HID Lighting

I’ve chosen to write about high intensity discharge (HID) lighting now because these lights still have a place in the home grow. HID lights come in several flavors such as; metal halide (MH), high pressure sodium (HPS), compact metal halide (CMH), and double ended high pressure sodium (DE HPS). HPS and MH have been the most common traditionally and may be worth considering because you can get used units cheap! A google search will yield piles of results with lengthy discussions on these technologies. For our purposes, I’ll focus on the topics most relevant to small home grows.

When purchasing a used HPS or MH unit, it’s important to inspect if carefully. These units consist of several individual pieces; the hood (reflector), the bulb-socket and cord-set, and the ballast. Reflectors can be visually inspected for defects. Be sure to ask for the glass lens for it as well and ensure it is free of excessive scratches. Visually inspect the cord-set and bulb-socket as well. It should be free of cracks and other physical problems. As for the ballast – this part should be inspected by someone qualified to do so. Ballasts will hum, but if that hum seems too loud, there might be an issue. Do NOT skip having that ballast inspected.

The real downside of HID lights is the heat production. Most will produce at least double the heat of a comparable LED. This, in turn, will double your cooling costs during the summer. In addition to the heat produced by the power consumption, HID lights also produce infrared radiation which will not only heat up the surfaces of your leaves, but other objects in it’s path including walls and floors. You can really feel that extra heat when you place your hand under the light.

You will need to vent these lights and your space, particularly when the space is small. Placing the ballast outside the space will help, and using build-in ventilation ports on the reflector will also help (this is what the lens is needed for). However, that IR radiation will pass right through the lens so you can count on needing to vent the space or including air conditioning directly in the space.

The light intensity a HID produces is great, there is no doubt about it. Award winning cannabis has been grown under these lights many times over. However, that intense light can burn plants up in a hurry. A tall ceiling or short plants may be needed in order to keep the lights far enough away from the plants to prevent light burn. Couple light stress with the potential heat stress and you’ve got a real plant killer. More than any other setup, you should dial in the environment within a grow space equipped with HID lighting – before adding plants!

HID lighting can also be sensitive to power interruptions. It is not good for the bulb and ballast to turn off the unit and immediately turn it back on. This is referred to as a ‘hot start’ and can ruin a rather expensive bulb and/or electronic parts in the ballast. To remedy this I always recommend a 15 minute lighting delay timer. When the power flickers, this device will keep the power off for 15 minutes to allow the components to cool enough for a normal start. Yes, this means that every time your power flickers (think thunderstorm) your lights will be off for 15 minutes. Some growers state that there has never been such a problem for them, but others have popped many bulbs and have had expensive ballast repairs due to the same. Do you have a backup bulb?

Finally, you will need to clean lenses as often as weekly, and dust off your bulb as well, particularly if the hood is vented. Settling dust can greatly reduce the light production. Bulbs should be replaced per manufacturer recommendation. Weak light production can cause weakened plants, which invites pests.

Do you have tips for new growers using HID? We’re love for you to leave them in the comments.

Happy Harvests!
— The Lit Farmer —

Timers for your cannabis grow

Because most cannabis is photoperiodic, properly functioning light timers are extremely important. Should timers fail your cannabis will become stressed at the very least. At worst, intersex traits (male flowers on female plants) could seed your crop. These seeds are virtually unusable and the quality of the finished buds will also be greatly reduced.

The take-away is: use good quality light timers! Cheapo timers from department stores are attractive due to their price, but usually don’t have the quality needed in a grow space and can be prone to failure. After all, these timers are usually designed to handle a table-side lamp or other small fixtures – not the massive lights they may get hooked up to. Sometimes they also have low amperage ratings. You should be buying a timer that has the same amperage rating as your circuit (15A is most common). Remember, in terms of features, you really only need a single on/off cycle per day for a cannabis grow-light.

