Opinion: Do no harm to Missouri Medical Cannabis

I have been expecting it for some time, but I’m becoming disturbed with the number of folks talking about litigating against the Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS). As a small family-owned applicant, I totally understand where folks are coming from. The mental and emotional pressure I feel from ‘big-business’ competitors is huge. However, I also feel a swelling of concern that some of these lawsuits will move the courts to put a full stop to the Missouri Medical Marijuana Program (MMMP).

My heart sinks with this as I have personal experience with patients who suffer with conditions severely and need medical cannabis for their treatments. Yes, some folks have found caregivers who can cultivate what they need to feel better, but there are thousands more patients who are waiting impatiently for dispensaries to open so that they too can get access to the cannabis they need.

Isn’t that what the MMMP is all about? Isn’t it about getting patients access to medical cannabis so they can feel better? Why then would anyone consider doing anything at all that would jeopardize that?

This is my appeal to all those considering such actions; please think about the patients. Please craft your litigation in such a way that doesn’t put a halt to this program. Please do nothing to harm our medical cannabis program here in Missouri. Make it better, yes – but DO NO HARM!

If you agree with my opinion, please share!

Sincerely,
— The Lit Farmer —

Pest management for cannabis

Do you have a plan? It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when you will get pests. Prevention of pests is impossible, and so is eradication. This is why it is called pest management. A grower must assume that they already have pests and do what you can to ensure that you don’t have a severe outbreak that can devastate your medical garden.

When you make these management practices a part of your regular cultivation routine, it becomes integrated pest management (IPM). This doesn’t mean that you spray chemicals and other unhealthy additives on your plants, and you certainly wouldn’t want to spray anything dangerous on the flowers that are destined for patients, but what options does that leave?

Maintaining plant health is your primary deterrent. Avoid over-watering, under-watering, and over-fertilization. Watching to ensure that no plants become root bound will also help keep plant health in tune. Beyond this, avoiding the urge to adopt cutting from others and being vigilant during the fall pest invasion will all go a long way toward keeping your indoor garden safe from infestation. I caution new growers against ‘pushing’ their garden with nutrients – one hard nutrient burn and the plants will sicken and become much more vulnerable to pests.

There is more to it than this however. For example, rotating weekly sprays is a good idea given that the worst pests like to feast on your leaves. The most basic spray is pure water. These ‘plant showers’ physically wash off pests and disturb their ability to setup shop on the leaves. When possible, I give the plants a shower before applying other sprays. However, beyond the second week of flower I tend to avoid foliar sprays in order to prevent moisture and other additives from accumulating in the buds.

LAB sprays are effective because encouraging these bacteria to colonize the leaf surface can be a deterrent, especially for molds and mildews. They are also inexpensive (you can brew your own) and extremely safe. After all, LABs can be found all around and inside of us. Probiotics designed for humans are LABs. These also make a great soil drench and are a fundamental component of healthy soil biology. As a bonus, they work to create more nutrition for your plants!

Potassium Silica are effective sprays as it coats the leaves like armor. The plant then absorbs silica and uses it to thicken it’s cell walls all over the plant. These thick cell walls make it more difficult for molds to adhere (literally) to the leaf surface and it is likewise more work for a bug to puncture the cell walls to suck out the plant juices they crave.

Aloe Vera is the third spray/drench that I use in my regime to provide some basic protections and boost plants health. Aloe contains numerous compounds that work to improve the condition of the soil, plant roots, and the immune system of the plant itself. Aloe also doubles as an excellent all-natural cloning solution as it contains natural rooting hormones.

In summary – the cannabis cultivator will do well to ensure their plants have a variety of inputs (other than nutrients) that will help give cannabis all the basic components it needs to remain robust and healthy throughout its lifecycle. I must reiterate that plant health is, by far, the number one best way to keep pests at bay in your medical garden. Follow that mantra and you will have big, beautiful plants with lush foliage.

Stay tuned for our next article on pest management regarding BioControls.

Happy Harvests!
— The Lit Farmer —

Beware the pollen-chucker

Increasingly, I’m seeing people offering their custom bred seeds. I don’t mind the basic premise and, in fact, I would encourage everyone to try their hand at breeding! I agree with a friend of mind who recently said, “I’d like to see cannabis in the hands of anyone who wants to have it.” However, the problem I have are those who chuck pollen at pistils and instantly charge $10/seed for it. This is just another way to pry the patient cultivators hard earned money away from them. Read on to understand what the big deal is.

