Marijuana and isolated spaces

[Timsup2nothin]

Consuming marijuana has also been associated with health risks i'm afraid. And afaik the stuff about pot smokers smoking less has no basis in fact.

If you know someone smoking thirty joints a day in 2015 tell them they need to find a different supplier. Thirty joints of pot grown with modern techniques should reduce any human being to a state of unconsciousness long before they even get close.

 

[CaptainF]

Even if you can't grow tomatoes you might still be able to grow pot. There's a reason that it is called weed. However, good pot is a different question. And three things that affect potency are uncontrollable in an outdoor environment.

A plant is a plant, but what makes it a drug is THC in the resin that the plant produces to protect leaves and (even moreso) flowers from the sun. So sunlight promotes resin formation, and an indoor grow can effectively be a torture chamber for the flowering plant without concern for length of daylight or passing clouds.

Yes, you can't control for sunlight, but you can be a Smart Person™ and know to plant in the early spring, so that you maximize sun exposure for your precious baby plant. Then when summer rolls around and the days are the longest of the year, you know junior will grow very big, bigger and stronger than he ever would indoors, because no grow lamp on earth can match the intensity of a long hot summer day.

Here's what High Times says:

Spoiler :

The glut of outdoor pot and consequent price drop has more than a few growers contemplating the idea of focusing on indoor only. This “crisis” is amplified by the fact that medical-marijuana dispensaries have lately demonstrated a strong preference for indoor product, giving credence to the myth that indoor pot is somehow superior to outdoor.

Erich Pearson, who runs the SPARC (San Francisco Patient and Resource Center) dispensary in San Francisco, is critical. “Dispensaries have not been educating the public,” he opines. “People are beginning to believe that indoor cannabis has a higher THC content. But the genetics of a plant remain the same whether it’s grown indoors or outdoors. We’ve grown the same seeds indoors and outdoors, and the THC level has remained the same. In fact, our outdoor Black Domina comes in at 18 percent, while our highest indoor product, an OG Kush, comes in at 16.5.

“People have not been told about the environmental benefits of growing outdoors. Dispensaries seem to prefer indoor because it’s a prettier product; outdoor pot is duller, not as glossy. But it’s not like outdoor pot is dirtier or even moldier. Steep Hill Labs, whom we rely on to test our products, states that there is no difference in mold content.”

And here's a review from a Portland, OR newsmag on an outdoor strain grown in S. Oregon that tested at 24.1% THC! Yowza!

A related factor that can't be controlled outdoors is rain. Those passing clouds that block the sun might double the problem by washing off the resin! Shoot down those clouds! Er...well...indoors is good.

You can't control rain, but you can be a Smart Person™ and check the weather very frequently, like I'm sure any other farmer-type individual does. Often times, especially if you grow in pots (heh) you can simply move them to an enclosure like a car port or any structure with a tarp or clear plastic stretched over it. Something simple like this would do the trick:

Spoiler :

Those last two photos were taken from this fun article about an outdoor grower in Port Angeles, WA, which is as cold and rainy as any a place in the pacific northwest. In spite of that, he still apparently produces good enough stuff to beat indoor grown buds in cannabis competitions, so there's that.

More to the point, many climates have little or no rain at all during the summer months, so often there isn't much to worry about anyway.

The third thing is pollination. That plant with the flowers pumping out resin to protect them? Once they are fertilized it will shift to making seeds instead of resin. So, how to keep those little bugs that flit from flower to flower from fertilizing them too quickly? We're already busy with the guns shooting at clouds, so who has time for shooting bees and butterflies?

You won't need to worry about shooting bees, as a Smart Person™ because they have nothing to do with pollination of marijuana. All known strains of cannabis are wind-pollinated, so you just need to make sure your grow site is not within a certain distance of male plants, like you might find at an industrial hemp farm. And of course, you also need to kill off any male plants that might be in your garden, which can also appear indoors.

Indoors. Bugzapper. Tortured virgin plants. Yeah, creating a sustainable climate controlled environment is a task. Understanding the operation of a hydroponic system takes some o' that thar book larnin'. But such is the modern world.

Indeed. Thank the gods, nature, and Al Gore for the Internet.

