2013 05 UK by SoftSecrets

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Legalising cannabis: £1.25bn tax benefit without necessarily damaging public health

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Research says decriminalising cannabis could cut the cost of policing, prosecuting and treating drug users, while regulation could help control potency and chemical composition Legalising and taxing cannabis could help the Government reduce the deficit by as much as £1.25bn – without necessarily causing significant damage to public health, a study has claimed. Research by the Institute for Social and Economic Research said decriminalising cannabis could cut the cost of policing, prosecuting and treating drug users by up to £300m a year. Meanwhile, tax revenue from licensing the drug could raise between £400m and £900m for the exchequer.

In this issue: LED’S

Issue 5 - 2013

›› 9 ›› 18 ›› 37

Academics at the University of Essex who compiled the report said public debate on cannabis policy had been much too limited in scope and lacked hard evidence in favour of continued criminalisation. It said psychopharmacological research suggested that harm from cannabis use was related to the

drew users into drug-dealing, with associated economic costs. “Licensing would remove many people from illicit cannabis supply and thus reduce harm,”

they conclude. “We estimate modest external net benefits from reform through the avoidance of scarring effects of criminal records in the labour market of roughly the same magnitude as the external cost to society of the impact on mental health.” chemical composition of the drug, so that legalising and regulating its sale could control its potency. At the same time the report disputed the “greatly exaggerated” assertion put forward by anti-drugs campaigners that cannabis use could lead on to harder drugs.

The report suggested there were considerable financial gains to be had for the wider economy from regulating and taxing the sale and production of the drug. “Overall, the contribution of cannabis licensing in England and Wales to reduction of the government deficit is expected to lie in the range £0.5-1.25bn,” they said.

Rather, it claimed, making cannabis illegal

Source: Independent.co.uk

Inspiration For A Nation! Picture the scene….

Now we want you to do the same.

Just a regular day in the Soft Secrets UK office… rain tapping lightly against the window, the clicking of fingers on keyboards, the sound of the kettle rising to a boil. All of a sudden ‘ding’ a message drops into the inbox, it reads…

Growers of the UK… be inspired! Send us a picture of your monster crop.

Hi there, I am just finishing a grow and wondered if you were interested. I have included a picture from the website I go on, but I can take more if this is of any interest to you.

We know – from talking to the shops and growers in the UK – that there has been a trend over the past few years to grow bigger plants. Whereas five or six years ago growers would do nine or more plants under a light, now the average seems to be four or less. We’ve even heard of growers doing just one plant per light and pulling the same yield that they used to from nine!

Advanced Seeds crosses Auto Biodiesel Mass and Auto Blueberry – two of the most recognized and all-time winning genetics, combined into a new auto-flowering strain. It is an extraordinary heritage of aroma and flavor, keeping the citrus scent of Auto Biodiesel Mass genetics and the sweet taste of berries from the Blueberry. Auto Blue Diesel produces lots of sweet resin with high levels of CBD. Its development is very fast; she can be harvested sixty days from germination. Genetics:

Auto Biodiesel Mass x Auto Blueberry Yield: 300 - 350 grams per m2 THC: 16% Indoor Height: 20 - 33.5 inches (50 - 85 cm) Outdoor Height: 29.5 - 47 inches (75 - 120 cm) Seed bank: Advanced Seeds

Auto Blue Diesel

It sounds innocent enough. In fact, it sounds pretty much like a hundred other emails we get every month from dedicated readers proud to show off their latest crop. Each one impressive in their own way, some of them – if we’re lucky – featuring a lovely naked lady. This one, from the short message attached, sounds rather low key. We click on the link… HOLY FUCK! This reader has grown a tree! This is the sort of bud filled bush that we associate with the more impressive outdoor grows in California or southern

Spain. It’s the kind of plant that Jorge Cervantes makes documentaries about. It takes our breath away! That plant is over five feet wide. There are over twenty colas on there the size of a human arm. There are enough plant yoyos supporting it to stabilise a small building. We like! Wire mesh cage supports, flare masking on the walls and intense side lighting. This grower has taken inspiration from techniques used in grow rooms around the world and has combined them to produce a breath taking crop.

The most popular pot size in a UK grow shop used to be 11 litre. Ask around now and it seems to have increased to a 15 or 18 litre. Most shops even stock the huge 45 litre fabric pots for customers that want to use a full bag of soil or coco on one plant! DWC systems seem to have taken a real hold over certain areas in the UK, with growers reporting back incredible yields from a single plant grown under two 400 watt lamps. Vegging your plants for longer and getting more yield is a great way to main-

tain the amount of bud you harvest and minimise your risk. Should you ever get that dreaded knock on the door, the first thing that’ll get looked at is the number of plants you’re cultivating. It makes sense to maximise the potential of a few plants, rather than cram them into your room in a sea of green style. So, look at the picture again. Get inspired. The gauntlet has been thrown down. The bar has been set pretty high. Growers of the UK, we are waiting for your photos. And… if you could get some naked ladies in there too… so much the better! Happy growing!

the best taste on earth.

pass it on!

Check out our website www.plagron.com for tips & tricks

Attention Readers! Fancy a FREE packet of FEMINISED seeds from ROYAL QUEEN SEEDS? Then send us a picture of your grow room or best cannabis plant, including a visible copy of Soft Secrets, and we’ll send you 3 seeds. Should your photo happen to feature your beautiful wife or girlfriend wearing a sexy microbikini or super hot lingerie, you will receive 6 seeds. Photo of the Month will even receive 9 prime quality feminised seeds. With compliments of Soft Secrets and Royal Queen Seeds! E-mail your entries to SSUK@softsecrets.nl. NOTE: All entries are handled with the utmost discretion. We don’t publish out of focus pics, and we don’t like photos of plants in veg stage. It’s fat buds & sweet babes we want to see!

These are supposedly Jack Flash #5. They were vegged outside for 5 weeks and then put into bloom under a metal halide. At current they are 3 weeks into bloom and are 5 foot tall! We have been feeding them Phostrogen only, in a peat free soil (grow bag). These buds are very sticky and very smelly and we anticipate quite high yield. Here is proof that just a little care and attention will grow nice weed without the huge expense. Thanks for your reply ALAN Too true Alan. A simple nutrient programme and a good environment is all you need to grow good plants.

E-mail: SSUK@softsecrets.nl

Here’s a Cheese, a Vanilla Kush and an LSD. All fed on Bio Bizz grow and bloom, VitaLink Buddy, Advanced Nutrients Nirvana (an organic carbohydrates booster) and Cha Ching from Fox Farms. Vegged for four weeks and flowered for nine, I flushed the last two weeks with pure water. Grown under one 600 watt HPS in a 1.2m x 1.2m tent. CAPTAIN RUSCO Quality growing there Captain. Those are some stocky looking plants you’ve cultivated. Plenty of bud on those mate! Variety is the spice of life and we enjoy a good multi strain grow here at Soft Secrets. With that combination of plants, you’ve got a smoke for every occasion! Good man!

Hey Soft Secrets, Here I have my favourite pics of my first ever attempt at the art of growing. Let me just start by saying that I love Soft Secrets and that it was actually Soft Secrets that inspired me to attempt growing and I just wanted to say thanks! The strain is White Widow, I used 100w T5 lights, Bio Bizz grow and bloom nutrients. Towards the end of flower I had a fungus gnat infestation but managed to sort it out with ‘Gnat Off’. Well all in all I hope you guys love my grow. Thanks again for all the help, thanks for the magazine and peace. SMOKEYY Always nice to hear that we’ve inspired some budding new gardeners. Keep it up Smokeyy!

One of my lovely G-13 crops alongside my beautiful girlfriend. It is my first grow and I’m very happy so far. About 3 weeks to go until harvest. I feel safe with the guidance that some of your articles have blessed me with, so thank you Soft Secrets. LOZ B Cheers Loz, it’s great to hear that we’ve given you a helping hand. We’ve been really impressed with the photos from first time growers this issue.... and their beautiful girlfriends! Keep up the good work.

Hello gorgeous folk! Here’s my image for submission for your “Dear Soft Secrets” section in your quality paper. Regards JENNY SIS Oh yes, we like this! From the digital ballasts and expensive contacter, to the spotless walls and white dust suit, we can tell that you’re a grower of the clean and clinical variety. Your professional approach has been rewarded with some monster buds. We’ve heard that those Genesis nutrients have built up a cult following in the UK, from these pictures we can see why!

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8 This is my second time growing these two strains in an NFT system with Canna nutrients. I burned them a bit, but flushed them out for 5 days and they looked happy again. Not long for cutting day, then I will send pictures of the wife dressed in weed! God bless the grass that grows throught the cracks. Your sincerely SMOKE MCWEED This was one of several great pics that McWeed sent us. Really impressive looking hydro-grown buds. Glad to hear you pulled them back after burning them. Remember that in NFT there is no media to buffer the nutrients, so start at a lower EC to prevent over feeding. Look forward to the pics of the wife!

GROW WITH GRUBBYCUP

A crash course into LED growing Despite LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) being around from the 60s and indoor growing being practiced quite extensively the past decades, a successful marriage of the two doesn’t seem to have happened yet. As a technology, it failed to grasp the imagination of growers and most see it as an inferior lighting that at best can be used as supplement. But do LEDs produce inferior lighting conditions than traditional HID lamps, or is it that the technology By Demian Vrij has not yet been used to its optimum level?

The typical monochromatic approach can still be found in some panels.

The first LED grow panels were manufactured utilising the monochromatic approach; single colours were used in order to produce the desired spectrum for the plants, or at least what the manufacturer thought to be the best. Those are the type of LED panels most of us have in mind, the photos of plants

under a blue/red combination is something we have all seen at one point or another. This combination of blue and red derived from the assumption that plants require blue light for their vegetative period and red for flowering, an over-simplified notion on how plants utilise light. That type of light let a lot of people down since despite being quite decent at the vegetative stage, when it came to flowering it was an utter failure. Fluffy buds without substance along with burned plants due to overuse of red, were some of the main problems that left LEDs with a shattered reputation in regard to growing. At the same time the panels of that period were ridiculously expensive while their results were dubious at best.

About two years ago came the first big change regarding the spectrum of LED panels. At some point manufacturers took a look at the sun and noticed that it’s not just a combination of blue and red; the sun gives a full spectrum of light that undergoes slight adjustments depending on the season, something that growers were already aware of and that’s why they’ve been using cool white for vegetation (mostly in the form

ing in contrast to active cooling that was exclusively used up to that period. Passive cooling requires a sufficient heatsink that will absorb and dissipate to the environment the heat produced by the LEDs without the assistance of any fans as it is the case with active cooling technology. That might sound as a minor change in design but it’s a major factor regarding growing. Aside from the fact that panels who use passive cooling have no internal

TODAY’S LED PANEL INDUSTRY REMINDS US THE COMPUTER INDUSTRY DURING THE 70S. THERE ISN’T A SET STANDARD, ALL APPROACHES ARE AVAILABLE AND NONE CAN SAY HOW THINGS WILL DEVELOP FROM NOW ON of Metal Halide lamps) and warm white for flowering (as with High Pressure Sodium lamps). From that point onwards things started happening as developers had an acknowledged spectrum that was providing a working base for them to build on. At the same time new a new philosophy entered the field of panel design and that was the utilisation of passive cool-

fans that will break down, they carry the extra advantage or instantly releasing the heat into the environment from the whole body and not just a focus point as active cooling does. When it comes to indoor growing where things are quite tight regarding space, a well ventilated tent will have no problem operating with panels that use passive cooling, while active cooling panels require sufficient headroom where the heat will be channeled by the

11 working fans and later dissipated to the environment. To give credit where it’s due, a lot of this wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for the countless diy-ers who have been

experimenting with LED panels by creating their own contraptions. The knowledge base that was created in mechanical but also in grower fora regarding the design and manufacturing of a LED panel proved invaluable to manufacturers who

jumped into the new ideas. Concurrently a lot of new manufacturers entered the industry as some of the designs developed were simple enough to be produced at a low cost. Today’s LED panel industry reminds us the computer industry during the 70s. There isn’t a set standard, all approaches are available and none can say how things will develop from now on, there are limitless possibilities and the flexibility they provide is the driving power behind LED panels. We are at a crossroad of changing technologies (High Intensity Discharge lamps will go our of production in a couple of years time) and the gap that has to be filled it’s enormous. At the same time there is no way that the industry will operate with 20th century rules of mass production and of “one product for all uses”. At this moment you’re probably expecting a list of the pros and cons over growing with LED panels. The obvious ones are the less electricity consumed over the duration of the grow and the better environmental conditions due to the minimal heat produced by LEDs in comparison to HID lamps. The cons are that so far most of the panels in the market failed to produce constant results that would trigger a swift change to our growing habits. However, with the diversity of LED panels in circulation at the moment and new

models surfacing every other day generalising over them is like expecting all cars to be the same. It might as well be that the biggest strength over growing with LEDs is the amazing customisation that the grower can have in his garden. Active and passive cooling can be used differently in varied growing conditions and the same applies regarding the lenses that LEDs are equipped with. Some panels might excel in micro-growing conditions while being totally ineffective for large grows and visa-versa. In the next article of this series on LED panels and growing, we will be closely looking at different models in the market. We will look at the diverse philosophies regarding the concepts behind LED panel

manufacturing and we will present how different models are suited for different growing techniques and what type is best for your own particular way of growing.

PRODUCT FLASH DUTCH PASSION LAUNCH TWO NEW AUTO’S

NEW: HESI BOOST

Dutch Passion has just released two more automatic varieties, Blue AutoMazar and AutoWhite Widow. Blue AutoMazar is a hybrid of two of their top current varieties, AutoMazar and AutoBlueberry. The idea for Blue AutoMazar was to bring together the yields, potency and taste qualities from two of their proven customer best sellers. The variety was launched with several live internet grow diaries and Dutch Passion claim Blue AutoMazar will yield over 200g per plant in hydro grow systems such as DWC.

HESI Boost is the all new “magic recipe” from Hesi fertilisers: a flowering booster for an excellent flower growth.

