growers guide for the beginners

[whitetop]

this is part 1 i found this on the web and i thort this site mite like it.

Beginner's Guide to Growing MarijuanaBeginner's Guide to Growing Marijuana
Marijuana For sale
Marijuana Seeds
This is a guide that I pulled off the net that puts everything in plain and
simple english, and doesn't go to deep into advanced botony and gardening. I
find this one to be the best guide out there.
Indoor Marijuana Cultivation
Introduction:
Growing marijuana indoors is fast becoming an American Pastime. The
reasons are varied. With the increased interest and experimentation in house
plant cultivation, it was inevitable that people would apply their knowledge of
plant care to growing marijuana. Many of those who occasionally like to
light up a joint may find it difficult to locate a source or are hesitant to
deal with a perhaps unsavory element of society in procuring their grass.
There is, of course, the criminal aspect of buying or selling grass; Growing
marijuana is just as illegal as buying, selling, or smoking it, but growing
is something you can do in the privacy of your own home without having to deal
with someone you don't know or trust. The best reason for growing your own
is the enjoyment you will get out of watching those tiny little seeds you
picked out of you stash sprout and become some of the most lovely and lush of
all house plants.
Anyone Can Do It
Even if you haven't had any prior experience with growing plants in you
home, you can have a successful crop of marijuana by following the simple
directions in this pamphlet. If you have had problems in the past with
marijuana cultivation, you may find the solutions in the following chapters.
Growing a marijuana plant involves four basic steps:
1. Get the seeds. If you don't already have some, you can ask your friends
to save you seeds out of any good grass they may come across. You'll find that
lots of people already have a seed collection of some sort and are willing to
part with a few prime seeds in exchange for some of the finished
product.
2. Germinate the seeds. You can simply drop a seed into moist soil, but by
germinating the seeds first you can be sure that the seed will indeed produce
a plant. To germinate seeds, place a group of them between about six moist
paper towels, or in the pores of a moist sponge. Leave the towels or sponge
moist but not soaking wet. Some seeds will germinate in 24 hours while
others may take several days or even a week.
3. Plant the sprouts. As soon as a seed cracks open and begins to sprout,
place it on some moist soil and sprinkle a little soil over the top of it.
4. Supply the plants with light. Flourescent lights are the best. Hang
the lights with two inches of the soil and after the plants appear above the
ground, continue to keep the lights with two inches of the plants. It is
as easy as that. If you follow those four steps you will grow a
marijuana plant. To ensure prime quality and the highest yield in the
shortest time period, however, a few details are necessary.
Soil
Your prime concern, after choosing high quality seeds, is the soil. Use
the best soil you can get. Scrimping on the soil doesn't pay off in the long
run. If you use unsterilized soil you will almost certainly find parasites in
it, probably after it
is too late to transplant your marijuana. You can find excellent soil for sale
at your local plant shop or nursery, K-Mart, Wal Mart, and even some grocery
stores. The soil you use should have these properties for the best possible
results:
1. It should drain well. That is, it should have some sand in it and also
some sponge rock or pearlite.
2. The ph should be between 6.5 and 7.5 since marijuana does not do well in
acidic soil. High acidity in soil encourages the plant to be predominantly
male, an undesirable trait.
3. The soil should also contain humus for retaining moisture and nutrients.