Back to your earlier comments about how you think outdoor cannabis is a bunch o' crap. Do you think it's really feasible for everyone currently smoking weed to only smoke indoor grown stuff? Me personally, I think our power grid would keel over before that came even close to happening.

 

[PicturesquePict]

I'm not entirely sure what the point being tried to made here is.

Me neither but I suspect it has something to do with a Weed Wizard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZI9MS3EoX4

Or, alternatively, with a Weed Seed Wizard: https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/weed-seed-wizard-0

 

[Yeekim]

The level of expertise demonstrated in this thread...

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The level of expertise demonstrated in this thread...

As an economist, I consider it important to keep up on growing industries.

 

[mrt144]

Dawgphood001, my hero!

One of the interesting things is LED lights both from the perspective of affect on plants and the power savings. The initial outlay is still cost prohibitive except for niche growing but the results have been amazing. Unfortunately they also can't be used in really small environments.

Something I haven't seen mentioned is how Sativa strains in particular aren't really viable in some indoor settings because of a few factors related to height at maturity and finicky preference with humidity. Despite the extensive crossbreeding that goes on believe it or not there are people working to preserve so-called landrace strains on which the backbone of all the marijuana out there.

 

[El_Machinae]

Is this a good time to point out that inhaling the smoke from incinerated vegetation is highly likely to lead to health complications like lung cancer?

Changes the odds, for sure.
But this thread is more along like "don't expose people to your secondhand smoke". I.e., the downstream effects of a person's choice.

 

[Hygro]

Is this a good time to point out that inhaling the smoke from incinerated vegetation is highly likely to lead to health complications like lung cancer?

Smoking cannabis is associated with no increases in lung cancer.

 

[illram]

Yes, you can't control for sunlight, but you can be a Smart Person™ and know to plant in the early spring, so that you maximize sun exposure for your precious baby plant. Then when summer rolls around and the days are the longest of the year, you know junior will grow very big, bigger and stronger than he ever would indoors, because no grow lamp on earth can match the intensity of a long hot summer day.

Here's what High Times says:



And here's a review from a Portland, OR newsmag on an outdoor strain grown in S. Oregon that tested at 24.1% THC! Yowza!



You can't control rain, but you can be a Smart Person™ and check the weather very frequently, like I'm sure any other farmer-type individual does. Often times, especially if you grow in pots (heh) you can simply move them to an enclosure like a car port or any structure with a tarp or clear plastic stretched over it. Something simple like this would do the trick:

Spoiler :

Those last two photos were taken from this fun article about an outdoor grower in Port Angeles, WA, which is as cold and rainy as any a place in the pacific northwest. In spite of that, he still apparently produces good enough stuff to beat indoor grown buds in cannabis competitions, so there's that.

More to the point, many climates have little or no rain at all during the summer months, so often there isn't much to worry about anyway.



You won't need to worry about shooting bees, as a Smart Person™ because they have nothing to do with pollination of marijuana. All known strains of cannabis are wind-pollinated, so you just need to make sure your grow site is not within a certain distance of male plants, like you might find at an industrial hemp farm. And of course, you also need to kill off any male plants that might be in your garden, which can also appear indoors.



Indeed. Thank the gods, nature, and Al Gore for the Internet.

Back to your earlier comments about how you think outdoor cannabis is a bunch o' crap. Do you think it's really feasible for everyone currently smoking weed to only smoke indoor grown stuff? Me personally, I think our power grid would keel over before that came even close to happening.

What Dawgphood001 said. Outdoor is alive and well, it just needs to be grown in the right environments. One reason we call Mendocino, Trinity County, and Humboldt County, California the "Emerald Triangle." No other place in the US produces more pot than the grows in this region and they are 90% outdoor. Billions of dollars of pot comes down from there to dispensaries in the Bay Area, LA, and illegally to Colorado precisely because smaller indoor operations in "legal" regulated areas cannot compete with the mass production possible in large outdoor grows. Also don't confuse "outdoor" with strictly open air--many outdoor operations are massive greenhouses--cheaply made, easy to move, and relatively easily climate controlled for extending the growing season.

