I want to hear from you!

Basic Growing Info
#1

Hey everyone! Its been a wild month or so and I’ve got a pretty cool update!

I’ve been offered and accepted a job as a tenure track professor working agriculture and cannabis cultivation. Personally, I am interested in studying cover crops, crop rotations, and weed management in Cannabis and how to better support small sized farms. I will be establishing a research program with field sites that will be used for education and demonstrations. I will also have the opportunity to help train the next generation of Cannabis industry workers and professionals.

I want to eventually be able to offer invites on here for field days and maybe some educational material. But in order for me to do my job the best, I need some input from you all! What topics do you want to see researched? Are you interested in sustainability? What skills/education do you wish you saw more of in the industry?

Thanks to everyone who has replied to any of my posts! It has been a blast hanging out here and I’m excited to keep the party rolling! Now then…lets hear your opinions!

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#2

Outdoor pot sucks and will not be grown in america once the legalities shake themselves out. America will grow fire indoor and shwag outdoor will be grown in cheaper places.

my scathing hot take hahahaha.

Will be years and years, but unless the gov sets specific protective restrictions I just dont see a place in an open market for american grown outdoor pot. Math.

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#4

Dude, amazing! I’m new here so this is my first time seeing any of your posts. But holy moly, you’ve got me excited! This is basically my dream job! At present I work in IT, and every day I feel like my soul is dying.

May I ask how you got started down this path?

As for answers to your questions…

I would love to know which companion plants are most beneficial with cannabis. Bonus points if you can figure out how to increase cannabis thiol content by incorporating companion plants or other nutrients.

I am also interested in the sustainability aspect. How can commercial growers (and home growers) reduce their waste while also trying to reduce/re-use/recycle as much as they can from every step of the growth cycle? How can home growers reduce their energy consumption?

Also, I know that this next task may be nigh impossible but will there ever be a day when science validates some of the organic practices that supposedly “make no difference”? (yet anecdotally these practices seem to make an incredible difference!) Stuff like scientific validity to compost tea, planting with the lunar cycle, etc.

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#5

It’s actually not true at all. Low-quality outdoor pot sucks, but that’s because it’s low quality. There are plenty of environmental factors that make outdoor growing a challenge. Also keep in mind that the outdoor grown pot that most Americans have had was sent here because the good stuff was kept where it was grown (especially the case for Canadian bud, they kept all the good stuff and sold us the rest).

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#6

You guys should probably stop growing the bad outdoor weed.

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#8

yall can call it “sun grown” or whatever the popular euphamism is, but regular outdoor pot will never compare to a clean proper indoor run.

my point is that with the cost of business being so high in America I dont see why anyone would pay premium price for non premium product. In an open market local outdoor would never be able to compete with central/south america grown. again, we’re a long way off from that and theres a good chance politicians will set up market protections, but in an open market I dont see how USA outdoor pot would ever be feasible.

#9

That’s completely awesome!! Congratulations! :partying_face:

I would love to see you work with these folks on applying regenerative agriculture to cannabis farming. https://advancingecoag.com

I’d like to see some very small grants available to home growers and small scale farmers to participate in crowd-sourced experiments designed by you with the data aggregated by you. I think this could help with generating research results that aren’t limited to one single grow environment. With hemp, CBD hemp, and even cannabis cuttings legal to mail to many places the potential to send clone cuttings for controlled experiments exists.

I’d like to see a study of whether the techniques AEA successfully used to mitigate viral infection and restore productivity in orchards can be applied to cannabis with viral infections.

I’d like to know whether the germination rate in seeds infected with viuses, particularly HLV, declines more steeply over time than that of healthy seeds. I have a suspicion that it might. If so, a practical cheap grower “cleaning” technique could be to sow only older seed, and then discard any less vigorous seedlings.

I’m “all in” on participation, hmu any time!

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#10

That, my friend, is one of the most analytical, interpretive, and relatable list of observations/proposals I’ve noted. MAGNIFICENT, indeed!! SS/BW…mister :honeybee: :pray: :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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#11

Outdoor pot sucks???Sounds like an operator problem to me Theres Good and bad Indoor and outdoor depends on the Gardener and the environment and the tools.Reminds me of when people used to turn thier noses up at Homegrown like not even try it could have had dank perfect Kind Bud nugs and as soon as they heard homegrown because they had Hydro or Commercial weed which was glorified Midz it was somehow far superior Like you knew you used Organic inputs and no pesticide and somehow the Cartel that was growing the shit and using god knows what chemicals to do squatter grows was totally better lol .the Hydro was mediocre at best sometimes was good but few and far in between.People come to me to try and cop all the time they had a taste of the Frankie i had to be honest The outdoor frankie blows all the local indian dispo weed out the water .a Well manicured and cared for garden is just as good if not better nothing beats a good sungrown smoke it just does that fullmelt thing .Indoor can be just as dirty as outside do a bud wash and look at the bottom of the bucket bet you 20$ you will see dirt and all kinds of gross shit.

