176: From Panic to Prevention: Pathogen Management Strategies for Indoor Growers

Taylor Robinson 00:00:00:

It all starts with education and that's circles around to knowing what to do when. And once we get data back to you, of course we're going to educate you through the process. But the more familiarized you are as an operator or grower, the less stressful, the less kind of daunting that's going to be. The more confident you're going to feel in your response and your data interpretation. And there, you know, we kind of see a natural progression where there's less hand holding. You know, we're always available for that. But a lot of people will, you know, after a few interactions, okay, this makes sense. I understand what we're doing, I understand the goal, I understand what the data means when it comes back. So I'm going to kind of take it and run and kind of go from there, so.

Harry Duran 00:00:42:

Taylor Robinson, chief scientist and founder at Rimrock Analytical, thank you so much for joining me on the vertical farming podcast.

Taylor Robinson 00:00:49:

Hey Harriet, appreciate you having me on. Pleasure to be here.

Harry Duran 00:00:52:

Thanks to the team for reaching out. There's so much happening in the space that's directly related and tangential to indoor farming and it's hard to keep up with all the innovations happening. So I'm glad we got connected to hear what you guys are up to in the space.

Taylor Robinson 00:01:06:

Yeah, yeah, likewise. And you guys do great work as well, kind of sharing the message from different aspects of the industry. So again, pleasure to be here.

Harry Duran 00:01:14:

Where are you calling in from?

Taylor Robinson 00:01:15:

Just outside of Denver, Colorado.

Harry Duran 00:01:17:

Okay.

Taylor Robinson 00:01:17:

Born and raised there, Western Colorado. Yep. Colorado guy.

Harry Duran 00:01:22:

What's the founding story like? Were you always in this space or what was the road that led you to Rimrock?

Taylor Robinson 00:01:29:

Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's a bit of a winding road. So I had, I grew up in, as I said, western Colorado and at that time I was exposed from an early age in kind of the agriculture farming space. I had family members that to this day are still in the, you know, the peaches and a lot of the fruit crops. Yeah, So a lot of farming, a lot of agriculture. My dad had actually owned and operated a garden and nursery center when I was younger as well. So big focus around plants, that was kind of a big part of my.

Harry Duran 00:01:59:

Upbringing and still is a good work ethic too, I would imagine.

Taylor Robinson 00:02:03:

Yeah, I'd like to think so.

Harry Duran 00:02:04:

Yeah.

Taylor Robinson 00:02:05:

But you know, kind of parallel to that, I always had a deep interest in science, particularly molecular sciences. So I had gone to school and really started my early career out in cancer research. And so I was doing a lot of like molecular genetic based studies. And research and, you know, something I really had a passion for and you know, the cancer research position. It's a tough life. You know, major kudos to those who do that. It's, you know, funding is always an issue, looking for grants and kind of always felt like you're kind of finding, looking for your next meal. So I ended up getting out of that.

Harry Duran 00:02:39:

What drove you into cancer research?

Taylor Robinson 00:02:42:

It's just an interest of mine. It was, it felt like it was a nice combination of providing some real change potentially and some real benefit to people. But also, you know, kind of scratch that itch I had of being kind of real in depth in the, the bench sciences.

Harry Duran 00:02:57:

Okay.

Taylor Robinson 00:02:57:

And molecular sciences.

Harry Duran 00:02:58:

Okay.

Taylor Robinson 00:02:59:

So, yeah, I kind of built a career following that in various technical roles. All kind of science related. A lot of water treatment I did, including in the CEA space.

Harry Duran 00:03:08:

Okay.

Taylor Robinson 00:03:09:

But I started Rimrock in 2019 and for me it was kind of the perfect marriage between able to provide, you know, cutting edge science services and, you know, blending that with the plants and agricultural space. So for me it's kind of a passion project that we've been able to grow and hoping to continue on that trend.

Harry Duran 00:03:32:

What did you see in terms of a need when you started rimrock and how familiar were you with the space that you were entering?