When setting up your timer, it’s best to be present for the first few on/off cycles. Show up just before a light is scheduled to come on, or turn off, and make sure it really happens. You can also use this opportunity to check your grow space for light leaks. Light leaks during “Off” (night) periods are acknowledged as being one of the top reasons why plants show intersex traits (aka “hermie”). Be especially watchful for appliance displays. Identify them and cover those lights with tape or whatnot. Some light timers even have little LED power lights on them during the night cycle! Not good.

When to set your lights for the ‘on’ cycle is primarily personal preference. However, it is worth noting that if you invert your cycles so that the light is on during the night you might be able to compensate for the day-time heat in the summer. Conversely, you can also make use of the extra heat produced by your light during the cold winter nights. In any event, when you set your cycle is far less important than keeping that cycle very consistent.

Finally, when you can afford it, it’s not a bad idea to have a spare timer on hand. I treat these timers as 2-year devices. This means that I plan on replacing them every two years even if they seem to be performing fine. I just assume that the insides are corroding due to humidity or some such. Timers probably have the highest ratio of expense:importance of any of your semi-durable equipment. They should not be treated as an afterthought.

What are your experiences? Do you agree that timers are worthwhile investments?

Happy Harvests!
— The Lit Farmer —

DIY Drying Cabinet

Cultivators often don’t have a dedicated space to dry their medical cannabis. I can maintain ideal conditions for drying in my room, except for the darkness aspect (I’m never without plants). Drying cannabis needs to be dark so we can deactivate the chloroplasts (tastes bad) in the plant. Here, we’ll go through the steps to create your own expandable and collapsible drying cabinet, all for less than $50!

Step 1: Gather the materials you need as seen in this picture. I purchased these fans cheaply on amazon and 62 CFM (cubic feet per minute) is plenty of airflow for our small 2 CF containers. I believe the speed controller is a necessity, but we’ll come back to that later. You might also grab a sharpie, screwdriver, and/or small drill for layout and assembly. These fans came with the needed fasteners.

Step 2: We want to create airflow and will need to create an intake and exhaust port. I’ve used a sharpie here to trace and layout where/how I intend to make my cuts. The important part here is to ensure that your intake is at least a big as your exhaust port. My exhaust port is a 4.5″ circle, or 15.9 square inches.

Step 3: Once satisfied with the design, cut your ports and install your fan and controller. Your fan should be pulling air out of the container.

Step 4: Drop in a rack (to encourage airflow all around your cannabis) and assemble.

Viola! Within an hour you have a basic drying box. However, I know you’re an overachiever and will have a big harvest, so we probably need more room. Set this aside and let’s make an expansion, shall we?

Expansion Step 1: Turn a second container upside down and mark out some ports on the bottom of the container. Remember to meet or exceed the size of your exhaust port.

Expansion Step 2: Cut the bottom of the container per your layout. Then place the new lid under the container and trace the ports to match.

Expansion Step 3: Cut the ports in the lid and then assemble the full unit. Drop in the racks, stack the containers in the right order and you’ve just doubled your drying capacity! Repeat the Expansion Steps to further expand your cabinet to match your needs.

Completed 4CF Drying Cabinet

Be creative; a clever DIYer could rig the top box with a carbon filter to build in a solution for smell. I have a dark corner so I’m less worries about light infiltration, but you can take extra steps to really light-proof this box nicely. At 50+ CFM, this fan has the capacity for more containers than you can safely stack. I mentioned that it can collapse as well, right? Take the rig apart and nest the containers inside each other for ease of storage.

