By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

It is a product of many names: BHO, honey, erl, hash oil, honeycomb, honey toast, wax, shatter, glass, whip, comb, ‘tane, and more. As its popularity increases, more and more people are learning about butane hash oil (BHO) made from marijuana. There’s a reason it’s becoming so popular in recent years.

BHO sounds scary but can be extremely enjoyable when it is prepared correctly. Many people choose to make it themselves so they know exactly what is in it, and can rest assured that it was made safely.

This article will help you understand what it is and how to make BHO from marijuana in a safe and healthy way. Please keep in mind that it was written for information purposes only!  ILGM does not encourage any illegal activity and take no responsibility on what you do with this information.

What exactly is BHO?

Butane hash oil is called this because of the process required to make it. Marijuana trimmings are put into a holding container of some sort, with butane pushed through until only the butane escapes, and the plant matter remains. This process allows for the cannabinoids to be removed from the marijuana by pumping the butane through the holding container. It becomes a liquid mixture of butane and marijuana, which is then evaporated in order to remove the harmful substances while keeping the good product, which is a waxy or honey-like substance.

Is BHO safe?
The key aspect of making BHO that is safe for consumption is the evaporation process. If the liquid substance is not evaporated correctly, then people might end up smoking both the good and the bad substances, making it unsafe and unhealthy. That being said, if you compare properly evaporated BHO with regular marijuana that most people smoke, good BHO is much more pure

While critics argue that smoking BHO must include a certain amount of butane being inhaled in the process, even with the purest and most properly prepared BHO, it’s important to consider that the average lighter also contains butane as fuel. If you use a regular lighter to smoke a pipe, then you are also bound to inhale some of that butane, aren’t you?

Of course, any type of smoking is going to come with unavoidable and unhealthy aspects. Smoking anything is never going to be as healthy as inhaling pure air. Many assert that smoking BHO is better than smoking raw marijuana with a pipe, however, so that makes it worth it for some who enjoy smoking BHO.

It is also important to consider your personal security. In California, for example, BHO is completely illegal. That means making it, selling it, or even having it are all considered a felony. In addition to it being a security risk for those using it, distributing it, and making it, it also means it is difficult to ensure safe laboratory conditions when it needs to be done in secret. Safety gear is generally at a bare minimum during illegal extractions, and many new people who are interested in making BHO are given misleading information, such as “just don’t smoke while you make it, and you’ll be fine.” This is extremely misleading and a dangerous lie. When there are no official rules or regulations, however, dangers increase

Is making BHO safe?

No. Making BHO is a completely different process from smoking it. It is possible to do it safely, especially if you are an expert or are partnering with an expert to make it, but the amount of risk involved is extremely high. Messing up in any tiny way is extremely dangerous to your well-being, and even to your life. Do not make BHO if it is your first time.

When making BHO you must take every precaution possible. Butane is highly flammable, all extractions must be done outdoors, doing extractions indoors can be extremely dangerous, meaning you could catch yourself and your house on fire easily.  Always keep a fire extinguisher nearby and make sure to wear safety equipment like gloves and eye protection.

There are many documented cases of people blowing themselves and/or their apartments up while attempting to make BHO. People were burnt from an accident during the process and later died in the hospital. Not only is this damaging to their own lives (and the lives of others), but it also is damaging the reputation of BHO in general.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link and learn to grow marijuana for your own BHO

Making BHO yourself without knowing what you’re doing could not only result in harming yourself but even if you survive the process, it could also harm others. Plenty of rookie BHO-makers feel as though they have confidently and safely made BHO for others to smoke, and then it turns out that they did not perform the evaporation process completely properly, and then have caused other people to inhale unhealthy substances. Not only that, but it also gives the BHO movement (not to mention the marijuana movement) a bad name — which is something we in the marijuana industry do not need right now.

The process of making BHO is also illegal in most places, so you should think long and hard about whether making your own BHO is actually worth all the risks involved.

How to make BHO

With the above warning aside, we have committed to providing you with information to make your own BHO. If done correctly, there are a lot of positive aspects to making your own BHO, and it ultimately is safer for you (assuming you know what you’re doing). Therefore, the below instructions are provided for those interested in making their own BHO.

Which butane should you use?
Before collecting the necessary ingredients for making BHO, you will need to make an informed decision about which type of butane to use. There are two general types to choose from: Isobutane and N-Butane. Other types of butane likely have propane mixed in. While generally less expensive, Isobutane is often considered more hazardous and toxic than N-Butane. N-Butane, therefore, works best for this recipe. Not only is it safer, but it also works better for extraction and will not leave behind a residue in your final product.

You can find pure N-Butane in gas supply companies, but not in retail stores. The most reliable companies include Win, Sarome, Cora, CTC, Colton, Dunhill, Ventti, Colibri, Calor Gas Match, Unilight, Supergas, K2, Lucienne, Newport, Nibo, Fackelman, and Davidoff. To check the quality of butane from a company you aren’t sure of, spray a large quantity of butane on a mirror, wait for up to 10 minutes, and see if there is a poor-smelling residue left over. If so, it’s not a good idea to use it for making BHO.

Which marijuana should you use?
Of course, we should also pay close attention to what kind of marijuana you should use for this recipe. The higher quality the marijuana, the higher quality your BHO will be — the importance cannot be emphasized enough. Your best bet is to use whole buds that are fresh, recently dried and put through the extractor. Grade A oil can be accomplished via one extraction; grade B oil can be accomplished on a second extraction after grinding up the buds.

INGREDIENTS:
– one 10-oz can of butane per 1-oz of marijuana
– one extraction tube
– one medium Pyrex dish
– one large Pyrex dish
– one electric heating pad
– one razor blade scraper
– a concentrate container
– a purging system (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Extract the marijuana. First, fill your extraction tube with the strain you have chosen. Prevent any air pockets from forming, and make sure the grass you are using is extremely dry. Fill the tube, pack it down, and then repeat until full and air-free. For less plant material, use a smaller tube.Next, fasten the screen (or a mesh coffee filter) to the bottom of the tube. Hold it over the medium Pyrex dish, then get your butane and put the nozzle right over the top hole in the tube. Allow the butane to flow into the tube, then wait for up to a minute until the liquid begins to drip into the Pyrex dish. Use as many butane cans as necessary. Allow the drip to continue for several minutes. The liquid should appear gold in color.
2. Once you have completed the extraction process, you will need to evaporate the liquid so that the harmful butane can be removed. Get the large Pyrex dish and put the medium one inside of it. Then, put hot water in the outer, larger dish. This will cause the butane to begin to evaporate, which should take between fifteen and twenty minutes. Replace the hot water as needed to keep it hot. For your safety, be sure there is plenty of ventilation during this process.
3. Purge it. Purging is the process to complete the removal of the butane honey/hash oil. Using a purging system is the best way to do it, but many money-conscious people prefer to use an electric heating pad instead. Simply set it to high heat, and then place the medium Pyrex dish on it for an hour or more. Watch it carefully. It is finished once the oil stops bubbling. Honey oil that has begun to become hazy or cloudy in appearance looks that way because of trapped butane. Purge it again to get rid of all the butane. One simple way of checking if there is any butane left in it is to touch it with a flame — if it catches, there is still butane that needs to be removed.
4. Store the oil. Use the razor blade scraper to get all of the oil out of the dish, and then put it all into a concentrate container. As long as it remains in an airtight container that remains dark and cool, BHO can last a long time. If improperly stored, you can expect the substance to become dry, tasteless, and less potent.

The post How to Safely Make Butane Hash Oil (BHO) appeared first on TheJointBlog.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

While many marijuana growers are most concerned about maximizing the yield and getting the most buds out of each marijuana plant, the taste and smell of the end product are also critical factors that can be influenced during your marijuana plants’ lives. In this article, we will discuss how to maximize the smell and improve the taste of your marijuana buds

Taking your time to learn the basics

A surprisingly overlooked way to improve the smell and taste of marijuana is simply to learn how to better grow and care for marijuana plants. If you are someone who just picked up the basics of how to grow marijuana on the fly, then this piece of advice is for you. It is very easy to grow marijuana well enough but maximizing the yield and potency of the buds, as well as the flavor and aroma, takes a few more steps of learning.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for tips on how to grow your own marijuana

It is as important to know how to grow your marijuana plants properly at the beginning of their life as it is at the end of their life. In other words, the harvest is important. You need to know when to harvest your plants to ensure that you are getting the most out of your buds.

After that, the basics of drying your buds comes into play and can make a big difference in terms of how strongly your marijuana smells and tastes. Once you have mastered how to properly do these things, you will already be well on your way to improving the taste and smell of your marijuana buds. That being said, there are also some more detailed steps you can take for ensuring your buds potency in both smell and taste.

In-depth ways of improving the taste and smell of marijuana

There are a number of more complex and detailed ways for making the smell and taste of your marijuana even better. This is, of course, in addition to taking good general care of your marijuana plants, and cannot serve as an adequate substitute for any of the basics.

Let’s look at some of the more specific ways you can improve the taste and smell of your marijuana.

Maximize the terpenes and terpenoids
Terpenes are a somewhat little-known chemical contained within all marijuana buds. Marijuana that has more terpenes is going to have a more potent characteristic smell and taste. In other words, more terpenes are exactly what you need to increase the smell and taste of the buds. Within each terpene, terpenoids are contained. They are also responsible for improving the smell and taste of your marijuana.

In fact, terpenes and terpenoids generally take care of the aroma of your marijuana plants — as well as a myriad of other types of flowers too. Therefore, the best way to get your marijuana to smell better and stronger is to encourage the making of terpenes and terpenoids in its’ buds.

It is important to remember that with every strain has a slightly unique scent. For that reason, you cannot expect all marijuana to smell the same. When you maximize the amount of terpenes in the marijuana buds, however, you will be strengthening the scent of whatever is natural to that particular strain.

How to increase terpenoid content and get more terpenes
To get your plants to produce more terpenes and terpenoids than usual, you will need to stress them out a tiny bit. Please note: this should only be undertaken if you have been growing marijuana for a long time and really know what you’re doing. Otherwise, you could end up with a plot full of dead plants that weren’t even stronger smelling after all your deadly work.

The reason you should have experience before trying out this process is that just the right amount of stress needs to be applied. If you apply too much stress to your vulnerable plants, they could get overly stressed out and either die or end up having a much smaller harvest than they would have had otherwise.

The key is, therefore, to apply a small amount of stress consistently and over a longer period of time rather than all at once. This is best done during your plants’ flowering stage of life, in particular towards the middle or end of it. If you do it just right, within two weeks of the time you are going to harvest the buds, then you will end up maximizing the scent of your buds by increasing the terpene production as well as the trichome level (which affects the potency of buds).

So how do you stress out your plant in a “good” way? You can start by bending or moving the stems without using too much pressure, often referred to as low-stress training (LST). Just be sure that when you do, you are not making physical contact with the buds themselves.

If you would prefer a slightly more active and bold approach, super cropping is an option for you. It is done by breaking certain parts of your marijuana plants’ stems from within. In other words, you are creating breakages without having any exterior damage. Although it is tricky, it is possible and can lead to surprisingly high benefits.

Some growers prefer to actually remove the leaves around the buds on their marijuana plants. This is to give the buds and the surrounding area more exposure — but please proceed with caution here, because not every type of marijuana will end up getting positive results from such a method. Therefore, it is always best to start off quite slow and then build as you start seeing concrete positive results. Some growers prefer to even go one step further and do something called extreme defoliation — but this is not necessary nor recommended for beginners.

Whatever method you choose, be sure to keep the humidity down to a lower level than you would have during the vegetative or seedling stages of your marijuana plants. This will increase the number of terpenes contained in your marijuana buds, and it should also make the potency and number of trichomes go up. If you are having trouble with humidity due to the natural climate of your area, invest in a dehumidifier and keep it at or below 20% humidity for the final 14 days of the flowering stage. Additionally, make sure your marijuana plants receive plenty of darkness for a few days before you harvest — total darkness for two to three days should do it.

For an extremely advanced approach, you can try stressing out the plants right at their roots. Do this by drying them out a bit more than they would “like” during the flowering stage. If this is done incorrectly, however, the buds will be damaged not only in potency but also in aesthetics. So be careful!

Further methods of stress
The list of ways to stress out your marijuana plants is practically endless. But which ones are good for increasing the potency of taste and smell? Let’s look at the options below.

First, restricting nutrients can have a strong (and positive) effect if it is done correctly and at the right time. The best time to carry out this method of stressing your plants is by reducing the amount of nutrients given in the last two weeks or less before you harvest your marijuana buds. What nutrients you do feed to your plants should be mainly designed for the flowering stage of marijuana; otherwise, you might end up overfeeding some nutrients and underfeeding others.

Reducing temperatures can have a similar effect. During the flowering stage, keep the temperature of your grow room at least below 80 degrees. Believe it or not, high temperatures can actually cause thermal damage to the terpenes that might already have been produced in your marijuana buds. Therefore, the hotter the room, the blander the taste of your buds. Since terpenes begin to generate in greater numbers starting in the sixth or seventh week into the flowering stage, this is when the temperature definitely needs to remain lower.

In the same strain of thinking, reducing temperatures elsewhere can have a strong effect. This involves dropping the coolest temperatures (in other words, the nighttime temperatures) to slightly below what you usually would want. That being said, never drop it so the air is freezing cold. But a solid difference of about ten degrees between the nighttime and daytime temperatures should do the trick. The beauty of this trick is that it also helps the marijuana look much better once you have harvested it — more colors like purples and reds are going to appear, assuming that the genetics of your seeds allow it.

For people who are growing their marijuana in soil, you are actually already in luck! According to studies, marijuana grown in soil-based mediums have a greater variety and number of terpenes. This especially applies to marijuana plants that were grown using composted super soil. Hydroponics systems, on the other hand, don’t always have the same number and variety of terpenes as soil-grown marijuana does. That being said, it is probably not enough of a difference to make you throw out your hydroponics system altogether.

General tips for success

There are all sorts of unique methods as well as pieces of advice for what not to do to grow some huge, potent, aromatic marijuana plants. However, how about some of the good things many growers are doing? Here are some of these tips:

Light matters
For outdoor marijuana plants, many growers assert that as much sunlight as possible during the flowering stage of their plants leads to a greater potency in smell and taste in them. The theory is that terpene production is stimulated by sun exposure, but, of course, more research needs to be done.

For indoor growers, supplementing the lights that you already have installed could do the trick. In particular, LED lights should be used as this supplement. This is because LED lights cover a broader spectrum of light colors, and therefore are more likely to cause your plants to produce more terpene. LED lights are the next best thing to the sun itself.

Plenty of growers who use HPS lights for the most part during their marijuana growing season will also add an LED light or two to ensure that their flowering marijuana plants are getting all of the light that is possible and that the end result will be potent and delicious. This is particularly a good idea in the last few weeks before harvesting.

Gentleness is important
It may seem like a minute detail, but being gentle with your plants consistently can work wonders for the final potency, aroma, and taste. The temptation is, of course, to reach out and begin touching all the buds that are surrounding you on your plants in your garden. But you must not do that because it destroys terpenes, and therefore has an adverse effect on your buds’ aroma.

Drying and curing

Plenty of growers will tell you the same: the way you dry and cure your marijuana will determine a lot more about its potency and flavor than the actual growing that you did with these marijuana plants. Once you have obtained the plant matter, you will need to hang it upside down for a minimum of one week — preferably ten days.

Depending on your climate, you may be living in a place where things dry extremely quickly. Marijuana is no exception, and this also does not bode well for you if you live in such a place — you need to dry the marijuana slowly, over a longer period of time. For that reason, if you already know that your plant matter will be at risk for drying too quickly, you should not remove or trim the leaves around and on the buds so that they actually dry more slowly, given the extra layers of moist plant matter. Of course, come mentally prepared with some patience because handling the leaves on the buds after they have already dried is a huge pain.

Before you begin to cure your buds, there are a few key things to remember. First, remember that your dried product should not be perfectly dry. It will need a certain amount of moisture to cure properly. You can rest assured knowing that the jarring (curing) time has come when the plant matter that has been hanging upside down feels dry to the touch on the outside of it.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for more growing tips

Whatever you do, don’t try to speed up the drying process. This will lead to disappointment reaching you faster rather than you simply being patient to begin with. If you feel some dampness on the outside of the buds, the time to cure has not yet come. If you did attempt to cure the marijuana at this point, then certainly mold and other contaminants could develop, causing the product to eventually taste and smell awful.

In the final few weeks before you are going to harvest your marijuana plants, be sure to flush out all the nutrients that you had been feeding them before. Do this by feeding them plain water with a neutral pH level for a minimum of several days and as many as several weeks before you decide to harvest your buds. Although it is likely you have already lessened the amount of nutrients you were feeding your plants during this stage of their lives, it is still a good idea to do the neutral water flush.

If you have any doubts about how much nutrients you fed your plants, you should absolutely do the water flush. If there is a possibility of any buildup of any of the nutrients you have been feeding your plants throughout their lives, flush the system out. Or if you are simply a meticulous grower who prefers to do everything right and is willing to work for it, then do this just to be safe.

Mistakes made with marijuana smell and taste

Unfortunately, it is relatively easy to completely ruin the way your marijuana will smell and taste.  Below are some things you should not do, unless you like taking massive risks.

Some people try spraying an air-freshening spray or mist on or around their marijuana plants, but that is not a good idea — especially if it occurs during the flowering stage. In fact, anything with a clean scent at all should be thrown away or at least left far away and never used, as it could cause a number of issues.

First and foremost, the fact that your plant has been exposed to air that is also wafting chemicals can be a problem. If you do let it happen, the smell and taste will inevitably be compromised in those marijuana plants. Of course, if you make the mistake of doing it once, you likely won’t have massive issues — the real problems arise when a product like this is used consistently over a longer period of time.

Other types of odor neutralizers are also dangerous in terms of ruining the taste and smell of your marijuana buds, so it is better to avoid them altogether unless you are deliberately trying to get a bud that can’t even be recognized as marijuana (which is unlikely).

A much more dangerous problem that can arise with marijuana plants during their flowering stage is mold or mildew. Any bud that has mold, mildew, or bud rot is going to need to be discarded immediately because its very presence will endanger the rest of your harvest as well. Mildew and mold can spread very quickly, and sometimes they even are never seen and go right into the product you want to smoke.

If you do ever smoke a marijuana product that has mold or mildew in it, you will notice a significantly more irritating, harsher feeling when you inhale. It can also cause other, longer lasting effects such as the development of a cough or throat discomfort. For this reason, you should also look through every bud you have slowly and thoroughly to ensure they are safe to smoke. Throw away anything that has mold or mildew on it.

