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vegitive stage- Temperature & Humidity: Room temperature should stay between 72 - 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Yes, I could say 78 is ideal, but if you can retain your room temperature in this range, you should be fine. Sometimes, being exact will drive you nuts, and sometimes you NEED to be exact. Your humidity is good if 45 - 65 percent can be maintained in your vegetative grow room. Oh, and yes, your room can get to 60-65 degrees Fahrenheit at night (lights out) without any problems.
Lights: Your lights should now be ON for 16 to 20 hours per day (24 hour period) - Light timers or outlet timers control this for you. When your lights come on we'll call this dawn (4:00 a.m. or whatever) - remember this for later.
Watering: You should only water your marijuana plants when they are dry... not damp, let the top of the surface actually get crusty dry.
Be sure to let your plants get dry before watering again. Besides appearance, you can "lift" the plant and check it's weight. When really light - you know the plant is dry.
Air Circulation: Be sure to keep fresh air moving through your grow room. This is critical in keeping healthy plants. This also helps you keep a stable temperature and humidity level. Be sure you have an exit area for air to escape and replenish the room (even at night). Do not blow constant wind on any plants, keep it moving, not blowing ON the plants.
Nutrients: There are 3 main components to plant fertilizers; Nitrogen (N), Phosphorous (P), and Potassium (K). Depending on what stage of growth your marijuana is in, determines the nutrients. If you use in-water nutrients, be careful of how much and how often... reading the label could help prevent harm to your plants. I only water nutrients every-other watering.
During this vegetative stage of growth your plants will like a few things like Nitrogen. If you have used a potting soil with nutrients or plant food enhanced soil, then it probably has a good concentrate of Nitrogen already.
Stage Duration: It is recommended that you allow your plants to get in a number of weeks of strong vegetative growth. Your plant should be 18" inches or taller, and have at least 4-6 leaf branches before moving them into the flowering stage.
Some plant types (strains) take longer periods to attain the same height or leaf levels, it helps the plant to be strong before leaving the vegetative stage. We want plentiful and potent buds, most seeds have recommended terms listed for the strains purchased. You are controlling this plants "summertime" right now, keep this in mind and it may help. When you grow indoors it is sometimes preferable to prune or trim your plant before it reaches these heights... some marijuana plants can easily exceed 8 feet at peak (there are ways to control this indoors too).
SEX: Don't worry yet - you may not know or be able to tell yet what sex your plant is... (unless you bought female seeds or you took it from female clones). You WILL be able to define the sex of your plants once you move them into the flowering stage of growth.
flowering stage- The flowering stage of marijuana growth is probably the most satisfying, as your hard work and devoted time begins to show a pay-off. It's also a very telling time for the sex of your plants. Once your plants have reached 20" inches or so and look strong and green (well nourished), it is then time to change your lights to 12 hours ON and 12 hours OFF. This makes your plant think that Fall has come, and that it is time to begin flowering (budding).
You do not want ANY light when it is in it's OFF cycle (none). Schedule your gardening time for when the lights are ON. You can garden in the night cycle, but you need to get green light bulbs - it's enough for you to see, but does not harm the plants at all.
Remember what time your "dawn" was? This is where I want you to keep that the same. In other words, if you were running 18 hours ON and your dawn was at 4:00 a.m., then we still want your dawn at 4:00 a.m. So set your timers to 12 ON and 12 OFF starting at 4:00 a.m. (my time example).
This adds no additional stress to your plants, and has their "sun" coming up at the same time as in the vegetative stage. Anything that does NOT promote stress is very good.
Sexing: Unless you are planning on breeding (not cloning, but breeding), then you will be destroying your MALE plants as soon as you can define their sex. Here is an excellent photo of the female marijuana plant. You will distinctly see two pistils at the branch "joints", you will generally see this difference within 10 days after moving into this flowering stage light period. We want female marijuana plants (sensimilla) only - high in THC, low (to no) seeds.