  • This fan/controller has a short power cord. However, it only draws 8watts so an extension cord is a fine solution.
  • I only used 1 fan in this kit but I ordered 2. I’m keeping the second for a backup because airflow is crucial.
  • The purpose of the fan is to exhaust humid air and replace with the dry (<50% Rh) air from your larger area. When the buds are first set to dry they will put off a lot of moisture, after the first few days this slows. This is what the controller is for. After the first few days slow the air down a bit so that the drying will slow as well. You need to provide time for the moisture to wick from the inside of your buds to the outside where they out-gas. A schedule like this will work, but you may need to fine tune it to your needs and ability to control humidity:
    • Day 1: Controller/fan at full speed @ 50% Rh
    • Day 2: Full speed @ 50% Rh
    • Day 3: 3/4 speed @ 50% Rh
    • Day 4: 3/4 speed @ 50% Rh
    • Day 5: 1/2 speed @ 55% Rh
    • Day 6: 1/2 speed @ 55% Rh
    • Days 7-10: 1/4 speed @ 60% Rh
  • I prefer not to stack wet buds on racks because the trichomes are so fragile when wet. Hanging (without touching anything) is the best. However, due to space limitations I’ll make due with this and be extra gentle.
  • Stack buds (still on stem) in a cross-hatch pattern so that air can flow through the stack. This will promote consistent drying.
  • Depending on the performance of the drying cabinet you’ve made, you may need to rotate the order of the cabinets from time to time. The bottom-most containers will dry faster than the top because moisture accumulates (by design) as the air traverses the containers. I compensate for this by putting the biggest buds in the bottom container and the smallest material (which dries faster) near the top.
  • You will want to fiddle with the cannabis as little as possible (so you don’t dislodge/destroy trichomes) so resist the urge to sift through he contents if you can – especially once you gain confidence in your setup and techniques.

Happy Harvests!
— The Lit Farmer —

Caregiving & Costs

Let me first acknowledge that this blog post won’t make me popular among some folks as I’m about to peel back the veil so we can all see clearly. However, the intent here is to empower patients through understanding.

A couple caregiver/cultivators I’ve chatted with have been unsure how to valuate the service they are providing. This happens to be an exercise I have completed many times and, in my own preparations to become a caregiver, I have done so myself. Patients and Caregivers alike should be interested in this costing sheet.

Startup CostsTotalLifecycle (yr)Monthly
Flower Light$10255$17.08
Organic Soils$2005$3.33
Raised Bed$705$1.17
*Build-out Cost$216010$18.00
Fabric Pots$602$2.50
Domes & misc$452$1.88
Veg Light$2605$4.33
Fans$1805$3.00
A/C$3195$5.32
Dehumidifyer$2295$3.82
Carbon Filter$1931$16.08
Monthly Costs
Misc Monthly$30.00
Water$10.00
Electricity$120.00
*Time/Effort$540.00
Amendments$20.00
Testing$50.00
TotalOverhead$906.51
Yield CycleOz/Mo
24 oz3 Mo8
Costper Ounce$113.31
Priceper Ounce$125

* labor at $18/hr

For ease of use, you can get a MS Excel version of this sheet as well. Just download your own copy and adjust to suit your needs. A costing sheet like this can be an excellent way to evaluate and communicate the true costs of producing medical cannabis at home. In this example, startup costs are over $4,500. Nearly half this cost is to pay for someone’s time to put the growing space together

I have elected to uplift the cost by about 10% in order to account for unforeseen expenses. I also operate on a cost-recovery basis only. This is not a means of income for me and fees collected will be kept to support the grow exclusively. Over time, the amount in this fund will grow to be a considerable sum. However, as suggested by the sheet above, I also plan on having to replace lights and other high-cost semi-durable goods on a certain life-cycle. Therefore, at the end of five years I should have enough cash on hand to replace an old light without a huge out-of-pocket cost.

The bottom line of this costing sheet is highly dependent on how well a cultivator can perform in terms of yield. Imagine if I only cultivated two ounces per month as an average. My costs would be in excess of $400 per ounce. On the other hand, if I picked top of the line (expensive) equipment and cultivated using a lot of additions (expensive) then, likewise, the costs would be driven upward. As a final note, I think the goal of 24 ounces every three months (8/month) is reasonable in a 4’x4′ space – specifically if you are growing multiple cultivars (strains). Your yield can jump significantly if you are mono-cropping (all the same cultivar).

