Newer grower from the northern plains

[prairiegrower]

Hello everyone! Like the title says I'm a fairly new grower from the northern plains in the Midwest. I have a background in agriculture, I find that the science behind cultivation is both fascinating and equally useful to raise the best crops that we possibly can.

I spent a good portion of my adult life far away from anything cannabis related due to my profession at the time and really wasn't aware how much I was missing. My first step back in was a large one; I popped just over 900 seeds for my first ever legal grow in the hemp program. At the same time I started playing around with different genetics and started both indoor and outdoor cultivation outside of my hemp acres.

 

[newbe3]

Hello everyone! Like the title says I'm a fairly new grower from the northern plains in the Midwest. I have a background in agriculture, I find that the science behind cultivation is both fascinating and equally useful to raise the best crops that we possibly can.

I spent a good portion of my adult life far away from anything cannabis related due to my profession at the time and really wasn't aware how much I was missing. My first step back in was a large one; I popped just over 900 seeds for my first ever legal grow in the hemp program. At the same time I started playing around with different genetics and started both indoor and outdoor cultivation outside of my hemp acres.View attachment 2284879View attachment 2284890View attachment 2284906View attachment 2284913View attachment 2284908View attachment 2284950

very interesting post! You sure have quire the set up. Can I ask what's in the jar. It's white?? I can't help to think your first profession paved the way for your second success!! Your land is beautiful!

 

[SpiderFarmerLED]

Hello everyone! Like the title says I'm a fairly new grower from the northern plains in the Midwest. I have a background in agriculture, I find that the science behind cultivation is both fascinating and equally useful to raise the best crops that we possibly can.

I spent a good portion of my adult life far away from anything cannabis related due to my profession at the time and really wasn't aware how much I was missing. My first step back in was a large one; I popped just over 900 seeds for my first ever legal grow in the hemp program. At the same time I started playing around with different genetics and started both indoor and outdoor cultivation outside of my hemp acres.View attachment 2284879View attachment 2284890View attachment 2284906View attachment 2284913View attachment 2284908View attachment 2284950

Welcome to the forum! It sounds like you've jumped back into cultivation in a big way—900 seeds for your first legal grow? That’s impressive! With your background in agriculture, I’m sure you’ll bring some unique insights into the science behind growing cannabis. It’s always fascinating to see how traditional farming knowledge can apply to cannabis, and playing around with genetics is such a rewarding way to explore that even further.

The combination of indoor and outdoor cultivation must give you a lot of flexibility too. It’ll be interesting to hear more about how your different grows compare, especially with the unique challenges the northern plains bring. Looking forward to hearing about your progress and what you discover along the way. Best of luck with everything!

 

[prairiegrower]

very interesting post! You sure have quire the set up. Can I ask what's in the jar. It's white?? I can't help to think your first profession paved the way for your second success!! Your land is beautiful!

Thank you very much! I love the knowledge and science behind cultivation, at my day job, my home business and with my fun cultivation. Interesting, rewarding and lots of problem solving. The jar in the tent is usually just plain water, it's easy to give the plants the same amount with a jar vs a watering can for all of them.

 

[GNick55]

Thank you very much! I love the knowledge and science behind cultivation, at my day job, my home business and with my fun cultivation. Interesting, rewarding and lots of problem solving. The jar in the tent is usually just plain water, it's easy to give the plants the same amount with a jar vs a watering can for all of them.

that ice??
that doesn’t do anything good,.. bro science

 

[prairiegrower]

Welcome to the forum! It sounds like you've jumped back into cultivation in a big way—900 seeds for your first legal grow? That’s impressive! With your background in agriculture, I’m sure you’ll bring some unique insights into the science behind growing cannabis. It’s always fascinating to see how traditional farming knowledge can apply to cannabis, and playing around with genetics is such a rewarding way to explore that even further.

The combination of indoor and outdoor cultivation must give you a lot of flexibility too. It’ll be interesting to hear more about how your different grows compare, especially with the unique challenges the northern plains bring. Looking forward to hearing about your progress and what you discover along the way. Best of luck with everything!

The most challenging part of the hemp cultivation is the scale of it while still planting, growing and harvesting everything by hand. The second biggest hurdle is to do all of it while working my day job on a 5000 acre specialty crop farm and still making time for my family. Thankfully the kiddos are good cheap farm labor and my wife is very patient and understanding
I was worried about the hemp crop maturing in time but did so almost perfectly with the weather and my available time for harvesting.

