2019 - The Farm

simp3204 · May 11, 2019

Good luck with the plant sales at the Farmers Market!

I’ve never been a big fan of weed, mostly because it just made me feel nauseous. I’m most likely going to try the high CBD weed sooner rather than later, my joints are jacked up and need all the anti-inflammatory they can get.

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TrentL · May 12, 2019

PtMD989 said:
Do you have to put up any kind of privacy fence around your CBD crop? In MI you used to have your outdoor plants concealed by a tall ( i forget the height requirements) privacy fence. It was kinda funny, you could drive around and see who was growing medical marijuana, by seeing the tall black ,fenced in ,yards.

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No, CBD crops fall under industrial hemp guidelines. You can't home grow them here. Only licensed farms (which are zoned as farms) and greenhouses of a certain size are allowed to apply and obtain licensing. No fencing requirements. Although we're probably running an electric fence with a trip alarm just for a little extra security. I mean, deer like to eat plants...

TrentL · May 12, 2019

simp3204 said:
Good luck with the plant sales at the Farmers Market!

I’ve never been a big fan of weed, mostly because it just made me feel nauseous. I’m most likely going to try the high CBD weed sooner rather than later, my joints are jacked up and need all the anti-inflammatory they can get.

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Not a total bust, but not really good either. The farmers market Saturday corresponded to a damn charity-mega-plant sale right next door, which I didn't know about.

So folks were leaving that with truckloads of plants, and we got very little traffic. Only moved $400 in plants. Which made it worth the trip and time, but only a fraction of what we were looking to move. All in all had about 8 hours of labor for each me and the wife in getting ready for and doing the market (gathering plants, making signs, transporting plants in and out of the greenhouse and market, twice...). So that comes out to about $25 / hr less materials and input costs and booth fees and ...

TrentL · May 12, 2019

Low sales definitely wasn't from lack of pretty plants.

simp3204 · May 12, 2019

TrentL said:
Not a total bust, but not really good either. The farmers market Saturday corresponded to a damn charity-mega-plant sale right next door, which I didn't know about.

So folks were leaving that with truckloads of plants, and we got very little traffic. Only moved $400 in plants. Which made it worth the trip and time, but only a fraction of what we were looking to move. All in all had about 8 hours of labor for each me and the wife in getting ready for and doing the market (gathering plants, making signs, transporting plants in and out of the greenhouse and market, twice...). So that comes out to about $25 / hr less materials and input costs and booth fees and ...

Damn! I’ve been in similar situations before. Reminds me of the car wash scene in Dodgeball.

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Devv · May 12, 2019

Dang Trent!

If it's not one thing it's another. I hope you can somehow pull thing out; you are overdue

m1hagen · May 12, 2019

I wish you luck brother, you've earned it.

TrentL · May 13, 2019

Heh I have little weedlings.

TrentL · May 13, 2019

... A few thousand little weedlings...

Ruid · May 13, 2019

The only thing is that if you smoke some of your stuff that has a decent amount of THC and then eat a pepper, the burn seems like it lasts longer.

TrentL · May 13, 2019

Hopefully that'll help this year, since everything else so far is a bust.

It rained last night again.. and supposed to get more tomorrow.. then on Saturday. I have yet to raise a single bed in the field to even think about transplanting. The rains keep coming heavy enough, and at just the right interval, to prevent working the field up with the tractor.

I told MOSA that I'm about to pot up a bunch of vegetables in to the 15 gal pots and grow them hydroponically since I can't get anything in the dirt and I'm at risk of losing all of my produce from being root bound. I bought 450x 15 gal pots last year to do isolated peppers, but won't need that many. I got that many to get the per-pallet pricing.

PaulG · May 14, 2019

Man, every time I visit the TrentL Grow Log, it's like reading a novel!

Cheers, bud, that hard work will pay off one way or another.

Epic!

TrentL · May 15, 2019

Still waiting to hear back from cardboard box co on live plant boxes. Going to get in touch with them again today see if I can get the process kicked in the ass, want to get plants shipped.

TrentL · May 15, 2019

Found optimum seeding depth / seed orientation for best germ rate.

Problem is placing seeds with tweezers instead of in bulk is slow going

PaulG · May 15, 2019

Beautiful set-up, Trent. Except for the tweezer part

Looks like about an 85-88% germination
on that tray!

What was your optimum depth?

PtMD989 · May 15, 2019

TrentL said:
Found optimum seeding depth / seed orientation for best germ rate.

Problem is placing seeds with tweezers instead of in bulk is slow going

Is that on your hemp crop,eh

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nmlarson · May 15, 2019

Wow! Tweezers? I can feel your hands cramping up!

Sounds like a precision vacuum seeder should go on your wish list for next year.

TrentL · May 16, 2019

PaulG said:
Beautiful set-up, Trent. Except for the tweezer part

Looks like about an 85-88% germination
on that tray!

What was your optimum depth?

3/4" in this soil mix. As of yesterday's count I'm at 91.8% on seeds planted point up. Seeds just dropped in with no specific direction are at 79.3%. So there's a very substantial difference in germination rate as well as damp off rate (more than 2x likely to damp off, have seed heads which kill the plant, etc if you don't orient the seed properly).

Nature wins by sheer numbers on these things. In truth, they are quite very picky. In nature, 100,000 seeds fall off the plant at the end of the year and only one has to survive to continue the line. In a controlled grow, where each plant is worth $90 in extract or 10x that in boutique trimmed flower, every seed matters. Plus, I'm already tight on space and space is expensive, plus, seeds are also expensive.

Losing 12.5% germ on 10,000 seeds, by planting willy-nilly, is $1,250 in seed lost plus $77,350 in biomass lost (assuming 17% CBD @ 2600 lb / acre).

So yeah for $80,000 in additional revenue, I'll sit there with tweezers for a few days.

TrentL · May 16, 2019

nmlarson said:
Wow! Tweezers? I can feel your hands cramping up!

Sounds like a precision vacuum seeder should go on your wish list for next year.

Wouldn't help, seeds have to be at the correct depth *and* oriented, which is a visual thing. Not always easy to tell which end is pointy, on non-uniform seeds.

TrentL · May 16, 2019

This will help our isolation capability.

Installed redundant 5 ton AC to cancel out the lights in the upstairs grow room. One unit operational as of yesterday, the second close to being finished.