If you want to make your own soil mixture, you can use this recipe: Mix
two parts moss with one part sand and one part pearlite or sponge rock to
each four gallons of soil. Test your soil for ph with litmus paper or
with a soil testing kit
available at most plant stores. To raise the ph of the soil, add 1/2 lb. lime
to 1 cubic foot of soil to raise the ph one point.
If you absolutely insist on using dirt you dug up from your driveway, you
must sterilize it by baking it in your oven for about an hour at 250 degrees.
Be sure to moisten it thoroughly first and also prepare yourself for a rapid
evacuation of your
kitchen because that hot soil is going to stink. Now add to the mixture about
one tablespoon of fertilizer (like Rapid-Gro) per gallon gallon of soil and
blend it in thoroughly. Better yet, just skip the whole process and spend a
couple bucks on some soil.
Containers
After you have prepared your soil, you will have to come up with some kind
of container to plant in. The container should be sterilized as well,
especially if they have been used previously for growing other plants. The
size of the container has a great
deal to do with the rate of growth and overall size of the plant. You should
plan on transplanting your plant not more than one time, since the process
of transplanting can be a shock to the plant and it will have to undergo a
recovery period in which growth is slowed or even stopped for a short
while. The first container you use should be no larger than six inches in
diameter and can be made of clay or plastic. To transplant, simply
prepare the larger pot by filling it with soil and scooping out a little hole
about the size of the smaller pot that the plant is in. Turn the plant upside
down, pot and all, and tap the rim of the pot sharply on a counter or the edge
of the sink. The soil and root ball should come out of the pot cleanly with
the soil retaining the shape of the pot and with no disturbances to the
root ball. Another method that can bypass the transplanting
problem is using a Jiffy-Pot. Jiffy pots are made of compressed peat moss
and can be planted right into moist soil where they decompose and allow the
passage of the root system through their walls. The second container should
have a volume of at least three gallons. Marijuana doesn't like to have its
roots bound or cramped for space, so always be sure that the container you use
will be deep enough for your plant's root system. It is very difficult to
transplant a five-foot marijuana tree, so plan ahead. It is going to get
bigger. The small plants should be ready to transplant into their
permanent homes in about two weeks. Keep a close watch on them after the
first week or so and avoid root binding at all costs since the plants never
seem to do as well once they have been stunted by the cramping of their
roots.
Fertilizer
Marijuana likes lots of food, but you can do damage to the plants if you
are too zealous. Some fertilizers can burn a plant
and damage its roots if used in to high a concentration. Most commercial
soil will have enough nutrients in it to sustain the
plant for about three weeks of growth so you don't need to worry about
feeding your plant until the end of the third week. The most important
thing to remember is to introduce the fertilizer concentration to the plant
gradually. Start with a fairly diluted fertilizer solution and gradually
increase the dosage. There are several good marijuana fertilizers on the
commercial market, two of which are Rapid-Gro and Eco-Grow. Rapid-Gro has
had widespread use in marijuana cultivation and is available in most parts
of the United States. Eco-Grow is also especially good for marijuana since
it contains an ingredient that keeps the soil from becoming acid. Most
fertilizers cause a ph change in the soil. Adding fertilizer to the soil
almost always results in a more acidic ph.
As time goes on, the amount of salts produced by the breakdown of
fertilizers in the soil causes the soil to become
increasingly acidic and eventually the concentration of these salts in the
soil will stunt the plant and cause browning out of
the foliage. Also, as the plant gets older its roots become less effective in
bringing food to the leaves. To avoid the
accumulation of these salts in your soil and to ensure that your plant is
getting all of the food it needs you can begin leaf
feeding your plant at the age of about 1.5 months. Dissolve the fertilizer in
worm water and spray the mixture directly onto the foliage. The leaves
absorb the fertilizer into their veins. If you want to continue to put
fertilizer into the soil as well as
leaf feeding, be sure not to overdose your plants.
Remember to increase the amount of food your plant receives gradually.
Marijuana seems to be able to take as much fertilizer as you want to give it as
long as it is introduced over a period of time. During the first three
months or so, fertilize your plants every few days. As the rate of foliage
growth slows down in the plant's preparation for blooming and seed production,
the fertilizer intake of the plant should be slowed down as well. Never
fertilize the plant just before you are going to harvest it since the
fertilizer will encourage foliage production and slow down resin production.
A word here about the most organic of fertilizers: worm castings. As you
may know, worms are raised commercially for sale to gardeners. The breeders
put the worms in organic compost mixtures and while the worms are
reproducing they eat the organic matter and expel some of the best marijuana
food around. After the worms have eaten all the organic matter in the
compost, they are removed and sold and the remains are then sold as worm
castings. These castings are so rich that you can grow marijuana in straight
worm castings. This isn't really necessary however, and it is somewhat
impractical since the castings are very expensive. If you can afford them
you can, however, blend them in with your soil and they will make a very
good organic fertilizer.
Light
Without light, the plants cannot grow. In the countries in which
marijuana grows best, the sun is the source of light. The
amount of light and the length of the growing season in these countries
results in huge tree-like plants. In most parts of
North America, however, the sun is not generally intense enough for long
enough periods of time to produce the same size and quality of plants that
grow with ease in Latin America and other tropical countries. The answer to
the problem of lack of sun, especially in the winter months, shortness of the
growing season, and other problems is to grow indoor under simulated
conditions. The rule of thumb seems to be the more light, the better. In one
experiment we know of, eight eight-foot VHO Gro-Lux fixtures were used over
eight plants. The plants grew at an astonishing rate. The lights had to be
raised every day. There are many types of artificial light and all of them
do different things to your plants. The common incandescent light bulb
emits some of the frequencies of light the plant can use, but it also emits
a high percentage of far red and infra-red light which cause the plant to
concentrate its growth on the stem. This results in the plant stretching
toward the light bulb until it becomes so tall and spindly that it just
weakly topples over. There are several brands of bulb type. One is the
incandescent plant spot light which emits higher amounts of red and blue light
than the common light bulb. It is an improvement, but has it drawbacks. it
is hot, for example, and cannot be placed close to the plants.
Consequently, the plant has to stretch upwards again and is in danger of
becoming elongated and falling over. The red bands of light seem to
encourage stem growth which is not desirable in growing marijuana. the idea
is to encourage foliage growth for obvious reasons. Gro-Lux lights are
probably the most common flourescent plant lights. In our experience with
them, they have
proven themselves to be extremely effective. They range in size from one to
eight feet in length so you can set up a growing room in a closet or a
warehouse. There are two types of Gro-Lux lights: The standard and the
wide spectrum. They can be used in conjunction with on another, but the wide
spectrum lights are not sufficient on their own. The wide spectrum lights
were designed as a supplementary light source and are cheaper than the standard
lights. Wide spectrum lights emit the same bands of light as the standard
but the standard emit higher concentrations of red and blue bands that the
plants need to grow. The wide spectrum lights also emit infra-red, the
effect of which on stem growth we have already discussed. If you are planning
to grow on a large scale, you might be interested to know that the
regular flourescent lamps and fixtures, the type that are used in
commercial lighting, work well when used along with standard Gro- Lux lights.
These commercial lights are called cool whites, and are the cheapest of the
flourescent lights we have mentioned. They emit as much blue light as the
Gro-Lux standards and the blue light is what the plants use in foliage
growth.

