GlossaryGlossary

A picture of the building you can rotate, zoom and click on a screen, rebuilt from the floor plan rather than a fixed photo or render.

The multi-week adaptation in which a plant builds more chloroplasts, thicker leaf cuticles, and higher enzyme density so it can safely use higher light.

Gradually toughening a tissue-cultured plantlet up, lowering humidity and raising light, so it can survive in normal air.

A pre-set value that, when crossed, forces a defined response (and a corrective-action note). Paired with a softer alert limit that just warns.

A defined pest level (e.g. one pest seen, or more than 3% of a room affected) that triggers a specific control response.

An output that names the action, the setpoint, the deadline and the expected outcome - 'do this, by when, or expect that' - instead of just raising an alarm.

An air bubble drawn into a cut stem that blocks water uptake; prevented by sticking cuttings fast and keeping cut ends wet.

The share of a medium's pore space that holds air right after draining; it trades off directly against water-holding capacity.

A sealed transition room with interlocked doors where personnel escalate protective clothing before entering a higher-grade space.

Data-integrity rule: records must be Attributable, Legible, Contemporaneous, Original, Accurate, plus Complete, Consistent, Enduring, Available.

When sampling too slowly folds a fast pattern into a slow one that was never really there, the wagon-wheel-spinning-backwards effect in data.

Water's built-in capacity to neutralise acid, mostly from bicarbonates, reported as ppm of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). Not the same as a high pH reading.

GMP requirements for computerised systems and data integrity (access control, audit trails, validation, backups).

A plant's natural tendency to grow one central top taller than its side branches. Topping and LST break this so growth spreads evenly.

The Python app environment running the ~5900-line master Crop Steering decision loop on top of Home Assistant.

The autonomous brain (master_crop_steering_app.py) that reads sensors and settings, decides each row's phase, and runs the hardware sequence.

Working so that no bacteria, fungi or yeast get into your culture. The single most important skill in tissue culture.

The industry standard specifying the 0.55-0.65 aw range for dry cannabis flower.

A check item that a system marks done by itself when its telemetry confirms the condition, leaving the human only the items a sensor cannot judge.

Seed with ruderalis genetics that flowers automatically after a few weeks regardless of light schedule.

A class of plant hormone that promotes root growth. IBA is the best one for cannabis.

The steady AC/dehumidifier drip learned at night so it can be subtracted from total drain readings.

The expected envelope for a given cultivar at a given stage and photoperiod phase, learned from your own past runs.

One defined production run carrying a single ID that follows the material through every transfer.

The document capturing all materials, actions, people, equipment, results and disposition for one batch (FRM-MF-004), consolidated in REG-CU-001.

The controlled decision, backed by test results and records, that a finished batch is safe and meets spec before it can be sold.

The main dissolved compound responsible for water alkalinity; it consumes added acid and pushes pH back up.

Airborne particles carrying living things, such as skin flakes with bacteria, fungal spores, or droplets from speech or a toilet flush.

A living organism released to suppress a pest, a predatory mite, a parasitoid wasp, or a microbe such as a fungus or bacterium.

Releasing predatory insects or mites that eat pests; harmless to the plant and self-limiting when prey runs out.

Pale or white discoloration (usually at upper-canopy tips) from light/oxidative stress, the visible result of photoinhibition.

A fail-safe that parks a row for ~2 hours after too many failed emergency shots (default 4 in 30 min), with a per-row on/off toggle.

The thin film of still air clinging to every leaf surface. CO2 going in, and water vapour and heat coming out, must diffuse slowly across it, so it throttles how fast a leaf can work. Moving air (about 0.3-1.0 m/s at the canopy) thins it; a stagnant boundary layer deep in a dense canopy is a hidden CO2 ceiling no room sensor will show you.

Strains of the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, israelensis (Bti) kills fungus-gnat larvae and kurstaki (Btk) kills caterpillars, both only when the pest ingests them.

Cutting the finished buds off the stem after trimming.

A grey mould that attacks dense buds in humid conditions, a major late-flower risk that drives the push to lower humidity.

The point around weeks 3-4 when scattered pistils organise into defined, growing budlets.

A medium's natural ability to resist pH change; soil buffers well, coco and hydroponics barely buffer at all, so they need tighter pH control.

A liquid of precisely known pH (e.g. 4.0, 7.0) used to calibrate a pH pen.

A medium's ability to absorb your errors in pH or nutrient strength so the roots see a steadier environment.

A medium or water's resistance to pH change. High buffering resists swings (soil); low buffering swings quickly (coco, hydro).

The practice of re-adding minerals (usually a CalMag supplement plus base nutrients) to mineral-stripped RO or rainwater, since the plant still needs calcium and magnesium and some buffer.

Electrical conductivity of the entire wet-media mixture (solids, water, air), measured directly by the probe over 0-20000 microS/cm.

The mid-flower phase (roughly weeks 5-7) when buds gain mass fastest.

Briefly opening a sealed container during curing to release humid air and let fresh air in.

Class 1 Division 1, an electrical/room classification for areas where flammable solvent vapour may be present, requiring explosion-proof equipment and gas detection.

A calcium and magnesium supplement; essential when running coco to prevent the deficiency caused by coco's CEC.

Adjusting a sensor's raw reading so it matches reality for your specific substrate, without it, the percentage on screen can be off.

The exception-based screen that stays quiet by default and speaks only when it has something worth saying.

