(I’ve posted this here hoping it’s the appropriate forum)
For those growers of 20+ years experience, with hindsight, what was the most difficult cannabis cultivation lesson or challenge you overcame in those first decades? (not legal/courts related just growing)
AND…
How did you overcome that situation or change your methods?
Thanks from a youngster,
CannabisSequoia
Not quite 20 years yet, about 16…
Best advice I can give is to not over complicate things…
“Simplicity is the key to brilliance” -Bruce Lee.
Slow down, you need patience not speed…
When seeing what works, change things one thing at a time otherwise you will not know what worked and what didn’t.
not getting ripped or run through or done i think is a no brainer
The time you get botrytis on all your main colas, 'cause you assumed they’d be fine for 2 days.
Im at about 15 yrs n my advice is be ruthless. You get pests be4 flower cut your losses asap n start fresh. A plant shows slightly slower growth, pull it. No routing for the underdog, only the strong survive in my jungle.
Been at this 38 years. I’d say that taking in cuts from people would be my biggest downfall. I went 28 years with almost zero bugs. Had some white flys once but beyond that I never had so much as an ant in my grow ops.
First thing I get out the gate after a trade is spider mites. WTF are these white spots all over the place? By the time I realized what I had it was too late. I’d start pretty much from scratch again and be going just fine. I’d read some BS online about some BS strain and of course had to have it.
Boom, I get Broad Mites, and this was before they were even seen in the cannabis world. This would be my biggest loss, and the nail in the coffin to me taking in cuts anymore. I would end up loosing 38 strains of which some I had for 20 years. Absolutely devastating to a collector like myself. I was able to get a few back from friends I had sent stuff to, and even then one guy sent me spider mites again. FML
I want to say that was 2012, and outside of me getting a few things back from my group, I just won’t take anything from anybody anymore.
You want to know the sad part? I’ve found most of the hype around these killer strains we read about is just that, a bunch of damn hype. Lot of people wouldn’t know a good genetic if it hit them upside the damn head.
Stay bug free, grow from seed and find your own next best thing. Only you know what you like anyway.
I have to agree… never had a single problem til started importing cuts… got all kinds of problems. Pm, mites etc… now from seeds again and there’s not a problem, I don’t spray anything at all on my girls.
You’ll be hard-pressed to find more information in fewer words than these posts. I’m having trouble adding something new. So far we have -
I would add. Get everything you need in advance, for the exact same reasons that you don’t go shopping for parmesan while your chicken cutlets are cooking.
When you think the plant is ready to harvest, it’s probably not. Tricomes are just a part of when a bud is ready. You can turn your tricomes by touching a plant or even by usiing the wrong nutrientes at the wrong time.
i’m pretty sure i got thrips from bringing an outdoor plant indoors
Thank you all for your responses, especially to LED_seedz.
Worcestershire_Farms: I was thinking the same thing-- agreed & thank you.
Dewb & Pedro_Bann: I’m reminded of a couple statements by Cannabis notables: “After 3 years a grower thinks they know everything” (either Jorge or Ed), and… Mr. Soul(BrosGrimm) “What to beginners do? They overdo everything” (in reference to his learning curve with STS or GA…overdid it the 1st time).
casperdeigh & Scissor-Hanz: paranoia & pitbulls 
Skiball: that seems like a good strategy. inexperience & little access/resources to seeds & cuts have lead me to use bag seed i found in the street, dispensary clones, 
you’re sooo right, LED_seedz.
Viva_Mexico: !que viva! last years outdoor harvest was at least a few weeks early and my medicine was not very medicinal… closer to a caffeine/psilocybin blend. 
the bubble hash resulted better, i believe to be because of the multi-strain blend.
legalcanada: i’m pretty sure you did, too. alas, i grew vegetables & ornamentals for about 30 years before cannabis, and basically ‘need’ to have a few ornamental houseplants. i compost & have chickens. my neighbors’ lots are big, overgrown, neglected…full of random shit. so absent a serious lifestyle change, or some bio-security staging areas in my hallway & bedroom, i’ll be walking the line, unfortunately. i brought in a couple of 'mitey plants from outdoors & didn’t realize it for a month. doh. 
I was afraid that 20years+ experience might have been “over-doing it” (ha!)
2 years ago I began my first outdoor medical grow, aiming for 2 lbs from 6 plants.
A hydrofarm catalog was eye-opening about the state of things.
Having little expertise in cannabis (except for some bonehead friends) I turned to books first, have read most of them, and later in '16, to YouTube.
The results were very satisfying and convinced me to never turn back.
A few caterpillars, 1 hermed out, but otherwise had plenty herb to meet my needs and share.
I had no idea how many people were on youtube claiming/displaying cannabis cultivation.
For about a year I watched Subcool, who got me to make some of his soil recipe & burn my plants. He was entertaining at best, but repugnant at worst, and ackowledged his own lack of knowledge, but since then I’ve abandoned the weednerd show non-sense & several others.