Choosing the right strain

Despite all these other tips and tricks, it’s important to remember that the marijuana with the most potent smell and flavor is likely a type of marijuana strain that is already prone to a strong smell and taste to begin with. Selecting the right strain is how you can start maximizing the smell and taste of your marijuana plants before you have even started to grow and take care of them.

Be sure to do your research on which strains are the best in terms of smell and taste, and read the reviews for those particular seeds to ensure that the description and information provided by the seed provider is accurate. Of course, not all aromas are created equal: some are highly unpleasant while others are incredibly easy on the nose. Therefore, read about the type of scent as well.

There are a number of strains of indica dominant strains, hybrids between sativa and indica plants, and sativa dominant strains that will help you meet your goal of getting stronger smelling and tasting marijuana. Although these are the most common types of strains to be found, autoflowering marijuana plants are also an option for certain grow setups or types of people who are looking for that.

Whatever you do, just make sure that you are choosing a strain that will work in your environment, will have the potency, smell and taste you desire, and will be easy enough to grow for your own personal level of experience. Don’t skimp on prices here, because it will have a lasting effect on the final result of your marijuana harvest.

Thanks for reading. Please leave comments or questions below and don’t forget to download my free grow bible. For any grow related question please visit the marijuana support page.

The post Maximizing The Taste And Smell Of Your Marijuana appeared first on TheJointBlog.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

If you are thinking about growing marijuana yourself, you are likely unsure or indecisive about how to begin. The first step, of course, is deciding what kind of setup you prefer. Are you going to grow outdoors or indoors? Will you grow just one plant or many? What strain should you buy, and what equipment do you need? We will cover all this and more below.

When people are first looking at growing their own marijuana plant for the first time, they generally end up reading articles and guides about how to set up a big, successful operation. While success is certainly something you should be looking for, the fact is, that growing marijuana for only yourself does not need to be a huge endeavor. Why not start out with just one plant.

In the United States more and more people are becoming interested in growing their own marijuana. Whether this has to do with the changing legality of it or if it is simply a trendy thing to do at the moment is irrelevant. The point is, people are getting sick of needing to buy sub-par marijuana to enjoy it. Therefore, they have decided it is time to grow their own.

Growing your own marijuana can have a lot of positives to it. You will know exactly where your weed comes from this way, and how the plant was treated. There will be no question of whether residual chemical fertilizers are in the product, or if it is really as high quality as the seller claims, and so on. It juts simplifies things in that it removes any room for confusion or mistrust.

Of course, growing your own marijuana can also have its downsides. It is, after all, still illegal in most places, even in those that allow some amount of marijuana consumption. That being said, it is safer for your personal health because you won’t need to deal with someone else you don’t know to provide you with marijuana. Like growing any consumable plant, it is also highly rewarding. When you finally get to consume the end result after months of work, you will enjoy not only the product itself but also the great feeling of accomplishment that comes with it.

Why grow only one marijuana plant?

There are a number of reasons why growing just one plant can be extremely beneficial. First of all, with only one plant you are better able to focus your efforts, making it more likely that the one plant will grow better than the individual plants in a plot of more than one marijuana plant.

Additionally, security is better with just one plant. While authorities are known for busting people who have a large-scale growing operation contained within their home, who has ever heard of someone growing just a single plant having their house raided? The fact is, law enforcement has bigger fish to fry. Even if they did want you and your one plant, one plant is far easier to hide, making it unlikely anyone would notice it anyway.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for tips on how to grow your own marijuana

Even better, growing only one plant is going to be extremely inexpensive when compared to other grow setups that generally include more plants and therefore more expensive equipment and resources. One plant only needs the bare minimum, so whether it’s seeds, soil, nutrients, lighting, or even water, you just don’t need as much. Growing one plant is the perfect way to try your hand at growing marijuana without investing a huge amount of money and time, making it much more low-risk than if you were trying it with many plants.

Getting started

Now that you have decided you are going to try growing just the one plant at home let’s get into the details of how to actually do it. First of all, don’t get tied down with the stress of how difficult you think it might be. It simply isn’t as hard as it sounds — after all, there’s a reason marijuana has the common nickname “weed.” Like any weed, it is able to grow just about anywhere.

One thing you should know about growing weed is that it is a flowering plant. In case you haven’t gardened before, this means that it will grow buds just once per year naturally in the fall. It “knows” when to start growing buds when the sunlight begins to dwindle below a certain point.

Although you will be growing your marijuana plant indoors, this is still an important fact to know because it will affect how you set up your lighting and schedule the lighting for your plant. Unless your plant has more than 12 hours of light exposure every day, it will begin to flower — and a plant that flowers too early is going to have a much smaller harvest than if it flowers on time. And when you’re growing just one solitary plant, the size of that plant’s harvest becomes critical.

As a good rule of thumb, make sure your plant has grown (in its middle “vegetative” stage) for a bare minimum of one month to a month and a half before you even attempt to have it enter the flowering stage. While growing in its vegetative stage, make sure your plant is getting between 16 and 20 hours of sunlight (or other kinds of light) per day — the higher, the better. Buying a lamp is going to be necessary for growing it indoors.

Lighting

Even if your plant has a nice window that exposes it to lots of sunlight, it is still going to need to be helped along with an actual lamp. This lamp cannot be any desk lamp or floor lamp; it needs to be a lamp designed specifically for growing plants.

Luckily, lighting doesn’t have to be expensive — and it certainly can be kept at a lower cost when you only have one plant. Also, keep in mind that lighting is the most expensive piece of equipment that you are going to need to buy, so even if you aren’t happy with the price, it is the only item that will cost as much.

The kind of light you buy will depend on the situation you have in your house. If your plant will be next to a window that provides excellent light exposure already, for example, then buying a fluorescent light bulb will be your best bet as it just will add on some extra lighting hours after the sun goes down. Try buying a T5, a T8, or a CFL to get the minimum amount of light your plant will need.

This, however, is not going to maximize the amount of light your plant is getting. The more light, the better when it comes to growing a marijuana plant, so if you really want to get the best results then just going for the minimum isn’t going to cut it.

If you don’t have a window setup, try a 250-watt HID light bulb instead, which includes both HPS bulbs and MH bulbs. These can cost less than $30 although the bulbs don’t fit in a regular bulb fixture so you will need to include the more expensive cost of an additional fixture. The best lighting option for a marijuana plant is a 250-watt HID lamp so it may be worth it nonetheless.

If your plant is not receiving enough light, you will clearly know because it will begin stretching and reaching upwards, having more upward growth than outward growth. This is not good for a marijuana plant because bushy plants are the ones that are capable of growing huge, potent buds that every marijuana user dreams of.

Additional lighting information
When you get into the more minute details of lighting, things can get a bit complicated. If you really want to maximize how much light you are exposing your plant to, however, it is a good idea to really understand what you are dealing with.

Although all the lamp options will likely be good enough to grow a healthy plant and get a decent yield, different kinds of lamps can achieve different results. If you go with a VHO lamp, for instance, your plant will probably grow as much as three times as fast as a plant that is growing underneath a more “standard” type of lamp. With a VHO light, you can expect to need to keep raising the light up more and more every day because the plant will be growing so fast.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for tips on how to grow your own marijuana

That being said, a VHO lamp may be out of your price range. Additionally, you might not have the physical space for growing a plant that big. It is, therefore, important to consider all the aspects before deciding on a lighting system for your plant.

One of the best timers you can use for whichever type of lighting you go with is a vacation timer. These timers are intended to be used in regular household lights to make it appear as if you are home when you are really on vacation. Although they were not created with the purpose of setting a timer for growing marijuana plants, they nonetheless work wonders. It is a good idea to use a timer anyway because it will keep things extremely consistent, and it will be easy to remember how you treated your plant during one grow “season” when you need to consider how to change this treatment for your next plant that you grow.

Temperature and humidity

The key factor to remember with the temperature and humidity surrounding your plant is the fact that it should be different during the day (or during the artificial “day” created by your lighting technique) and the night. When the lights are on, the temperature should be between 68 and 78 degrees Fahrenheit. This should drop down by about 15 degrees for the nighttime temperature.

Generally speaking, keep the area around your plant relatively dry. This encourages more resin to coat the surfaces of your plant, as an excess in humidity will instead keep the leaves dry and fairly resin-free. That being said, be sure the temperature is not too warm when you have a dry environment because this could lead to an unhealthy amount of drying out of your plant altogether. It will start to turn brown, and its roots won’t be able to take in the proper amount of water to keep your plant healthy.

Another reason you need to keep the humidity down is that humid areas cause plants to have broader leaves. This is because, in dry climates, marijuana plants are able to respirate easily and quickly — in other words, the moisture is pulled off of their leaves in a dry climate more easily. Therefore, marijuana plants growing in humid climates grow broader leaves to be better able to respirate despite the humidity. Broader leaves are bad for the consumer of marijuana, however, because they will have a lower resin to leaf surface area ratio. Since you are only growing one plant, these seemingly small details can make a big difference in your final product and how much you get out of that plant.

If your grow room (or, rather, the room where you happen to be growing your new favorite potted house plant) is too humid, you will need to employ some sort of method to dehumidify it until it is down to a healthy humidity level. That being said, you should only use a dehumidifier if you already own one or if you are not worried about the extra cost. Generally speaking, investing $100 or more in a new dehumidifier is a bit overkill for just one potted marijuana plant, so decide for yourself if it is a good idea.

Ventilation

While connected to humidity and temperature, ventilation is a separate aspect that needs to have as much consideration as the other aspects of growing your marijuana plant. Ventilation is a preventative measure against things like mold, fungi, and other unhealthy issues that could develop for your plant. While it is perhaps more important for a room filled with marijuana plants rather than just one marijuana house plant, it still should be taken into consideration.

A lack of proper ventilation can cause the pores in the leaves of your marijuana plant to start to clog, causing that leaf to eventually die off. If there is too much leaf death, eventually your plant itself could die. More likely is probably just the fact that your plant will be losing some valuable resources since its leaves are responsible for absorbing the energy of the sun and using it for faster and better growth.

This is probably going to be more important if you are growing your marijuana plant inside of a small closet or cupboard. Since you will likely need to enclose it this way just before and during its flowering stage, however, you should probably plan ahead and make sure there is enough ventilation before you even start growing your plant in there.

Ventilation is perhaps the most important during the flowering stage of your plant’s life, because, without enough air movement and fresh air in general, the thick, juicy buds are prone to developing mold. Moldy buds are completely unusable, so this would be completely devastating to your plant and to your final yield.

If you have set up the closet or cupboard (or other enclosure) and are in need of a source of ventilation, try putting in a fan. If you can set it up in a way that the fan is pulling fresh air in from the outside, then it will be perfect. If not, a fan that even just moves the air around can be very helpful. Using a fan from an early age of your plant has the additional benefit of encouraging it to grow a thicker stalk, as it registers this as potentially harmful wind and therefore grows stronger to counteract it. The thicker and stronger your plant is, the better.

Watering

Watering is important for marijuana plants for obvious reasons. What may not be so obvious, however, is that the quality of the water is equally important. It makes a big difference what city you are living in and how your city specifically treats its water. There may be more chemicals in your water than in a neighboring city’s water, for instance.

Regardless of where you are located, you will likely have some chlorine in your water. (All water in the United States is treated with at least some amount of chlorine, for example.) It isn’t a very healthy additive to marijuana plants.

Luckily, chlorine is quite easy to get rid of. You simply need to let the water sit for 24 hours or more, with the container holding the water open to the air around it. This will also ensure that the water becomes the same temperature as the room. Watering plants with water that is room temperature is definitely healthier for them than shocking them with ice-cold water, so this process kills two birds with one stone.

If your particular city adds more chlorine to its water than most other cities, then buying anti-chlorine drops may be a good idea. These drops can be found at any pet store because they are used to prepare an aquarium to support fish (which can’t survive with chlorinated water either).

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for tips on how to grow your own marijuana

The next thing to consider is the quantity of water you are feeding your plants. If your plants are growing in a container that holds three gallons of soil, then up to three quarts of water can be given to them. The key is to observe how the soil is in terms of its moisture. You want the entire soil to be moist evenly — this is why it is better to water a larger amount once in a while than to water a small amount more often. If you only give your plant a little amount of water, the water won’t make it all the way to the bottom of the soil (and therefore the roots at the bottom won’t get any water access).

That being said, before watering your plant in any amount you need to be entirely sure that its container has proper drainage holes at the bottom. You should see the water coming out the bottom when you water your plant. If this doesn’t happen, it either means that you aren’t feeding it enough water to reach the bottom or somehow the water is getting caught inside the soil — and that can lead to significant health problems. As long as the soil has sand and perlite in it, however, it is unlikely that it will have drainage issues.

To check for the correct time to feed your plant its dose of water, check the soil to see if it feels moist. If it does, don’t water it yet — wait for one to two days before watering again, because even when the top feels dry, the bottom of the soil may still be moist. Never water your plants when they don’t clearly need to be watered, as that can lead to a myriad of overwatering issues.

Germinating the seed

Once you have purchased all the supplies and equipment you need, including the seed itself, it is time for germination to begin the growing process. There is not one perfect or right way to germinate, but it certainly can be kept simple and effective.

First, put the seed about a quarter inch to a half inch into the soil, covering it completely. The soil should remain moist but never get truly wet, and should stay at a nice, warm 75-degree temperature. All you have to do after that is wait to see the tiny sprout beginning to appear in 3 to 7 days (which can vary according to the strain and a number of other factors).

An additional option for germinating the seeds is to put the seed inside several moist paper towels. You can also use a damp sponge for this. Then keep the paper towels or sponge moist (but not wet, much like with the soil method above) until you see the seeds sprouting. They could sprout in as little as 24 hours or as long as a week.

After germinating the seed(s) this way, you should plant it into the soil. This should be done as soon as you have seen the seed cracking open to allow the tiny sprout to emerge. Keep the soil moist but not wet, and make sure it is covered on the top.

Be sure to give your new plants plenty of light once they are planted in the soil. The lights should be only about two inches away from the soil, and should not be moved upwards until the seedling has grown a decent amount. Some people provide their young seedlings with 24/7 light for maximum growth, but this part is up to you.

The vegetative stage

The “middle” stage of your plant’s life is its vegetative stage when it will grow the most in its leaves, branches, and height. Its stem will be getting thicker and stronger, and it should be growing many new leaves at an increasingly fast rate. The vegetative phase is crucial for your plant being able to absorb as much energy from the sun as possible (as the leaves absorb this energy), and therefore will contribute to a healthy flowering stage later using all the energy it had acquired. A larger plant means more and bigger buds, so you should take the vegetative stage seriously.

That being said, you can only grow your marijuana plant to use as much space as you have in your home. If you just want a small plant for personal use of marijuana, then just 30 days of the vegetative phase should do the trick. Some people even go as short as two to three weeks of the vegetative phase and still get everything they need from their plant.

Some growers (especially experienced ones) use training methods to get their plants to grow outwards rather than upwards, thus maximizing the amount of growth without growing too huge for the indoor space that they have.

The flowering stage

With indoor marijuana plants, you are responsible for everything. The soil, the water, the nutrients, and even the “sun” all come from you. Because marijuana plants respond to the amount of light they are receiving, you will need to change the number of hours of light that your plant is exposed to — in fact, it’s actually the number of hours of darkness that triggers their transition to the flowering stage, but the same rule applies.

To trigger the flowering stage (which should be done after your plant has had ample amount of time to grow and develop), you will need to expose it to 12 hours of “sunlight” (or lamp-light, as it were) and, more importantly, 12 hours of uninterrupted darkness. Make sure the darkness is complete and does not have even one instant of light, as this will cause the plant to stop entering the flowering stage. Additionally, the 12 hours of light your plant does receive should be as strong as possible, so be sure to keep using your lamp.

The beauty of growing one indoor potted plant is that you can move it to wherever you want it, whenever you need to. In this case, before you start triggering the plant to enter the flowering stage you should move it to some sort of enclosed location, such as a closet or cabinet. There, set up your lighting so that you are able to expose the plant to its 12 hours of lighting and 12 hours of darkness perfectly. Using an outlet timer is probably your best option because it leaves out any room for error.

Remember, make sure the 12 hours of darkness are total and entirely uninterrupted. If there is any light that gets into the enclosure (i.e. if you accidentally open the door during the 12 hours of darkness), even for a second, your plant will start getting stressed and confused about the seasons. This stress can cause all sorts of problems, not least of which would be it developing into a hermaphrodite, or else it may simply have a lower quality and lesser quantity yield at the end.

The flowering stage usually lasts between 8 and 10 weeks, and it will remain in this phase until the harvesting time has come.

Harvesting and curing

After you harvest the plant (by removing the buds and the leaves curling around them), you will need to cure the plant matter in a way that makes it smokable (and enjoyable). After drying the plant matter by hanging it upside down in a cool, dry room for days at a time, store the dried plant matter in clean glass jars, closing the lid tightly. Leave some extra room in the jars because the extra air will be helpful in the curing process.

Your main concern when curing marijuana is the development of mold. This will only happen if the plant matter is too moist when you start storing it in jars, so be sure it is quite dry before doing so. Open the jars every so often (first once per day, then once every few days) for several weeks until the aroma and texture seem just right. After that you will be able to smoke the product to your heart’s content — just make sure to store them properly (in a cool, out of the way location).

Other aspects to consider

There are a variety of other aspects to consider when you are growing any number of marijuana plants. For instance, what type of container will you grow your plant in? And what type of soil should you put into that container?

Containers and transplanting

When choosing a container for your plant, you can buy a breathable pot of some sort and rest assured knowing it is the best option for growing a marijuana plant. One good type of breathable pot is a fabric pot. Other pots are fine as long as they have drainage holes with something beneath to hold the water that trickles down and out. Try to avoid letting this water sit for a long time, as it could spark the interest of unwanted visitors such as mold or insects. As a general rule of thumb, the first container you use should be about six inches across or less. If you don’t use a fabric pot, a clay or a plastic one should be fine.

Another aspect of the container that you need to consider is how big it is. This will depend on how fast your plant is growing as well as how big the marijuana plant is in general. If you didn’t already know, it’s important to note that transplanting will absolutely be necessary at some stage — probably more than once. Transplanting is a tricky process, even when it is done perfectly. It always causes some amount of shock to the plant, which means it slows down the growth inevitably to a certain extent.

Transplanting is nonetheless important because otherwise you would need to start growing your seedling in a giant pot. While this may sound harmless to the new grower, it is in fact very dangerous because it is easy to overwater a plant that is growing in a pot too large for it. If you overwater your plant, all sorts of health issues can arise — mold and root rot can easily occur because of the excess of unabsorbed water, and the lack of oxygen can cause big problems for the plant.

