization’s Technical Advisory Council. She authored RII’s Lighting, HVAC, and Facility Design & Construction Best Practices Guides for Controlled Environment Agriculture and the Lighting, HVAC, and Controls Best Practices Guides for Cannabis Cultivation. She has worked with partners like the University of Vermont to optimize commercial and industrial buildings, including greenhouses and controls systems used for academic research on hemp and other cultivars. She has a B.S. in Architectural Engineering from the University of Wyoming and an M.S. in Civil Engineering from Stanford University. She is a licensed Civil Professional Engineer in California and Vermont.

Articles

Learn about the diverse kinds of support cannabis growers can get from utilities and efficiency programs for efficient lighting, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), and controls approaches.

Get Help Greening Your Grow Utility Efficiency Programs Supporting Cannabis Cultivators

This article outlines why multiple testing modes are important, what to look for in third party test providers, and how a cultivator can evaluate these potential providers both at the outset and in an ongoing manner for accuracy and reliability.

Cannabis Cultivation Quality Assurance 2.0:  Starting Clear, Staying Clean

In this piece, we touch on the benefits and challenges associated with autoflowering genetics, and provide justification for why these unique varietals may be the catalyst for making cannabis medicine more accessible and approachable for the general population. 

Autoflowering Genetics Present Unique Opportunities

Here, we explain how plant-growth parameters interact with carbon dioxide content in grow room air and how cultivators can best apply this knowledge to their commercial cannabis production facilities or research programs.

How Does Carbon Dioxide Enrichment Affect Environmental Control?

Learn how to bring efficiency concepts together to create circular cannabis systems.

Circular Cannabis Systems: Tracking and Minimizing Waste  and Emissions Impacts

A look at what effects water and air movement in plants.

Providing Sufficient Airflow for  Plant Growth Environments

is a Full Professor and Shimadzu Distinguished Professor of Analytical Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at The University of Texas (UT) at Arlington.

The data presented here document the phytochemical composition of a large dataset of Group III cannabis cultivars and allow for the identification of distinct sub-classes.


Differentiation of Group III Cannabis Cultivars into Novel Sub-Classes

David Hodes has written for many cannabis publications, and organized or moderated sessions at national and international cannabis trade shows. He was voted the 2018 Journalist of the Year by Americans for Safe Access, the world’s largest medical cannabis advocacy organization.

Better seed genetics, power-free tunable lighting, and other new scientific discoveries are making headway in what has become an ag-tech leading industry.

Cultivation Breakthroughs  for a More Uniform Plant Are Coming

Learn about the value of monitoring environmental conditions, how software platforms can analyze data and offer insights, and the ways growers can use data to optimize plant health and vitality.


Make Data Work for You: Environmental Monitoring for Optimal Outcomes

Part III of this series explores the impact of light spectrum on plant growth and the equipment needed for indoor cultivation.