Issue #89 - Sunday, December 29, 2013

Dear Fellow Grower,

In today's issue...

• Learn about 10 Odd Realities (With Pictures) About Growing Cannabis Plants
• Research some beginner-friendly and advanced cannabis strains.
• Get 5 Bonus Fun Facts for Cannabis Lovers!
  
• Submit your trophy pics!

Happy Growing!
Nebula Haze & Sirius Fourside (founders of GrowWeedEasy.com)

"I wake up some mornings and sit and have my coffee and look out at my beautiful garden, and I go, 'Remember how good this is. Because you can lose it.'"

~Jim Carrey

1.) Tri-Leaf Seedlings

Nearly all cannabis seedlings, no matter how the seeds are sprouted, will start with just two leaves per set, like the following:

Every once in a while, growers will run into a "trileaf" seedling. This is a relatively common mutation, and you're likely to run into it if you germinate a lot of cannabis seeds. 3-leaf cannabis seedlings should generally be treated like any other seedling.

They will grow about 1/3 more side branches than regular seedlings, so a 3-leaf seedling might be a good candidate for cannabis plant training or a ScrOG setup.

2.) Two-Toned Leaves

Two-toned leaves usually have split coloring in a relatively straight line. This mutation often affects just one or two leaves on the whole plant, though sometimes you'll get a whole stem or part of the plant that displays this characteristic.

The two-toned leaves don't seem to have much effect on anything, but it's kinda cool looking!

I believe this happens due to a type of "variegation" (wikipedia link) and may be due to "sectorial chimera". Other plants besides cannabis plants can have this happen, too!

3.) Buds Growing From Center of Leaf

Here's a normal cannabis leaf. Unfortunately, as beautiful as these leaves are, they normally contain no THC.

4.) THC-Filled Trichomes Can Grow Just About Anywhere on a Budding Cannabis Plant

Growers are breeding strains that produce more and more trichomes all over the plant.

Trichomes are small, glandular stalked resin glands that carry the majority of cannabinoids and THC produced by the cannabis plant.

A bud covered in trichomes will have an almost "sparkly" or "glittery" appearance. Cannabis breeders are selecting cannabis plants which produce more of these sparkly trichomes not just on buds, but on leaves and stems close to buds This is done with the purpose of getting more potency with the same amount of time, effort and space.

5.) Some Buds Make "Fox Tails"

Foxtailing can be a genetic trait, and certain strains will tend to produce foxtails all over their buds no matter what. This seems to happen most commonly with Haze and Sativa-based strains.

This way that buds can grow is named after "fox tails" because the buds tend to grow in a rounded shape with the fluffy hair-like pistils coming from the end.

However, massive foxtailing is often the result of heat or stress. You know that's likely the case when the foxtailing seems to be happening most in the parts of the plant that are close to a heat or light source.

When a single foxtail keeps growing longer and longer, it is almost always a sign of some sort of major stress to the buds, most often heat.

6.) This Is What Cannabis Roots Look Like

This incredible roots picture was taken by grower Ramon. The plant was first grown in hydro (with the roots grown directly in water), then transferred to soil.

7.) Cannabis Seeds Can Carry "Twins"

Twin tap roots can sometimes emerge from one cannabis seed. This is sort of like your seed having twins, because each new root has the potential to form into a separate plant.

"I had one of those on my first grow. Plant it, and once it sprouts up, you can GENTLY and CAREFULLY seperate the 2 plants and transplant one to a new pot. If you leave them both together, the stronger one will "starve" the weaker one, so to speak. When I split mine apart, they both grew nice and big :D"

~ J_Justice

"[Twin seeds are] fairly common. I've had some seedbatches that had 'round 30% 'twins'. However, what I haven't seen yet* is a set of twins that come out one male and one female. It's odd, because the twins usually differ in various traits, they're not really clones of each other. If one were to get a M/F pair of twins, an apomictic (wiki apomixis) cross could be made between the two, which would (in theory) produce a strain with stable traits in just one generation. "

~ duggreen

*yet has been 46 years so far....