A calcium-and-magnesium (often with iron) supplement added to low-mineral water like RO, rain, or very soft tap to prevent calcium/magnesium deficiency.

The CO2-using half of photosynthesis that turns captured light energy into sugar. If CO2 is too low, this stage cannot keep up with the light reactions.

A single teardrop-shaped floral pod; many calyxes stacking together build a bud.

A hardy cannabis subspecies whose genetics give autoflowers their automatic, light-independent flowering.

Corrective And Preventive Action: the formal process of fixing a problem and stopping it from happening again. A core GMP habit.

A root-cause-driven process to fix an existing problem (corrective) and stop it recurring or occurring (preventive).

A probe that measures how much water is in the substrate by sensing its electrical 'permittivity', water changes it far more than soil or air do.

The dissolved compounds (CO3 and HCO3) responsible for alkalinity. They neutralize added acid and can lock up calcium and magnesium when in excess.

A process step with a measured limit that prevents a specific hazard; HACCP terminology used for in-process control.

How strongly a medium grabs and holds positively-charged nutrient ions (in meq/100g); high CEC means more buffering of feed mistakes.

The formal process for assessing, approving and implementing any change that could affect product quality or the validated state.

Water sneaking straight down through the substrate, missing the roots (and often the sensor).

A more stable chlorine-ammonia disinfectant that does NOT off-gas from standing water and requires a catalytic carbon filter or reverse osmosis to remove.

A common municipal disinfectant that off-gasses from standing, aerated water in about 24 hours. Can damage root tips and beneficial microbes at low concentrations.

The cell structure that does photosynthesis; plants build more of them during acclimation to handle higher light.

Yellowing of leaf tissue caused by loss of green chlorophyll.

A rating for how few airborne particles a room allows. Stricter grades (and gowning) are used where product contamination must be controlled.

A ranking of how clean a room's air is. CNC is uncontrolled; Grade A is cleanest. Mapped to ISO 14644 classes (D=ISO 8, C=ISO 7, A=ISO 5).

A genetically identical copy of a plant, whether made by a cutting or by tissue culture.

A control system where the result feeds back to drive the next action: measure, decide, act, then measure the effect of that action, repeating continuously.

Letting the system auto-apply only low-risk, explicitly-licensed actions, with everything irreversible or expensive kept human-approved.

When a system measures a result, compares it to a goal, and adjusts itself automatically, a thermostat is the classic example.

Deliberately raising carbon dioxide above ambient (~400–600 ppm) to match high light, required to run intensities like 1200 or 1500 µmol/m²/s without bleaching.

The document listing a batch's test results against specification, issued at release.

A coconut-husk growing medium used instead of soil; drains fast and responds quickly to watering.

A measure of spread relative to the average; applied to a batch of plants it literally quantifies the noise (inconsistency) in your crop.

A large, dense cluster of buds formed along a main stem, usually the topmost and best-developed flowers.

Common-cause variation is normal jitter you leave alone; special-cause variation is an unusual event (a point past a limit, or a non-random run) worth investigating.

The natural, expected jitter of a stable process; it lives inside the control limits and the correct response is to do nothing.

The brain's self-rated trust in its current estimate; high confidence allows watering, low confidence forces caution.

Boundaries computed from a process's own history (typically the mean ± 3 standard deviations) that separate normal variation from abnormal.

Statistically-set lines around normal variation. A reading inside them is just noise; one outside is a real signal worth acting on. From 'statistical process control'.

The two rounded embryonic 'seed leaves' that appear first and feed the seedling from stored reserves.

A system where moving one control changes several others at once, so no lever acts in isolation.

Nudging a plant toward vegetative (leafy) or generative (flower/fruit) growth by controlling irrigation, climate and light.

The sensor-driven 4-phase irrigation brain with per-zone control, EC logic and ML prediction; the active irrigation controller.

Carrying contamination from a dirty area or item to a clean one, e.g. walking from flower back into propagation without re-gowning.

Sorting and removing weak or unrooted clones (keepers / rejects / kills) before transplant.

Letting a finished batch settle to one even water activity while preserving terpenes and preventing mould.

A severed shoot being rooted into a clone; used interchangeably with 'clone'.

A class of plant hormone that promotes shoot and bud growth. Examples: meta-topolin, BAP, TDZ.

A fungal disease (Pythium, Fusarium, Rhizoctonia) that rots a seedling at the soil line, usually killing it.

The tolerance window a controller allows before it acts; too narrow a dead-band makes equipment over-react and 'hunt'.

Selectively removing large fan leaves to open the canopy for light penetration and airflow.

The plant is not getting enough of a nutrient, producing fading, yellowing and stunted growth.

Selectively removing leaves to improve light penetration and airflow into the canopy.

How much water a room must pull out of the air each day to hold its humidity target, set by how much the canopy transpires. At high light it is frequently the true yield ceiling. Measured in litres or US pints per day (1 litre is about 2.1 pints); a dense flowering canopy can transpire several litres per square metre per day.

Any departure from the approved, documented process; it must be logged and investigated.

A 3D model connected to live sensor feeds so it displays the facility's real current temperature, humidity and equipment status.

Spreading a substance through a large volume of water so its concentration is low; the safety margin that makes adding Part B safe after Part A.

The amount of oxygen dissolved in water, which roots need. It falls as water warms (about 5-6 ppm at 20 C down to 3-4 ppm at 26 C), and low DO encourages root disease.

