WHEN RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA becomes legal in Oregon in July 2015, each household will be able to grow up to four plants. While plenty of people will be content with store-bought bud, harvesting one’s own seems to fit in with a particularly Portlandian mentality. After all, this is a city of gardeners.

So maybe you’ll decide to start growing for yourself, because c’mon, it’s just a plant. A weed, in fact! And it’s far less expensive. Let’s look at the most basic first steps—the genetics of your plant(s), and the form in which they arrive.

Start by deciding what type of cannabis you want to grow. If you have sleep issues, pain management concerns, or are one uptight, stressed-out, Type A++ piece of work, you’ll want an indica-dominant strain. If you’re seeking support for creative endeavors, need to clean the house, or want to avoid the dreaded couch-lock syndrome, go with sativa-dominant strains.

You can research the lineage and effects of most any strain using the web. Just type in the strain name and “marijuana,” and you’ll get more than enough information on the strains you are interested in growing. Where it gets trickier is the form in which you obtain that strain. You’ll need to decide if you want to grow from seed or clone, and if by seed, what type.

A clone is nothing more than a cutting taken off a plant—in this case, you’ll want a female plant—that is an exact genetic replica. With a razor blade, some rooting compound, and a little patience, you’ll soon have a plant that’s ready to grow. Clones can be acquired from a friend who has a strain you want to try, by visiting a local dispensary, or even via delivery services.

Or you can grow from seed, where the options can get confusing. A few dispensaries around town currently carry seeds, but for the widest selection you’ll need to order from a “Seed Bank.” These are businesses that provide viable seeds in several forms.

Regular seeds: Sold in packs of five or 10, these are seeds that may be male or female. You want the female, but won’t know what you have until you sprout them and grow them out long enough to determine the sex. With better seed banks, you can expect at least 50 percent of the seeds to be female.

Feminized: These are seeds that have been manipulated to always produce female plants. The tradeoff is yield and potency, both of which can be diminished. Some seed banks have addressed this issue and insist that obstacle has been overcome.

Auto flower: These are seeds that have been developed to grow into female plants that don’t require switching your light cycle. Once sprouted, they grow until they automatically flower, making your job that much easier. While the yield is good, the potency is lacking for certain strains.

Always research seed banks and strains before investing, and then get to growing. Some of the most rewarding cannabis you can enjoy comes from your own garden.

Joshua Jardine Taylor is the Mercury's Senior Cannabis columnist and correspondent, and has written "Cannabuzz" since 2015.

13 replies on “Cannabuzz: The Week in Marijuana”

  1. As dispensaries falsely advertise, using bait and switch tactics, such as offering potent top shelf strains while actually selling feral ditch weed smuggled in from Tijuana, growing your own is a much more likely way of obtaining decent weed. Quality seeds will usually have an 80% germination rate, so a five pack of seeds ought to provide four plants. With a limit of four plants per household, you will want all female plants. Breeding necessitates hundreds of phenotypes in order to have the widest selection from which to isolate desired traits.

    Buy ‘Feminized Seeds’, which have been manipulated to produce all female plants.

    Chocolope, by DNA Genetics, is potent, high yielding Sativa dominant, high in THC, low in CBD, flowering in 9 weeks.

    LA Ultra, by Resin Seeds, is a predominately Inda hybrid cross between OG Kush, G-13, and LA Confidential. It’s high in CBD as well as THC, producing high yields, flowering in 7 weeks.

  3. If you want to try your hand at breeding with a four plant limit, then you might get lucky with an F1, first generation. As long as you use two stable strains to cross, the the F1 seeds ought to be consistent, but it might not have the exact combined traits which you seek. It can take thousands of crosses with a widely divergent assortment of phenotypes to acquire the combination desired, but there are quite a few wonderful F1’s on the market. The trouble with growing from crosses of F1’s, is that the next generation, F2, will result in the greatest variety of phenotypes, so you will not get the same plant that you grew the first time. Bottom line, keep buying factory fresh feminized seeds for each new crop, or else move to California, get a medical permit, and grow up to 100 plants per crop. The best breeders plant thousands per crop, however, in order to maximize diversity of selection and speed up the development time. It takes at least 7 generations, F7, to stabilize a strain, so that the F1s will all be consistently the same. That being said, sometimes you can cube a back crossed F1 with one of the original stable parent strains, and get a tolerably stabilized strain, if you are satisfied with that resulting strain.

