part0015

Germination is one of nature’s miracles and signals the beginning of your marijuana garden. Once you start the germination process, you are making a commitment to a new batch of plants, so make sure your space, your infrastructure, and you are ready. Exactly how your marijuana plants fare over the course of their lifetimes will be determined by the success of your germination process. Plants that get off to a rough start will likely never catch up to their peers. It’s important the germination process go smoothly to produce healthy and productive plants in the shortest amount of time possible.

Sprouting or “popping” your seeds is the first step of the germination process. Getting a seed to sprout can be an easy and fun activity. After all, it happens naturally in the wild without any humans trying to help. Seeds only need moisture, warmth, and darkness in order to sprout. No matter which sprouting method you choose, make sure to never let sprouted seeds dry up. Keep in mind that sprouting will not go perfectly for all seeds. If you achieve 90 percent germination, you are doing well. Let’s briefly discuss each of the three basic methods for sprouting seeds:

The paper towel method is tried and true. I often sprouted seeds under my bed when I first started growing marijuana. Occasionally, in or around my bedroom, an earthy, almost musty smell would hit me. I considered it the smell of new life. The smell of hope. Ah, the joys and freedom of marijuana cultivation. But I digress . . .

Make sure your hands are clean, and use disposable gloves if available. To start, completely saturate four paper towels with the distilled water. They should be fully saturated but not dripping wet. Stack two of the saturated paper towels on one of the plates. Arrange your seeds so they are all an inch apart, and place them directly on top of the saturated paper towels on the plate. Put the other two saturated paper towels on top of the seeds, and gently press down so the paper towels above and below create a seal with the moisture. Put the other plate on top, upside down, and secure the plates together with rubber bands or tape. The plates should touch around the rims and not let any light inside. Leave this contraption in a warm, dark place, such as under a bed or near a heat vent. Check your seeds every 10 to 12 hours, making sure the paper towels stay wet throughout. In low-humidity climates, the paper towels may need to be rehydrated with distilled water every few days to prevent them from drying out. Seeds can take up to 12 days to sprout, so be patient.

Once they have sprouted, you can wait a day or two to transfer the seeds to your chosen growing media. Be careful not to touch or damage the small white root with fine hairs that first emerges from the seed. This is the taproot, which will become the central root of the plant. Make holes about half an inch deep in your growing media with a pen, use tweezers to grab the sprouted seeds, and place them root down, one sprout per hole, in your growing media. Cover lightly with growing media and monitor/keep moist until the sprout emerges.

Sowing directly into soil is often the best-performing method, as it reduces stress on young sprouts and doesn’t require any handling or manipulating of the popped seeds with their sensitive taproots exposed. But one downside of this method is that you won’t know if the seed has popped until it presses up through the soil. With direct sowing, you have the added challenges of correctly positioning the seed and preparing the soil as well. Placement too high or too low in the soil will prevent successful germination, as will soil that is too loose or overly compacted. That said, overall germination rates for first-time growers are typically highest with the direct-sowing method.

For this method, use a seed-starting soil or sterile potting mix. Do not use topsoil from your backyard, as it will contain a variety of microbes, pests, and/or soil chemistry complications that could be harmful to young seedlings. Sow your seeds in a container such as a small paper cup with holes in the bottom or a three-inch pot. After placing soil inside the container, water it completely so that water drains from the bottom of the container.

Use a pen to make holes about half an inch deep in the soil. Place one seed in each hole, and lightly fill in the holes with soil. Be careful to avoid compacting the soil, as the watering process will take care of this. Keep the soil moist and make sure it drains well. It shouldn’t be saturated or soggy. Use plastic wrap or plastic domes over your container to create a humid environment and retain soil moisture. As we discussed in Step 4: The Environment , the relative humidity for a seedling should ideally be 70 percent. Lights should be turned on as soon as the sprout emerges. The cotyledon leaves will often be yellow until they’ve absorbed enough light for photosynthesis and the development of chlorophyll, the chemical pigment responsible for the green color of plants.

Soilless potting mixes have risen in popularity with the indoor growing community. They are usually composed of sphagnum (peat moss) or bark and may also include perlite, vermiculite, or coco coir to help with water retention. These materials are often mixed with sterile soils to provide drainage and prevent compaction. Soilless mixes tend to contain only a small amount of nutrients on their own, so you’ll find nutrients have been added to many purchasable premixes. Most soils provide enough nutrients to sprouts for the first four or five weeks of their lives, but soilless mixtures require extra feeding of sprouts early in the seedling stage. In soilless mixes, there is virtually no restriction on nutrient uptake by plant roots. This means you can control the exact amount of nutrients supplied to your plants, but it also means soilless mixes can’t act as a buffer against nutrient toxicities. In the event of an overdose, soil will retain some amount of nutrients and compounds, but soilless mixes will give everything up readily to the plants.

Many growers choose to use seed-starting plugs made of soilless potting mixes. Seed-starting plugs provide an easy way to germinate seeds and facilitate transplanting of the young seedling. Other materials such as Rockwool and clay pebbles are also considered soilless mixes, though they are almost exclusively used in hydroponic systems (see Soil vs. Hydroponics ).