However you and your caretaker elect to agree upon a cost for services, I think it is acceptable for a patient to ask any question they wish of the cultivator – and even visit the cultivation site (very occassionally) to witness the conditions in which their medicine is grown. Patients should be able to feel like they can offer critiques and suggestions and, if unsatisfied with the care provided, should feel empowered to change caregivers as needed.

Remember: You may not sell cannabis to patients. When you cultivate for the patient they already own the cannabis. You can charge for your services and this exercise is designed to help you determine what a fair rate should be.

In any event, we do hope this information is useful and leads to transparency between patient and caregiver.

Happy Harvests!
— The Lit Farmer —

Becoming a Caregiver

Fortunately, neither the Missouri State Constitution nor the administrators of the Missouri Medical Marijuana Program (MMMP) have created hurdles for becoming a caregiver. The process is fairly straight forward – follow these steps:

  1. Find a MMMP Patient who needs someone to grow medicine for, or otherwise assist them.
  2. Ensure that the patient has already applied and received a patient card and acquire their PAT#.
  3. Download, print, and fill out a Patient Authorization Form.
  4. Visit the Department of Health and Senior Services website and follow instructions for applying to be a caregiver (be sure to check the cultivation box).
  5. Pay $125 fee (includes cultivation)
  6. Wait for approval before starting any related activities.

In additional to cultivation, caregivers can also purchase and possess medical cannabis on behalf of the patient. Caregivers may also be responsible for administering medical cannabis to an incapacitated patient. The Caregiver/Patient relationship can take many forms and it will be wise to define how your relationship is expected to work. It never hurts to put that on paper either.

A caregiver/patient relationship can be cancelled by either party – which only takes a call to the state. However, each separate caregiver application will cost the same fee – it is not transferable.

If you have any issues during this process or questions about being in a caregiver/patient relationship, feel free to reach out to us. We’ll gladly provide the details you need or point you to an individual or organization who can get you the resources you need. If you have experiences to share don’t hesitate to leave them in the comments. Let’s help each other help patients.

Happy Harvests!
— The Lit Farmer —

Working together to lend a helping hand.

Missouri Needs More Caretakers

It is apparent that there is an increasing number of qualified Missouri Medical Marijuana Patients who do not have access to medicine. I, and others, have drawn this conclusion from the statistics.

Excerpt from Greenway Magazine

As of the end of September, 2019, there are nearly 12,000 patients with approved cards. The number of cultivation permits are not seen here, but can be assumed to be around 50% at this point. There are precious few caregivers, who could be caregiving for up to three patients. Unless you are a cultivator or have enlisted the help of a caregiver, a patient doesn’t have access to legal medicine. Given these assumptions, there are ~5,000 in this predicament. The situation will only get worse until dispensaries begin to open sometime in 2020.

The solution is fairly straight forward; if you are a patient cultivator and have had success in growing this versatile plant, you should offer yourself up as a caregiver for local patients in need. National statistics suggest that 30% of patients will also be cultivators. So in theory, if all patient cultivators could also support two other patients then this program could support itself without commercial operations. I know this is odd for a prospective dispensary owner to promote, but this program is about the patient!

This article is an appeal to cultivators to consider becoming caregivers. Its not about making a few extra dollars, its about helping your fellow patients get access to the Medical Marijuana that could bring them relief and help them feel better, naturally.

Sincerely,
— The Lit Farmer —

Share the Harvest

Cannabis Cultivation Books

There are piles and piles of informative articles on the internet, and one can learn all they need from free online resources. However, I still really enjoy having books at my fingertips. They make great references. Here are the books I reference the most.

This is also a good time to mention that these are my references for the cultivation articles being written on this site. No one wants an academic article with MLA citations and all that, but these are the references none-the-less.

