The Cannabis Experts

How to get THC out of your system In one of our previous videos we have discussed how long THC can remain in your system and how long you normally have to wait before your body will be THC free. The reason some of you may want to know such things is idle curiosity, for others it is because you may have to take a drug test and you want to make sure you pass. In that video we discussed how THC can be absorbed in fat, so if you are overweight, you are going to have to hold off having that drug test for longer than a thin person. That’s because when fat burns, THC is released in the form of the THC metabolite THC-COOH and it is this metabolite that drug tests can identify. So, what can you do to help get THC out of your system? Well, lets start with the bleeding obvious. Stop smoking or ingesting cannabis, especially if you are a heavy user. If you don’t, you’re unlikely to be ‘clean’ inside 30 days. Next, drink loads of water, though don’t overdo it or you will also rid your body of needed electrolytes, which can be fatal. The more you pee the quicker you will help get the metabolite out of your system, and what remains in your urine will be heavily watered down. Make sure you get the balance right as if your urine is too weak, this will be spotted and you will have to take the test again, under a dark cloud. There has been a study that suggests zinc is an effective urine adulterant which can produce a false negative test result. The tests indicated that if you take a zinc supplement, that has the potential to interfere with urine test results for between 12 and 18 hours. Further testing is needed to confirm these results and we should point out that if you are taking any other medication, for whatever reason, check with your doctor or chemist before taking any zinc supplement. Detoxing can also help to flush THC out of your system. Detox drinks can sometimes either expel or mask the presence of THC, often by deploying diuretics to make you pee more frequently. Of course, just drinking loads of coffee or cranberry juice might be just as effective…so let us know your thoughts in the comment section below, and of course if you enjoyed this video like and subscribe so you too can become a cannabis expert!

Ten of the world’s more cannabis-friendly countries Fancy going on holiday but want to be able to relax and have the occasional joint while there and not run the risk of only making it as far as airport security before you end up spending longer than anticipated in that country? Tolerance of cannabis is beginning to reach further and further afield, and many of the countries you will see here only a few years ago would have happily locked you up and thrown away the key. Times are different, and with the resources of so many police forces stretched to the limit, their attention, and that of the courts, tends to be more heavily focused on the sharp end of the drug world, the dealers. So, while we have to ask you to double check before you book your flights – the last thing we want is to receive a letter from you sent from some jail in a far-away country complaining that we got our facts wrong – here are ten countries where you are pretty safe to light up a joint in public. Top of the list has to come Uruguay as this was the first country in the world to legalise cannabis, all the way back in 2013. However, before you decide to go there on holiday, perhaps better to think of moving there permanently as it is only legal for citizens and you have to buy your drugs through a pharmacy (where else!). Canada was the next country to legalise cannabis, though where you can smoke it and who you can buy it from varies from state to state. Peru turns a blind eye to recreational use of marijuana, but only ever have enough for personal use on you. In Spain you can grow cannabis quite legally, as long as its not for sale. Private consumption is acceptable, but selling it in any form is illegal. However, to circumvent many of the rules, the country has over 800 ‘private’ cannabis clubs for members only. Interestingly and contrary to popular belief, cannabis has not been legalised in the Netherlands, but the law turns a blind eye. Only residents can buy cannabis, though coffee shops are exempt from this rule. Only this last September did South Africa legalise cannabis, both for private growth and consumption. While you might be tempted to put the United States on this list, it isn’t the whole country. In fact, the laws vary so much from state to state that by the time you’re watching this, the law will probably have changed in half a dozen of them! There’s a subtle difference between decriminalising and legalising cannabis. In many countries, the use of cannabis has been decriminalised, which means you will break the law if you smoke it, but you won’t get arrested. This applies to countries like Jamaica, Costa Rica and Belize, Portugal, Switzerland and Croatia. The trick with all lenient countries is not to stuff your pockets full of the stuff, but instead keep less than 10g in your pocket at any time. Any more and you start wandering into dealer territory, which the law takes a very different view of. Did we miss any off the list, do let us know in the comment section below!

How to make sure your grow room is well ventilated. There are three good reasons why you need to make sure your grow room is well ventilated. First, your cannabis plants need a continuous supply of fresh carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. Your plants need carbon dioxide, light and water to convert into food. Second, they also need to respire, to breathe, in order to turn glucose and oxygen into energy to promote growth. Lastly, a stale, musty and humid environment will become a breeding ground for pests and disease. If you are new to growing cannabis, you may not have realized just how much heat your grow lights can give off, especially if you use metal halide or high-pressure sodium lamps. Add to that the amount of water your cannabis plants will sweat into the air as it transpires up from the roots and through the stems into the leaves. To combat this problem, fresh air should come in at the bottom of your grow tent, and stale air extracted from the top. Circulation is most efficient with that set-up as hot and humid air will naturally rise to the top of the grow tent anyway. To calculate the size of extractor fan you will need, you have to calculate the volume of your grow tent, and then buy an extractor fan with the appropriate CFM, which stands for cubic feet per minute. So, if your grow tent measures four foot in length by two feet in width by five feet in height, the volume would be 40 cubic feet and you would need a fan with a 40 CFM rating. You then have the option of installing an oscillating fan to ensure that the whole tent is well ventilated and combine this with a passive air intake vent at the bottom. Alternatively, you can use an active intake vent which incorporates a fan within it which draws a steady stream of air into the tent. If you use an active intake vent with a fan, you need to ensure that the CFM of your intake fan is slightly less than that of your extractor fan, to create negative air pressure in your grow tent. That way you will be able to regulate the temperature, humidity and CO2 levels. Finally, we recommend you attach an active carbon filter to your extractor fan to remove any of the tell-tale smell coming from your plants’ terpenes. Of course this isn’t specific to a “grow tent” and the same theory can be applied to any “grow room” to maximize the plants chances of success, and of course if you enjoyed this video do like and subscribe so you too can become a cannabis expert!

