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If you figure roughly 60 days to flower and 30 days to dry and cure divided by the number of plants you are allowed in your flower room equals approximately the number of days between plantings in order to maintain a constantly rotating supply of medicine for your patients.
Using this calculation an individual could continually harvest one plant a month. A collective of four patients could continually harvest one plant a week and so on. Of course these are only very general round numbers and dependent on many controllable and uncontrollable factors, but it does give a general place to start.
Because of the "number of plants" restrictions in Colorado it is necessary choose the right strains and grow more bushy plants or smaller lollipop buds depending on the needs of your collective. (Check out the photo above!) Fortunately there are hundreds of varieties of cannabis to choose from for your collective's needs. There are several dozen clone varieties available in the Denver area dispensaries on any given day.
Most dispensaries sell high quality clones that are already rooted and ready for the veg room. Clones sell for $15-$30 each. Buy clones to get started and once your garden gets going you will be able to start your own clones. You have the opportunity to continually try new strains with occasional visits to your local dispensary.
Cloners may be purchased already made or made DIY using parts from Home Depot or Lowes. Do a Google for cloners and you will turn up lots of ideas. Our video page has lots of details for growers including cloners.
This room has an eighteen hours on and six hours off light cycle. The lighting used will be rich in the blue spectrum to promote vegetative growth.
Plants are cropped to produce short bushy plants that will sprout with many colas in the flowing room. Clones are be taken from plants in the veg room when the plant count allows it.
Plants are maintained in the veg state until the plant count in the flower room and curing closet allow the most worthy plant to be "promoted" to the flower room. When a plant moves to flower a new clone is planted in its place to maintain the plant count.
This room is kept on a twelve hours on and twelve hours off light cycle to force the plants into a flowering state. The lighting used will be rich in the orange spectrums to promote flowering and growth.
Co2 systems are used in flower rooms to maintain optimal co2 levels in the room. Some say that increasing co2 can increase crop yields up to 40%. Integrating co2 with the ventilation system is needed to turn off the co2 when the ventilation kicks on.
Most strains will mature within 8-10 weeks. Plants are watched carefully and are only harvested when they are at their peak of ripeness. Plant maturity drives the entire plant count strategy. When a plant is done it's done.
Space must be set aside to dry and cure the finished product in a continually dark area where the temperature and humidity are controlled and air is circulated to optimize curing conditions. The curing process is crucial to produce the most flavorful and potent medicine.
First the plants are hung to dry until branches snap when bent over. Then the plants are carefully manicured and all the buds from each plant are separated and placed in a single jar for each plant to cure. The trim and stalks are saved to be used to extract hashish or destroyed. This jar is labeled with the strain and expected date of completion of the curing. Jars are "burped" periodically to expel gases and allow the buds to breathe.
Plants in the curing state are counted in the "flowering state" plant count. When the cure is complete the cured product is now "a usable form of marijuana" and is ready to be weighed and distributed to your patients. It is then time to "promote" a plant in veg to flowering room and to create a new clone or go shopping for a new clone to replace the plant that moved to flower.
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Legally Compliant Grow Room Management
The Colorado law allows medical marijuana patients to have 3 plants in a vegetative state and three mature plants flowering and drying. It is really important to plan your garden well and develop a clone/veg, flowering/drying and curing timeline that will allow you stay within legal limits.If you figure roughly 60 days to flower and 30 days to dry and cure divided by the number of plants you are allowed in your flower room equals approximately the number of days between plantings in order to maintain a constantly rotating supply of medicine for your patients.
Using this calculation an individual could continually harvest one plant a month. A collective of four patients could continually harvest one plant a week and so on. Of course these are only very general round numbers and dependent on many controllable and uncontrollable factors, but it does give a general place to start.
Because of the "number of plants" restrictions in Colorado it is necessary choose the right strains and grow more bushy plants or smaller lollipop buds depending on the needs of your collective. (Check out the photo above!) Fortunately there are hundreds of varieties of cannabis to choose from for your collective's needs. There are several dozen clone varieties available in the Denver area dispensaries on any given day.
