Marijuana Grower's Handbook - Page 4

Keeping a genetic reserve of mother plants in an indoor cannabis grow room for a long period of time requires proper care to keep them in good health. Generally, this technique is also used so mother plants produce more quality cuttings.

Cannabis is an annual plant, so if we plan to keep it in growth stage we need to follow certain steps in order to keep it healthy and strong. Some marijuana strains are more demanding than others, but all of them enjoy having a lush root ball; it is then the grower's job to take care of the root system of the plants so they can show their full potential, always under optimal conditions.

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The first stage for any grower is germinating the seeds. To achieve best results, we should use healthy, quality cannabis seeds. All seeds from Philosopher Seeds come in labeled packages with a batch identification number, so the product tracking is much easier.

Although seeds do not need much to germinate, we do have to consider a few basic aspects to be successful. It’s kind of a prenatal stage in which the grower has to be very careful to meet the few needs of the seeds during this phase.

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What are terpenes?

Terpenes are organic compounds which act as aroma precusors in plants. Most terpenes are produced by an hydrocarbon called Isoprene (2-methyl-1,3-butadiene) which can be found in both animals and plants, also in the human body. The amount of isoprene found in cannabis plants (actually in all plants) mainly depends on light and environmental conditions, besides other factors.

Otto Wallach, a 19th-century German chemist, was one of the first scientists ever to investigate terpenes, leaving a knowledge that has been used later on in the essential oils and perfume industry, being the former used in alternative therapies.

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Both cannabinoids and terpenes, along with flavonoids (which will be discussed in another post) are some of the main compounds found in cannabis plants. These compounds are exclusive from this plant, and in this post we want to tell you more about cannabinoids, their different effects and indications.

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Indoor cannabis cultivation is often seen as something difficult that can only be performed by specialists. Well, nothing could be further from the truth, since growing our favourite cannabis strains indoors is easy if we follow few simple instructions and are a bit constant.

In this post we'll tell you in an easy and simple way how to build an indoor grow room, focusing on three important aspects: ventilation, nutrition/medium and the lighting system. If we keep these three elements under control and choose correctly our strains, indoor cultivation can become something simple and almost mechanical, although if we neglect some of them, both yields and quality can be seriously diminished.

For this post we used a 1,2 x 1,2 metres grow tent, with 2 metres of height. In the market we can find lots of different grow tent models, so finding the one that best fits into our growing space should be easy. In this way, controlling the temperature and humidity of the environment will be easier, besides keeping our plants away from external light sources that could interrupt the night period of our plants, something vital for a good flowering.

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Cannabis is a psychoactive, herbaceous, annual plant, of the Urticales (nettles) order and belongs to the Cannabaceae family. Its origins bring us near  the Himalaya mountains, between China and India, where from it extended to the rest of the world making viable its growing thanks to the infinity of medicinal, recreational and industrial uses that have this millennial plant.

Cannabis sativa (mainly coming from tropical areas such as South and Central America, Africa, Thailand and South of India) was classified for the first time in 1753 by the Swedish scientist, naturalist and zoologist Carl Nilsson Linaeus, who suggested the current binomial of nomenclature diagram.

On the other hand, Indica Cannabis, comes from the Himalaya mountains (Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. ) and was described and classified for the first time by the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in 1783, who also developed the first evolution theory.

A third and last sort, of which later was created the automatic marijuana strains, coming from Russia and North Kazakhstan was discovered in 1924 by the Russian botanist D.E. Janischevisky and called cannabis Ruderalis.

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This post will be interesting for both indoor and outdoor growers, although if we want to search for phenotypes and keep mother plants - clone mothers - we'll need an indoor growing space.

We'll see how to keep a copy of the different phenotypes, how to select them and how to grow them again anytime we want, getting the same exact product than in previous crops, exactly the same as the mother plant.

The selection process can be performed with either feminised or regular seeds; as long as they are photoperiod strains, we'll have no problems in keeping them growing under the correct light schedule. Thus, we can not clone autoflowering plants. Female Viagra online http://www.healthfirstpharmacy.net/female-viagra.html

You'll also see, step by step, how to make cannabis cuttings. As happens with any selection, it ended in a splendid cannabis tasting session.

With the results of the tasting at hand, it is much easier choosing the best phenotype, so we'll finally have our mother plant.  All the pictures from this post were taken during a selection of SuperJuani seeds.

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The Sea of Green technique is an excellent option to grow some of the varieties of the Philosopher Seeds catalog. Actually, it is the recommended method for growing strains like Black Bomb, Amnesika 2.0 and Orange Candy. With this growing system, we use as many plants as possible per square metre, either seeds or clones. Since only one strain is used, we can say it is a cannabis monoculture.

