In many states, the Medical Marijuana patient is allowed
to grow his or her own plants. Depending on rate of consumption,
growing your own marijuana makes sound financial sense.
Additionally, it can also guarantee you an unending supply of your
favorite strain of weed.
Unless you own vast acreage, your best bet for growing marijuana is to
grow your crop indoors using a hydroponics system. Prices for
hydroponics setups range from $300 to many thousands of dollars.
The biggest differences between systems are: 1) the amount of
automation; 2) one stage only vs. all inclusive mother plant area,
vegetation area and flowering area. The advantages of the latter
are significant: by having a permanent mother plant you have
access to unlimited clones whenever you want them; you can reduce the
gap between harvest with the separate vegetation and flowering
areas. Stealth Hydroponics has some very efficient low end
systems. Their grow tents are great if you don’t have a
closet. If you want the Rolls Royce of hydroponics take a
look at BC Northern Lights.
Your natural tendency is going to be to grow as big of plants as you
can. This can backfire on you. Each plant needs a footprint
of at least three feet by three feet. Any less and your lights
won’t illuminate much below the top two feet of your plant.
Another problem with trying to grow big marijuana plants is that if
you’re not careful they can grow right past the lights. A good
rule of thumb to follow is that your plants will grow one and a half
feet during the flowering stage…so you should start the flowering
process as soon as the plants reach to within 24” of the lights in
their highest position. Depending on the strain, this can be
anywhere from three weeks to eight weeks from starting with a clone.
The real secret to success in trying to grow marijuana is to find a
source for clones. This guarantees two things: 1) your plant will
be a female; and 2) your plant will survive (the most precarious period
in a plants life is the first week or two when sprouting from a
seed). The great thing is that once you have a clone, you
can make clones of your own and have a perpetual crop going year-round.
Advanced nutrients are essential to a good marijuana crop.
Miracle Gro and other normal fertilizers won’t work. Both Stealth
Hydroponics and BC Northern Lights offer great advanced nutrient
products. If you follow a rigorous schedule of draining and
refilling the water every two weeks and adding nutrients as required,
you really can’t fail. Tap water, let set for about ten minutes
is perfect. Much is made about treating your plants gently and
carefully: controlling PH, CO2, humidity, and temperature. Rather
than obsess about this, I’ve found the reality to be that marijuana is
a weed….it takes quite a bit to kill it. One caution on
nutrients, don’t add the first round until two weeks after you’ve
started your clones in the vegetation stage.
A final word about lighting. Lighting is critical. You can
use silver halide and other high tech lights, or you can use CFL
fluorescent lights. They all work just fine.
Vegetation spectrum is in the 6000 Kelvin range and the Flower Spectrum
is in the 2700 Kelvin range. It’s good to include both spectrums
with the accent on whichever spectrum matches the stage your marijuana
grow is at.
Total time from clone to harvest is somewhere around 12 weeks.
Add another week or two to dry and cure your crop. Yield is around four
to six ounces per plant.
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HYDROPONICS FOR
DUMMIES REVIEW
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For overall excellence, top value
for the money, low entry level pricing, and idiot proof products and
instructions we highly recommend Stealth Hydroponics out of Michigan.
Here are links to take you directly
to some of their fine line of products:
Complete
Hydroponic
Growing
Kits
Grow
Lights
Nutrients
Grow
Tents
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