Rehydrating your cannabis If you roll your own cigarettes (we’re not endorsing smoking tobacco here) you’ll know what we mean when we talk about there being nothing worse than when your tobacco dries out. It becomes harder to roll and breaks up into a fine bits that burn too fast and too hot. You end up with a bad taste, smoke that burns your throat, and tiny bits of tobacco in your mouth that you then spend the next half hour trying to spit back out. If your stash of cannabis gets too dry, however, all is not lost, as there are some useful tips here to help you rehydrate your stash and bring it back to life. Rehydrating doesn’t mean steeping your cannabis in water – that will ruin your supply even quicker. Rehydrating involves reintroducing sufficient moisture that your cannabis remains dry to the touch, but not bone dry, if you get what we mean. Basically, it will burn nicely, at the right temperature, and doesn’t break up when you touch it. So, what are the best ways to gently reintroduce moisture or, better still, stop it from drying out completely in the first place. If you store your cannabis in a jar, why not include some stalks from the original plant – they’re full of moisture and dry out more slowly than the cannabis itself. You can also buy silicone gel sachets – moisture packs – that help to maintain the relative humidity, and can be used in pouches and tins. Either to rehydrate, or as a habit, you can include citrus peel, that can also infuse your weed with a subtle extra flavour. You can do the same with bread and damp paper towel, and while some recommend lettuce and potato peel, we don’t as you can end up forgetting it is there and if they lose their moisture quickly, they’ll turn your stash into a smelly compost heap! For an emergency rehydration, full a jar with boiling water and place a thin cloth over the top that still allows steam through it. Drop your cannabis on the cloth and turn the cannabis over every five minutes. You need to do this two or three times over a half-hour period and your cannabis should be nicely rehydrated. The important thing to remember is that if your cannabis dries out completely, it’s not the end of the day and just an opportunity to develop new skills!

If you have an interest in history, why not subscribe to our new history channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBnvmu9cLVwbhRHALNDh_og The “Strongest” Cannabis Strains in 2021 Kicking off this list at number 7 we have… Durban Kush At number 6 on our list is “Banana Kush” Coming in at number 5 we have “Blue Walker” Sitting comfortably At number 4 on our list “Chocolate OG” At Third place we have “99 Problems” Just off the top spot at number 2 is “Pacman OG Coming in at the top of our list at number 1 is “Grease Monkey” And that’s our list, however, should you agree, disagree or otherwise do let us know in the comment section below! Make sure to Like and Subscribe so you too can become a cannabis expert!

The interaction between cannabis and other drugs You might be surprised to discover just how many of today’s prescription and over-the counter- medicines just don’t go well together and, if you get it wrong, the consequences can be fatal. Many who take medication for heart disease have to give everyday medications like aspirin, Ibuprofen or certain antibiotics a wide berth, depending on what medicines they have been prescribed. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then to discover that that cannabis can also interact with other drugs. Cannabis is classed as a drug because a drug is described as a medicine or other substance which has a physiological effect when ingested or otherwise introduced into the body. With cannabis made up of over 400 different chemicals, there is always going to be a good chance that one, or more of them, may interact with other drugs in your body. Aspirin, for example contains only oxygen, hydrogen and carbon molecules. When two drugs interact, one of three things usually happens. The additive effect is where the intended effect of each drug is produced independently, but the effects of the drugs are added to each other. The synergistic effect is where the two drugs combine to produce a stronger effect than if they had been taken independently. Lastly, there is the antagonistic effect, where one or both drugs work less effectively, or react negatively with each other. The mechanisms which facilitate drug interaction include increasing or reducing drug absorption in the digestive tract. They can also alter drug absorption levels in the liver, the rate drugs are excreted by the kidneys, and, of course, they can trigger competing reactions in the body. One of the problems with identifying how cannabis interacts with other drugs lies in the fact that cannabis doesn’t achieve one singe, common effect, like prescription drugs. People react differently to cannabis, and cannabis can have both uplifting and also depressing effects, as well as being hallucinogenic. Different strains of cannabis have a different chemical makeup. While not conclusive, a few tests have produced the following results for cannabis combinations. With alcohol, prior consumption of alcohol can increase the absorption rate of THC into the body. With amphetamines like MDMA, cannabis can attenuate some of the effects of amphetamines. With cocaine, cannabis, as a depressant, can reduce the cocaine high. With codeine, as codeine is opium based, the combination of the two can produce a sedative and euphoric buzz. With LSD, reports indicate that cannabis can enhance the hallucinations and, if taken some time after LSD, can re-trigger the hallucinations. We have to point out though that this video is purely for information-sharing purposes and that the taking of individual drugs or a cocktail of drugs can have fatal consequences.

No room for a grow tent – why not try your windowsill? Not all of us or, in fact, quite a few of us just don’t have room for a grow tent where we live. Maybe you share a house with friends who aren’t avid potheads, or perhaps you live in a bedsit. Ideally you need a spare room for a grow tent if you don’t want it to become the focal point of your entire life. So what if there just isn’t the room, what then? Well, what’s wrong with your windowsill, as long as it doesn’t face due north? Okay, it’s not so easy to control the growing environment, and you can’t control the hours of daylight the way you can with an independent lighting system, but that’s not a crisis. Aside from that, the only other downside is that if your windowsill is on the first two floors of the property, passersby, who generally tend to have a nosey nature, may spot your botanical exploits. In order of priority, you want a south-, east-, or west-facing window. West-facing is not brilliant as the afternoon sun tends to be more dehydrating in strength. You can increase the light with LED lights that you can buy which have a flexible stand so you can direct the light accurately. However, we recommend that you only do this with the curtains drawn as you’ll attract as much attention as a hooker does with a red light in her window! Your next potential problem is keeping the soil sufficiently moist, but without keeping it permanently waterlogged. If you can’t afford a connected moisture sensor, then it’s down to sticking your finger in the soil. If nothing sticks to it, then the plant needs watering. Just make sure you get no water on the leaves as drops of water act like mini magnifying glasses and you’ll burn the leaves on a sunny day. Choosing the right pot can also help with potential watering problems. Obviously you don’t want a ten litre pot if you have a narrow windowsill, but anything from two litres upwards will do, bearing in mind that the smaller the pot equals the smaller the plant. Then comes the soil, and with limited space, nutrient-rich soil is essential. The soil should be rich and dark, but still airy, not claggy and clay-like. Make sure that as well as abundant micronutrients, you have plenty of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous in the soil. Finally, you have the choice of plant, and some strains will give you far better yields than others in the less-than-perfect growing environment. Try varieties such as Auto White Widow, which in a windowsill, will grow up to about 60cm in height. After all, you don’t want plants blocking out all the light from entering the room! There’s also Formula one auto and quick one, whose names are pretty self-explanatory. Of course there is one great advantage of growing your cannabis plants on a windowsill, and that providing the window opens, you have plenty of ventilation to avoid the tell-tale smell of terpenes as the plant matures! Have you grown plants on your windowsill before? Let us know how it went in the comment section below, and of course if you enjoyed this video make sure to like and subscribe so you too can become a cannabis expert!

