Chapter Five - Good News for Late Planters

      Marijuana can be successfully started in late July and still come in early in the fall. This makes it easy for people who have not had a chance to do their planting early, and allows growers to increase the size of their crops. Late plants will not be as big or yield as much as earlier plants, but their quality will be just as high.
      Starting plants indoors is probably the easiest way to begin. The plant’s initial growth can be spurred by using metal halides and a CO₂ enriched atmosphere. Under good conditions, and depending on the variety planted, the plants should be six inches to one foot high within two weeks, and should grow at a rate of six inches to one foot per week for the next six weeks. A six-week-old plant will be four to six feet tall; a four-week-old plant, two to three feet; a three-week-old plant, one to two feet. Of course, the plants will not fill out as an outdoor plant would. As long as they get enough water, they won’t be damaged by the hot August sun.
      There is one problem with starting plants indoors. Unless the natural light cycle is modified, they will start to flower almost immediately if they are early-maturing varieties. To modify the light cycle, the night must be interrupted, because the plants determine their flowering time according to the number of hours of uninterrupted darkness. Shining a light over the entire surface of the plant in the middle of the darkness cycle will stop the plant from going into its flowering stage. A powerful flashlight, fluorescent light, or incandescent light will do. Car headlights also work well. The darkness cycle should be interrupted every night, until you wish the plants to go into the flowering stage.

Backyard growers may find it convenient to grow plants in portable containers so they can move the plants between the basement or garage and the outdoors. Then they can manipulate the light cycle to their needs, using an artificial source such as metal halides or fluorescents to supplement the natural light. Should there be an overcast or rainy day, the plants will still get plenty of bright light indoors. At night the plants can be locked up safe and sound, away from the greedy hands of thieves. Also, spotting helicopters will be unable to locate the plants while they are sheltered.

To increase outdoor plant growth during the early stages, spray the plants with carbonated water several times a day. Make sure not to use club soda, which contains salt. Instead, make your own with a home soda maker, which uses CO₂ cartridges, or buy seltzer, which has no salt added.
You can also make carbonated water using a CO₂ tank and attached hose emptying into a container of water. If the container can be safely pressurized, the amount of CO₂ dissolved in the water will increase. Dry ice, which is frozen CO₂, can also be used.
If the young plants are sprayed several times a day; their growth can be speeded up considerably. As the plants grow, it becomes less cost-effective to spray them, but it is still worthwhile.

Smaller plants may be started months later than their larger sisters, and will flower at about the same time. Their potency will be about the same, since it is based not on their chronological age, but on their maturity. Although yields on small plants are low, these plants can be placed much closer together. (In Morocco, in many cases, plants are grown by broadcast seeding, which may produce as many as 25 plants per square foot.) A 10’ x 10’ area, a total of 100 square feet, covered with plants one to two feet high in four inch pots, placed nine per square foot, would yield a good stash. Each plant would consist primarily of a main stem with a joint’s worth of buds on it — roughly 900 joints.