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Choosing the right marijuana strain is probably the most important decision a cannabis grower makes. This may seem overwhelming at first, but by answering a few simple questions, you will be able to narrow down the choices to strains that suit you best.
Marijuana seeds contain genetic material that determines your marijuana plant’s potential size, shape, time to maturity, and cannabinoid content.
Given good growing conditions and marijuana fertilizers your marijuana plant can achieve its full potential. By choosing marijuana seeds suited to the growing conditions of your grow room, you can assure yourself a large, potent, heavy yield.
There are several factors to consider when deciding what kind of marijuana seeds to buy:
Do you prefer the characteristics of an Indica or Sativa ? Or would you prefer a mix between the two (i.e. 50/50 or 60/40 cross)?
The indica highs are most often described as a pleasant body buzz. Indicas are great for relaxation, stress relief, and for an overall sense of calm and serenity. Marijuana indicas are also very effective for overall body pain relief, and often used in the treatment of insomnia. They are the late - evening choice of many smokers as an all - night sleep aid. A few pure indica strains are very potent in THC, and will cause the "couchlock" effect, enabling the smoker to simply sit still and enjoy the experience of the smoke.
The sativa high is often characterized as uplifting and energetic . The effects of a sativa marijuana are mostly cerebral. They give a feeling of optimism and well - being, as well as providing a good measure of pain relief for certain symptoms. A few pure sativas are also very high in THC content. They are known to have a quite spacey, or hallucinogenic, effect. Sativas are a good choice for daytime smoking.
Do you plan on growing indoors or outdoors?
Whether or not a strain can be grown outdoors depends on the length of season you have. Flowering time is the most important feature to consider and is completely influenced by the indica/sativa ratio. You want plants that will mature before the danger of frost or bad weather comes along. The more sativa that is in the mix, the longer it takes to finish. If you have a very long growing season, most strains can be grown outdoors. Flowering periods are approximate and will vary depending on conditions. From there you go back to what you like and the descriptions of the plants.
Do you want a short plant or a tall plant?
The heights listed for each strain are for full sized plants. When growing indoor, we have complete control over how tall these plants get, just by how long we grow them before flowering is initiated. Artificial lights do not efficiently penetrate much more than 3 feet down into the garden, so it makes little sense to grow them much bigger than that.
After the light schedule is changed to 12 hours on and 12 hours off, flowering will begin in about 7 to 14 days. During this time the plants will continue to grow another 6 to 14 inches and then stop. How much they will grow depends on the indica/sativa ratio of the strain. Sativas will stretch the most. Depending on this ratio, flowering should be initiated at around 18 to 24 inches to achieve the end height of 36 inches. How long it will take to get this tall depends on the strain and the conditions in the garden.
What type of stone/ high are you looking for?
There are two basic types: the first is a ‘body stone’ that knocks you down and holds you there, which is synonymous with Indicas. A second type of stone is a trippy cerebral high, often associated with Sativas.
Is taste important for you?
Some strains have a unique flavor such as grapefruit, blueberry, etc
How potent do you want it?
All of the strains are potent but different strains have their own unique effects (i.e. mellow, happy, paranoid, stupefying, clear and thought provoking, etc, etc…). The success of the eventual outcome will depend on your personal tastes and the conditions in which they are grown. Nobody tests the THC percentages of these strains and we are not really sure what the numbers mean when they do. THC is found in the resin glands that form on the plant during the maturation process. These glands act as a shield to protect the seed from the searing heat of the sun. From our experience this is needed more in a hot, dry atmosphere, than a hot humid one. To maximize resin production drop the humidity in the room for the flowering stage, the lower the better. But no matter how much resin you induce on an indica it's still not going to give you the stone of a sativa, so it does have a lot to do with your personal tastes and expectations.
Is yield important to you? There are low, medium and high yielding cannabis plants. Does yield take precedence over quality?
The yields listed for strains are approximate and depends a lot on how they are grown and the quality of the environment. Indoor lights don't penetrate down very far so it is better to grow a larger number of smaller plants to achieve the highest yield of top quality bud. Maximum yields indoors are coming from indicas and mostly indica hybrids, while the more sativa in the mix, the lower the yields tend to be.
Yield indoors is really limited only by the amount of light you have, not the strain we choose. Given that it is a good growing environment, you would expect the yield to be about the same from any strain in relationship to its indica/sativa content. It is up to us as growers to maximize our plant's potential in our space. To do this we need to experiment to find out how each strain will respond best.
How long do you want to wait to harvest?
Flowering times are an indication of how long it will take the plant to mature indoor after flowering has been induced by changing the lights to 12 hours of darkness. This will be affected by the environment to some degree, but is pretty much fixed in the plant. Indicas are faster flowering than sativas and hybrids are in relationship to the percentage of each they contain.
Equally important in the process is vegetation time, or how long you grow them before flowering is induced. Sativas grow very quickly and if we wait too long to flower them they will outgrow the limits of the space and will not fill out. On the other hand, if an indica is not grown for long enough, the yield can be greatly reduced. In the scheduling of the process they can often both end up taking about the same amount of time to grow and mature. Some strains are 6 week cash-croppers, some will take up to 14 weeks to flower. Many strains take 7-8 weeks.
Are you a beginner or advanced grower?
Certain strains of marijuana are much harder to grow than others. Similarly, some have been engineered to be easy to grow, resistant to pests and can handle a lot more stress. The less experienced the grower, the more important it is to choose an easy strain to grow.
Is odor or smell a concern?
Stealth growing requires low smelling strains. Some strains smell so strong they may be a security risk.
http://www.1stmarijuanagrowerspage.com/ ... seeds.html
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