[whitetop]

part 2 of this guide.

Now we come to the question of intensity. Both the standard and wide
spectrum lamps come in three intensities: regular output, high output,
and very high output. You can grow a nice crop of plants under the regular
output lamps and probably be quite satisfied with our results. The
difference in using the HO or VHO lamps is the time it takes to grow a crop.
Under a VHO lamp, the plants grow at a rate that is about three times the
rate at which they grow under the standard lamps. People have been known
to get a plant that is four feet tall in two months under one of these
lights. Under the VHO lights, one may have to raise the lights every day which
means a growth rate of ate least two inches a day. The only drawback is the
expense of the VHO lamps and fixtures. The VHO lamps and fixtures are almost
twice the price of the standard. If you are interested in our opinion, they
are well worth it. Now that you have your lights up, you might be curious
about the amount of light to give you plants per day. The maturation date of
your plants is dependent on how much light they receive per day. The longer
the dark period per day, the sooner the plant will bloom. Generally speaking,
the less dark per day the better during the first six months of the
plant's life. The older the plant is before it blooms and goes to seed,
the better the grass will be. After the plant is allowed to bloom, its
metabolic rate is slowed so that the plant's quality does not increase
with the age at the same rate it did before it bloomed. The idea, then, is
to let the plant get as old as possible before allowing it to mature so that
the potency will be a high as possible at the time of harvest. One
relatively sure way to keep your plants from blooming until you are ready
for them is to leave the lights on all the time. Occasionally a plant
will go ahead and bloom anyway, but it is the exception rather than the
rule. If your plants receive 12 hours of light per day they will probably
mature in 2 to 2.5 months. If they get 16 hours of light per day they will
probably be blooming in 3.5 to 4 months. With 18 hours of light per day,
they will flower in 4.5 to 5 months. Its a good idea to put your lights on a
timer to ensure that the amount of light received each day remains constant.
A "vacation" timer, normally used to make it look like you are home while you
are away, works nicely and can be found at most hardware or discount stores.

