Tips on growing.

[Evil Hippie]

Here you can post tips for growing marijuana.

[delta9]

Are you sure one thread is enough to encapsulate all of what there is in growing lore? Especially if we're talking specifically about growing good ganja (I know nothing about growing industrial hemp).

Why, let's see. There's the two major divisions, indoor and outdoor; choosing to use vegan organics, organics, some chemicals, lots of chemicals, hydroponics, aeroponics; growing personally, commercially, or industrially; mothering, cloning, hybridizing... There's just so much to cover!

But we'll assume most people coming here that want tips on growing are growing personally and without a lot of money invested, and are probably growing indoor or in their backyards, and it is their first time.

Thus, I will continue with some general tips.

A bit of background. Marjijuana comes in three sexes. There are male plants, female plants, and hermaphrodite plants. Good bud comes from females that aren't fertalized by a male. Males don't produce a lot of bud and it's not as good as the female's. Hermaphrodites are just plain evil. We don't like those.

Firstly, picking your seed. You likely aren't reading this thread and about to go to a seed dispenser and shell out $100 USD or more for a measely 10-15 seeds, so we're probably working with bagseed. Bagseed is seed that comes from a random bag you bought in the usual way. Whenever possible, you want seeds from a bag where the plant was properly fertalized by a male. That means the bud could have been good, but the plant spent all this production on making all these seeds. Too bad for the commercial grower, and while you may have been thinking at the time it was a crappy bag, it's a blessing for the budding (pun intended) new grower. Why is this important, you ask? Well, because we know these seeds were fertalized and not from a hermaphrodite (self-fertalizing) plant. Barring a good haul from someone's botched commercial grow, you want to collect a good 10 or 15 seeds from your "good" bud. It may take a while, but you'll see why you need 10 or 15 seeds as you read on.

Select 7 to 15 seeds and begin. In the end, some of these will die early (this is your first time, after all), some of these will be males (they're useless for our purposes), and some just may be runts (they're still cute ladies, though).

Next, germinating. A popular method of germination is a paper towel in a plastic bag. While this works and will create perfectly viable bud, I personally prefer dropping 7 to 15 seeds into a container with water, and letting them sit there until they "pop" and sink. The thing is, there are these really tiny hairs on the first sprout, and they will weave themselves into the paper towel, getting destroyed when you pull them off the paper towel, and may lead to plant stress. In either case, it can take anywhere from two or three days to as long as two weeks for the first growth to pop out.

Now, are we doing this indoor or outdoor? If you're doing it outdoor, timing is very important. The plant goes into flowering (the good stuff) when the light cycle gets around even daylight and night - so if you're planting outdoor, you want to find a nice little patch of soil with good nutrients, the more space around it for the roots to expand, the better (because they'll find their own nutrients) and do it in late summer or early autum. This way, the vegetative stage happens when there is plenty of sun light, and the plant will "finish" when it starts getting more dark. How long exactly it will take depends on the strain and the light cycle of where you live, so there's really no telling. One to two feet diameter of soil between each plant should be alright for most strains.

If you're doing this indoors, you have a choice to make. Start out in a small container and transplant to a larger one later (thus risking stressing the plant and turning it male for sure) or starting out with a large (one to two feet diameter) pot for your pot. Your choice, but minimum you want to start with a few inches diameter - and the sooner you transplant to a larger container, the less stressful it is to the plant.

Lighting is beyond the scope of this posting, but one can use most any kind of light - just remember not to put it too close (it can burn the plants) or too far away (they plants will STRETCH and strain trying to get to it). You'll get the hang of it after your first few attempts - you'll start to notice what the plant likes and doesn't like in the envioronment you give it. The only thing I can't stress enough is EVEN lighting.

A common early mistake is OVER watering the plant and killing it. Many people like to "soak" the plant and then let it sit until the soil all around it is nearly completely dry (a good two to four days in early stages). This window of time gets smaller and smaller as the plant gets larger (for obvious reasons). Misting with a spray bottle of the leaves every other day is generally a good idea, as well.

Pests are also beyond the scope of this posting, but be aware of POWDERY MILDEW and SPIDER MITES (look them up on google (http://www.google.com)). Neither of these are good, powdery mildew is many times worse.

Above all, these plants have FEELINGS and if you treat them well with love and affection, they will produce a much nicer product. It is sometimes said the resulting bud from a particular grower is a reflection of how they treated the plant...

Light cycles... As intimited in the paragraph about outdoor planting, the light cycle has a lot to do with what the plant is doing. Usually, the plant will sit in vegetative stage for a month or two. The correct light cycle is somewhere between 16 and 22 hours (18 is usually a good number) of light per day depending upon the strain in question and the rest dark. Again, you'll learn to see what your plants like as you get more experienced.