Most new Missouri medical marijuana cultivators have no idea what goes into breeding, they just know they need seeds to grow their medicine. Unfortunately, if you deal with a breeder who is doing nothing more than making seeds, you don’t know what you are getting, and neither does the breeder. So how do you know you’ll even grow medicine that works for you?

Here is a grossly simplified summary of how it works. When you take two stable varieties of cannabis and combine them, there is a really high chance that the [F1] progeny will be a new vigorous combination of the parents. Take White Widow and AK47 for example. These two varietals are quite stable and, when bred, there is a 90% chance that the result will be a variety that has become known as White Russian. Similarly, Blue Dream is a great hybrid produced by combining a stable Blueberry parent with Haze.

However, should someone decide to breed White Russian to Blue Dream – you have no idea what you might get. You might get something that resembles a White Widow, AK47, Haze, Blueberry, or any combination of these genotypes. A geneticist will confirm this; it’s called a ‘dihybrid punnett square’ and there are at least 16 different genetic outputs of such combinations.

So, what were you looking for? If you don’t care, that’s fine, have fun. But if you were looking for the combined attributes of White Russian and Blue Dream, there is only a small chance that is what you’ll get. It makes me cringe when I hear of people spending all their money on dihybrids and not having enough left for an exhaust fan.

A quality breeder will grow out 100’s of their seeds and be able to tell you the probability of getting the genotype that you are looking for. They’ll also test for THC, CBD, and other cannabinoids/terpenes among that lot to determine if they can put an average on the seed. These trials are also important because it will result in knowing how long the average flowering time is, growth habits like ‘stretching,’ and more. Some will go through the many generations needed to stabilize their hybrid such that it becomes true breeding (in-bred line (IBL)). As you can imagine, all of this takes time and resources. That means money.

My advice is to seek out breeders who complete this kind of research and development (R&D) into their seeds before ‘dropping’ them to the public. I don’t mind paying a premium ($6+/seed). You should be able to tell that they do this by their website and other information they produce. Most who do this level of R&D are quite proud to tell you about it. This is very important for patients like myself who have specific needs for their medical cannabis varieties.

If a breeder doesn’t have the time/capacity to conduct R&D to that level, that’s no problem – they should just be up front about it! For goodness sake, charge what the seeds are worth at least. I won’t pay more than $2/seed for these sorts of seeds. You can find some great varietals in these seeds, it’ll just take a long time because you can only flower 6 at a time. So ask that alleged breeder what his vetting process looks like, or what R&D they do. If they can’t or won’t answer, walk away.

Eventually, I’ll start a breeding program of my own. When I do you’ll be able to get Lit Farmer Seeds at prices you can afford! This time next year I’ll be giving away seeds. So keep your money in your pocket or buy a better light instead of dropping $100’s on unverified seed stock. You’re better off growing bag-seed than some of the garbage I’ve seen floating around the internet lately.

Happy Harvests!
— The Lit Farmer —

Growing cannabis in Missouri sunlight

Purists will say that using natural sunlight for growing your cannabis is the only way to go. I find it hard to outright disagree – and solid arguments can be made either way. It is certainly the most cost-effective way to grow. However, it is not as easy as just sticking a cannabis seedling in a window. Most cannabis are photoperiod plants (“photos”). This means that they respond to the light/dark cycles of the sun or artificial lights. Here I’ll describe what that means to you and your Missouri medical cannabis garden.

Missouri cultivators can get a surprise when trying to grow in natural sunlight. The fact is, your cannabis will flower immediately when exposed to sunlight only – about 9 months out of the year. Between the months of April – June, your cannabis will vegetate happily, but not the rest of the year. Why is that?

It has to do with the amount of daylight and the behavior of our natural solar rhythms. Starting in April, plants in Missouri will receive 13 hours of daylight and only 11 hours of darkness. Additionally, the days grow longer by a few minutes every day. This combination indicates to the plant that it has a long summer to look forward to and it will vegetate merrily until around June 21 – at which point it will begin to flower. The amount of darkness has less effect here as the flower inducement comes with a decreasing daylight and increasing nigh periods. The signal is now that fall is coming and it is time to reproduce.

This is true, even if you are attempting to grow in a window. No matter the age of your plant, it will begin to flower in that window except between April – June. If possible, you will need to provide supplemental lighting in the morning, evening, or both in order to ensure that the plant gets 14 or more hours of light. Then, when you are ready to flower, simply turn off the artificial light and off you go. NOTE: I do not recommend growing in a window as it is almost certainly against Missouri regulations. If you do, make sure it is a south facing window.

It is also important to understand that if you start your seedlings indoors, under 18/6 (hours on/off) lighting, they will want to flower as soon as you move those seedlings outdoors. So what are you to do?