One of the most common problems that happen with new growers is overwatering, as it is easy to misjudge exactly how much your plant needs and the prospect of underwatering is perhaps more daunting to many new growers. To help avoid this problem, simply don’t start growing your plant in a pot that is too large for it — begin it in a small one and have larger pots that increase incrementally as your plant grows. In other words, plan on transplanting.

The way to transplant your marijuana plant is simply in theory, but rather touchy in practice. First, get the larger container ready for the plant by filling it with soil and creating a hole for the plant. Then take the pot that contains your marijuana plant, tip it upside down, tapping the bottom until the plant and the soil pops out. There should be a chunk of soil with the ball of roots coming out without any physical effort, then place the entire chunk into the hole in the new container. Water the plant plenty and baby it a bit more than usual, as the process can be shocking.

If you are not comfortable with the idea of transplanting your marijuana plant, an alternative option is to use a Jiffy-Pot or a similar product. A Jiffy-Pot is a container made of peat moss that has been compressed. It helps with any potential transplanting issues because it protects the roots until the plant has been transplanted into a bigger pot. Once in the new soil, it will start decomposing and allowing the roots to break through it, making for a smooth and protected transition to the new pot. If you do use a Jiffy-Pot, make sure that the larger pot has at least 3 gallons of soil.

The key with transplanting marijuana is to always plan ahead. Depth is perhaps more important than width, so if you are going to grow a large plant, be sure that the pot is correspondingly large in volume. The last thing you want is for your plant to become rootbound in a container that is too small. A rootbound plant is one that has its roots grown around the outside of the pot, forming a sort of wall. When this happens it either doesn’t allow water in or out, meaning it will be thirsty all the time or will invite root rot or other health problems. Even if you change pots, the effects of being rootbound can last for a long time afterward.

Soil

For your growing medium (or the soil), the solid choice is always an organic potting soil. You could also look for mediums that are peat, coco, or sphagnum based, as they work quite well for growing marijuana as well. The key is to choose a soil or medium that is airy enough for oxygen to reach the roots.

You can buy a medium that already has a certain amount of nutrients contained in it — organic soils are generally this way. This means you won’t need to feed nutrients to your plant much or at all until the flowering stage. When you do feed nutrients to your plants, go the organic route whenever possible as it is less likely to cause a nasty “nutrient burn” to your plant. Anything that has lots of salts is a bad idea (Miracle Gro, for example).

The quality of your soil is almost as important as the quality of the seed that you buy — in other words, it is vital. You need to make sure that any soil you use is sterilized to avoid the presence of parasites or other annoying and harmful critters. Luckily, high-quality soil can be found just about anywhere — your local garden center and even stores like Walmart or certain grocery stores will have it.

Besides having an airy quality (which also allows the soil to drain properly — another important way to avoid the development of mold or fungus), good quality soil should also have a balanced pH level (between 6.5 and 7.5). If the soil is too acidic, then the marijuana plant will not thrive and has a higher chance of being male (which, if you know anything about marijuana plants, you know is not ideal). In addition to being airy enough for draining and oxygen access, the soil should also have humus in it because it does need to retain the water and nutrients you feed it to a certain extent.

Some growers prefer to form their own soil so that they can ensure it is exactly the mixture that they want. If you are interested in making your own soil, the best way to do it is by mixing together sand and moss (with a 1:2 ratio) as well as another part of either sponge rock or pearlite and soil (a 1:4 ratio). Always make sure the pH level is balanced — use a pH testing kit or litmus paper to do this. If the pH level of your soil (whether homemade or store-bought) is too low by one point, add half a pound of lime per each cubic foot of soil.

If you want to use your own soil from your backyard, you will absolutely need to sterilize it. To do this, moisten it and then put it in the oven at 250 degrees Fahrenheit for sixty minutes or so. Warning: it will smell terrible. After that, put in some of your fertilizer of choice — one tablespoon per every gallon of soil should do the trick. Make sure it is mixed in completely.

Fertilizers and nutrients

Another mistake that many new growers make is adding too many nutrients to their young, vulnerable plants. If you do it, you will end up burning your plants. Nutrient burn can have some major negative health effects, so it’s best to avoid causing this at all costs.

A good thing to keep in mind with nutrients and marijuana plants is to always start off slow. If you aren’t sure of how large of a dose to feed your plant, give it less than you would expect. Also, remember that you should not feed your marijuana plant any nutrients at all until it is at least three weeks old.

One good way to introduce your young plant to your fertilizer is to dilute it quite a bit, then slowly increase the amount of fertilizer within your fertilizer and water mixture. If you need a recommendation for what brand to try for your marijuana plant, go for either Eco-Grow or Rapid-Gro, as they are both commonly used in the growth and care of marijuana plants. Because adding a fertilizer generally always has some effect on the pH level of the soil, be sure to continue testing your growing medium for its pH level to ensure that it remains at a good value.

More often than not, feeding your plant fertilizer will cause the soil to become more acidic (or a lower pH value). If this goes untreated, it will eventually start having adverse health effects on your marijuana plants. It will lead to poor performance in terms of how well your roots are able to absorb the nutrients they need, simply because salts are the result of the fertilizer breaking down in the soil. When these salts accumulate, your plant will start to have these problems.

Some growers employ a method call leaf feeding, which should not be done until your plant is at least a month and a half old. It involves taking your fertilizer and dissolving it in warm water, then putting it into a (clean) spray bottle of some sort. Then simply spray the leaves of your marijuana plant with the solution and they will absorb the nutrients they need.

As long as you increase the amount of fertilizer given to your plant in a gradual way, you should be able to get away with feeding it quite a bit of fertilizer in the end. Marijuana plants are very hardy plants, after all, so you just need to do things that make sense to them and work for their mechanisms.

Before your plant is three months old, only feed it once every few days. Then, once you are getting ready to spur the flowering stage to begin, lower the amount of fertilizer you are feeding your plant. Most importantly, you need to flush out the fertilizers completely one or two weeks before you harvest it so that you can safely consume the product later. Certainly don’t add any fertilizers in the last few weeks of the flowering stage.

If you are someone who is interested in keeping things as organic as possible, you may want to look into using worm castings instead of chemical fertilizers. Organic worm castings, although expensive, are certifiably organic in every way. They are fed with all natural materials, and their castings are incredibly rich and healthy for marijuana plants. If you are willing to bear the extra expense, the results should be highly positive.

Pruning

Pruning is generally an optional endeavor, although some growers absolutely swear by it. It can work wonders for a plant that you want to grow wide instead of tall, however, so for an indoor plant, it may be a good idea to look into the methods of pruning.

That being said, try choosing a strain of seed that won’t need pruning to begin with. Check the description and reviews to see that it is a shorter and bushier strain so you won’t have to deal with a monster plant. Otherwise, you will need to babysit your plant quite a bit more, and after a certain point, you just don’t want to dedicate so much time to one house plant.

If you do start seeing your plant growing taller than you would like, it’s time to get into pruning. Simply cut off the top of your plant, right where the top two branches meet. It should be done with a razor sharp blade, cutting straight across. This method (called “topping”) will also serve the purpose of increasing the resin amount of the new growth, as tops always produce more resin. Topping also helps with the speeding up the growth of branches that are further towards the bottom of the plant, which wouldn’t happen without this pruning method.

Thanks for reading. Please leave comments or questions below and don’t forget to download my free grow bible. For any grow related question please visit the marijuana support page.

The post How To Grow Just One Marijuana Plant At Home appeared first on TheJointBlog.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

I get a lot of questions about watering marijuana plants. There are myriad things that can go wrong when growing marijuana but most of the ones that you control revolve around PH levels. Your eyes are the first line of defense as you’ll be able to see problems ranging from misshapen or damaged leaves to fungus, but there are things that you can’t see.

It is therefore a very good idea to get a PH tester that enables you to check both soil and water. Electronic ones with digital displays are of course easier to use, but also more expensive. At any good home improvement or gardening store you’ll also be able to find liquid PH testers, and these do a good job as well and are not as expensive but may be a bit more complicated to use. In a pinch, or if you are on a budget, PH strips will work, but they cannot be completely trusted. If you find your readings are not jibing with what the plant or soil looks like then the tester may be the problem.

Sometimes, however, the soil readings may consistently be in a good range (between 6.5 and 8.5), your soil composition may be sound (whether you are using an organic mix or chemical solution) but there are still problems with the marijuana plant. In these cases the problem is likely the water. Often it’s the PH of the water (ideally between 5.8 and 6.5), but other times it may be as simple as over- or underwatering the marijuana plants. Download my free marijuana grow bible for more information about pH and ppm levels.

Overwatering is a serious mistake that is very common among new marijuana growers because the assumption is that since water is needed, too much of a good thing can’t be bad. The problem is that too much water deprives the roots of oxygen and so they slowly die. A quick and easy sign of overwatering is that the marijuana plant will droop and seem as if it is changing colors, the green luster turning yellow. Leaves will fall off the plant and eventually even leaves that look healthy will die and fall. Another problem that comes from too much water is that it can leech vital nutrients from the soil before the plants have had a chance to absorb them.

The easiest way to prevent overpowering is to check the soil before you water. Insert a ruler a few inches into the soil and if it comes out dry and with no soil adhering, then it’s time to water. Unless you are growing marijuana in a very arid environment, your marijuana plants will only need a good water twice or so a week. The reason for this is that the topsoil is not indicative of the moistness of the rest of the soil. lf you are using an irrigation system, then you’ll have to adjust either the flow of the water, or the distance of the spouts from the plant. This problem is unlikely to occur if your plants are in the ground since excess water will be absorbed by the surrounding soil, but if your marijuana plants are in pots, this could be a serious issue because they could develop root rot.

Root rot is what happens to roots deprived of oxygen, and it could kill your marijuana plant. A slightly involved way to control water is to add a small amount (a few tablespoons) of hydrogen peroxide to your water. This works because the chemical compound is comprised of oxygen, but it also has an added benefit: it will kill any bacteria in your soil arising as a result of the rot.

But if this doesn’t works your alternatives (searching for the roots that are affected, killing them, then transplanting to a larger pot; or cutting the plant down) aren’t very good.

Underwatering is another serious problem and its effects will look similar, with the exception that the leaves falling off will be shriveled and decimated. The plant is literally dying of thirst and, as it starts to wither, it is using all the available resources on subsistence and so will let the leaves, the extensions, go. This means that during this period of its vegetative state, the marijuana plant will stop producing new branches and leaves. Even though you can correct the problem quite simply (add water) the effects may continue to be felt at harvest when your plants may be smaller and their smoke may be more harsh than expected.

Typically, any other problems having to do with water will be related to pH The problem will go something like this: the soil has a nutrient deficiency, so you attempt to remedy the situation by doing something like adding Epsom salts or worm castings, or you mix in a balanced organic nutrient mix with your watering regimen. After about a week, the soil PH levels begin to rise (soil is less acidic) but the plant’s problem is still apparent. Concerned, you add more nutrients either directly to the soil, or in a tea and the problem only seems to get worse, (the PH drops).

In cases like this, it is probably the water that is the problem, and so, before you completely lose your mind, be sure to test the water. Most major municipalities chlorinate their water to kill bacteria harmful to humans. This water should never be used when you are germinating marijuana seeds or flowering your plants, and if you must use it when your marijuana plants are in the vegetative growth stages you should let it sit for at least twenty-four to forty-eight hours so that the chlorine can evaporate. Chlorine is very acidic and, once added, it can lower the PH levels in the soils preventing the absorption of whatever nutrient or supplement you are trying to add.

The outdoor season is once again upon us and it’s important to procure seeds and start germinating them. If you haven’t purchased seeds yet, you can check out my seed shop for a wide selection of high-quality marijauna seeds at this link. Don’t let yourself fall behind at the start of the season! We’ve still got a deal for White Widow, Super Skunk, and Super Silver Haze (order 5 and get 5 free!).

The post When And How To Water Cannabis Plants appeared first on TheJointBlog.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

Marijuana cuttings will naturally root rather quickly if they are kept in perfect condition and are prepared correctly. They don’t have any roots, so their ability to get and maintain water is limited. In order to avoid a water shortage (a cause of wilting and, ultimately, death), you need to trim your plants well. Read this article to find out how to get your clones to root faster.

How to root cuttings

Using a rooting machine is the best way to root cuttings. You can also do it by hand fairly easily.

To get started, trim about 6 – 8 inches of healthy cuttings from plants that are in good condition. Remove the majority of the leaves except for the ones on the top.

All cuttings will need to be submerged in rooting powder or gel, then put in either rock wool, oasis cubes, planting mix or sterile soil. Keep the temperature at about 72-75*F. It will take about 8-12 days before the roots begin sprouting. You can attempt to root the clones in water if you are only doing a few.

To keep it sterile, boost the amount of oxygen in the water, and encourage rooting, make a solution of one part hydrogen peroxide (3%) and 5 parts water. Give the cutting 10 Watts of cold, white fluorescent light per square foot. Keep the clones in a location where the humidity is at least 65% or more. If you use a cover to make sure the humidity is just right, be sure to take it off once 5 or 6 days have passed. Even after you take the covers down, continue to keep the humidity high.

After about 5 days give it a dose of flowering formula fertilizer at 25% potency. You will not raise the strength of the light to 20 Watts per square foot. Over the 10 days go ahead and enhance the strength of the nutrients by mixing in a little grow formula. From the time, you started to the time you are done it should take about 2 weeks to see the roots.

What to watch out for

If you are growing your clones in the water, be aware that algae can easily clog them up. This will result in the clones not growing properly. You can prevent this by the use of a dark, dull looking container to retain the water because this will block algae from growing.

Cuttings from a flowering or ripe plant

You are able to clone all ripe and flowering plants. If at all possible, you will want to use cuttings from a shaded area so the buds aren’t as matured as the other ones. Stay clear of using woody stems when you are selecting your clones. The harder the stem, the more difficult it is for the clone to start rooting. Get the medium of your choice and place your cuttings in there. You will need to have the light there the entire time. The cutting will begin rooting and the newer top growth will become fruitful.

If your clones won’t root, don’t fret. There are plenty of things you can do to get the cloning process going. All it takes is about two weeks of proper care for your clones to start taking root.

Thanks for reading. Please leave comments or questions below and don’t forget to download my free grow bible.

The post Get Your Marijuana Clones To Root Faster appeared first on TheJointBlog.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

For this recipe you’ll need:

• 2 medium bananas, sliced
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup marijuana butter (or margarine if vegan), melted
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs (egg-replacer or one cup applesauce if vegan)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup sour cream

Marijuana-infused banana bread is loved by many. It is delicious, not overly rich and sweet.

The best way to make banana bread is to use cannabutter, however it can also be made using extremely finely ground Cannabis.

This recipe for the moistest marijuana banana bread that you’ve ever tasted. It’s also very easy to make! This recipe makes 1 – 9×5 inch loaf

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 °F (175 °C). Grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan.

In a large bowl, stir together the melted marijuana butter and sugar. Add the eggs and the vanilla, mix well. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt, stir into the marijuana butter mixture until smooth. Finally, fold in the sour cream, walnuts and bananas. Spread evenly into the prepared pan.

Bake at 350 °F (175 °C) for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Then cool the loaf in the pan for 10 minutes before removing it to a wire rack to cool completely.

Want to start growing marijuana yourself? It begins with quality seeds. We have selected some of the best strains for you. Get our top selections of autoflowering and feminised cannabis seeds right here in the seedshop.

The post Marijuana Banana Bread Recipe appeared first on TheJointBlog.

By Robert Bergman, IloveGrowingMarijuana.com

For marijuana growers in the northern hemisphere August is the last chance to start an outdoor grow. Autoflower marijuana seeds are special seeds that grow within 10 weeks from seed to mature plant despite the light schedule. August and September are often very sunny months so your plants get plenty of light to create some big fat quality buds.

How to get  a pound of cannabis in the next 10 weeks

Regular marijuana plants grow when they get 18 hours of light (summer) and flower when they get 12 hours of light (fall). As the amount of light starts to decrease the plant understands that winter is coming and starts to produce buds and seeds to reproduce. Marijuana is an annual plant that does not survive the winter.

Autoflowering marijuana plants start flowering immediately and also grow for only a month. This gives you a nice sized plant that can produce some quality buds. Because they create little side branches you can easily put a lot of plants close together. 10 plants in 4 gallon pots on 10 ft2 can produce a pound of marijuana. In just 10 weeks!

Make sure you order your autoflower marijuana seeds today from ilovegrowingmarijuana.com and surprise yourself and your friends with some nice home grown marijuana in only ten weeks. Autoflowers are available in the strains Amnesia Haze, White Widow, Super Skunk, Northern Lights, Blueberry and AK47. All beautiful Strains. This week we have a special offer on White Widow Feminized Autoflowers; all orders are doubled! So buy 10 seeds and get 20! Click here for the white widow offer

White Widow feminized autoflowers are one of the most popular strains because it is a very strong plant that is suitable for both beginners and advanced marijuana growers. The yields are always very high and of good quality. Also among medical users it is one of the most popular strains. The seeds will only produce female plants that will not focus on the creation of seeds for reproduction but only on the creation of THC.

For tips on how to grow autoflower marijuana seeds you have to download my free grow guide at this link. Make sure to order some some high quality marijuana seeds at this link here. We ship seeds to the US, CA and many other countries.

The post August Is Your Last Chance To Start Growing Marijuana Outdoors! appeared first on TheJointBlog.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

For centuries, gardeners have had to deal with pests of many varieties. Whether they are birds, insects, mammals, or even other humans, cultivated plants seem to have a target on their backs. While humans don’t really eat raw cannabis, some pests certainly seem to like the taste. If left unchecked, an infestation can end up ruining your crop. At the same time, using harsh chemical products to repel the pests can be harmful to you later on. To avoid all that, we have compiled a list of some safe and effective repellents (and other safety precautions) to keep bugs away from your plants.

1. Only use sterilized soil or fertilizer. The problem with unsterilized soil is that it can contain the eggs or even larvae of some common marijuana pests. If you grow your marijuana in that soil, you will be in for a rude surprise when those eggs hatch or those larvae start to grow up. This is particularly bad for indoor growers because there are no natural predators inside your house.

2. Use natural predators. Of course, if you’re growing marijuana outdoors, you can make use of a few pest predators. Ladybugs are notoriously beneficial to have around your outdoor marijuana plants because they love to prey on larvae and other potential pests. You should also encourage birds to nest in the area because they often like to snack on some pernicious marijuana pests. Put out some bird houses or a bird feeder to get birds to come around. Just make sure that they stay away while the seeds are germinating because many birds do enjoy the taste of a marijuana seed. Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link and for more outdoor growing tips.