Energy Emissions In Arbitrary Color Bands
40 Watt Flourescent Lamps
In Watts and Percent of Total Emissions
Daylight Cool White
Gro-Lux GroLux WS
Light Type Band Watts % Watt %
Watt % Watt %
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
Ultra-Violet -380 0.186 2.15 0.16 1.68 0.10
1.42 0.27 3.16
Violet 380-430 0.832 9.60 0.72 7.57 0.70
9.67 1.07 12.48
Blue 430-490 2.418 27.91 1.98 20.78 1.96
27.07 1.22 14.29
Green 490-560 2.372 27.38 2.35 24.67 1.02
14.02 1.24 14.49
Yellow 560-590 1.259 14.53 1.74 18.27 0.10
1.42 0.83 9.77
Orange 590-630 1.144 13.21 1.69 17.75 0.44
6.05 1.36 15.93
Red 630-700 0.452 6.22 0.81 8.47 2.86
39.55 1.86 21.78
Far Red 700-780 0.130 1.53 0.07 0.81 0.06
0.80 0.69 8.10
==================== =========== ========== ========== ==========
Total 8.890 100.0 9.52 100.0
7.24 100.0 8.54 100.0

Temperature and Humidity
The ideal temperature for the light hours is 68 to 78 degrees fahrenheit
and for the dark hours there should be about a 15 degree drop in
temperature. The growing room should be relatively dry if possible. What
you want is a resinous coating on the leaves and to get the plant to do
this, you must convince it that it needs the resinous coating on its leaves to
protect itself from drying out. In an extremely humid room, the plants
develop wide leaves and do not produce as much resin. You must take care not
to let the temperature in a dry room become too hot, however, since the
plant cannot assimilate water fast enough through its roots and its foliage
will begin to brown out.
Ventilation
Proper ventilation in your growing room is fairly important. The more
plants you have in one room, the more important good ventilation becomes.
Plants breathe through their leaves. The also rid themselves of poisons
through their leaves. If proper ventilation is not maintained, the pores of
the leaves will become clogged and the leaves will die. If there is a free
movement of air, the poisons can evaporate off the leaves and the plant can
breathe and remain healthy.
In a small closet where there are only a few plants you can probably
create enough air circulation just by opening the door to look at them.
Although it is possible to grow healthy looking plants in poorly
ventilated rooms, they would be larger and healthier if they had a fresh
supply of air coming in. If you spend a lot of time in your growing room,
your plants will grow better because they will be using the carbon dioxide
that you are exhaling around them. It is sometimes quite difficult to get
a fresh supply of air in to your growing room because your room is usually
hidden away in a secret corner of your house, possibly in the attic or
basement. In this case, a fan will create some movement of air. It will
also stimulate your plants into growing a healthier and sturdier stalk.
Often times in an indoor environment, the stems of plants fail to become
rigid because they don't have to cope with elements of wind and rain. To a
degree, though, this is an advantage because the plant puts most of its
energy into producing leaves and resin instead of stems.
Dehumidifying Your Growing Room
Cannabis that grows in a hot, dry climate will have narrower leaves than
cannabis grown in a humid atmosphere. The reason is that in a dry
atmosphere the plant can respirate easier because the moisture on the
leaves evaporates faster. In a humid atmosphere, the moisture cannot
evaporate as fast. Consequently, the leaves have to be broader with more
surface area in order to expel the wastes that the plant put out. Since the
broad leaves produce less resin per leaf than the narrow there will be
more resin in an ounce of narrow leaves than in one ounce of broad
leaves. There may be more leaf mass in the broader leafed plants, but most
people are growing their own for quality rather than quantity.
Since the resin in the marijuana plant serves the purpose of keeping the
leaves from drying out, there is more apt to be a lot of resin produced in a
dry room than in a humid one. In the Sears catalog, dehumidifiers cost around
$100.00 and are therefore a bit impractical for the "hobby grower."
Watering
If you live near a clear mountain stream, you can skip this bit on the
quality of water. Most of us are supplied water by the city and some cities
add more chemicals to the water than others. They all add chlorine, however,
in varying quantities. Humans over the years have learned to either get rid
of it somehow or to live with it, but your marijuana plants won't have time to
acquire a taste for it so you had better see that they don't have to.
Chlorine will evaporate if you let the water stand for 24 hours in an open
container. Letting the water stand for a day or two will serve a dual
purpose: The water will come to room temperature during that period of time
and you can avoid the nasty shock your plants suffer when you drench them with