Taylor Robinson 00:03:40:

Yeah, I think there's certainly a need. You know, we kind of take the mantra of, you know, data to decisions at rimrock. So we see ourselves as a vehicle or a path where we streamline the. What can be some barriers to growers and operators to get the necessary data. I think there's certainly a need there. There's certainly need for some innovative services as well, some new things, whether that be for novel pathogen screening or process optimization. But I did have experience in the CEA space leading up to the founding of rimrock, again primarily through water treatment services. It was a great primer to me to really do the nuts and bolts on how a lot of the hydroponic systems work in vertical farming and just broad CEA from a broad sense, you know, there's a lot of innovation, precision farming, you know, there's a lot of touch points there. So it was a good kind of broad nuts and bolts introduction to the space and it led itself pretty nicely into more of the lab and technical thing.

Harry Duran 00:04:45:

Now, for folks who may not have a good understanding of what the issues are from a water treatment perspective or some of the challenges indoor farmers face on that front, what would you say is what would be surprising for folks or some of the Things that you learned when you were working with the water in those controlled environments?

Taylor Robinson 00:05:03:

Yeah, yeah, A lot of different things you see working in the industry, I think some of the things that can potentially catch operators off guard or cultivators off guard is, you know, instances where you can get biofouling, for example, where you get a biofilm production, particularly when you're using, you know, like pressure compensated emitters and kind of smaller tubing, whether it's top feed drip or you know, some of the even broader piping systems, you can see that where not only has a detrimental impact on your watering system efficacy, your fertigation system, but also can be a harboring ground for potential pathogens. And some of the things we've seen doing microbial surveys through rimrock in water systems is, you know, of course we talk about the potential risk of plant pathogens, whether those be reborn pathogens or others. But there's also a potential risk for human pathogens that I think are often overlooked. Whether these be different strains of E. Coli, Salmonella, listeria, Some of these things pop up from time to time and can, you know, potentially be spread in water systems or surface systems. So there's a potential risk there for the produce, the plants themselves, but also on the human side. So you know, we've seen some potentially nasty critters and microbially speaking in some water systems. So that was kind of a shock and like, all right, look, this is something to be addressed here sooner than later.

Harry Duran 00:06:28:

Is that something that the, the growers usually catch when it's too late or do they see that as a result of like the how well or how poorly their crops are growing?

Taylor Robinson 00:06:38:

It's mixed bag, I would say. So we're obviously promoting kind of taking a proactive monitoring stance towards microbial management specifically. It's almost always the case that it's easier to remediate if you catch things early in their progression. Microbes have the capacity to multiply and spread very rapidly. So keeping a close eye on things, establishing routine or regular monitoring surveys we found is our key. Yeah, and so for certain growers, I think many of them had been kind of surprised where they weren't necessarily taking measures for routine monitoring, routine sampling, where all of a sudden they see an issue, there's a visible issue whether that's biofouling or whether that's plant performance related. And then it's all catch up, it's all right. Now we need to kind of all hands on deck. Fire drill. Where is this coming from? What is it? How do we treat it, how do we mitigate it? You know, what's the extent of the impact? So it can be kind of an urgent situation on the reactive side.

Harry Duran 00:07:43:

So as you said, you had some familiarity with the CEA space. Was that primarily in the glasshouse side, greenhouses, or were you looking at actual pure indoor vertical farms as both?

Taylor Robinson 00:07:53:

Yeah, yeah, it was really interesting because we're able to see all kinds of different operations, different growth styles, different growth facilities, you know, all within the controlled space, I would say, broadly speaking, but vertical farming for sure, various levels of automation up to and including a lot of robotics. Some customers we've worked with, you know, more kind of traditional NFT type layouts, even dwc. So kind of a wide exposure to different growing operations and systems.

Harry Duran 00:08:25:

And does size play a role in terms of like how prevalent these types of issues are?

Taylor Robinson 00:08:31:

I would say so at least it's scalable to scope. So when you have, you know, smaller system or smaller facility, it may be easier to, if you do find, come across a problem, you know, the, your piping network is, tends to be a little bit smaller and simpler. Your fertigation system also tends to be a little smaller, simpler. So with scale, everything kind of just, you know, scales with that in terms of complexity on remediation and kind of identifying root causes and entry points, things like that. So all the more reason to kind of have a plan in place. And if you're already monitoring, you'll typically you'll be able to identify microbial intrusions early and also you'll be able to identify roughly where they're coming from. So you can do a more focused remediation. Whether that's updating a biosecurity plan, whether that's doing some sort of shock treatment or remedial treatment. You'll be able to be a lot more focused in that sense.