3. Grow companion plants. Interspersing the marijuana garden with a few naturally repellent plants is certainly a good way to keep the predators away. Although the THC that marijuana produces acts as a natural repellent in its own right, it is often not strong enough to repel all plants (especially in the early stages of life). Particularly pungent plants like geraniums and marigolds will keep many leaf-eating insects and worms at bay. You can even plant some onions to ward off bigger pests like deer or rabbits.

4. Use the urine of your pests’ enemies. This might sound like a joke, but it actually works and it’s actually feasible. Many mammals like deer have keen senses of smell and if they detect a hint of bear or puma urine, they will want to stay as far away from your marijuana plants as possible. That’s because they won’t want to enter territory that a much larger predator has been roaming around in. The same is true for rabbits and fox urine. You can buy these scents at many sporting goods or outdoor shops.

5. Build a fence. If bigger animals are a problem and the scent of their enemies doesn’t deter them, then you might need to try building a fence around your plants. Obviously, many marijuana growers don’t have this luxury and it’s really only something that people growing on private land can do.

6. Create a repellent force field around the plants. With a permethrin-based repellent, you can keep insects away from your plants without using the synthetic spray on the plants themselves. Simply spray a ring on the ground about 6 feet away from the plant. Any bugs that come into contact with the permethrin will die or just evacuate the area.

7. Use custom organic repellents. Many growers have opted for pungent, organic repellents to keep pests away from both their indoor and outdoor plants. Concoctions like cinnamon oil, clove oil, and coriander oil have all had relative success without causing any damage to the plant. You can easily spray these repellents directly onto the cannabis leaves with no fear of any adverse reaction. Of course, different cannabis strains might have different reactions to any homemade organic repellents, and you should always test the repellents on an inconspicuous section of the plant to make sure no harm is done.

The post 7 Ways to Keep Pests off Marijuana Plants appeared first on TheJointBlog.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

One of the most annoying things about growing marijuana is that you have to accurately determine the sex of your plant. Many growers want to keep their female plants from being fertilized because it is the only way to ensure sinsemilla buds. These buds don’t have seeds and they will have ample THC by the time the harvest comes around. Even then, many marijuana growers just like to get the males out of the garden because they don’t produce that much THC. Determining the sex takes a subtle attention to detail and quick action. Below are a few tips for sexing marijuana plants.

1. Look at the growth patterns. During vegetative growth, every plant, regardless of sex, will start to flourish. As the plants age, however, you will begin to notice subtle differences in their sizes. Some marijuana growers have even noticed certain signs early on that can help you determine the sex. Females tend to have more complex branching when they progress from the seedling stage to the vegetative stage. Males, on the other hand, tend to be slightly taller and less filled out. Of course, the last thing you want to do is pull plants out at this early stage, but this can help you get an idea so you know which plants to watch later on. (Note: marijuana plants grown indoors under artificial light don’t usually exhibit these tendencies).

2. Males mature faster than females. This is one of the most common ways to determine sex on sight. Males will generally reach sexual maturity about two weeks before females. The males will start to grow rapidly and they will be taller than their female counterparts. They will also have these “false buds” which are actually pollen sacs. The reason the males grow taller is so that the pollen can drop down on to the female reproductive organs. This occurs whether you’re growing marijuana indoors or outdoors.

3. Males have flowers, females have pistils. Obviously, all marijuana plants have flowers at some point, but, if you can’t differentiate between male and female just by height, then flowers and pistils are good indications of sex. Those false-bud, pollen sacs will eventually open up to form little yellow or white flowers. Any female plants will not have these. Instead, they will have hairy, whitish pistils that will be sticky enough to trap the pollen dropped from those flowers. If you wait this long to identify the sex of your marijuana plants, then it’s probably too late to get any sinsemilla buds. Even so, you can still remove the male plants to make room for the continued growth and cultivation of the female plants.

Male marijuana plant.

Female marijuana plant.

Hermaprodite marijuana plant

4. Clone the marijuana plants to determine sex. This is really the only foolproof way to determine the sex before the plants achieve maturity. You simply have to take a cutting from any number of plants. Place this cutting into potting soil and let it grow on its own for a few days. Then, force flowering with a 12-hour period of darkness and 12-hour period of light (the clones must be separate from the host plants). Because the clones share the exact same DNA as their host, they will have the same sex. Once the clones go into the flowering stage, it will be easy to determine their sex and the sex of their hosts. Make sure you keep track of which clone came from which host so you don’t get things mixed up.

5. Identify where the plant sprouted during germination. Although it might seem a little strange, some marijuana growers have discovered a method that helps them sex the plants just after germination. If the sprout comes out of the top or bottom of the seed, it is generally a female. Side sprouts generally turn out to be male. While this hasn’t been scientifically studied, growers who have used this method report a 90% success rate. Even so, you shouldn’t use this knowledge as absolute fact. Let the plants grow a little and try to notice any distinctly male or female signs. Don’t just throw away the marijuana  seeds if they sprout out of the sides. Instead keep track of your predictions so you can make an informed decision later on.

6. Sometimes, you’ll have hermaphrodites. Growers can occasionally end up with some hermaphrodites which are basically plants that exhibit both male and female reproductive capacities. These can be difficult to determine right away because they can send you mixed signals. Hermaphrodites can also come about as a result of environmental stress, making their sex increasingly hard to determine. If you start to notice flowers and pistils on the same plant, try pruning off the flowers to ensure that the marijuana plant doesn’t self-pollinate (or pollinate other surrounding females). Read more about male, female and hermaphrodite marijuana plants.

Have you had any strange or successful experiences with sexing your marijuana plants? Let us know in the comments below. Also, let your friends in one these details by sharing the article on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter.

Last thing: if you buy feminised marijuana seeds, you do not have to sex them at all. No weeding out male plants.
 

The post 6 Tips for Sexing Your Marijuana Plants appeared first on TheJointBlog.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

There are millions of varying kinds of cells that make up a cannabis plant. The different cell types vary in their function, and they all work together as a sort of cell team. Cells for the leaves, roots, vascular system are just a few examples of the different cell functions and types. Everything you do with your plant has an effect on the cellular plane as well. Outside factors (i.e. changes in sunlight or temperature) also come into play at the cellular level, affecting the plant’s functions. Consequently, it is very important to have an understanding of cell responses, so you can alter the conditions for your plant to make sure it has a perfect and healthy response.

To better understand the goings-on of cell processes, we will proceed with this article via an analogy. Instead of using the tricky cell part names, we will look at it as the different parts within a power plant and a factory. It works as follows: The factory houses the receival of raw materials, the checking of these materials, and then the production of a finished result. A power plant provides the energy for the factory’s production, plus there is communication between that factory and the other factories. All of this is controlled and kept working in harmony by the head office. These types of facilities and their processes can be compared to the cell processes themselves, and will help you learn and understand what exactly is going on at the cellular level of your plants.  Download my free marijuana grow bible at this link and grow like a pro!
The different sections of the “factory” of the cell:

Factory building
Power plant
Production, packaging, and shipment
Warehouse
Management
Factory Collaboration

Factory building
The factory walls are the equivalent of the cell’s walls, which are kept firm because they are mostly made up of cellulose. When you walk up to the factory’s walls, the security guard from the receiving department greets you. This department is the plant cell’s membrane, which (like a security guard) is the gatekeeper between the wall’s outside and inside. It works as a sort of border between the two and will not allow everything inside. Certain substances (nutrients, for instance) are invited inside without question while the gate remains shut for dangerous or unusable ones. In some cases, the cell purposefully expels or draws in certain things.

The membrane not only functions as the gatekeeper, but also works as the communications department. This department is what lets the cell remain in contact with the world around it. This allows the plant to react accordingly to changes in its surroundings. If the surrounding environment becomes warmer, the plant needs to cool down. This is done via communication from the cell membrane to the stomata, telling it to open and allow the plant to enhance its level of evaporation.

In some circumstances, such as when the cell is old or damaged, the membrane might start to leak, which can lead to issues in function. Specifically, harmful outside substances could be allowed to enter through the normally solid membrane. Consequently, the cell could die, which will harm the plant’s wellbeing and your cannabis quality.

The last part of the factory building is its floor, which is the equivalent to the cell’s cytoplasm. Cytoplasm is made up of water, other elements and some chemical compounds of different types (i.e. proteins). It is in liquid form and houses organelles or cell organs. It provides a means of transport between organelles.

Power plant
Like a power plant is the source of energy for a factory, the sun provides the fuel for the plant’s functions. An integral part of energy usage in a plant is chloroplasts, which make sugar out of solar energy (which is called photosynthesis). This chloroplast is an organelle that distinguishes plant cells from animal cells. Photosynthesis helps store the energy for later use for production, maintenance, cell division, and respiration.

Like a power station, the mitochondria handle this stored chemical energy. Although a starch build up can compromise the photosynthesis process (transforming chlorophyll into a warehouse), cell chloroplasts actually store starch. Without any light, plants can transform starch into sugars, thus reversing the photosynthesis process. For this reason, plants should not actually receive 24 hours of light per day.

Production, packaging, and shipment
Just as every factory has an assembly line, every cell has an endoplasmic reticulum (ER). This large cell is housed in the cytoplasm and connects to the cell nucleus. Ribosomes make the ER have a roughness in the part close to the nucleus. Ribosomes function similarly to the assembly line workers by consistently making proteins, which are formed in the nucleolus. The nucleolus is located inside of the nucleus. Meanwhile, the smoother part of the ER, located further away from the nucleus, temporarily holds the proteins.

These parts of the ER that store proteins break away and go to the Golgi apparatus, which functions as the factory’s packaging and shipment department. All that happens here is the receival and more processing of the materials, and then shipping them back again. Lots of the proteins are transferred to the cell membrane. This is due to the fact that it consistently requires maintenance; without it, the cell can not function well. Some materials that are created for the cell’s exterior are sometimes made by the Golgi apparatus. One example of such a material is plant hormones, which go on to have an effect on a different area of the plant.  Download my free marijuana grow bible at this link for more information about plant hormones.

Warehouse
The cell’s vacuole contains water that stores waste products and nutrients. In our analogy, the vacuole is the equivalent of the warehouse. It increases tension in the cell walls by pressing against them, thus making the plant stiff. If the vacuoles don’t have enough tension, the plant wilts. Since vacuoles need water to create the tension, too little water will make your plant wilt.

Acting as a repository, the vacuole also plays an important part in the plant’s fast responses to changes in water level. Potassium is moved from the vacuole to cell fluid when the stomata quickly closes as a response to too little water. The stomata can also have fast responses to light, temperature, and carbon dioxide levels, which means the plant is able to optimize photosynthesis and have self-defense against outside threats.

If you see some of the bottom leaves of your marijuana plant start to turn yellow and die, don’t panic. In reality, this is a sign of an important process taking place. Like a factory, waste is produced in the cell processes. This waste is kept in the vacuole. When large amounts of waste need to be disposed of, it is deposited into the vacuoles of a leaf. This leaf is discarded by falling off the plant.

Management
Just as a factory’s goings on are organized by its management, the cell’s processes are guided by its nucleus. All of the genetic information (DNA) is held in the nucleus. This DNA, though identical in all cells, contains switches that turn specific genes on or off. These “settings” decide what the cell’s function is.

Cells have the potential for any function when they are first formed. Leaf, root, or storage cells are all a possibility at first. Specialization occurs only after the switches in the DNA are enabled or disabled, which are in part determined by the plant hormones and plant-produced sugars. The sugars sometimes have a hormonal effect as well.

Factory Collaboration

Leaves, roots, and buds are formed from tissues, which are made up of millions of cells. Since all the cells need to cooperate in order to achieve this, communication between them is essential. For this reason, the hormones act as information envoys.

Occasionally, a cell needs to be reassigned to a new function. One such instance is when a plant is cut since it requires new roots for the new plant to be able to soak up nutrients and water. That means that, shortly after the plant is cut, it will develop new cells that have no specialty, but will turn into root cells. Additionally, the stomata on the leaves will close up. This helps the cutting’s water supply avoid evaporation; the plan will use the energy from its reserves until the plant’s new roots have formed. This is one instance of plants adapting to sudden or extreme changes in their environment by means of extreme organizational changes.

I hope this analogy has expanded your comprehension of the plant’s cellular processes. Thanks for reading! Please write any comments or questions you might have in the comments section below. If you need more tips on growing marijuana, check back to my blog and download my free Marijuana Grow Bible.

The post Growing Cannabis At The Cellular Level appeared first on TheJointBlog.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

If you smoke heavily, you will only need the harvest from between five and seven large female marijuana plants for the entire year – assuming they were grown properly and are as healthy as possible, of course. When translated into choosing the best place for growing cannabis, this means that you do not need a terribly large amount of land to grow all the plants you could want.

This is not to say, however, that a usable growing area will be easy to find. There are lots of different things you need to remember when deciding where to grow your marijuana outdoors.

If you are looking for the perfect place to grow marijuana outdoors, it should look something like this: some sort of clearing that is isolated and near a riverbank, with nutrient-rich soil that does not have rocks in it, that is reached by the sun throughout the day. The most important factor to consider when choosing a location, of course, is always your own security. The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

• Examples of some outdoor grow sites
• How to find the best places to grow marijuana outdoors
• How other plants can help you
• How to camouflage your marijuana plants
• How to protect your marijuana grow site
• Guerilla marijuana growing

 Examples of some outdoor grow sites

Growing marijuana in a garden
Few people have the luxury of growing marijuana in their own personal garden, but this is always the ideal option. You’re never far from your plants, you can water them accordingly, and keep prying or suspicious eyes out of your garden as you see fit. Even so, the smell of marijuana can be quite pungent, so keep the plants away from your neighbor’s fence.

Growing marijuana on a balcony
Like a garden, a balcony gives you an area to grow your marijuana where you have easy access. Unlike a home garden, balconies can be seen from the road or by neighbors who are also on balconies. You can use a frosted plastic film to keep your plants out of sight but still in the sun. The film can also reduce the spread of the marijuana scent. In the northern hemisphere, you should place your plants facing south (if possible) so that they get the most sun during the day.

Growing marijuana on a roof terrace
A roof terrace gives your plants a full day’s worth of sun, but odors and strong winds can be an issue. Small amounts of wind are ideal for thicker stems, but constant windy conditions (like those found in coastal locations) aren’t good for marijuana plants. If you live in a windy environment, try to find windshields.

Growing marijuana on the roof of a vacant building
Some people don’t have access to their own roof terraces, balconies, or gardens, but another roof can work just fine. If you can find a vacant building in which the roof is not easily accessible by anyone but you, then you might have a perfect urban location for your outdoor marijuana grow. It might be enticing to grow on roofs that are difficult to access but not vacant. Just be aware that appliances or equipment like air conditioners might be up there and they will need periodic maintenance.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for more outdoor grow sites

Growing marijuana in a forest
One of the best places to employ guerrilla marijuana growing is in the forest. It’s always a fun journey hiking through woods, trying to find a location with ample sun, a nearby water source, and a long distance from any trails or paths. If there are no streams, you might be able to dig (sometimes only 3 feet deep) to find groundwater. In most cases, however, the soil in the forest is quite acidic (low pH level). Pine forests and meadows have a problem with acidic soil. Sometimes, you might be better served digging a hole and putting in better, nutrient-filled soil. You might also be able to take 15 gallon pots filled with good soil.

Growing marijuana on a riverbank
Rivers or streams have what is called a riverside that features a whole host of tall, green plants like canes or nettles. The soil in these locations is usually so wet that you don’t have to water the plants. You can add a nutrient solution every month or so for better nutrient quality. These locations are also hard to get to. You may have to swim across a river to get to your guerrilla marijuana garden, because there’s a good chance that most other people wouldn’t be willing to do that.

Growing marijuana in an open field
This might seem like a bad idea considering how wide open a field is, but if you camouflage your cannabis with other plants then you can get away with it. You get all the sun your plant could need in a location that’s easy to access and difficult to tell what it is. Heathland is usually quite acidic, but if the field has grass or any other plants, marijuana should do well.

If you see nitrogen-loving nettles, then the soil is full of nitrogen, one of the most important macronutrients for marijuana growth. Even so, the best course of action is to start your plants off in a pot or a hole that has fertilized soil. Keep the plants near brambles and nettles so that they’re not obvious to the casual onlooker.

Growing marijuana in a corn field
Although you likely don’t own a corn field, they are ideal locations for marijuana growth. If you plant in the middle of all the corn, your plants get tons of sun, privacy, and all the water and nutrients they need. If you know another breeder who has a corn field and plants marijuana surreptitiously, then ask them if you can plant there. Otherwise, it’s pretty risky to try guerrilla farming on a stranger’s land.

You will still need to grow your plants outside of the corn field first. You’ll have to wait until about the end of May or the beginning of July when the farmer stops working the field with a tractor. The marijuana plants should be between 10 and 15 inches in height when transplanted to the field. Plant in the middle of the field and allow for about 3 to 5 feet of space between the plants. Mark the rows where your plants are located with an object or by gauging another natural item. Within a matter of weeks, corn will grow up to several feet tall, which will conceal your marijuana plants nicely.

How to find the best places to grow marijuana outdoors

First and foremost, you need your location to be safe from discovery. As soon as your marijuana plants are discovered by someone else, it will immediately be unusable because you will lose your entire crop. If you have it on your own property, be sure to keep yourself safe by placing it in a location where you can easily deny your knowledge of it being there. If the plants are in a remote enough location on your property, you will probably be able to get by claiming you had no idea it was growing there.

Some growers use self-made greenhouses in order to hide the types of plants that are in there. Although this takes away your chances of denying any knowledge of it, it greatly decreases the chances of your crop being discovered.

Although more exposed to the outside world, public land is probably the safest choice. This can keep the marijuana plants from being traced back to you. Even if your crop was discovered and destroyed, at least you would be safe from legal action.

Avoid it being discovered in the first place by choosing a location wisely. Make sure it is in a spot that does not have high traffic (such as a hiking trail or other attraction), and where hunting does not take place. Keep a special eye out for places that someone looking for psilocybin mushrooms might stumble upon, and avoid such locations – a mushroom hunter would be more than happy to take your valuable marijuana plants for themselves.

Another potential problem could be new development. You wouldn’t be the first one to choose a spot, ready the soil, and spend valuable time and money preparing the water systems, and then come back a while later only to see the land completely destroyed by bulldozers and construction.