Daily Light Integral, the total amount of usable light a plant receives over a full day, in mol/m²/day. It combines intensity (PPFD) with hours of light, so two intensities can give the same DLI at different photoperiods.

The total PAR photons delivered to a surface over a full day, in moles per square meter per day (mol/m2/day). DLI = PPFD x seconds of light per day / 1,000,000. It is the dose that most directly drives yield.

The clear plastic humidity lid placed over a clone tray to trap moisture around rootless cuttings.

One instruction to the graphics card to draw something; fewer draw calls means a faster model (aim for under ~300).

A treatment applied to the growing media and root zone rather than the foliage.

A slow, one-directional sensor error that pretends to be a real trend. The dangerous form of noise; defeated only by calibration and cross-checking.

Final dry weight as a fraction of starting wet weight; around 10% in the source data.

The deliberate drop in root-zone moisture between irrigations, used to steer the plant generative or vegetative.

The size of a dryback, in percentage points of water content: the daily peak minus the next trough (e.g. 78% to 58% is a 20-point dryback).

How much water a specific container holds after free drainage stops; an observed per-pot state, not a textbook soil constant, that drifts as roots grow.

Hydroponics where roots hang in oxygenated nutrient water with no solid medium; oxygen comes from an air pump.

Electrical Conductivity, a measure of nutrient strength in the feed water, in mS/cm.

A proxy for how much fertiliser salt is dissolved in the root zone. Higher EC = stronger feed.

Measured EC divided by target EC. Above 1 = too salty (water more to dilute); below 1 = too weak (hold back).

How many usable PAR photons a fixture produces per joule of electricity. The key efficiency number when comparing lights: good LEDs are ~2.7-3.0 umol/J, HPS ~1.7-1.9, CMH ~1.3-1.9.

The program that samples non-viable particles, viable air, surfaces, and personnel against alert and action limits.

The tiny living baby plant inside the seed, already containing a root, two cotyledons, and a shoot.

A microbe that lives inside healthy-looking plant tissue. The hardest contaminant in tissue culture because surface bleach can't reach it.

Microscopic worms (e.g. Steinernema feltiae) drenched into the medium to parasitise and kill fungus-gnat larvae.

The firmware/platform that runs the physical sensors and some switches, reporting into Home Assistant.

Exponentially-weighted moving average, a rolling average that weights recent readings more heavily, giving less lag for the same smoothing.

Limiting who and what enters an affected room to stop pests spreading between rooms.

The small piece of plant you cut off and place into the culture vessel to start a new culture.

To take a flat 2D shape (like a floor outline) and push it upward to give it thickness or height.

If the engine can't confirm the master arm switch, it treats the system as disabled rather than firing, so a state-sync gap can't make it act blind.

The large leaves with few trichomes, removed by hand early in trimming.

Light around 700-750 nm, just past the PAR band. It is sensed by phytochrome, can speed the perceived onset of night, and adds some stem stretch; high doses can reduce bud density.

Using the measured result of an action to decide the next action. The heart of any self-correcting (closed-loop) system.

Seed bred to produce almost only female plants, removing the need to identify and remove males.

The maximum VWC the medium can hold before water just runs off; default cap is 70%.

The salt concentration held in the root-zone medium; the Athena guide gives stage targets (e.g. 3-5 in veg) that your mixed feed is meant to build toward.

A partial topping where most but not all of the growing tip is cut, which can produce several new tops rather than the two from a clean top.

The equipment and furniture placed inside the bare shell: benches, lights, dehumidifiers, tanks, racks.

Switching the grow-light timer to 12 hours on and 12 hours off, the change that triggers flowering in photoperiod plants.

The architect's flat, top-down drawing of walls, doors and rooms, usually dimensioned in millimetres.

The mobile flowering-signal protein made in the leaves once nights are long enough; it travels to the growing tips and reprograms them from making leaves to making buds.

Running plain or lightly fertilised, correctly pH'd water through the medium to wash out accumulated salts and reset the root zone.

A liquid treatment applied to leaves and stems, as opposed to the root zone.

An object that carries and transfers microbes, e.g. a phone, pen, tool or handle. Hands move contamination from fomites to the crop.

A translucent 'field of view' wedge showing exactly what a camera can see; floor outside every cone is a candidate blind spot.

Insect droppings and debris; an early visible sign of a pest presence during scouting.

The most water a pot can hold after it has finished draining.

Good Agricultural and Collection Practice, the upstream cultivation/drying standard that feeds compliant biomass into the GMP facility.

The cultivation and collection standard applied to medicinal-cannabis starting material, recognising it as a botanical crop before it becomes a medicine.

Rules for making and correcting records: contemporaneous, indelible, original preserved, corrections by a single legible line that is initialled, dated and reasoned.

The forward-and-backward record linking any finished unit to its source lots, operators, equipment, and conditions, what makes a targeted recall possible.

A generalist eats many pest types (and pollen) and persists without prey; a specialist eats one pest type fast but fades without it.

Two growth modes: vegetative = leaves and stems and size; generative = flowers, fruit and density. Crop steering shifts the balance.

The process of a dormant seed taking up water, waking, and pushing out its first root and shoot.

The percentage of a batch of seeds that successfully sprout.

A standard 3D file format for importing detailed models authored in tools like Blender, or exporting the building back out.

