Plant Nutrients, Chemical vs. Organic!

There have been many debates as to whether it is better overall to use artificial chemical nutrients, or stick with a more organic method of giving your plants what they need. I have been getting asked recently what my opinion is on the issue, and its hard to give an answer just one way or the other.

First off, you need to understand what the difference is between these methods.

Organic- This is the process giving your plants the nutrients they need like nitrogen, potassium, etc, by simply adding natural nutrient rich compounds. Some examples are, different types of animal dung, worm castings, and bat guano. All of these different types of animal droppings have different nutrient values to benefit plants in different parts of their life cycle.

Pros: readily available, cheap, low risk of nutrient burn, forgiving, easy to get started, natural tasting finished products

Cons: Less potent nutrients, slow-medium acting, storage, not-discrete, potentially less effective.

Chemical- This method is usually achieved by adding a store bought chemical compound to the plant's water supply with the desired nutrient compound in order to benefit the plant.

Pros: Fast acting, strong, accurate nutrient content, potential for large gains

Cons: Expensive, Hard to find sometimes, Nutrient Burn, Hard for beginners, possible chemical taste in finished product

No-one can tell you which way is the "right" way to feed your plants nutrients, you just have to understand the alternatives. I will post 3 follow-up articles explaining how to add nutrients, and what nutrient burn is. Stay tuned!

Some bud porn!

Lights, lights, and more lights!

Ok, time to finally do an article on lighting for your indoor plants. The arguments in this category are huge, and there are many different variations that people use. There are different spectrums of light emmitted by light bulbs, measured in Kelvin. Plants can mainly utilize the blue(upper levels of kelvin, around 6500K) durring vegetative growth, and red(lower levels of kelvin, around 2700k). Yellow and green light is of little use to them. Another measurement is Lumens, which is the amount of light produced by a bulb.


CFL's (Compact Fluorescent Bulbs)

CFL's have become more and more popular lately for their ease of use, price, power draw, long lasting bulbs, and low heat emission. CFL's produce about 65 lumens per watt. My personal recommendation is to have 6000 lumens of 6500k lights, and 3000 lumens of 2700k lights per square foot of grow space. Keep the CFL's preferably about 1-2 inches above your plants. One more note about CFL's is that they are incredibly easy to obtain, and at a low price.


HPS (High Pressure Sodium)

HPS lights are hotter, more expensive, pull more power(because of their size), and are harder to come by than CFL's. The up sides are that its the more traditional method for growing marijuana plants indoors, and many people feel that it makes the plant produce more bud. Of course there are doubters to this part of the theory. High pressure sodium lights emit mostly orange, yellow, and red spectrum light, which is perfect for the flowering stage of the plants growth. If you choose not to use CFL's, and can't afford both an HPS and MH, then just get the HPS. Just make sure you can properly cool these two types of bulbs.


MH (Metal Halide)

The MH lights emit a lot of the blue spectrum which the plant likes for root, stem and leaf growth. MH is part of the High-intensity-discharge (HID) family of lamps, produce high light output for their size, making them a compact, powerful, and efficient light source. Similar to HPS, these bulbs are on the expensive side and harder to find. They run fairly hot and need good air flow to remove the heat from your setup. These are more traditional and famed for great veg groth.


Approximate light production:
Fluorescents: 60-70 lumens/watt
Metal halide: 90 lumens/watt
High pressure sodium: 107 lumens/watt




These are the 3 top types of lights used for growing, there are others, including the newer LED grow setups.



I prefer CFL's for relatively smaller grows, and for larger grows I prefer MH for vegetative growth, and HPS for Flowering.

Grow Mediums

Before I go much further into planting and growing the marijuana plants, I want to talk a little about grow mediums and your options. I have seen many different setups, the most common tend to either be hydroponic setups or soil setups. I prefer simple natural soil for my plants. There is also a setup called Airoponics, but I know very little about it. Maybe I will post an article in the future about it. I will give you some info on both hydro and soil grows and you can pick your favorite.

Hydro- The most common material used for hydroponic setups is rockwool(in my experience). Some others are hydroton, coco coir, and straight perlite. There are many options with Hydro. Hydro materials are basically just a material to hold the roots and plant steady in. The nutrients and water are provided separately. Some people claim it makes the weed more potent if grown hydro.


