Tag: Feature Stories
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The Grower’s Guide to Integrated Pest Management
Whether you’re a large-scale commercial grower or a small-scale craft grower, protecting your valuable crops is usually the first thing on your mind. You can find lots of ways to protect your plants from bugs and other issues, but if they aren’t sustainable, it’s going to cost you in more ways than one in the…
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A Brief History of Cannabis and Humans
Cannabis use by humans has been going on since before people started writing things down. As such, details are sketchy and some educated guesswork is involved in trying to reconstruct our shared long history. What we do know, which I’ve outlined below, is based on current archaeological thinking, and some details may well change as…
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Mythical Myrcene
“I used to feel high, now I just fall asleep.” Terpenes are the talk of Cannabis Town and myrcene crosses our lips more than most. Symbolic of the many questions surrounding modern sinsemilla, myrcene is both in your face, yet elusive, blamed for couch lock while touted as an effective sleep aid, plays a key…
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Complex Caryophyllene
“Back in the day, good weed was spicy, now it’s so sweet!” Myrcene is a single terpene with unique characteristics that expand its single molecule complexity. While myrcene is the most common monoterpene found in cannabis, many of the most widely occurring sesquiterpenes are caryophyllenes, a family of structurally and biosynthetically related compounds that often…
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Harvest 101
So you have decided that you want to try your hand at Cannabis cultivation? While many will say just plant and add water, which will produce something, there are methods and skills you can use to ensure better chances at high-quality flowers. Growing cannabis correctly is a fairly time consuming labor of love. With all…
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Terpenes
In previous articles, we discussed the landrace origins of traditional marijuana and hashish, the cannabinoids they contained, and their occurrence in modern sinsemilla cultivars. The primarily psychoactive molecule in cannabis has always been THC, and some traditional cannabis also contained some CBD. Modern sinsemilla cultivars are generally higher in THC than in the ’70s, and…
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When To Say When
Trichomes are the hair-like structures found on plants. Stinging nettles have trichomes that inject an irritant when they are brushed. Mint plants have trichomes containing the essential oils that give them their distinctive smell, and sundew plants have sticky trichomes that trap insects. Cannabis also has trichomes containing concentrations of more than a hundred different…
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Mastering the Cannabis Manicure
The final stage of the cannabis cultivation process, after the harvest, drying, and curing, is the meticulous task of trimming. Trimmers have to closely examine each delicate marijuana bud and use small scissors to remove excess leaf matter, stems, and any imperfections in order to reveal the flawless, trichome-covered flower. For commercial grow operations and…