At Phat Panda, scale is part of the daily reality.

Based in Spokane, Washington, Phat Panda operates 52 independent flowering rooms and roughly 60,000 square feet of canopy, with harvests happening nearly every day. In an operation of that size, consistency has to be built into the process, but for Director of Farming Operations Mojave Morelli, it still starts with people.

After years of growing in coco, the Phat Panda team began exploring Grodan stone wool to improve irrigation precision, reduce substrate variability and create a cleaner production process.

The transition was not made overnight. The team tested different Grodan products and configurations before finding the system that worked for their facility.

With support from Grodan’s technical team, Phat Panda built a clearer roadmap for wet-up, rooting in, irrigation timing, shot sizes, runoff targets and crop steering strategy.

The result was a more repeatable system that helped reduce veg time, improve crop performance and simplify room resets across a complex facility.

Download the full case study to learn how Phat Panda transitioned from coco to Grodan stone wool, improved trimmed flower yield by 9–9.5%, reduced veg timelines from 21–28 days to 10–14 days, and built a more precise cultivation system around people, process and continuous improvement.

Key Takeaways from Phat Panda

• 9–9.5% Increase in Trimmed Flower Yield – Phat Panda reported a measurable yield lift after transitioning from coco to Grodan stone wool.

• Veg Time Reduced from 21–28 Days to 10–14 Days – A more defined propagation and transplant strategy helped the team shorten veg timelines and improve production flow.

• More Control Across 52 Flowering Rooms – With roughly 60,000 square feet of canopy, Phat Panda needed a root-zone strategy that could support consistency at scale.

• Less Substrate Variability – Moving from coco to stone wool helped the team create a cleaner, more repeatable production process.

• A Clearer Crop Steering Roadmap – Grodan’s technical team supported the transition with guidance around wet-up, rooting in, irrigation timing, shot sizes, runoff targets and root-zone management.

• Built Around People, Process and Precision – For Phat Panda, the transition was not just about changing substrates. It was about building a system the team could repeat, refine and improve run after run.