How to grow Marijuanana

How to grow Marijuanana courtesy of the Jolly Roger

MARIJUANA

Marijuana is a deciduous plant which grows from seeds. The fibrous section

of the plant was (has been replaced by synthetics) used to make rope.

The flowering tops, leaves, seeds, and resin of the plant is

used by just about everyone to get HIGH.

Normally, the vegetable parts of the plant are smoked to produce this

"high," but thay can also be eaten. The axtive ingredient in marijuana

resin is THC (tetahydrocannabinol). Marijuana contains from 1 - 4 per

cent THC (4 per cent must be considered GOOD dope).

Marijuana grows wild in many parts of the world, and is cultivated in

Mexice, Vietnam, Africa, Nepal, India, South America, etc.,etc. The

marijuana sold in the United States comes primarily from, yes, the

Uniited States.

It is estimated that at least 50 per cent of the grass on the streets

in America is homegrown. The next largest bunch comes actoss the

borders from Mexico, with smaller amounts filtering in from Panama,

occasionally South America, and occasinally, Africa.

Hashish is the pure resin of the marijuana plant, which is scraped from

the flowering tops of the plant and lumped together. Ganja is the

ground-up tops of the finest plants. (It is also the name given to any

sort of marijuana in Jamaica.)

Marijuana will deteriorate in about two years if exposed to light,

air or heat. It should always be stored in cool places.

Grass prices in the United States are a direct reflection of the laws

of supply and demand (and you thought that high school economics

would never be useful). A series of large border busts, a short growing

season, a bad crop, any number of things can drive the price of marijuana

up. Demand still seems to be on the increase in the U.S., so prices seldom

fall below last year's level.

Each year a small seasonal drought occurs, as last year's supply runs

low, and next year's crop is not up yet. Prices usually rase about

20 - 75 per cent during this time and then fall back to "normal."

Unquestionably, a large shortage of grass causes a percentage of smokers

to turn to harder drugs instead. For this reason, no grass control

program can ever be beneficial or "successful."

GROW IT!

There is one surefire way of avoiding high prices and the grass DT's:

Grow your own. This is not as difficult as some "authorities" on the

subject would make you believe. Marijuana is a weed, and a fairly

vivacious one at that, and it will grow almost in spite of you.

OUTDOORS

Contrary to propular belief, grass grows well in many place on the

North American continent. It will flourish even if the temperature does

not raise above 75 degrees.

The plants do need a minimum of eight hours of sunlight per day and

should be planted in late April/early May, BUT DEFINITELY, after the

last frost of the year.

Growing an outdoor, or "au naturel", crop has been the favored method

over the years, because grass seems to grow better without as much

attention when in its natural habitat.

Of course, an outdoors setting requires special precautions not encoun-

tered with an indoors crop; you must be able to avoid detection, both from

law enforcement freaks and common freaks, both of whom will take your

weed and probably use it. Of course, one will also arrest you. You must

also have access to the area to prepare the soil and harvest the crop.

There are two schools of thought about starting the seeds. One says you

should start the seedlings for about ten days in an indoor starter box

(see the indoor section) and then transplant. The other theory is that

you should just start them in the correct location. Fewer plants will

come up with this method, but there is no shock of transplant to

kill some of the seedlings halfway through.

The soil should be preprepared for the little devils by turning it

over a couple of times and adding about one cup of hydrated lime per

square yard of soil and a little bit (not too much, now) of good water

soluble nitrogen fertilizer. The soil should now be watered several

times and left to sit about one week.

The plants should be planted at least three feet apart, getting too

greedy and stacking them too close will result in stunted plants.

The plants like some water during their growing season, BUT not too

much. This is especially true around the roots, as too much water will

rot the root system.

Grass grows well in corn or hops, and these plants will help provide

some camouflage. It does not grow well with rye, spinach, or pepperweed.

It is probally a good idea to plant in many small, broken patches, as

people tend to notice patterns.

GENERAL GROWING INFO

Both the male and he female plant produce THC resin, although the male

is not as strong as the female. In a good crop, the male will still be

plenty smokable and should not be thrown away under any circumstances.