We hope you are enjoying these articles. Our intent to create easy to understand content that gets right to the point. If you have ideas for future articles, or if you want to contribute as well – we’re all ears.

Don’t forget, we have more than just cultivation information available here.

Happy Harvests!
— The Lit Farmer —

Drying, Trimming, and Curing Your Harvest: the Basics

At this point, you have spent at least 10 weeks lovingly caring for your crop and are now ready to harvest. What you may not know is that what happens over the next 2 weeks can ruin an otherwise amazing harvest. I recommend that you put just as much thought into drying and curing as you did into cultivating your medical marijuana. Here’s what you need to know.

The point of drying and curing your precious medicine is to ensure that the cannabinoids are preserved for as long as possible. By reducing the moisture content microbial activity is nearly eliminated. If done correctly, cannabis can last 6 months or more in storage with little change in cannabinoid content.

Drying:
Ideal Temperature: 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
Ideal Relative humidity (Rh): 40-50%
Total Darkness

Stay within these ‘cool and dry’ parameters, add a fan to circulate the air, and you’ll do just fine. No need to point the fan at the drying cannabis, just keep the air moving. The idea at this point is to remove 75%-80% of the moisture in the cannabis over the course of 7-10 days. Go too fast and your cannabis will be harsh, go too slow and you risk molds and mildews. Darkness is important to reduce chloroplast activity/density (which affects flavor) as well.

While some cultivators will have dedicated drying rooms, others will choose to simply turn their lights off in the grow room and do the drying in the same place. Others still build their own DIY Drying Cabinets. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if you hang the whole plant upside down, right side up, or whatever – just keep the the environmental parameters right and everything else will take care of itself.

When your stems audibly crack and cleanly break, it’ll be time to trim the buds.

Trimming:
I do not recommend ‘wet trimming’ your medicine. You can, and many do, but from a scientific standpoint your trichomes are much more fragile when fresh and fully hydrated. The drying process also dries the trichomes and partially hardens the resins. This makes them more durable and less fragile.

Remove as much leaf and stem as you desire, as gently as possible. Remember, we’re preparing for storage here. Imagine handling a bag of apples when you get home from the store. As you put them away you drop one of the floor. Although you can’t see the bruise right away, how long do you think that apple will last compared to the others? Your buds are much the same; bruising those trichomes can set off a chain reaction and seriously reduce the quality, especially over time. I’m sure to consume those accidental drops first, before they spoil.

Tip: Get a good pair of scissors, you’ll thank me for it and so will your hands.

Curing/Storing:
Ideal Temperature: 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
Ideal Relative humidity (Rh): 62%
Total Darkness
Air Tight

The idea behind curing is to allow the moisture content to become evenly distributed throughout the buds. After drying is complete, the insides of those buds will be much more moist than the outside (which should be a little too crisp). If left in this condition, the inside risks spoilage.

Buy a case of (12) wide-mouth canning jars and lids. Keep the box as it will make a good storage compartment that is mostly light tight (you still want to keep things dark during curing and storage as well). Carefully fill the jars to about 80% full and seal the jars.

Sniff testing: Some call it ‘burping,’ but if your drying process was thorough, you shouldn’t need to let any air out of / into the jar. However, it is probably a good idea to open these jars once a day, for the first few days, and sniff them. If you smell hay, grass, or other off-putting odors you should leave your jars open for the rest of the day in a cool, dry room. This probably means that you have too much moisture. When jars have passed three days of sniff tests, you are probably in the clear. If jars need more than a week of attention due to undesirable odors, you should dry the cannabis more completely next time.

Wait two weeks [if you can] and enjoy!

NOTE: Some folks have had really good luck with “humidity packets” that seem to take some guesswork out of the process once you’ve put your cannabis in the jars and sealed them.

