A 7-horsepower pump with a 2-inch outlet lifts water a short distance up a hill from a natural artesian well where they made a small reservoir. It’s very good water. The pH ranges from 6.7-6.8 and has very few dissolved solids. They mix organic tea (humus, rabbit and chicken manure, seabird guano, bat guano, Atami stimulator and SuperThrive) and apply it via drip irrigation lines to the base of the plants. They pay a local electric company employee to help them tap into a line that runs through the area.

The volcanic alluvial plain soil is interspersed with patches of a spongy peat-moss-like substrate. They amend it with lava rock, perlite, worm castings, bat guano, and chicken and rabbit manure they collected locally. A nearby farmer raises trout in a few ponds. He drains the ponds every week into a tank. Once the manure’s settled to the bottom, he pumps the water out and lets the trout droppings dry in the sun. Nick and his crew collect the manure and add it to the fertilizer tea.

At the 5,000-foot elevation the temperature stays relatively cool—65-80 degrees F.—while the humidity varies from 40-60 percent. Temperatures seldom cause problems, but humidity is another story. The worst times are during and after the daily rains and in the mornings when moisture condenses inside the greenhouses. Problems are compounded during the last 15 days of flowering when buds swell.

To combat morning humidity, they close the walls on the greenhouses in the evening and ventilate heavily all night through the next morning until an hour and a half after sunrise. Thick dense buds from Dutch strains are the most affected by humidity. Sativa varieties grow the best, with 80 percent suffering no mold damage.

Mosca blanca (whitefly) and loppers, similar to caterpillars, are the primary insets to worry about in la selva. They use small predatory avejas (Encarsia Formosa wasps) to control whiteflies. It took them about three months to establish aveja breeding colonies in all five greenhouses. Once the colonies were in place, whitefly damage became negligible. Predatory preying mantises are native to the area as are numerous spiders and beetles. All are encouraged in the greenhouses and help control pests. Botrytis (bud mold) is the only recurrent problem. Keeping the greenhouses and surrounding area clean is paramount to disease and pest prevention.

Educating the locals is an ongoing process. Every day, just after breakfast, Nick and his main helpers lead grow classes on seedlings, transplanting, cloning, irrigation, distinguishing females from males and trouble-shooting. The rest of the day they work with the plants and smoke as much as they want.

“We feed them space cake and Ice-O-Lator fish soup, brownies, whatever we can put cannabis in,” explains Pato, the number two in command and Nick’s parcero (best friend), as he cracks open an Agila beer. “It’s a real cannabis college! Everybody selects and grows their own plants and takes care of them from beginning to end—then they smoke it! We all eat the same food and all do the same work. Some students are better than others. Some want to smoke good grass, but don’t want to work for it.”

Workers stay at the Casa Estudio for six months without leaving. They plant, water, weed, remove dead leaves and clean the sucker growth from the bottom of plants. They produce most of their own food (tomatoes, sunflowers, lettuce and other vegetables), and tend milk cows. Dinner, served after 6 pm when the sun goes down, generally consists of local produce, arepas (similar to corn tortillas), chicharon con frijoles (bacon with beans) and avenita typical (a drink made from oats). After dinner they watch grow videos from Nick’s outstanding collection.

Despite laws that treat cannabis like heroin or cocaine, most young Colombians smoke marijuana. There’s a thriving weed culture in Colombia complete with posters, songs and t-shirts. “About 80 percent of young Colombians use cannabis and ecstasy as the drugs of choice after alcohol and tobacco,” says Nick. “This is exactly opposite of what the world thinks about Colombia. Coke is out of fashion, for export only!”

Although not a jungle favorite, Lavender from Soma Seeds grew into nice big plants.

The climate was almost perfect year-round. Today the temperature is 75 degrees F. with 57 percent relative humidity.

There’s not enough money to be made in the cannabis trade for the coqueros (cocaine mafia) to be interested. “They’re not attracted to mellow sorts that grow marijuana,” say Pato. “They can’t intimidate us. They’re a group of very closed people. There was never a czar or a patrón that wanted to control us or marijuana.”

“Once a coquero asked me for a ton of marijuana for a client he had in Miami,” says Nick, “but this was a special request. They can’t make enough money with herb.”

The Colombian government and the DEA have bigger concerns than a few low-key marijuana growers. An odd helicopter flies over the greenhouses slow and low, looking for guerrillas who steal petroleum from the nearby pipeline.

Parcos instruct locals to leave the growers alone. They also tell the growers to not get drunk in town and to leave local women alone.

The parcos are a rough lot, filling their ranks with disgruntled guerrillas, thieves, kidnappers and ex-soldiers. They’re from many different ethnic backgrounds—Indian, black, white, mestizo. During their entire tenure growing, Nick and his group have had no trouble with locals or parcos. “They smile and are usually happy, but you know they could kill you on the spot if you cross one of them,” says Pato.

The greenhouses produce three crops a year from seed and up to 6 crops of clones. Yield is high: just under a pound per square yard, depending upon variety. The top 10 producing varieties in the greenhouses are: Taitanic (Flying Dutchman), Ultra Skunk (Dutch Passion), AK 47 (Serious), Sugar Babe (Paradise), Power Plant (Dutch Passion), Super Silver Haze (Sensi), Jamaican Pearl, Sage (THSeeds), Puna Budder and Chocolate Chunk. Nick notes that Taitanic is inexpensive and a pure sativa that smells like hash. It’s also the tallest strain (11.5 feet) and produces 26 ounces per plant. He says THSeeds’ strains have the most resin with the hardest buds and are the easiest to manicure.

Upon harvest, buds are hung on drying lines after the fan leaves are trimmed. The drying room is filled with circulation and vent fans and a heater to remove humidity from the structure. Branches are hung for four days, before manicuring by hand. A fast trimmer can manicure five pounds a day. Buds are then placed in brown paper bags where they dry for 15-20 days. The buds stay pliable—not too dry or too wet. They’re turned daily by hand in the bags to facilitate even drying.

The monos (buds) are packaged in Kellogg’s Corn Flakes boxes, taken to Colombian cities and sold for $300-400 per pound. Connoisseur dealers purchase 10-20 pounds at a time. This is a very good price when you consider local weed sells for about $10 a pound.

The trip down the mountain and back to town a few days later proves uneventful, despite the fact that we’re transporting 500 pounds of bud! I haven’t seen Nick since then, but I’m told that he and his pot-producing friends are using their skills to grow out their favorite varieties in an undisclosed location.

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