Marijuana can reach a hight of twenty feet (or would you rather wish on

a star) and obtain a diameter of 4 1/2 inches. If normal, it has a sex

ratio of about 1:1, but this can be altered in several ways.

The male plant dies in the 12th week of growing, the female will live

another 3 - 5 weeks to produce her younguns. Females can weigh twice as

much as males when they are mature.

Marijuana soil should compact when you squeeze it, but should also break

apart with a small pressure and absorb water well. A nice test

for either indoor or outdoor growing is to add a bunch of worms to the

soil, if they live and hang aroung, it is good soil, but if they don't,

well, change it. Worms also help keep the soil loose enough for the

plants to grow well.

SEEDS

To get good grass, you should start with the right seeds. A nice starting

point is to save the seeds form the best batch you have consumed. The

seeds should be virile, that is, they should not be grey and shiriveled

up, but green, meaty, and healthy appearing. A nice test is to drop the

seeds on a hot frying pan. If they "CRACK," they are probably good for

planting purposes.

The seeds should be soaked in distilled water overnight before planting.

BE SURE to plant in the ground with the pointy end UP. Plant about 1/2"

deep. Healthy seeds will sprout in about five days.

SPROUTING

The best all around sprouting method is probably to make a sprouting box

(as sold in nurseries) with a slated bottom or use paper cups with holes

punched in the bottoms. The sprouting soil should be a mixture of humus,

soil, and five sand with a bit of organic fertilizer and water mixed

in about one week before planting.

When ready to transplant, you must be sure and leave a ball of soil

around the roots of each plant. This whole ball is dropped into a

baseball-sized hold in the permanent soil.

If you are growing/transplanting indoors, you should use a green

safe light (purchased at nurseries) during the transplanting operation.

If you are transplanting outdoors, you should time it about two

hours befor sunset to avoid damage to the plant. Always wear cotton

gloves when handling the young plants.

After the plants are set in the hole, you should water them. It is also

a good idea to use a commercial transplant chemical (also purchased at

nurseries) to help then overcome the shock.

INDOOR GROWING

Indoor growing has many advantages, besides the apparent fact that it

is much harder to have your crop "found," you can control the ambient

conditions just exactly as you want them and get a guaranteed "good"

plant.

Plants grown indoors will not appear the same as their outdoor cousins.

They will be scrawnier appearing with a weak stems and may even require

you to tie them to a growing post to remain upright, BUT THEY WILL HAVE

AS MUCH OR MORE RESIN!

If growing in a room, you should put tar paper on the floors and then

buy sterilized bags of soil form a nursery. You will need about one

cubic foot of soil for eavh plant.

The plants will need about 150 ml. of water per plant/per week. They

will also need fresh air, so the room must be ventilated. (however,

the fresh air should contain NO TOBACCO smoke.)

At least eight hours of light a day must be provided. As you increase

the light, the plants grow faster and show more females/less males.

Sixteen hours of light per day seems to be the best combination, beyond

this makes little or no appreciable difference in the plant quality.

Another idea is to interrupt the night cycle with about one hour of

light. This gives you more females.

The walls of your growing room should be painted white or covered with

aluminum foil to reflect the light.

The lights themselves can be either bulbs of fluorescent. Figure about

75 watts per plant or one plant per two feet of flouresent tube.

The fluorescents are the best, but do not use "cool white" types. The

light sources should be an average of twenty inches from the

plant and NEVER closer than 14 inches. They may be mounted on a rack

and moved every few days as the plants grow.

The very best light sources are those made by Sylvania and others

especially for growing plants (such as the "gro lux" types).

HARVESTING AND DRYING

The male plants will be taller and have about five green or yellow sepals,

which will split open to fertilize the female plant with pollen.

The female plant is shorter and has a small pistillate flower, which

really doesn't look like a flower at all but rather a small bunch of

leaves in a cluster.

If you don't want any seeds, just good dope, you should pick the males

before they shed their pollen as the female will use some of her resin

to make the seeds.

After another three to five weeks, after the males are gone, the females

will begin to wither and die (from loneliness?), this is the time to pick.

