Any pointers to growing 1 lb plants?

Select the right strain(s), meaning those known to go big and have decent outdoor reviews, finish times etc for your location and climate. Don't ask plants to be something they're not. They'll hate you for it.

Start several plants inside in 5 gallon containers under the proper light and timing. When the time is right select the healthiest ones to be the queens of the hive, plant the others behind your local police station or grow them in 20 gallon pots in your backyard to experiment and learn on. Try some organic, some not etc. You will learn from your successes and your mistakes.

Acclimate your girls to the outdoor lite to avoid sun burning and premature onset of flowering A filtered light spot outdoors or greenhouse works for the transition as does matching your indoor lite schedule to the outside. The best producing plants are also the luckiest plants, the ones which never experience drought, nute defiencies, bugs or mold etc. Help them be lucky.

Dig big ass holes in the ground in an area that gets plenty of sunlight and has a breeze and/or good morning light.
Make sure the roots have room to roam ( plenty of easy to penetrate broken up soil) add perlite if the natural soil is too fine. I disperse timed release ferts and water retaining crystals throughout the hole. Keyword = "disperse". Simple and it works.

If you're going organic, find soil that worms are thriving in. Worms are your friends.

When you put your ladies outside for good and you want bigguns, it helps if they're already 3 - 4 feet tall and branchy.

Tie her down. Stake those branches horizontal early before they get woody if you can. Make the plant auxins your bitch.

I’ve grown plenty of indicas outdoors in the SE US. My plants regularly see temps in the triple digits and even triple digit humidity. My grow area gets full sun the entire time the sun is out and I plant in the ground. I believe that is key for plants to handle the high temps and humidity. I only water when natural rainfall is lacking. I also collect rain water when possible and use that when needed. Maybe it’s me but I’ve always noticed that plants prefer rainwater to municipal water even if I allow it to sit out to allow the chlorine to evaporate prior to use. My soil was purchased originally from a local organic supplier, but it’s been in place for years and I always turn over any growth from off season. The soil is teaming with worms and the like and I keep suplimemental feeding to a minimum if they get it at all.
I’ve had a harder time growing tomatoes and other garden vegetables in our heat than cannibas. Go figure?

Im have similarities with above my temps get up high ,humidity not bad in the 50s and they are 85% indicas going okay.depending on your soil structure ,drainage in the heat between 30-40 deg celcius im using 8 litres a day in dirt in ground.a moisture meter is a good tool to tell you when they need watering.you can tell when they need watering the leaf stem will droop..ive used quite abit of amendments.just to name a few.worm castings,kelp meal.cow manure.mushroom compost .organic compost peat moss etc and quite a few others.ferts .bat guarno.aloe and kelp ferment.fulvic acid etc.these girls were raised outside.like what was stated i agree fully if you want to get them off to a great start under light is the way to go.these arnt far off budding.topped at the 3rd node and lst'd the rest.

I got 15.2 oz. from this Chernobyl I grew in a 15ga. pot

SG420 said:

I would like to preface this by saying I have never grown cannabis but have been reading on this sight for three years. This will be my first grow. I am aware growing outdoors your plants are very vulnrable to the elements and pests. I am also very aware as a first timer I should not expect much and should not even be focused on yield. Despite this I want to try anyways. I know its impossible to estimate yield as a variety of factors are involved such as humidity, heat, veg time, genetics, strains, training, sunlight, watering schedules etc. With that out of the way...

Would anyone have some pointers to getting me close to or exactly a pound per plant for my first grow?

I have read people getting pound plants in as little as 15 gallon smart pots. I would love to go much bigger (50 gallons) but that is too much $$$ for me at the moment. I will be growing my plants in 20 gallon smart pots. My base mix will be as follows: 1/3 spagnum peat, ewc, and lava rock. I was also told to use mulch or straw to retain water. I will be using glacial rock dust for minerals, as well as spraying roots with myco. I have heard good things about malted barley for increased terpene production. I will be mixing an all purpose fertilizer in with my soil (5-5-5) I was told for simplicities sake as a beginner this soil mix would only require water and no teas/topdressing later on. I should also mention I am not able to veg indoors as I do not have the room in my house to do so. I will have to start from seed outdoors.

I live in the southern US. humidity can be high here and temperatures can average 80-95 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer.

If anyone thinks 20 gallon smart pots with that soil mix could yield close to a pound or more a plant I would greatly appreciate your feedback and any other tips.