And as El Mac pointed out in the OP, a lot of growers are doing really crappy things to the water ways and other things that to some extent is "policed" by the established growers in the area, but could be helped alot with more sourcing. That could happen with regulation, it can also happen at the retail level. It sort of is already happening but could be a lot better--cannabis consumers are to some extent becoming much more knowledgeable but the products are changing. For instance vaping and edibles are becoming way more popular and these involved processed cannabis products which may or may not be adequately sourced as the supply lines are so convoluted and quasi legal.

 

[Berzerker]

is vaping less damaging to the lungs etc?

 

[onejayhawk]

is vaping less damaging to the lungs etc?

Good grief, yes. Obviously so. There is no tar, soot or super heated gasses. A comparison would be to using a hooka.

The flip side is that the nicotine hit is purer. That causes its own problems.

J

 

[Farm Boy]

Changes the odds, for sure.
But this thread is more along like "don't expose people to your secondhand smoke". I.e., the downstream effects of a person's choice.

But simply, scale.

http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/Assets/DAS/DAAB/Marijuana_Production_in_California.pdf

I'm not fussed. If pot producers are somehow being way more toxic per acre than they should be, we can and should regulate them like every other horticulturalist. Get 'em under the farm program. But that'll take federal legality. I'm sure Monsanto will be happy to produce environmentally superior GMO weed when it hits major federally legal commercial production. Should crash the price of the product minus the middlemen too, which I would guess will mostly be the government and taxes. And, eventually, Monsanto/et all when the economies of scale start coming in for the market that doesn't feel like gardening for itself.

 

[CaptainF]

The level of expertise demonstrated in this thread...

Isn't the internet wonderful?

As an economist, I consider it important to keep up on growing industries.

Would you say you have a budding interest in this growing industry?

Dawgphood001, my hero!

One of the interesting things is LED lights both from the perspective of affect on plants and the power savings. The initial outlay is still cost prohibitive except for niche growing but the results have been amazing. Unfortunately they also can't be used in really small environments.

Yeah, those are the coolest, newest thing from what I can see. Correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the main advantages they have is the ability to produce any spectrum of light from the same bulb essentially, which means you don't need to swap out bulbs for different light spectra as you would with other types of lamps. Also they don't produce nearly as much heat as HPS or Metal Halide IIRC.

Hopefully they get less expensive and more compact as time goes on!

Something I haven't seen mentioned is how Sativa strains in particular aren't really viable in some indoor settings because of a few factors related to height at maturity and finicky preference with humidity. Despite the extensive crossbreeding that goes on believe it or not there are people working to preserve so-called landrace strains on which the backbone of all the marijuana out there.

I posted this image earlier from wiki:

Pretty well explains why most indoor growers can't grow sativas. I wish I could get my hands on some Acapulco Gold, Panama Red, Thai Stick or any of the other old-school outdoor landraces. From what I understand back in the day most potheads in the U.S. were smoking Sativas, since home grown hadn't really taken off yet and we were importing a lot of outdoor weed from places like Colombia, Thailand, Mexico, etc.

But nowadays most weed in the U.S. comes from home grow ops, many of which are indoor, where you can only grow "couch lock" indicas or at best some sort of hybrid. Don't get me wrong, I do like indicas as well but variety is the spice of life, as they say.

Smoking cannabis is associated with no increases in lung cancer.

Exactly this.

What Dawgphood001 said. Outdoor is alive and well, it just needs to be grown in the right environments. One reason we call Mendocino, Trinity County, and Humboldt County, California the "Emerald Triangle." No other place in the US produces more pot than the grows in this region and they are 90% outdoor. Billions of dollars of pot comes down from there to dispensaries in the Bay Area, LA, and illegally to Colorado precisely because smaller indoor operations in "legal" regulated areas cannot compete with the mass production possible in large outdoor grows. Also don't confuse "outdoor" with strictly open air--many outdoor operations are massive greenhouses--cheaply made, easy to move, and relatively easily climate controlled for extending the growing season.