A quality framework of rules and records that ensures products are made safely, consistently and traceably.

Donning and doffing protective clothing in a defined order across a clean/dirty line, so contamination never crosses. Gown top-down; de-gown in reverse, dirtiest first.

The dosing unit for powdered nutrients; multiply the label g/L by tank volume (e.g. x50 for a 50 L tank) to get grams to weigh.

Gradually opening vents and removing the dome so rooted clones acclimate to drier room air before transplant.

The amount of dissolved calcium and magnesium in water, reported as ppm CaCO3 or grains per gallon (1 GPG = 17.1 mg/L). Soft water is under ~1 GPG; very hard is over ~10.5 GPG.

When a stressed female plant produces male parts and pollinates itself, seeding the buds; often caused by light leaks in the dark period.

The legal order for managing risk: eliminate, substitute, isolate, engineer, administrate, then PPE as the last line.

A 2000 method to estimate pore-water EC from bulk EC, VWC and temperature; useful but ~+/-20% sensitive and invalid below VWC 0.10 m3/m3.

Free open-source home-automation software that runs the dashboards, automations, and integrations described here.

Sticky sugary excretion from aphids and whitefly that coats leaves and grows black sooty mould.

A tiny loop of RNA, smaller than a virus, that causes 'dudding' in cannabis: stunted plants, smaller buds and big losses in cannabinoids and terpenes.

A clear cover placed over seedlings to trap moisture and keep humidity high while roots are tiny.

Oscillation in a feedback loop that over-corrects back and forth instead of settling, often caused by noisy input or too-tight tuning.

Growing with roots in a nutrient water solution (or inert media fed by it) rather than soil; needs slightly acidic, closely managed pH.

A disorder where shoots turn glassy, swollen and water-soaked. They root and harden poorly and usually die at transplant.

International harmonisation guidelines for Quality Risk Management (Q9) and the Pharmaceutical Quality System (Q10).

The initial swelling of a seed as it absorbs water, the first physical step of germination.

A nutrient that stays fixed where it was first deposited and cannot be relocated (Ca, S, Fe, Mn, Zn, B, Cu, Mo); its deficiency shows on the newest/top growth first.

An if-then plan that ties a task to a fixed time and place ('at lights-on, the AM tech does X'), which makes follow-through 2-3x more likely.

Latin for 'in glass', anything happening inside the sterile culture vessel. Opposite of ex vitro (out in the real world).

Lab-testing a plant (e.g. by RT-qPCR) to confirm it is free of a specific disease. Proving a plant is clean.

A substrate (like rockwool) that holds no nutrients of its own, so the plant gets exactly what you feed and nothing else.

The part of the system that estimates things you cannot measure directly (plant stress, transpiration, vigor) from things you can.

Drawing many identical objects (like 210 plants) in one batch instead of one at a time, the main way to keep the model fast.

A repeating loop of evaluating, deciding, and controlling pests using the lightest effective method, escalating only as needed.

The length of bare stem between two nodes.

Yellowing between the leaf veins while the veins themselves stay green, a specific pattern seen with magnesium, iron and manganese problems.

Light intensity falls off with the square of distance: roughly doubling the fixture-to-canopy gap cuts PPFD by about 75%. This makes hanging height the coarse intensity control.

A layered pest strategy combining prevention, monitoring, biological controls and targeted treatments rather than routine calendar spraying. This guide identifies the pests; the IPM SOP is the decision process.

The international standard that classifies cleanrooms by the number of airborne particles allowed per cubic metre.

A plain, human-readable list of facts (room names, sizes, positions) that the code reads to build the model.

Potassium chloride solution that keeps a pH probe tip hydrated; storing dry or in plain water permanently damages the probe.

A shorthand for the color mix of a white LED. Higher Kelvin (4000-6500K) is bluer and veg-leaning; lower Kelvin (3000-3500K) is redder and flower-leaning.

A check that is both easy to skip and dangerous to miss (dehumidification at lights-off, a dosing pump with no irrigation timeout). The few items a checklist must force.

Small, airy, underdeveloped flower from shaded lower bud sites, the low-value growth lollipopping removes.

The heat carried inside water vapour, removed by condensing that vapour back to liquid; this is the dehumidifier's job. Every litre a canopy transpires becomes latent load, which is why bright rooms need so much dehumidification. Separate from sensible (dry) heat, and often the bigger of the two at high light.

A precursor that warns early (leading) versus a symptom that confirms damage already happened (lagging).

The expected healthy range for a value given the cultivar, growth stage and photoperiod, used instead of one fixed threshold.

Any control you can change in the room - light intensity, cooling setpoint, irrigation shot, CO2 dosing. The paper counts eleven main lever families.

The time from egg to egg-laying adult. In warm dry rooms this drops below a week for spider mites, which is why infestations explode.

The point where a plant cannot use more light because CO2, water, nutrients, temperature, or genetics has become the limiting factor; beyond it, extra intensity adds cost and stress, not yield.

Damage from too much intensity, showing as white/yellow bud tips directly under the fixture, upward-cupping 'taco' leaves, and faded color. The fix is to dim or raise the light, not to feed more.

The single input in shortest supply relative to what the plant is demanding; it alone sets the growth rate. Raise the limiting input and growth climbs, raise anything else and nothing happens. In a grow room the weakest support system, usually dehumidification, cooling or CO2, is what really caps yield, not the brightest light the fixtures can make.