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Biggest pests outside are people and da law. To get a 1 pound plant, buy Bubba Kush seeds from Crop King, get ten if you can afford it. April 10th start the seeds and after three weeks under lights synchronized with daylight May 1st. May 1st (in Canada anyways) transplant to 5 gal pails and tuck in a greenhouse with black metal 5 gal buckets filled with water and rocks to help keep them warm at night. June first transplant in a 2 1/2 by 2 1/2 foot hole at least 2 feet deep (or a 20+ gal container) filled with your favorite compost or potting soil. Water with 1 gal water every day it is forecast to be sunny. Do it in the morning. In the water have a 1/10th mixture of water soluble fertilizer twice a week add 5ml of hydroponics MICRO neuts. No fertilizer for last two weeks. They will be finished Sept 20 to Oct 1 so be ready to cover with plastic (Anti-frost) you spread over a frame because the plant gets huge (The main stalk will be 4 to 5 inches in dia. when done.). Do not let the plastic touch the leaves or those leaves will freeze. Take plastic off if day is sunny. 500 to 600 grams from a 7 foot high plant 5 feet in diameter, no problem. Plant is hardy and mold is not a problem in Rainy Nova Scotia. Good luck.

First thing is forget about growing a pound per plant your first time out. If you are in a legal state where you can tend it everyday, it might be possible for you. But if this is a gorilla grow, go for three times the plants you think you want, and hope that a third of them turn out to be keepers. {if it is a back yard grow, thieves should be your first concern. Money does grow on trees after all}

Plant in the ground, not in smart pots. While smart pots have totally changed the nursery business, they take lots more water. Dig your holes wider than deep. The bigger your root-ball, the bigger your plant will be. But remember that bigger plants take more care. {ie, time} Also use as much manure composts as possible in your soil mix, but make sure it's all well aged. Also any smelly organic ferts need to be kept to a minimum. Varmints will root your shit up.

Most of the time I grow outdoors from seed drop. It is tough. You will need some sort of screened in area to get them past the seedling stage. Grasshoppers can wipe out several trays of seedlings in one night. {I've had it happen before} Even a week under CFL's will be a help. When I had a veg partner, we would veg for 30 days. That gets your plants up about knee high and gives them a much better chance of living.

If you have to carry very many to the woods, you will want to start them off in solo cups. 1 gallon pots are best, but even with milk crates, eight is all you can carry at once. With the cups, you can carry a couple dozen.

If you know any local growers, get seeds from them. Even if it's buying a bag and growing the bagseed. Having a strain that is used to the climate is a big deal. I'm in NW Florida where summertime days are shorter than up north. I got a lot of seeds from buddies in the PNW where they have long summer days. Most of them flowered in the middle of summer. {no big deal if it didn't rain all summer here}

You have to have a plan for watering. I use rain-catchers made from tarps. Works great, as long as it rains. Creeks, rivers and ponds are the first place cops and rippers go looking, so you have to use caution around them.

I could go on for a long time, but the real way you learn to grow is growing. Get some holes dug, and good luck.

thank you larry i've kept a close eye on some of your posts you always have great guerrilla tips to offer. yea i was going to grow in smart pots this year but heard from people getting larger yields by just planting in the ground so i changed my mind. unfortunately i am unable to start them indoors so i realize they have a lower survival rate.

> do you have any advice on increasing survival? im thinking about crafting some window screen type cages shaped like a soda can to put over the tops of the seeds so no bugs can access them when they sprout.

> as a guerrilla grower i would like to opt to visit my grow as little as possible. i just don't know how realistic that is though. im fine with visiting my plants at night to check on them but for watering.. well that's probably not a good idea to water at night. ive heard of different drip systems/gravity systems you can set up but i don't think i've got the funds or time this year to learn how to set one up and get familiar with it. any idea what i can do about this?

> i would like to fill the holes i dig with 20 gallons of soil. i don't have any clue what size holes are needed to contain 20 gallons of soil. any foolproof way to go about this so i can dig each of my holes the same size?


i will definitely have to try out a rain catcher made from tarps. probably will try and find a camo colored one or a dark green tarp.

Follow these steps

SG420 said:

thank you larry i've kept a close eye on some of your posts you always have great guerrilla tips to offer. yea i was going to grow in smart pots this year but heard from people getting larger yields by just planting in the ground so i changed my mind. unfortunately i am unable to start them indoors so i realize they have a lower survival rate.

> do you have any advice on increasing survival? im thinking about crafting some window screen type cages shaped like a soda can to put over the tops of the seeds so no bugs can access them when they sprout.

> as a guerrilla grower i would like to opt to visit my grow as little as possible. i just don't know how realistic that is though. im fine with visiting my plants at night to check on them but for watering.. well that's probably not a good idea to water at night. ive heard of different drip systems/gravity systems you can set up but i don't think i've got the funds or time this year to learn how to set one up and get familiar with it. any idea what i can do about this?

