This is a trick that every true breeder in Amsterdam knows, but that is rarely or almost never available on internet. Its purpose is to accellerate the plant methabolism to pass from the vegetative phase to the flowering phase. This result can be simply reached giving the plants 24-36 hours of dark in the moment that you are switching the timer from 18 to 12 hours of light a day. So, if you are, for example givin light from 9.00 am (sunday) till 3.00 am of the following day (monday), you can keep, only once, the lights off till tuesday morning or afternoon. Then go on with a normal 12 hours of light and 12 of dark. This simple trick reduce the flowering period of a few days (this depends by the strain, sometimeyou can save up to a full week of flowering). The plant have more time to develop the buds, and that will result in a bigger yield (10-20%). Really not bad for a simple trick that cost nothing, zero money, zero energy, zero time. You even save a few euro/dollars in the electric bill. What do you want more?

Just a little suggestion: don’t do it with plants from seeds that are less than 3 weeks old. Don’t do it with clones that are not perfectly rooted into their medium. The risk in both cases is to get midget plants, and a very insignificant harvest.

Germinating cannabis seeds is a fairly easy task, we are sure that most of them can make it in the correct and appropriate way. For those who had problems in the past there are 3 main mistakes to avoid.

Too deep: this is a really common mistake, in this case the seed it’s several centimeters deep in the soil. If it will sproud (and mostly it won’t) it will quickly suffocate before it can even see the light. Remember to put the your seeds at 0.5 -1 cm deep in the soil, not deeper.

Too wet: there are many growers that are simply abondant with everything, but the cannabis plant doesn’t like too much water, even in this first stage of life.So once you have correctly positioned the seed at 0.5 - 1 cm deep in the soil, make the soil  nicely humid, but not wet. The seedling will need not only water, but also air: avoiding a surplus of water is the best way to ensure that the young plant can breath.

Soil too rich: this is not the moment to fertilize or use a pre-fertilized soil: most of the strains will love if you germinate them in a normal neuter soil (universal soil) and if you avoid to add fertilizers for the first 7-10 days.

After several months of hard work and countless efforts, your plant are today ready to be cutted. But they are not yet ready to be used. Let’s speak about how to handle your precious buds after the harvest. The best thing is to take care immediately of the leaves, and eliminate them, both the big fan leaves and the little ones all around the buds. This job can be done with scissors or with an electronic device. In this second case the job will be much faster, in the first case you will get a little ball of hashish for your instant pleasure. Hard choice uh?

Once the plant has been cleaned it’s the moment to find a dry cool place to hang them. A cantine or an equivalent place would be the ideal choice, the humidity should be around 40-50% and the temperature around 16° centigrades. In these ideal condition, the buds will be dried in 7-10 days. When the temperature is higher or the humidity lower, so we have the conditions like in an apartment, the buds can be dried in 4-5 days.

The plant is usually hanged upside down,  in this way the buds will dry closing their leaves and calixes on themselves, protecting the internal cells of resin for a longer time. We have to consider that we have to leave about 5% of water in the buds, that is the perfect proportion for conservation. The bud have to be soft and a little bit elastic and doesn’t have to break instantly. A good method to understand if the plant is ready is to break a stick close to a bud. When the plant it’s ready the stick will break instantly and completely.

Now the plant is in the condition to be burned. The resulting high is a weird one, it’s not properly high or stoned, it’s a little bit a combination of them, that lasts really short (30-45 minutes). This is because once we’ve cutted the buds from the plant, we still have something alive, and chemical transformations are still happening in the buds. The THC is the top production of the cannabinoids and it’s also one of the most complex cannabinoids at a molecular level. For this reason is necessary to let the buds sit for a few more weeks (pref. in a jar ermetically sealed) so these reactions have all the necessary time to be completed.

The bud will  be completely ready to release all its power after 20-40 days after the harvest. After that, the marijuana will loose THC constantly (5-10% less every month). The best wy to keep  it good for several  months is to use a jar. In this case can be good to open the jar(s) constantly every 2-3 weeks to change the air and to check that there is no mold in the jar itself.

And, at the end of this post, we have to answer to a question that we hear really often: “I’ve just harvested and I don’t want to wait: how can I make a joint now?”

We strongly discourage this practice and we invite do not use it but with a few buds for temporary use. You can use the normal oven or the microwave, in both cases at about 3/4 of their power. Just put the buds in for a few seconds, and take them out immediately when they start to steam. Let them sit for 10-15 minutes and enjoy. Rememebr that in this way you will loose a little bit of power and all the aroma.