AutoWhite Widow is an automatic version of the original Dutch Passion White Widow. She is a very strong smoke, resinous and like all Dutch Passion auto’s it has the potential to yield very heavily in the right conditions. AutoWhite Widow is expected to be one of Dutch Passion’s most lethal auto smokes and if she lives up to the fearsome reputation of Dutch Passion’s original ‘photoperiod’ version of White Widow she should be a hit. Dutch Passion has built up a collection of 12 AutoFems over the last few years and claim customers are finding yields and quality levels are on a par with traditional varieties. www.dutch-passion.nl

HESI Boost, like all HESI products, is made with only the highest-quality products and contains fruit enzymes, vegetable sugars, organic minerals and mineral salts. Use during the flowering period, adding it to your irrigation water or as leaf nutrition, to aid your plants during the stage where their energy requirement is higher. HESI Boost increases leaf density, stimulating the growth of secondary branches by making them denser as well. Furthermore, HESI Boost increases fruit sugar content and strengthens buds. The plant’s general conditions will improve, leaving it less susceptible to external factors. HESI Boost will give you incredible results: larger, denser flowers, enormous production and a better quality. HESI Boost is recommended for all flowering plants, in all types of growing terrain. The addition of HESI Boost does not alter the pH and EC of the irrigation water. This product can be used together with other fertilisers. HESI Boost is a highly-concentrated product, with a dosage of just 1-2 ml per 1 l of water. Therefore, 1 l of HESI Boost is sufficient for 500 l of irrigation water. HESI Boost is available in 500 ml, 1 l, 2 ½ l, 5 l and 10 l-packs. www.hesi.nl

PRODUCT FLASH

TOP GROW BOX 100% BIO

Everything you need for growing on 1m2

The Top Grow Box 100% BIO is the ideal total package for starting growers and has sufficient nutrition for one square metre of plants. Every box contains basic plant food, growth and flowering enhancers and the powerful booster Green Sensation. With the Top Grow Box 100% BIO you grow organic, environmentally friendly and simple. The organic basic nutrients Alga Grow and Alga Bloom stimulate plant growth and improve the soil structure. The roots of the plant develop optimally with using Power Roots. With the foliar fertiliser Vita Race, the plant can absorb nutrients via the leaves as well and accelerates growing. Finally, the booster Green Sensation provides the highest yield and best taste. Growing with Top Grow Box 100% BIO provides your end product the best flavour, taste and quality with a minimal effort. Combine the Top Grow Box 100% BIO with Batmix, Royalmix, Plagron Allmix or Promix of the grow style 100% BIO. By growing organic with the products of Plagron, you will get a healthy stable soil life and there is no need to measure pH and EC values. Use the included Grow Schedule for the correct doses which can be measured accurately with the Plagron measuring cup. As a bonus a lighter was added to this box. The advantages of the Top Grow Box 100% BIO: t &WFSZUIJOH ZPV OFFE GPS HSPXJOH PO N2 t 5PQ CPPTUFS (SFFO 4FOTBUJPO JODMVEFE t 5PQ (SPX #PY 5&33" JT BMTP BWBJMBCMF One Top Grow Box 100% BIO contains: t NM "MHB (SPX t MJUSF "MHB #MPPN t NM 1PXFS 3PPUT t NM 7JUB 3BDF t NM (SFFO 4FOTBUJPO Do you have any questions? Please contact servicedesk@plagron.com For additional information about Top Grow Box 100% BIO and other products, www.plagron.com

X-CEL BOOSTER

Growing and flowering stimulator for all crops X-ceL Booster is a biological growing and flowering stimulator, which can be administered to ALL sorts of plants and significantly increases the quantity and quality of all tested crops: A higher yield of better quality. This sophisticated combination of components stimulates the bio-chemical functions on all levels. The organic extracts stimulate the metabolism, in particular the photosynthesis, and consequently the forming of carbohydrates. The hormone household of the crop is actively stimulated by the combination of amino acids. X-ceL Booster contains the following ingredients: various vitamins, natural growing and flowering stimulators, amino acids, bacteria, trace elements, enzymes, kelp and humic acids. X-ceL Booster actively takes part in the growing and flowering process from the first day of planting : the crop strikes root more quickly which virtually rules out the dropping of leaves. The plant will grow more rapid and vital, while it simultaneously develops a very extensive root system. The potency of flowering is stimulated and eventually leads to a demonstrable increased yield (10-25% increased yield). X-ceL Booster is mixable with all fertilizers and can be applied to all types of substrate. DOSAGE: use 100 ml. per 100 litres of nutrient solution from the first day until the final week. www.bionova.nl

SOFT SECRETS EXPANDS IN LATIN AMERICA In line with our Latin American expansion project, we are pleased to announce two new countries were added to the distribution network of Soft Secrets: Colombia and Peru. Soft Secrets is now being distributed in Latin America in five countries, with a total of 140 million of peoples. We want take this opportunity to thank you, our readers and advertisers world wide, for your support and trust in us. Soft Secrets continues to grow in quality and quantity and is now available throughout Europe and Latin America! The Soft Secrets crew

From just plain simple to highly sophisticated, all Bio Nova ways are incredibly effective.

You decide which way to grow!

Would you like to grow things, but lack a green thumb? No problem! Use The Basic Way and be overwhelmed by the success of your effortless input! Are you a passionate grower who wants high quality? Use The Dedicated Way of growing, it will blow your mind! Or are you that perfectionist, who knows exactly what he is doing and why? The Professional Way will be your path to ultimate satisfaction!

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Your green companion in every way!

POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE

Afghan Tale PRE-WAR CHRONICLES AFGHAN TALE In March 1978, along with a few thousand other Europeans and North Americans, I found myself travelling into Afghanistan from Iran, part of the so-called “hippie trail” which ran overland from Istanbul, By Kirk Palmer Turkey to Kathmandu, Nepal. Certain cities were regular stops along the way: Teheran; Herat, Kandahar, Kabul, and Jalalabad; through the Khyber pass to Peshawar and Islamabad; on to Amritsar, Delhi, and other points in India; and finally, Kathmandu. Though you had to first get to Istanbul, from there the travel costs were pretty cheap – about $50 total for the various trains and buses necessary to cross the 3,000 miles, with about half that just to get through Turkey and Iran. And from Afghanistan on, lodgings were also dirt cheap – a hotel room could be had for less than a dollar a night. If you weren’t too picky, and could tolerate the occasional bedbug, even half a dollar would buy a bed.

fessional women like bank clerks wore modest heels, skirts, and no burqas , and without fear – one thing that it did prohibit was alcohol. Western tourism,

board, travel, drugs – by selling the three bottles they carried in with them for something on the order of a hundred dollars per bottle. Ban it and it’s certain to increase in value!

just arrived, asked/said, “You mean, we can smoke hash?” The owner said, “You want smoke hashish?” clapped his hands imperiously until a boy appeared, who he ordered away.

I chose the Star Hotel in Herat, the first major city across the border from Iran (which is an entirely different future story) because the BIT guide recommended its quality house products. The Star Hotel was a 10 room place with an owner quite fluent in English. Like today, English was the travel language. Many parents sold their kids to be servants in hotels, just so they could learn it and have a survival skill for their future. The 10-year-old boys who cleaned rooms and ran errands were almost

After a few minutes, the boy reappeared with the largest quantity of hash I’d ever seen in my high school days. The first thing that struck me – and the Canadian,

too - was that when he dropped a few chunks on the ground while rolling up a tobacco and hash joint, no one even bothered to pick up what had fallen. I had to stop myself from leaning over to grab the not-so-small pieces I saw lying there in the dirt.

Though most travelers would say they were there for the adventure, there were also those who went mostly for the cheap drugs. And only a handful of adventurers avoided the drugs. Afghanistan, which at the time (just like now) had a very weak central government, hardly bothered about cannabis products, hash especially. Even opium was widely available, though perhaps a bit more underground. Most of the cheap travelers’ motels – no-star pensiones with 40-watt bulbs, straw mattresses, cockroaches, and no plumbing – offered their own “house” brands of grass or hash. For many of us, this was as much an attraction to stay there as the spa and buffet at a Hilton. A popular guidebook of the day was the BIT (Btitish Information for Travelers) book, literally a bunch of xeroxed pages stapled together, filled with information on how to identify and treat amoebic dysentery or malaria, interesting offthe-standard-tourist-trail sights, expected bus or taxi prices, which hotels to avoid because the owners or staffs were thieves, and which hotels to consider

He spent a long time breaking up the hash into small enough pieces to make a worthwhile and smokable joint. It was clear he’d done this before in front of hundreds of other wayfarers who’d passed through the gardens of the Star. A couple days later, he would give us a little exhibition on how easy it was to remove the pollen from marijuana leaves and create a rudimentary hashish with a little bit of spit and a lot of hand wringing.

though was about the only industry the country had. There were only four paved roads, no TV, and only one radio station for a Texas-sized country. All those

always conversant in the language. The Star was relatively clean, with a typical “Eastern garden” in the center, a place for guests to gather, with the owner/

HIS EYES TOOK ON A CERTAIN GLAZE AND HE CONTINUED. “HASHISH? WHAT IS IT? BUT… JOHNNY… WALKERR…RRRED! NOW, THAT IS WORTH BEING CRAZY ABOUT!”! because of the excellent quality of the house hash. In those pre-Internet days, travelers would send a postcard to the BIT address with whatever relevant information would get xeroxed into the next edition. Even French backpackers carried a BIT guide. Afghanistan being a fairly strict Islamic country – though in those days pro-

European, Canadian, and American hippie travelers were thus an important source of income. Because they came from the West, they were allowed to bring three bottles of whiskey into the country for personal use. Alcohol being the forbidden fruit of the land, it brought a high price on the black market. I met travelers who financed their 6 month stay in Afghanistan – room,

host moving among them and chatting everybody up. After getting settled in, I went to the garden and joined a table with the owner and a few other travelers. Iran had been somewhat of a trial, and after mentioning that the owner said, “In Afghanistan, we are more free, more relaxed.” A Canadian guy, who had also

When the joint was rolled and we’d all partaken, the owner said something I’ll never forget – the very essence of why banning almost anything people desire makes little sense. “You Westerners. You always are crazy about the hashish, and want to smoke it. I don’t understand.” His eyes took on a certain glaze and he continued. “Hashish? What is it? But… Johnny… Walkerr…RRred! Now, THAT is worth being crazy about!” 1978 today is truly a different century, and Afghanistan – a lovely, fascinating place that felt like an even earlier century – is now riven and tortured by a horrible and endless war. But in the hotel owner’s words an enduring truth speaks loud – you can’t always get what you want. Author has been teaching for 30 years in both university and high school in the Eastern European countries. Is a published poet and has written about American literature and its connection with social values.

GROW WITH LITTLE LEBOWSKI

The Winter Grow Room A funny thing happened in the UK this year, something that only occurs maybe once every five years or so. This year, we actually had a summer! We’ve been basking in sunshine for the last few months and enjoying every minute of it. Pub beer gardens have been full. The ladies of the UK have been strutting around wearing next to nothing. By Little Lebowski It’s been awesome! But, as much as we’ve enjoyed the novelty of having a sun tan and wearing shorts and t-shirts for a few weeks solid, there have been a few downsides. The

plants. That carefully set up grow room that sits happily at 28®C for most of the year and produces plenty of bud time after time, suddenly turns into a sauna.

So, as the weather starts to change and the clouds roll in, we outwardly pretend to our friends that we’re upset. When really, we’re celebrating on the inside! Finally, we can get a decent crop on again. A long hot summer can do funny things to a grower’s memory and leave them badly prepared for the cold snap. Try to think back a few months ago and make sure that you’ve prepped your grow room for a chilly winter.

WHEN THE SNOW COMES, YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO BE THE ONLY HOUSE ON THE STREET WHERE IT DOESN’T SETTLE! main one being; indoor growing has been a bit of a nightmare. When the weather gets hot, so do our precious

Yield seriously drops and any bud that you do manage to harvest is seriously low in quality.

Firstly, it’s important to actually monitor and record the maximum and minimum temperatures that occur in your

room. Invest in a min / max Thermo Hygrometer, the easy to read digital versions can be bought for around a tenner. Monitor your night temperatures as these can really drop when the cold weather hits. Remember that a big difference in day and night temps can cause your plants to stretch, so try to keep the ‘lights off’ temp within 5-6®C of the ‘lights on’ temp. In a smaller grow room, this can be achieved fairly cheaply by investing in an oil powered radiator and a fan speed controller. The radiator will warm the room up and the speed controller can be used to reduce the fan speed, so that all that nice warm air isn’t immediately extracted out of the room. You can get a manual controller and just turn it down at night or, even better, get a temperature controller. These enable you to set your minimum and maximum room temperature and will adjust the fan speed accordingly to maintain it. For a larger room, you could heat the room that you pull air in from… so that the air fed into the grow room is already warm. Or, if the grow is big enough to warrant it, install a boiler and a heating system. The source that you’re ducting your air in from is very important, as cold air hitting the plant will cause the Stomata (the ‘pores’ on the leaves) to close and when this happens growth will stop. So, where you may have been ducting air into the grow room from outside the house during the warmer summer months, you may wish to duct it in from a warm room in the house during the winter. If you have no choice and must duct air in from outside, then just increase the length of ducting you use and loop it around a few times inside a warm room. This will help to heat the air up. If you’re growing in the garage or basement, don’t put pots directly onto the concrete floor. Concrete isn’t a great conductor of heat and it will remain cold throughout the day. Cool

16 roots grow slowly, so put the pots onto Styrofoam or a wooden pallet to raise them off the ground, this will also help air circulate around the base of your plants. If you’re using a recirculating hydro system to grow your plants then you need a submersible water heater in the reservoir to maintain temperature, the kind that you use to heat a fish tank. Set the thermostat to around 20®C and the roots will stay healthy. Flood and drain systems require a shatter proof submersible heater, because when the system floods, the reservoir will empty and heater will be exposed to the air. Some of the better submersible heaters on the market will switch themselves off when removed from the water and automatically turn back on when submerged. Clever stuff!

IF YOU HAVEN’T STARTED YOUR CHRISTMAS CROP… WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? It’s also worth remembering that as the temperature drops outside, your indoor grow can become more susceptible to being discovered. Think about where your ducting exits the building, in very cold weather the warm air being extracted out of your room can become visible as steam. If possible, it may be a better idea to duct it into another internal room for the winter months and avoid detection. Ideally, you should duct it into the chimney. If you’re growing in a loft during the winter, then you must ensure that the loft space has been properly insulated. When the snow comes, you really don’t want to be the only house on the street where it doesn’t settle! Use a heavy duty insulation material like King Span and avoid venting warm air into the loft cavity. If you’re reading this article and have yet to start your Christmas crop… what are you waiting for?! Provided you’re not reading this any later than the end of October, then there’s still time to get your grow on. Check out the latest auto flowering seeds from your favourite seed bank. Almost all of the major companies supply auto versions of their best-selling strains. Yes, in most cases, the yield will be less than the regular seed. But some of the faster varieties can be cultivated from seed to harvest in 60 to 70 days. You may be harvesting on Christmas Eve, but at least you’ll have some smoke to hit after Christmas dinner! Happy growing!

GROW IT YOURSELF

ON SEED PRODUCTION

Now We Make Them Ourselves For an ambitious grower, there’s nothing better than creating his own seeds and plants. But how to obtain good quality seeds, and how to take care of them? A simple and safe method for producing strong, healthy seeds is to use two different homozygous plants as mother plants (a male and a female); in the example we have Skunk #1, Original Power Plant (100% Sativa) and Afghani (100% Indica).

carefully transfer the pollen from the bag to a small container. To make things safer, you can dampen the bag

ers the advantage of being able to better dose their pollen, as well as offering protection against dampness

Text & Photos: Olit. R.

Here are the fruiting bodies, which are quite pretty to look at. As you can see the seeds are well protected and the fruiting bodies are covered in trichomes. In nature, these seeds would be protected like this before the next frost.

before opening it with a squirt gun to make sure the pollen sticks to it. The second option is to cut the nearly ripe pollen sacs with a pair of scissors in order to collect the pollen in a small container. The best time to do this is when the sacs are about to open (because the pollen is already active enough to pollinate other plants). But the pollen sacs need to be kept under careful consideration, on a regular

if the pollen isn’t needed right away. At this point, female flowers should be pollinated at the height of their flowering stage, to avoid the risk of an undesired pollination. With the aid of a small brush, apply the pollen with care; the tip of a paintbrush is enough for a flower with a diameter of about 2-3 cm. You should always pollinate the lower

THE MATURING PROCESS CAN BE DELAYED SLIGHTLY This male is only on day 17 of flowering.

basis and several times a day. Then you must take a pinch of flour and mix it with the pollen. This gives grow-

stem, because seeds often take longer to mature compared to the rest of the flower. Be careful to collect the upper

The seeds thus obtained are called F1 seeds; F1 hybrids are very strong, sturdy and high-yielding plants. But you must pollinate your plants at the height of their flowering stage, otherwise you risk losing the entire harvest. The first male pollen sacs are already ripe and active after about three or four weeks. But you must be very careful, because in the early stages there’s always the risk of finding other pollinators that might inadvertently pollinate your flowers. In order to better control the male plant, for safety remove all branches except two. This will make it easier to keep the pollen sacs under control. Delaying the maturing process slightly is also possible, by squeezing the first pollen sacs with your fingers; the plant will soon produce new ones. Ripe pollen sacs can split open at the lightest touch. The pollen is so fine as to be practically invisible. There are two different ways to collect male pollen. The first option is to attach a bag to the plant, taping it with adhesive tape to the stem shortly before the pollen sac opens. Then cut the plant right under the sac and shake the bag so as to free the pollen, which will deposit on the bottom. Afterwards,

Always use a clean brush for pollination.