A microbe-rich organic soil bed (recycled organic living soil) that self-buffers pH and feeds plants via biology; water-only and reusable indefinitely.

When nutrients become chemically unavailable to the plant, here, caused by precipitation when concentrated Part A meets Part B.

Removing the small branches, nodes and leaves from the lower third (roughly the bottom 10-18 inches) of the plant so energy goes to the top buds, leaving a lollipop shape.

Magnifiers for inspection, a 30x hand loupe finds spider mites; russet and broad mites need 60-100x magnification.

Gently bending and tying down branches to spread the canopy flat without cutting the plant, lower stress and no recovery time.

Maximum Allowable Carryover, the calculated residue limit used as the acceptance criterion in cleaning validation.

An element needed in large amounts: nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg) and sulfur (S).

The periodic (at least annual) review by senior management of the quality system's performance and effectiveness.

An absolute per-zone lockout: when ON, nothing waters that zone - not auto, not emergency, not a manual trigger.

The main way nutrients reach the roots: dissolved in the water the plant is drinking, they are carried to the root surface as the plant transpires. Faster transpiration moves more water and more nutrient, so feed strength (EC) and light level have to rise together, under-feed a bright canopy and it fades.

The keystone index listing every controlled document with its current version, owner and review status.

Takes the middle value of the last N readings; excellent at deleting single-point spikes without smearing real step changes.

The food a culture grows on: a jelly of mineral salts, sugar, vitamins and (optionally) hormones, set firm with a gelling agent.

The dome of forever-young, constantly dividing cells at the very tip of every shoot. The cleanest tissue on the plant, too new to carry most diseases.

An element needed only in tiny amounts: iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), boron (B) and molybdenum (Mo).

Using tissue culture to make many genetically identical copies of one plant.

The dry crystalline form a powdered nutrient ships in; it must dissolve into water before a plant can absorb it.

A nutrient the plant can withdraw from old leaves and resend to new growth when supply is short (N, P, K, Mg); its deficiency therefore shows on the oldest/lowest leaves first.

The percentage of the flower's weight that is water. Used to measure yield, not safety.

A healthy stock plant kept in vegetative growth, from which cuttings or explants are taken.

The average of the last N readings, redrawn as each new reading arrives. Cancels random scatter at the cost of a small lag.

The quality standard for medicinal-cannabis products under the NZ Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Regulations 2019.

A short, human-readable diagnosis (e.g. 'salt accumulation pattern') carrying a confidence level and an evidence chain, replacing a wall of raw numbers.

Dead, brown, dry or crispy leaf tissue, often at tips or edges.

The point on a stem where a leaf and a bud join. A nodal segment is a short stem piece containing one bud.

Meaningless fluctuation in a measurement: single-reading spikes, high-frequency jitter, or transients from doors, traffic, and irrigation events.

One of the chemical elements a plant must absorb to grow normally; the major ones for cannabis are N, P, K, Ca, Mg and S, plus trace micronutrients like iron and zinc.

When an excess of one element blocks the uptake of another, e.g. too much potassium suppressing calcium and magnesium.

Tip and edge browning caused by feeding too strong a solution (excess salts), a form of toxicity.

When nutrients are physically present but chemically bound into forms roots cannot absorb, usually because pH drifted out of range; looks like a deficiency.

Sample at least twice as fast as the fastest pattern you need to resolve, or you will misread or invent it.

A test result outside the accepted limit, triggering a formal investigation before any release decision.

A gap in a wall, a door, pass-through or roller door, described by its position along the wall, its width and its top (head) height.

When a loop over-corrects back and forth instead of settling, usually from acting too fast, too hard, or on noise.

The four daily irrigation stages: P0 morning dryback, P1 ramp-up, P2 maintenance, P3 pre-lights-off (emergency only).

The 400-700 nm band of light that plants can use for photosynthesis. Lumens, lux, and watts do not measure PAR, which is why they are useless for judging a grow light.

A tiny non-stinging wasp (e.g. Aphidius, Encarsia) that lays eggs in a host pest, killing it as the larva develops; key for aphids and whitefly.

The calcium- and nitrogen-rich base part of Athena Pro Line; always dissolved into the water first.

The second part carrying sulfates and phosphates; added only after Part A is fully dissolved and dispersed.

A named moment a short checklist is run at (lights-on, first irrigation, pre-dark), rather than one long sheet done whenever.

Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking, the NZ legal term (Health and Safety at Work Act 2015) for the duty-holding business, i.e. the employer.

Partially-decomposed bog moss; the airy, acidic, high-CEC base of most bagged soil mixes.

Signing off a check without actually doing it. A predictable response to a check that is too slow, unowned, or never acted on, not simply carelessness.

How strongly a material responds to an electric field. Water is very high (~80), dry substrate ~3-5, air ~1; this contrast is what lets a capacitance sensor infer water content.

How strongly a material responds to an electric field. Water has a very high value, so a moisture probe is really measuring permittivity and converting it to water content.

A plant hormone added to the medium to steer growth, cytokinins push shoots, auxins push roots.

How acidic or basic the water is on a 0-14 scale; nutrient solution is usually adjusted to about 5.8-6.2.

Acid and base solutions used to adjust pH; Down is typically phosphoric acid, Up typically potassium hydroxide.

A condition where a nutrient is present in the root zone but cannot be absorbed because root-zone pH is outside the range in which that nutrient stays dissolved.

