Proposition 207 and Topping the Crop
Arizona News:
As of November 30th, 2020 - Arizona's Proposition 207 is officially law, granting Arizonans the right to grow up to 12 plants per household (6 plants per adult, up to 12 plants total). The age requirement for possession is 21. You can possess one ounce (roughly a full sandwich bag of flower buds or 29 full size joints). You cannot sell the product. You cannot smoke it in public places. By the springtime, Arizona will have dispensaries selling product to common folk. Those who purchase product via dispensaries will have to pay an additional 16% tax. Those tax funds will go to colleges, construction, health, and justice programs. Those who want to cultivate need to be "within a closet, room, greenhouse or other enclosed area on the grounds of the residence equipped with a lock or other security device that prevents access by minors” and “takes place in an area where the marijuana plants are not visible from public view without the use of binoculars, aircraft or other optical aids."
So now that the proposition has passed and the new year is here, Arizonans can safely and freely grow a small garden for their own medicinal purposes. This blog is my archive to help you with your own garden by showing my garden progress as Arizona ventures into a new chapter into the cannabis future.
You can read a great article from Phoenix New Times published December 2nd, 2020. It explains the pros and cons of a grow and what you should be on the lookout for while attempting to start your own garden.
Let's check in on the progress from the garden:
As you can see here, I've got a nice bouquet of a newly started plant. I started this particular plant (and one other) the day Arizona's Secretary of State Kate Hobbs officially certified Arizona's election results from the 2020 election, making this Super Silver Haze (the actual strain) about a month old. From other gardeners it is a fairly easy plant to germinate and grow. It was a little leggy (long and thin) at the beginning.
Seed Germination:
I started it inside a sandwich bag with a damp paper towel wrapped around two seeds of the strain, in a warm area. I checked it daily and it took about three days until I saw growth from the seed. When the radicle root barely emerged from the seed, I took tweezers and set it into a small rockwool cube. I damped the cube with tap water and brought the cubes (laden in seeds) to a low light source. Within a week a seedling emerged from the cube. The stem was very leggy, and I was nervous the seedling would die.
DWC system in tote:
As the seedling made its first true leaves and the roots were beginning to expand beyond the cube I set the cubes in a small net cup and surrounded it with clay pellets. I made sure some of the roots dangled out of the bottom of the net cup. I let the net cups sit in water that was mixed with very little nutrients. The water had a bubbler, allowing an abundance of oxygen to reach the roots emerging from the cube. This system is a DWC system handmade using a tote from the hardware store. The lid of the tote is the housing for the net pots and the tote itself is filled with nutrient rich water and installed with a bubbler that sits on the bottom. The tote is about 12x18x10 inches. I use the tote to start the seedlings and when they're large enough I place them in a 5 gallon bucket with their own bubbler and new net pot (I don't remove the plant from their old net pot, I let it grow into the new net pot). Net pots cost pennies and I don't mind if they get damaged in the process.
Nutrients:
After two weeks, the above seedling reached a height of about six inches. I transferred the seedling into a five gallon black bucket and set in a bubbler. At first I was light on my nutrients (half of my usual dosage), then I encountered a bright green coloration on the sail leaves, indicating the plant was suffering a nutrient deficiency. I emptied the bucket and filled it with proper nutrient dosage (2 grams per gallon of a powder essential nutrients and 1 gram per gallon of secondary nutrients). The nutrients I use is Masterblend Fertilizer Combo. It comes with three bags of nutrients and costs less than $30 for the whole kit. The two "big bags" of nutrients I use my usual 2 grams per gallon measurement. The smaller bag I use 1 gram per gallon. The kit lasts a long time and I've been very successful with four previous grows. Prior to that I used the liquid fertilizer Grow Big by Fox Farms and that works just fine. I don't use any other nutrients for my plants. I also pH my tap water down to 6.0 using pH Down by General Hydroponics.
Topping:
The plant was recently topped (stem chopped roughly five nodes above the roots). Topping ensures your plant to grow in a more uniform, bushy shape, which allows more sites to grow more flowering tops. Plants that don't top tend to make a classical "tannenbaum shape", giving a large flowering cola in the center while having smaller colas surround it. Topping forces the plant to spread out, making stronger side branches for colas and cuttings. It also provides the opportunity for gardeners to build a screen above their plants, pinning the branches as they emerge, forcing the plant to produce more colas, inadvertently more production come harvest time.
From Leggy to Lucky Seedling:
You can see in the above photo that the leaves are different in size and shape. This was the seedling that had yellow leaves at the beginning, and I assume the stressful beginnings forced the leaves to change. It'll be interesting to see the progress of two different leaf shapes take form as both grow and bloom flowers together as the same strain. Although almost considered lost, it is now miraculously ready for transfer into a 5 gallon DWC bucket. Next to it is my weather station (to check temperature and humidity). Since it is in the middle of winter, the temperature in my cold house has been 72 in the day and 55 degrees at night, but the grow tent keeps the temperatures stable, and I have not seen any sign of heat stress (which is a problem in the summer months).
Heat and Light Balance:
Speaking of heat, for the first few weeks the seedlings were extending too far, reaching toward their light source, which is a Mars Hydro TS600. One managed to get too leggy and fall back, giving itself a yellow coloration of their first true leaves. Many times, gardeners will set their fragile seedlings too close to their light source, frying their leaves and killing the plant. You can offset this stress by adding a fan to pull away some heat or you can move your lights away from your plants. The balance is finding the right spot to not stress the plant from lack of light while combating heat. Luckily both seedlings became strong enough to form fully developing stems and nice bouquets of sail leaves.
Ending Thoughts:
I'm hoping it'll be ready for flowering in about a month. I'm planning on switching the light once I top the smaller seedling. If you have any questions, let me know. I'm here to help. Thank you for reading and happy gardening.
Pinky
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