"This lady was snapped mid veg by accident. She was completely on her side and connected to the main stem by a few fibers and a sliver of 'skin'. The 'connected' tissue was around 1mm, (around the thickness of a credit card).

"She was roughly taped upright with some very haphazard wrapping with electrical tape and forgotten about. Not only is she looking pretty good, (for a small pot and relatively modest light), she's not at all delayed or less healthy than her sisters. I guess the message is never give up..."

~ DrWeedington

9.) It's Possible to Bleach Plants With Too-Bright Light

Light Bleaching - most common with high-power LEDs, but can also happen poorly ventilated HPS lights that are kept too close to the tops of the plants. Basically, this is what happens when plants get too much light, kinda like how hair on top of your head can turn lighter if you spend a lot of time in the sun.

10.) Flowering Cannabis Plants Can Make "Sap"

Sap - there's lots of speculation about what it is. No one knows for sure. Many growers who have run into this agree that the type of sap produced is sweet and doesn't contain much (if any) THC. It is mostly made of sugar and water and so is not smokable. Seems to be related to the plant over-producing sugars, and sap productions is more common when

• Using sugar supplements like molasses, Botanicare Sweet, Sugar Daddy, etc.

• Big temperature difference between night and day, especially if it gets cold at night

• Certain strains or individual plants seem more likely to produce sap

"Strain: Kosher Kush. Flowered her for 70 days and she was covered in trichs. When we harvested her we noticed about a dozen of these sap like globes. They range in color from clear to amber."

~ DC514

"The plants had already been flushed properly - I let the soil dry completely and fed the plants 2TBSP/gallon of molasses, let them eat and then flushed them out again and waited 2-3 days before harvest. Both plants started producing excretions all over. I've seen this before, sap leaking from the stem of plants, however personally I've never seen it on the buds themselves. What I believe happened is the pores of the plants either get clogged and therefore "pop" for lack of a better word. Or, the plant liked the molasses better than it's natural sugars and forced some of those out. Either way I'm going to try this on another plant and see what happens. Is there a benefit to it? Probably not, but I'm going to get the substance tested. I've ingested all of the little sap pockets I've found and while it tastes like canna, it doesn't seem physchoactive. Who knows, it could be loaded with CBD or something else."

~ SeriousSports

Bonus: Uncommon mutation - Plant naturally topped itself

What's interesting about this case is that the plant naturally did something that the grower would normally have to do themselves. Cannabis plants normally grow in a triangle tree shape, and growers often must cut or train the plant in order to grow more low and bushy.

Growers sometimes accomplish a low and bushy growth pattern with a plant training technique known as "topping." Learn more about topping

Here's two normal young cannabis plants, each with a regular growth tip (set of leaves) at the top:

Now the following plant had a strange mutation...

This plant randomly grew a leaf instead of a growth node, so it naturally topped itself, take a look!

3 Recommended strains for beginners

• Motavation - hardy and short strain that produces - even if you run into problems, she'll bounce back quickly.

• Aurora Indica - potent indica strain that is easy to grow.

• BlackJack - get the effects of a Sativa or Haze with a plant that is actually suited to indoor growth, short and easy to train. BlackJack produces a soaring effect that hits hard, fast and very long-lasting

Beginners - Avoid these strains!

The following strains are considered "advanced" and while they produce amazing buds, thy tend to be difficult to grow and/or finicky

• Durban Poison -  Tends to grow tall and shows a variety of unusual phenotypes, can be tough to clone. You don't know what to expect when growing a Durban Poison seed. This strain originates from Africa and buds produce a unique "up" effect. Buds tend to be incredibly potent though not often "pretty" in the conventional sense with longer sugar leaves. Unusually quick to harvest, especially for a Sativa-leaning strain.

• Jack Herer - Famous medicinal strain that is great for anti-anxiety, you cannot get the original Jack Herer strain as a feminized seed so you will need to buy regular (unfeminized) seeds and manually pick out all the male plants. Yields are on the smaller side but the quality of the buds produced are exceptional.