A safety check that blocks irrigation when the source tank's pH or EC sits outside configured limits (default pH 5.8-6.2) and sends a phone alert with an 'Irrigate Anyway' option.

Where a row sits in its daily cycle: P0 morning dryback, P1 ramp-up, P2 maintenance, P3 pre-lights-off and overnight.

A drop in photosynthetic performance and active damage caused when a leaf captures more light energy than it can use.

The daily schedule of light and dark hours, written as light/dark (e.g. 18/6 for vegetative growth, 12/12 to trigger and run flowering).

A plant that only begins flowering when daily light drops to about 12 hours; regular and feminised seeds are photoperiod.

A plant pigment that senses red and far-red light and toggles between an active form (Pfr, 'it's day') and inactive form (Pr). It measures the length of the uninterrupted dark period and triggers the flowering signal.

The Pharmaceutical Inspection Co-operation Scheme's Guide to GMP for Medicinal Products; the reference standard the manual is structured to.

A fine hair emerging from a bud site; white when young and darkening to orange/brown as the plant ripens. A rough, not definitive, harvest cue.

The plant's actual inferred condition (e.g. on-track, stressed, steering generative), worked out from many fused signals rather than one gauge.

The salt strength of the water actually touching the roots (as opposed to the bulk average). It's what the plant really 'tastes'.

Everything done after the plant is cut: drying, trimming, curing and storage.

Personal protective equipment. In a grow it is plant and personal: the same gown, gloves and covers protect the crop from the person and the person from hazards.

The total usable photons a fixture emits per second (umol/s), regardless of where they land. Divide PPF by wattage to get efficacy.

Photosynthetic photon flux density, the amount of usable light hitting the canopy, in µmol/m²/s.

How many usable (PAR) photons land on one square meter each second, measured in micromoles per square meter per second (umol/m2/s). This is the 'how bright at the canopy' number, read with a quantum/PAR meter.

PPFD is instantaneous light intensity; DLI is total light delivered over a day. The system tracks DLI-to-date, not just the instant.

A manufacturer's grid showing PPFD across the coverage area at given hang heights. Use it as a starting point, then confirm with your own meter readings at canopy height.

A unit expressing nutrient concentration in water, closely linked to EC; different conversion scales exist so the EC value is more universal.

Parts per million / total dissolved solids: the combined weight of everything dissolved in water. PPM meters convert from EC using a 500 or 700 scale, so readings can differ between meters.

Soaking rinsed coco in a calcium-magnesium solution so its exchange sites stop stripping Ca/Mg from your feed.

A solid that forms and drops out of solution when incompatible ions (calcium with sulfate or phosphate) combine at high concentration.

A deliberate ladder of air pressures where cleaner rooms are more positive, so air always flows from clean to dirty and contamination cannot drift toward product.

A preventative agent is established before pests arrive and persists on alternative food; a curative agent is released to knock down an active, growing outbreak.

Gradual loss of accuracy in a pH probe over time; replace when drift exceeds about 0.2 pH between calibrations.

A pan-tilt-zoom camera that can swivel and zoom to track movement, used here for roof-intrusion coverage.

A water-mould pathogen that causes root rot, multiplying fast in warm (>23C) low-oxygen reservoirs.

QA sets and oversees the quality system and makes release decisions independently of production; QC performs the sampling and testing.

Quality Assurance, the unit (not production) that owns the signed decision to release a batch to market.

The organised set of responsibilities, procedures, processes and resources by which an organisation directs and controls quality; used interchangeably in the manual.

Risk-based decision-making per ICH Q9, used to identify, assess, control, review and communicate risks across the system.

The apex document that describes the whole quality system at a high level and points to the procedures and records beneath it.

Isolating incoming plants (washed on receipt, held 2+ weeks under observation) before they join the main crop.

The three mutually exclusive status states material can hold; physical and system status must always agree.

Working out which 3D object the mouse clicked on, by shooting an invisible ray from the cursor into the scene.

Damaging molecules produced when captured light energy has nowhere to go (too much light, or too little CO2 to use it); they attack leaf tissue and cause bleaching.

Two checklist styles: read-do = perform each step as you read it (setup, calibration); do-confirm = do the round from memory, then pause to confirm nothing critical was missed.

The lowest water content a rockwool block can reach and still rewet evenly from the dripper. Below it (around 25-30% WC) the fibre channels and the core stays dry.

A standalone controlled document that indexes records of one type (e.g. deviations, CAPAs, documents) and grows only by adding rows.

Untreated seed that produces a roughly even mix of male and female plants.

The mandatory wait after a spray before anyone may safely re-enter the treated room; posted on the door.

How much water vapour the air holds, 0-100%. The dry room is held at 60% RH.

To draw the 3D scene as a picture on screen; done many times a second to make it interactive.

When the probe works correctly but its local 1010 mL is not typical of the zone (channeling, air gap, moved probe), so the reading is true locally yet misleading.

Solvent (butane, ethanol, etc.) left behind in a finished extract; a key safety test with hard ppm limits.

Resolution is the smallest change a sensor reports (0.001 m3/m3 here); accuracy is how close the value is to truth (+/-0.03 generic, +/-0.01-0.02 calibrated). They are not the same.

Filtration that forces water through a semipermeable membrane, stripping most dissolved minerals to leave near-zero PPM (typically 0-10 ppm TDS) water as a blank canvas.