The shows that have since been helpful have been “Shaping Fire”, “TalkingCannabis”, and anything ever spoken by Mr. Kevin Jodrey of Wonderland.
It was near and dear to me when he said “the people with the greatest need for medical cannabis have the least access” (because we can’t work, make much money, pay 600/oz).
My outdoor garden last year was about 80% lost to caterpillar, thrip, mite, & who-know-what-else damage. Incredible disappointment. Bubble bags got that 80%, but hash is to flower as wine is to whiskey, not my preferred daily thing. I sprayed nothing at all, relying on the good luck of my first year’s results. It’s possible that my first harvest generated the very pests that returned hungry for more.
My plants were magazine-worthy queens until about week 2 of flowering…& the insects just descended from hell, forcing me to cull like a nazi. Only 1 plant came out close to finished. Waah.
I plan to use Monterey bT & Spinosad sprays, have started using their pyrethrin-neem spray as i’ve needed it. I don’t know if I can afford predator/beneficial insects, but they do exist around the garden.
Can bT spray be used safely through the blooming? Spinosad? I’m very hesitant about it but the insect-damage-loss last year was devastating, both materially & spiritually.
I have my first of 4 planned outdoor(light-dep.) harvests in veg, about 2 weeks from flipping. They are indoors & happy & will go out to a greenhouse, from 18/6 to 11/13, and be pretty stressed, but hey–so am i.
Thanks y’all… can’t write intelligently any more this morning.
Tip 1 : Do not change anything just before you leave your plants. Once, I adjusted a section of pipe before I went away for a week or two abroad (I have a doser unit that takes care of things).
Didn’t notice I had propped up the ball on my float valve, which meant no water entering my tank.
Needless to say, I came back to find brown, dead, dry plants.
That was my biggest loss from the most avoidable mistake.
The solution is to do all your changes early, then watch them for a while and test each change before you leave your babies. Try not to change something then leave your plants without seeing the effect of the change. Double check everything if you change anything.
Tip 2 : Not taking cuttings from other people has already been covered but I also endorse this.
Tip 3 : A friend once got some of his friends to help him with daily tasks, topping up tanks, pruning etc
One day he got a call from his wife telling him the shed was on fire, the fire brigade and police were there, and he should come home.
Turns out his friends had spilled some water when they were working which then caused an electrical fire after they had left. Possibly they moved something which then leaked onto electrics.
NEVER have anybody except yourself deal with the equipment, plants, and liquids that could burn down your home and possibly lead to your arrest. ALWAYS do everything yourself. And double check your work.
Tip 4 : Always have your electrics higher than water can rise to, be sprayed up to, or pour/spill onto. If this is not possible, cover them with a flap of plastic (as long as the device does not get too hot) so that if any liquid comes from above it will run over and then off, rather than into, your electrics.
I would echo the part about “only change 1 thing at a time” especially if things are going well. Once you get a good crop harvested you have be very careful making changes as you could move in the wrong direction.
Which leads me to my second tip - keep meticulous notes and records of everything you do. I went through “beginners’ luck” for a year and then my crops started failing and it took years to figure out why. Now I know the exact amount of everything in my soil mix so I can make a successful batch anytime and keep replicating the success.
If someone asks “how much perlite is in there” or “how much compost” or what type of nutes do you use and how much, you should know the precise answers. Otherwise you’re just relying on luck to have a good crop.
Agreed full heartedly 110%!!!
You might feel a little silly writing down redundant numbers and data, but a year or 2 or 5 from now you can go back and see your method and how you obtained your results. It’s easily to forget small details that are important.
If it happens once, it’s s fluke. If you can replicate it over and over, it’s a fact.
i would not use either after 2 weeks of flower. i know commercial flowers will fail testing in CA if spinosad is present so there must be some reasoning there, but it may just be banned for killing pollinators (that’s why its banned in canada). both are on this list of ‘safe up til harvest’ pesticides. i used method 1 pps up until 2 weeks from harvest with no problems.
also note concentrations of residual pesticides etc will be greatly increased if making extractions/concentrates
It’s much better to spend your effort and $ growing the healthiest plants possible… it’s been literally years since I’ve sprayed anything on my plants, (I don’t foliar feed either). biggest pest problem is fungus gnats and they’re fairly easy to control…
i think he’s growing outside… @cannabissequoia maybe you can also release beneficials like spiders, lacewings, mantis’ etc i’m not too sure try if you can build up a population or not
Hard lessons =
Never share a grow op.
Deal with ‘The Borg’ properly, Spider Mites could try the patience of a saint.
Never believe the instructions when it comes to nutrients.
Don’t use any additives until you learn to grow a decent yielding plant without them.
Started in 1996 but there’s some dead space in there.
Ill tell you that you can take any plant from any company and make it shine. The genetics are in there and its nurture over nature.
This plant has adapted and become symbioticaly entwined with us. so from bag seed to 1500.00 hype strains be sure your grow is dialed in first.
You’d be surprised what a dollar a seed knock off can do!