SOIL VS. HYDROPONICS

This book is focused on the use of soil or soilless mixes for growing marijuana indoors, but undoubtedly some of you intrepid first-timers are entertaining the idea of hydroponics. Hydroponics is said to grow marijuana faster with larger yields than soil does, though most agree the best aroma and flavor come from soil-grown varieties of marijuana (and soil is far easier and more straightforward for a first-time grower).

Hydroponics involves placing the roots of your plants in a nutrient solution. Typically, Rockwool or clay pebbles are used as the growing media for these systems. They provide a skeleton for the root system to infiltrate and allow roots to quickly grow through to the bottom of the media. Soil has microbes that break down organic matter into nutrients for the plant, as well as minerals and micronutrients, but soilless mixes do not. This requires the hydroponic grower to give plants exactly the right nutrients in precise amounts, making the process more challenging, especially for first-timers. Once you’re a proficient soil grower, making the move to hydroponics has a much higher chance of success than it does right out of the gate. But don’t overlook the fact that hydroponic systems are also more expensive than soil-based grows.

Many soil mixtures use coco coir in combination with soil to great success. Coco coir comes in three main forms: coco pith, coco fiber, and coco chips. Coco pith is a dense material. Coco fiber is loose and stringy with much better airflow properties. Coco pith can be used with coco fiber to obtain the best properties of each. Coco chips are something of a hybrid of coco pith and coco fiber and provide an ideal substrate for your plants’ roots.

Peat is also known as sphagnum peat moss. Soil mixes containing peat provide a nutrient-rich option for your plants with a few drawbacks. There has been a recent shift from peat-based mixes to coir-based mixes based on sustainability concerns. Peat is slightly acidic, having a pH of 5.5 to 6. Most cannabis strains prefer a pH of just under neutral to neutral: 6 to 7 (see pH Levels ).

Grow rocks, also known as expanded clay pebbles or lava rock, are used primarily in hydroponic systems, though they may help enhance soil-based systems as well. When manufactured for cultivation purposes, small clay pebbles are heated, causing air bubbles to be trapped and expanding the clay. These air bubbles are the basis of the special properties of grow rocks.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT CONTAINER

Your chosen container will hold the growing media that anchors your root system and supplies it with oxygen, moisture, and airflow. Your containers should be cleanable, durable, and reusable as your plants will need different-size containers throughout the grow process. Once the root system has filled out a container, the plant is then transplanted to a larger container (a process called “up-potting”). This approach produces the most robust and healthy root systems in indoor grows.

For starting seeds, consider the use of a germination chamber. This is a domed plastic tray with many partitions that can provide small pockets of soil or contain starter plugs perfect for germination of seeds through the young seedling stage.

Once your plant needs to be put in a pot, you have several options:

CLAY OR TERRA-COTTA POTS, WHICH OFTEN HAVE SAUCERS TO COLLECT DRAINAGE LIQUID

PROS:

• Cheap

• Material helps with moisture retention and cooling

CONS:

• Crack or break easily

• Heavy

• No airflow through sides of container

PLASTIC POTS, WHICH OFTEN HAVE SAUCERS TO COLLECT DRAINAGE LIQUID

PROS:

• Cheap

CONS:

• Crack easily

• No airflow through sides of container

FABRIC OR SMART POTS

PROS:

• Airflow through sides of container stimulates root development

• Most have handles, so are better ergonomically

• Last the longest

CONS:

• Can be expensive

• Dry out faster

• Typically require twice as much growing material as other containers

• Liquid seeps from the bottom and sides of the containers, so their use is not appropriate for all setups

If space allows, you may want to consider partitioning your grow room so you can keep plants in different growth stages to achieve a “perpetual harvest.” In this kind of arrangement, when you perform a harvest, you will already have vegetative plants on hand to take the place of the harvested plants. Likewise, there will be young seedlings available to repopulate the vegetative plants and germinating plants to repopulate the seedlings. You need to maintain a balance between the number of plants in each phase. Some states and countries allow four to six plants to be grown per adult, but others, even some with recreational programs for adult use, may not allow cultivation within certain city limits.

There are many factors involved in determining the floor space needed for each plant in a room within a room or a large closet, including the size and shape of your containers and the strain and ultimate size of your chosen plant in the flowering stage. A general rule of thumb is to allow at least 1½ square feet per plant. If you are using a room within a room, try not to let plants exceed 60 percent of total floor space to allow room for storage of containers, nutrients, growing media, cultivation tools, and a cart or rack to hold them.

There are trade-offs to having a greater or lesser number of plants in your grow space. One is your time and energy. The more plants you have, the longer it will take to perform all the necessary tasks of cultivation, harvesting, and post-harvest care. On the other hand, the more plants you have, the greater your harvest. Keep in mind that in most small grow spaces, one or two plants may fill up the canopy space, even though you could choose to have four to six plants in that same space. The formula here is meant only as a general baseline. You’ll want to evaluate all these factors to determine the ideal number of plants to grow in your operation. For many beginners, all things being equal, fewer plants are preferred to more plants so you can perfect your methods without risking the investment in time and money required to rear many plants.

Unlike rooms or large closets, the floor space in a grow tent or small closet can typically be filled out with just plants. Supplies are often stored outside the grow tent, and so the full real estate inside the grow tent can be used exclusively for plants. Small closets and grow tents can usually be accessed and the plants maintained without the grower physically entering the grow space itself.