And as El Mac pointed out in the OP, a lot of growers are doing really crappy things to the water ways and other things that to some extent is "policed" by the established growers in the area, but could be helped alot with more sourcing. That could happen with regulation, it can also happen at the retail level. It sort of is already happening but could be a lot better--cannabis consumers are to some extent becoming much more knowledgeable but the products are changing. For instance vaping and edibles are becoming way more popular and these involved processed cannabis products which may or may not be adequately sourced as the supply lines are so convoluted and quasi legal.

Concentrates and "dabs" are the future it seems. The new, fashionable way to get baked is to use hash oil in an electric vape pen. It seems like hash oil has gotten very cheap and very high quality in just the past few years, whereas before it was pretty expensive, seen as more of a special occasion indulgence.

That's another area legalization will help with, since most home makers of hash oil use butane to extract the product from cannabis, which can result in an explosion if you don't know how to do it right (in a well ventilated, preferably outdoor area). Lots of more professional set ups are coming along with legalization that use CO2 instead of butane which is obviously much safer while being just as effective.

But simply, scale.

http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/Assets/DAS/DAAB/Marijuana_Production_in_California.pdf

I'm not fussed. If pot producers are somehow being way more toxic per acre than they should be, we can and should regulate them like every other horticulturalist. Get 'em under the farm program. But that'll take federal legality. I'm sure Monsanto will be happy to produce environmentally superior GMO weed when it hits major federally legal commercial production. Should crash the price of the product minus the middlemen too, which I would guess will mostly be the government and taxes. And, eventually, Monsanto/et all when the economies of scale start coming in for the market that doesn't feel like gardening for itself.

Federal legality will make everything much easier for everyone. One day, probably soon...

 

[Farm Boy]

Federal legality will make everything much easier for everyone. One day, probably soon...

Given where we're starting from that is very true. But do try and keep that in perspective when everyone from MADD to liberal arts professors praying for the savior Malthus start getting an actual open say in designing policy.

 

[Lohrenswald]

Where/how do you guys figure out so much about these (illigal?) substances?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I think there is a misconception here about "indoor grown." Back in the day that meant "I have a plant in my closet with a grow light." Current market in LA (not to be argumentative with any NorCal or Oregon enthusiasts) is mostly supplied from climate controlled grow rooms built in warehouses. They aren't necessarily height limiting.

 

[onejayhawk]

I think there is a misconception here about "indoor grown." Back in the day that meant "I have a plant in my closet with a grow light." Current market in LA (not to be argumentative with any NorCal or Oregon enthusiasts) is mostly supplied from climate controlled grow rooms built in warehouses. They aren't necessarily height limiting.

For any indoor growing situation, compact is better. One reason is the lighting. Sunlight will penetrate layers of foliage. Lamp light, not so much. Alkso tall growth mean placing the light source higher, which makes it less effective at floor level.

Where/how do you guys figure out so much about these (illigal?) substances?

They are not illegal everywhere, such as Oregon. Even illegal things get research.

J

 

[illram]

Oakland has a few of these giant warehouses, SF does, heck even Lake Tahoe has some...they are everywhere. They still never match the output of outdoor, not even close. They're also easier to raid and more expensive to maintain, mostly due to higher rent/land value and associated costs of building maintenance, even for a non-habitable warehouse. Also don't forget Yuba county recently legalized large outdoor grows and there are plenty of remote areas in the valley and near the mountains in south and central California for outdoor as well. I guarantee you outdoor is supplying more of your market than you think. The only advantage local LA indoor has, (other than specific indoor product, if that's what someone wants) over the massive outdoor crops is transportation risks and costs.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

For any indoor growing situation, compact is better. One reason is the lighting. Sunlight will penetrate layers of foliage. Lamp light, not so much. Alkso tall growth mean placing the light source higher, which makes it less effective at floor level.

One word. Retractable. I think you might also be ignoring the improvements in lamp technology.

 

[onejayhawk]

One word. Retractable. I think you might also be ignoring the improvements in lamp technology.

Does not work that way. True, you can get lamps that can be raised, but there is always an diffusion issue. For most intents and purposes sunlight is exactly the same at ground level and at 100 meters. Lamp light is enormously different at 100 meters. You would be better with retractable roofing.

It is possible to tailor an indoor growing system to exceed outdoor. The investment in time and tech is usually prohibitive.

J