In this way, the flowering stage is started with just around 15 days from seedling, since we want relatively small plants that create a uniform and homogeneous sea of green.

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Tasting marijuana is a very pleasant activity, but it’s also a task that requires seriousness. Today there is a great multitude of families and varieties of marijuana and to know how to distinguish each one of them allows to define the therapeutic preferences and needs of each consumer.

In this Post we will discuss how to organize a professional tasting according to the Philosopher Seeds team. The photos that accompany this article come from a tasting of SuperJuani that we did at the beginning of summer 2015.

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In this article we will highlight the importance of drying and curing. This procedure improves the taste, aroma and smell of dry marijuana buds.

Before speaking about drying and curing of the plants we recommend that you read our two previous posts in relation to the harvest of cannabis and trimming of marijuana.

Among growers it’s often said that to cut the plants only the half of work have been done. The drying and curing is the other half.

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Trimming cannabis buds

The so awaited time of harvest has come. We will enjoy so much having sticky fingers. Harvest marijuana always is a joyful moment. With friends or alone, surrounded of a delicious perfume, the hours go by. For outdoor crops, this task can be long and boring, therefore, we will talk about the existing material on the market to make this work more comfortably. Moreover, we will give you some ideas for recycling the trimming off-cuts and take advantage of almost all vegetable matter.

We suggest that you read our previous post that speaks about When to harvest cannabis plants.

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Harvest both outdoors and indoors always tends to be a time of joy. For outdoor growers, it’s the moment in which they stop suffering for an eventual theft that would suppose a great loss. The harvest is ready! To know when to cut marijuana plants, we will have confidence on some rules that we will detail below.

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Marijuana and ventilation

When we grow marijuana indoors, there are several factors to keep in mind if we don’t want to get in trouble. Together with the lighting system used, the ventilation of the growing space is crucial if we want to have healthy plants and get best yields. Poorly ventilated environments don’t allow proper plant respiration; marijuana needs CO2 during the day and O2 at night, and if we do not ventilate correctly our grow room our plants won’t have enough amounts of CO2 and O2 to develop properly. Here you have further information on CO2.

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Cannabis is an annual plant, (it grows, flowers and dies in the same season) grown for millenniums in almost all corners of the world, except the areas near the poles. Coming from Central and South Asia it's a plant genus with three different plant species: Cannabis Sativa, Cannabis Indica and Cannabis Ruderalis. Although each species of cannabis has a few traits and properties which make it more suitable for certain areas (logically they develop better in areas where they grow naturally), it's an easily adaptable plant for growing outdoors in virtually any climate. With the exception of the auto-flowering varieties, cannabis plants grow during the spring and summer and flowers at the end of this and during the autumn.

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Prepare a good biological substrate to grow marijuana indoors or outdoors is a common issue, and with this post we will try to help you make your own mix. This growing method certainly provides the best quality of marijuana that we can harvest. It allows that terpenes aren’t altered by flavours from, sometimes too much aggressive, fertilisers.

Mixture of organic soil for cannabis recommended by Philosopher Seeds

The Philosopher Seeds Team works with all kinds of substrates and cultivation systems  to perform growing tests, but when it comes to do genetic selections to decide which will be the upcoming strains that will enter in catalogue, we all opt to use the mixture of soil and amendment as follows:

For 100 litres of substrate:

• 70 liters of substrate type “Light Mix”
• 20 liters of Worm Humus (improves the substrate in many aspects)
• 5 liters of Coco Fibers (aerates the substrate and retains water)
• 5 liters of  Perlite (aerates the substrate and retains water)
• 200 gr of Nutrihemp (favours the plant growth)
• 1,5 Kg of Bat Guano Powder (favours the bloom)
• 450 gr of Bacto Force (improves the soil by adding beneficial bacteria, fungi and enzymes)
• Mycorrhizae, the amount depends on the Brand (favours the rooting)

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Before releasing a new variety onto the market, Philosopher Seeds seed bank and its group of breeders bring their genetics to Test Line where they are tested, and thanks to the nearest group of collaborators and growers all kinds of cultivation tests can be done before being launched onto the market. In these tests, the stability of each hybrid is tested, as well as its main growing characteristics: size, elongation, yield, aroma and flavour. Many of these test lines never make it to the official catalogue, even when they are good hybrids. It is never easy to make a decision of this kind and it is always the aim to bring new lines with new parental which have not yet been introduced officially.

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