Soil- This is my preferred method, its easy when you are new, not growing many plants, and on a budget. Just get some pots, to determine the size pot, figure 1 gallon for every foot of growth you want it to have. Get some soil, some say only organic expensive soil, I say get some miracle grow, add some perlite to help it drain and make sure it has a stable medium ph. I had great results with a bag of miracle grow: moisture control and i didn't even check the ph. Most people start in a smaller container, then transplant to the big one. I usually just start them in their final container. With the soil method, make sure that you let the soil get almost dry before watering again, a soil moisture meter from walmart would be very helpful. The wait between waterins makes the roots grow and expand correctly.

Both work great, just remember, potency is all about the genetics!


Top pic= Hydro

Bottom pic= Soil

Germinating seeds

This is for any new growers out there. The first step in your plants life is germinating the seed. This is the process when u make the seed go from its dormant stage to sprout its first root. My method of doing this is to take a paper towel and get it moist, put as many seeds as you want to germinate in the paper towel, wrap it up good and put it inside a cup. add water until about a 1/4 of an inch of water remains at the bottom of the cup. Set the cup in a dark place, if u have a seed germinating heat pad, feel free to put it under the cup. Leave it be for 48 hours, then check. Most of the seeds should have germinated. Leave the once that didnt in there and add water, check again in 3 days. Best of luck!

So you want to grow pot?

Well first off, one of the most important decisions you need to make is..... what seedbank you are going to buy from, and what strain you want to get. Some plants do great indoors under some nice hps lights, or maybe some cheap secretive CFL's. Other plants with thrive outdoors and become treelike! You probably aren't going to want to plant a crop of lowrider outdoors, or some early riser seeds in your small CFL driven trash can. Besides that, you want to get some seeds with some amazing genetics. Weed is all about the genetics, bad genetics= bad weed. Good genetics= good weed(if grown right). Badass genetics= amazing weed(if grown right). I have tried quite a few sites for seeds, and the best so far has been "The Attitude Seedbank" They have the largest selection around from time-proven growers. Great customer service, and a near perfect germination rate. On the other hand, my worst experience was with "Amsterdam Marijuana seeds". I got my seeds pretty quick after I ordered them, but the problem was that the main seeds only had a 60% germ rate. The free mystery seeds had only a 15% germ rate. All around pretty poor germ rates, and no reply to my emails. So I would recommend buying from The Attitude for some kick ass weed

http://www.cannabis-seeds-bank.co.uk/

Compact medical marijuana grow setup on a budget

Equipment

You will first need a container or room to grow your plants in. I will give you an example of the first setup I used to descretely grow my plants, all the parts for it can be purchased at walmart.

Equipment needed-

1. A fairly large trah can, 3 ft high or close to that, with no holes and wide enough to hold as many 6" pots as you want to grow plants

2. An air purifier with charcoal filter

3. 1 or 2 fans to move air in the container

4. 6" pots for the plants

5. Good soil with a neutral PH (get a ph tester to be sure)

6. 2 power strips

7. 4-6 26 watt daylight cfl's, and 4-6 26 watt opposite spectrum cfl's

8. 4-6 outlet to light bulb adapters

9. A good timer

10. If you're room is hot, get an A/C

How to assemble it

Ok, so once you have the supplies, you must assemble the grow container.

First take a sharp razor or other tool and cut a hole in the bottom of the back of the trash can just big enough to put a small 5" fan or something similar partly into. This will create an air flow. Then cut another hole in the top on either the front or the back, front would be best, but if secrecy is a big issue, the back will do. this hole is for the air purifier to fit partly into. You want both of these holes to be snug, and use duct tape to seal the fan and purifier to the unit, and hold them in place.

Once this is all good to go, you will want to fill the pots with your soil and place them inside the container, make sure there are lots of holes in the bottom of the pots. Then you are going to suspend the power strips, facing down, across the opening of the container, and plug the lights into them. If you aren't sure what light spectrum to use at what point, look out for future articles of mine, or check out the forums at rollitup.org.

Good luck!

*All information provided on this blog is for informational purposes only and is not inteded to be used by anyone. I am not responsible for how this information is used. Check your local laws.