If your cannabis plants aren’t showing any signs of flowering by their ‘due date’ don’t worry. There’s usually a simple explanation and a few adjustments should see things change very much for the better. Most of today’s cannabis plants are photoperiod varieties, which means they will begin to flower based on specific changes to lighting conditions. Because most cannabis plants are grown indoors, we have total control over the growing and flowering stages. Some of you prefer to crop regularly, but with smaller harvests, while others prefer to maximise plant size and yield, for one large harvest. Most cannabis plants will flower when you switch to a lighting regime of 12 hours on and twelve hours off. Delaying that switch enables plants to continue growing, while advancing the timing will see earlier flowering from smaller plants. So, what could be going on that has stopped your plants from flowering when they should? Is there any additional light getting into your grow room or grow tent? It doesn’t take a lot of light to interrupt the plant’s metamorphosis. Try dropping the temperature a few degrees to mimic the arrival of autumn and reduce humidity as well. Cut lighting down to ten or eleven hours to hoodwink the plant further. You could go full-on drastic and plunge your plants into total darkness for up to 48 hours, before resuming the 12 hours’ on and off light cycle. Of course, it can be as simple as a plant not being ready to flower, as some strains take longer than others to transition from the growing phase. Dare one ask if you are absolutely sure that the plants are not male? Remember, it is only female cannabis plants that flower. If you have grown autoflowering plants, it may just be that you’ve been unlucky, and the plant’s internal mechanism has failed. If that’s the case, then treat them as though they are not autoflowering and trigger a 12 hours’ on and off lighting cycle. As we say, if your cannabis plants haven’t flowered, there’s either a good reason, or something you can still do to change the situation. Let us know if you’ve experienced any problems flowering cannabis plants in the comment section below, and of course if you enjoyed this video make sure to like and subscribe so you too can become a cannabis expert!

Want to get a quicker hit from your cannabis edibles? Let’s be honest. Who doesn’t get a bit frustrated with the time delay between consuming cannabis edibles and the effects kick in? That delay can be anything between thirty minutes and two hours. Now that’s a bit boring. So, what’s the problem? Ultimately, you have to wait for your stomach to digest and break down the cannabis in your edible. Only once the cannabis has made its way through your digestive tract, and then your liver, can it enter your bloodstream. However, there are a few little tips and tricks that can help to speed up the effect of consuming cannabis edibles. First off, make sure you have an empty stomach, so the cannabis is not competing against other food. We only recommend this for experienced users though as the kick can be quite a handful. You could take your cannabis as a tincture. This is a liquid applied with a dropper under your tongue. This is both a more controllable means of getting a high, and the cannabis will enter your bloodstream much faster as it bypasses your stomach. The drawback when comparing a tincture to, say, a cannabis brownie, is that the high and after-effects are much shorter in duration. Drinks infused with cannabis are great, especially if you want to be discrete with your cannabis consumption. While cannabis-infused drinks still have to go through your stomach, because it is a liquid the cannabis will be digested much faster and enter your bloodstream more quickly as a result. You can also work on improving your metabolism, either by exercising more, eating more protein, or drinking a lot of water. You can also kill two birds with one stone by infusing your coffee or tea with cannabis as both caffeine and tannin are known to increase your metabolism. The general rule to bear in mind though, and this can often defeat the main object of the exercise, is that the quicker the effects of cannabis edibles kick in, the quicker the effect wears off. A well-made cannabis brownie may take two hours for the effects to become noticeable, but those effects can last for up to ten hours. We want to hear about your experiences though, so do let us know how you get on in the comment section below, and of course if you enjoyed this video make sure to like and subscribe so you too can become a cannabis expert!

How to Control the Smell of Your Cannabis Plants When you first start growing your cannabis plants, all seems to be well where any tell-tale odours are concerned. In fact, it is only once buds start appearing that those pesky terpenes begin to appear, terpenes being what gives cannabis its distinctive smell. Once you have terpenes, you have potential problems and once those sticky trichomes begin to appear, your problems just multiplied 100 times, as trichomes are packed full of terpenes. So, how do you eliminate the smell of cannabis? This becomes particularly important if the law is a little sketch around growing cannabis where you live. One of the biggest problems is that cannabis plants require excellent ventilation to grow healthily. Poor ventilation leads to mould and disease, two things you definitely don’t want on your plants or soil. First off, contain the smell as much as you can, such as in a grow tent, so that any circulated air has to pass through an air vent before it enters the surrounding air and doesn’t escape through cracks and holes. For that air vent, you want to install a carbon filter that will trap the terpenes. The same applies if you use a powered extractor vent. Alternatively, you can use diffusers, air purifiers, gels, blocks and odour neutralisers. However, air purifiers aren’t as effective as carbon filters, so are better used as a safety net as opposed to the main means of reducing smells. Odour neutralisers do just that, but they achieve results through having their own smell. Consequently, you don’t want these within the space you are growing the plants, or they may well absorb the neutralising smell. They can only be used outside a grow tent, for example. The final option would be to grow companion plants, though cannabis plants have never known to need companionship. Companion plants include chamomile, lavender and basil, which have their own distinctive smells which can mask the smell of cannabis. Of course, you could always hand out clothes pegs to all your neighbours, but we’re sure you spotted the obvious flaw with that. You’d have nothing to hang your washing on the line with! Let us know how you deal with smell in the comment section below!

