Can you tell me how other growers do it?

Case Study, Soilless Mix in Grow Bags, Excerpted from Case Studies, Indoor Marijuana Horticulture, The Indoor Bible

This is just one of four case studies in Indoor Marijuana Horticulture, The Indoor Bible.

Case Study – Soilless Mix in Grow Bags

Andrew

Growing Statistics

Yield:	11.5 ounces (322 grams)
Cost:	1st crop: $650 ($54.70 per ounce) 2nd crop: $130 ($11.30 per ounce)
Space:	120 square feet
Watts:	1040

Cloning: 60 clones for 3 weeks, use 2, 40-watt fluorescents, 18 hours per day, in 4-inch pots of soilless mix.

Vegetative growth: 47 plants for 2 weeks; use a 1000-watt super metal halide in 4-inch pots.

Flowering: 47 plants for 8 weeks, use a 1000-watt super metal halide in 3-gallon grow bags

Harvested: plants are 18 – 24 inches tall and yield 11.5 ounces of dried bud. feet tall in summer.

Andrew is a smart guy, has a good job, wife and family. He is successful in everything he does including growing great marijuana indoors. Andrew has been growing a small garden for more than 25 years. He grows for his own needs and to have enough on hand to share with a few friends occasionally. For 15 years, before civil forfeiture and RICO laws and mass Drug War hysteria took America by storm, Andrew grew outdoors. He moved his garden indoors in 1990 to protect his family, their assets and himself from the madness, lies, violence, mistrust and most of all, the so-called “peace officers” that take personal pride in arresting “criminals” such as Andrew.

In early July of 1990, Andrew took two cuttings from each of 10, four-month-old predominately indica plants growing among the tomatoes in his garden. He did not know which plants were male or female. "Cloning for Sex" would give Andrew the answer. With a pair of scissors, he took two, 3-inch cuttings from each plant, labeling each parent plant and corresponding clone. He rooted the clones in 4-inch pots of fine soilless mix. He trimmed the lower sets of leaves off the clones, swirled them in a mix of Dip-N-Grow to induce roots faster and watered with a mild solution of seaweed to help ease shock and prevent wilt. Once in the 4-inch pot of soilless mix, Andy covered the pot with a plastic baggie and held it in place with a rubber band around the container. He put the 20, clones in 4-inch pots on a large cookie sheet to help contain the run-off water.

Andy put the cookie sheet of clones in an upstairs window that cannot be seen by outsiders. Filtered sun shines in the south-facing window most of the day. Every afternoon when he arrived home after work, Andy inspected the rooting clones to ensure they were healthy, before covering them with a light-tight cardboard box to maintain a 12-hour photoperiod.

The clones always looked good. Their leaves were always stretching out horizontally in search of light. He watered the clones only once the first week, by pouring water in the cookie tray and letting the soilless mix absorb it from below. The excess water remained in the cookie sheet.

At the end of the 8th day, some of the clones were wilted and sickly. He sopped up the excess water in the tray with a sponge and set a towel under the pots to absorb water overnight. The rooting medium dried and was no longer waterlogged. Most of the clones were healthy three days later, but 6 were still a little sickly. Andrew had given them too much water and not enough drainage, driving necessary air out of the root zone. Letting the soil dry restored the moisture/air balance in the medium. The plastic baggie humidity tents were enough to maintain moist conditions and Andrew did not water any more.

Eighteen healthy rooted clones remained at the end of the third week. Leaf tips were turning yellow and white roots grew from drain holes in the 4-inch pots. Andrew carefully slid the clone root balls from the container. Sure enough, the subterranean stem had sprouted and grown a mass of succulent white healthy roots.

Male and female flowers were also very easy to distinguish after three weeks of a 12-hour photoperiod. Even with the 2 dead clones, Andrew knew for sure he had 6 female plants. He dried all of the males by hanging them upside down in a cardboard box. He was careful not to bring pollen into the grow room. He transplanted the 12 female clones into one-gallon pots and set them back on the windowsill. Every night Andrew placed a box over the plants to retain a 12-hour photoperiod. Six weeks later, Andrew harvested an ounce and a half of loosely packed buds from the small females.

Andrew took a total of 50 clones from the six females in his outdoor garden. He swirled the new clones in Dip-N-Gro before putting them in 4-inch pots of soilless mix. This time he put clones below two 48-inch, 40-watt fluorescent tubes and gave clones 18 hours of light.