Harry Duran 00:09:31:

So when you started Rimrock, did you already have partners in mind that you were planning to work with or maybe people that came over from the water treatment relationships you had built?

Taylor Robinson 00:09:41:

Yeah, yeah, a little of both. Yeah, we were able to bring some of those over because it was, you can see they kind of work hand in hand. When you have a water treatment system place, you know, there would be typically some base level of analysis just to show ongoing efficacy of your treatment solution. And what we were able to do is really expand on that and look kind of at the facility in a broader sense for the water and your fertigation. But also surface sampling with, you know, nutrient substrate monitoring or optimization, varied analytical points that we're able to address. So we're just. It's kind of an added value chain.

Harry Duran 00:10:16:

There's. And so when you look at the offerings that you provide, is it more from a proactive stance or when people come to you, is it almost like there's a fire drill going on and they need to figure out what's going on so they reach out to you?

Taylor Robinson 00:10:31:

Yeah, for sure. It's both. It's certainly both. So we do have several agreements in place with some larger pea growers organizations where we're just doing routine monitoring. And every so often something will pop up that is, you know, potentially of concern. They're able to directly address it and kind of continue on. We have other growers, you know, newer operations that it is kind of a reach out of. Hey, you know, I've got a whole bay or a whole area of plants that are underperforming or failing. And we need to get to the bottom of a asap, figure out if there's any hope in salvaging these plants, if it's a wash or a loss there. And you know, where can we do or where do we move to prevent this from spreading broader to other plants and facilities? You know, these things can move quickly, as I said, and it can be pretty detrimental to operations and very disrupting when you have a major outbreak like that.

Harry Duran 00:11:28:

And so who would. For the folks that are just hearing about rimrock for the very first time, like, how would you describe the suite of services that you provide and my couple, like, would be an ideal client for you.

Taylor Robinson 00:11:43:

Yeah. You know, again, I'd mentioned it before, but we're trying to eliminate the trial and error for operators. We do a lot around microbial and pathogen monitoring, whether that's on either side, the proactive monitoring side, or more the reactive troubleshooting side. We do a lot of work on benchmarking. So with this, this can be establishing or optimizing your nutrient feed program. A lot of people for their fertigation systems, they're doing custom blends and, you know, you want to make sure that you're feeding appropriate rates so not too much, not too little. And that goes for each of the micro and macronutrients. And we can test that not only in the fertigation of the fertilizer formula itself, but also in plant tissue, whether that be through SAP analysis or broader, just general tissue analysis. So you can kind of gauge what your uptake rates are and that helps you optimize. And then I think finally we assist in risk management, whether that be from plant loss, whether that be through human exposure to potential microbial pathogens. You know, our services provide you that data trail where you can really dial in your system. And then as far as scale, we work with very large, you know, very large organizations that are operating in multiple states, multiple countries, all the way down to even hobbyist growers. We really kind of pride ourselves in opening up these services so we're not gatekeeping to anyone who could benefit from them. We feel that the services provided are going to provide a better experience for growers and cultivators of all scopes and sizes. So we want to make sure that we're available and able to offer that at a not only a process that's streamlined and straightforward, it's not overly complex, but also a price point and kind of just a general user experience that kind of scales from large to small.

Harry Duran 00:13:37:

What's a typical engagement look like when folks start to work with you? Is this something that happens over the course of weeks or is it ongoing? You did mention benchmark and testing and obviously this, you know, you've mentioned also earlier this idea of monitoring the data and helping farmers make decisions based on that data. So I'm curious what that cycle looks like for folks that are just getting started with this because a lot of it is probably an education process for them as well.

