Front Row Ag Technical Specialist Tyler Simmons chats with founders Matt Curran and Egan O’Keefe about what’s actually working in outdoor cultivation at commercial scale.

In this conversation, the team breaks down real-world trends they’re seeing across commercial outdoor and mixed-light operations, including why many greenhouses end up costing nearly as much as indoor grows, how poor planning around light and infrastructure limits performance, and why smaller, in-ground plants are helping growers dramatically reduce labor and fertilizer costs.

They cover practical topics like greenhouse design mistakes, DLI planning, plant spacing strategies, labor logistics, soil and water testing, fertilizer efficiency, and how some operators are moving from $25–50 per pound down to $10–15 per pound in just a few seasons.

This episode is a grounded, field-tested discussion for cultivators navigating tighter margins, rising input costs, and the realities of large-scale outdoor production.

Chapters

00:00 Greenhouse design mistakes

01:15 Why “indoor-level control” gets expensive

02:25 DLI and seasonal light reality

03:45 Sun spectrum vs indoor expression

05:10 Outdoor labor and plant size tradeoffs

06:55 In-ground vs container growing

08:45 Soil testing before feeding

11:30 Water quality challenges outdoors

13:05 Managing EC, sodium, and pH in fields

17:10 Silica and stress tolerance

22:10 Water temperature and pathogen pressure

25:00 Adjusting expectations by season

26:30 Enzymes in outdoor soil systems

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