Download my free marijuana grow guide for more outdoor marijuana growing

Some cannabis growers are particularly lucky because they live in a place where the law allows growing so they can focus their efforts on the more important aspects: soil, water, and light. Here’s a short list with requirements for an outdoor grow site:

1. Sun
More sunlight correlates to larger plants and higher yields. If you plant in the shadows, at least make sure your plants get a few hours of sun each day.

2. Water
Marijuana plants will be able to thrive in most areas, except those that are uncharacteristically dry. Of course, if you have more water at your disposal, then the plant can absorb more nutrients. Creeks, rivers, or other nearby sources of water are ideal. Bringing in your own water is also an option.

3. The Right Amount of Wind
The gentle touch of a small breeze helps develop strong root systems, but lots of wind can cause damage to the marijuana plant. Choose a location that is not too windy.

4. Nutrient-Rich Soil
Nutrients are the lifeblood of marijuana plants, so try to find an area where lots of other green plants are growing. Marijuana will likely do well in that location.

5. Easy Access
Seeing your plants at least once per month is reassuring and also important. You will be able to tell if they have incurred a bug or pest problem, lack of nutrients, water deficiency, or whatever else.

6. Keep It Hidden
Easy access is good for you, but not for others. Try to keep thieves or potential police informants off your trail by planting your marijuana garden away from the road or other locations that people frequent. Corn, canes, and tomato plants can also camouflage the marijuana.

 How other plants can help you

You can easily use the growing cycles of other plants to help guide you for what you can expect with your marijuana plants. You should look into the growing behavior of other summer plants, such as corn or tomatoes. Corn is generally your best bet. This strategy gives you the chance to ask around for tips (about corn or tomatoes, for example) without needing to explain that you are actually gathering the information in order to grow cannabis.

Because the harvest time is similar for these other plants and cannabis, information about other plants can turn out to be invaluable for you. You can gain helpful insight into growing climates and harvesting time, and you should plant your marijuana seeds around the same time as these other plants should be planted.

Besides weather and the harvesting time, talking to others about plants with the same growing season will help you out with other factors you may not have considered already, including subjects such as rainfall and types of pests. You can’t believe everything you hear, of course, but conversations like this could even help for finding a good growing location. Just make sure to be discreet about it.

Other plants can also help  from just being near where you will grow your marijuana plants. Tall plants, especially green ones, will help hide the cannabis. Many growers (such as ones in an urban location), put flowers on their marijuana plants so they will resemble a different local plant. Although the flowers are just attached loosely, they are good enough when seen from afar, so they are a popular method for rooftop growers. Sometimes combining the flower technique with something else, such as tying down a few of the branches, will be enough to mask what you are really growing in your garden.

Download my free marijuana grow guide for more outdoor growing tips

Other growers use or intentionally place other plants around their cannabis plants. Green plants with lots of leaves such as jasmine and spider plants can do the trick nicely. Bushes or bamboo have also been used by growers to make a sort of shield around their plants.

Be careful with these methods, though: cannabis plants that need to compete for sunlight with taller plants around them will spend all of their precious energy on growing very tall, meaning they will grow very quickly and will soon be taller than the other plants. To avoid this, simply make sure that you are not planting the other plants too close to your marijuana. This especially applies if you are using the shield technique.

All in all, make sure to be taking in a lot of information not only about marijuana plants, but about native and local plants in general. Learn how and when they grow, and use this to your advantage. It will help you grow healthy, strong marijuana plants, and will allow you to have a successful crop without any theft or loss of your plants. Any information about your local system will help you reach success, so start with the local plants.

How to camouflage outdoor marijuana plants

One of the best ways to hide your planted marijuana is to originally plant them beneath trees or beside bushes. Another tip is to make sure you have only a few plants in one specific area, just in case one clump of your plants are discovered. This way, you won’t lose your entire crop if they are discovered.

You can actually bend and prune your marijuana plants so they look like other types of plants, therefore lessening the chances of their discovery. If you bend the stems in a horizontal way while doing this, all the better: your plants will get more sun, making the yield even bigger.

Although planting marijuana plants underneath trees seems like a good way of keeping them well-hidden, you have to be sure that they will still get at least five hours of direct sunlight, as well as much more indirect light. The more light there is, the more you will get from your harvest.

Some growers attach silk flowers (click here for some examples) to their marijuana plants to camouflage them better; otherwise, planting them close to similarly colored and sized plants could do the trick. Make sure these plants won’t die earlier than your plants, however, as that would make your plants be even more obvious.

The key is to keep your marijuana plants from being visible from people just looking around. Your work is not done after planting them, however; you will need to take other steps, such as changing your route each time when you go back to your site, as well as covering your tracks as you go. Don’t make it obvious that you have been there: keep the environment looking like it is untouched by anyone.

Even if it is less convenient, try parking your car in a place where there are multiple cars around. It will help if you have your source of water near to the planting site; carrying 100 gallons of water will look awfully conspicuous if anyone sees you. Have a reasonable explanation for you being in the location, and even bring along “props” to further prove your story.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link and learn to grow like a pro!

All of this is equally important to consider during the planning process before you plant your cannabis. You might even want to try on a smaller scale for your first season so you can be sure that you will harvest the few plants that you do grow.

More than anything, be careful who you tell about your operation. Even if you do tell someone that you are growing marijuana, you must always keep yourself from telling them where they are planted. For most people whose growing sites are in really well-hidden areas and are nonetheless discovered, their only mistake was bragging about it to someone who then reported it. Despite all your efforts until now, nothing will matter since your entire harvest will be gone. Never underestimate the importance of security!

How to protect your marijuana grow site

Security issues can vary quite a bit, depending on the geographic location – it can even vary quite a bit within a single country. Vancouver growers of marijuana have an easier time of growing outdoors than US growers who live in states located in the southwest do. Growers in Hawaii need to take extra measures to make sure that their plants remain a secret, but people living in Australia don’t have this same problem, due to the fact that they have a lot more space and a cultural lack of concern by the neighbors.

So how can you protect yourself, wherever you are? First and foremost, learn your local marijuana laws, and the consequences of breaking those laws. In certain places with stricter laws and penalties, the risk simply might not be worth it. Some states in the US have zero tolerance, which means that if they discover you the minimum penalties will be extreme, including jail time and hefty fines. In other locations, such as some European countries and a few states in the US (especially California), the penalty depends a lot on how much was discovered.

In most cases, your stash will be taken away from you and you will be fined, but that is it. You will need to do the research yourself and make a well-informed decision about what is right for you. In any case, keeping your security a priority is crucial. If nothing else, it will protect your crop from being discovered and taken from you. The fewer people who know about it, the less likely discovery is. When in doubt, simply don’t tell anyone at all.

Aerial surveillance and infrared photography are some of the types of technology that American police forces will use to try and find secret cannabis plants. They are often successful, discovering hundreds of thousands of plants each year. The US government funds efforts to find and get rid of cannabis plants. Don’t let this intimidate you, though: they are mostly focused on much larger planting sites, which are far easier to find than personal gardens or just a few plants in one location. Some state laws allow the police to take away entire properties of the grower, then auction everything off. This money is then used to buy state-of-the-art surveillance equipment, firearms, vehicles, and other tools used to find and destroy all the marijuana in their precinct.

This is why security should be your first priority from the beginning. Think hard about where you will grow your marijuana: growing away from your own property is always the best choice for your own safety, as it is going to keep the crop separated from its grower. Choose a remote location, away from any hikers, hunters, or other foot traffic. Other (legal) plants should be used for extra coverage – you can even plant some nearby to cover up your cannabis plants even more thoroughly.

Guerilla marijuana growing

Because the law enforcement in certain areas is becoming more and more aggressive, marijuana growers have had to come up with some very creative ways of avoiding discovery. Guerilla farming is one of those methods. It is the way that most growers who plant their cannabis plants outdoors have had to adopt.

The concept is simple: keep your plants from being discovered, and keep their discovery from leading to you.

Various tactics have been used to achieve a successful, undiscovered harvest. Some growers raise their marijuana plants amidst tree branches. Some growers used buildings that have been uninhabited for a while, growing their plants on its rooftop. While these locations would be quite difficult to be discovered, it does lead to some difficulty when trying to reach them to water the plants. If you are growing your cannabis plants on some inaccessible patches on the side of some hills, you might have to carry water to each plant individually.

Given the risk you are taking in losing your time and money (not to mention legal consequences), be sure to keep your security the first priority when choosing the location of your planting site.

Thanks for reading. Please leave comments or questions below and don’t forget to download my free grow bible.

The post Growing Cannabis Outdoors; A Detailed Guide appeared first on TheJointBlog.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

For every marijuana grower, achieving a high final yield is the ultimate goal. In an ideal world, this yield will be high despite less effort, time, and money being used.

There are a number of factors that can negatively affect your yield, so as a grower you need to always be aware and ready to combat these things to ensure a great yield.

What are the main things that can affect your yield? They are light intensity, pruning or training, nutrients, climate issues, and the harvest time. All five of these factors can lead to successful yields, but if they are not handled correctly, then they also have the potential to devastate your marijuana crop. You, therefore, need to be well informed and ready for any unexpected hurdles that might come your way.

More than anything, the genetics of your marijuana plant are going to have the greatest effect on the final yield. Make sure you choose a strain with a high potency and yield to begin with so you ensure that you can maximize your crop to an amazing extent.

Increasing light intensity

You will know your plants are having an issue with the intensity of the light by the way they are growing. For instance, if your plants are in their vegetative phase and are not receiving a high enough intensity of light, they will “stretch” upwards toward the source of light. This can lead to large spaces on the stem between nodes and leaves, or perhaps even growing tall enough to fall over.

Tall, lanky plants are not the type of plants that are going to get you a high yield – bushier plants will. Once these stretched out plants have reached their flower phase, it will be difficult to get them an adequate amount of light to increase their bud growth. To keep it simple, more light intensity leads to more (and bigger) buds. It’s, therefore, easy to understand why it’s such an important factor for your marijuana garden.

Light is by far the most important factor that can affect any marijuana plant. It is absolutely essential for the flowering phase of your marijuana plants, although many new growers don’t fully appreciate how much increasing the light intensity during that final stage is going to help their end yield. The process photosynthesis is fed by intense sunlight, which creates sugar, which is used for the flower growth of your marijuana plants. Uninterrupted darkness is equally important since this is the time that the plant can produce and let off the hormone florigen – if it doesn’t do this, it will not flower.

If your plant is experiencing a problem due to the improper intensity of the light, there are several methods you have at your disposal to combat the problem. Generally, more intense light leads to bigger and fatter buds. This, of course, means a greater yield – and greater success for you as the grower. It’s especially important to have high amounts of light intensity during the flowering phase since this is when your plants are going to grow their buds as much as possible. This is the easiest to achieve if all of your plants are the same height, with lots of colas close together. This is more or less impossible to achieve after your plants have already entered their flowering stage, so if they have grown unevenly then you will just need to work your hardest to make them receive intense light nonetheless. The tricky part about increasing the intensity of the light in your grow room is to not simultaneously increase the temperature of the room, as the plants need to remain cool during their flowering phase.

One simple way of increasing the intensity of light in your grow room is to move the light so it is positioned closer to the plant. This has to be within reason, of course, so as not to burn your plant’s tips. Remember: the best way to increase the size and potency of all the buds is to have each one exposed to direct, intense light.

In general, there is a low chance of you giving your plants too much light. Marijuana plants use up lots of light in the wild, so to surpass the point of too much would be surprising. As long as the light isn’t too close to your plants, you won’t have a problem with light levels being too high.

Although it might not seem like it is directly related to light, CO2 is another important factor that comes into play. CO2 enables your plants to take in more light than usual. Unless you are reaching the point of the light being too much for your plants, however, adding extra CO2 into the grow room is most likely a waste of time. If you are reaching this point, CO2 will be extremely beneficial to your plant’s end yield.

If you are planning on adding CO2 to your grow room, make sure you seal off the area completely so you can pump in extremely high amounts of CO2. This density of CO2 is dangerous for humans, so don’t walk into the room with the excess CO2 without taking proper precautions first.

Increasing yield by pruning

If your plants are receiving uneven amounts of light, meaning the tops of your plants (which receive the most direct sunlight) are growing more rapidly than the bottom sections of your plants, you may want to look into pruning and/or training your plants.

This factor goes hand in hand with light intensity since it will have a direct effect on the coverage and distribution of the light. Training and pruning allow your plants to become bigger and wider, and it is free and relatively simple to achieve. You can either top your plants (which utilizes the method of taking off the tops of your plants) or use Low-Stress Training or LST. Many growers prefer LST since it keeps the stress levels of your plants to a minimum (as the name suggests). LST’s idea is to coax your plants into growing flat and wide rather than tall and thin. It uses bending to achieve this goal.

If you are planning on using LST, you should start when the plant is still quite young. The ideal shape of a plant that has undergone LST is easiest to accomplish if you start from a young age. Instead of bending and tying your plant, you can also use a screen or netting to guide your plants’ growth to being more flat and wide. This method is referred to as Screen of Green.

If you want to train your plant a little bit differently, you should look into the method of Supercropping. This can be used on its own or to accompany another training technique. It is a way to force plants to bend when they don’t want to bend.

As far as actual pruning goes, the most popular method for marijuana growers is called Topping. Another popular method is FIMing the plant. Both methods include removing growth from the end of the main cola. If you do this at a young enough age, the result will be that the plant will stop focusing all its energy on this one cola. Instead, it will focus on the other colas that are full of buds instead. This ultimately leads to a higher yield.

Using the best nutrients

If your plants have sudden leaf discoloration, curling of the leaves, death of the leaves or other strange symptoms, the cause could easily be from too little (or too much) of one nutrient. There is the common identifiable problem called “nutrient burn” that shows your plants are receiving too many nutrients. Just like people shouldn’t fill their plate with multi-vitamin pills, you shouldn’t bomb your plants with nutrients. Too many nutrients make both humans and plants sick.

Your plants’ leaves are always the first place to show nutrient problems. Therefore, if the leaves of your plant all look similar and bright green, you can rest assured that there is no problem with your plant.

Contrary to what some new growers might assume, adding more nutrients will not automatically make your plant more well-nourished. You need to know exactly how much of each nutrient your plant is going to need, and during which phase. Sound complicated? That’s because it is.

Lots of growers have developed the bad habit of giving their plants too many nutrients. Another common mistake is when growers who haven’t fully educated themselves mix lots of nutrients together before adding it to their watering solution, without really knowing why or what they are feeding their plants.

There is a tendency to add too many nutrients.  Too many nutrients lead to poor plant health (therefore doing more harm than good).  You need to make sure you don’t let this happen.

Nutrient deficiencies are also detrimental to the health of your plants, so you need to find the balance between the two extremes. It is actually generally the safer option to err on the side of too little nutrients. If you use bottled nutrients, we recommend using only half of the suggested amount of nutrients. Simply do not raise nutrient levels unless you are noticing specific changes in your plant (i.e. leaves turning yellow at the base). You can also do it when you realize one particular plant uses a lot more nutrients than its neighbors. You will be surprised by how different the ideal amounts of nutrients are from plant to plant.

In general, it’s better to have fewer nutrients during your plant’s final 2-4 weeks before the harvest. If you see leaves dropping during this time, do not automatically assume it is a nutrient deficiency and start adding more nutrients. This will actually slow down your plant’s bud development, therefore resulting in a lower yield. Fewer nutrients during this time will also allow your buds to get rid of any residual “nutrient taste” that sometimes comes with plants that have been receiving too many nutrients. Don’t be afraid to allow some of the leaves to yellow, die, and drop off – it allows your plant to focus its valuable energy on high-quality bud growth instead.

The best way to avoid nutrient problems altogether in soil-based mediums is to form your own compost to make super soil. It can be totally organic and will give your plant every nutrient it needs throughout its entire life. You won’t need to worry about deficiencies and toxicities and can instead use your time and energy elsewhere.

Create the perfect climate

If your plant (or one particular spot on the plant) begins turning brown and wilting, you can be relatively certain that the excess heat is to blame. Excess or sudden cold will also lead to slowed growth and other negative consequences, so make sure to avoid this at all costs.

You need to maintain a steady, healthy climate for your plants to produce their maximum yield. A too high or too low temperature will result in a poor yield, as will improper levels of humidity. Make sure to always keep the temperature of your grow room within a certain, consistent range to keep your plants from slowing growth or having other negative side effects. If you keep the temperature and humidity level at the right spot, the final harvest will be rewarding. Even the smell and potency of the buds will be improved, so don’t forget about this crucial factor when it comes to maximizing your yield.

Harvest at the right time

You will know you have chosen the wrong time to harvest if your buds aren’t fully ripe, or if they’re unusually small. Chances are, you cut your potential by about 25% by harvesting too early. If you wait too long, however, you will also lose some potency and smell.

There is a small window of time that is ideal for harvesting the buds of your marijuana plants. This window of time is between two and three weeks long. You need to ensure that you are waiting long enough to allow the buds to ripen completely. The final two or three weeks before the harvest can make a world of difference – buds can grow up to 25% more during this time! This is why it’s very important not to harvest earlier than the optimum window.

If you are trying to get a specific high from your buds, you can alter the harvesting schedule a bit. Buds harvested earlier generally have a buzzy high, best for smoking during the day. Later harvests lead to a high that is more relaxed couchlock feeling. Decide when you will harvest based on your personal preferences.

Marijuana plant symptoms

Leaf symptoms:

– Leaves curling upward
– Leaves curling downward
– Base leaves yellowing
– Heat-burnt leaves
– Spotting of leaves
– Yellowing or browning leaves
– Dropping and dying of leaves
– General discoloration (red, grey, brown, yellow)

Plant symptoms:
– Tall, “reaching” plants
– Lanky plants
– Nutrient burn
– Browning and wilting

While these five factors are the most common ones that can affect your marijuana plants’ end yield, they are by no means the only factors that have an effect. There are plenty of diseases or conditions that could affect your plants without you influencing it at all, so you need to be well-educated in terms of potential obstacles. If you do your homework and are proactive about your plant care, you will be finely rewarded. Check out our Symptom Checker for more plant symptoms.

Choosing the right genetics

While there is nothing you can do after you have already purchased and planted your seeds to affect this, it is still worth mentioning that genetics play a key role in your plants’ final harvest. Your particular marijuana strain is going to affect the growth, size, and potency of your buds in the end.

The good news is that most strains that you are likely to buy these days have significantly higher yields and potencies than past strains. They are also generally easier to grow, and this is just getting better and better as time goes on.

Many beginner growers will pay the cheaper price for strains that are not high in quality. Although their intent was to save money, in the end they will actually get less value for what they paid because the end yield will be disappointing compared to a high-quality strain’s yield. This is why it is important to invest in high-quality genetics from the beginning.