Lights: We have changed our lights to 12 hours ON and 12 hours OFF. This now makes the plant think "Fall" has come, and moves it into this final flowering stage. Keep high intensity lamps about 2 feet from the plants... fluorescents can actually be touching the plants. Put a thermostat by your budding tops to see if they are too hot - that would mean the lights are too close.
Temperature & Humidity: We still attempt to maintain 75-85 degrees Fahrenheit when the lights are on. Too HOT is NOT good in this phase.
Watering: Same applies, water when plants are dry (reference germinating for more watering frequency information). Crusty top dirt dry.
Air Circulation: Keep the air circulating with fresh air. Do not 'blow' the fans directly on the plants for extended periods... blow the air 'around' the cannabis plants. They require the fresh air exchange.
Nutrients: Stop with Nitrogen nutrients at this time. The plants need more Phosphorous and other nutrients during this stage. PH level affects all the stages of marijuana growth - on a scale of 1-14 - seven (7) is neutral. The ideal PH range for cannabis is 6.5 - extremes above or below this level will slow growth and be a give-away that something is not right.
You want Phosphorous, Potassium, Magnesium and some Sulfur (there are other micro-nutrients usually found in good blooming feeds).
Once a plant 'shows' slow growth or visible symptoms of any kind, it has already experienced nutritional stress. Allow some time (once diagnosed & corrected) for the plant to recuperate to a vigorous growth stage. This is an entire science and I do not have enough space here to cover it all - but I want you to know the important stuff.
Length of Flowering Stage: This will vary for every type of marijuana plant. Generally, the seeds come with an indication of the flowering stage length. However, that is not necessary in knowing the best time to harvest your cannabis plants. You should have (or buy) a small 30X magnifier (my recommendation) - or, you can also view the buds with an 8X magnifier, but you DO want a good magnifier to help you distinguish the absolute best time to harvest your marijuana plants.
You have noticed the "snow" like effect all around your buds - these are the trichomes that actually contain the THC we are seeking. When magnified, these tell you exactly when she is ready for harvest.
Harvesting, cutting, trimming & drying your marijuana, weed & pot plants, and How to properly cure your cannabis buds.
Time to Harvest Hint: When the resin glands or trichomes (on your buds) are about one-half turning a milky white or amber in color (versus clear or translucent), and the small hairs have begun to turn orange, brown or reddish in color, it is then time to harvest your weed. You have a window of 5-7 days for peak harvest and potency. I will tell you, the more amber the trichomes have turned, the 'stonier' the pot will likely be. This is why I recommend harvesting when about 1/2 of the resin glands have turned amber in color - be patient, and be sure of what you see. You will harvest excellent weed at this point without passing the premium harvest window and the weed will generally NOT make you completely lethargic when smoked. I quite often have trimmed buds from the different 'tops' of the plant based on how they look individually, before I took down the entire plant. So as the plant progresses, you may have already harvested half of the buds before you 'chop' the plant down (so to speak). This also helps with being able to smoke some of your cannabis and "test" your crop using a quick drying technique.
Harvesting Time: Now that we know when to harvest our cannabis, the next question is; How do we actually cut and trim our plant (buds) and then dry it properly to cure it for the best taste and smoothest smoke?
Environment: Should include good air circulation for both trimming and drying rooms - As you will find the odors can be quite strong at this stage. Keep the room around 70 degrees Fahrenheit, heat is not necessary at this stage and only increases odor.
Trimming & Manicuring: I trim my buds the same day I harvest the plant or top. The leaves are firm and cut off quite nicely. Different strains of marijuana are different to trim. You want to remove all the large leaves and trim off the leave tips that are all around the buds themselves. I take the time to remove the large leaves right to the stem, leaving little to no stem stick in my buds. This is a learned skill, but not too difficult to improve as you go (grow). Makes for a great smoke.
Cloning is asexual reproduction. Cuttings are taken from a mother plant in vegatative growth, and rooted in hydroponic medium to be grown as a separate plant. The offspring will be plants that are identical to the parent plant.
