how to up thc and other characteristics ?

How to up potency? Well I can think of a few ways. the first is more light, a 1000 watter will give you not only bigger buds then a lower wattage, they are also more potent... But what I would probably do though, is flower under fluroscent lighting. Select the ones that do well, and clone and grow those cuttings. Here's a picture of an interesting new cutting I have called Mr. Funky, flowered under fluroscent lights. My thumb is shown in comparison to one of the side buds. Mr. Funky was flowered very small, funky sits on top of two 4 inch rock wool cubes. Total height from top to bottom is about 20 inches. This plant was also heavly seeded, but still produced some of the best bud I've smoked. I'll have a sensimia version coming up of funky.

Your going to need a pile more of them T-5's if you actually want to see results. Anything will increase yield when your new to growing(not saying your new). Once you are producing the highest quality that strain allows you will notice all these so called ideas fall by the way side. If you know how to grow you don't need gadgets to get full potential of a strain you need patients.

He means patience, but in my state, you need patients as well in order to grow legally

Bumping an excellent thread. Thanks, Kite High.

^^^Great thread, bumping myself because this thread made me realize, as a closet grower, it's all about replicating their ideal environment as closely as possible with the intelligence and technology available.

in my personal opinion you are neo thanks for the advice last year it really help in crunch time thanks bubby

Trousers said:

Being an excellent grower is the best way to improve thc.

I got a purple erkle clone (I needed a quick finisher before vacation. It finished in 51 days, no problem) and a sample of the dispensary's purple erkle.

The dispensary's PE was not nearly as good as mine turned out. Maybe they have a shitty cure, or do not really know how to grow, but mine was leaps and bounds better than theirs.

I'm not saying I am an excellent grower, but I am better than some "professionals."

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silasraven said:

was wondering how to up the level of thc in oone strain? no going outside the genetics to get it.

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You cant, but to have a strain at its full thc potential you need to grow vigorous green plants with healthy leaves.

Good thread, the uvb thing sounds like a side experiment, if I can ever stop experimenting with new shit that is.

Along the lines of Trousers post. Short of changing/searching for better genetics, uvb/technology, advanced nutes or "teas". Maximizing the potency of the same strain, from the same clones or seeds comes down to picking at the right time and curing properly. No other method has consistently generated killer smoke. I don't believe that curing has anything to do with potency but it does affect taste and significantly reduces harshness.

In other words, patience for maximum THC of whatever strain you're growing (maximum white/cloudy trichs), or on the other end of things, not waiting too long (typical when yield is the driver vs. quality) where begins to deteriorate and CBD becomes more prevalent. This is not increasing THC levels but maximizing any particular strains full potential can either make or break 2-4 months of cycle/time, and make the difference between "ok" and "killer" smoke...

Trousers said:

Being an excellent grower is the best way to improve thc.

I got a purple erkle clone (I needed a quick finisher before vacation. It finished in 51 days, no problem) and a sample of the dispensary's purple erkle.

The dispensary's PE was not nearly as good as mine turned out. Maybe they have a shitty cure, or do not really know how to grow, but mine was leaps and bounds better than theirs.

I'm not saying I am an excellent grower, but I am better than some "professionals."

Click to expand...

I wonder sometimes how much transportation can effect this as well. When grown at home your bud moves maybe 100ft in its life, and stays (for me at least) in a single jar throughout its life. So the movement and possibility of "damage" is highly minimal, where as grown by "professionals" it could be chopped and cured in one spot and transferred between who knows how many containers. Anything with static will attract trichs from what I have read. Plastic bags being some of the worst. Not saying THIS IS WHY, but have always wondered the average loss of potency just do to simple transportation.

fish emulsions and hydroslates make up the biggest gains ive experienced between old/new techniques

Bird shit and blood!

I started and contributed to a long, very nerdish thread about uvb on another forum, that basically culminated in me saying I should start a company with a friend manufacturing UVB LED lighting, but we never did it. Lol. so I'll just stick to more conventional tips for this post.

There are a few things I do to get my potency as high as I can, within reason. you may not want to utilize all of them though, as they can be a significant tradeoff.

Okay, first, I use MHs with almost enough power to burn the plants, with unsealed, open hoods. Specifically, adjust a wing clone hoods. I set the reflectors to get the light as even as I can, and the lack of that layer of glass allows any uva & uvb produced to hit the plants. Now there are people who say my bulbs (sun pulse 3k halides) don't put out any uva or uvb, but they turn white plastics yellow, just like if you put them outside in the sun. That tells me they do. Flourescents and HPS, I've never observed that happening.

The tradeoff here obviously is with the open hoods vs ducted hoods, you just raised your AC cost dramatically, especially in warmer climates. So this wouldn't really be an option for larger grows.

Another thing I do is really pay attention to the flowering time. The strain I'm currently working with is advertised as a 6-7 week strain. At 7 weeks, it is pretty crystally. But at 8 weeks, I still wasn't seeing amber trichomes, and it was still growing new pistils. The longest I've let it go was about 9.5 weeks, and the quality was worth it. But when I do that, I really have to watch out, this strain grows bananas before amber trichomes! If I didn't catch that, it could ruin the next 3 stages growing next to it. I keep my eye on it and pluck off a few bananas every time.

And finally, the most significant, yet always most controversial, what I call "strategic leaf removal". I remove probably about 80% of the leaves over the course of the 8 or 9 weeks the plants are flowering. But this has increased my quality, and yield, by about 30-40% I'd say. I no longer have any popcorn buds, and buds need light to develop properly. If I didn't remove leaves, my crop would be garbage compared to what I get and expect now.

silasraven said:

was wondering how to up the level of thc in oone strain? no going outside the genetics to get it.

Click to expand...

I've used a mercury-vapor lamp years ago to run a small crop of California Orange. The higher Ultraviolet spectrum seemed to work well
resulting in remarkable trichome production and dark green (almost blue) foliage. Yield wasn't great, but potency made up for it _~

UVB for me...very clearly Trics seem to get longer, fuller & mass up, when compared to same strain, same batch of seeds...






May try the 200W next round, the 150s have lasted two years 18/6, 9 months/yr.