9 fantastic weed strains to enjoy in 2021 Check out our NEW History Channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBnvmu9cLVwbhRHALNDh_og Year on year, we all want to try the latest and greatest in the cannabis world, and 2021 is no different. It's just the natural thing to do since we — as fellow consumers — are determined to stay on top of the freshest and hottest trends. So, without any further adu… Here are 9 weed strains to enjoy in 2021. Make sure to like and subscribe so you too can become a cannabis expert!

Growing Organic Cannabis It can be so easy to lose focus on the fact that you can successfully grow cannabis without a host of chemicals and solutions. Better still, growing cannabis organically is better for the environment, so you can go green, just like your cannabis plants. When you think about it, cannabis plants grow outdoors, in the wild, in all sorts of environments, without any help from us, or added chemicals. It therefore makes sense that you can do the same. However, one of the joys of growing cannabis plants, apart from enjoying the end results, is growing seriously productive plants that have great yields. Those yields do depend, very heavily, on getting everything right when it comes to meeting the plants’ needs. First, there is the soil itself. Natural soil contains bacteria, fungi, nematodes, protozoa and worms, all of which help to break down nutrients, making them easier for plant roots to absorb. If you’ve got worms in your soil, they are great for helping nutrients to work their way throughout all the soil, while also ensuring it remains well aerated. With those in place, you are then in a position to use different forms of fertiliser. Cannabis plants require three macronutrients. First there is nitrogen, which you can deliver in the form of seaweed or manure. Potassium can be provided with wood ash or kelp meal, while phosphorous can be found in manure, bone meal and rock phosphate. Then you have micronutrients such as boron, found in compost and calcium in eggshells. Magnesium can be found in organic compost, manganese in seaweed, sulphur in manure and zinc in kelp. You can easily make your own super-concentrated organic fertiliser to enable swifter uptake of nutrients at times when they are most needed. Finally, there is that critical pH balance that is all important where healthy cannabis plants are concerned. To increase acidity, vinegar or lemon juice work perfectly, while baking soda can be used to reduce acidity. Composting is a must for the organic grower, so to get the right compost, work on a 25% green and 75% brown mix, green being kitchen waste and grass cuttings, while brown stands for cardboard, leaves, straw and woodchips. You can even go one step further and in a composter, include composting worms with kitchen waste and use the castings for your soil, while any liquid run-off can also be added to boost the microbial content of the soil. It makes sense to go bio with your cannabis plants, as supermarket shelves are stacked with bio products, so they must be reasonably good for you! But what about you, let us know what you use in the comment section below!

Why cannabis can make you mellow, but also paranoid The brain is a curious thing and we are still discovering how it fully works. When it comes to cannabis and the brain, things get seriously interesting, because of the way chemicals in cannabis react with the brain’s endocannabinoid system. The body naturally produces cannabinoids, which attach themselves to cannabinoid receptors, telling the body to ‘chill out’. Cannabis also contains cannabinoids, which attach themselves to cannabinoid receptors. However, like alcohol and where a little can make you feel mellow, take too much and the results can be very different. This is because of what is called a bi-phase response. This is a two-step response, where the initial response to smoking cannabis can be good, but the second phase can be a paranoia-filled ‘bad trip’. While cannabinoid receptors welcome the arrival of cannabinoids found in THC, they can only process too much. Overwhelm the endocannabinoid system, and it simply can’t cope. What happens when we can’t cope? We go on high alert, or in the case of cannabis, we become so alert, we become paranoid. So, while smoking cannabis is illegal, all we can say from a scientific aspect, is that were you to smoke cannabis, smoke it in moderation! Maybe you live somewhere that you can legally smoke cannabis. Let us know if you’ve ever experienced the paranoid side of cannabis or only ever found it makes you mellow in the comments section below, we’d appreciate hearing your own story.

What Are Mother Cannabis Plants and Why Have One? Hmmm. It’s not often the words mother and cannabis are used in the same sentence unless you’re in trouble at home. However, while your own mother may not approve of your relationship with cannabis, there is another mother who you can turn to instead, a mother cannabis plant. In simple terms, a mother plant is a plant you can continually take cuttings from, and as it is a female plant, you will only then get female plants from the cuttings – it’s a form of cloning. A mother plant is also bit like a factory for cannabis plant cuttings, as you don’t harvest any cannabis from it. Using cannabis seeds is a great way to grow cannabis plants, but you can never be 100% sure what the plants will end up like. Not every plant grows the same, even from the same batch of seeds. From your crop of plants grown from seed, pick the best three or four. Do this by week two of flowering as by then you will have been able to identify and throw out all male plants. However, before one plant ultimately becomes your mother plant, you will want it to go through one growing cycle where you can then check their root health, pest resistance, flowering potential and, of course, how the cannabis smokes. In addition, if you take cuttings from each of these plants, you can see how they react to stress. With the cuttings from each plant, you can then check them to see which root the quickest. In the initial cuttings’ two-to-three-week vegetative state, see which cuttings grow fastest. Once you flip your cuttings to bloom phase, see which have the best flowers and which develop the fastest. Finally, check the harvested cannabis to see which comes closest to the desired effect you are looking for. Once you have been through all these stages, you can make your final decision which plants you want to keep as mother plants. You now want to keep these in a permanent state of vegetation, so you need to set up a minimum 14/10 day/night cycle, though 18/6 will produce faster plant growth and enable you to take cuttings more frequently. Ideally, you want to just take a few cuttings each time, but regularly, so that you have a constant ‘conveyor belt’ of new plant growth for your cannabis supply, rather than having to harvest loads each time. In the interim, just keep the plant well-trimmed – similar to Bonsai, and remember to trim the roots before the pot becomes rootbound! Now bringing home your new boyfriend or girlfriend to meet your mother takes on a whole new meaning!

