January seems to be a great month to finally bring some closure to our first outdoor grow.
The 2018 summer was the best outdoor growing season that we’ve experienced in the last decade in our area.
This is according to folks who’ve been into growing for more than 3 decades, in the same geographical area.
All my old-school grower friends have been quick to make sure that I understand this. I think that they just don’t want me to think that I’ll be achieving the same yield results or better year over year.
Little Miss” Don’t be getting use to pulling multiple pounds off of a single plant. We all got lucky this year, including you.”
The message was:
If you set your expectations properly, you (potentially) will not be disappointed.
Work with averages and if you produce more than 1/2 a pound to 3/4 of a pound per plant, consider that a successful grow and harvest, done well.
Duly noted.
I realize that I can’t do anything about the conditions that Mother Nature brings to the table but I can do something about the super-cropping techniques that I use and the nutrients that I choose to feed with.
Gone are the days of simply scattering some seeds in soil in the month of May and returning at the end of October to see what Mother Nature did all on her own.
In addition to tabulating crop yields by dried weight, I also decided to have 3 of the strains we grew, professionally analyzed.
I took dried herb into a lab for testing.
(Take note of the level, this little nugget is trimmed to.)
The lab uses an analyzer that was designed by Sage Analytics. It measures both THC and CBD content and each test costs approximately $50 CAD.
More information about the testing equipment can be found by following this link (below):
https://alliedscientificpro.com/shop/product/cannabis-thc-cbd-smart-analyzer-luminarytm-beacon-21342
This year, we grew 5 strains that contained THC and I decided to test 3 of them.
One of the strains I chose to test, was a strain that originally came from Jamaica.
I named it Short Rick.
Even though I cropped her, she still grew to be over 9’ tall and was a great producer.
Nothing “short” about her at all.
As a joke, I named her after the person who gave me the seeds because he told me to expect a short plant.
As you can see, Short Rick came in at 15.9% THC.
I also tested a strain called Creamy Caramel and it came in at 17.7 %THC.
In the photo (above) you can see what Creamy Caramel looked like.
The last strain tested was Purple Tangie and it came in at 15.8 THC.
She was a looker.
Awe, Such fond memories as we sit in the deep freeze of a very cold, winter.
The lab had a few other comments:
They told me that none of our herb contained any visible mould, or detected mould when it was observed under UV light.
It also didn’t have any mites which they said was very desirable because mites were a real problem with outdoor grows in 2018, in our area.
The lab suggested that they felt my test results would have come in with greater percentages if I had done a better job trimming. (Good to know for future tests.)
At any rate, now that I have these test results, I know that I am fully capable of producing my own viable medicine and I’ll now be able to calculate THC levels in the edibles that I make.
Rebecca