Marijuana Horticulture Fundamentals. K of Trichome Technologies
1. Always fasten thick, weed-inhibiting cloth on the floor of the greenhouse; it is available at any nursery supply store. This discourages weed growth inside the greenhouse that may encourage insect infestation. If growing in containers simply place them on top of the cloth. If growing in the ground, simply cut access holes to the soil through the cloth where you intend on planting. Make sure you clear all weeds and rocks below the greenhouse prior to fastening the cloth.
2. The best position for a greenhouse is to have its longest side run north–south; this will help to avoid excess temperatures in summer.
3. Use anti-hotspot tape to stop heat from the metal frame causing weak spots in the clear Visqueen / plastic. The tape will extend the life of the clear cover by a year.
4. Seedlings and clones that have been started indoors, under artificial lights, require a period of “hardening off” before being planted outdoors. This involves gradually acclimatizing them to outdoor conditions over a period of two weeks. Start by placing them outside in a slightly shaded area during the day and bring them indoors at night. Gradually increase the time that they spend outdoors until they are outside all of the time. Without hardening off, the plants will burn, suffer stress, and growth will be temporarily slowed. With this in mind, it is best to start your plants indoors where the elements are less severe and they have a greater chance of survival.
Grow space prior to the installation of a garden.
This empty space was used to build an inexpensive, simple, yet very clean and productive (albeit hobbyist) growroom. The ceiling height (16 feet) is perfect for heat dissipation, which is required when using many HID lights. The rest of the space was used for materials for clean up, storage, trimming, etc.
These mother plants produced enough clones to keep the growroom behind them full of plants year-round. The mothers grow in a separate “vegetative room” under 18 hours of light to keep them from flowering.
Multiple cultivars in the flowering chamber.
Photos: K
Flowering Chamber
With the mother plants removed you can see the flowering chamber behind them. With simple 2 × 4 construction and white or black plastic Visqueen for wall covering, an efficient, clean greenhouse can be created. In this set-up you’ll see a screen door covered in black plastic as an entrance; it creates a roll-up wall that allows easy access during work hours as well as eliminating any unwanted heat or humidity build-up. The ballasts normally sit on top of the structure but in this photo they have been removed to facilitate the takedown of the grow space. The exhaust fan can be seen in the upper right-hand corner of the photo; it is at the top of the room in order to eliminate any unwanted heat and humidity that might build up.
Grow Chamber
Inside the grow chamber we find strong plants and buds ready for harvest. The system here is a soilless mix medium (vermiculite and perlite) in ¾-gallon containers. The plants sit on a slightly tilted shelf constructed of plywood sheets on top of common plastic milk crates. The plywood is covered with rubber pond liner at the edges to keep water from running off the shelf. At the low side of the shelf is a plastic rain gutter; the runoff water naturally migrates to the low side of the shelf and runs off into the rain gutter and into a collection reservoir where it is then disposed of with a water pump. The plants were hand-watered every 24 hours in the early stages of development and two times a day in the later stages of flowering.
All electrical wiring and components must always be kept off the floor and away from contact with water, for obvious reasons.
Inside the grow chamber.
Empty space after plants have been harvested.
Photos: K
Harvest Room and Deconstruction
Harvested and stripped plants are on the left of this picture, with buds hanging in the next room and room deconstruction begun. Another bountiful harvest has taken place and it is time to go build another somewhere else. This location was almost perfect but there is always somewhere better! Always look for that perfect spot.
Here are many healthy, seven-day old plants. This organic media system uses the same shelf system mentioned previously—the difference being the organic media. In this photo you can clearly see the design and set-up of the edges of the shelf. Also you can see that the vegetating plants have had stakes placed in their containers early in life to avoid later root damage. The containers are ¾-gallon and since these plants, at the time of photographing, will only be in the pots for nine more weeks (10 weeks total), there is no chance of the plants becoming root bound. Furthermore, because small containers are used, more plants can be grown, thus using the space to its full potential. In seven more days the lights will be turned back to 12-hours on and 12-hours off to begin the flowering cycle. The plants will mature between one-and-a-half and three feet tall.
Ten Weeks Later
Ten weeks after installation these plants were ready for harvest: fat, stinky, heavy, sticky, organic buds, and lots of them. There are 11 different cultivars in this room that were preselected so that they all matured at approximately the same rate. The same day the plants were harvested, there were more ready to replace them, as per the symbiotic rotation system. Empty rooms only cost you time and money.
Stakes are placed into the media before the plants grow large so as not to damage the root system.
Ten weeks later (same plants as above) the plants are well into flower.
Basic cannabis garden.
Photo: Freebie
The most common grow system is easy to set up, with no maximization of roots or lights. A sufficient system for a small budget and low yield