Taylor Robinson 00:14:02:

Yeah, absolutely. It depends. So on someone who's kind of in the troubleshooting mode, we understand time is of the essence. We're not going to have a lot of upfront opportunity necessarily to really do a full top to bottom evaluation and monitoring plans and all this, maybe that would come afterwards, but you know, we're able to move quickly in terms of sample processing and sample submission for targeted troubleshooting. But I'd say in a more ideal scenario, when we're interning or looking to basically complement say a biosecurity program operation has, we will, we'll sit down, we'll outline kind of what their objectives are. What are the different things we can offer specifically to their facility and their systems and processes. It may include a site survey where we'll actually fly out and view the facility itself, kind of map it out and that helps us develop a monitoring plan. From there we can do things. We're rolling out a microbial heat map is what we're calling it. So what this does is it helps you better visualize your microbial results mapped to your process flow in your facility. And with that you can see where some potential hotspots for pathogens. For example, how do Those potentially integrate to downstream systems. What is your risk for transmission to those other systems or processes? We find it just kind of helps translate that data into a way that's more visual and a way that makes sense where you can say, all right, I see this is a high risk area, we should really address this versus, you know, we had something pop up that's maybe a lower risk organism in a lower risk area. We'll address that in kind. So those are typical kind of back and forth on how we'll set up an early agreement or service offering and then just.

Harry Duran 00:15:55:

I'm curious about the education process for, I mean, as you might imagine, and you probably experience firsthand how much stuff growers and farmers have on their plate in day to day operations. And this is probably just one of many things that they're keeping an eye on. So. And how do they come to you and not feel overwhelmed in terms of like how to manage this, mitigate it, but also, you know, future proof it. How much of it is education on your part to them in terms of like how they got to this point?

Taylor Robinson 00:16:23:

Yeah, absolutely. And we really want to share that aspect where we're not just going to pump out some numbers and you know, kind of wash our hands of the process. We feel some level of ownership in the success of our clients as well. It's, you know, a classic scenario of if we're doing well, then you're doing well. It's a nice mutualism there. So education is a big part of that. We definitely do one on ones. We do teleconference meetings, we have supporting documentation that kind of walks you through. You know, I have piff, the Mr. Fusarium and my roots now, what, you know, what are some steps that can be taken, what are some remedial actions? What can I kind of expect looking at this moving forward in the days and weeks to come? And how can this data, how can you leverage this data to get to a place where you would rather be, whether that be through, you know, eliminating a current outbreak or preventing future outbreaks. So we definitely support that and we definitely want that additional value and insight.

Harry Duran 00:17:22:

And then, you know, this, the way you answer this might actually take away business from you. But I'm curious from a prevention standpoint, like what can farms look at, you know, and how can they think about their environment in a way that takes into consideration the wide variety and maybe we'll go through like the laundry list of the most common. But I think, you know, when you mentioned some of the common microbes and Pathogens that, that can appear in an indoor farm, you know, what can farmers, you know, how should they be thinking about this from a preventative standpoint?

Taylor Robinson 00:17:54:

Yeah, it comes with planning. It comes with having processes, SOPs in place, existing processes. So you're not. The last thing you want to do is you come across an issue and you're basically writing the response plan real time. And so you're figuring that out while you're trying to actively address some sort of issue or concern. So we recommend having specified biosecurity plan in place with associated SOPs. This is going to be one of the primary means, particularly on a microbial level, to help mitigate future issues and minimize risk. And biosecurity plans, I mean, they're varied in their scope and their intensity, I would say, but I think a well established plan is going to mitigate a lot of the common risk. But that being said, there's no foolproof plan. Right. These microbes are evolved to kind of coexist with plants. And, you know, there's no thing that nature abhors, a vacuum in terms of having an empty space or a niche that normally some sort of microbial group would fill. Even well done biosecurity plans doesn't mean that you're totally immune to risk. And that's where we look to have the data trail, where you can look at, you know, microbial levels, not only for pathogens, but we typically recommend on a lot of our programs we'll do base level just aerobic bacteria as well. And you can see that kind of ebb and flow over time throughout your facility. And it gives you an idea not only of if you do have a treatment program in place or your biosecurity plan, how well is it working? Do we need to make some tweaks? Do we need to optimize? You know, what if we do see periodic upticks is, you know, does that correspond with a change out or a cropping event or, you know, what can we assign this to so that we're limiting any potential for surprises down the road? And all of that comes with, you know, the data that we're looking to provide and take that guesswork out.

Harry Duran 00:19:53: I noticed that you had a couple of case studies on the website. Is there one that comes to mind where, you know, you can kind of walk through where they were before they contacted you and what made them reach out and how you were able to like, remedy their situation?