cold water. Always water with room temperature to lukewarm water. If your
water has an excessive amount of chlorine in it, you may want to get some
anti- chlorine drops at the local fish or pet store. The most important thing
about watering is to do it thoroughly. You can water a plant in a three
gallon container with as much as three quarts of
water. The idea is to get the soil evenly moist all the way to the bottom
of the pot. If you use a little water, even if you do
it often, it seeps just a short way down into the soil and any roots below
the moist soil will start to turn upwards toward the water. The second most
important thing about watering is to see to it that the pot has good drainage.
There should be some holes in the bottom so that any excess water will run
out. If the pot won't drain, the excess water will accumulate in a pocket
and rot the roots of the plant or simply make the soil sour or mildew.
The soil, as we said earlier, must allow the water to drain evenly through it
and must not become hard or packed. If you have made sure that the soil
contains sand and pearlite, you shouldn't have drainage problems. To
discover when to water, feel the soil with your finger. if you feel moisture
in the soil, you can wait a day or two to water. The soil near the top of the
pot is always drier than the soil further down. You can drown your plant
just as easily as you can let it get too dry and it is more likely to
survive a dry spell than it is to survive a torrential flood. Water the
plants well when you water and don't water them at all when they don't need
it.
Bugs
If you can avoid getting bugs in the first place you will be much better
off. Once your plants become infested you will
probably be fighting bugs for the rest of your plants' lives. To avoid bugs
be sure to use sterilized soil and containers and don't bring other plants
from outside into your growing room. If you have bets, ensure that they
stay out of your growing room, since they can bring in pests on their
fur. Examine your plants regularly for signs of insects, spots, holes
in the leaves, browning of the tips of the leaves, and droopy branches. If
you find that somehow in spite of all your precautions you have a plant
room full of bugs, you'll have to spray your plants with some kind of
insecticide. You'll want to use something that will kill the bugs and not
you. Spider mites are probably the bug that will do the most damage to the
marijuana plants. One of the reasons is that they are almost microscopic
and very hard to spot. They are called spider mites because they leave
a web-like substance clinging to the leaves. They also cause tiny little
spots to appear on the leaves. Probably the first thing you'll notice,
however, is that your plants look sick and depressed. The mites suck enzymes
from the leaves and as a result the leaves lose some of their green color and
glossiness. Sometimes the leaves look like they have some kid of fungus on
them. The eggs are very tiny black dots. You might be wise to get a
magnifying glass so that you can really scrutinize your plants closely. Be
sure to examine the underside of the leaves too. The mites will often be
found clinging to the underside as well as the top of the leaves. The sooner
you start fighting the bugs, the easier it will be to get rid of them. For
killing spider mites on marijuana, one of the best insecticides if "Fruit and
Berry" spray made by llers.
Ortho also produces several insecticides that will kill mites. The
ingredients to look for are Kelthane and Malatheon. Both of these poisons
are lethal to humans and pets as well as bugs, but they both detoxify in
about ten days so you can safely smoke the grass ten days after spraying.
Fruit and Berry will only kill the adult mite, however, and you'll have to
spray every four days for about two weeks to be sure that you have killed all
the adults before they have had a chance to lay eggs. Keep a close watch on
your plants because it only takes one egg laying adult to re- infest your
plants and chances are that one or two will escape your barrage of
insecticides. If you see little bugs flying around your plants, they are
probably white flies. The adults are immune to almost all the commercial
insecticides except Fruit and Berry which will not kill the eggs or larva.
It is the larval stage of this insect that does the most damage. They
suck out enzymes too, and kill your plants if they go unchecked. You will
have to get on a spraying program just as was explained in the spider mite
section.
An organic method of bug control is using soap suds. Put Ivory
flakes in some lukewarm water and work up the suds into a lather. Then
put the suds over the plant. The obvious disadvantage is it you don't
rinse the soap off the plant you'll taste the soap when you smoke the leaves.