This freshly-collected pollen hasn’t been diluted yet.

often burst if the seeds reach maturity. A ripe seed is a dark brown mottled colour. Cut and hang the flowers containing these seeds upside down to dry in the dark. Later, after they’re dry, it’ll be easy to grind the flowers with your hands in a bowl, where you can choose from them. Thus a new generation of homegrown F1 seeds is ready, only for you. Basically, they can be germinated right after being harvested, but it would be better to leave the seeds to dry for a couple of days first. Growers will then be rewarded with a high germination rate and strong plants. Of course, this has nothing to do with the improvement of their genetics, which requires much more time and knowledge. However, it’s a good alternative for producing good seeds, and it’s great to watch your own plants grow. Unfortunately, this is still prohibited in Germany. Yet another reason to attend and participate in hemp exhibitions.

part at exactly the right moment, because if the pollen falls on the lower part, you risk an improper fertilization. Once you’ve applied the pollen, cover the flower with a paper bag and leave it on for at least three days. All it does is protect the flower from air currents that could blow away the freshly-deposited pollen. That’s it; the rest is done by the plant itself. Now zealous growers can pollinate their plants at the height of their flowering stage. The pollen passes through the female flower’s two stigmas to reach its ovaries where, after having fertilised the ovules, it will develop into amazing seeds. You can freeze the remaining pollen for future use or keep it in the refrigerator for several weeks. Female flowers should be pollinated at the beginning of the third week of the flowering stage, when the seeds still need six to eight weeks to be fully ripe. This means a total of about 11 weeks is necessary. But, since several strains flower between the ninth and tenth week, your harvest could be mainly Sinsemilla (from the Spanish sin = without; semilla = seed), that is, seedless. Another important reason why, as stated above, you should pollinate only lower flowers during pollination. The fruiting bodies

The result is beautiful, healthy seeds.

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TRAVEL

Zim Zimma! Mugabe’s Cops Want the Keys to a Beema

By The Professor

He’s only gone and bloody done it again. Another election victory for Mugabe means Zimbabwe’s ganja lovers have to live like prey for another four or five

the owner and stop her running in the election. That guy’s drunk and undercover but he’s still on-duty. He asked me if you were a ganja smoker, and then he asked

people and they’re known growers so the police have been using the anti-cannabis laws to throw their weight around, but they aren’t quite the bullies they are in the rest of the country:

‘cept Mugabe against smoking ganja in this country. Everyone does it, even the police, but they use the laws to pay for their wives haircuts, to buy their big cars and to keep their mistresses happy.”

if we could arrange a couple of white girls for him.”

“Ha! There’s no fields here my friend, the police burn down all the big ganja fields long time before. If you go to the next village you can still find some farms that grow - it’s not good though, all the best

Indeed, this is a country where the average civilian can expect a few years with hard labour for selling a couple of joints in the street but a cop can get away with a twelve month sentence for stealing

A few minutes later one of the local Rasta’s was looking distraught:

stuff in Zimbabwe comes from Malawi and Swaziland... You want a smoke?”

“Man, that cop just ask me to get some ganja. I know he smokes but I don’t trust him, they wanna bust people before the elections and he’s gonna fuck me up, I know it man.”

We stopped at a bench in the shade of a big tree overlooking Lake Kariba. I pulled a packet of papers from my pocket.

thirty three kilos from a court-bound evidence vehicle. Mugabe’s stubborn ignorance of the cannabis plant is almost comical if you don’t have to live with it: “in Jamaica, they have freedom to smoke cannabis, the men are always high and universities are full of women... The men want to sing and do not go to colleges, some of them twist their hair. Let us not go

THEY’LL EVEN OFFER YOU THE GANJA TO ROLL UP WITH years. Life under the rule of this powercrazed President Forever isn’t much fun for anyone – people are skint, there isn’t much food on the shelves, there’s not enough work to go around and rent, water, fuel and electricity aren’t cheap either. For ganja smokers it’s even worse. “This is a great country to visit. We’ve got Vic Falls, Lake Kariba, there’s a lot of wildlife around and Zimbabweans are friendly people, and well-educated – we don’t run around killing white people! If you’re a smoker you’ve got to be careful though, the cops can be real bastards. Sometimes they go after tourists, they’ll be real friendly and approach you to ask if you want to smoke a joint with them. They’ll even offer you the ganja to roll up with bru! He’ll sit there, watch you roll a joint and then as soon as you light it he’ll pull out the cuffs and arrest you for the bribe.” “Sometimes they ask the local Rasta’s to go and score for them as well, they’ll give them the money and try and bully them into it. If the guy’s dumb enough or desperate enough they’ll go and score for him. Maybe the cop’ll take the weed to smoke but sometimes they arrest the guy for dealing.” “It’s all about money bru - a street cops salary here is about US$200 a month, half of that goes on rent and another big chunk goes on water and electricity so if a cop wants any luxuries he has to find some other way of making cash - extorting ganja smokers is one of the easiest ways.” A fat, loud, slimy-looking man dressed in a bright pink shirt slithered across the bar towards us. He smiled a fake smile, offered a limp handshake and then he sniffed the air around us like a dog sniffing out a distant barbecue. He turned his attention to the local girl sitting with us. He had power, but she couldn’t stand the sight of him. They had a quiet, abrupt conversation in the local lingo. The slime slithered off again.

“Tell him you can’t get any.” “What was that all about?” “He’s a cop. The woman who owns this place is running against Mugabe’s party in the local election. The cops are in here two or three times every day at the moment, they just come in and wander around, sometimes in uniform and sometimes undercover – if they can find a tourist smoking weed here they’ll be able to arrest

“He knows I can, and if I don’t he’ll remember and fuck me up for not helping him. The police here like parasites – they stop a man livin’ his own peaceful way, make me sick more than malaria, and cop medication gon cos’ lot more than malaria medication.” Up in the tribal north things are a little different. They aren’t Mugabe’s favourite

“Wait. You see that man behind us? He’s a cop and he knows what we are doing here,

THAT GUY’S DRUNK AND UNDERCOVER BUT HE’S STILL ON-DUTY we must let him pass. He can’t arrest us because there is only one of him and three of us so we could beat him and run away but it is not good to let him see what we are doing. For ganja smokers in this country the police are the worst enemy – no one

there.” Mugabe’s jocular flippancy about cannabis and his tolerance of corruption amongst the country’s police both combine to make the Zimbabwean smokers’ lot a tough one, but his cops are still having a great time.

Special Queen

Photo: cccp

BACKGROUND

The Wages of Sin First of all, apologies to any Dutch readers who might happen upon this article and find themselves wondering what on earth all of the fuss is about. It really highlights one of the fundamental differences between our two countries, despite the fact that the dominant culture in both countries are (arguably) Protestant, while also being Dr John Dee (supposedly) secular. Bear with me, please. In June of this year, a case in the High Court in Edinburgh was finally concluded

but still had a big problem with the whole exploitation angle, and the basic issue of

and civil servants: “Is it okay to take money off a whore?” Well, again, sure. Why not? Now, you’re probably reading this and wondering where all of it is heading. What has all of this to do with cannabis? Well, here’s the thing; it always seems to me that there is a certain amount of crossover between prostitution and the supply of

PUTTING THE WHOLE “IT’S IMMORAL” ARGUMENT TO ONE SIDE, AS MENTIONED EARLIER ON MUCH OF THE DIFFICULTY HERE SEEMS TO COME BACK TO THE QUESTION OF “HOW DO WE TAX THIS?” after a number of months. Three people were sentenced for running a prostitution service via an escort agency. The main player, a 61 year old woman, described as “the madam” (am I the only person to think what a quaint expression this is?) was sentenced to five years in prison on “proceeds of crime and immoral earnings charges”. A lot of the girls employed were originally, it seems, from Eastern Europe and so there was immediately a whole lot of lurid speculation around whether the three defendants were involved somehow in people smuggling and all of the major criminality that goes along with all of that. In the end, there was no evidence of trafficking, but there was all the usual guff about exploitation of women to serve the baser instincts of men and so on and so forth. Really? The point was made by the defence during the trial that the women were safer, better paid and better looked after than “street prostitutes”. Plus it was also pointed out by the defence that none of them were forced or coerced into doing anything they didn’t want to do. The court accepted that this was all “probably true”

these women being in a situation where selling themselves for sex was their only real means of generating an income. However, in the end, what the problem really seems to have been about with all of this is that vast amounts of money were being raked in and little or no tax was being paid on it (the “Madam” had £200,000 in cash in her home when she was busted). How the money was made should really have been a secondary issue. I don’t want to get into all the arguments and whys and wherefores around prostitution or why someone might choose it as a source of income. It’s one of those highly emotive areas and always seems to end in big – moral and judgement driven – arguments. Should someone be “allowed” to provide sex to another person and then charge them money for having provided said service? Sure, why not? People in other “service industries” charge money for a lot less so why shouldn’t selling one’s own body be a legitimate source of income? One of the problems with this is that it’s notoriously difficult to tax, and I think that there’s a massive element of prudishness involved here as well for the politicians

cannabis insofar as both are prohibited by the law and yet both attract large numbers of participants.

So when it comes to dope, a very similar question for the politicos seems to be: “Is it okay to take money off a cannabis dealer?” Again, of course it is. Why not? The big issue here is that these people - politicians, the church - have been telling us all for so long that this kind of pastime – prostitution, dope dealing, pornography and so forth – is wrong, morally indefensible and all the rest of it, that they’ve painted themselves into an ethical and moral corner meaning that to change tack now would be seen as a massive climb down and a massive loss of face. It’s morally wrong to take tax money off a whore or a dope dealer, but it’s somehow morally acceptable to take tax money off such charming people as the tobacco industry; the alcohol industry; the pharmaceutical industry; the weapons industry? One of my problems with the morality case is that, according to the arguments: 1. Prostitution is a sin. People are forced into it against their will and all sorts of problems follow as a result.

25 2. Growing, supplying and using cannabis (or any other intoxicant, with the exception, it seems, of booze) is a sin. People are forced into it against their will and all sorts of problems follow as a result. It’s the “sin” word that bothers me. “Morality” and “sin” always seem to go together, and this is a very subjective way of doing. “Sin” has got all sorts of religious as well as moral overtones: “Original sin” is the biggie. And from there it all seems to relate to anything that involves enjoyment. So by this sort of measure, getting stoned is a sin. Getting drunk is a sin. Having sex that’s not for procreation is a sin. Pulling oneself off is a sin. Gay sex: definitely a sin.

where’s the problem? Putting the whole “it’s immoral” argument to one side, as mentioned earlier on much of the difficulty here seems to come back to the question of “how do we tax this?” Well, a good place to start would be to legalise weed and licence growers and vendors so that there is a list of named individuals entitled to produce and sup-

than won’t, and the Beckley Foundation recently calculated that legalising, regulating and taxing cannabis would bring in a pretty whopping £1.2 billion (that’s €1.4 billion) in tax revenue every year. While writing this I attempted to find a similar calculation for the sort of revenue that might be generated through legalising, regulating and taxing brothels. There

Personally I wouldn’t view prostitution or supplying and/or using weed as a “sin” (except where people genuinely are forced into it against their will, at which point it becomes a whole other matter). Fact is, both prostitution and the production, supply and use of cannabis are crimes, and that’s something completely different. “Sin” is one thing (let’s see; murder would count as a sin, incest is another one), but “crime” on the other hand is a man made construct, usually born out of political expediency, and activities that are crimes can quite easily not be crimes through acts of parliament or whatever. This should apply particularly when there is no evidence that these activities involve coercion of any sort.

Similarly, if someone decides that they want to grow and sell good quality weed as a way of making a living,

As has been mentioned, having sex and getting high are two activities that pretty much everyone in the world either currently engages in or has engaged in at some time in their lives. Another major problem with both of these in the UK is their illegality (I’m not suggesting by any means that the majority of individuals in the UK use prostitutes, but clearly there is a big demand for their services). A pragmatic solution to the issues connected to the sex and weed industries - organised criminal involvement and so on - would be to legalise and in doing so pretty much cut the gangsters out of the equation. Now if these activities are subject to financial transactions, business enterprise or whatever one might want to call it, as long as the activities are consensual, regulated and subject to the sorts of rigorous checks one would reasonably expect (e.g. quality and strength in the case of weed, absence of communicable diseases in the case of prostitution) then most other problems could be managed effectively.

There are two things almost everyone in the world likes to do: have sex and get high. This is a fact. Where the problems begin are the ways people choose to do each of these things, and where they are placed geographically. Let’s face it; the whole workplace thing involves exploitation of the labour force to some degree. Why shouldn’t someone be able to make the decision to provide sexual services as a means of employment? A more enlightened society would see this as providing a public service. Once again, as long as there’s no coercion involved and everyone is over the age of consent, what’s the problem?

I’d be gravitating towards the ladies plying their trade from an establishment, subject to medical tests and all that sort of stuff, rather than the crack and/or heroin addicted drabs one sees hanging about the streets of pretty much every city in Europe

ply. This would work pretty much like the system currently in place for breweries and distilleries. Obviously, there will be an element of cottage industry – semi legal and illegal – enterprises doing it without a license, but really, that’s to be expected and could even to an extent be tolerated in the way that home wine making and the home brewing of beer are. Chances are that more people will pay tax

were a number of estimates, but these varied so wildly (from a few billions to tens of billions) that they were rendered singularly useless; one might anticipate, however, that it would be at least a similar sort of figure to a regulated cannabis market. Now at this point I have to say that I have absolutely no interest in the services of prostitutes; however, if I did, then I think

Many people decry the need for prostitutes, and many decry the need for people to use intoxicants, and that’s okay: they are entitled to their opinions, and maybe in their ideal world there wouldn’t be any need for these commodities. However, in the here and now, there comes a time when one needs to pragmatically consider the whole harm reduction and public health side of things. Furthermore (and this is the part that will probably sting the most) there comes a time when one needs to pragmatically consider all of this in a here and now of economies on the verge of bankruptcy. There comes a point where one needs to look beyond one’s own likes and dislikes in the matter of drugs and sex. As ever, I welcome discussion, debate and feedback on anything raised in this article. Feel free to get in touch at: dimethyltryptamine777@hotmail.com

ASK ED

Mapping the road to ripeness The variety “Jack Herer” (JH) is a late-season sativa-indica cross. Indoors, depending on the particular phenotype, after it is forced to flower it takes up to three months to mature. Ninety days can whiz by in your life—like, where did the semester go? I’m just thinking about cracking a book—but when you are incarcerated or waiting for your bud to ripen, 90 days can seem like an eternity. Still it’s important to be patient. Picking a bud too early is like picking a green tomato. It will ripen and turn red, but it will never develop the acidic sweetness of a vine-ripened fruit. The same is true of marijuana buds. When you pick them early, the stigmas turn brown as they dry. To the casual eye they might seem ripe, but a closer examination will show that the buds were immature when they were picked and were deprived of achieving their potential. The bud’s full intensity was sacrificed for the sake of saving a little time, often only 5–10 days. While the economic situation often plays a part in deciding to cut early, there are two other factors growers might consider. The first, which is a driving factor for some, is the gardener’s or farmer’s pride

in growing the finest produce possible. The second is a maxim that I heard years ago: The low cost of poor-quality weed will soon be forgotten, but the memory of the headache high lingers for years. “Remember when you gave me that bunk weed during the drought of 2007?” Week 2.) By the end of the second week the first stigmas appear. Short hairs that filSince this JH takes almost 12 weeks and many varieties require only 8 or 9 weeks they will show the same development in about two-thirds (8 weeks) or three-quarters (9 weeks) of the time. No matter the length of time it takes, watching big buds develop is a wonderful journey that recounts the miracle of nature in miniature. Darwin’s theory of evolution and Mendel’s theory of reproduction were derided by many of their

ter the air searching for pollen cover these white hollow tubes. If pollination were to occur the pollen’s sperm would travel down to the ovary holding the egg at the tube’s end. To avoid this happening make sure to remove all males and hermaphrodites from your garden.

Week 3.) The stigmas proliferate as they start growing along the stem, as well as beginning clusters at the tops and at the nodes of the small leaves. The tall capitate trichomes, the glands where the cannabinoids and terpenes are produced, appear prominently on the small leaves near the stigmas.

