The BuildASoil Commercial Protocol
Clean testing and championship results, on repeat.
A simple, repeatable system for commercial living soil cultivation. Start with the cleanest base soil we make, feed the soil, then feed the plant. The same process is running on over 1000 yards in real commercial production right now, with clean testing and nothing but praise.
The situation
Commercial is a different game.
Home growers get to chase the perfect plant. You have to hit the perfect plant, pass every test, and do it the same way every single cycle, at scale, on a schedule. That is three problems at once: keeping heavy metals low enough to pass in the strictest markets, keeping quality high enough to compete on the shelf, and keeping the whole thing consistent enough to build an SOP around.
Most programs make you choose. Go clean and give up performance, or chase performance and roll the dice on testing. The Commercial Protocol was built so you never have to choose. Clean is the floor. Production is the point.
The protocol
The system, in three steps.
Build your clean base, feed the soil, then feed the plant. That is the whole protocol.
Step 1
Start with Ultra Clean bulk soil
Your foundation. Ultra Clean is our lowest heavy metal living soil, built from a short list of standardized, clean-sourced ingredients so every batch starts you in the same place. Over 25 percent biodynamic Malibu Compost makes it a true no-till base right out of the tote. For commercial scale, run it by the yard.
Step 2
Feed the soil with Pro Blend
Pro Blend is our commercial top-dress amendment. It holds your soil in range through the whole cycle with a steady now-and-later nutrient curve, clean inputs, and low heavy metals. Approximate NPK 3-2-1 with 4 percent calcium. This is what keeps the base soil producing without leaning hard on bottles.
Step 3
Feed the plant with BuildAVeg and BuildABloom
Pro Blend feeds the soil. These two feed the plant. Both are dry, amino chelated powders you water in, and they hand off to each other at the flip so there is never a question about which one is running. Amino acid chelation wraps the mineral in an organic molecule the root already takes in, which is why the rates are small and why growers see the response in days rather than weeks.
Dry concentrate also means you are not paying freight on water or storing totes of liquid in a room you would rather use for something else. You mix on site, at the rate your rooms actually need.
BuildAVeg
Vegetative growth, weighted toward nitrogen. Freeze-dried fish hydrolysate aminos, non-GMO soy protein aminos, soluble humic acid, Diamond K gypsum, and horticultural Epsom in one bag.
BuildABloom
Flower, weighted toward phosphorus and calcium. Guaranteed 2-10-5 with 10 percent calcium. Micronized rock phosphate, gypsum, potassium sulfate, and Epsom, all chelated with OMRI Listed vegan soy aminos. No bone meal, no guano, no phosphoric acid.
Dialing in the combo. Build your exact schedule with the BuildASoil Way calculator, then run it lighter when Pro Blend is in the soil. The soil carries the base load, so you need less watered-in feed to hit the same production. Build your schedule with the calculator
The whole cycle on one screen
Four inputs, and only one of them changes much.
Print this and put it on the wall of the mix room. Anchor everything to the flip, not to a calendar week, because veg length is your call and flower runs eight to twelve weeks depending on variety.
Intensity shows relative rate, not an exact amount. The calculator sizes every week for your container count, container size, and veg length.
The one week that matters most is the flip. The most common mistake with any bloom input is waiting until week four or five, when the plant has already set its structure and decided how many sites it is building. Start BuildABloom the week before you flip or the week flowering starts, and cut BuildAVeg to half in the same move.
Before you commit a room
The part you have to plan for.
We would rather you hear this from us than find it out on a Tuesday with 400 plants waiting.
These are suspensions, not true solutions. Getting organic phosphate this available means grinding minerals extremely fine, and extremely fine minerals stay in suspension rather than dissolving. Agitate the tank, and keep agitating while you feed. If it sits, it settles out, and the last plant on the line gets a different feed than the first.
Not suitable for Blumats
Water it in directly. Some growers do run it through drip tape and the particle size is fine enough, but organics through drip is a project. Go in expecting to flush lines on a schedule and budget the labor for it.
Build a real mix station
A tank with a working agitator and a repeatable fill procedure is the difference between a protocol and a guess. This is the single piece of infrastructure that decides whether your rooms run consistently.
Storage is dry and sealed
The soluble salts will cake if they take on moisture. It does not expire, but a wet bag turns into a brick. Keep pallets off concrete and sealed between mixes.
Compost tea goes in last
If you brew, add these to the finished tea when you go to apply, not into the brewer. Feeding a plant food to a brewing tea feeds the microbes, not the plant.
Third-party testing
What the lab actually found.
Every analysis below was run by an independent agricultural lab. We publish them in full rather than summarizing them, because in a market where your flower gets tested at the far end, what goes in the pot is your problem too.