Cloning preserves the character of your favorite plant. Cloning can make an ocean of green out of a single plant, so it is a powerful tool for growing large crops, and will fill a closet quickly with your favorite genetics. When you find the plant you want to be your "buddy" for the rest of your life, you can keep that plant genetic character alive for decades and pass it on to your childrens children. Propagate and share it with others, to keep a copy, should your own line die out. A clone can be taken from a clone at least 20 times, and probably more, so don not worry about myths of reduced vigor. Many reports indicate it is not a problem.
Cloning will open you to the risk of a fungus or pests wiping out the whole crop, so it is important to pick plants that exhibit great resistance to fungus and pests. Pick the plant you feel will be the most reliable to reproduce in large scale, based on health, growth rate, resistance to pests, and potency. The quality of the high, and the type of buzz you get will be a very important determining factor.
Take cuttings for clones before you move plants from vegetative grow area to the flowering area. Low branches are cut to increase air circulation under the green canopy. Rooted clones are moved to the vegetative growth area, and new clones are started in the cloning area using the low branch cuttings. Each cycle of growth will take from 4-8 weeks, so you can constantly be growing in 3 stages, and harvesting every 6-8 weeks.
Some types of plants are more difficult to clone than others. Big Bud is reported to not clone very well. One of my favorite plants, Mr. Kona, is the most amazing pot I ever smoked, but it is hard as hell to clone. What a challenge! I noticed other varieties that were rooting much quicker, but it was the stone I was after! Once you find the psychoactive, almost hallucinogenic properties of some Indica/Sativa hybrids, you never want to smoke a pure Indica again. Indica is however, great medicinally, so I like to grow a few pure strains too.
If a plant is harvested, you can sample it, and decide if you want to clone it. Pick your favorite 2 or 3 distinctly different types of plants to clone, based on trying the harvested plants. The plants you want to clone can be regenerated by putting them in constant light. In a few weeks, you will have many vegetative cuttings available for cloning and preserving your favorite plants. Always keep a mother plant in vegatative mode for any strain you want to keep alive. If you flower all your clones, you may end up killing off a strain if you don not have any plant devoted to being a mother. I killed off a sacred strain accidentally this way; my harvested plants failed to regenerate and the strain would have died completely had not previously igven it to friends to grow it as well. I was in luck, and a buddy set me up with another clone of this strain to grow as a mother plant for a new crop of clones.
After two months, any marijuana plant can be cloned. Flowering plants can be cloned, but the procedure may take considerably longer. Its best to wait, and regenerate vegetatively plants that have been harvested. A single regenerated/harvested plant can generate hundreds of cuttings. Before taking cuttings, starve the plant for nitrogen for a week at least, so that the plant is not extreamly green, as this will make rooting take longer. Take cuttings from the bottom 1/3 of the plant, when doing ordinary pruning. Cut young growth tips from a vegetative stage, mature plant 3-5 inches long with a stem diameter 1/5-1/10 inch. Cut with a sterile razor blade or X-acto knife (flamed) and immerse the cut end of the clone into a tub of distilled water mixed with 1/4 tspn Peters 5-50-17 per gallon. Next, cut the bottom .2 inch off the end while it is submerged, using a diagonal cut. Remove the clone from the tub and dip into a liquid cloning solution following instructions on the label. Dust with RootToneF and place in cloning tray or medium. Flowering plants can be cloned too, but may take longer, and may not have as high a success rate.
Cloning goes quickest with the liquid rooting solutions, in a warmed, aerated tray, with subdued lighting and high humidity. Placing cuttings into 1" rockwool cubes in a covered tray works great too. In a closet, you can make space above the grow area so that the heat of the lamp warms the tray (passive collecting) and spare the expense and hassle of the aquarium heater ($24) or agricultural heating pad w/ thermostat (pricey). A double 4" fluorescent lamp will be perfect. Leave lamps on for 24 hours a day. Cuttings should root in 2-3 weeks.
I found only one liquid rooting hormone solution that was not over $10. (Olivia Gel was $12 for a 1.6 ounce bottle. Geez, what is this stuff, gold?) I found some dipNgrow for $9, considered myself lucky, and got a tray and clear cover for $7. A clear tray cover or greenhouse encloser is needed to bring up humidity to 90% (greenhouse levels). Liquid rooting hormone seems to be much more effective than powders. Some types available are Olivia, Woods, and dipNgrow.