Week 5.) The clusters of stigmas along the stems start to fill out, growing closer together. More trichomes grow all around the stigmas. This continues Week 1.) Bud development starts slowly. At the end of the first week vegetative growth has stopped and the plant is getting ready for new growth.

for another two weeks. As one cluster of stigmas fills out more new clusters continue to grow, totally surrounding the stem with layers of flowers.

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28 contemporaries, respectable theologians and scientists, because they focused on reproduction. Yet here is Cannabis, the only dioecious plant FOOTNOTE: (Plants that are only one sex. All other annuals carry genes for both sexes.) END FOOTNOTE unsuccessfully trying its luck

at wind pollination. It puts all its energy into its flowers, its sex organs, until it exhausts itself. We see the entire life cycle take place in only a few months. You could say that every day in the life of a ripening bud is the equivalent to a human year.

Week 11.5.) THE RIPE BUD—Trichomes are bulging with resin. The caps look like they are being stretched to bursting. All the stigmas have turned brown. The odor is intense. Time to pick.

Week 8.) The bud has started its road to ripening. The growth of stigmas slows and stops by week 9. The stigmas begin to dry, turning reddish brown. New trichomes continue to grow a bit, but most of them continue to enlarge as cannabinoids and terpenes are produced in their inner membranes and are stored in the mushroom caps atop each one. This is the stage of harvesting for sale at many European shops. The buds have an odor close-up.

Week 10.) The bud has stopped virtually all growth and its growth is concentrated on ripening. The trichomes’ caps are more prominent and rounded since they are hold-

PHOTO A1.) In some varieties towards ripening the calyxes beneath the stigmas begin

ing more cannabinoids and terpenes. The gland caps haven’t filled completely, and

to swell, forming a false seedpod covered with trichomes.

the odor, indicating terpene production, is still increasing. Although the bud’s odor has become more intense and is noticeable from quite a distance, it still is not ripe.

Looking at the glands close-up using a 6x or 8x photographer’s loupe or a low-power

Unfortunately, many North American gardeners pick the bud at this point.

PHOTO A2.) SLIGHTLY IMMATURE BUDS—The trichomes are prominent and filled but cannabinoid production is continuing. The caps don’t look like they are stretching.

microscope is a great way of determining ripeness.

PHOTO A3.) RIPE BUDS—Ready for picking. The trichome caps are bulging. The caps reflect light like sparkling jewels. The intensity of the fragrance has doubled and redoubled. The first trichomes are turning cloudy, translucent rather than clear, or amber. This indicates the beginning of the degradation of the cannabinoids. The cannabinoids and terpenes have reached their apex. Pick, dry, cure, and enjoy the harvest. There is a 48–72-hour window of ripeness before degradation sets in.

PHOTO A4.) OVERRIPE BUDS—The trichome caps are changing color as the cannabinoids deteriorate. Some of the caps have separated from the trichomes and the tissue looks mushy. This bud will produce a different feeling than the younger buds. By carefully examining the buds as they ripen, you can harvest them at their peak. If you have the liberty to harvest over a period of time pick only the truly ripe buds, which are found at the tips of the branches. Without the shadow that was cast, the remaining buds get more light, which hastens their ripening.

Cannabis and Pain: an update Regular readers of my column of outpourings will know that I’m not one to shy away from the controversial. In fact, I rather like it, sometimes to the dismay of our editor. Okay: here’s controversial for you. There was some research carried out a little while ago by some people of my acquaintance, the point of which was to try to figure out whether cannabis did indeed have any effect on pain. Now as I’m sure many of you are aware, this is a big thing in medical marijuana circles, and it’s been one of those basic tenets for longer than I can remember: cannabis is an effective way of managing pain; it works without the side effects one experiences from “conventional” pain killers such as morphine and all the rest of them. The whole dope is the best when it comes to pain thing is, as I say, one of those sacred cows within the medical marijuana milieu. Personally, I like the idea of medical marijuana and think these is a lot to be said for it, but I must admit that I’ve always had a bit of an issue with the pain stuff. A little bit of history for you: A long time ago, I worked on a research project looking at long term cannabis use, and part of that involved asking the participants whether they ever used it for medical purposes. What we got back was quite surprising (or so I thought at the time): it was good for relaxation and “stress busting” but the jury was out on the effect it had on pain. A lot of the punters said that being stoned actually made them more aware of pain and that, as far as they were concerned, if they had a headache then they’d reach for the Paracetemol before they’d reach for a joint. And the more extreme the pain, the more extreme the pain relief required.

Dr John Dee

Childbirth is an interesting one to use as an example. A number of ladies I know who are long time cannabis users have gone through the beauty/trauma (delete as applicable) of giving birth. Did they think “Hmm. What will it be? Will I go for Skunk or Pethidine?” Um, no, they didn’t. Opium has a history of use possibly as long as cannabis does, and it has definite functions in medicine. Synthetic opiates (opioids) are just a more refined, more up to date and more site/pain specific version of the original substance. And in controlled amounts in specific situations, they work. In fact they work really well. Now before I get inundated with hate mail, let’s just step back for a minute and look at what’s actually been (tentatively) found. Cannabis doesn’t appear to have any big effect as a pain controller; in fact, according to this particular experiment, regular users appear to have less tolerance for pain than non or former users of cannabis. Does this mean that there is no room for marijuana in medicine? Is the whole thing a big red herring? Not a bit of it. What is means is that cannabis appears to have little or no positive effect on pain. However, this is not to say it doesn’t have an effect on the causes of the pain rather than the pain itself. This is why in the case of multiple sclerosis, for example, dope seems to have a positive effect on the muscle spasticity that in turn leads to pain. For the medical marijuana adherents, what’s required is a more consideration of what cannabis can actually achieve. There is so much more to the whole issue than just pain management, and it is time to properly reappraise what cannabis can and can’t usefully achieve. I appreciate many people will have strong feelings about this, so please feel free to email and continue the discussion (keep the expletives to a minimum, please) at: dimethyltryptamine777@hotmail.com

Big Devil

Sweet Seeds

GROW WITH GOLGI

Let’s Talk About Trim: All The Good Things

By Golgi Apparatus

One of the perks to being a grower is having crystally leaf trim left over after you manicure your harvest to nuggety perfection. Growers across the globe have been coming up with creative ways to turn these leftover trimmed pieces into a desirable product. Typically, access to these extras requires being a grower or knowing one. Your ability to make goodies and hash with the stuff can make you a favorite person in your circle of friends. There are a lot of options for what you can do with it and some of them only take a few minutes. There really is no excuse for any trimmings ending up in the trash. The desirable cannabinoids that we find in marijuana plants is the most concentrated in the mature flowers, but it’s also found in copious amounts in the leaves and trimmed pieces (even small amounts in the stems). By using extraction methods on these ‘leftover’ parts, we’re able to make candies, tinctures, hash, baked goods, oils, lotions, etc. (all the while controlling the flavors and potency of these treats). Creativity is thriving in this department, as can be seen by the abundance of recipes and how-to videos online. Here, I’ll share a few of the most popular, and

rahydrocannabinol). It is found abundantly in growing and harvested cannabis. Contrast this with the notion that very little to none of the THC cannabinoid is found in growing or harvested plants. Research has shown THCA to have some neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory effects but it doesn’t produce the psychoactive effect that makes you feel “high” like THC does.

this method is that you are freezing the THCA-producing resin glands (trichromes) that are left on the trim and then agitating them off of the leaf. You then collect them in a very fine micron

Decarboxylation occurs when carboxylic acids lose a carbon atom from a carbon chain effectively releasing carbon dioxide (CO2), thus converting THCA to THC. This happens naturally (but very, very slowly) during the drying process; it could take years to complete convert THCA to THC this way. Fortunately, a heat source or flame causes the decarboxylation to happen rapidly, which explains why smoking it (likely the most commonly preferred method of consumption) exposes us to the converted THC (and, of course, its effects we all know and love). This conversion also occurs when cannabis is heated into mixtures such as the tincture or butter. Let’s start with the most obvious use of our trim – making hash. There are

Bubble Hash 5 gallon batch, step-by-step

screen or you can use a set of different size micron screens to get the most out of your extraction. After drying, it

ONE OF THE PERKS TO BEING A GROWER IS HAVING CRYSTALLY LEAF TRIM LEFT OVER AFTER YOU MANICURE YOUR HARVEST provide instructions on these fan-favorite extraction techniques. Let’s get the technical stuff out of the way first. Cannabis used in making tinc-

several different ways to achieve hash as your end product, but the cleanest and most effective is the cold extraction method used for bubble hash. It’s called ‘bubble’ hash because the higher purity

BHO- Butane Honey Oil Step-by-step pictures. What isn’t shown are the goggles I am wearing, if you don’t have chemistry ones a pair of snowboarding goggles will do the trick.

tures and other edibles requires decarboxylation. Most people are not fluent in organic chemistry so I’ll give the basics of one the science’s oldest organic reactions. THCA (tetrahydrocannabinolic acid) is the biosynthetic precursor of THC (tet-

stuff, when it’s heated and smoked, will bubble as it burns. Cold Extraction – Bubble hash is made using cold extraction, done using either regular ice or dry ice. The basis behind

the water reaches the bag level. I like to use a bucket with a spigot on the bottom so I can drain the water and use it as the rinse again. The reasoning behind this is that it’s already very cold from being in the ice and it allows me more stir time. If you don’t have a spigot then you can stop adding water at this point and continue to stir. After approximately 15minutes, stop stirring and let gravity take over. Leave the bucket to sit so that the trichromes can settle down to the screens below. Wait at least 30 minutes (longer if you wish) before pulling up the bags, one at a time.

will leave you with clean, extracted trichromes fused together. Begin by putting the trim material in the freezer for at least two hours to accelerate the freezing process. This procedure requires ice, water, a set of micron screen bags (bubble bags), and a container that is sized to fit your bags. It can be done with as many bags as you wish, with a minimum of two: one for the material and one for the extract. I am using a set of four 5-gallon bubble bags, and therefore my container for the extraction is a 5-gallon plastic bucket. Line your bucket with the bags. The smallest micron goes in first, the next size micron next, and so on. The largest micron bag will hold the material and ice. I used a plastic grocery bag half-full of trim that I just took out of the freezer (ultimately, you can use as much trim as will comfortably fill the container) and about 5 lbs of ice. This technique can be done using dry ice as well, but that will require some additional safety precautions to be able to handle, so I’m just going to stick with regular ice. In the top bag (a 220 micron bag), arrange alternating layers of trim and ice (trim, ice, trim, ice, trim). Then add cold water (about 4 cups at a time), stirring vigorously while the trim and ice are submerged. The stirring is agitating the frozen trichromes off of the leaf and into the water. Continue this process until

Start by removing the top 220m bag that contains the trim and ice and squeeze out any excess water to the bag below. Then go down to the next bag, squeeze the excess water out and use a scrapping tool to collect the extract from the bottom of the bag. Place the extracted bubble hash onto a piece of clear plastic wrap to dry. The extracted hash will resemble silt or mud (like something you would expect to find at the bottom of a lake) and the color and texture changes depending on which screen it was extracted from. Don’t be fooled though, it’s all pure bubble gold! IPA Extraction – IPA refers to isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol), which can be used for extractions by employing the alcohol as the carrier. 99% IPA is used as a solvent because it’s fairly cheap and easy to obtain. The trick with IPA extraction is quickness. The longer the ISO is in contact with the trim the more chlorophyll and other unwanted things will be soaked up with it. People like to grade the quality based on which rinse it is, referring to this as A-grade for the first rinse, B-grade for the second rinse and C-grade for the last rinse. The B & C rinses will most likely have more impurities than the A grade, due to the fact that the solvent was in contact with the trim longer. How to: Freeze everything! Put the IPA, trim, shaker and collection jar (mason canning jars work great for this) and any other container or instrument you are going to use here into the freezer for a couple hours before extraction. Again, this helps to freeze the resin glands and break them off gently during the mix. Timing needs to be quick and precise here to avoid any

33 impurities ending up in your hash, so use a timer to be sure. Take the glass jar and fill with trim material, then add the alcohol and shake very lightly for approximately 30 seconds. Vigorous shaking can pull out chlorophyll as well, so be gentle. The problem with using IPA comes when trying to remove the solvent from the extract. Isopropyl alcohol has a higher

the store shelves. It extracts and evaporates better due to its lower BP and leaves very little to no taste or residues in the oil. Look for the ‘near zero’ impurity label on the container, which usually means less than 15 parts per million (ppm) of impurities. The only brands that I advise against using are the manufacturers who add odors or additives to the butane. If you’re unsure, use a home test method of

checking your butane for impurities called the mirror test. Take a mirror and spray a good amount of liquid butane onto it and wait about 5-10 minutes for the butane to evaporate. Then check the mirror after for a white residue (which may also have an odor to it). Be sure not to confuse condensation for residue; the spot must stay white after it evaporates and most likely will have an odor if it’s the bad stuff.

SIMPLY REPLACE SOME OR ALL OF THE BUTTER PART IN ANY RECIPE WITH A CANNABUTTER TO MAKE IT AN EDIBLE GANJA TREAT

For this batch I bought ‘Dodo’ brand 7x refined butane, in a 330ml (187g) can and will use one can per 12” tube of trim. Material- The most important factor when doing an extraction is to use good, fresh, uncured trim or bud. The quality of your material is the biggest variable growers face when making canna-treats. Butane will extract the smell from the plant material as well, so the quality of the oil depends on the quality of the material you are using.

boiling point relative to some other solvents, making it difficult to remove all of it from the finished product. A double boiler is the best method employed to control the temperature and avoid direct heat contact with the IPA/trim jar. Our noses can pick up the strong smell of alcohol to tell us if it needs more time or not. Over-heating will cause the ‘evaporation’ of our desired cannabinoids too. This method needs to be done with extreme care being that the solvent we are using is flammable. The amount of time this will take depends on how much solvent was used and what temperature you’re evaporating at.

