Cultivating Cannabis:
A Year in the Grow Room
Introduction:
With a quarter of 2024 already past, let’s dive into this year’s cannabis-growing plan. In this blog post, I look forward to walking you through the planned-out details of this detailed growth schedule. With six unique genetics, I aim to complete a micro phenohunt of each this year to find a few plants worthy of making a mother for multiple harvests of high-quality cannabis flower. I am excited to track and write about these grows for you to follow along with your plants as I walk you through the entire process of my growing system and the techniques I implement. We will start with the basics and slowly add details and depth of information with the continued updates throughout the year. Let’s begin transitioning these delicate seeds into rich and bountiful harvests of resin-dense buds full of flavour and aroma.
Seedling Period: Nurturing New Beginnings
March is our first seed drop of the year, beginning with the germination of Thumbprint Genetics Tokyo Pave and Green Lab Genetics Blizzard of Oz. Both of these genetics have massive potential for medicinal relief and pain control. Tokyo Pave is a cross of Compound Genetics Strawberry Pave and Thumprints own Shiatsu Kush. The Shiatsu Kush effects focused on physical relief and pain management, and the Strawberry Pave provides a cerebral leaning experience to the impact, helping round out the potential relief. Blizzard of Oz is a cross of Pure Michigan and Winter Frost. Having had the opportunity to smoke Pure Michigan from a few different gardens, I know the physically relieving high it can provide when grown well. I don’t have any information on the Winter Frost Genetics, so I am excited to see how this will affect the overall experience and smoke.
After starting with pain-relieving and body focused effects, the goal will remain on finding tasty medicinal experiences but more of a cerebral uplift and emotional relief effects for all day use. The genetics I have picked this year have a vast potential for tasty and relieving effects but range significantly in the overall experience and flavour profiles. Our second hunt is focused on the rich and acidic terpene profiles of the Garlissimo and Pineapple Diesel x Dirty Taxi. Then we lean into the sweet and rich experiences from the Mango Waffles and Double Chocolate seeds.
We plan to start the 2025 growth year with October’s seed drop. Currently, I have Thumbprint Genetics’ Magma or Green Lab Genetics’ Pure Michigan x Ogeeze as my two placeholders. This is the only aspect of the schedule that could be changed as we collect and buy more seeds in 2024. I will also adjust for the experiences we find and the viability of cloning and maintaining a healthy mother plant in all of the seeds we drop or clones I acquire in 2024.
Flower Period: Blossoming Beauties
After 14 to 15 weeks from starting the seeds in our Jiffy Pods, the plants have grown enough structurally above and below the ground to support a hardy yield of flower. Our first two genetics to be transferred into our flower tent in April are the two Shiatsu Kush F2 from Thumbprint Genetic and two Bomber Berries I have cloned from a previous grow. A total of 10 weeks scheduled in the flower tent will give us a buffer for the genetics that need an extra week of flower. If we can harvest earlier than the planned day, I will shift the next plants into the flower tent but maintain a vegetative growth light schedule until the scheduled flowering period.
As the summer months come and pass, we will be able to harvest and enjoy the initial run of Shiatsu Kush F2 and Bomber Berries plants that we started in April. While smoking on this past bounty, I will enjoy the growth and flowering of the Tokyo Pave and Blizzard of Oz plants from our seed drop in March. The combination of the fruit and fuel that the Tokyo Pave and Blizzard of Oz will complement the remaining Shiatsu Kush F2 and Bomber Berries flower from the summer.
When our days slowly began to get shorter, and the temperatures dip in Fall, we switched to the Pineapple Diesel x Dirty Taxi, and Garlissimo plants going deeper into flower. The acidic and gassy experience of these genetics will help to break up the berry-dominant offerings of our last two drops. A key factor to remember is I’m looking to find genetics that is good for both flower consumption and concentrate production (Live Hash Rosin and Live Resin). By the time November comes along with the long nights and snow, we will be able to harvest and enjoy the sharp tones of these genetics.
The holiday season will be a frosty experience in my house as we enjoy the final weeks of the Mango Waffles and Double Chocolate grow coming to a close. Even though this will be a harvest in the first weeks of 2025, I will still consider this my final harvest of the year. The earthy and fruity blend that these two genetics will have to offer is a perfect complement to the holiday baking and meals that come along with this time of the year. I can not wait to see which of these genetics I love the most and keep for the foreseeable future.
Clone Period: Propagating Perfection
Once the plants have been under the flowering light cycle for a week or two, I like to take clones from our plants. I have a few reasons for this approach to my cloning process; however, the drawbacks do turn most new growers away from cloning in flower. The first significant drawback of cloning in the first weeks of the flower is that if your clones are not successful, you are not likely able to gather a fresh set of clones without sacrificing key bud sites. Secondly, the clones take longer to root out and begin vegetative growth.
The benefits of this cloning process are the two key reasons I utilize it. The first is that your plant will naturally maintain vigorous and fast vegetative growth during the plant’s ‘stretch’ period in the early flower. These plants will also naturally train easier than the original due to this improved growth and stretch, creating a wider crown shape in growth with minimal effort. Secondly, this process naturally culls the weakest genetics. I intend to find a mother plant worth keeping for continuous growth cycles with the clones, but I need only the most robust genetics. This benefit for me completely negates the downsides to this cloning process since I am using it to kill of the weak genetics, even if they are something I love.
The initial batch of clones I take from these genetics will be grown utilizing Remo Nutrients or whatever concentrated nutrient I use (bottled or dry blends). Except for the one clone, I plan to operate as a mother if I am impressed with the effects, high-yielding concentrates, or overall smoking quality and flavour. Using the readily available nutrients of the bottle and dry blends in comparison to the living soil from the initial grow cycle will give me an idea as to which method provides the best end product at harvest.
Harvest and Reflection
As we put in all this work throughout the year, the last thing we want to do is waste all this time and effort. Depending on the end goal of the flower, I will allow the trichomes to mature more for flower consumption than I would for a therapy live resin. By consistently observing the flower with a jeweller’s loupe, I can get a rough idea of the ratio of amber to cloudy trichome heads.
I will schedule 10 to 14 days to properly dry the flower before we do the final trim and jar the buds up for the cure. If I plan to utilize the flower for concentrate production, I will harvest, bag and then freeze the flower to preserve the quality of the experience from that day. For the flower, I will cut the branches off the core plant, buck off any fan leaves left on it, and hang it in a cardboard box to dry for up to two weeks. After I find the combination of small branches snapping and buds bouncing back when squeezed, it is time for the final trim and jar.
I can not wait to walk you through each of these grows and share with you all the highs and lows of this year’s growth cycle. I believe we have the potential to find ourselves some hidden gems within the genetics that I want to drop. The only significant change that I can foresee to this schedule would be the addition of a new veg tent to help speed up the process and allow me to harvest consistently every five to six weeks—allowing me to dive into and grow more of these genetics that I have in the bank.