This forum is such a joke...
Does an apple in the shade grow any less than one in the sun? You think you can do better than a century of botanists?
I have preached my sermon against cutting off fan leaves to provide increased amounts of light to buds enough times that I am not going to do it again … not right now anyway.
But I will make the comment that in general on sites like this, and in some cases with people you talk to .. depending of course on who you know … a large number of members/people will do all they can to keep any actual proven botanical facts from being allowed in a growing discussion.
There are so many ‘things work this way because that’s how I believe they work’ or ‘I do things this way because I read somewhere it was best’ things that many growers seem to love, and in extreme cases need to believe, that if someone pulls out a botanical fact people don’t like it. It takes one or some of those beloved ‘beliefs’ and instantly disproves them and that cannot be allowed.
Other than in what could be called a small number of very unique plants, for the most part most proven botanical facts pretty much apply across the board to everything else. Yes there are variations and degrees of things connected that makes things better here and there for this type of plant or that, but the general facts do apply across the board.
For some reason a goodly number of pot growers seem to believe that marijuana is a very unique plant with needs and ways of doing things that are outside that of proven botanical science. It is a darn good thing for people who believe that marijuana is so unique that what has been proven for ages does not apply to marijuana, because if it were that unique, most likely those same people would be unable to grow it.
Everyone who grows for a fair bit of time or longer will have their fair share of ups and downs but there will be something of an average to the level of their growing results that could be ranked or rated or detected or whatever at each step of growing. They will be able to look at plants and know if they are ahead of/doing better than normal or if they are behind. After they grow long enough they reach some level of consistency and more or less remain there, unless they change their system/setup and improve it anyway. They will pretty much figure out how to tickle out all there is to get out of their system/setup and not counting the now and then lightning strikes or a gusher is drilled grows their ups and downs, highs and lows will be minimal in difference.
The most consistent grower that I have ever personally known, the one who had the highest level of consistent success over a number of years is my brother in law. He doesn’t grow any more, hasn’t for a pretty good number of years now, but when he did he was a magician.
He was also earning his degree in botany when I first met him and then of course carried on with his hobby for some years after earning his degree in botany.
He learned, and I believe even stopped, pre-Internet. He never had sites like this where he could spend an entire day reading information and advice that very seldom was totally correct and most of the time was at best only partially accurate and a good bit of the time was pure fantasy passed off as facts. He never learned the myths and growing legends and half-truths and misconceptions and misperceptions and the connected dots that were never supposed to be connected so when connected they created the wrong picture etc.
All he had to rely on was the botany books he was learning from and what his botany professors were teaching him botany, and a mess-o-Dalet seeds he shipped from Vietnam, and in time others strains too.
In spite of the tremendous handicap he faced he still managed to be incredibly impressive in his results.
I am not saying he was the greatest grower the world has ever known and that no one here might be as good or even better …. that is possible … though I would feel safe in saying if he would be topped it would not be done by many or happen very often …. but he is the most consistently successful, or was anyway when growing, out of all the growers I have ever known and he had none of what so many now almost totally rely on now for the source of their information and instead totally relied on what very few have even the slightest use in.
If I could wind back the clock if I did not include at least some basic botany courses when I went to college, after graduating I would have at least hit a local jr. college or something and took a few courses in botany. I would have learned a lot of things a lot quicker and in the end I would also have learned way more so it would have been a plus almost from the start.
I would really suggest that any young grower find some way to learn at least basic botany. Take a course or three while in college or take a couple nights a week and hit a local jr. college and take a couple courses rather than watching a couple more games each week. If not at least purchase a few highly rated books on botany and or search the Internet and read.
It will not be marijuana specific knowledge and it will most likely leave out interesting things like the inner workings of the marijuana plant’s trichome head, trichome heads would be covered but it would not be amazing if there was little to nothing about marijuana plant trichome heads.
Still though the more you know about how plants work the more certain things will make sense and the more you will laugh at the things that are claimed to be facts daily on sites like this and the more you will be able to add bits of marijuana specific information that are accurate to what you have learned and then know even more …. and once you do that you will be as good as you can get …… as will your results.