After a few weeks of vegetation, the plants will begin to show their sex. Males usually show their colours first. Sometimes it can take as long as into the first couple weeks of flowering before you are sure, but it is this author's opinion that you should eradicate (or at least move far far away) any for sure males, and at least move any possible males by the first week of flowering's end. For more information on identifying sex, visit overgrow's faq (http://www.overgrow.com/growfaq/browse.php?topic=169)

The flowering (budding) stage occurs after a month or two of vegatative growth, and you send the plant into flower mode by lowering the light cycle, usually to a 12 light / 12 dark setting. For those of you growing indoor, it cannot be stressed enough that when I say DARK I mean DARK (this is why closets are a good grow spot) and when in the DARK part of the cycle you DO NOT INTERRUPT WITH LIGHT. Pretty much unless your house in burning down and you want to save those babies, you leave them in the dark until it's time for the light to come on. Again, exact times vary from strain to strain, but you'll learn to get a feel for it. Flowering usually takes another month to a month and a half (sometimes two months). Yet again, it really depends on the strain!

For new growers, it is often proclaimed, "pick early and pick often". Take little samplings from your newly flowering babies. You will come to a point of potency, and then it is time to harvest. Some prefer to manicure (cut off leaves and other sundry) and then dry, some prefer to dry and then cut - I'll leave it as experimentation for you (that is half the fun, or at least, is for me, of growing this wonderful plant). In either case, dry in darkness. You can minimally just leave them sitting on a rack of some sort in the same space they grew in (unless you grew them outside, of course).

Do not over handle your buds, either. It's a bit of contention over just how frail and fragile they are (some people touch them all the time, just to spite those of us that say not to, and proclaim it's all good), but scientifically, the more you touch them, the more you're knocking off and getting your oils onto trichomes (and the trichomes are what we WANT here), so I suggest being on the side of cauton and not touching them more than necessary.

Anyway, after they appear to be dried, smoke a little - it'll probably be a bit harsh, but it's time for a reward, damnit, because you're not done yet! Oh no, now comes one of the most important parts - curing the bud. For this, we have manicured buds of a size that can fit in large glass jars (like, uh, mason jars, I think they're called) preferably with lids that close and rubber seals. What we're going to now is pack in, though not harshly (however, the more bud you get into a jar, the better, so a little pressure isn't bad - you shouldn't be FLATTENING any, though), said jar and "sweat" the buds. If you noticed harshness or inability to keep a joint lit, that's because it's not really completely dry yet. The OUTSIDE of the bud is now dry, but the INSIDE is still wet. Putting the bud into the jars and watching for condensation to appear (which is the inner wetness coming out), letting the top off a bit for a little, then reclosing, and repeating, until it stops "sweating" is how you'll get some real killer and real smooth bud. This should also be done in a cool dark place. Through this time, your bud will get *properly* dry, and a bit more potent than it was!

Now your two to four months labor is at an end - enjoy!

Of course, I left out many sundry details, but this should be enough for first timers or hobbyists that don't want to do any more research. For those that do, I highly recommend reading overgrow's FAQs (http://www.overgrow.com/growfaq/). Keep in mind, everyone falls into their own personal method, so don't be afraid to experiment and have fun with it! No one's method is "perfect" and as the saying goes, there are many ways to skin a cat - find your own!

[delta9]

:eek: PHEW! I'm tired now. That post was so long, it wouldn't let me post it initially! I had to cut some stuff and remove a bit of formatting to make it all fit :(.

I hope my novel is helpful and informative to a few people. Ciao. I'm going to bed. :confused:

[zeppelin tripper]

Yo man killer novel i read it all so it wasnt a waste of time in case your wondering i like the part about the mason jar.... But i am bored as hell sittin in class tryin to get growing tips.... Thanks delta dude :)

[Sparky]

That is very useful information. I was considering growing some of my own bud (I have a few seeds in a paper towel right now, just as an afterthought to de-seeding a bag the other day) but I didn't really know what to do. The only real problem I have now is how do to keep people (friends and family who don't smoke) from seeing this plant growing... I'd probably be quite screwed. Non smokers just don't understand the value of the plant because they are still listening to the government's propaganda.

Edit: To clarify, I was referring to the people I know and live with who don't smoke, not everyone. I realize there are plenty of people who don't smoke that support legalization of marijuana, but not in my immediate family. Sorry for the confusion (I saw a post about it in another thread)

[nappydread]

From my years of growing (mostly indoor) grass the two big things I've learned for a successful harvest are 1) Keep your plants out of sight from EVERYONE and, 2) Tell no one!

Have fun:)


peace

[mamasharones]

Jesus delta9 I don't think you know what the hell you're talking about

LOL jk. I think you covered most of it buddy thanks!

[delta9]

You're totally welcome. I hope this little primer finds someone, gets them interested, and they go to learn more :). I had to leave out a lot, most especially because EVERYONE has their own personal things they do, some of which will go against the things I posted - and that's perfectly fine :). I just wanted to try and provide a "first timer's first primer" for folks. :)

Ciao.

[delta9]

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