BHO (Butane Honey Oil)*** Warning: This extraction technique is dangerous and should be performed outside or in an area with lots of ventilation. No smoking, flames or heat sources should be present at the time of extraction*** With that warning in mind, honey oil is a very concentrated liquid essence and an amazing way to use every bit of foliage from your girls. It can either be smoked or used in recipes to make edibles. Butane – Because it is a gas at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, we use butane as the extract carrier (as it will readily evaporate after extracting the cannabinoids). However, not all butane is created equal; there are 2-types readily available, isobutene (boiling point or BP -11.7°C) and n-butane (BP -0.5°C), and within these 2 types the ingredients vary by manufacturer. For making honey oil the n-butane is what works best and it’s also the most likely version we’ll find on

Flavored vodka tincture before straining. Try also to burn off some of the alcohol by heating the mixture within the canna-cooking ‘safe zone’

34 How to: To build the extractor tube you will need a piece of PVC or metal pipe 8-12” long and at least 1” wide and (2) end caps in the same width. For mine I used a 12” long piece of 1 ½” PVC (sch 40) and (2) 1 ½” end caps. I chose PVC because the cost is very low and you can purchase PVC in short lengths. You can also buy extractor tubes already made from several different companies, but they are so easy to make, why not just build one! You just want to make sure it’s large enough to hold approximately 1 ounce of ground up trim. In one end cap drill (1) hole dead center that is just big enough for the butane tip to fit in, and the other end cap drill several smaller holes clustered in the center for the butane to drip out of. I chose to drill 7 small holes in mine. This end cap can be glued on permanently using an epoxy for the material of your tube. The other end cap needs to be removable to fill with trim material. Add a lining of coffee filter to the inside of the bottom cap to catch

Using a coffee grinder or chopper, grain your trim down to a uniform size and pack your tube full of trim material (without pressing too hard), then replace the end cap. You will need 2 glass dishes to put under your tube; one to collect the dripping butane extract and another bigger dish that fits your collector dish inside of it. Set this up double-boiler style, with the smaller glass dish inside the larger dish and add hot water to the bottom one to keep the butane dripping from freezing. The butane comes out of the can so cold that it will frost up the receiving dish without hot water and it also help the evaporation process along a little quicker. If you used metal or glass pipe to build your extractor tube you will need to build a stand to hold it vertically when expelling the can, the metal or glass will get too cold to hold in your hand. The stand can be built with any materials you have laying around: scrap wood pieces, 2 eye hooks, some metal wire and duct tape was what I’ve use in the past. Channel

Ganja- Gummies, step-by-step pictures. Make sure to use premium honey oil for these to obtain the potency they should have. any loose material before it drips down into your extracted final product. Make sure to wash and rinse all of these parts very thoroughly before use to ensure no drill shavings or dirt end up in your extract. Once they are clean then we are ready to extract!

your inner MacGyver and see what you can come up with! I used plastic for honey tube so I was able to hold it in hand during the process. A place outdoors with a slight breeze is the best environmental setting to do this in, guaranteeing that the butane fumes are carried up and away but

don a pair of safety goggles and leather work gloves for this next part just to err on the side of caution. To begin the extraction process, fit the tip of your butane can into the hole on the top of your tube and press down hard to expel the butane fuel. After the can is empty, step back and let your tube do its work. Within 30-45

ture. They do, however, make special glass pieces and tools that allow you to get the most from it when smoking. These special glass pieces, some wax paper and the freezer can be your best friends when working with BHO. A great way to utilize this is to heat it until melted and add it to any recipe. It’s one of the most potent

THE DESIRABLE CANNABINOIDS THAT WE FIND IN MARIJUANA PLANTS IS THE MOST CONCENTRATED IN THE MATURE FLOWERS, BUT IT’S ALSO FOUND IN COPIOUS AMOUNTS IN THE LEAVES AND TRIMMED PIECES seconds you should see the butane drip out the bottom holes and into your collector dish. A few good shakes when the dripping starts to subside will help you get every last little bit of goodness from your tube set up. Your top collection dish should contain a glowing, pale yellowish-green liquid, that is bubbling as if it was carbonated, which is exactly what we are looking for. It will be bubbling until the last bit of fuel evaporates and leaves you with sticky solid bubbles lining the bottom of the dish. Full evaporation seems to happen quickly as you’re watching it, but to be sure we aren’t consuming any solvent let it sit out for a couple hours before moving it to a container. If you rush the stuff into a small vial or container while it’s still in the liquid state you might experience the volatile temperament of the butane extraction as it bubbles over and out onto the counter. Patience! There should be no odor left from the solvent. If there is, then the mixture needs more time to evaporate. It is easier to scrape your BHO from the glass when it’s slightly warm so popping it into a warm oven for literally just a minute or two can get it to the more malleable honey texture. Using the aforementioned butane can, and the PVC tube packed with 30 grams of ground up trim, I was able to extract 1.2-1.4 grams of BHO. It may not sound like much but it is super potent. Honey oil can be very tricky to smoke - usually ending up with more on your hands than in the bowl because of the sticky honey tex-

ways to impart medicinal qualities to your edibles so it rarely affects the recipe as just an addition. Tincture- Tincture is one method that extracts a great number of the known cannabinoids by infusing the cannabis essence into a carrier liquid. Traditionally done with liquor as the carrier, indoor gardeners have thrown traditional out the window and now infuse cannabis into a plethora of liquid carriers. Vegetable Glycerin (food grade) – Vegetable glycerin is a simple sugar alcohol (polyol) compound. It is a viscous, odorless, naturally sweet tasting, clear liquid, that is used in soap and craft making. It makes your tincture into something of a candy gel. You can then use candy flavorings to take your tincture to the next level. These you can find anywhere online. LorAnn candy flavorings work great and they come in every flavor imaginable: strawberry, pineapple, cinnamon roll, mango, apple, etc. The list is endless. Adding just a few drops into the final product as it’s poured into a bottle will make it into any flavored candy gel you want. For this process I like to use my crock pot. It keeps the temperature even for the duration of the cook, which can be tricky on a stove. Pour your glycerin in first, and then add your trim until 2/3 of the glycerin is absorbed. The ratios are not set in stone for this process so use your best judgment; leaving the mixture with some liquid will help maintain the temperature and prevent burning. Using a candy thermometer is always a good

35 idea because we don’t want to burn off any of the goodness we are trying to

lightly burn off the majority of the alcohol. Put the tincture mixture into a pan with

low treats can be done with any cereal). How to: You simply need to melt a pound

DECARBOXYLATION OCCURS WHEN CARBOXYLIC ACIDS LOSE A CARBON ATOM FROM A CARBON CHAIN EFFECTIVELY RELEASING CARBON DIOXIDE (CO2), THUS CONVERTING THCA TO THC impart here. The ‘safe zone’ for cooking tinctures or any marijuana infused liquid for that matter is between 76 and 115°C (170-240° F).

the burner on low until you don’t smell a strong alcohol odor (approximately 1-2 hours). Tip: Using a flavored vodka or rum for this tincture will leave you with some

of butter and add your trim; approximately ¾- to 1-ounce of trim or until the butter is almost all the way soaked up. Then let the mixture steep over low heat for at least an hour. Be careful with the temperature, making sure to stay in the ‘safe zone’ of 76-115°C (170-240° F). This is another place to use our good old crock pot on the lowest setting!

Candies & ChocolatesHard Candy – Hard candies and sucker recipes can be easily converted into edibles, mostly by replacing the ‘butter’ part of the recipe with canna-butter. Or adding melted honey oil to the butter ratio in the recipe. Same goes for chocolate candy recipes. Simply replace some or all of the butter with a canna-infused product.

Making and flavoring vegetable glycerin tincture. Use candy flavorings to flavor the mixture after straining but before bottling. of the bottle’s flavoring in the final product. Alcohol – For an alcohol tincture it can be as simple to make as opening your favorite bottle of liquor and stuffing it with trim. Let it sit for approximately 45-60 days. Placing it near a window on sunny days to warm the bottle can speed up the process to as quickly as 30 days. But if you don’t care to get drunk and stoned at the same time (from the same beverage), you can

Cannabutter - This is something I think we are all familiar with - infusing butter with weed for use in baking recipes, toast spread or anywhere you would normally use butter. This turns almost anything into an edible cannabis treat, and the possibilities are endless. Brownies, cookies, muffins, cakes, rice krispie treats (marshmal-

Gummies- Out of all the candy recipes this is the probably the most delicious and fun to make. They combine the fun texture of gummies infused with the potency of BHO (butane honey oil) to make my absolute favorite edible. The honey oil can be made from the recipe above. You will also need to purchase some candy molds for this one. They come in all shapes, sizes and designs, and you can usually find them in craft stores. You will need: (4) - 9” x 10” plastic molds varying in shapes for this recipe. Approximately 4 grams of BHO (you can adjust this amount based on how potent you want to make them), (4) packets of unflavored gelatin,

(1) box of JellO (any flavor you wish), a few drops of food coloring if you wish to impart color to your candies (optional), (5) drops of food grade vegetable glycerin (tip: use some tincture you made with glycerin for added potency), 57 grams (¼ cup) of sugar, 120ml (½ cup) of cold water, a can of nonstick spray, a spatula, a whisk and a plastic 100cc syringe for filling the molds. The glycerin in this recipe helps the BHO incorporate into your edibles so there won’t be any uneven distribution. Prepare the molds by spraying non-stick spray on a piece of paper towel and greasing each individual mold evenly. Start the recipe in a small cold sauce pan and set the burner on med-low, add your dry ingredients (sugar, jell-o and gelatin packets) and mix together until evenly blended. Mix in the water and whisk until the mixture becomes a slurry, then add the food coloring and glycerin. In another sauce pan set up a double boiler to quickly heat the honey oil to a liquid state and then add it to the slurry mixture. Whisk thoroughly for 1 minute or until all ingredients are evenly incorporated and heated through (we don’t want it to boil). Turn off the heat but leave the pan on the still warm burner, being careful not to leave the cooking cannabis temperature ‘safe zone’. Now we are ready to fill the molds and timing is crucial here as the mixture will begin to set just as soon as it begins to cool. Work quickly to suck the mixture up into the plastic syringe and then squeeze it out into the individual molds, stirring the slurry in between each filling of the syringe. You can use any instrument you want to fill the molds but I have found the syringe works best for this (plus they are inexpensive and washable). Within a few minutes they will be cool and set; no need to refrigerate. The gummies should come out easily from the molds. Now go get growing, trim some buds and try some out!

This is what your Canna-Butter should look like after it has been put intot the fridge for 30mins. You can even see some trichromes that settled at the bottom of the bag.

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GROW WITH LITTLE LEBOWKSI

Hydro Head To Head The summer is over! Finally we can crack on with setting up the grow room, safe in the knowledge that our precious plants are no longer susceptible to mother nature punishing us with a heat wave! When you embark on your winter grow and you’re eyeing up the options in your local hydro shop, what will you go for? Good ol’ fashioned comBy Little Lebowksi post or a high tech hydro system?

grower who is still learning the basics of cultivating indoors, passive hydro reduces the risk of over or under-watering and there are no pumps, timers or complicated feeding schedules to figure out. It’s easier to run a passive system, then it is to hand feed and you’ll get far more yield.

Hydroponics can mean less maintenance, easier set ups and a cleaner, compost free growing environment... not to mention quicker harvests and increased yields!

Non-recirculating system – the nutrient solution is used by plant, with no run off going back to the header tank. This means that the EC and pH in your tank doesn’t

Plants grown in a passive hydro set up will have near constant access to water and food and, because most passive systems involve watering from underneath, the

Less visits to the grow room – when growing large scale commercial, it’s all about getting maximum yield with minimal risk. To avoid getting caught with your hands dirty, you’ll need to spend as little time in the grow room as possible. Hand watering large scale is a full time job, so that’s a no-no. Active hydro systems

THE MORE OXYGEN, WATER AND NUTRIENTS THAT A PLANT CAN ABSORB, THE BIGGER THE YIELDS THEY WILL PRODUCE. But, it can also mean constant monitoring of nutrients, toppling plants and leaky ceilings! There are plenty of hydroponic systems out on the market, using many different hydroponic techniques; passive hydro, flood and drain, drip irrigation, DWC, NFT and aeroponics. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons and how they compare to hand feeding.

Passive hydro – What Is It? Unlike active hydro techniques, which employ a water or air pump to deliver nutrient solution, passive hydro techniques usually rely on the capillary action of the growing medium surrounding the roots, there is no pump Hobby size NFT system with some nice percy smoke involved. This is usually achieved by keeping the growing media in contact with a reservoir of nutrient solution, in top part of the root zone remains highly fluctuate and your plants always receive its simplest form, standing your pots in oxygenated. Therefore, passive hydro can freshly balanced feed. Awesome! a tray and pouring nutrient solution into provide far superior results and still be the tray is passive hydroponics. Easily expandable – most types of passive incredibly simple to use and maintain. hydro systems that run off a header tank Some passive hydro systems involve The more oxygen, water and nutrients are easily expandable without increas‘wicks’ to transfer nutrient solution to the that a plant can absorb, the bigger the ing your workload. This means it’s as pot, while some of the more advanced yields they will produce. easy to water 200 plants as it is to water systems – like the AutoPot – use valves 20 plants! Modular passive systems are connected to a header tank to flood the Passive Pros actually used in commercial horticulture They’re SO simple – for an inexperienced for this reason. tray that the pot sits in.

DWC rootball! Awesome! will give you the yield, but maintenance duties will mean frequent trips to the grow room to top up the system and adjust EC and pH levels. A passive system fed by a large reservoir can be visited once a week, massively reducing the risk of drawing the attention of the nosey neighbours, local law enforcement or dirty little crop thieves!

Passive Cons Root zone saturation – constant exposure to nutrient solution means that the lower part of the growing media will always be wet and low in oxygen. This can lead to slow growth and root disease. To counter this, use a light and well aerated medium – like coco - and you MUST ensure that the plants have an established root system before they are put in the system. Hand feed the plants in their pots, make sure that the roots have hit the bottom of the pot and then transplant the pot to the system. A little more work, but worth it. Growing media still required – yes, it’s a hydro system, but the lack of pumps means that you still rely on the capillary

38 action of a growing medium to transfer moisture through the root zone. You’ll still be carrying bags from the car to the grow room… but at least your plants are still fed in a power cut!

Flood and Drain – What Is It? The principle of flood and drain is simple. A plant sits on a table or in a bucket and

more oxygen you can get into the root zone, the healthier the plant. No build-up of nutrient salts - any nutrients not used by the plants just drains back into the reservoir, instead of building up at the bottom of the pot. A build-up of nutrient salts will stunt growth as it causes certain nutrients to be ‘locked out’.

nutrient solution is pumped from the reservoir, through the dripper line and delivered to each plant via the dripper. The nutrient solution works its way through the medium and over the roots of your plants, draining out through the growing medium and drawing oxygen into the root zone. Feeding small doses

It’s far less work than hand feeding – just mange one nutrient solution tank for all of your plants and top it up every couple of days – far easier than hand watering.

Drip Irrigation Cons Time consuming to set up – on a larger scale operation, you’ll have at least one or two drippers per plant, each one

IF NO GROWING MEDIUM IS REQUIRED WHATSOEVER, NOT EVEN A PROPAGATION CUBE, YOU’LL REDUCE THE RISK OF SOIL BORNE PESTS AND DISEASE. nutrient solution is pumped in from a reservoir and floods the table or bucket, when the pump turns off, the nutrient solution then drains away back into the reservoir. A timer is used to set the frequency of the flood and drain periods. During the flood period the roots of the plants are submerged which allows

Flood and Drain Cons Complicated – the modular Flood and Drain systems can be a bit of a nightmare to set up and maintain. Although it’s great that you can position modules where you like, setting up does involve tinkering with lots of pipework and washers. Best plan is to place the pots where you want them first, then lay your pipework around them.

of water and nutrient at frequent periods throughout the day ensures that the growing medium will not get totally saturated, so there will always be plenty of oxygen present around the roots of the plant. As plants mature, the number of feed periods are increased to achieve optimum growth and yield. It’s the preferred commercial method of crop cultivation for longer term crops like; tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.

Drip Irrigation Pros Totally flexible - drip irrigation offers something for every grower, from the soil lover who just wants to keep their pots automatically watered, to the hydro expert who is looking to measure the nutrient uptake of their crop on a daily basis and devise the perfect feeding schedule for their own growing environment. You can use it with any growing medium on any scale.

Nice flat canopy from the passive AutoPot system them to take up all the water and nutrients they need. All stale air is expelled from the root zone then, as the solution drains away, fresh oxygen is pulled back into the root zone. As the plants grow larger, you increase the number of floods per day. The amount of nutrient solution used is easily measured and this allows experienced growers to tailor feeding schedules to get the optimum yields from their plants.

Flood and Drain Pros It’s really adjustable - at its most simple, it can be a way to just keep your pots automatically watered, but for the more experienced grower it is the method that offers the most amount of choice as you can amend the number of flood periods per day and how long each flood lasts. This way you can tailor the system to your own growing environment – because everyone’s grow room has a different humidity, temperature and airflow - and get the maximum yield from you plants. Root zone completely re-oxygenated several times a day - during the flood period, air is completely forced out of the root zone and fresh oxygen is pulled back in. The

Good mix of food, water and oxygen - when plants are fed little and often, the medium is never saturated and starved of oxygen. Hand watering plants once every few days

Nice tree in a drip ring Flo-Gro system

needs to be connected to the mainline from the pump with lots of fiddly fittings. Fucking infuriating while you do it, but worth it once it’s done. Provided it doesn’t leak! Blockages – dripper line has a small internal diameter and over the course of a full grow – 8 to 14 weeks, depending on strain – there is the potential for these dripper lines to become blocked, particularly if you use concentrated, mineral nutrients and stimulators (and if you want the biggest amount of bud possible, you will be!). Adding an anti-blocking agent – like Keep It Clean or D-Block - to your reservoir will keep things flowing freely.