BuildABloom against its guarantee
| Analysis | We guarantee | Aug 2024 | Oct 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total nitrogen | 2% | 2.37% | 3.31% |
| Available phosphate | 10% | 14.18% | 11.13% |
| Soluble potash | 5% | 5.12% | 5.60% |
| Calcium | 10% | not run | 16.84% |
| Magnesium | 1% | not run | 1.55% |
Both tests beat every guaranteed number. We label low on purpose, because mined and biological inputs move batch to batch and we would rather the number on the bag be one we can always hit than one that flatters us.
Heavy metals, against the AAPFCO limit
Fertilizers carrying a phosphate guarantee are regulated for heavy metals under AAPFCO SUIP #25, the standard most states use to decide whether a fertilizer is adulterated. Limits scale with guaranteed phosphate, so BuildABloom is measured against its 10 percent P2O5 guarantee.
| Metal | Result | Limit | Of limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arsenic | 0.41 | 130 | 0.3% |
| Cadmium | 0.27 | 100 | 0.3% |
| Cobalt | 0.35 | 1,360 | 0.03% |
| Lead | 8.2 | 610 | 1.3% |
| Mercury | <0.2 | 10 | <2% |
| Molybdenum | 1.36 | 420 | 0.3% |
| Nickel | 2.5 | 2,500 | 0.1% |
| Selenium | 0.18 | 260 | 0.07% |
| Zinc | 200 | 4,200 | 4.8% |
All values in mg/kg. Zinc is a plant nutrient here rather than a contaminant. Lead is the highest true contaminant at roughly 1 percent of the allowable level. BuildAVeg has its own nutrient and heavy metal panel, linked below.
Rates and volume
How much you actually need.
Why commercial growers run BuildASoil
Four reasons, all of them checkable.
Proven at scale
Over 1000 yards of this system are in real commercial production right now, with clean testing and nothing but praise from the growers running it.
We make it ourselves
Everything is manufactured in-house in Montrose, Colorado. We control the inputs and the process, which is how we keep it clean and consistent batch after batch.
We publish the testing
We do not ask you to take our word for it. Batch testing and lab panels are public, so you can see the numbers before you commit a single room.
13-plus years, and we grow too
Over a decade in living soil, with a free education library on YouTube. Our whole team grows. When you call, you talk to people who actually run soil.
Documentation
Everything we have, in one place.
Need something for a compliance file or a certifier that is not listed here? Email Support@BuildASoil.com and we will send what we have so you can check it against your requirements.
What facilities ask us
The questions that come up first.
Can I run this through my existing fertigation setup?
Partly. Pro Blend is a topdress and never goes in a tank. BuildAVeg and BuildABloom are dry powders that suspend rather than dissolve, so they need continuous agitation and they are not suitable for Blumats. Growers do push them through drip tape successfully, but plan on a line flushing routine and the labor to run it. If your facility is built entirely around unattended injection, call us before you order so we can talk through what will and will not work in your setup.
Is the finished product certified organic?
The soy amino acid input that does the chelating in BuildABloom is OMRI Listed for organic use, and the chelated materials built from it are registered as Organic Input Materials with CDFA, registered with the Washington State Department of Agriculture, and compliant with the USDA National Organic Program. The finished blend itself carries no organic listing because we have not paid for one. Every input is eligible. If you run a certified operation, talk to us before you buy and we will send the paperwork we have.
How much Pro Blend and how much watered-in feed?
Less watered-in feed than you would run on its own, because the soil is carrying the base load. Pro Blend on the schedule above, then run BuildAVeg and BuildABloom lighter than the standalone rates. The calculator does this math for your container count and size, and both sets of rates are correct in their own context.
Do you quote full truckloads?
Yes. Full truckload orders are quoted on your location, volume, and how the truck gets unloaded. Tell us whether you have a dock, a forklift, or need liftgate and manual unload, and we will build the quote around it.
A real room
Winning results, not just clean numbers
High Ledges in Massachusetts runs Ultra Clean and they are selling out. Their fresh pressed live rosin took First Place Non-Solvent and Best Overall Product at the 2024 NECANN Cup of Champions. Clean soil, clean feed, top shelf output. That is what this protocol is built to produce.
Get started
Build your next cycle on clean soil.
Start with Ultra Clean bulk soil by the yard, add Pro Blend to feed the soil, and run BuildAVeg and BuildABloom to feed the plant. Clean in, clean out, cycle after cycle.
Start with Ultra Clean bulk soil See all bulk and commercial
Planning a full truckload or want commercial account pricing? Email us at Support@BuildASoil.com and we will build a quote around your facility, volume, and dock setup.