My photoperiod plants I have outdoors this year haven't been so lucky however. A very wet growing season that turned hot and dry overnight has stressed and stunted the poor girls and I believe delayed the flowering. Hopefully they can hang in there and reach maturity before we have a frost event. I put part of the issue on the weather stress and part on the cultivar that I ran. Persian pie has a flower time of 9 weeks which is fine but a little borderline for where I'm at. I rolled the dice on it and ended up with some stress delaying it. Running this again or any other longer flowering variety i think I would work out a light dep system to ensure maturity and possibly taking two crops during the summer. These pics are from nearly a week ago (last time during daylight I've been able to visit my girls) so hopefully they are marching along

The other challenge that I've faced is the drying for my sun grown autos. Indoor i can just switch off the light and use the tent to dry, in the summer I'm stuck trying to find an environment with proper humidity and temps. Not uncommon to see temps go from mid 50s to upper 80s and back in 24 hours with humidity bouncing back and forth the same. I'd bring them inside to dry but there is a limit to even my wifes patience

 

[prairiegrower]

that ice??
that doesn’t do anything good,.. bro science

Not exactly bro science but not exactly scientific law. At the end of a run cooler temperatures inhibit chlorophyll production and allow for anthocyanin production to continue. I've run identical genetics side by side and simply used ice in place of water for one plant and not the other. (Last week or so) Noticeable but not day and night difference. I think that it helps a plant that is already going to be purple show it a little bit more.

 

[GNick55]

Not exactly bro science but not exactly scientific law. At the end of a run cooler temperatures inhibit chlorophyll production and allow for anthocyanin production to continue. I've run identical genetics side by side and simply used ice in place of water for one plant and not the other. (Last week or so) Noticeable but not day and night difference. I think that it helps a plant that is already going to be purple show it a little bit more.

oh ok well yes the cold will stop/slow pk uptake causing anthocyanins though just lowering room temps during nights a few days works better as it allows the plant to uptake all nutrients and doesn’t interfere with cannabinoid/terpene production,.

 

[prairiegrower]

oh ok well yes the cold will stop/slow pk uptake causing anthocyanins though just lowering room temps during nights a few days works better as it allows the plant to uptake all nutrients and doesn’t interfere with cannabinoid/terpene production

It absolutely will. I am unable to regulate the nighttime temperature in my tent for this to happen. I have my tent in my home office, connected to the master bedroom. If I dropped the temp of the lung room enough to get results my wife would probably stab me in my sleep

I shut my tent down in the summer because of the heat it produces and I try to keep it going as much as I can in the winter for the same reason. Pretty cool to have a space heater that also produces some homegrown

I'm not sure what temperatures of the soil and air will inhibit lockout at the end of the life cycle. Hopefully the 5-6 gal fabric pot and a somewhat small auto help buffer it a little bit. I couldn't tell the difference between the two end products flavor and potency wise but I have nothing scientific to back it up

 

[GNick55]

It absolutely will. I am unable to regulate the nighttime temperature in my tent for this to happen. I have my tent in my home office, connected to the master bedroom. If I dropped the temp of the lung room enough to get results my wife would probably stab me in my sleep

I shut my tent down in the summer because of the heat it produces and I try to keep it going as much as I can in the winter for the same reason. Pretty cool to have a space heater that also produces some homegrown

I'm not sure what temperatures of the soil and air will inhibit lockout at the end of the life cycle. Hopefully the 5-6 gal fabric pot and a somewhat small auto help buffer it a little bit. I couldn't tell the difference between the two end products flavor and potency wise but I have nothing scientific to back it up

better not piss off the wife, than it all goes to hell! haha

 

[Organic13]

Thanks for the ice conversation/explanation. I was very confused.

 

[GNick55]

@1diesel1 is also a hemp farmer,

 

[Deadstill]

Hello everyone! Like the title says I'm a fairly new grower from the northern plains in the Midwest. I have a background in agriculture, I find that the science behind cultivation is both fascinating and equally useful to raise the best crops that we possibly can.

I spent a good portion of my adult life far away from anything cannabis related due to my profession at the time and really wasn't aware how much I was missing. My first step back in was a large one; I popped just over 900 seeds for my first ever legal grow in the hemp program. At the same time I started playing around with different genetics and started both indoor and outdoor cultivation outside of my hemp acres.View attachment 2284879View attachment 2284890View attachment 2284906View attachment 2284913View attachment 2284908View attachment 2284950

Howdy, and welcome to the Farm!

Nice to see a fellow hemp farmer join the ranks.

@1diesel1 is also a hemp farmer,

Me too Me too!

 

[GNick55]

Howdy, and welcome to the Farm!

Nice to see a fellow hemp farmer join the ranks.


Me too Me too!

oh crap i’m sorry!
well cool now you guys are connected,.

 

[Deadstill]

oh crap i’m sorry!
well cool now you guys are connected,.

