Monday’s California Supreme Court ruling that cities like Riverside can ban medical cannabis dispensaries re-emphasizes the importance of personal cultivation for the state’s estimated 750,000 marijuana patients. So we Skyped with Jorge Cervantes, author of “Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower’s Bible”, now in its fifth edition, to put together this primer on the basics of legally growing medical marijuana in California.
The Law
Marijuana is still federally illegal, of course. But Californians in 1996 crafted defenses for qualified medical marijuana patients and caregivers prosecuted in state courts for crimes like marijuana possession and cultivation. Qualifying medical conditions include: “cancer, anorexia, AIDS, chronic pain, spasticity, glaucoma, arthritis, migraine, or any other illness for which marijuana provides relief.” A 2010 survey of patients at an Oakland medical cannabis clinic showed the most common conditions for which marijuana was providing relief were pain, insomnia, anxiety and depression. In practices that’ve been going on globally for at least ten thousand years, patients smoke, vaporize, ingest or topically apply the active ingredients in cannabis – cannabinoids – for symptom relief. Cannabinoids like delta-9-THC and CBD are created in the unfertilized female flower tops of the plant.
Qualified patients with a valid recommendation have a medical defense in court for growing up to six mature plants or 12 immature plants – unless a doctor determines more is needed. Some localities have also placed local restrictions on the annual, sexual reproducing bushy plant, which can grow to 15 tall and yield a pound of medical marijuana per year. Cities like Concord, CA., have banned outdoor growing, while places like Berkeley, CA. limits outdoor gardens to ten plants. NORML has a handy guide to local growing regulations.
Grow cannabis in the full sun, Jorge Cervantes argues
GO OUTDOOR
Assuming your city or county allows it, grow outdoors, says Cervantes. “Growing outdoors is 100 percent easier than growing indoors. It’s much, much easier, it’s a lot cheaper and it leaves a very small carbon footprint, which is a huge factor.”
‘But isn’t outdoors risky?’ we asked. ‘Each plant could be worth a couple thousand dollars.’
“You just have to have a locked gate,” Cervantes said. The master farmer based in Spain has grown during three consecutive California summers. He also recommends trail cameras, and maybe a dog, and motion-detector activated security lights. Several companies also insure cannabis grows, he said.
Marijuana plants get stinky during their Fall Harvest, which can attract thieves or neighbor complaints.
“Some people, anything bothers them. I had an odor problem so on one side where the neighbors were I just put some carob seed mulch, which smells like chocolate and it sweetens up the air. The smell only lasts for a few weeks anyway.”
SEEDS OR CLONES?
“There are pluses and minuses for both of them,” he said.
Cuttings are readily available at dispensaries, and they’re real easy, he said. “It’s already a little plant and you don’t have to go through the first six weeks of growth.”
The problem is unsanitary cutting rooms, he said. Dirty clones contain hitchhikers like powdery mildew, or spider mite eggs. “It’s really difficult to tell if there’s a problem [with a cutting]. Buying cuttings is very related to trust,” he said.
Seek out dispensary reviews and determine the reputation of your clone’s source.
Seeds on the other hand, don’t contain such pathogens. Fungus may be on the surface of the seed, but hand washing or disinfecting before planting solves that problem. A good, first-generation hybrid seed will grow 20 percent faster and stronger than a clone, he said. Californians can still germinate from seed and get plants in the ground for this growing 2013 season, which runs April to October. “You’d have a very late crop,” he said.
Cannabis seeds sell online for about $50 for packs of five.
Young marijuana plants grown from seed will need to be sexed, unless customers buy feminized seeds widely popular in Europe and available online.
“Pretty much everything is going to feminized seeds, and then auto-flowering is huge right now and has been for five years,” Cervantes said.
Auto-flowering marijuana plants automatically begin flowering after about ten weeks of growth. Natural marijuana needs the shorter daylight of the Fall to kick off flowering. Auto-flowering seeds can finish in mid-Summer, before neighbors even notice the odor.
“I would grow short plants and harvest in the middle of the Summer. Those auto-flowering plants are ready in 70-80 days and are just a meter tall,” he said.
WHICH SEEDS OR CLONES SHOULD I GET? THERE’S A BUNCH.
Cervantes said the most popular strain – OG Kush – can be finnicky to grow. “Jack’s Cleaner was a good one. Apollo 13. Chemdog. Blue Dream was really a nice one. And Jack Herer.”
SOIL OR HYDROPONIC MEDIUM?
Cervantes says keep it simple with organic soil and fertilizers, as opposed to soil-less “hydroponic” set-ups and synthetic, petroleum-based plant food called “nutrients”.
“Organic soil outdoors is much easier to deal with. You just have to keep it alive and growing well. It can take a couple of years to build it up,” he said. “But you can also buy it.”
Grow it in soil, advises Cervantes.
Amend the organic soil with “activated, aerated compost tea. It’s concentrated compost that comes in a dry powder. That’s about it, and water. Also, a big ingredient is air. Pump air into the solution and the bacteria and microbes just explodes. You can go spread this in your garden and it’s dynamite.”
Avoid synthetic chemical nutrients, he said. A healthy organic soil should have nutrients, and nutrient levels are only part of it. “There’s a lot more biology in there, the whole rhizosphere, bacteria, microbes, a lot of fungus, good ones, bad ones, all the other soil life; a lot of worms, little and big beetles, larva, eggs, all kinds of stuff. They have to get in balance.”
Cannabis functions between 55 and 85 degree Fahrenheit, Cervantes notes.
SENSORS
Buy a gardening thermometer. Marijuana plants stop functioning above 85 degrees and below 55 degrees, Cervantes said. Keep the soil cool with mulch on top. “A layer of mulch works wonderfully and it’s really inexpensive.”
KEEP IT CLEAN
Decay breeds decay, Cervantes said. So make sure there’s no puddles of standing water – which can breed pests. Pick up any rotting debris in the yard.
“Just keep everything clean around the garden in general. Don’t let anything rot on the soil, remove debris and dead growth that is going to attract scavengers. A lot of insects will start on the dead stuff – crickets, beetles, fungus nats, earwigs – when the dead stuff runs out they start on the live things. The dead things also attracts fungus too.”
LEARN MORE, BUT DON’T OVERDO IT
And by all means buy the well-reviewed and beloved “Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower’s Bible”, but just remember:
“Ask ten gardeners how to grow marijuana and you get 20 opinions,” Cervantes said. “There’s a million ways to grow it. It’s a plant and it’s a survivor. It was here before we were and it’ll be here after we are gone.”
“The plant is really quite an easy plant to grow. It’s not hard to grow well, though there a lot of people that are trying too hard or they listen to a lot of different experts and usually get confused. Many times the experts have something to gain.”
Read up on more gardening tips here: ‘Growing Killer Weed: Ed Rosenthal’s Tips from ‘The Art of Doing’
Or share some of your own lessons and resources in the comments.
Medical marijuana strain Blue Dream
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