Cloning
Cloners may be purchased already made or made DIY using parts from Home Depot or Lowes. Do a Google for cloners and you will turn up lots of ideas. Our video page has lots of details for growers including cloners.
Veg Room
Plants are cropped to produce short bushy plants that will sprout with many colas in the flowing room. Clones are be taken from plants in the veg room when the plant count allows it.
Plants are maintained in the veg state until the plant count in the flower room and curing closet allow the most worthy plant to be "promoted" to the flower room. When a plant moves to flower a new clone is planted in its place to maintain the plant count.
Flower Room
Co2 systems are used in flower rooms to maintain optimal co2 levels in the room. Some say that increasing co2 can increase crop yields up to 40%. Integrating co2 with the ventilation system is needed to turn off the co2 when the ventilation kicks on.
Most strains will mature within 8-10 weeks. Plants are watched carefully and are only harvested when they are at their peak of ripeness. Plant maturity drives the entire plant count strategy. When a plant is done it's done.
Harvesting and Curing
First the plants are hung to dry until branches snap when bent over. Then the plants are carefully manicured and all the buds from each plant are separated and placed in a single jar for each plant to cure. The trim and stalks are saved to be used to extract hashish or destroyed. This jar is labeled with the strain and expected date of completion of the curing. Jars are "burped" periodically to expel gases and allow the buds to breathe.
Plants in the curing state are counted in the "flowering state" plant count. When the cure is complete the cured product is now "a usable form of marijuana" and is ready to be weighed and distributed to your patients. It is then time to "promote" a plant in veg to flowering room and to create a new clone or go shopping for a new clone to replace the plant that moved to flower.
Form your own Medical Marijuana growing Co-op!
The costs of maintaining a cannabis garden capable of producing medicinal grade marijuana and the obvious economy of scale by growing more plants under the same light.
Even though state law permits a caregiver to provide for multiple patients the feds will take notice if you have over 99 plants total. Therefore it is a good idea to never, ever, have over 99 plants.
Grow Room Lighting
The three most common varieties of lighting for indoor growing are HID - High-intensity discharge lamps (the most prevalent for this application being: high pressure sodium for flowering and metal halide for growing), Compact fluorescent lamps, and traditional Fluorescent Grow lamps.High Intensity discharge lamps (HID) have the most efficacy in terms of Lumen (unit)s of light output vs. power input. Compact fluorescent are slightly less efficient than HID lamps, however they produce far less excess heat in comparison.
Fluorescent and compact fluorescent lamps are excellent light sources for young plants (seedlings). They are also excellent for supplementing the light generated by primary HID lamps.
Light is essentially "plant food"; everything else that we provide to a plant serves the purpose of helping it digest and use the light. As the plant grows larger, it requires an increasing amount of light. There is no substitute for light: if the amount of light received by the plant is insufficient, the plant will stretch, and / or growth will slow to a halt.
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Hydroponic grown cannabis being better than soil grow is one of the biggest myths. You will be able to pull faster crops, but by no means better. The complexity of soil medium does seem to give cannabis a bit more earth and natural flavors. But growing hydroponically does not give you any more potency than soil growing. That is much more a matter of genetics and the grower's technique.
The way you choose to grow depends on several preferences and conditions. Review the movies and see what will be right for you and your room.
The leaves trimmed off during the manicuring process are not the best to smoke the way they are but they do contain THC that may extracted and made into hashish using a bubble bag system or a dutch hash spinner or both.
Bubble Bags use ice and water to extract the hashish. The Pollinator is the first commercially available hash-sifting machine. If you are fortunate enough to own both devices you would first run the trim through the sifting machine and then use the bubble bags to extract all that is left.
Hydroponics VS Soil
The way you choose to grow depends on several preferences and conditions. Review the movies and see what will be right for you and your room.
Make Hashish from your Trim
Bubble Bags use ice and water to extract the hashish. The Pollinator is the first commercially available hash-sifting machine. If you are fortunate enough to own both devices you would first run the trim through the sifting machine and then use the bubble bags to extract all that is left.
