Aloha brother,
1. Feminized or regular seeds? If the extra cost for the feminized isn't an issue is there any downside to them?
get regular seeds, the feminized seeds are created by forcing plants to turn hermaphroditic, which then means any plant grown from that seed-stock will have the hermaphroditic tendency in its genes. if your conditions are not 100% optimal, expect hermis. downside to this is you will have to visit your plot to cull the males before they shed pollen. keep notes on the plants of when you germinated them, and when they started to flower, this way you have an expected harvest time. of course since we are in hawaii you can never trust the seed packet. is it possible you could veg indoors at all? it would be alot easier to keep a mom and cut clones then grow those outdoors, it wouldnt take up much space - no worry of hermis pollinating your whole crop and no worries of males, not to mention once you use all of the seeds you wont be shit outta luck if they are 90% males !
2. How much room do they need to grow and take full advantage of the light outdoors? How far apart should I space seperate plants?
plan for big plants, you dont want any of the plants foliage shading another one, i suggest making plots have 1-3 plants at most and have the plants spaced out from eachother, not next to eachother. you dont want to make any sort of man-made shape like squares, triangles, circles, it will be very obvious there are plants. is the area you are growing very green? make sure you do not plant in an area with dry plants, this will be very obvious to see green plants and everything else is green. if all the other plants are green, that means the soil there is probably not too bad and you wont have to worry about watering as much
3. How often will I need to visit the site to give the plants water and nutes?
once a week at the LEAST, depending how much soil you have. the plants will need to be watered more often if they have less soil, and if the plants are root-bound or have alot of roots, then they will absorb water ridiculously crazy and you might have to go every 3 days. in middle of veg id say go every 4 days to see if the plants wilt, then every 5 days etc until you see it start to wilt. then the next time you should plan to go one day less than when they started to wilt - example: after 4 days you notice wilt, water plants and go back 3 days, if no wilt then continue this schedule. etc etc.
4. Partially depending on the answer to question 1, I'm leaning towards buying the Sativa Mix from Greenhouse Seeds
http://www.seedboutique.com/store/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=107&products_id=1793 I've read alot of good things about their genetics, wondering if any of you guys have grown any of them and have an opinion.
hawaii is the perfect climate to grow long-season equatorial sativas, but as far as growing hazes your first time, in my experience sativas not to mention hazes can be very finicky, and each will probably need separate water and feeding regiments. my suggestion to you is to grow all of the same strain so at least you can recognize why plants are responding to a feeding a certain way. when you are able to read plants and know how to fix what ails them, you will have the jedi force. try to find a strain that is novice-proven and wont give you too many problems.
5. The area is about 1/4 to 1/2 mile from any populated areas is that far enough for the smell to be a nonissue?
that should be fine as long as they are not bunched together, however if there are other growers their pollen may pollenate your crop
6. About how much dry yield can i expect per succesful plant? I realise its my 1st grow and estimates they give on the seed sites are from advanced growers in optimum conditions and I want to get a more realistic figure for my level of experience, although I am going to put as much effort as I can into doing as good as possible, there are bound to be some issues. I want to plan for them ahead of time so I can plant more then I need, and if nothing goes bad its always better to have too much then not enough! Hehe too much.
shoot for 1-2 ounces in hawaii, i know its not alot but if you get 2 ounces from one plant you should be ridiculously happy.
7. Fiancee is cool with the herb, not sure so much with the growing though, planning on harvesting and drying on site on a string with some cover most likely, any opinions on this?
get a de-ionizer if possible? it doesnt smell too bad when drying, shouldnt be a huge problem. however seeing as how you are engaged i think you should be able to be 100% truthful with your future-spouse, but then again there are some things you should keep to yourself for your security. "do not tell anyone you grow" is probably the best advice i can give you, you are going to have to make that choice on your own
8. Due to the same reason as above and also in the event that things do go very well and it is a very bountiful harvest, I am thinking about digging a hole onsite and building a small watersealed cache into it that i can hold my jars in for curing and storage and just taking what I need throw some dirt and leaves over it and go, I figure if I go the whole long season without getting some big trees ripped, the chances of them finding a hidden cache would be small. I just kinda came up with this so I'd love your input on this in particular.
should be fine
, the only thing that turns me away from big island. I am still young so I gotta get a career, but when I retire I would move to Puna any day!
889-1822