Taylor Robinson 00:20:06: Yeah, yeah, certainly we've done a lot. I think the ones that stick in my mind are the ones that even though it's kind of starts out as an unfortunate scenario, but the ones that come in, it's kind of a panic troubleshooting scenario when you're able to step in, provide some level of support. Oftentimes, you know, we're talking to the cultivation director, someone who's you know, at a managerial level but still close to the operations. And they're just overwhelmed, right? They're panicked and you know, like oh my gosh, what's going to happen here? So being able to kind of ground them a little bit, provide kind of some options moving forward, what is this going to look like over the next week or so? What's the type of data that we expect to achieve? So we specific grower, they had what ultimately we found to be a pythium outbreak in their roots and they're having some major losses that you know, could have potentially significantly impacted their operations. And it moved into an area of their grow that there's a high potential for spread. So we went in, we did kind of an extensive sampling plan. We were able to identify Pythium as the primary culprit for the, the plant health effects that they're encountering. And we're able to isolate the where the root was coming from, the root cause, isolate that, help them establish a treatment remediation plan. They're able to flush some things out, make isolate some other grow areas in their facility and you know, a month or so later they we continue testing, continued monitoring and they went from pitium levels just through the roof and you know, really prolific in the side of their building to non detect. And you know, matter of relatively short order, they did lose some plants, but once they, you know, replace those, they're able to get back to their normal kind of growing schedule. They regularly schedule programming, if you will, and they were just very relieved. And what we often see is then they signed up for the ongoing monitoring after that kind of a scenario where it's like we definitely don't want to go through this again. We've now seen the value in action and we want to kind of stay on that proactive side of things.

Harry Duran 00:22:16:

And do you typically see the concern being like they're going to lose like the entire crop or like they're worried about things at that level?

Taylor Robinson 00:22:25:

Yeah, I mean it's definitely a risk, particularly you know, depending on the style of growth. So going back to kind of water systems, if you're doing something that's recirculating or you're reusing your runoff, whether that's like an aeroponic type system or, you know, some of these systems. Yeah, they're not flooded drain necessarily. So if you're reusing that, the chance or the potential that you get a sick plant, the pathogen is stay in the roots and it sheds. And now you have potential communication to a very large portion of your grow.

Harry Duran 00:23:00:

Yeah.

Taylor Robinson 00:23:01:

And it's not uncommon, not unusual at all. If you have a high level of pathogen load, pathogen pressure in one part of a facility, particularly if your biosecurity plan isn't dialed in, you can get transferred to other sites of the facility. Even if they're spatially isolated one room to another room or bays or things like that, you can see spread. And if these systems, if they're unmanaged, it really can get out of hand quickly. What you'll find is, you know, it's not as easy as just nuking your, you know, nucleating your, your distribution system with really high bleach or chlorine dioxide or, you know, some sort of strong biocide because that, that will have an ill effect on the plants themselves, even the healthy plants. So it is a balancing act between, you know, how can we isolate this the best of our ability and how can we effectively treat the microbial side, being cognizant that there's some phytotoxicity potential in the plants themselves. So if, you know, trying to walk that line could be a difficult one.

Harry Duran 00:24:05:

It seems like once they've gone through this experience, the first time, it feels like, you know, there's a wake up call for them.

Taylor Robinson 00:24:12: Yeah, yeah, that's been our experience. You know, you hate to see people go through that kind of frantic period, but it is kind of sells itself in the sense of taking a proactive stance and, you know, just staying on top of things. And we've talked a lot about the microbial side, but we've seen this before with, you know, just your process optimization. We had one story comes of mine. We were working with a cultivator. They were using a rockwool type or, you know, a stone wool type substrate media. And they're experimenting with a few different vendors as a few different suppliers, which, you know, it makes sense. You don't want to be, you know, chained to one if something were to happen to your supply chain. But as they're doing this, they all of a sudden started were detecting heavy metals in their plants, some arsenic. And they're scratching their head, scratching their head, trying to figure out where could this be coming from. It's a clean It's a clean grow operation. Well, we ended up finding that there was some soluble arsenic that had traveled in with the mineral wool for one supplier. And, you know, as uncommon as that may be, it was an area where it's like, well, maybe now when we're bringing in new lots or new suppliers for substrate, for example, maybe that's something that we want to get evaluated and tested just again, to be proactive. It's much easier to, you know, test it when it's still on the pallet and get it confirmed clean before you introduce it to your grow system versus after. So it's a kind of multifaceted approach there.

