How Grow Ohio Grows Better Cannabis with Rx Green’s Clean, Consistent Coco
Every commercial grower knows what’s at stake when it comes time for post-harvest testing. You control everything you can in the room: cleaning protocols, tight environmental controls, careful handling…and then you wait. What is easy to overlook is how much of the testing outcome is set long before the sample is ever sent in, by the single largest input in the room: the substrate your plants live in from clone to harvest.
A room of thriving cannabis plants at Grow Ohio’s cultivation facility
When Your Coco Is Working Against You
Before switching to Rx Green, Grow Ohio was sourcing loose coco from other suppliers and building their own blends by hand, mixing coco and perlite to their ideal ratio, trough by trough. Through it, two problems kept surfacing.
First, the material was inconsistent. The team measured moisture swings of up to 30 percent from bag to bag, which meant putting their own process in place just to bring incoming coco back to a workable baseline. They had also seen the downside of the supply chain firsthand: expired batches and product that had clearly been stored outside; even occasional mushroom and algae growth in coco that had been handled poorly before it ever reached them.
For an operation with top-notch cleanliness protocols, that pointed straight at the inputs. As Darsey Tanner of Grow Ohio explained, they knew their grow was dialed in, so any inconsistency had to be coming from the incoming media or something they were adding, not from their own protocols or controls. When your process is clean, and your results still vary, the variable is usually sitting in the material you started with.
That is the moment a quality-first team stops tolerating the substrate they know and starts looking for one they can trust.
Why Consistency Matters So Much in a State Like Ohio
Grow Ohio operates in one of the strictest testing markets in the country. Ohio had long held one of the lowest thresholds for total yeast and mold anywhere. Thankfully, the state recently recalibrated after acknowledging that naturally occurring, harmless microbes were pushing compliant operators over the line and into failure.
The takeaway for a cultivator is simple: in a market that tests this tightly, the operators who win are the ones who keep every input clean, consistent, and under control, so that ordinary background variation never determines the fate of a batch. Your substrate is the largest input in the room by volume, which makes it the first place that discipline has to show up. Start from a clean, consistent, predictable base, and you give yourself margin everywhere downstream.
Grow Ohio technicians hand-mixing their coco batches before using Rx Green loose coco
The Switch to Rx Green Coco
The turning point came during a site visit, when Rx Green’s David Straw saw the team hand-mixing perlite and offered a better path: a ready-made 70/30 coco and perlite blend delivered at the exact ratio Grow Ohio was building by hand. That removed a labor-heavy step from every cycle. While the 70/30 blend is just one of several formats Rx Green offers, the more important change for Grow Ohio was in the material itself, not the format.
Rx Green’s coco is thoroughly cleaned and buffered with calcium carbonate, so residual salts are addressed before it ever reaches the grow room, and it runs low-EC from the first irrigation onward. Every batch passes internal quality control checks plus third-party testing for pH, EC, mineral content, heavy metals, and microbials. If a batch does not pass, it does not ship. And it is manufactured and blended fresh in the USA, rather than aging through a long overseas supply chain.
What Changed for Grow Ohio
Consistency is the real spec. Two bags of coco can read the same on a moisture meter and still behave differently in the room – because what matters is not only how much moisture is present, but how evenly it is distributed throughout the bag and how stable it stays. Grow Ohio went from managing swings of up to 30% bag-to-bag with prior suppliers, to internal moisture landing at a steady 9-10% across the pallet. A predictable root zone is a much easier root zone to keep dialed in.
The team felt the difference in exactly the places you would expect:
- Consistent, homogeneous moisture. Instead of 30% swings, internal moisture measures steady throughout the pallet, making every irrigation decision more predictable.
- Easier control of the fundamentals. With a stable, buffered root zone from the start, the team found it far easier to hold moisture, EC, and pH steady, and they were able to back off inputs like excess cal-mag as potassium-related deficiencies eased.
- Healthier plants, clone to harvest. Starting clean and consistent helped establish healthy plants from their most vulnerable stage, and that health carried through to better structure, yields, and finish quality.
- One less variable at testing. Alongside improvements Grow Ohio made to their own application and tracking protocols, starting from a consistently clean, low-EC substrate removed a large variable from the board. In a state with strict testing requirements, that is exactly the kind of margin that matters.
A pallet of Rx Green’s 70/30 loose coco bags at the Grow Ohio facility
The Partnership Behind the Product
Clean, consistent coco got Grow Ohio’s attention. What kept them was what happened when things got hard.
When an industry-wide coco shortage hit, Grow Ohio proactively tested a few alternative suppliers to be prepared if supply tightened. After running those trials, they made a deliberate choice to stay with Rx Green; not just on price, but on the customer support and technical relationship as well. For a business that lives and dies by consistency, a partner who answers the phone is worth more than saving a few pennies on a purchase order.