There are different versions of high-quality strains, of course. Some strains achieve a higher yield, sure, but others have been bred specifically to achieve other useful characteristics like height and bushiness. Others were bred to have buds that are extremely potent or fragrant, meaning the yield itself might be lower, despite a higher quality bud.

Therefore, no matter what you do in regards to the other factors that affect your precious marijuana plants, you need to start things off right with a good strain. Do your research so you know exactly what that strain’s tendencies and expectations are. In the end, you will be glad you did.

Thanks for reading. Please leave comments or questions below and don’t forget to download my free grow bible.

The post How to Increase Your Marijuana Yield appeared first on TheJointBlog.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.Com

Bud rot is the worst nightmare for marijuana growers. It’s hard to prevent or identify and it will ruin your whole cannabis crop. Bud rot develops on the inside of the buds and spreads very quick. Even when your marijuana is drying, this mold will stay active so make sure you’re well prepared for this nasty fungus.

1. Prevention is better than cure

Bud rot, also known as botrytis cinerea or grey mold, thrives best when air is very humid and temperatures are low. It develops in the last phase of the flowering period, when air humidity should be between 30% and 40%. The problem is that humidity will increase as you water your marijuana plants. This is why you have to make sure not to give plants too much water and prevent excess spilling. If you water your plants from underneath, make sure you dose the amount so that it takes no longer than one hour for the plants to absorb all of the water. Also, water your plants when the lights have just turned on. Temperatures are then higher and water will damp or be absorbed quicker than when lights are out and your marijuana plants are ‘sleeping’.  In addition, make sure the space is very well ventilated and excess air is extracted. Fans must blow air between the buds and lamps, preferably an oscillating fan.

When growing marijuana outdoors, place your plants in sunlight and in an area where wind creates enough ventilation. Morning dew can then damp quickly evaporate or you can help get rid of dew by gently shaking it off. The best case would be to place your marijuana plants indoors at night so that cold air and damp won’t harm them too much. By placing plants slightly higher than the ground for better ground temperatures, you help your plant’s resilience against diseases. You can also treat your marijuana plant with Teldor from Bayer. But only use this on the stem during flowering phase so the wax coating does not rinse off easily.

2. Recognizing marijuana bud rot

Keep an extra close eye on your marijuana plants during the last weeks of the flowering period. Always look for diseases and abnormalities, but especially for bud rot. You’ve come too far to see a good cannabis crop go to waste after all the hours you’ve spent cultivating your plants. You can recognize bud rot by inspecting the small one finger leaves growing from the buds. If these are green, you’re in the clear. If these have a yellow or brown color, chances are you have bud rot. These leaves let go easily when removed and do not look healthy. If you see this kind of leaf, remove it immediately and bend open the top carefully and look inside and see if things are looking OK.

3. Intervention

Once you’ve identified bud rot on your plants, you need to act quickly. It might be hard on you, but you have to remove any and all infested buds. Bud rot spreads very quickly and it will ruin your entire crop. Use disinfected scissors to cut out rotting buds. Also be very careful not to touch healthy buds with your infected hands. Check every day for bud rot and cut out infected buds immediately!

Want to know more about growing marijuana? Check out the FREE book Marijuana Plant Care for more information!

The post How To Identify And Prevent Bud Rot On Marijuana Plants appeared first on TheJointBlog.com.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

All cannabis plants start as seeds, and they all require water to germinate properly. Each seed contains a full, little plant that has a root, stem, and a couple of leaves. There are also enough nutrients in the seed for it to survive the first portion of its life. During germination, these vital nutrients (proteins, carbs, etc.) are transformed into glucose, which all plants need to for growth.

1. Let the seeds soak in water that is 65°F (18°C)  until they split open and roots appear

When seeds achieve a nice moistness level, they will enlarge and split open. A single root will grow downward with gravity out of that split. The root will always grow down no matter what and the stem will always grow up.

Placing your seeds in water ensures that they have achieved the proper moisture level for the process of germination to begin. The seeds will not take on excess water and drown until about 2 weeks after they have cracked open (you will have already transplanted them into soil by then).

When you fill your glass with water, simply put it in the living room so that it shifts to the temperature of the environment. Tap water is fine, but don’t give the seeds any extra nutrients because they already have everything they need. The seeds will crack open in between 2 and 7 days. Make sure to replenish the water in the glass every other day. Start transplanting when the roots reach  0.1 to 0.2 inches (3 to 5 mm) in length. Download my free marijuana grow guide to learn more about marijuana seeds at this link

2. Place your seeds in a ½-inch hole in small pots with seedling soil

The nutrient level of the seeds is already adequate, so you should use a soil with fewer nutrients to start. Soil made specifically for seedlings and clones that has low quantities of nutrients is ideal. Plants are very susceptible to nutrient burn at this stage if you give them too many nutrients.

The pots should be filled halfway with the seedling soil. To make the half-inch hole, use your finger tip or a pen. Each seed should have its own pot. Since the roots will always grow down, you don’t have to worry how you place the seeds in the soil.

Place the seed in the hole, and cover it up with the soil. When you spray the soil with water, it will tamp down on its own. Avoid pressing the soil. The germination process will continue until the plant starts to surface within a week. The taproot will produce other root offshoots so that the system is strong.

3. Use a plant sprayer to moisten the soil

Water is responsible for both life and germination, making it the most vital component early on. It is extremely important that you give the plants plenty of water and keep the soil moistened.

Plants that don’t receive enough water will compensate by not growing to full capacity. This is largely to increase the plants’ chances of survival. Of course, too much water can cause the plants to lose out on valuable oxygen. Leaves will start to wither and the marijuana plant and growth medium will become more susceptible to diseases and bacteria.

The soil needs to stay adequately moist (not too dry and not over-soaked). The seedling won’t use much water, but a lot of the water evaporates fast. This is the major reason why seedlings should never go on a windowsill or near a heater. Spraying the plants 1 or 2 times throughout the day should be plenty.

4. Put pots 2 inches below CFL tube

Other than water, light is another vital component for the plant’s growth. Light and water help convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and glucose—necessary resources for plant growth. This is referred to as photosynthesis.

When plants don’t receive adequate light, they will form fewer side branches and will elongate abnormally. This stretching helps marijuana plants grow taller to grab enough light in nature. Plants that receive adequate light will grow wider (not taller) and produce a flurry of side branches with a ton of buds. Light should be kept on 24 hours per day and the room should have a consistent temperature of around 72° Fahrenheit.

The pots should be placed under a cool white CFL light at a distance of 2 inches. These tubes don’t create that much heat, they’re energy efficient, and they use the ideal light spectrum for seedlings. Seedlings require about 3 to 5 watts each. When the plants surface after 5 to 10 days, they will need all the light they can get to grow optimally.

5. Moisten the soil with a water sprayer twice a day until seeds germinate

Creating the ideal climate is also important for germinating the seeds under ideal conditions. CFL tubes don’t produce that much heat, but they will keep the soil warm. You can keep the distance between the plants and the bulbs to a minimum, but if the temperature exceeds 77° F, then you should move them farther apart or cool down the area.

Soil moisture is important to ensure that the seed disposes of the water. Avoid feeding the seeds until the initial leaves make it through the soil. This happens after about 5 to 8 days. Be patient and just check the moisture level of your soil without feeding any nutrients.

6. First signs of the seeds

As soon as the seedlings pop their heads out of the soil, it’s vital to inspect the distance between the plant and the light. Adjust the lights if the temperature goes past 72° Fahrenheit or the leaves start receiving excessive light. The soil also needs to stay moist. The leaves on the plants can absorb water, so continue spraying them 2 times per day.

Again, this early stage in life makes the plants susceptible to damage from negative conditions. Don’t use a lot of nutrients and make sure the lights stay on 24 hours to produce a reliable climate. Avoid touching the plants and do not take away the seed skins from the leaves

The plants need to grow and develop sturdy root systems. Big green leaves are capable of absorbing ample light and converting it into energy. Healthy root systems allow plants to take in plenty of water and nutrients. The plant is just starting to form the base for the remainder of its life, so it’s important that they receive proper, diligent care.

7. First two internodes

When the initial internodes start to form, you can feed your plant with root-stimulating foliar nutrients. Start the plants off with a small dose as the developing roots can’t withstand higher concentrations just yet.

The plants will start to grow rapidly (about 0.5 inches per day). Inspect your plants each day for signs of nutrient surplus (e.g. burned leaf tips).

8. Transplant into bigger pots when roots grow out of the bottom

The roots will start to grow out of the bottom of your smaller pot at which point it’s time to transplant. The plant will become rootbound and stop growing if you do not transplant.

To recognize the roots, look for white tips poking out of the bottom. Check for the roots each day and start giving your plants grow stimulator, which is high in nitrogen. More about nutrients on this link.

9. Grow you plants outdoors or under MH/HPS lights

If everything went as planned, then you have strong, healthy plants that will eventually produce high yields. A good start in life means that the plants will be less susceptible to bacteria, diseases, pests, and the effects of harsh weather extremes. Plants that are healthy can better absorb water and nutrients and will develop a faster metabolism for better yields. If you email me a photo of your seedlings, I will publish them on my site.

These plants can now grow outdoors and will thrive in a wind-free location that gets a lot of sun. The plants will also do better in a big container (15 gallons) on a stool. This keeps away any interference from animals like rabbits or snails.

As you have seen, it’s not very hard to grow healthy marijuana plants. Everyone has their own technique and I’d like you to share your own knowledge on my forum. If you need high quality marijuana seeds, check out my seed shop for a wide selection strains at this link. The special offer for all Super Skunk, White Widow, and Super Silver Haze orders is still in effect (buy 5, get 5 free!). And we do ship to the States!

Robert

The post This is How You Create Strong Marijuana Plants appeared first on TheJointBlog.com.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

For centuries, gardeners have had to deal with pests of many varieties. Whether they are birds, insects, mammals, or even other humans, cultivated plants seem to have a target on their backs. While humans don’t really eat raw cannabis, some pests certainly seem to like the taste. If left unchecked, an infestation can end up ruining your crop. At the same time, using harsh chemical products to repel the pests can be harmful to you later on. To avoid all that, we have compiled a list of some safe and effective repellents (and other safety precautions) to keep bugs away from your plants.

1. Only use sterilized soil or fertilizer. The problem with unsterilized soil is that it can contain the eggs or even larvae of some common marijuana pests. If you grow your marijuana in that soil, you will be in for a rude surprise when those eggs hatch or those larvae start to grow up. This is particularly bad for indoor growers because there are no natural predators inside your house.

2. Use natural predators. Of course, if you’re growing marijuana outdoors, you can make use of a few pest predators. Ladybugs are notoriously beneficial to have around your outdoor marijuana plants because they love to prey on larvae and other potential pests. You should also encourage birds to nest in the area because they often like to snack on some pernicious marijuana pests. Put out some bird houses or a bird feeder to get birds to come around. Just make sure that they stay away while the seeds are germinating because many birds do enjoy the taste of a marijuana seed. Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link and for more outdoor growing tips.

3. Grow companion plants. Interspersing the marijuana garden with a few naturally repellent plants is certainly a good way to keep the predators away. Although the THC that marijuana produces acts as a natural repellent in its own right, it is often not strong enough to repel all plants (especially in the early stages of life). Particularly pungent plants like geraniums and marigolds will keep many leaf-eating insects and worms at bay. You can even plant some onions to ward off bigger pests like deer or rabbits.

4. Use the urine of your pests’ enemies. This might sound like a joke, but it actually works and it’s actually feasible. Many mammals like deer have keen senses of smell and if they detect a hint of bear or puma urine, they will want to stay as far away from your marijuana plants as possible. That’s because they won’t want to enter territory that a much larger predator has been roaming around in. The same is true for rabbits and fox urine. You can buy these scents at many sporting goods or outdoor shops.

5. Build a fence. If bigger animals are a problem and the scent of their enemies doesn’t deter them, then you might need to try building a fence around your plants. Obviously, many marijuana growers don’t have this luxury and it’s really only something that people growing on private land can do.

6. Create a repellent force field around the plants. With a permethrin-based repellent, you can keep insects away from your plants without using the synthetic spray on the plants themselves. Simply spray a ring on the ground about 6 feet away from the plant. Any bugs that come into contact with the permethrin will die or just evacuate the area.

7. Use custom organic repellents. Many growers have opted for pungent, organic repellents to keep pests away from both their indoor and outdoor plants. Concoctions like cinnamon oil, clove oil, and coriander oil have all had relative success without causing any damage to the plant. You can easily spray these repellents directly onto the cannabis leaves with no fear of any adverse reaction. Of course, different cannabis strains might have different reactions to any homemade organic repellents, and you should always test the repellents on an inconspicuous section of the plant to make sure no harm is done.

The post 7 Ways to Keep Pests off Marijuana Plants appeared first on TheJointBlog.com.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

One of the most annoying things about growing marijuana is that you have to accurately determine the sex of your plant. Many growers want to keep their female plants from being fertilized because it is the only way to ensure sinsemilla buds. These buds don’t have seeds and they will have ample THC by the time the harvest comes around. Even then, many marijuana growers just like to get the males out of the garden because they don’t produce that much THC. Determining the sex takes a subtle attention to detail and quick action. Below are a few tips for sexing marijuana plants.

1. Look at the growth patterns. During vegetative growth, every plant, regardless of sex, will start to flourish. As the plants age, however, you will begin to notice subtle differences in their sizes. Some marijuana growers have even noticed certain signs early on that can help you determine the sex. Females tend to have more complex branching when they progress from the seedling stage to the vegetative stage. Males, on the other hand, tend to be slightly taller and less filled out. Of course, the last thing you want to do is pull plants out at this early stage, but this can help you get an idea so you know which plants to watch later on. (Note: marijuana plants grown indoors under artificial light don’t usually exhibit these tendencies).

2. Males mature faster than females. This is one of the most common ways to determine sex on sight. Males will generally reach sexual maturity about two weeks before females. The males will start to grow rapidly and they will be taller than their female counterparts. They will also have these “false buds” which are actually pollen sacs. The reason the males grow taller is so that the pollen can drop down on to the female reproductive organs. This occurs whether you’re growing marijuana indoors or outdoors.

3. Males have flowers, females have pistils. Obviously, all marijuana plants have flowers at some point, but, if you can’t differentiate between male and female just by height, then flowers and pistils are good indications of sex. Those false-bud, pollen sacs will eventually open up to form little yellow or white flowers. Any female plants will not have these. Instead, they will have hairy, whitish pistils that will be sticky enough to trap the pollen dropped from those flowers. If you wait this long to identify the sex of your marijuana plants, then it’s probably too late to get any sinsemilla buds. Even so, you can still remove the male plants to make room for the continued growth and cultivation of the female plants.

Male marijuana plant.

Female marijuana plant.

Hermaprodite marijuana plant

4. Clone the marijuana plants to determine sex. This is really the only foolproof way to determine the sex before the plants achieve maturity. You simply have to take a cutting from any number of plants. Place this cutting into potting soil and let it grow on its own for a few days. Then, force flowering with a 12-hour period of darkness and 12-hour period of light (the clones must be separate from the host plants). Because the clones share the exact same DNA as their host, they will have the same sex. Once the clones go into the flowering stage, it will be easy to determine their sex and the sex of their hosts. Make sure you keep track of which clone came from which host so you don’t get things mixed up.

5. Identify where the plant sprouted during germination. Although it might seem a little strange, some marijuana growers have discovered a method that helps them sex the plants just after germination. If the sprout comes out of the top or bottom of the seed, it is generally a female. Side sprouts generally turn out to be male. While this hasn’t been scientifically studied, growers who have used this method report a 90% success rate. Even so, you shouldn’t use this knowledge as absolute fact. Let the plants grow a little and try to notice any distinctly male or female signs. Don’t just throw away the marijuana  seeds if they sprout out of the sides. Instead keep track of your predictions so you can make an informed decision later on.

6. Sometimes, you’ll have hermaphrodites. Growers can occasionally end up with some hermaphrodites which are basically plants that exhibit both male and female reproductive capacities. These can be difficult to determine right away because they can send you mixed signals. Hermaphrodites can also come about as a result of environmental stress, making their sex increasingly hard to determine. If you start to notice flowers and pistils on the same plant, try pruning off the flowers to ensure that the marijuana plant doesn’t self-pollinate (or pollinate other surrounding females). Read more about male, female and hermaphrodite marijuana plants.

Have you had any strange or successful experiences with sexing your marijuana plants? Let us know in the comments below. Also, let your friends in one these details by sharing the article on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter.

Last thing: if you buy feminised marijuana seeds, you do not have to sex them at all. No weeding out male plants.
 

The post 6 Tips for Sexing Your Marijuana Plants appeared first on TheJointBlog.com.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

There are millions of varying kinds of cells that make up a cannabis plant. The different cell types vary in their function, and they all work together as a sort of cell team. Cells for the leaves, roots, vascular system are just a few examples of the different cell functions and types. Everything you do with your plant has an effect on the cellular plane as well. Outside factors (i.e. changes in sunlight or temperature) also come into play at the cellular level, affecting the plant’s functions. Consequently, it is very important to have an understanding of cell responses, so you can alter the conditions for your plant to make sure it has a perfect and healthy response.

To better understand the goings-on of cell processes, we will proceed with this article via an analogy. Instead of using the tricky cell part names, we will look at it as the different parts within a power plant and a factory. It works as follows: The factory houses the receival of raw materials, the checking of these materials, and then the production of a finished result. A power plant provides the energy for the factory’s production, plus there is communication between that factory and the other factories. All of this is controlled and kept working in harmony by the head office. These types of facilities and their processes can be compared to the cell processes themselves, and will help you learn and understand what exactly is going on at the cellular level of your plants.  Download my free marijuana grow bible at this link and grow like a pro!
The different sections of the “factory” of the cell:

Factory building
Power plant
Production, packaging, and shipment
Warehouse
Management
Factory Collaboration

Factory building
The factory walls are the equivalent of the cell’s walls, which are kept firm because they are mostly made up of cellulose. When you walk up to the factory’s walls, the security guard from the receiving department greets you. This department is the plant cell’s membrane, which (like a security guard) is the gatekeeper between the wall’s outside and inside. It works as a sort of border between the two and will not allow everything inside. Certain substances (nutrients, for instance) are invited inside without question while the gate remains shut for dangerous or unusable ones. In some cases, the cell purposefully expels or draws in certain things.