Check out our NEW History Channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBnvmu9cLVwbhRHALNDh_og What’s The Best light Set-up for Indoor Growing. Stray tuned! Last year we released a video titled “best lights for growing cannabis” which turned out to be extremely popular, so we thought we’d expand a little bit on the topic. One of the major problems with growing cannabis indoors instead of outside is lighting. The sun is remarkably powerful, even if it doesn’t (yet) become so hot we all shrivel up and die. The trouble is, you need a lot of lighting indoors to recreate the levels of energy that a cannabis plant can absorb from sunlight. So, what are the options. Currently, there are four main types, and the one you opt for will depend very much on the nature of your set-up. Are you just growing a few plants for yourself, or are you growing it commercially – strictly for resale to the pharmaceutical market, of course! In 2021, the most common lighting set-up for DIY self-consumption growers is an LED one. Advancements in the technology mean they are now extremely affordable, highly efficient, and they consume far less energy than other options. There’s not much point in growing cannabis that costs you more than the stuff you can buy on the streets! As we’re going to concentrate on set-ups for grow rooms, it’s impossible to ignore HID lights – short for high-intensity discharge. These are still extremely popular with those who believe that lumens is all that matters, but there are other options. LED fans believe PAR, or photosynthetically active radiation (try saying that after a couple of tokes!) is the Holy Grail of lighting. Metal halide lights are great for the growing cycle as the blue spectrum is ideal for leafy growth, then changing to HPS lights when you want the warmer, red spectrum to encourage flowers to grow. CMH, or ceramic metal halide is catching people’s eye, literally as it is seriously bright, but the 315W CMH lamp doesn’t come anywhere near being as effective as a 600W HPS or high-pressure sodium lamp. The other most popular light is a CFL or compact fluorescent light. A 250W CFL light is in theory comparable to a 600W Metal halide or metal hydride light, although from our experience this type of light is only really any good for seedlings! However, there are a couple of things that also need to be taken into consideration when deciding on your perfect lighting set-up. First, are we talking about lights for seedlings and micro growing. If so, then best to stick with CFL and other fluorescent lights or low wattage LED’S Second, you have to work out how much light your grow room needs. If you are using feminized plants, then LED lighting works well because it doesn’t waste energy. LED lights consume less power, and 120 watts will do one plant, 280 watts will do four plants, and 350 watts can do upto eight plants. For autoflowering strains HID lights aid faster growth through their greater power, although again, many would argue they can achieve similar results using LED Lighting. As a rule of thumb, for HPS lights, you need 250 watt light for two plants, 400 watts for four plats, 600 watts for six plants, and 1,000 watts for upto eight plants. Finally, when considering all the factors you’ll want to remember that the more wattage you use, you’ll achieve the greatest amount of lumens, however, as a byproduct you will also be generating a lot of heat, and powering these lights will require a lot of electricity. This extra heat may be beneficial when working in colder climates to keep your growing environment warm, whereas LED lights (which inherently generate less heat) may be ideal when you want to keep the temperatures down operating in hotter climates! Hopefully that’s shed some light on the subject for you, but if you have any ideas of your own or have any topics you’d like us to cover in the future, by all means leave your ideas in the comments section below, and of course if you enjoyed this video make sure to like and subscribe, so you too can become a cannabis expert!

How to Maximise your Terpenes When it comes to assessing how good cannabis is, like wine tasters, the first thing you do is smell it. For cannabis to have a good aroma, you need terpenes, and the more terpenes the better. But what can you do to ensure that you end up with great-smelling cannabis? First off, choose a seed variety known for producing plants with a high terpenes level. Next, if growing in soil, your soil needs to be of the best quality to produce the healthiest plants. Now while we don’t want you stressing about your terpenes levels, you do need to stress your plants, but not the point they have a nervous breakdown. We recommend low-stress training for your plant, which we have already created a video for and if you haven’t already seen it, why not?! Removing leaves, though not too many is also a good move as while it stresses the plant, it also allows more light to reach the flowers, helping to boost terpene levels. Lighting is the next critical element. Exposing your cannabis plants to UV-B light for roughly two or three weeks during flowering will help to boost trichome levels, and trichomes are packed full of terpenes. Next comes temperature control. Lowering the temperature by five degrees at night during the period of trichome production will boost results, and the levels of terpenes. Two weeks before harvesting, flush your plants with water to remove any unwanted nutrients that can affect smell and taste. Then the final task while the cannabis is still on the plant, is the harvesting. Make sure you don’t harvest too late as there is a tipping point after which terpene levels, along with trichome levels, will fall. Then comes the most important part of all – drying and curing your weed. Aim for a temperature of around 15 to 20 degrees Celsius and a humidity of 50% for a two-to-three week period. Curing should be done in the dark, again at a cool temperature, with a humidity level of around 55%. So there you have it, beautifully aromatic cannabis, strong enough to twitch the nose of every police dog for ten miles around!

How to grow purple cannabis Did you know that many roses that have extremely vibrant colours aren’t naturally that colour? No. They put dye in the water and the petals, that would originally have been white, or red, absorb the dye in the water. However, you don’t have to use purple dye in the water for your cannabis plants as you can actually buy plants that produce purple cannabis – more on that later But first lets explode a few more myths. Depriving your plants of oxygen, or any other gases for that matter, won’t turn them purple, but will be more likely to kill them. Feeding your plant excess nitrogen won’t make them turn purple either, though it will likely change their colour to brown as they die and wither after getting burnt to a crisp. You could try purple dye, but we don’t recommend it. If you do go down that route for fun, get a natural food colouring, not a chemical dye, as you are going to be igniting and inhaling the dye at the end of the day. As for which parts of your plant will turn purple, this can be the pistils, the calyxes, the leaves and the trichomes. Having chosen the right plants, there are still a few things you need to keep an eye on. First, once they have ended vegetative growth and are ready to start flowering, drop the night-time temperature by 10-15 degrees compared to the daytime temperature. This will help break down the chlorophyll and encourage the production of more anthocyanins. When it comes to naturally purple plants, keep an eye out for Purplematic CBD ,Purple Queen, purple punch, granddaddy purple etc – the names should give you a clue. Purplematic is high in cannabidiol and very low in THC, with deep, rich purple buds. Purple Queen is virtually a pure Indica and a combination of Hindu Kush and Purple Afghani genetics. Flowers after roughly 10 weeks and has a high 22% THC content. Blue Mystic is a cross between Oregon Blueberry and Northern light, resulting in an 18% THC level and rich, purple buds. I wonder how Purple Ronnie got his name... Lets us know about your experiences with purple cannabis in the comment section below.