Starting seeds directly outdoors: plant your seeds when the soil reaches 55 degrees – usually in early April. Good Friday is a good date to remember and would be when a seed would germinate naturally. You can plant in the last week of March if protected in a cold-frame or similar structure. Starting much earlier can induce flowering. For example, most strains will flower if you start them in early March. I know this from experience – the days are still just too short. Cannabis will tolerate a light frost as long as the day warms quickly. It is best to wait until after the last frost or be prepared to protect them on the coolest nights. Treat them like tomatoes.

Starting cannabis inside to take outdoors: whether starting seeds or cuttings, if you start them under 18/6 lighting then you should adjust your timing so that they are planted outdoors the second week of June in Missouri. After about two weeks the hormones will have shifted the plant into flowering mode. By then, summer solstice will have passed and days will begin to shorten. As such, you plants will continue to flower as expected. If you put these plants out too early they will shift to flower, then back to veg, and once again to flower when June 21 passes. This is a mess and should be avoided.

Do you have an experience with timing for outdoor grows? We’d love to hear your feedback.

Happy Harvests!
— The Lit Farmer —

Outdoor growing; Missouri medical marijuana legalities

Growing outdoors is possible under the regulations established by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. However, in order to establish and safe and secure place for outdoor cultivation one must abide by the rules, and use a little common sense. The most relevant rule is found in the “Definitions” section of the emergency rules. The definition clarifies the meaning of “Enclosed, locked facility” in relation to outdoor cultivation.

“(12) “Enclosed, locked facility” means—
(A) An indoor stationary closet, room, garage, greenhouse, or other comparable fully enclosed space equipped with locks or other functioning security devices that permit access to only the qualifying patient(s) or primary caregiver(s) who have informed the department that this is the space where they will cultivate marijuana; or

(B) An outdoor stationary structure—
1. That is enclosed on all sides, except at the base, by chain-link fencing, wooden slats, or a similar material that is anchored, attached, or affixed to the ground and that cannot be accessed from the top;

2. In which the plants are not visible to the unaided eye from an adjacent property when viewed by an individual at ground level or from a permanent structure at any level; and

3. That is equipped with locks or other security devices that restrict access to only the qualifying patient(s) or primary caregiver(s) who have informed the department that this is the space where they will cultivate marijuana.”

While some parts of this definition are clear, there are a few points that are left to interpretation. For example, “cannot be accessed from the top;” could be taken to mean that the area must have a roof of some sort. Perhaps clear panels covering the top, or another section of kennel panel to cover the top? DHSS representatives have suggested that this will suffice. However, others believe that razor wire, or barbed wire along the top of the fence may also fulfill this requirement.

Section (B)(2) doesn’t leave room for interpretation, but it does create the greatest limitation for most outdoor growers. This requirement means that a neighbor cannot see your grow from their second story window or anywhere else on their property. While this seems overly restrictive, it makes a lot of sense. Medical cannabis has a high street value and, if other folks locate your grow, you become a target for bad people.

With all this mind, outdoor growing is a fine solution for home growers who have the privacy necessary. Especially considering that you can grow outdoors and create medicine for less than $20 per ounce, with a minimum of inputs. If you are a caregiver, this can be a great idea and will allow you to offer your patients medicine for a bare minimum price.

Want to more about growing outdoors? Let us know!

Happy Harvests!
— The Lit Farmer —

Orange Kush grown outdoor in Missouri (2019)

LABS – super charge your cannabis grow

Lactic acid bacteria serum (LABS) can be a great way to take your living soils to the next level. My favorite part about them is that there is no need to buy another product, lactic acid bacteria are all around us! They’re in the air, on the floor, on your skin, and even in your gut. All we really have to do is make a culture of them and add to the soil, but why go through the trouble?

LABS produce a basic building block for terpenes. “Terps” are what make cannabis smell and taste the way it does. The more terpenes you have, the better the experience for most people. Terpenes also have therapeutic value on their own, like Beta-Carophyllene (mentioned in this article). Most patients want more terpenes.

Yields can also be increased because LABS break down nutrients into plant usable forms. The more nutrients available to the plant the more likely they are to achieve their maximum potential. That sounds like a no-brainer as well.

LABS also help keep a healthy balance of microbial life in your soil. Because it is a protected environment, it is possible for your container of soil to get ‘sour.’ You can’t smell it necessarily, but if a colony of non-beneficial gets going it can create problems for your plants. Therefore, adding a supply of these beneficial bacteria to your soil from time-to-time can be a great way to maintain the balance.