Well to be fair I've taken a break from hemp farming due to my health but we may resume next season hopefully.

I just hope this guy has better luck selling his crop than we did. It's an achievement just to grow a crop that doesn't test hot for thc, but then selling it becomes a whole different ballgame. There is literally no framework in place to connect hemp farmers with hemp buyers. Brokers are few and far between and rip you off. It just sucks. The hemp industry as a whole is being held back greatly by bureaucratic red tape bullshit that doesn't need to exist.

I've been debating giving it another go for the past couple years while I work on my health. It's still a tough call.

 

[prairiegrower]

Well to be fair I've taken a break from hemp farming due to my health but we may resume next season hopefully.

I just hope this guy has better luck selling his crop than we did. It's an achievement just to grow a crop that doesn't test hot for thc, but then selling it becomes a whole different ballgame. There is literally no framework in place to connect hemp farmers with hemp buyers. Brokers are few and far between and rip you off. It just sucks. The hemp industry as a whole is being held back greatly by bureaucratic red tape bullshit that doesn't need to exist.

I've been debating giving it another go for the past couple years while I work on my health. It's still a tough call.

I couldn't agree more with everything you said! Thankfully my crop tested under .3% but even that was a huge ordeal.
I think I'll make a new thread just for the hemp side though. Lots of moving parts and lots of discussion around it

 

[Deadstill]

I couldn't agree more with everything you said! Thankfully my crop tested under .3% but even that was a huge ordeal.
I think I'll make a new thread just for the hemp side though. Lots of moving parts and lots of discussion around it

The key is to test early and test often. It will cost more in lab fees, but trust me, you don't want to know what it feels like to have to literally light hundreds of pounds of hemp on fire and watch all your hard work, blood, sweat and tears go up in smoke because some asshat in a suit ordered you to destroy your crop for testing a tenth of a percentage point over the legal limit

 

[prairiegrower]

The key is to test early and test often. It will cost more in lab fees, but trust me, you don't want to know what it feels like to have to literally light hundreds of pounds of hemp on fire and watch all your hard work, blood, sweat and tears go up in smoke because some asshat in a suit ordered you to destroy your crop for testing a tenth of a percentage point over the legal limit

Thankfully I grew a variety that reliably tests good. New London CBG is what I grew. I had to wait longer than I would have liked for the mn dept of ag to come out and test.
Once they sampled and sent them in the postmaster flagged the package as marijuana; forwarded it to the DEA in Denver and I didn't know anything about all of it for almost 2 weeks . So almost week and a half later I finally heard from MDA and they said the sample likely wasn't able to be tested and they would have to take new samples and retest.
Stress level before this was probably a 7-8/10 after was easily 10/10 and fueled by rage from the ham fisted bureaucrats meddling and not doing their jobs.

5 years into the hemp program operating a postmaster decided that a package, sent by the Minnesota dept of ag to a lab contracted by the state for thc testing was obviously illicit cannabis . Then forwarded the package (across state lines)

Thankfully after my expedited retest it still was under .3%

 

[Deadstill]

Thankfully I grew a variety that reliably tests good. New London CBG is what I grew. I had to wait longer than I would have liked for the mn dept of ag to come out and test.
Once they sampled and sent them in the postmaster flagged the package as marijuana; forwarded it to the DEA in Denver and I didn't know anything about all of it for almost 2 weeks . So almost week and a half later I finally heard from MDA and they said the sample likely wasn't able to be tested and they would have to take new samples and retest.
Stress level before this was probably a 7-8/10 after was easily 10/10 and fueled by rage from the ham fisted bureaucrats meddling and not doing their jobs.

5 years into the hemp program operating a postmaster decided that a package, sent by the Minnesota dept of ag to a lab contracted by the state for thc testing was obviously illicit cannabis . Then forwarded the package (across state lines)

Thankfully after my expedited retest it still was under .3%

Yup it's backwards ass shit like that, that's making a lot of us hemp farmers give up. It's so ridiculous.

They seriously need to raise the THC limit to 1% like most of the rest of the world, if the US ever expects to compete on the global market. 1% thc never going to get anyone high I don't care if you smoke a damn field of it

I definitely recommend getting involved with your state's hemp program. Here in CO they have stakeholders meetings all the time so we (farmers) can express our questions or concerns with the people who run/manage our hemp program in Colorado.

Each state varies, though, which makes things even more difficult. Some states simply go off of the USDA rules whereas others such as Colorado, have their own "USDA Approved" Hemp Rules.

There needs to be a more uniform rule set across the board. The state-to-state confusion is really jamming up the industry, too.

Leave it to the government to fuck up a good thing

 

[prairiegrower]

Leave it to the government to fuck up a good thing

Leave it to the government to fuck up anything