West Coast Cultivation
Active Member
So my boy SUBLBC (not Subcool of TGA) threw up a Youtube video yesterday regarding the love for plants and if it has anything to do with the overall production. Well the video was more or less a joke, but it did touch on a couple subjects that I'd like to get RIU's oppinion on. Being in the production cloning business and having interactions with so many other growers I get to see a lot of things first hand that normal growers wouldn't. For instance our Platinum Purple OG Kush is our most popular cut, and we supply more growers with this strain that most of all the others combined. Seriously! Well I get to see that cut grown out by every type of grower under the sun and I get to see the results. Some growers grow in soil and use very little nutrients or additives and just rely on the soils nutritional values to keep that plant healthy throughout it's life cycle. Other growers grow in UC DWC and pump the plants full of food and grow these monster bushes. And I get to see every style of grow (for the most part) and grower in between. Some growers we supply with 24 clones a week that go in a room of 20k, others have a 400watt closet grow and only need 4-6 clones to meet their needs. Aside from the style of grow and little differences within there is one distinct difference that I see most often between the guys who produce and the guys who get by, and that is...
Science...
I'm not saying love doesn't help things, as I do love my garden, but I am certainly not in love with it. I don't get emotionally attatched to any garden for the fact that it gets too hard to part ways when and if that time comes. If I am in love with my flower room of 24 plants two weeks into flowering and I get a root aphid infestation, my natural love for the plants will cause me to spend time, money, and energy on plants that may not be worth the effort. So without the in love factor, I am able to clear the room out and start over because I know that I will be money ahead that way vs trying to nurse back to health plants that may never fully recover. I see a lot of hobyist growers fall in love with their plants and aren't able to do what I just stated. They feel that their garden is a living and breathing part of life and that everything should be done to keep it alive and healthy, at all costs. The larger scale production (4,000-10,000 watts) growers are less in love with their gardens and have taken a more or less business stance. They rely on science (PH, TDS, PPM, RH, air quality, NPK ratios, and blah blah blah) to get them their good results and thus spending less time nursing plants back to health.
Maybe I got off track a bit and mixed the "love" vs "in love" and "science" vs. "love", so I will try to explain a little better...
Alot of growers rely on how they feel their plants are doing. They look at the foilage and think it's a healthy green, things are groing at an ok speed, and nothing looks wrong so they assume everything is optimal. They don't PH anything, they don't pay attention to NPK ratios or percentages, they have no idea what tds even is, but they can grow crop after crop with nothing more than their feelings of how the plants are doing. Their results are usually average, and thats good enough for them, as the meds are usually for personal only. Then you have growers that rely on science with terms like PH, EC, TDS, PPM all being a part of their everyday vocabulary and functions. They don't water anything without knowing all of these factors first. They check run off water to make sure everything inside is doing what its supposed to and they're not pissing in the wind. There isn't a minute wasted as production is what drives their beast, and overlooking such factors only furthers the odds of having down time. The difference in thc percentages as little as 1% is a big deal for some growers. They are what represents top shelf and their product is what makes this industry what it is.
I am not bashing on hobyist growers or growers that rely on their feelings to judge their plants needs. I'm just curious if other larger scale production type growers would agree? I started in a closet back in the early 90's and my plants at the time were amazing, now I grow on a larger scale and I look back at what I used to think was amazing and laugh. I grew a ton of crops before I even knew that PH had anything to do with a garden, I had no idea how many lumens per square foot were recomended, and I certainly didn't have the nutrient or medium choices that we do now-a-days yet I harvested what I thought were top shelf buds pretty much every grow. Now I grow what I consider the tippy top of the shelf, and I'm not trying to stroke my ego as I hardly have an ego, but I am claiming that I grow a lot higher quality herb than I did before I added science to the equation plain and simple. So with that let the debate begin, does "science" based gardening make for higher quality herb than herb grown with "feelings"?
Staying Medicated,
W.C.C.
Science...
I'm not saying love doesn't help things, as I do love my garden, but I am certainly not in love with it. I don't get emotionally attatched to any garden for the fact that it gets too hard to part ways when and if that time comes. If I am in love with my flower room of 24 plants two weeks into flowering and I get a root aphid infestation, my natural love for the plants will cause me to spend time, money, and energy on plants that may not be worth the effort. So without the in love factor, I am able to clear the room out and start over because I know that I will be money ahead that way vs trying to nurse back to health plants that may never fully recover. I see a lot of hobyist growers fall in love with their plants and aren't able to do what I just stated. They feel that their garden is a living and breathing part of life and that everything should be done to keep it alive and healthy, at all costs. The larger scale production (4,000-10,000 watts) growers are less in love with their gardens and have taken a more or less business stance. They rely on science (PH, TDS, PPM, RH, air quality, NPK ratios, and blah blah blah) to get them their good results and thus spending less time nursing plants back to health.
Maybe I got off track a bit and mixed the "love" vs "in love" and "science" vs. "love", so I will try to explain a little better...
Alot of growers rely on how they feel their plants are doing. They look at the foilage and think it's a healthy green, things are groing at an ok speed, and nothing looks wrong so they assume everything is optimal. They don't PH anything, they don't pay attention to NPK ratios or percentages, they have no idea what tds even is, but they can grow crop after crop with nothing more than their feelings of how the plants are doing. Their results are usually average, and thats good enough for them, as the meds are usually for personal only. Then you have growers that rely on science with terms like PH, EC, TDS, PPM all being a part of their everyday vocabulary and functions. They don't water anything without knowing all of these factors first. They check run off water to make sure everything inside is doing what its supposed to and they're not pissing in the wind. There isn't a minute wasted as production is what drives their beast, and overlooking such factors only furthers the odds of having down time. The difference in thc percentages as little as 1% is a big deal for some growers. They are what represents top shelf and their product is what makes this industry what it is.
I am not bashing on hobyist growers or growers that rely on their feelings to judge their plants needs. I'm just curious if other larger scale production type growers would agree? I started in a closet back in the early 90's and my plants at the time were amazing, now I grow on a larger scale and I look back at what I used to think was amazing and laugh. I grew a ton of crops before I even knew that PH had anything to do with a garden, I had no idea how many lumens per square foot were recomended, and I certainly didn't have the nutrient or medium choices that we do now-a-days yet I harvested what I thought were top shelf buds pretty much every grow. Now I grow what I consider the tippy top of the shelf, and I'm not trying to stroke my ego as I hardly have an ego, but I am claiming that I grow a lot higher quality herb than I did before I added science to the equation plain and simple. So with that let the debate begin, does "science" based gardening make for higher quality herb than herb grown with "feelings"?
Staying Medicated,
W.C.C.