Harry Duran 00:25:42:

Yeah, we're seeing a lot of different approaches to substrates. In some of the conversations I've had as well. There's folks that are going with almost like 3D printed molded substrates as well. Sure. I had another company called Soil Steam, which moved. Was started in steaming soil for. To remove pathogens. And they moved into the controlled environment space because they're steaming substrate because, you know, because of this exact issue you're referring to. So it seems like something that's a common issue across a lot of farms.

Taylor Robinson 00:26:13:

Sure.

Harry Duran 00:26:13:

I'm curious what your take is on the overall health of the indoor farming space. Obviously, that can be vertical farming, but that can be greenhouses as well. But can you see any indications of how business is going from, you know, like, people that are chatting with you or is. Do you see any sort of, like, rise and fall in terms of, like, cases or. I'm just curious what, you know, what take you have, because you deal with a lot of, like, different types of farms, and you could. You probably have, like, this weird canary in the coal mine kind of perspective sometimes with some of these issues.

Taylor Robinson 00:26:50:

Yeah, yeah. No, it has been interesting. Certainly there's been changes over the last, you know, several years, decade or so in terms of. There's kind of a period a few years back where there's almost kind of a sense of controlled environment ag euphoria, where there's a lot of investment dollars, a lot of hype.

Harry Duran 00:27:07: Oh, yeah.

Taylor Robinson 00:27:08:

You know, a lot of people really kind of amping the. The business side, certainly from kind of an investment perspective, but also just how this is going to, you know, solve hunger and, you know, solve food deserts and things like that, which I think in a lot of cases are true. Those are accurate predictions. But people were going into it, I think, with maybe not the most realistic expectations in terms of crop densities and protect, you know, projected productivity, that you might get a Given grow space and the cost, the added cost that goes in, whether that be energy costs or, you know, just input costs, all these different things that, you know, are associated with precision growing. So I did see, you know, I think we've all seen kind of a consolidation somewhat in the space. We've seen some pretty big names kind of come in and then go leave the space for one reason or another. But I would say the industry is still strong. I think if anything, you know, it's taken a couple hard lessons. But I think the players that are still active now and those that are entering the space, I think there's been a lot of hard fought lessons learned in terms of how to efficiently manage productive grow operation. So we're, you know, we're certainly, you know, excited and optimistic towards the future of the CEA space. I think there's, you know, currently there's a lot of. You mentioned Canary in the coal Mine. We have seen some of our customers have some level of hesitancy just with kind of the general uncertainty of whether that's through, you know, supply chain and international vendors and just kind of general uncertainty in the market right now. So we have picked up on that. But I think the sense is that hopefully that's kind of a temporary state and we'll get back to more of a predictable business as usual type place here sooner than later. But as I said, I think it's strong. I think it's here to stay. I think with more people, more urban areas, it just makes sense to be able to utilize spaces and get people closer to their food sources. So I think it's here today.

Harry Duran 00:29:16:

Certainly you mentioned the move into more urban spaces and I'm wondering from a pathogen perspective if that induces a whole new set of challenges or is it the same? Pretty much as long as you're pretty secure in terms of how you're locking down your environment.

Taylor Robinson 00:29:33: Yeah, I think it can be just as if not more secure. It all is contingent on having your policies and practices in place. We've seen some controlled growth spaces that are more suburban, if not even you might consider rural in their location and they're adjacent to typical row crops. And they would get. It is kind of an interesting study. They were doing a monitoring plan with us and every fall they would get an uptick in Fusarium.

Harry Duran 00:30:07:

Okay.