> i would like to fill the holes i dig with 20 gallons of soil. i don't have any clue what size holes are needed to contain 20 gallons of soil. any foolproof way to go about this so i can dig each of my holes the same size?


i will definitely have to try out a rain catcher made from tarps. probably will try and find a camo colored one or a dark green tarp.

Click to expand...

I used a bookcase covered with a window screen for a screen room. But then I'm tight as hell. They sell camo screen on Amazon that would work great. Use PVC or something to make a frame, then cover it. I try to keep them under screen until they are a foot to 18 inches tall. By that time the grasshoppers might hurt them, but most of the time won't kill them.

I always checked on my patches at dawn and dusk. I don't like shining a light at night, and you really do need to look at them close to check for pests or whatever. But then I'm near an airport, and I try to get out of the woods before the planes start flying. I'm sure very few of them are LEO's, but they all use the same airport, and I worry about them talking if they do see me. I've never used drip systems. I just use 5 gallon buckets with the rain catchers. {I'll try to find a picture of one of mine}

As far as hole size, the volume of a cylinder is Pi X Radius Squared X Depth. To get that from cubic inches to gallons you need to dived by 231. So for a 24 inch wide hole 18 inches deep that would be 3.142 X 12 X 12 X 18 / 231 = 35 gallons. If you want your hole to be closer to 20 gallons, I wouldn't go any narrower, but ease up on depth a hair. {dropping back to 14 inches deep will make a 27 gallon hole for example} Back before my local law enforcement officers found some of my patches, I made all my holes 32 inches across. Now I go to great pains to grow little plants, so smaller holes.

You can play around with this site and see what works best for you. http://aqua.ucdavis.edu/Calculations/Volume_of_a_Cylindrical_Tank.htm

Something I do is decide what sized hole I want, then cut out a circle in the middle of a cheap tarp. It is a guide, but it also keeps the ground around your hole clean, so when you get done, it's easier to camo with leaves.

You need to use a heavy duty tarp for the tank. Tie a knot in the corners then tie it to good sized bushes or trees. Water is 8 pounds a gallon, and a tarp holds a lot of gallons. The collector tarp can be a cheapo. Put them in good cover.

This one is lost in the hurricane mess. I know pretty close where it's at, but I've gone three times and haven't found it yet. I'm after the shovel and trash can stored nearby more than the tarps. But it's crazy that I can't find it.

Sir Napsalot said:

I got 15.2 oz. from this Chernobyl I grew in a 15ga. pot

View attachment 4274149

View attachment 4274150

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Haaaaaaaa shower weed!!!!

SG420 said:

thank you larry i've kept a close eye on some of your posts you always have great guerrilla tips to offer. yea i was going to grow in smart pots this year but heard from people getting larger yields by just planting in the ground so i changed my mind. unfortunately i am unable to start them indoors so i realize they have a lower survival rate.

> do you have any advice on increasing survival? im thinking about crafting some window screen type cages shaped like a soda can to put over the tops of the seeds so no bugs can access them when they sprout.

> as a guerrilla grower i would like to opt to visit my grow as little as possible. i just don't know how realistic that is though. im fine with visiting my plants at night to check on them but for watering.. well that's probably not a good idea to water at night. ive heard of different drip systems/gravity systems you can set up but i don't think i've got the funds or time this year to learn how to set one up and get familiar with it. any idea what i can do about this?

> i would like to fill the holes i dig with 20 gallons of soil. i don't have any clue what size holes are needed to contain 20 gallons of soil. any foolproof way to go about this so i can dig each of my holes the same size?


i will definitely have to try out a rain catcher made from tarps. probably will try and find a camo colored one or a dark green tarp.

Click to expand...

If the digging is tough and there's some natural depressions and a rolling topography, you can take advantage of that to create some holes.

Sometimes dips in the land surface can be turned into a ready made "container" and all you have to do is dig out the bottom and sides a bit, put in some promix (or whatever else you use) and fill the rest with amended organic forest debris. Then cover it with leaves, sticks etc, to match the look and height of the surrounding ground. Good water retention, aeration and decomposing matter for the win. An old rake and a contractor sized garbage bag can be useful for gathering the organic debris while in the field working.

Sort of a stealth guerilla "hugelcultur" .

Dont give up and keep growing. I will have been growing 2 years come April and I feel like im just now starting to turn out the potency i want.

Had some shit grows along the way too.