In some nefarious Middle Eastren countries, farmers reportedly put their

beehives next to fiels of marijuana. The little devils collect the grass

pollen for their honey, which is supposed to contain a fair dosage

of THC.

The honey is then enjoyed by conventional methods or made into ambrosia.

If you want seeds - let the males shed his pollen then pick him. Let

the female go another month and pick her.

To cure the plants, they must be dried. On large crops, this is

accomplished by constructing a drying box or drying room.

You must have a heat source (such as an electric heater) which will make

the box/room each 130 degrees. The box/room must be ventilated

to carry off the water-vapor-laden air and replace it with fresh.

A good box can be constructed from an orange crate with fiberglass

insulated walls, vents in the tops, and screen shelves to hold the leaves.

There must be a baffle between the leaves and the heat source.

A quick cure for smaller amounts is to: cut the plant at the soil level

and wrap it in a cloth so as not to loose any leavs. Take out any seeds

by hand and store. Place all the leaves on a cookie sheet or aluminum

foil and put them in the middle sheld of the oven, which is set on "broil."

In a few seconds, the leaves will smoke and curl up, stir them around and

give another ten seconds before you take them out.

TO INCREASE THE GOOD STUFF

There are several tricks to increase the number of females, or the THC

content of plants:

You can make the plants mature in 36 days if you are in a hurry, by cutting

back on the light to about 14 hours, but the plants will not be as big.

You should gradually shorten the light cycle until you reach fourteen

hours.

You can stop any watering as the plants begin to bake the resin rise to

the flowers. This will increse the resin a bit.

You can use a sunlamp on the plants as they begin to develop flower stalks.

You can snip off the flower, right at the spot where it joins the plant,

and a new flower will form in a couple of weeks.

This can be repeated two or three times to get several times more flowers

than usual.

If the plants are sprayed with Ethrel early in their growing stage, they

will produce almost all female plants. This usually speeds up the flowering

also, it may happen in as little as two weeks.

You can employ a growth changer called colchicine. This is a bit hard to

get and expensive. (Should be ordered through a lab of some sort and

costs about $35 a gram.)

To use the colchicine, you should prepare your presoaking solution of

distilled water with about 0.10 per cent colchicine. This will cause

many of the seeds to die and not germinate, but the ones that do come

up will be polyploid plants. This is the accepted difference between

such strains as "gold" and normal grass, and yours will DEFINITELY

be superweed.

The problem here is that colchicine is a posion in larger quanities and

may be poisonous in the first generation of plants. Bill Frake, author

of CONNOISSEUR'S HANDBOOK OF MARIJUANA runs a very complete colchicine

treatment down and warns against smoking the first generation plants

(all succeeding generations will also be polyploid) bacause of this

poisonous quality.

However, the Medical Index shows colchicine being given in very small

quantities to people for treatment if various ailments. Although these

quantities are small, they would appear to be larger than any you could

recive form smoaking a seed-treated plant.

It would be a good idea to buy a copy of CONNOISSEUR'S, if you are planning

to attempt this, and read Mr. Drake's complete instructions.

Another still-experimental process to increase the resin it to pinch off

the leaf tips as soon as they appear from the time the plant is in the

seedling stage on through its entire life-span. This produces a distorted,

wrecked-looking plant which would be very difficuly to recognize as

marijuana. Of course, there is less substance to this plant, but such

wrecked creatures have been known to produve so much resin that it

crystallizes a strong hash all over the surface of the plant - might

be wise to try it on a plant or two and see what happens.

PLANT PROBLEM CHART

Always check the overall enviromental conditions prior to passing

judgment - soil aroung 7 pH or slightly less - plenty of water, light,

fresh air, loose soil, no water standing in pools.

SYMPTOM PROBABLY PROBLEM/CURE

Larger leaves turning yellow - Nitrogen dificiency - add

smaller leaves still green. nitrate of soda or

organic fertilizer.

Older leaves will curl at edges, Phosphorsus dificiency -

turn dark, possibaly with a purple add commercial phosphate.

cast.

Mature leaves develop a yellowish Magnesium dificiency -

cast to least veinal areas. add commercial fertilizer

with a magnesium content.