Taylor Robinson 00:30:07:

And it's man, what is the deal? We haven't changed anything. We haven't, you know, haven't introduced anything new. It was a bit of a puzzle. What we found was it coincided with the Time that the row farmers next door are adjacent to them were either cropping and. Or rototilling, you know, kind of rowing their crops. And the dust that it would bring up would get taken into their H vac system. And so we'd see an uptick of Fusarium that was apparently endemic to those, you know, those fields. It wasn't maybe not to a level that was causing row farmers, you know, significant issues necessarily, but enough to be kind of a native population. And they were, you know, they were monitoring and they were, you know, managing it. So they. It never resulted in, you know, major crop losses or anything, but you just see it kind of in the background where they'd be very clean, very clean, and then all of a sudden uptick. So there are scenarios where even kind of the more rural farms can be subject to some additional exposure as well.

Harry Duran 00:31:03:

Yeah, that makes. Totally. Makes a lot of sense. It's almost like you have to play the role of detective when you're in there trying to figure out, like, where.

Taylor Robinson 00:31:08:

These things come from. Yeah, yeah, it can really feel that way at times. And that's why we try to really, you know, with like, the heat mapping and things like that. Let's try to streamline this and make it as reproducible as possible. So we're not starting from ground zero as detective. You know, if we gotta really figure things out on the fly, it's, you know, trying to follow that prescription a little bit more where you can be a little more efficient.

Harry Duran 00:31:30:

How big is the Rimrock team?

Taylor Robinson 00:31:32:

We've got. We're a pretty small team. We've got a handful of techs and we actually just hired on a new business development executive. Jeremy was our most recent hire. So, yeah, small crew, but looking to grow for sure.

Harry Duran 00:31:49:

What's a tough question you've had to ask yourself recently?

Taylor Robinson 00:31:53:

Tough question, this one? No, I think I've been kind of going back and forth. It's maybe little more boring, but just on the business side and again, kind of dealing with some uncertainty in the markets, dealing with. And it's all trickled down. So our customers are feeling it. So in turn then we start to feel it. We are somewhat diversified in the sense that, you know, our primary target market is the CEA space, but we do a fair amount of work with soil suppliers, some substrate providers, and then some other plants. We do like, we do some genetic testing for carnivorous plants, exotics. So we're branched out a little bit still. Again, kind of in the plant space, but there's some Adjacent markets that we work into. So, you know, we're diversified enough to kind of avoid the bulk of the pinch. But as far as just kind of difficult questions or ponderings is just the, you know, what are the right moves to make today that are going to set us up for tomorrow? Really?

Harry Duran 00:32:50:

Yeah, that seems to be the ongoing question for all business owners and entrepreneurs for sure.

Taylor Robinson 00:32:55:

Yeah, Maybe that's just forever, but definitely feeling it now.

Harry Duran 00:32:59:

How do you guys getting the word out now?

Taylor Robinson 00:33:02:

Yeah, well, we, we do. We're on social for sure. We love to take the opportunity to kind of share some knowledge and spritz our kind of share brand messaging with podcasts. We've been on several of those. Some trade shows we've been to. Kind of looking to ramp that up hopefully next year a little bit more. A lot of local outreach. So we do have a national presence in terms of our client base.

Harry Duran 00:33:23:

Yeah.

Taylor Robinson 00:33:24:

But we also like to focus on kind of the Colorado Denver area too. Just it's our backyard, so we definitely want to be supportive of kind of our neighbors. And those are kind of our primary outreach modes right now.

Harry Duran 00:33:35:

Have you been to indoor egcon?

Taylor Robinson 00:33:37:

We have, yeah. Indoor ag is a good one. Cultivate is one I've been to. Yeah. We've been doing a handful of cannabis shows as well. MJ Biz looking at any con, I think next year. So kind of branch out a little bit in that sense as well.

Harry Duran 00:33:54:

Yeah, I mean, I think it's part of it is also not that it needs to be a scare tactic, but it's coming at it more from an education perspective. And I think, you know, preventative maintenance or just languaging around that I think is helpful for farmers, you know, because it's almost like you want to show them what can happen if they're not careful and the little things they can do to prevent it along the way. And I think part of it is sometimes, as we just alluded to earlier, there's so much on their plate that it's something that's not top of mind for them until it's too late. I think conferences, I think sometimes you can slow down and have a longer conversation with folks that come by who have probably had an issue or are worried about having an issue.

