Marijuana Grower's Handbook - Page 5

Cannabis is an annual plant, (it grows, flowers and dies in the same season) grown for millenniums in almost all corners of the world, except the areas near the poles. Coming from Central and South Asia it's a plant genus with three different plant species: Cannabis Sativa, Cannabis Indica and Cannabis Ruderalis. Although each species of cannabis has a few traits and properties which make it more suitable for certain areas (logically they develop better in areas where they grow naturally), it's an easily adaptable plant for growing outdoors in virtually any climate. With the exception of the auto-flowering varieties, cannabis plants grow during the spring and summer and flowers at the end of this and during the autumn.

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Prepare a good biological substrate to grow marijuana indoors or outdoors is a common issue, and with this post we will try to help you make your own mix. This growing method certainly provides the best quality of marijuana that we can harvest. It allows that terpenes aren’t altered by flavours from, sometimes too much aggressive, fertilisers.

Mixture of organic soil for cannabis recommended by Philosopher Seeds

The Philosopher Seeds Team works with all kinds of substrates and cultivation systems  to perform growing tests, but when it comes to do genetic selections to decide which will be the upcoming strains that will enter in catalogue, we all opt to use the mixture of soil and amendment as follows:

For 100 litres of substrate:

• 70 liters of substrate type “Light Mix”
• 20 liters of Worm Humus (improves the substrate in many aspects)
• 5 liters of Coco Fibers (aerates the substrate and retains water)
• 5 liters of  Perlite (aerates the substrate and retains water)
• 200 gr of Nutrihemp (favours the plant growth)
• 1,5 Kg of Bat Guano Powder (favours the bloom)
• 450 gr of Bacto Force (improves the soil by adding beneficial bacteria, fungi and enzymes)
• Mycorrhizae, the amount depends on the Brand (favours the rooting)

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Before releasing a new variety onto the market, Philosopher Seeds seed bank and its group of breeders bring their genetics to Test Line where they are tested, and thanks to the nearest group of collaborators and growers all kinds of cultivation tests can be done before being launched onto the market. In these tests, the stability of each hybrid is tested, as well as its main growing characteristics: size, elongation, yield, aroma and flavour. Many of these test lines never make it to the official catalogue, even when they are good hybrids. It is never easy to make a decision of this kind and it is always the aim to bring new lines with new parental which have not yet been introduced officially.

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We are going to talk about CO2 which is sometimes used in the cultivation of marijuana in order to explain the reaction of plants when using this gas. It is a pretty straightforward post so that all of you can understand what the use of CO2 when growing marijuana indoors is. We will post a more detailed and technical article about this in the future.

First, we need to talk about chemistry to become familiar with this gas.

What is CO2?

CO2 comprises 1 carbon atom and 2 oxygen atoms. It is a linear chemical molecule and its formula, which was developed by Lewis, is: O = C = OCO2 comprises 1 carbon atom and 2 oxygen atoms. It is a linear chemical molecule and its formula, which was developed by Lewis, is: O = C = O

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Philosopher Seeds shows you in this post the correct parameters for optimal growth of cannabis plants both indoors and outdoors, and the suitable types of growth for your growing space and medium. We will talk exclusively about photoperiod plants - either regular or feminised seeds. Therefore, we will not talk about autoflowering marijuana plants since the onset of flowering period is an automatic process.

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Pruning marijuana crops has a very specific function, which is maximize performance in the growing space by cutting or diverting of the main branches. This enables the internal transfer of growth hormones (auxins) through the entire structure. This makes it easy to create a more robust and compact growth that allows you to get thicker flowers and high yielding marijuana plants.

Thanks to these methods you can grow a strain that is large in size in a small space indoors, or obtain a good marijuana crop outdoors on a balcony or terrace. In this way, you’ll get a great yield for each Philosopher Seeds variety through methods such as FIM pruning, LST (Low Stress Training), the well-known Super Cropping, and including a new shaping technique known as Wesley Cross Branch.

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Usually, throughout the life of our marijuana plants, at some point we will have to transplant our plants to a container or larger pot, usually more than once. It is important to perform this task because the container will eventually be too small, and it will hinder the normal development of the roots and thus the growth and health of our cannabis plants.

With a correct transplant, we will allow the roots to continue to grow and so they will have a better substrate to be fed.

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In spring, the good weather arrives and we start to grow marijuana plants outdoors, where unwanted eyes could ruin the work of several months.

In this post we will tell you a few techniques to have your plants under control regarding shape and size so they can go unnoticed besides increasing your marijuana plants yield .