• Liberty Haze - Genetics are not completely stable and many growers report different growth types with this strain. Can stretch tall in the initial stages of flowering, though does seem to respond well to supercropping. Unique flowery scent with citrus lime undertones. Unlike what breeder specs state, this strain needs about 10-12 weeks in flowering before she'll be ready for harvest. When grown right, this strain produces thick dense colas with THC levels above 25%.

The above video shows several incredible time-lapse videos of growing cannabis plants, set to music

View 10 more time-lapse videos of growing cannabis plants

2.) Cannabis plants can "see"

"Think about this: plants see you. In fact , plants monitor their visible environment all the time. Plants see if you come near them; they know when you stand over them. They even know if you're wearing a blue or a red shirt. They know if you've painted your house or if you've moved their pots from one side of the living room to the other.

"Of course plants don't "see" in pictures as you or I do. Plants can't discern between a slightly balding middle-aged man with glasses and a smiling little girl with brown curls.

"But they do see light in many ways and colors that we can only imagine. Plants see the same ultraviolet light that gives us sunburns and infrared light that heats us up.

"Plants can tell when there's very little light, like from a candle, or when it's the middle of the day, or when the sun is about to set into the horizon. Plants know if the light is coming from the left, the right, or from above. They know if another plant has grown over them, blocking their light. And they know how long the lights have been on."

This is an except from What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses by Daniel Chamovitz. I highly recommend this book if you want to learn more about plants and exactly how they perceive the world!

Read reviews about some of the better cannabis growing books available today

3.) No one knows exactly how cannabis plants determine gender

"Environmental sex determination is known to occur with cannabis plants. Many researchers have suggested that sex in Cannabis is determined or at least strongly influenced by environmental factors. Ainsworth reviews that treatment with auxin and ethylene have feminizing effects, and that treatment with cytokinins and gibberellins have masculinizing effects. It has been reported that sex can be reversed in Cannabis using chemical treatment."

Learn more about cannabis sex determination on wikipedia.

Learn how to use these unique properties to make your own feminized cannabis seeds at home

4.) A cannabis plant can grow taller than a tree in just one summer

Here's an cannabis plant that produced 11 pounds 3 ounces worth of bud - grown in a 400 pound smart pot and filled with Vermisoil.

5.) Cannabis seeds can germinate almost anywhere warm and wet

Life Finds A Way

"My friend accidentally grew this in her sink. How is this even possible?"

Seedlings have enough energy ("food") stored in the seed to make their first set of leaves. After that, they need light and nutrients to grow further. Unfortunately, this seedling won't make it unless transplanted to a more suitable growing environment.

Learn how to germinate cannabis seeds right here

Remember, sharing is caring!

Jump to...

How do I grow weed?

Help me diagnose my sick plants

What do I need to upgrade or get started growing?

What pages have recently been added or updated on GrowWeedEasy.com?

Copyright (c) 2013 GrowWeedEasy.com

NOTE: If URLs do not appear as live links in your e-mail program, please cut and paste the full URL into the location or address field of your browser. 

Disclaimer: Grow Weed Easy only recommends products that we've either personally checked out ourselves, or that come from people we know and trust. For doing so, we may receive a commission. 

Nothing in this e-mail should be considered personalized Financial, Legal, Medical or any other kind of Advice. The contributors to this magazine grow legally under their local laws. If you cannot legally grow where you live, we DO NOT recommend that you start growing marijuana, as you can be arrested, put in prison, or worse! 

Any decision to grow marijuana should only be made after consulting with an experienced lawyer or other legal adviser. Although our employees may answer your general customer service questions, they are not licensed under securities laws to address your particular investment or legal situation. No communication by our employees to you should be deemed as personalized Financial or Legal Advice. Any investments and steps recommended in this letter should be made only after consulting with your lawyer or other legal or investment adviser. 

Nothing in this e-mail should be considered personalized Health Care or Medical Advice. Although our employees may answer your general customer service questions, they are not licensed health care professionals. No communication by our employees to you should be deemed as personalized Health Care Advice. Any Health Care recommended in this letter should be made only after consulting with your Doctor and licensed Health Care Advisor.