Pruning
We have found that pruning is not always necessary. The reason one
does it in the first place is to encourage secondary growth and to allow
light to reach the immature leaves. Some strands of grass just naturally
grow thick and bushy and if they are not clipped the sap moves in an
uninterrupted flow right to the top of the plant where it produces flowers
that are thick with resin. On the other hand, if your plants appear tall and
spindly for their age at three weeks, they probably require a little
trimming to ensure a nice full leafy plant. At three weeks of age your plant
should have at least two sets of branches or four leaf clusters and a top.
To prune the plant, simply slice the top off just about the place where two
branches oppose each other. Use a razor blade in a straight cut. If you
want to, you can root the top in some water and when the roots appear,
plant the top in moist soil and it should grow into another plant. If
you are going to root the top you should cut the end again, this time with a
diagonal cut so as to expose more surface to the water or rooting
solution. The advantage to taking cuttings from your plant is that it
produces more tops. The tops have the resin, and that's the name of the game.
Every time you cut off a top, the plant seeds out two more top branches at
the base of the existing branches. Pruning also encourages the branches
underneath to grow faster than they normally would without the top having been
cut.
Harvesting and Curing
Well, now that you've grown your marijuana, you will want to cur it
right so that it smokes clean and won't bite. You can avoid that
"homegrown" taste of chlorophyll that sometimes makes one's fillings taste
like they might be dissolving. We know of several methods of curing the
marijuana so that it will have a mild flavor and a mellow rather than harsh
smoke.
First, pull the plant up roots and all and hang it upside down for 24
hours. Then put each plant in a paper grocery bag with the top open for
three or four days or until the leaves feel dry to the touch. Now strip the
leaves off the stem and put them in a glass jar with a lid. Don't pack the
leaves in tightly, you want air to reach all the leaves. The main danger in
the curing process is mold. If the leaves are too damp when you put them
into the jar, they will mold and since the mold will destroy the resins,
mold will ruin your marijuana. you should check the jars every day by smelling
them and if you smell an acrid aroma, take the weed out of the jar and spread
it out on newspaper so that it can dry quickly. Another method is to uproot
the plants and hang them upside down. You get some burlap bags damp and slip
them up over the plants. Keep the bags damp and leave them in the sun for at
least a week. Now put the plants in a paper bag for a few days until the weed
is dry enough to smoke. Like many fine things in life, marijuana mellows
out with age. The aging process tends to remove the chlorophyll taste.
Editor's Note and Important Warning:
This pamphlet was written about 8 years ago. While the facts,
figures, and methods described here are still valid, an
mportant note must be added concerning the purchasing of equipment and
supplies. The information age is upon us and and increasing amount of data
is being kept about all of us whether we realize it or not. With the war on
drugs in full effect, the D.E.A. is using this information at every possible
opportunity. When you make a purchase with a credit card, every last bit
of information regarding that purchase is filed away into a database,
both at the store and with your credit card company. Not only the price,
but the exact date, location, and items purchased are recorded and stored
away. Many stores and credit card companies routinely sell their databases
of customers and transactions to anybody who can afford it. The D.E.A
can certainly afford it. After all, they're using your tax dollars. The
D.E.A. as well as other government agencies DO purchase these databases for
their own uses. They feed them into their computers and the computers
spit out a list of anybody with "suspicious" purchases. Any purchases that
could be associated with drug production, use, or selling could be
flagged for further investigation. These "suspicious" purchases include
unusual chemicals, medical supplies such as syringes, lights and timers, and
even potting soil and fertilizer. The point is, if you are planning on
purchasing supplies to grow marijuana don't take any chances. While the
average home grower, who is simply growing enough for his own use, would
probably never be flagged by the computers, you never know. If you are
purchasing equipment or supplies, PAY CASH! In addition, many supermarkets
and discount stores now have some sort of "Preferred Customer" cards.
When you buy something, regardless of how you pay, you give them your card to
scan and all your purchases are recorded. They then send you some sort of
coupon depending on what and how much you purchased each month. It
sounds like a good deal, but you wind up having all of your purchases
recorded and sold just like with the credit cards. DON'T use one of
these cards when you are purchasing anything that might be deemed suspicious.
For that matter, don't use them at all. They just result in a ton of junk
mail and a lot of people knowing exactly what you buy and when you buy it.
Marijuana For sale Marijuana Seeds

[sdhall36]

eek!