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.
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