Mix a weak cloning solution of high P plant food (such as Peter 5-50-17), trace elements, and epsom salts and then dip plants in rooting solution per instructions on label. All of the above nutrients should be added in extremely small amounts, 25% of what would normally be used on growing plants. Or use a premade solution such as Olivia Rooting Solution. Corn syrup has been reported to supplement the sugars needed by the plant during cloning, since it consists of plant sugars.
Use a powder fungicide too, like RoottoneF to be sure you don not spoil the clones with fungus. This is important, since clones and fungus like the conditions you will be creating for good rooting:
mild light, 72-80 degrees, high humidity
In rockwool, there is no need for airating the solution, just keep the cubes in 1/4" of solution so they wick and stay moist at all times. Try to keep clones evenly spaced, and spray them with water once a day to keep them moist and fresh. Pull out clones if they are diseased and dying, to keep them away from healthy starts.
Another method is to float cutings in a tray full of solution on polystyrene disposable plates, or styrene sheets (shipping/packing material) with holes punched, so the tops and leaves are out of the water. Take off all large leaves, leaving only smaller top leaves to reduce demand on the new rooting stalk. Aerate the tray solution with an air pump and bubble stone. Keep solution at 72-80 degrees for best results. Change the solution daily if not using an air stone and pump, so that oxygen is always available to the cuttings. A week later, clip yellowing leaves from cuttings to reduce water demands as the cuttings start to root.
Buy a tray with a clear cover made for rooting at an indoor gardening supply house. You must keep humidity very high for the clones. Put cuttings in an ice chest with cellophane over the top and a light shining down if you don not want to pay for the grow tray and cover.
It is also possible to directly place a dipped cutting in a moist block of floral foam with holes punched, or vermiculite in a cup; be sure to root cuttings in a constantly moist medium. Jiffy peat cubes are not recommended, as published reports indicate results were not good for rooting clones. Place starter cubes in tray of solution. Check twice a day to be sure cubes are moist, not drenched, and not dry. After about 2-3 weeks, rootlets will appear at the bottom of the pods. Transplant at this point to growing area, taking care not to disturb any exposed roots.
It is possible to breed and select cuttings from plants that grow, flower, and mature faster. Some plants will naturally be better than others in this regard, and it is easy to select not only the most potent plants to clone or breed, but the fastest growing/flowering plants as well. Find your fastest growth plant, and breed it with your "best high" male for fast flowering, potent strains. Clone your fastest, best high plant for the quickest monocrop garden possible. Over time, it will save you a lot of waiting around for your plants to mature.
When a male is starting to flower (2-4 weeks before the females) it should be removed from the females so it does not pollinate them. It is taken to a separate area. Any place that gets just a few hours of light per day will be adequate, including close to a window in a separate room in the house. Put newspaper or glass under it to catch the pollen as the flowers drop it.
Keep a male alive indefinitely by bending the top severely and putting it in mild shock that delays it is maturity. Or take the tops as they mature and put the branches in water, over a piece of plate glass. Shake the branches every morning to release pollen onto the glass and then scrap it with a razor blade to collect it. A male pruned in this fashion stays alive indefinately and will continue to produce flowers if it gets suitable dark periods. This is much better than putting pollen in the freezer! Fresh pollen is always best.
Save pollen in an air tight bag in the freezer. It will be good for about a month. It may be several more weeks before the females are ready to pollinate. Put a paper towel in the bag with it to act as a desecant.
A plant is ready to pollinate 2 weeks after the clusters of female flowers first appear. If you pollinate too early, it may not work. Wait until the female flowers are well established, but still all while hairs are showing.
