How to Grow Medical Marijuana/Pure Marijuana:)
Marijuana can be categorised into two main strains; Cannabis sativa which gets you stoned and Cannabis indica which gets you high.
Indicas tend to be shorter and more compact whereas Sativas are taller and more leggy. Anecdotally the highs associated with each follow the same pattern with Indicas giving a heavy stoned effect while sativas give a lighter, happier buzz. Modern growing techniques also mean that there are a seemingly endless varieties of hybrid marijuana strains available, giving the best of both worlds.
5 basic requirements – Marijuana plants need water, light, air, nutrients and temperature. However you choose to grow weed you should bear these 5 basic requirements in mind and ask yourself at each stage – Have you met all of these requirements?
Cannabis life cycle – Cannabis is an annual plant. It germinates in the spring, lays down a lot of vegetative growth throughout the summer, and then flowers in the autumn. The flowers provide an abundance of seed which will produce next year’s plants. The flowers are the bud, the thing we’re looking for.
To produce the most potent buds it is necessary to remove the male plants before flowering takes place. This means that the female plant will put all of her energy into creating the sticky, THC-laden flowers rather than the seeds. The result is essentially a virgin plant, or sensimilla, which comes from the Latin for ‘without seeds’. The act of sexing the plants (identifying if it is male or female) can be a difficult one.
So you’ve decided to grow weed indoors with an indoor grow set up. Now you will be in total control of the plant’s environment. Be aware that this carries a greater risk than growing marijuana outdoors. But on the upside, you can expect to harvest some premium grade frosty bud in a much shorter time and you won’t be dependent on the season.
There are two main ways to go: Using soil as a growing medium, or with a hydroponic system to grow marijuana. Hydroponics just means that the plants will grow without soil, they will grow in an inert medium and all of their nutrient requirements will come straight from the water. Apart from this difference the way you set up your grow room will be the same. So firstly we will look at the marijuana grow methods which will be the same for both systems.
gives you less control over its growing conditions. Your crop will be prey to weather, disease, thieves, the law maybe and a host of other things that are beyond your control. On the other hand, if the crop is not on your property you can distance yourself from it and avoid things like nosey neighbours and the cost and hassle of setting up an indoor grow room.
The first and most important factor to bear in mind if you decide to grow weed outdoors is site selection. Assuming that the site is not on your own property you will need to think about discretion. You will also need to consider soil quality and availability of water. Every time you visit the site you put yourself and your crop at risk so it makes sense to choose a site where your plants can be mostly self-sufficient.
Light is one of the basic requirements to grow weed and it is important to get this right. You need blue light to grow and yellow / red light to flower. There are many types of grow lights on the market – let’s take a look at the most popular four.
HID grow lights – High intensity discharge grow lights. HID grow lights are the most efficient way of transferring electricity into light; you might have seen them in use at stadiums and tennis courts.
There are two main types of marijuana grow lights both known as HID grow lights. They are High Pressure Sodium (HPS) grow lights and Metal Halide (MH) grow lights.
Metal halide (MH) grow lights emit light with a lot of blue in the spectrum. This makes them ideal for vegetative growth. However they are not very efficient for flowering. Many growers use metal halide just for the vegetative grow phase and then switch to High Pressure Sodium (HPS) for flowering. If you are not using a mix of both lights throughout the entire grow, this is probably the optimum way of providing light for your plants.
High pressure sodium (HPS) grow lights emit the familiar orange or amber light you might see in street lighting. This light spectrum is the most effective for the flowering phase of growth. Although HPS grow lights are not the optimum light for vegetative growth they work very well and are the most popular type of grow light for anyone who may be limited by budget to just one lamp. They also run more efficiently than metal halide lamps, emitting more lumens for the same wattage. If you are only going to use one lamp then this is the one for you.
Fluorescent and CFL grow lights
Fluorescent lighting emits light across the whole range of the spectrum and is suitable for growing marijuana. Fluorescent bulbs are available in a variety of types, roughly speaking they can be categorised into cool, warm and daylight light spectrums. The daylight types work best but a mixture will also suffice. Despite being cheaper initially old fluorescents are less efficient to run than some of the other types of new lighting available. Because of their low heat output fluorescents can be placed in very close proximity to the growing plants, indeed this is advised as their actual light output (measured in lumens) is quite low. Many growers use fluorescents for seedlings and young plants as their light demand is lower. Read about the exciting new CFL compact fluorescent grow lights.
LED grow lights – The new breed. LED grow lights have increased performance in leaps and bounds over the past decade however are they better than using some solid HID’s? They do cost less to run, they have the best life span of any light and they produce near zero heat. You will save on heat extraction, dried out plants, space, reflectors and ballast costs. Make sure you do your research on the exact bulb you are getting. More detail on LED grow lights.
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