Mature leaves turn yellow and then Potassium dificiency -

become spotted with edge areas add muriate of potash.

turning dark grey.

Cracked stems, no healthy support Boron dificiency - add

tissue. any plant food containing

boron.

Small wrinkled leaves with Zinc dificiency - add

yelloish vein systems. commercial plant food

containing zinc.

Young leaves become deformed, Molybedum dificiency -

possibaly yellowing. use any plant food with a

bit of molydbenum in it.

EXTRA SECTION:

BAD WEED/GOOD WEED

Can you turn bad weed into good weed? Surprisingly enough, the answer

to this oft-asked inquiry is, yes!

Like most other things in life, the amount of good you are going

to do relates directly to how much effort you are going to put into it.

There are no instant, supermarket products which you can spray on Kansas

catnip and have wonderweed, but there are a number of simplified,

inexpensive processes (Gee, Mr. Wizard!) thich will enhance mediocre

grass somewhat, ant there are a couple of fairly involved processes

which will do up even almost-parsley weed into something worth writing

home about.

EASES

1. Place the dope in a container which allows air to enter in a restricted

fashion (such as a can with nail holes punched in its lid) and add a

bunch of dry ice, and the place the whold shebang in the freezer for a

few days. This process will add a certain amount of potency to the product,

however, this only works with dry ice, if you use normal, everyday

freezer ice, you will end up with a soggy mess...

2. Take a quantity of grass and dampen it, place in a baggie or another

socially acceptable container, and store it in a dark, dampish place

for a couple of weeks (burying it also seems to work). The grass will

develop a mold which tastes a bit harsh, a and burns a tiny bit funny,

but does increase the potency.

3. Expose the grass to the high intensity light of a sunlamp for a full

day or so. Personally, I don't feel that this is worth the effort, but

if you just spent $400 of your friend's money for this brick of

super-Colombian, right-from-the-President's-personal-stash,

and it turns out to be Missouri weed, and you're packing your bags to

leave town before the people arrive for their shares, well, you might

at least try it. Can't hurt.

4. Take the undisirable portions of our stash (stems, seeds, weak weed,

worms, etc.) and place them in a covered pot, with enough rubbing

alchol to cover everything.

Now CAREFULLY boil the mixture on an ELECTRIC stove or lab burner. DO

NOT USE GAS - the alchol is too flammable. After 45 minutes of heat,

remove the pot and strain the solids out, SAVING THE ALCOHOL.

Now, repeat the process with the same residuals, but fresh alchol.

When the second boil is over, remove the solids again, combine the two

quantities of alcohol and reboil until you have a syrupy mixture.

Now, this syrupy mixture will contain much of the THC formerly hidden

in the stems and such. One simply takes this syrup the throughly

combines it with the grass that one wishes to improve upon.

SPECIAL SECTION ON RELATED SUBJECT MARYGIN:

Marygin is an anagram of the words marijuana and gin, as in Eli Whitney.

It is a plastic tumbler which acts much like a commercial cottin gin.

One takes about one ounce of an harb and breaks it up. This is then placed

in the Marygin and the protuding knod is roatated. This action turns

the internal wheel, which separates the grass from the debris (seeds,

stems).

It does not pulberize the grass as screens have a habit of doing and is

easily washable.

Marygin is available from:

P.O. Box 5827

Tuscon, Arizona 85703

$5.00

GRASS

Edmund Scientific Company

555 Edscorp Building

Barrington, New Jersy 08007

Free Catalog is a wonder of good things for the potential grass

grower. They have an electric thermostat greenhouse for starting

plants for a mere $14.95.

Soil test kits for PH - $2.40

Al test - $9.95

Soil thermometer - $2.75

Lights which approzimate the true color balance of the sun and are

probably the most beneficial types available: 40 watt, 48 inch - 4 for

$15.75.

Indoor sun bulb, 75 or 150 watt - $5.75.

And, they have a natural growth regualtor for plants (Gibberellin) which

can change height, speed growth, and maturity, promote blossoming,

etc. Each plant reacts differently to treatment with Gibberellin...there's

no fun like experimenting - $2.00