DWC – What Is It? Misunderstood – not really the fault of the systems, but nobody really seems to use Flood and Drain tables in the UK. However in the US… every fucker uses them! They’re incredibly simple to set up and manage, plus you can still use pots and coco with them. Come UK grow shops… catch up! Too tall for tents – most of the Flood and Drain tables on the market, sit on a stand with a large reservoir underneath them. Unfortunately, the larger tables need larger reservoirs to flood them and this takes up precious head room in a grow tent. Luckily some manufacturers now produce low level tables with integrated reservoirs… ask your grow shop for more info.

Deep Water Culture (DWC) is a growing method whereby the roots of the plant are constantly submerged in a highly oxygenated nutrient solution (hence the term; ‘Deep Water’). Very little growing medium is used, other than a propagation cube and a few clay pebbles. The initial root ball of the plant is started in a net pot, suspended above a reservoir or bucket. The roots of the plant grow out of the pot and into the reservoir where there is constant availability of water, nutrient and oxygen; delivered via an air pump. Plants that are grown in Deep Water Culture have a huge supply of nutrient solution and oxygen. When executed correctly, amazing results are possible.

Drip Irrigation – What Is It? There are many types of drip irrigation - pot drippers, drip ring systems, slab drippers - but they all work on the same principle. Your plants are started in a growing Use a line cleaner to stop blockages in medium and a dripper is placed into, or your hydro system suspended over, the medium. The dripper is attached to a dripper line, which is in turn attached to a pump. can result in water-logging where all of the oxygen is forced out of the root zone You keep your nutrient solution in a and the roots take ages to uptake the reservoir and, at periods set on a timer, moisture from the medium.

DWC Pros Simplest hydro system – most systems are just a bucket, a net pot and an air pump. There are no moving parts and no external pipework – so no possibility of leaks. Turbo charged yields – DWC systems offer massive exposure of the plants roots to water, nutrient and oxygen. They literally sit in a bath of heavily oxygenated food! Big yields, here we come!

39 ber or channel where they are fed by misters, sprinklers or spray heads that deliver the nutrient solution via a pump. Aeroponics can be used to grow plants full cycle and also produces excellent results when used to propagate clones. Plants that are grown aeroponically have constant access to nutrient solution and oxygen; taking up much more water and nutrients than plants that are hand watered. The more oxygen, water and nutrients that a plant can absorb, the bigger the yields they will produce.

Aeroponics Pros Ultimate speed of growth and massive yields – of all the systems on the market, aeroponic systems offer the maximum possible exposure of plant roots to water, nutrient and oxygen. The more availability of these three key elements the plant has, the faster it will develop and, ultimately, the more bud it will yield. Roots in an aeroponic cloner No feeding schedules to work out – plant roots have constant exposure to all of the water and nutrient they require, they uptake whatever they need, exactly when they need it. No need for a timer.

DWC Cons Noisy – any system powered by an air

NFT Pros Faster growth rates and bigger yields – because plants have constant access to what they need, they grow quicker and yield more. The accelerated growth rates shorten the veg cycle, so you get more crops per year and, when dialled in correctly, you can harvest significant-

feed, the balance of nutrients in the solution changes and the EC fluctuates. You need to be on your game with monitoring EC – and pH for that matter – otherwise your plants will suffer deficiencies. For best results, change the solution a minimum of once a week, or more often as the plants are flowering.

RUNNING AN AEROPONIC SYSTEM IS A BIT LIKE DRIVING A FERRARI FULL PELT DOWN THE ROAD… AMAZING PERFORMANCE BUT ONE SMALL MISTAKE AND YOUR FUCKED! pump will create a buzzing sound. One system on its own is ok, but put 4 in your tent and it’ll drive you crazy! Try hanging them on an elastic bungee cord to cut down the vibrations. Cleaning the reservoir – to perform cleaning duties; lift the lid and plant off the system and transfer it onto a second bucket. Sound easy? Try doing it with a 5 foot plant covered in bud and a root ball that doesn’t want to fit back into the bucket! It’s a two man job.

NFT – What Is It? NFT stands for Nutrient Film Technique, where nutrient solution is pumped onto a tray or, in commercial situations, a gulley to create a very shallow, slow moving film that flows through the roots of the plants providing them with all the elements they need. The roots of the plants grow into the solution and fill the tray or gulley, forming a large root mat. This constant access to water and nutrients, combined with an abundant supply of oxygen to the roots, means plants grown in NFT develop very rapidly and produce significantly larger yields than soil grown plants. This is why it is a preferred method in commercial horticulture for quick cropping plants like lettuce and herbs.

ly higher yields than conventional compost growing. It’s simple – as hydro systems go, it’s a piece of piss to set up. There are no complicated delivery systems or feeding schedules to calculate. Plus, because the system is always ‘on’ and plants just take what they need, there’s no chance of over or under feeding.

Toppling plants – NFT provides no support to the plant structure, so once plants begin to flower they become top heavy and topple over. Plan your supports before the flowering stage and have your pea netting and yoyos at the ready.

Faster turnaround of clones – aeroponic cloners are the fastest way to root a cutting. Transplanting within 5-6 days isn’t unheard of and some of the larger cloners fit over 100 cuttings! Healthy root zone – no growing medium is required whatsoever, not even a propagation cube, this means a reduced risk of soil borne pests and disease.

Aeroponic Cons High performance, high risk – aeroponic growing, done right, is pretty much the pinnacle of plant performance. The yields achievable are stupendous! However, running an aeroponic system is a bit like driving a Ferrari full pelt down the road… amazing performance but one small mistake and your fucked! The lack of growing media around the roots means that the plants are highly susceptible to over feeding, temperature, pH fluctuations and root

Clean to use and produces minimum waste – no compost means there’s no chance of soil bourne pests and no heavy bags of medium to carry around when setting up or after chopping down. Just roll up the root mat and throw it away!

NFT Cons Root disease – talk to any seasoned grower about NFT and they’ll all tell you the same thing; fantastic results BUT watch out for Pythium! As the roots of the plants are constantly bathed in water it’s easy for root disease to take hold. High temperatures can bring on an attack in a matter of hours. Use a heater or chiller to maintain a steady root temp of 20-22®C and apply root treatments – Pyth Tabs or Regen A Root - at the first sign of trouble. Constant monitoring – the constant access to the nutrient solution allows the roots to constantly feed. As they

The low level flood and drain table

Aeroponics – What Is It? Aeroponics is a growing method whereby the roots of a plant are suspended in air and constantly sprayed with a mist of nutrient solution. No growing medium is used, other than a propagation cube if the plant was started from seed. The roots of the plant grow into a cham-

disease. Whilst the systems themselves need a lot of maintaining; a power failure knocks your pump off or a sprinkler stops working and your plants are dead in hours. But for the smaller scale hobby grower, the take is worth the risk! Happy growing!

JORGE CERVANTES

Water, EC and Nutrient Solution The concentration of the nutrient solution has an enormous effect on plant development and growth. Measuring the overall concentration or strength of a ‘balanced’ solution is essential. Focus on nutrient balance and concentration in the solution to head off deficiencies before they cause big problems.

lose water. The water moves via osmotic pressure into the more concentrated solution surrounding roots. Wilting foliage is the first sign of an EC that is too high. When a mild EC overdose occurs plants compensate and foliage growth becomes tough or hard, with brittleness to it. Foliage is often darker green and plants are shorter with smaller leaves.

Fertilizers (dissolved ionic salts) conduct electrical current when in solution. The ions in an ionic compound are held together by ionic bonds. These ions “cation” (+ positive) and “anion” (– negative) have positive and negative charges that attract one another and bond. Nutrient (salts) concentrations are measured by their ability to conduct electricity through a solution. A dissolved salts meter measures the overall concentration or strength of a nutrient solution. For example, pure distilled water has no resistance and conducts virtually no electrical current. When nutrients (dissolved ionic salts) are added to pure distilled water it conducts electricity. A greater concentration of nutrients in solution conducts more electricity.

Brittle leaves are the product of a high EC. Many commercial cannabis gardeners give their flowering crops progressively higher EC concentration. Flower buds plump up and put on weight but this practice tends to make flower buds develop a very harsh taste when smoked or vaporized due to the excess salts left in plant tissues. The residual ash is also very dark and abundant. EC is also affected by water uptake. On hot days when more water is taken up from the solution, nutrients concentrate and EC climbs. A low EC also causes more water uptake and foliage soon becomes weak and soft, often lighter green too. However, lowering EC during hot spells is essential to avoid problems. Measure EC daily and adjust in relation to growing conditions accordingly.

An imbalanced EC caused the potassium burn. Irrigation water is often full of ionic salts that affect the uptake of nutrients. Several scales are currently used to measure how much electricity is conducted by nutrients including: Electrical Conductivity (EC), Conductivity Factor (CF), Parts per Million (ppm), Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), and Dissolved Solids (DS). Most US gardeners use ppm to measure overall fertilizer concentration. European, Australian, and New Zealand gardeners use EC, however they still use CF in parts of Australia and New Zealand. Each variety of cannabis has an ideal EC range for optimum growth. Some varieties are incredibly heavy feeders while others are easy to over-fertilize. Check with seed and clone vendors for details. A high EC causes ‘water stress’ causing plant cells to

To check the EC of the nutrient solution, collect samples from the reservoir, growing medium and runoff. Save time and effort; collect EC and pH samples simultaneously. Collect samples with a syringe or turkey baster used for cooking at least 5 cm deep into the rockwool or growing medium. Collect separate samples of runoff and from the reservoir. Place each sample in a clean jar – washed and triple rinsed with double distilled water. Use a calibrated EC meter to measure each of the samples and record measurement on a piece of paper. Foto collecting nutrient solution samples with a large syringe a. Nutrient Reservoir b. Substrate c. Runoff

Measure pH and EC (ppm) at the same time every day.

A constant readout pH meter makes keeping track of the nutrient solution much easier.

Under normal conditions, the EC in the growing media and runoff should be a little higher than the nutrient solution in the reservoir. If the EC of the solution drawn from the growing medium is substantially higher than the one from the reservoir, there is a fertilizer salt buildup in the substrate. Correct the imbalance by leaching substrate thoroughly with diluted nutrient solution, and replace with new solution. Regularly check the EC of your water, slab, and runoff.

Solution Mixing and Maintenance

EC Guidelines Growth Stage EC Range Seedling 0.8-1.3 Clone 0.5-1.3 Vegetative 1.3-1.7 Flowering 1.2-2 Note: These guidelines are recommendations only. Different varieties of cannabis require higher or lower EC values than listed above.

If possible get a water analysis before it is mixed with hydroponic nutrients. A water analysis will indicate the dissolved ionic salts already in solution. For example, hard water contains elevated levels of calcium and magnesium. Both elements should be added sparingly to nutrient solutions. Soft water has very few impurities (ionic salts) that cause pH to fluctuate, requiring chemical buffers, usually calcium and calcium compounds, to be added to solution. If no water analysis is available from your local water district, a simple EC reading will measure the overall concentration of the dissolved solids (ionic salts) in native water. If growing hydroponically and EC is 0.3 or higher, treat water with reverse osmosis before adding nutrients.

Let a minimum of 20 percent of the nutrient solution drain from growing media after each irrigation cycle to help maintain EC stability. The runoff carries away any excess fertilizer salt buildup in the growing medium. If the EC level of a solution is too high, increase the amount of runoff so that 30 percent of the solution drains out the bottom of containers. To raise the EC, add more fertilizer to the solution, or change the nutrient solution.

Use an accurate easy-to-read container to measure out nutrient dosage. Plants use so much water in relation to nutrients that nutrient solutions need to be replenished regularly. Casually “topping off” the reservoir with pH-balanced water daily will keep the solution relatively balanced for a week maybe two. Use an electronic EC pen to monitor the level of dissolved solids in the solution. Occasionally you will need to add more fertilizer concentrate to maintain the EC level in the reservoir during “topping off.” Keep the reservoir full at all times. The smaller the reservoir, the more rapid the depletion and the more critical it is to keep it full. Employing an automatic filling function for smaller reservoirs will help ensure a balanced nutrient solution. A reverse osmosis filter will remove ionic salts (dissolved solids) from native input water.

This sick leaf is a product of an imbalanced EC. The native input water had a ppm reading of 680! Many factors can alter the EC balance of a solution including irrigation, evaporation and nutrient uptake by roots. For example, if the substrate is under-watered or allowed to dry completely, the EC reading will rise. In fact, the EC may increase to two- or three-times as high as the input solution when too little water is applied to rockwool. This increase in slab EC causes some nutrients to build up faster than others. When the EC doubles, the amount of sodium can increase as much as four- to six-fold under the right conditions! There should not be any sodium present in your garden unless it is in the water supply, and it should not be in excess of 50 ppm. Nutrient solution concentration levels are also affected by nutrient absorption by roots and by water evaporation. The solution weakens as plants use nutrients, but water also evaporates from the solution, which increases the nutrient concentration. Counteract the concentration of fertilizer salts by regularly adding plain water to the nutrient solution to replace that used by plants.

A few gardeners top off the nutrient solution with 500-600 ppm-strength nutrient solution every two to three days. If topping off with nutrient solution keep the EC within safe limits. Avoid problems by draining it and adding fresh solution regularly. Most gardeners leach the entire system with weak nutrient solution for an hour or more between changing the reservoir. A mild fertilizer solution avoids an absence of nutrients for any amount of time. But, the EC will still drop to the levels the medium is leached with which removes all the excess, resets the ratio, and ensures the plant has nutrients at all times. Check EC of reservoir, growing medium, and runoff nutrient solution at the same time every day. Check solution temperature to ensure adequate dissolved oxygen is available to plants.

TRAVEL

Malawi: The Basket Case Sitting on a Pot of Gold Malawi is a beautiful country to visit. They’ve got a stunning lake, some impressive mountainous territory, plenty of the big game wildlife that Africa is famous for and when you get out and meet the villagers you’ll find plenty of decent, honest and genuine people who By the Professor won’t try to rip you off. But, and this is a big but... As far as nations and economies go Malawi is a total basket case. If the country were a person it would be dressed in a strait jacket, dosed up on tranquillisers and sitting on the floor of an insane asylum, rocking backwards and forwards with bulging eyes and a crazed grin. Basket cases are rarely responsible for their own state of being though, they’ve usually been abused, raped, violated or brutalised in some way, and that’s certainly the case with this small, landlocked southern African country. First as a colonial possession of the British elite, and later, as the personal fiefdom of their puppet president Hastings Banda, Malawi has been permanently impoverished by its debts to the World Bank, IMF and the African Development Bank. It is hugely dependent on international aid and the private sector has been ball and chained by the prevalence of foreign NGOs:

a very heady, psychedelic and energising hit it sparks the dullest of synapses and can turn the quietest person into a tripped out, jabbering motor mouth after just a couple of tokes. That’s if you can find any of it: “It’s the wrong time of year to be looking for the Gold. If you want some I can get it for you at the weekend, but I have to go and visit my friends in the army – most of the good stuff goes for export because we get more money for it, and the army control a lot of the international trade because it’s easy for them to smuggle it out of the country...”

the cob dries out and the weed turns to dust as soon as you crumble it. It’s also hard to find a decent quality cob; most of them are riddled with seed, dusty to the touch, half mouldy, and not even fit for use as cattle feed. Bad weed is available everywhere out here, but, despite cannabis being the country’s largest cash crop, very few Malawians would seem to know a good bud if they were slapped in the face with it. During our time in Africa we were lucky enough to score some of the

WITHOUT THE GANJA BUSINESS MANY PEOPLE IN THE MOUNTAINS WOULD DIE FROM POVERTY good stuff in Zimbabwe, the real Malawi Gold, but every deal we got offered in Malawi itself was the same old rubbish at an extortionate price – seven quid an ounce is a proper rip off when all you get is a headache, a sore throat and a handful

We know, thanks to the testimony of the first Portuguese missionaries here, that cannabis has been grown in Malawi for

“Sorry mate, I don’t have anything like that on me, I don’t smoke.”