Turn off all fans. Use a paper bag to pollinate a branch of a female plant. Use different pollen from two males on separate branches. Wrap the bag around the branch and seal it at the opening to the branch. Shake the branch vigorously. Wet the paper bag after a few minutes with a sprayer and then carefully remove it. Large plastic zip-lock bags also. Slip the bag over the male branch and shake the pollen loose. Carefully remove the bad and zip it up. It should be very dusty with pollen. To pollinate, place it over a single branch of the female, zipping it up sideways around the stem so no pollen leaks out. Shake the bag and the stem at the same time. Allow to settle for an hour or two and shake it again. Remove it a few hours later. Your branch is now well pollinated and should show signs of visible seed production in 2 weeks, with ripe seeds splitting the calyxes by 3-6 weeks. One pollinated branch can create hundreds of seeds, so it should not be necessary to pollinate more than one or two branches in many cases.
When crossing two different varieties, a third variety of plant will be created. If you know what characteristics your looking for in a new strain, you will need several plants to choose from in order to have the best chance of finding all the qualities desired. Sometimes, if the two plants bred had dominant genes for certain characteristics, it will be impossible to get the plant you want from one single cross. In this case, it is necessary to interbreed two plants from the same batch of resultant seeds from the initial cross. In this fashion, recesive genes will become available, and the plant character you desire may only be possible in this manner.
Usually, it is desirable only to cross two strains that are very different. In this manner, one usually arrives at what is refered to as "hybrid vigor". In other words, often the best strains are created by taking two very different strains and mating them. Less robust plants may be the result of interbreeding, since it opens up recesive gene traits that may lead to reduced potency.
Hybrid offspring will all be very different from each other. Each plant grown from the same batch of seeds collected from the same plant, will be different. It is then necessary to try each plant separately and decide it is individual merits for yourself. If you find one that seems to be head and shoulders above the rest in terms of early flowering, high yield and get buzz, that is the plant to clone and continue breeding.
In depth genetics is beyond the scope of this work.
Negative ion generators have been used for years now to cut down on odors in a grow room, but reports are coming in that a negative ion generator will increase growth speed and yield. No true evidence to support this, however it does make sense, due to the fact that people and animals seem to be altered in a positive way by negative ions in the air, so plants may "feel" better too. Try putting one in the grow room. You may notice the buds don not have as much scent when picked, but that may be desirable in some cases.
A negative ion generator can be purchased for $15 to $100 depending on the type and power involved. Some have reversed cycles that collect the dust to a charged plate. It is also possible to use grounded aluminum foil on the wall and shelf where the ionizer sits, to collect these particles. Just wipe the foil clean once a month. It should be grounded to an electrical outlets ground wire. If you don not cover the wall and shelf with paper or foil, the wall will turn dark with dust taken from the air, and you will have to repaint that wall later.
Utility companies can tell your bill is way off from the same time last year, and police are finding growers this way. More than 500 watts in the family home running constantly will show up as a regular monthly increase in electricity use. You can claim space heaters, more people living on the premises, too many television sets, and late hours, if they happen mention it to you (innocently). If the police knock and ask you about it, don not let them in, and move your plants to another location during the wee hours in a vehicle not your own.
Upon moving into a new place, it may be desirable to immediately establish high electricity use, so that your electrical use history wont reveal your activities in the future...
Light leaks, open windows, heat expelled from rooms that would normally be cool, and rip-offs are all serious issues to be concerned about. Don not use a burglar alarm on when your away from the house. People are busted this way when the kids try to rip off the garden and the police come. Lock the house up well, and let them take it if they need it so bad. It is not worth getting busted for a burglary...
Think ahead to any situation that will require outsiders to visit sensitive areas of the house. Repairmen, solicitors, meter readers, neighbors, appraisers, and pets should all be considered and contingency plans made in advance.
A solution of one pill to one gallon of water has been reported to cause increased growth speed in tomato plants. It is possible this will help herb plants too. One treatment administered before flowering and one administered a few weeks before harvesting might help the plant mature faster.
One grower told a story of the same type of plants, one administered the estrogen grew to 20 feet, while the other was 7 feet. This may be purely anecdotal, but it may work. Try it and report back to me on results.