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#12

Congrats @ThePotanist !! Happy for you. I applaud your commitment and dedication and am eager to hear about what you decide to share with us all.

@RainToday has definitely thought about this…haha well worded, my friend.

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#13

Bah! I’m sorry I mentioned it. I knew I should have just read the thread, lol. We could probably debate this elsewhere, but we’d just be arguing opinions. :neutral_face:

I’ll delete the posts, I do feel bad to fan the flames in @ThePotanist 's thread.

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#14

To be fair, it might not be possible. But why think so negatively?? If its possible elsewhere, then it COULD be possible here. And the sustainability options make it worth looking into.

If you’re someone growing on 5 acres of land, you operate at a loss most years in this country. If you can add a high value crop that goes to be made into concentrates or edibles or carts, and insulate yourself from loss, why wouldn’t you? Especially if that crop can help you control herbicide resistant weeds and reduce specialist pest pressure? That’s a big enough upside for me to be interested

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#15

No worries! I like seeing different viewpoints and they are real life biases that need to be addressed! Didn’t take any offense from it!!

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#16

Its all good in the hood dude thats what makes this such a special place we can discusse and celebrate our differences on here dont feel bad homie no harsh in the mellow.No wrong answers here come as you are

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#17

This could be a great one for a crowd-sourced study - clone cuts grown with and without chosen companion plants. Could use f1 hybrid veggies & herbs for the companions, they’re very uniform.
Lot of us small growers could run a pair or 4 of plants in our spaces, then submit photos and send in samples to @ThePotanist for analysis. Would help with sorting out whether there are effects and whether those differ based on grow method.

I started growing basil beside my autoflowers because I saw a study suggesting it might boost terpenes, didn’t notice anything but it’s a great way to use the space well - the basil is ready to harvest right about when the autoflowers grow to need the space. Early on, it helps the soil moisture stay at good levels when the autoflower cannabis is really still too tiny to occupy the whole container.

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#18

Heck yes! That is something I would love to participate in (when I’m set up and ready for it…)

I spent some time reading through a few threads on trying to find the old “skunk weed” that a lot of us remember from back in the day. It seems that the thiol content is related to that. Sulfur might be part of what the plant uses to produce more thiols, so my thinking is that a companion plant that will introduce extra sulfur to the soil might help bring back the skunky good times.

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#19

congrats on the job! i’ve got all sorts of ideas on things to research, just have to gather them up and organize them.

i would think that it would be extremely hard to do something like this. not impossible, just that every participant has to be meticulous with it. it would be a good way to see what the different environments were but it may take shipping the same nutes to everyone in order to keep that the same. not sure if variation in batches would make that much difference though. i think it’s a great idea, don’t get me wrong, just that it takes a lot of organization. i’m in if anyone starts anything. i’ve got about an acre to play with this year but i can only grow hemp or some cbds, not the good stuff.

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#20

So the crowd sourced stuff is what I’m here for. As @sfzombie13 says it can get tricky, but I think there are ways to design it so its as easy as possible. Ive got a friend who works with growers for data collection so I am going to have to pick her brain.

I’m also really interested in the ways people actually grow outside. Especially from places (not necessarily US limited) where they have long traditions of growing. Thats how we adapt new cultivation styles and improve existing ones!

I’m so happy to see so many people here excited! Keep an eye out, ill try to update when I can! Im mostly limited to short bursts right now, but that should change. Im also trying to find out a way I can make my thesis free to view once I’m finished, that way yall can get a better idea of some of the work I’ve done and see the types of studies that I will continue to do!

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#21

:slight_smile: What I was thinking of is folks each providing their own control & trial plants - use your own methods, nutes, media, doesn’t matter what they are as long as you keep it the same between plants except for what is being tested.

Crowd sourced data is usually more varied and is likely to include some mistakes and inaccuracies, but the amount of data gathered can be so much larger than in a single lab study that ideally the “noise” can be filtered out.

I’m in open source software, and before that in teaching kids and organizing volunteer and community projects. People are a powerful force in groups, but steering the project is for sure totally different than when you’ve got a single entity in charge.

Its maybe a little like driving a very powerful piece of heavy equipment with variable power to the engine and a mushy steering mechanism…oops, took out that tree accidentally, but the whole building is down in 3 days instead of 3 months, so plant a new tree and move on. Don’t point it at anything really delicate, or expect to get exactly what you want exactly your way, (Boaty McBoatface, I’m looking at you​:rofl:) but wow what a rush to see what can be accomplished! :heart_eyes::star_struck::rofl::rofl:

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#22

@ThePotanist . Congratulations on the new job. :nerd_face: @logangrowgan2020 I know oldtimers who could grow outdoor pot that would “blow your head off”. :upside_down_face:Also, are you old enough to remember “Thai sticks”? All outdoor pot. :wink: @RainToday I like “Boaty McBoatface” :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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