Conditions that cause cannabis spoilage:

  • Oxidation (keep it air tight)
  • Heat/freezing (keep it cool)
  • Light/UV (keep it dark)
  • Time (don’t keep it too long (6 months))

Go now, prepare those fine cannabis buds for consumption. Feel free to leave your own tips in the comments.

Happy Harvests!
— The Lit Farmer —


Can I harvest yet?

A looming harvest is a very exciting time. It is also possible that you will get bitten by the harvest bug. It’s not a real bug, but none-the-less, its bite will give you an extreme desire to harvest. Don’t fall for it!

A grower with whom I consult called me excitedly this last weekend and proclaimed that it was time to harvest. I knew mid-September in Missouri was quite early and I knew that it usually takes one long cool-off for buds to ripen outdoors. I tried to convince him to wait until I could help confirm but was not successful. Fortunately, I did convince him to only take the biggest colas and to leave the rest for a bit. This was a good thing because they were definitely not ready for harvest. This grower is a bit ill knowing he took the best part of his harvest too early.

So how can you tell when to harvest?

Method 1: Pistil Method
This low-tech method really only works indoors as conditions are a bit more ideal. I just witnessed a situation where this method would not work outdoors.

The idea in this method is to wait until ~75% of the pistils (‘hairs’) on the buds have turned from white to another color (rose, purple, red, brown, etc). This is a reasonable indication of the buds maturity and can be used in a pinch. However, I generally use this method to know when to start looking at my trichomes – more on that in a second.

Not ready for harvest
Ready for harvest (probably)

Method 2: Trichome color
A jeweler’s loupe or other small portable magnifying device (40x magnification should be sufficient) will be needed to clearly see these tiny structures. Trichomes are where the vast majority of cannbinoids are contained. In order to allow a cultivar to fully realize its maximum cannabinoid & terpene production potential, you must allow the trichomes to fully mature to a cloudy, milky color. When almost all of the trichomes are opaque and cloudy, they’re ready!

Clear trichomes – not ready for harvest
Cloudy trichomes – ready for harvest

As a final note, many cultivators have noted that an early harvest (half clear trichomes / half cloudy) will result in a short, “up” effect and most side effects will be felt in the head. Meanwhile, if you wait until most trichomes pass from cloudy to colored (amber, purple, brown, etc) the resulting effects will be a good deal more sedative (more CBN), which may be exactly what you need.

If you want to experiment, I recommend harvesting a few buds early, most of them when trichomes are cloudy, and a few when they’ve gone amber. Be sure to label them!

Beware the bite of the harvest bug and use a little science to determine the right time for harvest. Its hard to trust intuition in this matter because your intuition will become clouded much more quickly than your trichomes. I know there’s nothing quite like delicious, freshly cured homegrown – but be patient!

Happy Harvests!
–The Lit Farmer–

Seeds, Clones, Auto, Photo, oh my! A Cannabis Primer.

For those just getting started in legal Missouri Medical Marijuana Program cultivation, it can be a challenge to understand the basics. There are 30 ways to do everything and are gads of technical jargon and abbreviations that add to the confusion. I mean, what’s OLS anyway? Can’t we just type it out? 🙂

The first thing I recommend to all folks is to network with peers. No one will give the straight scoop like a fellow patient cultivator. They have nothing to sell (usually) and are more than happy to share their experiences. Other patient cultivators can tell you where to get seeds and clones as well, which is key! Let’s start off with the birds and the bees, shall we?

No Boys Allowed!
Cannabis is a dioecious plant, meaning that it comes in both male and female forms. ‘Regular’ seeds are generally about a 50/50 mix of males and females. For those folks wanting to grow their own medicine you are interested in the floral clusters (not stems, roots, or leaves) from an un-pollinated female plant. When the female cannabis plant spends its life-cycle without making seed, it will make a LOT more medicine (not just in terms of volume of flowers, but also in quantity of cannabinoids). Unless you plan to breed and are serious about it, male plants should be culled as soon as they are identified.

