What tools are used in growing marijuana?

2 Comments

1. Mr. Smartypants says:

   September 10, 2010 at 1:38 pm

   It’s just like growing any plant. You need some seeds, of course.

   Then you get some of those little starter pots. They are maybe 2″ in diameter, they’re made of some fibrous material that dissolves in the ground, ahe they’re pre-filled with potting soil. You make holes in these with a pencil tip, maybe 1/4″ deep and drop seeds into them. Then you keep them soaking wet for 2-3 days until the plant spouts.

   Back in the 70s I had lots of seeds because all pot came with lots of seeds in it. So I’d plant 2-3 seeds in each of these pots, and cut all but one after several days, just save the strongest ones.

   You can grow these on a windowsill until the plants get to be 6″ high or so. Then you need to put them in the ground or at least transplant them to bigger pots. Pot has a taproot that is covered with delicate long hairs, so you can’t really dig it up and transplant it. That’s why you use these pots, you just stick the pot in the ground or the soil of the bigger pot.

   If you’re doing it indoors you need lights, of course. In the old days we used cheap fluorescent fixtures with ‘grow lights’ in them. You can buy these fixtures, with 2 four-foot tubes at any hardware store for about $10, and the grow-light tubes cost maybe another $5. You suspend the light fixture from a chain so you can lift it as the plant grows. The old formula was 22w per sq. foot. Today they have more sophisticated systems for growing plants indoors, but they are also more expensive. There are even LED grow lights now, which save a lot of electricity, but cost more initially. Do some research.

   You feed the plants regular houseplant food. Something with a lot of nitrogen to develop foliage. We used to use that smelly green ‘fish emulsion’ stuff, but there might be something newer and better.

   Now it depends on how fancy you want to get. You can build a little booth in the garage with drip irrigation, lights on a timer, a few ‘muffin’ fans for air circulation, etc. In Oakland, CA, in the neighborhood called ‘Oaksterdam’ they sell all this stuff for medical marijuana growers, even little pre-built booths with reflective insides, lights, all you need. This whole setup costs like $1000 but you would make it back with the first batch you grew! They also have a school they call Oaksterdam University with classes on growing and processing.

   Cannabis flowers in response to ‘photoperiod’. In other words, you light the plants 17 hours a day and they grow and grow. When they’re big enough, you decrease the number of hours of light per day, and they grow flowers. There are males and females, and some growers kill all the males, because the female flowers have a lot more THC, and because if no male pollen is present they protect their flowers by exuding more THC-laden resin. But you have to watch the plants carefully because when no males are present some of the females will grow some make flowers.

   Also, careful trimming of the plants increases their productivity. If you cut a stem just above a ‘node’, two stems grow from there. For indoors you want wide, bushy plants instead of tall spindly ones.

   Also, the hotter and brighter it is during this last period, the more resin the females produce, so some people bring in sun lamps and space heaters for a week or so.

   There used to be many books you could get on growing pot inside under artificial light. I’m sure a lot of this stuff is still available, maybe in the mustiest, oldest used bookstore you can find, maybe online.

2. Jack says:

   September 11, 2010 at 6:28 am

   i dont have the time to run it down to you but, try youtube. there are many videos on this subject. and there are many opinions on how to do this. of course mine is the best. i like og2.