Your Guide to Successfully Watering your Cannabis Plants If only watering your cannabis plants was as easy as giving them some water once a week. Unfortunately, it isn’t, so get the watering element of your plant care wrong, and very quickly you’ll have dead or dying plants. It might surprise you to learn that it is easier to overwater your cannabis plants than underwater them. However, before you start thinking that watering is seriously complicated, it isn’t, you just need to follow a few basic rules. First off there is pot size. For your seedlings, you want a small pot with a light and airy growing medium. You want to be able to get the growing medium nice and moist, but still well drained so that it will dry out. If you put seedlings in a large pot, invariably the soil will never dry out to any extent, and the roots will begin to rot. Once transferred to a large pot, you want to make sure that the soil, or growing medium, drains easily. The idea is for the soil to be moist, not soaking wet. The pot should have holes in the bottom so that excess water can drain off, and the pot should be slightly raised so that it doesn’t stand in any excess water. If your soil remains too wet, it will encourage the growth of mould and bacteria on the surface. In a good set-up, the surface of the soil should dry out between watering – this stops mould and bacteria forming. When you water the soil, it should take roughly two or three minutes for excess water to drain through. If it takes a lot longer, then the soil is too heavy and will remain too wet and compacted around the root system. Adding perlite to soil is a good way to encourage healthy drainage. While you can’t tell how wet the soil is at a depth of greater than six centimetres, sticking your finger in the soil is a good way to check if the plant needs watering. If it is dry all the way down, chances are it needs watering. If you can feel that the soil is damp, leave things alone. Often a good way to tell if a plant needs watering is to lift the pot – if it feels appreciably lighter than it did when it has just been watered, it’s time for a top-up. The only other thing to keep an eye on, is the pH of the soil, as too much water can change it from the optimum 6.3-6.8. So remember, cannabis plants are not the same as goldfish, so they don’t need to be immersed in water 24/7!

Has Your Cannabis Plant Got Some Brown and Crispy Leaves? Here’s the most likely culprits. For the best cannabis crop, you want the healthiest cannabis plants. So, should you begin to panic if some of the leaves on your cannabis plant begin to turn brown and become crispy in texture? The answer is no, but you will need to get to the root cause of the problem – sorry about the pun, though it is not actually the roots where the problem lies, unless you have overdone the nutrients and burned them! The consequence of this will usually see your leaves become crispy and fragile. In fact, it might not be a problem at all as, when ‘flushing your plants’, roughly a fortnight before harvesting when you drastically reduce all nutrients, some of the fan leaves will curl and fall off the plant. Similarly, when the plant is nearing the end of its life cycle, it is natural for some of the leaves to wither and die. However, if you aren’t getting the correct balance of macronutrients and micronutrients right – lots of the former and less of the latter, that can affect leaf quality. Check out our previous video on the importance of macro and micro nutrients for more on that. If the PH of the soil is too high or too low, the plant will struggle to absorb moisture, and the leaves will suffer as a consequence. Aiming for a soil PH of between 6.0 and 7.0 is optimum. You could, of course, be overwatering your plants, which is easily done when new to growing cannabis plants. Overwatering means leaves take too much water absorbed up through the roots and, eventually, the cells can rupture. Browning leaf tips will be the first warning signs of overwatering. Keep an eye on the temperature of the air surrounding your plants. Excessive heat won’t help the plant to grow, it will dry it out instead, leading to crispy leaves and eventually a dead plant. Be careful you are not subjecting the plants to too much light or that the light source is in too close a proximity to the plants. If you are growing your plants outside and the weather is unduly sunny, create some shade with a light cloth laid over a simple framework when the sun is at its strongest, usually between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. So, if you’ve got crispy leaves, there’s usually a good reason with a simple solution to the problem. All you need to do is figure it out, and when you do, let the rest of us know how it went in the comments section below.

The Ten Worst Places in the World to Get Caught with Cannabis The laws surrounding cannabis, from its legality to the difference between personal recreational use and intention to supply, vary across the globe. The matter is not made any clearer when it comes to the USA, where in some states possession of cannabis is seen as a more serious crime than possession of cocaine. If there is one consistent place where you never want to get caught with cannabis though, it’s in your bedroom by your mother or father! The fight to legalise cannabis continues unabated and in parts of Europe, notably Holland, while possession of cannabis is still illegal, it goes unpunished as a crime. While possession is a crime in the U.K., the law is becoming more relaxed and invariably, if it is clear you are just a recreational user, a smack on the wrist is the worst you will get. So, in the format of the gameshow Pointless, which countries do you think have the harshest penalties for being caught in possession of cannabis? We think there are a few places on this list that will remain ‘pointless’ as none of you will mention them. In the land of the setting sun, don’t watch it go down while smoking a joint as you’ll spend the next five years in a Japanese jail. It’s hard to imagine that anywhere in South America would have a problem with cannabis, but if caught with it in Colombia, expect to spend around six years in jail. There are a couple of countries on the old Eastern Bloc that don’t smile kindly on potheads, one being Lithuania. Expect a six-and-a-half-year stretch here. Be careful if you go to Cyprus on holiday. Just imagine those long days filled full of sunshine, crystal-blue waters and sandy beaches, all just out of reach as you spend eight years admiring the view from your cell window. Not surprisingly, Russia makes it onto the list, though with a less-harsh-than-expected nine-and-a-half-year stretch the average. Slovakia surprised us, sneaking in at number four with a most respectable twelve-year period of detention. As we near the end of the list, there is United Arab Emirates, or UAE. Hardly a surprise in an area where alcohol is only permitted in certain areas that possessing cannabis will see you locked away for anything up to fifteen years. Saudi Arabia is just as harsh. Then, how could we forget the backdrop to the harrowing film Midnight Express. Not much has changed since then so don’t get caught with any dope in Turkey, or you can kiss goodbye to eighteen years of your life. If you like the occasional joint, give Nigeria a wide berth. 25 years in jail awaits anyone caught with cannabis. Seems a bit harsh when you don’t even get that long in prison for trying to overthrow the government! Then, grouped together, we have the Philippines, Cambodia and Singapore, where life imprisonment is not unheard of, and nor is execution! So, have you got any names you’d like to add to the list – we do hope not through personal experience! Leave us a note in the comments section below to let everyone know where they should cross off their holiday list....

