Canapa Mundi: AutoPot in Rome

Time to suckle on the teets of the she-wolf. If you’re on the hydro-show circuit then February means Canapa Mundi and Rome! We went and got ourselves truly steeped in the Italian growing culture, an experience well worth sharing with you, dear reader. Let’s review.

Far from exhibiting bite-sized food just after the weekend, Canapa Mundi is all about getting Italy on an International footing where cultivation trade shows are concerned. It’s growing, and how! So much so that the show rolled out it’s multi-faceted floor plan of stands at new digs for 2020. What digs? None other than the 11,000m² Fiera di Roma. With the Fiera as its home, Canapa is really able to stretch out. The show can now welcome 25,000 visitors to its 260 premium stands with style and grace.

This is Italy – only charisma, le energia and la maniera would cut the mostarda. Who then to carry our flag into the arena? Who should we send on this vulpine milk-run? Dave and Dozza would probably do. Our International Sales Manager and UK South Rep. moored their galley in Fiumicino and set about exhibiting AutoPot engineered marvels that put some of that Ancient Roman tat in the shade. Out with the aqueducts, in with the AQUAvalve. In all honesty the Romans did alright with their watering systems, a solid foundation which we’ve modesty built on, and arguably improved.

One of the things we most enjoy about Canapa is the clientele. As befits a country with such a strong reputation for fresh produce, the show draws in a throng of incredibly savvy growers from both horticultural and hydro backgrounds. It’s just a pleasure to chat to the visitors who, despite often being new to our systems, pick up on the mechanics and growing potential of AutoPot instinctively. 

We enjoyed some illuminating convo with hobby growers and the retailers who serve them. Often such customers have limited growing space but a super-abundance of outdoor light and warmth, especially in summer months. This makes a compact, modular watering system such as ours, that also requires no electricity or running water, absolutely ideal. Similarly positive were yet more commercial deals struck for facilities in Italy, Portugal and Switzerland. There, established AutoPot producers are attracting admiring glances and generating plenty of new interest.

Refinement was not the sole preserve of the venue, our kit, or our representatives at Canapa. We took a high-grade selection of trusted growing aids to complete our dynamic display. Enter the Budbox, the like of whose construction and priceless evolution few grow tent manufacturers can rival. How to get even more growing power from your grow tent? PAR reflection. What is PAR? Obviously you’re not a golfer, but it wouldn’t matter if you were. This PAR is Photosynthetically Active Radiation – the acceptable wavelength range within which photosynthesis can occur. Budbox tents reflect this radiation so devilish-well that Budbox happily subject their products to independent testing, testing what verifies Budbox’s superior performance.

And what better to illuminate every exquisitely finished quarter of the Budbox than an all-embracing, hyper-efficient LED fixture from Lumatek? The Zeus 600W gave the crowds an exciting peek at tech that perfectly balances light quality with light quantity. Upshot of this balance is that the Zeus is reckoned to provide single-source lighting for the entire grow cycle, including the vegetative and flowering period.

Our little flowers, Dave and Dozza, showed no signs of wilting over the duration of a spectacularly busy weekend. Toddling off with sausages tucked under his arm and Italiano tripping from his tongue, Dan deeply ingratiated himself to the local populace, with Dave it’s more in those shimmering eyes. Last trip abroad for the foreseeable but we will assuredly be back as soon as the fates allow. Thank you Rome.