Montreal Mania

Two biker clubs, the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine, have been in turf wars over Montreal, Quebec real estate for years. The local Angels chapter has the dubious distinction of being the toughest and most violent in the world. The first thing I learned in Montreal is: don’t fuck with either gang! Montreal cops have their hands full just keeping the bikers in check, and care little about busting a few docile plant-loving potheads.

With a quarter of the enforcement budget doled out to Vancouver, BC authorities to bust marijuana grow shows, indoor growing is on “fast track” expansion. The only hitch is that growers are extremely quiet about their growing endeavors. At first I thought it was because of the cops, but after talking to numerous growers, I found it’s the bikers they truly fear. Once a member of an organized biker gang finds out you have a grow room, they pay you a visit to make you an offer you can’t refuse. When you get a “knock and talk” from these guys, it’s way more serious than the Royal Canadian Mounted Police showing up on your doorstep. You are given two simple choices: (1) work for them. They protect you, tell you when and how much to grow and the price they will pay for grade “A” bud, and “you better not fuck it up”. Or (2) they take your shit, lights, bud, money and whatever else they want. Not opening the door or duking it out in court are pipe dreams! The cops can’t help; all you can do is move. Growers stay quiet and tend to associate only with small cliques of trusted friends. It is taboo to utter a word about grow operations to a soul outside the nucleus. In spite of these formidable obstacles, Quebec growers produce some of the best smoke in the world.

In contrast, growers in other parts of the world are rewarded with high yields when they share information. Come on a grow show tour of Montreal, Vancouver, BC and southern Switzerland to see how free flowing information helps growers harvest more dope.

Regardless of the laws imposed by oppressive bikers and governments, cannabis adheres to the rules set forth by Mother Nature. Natural law requires the proper proportions of air, light, water, nutrients and a stable growing medium for a plant with strong genetic characteristics to produce to maximum potential. Growers that understand how to communicate with Mother Nature always have a cannabis cohort.

White perlite on soil mix surface keeps evaporation to a minimum and prevents algae growth.

Forty-lamp Swiss grow room is packed with plants. Every single lumen of light is used.

A breath of fresh air

Air is the most important element in the grow equation, but since it is invisible, air is often forgotten or discounted. When we walked into the first grow show, the most “high-tech” garden on the tour, we were whacked with stifling 90-degree temperatures and 70 percent plus relative humidity. The slow-growing sickly plants did not smell, even though they had been flowering for three weeks.

“Interesting room,” I said. “This place is totally decked out, too bad plants are under the weather”.

“Yeah, we are pretty proud of it too,” said one of the growers. “We just need to fine tune things in here a little bit. You know Jorge, it takes money to make money, and we spared no expense here. We plan to make a bundle on this place. According to our calculations, we will harvest more than 20 pounds a month.”

The other grower grinned. You could see the dollar signs in his eyes.

To solve the heat problem, the growers installed and hard wired in two brand new industrial air conditioners. But when they hooked up the high-amp-drawing air conditioners, they kept throwing breaker switches. The unused air conditioners also took up valuable grow space. Meantime, they had lined all 48 ballasts on shelves just below the ceiling. It hadn’t crossed anybodies mind to move the hot, heat generating ballasts out of the grow area. This simple act would have lowered the ambient temperature 5-10 degrees!

The air conditioners were installed as an afterthought, when two 1200 CFM blowers would not lower heat and humidity to acceptable levels. Theoretically, one 1200 CFM intake blower and a 1200 CFM extraction blower should change the air in the 6,300 cubic foot rooms in 5.25 minutes. These numbers look good on paper, but when put to use, other dynamics prevailed. The fans were cranked up full speed 24 hours a day. They figured that if the air changes once every 5 minutes, all the hot air would be driven out and replaced with new air. What they didn’t figure was that air stratifies with cool air sinking and warm air rising. The input blower was placed near the ceiling and the extraction blower near the floor! Airflow and circulation was also blocked by the lack of adequate oscillating circulation fans. Circulation fans were placed haphazardly around the room. The fans pushed the hot humid air around above plants, creating little or no benefit. The stagnant muggy air was so thick between the plants you could almost see fog!

An expensive CO2 generator discarded in a corner was never hooked up because it generated too much heat.

Air in the other three rooms on the tour felt fresh and invigorating, like a cool gentle summer breeze. The temperature in each of the three rooms ranged from a low of 72 degrees F., to a high of 76 during the day and about 65 degrees at night. Humidity ranged from about 40 percent during the day to 55 percent at night.

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