The membrane not only functions as the gatekeeper, but also works as the communications department. This department is what lets the cell remain in contact with the world around it. This allows the plant to react accordingly to changes in its surroundings. If the surrounding environment becomes warmer, the plant needs to cool down. This is done via communication from the cell membrane to the stomata, telling it to open and allow the plant to enhance its level of evaporation.

In some circumstances, such as when the cell is old or damaged, the membrane might start to leak, which can lead to issues in function. Specifically, harmful outside substances could be allowed to enter through the normally solid membrane. Consequently, the cell could die, which will harm the plant’s wellbeing and your cannabis quality.

The last part of the factory building is its floor, which is the equivalent to the cell’s cytoplasm. Cytoplasm is made up of water, other elements and some chemical compounds of different types (i.e. proteins). It is in liquid form and houses organelles or cell organs. It provides a means of transport between organelles.

Power plant
Like a power plant is the source of energy for a factory, the sun provides the fuel for the plant’s functions. An integral part of energy usage in a plant is chloroplasts, which make sugar out of solar energy (which is called photosynthesis). This chloroplast is an organelle that distinguishes plant cells from animal cells. Photosynthesis helps store the energy for later use for production, maintenance, cell division, and respiration.

Like a power station, the mitochondria handle this stored chemical energy. Although a starch build up can compromise the photosynthesis process (transforming chlorophyll into a warehouse), cell chloroplasts actually store starch. Without any light, plants can transform starch into sugars, thus reversing the photosynthesis process. For this reason, plants should not actually receive 24 hours of light per day.

Production, packaging, and shipment
Just as every factory has an assembly line, every cell has an endoplasmic reticulum (ER). This large cell is housed in the cytoplasm and connects to the cell nucleus. Ribosomes make the ER have a roughness in the part close to the nucleus. Ribosomes function similarly to the assembly line workers by consistently making proteins, which are formed in the nucleolus. The nucleolus is located inside of the nucleus. Meanwhile, the smoother part of the ER, located further away from the nucleus, temporarily holds the proteins.

These parts of the ER that store proteins break away and go to the Golgi apparatus, which functions as the factory’s packaging and shipment department. All that happens here is the receival and more processing of the materials, and then shipping them back again. Lots of the proteins are transferred to the cell membrane. This is due to the fact that it consistently requires maintenance; without it, the cell can not function well. Some materials that are created for the cell’s exterior are sometimes made by the Golgi apparatus. One example of such a material is plant hormones, which go on to have an effect on a different area of the plant.  Download my free marijuana grow bible at this link for more information about plant hormones.

Warehouse
The cell’s vacuole contains water that stores waste products and nutrients. In our analogy, the vacuole is the equivalent of the warehouse. It increases tension in the cell walls by pressing against them, thus making the plant stiff. If the vacuoles don’t have enough tension, the plant wilts. Since vacuoles need water to create the tension, too little water will make your plant wilt.

Acting as a repository, the vacuole also plays an important part in the plant’s fast responses to changes in water level. Potassium is moved from the vacuole to cell fluid when the stomata quickly closes as a response to too little water. The stomata can also have fast responses to light, temperature, and carbon dioxide levels, which means the plant is able to optimize photosynthesis and have self-defense against outside threats.

If you see some of the bottom leaves of your marijuana plant start to turn yellow and die, don’t panic. In reality, this is a sign of an important process taking place. Like a factory, waste is produced in the cell processes. This waste is kept in the vacuole. When large amounts of waste need to be disposed of, it is deposited into the vacuoles of a leaf. This leaf is discarded by falling off the plant.

Management
Just as a factory’s goings on are organized by its management, the cell’s processes are guided by its nucleus. All of the genetic information (DNA) is held in the nucleus. This DNA, though identical in all cells, contains switches that turn specific genes on or off. These “settings” decide what the cell’s function is.

Cells have the potential for any function when they are first formed. Leaf, root, or storage cells are all a possibility at first. Specialization occurs only after the switches in the DNA are enabled or disabled, which are in part determined by the plant hormones and plant-produced sugars. The sugars sometimes have a hormonal effect as well.

Factory Collaboration

Leaves, roots, and buds are formed from tissues, which are made up of millions of cells. Since all the cells need to cooperate in order to achieve this, communication between them is essential. For this reason, the hormones act as information envoys.

Occasionally, a cell needs to be reassigned to a new function. One such instance is when a plant is cut since it requires new roots for the new plant to be able to soak up nutrients and water. That means that, shortly after the plant is cut, it will develop new cells that have no specialty, but will turn into root cells. Additionally, the stomata on the leaves will close up. This helps the cutting’s water supply avoid evaporation; the plan will use the energy from its reserves until the plant’s new roots have formed. This is one instance of plants adapting to sudden or extreme changes in their environment by means of extreme organizational changes.

I hope this analogy has expanded your comprehension of the plant’s cellular processes. Thanks for reading! Please write any comments or questions you might have in the comments section below. If you need more tips on growing marijuana, check back to my blog and download my free Marijuana Grow Bible.

The post Growing Cannabis At The Cellular Level appeared first on TheJointBlog.com.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

If you smoke heavily, you will only need the harvest from between five and seven large female marijuana plants for the entire year – assuming they were grown properly and are as healthy as possible, of course. When translated into choosing the best place for growing cannabis, this means that you do not need a terribly large amount of land to grow all the plants you could want.

This is not to say, however, that a usable growing area will be easy to find. There are lots of different things you need to remember when deciding where to grow your marijuana outdoors.

If you are looking for the perfect place to grow marijuana outdoors, it should look something like this: some sort of clearing that is isolated and near a riverbank, with nutrient-rich soil that does not have rocks in it, that is reached by the sun throughout the day. The most important factor to consider when choosing a location, of course, is always your own security. The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

• Examples of some outdoor grow sites
• How to find the best places to grow marijuana outdoors
• How other plants can help you
• How to camouflage your marijuana plants
• How to protect your marijuana grow site
• Guerilla marijuana growing

 Examples of some outdoor grow sites

Growing marijuana in a garden
Few people have the luxury of growing marijuana in their own personal garden, but this is always the ideal option. You’re never far from your plants, you can water them accordingly, and keep prying or suspicious eyes out of your garden as you see fit. Even so, the smell of marijuana can be quite pungent, so keep the plants away from your neighbor’s fence.

Growing marijuana on a balcony
Like a garden, a balcony gives you an area to grow your marijuana where you have easy access. Unlike a home garden, balconies can be seen from the road or by neighbors who are also on balconies. You can use a frosted plastic film to keep your plants out of sight but still in the sun. The film can also reduce the spread of the marijuana scent. In the northern hemisphere, you should place your plants facing south (if possible) so that they get the most sun during the day.

Growing marijuana on a roof terrace
A roof terrace gives your plants a full day’s worth of sun, but odors and strong winds can be an issue. Small amounts of wind are ideal for thicker stems, but constant windy conditions (like those found in coastal locations) aren’t good for marijuana plants. If you live in a windy environment, try to find windshields.

Growing marijuana on the roof of a vacant building
Some people don’t have access to their own roof terraces, balconies, or gardens, but another roof can work just fine. If you can find a vacant building in which the roof is not easily accessible by anyone but you, then you might have a perfect urban location for your outdoor marijuana grow. It might be enticing to grow on roofs that are difficult to access but not vacant. Just be aware that appliances or equipment like air conditioners might be up there and they will need periodic maintenance.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for more outdoor grow sites

Growing marijuana in a forest
One of the best places to employ guerrilla marijuana growing is in the forest. It’s always a fun journey hiking through woods, trying to find a location with ample sun, a nearby water source, and a long distance from any trails or paths. If there are no streams, you might be able to dig (sometimes only 3 feet deep) to find groundwater. In most cases, however, the soil in the forest is quite acidic (low pH level). Pine forests and meadows have a problem with acidic soil. Sometimes, you might be better served digging a hole and putting in better, nutrient-filled soil. You might also be able to take 15 gallon pots filled with good soil.

Growing marijuana on a riverbank
Rivers or streams have what is called a riverside that features a whole host of tall, green plants like canes or nettles. The soil in these locations is usually so wet that you don’t have to water the plants. You can add a nutrient solution every month or so for better nutrient quality. These locations are also hard to get to. You may have to swim across a river to get to your guerrilla marijuana garden, because there’s a good chance that most other people wouldn’t be willing to do that.

Growing marijuana in an open field
This might seem like a bad idea considering how wide open a field is, but if you camouflage your cannabis with other plants then you can get away with it. You get all the sun your plant could need in a location that’s easy to access and difficult to tell what it is. Heathland is usually quite acidic, but if the field has grass or any other plants, marijuana should do well.

If you see nitrogen-loving nettles, then the soil is full of nitrogen, one of the most important macronutrients for marijuana growth. Even so, the best course of action is to start your plants off in a pot or a hole that has fertilized soil. Keep the plants near brambles and nettles so that they’re not obvious to the casual onlooker.

Growing marijuana in a corn field
Although you likely don’t own a corn field, they are ideal locations for marijuana growth. If you plant in the middle of all the corn, your plants get tons of sun, privacy, and all the water and nutrients they need. If you know another breeder who has a corn field and plants marijuana surreptitiously, then ask them if you can plant there. Otherwise, it’s pretty risky to try guerrilla farming on a stranger’s land.

You will still need to grow your plants outside of the corn field first. You’ll have to wait until about the end of May or the beginning of July when the farmer stops working the field with a tractor. The marijuana plants should be between 10 and 15 inches in height when transplanted to the field. Plant in the middle of the field and allow for about 3 to 5 feet of space between the plants. Mark the rows where your plants are located with an object or by gauging another natural item. Within a matter of weeks, corn will grow up to several feet tall, which will conceal your marijuana plants nicely.

How to find the best places to grow marijuana outdoors

First and foremost, you need your location to be safe from discovery. As soon as your marijuana plants are discovered by someone else, it will immediately be unusable because you will lose your entire crop. If you have it on your own property, be sure to keep yourself safe by placing it in a location where you can easily deny your knowledge of it being there. If the plants are in a remote enough location on your property, you will probably be able to get by claiming you had no idea it was growing there.

Some growers use self-made greenhouses in order to hide the types of plants that are in there. Although this takes away your chances of denying any knowledge of it, it greatly decreases the chances of your crop being discovered.

Although more exposed to the outside world, public land is probably the safest choice. This can keep the marijuana plants from being traced back to you. Even if your crop was discovered and destroyed, at least you would be safe from legal action.

Avoid it being discovered in the first place by choosing a location wisely. Make sure it is in a spot that does not have high traffic (such as a hiking trail or other attraction), and where hunting does not take place. Keep a special eye out for places that someone looking for psilocybin mushrooms might stumble upon, and avoid such locations – a mushroom hunter would be more than happy to take your valuable marijuana plants for themselves.

Another potential problem could be new development. You wouldn’t be the first one to choose a spot, ready the soil, and spend valuable time and money preparing the water systems, and then come back a while later only to see the land completely destroyed by bulldozers and construction.

Download my free marijuana grow guide for more outdoor marijuana growing

Some cannabis growers are particularly lucky because they live in a place where the law allows growing so they can focus their efforts on the more important aspects: soil, water, and light. Here’s a short list with requirements for an outdoor grow site:

1. Sun
More sunlight correlates to larger plants and higher yields. If you plant in the shadows, at least make sure your plants get a few hours of sun each day.

2. Water
Marijuana plants will be able to thrive in most areas, except those that are uncharacteristically dry. Of course, if you have more water at your disposal, then the plant can absorb more nutrients. Creeks, rivers, or other nearby sources of water are ideal. Bringing in your own water is also an option.

3. The Right Amount of Wind
The gentle touch of a small breeze helps develop strong root systems, but lots of wind can cause damage to the marijuana plant. Choose a location that is not too windy.

4. Nutrient-Rich Soil
Nutrients are the lifeblood of marijuana plants, so try to find an area where lots of other green plants are growing. Marijuana will likely do well in that location.

5. Easy Access
Seeing your plants at least once per month is reassuring and also important. You will be able to tell if they have incurred a bug or pest problem, lack of nutrients, water deficiency, or whatever else.

6. Keep It Hidden
Easy access is good for you, but not for others. Try to keep thieves or potential police informants off your trail by planting your marijuana garden away from the road or other locations that people frequent. Corn, canes, and tomato plants can also camouflage the marijuana.

 How other plants can help you

You can easily use the growing cycles of other plants to help guide you for what you can expect with your marijuana plants. You should look into the growing behavior of other summer plants, such as corn or tomatoes. Corn is generally your best bet. This strategy gives you the chance to ask around for tips (about corn or tomatoes, for example) without needing to explain that you are actually gathering the information in order to grow cannabis.

Because the harvest time is similar for these other plants and cannabis, information about other plants can turn out to be invaluable for you. You can gain helpful insight into growing climates and harvesting time, and you should plant your marijuana seeds around the same time as these other plants should be planted.

Besides weather and the harvesting time, talking to others about plants with the same growing season will help you out with other factors you may not have considered already, including subjects such as rainfall and types of pests. You can’t believe everything you hear, of course, but conversations like this could even help for finding a good growing location. Just make sure to be discreet about it.

Other plants can also help  from just being near where you will grow your marijuana plants. Tall plants, especially green ones, will help hide the cannabis. Many growers (such as ones in an urban location), put flowers on their marijuana plants so they will resemble a different local plant. Although the flowers are just attached loosely, they are good enough when seen from afar, so they are a popular method for rooftop growers. Sometimes combining the flower technique with something else, such as tying down a few of the branches, will be enough to mask what you are really growing in your garden.

Download my free marijuana grow guide for more outdoor growing tips

Other growers use or intentionally place other plants around their cannabis plants. Green plants with lots of leaves such as jasmine and spider plants can do the trick nicely. Bushes or bamboo have also been used by growers to make a sort of shield around their plants.

Be careful with these methods, though: cannabis plants that need to compete for sunlight with taller plants around them will spend all of their precious energy on growing very tall, meaning they will grow very quickly and will soon be taller than the other plants. To avoid this, simply make sure that you are not planting the other plants too close to your marijuana. This especially applies if you are using the shield technique.

All in all, make sure to be taking in a lot of information not only about marijuana plants, but about native and local plants in general. Learn how and when they grow, and use this to your advantage. It will help you grow healthy, strong marijuana plants, and will allow you to have a successful crop without any theft or loss of your plants. Any information about your local system will help you reach success, so start with the local plants.

How to camouflage outdoor marijuana plants

One of the best ways to hide your planted marijuana is to originally plant them beneath trees or beside bushes. Another tip is to make sure you have only a few plants in one specific area, just in case one clump of your plants are discovered. This way, you won’t lose your entire crop if they are discovered.

You can actually bend and prune your marijuana plants so they look like other types of plants, therefore lessening the chances of their discovery. If you bend the stems in a horizontal way while doing this, all the better: your plants will get more sun, making the yield even bigger.

Although planting marijuana plants underneath trees seems like a good way of keeping them well-hidden, you have to be sure that they will still get at least five hours of direct sunlight, as well as much more indirect light. The more light there is, the more you will get from your harvest.

Some growers attach silk flowers (click here for some examples) to their marijuana plants to camouflage them better; otherwise, planting them close to similarly colored and sized plants could do the trick. Make sure these plants won’t die earlier than your plants, however, as that would make your plants be even more obvious.

The key is to keep your marijuana plants from being visible from people just looking around. Your work is not done after planting them, however; you will need to take other steps, such as changing your route each time when you go back to your site, as well as covering your tracks as you go. Don’t make it obvious that you have been there: keep the environment looking like it is untouched by anyone.

Even if it is less convenient, try parking your car in a place where there are multiple cars around. It will help if you have your source of water near to the planting site; carrying 100 gallons of water will look awfully conspicuous if anyone sees you. Have a reasonable explanation for you being in the location, and even bring along “props” to further prove your story.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link and learn to grow like a pro!

All of this is equally important to consider during the planning process before you plant your cannabis. You might even want to try on a smaller scale for your first season so you can be sure that you will harvest the few plants that you do grow.

More than anything, be careful who you tell about your operation. Even if you do tell someone that you are growing marijuana, you must always keep yourself from telling them where they are planted. For most people whose growing sites are in really well-hidden areas and are nonetheless discovered, their only mistake was bragging about it to someone who then reported it. Despite all your efforts until now, nothing will matter since your entire harvest will be gone. Never underestimate the importance of security!

How to protect your marijuana grow site

Security issues can vary quite a bit, depending on the geographic location – it can even vary quite a bit within a single country. Vancouver growers of marijuana have an easier time of growing outdoors than US growers who live in states located in the southwest do. Growers in Hawaii need to take extra measures to make sure that their plants remain a secret, but people living in Australia don’t have this same problem, due to the fact that they have a lot more space and a cultural lack of concern by the neighbors.

So how can you protect yourself, wherever you are? First and foremost, learn your local marijuana laws, and the consequences of breaking those laws. In certain places with stricter laws and penalties, the risk simply might not be worth it. Some states in the US have zero tolerance, which means that if they discover you the minimum penalties will be extreme, including jail time and hefty fines. In other locations, such as some European countries and a few states in the US (especially California), the penalty depends a lot on how much was discovered.

In most cases, your stash will be taken away from you and you will be fined, but that is it. You will need to do the research yourself and make a well-informed decision about what is right for you. In any case, keeping your security a priority is crucial. If nothing else, it will protect your crop from being discovered and taken from you. The fewer people who know about it, the less likely discovery is. When in doubt, simply don’t tell anyone at all.

Aerial surveillance and infrared photography are some of the types of technology that American police forces will use to try and find secret cannabis plants. They are often successful, discovering hundreds of thousands of plants each year. The US government funds efforts to find and get rid of cannabis plants. Don’t let this intimidate you, though: they are mostly focused on much larger planting sites, which are far easier to find than personal gardens or just a few plants in one location. Some state laws allow the police to take away entire properties of the grower, then auction everything off. This money is then used to buy state-of-the-art surveillance equipment, firearms, vehicles, and other tools used to find and destroy all the marijuana in their precinct.

This is why security should be your first priority from the beginning. Think hard about where you will grow your marijuana: growing away from your own property is always the best choice for your own safety, as it is going to keep the crop separated from its grower. Choose a remote location, away from any hikers, hunters, or other foot traffic. Other (legal) plants should be used for extra coverage – you can even plant some nearby to cover up your cannabis plants even more thoroughly.

Guerilla marijuana growing

Because the law enforcement in certain areas is becoming more and more aggressive, marijuana growers have had to come up with some very creative ways of avoiding discovery. Guerilla farming is one of those methods. It is the way that most growers who plant their cannabis plants outdoors have had to adopt.

The concept is simple: keep your plants from being discovered, and keep their discovery from leading to you.