Taylor Robinson 00:34:36:

Yeah, absolutely. And the last thing we want to do present it as some sort of scare tactic. But is a real risk. It is. The potential is there. And I think there's a thing that's well understood, but it's just more of a means of showing like, hey, there is a true ROI here. There is a true benefit to minimizing your risk and staying on top of these things as I think we've put a lot of work into making sure that our services are widely available and affordable. Yeah, and it's, you know, you have one of these outbreaks and you're even a whole annual monitoring plan is easily paid for.

Harry Duran 00:35:10:

So it's.

Taylor Robinson 00:35:11:

We definitely try to shape it as more of a win win than more of, you know, people might bucket you into more of the expense. Maybe a luxury expense. Yeah, we're trying to educate to show well this is really should be part of your have your ongoing processes and.

Harry Duran 00:35:26:

It looks like you do a good job on the site. Let's look at some of the stuff you have on there. You've got templates, forms, case studies, educational resources, even instructions on sampling. So it seems like you're doing a lot of handholding and I think directing people and we'll have links to those as well. But I think is that you know, part of a proactive approach to educating people as well?

Taylor Robinson 00:35:45:

Yeah, 100%. It all starts with education and that's circles around to knowing what to do when. And once we get data back to you, of course we're going to educate you through the process. But the more familiarized you are as an operator or grower, the less stressful, the less kind of daunting that's going to be. The more confident you're going to fill in your response and your data interpretation and there, you know, we kind of see a natural progression where there's less hand holding. You know, we're always available for that. But a lot of people will, you know, after a few interactions say okay, this makes sense, I understand what we're doing, I understand the goal, I understand what the data means when it comes back. So I'm going to kind of take it and run and kind of go from there.

Harry Duran 00:36:29:

I'd like to leave a little bit of time towards the end of these conversations to any thoughts you have for the indoor farming space in the interest of like collaboration, getting people to talk more about issues that are happening. Is there anything that comes to mind for you when you think about just having this audience? There's a lot of folks that are like founders, C level execs in the world of vertical farming. And so I'm curious what thoughts you have for the industry.

Taylor Robinson 00:36:55:

I think where you can to look for collaboration even across different industries or different segments. I think from a very high level a lot of people have the same Objectives and the same goals from a cultivation space, even though they may be doing it differently. I think there's been some instances where everybody's kind of looking for a secret sauce or kind of a secret something, whereas. And that may be the case, and that's totally fine at the initiative, but the more you're able to collaborate, the more you're able to share knowledge. An example, my back past experience in the water space, moving into kind of more of the analytical and data providing space, services space, you know, that having that kind of viewpoint, there's tons of overlap there and it's really been beneficial and sharing that value with our clients. And we have other ag professionals on the team that likewise have either the business marketing experience or, you know, more of the technical boots on the ground experience, where it just kind of makes you more rounded, it makes you more prepared to handle the varied issues that you come across. These systems are complex and there's, you know, genetic for reason where you've got a lot of moving parts, you've got a lot of. You gotta be a plumber, you gotta be a grower, you gotta be an electrician, you gotta be in, you know, coding and automation. So just a virologist. Yeah, exactly. A microbiologist. All of these things in one. And it can be daunting. So, you know, leverage your partners, leverage your network and, you know, I think everyone can kind of grow together. Pun intended.

Harry Duran 00:38:34:

Yeah. Well, Taylor, thanks for taking the time to educate my audience and the listeners on issues that maybe existing, hopefully not in your farm as you listen or watch this conversation. But I think what the important takeaway here is that it's something that can be prevented, it's something that can be diagnosed as well. So where's the best place to point folks to who are just kind of in this space and want to learn more about possibly working with you?

Taylor Robinson 00:38:59:

Yeah. Brimrockanalytical.com is a good place. Like I said, we had some re. We have resources there available if you're kind of just starting out. You also can reach out to us directly through our contact page there. We're on LinkedIn and Instagram as well, so feel free to look us up there and give us a follow. We'll happy to chat and kind of talk about your specifics.

Harry Duran 00:39:22:

Okay. We'll make sure all those links are in the show notes and I'm sure this is very informative for folks, so I appreciate you taking the time to educate us.

Taylor Robinson 00:39:30:

Yeah. Thank you again, Harry. It's been a pleasure.