“Mate, where’s the cob I sampled? This is a different one.” “No, this is the same cob!” He replied, with his eyes wide and a butter-wouldn’tmelt expression plastered all over his lying mug. “Fuck off man, this hasn’t even been opened yet.” “It’s the same cob!” He replied, with the same calm voice, wide eyes and dumbfuck smile.

Malawi’s weed is traditionally sold in cobs. About an ounce of weed is wrapped in old corn leaves and bound together with a string of fibrous tree bark. If you find a reasonably fresh cob you’re on to a good

MALAWI GOLD SPARKS THE DULLEST OF SYNAPSES at least five hundred years. Malawi Gold is also reputed to be the highest quality native African sativa in existence – with

Four soldiers were sitting close by, pretending not to listen to our conversation.

Malawians are like this – they smile a lot and they are calm people, but they’re also sneaky and devious little urchins when they want to be. As is often the way in very poor countries, they’ll tell you anything they can think of to separate you from your cash, and here it is done with no hint of shame and very little skill. In our attempts to track down a decent cob we were presented with one to sample. It was better than average, but the guy offering it took it away with him when he went back to the front gate ‘to pay for it’. I let him, it was a trust test. When he came back he handed over a brand new, securely tied and unopened cob.

“Malawi is a soft country with soft people we’ve never been to war so we don’t know how to fight - we’re an easy nation to bully... And the NGOs do this country more harm than good - why should anyone expose themselves to the risk and aggravation of setting up a business that could create wealth and employ people when they can earn ten times as much money by sitting on their backsides and playing games on the computer for a foreign-funded NGO?” Agriculture is the nation’s largest employer, with ninety per cent of the working population said to be earning their living from the industry. Tobacco is their largest legal cash crop; in 2013 this was worth just over one million US dollars. Corruption, HIV and malaria are endemic here, as is deceit, ignorance and petty thievery. Malawi has very little going for it, and very little to look forward to, but the one thing the country does have going for it, the one aspect of life in which it does have a good reputation aside from tobacco, is cannabis.

“Excuse me sir, do you have any small rizla papers with you? I need one to roll a cigarette.”

start because once the cannabis has been wrapped and buried for any length of time (to keep it hidden from the police)

of seeds and stalks. Good quality weed is a real rarity. These are the sad symptoms of a criminalised industry. As a ganja loving tourist here you have to be on your guard from the moment you enter the country. Crossing over the border from Zambia, I was given my visa by a disarmingly charming and beautiful immigration official. The customs agent was slouched on a chair outside his office. He smiled and spoke as I walked passed:

What made this silly little deception really bizarre is that over the next few days this guy stood to make some good money by guiding us around the remote cannabis growing regions of the country – he was prepared to sacrifice a friend, an adventure, a good contact and a guaranteed month’s wages for a couple of days work all for the sake of making an extra couple of quid on dodgy cob. Cancel the trip, mate. This is how so many Africans (don’t) think. Life for the locals is slightly different though.

45 “A cob of average weed costs five hundred kwacha (less than one UK pound). It’s cheap because there’s so much of it and the police don’t care too much about it. They’re as

Generally speaking, farmers also have a relaxed relationship with the cops:

and invited them into my car: “You thought you could tell the cops on me did you? You stupid, stupid people! You are both sacked, so fucking sacked I never want to see you again as long as I live, now get the fuck out of my car and disappear fast you fucking idiots!” They were terrified, and they even tried to deny it. Malawians are so stupid man, I went to school in England so I know how to do business and I know how things can work but this is Africa, this is the way people are here.” “Every year the cops have to raid a few farms to make it look like they’re doing something

poor as everyone else so if they find you with some they’ll want some money but this is just part of the game. I had some on the dashboard of my car when I got stopped at a road block – I had no chance of hiding it so when he stopped me he saw it and asked what I was doing. I told him, ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to disrespect you. I know it’s illegal but I forgot it was there! Will you let me buy you and your friends some lunch to apologise?’ The cop smiled at me, I gave him two thousand kwacha (four quid) and he let me drive on – he was probably stoned anyway! If you’re a white Malawian you have to give them more money, and if you’re a tourist it could get expensive but if you deal with the situation properly it’s not a big problem.”

“This is a small country with a lot of very poor people in it, it’s difficult to grow ganja without anyone finding out, and Malawians can be jealous people – if they find out you’re growing they’ll tell the cops to get a cut of whatever money is involved in the pay-off. But, sometimes the cops are better friends than the villagers. One day two of my farmers decided they could make more money than I was paying them by getting me arrested so they told the cops about my operation. The cops here aren’t stupid though, they knew I had good political connections so they called me on the phone and told me I had some dishonest, disloyal people working for me – they told me what had happened so I went to see the farmers

to combat the trade, it makes us look good to the international powers but the cops know that without the ganja business many people in the mountains would die from poverty. They do their jobs and the poor people do what they have to do to survive. Most of the cannabis crops here are grown by big land owners with connections to politicians, the cops or the military, the subsistence farmers get paid to work on the plantations because they don’t have enough land or water to feed their families so even if they could grow more crops they’d rather grow food than cannabis.” As far as the nation’s ganja politics are concerned it is a depressingly familiar story: for more than four hundred and fifty years the people of Malawi co-existed with their cannabis crops quite happily. The plant was used medicinally to treat a wide range of ailments and no authority in the country ever saw a need for

prohibition... For at least four hundred and fifty years. That was the case right up until the 1960s (or early 70s, depending on who’s history you read) when puppet Hastings dragged the country into line with the diktats of the UN International Narcotics Control Board. Thirty years later, in the year 2000, the government of the day tried to re-legalise the industry for social and economic reasons – given the pervasive use of the plant by Malawian society and the long-standing status of it being the nation’s largest employer and top currency earner, being worth four times as much as the tobacco industry,

it made perfect sense. This action was noted by the US and the big European economies who then threatened Malawi with the withdrawal of international aid. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) then jumped on the bandwagon and gave Malawi a bollocking of their own, demanding they do more to control their illicit trade in cannabis, thus forcing them from their position of trying to re-legalise into one of cracking down on the industry. So, in 2013 Malawi’s cannabis industry remains criminalised, Malawians are still hopelessly impoverished, cannabis is still the largest cash crop and Malawi’s Investment and Trade Centre (MITC) is championing groundnuts, pigeon peas, sunflower, soya beans, maize and sugar cane as the agricultural investment opportunities of the future. Enforced dependency is a hard condition to shake off once you’ve been reduced to basket case status.

FESTIVALS & EXPOS

THE HASH QUEEN OF AMSTERDAM WINS IN DENVER, RALLIES CROWDS IN BOSTON

Mila Takes America: Mila Jansen, proprietor of Amsterdam’s famous Pollinator Co., recently attended two festivals in the States, aligning the Dutch and American Sativa Diva hash industries.

A rapt audience was pumped up by the Hash Queen, who praised the progress currently being enjoyed across America – with regards to both legislation and hashmaking techniques – as eighteen states plus Washington, D.C. have some sort of

It is not often that one person in the Cannabis industry represents so many things: innovator, teacher, legalization activist and medi-weed advocate. Mila – who also founded a 1960s ‘tea house’ and the Hemp Hotel in Amsterdam – is a rare exception. Inventor of a variety of hashmaking equipment and pioneering techHoney bee torch tube, an oil rig collaboraniques, she also offers females in the industry a role model. As a mother, she artfully Thousands attended the Freedom Rally at tion between Hitman Glass and Joe Peters balanced those duties with an unquenchBoston Common able thirst for knowledge, which she now happily shares with the world. American growers and smokers have long revered Mila as their guru, and she recently had the opportunity to ‘preach to the converted’ at both the Freedom Rally in Boston, Massachusetts and the 710 Cup in Denver, Colorado. The annual Freedom Rally was held on September 14 and 15 in the vast, leafy Boston Common, the Mila with the crew from HTG Supplies park that launches a 2.5-mile (4 km) walk encompassing seventeen historic sites, known as the Freedom Trail. Although local authorities did approve a two-day permit for the festival, event organizers MassCann complied with a judge’s order to limit the second day’s festivities in duration. While officials insisted the cutback was intended to preserve police resources for other events in town, some attendees noted that the cops were able to spare a few undercovers posing as dealers.

Industry Achievement Award at the first annual 710 Cup

Each extract company strove to outdo the

Notable attendees such as activists, advocates and the NORML crew mingled with dedicated locals and those who travelled far to attend. Speakers included noted Cannabis author and medical expert Lester Grinspoon, plus politicians from many states who reported the progress of Cannabis legalization across the country. Delicious food tents filled with American festival staples, such as elephant ears and blooming onions, encouraged attendees to sate their ‘munchies’ while vendors hawked the usual hemp and Cannabis wares. The documentary Mila’s Journey was screened at the Grassroots Institute, where people are taught how to grow and process their own medicine, including implementing various products from the Pollinator Co. (For those unable to attend, it will also be played at the Emerson Film School at a future date.) Musical acts further elevated the atmosphere, ranging from hippie girls with guitars to booming hip-hop. Although some performers and speakers were cancelled as a result of the abridged schedule, Mila’s address to the substantial Saturday afternoon crowd was retained and warmly received.

Mila was given the Female

dabs of others

Grilled grub, toffee apples, fresh pastries and the famous blooming onion were just some of the treats on offer in Boston More monster dab rigs

This ‘new’ subculture was even more present at the inaugural 710 Cup, made possible by Grassroots, Hitman Glass and WeedMaps and held from July 12 to 14 in Denver, Colorado. Why ‘710’, you ask? Take the word ‘OIL’, flip it around, and there’s your answer. Unlike typical weed competitions, seventy-four concentrates were entered into the début instalment of this contest, including eight non-solvent entries, a few fullmelt samples, edibles and some pressed hash. Judges received a swag bag of the entries plus an event T-shirt, smoking rig, judge’s hat and a few other goodies, while enjoying speakers and seminars regarding cultivation and activism, an outdoor medicating area, a catered dinner for judges, over forty musical acts and comedy by the Fine Gentlemen’s Club. Perhaps most impressive were the various glass art superstars displaying their talents. Mila was honoured with the accolade of Female Industry Achievement Award, presented by her apprentice Nikka T. of Essential Extracts. Online hero Hash Bean also got a nod, and Tony from Sagarmatha Seeds surprised everyone by attending. The dabbing crowd also enjoyed the Hash Queen as a main stage keynote speaker on Saturday afternoon, as well as her participation as an international judge of the non-solvent category. In addition to having created the dry-sieve machines (pollinators) and the ice-water extraction bag system known as Ice-O-Lator bags, the tiny Bubbleator, etc., Mila is known for bridging the gap between different nationalities, backgrounds and levels of experience and interest. Her shop in Amsterdam is a sacred spot for many, as she absorbs her international observances and knowledge, passing it all on to anyone with time to chat. The connection will be further strengthened during this November’s Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, when Mila invites dabbers from all over to attend her Dab-ADoo event on the 25th. Torches, adapters and rigs will soon be available at the Pollinator Co., as the shop will host this event in conjunction with Doug from Hitman Glass. As Mila herself states, “What is so very popular in the United States will come [to the Netherlands] too – all this dabbing of concentrates will come here, too, no doubt.” www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2BHwx vwlos&feature=youtu.be Check out Mila at the 710 Cup on YouTube.

A beautiful shatter necklace at the 710 Cup

pro-pot laws in place. In addition, the concentrate community (and groups such as the sub-Reddit r/trees) are coming out of the woodwork en masse, publicizing the practice of condensing the best elements of Cannabis and removing the unwanted fodder, allowing for a super-clean, intense cannabinoid experience.

The first-ever 710 Cup drew a large crowd

Photos courtesy of the Pollinator Co.

SEED BANKS

15 years of feminized seeds It’s 15 years since Dutch Passion discovered how to make feminized cannabis seeds. Today most seedbanks offer feminized seeds, and some only sell feminized seeds. Whether growing auto’s or traditional varieties, most people prefer to grow from feminized seed. The same seems to be true of the outdoor or indoor gardener. 15 years after the invention that changed the world home-growing it is time to take a step back and review the impact of feminized seeds. For their first 10 years Dutch Passion only sold ‘regular’ (non-feminized) seeds. Today, 25+ years after they started they

seedbanks are just as good as traditional varieties these days. The best feminized automatic varieties sell in similar quantities to their photoperiod counterparts. So long as the feminization process is stable, and so long as the genetics produce fine quality cannabis, home-growers can be equally successful with either automatic or photoperiod feminized seeds. Are Dutch Passion surprised to see feminized seed take up such a large proportion of seed sales? Here is what they said when we asked them “Well, in many ways, yes we are surprised. Remember we started as a company which only sold

opportunity to grow-their-own instead of having to buy it. The first seedbanks had already found that the cannabis their customers grew was better quality than the imported grass. The first self-sufficient growers from the 1980’s had discovered that growing-your-own was the best way to guarantee a steady supply of low-cost pot. What’s more, the quality was at least as good as the imported pot and often it was way better and more consistent. The work on feminization started after Dutch Passion began researching the occasional male flowers which are sometimes produced by female plants at the end of their life cycle. They noticed that mature female cannabis plants, if allowed to grow beyond the normal harvest point, would eventually produce male flowers. It seemed an interesting observation, but was there any purpose to these late male flowers? Pollen was collected from these late male flowers and used to pollinate. That was when they noticed an amaz-

By Tony, Dutch Passion

ing coincidence; all the resulting seeds produced female plants. The work was repeated under various conditions to see if this was a freak result or whether they had stumbled on something special. Soon it was clear, the pollen produced by these rogue male flowers would only give rise to female-producing seeds. It was called ‘female pollen’ because that is what it seemed to be. The first feminized seeds were met with a mixture of excitement and disbelief. Soon the subject of feminized seed became a hot topic, everyone was interested in it. Within a few years feminized seeds had become the preferred option for the home-grower. 15 years after the initial discovery of feminized seeds the Dutch Passion team found that feminized seeds accounted for around 97% of seed sales, other seedbanks report a similar story. It is worth considering the counter-arguments to feminized seed. A small propor-

Blue AutoMazar still have 15 varieties of their original prize-winning legacy varieties available as regular seeds such as Mazar, Orange Bud, Blueberry, Power Plant etc. These are used by smaller-scale breeders and homegrowers that want to make their own varieties, perhaps producing their own seeds and hybrids. Dutch Passion wants to keep regular seeds in their collection for the long term. However these days only around 3% of the seeds they sell are regular (non-feminized). The other 97% are sold as feminized, that shows how the home-growing community has evolved. Home-growers are looking for simplicity and convenience, which explains the fundamental popularity of feminized seeds. Home growers are also (obviously) looking for top quality too, and it is clear that feminized seeds produce the same topquality cannabis that is produced from regular seeds.

regular seeds for 10 years. The concept of feminized cannabis seed hadn’t really been given much serious credibility back in the 1970’s and 80’s. Yes, feminized seeds were talked about but most breeders said it was impossible. Our original focus was finding and preserving the best

The desire for simplicity and convenience also explains why feminized auto’s have become so popular. With automatics there is the added simplicity that the AutoMazar grower doesn’t even have to change the light-cycle to induce flowering. Blooming starts automatically a few weeks after the cannabis genetics from around the world. seed has germinated, even under 24 hours Supplying cannabis seeds to home-growof continuous daily light. Lots of first-time ers was, and still is, our passion.” growers prefer auto’s for that very reason. It literally is a case of planting the seed The first 10 years of Dutch Passion was and letting the plant take care of the rest. simply about collecting the best original And the best automatics from the quality cannabis genetics to allow growers the

Strawberry Cough

49 3% of sales means that they offer regular seeds as a service rather than as a business. But, to their credit, it remains a service which they are committed to. So where does the seed industry go from here? The key point to remember is that for most medical or recreational growers the main goal is to produce a crop of healthy female plants with the minimum amount of fuss and maximum simplicity. For that reason alone, feminized seed will remain the preferred route for most growers. We expect to see automatic cannabis varieties becoming more popular as the growing community realise that the quality level of automatics is now the same as traditional ‘photoperiod’ varieties. We also expect to see more work into CBDenriched cannabis varieties both traditional and automatics. But after 15 years of feminized seeds one thing we can safely say that the average home-grower has never had such a diverse range of top quality cannabis Night Queen varieties to choose from. Long may that continue.

