SKUNK POWER

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Easy outdoor and indoor marijuana gardening with hybrid strains
by Frankie Serra

This handbook tries to work together the author's personal growing experience with an adequate bibliographical survey, a good part of the world's literature on marijuana cultivation has been revised for the reader while living in Amsterdam, many of those modern strains such as Jack Herer, Afghan or Super Silver Haze have been raised and tasted for the public. We will examine the life and death of a wild grass named Hemp or Marijuana, a plant manipulated by men for their various needs: rope and paper, but primarily marijuana and hashish. Anybody who spends money in cannabis being from Britain or Australia, from Ireland or South Africa, from Germany or Japan, from Sweden or New Zealand, from Italy or the USA, should grow cannabis indoors (closet or ventilated corner) or outdoors (backyard or guerrilla) to avoid contact with the hash and marijuana black market; each and every grower can and will operate in identical climatic condition all year round: i.e. during Winter marijuana growers from the northern hemisphere enjoy their own golden crops having just harvested and cured the precious buds while, in the southern hemisphere's hot summer, all ganja growers are fully busy in balconies, gardens or "open field" spots, nursing their cannabis hybrids until harvest time. The author wishes to point out that the practice of Indoor cannabis cultivation with artificial High Pressure Sodium lamps has no time of year: modern marijuana strains, such as Super Skunk or White Widow, were bred to grow short and bloom plentifully even in extreme environmental condition: Skunk Power will help every reader to realize his own "square meter of Happiness", making "three square feet of green pleasure" real and maximizing the performance of modern strains.

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Postbus 2525
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The Netherlands

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“SEA OF GREEN” TECNIQUE

When we started experimenting and breeding with cannabis in Amsterdam, we realized that we would had to cope with limited spaces and therefore “miniature” plants (about 40 centimeters tall). We found that indica strains like Big Bud and California Orange Bud worked well thanks to their “velocity of photosynthesis” or “growth rate” and chose these rather than sprouting an early ‘something” that has the genes of a quick finisher and was conceived to grow and bloom outdoors in the (British Isles). In other words some strains (Super Skunk or Super Silver Haze) use light more efficiently than others (Early Girl, Hash Khan or Chitral) and will need less vegetative time if grown indoors using artificial lights. Strains like White Rhino or Super Silver Pearl have reacted well to the minimal light output of fluorescent tubes and did not elongate. Those fast vegetating plants will gain some extra growth for a couple of weeks after they have been put into bud whereas early strains will put bring to an end almost immediately and will add almost no extra height after budding is induced.
Cannabis growers using either hydro or bio-organic systems can use this Dutch-American Sea of green technique, which consists of growing numerous small-bloomed young plants in order to achieve (a massive) the maximum bud production within a limited space. A grower can reduce electricity bills and will crop lots of juicy buds every 45 days if working with a modern early strain or 60 days if growing an indica - sativa hybrid. Under fluorescent lights a generation of clones can be started while the previous one is blooming in a separate space. Uniformity in height and equal budding time are important with this method so cutting (clones) are recommended. Seeds work well but regular seeds that have a ratio of 40:60 male to female will need to be sexed first (male removed), or use seed strain that are 99% female. You can start a generation from seed select the best phenotypes, those with the best characteristic, and start a new generation of numerous female cuttings.
The sea of green technique involves taking a lot of cuttings, here are the basics of selective breeding and cloning. Taking cuttings looks simple but demands a little patience!

CUTTINGS
Select a mother from amongst the most vigorous, potent, skunky, productive and pest resistant of your beloved females.
The best time to take a cutting is five weeks into the vegetative period.
Take your cutting with a sideways cut at the base of a green, vital lateral shoot; stick it in a moist Rockwool cube or in a Jiffy peat pot. For my experience a root stimulating emulsion or powder is not necessarily needed, as a rooting hormone lies within the plant.
Put cuttings straight into a propagator, if you haven’t got one then cover them with a large glass jars. These miniature greenhouse keep the temperature and humidity high. The ideal temperature is between 22-25 degrees and the humidity around 90%. Cutting will curl and die quickly if the environment is too dry.
Place the propagator or jars under the fluorescent tubes (avoid using HID light/direct sunlight) They will root within five to ten days and will be ready within another week or two.

THE TECHNIQUE
Put the rooted seedling or cuttings in the vegetation room 16 plants (up to 40 cm tall) to 44 plants (max. 20 cm) per square meter ( 3 square feet).

VEGETATION
Grow for 15 to 21 days from when seed or cutting roots.
Lighting period: 18 hours on, 6 hours off.

FLOWERING
The plants should now be moved straight into the flowering room, 8 to 22 plants per square meter.

BUDDING
This will depend on the variety: 7 to 10 weeks for full maturation.
Lighting period: 12 hours on, 12 hours off.

YELD
Yeld will be from 150 to 350 grams of dried buds per square meter.
With the sea of green method hundred of plants are needed to cover a large area, so propagation can be a big job. Many still prefer to cultivate from seed as modern cannabis varieties offer a huge alternative of phenotypes rather than monotonous cutting derived plants.

If you want your favorite mother plants always ready to propagate (for several crops) then you’ll need three separate spaces:

Small: Germination/propagation Room ( for seedling and cutting)
Lighting – fluorescent tubes (24 hours on)

Medium: Vegetation Room (for mother plant)
Lighting - Metal Halide or HPS Sodium (18 hours on, 6 hours off)

Large: Flowering Room (for the main crop)
Lighting- HPS Sodium (12 hours on, 12 hours off)

By this method every single plant will have just enough room to develop its large apex cola, you should remove all the larger side and lower branches in order to concentrate all the energy into main stem.

Your grow room should indeed look like a green ocean made up of a multitude of young cannabis plants, some Italians and spanish “gro-tokers” have given us reports of outdoors sea of green that could renamed “ocean of green” we all need a few neologisms after all.

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