Grow Ohio’s partnership with Rx Green was reinforced again during a recent deployment and planting. The team noticed some irregularities in the garden, including some initial deficiencies in the plants. Darsey reached out, and the response from Rx Green set the tone:
“I reached out, and we were on a video call the very next day. They looked at all of the batch data, and even sent us a pallet of new coco to trial before we committed to another order. Within a week, our plants turned around.”
Darsey Tanner, Grow Ohio
Rx Green’s Sean Cute and David Straw worked the problem alongside Grow Ohio’s team, analyzed the batch data, confirmed the elevated potassium, and kept the client informed on the next iteration of the coco and the changes being made. Grow Ohio adjusted their regimen, and the plants fully recovered inside a week. What stuck with Darsey and the Grow Ohio team was the transparency. Rx Green named the issue plainly instead of waving it away, so the two teams could solve it together.
What to Look For in a Coco Supplier
Grow Ohio’s experience points to a practical checklist any cultivator can use when evaluating a substrate, especially in a state with strict testing requirements. Your coco should be:
- Thoroughly cleaned and buffered. Washed and buffered with calcium carbonate so residual salts are handled before you plant, and clones go into a clean root zone from the start.
- Consistent moisture, not just low moisture. Ask about homogeneity across the pallet, not just a headline moisture number. Consistent, stable moisture is what makes a root zone predictable.
- Low, stable EC. Low EC out of the bag means clones get planted into a clean root zone without extensive pre-washing, saving labor and water on every cycle.
- Batch tested, including for microbials. Third-party and internal testing for pH, EC, minerals, heavy metals, and microbials, with a commitment that failing batches do not ship. (This is the living-organism companion to why heavy-metal testing in coco should start before you plant.)
- Fresh and properly stored. Made fresh and stored indoors, not aged past its prime or left outdoors where moisture and contaminants accumulate.
None of these are big asks. They are simply the difference between a substrate that adds work and uncertainty to your cycle…and one that quietly takes it away.
A room full of flowering cannabis plants at Grow Ohio
It Starts Before You Plant
Grow Ohio’s path, from hand-mixing troughs and fighting inconsistency to running a broad strain menu on a clean, consistent, ready-to-plant blend, is not a story about a miracle product. It is a story about treating the substrate as what it is: the foundation of the crop, and the first place quality and consistency have to show up.
Choose an input that works for you instead of against you, back it with a partner who stands behind it, and you take a major variable off the table long before harvest arrives. Because in commercial cannabis, the inputs you choose today decide the flower, and the results you get tomorrow.
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes one coco coir better than another?
Quality and consistency. Coco that is thoroughly washed and buffered, low and stable in EC, made fresh, and stored properly arrives predictable and ready to plant. Coco that is inconsistent from bag to bag, aged past its prime, or stored outdoors makes you do extra work just to reach a workable baseline. The deciding factor is not coco as a category; it is the specific material you buy and how it was handled before it got to you.
Why does consistent moisture matter in coco?
Because a predictable root zone is far easier to control; two bags can show the same number on a moisture meter and still behave differently in the room. What matters is even, stable moisture across the pallet, not just a low headline figure. Consistent moisture makes it easier to hold EC and pH and sets plants up well from their most vulnerable stage.
What should I look for in a coco supplier?
Coco that is thoroughly washed and buffered, consistent in moisture rather than just low in moisture, low and stable in EC, and batch tested (including for microbials) with a firm rule that failing batches do not ship. Fresh manufacturing and proper indoor storage matter too, because coco that ages or sits outdoors loses consistency.
Is coco coir a good substrate for cannabis?
Yes. Coco is inert, renewable, forgiving to work with, and it holds water and air beautifully without the nutrient baggage of many soils. Handled well, it gives you a clean, predictable base to build a crop on. The key is choosing a clean, consistent, well-tested product from a supplier who stands behind it.
Soon-to-be-harvested cannabis flowers at the Grow Ohio facility
About Grow Ohio
Grow Ohio is a Level 1 licensed cannabis cultivator and processor operating a 80,000-square-foot facility, with roughly 33,000 square feet of cultivation space, in East Fultonham (Muskingum County), Ohio. Licensed in 2017 and shipping to Ohio’s regulated market since 2019, the company, led by CEO Justin Hunt, runs its brands, including Butterfly Effect, JBad, XS, Young Buck, Drops, and White Label, with a team of about 115 employees across six operational divisions. Grow Ohio scored second overall in Ohio’s Level 1 cultivation licensing round, and it applies what it calls “proven industry best practices in operations, quality assurance and security,” summed up in a company mission to “dare to be the best with an expectation of excellence in everything we do.” Operating in one of the country’s strictest testing environments, the team is known for tight cultivation protocols and a quality-first standard.
Interested in taking a major variable off your operation before harvest? Contact the Rx Green team to talk coco, consistency, and what a clean, tested substrate could do for your grow.
Related reading
As Seen In