Think Different

tion of growers still prefer to use regular seeds feeling that it is more natural than feminized. Others feel that feminized seeds are a threat to the natural survival of cannabis. But the real threat to the survival of cannabis has been several decades of prohibition, and if that didn’t manage to wipe out cannabis then nothing will. In fact the feminization of cannabis seeds has allowed convenient and simple home-growing to become a genuinely mainstream activity across the world. Today, in more-or-less every city and suburb across the world there will be someone growing their own stash. The wide availability of good cannabis genetics in feminized seed has helped make that a reality. With feminized seeds you will see the occasional male plant, but very rarely. You may see the occasional male flower which will need removing. But with regular seeds around 50% of the plants will be male and will have to be removed. With feminized seeds just about all the plants will become female. In many countries one of the motivations for growing femi-

nized seeds is to allow the home-grower to work with the minimum number of plants. That gives great peace of mind to those who grow cannabis in places where it is still illegal to do so. Yes, we are seeing the first signs that prohibition of cannabis is ending. But for many it remains illegal, and therefore feminized seeds have their attractions. Why grow 20 plants from regular seed if you only want 10 females to fill your stash- jars? Feminized seeds allow growers to design a growroom that is as small and efficient as possible, and feminized seeds allow people to work with the minimum number of plants. Not many home-growers want the extra hassle of growing from regular seed. If they can find a good seedbank which offers reliable and consistent feminized seeds then they will prefer feminized seeds over regular seed. Of course some will prefer regular non-feminized seeds, and that is a choice Dutch Passion respects, they have a collection of 15 regular varieties for those that prefer nonfeminized seeds. But Dutch Passion point out that maintaining 15 varieties for just

Think Different

CANNABIS EXPO’S

Expo Grow, Irun: A Brit’s Perspective

So far, so good.

After hearing good things about Expo Grow’s debut last year, we were eager to check it out. Studying the website before we jetted off really got our juices flowing, particularly the prospect of a festival style atmosphere complete with indoor sky diving, skate ramps, food tents, the cream of the crop from the grow and seed industries and a late By Little Lebowski night gig from a certain reggae legend!

Standing in a narrow city street, nibbling on tapas, sipping on a beer, with a joint in hand is something I’ll never forget. Everyone should experience it at least once in their life!

First off, let’s agree on one thing, from a Brit’s perspective (and probably from a Spaniard’s too) there are A LOT of shows in Spain. There’s Barcelona, Madrid, Malaga and - Soft Secrets’ very own - GrowMed in Valencia. There’s a lot of competition out there for the new kid on the block. But, one thing’s for sure... Spain is still the most active market in Europe right now. There are shops popping up left, right and centre. New seed companies seem to open on a monthly basis with a catalogue rammed full of exciting strains. Plus, thanks to the relaxed local laws, the big Dutch seed companies have set up base in Spain, as have various nutrients companies.

they do at some of the other European shows. So you got more of a chance to chat with people and show them around your products. The only down-

Heading back in on the Saturday, there was a different vibe about the place. There was a line at the door and the halls seemed to be buzzing with people. I heard chatter in Spanish and French in equal measures. From speaking to the exhibitors, there were plenty of shops around on that day from both sides of the border. Something that was really apparent, even in the short months since I visited the Barcelona show, was the increase in Spanish growing clubs that were in attendance.

There is loads going on, but did Expo Grow capture the imagination? Well, for starters, it would be unfair to fully classify Expo Grow as a Spanish show as its location - Irun, close by to the beautiful San Sebastián - is literally a stone’s throw from the French border. So it’s an event that appeals to two markets and at the moment - there isn’t a trade show in France. Although, this will apparently change next year.

side being on the Friday, with attendees spread out across four spaces, it seemed a little quiet at times. Although this gave you ample chance to talk business with other exhibitors and contacts. For me, this was great. I got the chance to have a great natter with owners and staff from companies I’d heard of before, but never previously had chance to meet. Shout out to the guys at Hemp Hoodlamb for some good banter and the gals at Magic Flight Launch Box for the ‘hands on’ demonstration. Much appreciated!

Having had a good wander around on the Friday, I was keen to check out the renowned tapas in the city of San Sebastián that evening. A city I’d heard so much about, but never got round to visiting. All I can say is.... awesome! Think of it as a mini Barcelona, with a more compact centre and incredible restaurants.

Saturday was buzzing!

The fact that this was the only ‘French’ trade show in the 2013 calendar was evident in the turnout of the exhibitors. The vast majority of the big names in grow products and seeds had decent sized booths, as well as several big Spanish wholesale companies. I don’t think this would have happened if the show was set further into mainland Spain, as the market is pretty much catered for by the A few lovely ladies. Always welcome! other four trade shows that have been established now for a few years.

I first heard of growing clubs from a friend of mine based in Belgium, where they are allowed - legally - to grow one plant per person. Several members sign their right to grow over to the club, who then appoints one of their growers to cultivate it all for them. The end product is then split between the members. What a system! Are you listening UK lawmakers? I didn’t get to do a whole lot of research on the ins and outs of the Spanish clubs, but from what I gather they are a cross between a private members club and a Dutch coffee shop. Members pay a monthly fee to get entrance to the club and a certain amount of weed per month is thrown in. This seems to be heralded as the way forward in the Spanish market, so watch this space for further information. As Saturday drew to a close, my thoughts turned to the night time activities in the outdoor section of the venue, where a large sound stage had been erected alongside the various bar and food tents. Last year’s headline was Cypress Hill, so this year’s had a lot to live up to.

The location was great. A nice new exhibition centre, very close by to the town of Irun, with great transport links and more importantly - a huge car park, which exhibitors and visitors all praised.

Step forward Mr Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, the reggae legend himself! What an awesome show. He really delivered on the outdoor stage, despite the warm Spanish rain shower!

Expo Grow was divided into four separate spaces. Three exhibition halls and a large outdoor area, complete with chill out zone, skate ramps, food tents and the VIP tent (sponsored by Soft Secrets, of course!). From chatting with some of the exhibitors that I’m friendly with, this layout had pretty positive outcomes. Even during the busy Saturday, the halls ‘Scratch’ doing his thang didn’t seem as manic or crowded as

After getting my fill of the exhibitors on the previous days, Sunday was spent chilling outside with a couple of good friends. Pontificating on the possibilities of organising a similar show back in Blighty. The conclusion? No chance! We’ll head back to Expo Grow next year!

THE ONLINE CANNABIS ENCYCLOPEDIA /softsecretsuk @cannabisinfo_us

Growkits and = 0DJLF 7UXIÁHV 0DJLF 7UXIÁHV

NEW A FORMUL IGHER MUCH HLD YIE

Ask your local growshop

STRAIN SPECIAL 2013

12 huge harvests Industrial Plant from Dinafem. Northern Lights version that has become renowned for being productive and easy to grow in recent seasons, thus making it the best bet for practical growers. It tends to form medium-sized plants with a main bud and few leaves to manicure.

harvests. Perfect for outdoor growing in areas with lots of sunlight. Intense effect, delicious incense flavour.

Buddha Seeds, the seedbank that broke the limits of production with its autoflowering strains, outdoes itself yet again with Magnum, an autoflowering strain that attracts attention for its impressive yields in record times. Tall plant, generous branching, lots of strength.

Kalashnikova from Green House Seed Company. Strong AK47xWhite Widow cross that achieves a good production of very strong buds. Strong strain, compact buds.

If we’re talking about productive plants, Chronic from Serious Seeds is a classic in the category with its incredible yields. Outdoors it’s able to produce arm-sized buds. It’s also very strong and flavourful. Jack Attack from Venus Seeds. It regains the great productivity typical of Jack strains with its vigour and generous branching, which yield extremely good

Cotton Candy from Delicious Seeds

The Ultimate. One of Dutch Passion’s most productive genetics. Very strong. Impressive results for indoor and hydroponic growing.

Monster from Eva Seeds. This strain is legendary as its outdoor yields can exceed two kilograms. It’s also very easy to grow. Strong scent and Sativa effect.

Production Ganja Selecta

delicious Lavender flavour yet with an increase in production and simplifying the growing process, thanks to the addition of Power Plant. This high-quality cross is definitely worth a try. Amnesia from Superstrains. Direct heir to the Amnesia Haze legend, this plant has risen quickly as a new favourite amongst Spanish growers. Intense effects, sweet incense flavour, high yields. Meditation from Jah Seeds. Another incredible breeding job, it maintains the flavour and intense Widow effect, while noticeably increasing production, yielding good harvests of large, sweet and tasty buds. An increase in CBD is also noticeable.

Industrial Plant - Dinafem Magnum - Buddha Seeds Chronic - Serious Seeds Jack Attack - Venus Seeds The Ultimate - Dutch Passion Kalashnikova - Green House Seed Company Monster - Eva Seeds Blue Mistery - Seed Bank Low Cost Cotton Candy - Delicious Seeds Amnesia - Superstrains Meditation - Jah Seeds Tank - Vip Seeds Tank from Vip Seeds. This cross between selected Sativas grows huge, giving excellent results outdoors with its love of the sun. An outdoor experiment with a single plant in a 250-litre vase resulted in 1800 g of dry, resin-coated flowers with an intense scent and a great high.

Blue Mistery from Seed Bank Low Cost. Sturdy plant, thick branches able to support huge buds. Narcotic and sedative effect. Spicy and wild berry flavour. Cotton Candy from Delicious Seeds. A great achievement – maintaining the

Blue Mistery from Seed Bank Low Cost

Chronic from Serious Seeds

Magnum from Buddha Seeds

Jack Attack from Venus Seeds

Monster from Eva Seeds

Tank from VIP Seeds

Industrial Plant from Dinafem

Kalashnikova from Green House Seed Company

Meditation from Jah Seeds

SHOP REVIEW / INDEX OF ADS / COLOFON

Kera Seeds

Index of ads Name 00 Seeds Bank 8 Ball Hydroponics

Amsterdam Seed Center

Atami

Big Stone River Indoor Garden Centre

Editor: Cliff Cremer

Bio Nova

Bright Green UK

Brit Crops

Buddha Seeds

Contributors: Little Lebowski, Ed Rosenthal, Jorge Cervantes, Dr. John Dee, Grubbycup, the Professor, Kali Mist, Buddy Kush, Sativa Diva, Golgi Apparatus, Ganjah Selecta, Tony and others

Clever Green

Down to Earth Kent Dr. Blooms Hydroponics

Kera Seeds offers two lines: Kera Classic: the classic Dutch coffeeshop strains. Important names like White Widow, Skunk, Dutch Power, Northern Light, Diesel and Amnesia Mac Ganja. Kera California: the most successful California strains crossed with classic Dutch coffeeshop products: for example OG kush, Trainwreck, Bubba Kush, Chemdog, crossed with White Widow.

Kera Seeds is renowned for its personalised service, which is why it’s opening a new branch in Great Britain: to offer an even better customer service. If you own a shop and are looking for a truly unique line of seeds, don’t hesitate to contact us! Kera Seeds UK Phone Number: 0044-(0)7758-219310

www.keraseeds.com uk@keraseeds.com

52 7

Easy-Grow Wholesale

Ed Rosenthal

Encod

Expert Seeds

Gro-Rite Supplies

Grotech Distribution

Grow Home the

Growing Underground

Hesi

Hydro 2 Grow

Jorge Cervantes

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Kera Seeds

Kroon de

Money Tree Hydroponics

Mycologics

Nirvana

NPK Technology

Oh Yeah!

Paradise Seeds

27 4

Procare

Roberts Direct

and the frequently cold outdoor temperatures, germi-

Shayanashop.com

nation in the outside air will usually take a bit longer.

Smokin Vinyl

The advantage of this is that the young seedling will

Southern Hydro Centre

be used to the cold outdoor conditions right from the

Southwest Headshops

start (stronger yet: the seed knows no better), thanks to

Stanford Hydroponics

which she will less readily become stressed. The other way round (allowing it to germinate indoors and then taking it outside) can be a recipe for problems.

Comics: Jim Stewart Editorial adress: E-mail: ssuk@softsecrets.nl

Plagron

Thanks to the still rather cold nights in the early spring

Soft Secrets is published by Discover Publisher BV P.O.Box 362, 5460 AJ, Veghel, Netherlands Telephone: +31-(0)73-5498112 Fax: +31-(0)73-5479732 E-mail: info@softsecrets.nl

Dinafem Seeds

All seeds undergo rigorous quality control before being placed on the market; they are selected by hand according to size and weight, and any broken or cracked seeds are eliminated. All seeds are preserved at a set temperature, to guarantee continuous quality. Once the purchase order has been made, the seeds are posted in an expressly-designed package, a unique rigid box that keeps them dark and cool and avoids any damage during transportation.

Advanced Seeds

Critical Hydroponics

With years of experience in the cannabis seed industry, Kera Seeds is ready to present its range of products for the United Kingdom, specifically designed for the typical weather of the British Isles. These species are very resistant, yielding good results in a relatively cold and rainy climate. Kera Seeds selects the best feminised autoflowering and medicinal strains from the very best European producers. These feminised strains at convenient prices are excellent if you’re in search of a good Indica, an extraordinary Sativa or an autoflowering plant (Ruderalis cross).

Colofon Page

Sweet Seeds

UK GroWorks

UK Skunkworks

Wellingborough Hydro

Advertisements: E-mail: info@softsecrets.nl A word from the publisher: The UK government has embarked on a process of relative liberalisation towards the use of cannabis, and cannabis activists are engaged in broadening this engagement. Several local councils and police chiefs now actively support a Dutch-style coffeeshop system as a way of separating soft and hard drugs, as it has proven to do in Holland. Whether they are finding their way to new coffeeshops or growing for their personal supply, cannabis users are a menace to no one, and are causing no discernable social problem. Some politicians and commentators are calling for the outright legalisation of marihuana. Let’s wait and see how the debate develops during a period of relative peace between all sides of the argument. In the meantime, the publisher hopes Soft Secrets will show the public a positive side to the normalisation of cannabis use, and is anxious to offer a forum to both pro- and anti-legalisation advocates. This assumes that the publisher does not necessarily agree with everything that appears in articles and advertisements. The publisher therefore distances himself explicitly from published statements or images that might give the impression that an endorsement is being made for the use or production of cannabis. Nothing from this publication may be copied or reproduced in any format without prior permission from the publisher and other copyright holders. The publisher is not responsible for the content and/or point of view of advertisements. The editors take no responsibility for unsolicited submissions. The publisher has endeavored to reach all copyright holders of photo and/or video material. Those who still believe they are entitled to these rights are entitled to contact the publisher.

Next issue out: December 27 2013

® Femi

www.sweetseeds.es

n ised S ee ds

Best Seeds Bank Expocannabis 2007

Best Seeds Bank Spannabis 2008

Best Seeds Bank Spannabis Sur 2013

During flowering, around 80% of the plants acquire purple or reddish tones in the buds and some of them even develop purple leaves too. After harvested and dried the buds gain a very dark purple tone, almost black.

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-3 -40,00 -36, -48,90€ ·10s 3s-20,00€ · 5s 3s-24,00€ · 5s 3s-22,50€ · 5s 3s-29,90€ · 5s C/ Dr. Nicasio Benlloch, 36-38 · 46015 · Valencia · España · +34 963 890 403 · +34 963 473 730 / +34 963 404 289 (Wholesalers) · Fax: +34 961 939 618 · info@sweetseeds.es

Sale prohibited to people under 18 years old. Seed for coleccionist use exclusively. It´s ilegal to make them germinate. They´re not for agriculture purposes. Consult laws about cannabis aplied in your place of residence. Sweet Seeds will not be acountable for ilegal use of this seeds done by third parties.

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