Our Top Tips for Growing Cannabis Plants Indoors There are two approaches you can take to growing cannabis from seed. There’s the hit-and-hope method where you can arm yourself with the minimum amount of information and hope for the best. Then there is what we call the Chelsea Flower Show approach, where you aim, from the very get go, to produce the very best plants possible, using every known trick in the book. If we created a video for the latter approach, not only would you still be here watching it this time next year, but we’d also have gone bankrupt with the cost of producing it. There’s so much to know about cannabis plants and how to grow them you could create a university degree course about it all. So, what we decided to do was create a short video focusing on what we believe to be the most helpful tips on growing cannabis indoors, and these can act as a jumping off point for those of you who want to do more research but are not sure what you should be researching. Lets begin with lighting: While many amateur and experienced growers alike turn to LED lights to help their plants grow, know that not all LED lights are the same. Cannabis grows best under a specific light spectrum, so buy purpose-made LED lights from proven manufacturers for cannabis. LED lights are great for keeping heat and running costs to a minimum! The next tip is to choose the right time to switch to a 12-hour light cycle to encourage flowering and budding – do this when the plant reaches half the height you want your final plant to reach. Force extra bud sites instead of just growing one main bud. You can do this by either low-stress training, or topping. Check out our previous videos for more on that! With your buds, try and create what is called a table – in other words, try and get all your buds to grow at the same distance from the light source at a sweet spot distance so they all grow to their maximum potential. Supercropping is a great way to maximise yield and also to create a table-top effect by bending branches to ninety degrees, but not breaking them in half as you do so! Remove male plants as early as you can spot them. While male plants are lousy for cannabis production, the pollen from them causes buds to start seeding, so unless you want seeds, get rid of them! Don’t harvest your buds too early. They will increase substantially in size two or three weeks before harvest. Be patient!!! Get yourself some good garden tools like rope ratchets, plant yo-yos, zip ties, twist ties, a thermometer and hygrometer with a probe or remote sensor. Temperature and humidity are crucial for indoor plant growth, so make sure you get this right throughout all stages of the growth cycle, and remember if you create the perfect environment, you’re 75% of the way to growing perfect cannabis! You could also do with getting a garden gnome. While this won’t directly help your plants grow, you’re going to be spending a lot of time with them, and you’ll need someone to talk to as talking to plants is just plain daft! Last, but not least, it’s vital you learn how to deal with problems, as the less you know at the onset, the greater the chances things will go wrong. Make sure you check your plants religiously – by that we don’t just mean on Sundays – and learn to both spot potential problems and how to deal with them before a small problem becomes a catastrophe. By all means share any of your own tried-and-tested tips in the comments section below, there are always new things to learn and sharing information is really appreciated by everyone. Bicycle - Reunited by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100870 Artist: http://incompetech.com/

What to do if you have an outbreak of Fusarium fungus Mention the word Fusarium to any experienced grower of cannabis plants and you will likely see them turn a whiter shade of pale and start to sweat. Despite the fact that this fungus has been known about for many decades, and despite the fact it has been known to totally wipe out commercial crops of tomatoes, beans, asparagus and peas, nobody has found a cure or prevention for the fungus. If your cannabis plants become infected with Fusarium, you have only one option, and that is to take drastic action. When we say drastic, we’re politely telling you to destroy any affected plants the moment they show any signs of being infected. So, what’s so deadly about Fusarium fungus. One of the main reasons it is impossible to treat this fungus is because it works beneath the soil, not above ground. It attacks the roots of the cannabis plant, to the point where the plant becomes unable to draw up moisture and nutrients from the soil, leading to a slow and painful death. So, what are the signs, as you don’t want to destroy a healthy crop because some leaves are discolouring only because the plant is lacking a few nutrients? The first thing to notice is the rapid decline of the plant’s health once it starts to display problems. This fungus works fast! Leaves can turn yellow and wilt. Growth can slow right down. Stems can swell and split, or decay and necrosis can be seen working its way up the stem. Is there any orange, pink or white fungus on the stem? Check one plant before jumping to conclusions. Are the roots red in colour just under the topsoil. If you dissect the stem, is there a reddish tinge to the xylem vessel? If you have convinced yourself that Fusarium is at work, then you have only one option available to you. Remove and destroy all affected plants and watch your other plants very carefully. If you are growing your plants outdoors, that soil won’t be usable again for several years. To minimize the risk of an attack from Fusarium fungus, try these three things: First, grow your plants in pots, so if one is affected, the fungus can be contained, and you don’t have to write off a section of land. Make sure the soil is never too acidic and use dolomite lime if the pH level increases. Add beneficial fungi, such as mycorrhizal. This helps plants absorb minerals while also helping to fight off other fungal pathogens. We hope this is something you never experience, but if you do we’d love to know how you dealt with the situation in the comment section below.