Keep at it and youll get some big yeilds, but 1 lb per plant is hard. Ive done 12 oz off a hydro sour diesel

Hi SG420,

I feel i can chime in a little, though a lot has no doubt been mentioned.

*Big pot or bed. Very important.

*Get a nice early start to the season! Even start them off small indoors, then transplant them outside when the weather warms up.

*Prepare your soil early as possible, before the season starts. So it can properly break down, and the microbes can colonize.

*Full sunny spot, all day long.

* Plenty of spacing, you don't want your plant competing with others for sun etc.

*Healthy soil, and lots of organic matter. Amend it accordingly. I believe this to be the most important part.
You want a good texture in your soil. Not clumpy, not sandy, but just right.
Can't recommend a good mulching enough either. I personally really like sugarcane mulch. It breaks down really fast, and the microbes love it. I keep the mulch at 4inches or so. Helps water spread out evenly through the soil, feeds the microbes and fungi, insulates the top soil, helps against pests and weeds. Also once broken down adds wonderful texture to the soil. Goes really light and spongy, which is just what you want.

Weather permitting i think you should do ok with a good soil, lots of sun, and room for the roots, and an early start.

Best of luck with your endeavour, and at the very least have fun.

Forget the pots and plant directly in ground. Planting directly in the ground allows the tap root to reach for China and promotes a healthy root system.

Start by digging a hole that measures 3' diameter by 3' deep, in your yards sunniest location. Get half of the native soil and mix a 2cf bag of potting soil with pearlite; refill the hole with this mixture.

Next get some good Sativa seeds like Sour Diesel, Chronic or Skunk. You will need to plant 4 seeds in the hole.

Once the seeds sprout, take good care of them. After 5 weeks only keep the biggest healthiest plant and cull the other 3.

Use the growing, flowering and finishing nutrients of your choice. In approx 7 months you will harvest close to 3lbs of final product.

SG420 said:

I would like to preface this by saying I have never grown cannabis but have been reading on this sight for three years. This will be my first grow. I am aware growing outdoors your plants are very vulnrable to the elements and pests. I am also very aware as a first timer I should not expect much and should not even be focused on yield. Despite this I want to try anyways. I know its impossible to estimate yield as a variety of factors are involved such as humidity, heat, veg time, genetics, strains, training, sunlight, watering schedules etc. With that out of the way...

Would anyone have some pointers to getting me close to or exactly a pound per plant for my first grow?

I have read people getting pound plants in as little as 15 gallon smart pots. I would love to go much bigger (50 gallons) but that is too much $$$ for me at the moment. I will be growing my plants in 20 gallon smart pots. My base mix will be as follows: 1/3 spagnum peat, ewc, and lava rock. I was also told to use mulch or straw to retain water. I will be using glacial rock dust for minerals, as well as spraying roots with myco. I have heard good things about malted barley for increased terpene production. I will be mixing an all purpose fertilizer in with my soil (5-5-5) I was told for simplicities sake as a beginner this soil mix would only require water and no teas/topdressing later on. I should also mention I am not able to veg indoors as I do not have the room in my house to do so. I will have to start from seed outdoors.

I live in the southern US. humidity can be high here and temperatures can average 80-95 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer.

If anyone thinks 20 gallon smart pots with that soil mix could yield close to a pound or more a plant I would greatly appreciate your feedback and any other tips.

Click to expand...

i get bout 2 and a half p off my outdoors in the ground

Nice ..got any pics dude..

rob333 said:

i get bout 2 and a half p off my outdoors in the ground

Click to expand...

Pics or it didn't happen

I was a newbie grower last season. I learned so much here from those who also grow outdoors. I got just over 15 oz. from Big Sis, and Lil Sis gave me just under 8 oz. As I sit here today, 4 months removed from harvest, I still have enough product to last me to at least veg stage this upcoming grow.

Seems like you are in a perfect climate to grow directly in the ground. If you are outdoors, and have the space a secure location, do it all natural. You will not be disappointed, and you will guarantee larger yields if you farm properly. And farming is key, especially in the later bud stage.

In ground from seed I planted a total of 7 seeds in early May in Wisconsin. From those 5 sprouted, and 2 were female. I used Fox Farm products during veg, stretch and bud. And I just took care of my babies until harvest came. Being patient was my biggest challenge. I was sometimes going out to my garden every hour, obsessed.

I'm a gardener. I try to be as organic as I can. Outdoors, in the ground, is the only way for me. I am more than happy with ky yield, and have learned enough here to try for even larger yields.

Here's Big Sis. She got to about 7 feet, and was only topped 2 times during veg.

And buds!!!
I anticipate 1 pound plants this upcoming season just by topping more, now that I know better.