Relative Humidity, the percentage of moisture the air holds versus its maximum at that temperature.

The final phase when pistils darken, trichomes mature, and the plant moves stored nutrients into the buds before harvest.

Spun molten-rock fiber; inert, free-draining, holds lots of water with little buffering; alkaline until pre-soaked.

A spun-mineral-fiber plug that holds water and air; the medium a cutting roots into. Peat plugs serve the same role.

The wet substrate immediately surrounding the roots, where nutrient and water uptake actually happens.

A gel or liquid containing indole-3-butyric acid, a synthetic auxin (plant root hormone) applied to the cut stem to trigger root formation.

The legally accountable individual who oversees regulated activities, authorises release, approves recalls and is the regulator's contact.

Excess nutrient water that drains out the bottom of the pot during or after irrigation.

Water that leaves the bottom of the pot.

A hangable pouch or box that releases predator bugs onto the plant while keeping carrier media out of the irrigation system.

A lower-confidence-bound estimate of how much water can still be added before capacity, the only headroom number allowed to authorize a shot.

How often you record a measurement; it must match the biology - fast enough to catch real responses, slow enough to avoid logging useless noise.

Everything contained in the 3D model, slabs, walls, benches, lights, cameras, held together as one structure.

The agreed shape of the data file, here just four record types: rooms, walls, equipment and devices.

Planned, routine visual inspection of plants and traps to catch pests, damage, or disease as early as possible.

The digital serial protocol the TEROS-12 uses to report VWC, EC and temperature; a stale, NaN or railed value over it is a hardware fault, not data.

The hard protective outer shell of the seed that guards the embryo until conditions are right to sprout.

The dry heat a grow room must shed, coming almost entirely off the lights (nearly all fixture wattage ends up as heat). It raises air temperature and is the air-conditioner's job. A rough rule: watts of light going in equals watts of sensible heat you have to remove.

Combining several imperfect sensor signals into one better estimate of what's really happening, with a sense of how much to trust it.

The specific number a machine is told to aim for (e.g. cool the room to 24C).

A setpoint is the exact value a controller aims to hold right now; a target is the broader goal you're steering toward over days.

When plants are crowded too close, they waste energy stretching weak inner branches toward light instead of building quality flower.

When multiple rooms plus AC/dehumidifier drain into one bucket, making it ambiguous which source caused a flush.

One small irrigation pulse, sized as a percentage of the pot's water capacity (e.g. a 5% shot).

A real, meaningful change in the plant or root zone worth acting on, a sustained trend, a step change tied to a known event, or a repeating daily rhythm.

Signal is a real change in the plant or root zone; noise is meaningless jitter from the sensor or environment. Good control acts on signal, ignores noise.

How strong the thing you care about is compared with everything else competing for attention. High SNR = calm and legible; low SNR = busy and reactive.

A non-nutrient salt sometimes high in well or coastal water. Elevated sodium competes with nutrient uptake and is a key reason to choose RO.

An electrically operated valve that opens or closes water flow when the relay board switches it.

A written, step-by-step instruction for a task, so it's done the same correct way every time by anyone.

A 'source' is a well-lit leaf that makes more sugar than it uses; a 'sink' (a flower, root, or shaded leaf) consumes more than it makes. Opening the canopy turns shaded sinks back into sources.

A real, assignable change, something actually shifted, that breaks outside the control limits and warrants investigation.

Change in VWC per delivered mL of water (dVWC/delivered_mL); when it collapses toward zero it is a candidate sign the pot is full, but only a candidate.

The mix of light colors (wavelengths) a fixture emits. Blue (400-500 nm) favors compact growth; red (600-700 nm) drives flowering and is the most photosynthetically efficient band.

Pulling branches out from the central stalk and tucking them into the trellis squares so light and air reach the middle and the canopy fills evenly.

A method from manufacturing that uses a process's own history to decide whether a change is normal noise or a real event needing action.

Bending a stem to check dryness; when it cracks instead of folding, the plant is near ready.

A coloured (usually yellow) adhesive card that catches flying pests for early warning and monitoring of pest pressure.

Fine pale speckling on leaves caused by sap-sucking pests piercing individual cells, classic for spider mites and thrips.

The rapid vertical growth in the first 2-3 weeks of flower, where a plant can nearly double in height before settling into bud production.

Moving growing tissue onto fresh medium. Repeated every few weeks to keep cultures alive and multiplying.

The growing medium roots live in, coco coir, rockwool, peat or soil.

The material a plant's roots grow in; it holds the plant up and stores water, air, and dissolved nutrients.

The material roots grow in, e.g. coco coir, rockwool or water (hydro), or soil. Determines how much the root zone buffers pH.

The salt strength of the water inside the medium, where the roots are. Steer to this reading, not the dripper or drain EC.

An in-medium sensor (here GroundWork) that reports both VWC and EC for a zone.

Replacing the probe's generic equation with one fitted to your exact media, tightening VWC accuracy from +/-0.03 to +/-0.01-0.02 m3/m3; mandatory for tight steering.

Small trichome-covered leaves around the bud, scissored off during trimming.

System enabled is the master arm/kill switch (OFF = nothing fires, ever); Auto irrigation only disables autonomous shots while still allowing manual ones.

Reacting to normal common-cause jitter as if it were a real event; Deming showed this actually increases a process's variation.

Combining two or more products in one spray tank, only in label-approved combinations and the label-specified add order.