Various tactics have been used to achieve a successful, undiscovered harvest. Some growers raise their marijuana plants amidst tree branches. Some growers used buildings that have been uninhabited for a while, growing their plants on its rooftop. While these locations would be quite difficult to be discovered, it does lead to some difficulty when trying to reach them to water the plants. If you are growing your cannabis plants on some inaccessible patches on the side of some hills, you might have to carry water to each plant individually.

Given the risk you are taking in losing your time and money (not to mention legal consequences), be sure to keep your security the first priority when choosing the location of your planting site.

Thanks for reading. Please leave comments or questions below and don’t forget to download my free grow bible.

The post Growing Cannabis Outdoors; A Detailed Guide appeared first on TheJointBlog.com.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

For every marijuana grower, achieving a high final yield is the ultimate goal. In an ideal world, this yield will be high despite less effort, time, and money being used.

There are a number of factors that can negatively affect your yield, so as a grower you need to always be aware and ready to combat these things to ensure a great yield.

What are the main things that can affect your yield? They are light intensity, pruning or training, nutrients, climate issues, and the harvest time. All five of these factors can lead to successful yields, but if they are not handled correctly, then they also have the potential to devastate your marijuana crop. You, therefore, need to be well informed and ready for any unexpected hurdles that might come your way.

More than anything, the genetics of your marijuana plant are going to have the greatest effect on the final yield. Make sure you choose a strain with a high potency and yield to begin with so you ensure that you can maximize your crop to an amazing extent.

Increasing light intensity

You will know your plants are having an issue with the intensity of the light by the way they are growing. For instance, if your plants are in their vegetative phase and are not receiving a high enough intensity of light, they will “stretch” upwards toward the source of light. This can lead to large spaces on the stem between nodes and leaves, or perhaps even growing tall enough to fall over.

Tall, lanky plants are not the type of plants that are going to get you a high yield – bushier plants will. Once these stretched out plants have reached their flower phase, it will be difficult to get them an adequate amount of light to increase their bud growth. To keep it simple, more light intensity leads to more (and bigger) buds. It’s, therefore, easy to understand why it’s such an important factor for your marijuana garden.

Light is by far the most important factor that can affect any marijuana plant. It is absolutely essential for the flowering phase of your marijuana plants, although many new growers don’t fully appreciate how much increasing the light intensity during that final stage is going to help their end yield. The process photosynthesis is fed by intense sunlight, which creates sugar, which is used for the flower growth of your marijuana plants. Uninterrupted darkness is equally important since this is the time that the plant can produce and let off the hormone florigen – if it doesn’t do this, it will not flower.

If your plant is experiencing a problem due to the improper intensity of the light, there are several methods you have at your disposal to combat the problem. Generally, more intense light leads to bigger and fatter buds. This, of course, means a greater yield – and greater success for you as the grower. It’s especially important to have high amounts of light intensity during the flowering phase since this is when your plants are going to grow their buds as much as possible. This is the easiest to achieve if all of your plants are the same height, with lots of colas close together. This is more or less impossible to achieve after your plants have already entered their flowering stage, so if they have grown unevenly then you will just need to work your hardest to make them receive intense light nonetheless. The tricky part about increasing the intensity of the light in your grow room is to not simultaneously increase the temperature of the room, as the plants need to remain cool during their flowering phase.

One simple way of increasing the intensity of light in your grow room is to move the light so it is positioned closer to the plant. This has to be within reason, of course, so as not to burn your plant’s tips. Remember: the best way to increase the size and potency of all the buds is to have each one exposed to direct, intense light.

In general, there is a low chance of you giving your plants too much light. Marijuana plants use up lots of light in the wild, so to surpass the point of too much would be surprising. As long as the light isn’t too close to your plants, you won’t have a problem with light levels being too high.

Although it might not seem like it is directly related to light, CO2 is another important factor that comes into play. CO2 enables your plants to take in more light than usual. Unless you are reaching the point of the light being too much for your plants, however, adding extra CO2 into the grow room is most likely a waste of time. If you are reaching this point, CO2 will be extremely beneficial to your plant’s end yield.

If you are planning on adding CO2 to your grow room, make sure you seal off the area completely so you can pump in extremely high amounts of CO2. This density of CO2 is dangerous for humans, so don’t walk into the room with the excess CO2 without taking proper precautions first.

Increasing yield by pruning

If your plants are receiving uneven amounts of light, meaning the tops of your plants (which receive the most direct sunlight) are growing more rapidly than the bottom sections of your plants, you may want to look into pruning and/or training your plants.

This factor goes hand in hand with light intensity since it will have a direct effect on the coverage and distribution of the light. Training and pruning allow your plants to become bigger and wider, and it is free and relatively simple to achieve. You can either top your plants (which utilizes the method of taking off the tops of your plants) or use Low-Stress Training or LST. Many growers prefer LST since it keeps the stress levels of your plants to a minimum (as the name suggests). LST’s idea is to coax your plants into growing flat and wide rather than tall and thin. It uses bending to achieve this goal.

If you are planning on using LST, you should start when the plant is still quite young. The ideal shape of a plant that has undergone LST is easiest to accomplish if you start from a young age. Instead of bending and tying your plant, you can also use a screen or netting to guide your plants’ growth to being more flat and wide. This method is referred to as Screen of Green.

If you want to train your plant a little bit differently, you should look into the method of Supercropping. This can be used on its own or to accompany another training technique. It is a way to force plants to bend when they don’t want to bend.

As far as actual pruning goes, the most popular method for marijuana growers is called Topping. Another popular method is FIMing the plant. Both methods include removing growth from the end of the main cola. If you do this at a young enough age, the result will be that the plant will stop focusing all its energy on this one cola. Instead, it will focus on the other colas that are full of buds instead. This ultimately leads to a higher yield.

Using the best nutrients

If your plants have sudden leaf discoloration, curling of the leaves, death of the leaves or other strange symptoms, the cause could easily be from too little (or too much) of one nutrient. There is the common identifiable problem called “nutrient burn” that shows your plants are receiving too many nutrients. Just like people shouldn’t fill their plate with multi-vitamin pills, you shouldn’t bomb your plants with nutrients. Too many nutrients make both humans and plants sick.

Your plants’ leaves are always the first place to show nutrient problems. Therefore, if the leaves of your plant all look similar and bright green, you can rest assured that there is no problem with your plant.

Contrary to what some new growers might assume, adding more nutrients will not automatically make your plant more well-nourished. You need to know exactly how much of each nutrient your plant is going to need, and during which phase. Sound complicated? That’s because it is.

Lots of growers have developed the bad habit of giving their plants too many nutrients. Another common mistake is when growers who haven’t fully educated themselves mix lots of nutrients together before adding it to their watering solution, without really knowing why or what they are feeding their plants.

There is a tendency to add too many nutrients.  Too many nutrients lead to poor plant health (therefore doing more harm than good).  You need to make sure you don’t let this happen.

Nutrient deficiencies are also detrimental to the health of your plants, so you need to find the balance between the two extremes. It is actually generally the safer option to err on the side of too little nutrients. If you use bottled nutrients, we recommend using only half of the suggested amount of nutrients. Simply do not raise nutrient levels unless you are noticing specific changes in your plant (i.e. leaves turning yellow at the base). You can also do it when you realize one particular plant uses a lot more nutrients than its neighbors. You will be surprised by how different the ideal amounts of nutrients are from plant to plant.

In general, it’s better to have fewer nutrients during your plant’s final 2-4 weeks before the harvest. If you see leaves dropping during this time, do not automatically assume it is a nutrient deficiency and start adding more nutrients. This will actually slow down your plant’s bud development, therefore resulting in a lower yield. Fewer nutrients during this time will also allow your buds to get rid of any residual “nutrient taste” that sometimes comes with plants that have been receiving too many nutrients. Don’t be afraid to allow some of the leaves to yellow, die, and drop off – it allows your plant to focus its valuable energy on high-quality bud growth instead.

The best way to avoid nutrient problems altogether in soil-based mediums is to form your own compost to make super soil. It can be totally organic and will give your plant every nutrient it needs throughout its entire life. You won’t need to worry about deficiencies and toxicities and can instead use your time and energy elsewhere.

Create the perfect climate

If your plant (or one particular spot on the plant) begins turning brown and wilting, you can be relatively certain that the excess heat is to blame. Excess or sudden cold will also lead to slowed growth and other negative consequences, so make sure to avoid this at all costs.

You need to maintain a steady, healthy climate for your plants to produce their maximum yield. A too high or too low temperature will result in a poor yield, as will improper levels of humidity. Make sure to always keep the temperature of your grow room within a certain, consistent range to keep your plants from slowing growth or having other negative side effects. If you keep the temperature and humidity level at the right spot, the final harvest will be rewarding. Even the smell and potency of the buds will be improved, so don’t forget about this crucial factor when it comes to maximizing your yield.

Harvest at the right time

You will know you have chosen the wrong time to harvest if your buds aren’t fully ripe, or if they’re unusually small. Chances are, you cut your potential by about 25% by harvesting too early. If you wait too long, however, you will also lose some potency and smell.

There is a small window of time that is ideal for harvesting the buds of your marijuana plants. This window of time is between two and three weeks long. You need to ensure that you are waiting long enough to allow the buds to ripen completely. The final two or three weeks before the harvest can make a world of difference – buds can grow up to 25% more during this time! This is why it’s very important not to harvest earlier than the optimum window.

If you are trying to get a specific high from your buds, you can alter the harvesting schedule a bit. Buds harvested earlier generally have a buzzy high, best for smoking during the day. Later harvests lead to a high that is more relaxed couchlock feeling. Decide when you will harvest based on your personal preferences.

Marijuana plant symptoms

Leaf symptoms:

– Leaves curling upward
– Leaves curling downward
– Base leaves yellowing
– Heat-burnt leaves
– Spotting of leaves
– Yellowing or browning leaves
– Dropping and dying of leaves
– General discoloration (red, grey, brown, yellow)

Plant symptoms:
– Tall, “reaching” plants
– Lanky plants
– Nutrient burn
– Browning and wilting

While these five factors are the most common ones that can affect your marijuana plants’ end yield, they are by no means the only factors that have an effect. There are plenty of diseases or conditions that could affect your plants without you influencing it at all, so you need to be well-educated in terms of potential obstacles. If you do your homework and are proactive about your plant care, you will be finely rewarded. Check out our Symptom Checker for more plant symptoms.

Choosing the right genetics

While there is nothing you can do after you have already purchased and planted your seeds to affect this, it is still worth mentioning that genetics play a key role in your plants’ final harvest. Your particular marijuana strain is going to affect the growth, size, and potency of your buds in the end.

The good news is that most strains that you are likely to buy these days have significantly higher yields and potencies than past strains. They are also generally easier to grow, and this is just getting better and better as time goes on.

Many beginner growers will pay the cheaper price for strains that are not high in quality. Although their intent was to save money, in the end they will actually get less value for what they paid because the end yield will be disappointing compared to a high-quality strain’s yield. This is why it is important to invest in high-quality genetics from the beginning.

There are different versions of high-quality strains, of course. Some strains achieve a higher yield, sure, but others have been bred specifically to achieve other useful characteristics like height and bushiness. Others were bred to have buds that are extremely potent or fragrant, meaning the yield itself might be lower, despite a higher quality bud.

Therefore, no matter what you do in regards to the other factors that affect your precious marijuana plants, you need to start things off right with a good strain. Do your research so you know exactly what that strain’s tendencies and expectations are. In the end, you will be glad you did.

Thanks for reading. Please leave comments or questions below and don’t forget to download my free grow bible.

The post How to Increase Your Marijuana Yield appeared first on TheJointBlog.com.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

Diseases on marijuana plants and infections usually create the worst possible issues for your plants. They have a tendency to be much harder to treat than pests. Diseases in your plants will usually come in one of two major categories: fungal or bacterial.

Fungal diseases are often caused by environments that are too damp or humid, or places which lack airflow. Fungal spores float around in the air looking for a suitably damp place to root down and if the environment is right, that suitably damp place might be on your cannabis plant.

Bacterial infections are often sneakier and harder to notice. They are spread by a number of different possible vehicles, ranging from insects and humans to rain and unclean soil or substrate. Bacteria can sometimes get into a plant and then leave it mostly untouched unless the plant is weakened by external stresses, at which point they can quickly take down the whole plant.

Proper treatment of a fungal or bacterial disease requires a knowledge of the potential symptoms, which we’ll list below. As always, the best defense against disease is prevention. Do your best to create an environment which is healthy for plants and inhospitable for fungus and bacterial growth.

Algae

Hydroponics systems are water-based, and without proper care, they can become havens for algae. Both cannabis and algae thrive in nutrient-rich water environments, but you really don’t want them to be sharing the same space. Algae will live on the roots of your plants, and thus deprive your cannabis of the nutrients necessary for the plant to develop properly in a hydroponics system.

Not to beat a dead horse, but your best defense is always preventative. Do your best to minimize the potential for algae growth before it occurs by the taking the proper precautions beforehand. Because algae and cannabis have similar requirements of water and light, it can be difficult to do this. The easiest way is to make sure that no light reaches the roots of your plants. Use an opaque, dark material to block out the light. If algae begins to develop, clean it out right away. Read more about Algae on marijuana plants

Bud rot

Bud rot (also gray mold or botrytis) is one of the most damaging of the possible infections your marijuana plants can face. It eats every part of the plant, not bothering to distinguish between buds and flowers or stalks and stems. The infection can spread very rapidly, so you want to take precautions to avoid letting gray mold take root in your plant’s environment. The disease prefers a cool but relatively humid environment. Keeping the temperature in your grow room above 70 degrees Fahrenheit will help, and make sure to monitor the humidity constantly so that it doesn’t get too wet.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for more about diseases

Another step can be to change clothes or wear protective gear before going into your grow room. The spores can attach themselves to clothing fibers and then release in the grow room if the environment feels appropriate. If all else fails and your plants develop gray mold, there a few different soaps and sprays you can use to help mitigate the damage and treat the plant. Marijuana Plant Protector is the best solution. Read more about Bud rot on marijuana plants

Leaf septoria

Leaf Septoria (also known as yellow leaf spot) produces yellow spots on the leaves of your cannabis plants. It’s a fungus which usually pops up on outdoor cannabis plants after they have been exposed to both heat and recent rain. The yellow spots initially develop on the lowest leaves of the plant and then work their way upwards. In the worst cases of Leaf Septoria, the entire leaf will turn yellow and begin to crumble. Generally, however, the leaves won’t die off, and the plants will survive.

Despite the fact that it isn’t usually lethal, yellow leaf spot can heavily inhibit the growth of the plant and its eventual yield. You can prevent yellow leaf spot by keeping the soil well-aerated and applying a fungicidal  compound to your compost. If you still have trouble with yellow leaf spot, you can apply baking soda as a reactive measure. Read more about Leaf septoria on marijuana plants

Powdery mildew

Powdery mildew on marijuana is a spore based fungal problem that can affect both outdoor and indoor marijuana gardens. The spores are transmissible through the air, and being carried by wind means it can be fairly difficult to protect against. It’s also a very sneaky fungus because the spores can lie dormant in the soil until conditions are just right for them to start growth. Usually, this is when the environment is warm and highly humid.  Powdery mildew also occurs frequently when the cannabis plants are too close together, and there isn’t enough airflow. An overcrowded grow room unnecessarily risks damage to your plants.

You can recognize powdery mildew by its white color. It will cover the foliage of the plant and inhibit the photosynthesis process. If your plants suffer from powdery mildew, there are a number of safe naturally based sprays you can use (including milk and apple cider vinegar) to help deal with the problem. Mold control also treat powdery mildew. Read more about Powdery mildew on marijuana plants

Fusarium

Fusarium on marijuana is another fungal issue. Instead of eating the foliage, however, fusarium damages the root systems of your cannabis plants. Thankfully, hydroponics systems aren’t affected by fusarium since it requires a soil-based substrate to survive in. Usually fusarium causes wilting in the plant or a more generalized root rot. Like some of the other fungi, fusarium will sometimes lie dormant in the soil for long periods of time, just waiting to strike.

If fusarium does begin to take hold in the root systems of your plant, there’s very little that you can do to treat it. First of all, it’s very difficult to spot until it’s too late. Second, although indoor growers can help prevent fusarium by using sterile soil, there’s no way to be sure it isn’t present outside in nature. Read more about Fusarium on marijuana plants

Verticillium wilt

Verticillium wilt on marijuana is fairly similar to  fusarium wilt, except that it is mostly like to appear in soils that are improperly drained or overly full of nutrients. The first signs of verticillium wilt are drooping and yellowing foliage. The fungus will also cause the stem to turn a dark brown at the base, where it makes contact with the soil. These sorts of fungal diseases are nigh impossible to treat, so it’s of the utmost importance that you practice preventative care.

Try to make sure that your soil or substrate has proper drainage, so that verticillium wilt won’t rear its ugly head. Because there’s really no way to cure or treat verticillium wilt, make sure that you rotate your crop if you have issues with it, otherwise it will just keep coming back. Read more about Verticillium wilt on marijuana plants

Root rot

Root rot, also known as pythium, is a fungus that will live on the roots of your marijuana plants. As you can imagine, this isn’t good for the roots, and if it’s not good for the roots, it’s definitely not good for the plant. Root rot can occur both indoors and outdoors, and in a wide variety of substrates, including the water of hydroponics systems. Initial symptoms include wilting of the plant, and a change in the color of the foliage to brown or yellow. Since these symptoms can be caused by a wide variety of issues, you’ll need to check the roots themselves if you want to verify the source.

When a plant is infected by pythium, the roots will begin to change color and eventually the outer layer of the roots will be shed to reveal stringy, weak inner core. You can help keep your plants root rot free by fastidiously cleaning the hydroponics system and making sure that the substrate drains properly. Remember, preventative care is key! Read more about Root rot on marijuana plants

Damping off

Damping off of marijuana seedlings isn’t actually a disease, instead it’s the plant responding to the presence of a disease. You’ll notice when you see damping that the plant seems like it’s wilting— it may resemble overwatering, but really it’s the roots which causing the issue. Damping off usually occurs in cannabis seedlings. The plant itself will develop lesions before actually dying entirely.

Again, preventative care is the only real way to deal with damping off and other fungal disease-related problems. Usually, plants won’t be able to bounce back from damping off, and so it’s up to the grower to prevent it from happening in the first place. Read more about Damping off on marijuana seedlings

Thanks for reading. Please leave comments or questions below and don’t forget to download my free grow bible

The post Diseases on Marijuana Plants, and How to Treat Them appeared first on TheJointBlog.com.