Avoid salt based fertilizers in your organic soils. If it is a liquid based fertilizer with a N-P-K value (e.g. 2-10-3) on the front of the bottle, it is almost certainly salt based. These salts will murder bacteria by the billions. Once the massacre is over, bad bacteria are more likely to take up residence. Save yourself the trouble and just steer clear. If the additive doesn’t show the specific ingredients, puff-puff-pass it by and select something better for your bacteria.

Finally, the best news of all is that you can make your own concentrated LABS very inexpensively. All three of the articles below offers recipe’s to do so, as well as advice for application. I’ve certainly noticed a difference in my garden.

Happy Harvests!
— The Lit Farmer —

Further reading:
RoyalQueenSeeds.com – LABS boost potency and terpenes
Cannabis.wiki – Using LABS to get higher yields
College of Tropical Agriculture – Farming with LABS

Cannabis genotypes

We literally live in a golden age of cannabis genetics. My hat is off to all the breeders who are putting out quality genetics for us all to enjoy. I hope to follow in their foot steps one day. The topic of today’s article is the term genotype. A cannabis genotype is the genetic blueprint for a particular cultivar. This genetic blueprint represents the potential for all phenotypes and chemotypes that a plant may exhibit when grown in a particular environment.

That sounds easy, but its not that straight forward. The cross of any two parents (or a female plant to itself) results can result in a variety of genotypes. Hybrids (often called crosses) of two cultivars can result in genotypes that have hybrid vigor. This ‘vigor’ results in progeny that grow faster and stronger than either parent and is what makes hybrids very popular.

However, this also means that a hybrid can have a LOT of variation in genotypes. The cannabis plant is far more complicated than the pea plant, but even Gregor Mendel (the father of genetics) found that pea plant hybrids always produced several different genotypes. In other words, your pack of Blue Dream x Durban Poison seeds could grow plants that look like Blue Dream, Durban Poison, a unique combination of the two, or even the parents of either of them.

For this reason I suggest cultivators who are looking for very specific traits to shop with a quality breeders who have run trials on their hybrids to understand how likely you are to get a particular genotype. Some select crosses happen to produce some very consistent progeny. A really good breeder can identify these hybrids and reproduce them consistently for our benefit.

There are piles of information we could cover here, but the moral of this short story is to expect some variation and, when you find that special plant that works well for you, take a cutting from it so that you can grow it time and again. Cuttings are just about the only way for a home grower to preserve the exact genes you desire.

What do you think, was this summary helpful?

Happy Harvests!
— The Lit Farmer —

VA benefits and medical marijuana

A question frequently asked by veterans has to do with their benefits should they choose to become a medical marijuana patient. I’m a disabled veteran who receives VA benefits as well as a small disability check. I happen to know more than two dozen other veterans who have also chosen to become medical marijuana patients. The verdict; it is not a problem and you should proceed with confidence. You will keep your benefits and your relationship with your primary care physician will not be jeopardized.

I had a conversation with my VA primary care physician as well as my non-VA primary care physician (I can only see the VA physician for certain things). Mine was probably the worst case scenario because my VA physician was very much against the use of ‘illegal drugs’ for so called medical purposes. It quickly became apparent that I had a towering amount of knowledge about cannabinoids, and its therapeutic uses, when compared to this so called doctor. We had a heated debate about the topic that didn’t end all that well. Despite this, I still have access to my entitlements four months after I’ve gotten my card and now have a new physician assigned.

Furthermore, a 100+% disabled Vietnam-era veteran, and close friend of mine, has been very upfront with his VA primary care physician since the late 80’s. He’s reported his marijuana use to his physician and updates him regularly about changes to dosing and so forth. Although his physician is unable to certify patients for medical cannabis use, he has studied its medical efficacy and actively supports patients who use marijuana appropriately as a therapy.

Effectively every VA benefit recipient that I have spoken with, that has also been awarded a Missouri Medical Marijuana Program card, has experienced no issues with the VA any more severe than mine. I’ll remind you that my issue with only with a particular doctor whose view of marijuana is heavily clouded with prohibition propaganda.

In any event, I recommend all veterans who are considering applying for the card to do so. If it helps improve your quality of life then you owe it to yourself to pursue it. I hope you all can feel better, naturally.

Thanks to all the veterans for their service!
— The Lit Farmer —

If you are having issues with the VA, you should present them with this directive.