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First of all, you should know that choosing the type of soil is very important; for this reason you should look for a light, airy soil that can retain sufficient amount of water. The key is to find the balance: neither too much nor too little, the right choice basically depends upon every grower and his/her feeding schedule.

To improve your substrate in terms of water retention, you should use perlite and coco fibre. The proportions of these elements are also up to the grower, but often range from 10 to 20% of perlite, and 10 to 30% of coco fibre.

Most soil bags sold at grow shops already contain these materials with a pH suitable for growing marijuana. Philosopher Seeds highly recommends choosing these ones instead of buying substrate from the usual garden centre.

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Philosopher Seeds always encourages its customers to monitor the water pH and EC when watering and fertilising their marihuana plants: if these values are properly adjusted and under control, we ensure that our plants absorb all the necessary nutrients, keeping them healthy, without any kind of deficiency and getting the maximum yields.

pH is the coefficient that indicates how acid or alkaline the water is. Later on, we will show you how a different pH range is required depending on the growing medium.

EC is the electrical conductivity of water; in other words, the amount of salts dissolved therein. The more nutrients we use, the higher EC values we'll get.

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Growing marijuana outdoors with Philosopher Seeds

In this post we will show you how to get a good harvest outdoors with the strains we suggest from our catalogue, since the first thing to do, which is very important, is to choose marijuana seeds that adapt well to where you are located and your growing method.

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Philosopher Seeds cares about all growers who want to use new strategies and techniques to improve their season crops. This is why autoflowering cannabis strains are becoming the first choice for many users to the detriment of regular and feminized seeds. These small plants end their full life cycle in just 70-80 days from seed germination, what makes that lots of growers prefer this type of seeds to be able to perform several crops per year: spring, summer and even autumm if temperatures are mild enough. They allow us to get excellent and abundant harvests at a very affordable price. Its feeding is easy, and they don't grow more than 1 meter tall, being discreet and perfect for guerrilla crops. The more hours of daylight, the better, so choosing the right spot to plant them is very important. If they receive a minimum of 10 hours of light per day, they develop compact and dense flowers with a thick layer of resin glands. Philosopher Seeds offers three autoflowering strains:  Cheesy Auto , White Yoda Auto and Fraggle Skunk Auto . Three stable and autoflowering varieties that can yield more than 100gr per plant.

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In this top three list we will show you our most productive varieties, with which you'll get the highest amount of first grade buds, completely coated with resin. These strains are suitable for both indoor and outdoor crops, perfect to make resin extractions , gathering our beloved trichome glands. Philosopher Seeds works to offer high-yielding hybrids and purebreds with very particular organoleptic and psychoactive properties. A very interesting selection to tell you the main characteristics of these strains so you can easily choose which one suits best your needs and possibilities.

Jack el Frutero's yields

Jack el Frutero has a fast and vigorous growth, well-branched and with few leaves. The Jack the Ripper parent provides stability in the cross. Due to its Sativa dominance, we recommend starting the crop from seed placing 9-16 plants per square meter. This number of plants can be increased to 20-25 plants if we shorten the vegetative period to 1 week, beginning the flowering period practically from seed germination (7-10 days at 18/6 photoperiod). When growing Jack el Frutero you need a minimum of 60-70 days to get fully ripe buds.

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To be able to create stable and top-quality marijuana strains, our breeding team always takes into account several basic plant genetic concepts that help us stabilizing the desired traits from our parents to their offspring. Mendel's Laws (Gregor Mendel 1885-86)  were the foundations upon which plant genetics were based, explaining the inherintance  of different traits among individuals of the same species. Thanks to these Laws, nowadays we can create autoflowering, purple or high-CBD strains, besides the large number of possibilities that arise if they are correctly understood.  First, we all should know what is a landrace and what is an IBL (Inbred Line).

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In this new post we want to show you a growing report of our line of XXL autoflowering marijuana strains - Auto Line -   where you will see the development of our varieties and which things you should keep in mind before starting your crop. It is very important for our team to offer you all the necessary growing data to obtain  first-class buds, as well as achieving the estimated yield.

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In this post, Philosopher Seeds' team presents a growing report of one of our most demanded strains, Fruity Jack from our line Golo Line. To create this hybryd, Philosopher Seeds joined forces with Reggae Seeds, widely known for their Juanita la Lagrimosa strain, a crosiing between the New York City Diesel from Soma and Reina Madre from Mario Bellandi's Delicatessen Seeds, a renowned activist and prestigious cannabis breeder. The result of this crossing was surprising;  the resuting strain had a 1:1 THC:CBD ratio, reaching 9% CBD levels in the best specimens. Since then, a lot of seedbanks and seed producers have greatly benefited from the work and efforts of this humble and commited cannabis seedbank.

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