Clones / Cuttings / Cuts
Whatever you call them, these little ladies are the product of asexual propagation and can made from male or female stock. When female soft-tissue cuttings are taken, we often call the source plant a ‘mom.’ I use this technique to multiply a quality females for flowering, but also to preserve a particular cultivar. Cuttings are great because they are genetically identical to the parental stock. BEWARE: Acquiring cuttings from friends is the #1 best way to import pests into your grow space. However tempting, my suggestion is to resist the urge with steely-eyed determination.

Seeds, generally
As you would expect, cannabis seeds are generally the result of male pollen fertilizing female ovule. The most viable seeds are carried until after the end of the female plants life-cycle and are allowed to fully mature nestled in their bracts. When possible, get your seeds from reputable breeders. A good quality seed can cost as much as $10/seed. I don’t like to pay much more than that because you’re just paying for the hype. Then again, modern breeders do excellent work, and they need to put food on the table as well.

Seeds, regular
Regular seeds are referred to as such because these are the seeds as nature intended them to be and will have an even distribution of potential male and female plants. Raising regular seeds are just a little more challenging because it will take 4 – 6 weeks before you can identify and cull the males. However, the most stable genetics can be found in regular seeds.

Seeds, feminized
Feminized seeds will produce female plants upwards of 98% of the time. They are created by inducing intersex (male) flowers on a female plant. This pollen carries only XX gametes. Therefore, when they fertilize an XX ovule, a female seed must result. There are no XY’s to make male plants. If you are a first time grower I recommend feminized seeds as they will eliminate the extra time needed for proper sexing of plants.

Seeds, Auto-flowering
“Auto’s” can be a fun way to get started as well, particularly if you have very limited growing space. I recommend feminized auto-flowering seeds for anyone with these space limitations. These beauties will do just as their name implies, they will flower in a given amount of time regardless of what you do with your lights. Although I was skeptical at first, you can really grow some fine medicine from these little miracles of modern cannabis breeding.

Photoperiodism
For the most part, the cannabis lifecycle is very much determined by day/night length. This is true of just about any cannabis plant with sufficient cannbinoids to have interest in and is a behavior all cannabis naturalized in temperate and tropical environments exhibit. These cannabis plants are often referred to as ‘photo’ varieties (as opposed to the auto-flowering, which we’ll get back to).

Outdoors in Missouri, ‘photo’ cannabis plants will start to undergo a sexual change just after the summer solstice. Within just a couple weeks these plants will end their vegetative phase and enter into their flowering phase. At which point cannabis plants will begin to clearly show its sex and start its reproductive cycle. This process is triggered by the changing light/dark periods; shortening of days and lengthening of nights. Hence, cannabis is photoperiodic.

Indoors, controlling ‘photo’ cannabis is pretty simple. Timers control lights and the cultivator will do well to set their timers to 18hr/6hr (on/off) in order to keep cannabis in its vegetative state, and then 12hr/12hr (on/off) in order to “flip” them into flowering mode.

Cannabis Sativa-ruderalis is a variety of cannabis, usually very low in cannabinoids, that naturalized in the far north where the summer growing season is very short. In order to survive, these plants evolved the knack of beginning flowering as soon as they hit sexual maturity (about 30 days from seed), and not to wait on the sunlight. After all, in those climate extremes an early arrival of winter could destroy an entire generation if these plants don’t reproduce at first opportunity.

Enter some clever, innovative cannabis breeders who have found ways to cross photoperiod cannabis and auto-flowering ruderalis. These crosses keep the auto-flowering traits as well as the traits to produce the copious quantities of cannabinoids we seek for our ailments. Gotta’ love science!

I’m only scratching the surface with this article, but hopefully it sets up the basics in such as way that you can start your cultivation adventures with a bit more confidence. Let me know what you want to read about next.

Happy Harvests!
–The Lit Farmer–