It is possible to harvest plants and then rejuvenate them vegetatively for a 2nd and even 3rd harvest. A second harvest can be realized in as little as 6-8 weeks. Since the plant stalk, and roots are already formed, the plant can produce a second, even third harvest of buds in a little more than half the time of the original harvest. When harvesting, take off the top 1/3rd of the plant. Leave most healthy fan leaves in the middle of the plant, cutting buds off branches carefully. On the lower 1/3rd of the plant, take off end flowers, but leave several small flowers on each branch. These will be the part of the plant that is regenerated. The more buds you leave on the plant, the faster it will regenerate. Feed the plant some Miracle Grow or any high nitrogen plant food immediately after harvest. When you intend to regenerate a plant, make sure it never gets too starved for nitrogen as it is maturing, or all the sun leaves will fall off, and your plant will not have enough leaves to live after being harvested.
Harvested plants can come inside for rejuvenation under continuous light or are left outside in Summer to rejuvenate in the natural long days. It will take 7-14 days to see signs of new growth when regenerating a plant. As stated before, and in contrast to normal growth patterns, lower branches will be the first to sprout new vegetative growth. Allow the plant to grow a little vegetatively, then take outside again to reflower. Or keep inside for vegetative cuttings. You now have two or three generations of plants growing, and will need more space outside. But you will now be harvesting twice as often. As often as every 30 days, since you have new clones or seedlings growing, vegetative plants ready to flower, and regenerated plants flowering too.
Regenerating indoors can create problems if your plants are infected with pests. It may be best to have a separate area indoors that will not allow your plants to infect the main indoor area. An alternative to regenerating indoors is to regenerate outdoors in the Summer. Just take a harvest in June, then allow the plant to regenerate by leaving some lower buds on the plant, and leaving the middle 1/3rd of the plant leaves at harvest. Feed it nitrogen, and make sure it gets lots of sun. It will regenerate all Summer and be quite large by Fall, when it will start to flower again naturally.
O2 to the roots is a big concern, since the plant requires this for nutrients to be available, and to rid itself of toxins, etc. One of the easiest things to do is use food grade hydrogen peroxide in the water to increase the availability of oxygen in the water. H2O2 has an extra oxygen atom that will easily break away and can be used by the plant. Oxygen Plus is a plant food that contains 25% hydrogen peroxide and is perfect for this use.
Using a planting medium that allows for plenty of aeration is also really important. Be sure you have good drainage by using Perlite, sand, or gravel in your mix and at the bottom of pots. Don not use a medium that holds too much water, or you may significantly reduce the oxygen available to the plant. More on that in the section on hydroponics.
Aerating the water before watering is also a good idea. In the case of soil potted plants, use an airpump to aerate the water overnight before watering your plants, or put the water in a container with a cap and shake it up real good before giving to the plants.
Use a seal-a-meal to hermetically seal the bag with no air inside. Freeze or refrigerate, and bud and seed can be kept for years this way.
Rap seeds in a paper towel to absorb moisture. Keep them in the freezer, and pull out only as many seeds as you need, then pop them back in the freezer quickly.
MALE FLOWERING Males do not need a photoperiod to spread pollen. As soon as calyx development shows male flowers may appear within a few days under the 24/0,18/6 or 12/12 photoperiods. Male flowers grow more vigorously and plentiful under the 12/12 photoperiod. A male plant will continue to flower for the remainder of its flowering period developing new calyx formations and male flowers. It can take anywhere between 12 hours and one week from calyx development for male flowers to appear and shed their pollen. It is very important to separate the males from the females as early as possible if you are growing a sinsemilla crop. In general males usually appear before females.
Pollen can easily be collected. You can gather falling pollen using a white sheet of paper placed in between the plant stem on the top of the pot. All fans must be turned off if you want to collect pollen this way. Fans will only blow pollen around your grow room.
Female plants can be pollinated at any time but are best pollinated between 15 and 30 days into their flowering period. Plants that are pollinated less than three weeks before harvest may result in immature seeds although plants pollinated two weeks before harvest have been known to produce seeds mature enough for germination.
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