Andrew started preparing the spare 10 x 12 feet bedroom in the basement. He removed the furniture and thoroughly cleaned everything with a 5 percent bleach solution. Andrew painted everything – walls, ceiling and doors – flat white. He covered the floor with a 14 x18-foot painter’s dropcloth, curling the edges up about 6 inches up the walls and securing them with staples. The dropcloth formed a large, protective tray for the excess irrigation water and accidents. Andrew purchased 100, 3-gallon grow bags, hydroponic fertilizer, 24-hour timer and a 1,000-watt super metal halide with a horizontal hood and remote ballast. He went to a wholesale nursery to buy six, 4 cubic yard bails of soilless mix.

Using sheetrock screws, Andrew affixed a 6-foot 2 x 4 in the center of the ceiling, securing it to the floor joists above. Hooks and screws can now be fastened securely and safely into the 2 x 4 and not damage the ceiling. Andrew mounted a hook in the 2 x 4 in center of the room. He hung the 1000-watt super metal halide bulb and hood from the hook and adjusted the height with a swag lamp chain salvaged from the 70s.

After three weeks of rooting, 47 of the 50 clones had strong root systems. He filled 47 three-gallon grow bags with coarse soilless mix, set them six at a time into the laundry room sink and saturated them with water, letting the excess drain freely down the drain. Once saturated, he opened a hole in the soilless mix with his hand and carefully set the root ball of each clone into the hole. He packed the medium around the root ball. Once the sink was full of 6 transplanted clones, he watered them again with a mild solution of hydroponic fertilizer and seaweed. After transplanting, he huddled the 3-gallon pots under the HID. He set the lamp for 18-hours days and kept it 4 feet above transplants to ease shock. Three days later he lowered the bulb to 2.5 feet above clones.

Two weeks later, the clones were well established and 6 – 8 inches tall. As the plants grew, Andrew moved the lamp progressively higher and spread the 3-gallon pots into a larger circle. The clones used about 20 gallons of water the second week of vegetative growth. But some of the plants used more water than others. Andrew was having a difficult time figuring out which plants needed irrigating and when. He bought a moisture meter and used it for a few weeks. Then he figured out it was easier to lift each pot to see if it is light and needs water or heavy and needs none.

To water, Andrew attached a half-inch hose to the spigot of the laundry room sink. He attached the other end to a watering wand with an on/off valve and a pressure breaker aerating head. He mixed hydroponic fertilizer in a 2-gallon watering can and applied it to soilless mix after each watering.

To keep the project away from his children’s enquiring minds, Andrew locked the basement door, which in turn curtailed air flow. Large fan leaves began to yellow and drop. Andrew noticed the leaves were not crisp and robust like the marijuana leaves in his veggie garden. They were limp with curled down edges from over-watering and slow nutrient uptake.

Andrew installed an 8-inch vent fan attached to a thermostat and vented it out the chimney, which happened to run alongside one of the grow room walls. Knocking a hole in the side of the chimney took a few hours and two trips to the hardware store for supplies. Once installed, the fan easily changed the air in the room, lowering the temperature and humidity. Plants resumed normal growth. He installed a fresh air vent in the ceiling so new air was drawn in through the crawl space.

He cut the light from 18 to 12 hours a day to induce flowering. Andrew also changed the nutrient mix to a super bloom hydroponic fertilizer. Vegetative growth slowed, stems elongated about 9 inches, large leaves began to yellow and flowers started to emerge.

After 6 weeks of flowering, the house began to reek of weed. The more resin that glistened on flower buds, the more it smelled. The fan helped evacuate some of the smelly air, but downdrafts sometimes whirled skunky smells next to the house. To remedy, Andrew bought an odor-eating product at a hydroponic store.

The pistils at the bottom of the buds were dying about as fast as they were growing from the top at the end of the eighth week of flowering. One night, Andrew cut a bud from one of the ripe females, dried it unceremoniously in the microwave oven, and smoked it. He knew then, tonight was the night. He harvested the entire garden with a pair of garden clippers, cutting entire plants off at the stem. Andrew plucked the large leaves off, tossed them into a paper grocery bag and hung the plants upside down on three portable indoor clotheslines. He kept the vent fan on 24 hours a day to keep the air changed and dissipate the smell. With just an hour in the evenings to manicure buds, Andrew trimmed for three nights. When finished the harvest weighed in at 11.5 ounces of resin-coated manicured bud.