THC and drug testing - Here’s what you need to know! Okay, let’s not pussyfoot around the elephant in the room, and it’s a pretty big elephant. In many countries, the smoking of cannabis is illegal, though the state of play seems to be changing and, in time, the laws may well change. However, here we are talking about today. Beyond legality, there is also the question of being fit and capable for work. There are a good number of companies who require staff to take random drug tests. What we want to do here is simply inform you on how long THC can linger in your system and how, for some, it can pass through more quickly than others. We should also point out that THC can remain in your body for up to 30 days after you have ingested cannabis, especially if eaten as opposed to smoked. Beyond this, and this is where forensic science comes in, your hair will contain traces of cannabis that will remain there for at least 90 days. If there is the possibility that a drug test will include hair follicles, our advice is to keep away from cannabis for a long Long time! Thus, unexpectedly shaving your head just prior to a very critical and rigorous interview might just give the game away! First thing to note is that because THC is lipid soluble, overweight individuals will retain THC in their system for longer than their thinner companions. Worse still, if you smoke cannabis, don’t go in for heavy exercise just prior to any urine test as when fat is broken down, THC is released into your system and will come out in your urine. However, before you think that going for a run might also get you stoned on that THC, the levels are detectible, but miniscule and will have no psychotropic effect. The tests for THC are actually for the metabolite THC-COOH, or tetrahydrocannabinol carboxylic acid, though that’s a bit of a mouthful! You should also be aware that THC can build up in your system over time, so regular users are more likely to retain THC in their system for longer than ‘newbies’ who have a relatively pristine metabolism. Light use would be up to three times a week, medium use would be up to five times a week, heavy use would be seven times a week and chronic heavy use would be frequently every day. For a urine test and as a rule of thumb, light users should see any traces of THC disappear after three days, but heavy users will need up to 30 days plus. If you have to undergo a saliva test, then allow three days if you are a light user, seven days for a medium user, 15 days for a heavy user but again up to 30 days or even more if you are a chronic heavy user. For a blood test, the rule is up to two days for it to remain in the bloodstream, but THC has been found in blood tests 25 days after smoking cannabis, so unfortunately there really is no definitive answer. Wed love to hear your thoughts on the matter, and of course if you enjoy our content, do like this video, and subscribe to our channel so you too can become a cannabis expert!

A brief history of cannabis Have you ever wondered how it was first discovered that cannabis had ‘mind altering’ properties. Was there really someone who went around smoking every plant they came across to see what might happen? It’s hardly likely as if you have never come across a mind-altering substance before, how would you know it existed and why would you be looking for it? Instead, let’s look at the discovery of the properties of cannabis from the accidental perspective, which is how so many things, like penicillin, were discovered. Archaeologists have traced the hemp plant – the alternative name for the cannabis plant – back to 8,000 years before Christ, but clear evidence of its use dates back only as far as 3,000BC. It is believed to be the first cultivated crop and was originally grown for the fibrous properties of the plant’s stem, and the plant is indigenous to Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. These fibres have been used for millennia to make rope, but were originally also used to make clothing, shoes, and even an early form of paper. What we suspect was ‘the incident’ when cannabis was found to have mind altering, or psychotropic properties, was when a crop of the plants had been harvested, the stems stripped of all leaves and buds, and then someone decided to just burn the pile of waste material. Cue a settlement of people spending the next few hours wandering around in a pleasant, foggy haze, and when the same thing happened after burning the next batch of waste material, the equivalent of a Neolithic lightbulb moment happened. Slowly but surely it was discovered that cannabis also had medicinal properties, and so the plant’s popularity grew and spread across the globe. Its psychoactive properties were also embraced by religious communities at the same time. However, rather than smoking it, cannabis was consumed more as an edible. When the Assyrians came across the plant, they called it qunubu, which meant ‘way to produce smoke’, and it is from this the word cannabis is derived. The Greeks and the Romans wrote about it, with Heroditus reporting on how the inhabitants of Scythia (parts of today’s central Asia and Eastern Europe) would inhale the fumes from hemp-seed smoke for pleasurable purposes. By the 15th century cannabis had become popular as a drug in North African countries, and by the 17th century was being grown in the Americas. It was not until the smoking of tobacco became popular that smoking cannabis also became popular. An early example of its enjoyment by Westerners was when Napoleon Bonaparte’s army tried hashish when fighting in Egypt as a substitute for alcohol which was banned in the Muslim country. By the mid-1800s the British began to show a keen interest in cannabis (yes, it was not that long ago) and, what may surprise you even further, is that it was not officially banned in the UK until the 1920s. Thereafter the use of cannabis continued, but only by a small minority of people until, you guessed it, the 1960s, the age of Flower Power, peace and free love, when its use, metaphorically speaking, exploded! Though illegal throughout Europe, cannabis was legalized in Holland ion 1972, thereafter becoming an integral part of café culture and the reason why so many of the younger generation decided that Amsterdam would be a great place to go for a holiday! Move forward fifty or so years and the next cannabis explosion began with the discovery of the effects of two specific cannabinoids found in cannabis, THC and CBD and the rest, as they say, is history.

How to safely transplant your cannabis plants We advised you in a previous video about when to transplant your cannabis plants and that this process can put your plants under great strain. In the earlier stages of cannabis plant life, you have to be careful, both in how you feed and water your plants, but also how you treat them overall. Transplanting is essential, but best kept to a minimum, which is why we recommend you only need do this two or a maximum of three times in a plant’s life cycle. So how do you safely transplant a cannabis plant? Follow these steps and you shouldn’t go far wrong. First, establish the plant needs transplanting – you can tell this by whether it needs regular watering, the plant looks too big for the pot, or roots have started to appear through the bottom of the pot. One or two days before transplanting, water the pot well so the soil is moist, but not soaking wet. In choosing a new pot, for the first transplant, choose one that is three- or four-times the size of the original pot. Fill it approximately half full, so that if the old pot was placed in the new one, it would come to just below the top of the new pot. Take the plant and turn it upside down in the palm of your hand with the stem between your index and middle finger. Squeeze the sides of the pot gently to detach the soil and roots from the side. Gently try lifting the pot and if it comes away freely, then perfect. If it still seems stuck to the earth and roots, squeeze a few more times until the pot comes free. Very gently mass age the root ball to free up the roots, and then place the plant into the new pot. Carefully fill the new pot to just below the top ridge and then carefully press it down so that the soil envelops but does not crush the roots. Top up the soil level and then give the plant a light watering to make sure the soil, once again, is moist but not soaking wet. It will take a couple of days for the plant to appear to have recovered, but we don’t recommend you put the plant under any additional stress for at least a two-week period. If your method differs to ours we’d love to hear about it, do let us know in the comment section below!