The first white root to emerge from a seed; it grows downward to anchor the plant and seek water.

The real outcome you want (e.g. a healthy transpiration rate), which a setpoint is only a proxy for.

The stream of numbers your sensors send back, temperature, humidity, moisture and so on, over time.

Aromatic oils that give each strain its smell and flavour; they evaporate if the flower gets too dry.

A downward hooking/curling of leaf tips, the classic sign of nitrogen toxicity (overfeeding).

Switching the photoperiod from 18/6 to 12/12 to induce flowering. Because the lights are on fewer hours, daily light (DLI) drops about 28% even if PPFD is unchanged.

A free, widely used code library that draws interactive 3D scenes inside an ordinary web browser, with no software to install.

Growing plant cells, tissues or organs in a sterile container on a jelly-like food, instead of in soil. Also called micropropagation when used to multiply a plant.

The step that converts raw scene brightness into a natural-looking image; with ACES tone mapping pure-white surfaces 'blow out', so use warm off-white.

Cutting off the plant's top growing tip to halt upward growth and force the branches below it to become two or more new tops, creating a wider, bushier plant.

The total fraction of a medium that is open pore space (air plus water) rather than solid material.

The remarkable ability of a single plant cell to regrow into a whole new plant, given the right food and hormones.

The plant has too much of a nutrient (or salts overall); typically dark, glossy, clawed leaves and burnt tips, the opposite look of a deficiency.

Being able to follow a product backward and forward through every step and input, essential for recalls and audits.

The process of plants drawing water up and releasing it as vapour through their leaves; a core driver linking water, heat and humidity.

An estimate of how fast the plant is 'breathing,' modeled from VPD, light, and substrate water-content response.

The continuous column of water pulled from the roots up to the leaves and released as vapour through the stomata. It carries dissolved nutrients upward; calcium in particular rides almost entirely on this stream, so weak transpiration shows up as calcium deficiency even when the tank is full.

Moving a rooted clone from its cube into a larger growing container or block to begin the veg stage.

Horizontal netting stretched over the canopy that plants grow up through; it holds branches spread out early and supports heavy buds later (SCROG = Screen of Green).

A microscopic resin gland coating the buds that holds most of the THC and aroma; its color (clear, milky, amber) is the primary harvest signal.

The frosty resin glands on the bud that hold THC, terpenes and flavonoids.

The familiar serrated cannabis leaves that grow after the cotyledons; their arrival marks the start of feeding.

A nutrient system split into Part A and Part B that must be added to water separately, because mixing them while concentrated causes a chemical reaction that ruins the batch.

Calibrating a pH pen against two known buffers (usually pH 7.0 then 4.0) so it reads accurately across the working range.

How evenly light covers the canopy, found by reading PPFD at nine grid points and dividing the lowest by the average. Above 0.75 is considered reasonably even.

Ultraviolet light ~280-315 nm. Sometimes added in late flower in hopes of boosting trichomes/potency, but evidence is inconsistent and it poses real eye, skin, and plant-stress risks.

Equipment qualification framework tying each design stage to a matching verification: Design, Installation, Operational, and Performance Qualification.

Documented evidence that facilities, equipment, utilities and processes do what they are intended to do.

The two steering modes that select which dryback and EC targets the engine uses; vegetative keeps the plant wet and bulking, generative drives stress/flower.

Two steering goals: vegetative favours root and leaf growth (longer drybacks, lower EC); generative favours flowering and fruit (shorter drybacks, higher EC).

Whether a seed is alive and capable of sprouting; viability declines as seeds age or are stored poorly.

An infectious agent even simpler than a virus: just a short circle of RNA with no protein shell.

The pocket of media a probe actually senses; for the TEROS-12 about 1010 mL, large for a dielectric probe but still a local sample of one spot.

The fraction of the media's total volume that is liquid water, in m3/m3; 0.34 means 34% of the pot volume is water. The headline number for irrigation steering.

Vapor Pressure Deficit, a combined measure of temperature and humidity (in kPa) that governs how fast a plant transpires; the schedule here assumes 1.2–1.5 kPa.

How strongly the air pulls moisture from the plant; drives transpiration. Measured in kPa, e.g. 1.4-1.6; ideal value depends on growth stage.

How 'thirsty' the air is, combines temperature and humidity into one number that drives how fast plants transpire.

Software that estimates the real water in a plant's root zone by combining several signals, then decides irrigation, instead of trusting one moisture probe.

How much water is in the root-zone substrate, as a percentage of its volume. A core crop-steering signal.

A 0–1 measure of free water available to microbes; keeping Aw <=0.55–0.65 suppresses mould and yeast growth.

The running tally of water IN (irrigation) minus what the plant drank minus what drained, equal to the estimated water in the pot.

The share of a block's or pot's volume that is water right now, as a percentage. In rockwool this single number is what you steer.

The share of a medium's pore space that retains water after it has drained, expressed as a percentage by volume.

Trimming before drying (wet) versus after the hang-dry (dry); the source workflow dry-trims.

The weight of freshly cut plants before drying; compared with dry weight to get the dry-to-wet ratio.

The required time after treatment before a crop may be harvested for sale, to keep residues within limits.

One of the 3 independently steered sections of the room, each with its own probe pair and valve, all fed from a shared tank.

One of the six independently-controlled grow tables, each with its own valve and probe and its own phase state.