  4. A Punnett Square shows the genotype*s two individuals can produce when crossed. To draw a square, write all possible allele* combinations one parent can contribute to its gametes across the top of a box and all possible allele combinations from the other parent down the left side. The allele combinations along the top and sides become labels for rows and columns within the square. Complete the genotypes in the square by filling it in with the alleles from each parent. Since all allele combinations are equally likely to occur, a Punnett Square predicts the probability of a cross producing each genotype.

    http://scienceprimer.com/punnett-square-ca…

    http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/g…

  7. Come On and Kick Me!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9BGLtqqkVI…

    I’m just say’n there’s no point in buying regular seeds unless you intend to breed new strains, but if you intend to adhere to the four plant limit, then it’s best to grow all females with Feminized seeds. Sure, most regular seeds cost less than Feminized, but by the time you’ve bought soil, nutrients, and the electricity plus the cost of lighting, the savings on seeds actually costs you exponentially compared to double the yield with twice as many plants. Besides, if you search around, some good seed companies offer Feminized seeds for less than other fine companies charge for regular seeds.

  9. Lemon Kush Feminized by Female Seeds has a unique strong herbal lemon aroma & flavour, it is mostly indica in structure with small hard nugs & with a little stretch towards the end. Lemon Kush Feminized is also suitable for outdoors in temperate climates, where the grapes and citrus grows. Harvest end September – half October. Recent reports from southern Europe have shown 1kg excellent quality bud per plant !! (2012)

    Features:
    Sex: Female
    Type: Indica Dominant
    Yield: High
    Flowering Time: 8-9 Weeks
    Genetics: Chitral Hindu Kush

    4 FEM
    Sensible Price: $12.85

    10 FEM
    Sensible Price: $30.52

    http://www.sensibleseeds.com/idevaffiliate…

  10. Of course, if you want to play Johnny Appleseed outdoors in the wild.

    Malawi is the most powerful and psychedelic landrace sativa we know. Its dense flowers of enormous trichomes compete with the most powerful indica/sativa and indica hybrids on the market in reference to their size and cannabinoids
    concentration.

    The potency of their flowers is simply devastating, and it is especially
    recommended for experienced smokers that seek extreme sativa effects without renounce to an abundant harvest.

    Although this sativa shows all its potential in tropical/subtropical climates, it has been grown with very good results in latitudes up to 43ºN.

    Indoors for growing small columnar plants or SOG, you should start from the clone or seed at 12/12 just a few days after the rooting. This sativa is highly recommended for SCROG, horizontal or network growing due to its excellent production of lateral branches and its vigorous reaction to pruning.

    We only recommend Malawi for the hardest and most experienced smokers because its extreme power usually “destroys” the majority of the smokers. DO NOT mix it with alcohol and DO NOT use any dangerous machinery under its effect.

    Malawi Gold Regular from Seeds of Africa is a notorious strain also known as “chamba” . Malawi Gold regular grown exclusively in the Central and Northern Regions of Malawi ”Chamba” is, considered internationally, as one of the best sativas in Africa. This Gold standard sativa has a pineapple flavour and a very sweet taste.

    12 REG
    Sensible Price: $28.11

    http://www.sensibleseeds.com/idevaffiliate…

  13. Consider the major variables: Potency, THC, CBD, yield, flowering time, vigor, height, flavor, aroma, pest resistance, bud density, mold resistance, temperature tolerance, sturdiness, calyx to leaf ratio. Ascertaining the dominant and recessive traits, and the odds of recombining them in a desired phenotype, as well as the serendipity of discovering an exceptionally fine mutation takes a lot of trial and error with thousands of plants over many generations, but I’m willing to bet that a quick F1 cross of African Malawi with Chitral Hindu Kush would not only be inexpensive to purchase the seeds, but would likely increase the yield of the Malawi and the THC potency of the Chitral. If one were to plant a few of the Feminized lemon flavored Chitral amongst the regular pineapple flavored Malawi in an outdoor garden, it could be easily cultivated to go feral. The resulting strain would probably be extremely psychedelic as well as relaxing and analgesic; tasty too!

Comments are closed.