Transplanting cannabis at the right time

Cultivating really high quality cannabis requires extremely good plant health. Most growers will transplant a seedling or clone at least once, and sometimes more often. Parental stock (plants dedicated as sources for cuttings) can undergo many transplants in its life. If you wait too long, or try it too early, you are almost certain to harm the plant in some way. However, the question remains – how can a grower tell a plant should be moved to a new pot?

First is to avoid transplanting too early. A cannabis plant should have grown enough roots to fully encase the soil. This doesn’t mean the roots need to be dense, they just need to be dense enough to hold the soil together.

Note the roots on this little lady. See how they are spreading out to fully encase the soil? This seedling is ready for transplant. As you can clearly see (pun intended), the use of transparent cups can be very helpful for the new grower. Should you transplant too early, the roots won’t be able to hold the soil together. The soil will fall apart when you attempt the transplant and you will end up with a mess on your hands and the roots of the plant will likely be damaged in the process.

It can be a little more difficult to determine in older plants, but they will tell you when it is needed, none-the-less. When a plant becomes root bound, the roots have taken up all available space within the soil and there is literally no more room left for roots to grow. If your plant is drying very quickly, it may be getting rootbound. If your plant is showing light green at the top, and wrinkly leaves at the bottom, it may be getting rootbound. If the lower leaves are looking blotchy (light and dark colors), it may be getting root bound. Clawing leaves usually accompany these symptoms as they become more and more rootbound.

Mottled green leaves that are starting to twist.
Light green growing tops and clawing leaves.

Sometimes you can conduct the transplant before your medical cannabis shows any of these signs. This is great if you can accomplish it and they’ll experience even less transplant shock as an added bonus. My rule of thumb to accomplish this timing is the transplant when the plant is just a little taller than the pot is deep, and the leaves have extended past the edges of the pot. This is generally perfect timing, particularly in pots less than 3 gallons.

Do keep in mind that if your plant showed any of these negative symptoms prior to transplant, they may also show yellow spots in the week following transplant. These spots will eventually turn brown as well. Don’t worry, these are after effects of their prior condition. As long as the rest of the plant looks healthy, just snip the affected leaves and keep doing your thing.

Finally, I’ll remind the reader that the fewer times a plant is transplanted, the better. If you can plant a see directly in the pot it will finish in, that is ideal and will shave 3-5 days off the time-to-harvest. This isn’t always possible though so timing that transplant becomes important.

Happy Harvests!
— The Lit Farmer —

Cannabis phenotypes

Spend long enough on cannabis forums and you’ll hear people refer to cannabis phenotype, or simply “pheno.” Some who repeat the term are also not sure what it means. By definition, a phenotype is an observable set of characteristics resulting from the interaction of genetics and the environment. But what does that really mean?

Outdoor Orange Kush
Indoor Orange Kush

Cannabis is fascinating in that, given different environments, the plant can express its genetic make-up in different ways. Take this example for instance; I and an outdoor farmer planted identical Orange Kush plants. They were literally the same in that they were taken as cuttings from the same plant – therefore the genetic make-up was identical. The plant that resulted outdoors was short, bushy, and had far more leaves than the indoor variety. There was certainly more biomass, but a good portion of that was simply leaf matter.

The indoor version of Orange Kush was grown under LED lighting in organic soil. It was less bushy and contained far fewer leaves. Although the scents were similar, there were no other apparent signs that these plants were related, much less the identical plant. You certainly don’t need a magnifying glass to see the difference.

The phenotypical expression of the outdoor plant was driven by extremely bright light, broad swings in humidity, as well as day after day of 95+ degree heat. It survived winds and storms, bug and other pest pressure, not to mention the very cool fall nights. On the other hand, its identical indoor sister enjoyed temperatures between 65-85 degrees, humidity between 45-65%, a reasonable amount of light, as well as gentle breezes. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that their genetics express themselves different provided these vastly different growing conditions.

We also hear of breeders and growers doing ‘pheno-hunts.’ Some are even looking for ‘unicorn phenos.’ This is exactly as it sounds. In a pheno-hunt, the grower is looking for particular traits. They may be looking for high-yield and high-THC in a plant that most represents what the genes were designed for. If you plant 100 seeds of the same hybrid, you may get a wide variety of plants in regard to smell, height, leaf size, and so on. One of these may be very, very rare to find. This is your unicorn.

With all this in mind, the new grower shouldn’t be concerned when they plant 6 seeds of the same genetics and get 6 different plants. However, breeders these days are pretty good at what they do, so most seeds tend to be very similar with only an outlier now and then.

Stay tuned – in coming articles we’ll explore the concepts of genotypes and chemotypes.

Happy Harvests!
— The Lit Farmer —