45° N schedule...

[HeatherChurch]

Hello, ICMag.

My name is Heather and I am a grower and dispensary owner in Portland, OR area. This is my first post on this, or any MJ forum, for that matter. I have been cultivating MJ for over a decade and have B.S. in Horticulture and spent a few years in the nursery business. But enough with introductions...

I see some very accomplished outdoor cultivators on this site and I'm very interested to hear if anybody has any experience cultivating outdoors in my general area? My situation is that I have recently been awarded a recreational cultivation license and I am allowed a nice bit of outdoor canopy. It's been quite some time since I cultivated seriously outdoor and that was always in a different region. I plan on using hoop houses with blackout curtains, as I worry about plants maturing this far north.

Does anybody have any input on when they place their plants outdoors in the northern Willamette Valley and when they initiate flowering with blackout curtains? I'd appreciate any input. I have quite a few vanities at my disposal and I know some will not finish properly outdoors here.

I will be try to a fairly active member of this forum and start a thread soon to document my outdoor growing season after I get soil tests taken care of for my property. The water tests came back great (yay!), but I did those prior to purchasing the property, obviously. We have lots of solar panels going in and, depending on the soil analysis and the feasibility of amending it this season, will be running fully organic (USDA). Otherwise, I usually mix my own fertilizer blends and that may be necessary this season. We'll see!

Thanks in advance for reading my long first post and for any advice at all. Also, please let me know if I'm making any newbie faux-pas! Other than not knowing how to pluralize faux-pas...

 

[1madtrapper]

At the 45 , you can do most strains I am at the 49 And I make it work with no cover .Cheers welcome

 

[kelly1376]

Sounds awesome. You'll probably get a lot of responses if you post this in the oregon forum under states. Quite a few folks post there regularly.

 

[HeatherChurch]

At the 45 , you can do most strains I am at the 49 And I make it work with no cover .Cheers welcome

Thank you for responding. I should say my main concern isn't simply the latitude but the weather gets very wet in this area by October with the nights being quite cool.

 

[PDX Dopesmoker]

When to put your plants out depends on how the season is going, but somewhere around 4/20 or May Day seems to be pretty typical. If you want your plants to finish by September 30 or so the only way I know to do it is to have locally acclimatized genetics which start flowering in late July/early August and harvest on time. I've never done light deprivation, so I can't help you with that, but there are a number of varieties which are popular with local outdoor growers because they behave properly in our climate and don't need light dep (which seems like a lot of extra work).
I had some fantastic plants last season which I didn't like all that much because they didn't finish on time outdoor, so I had to take them inside for their last 3-4 weeks and they came out great (I won't grow them outdoor again, but its really primo smoke), so that might be another way to approach the outdoor grow (assuming you have a big enough indoor flowering area and some means to move your nearly mature plants when the weather turns to crap in October).
faux-pas is both the singular and plural form

 

[1madtrapper]

Sweet cheese , green poison, erdpurt, wolf island sativa, (Iranian auto/haze/og/g13/c99)
freezeland, maverick, almost any GG, Turkish delight, golden mighty bramble, Goldmine,ET all of these strains will finish at your local.

 

['Boogieman']

Hello, ICMag.

My name is Heather and I am a grower and dispensary owner in Portland, OR area. This is my first post on this, or any MJ forum, for that matter. I have been cultivating MJ for over a decade and have B.S. in Horticulture and spent a few years in the nursery business. But enough with introductions...

I see some very accomplished outdoor cultivators on this site and I'm very interested to hear if anybody has any experience cultivating outdoors in my general area? My situation is that I have recently been awarded a recreational cultivation license and I am allowed a nice bit of outdoor canopy. It's been quite some time since I cultivated seriously outdoor and that was always in a different region. I plan on using hoop houses with blackout curtains, as I worry about plants maturing this far north.

Does anybody have any input on when they place their plants outdoors in the northern Willamette Valley and when they initiate flowering with blackout curtains? I'd appreciate any input. I have quite a few vanities at my disposal and I know some will not finish properly outdoors here.

I will be try to a fairly active member of this forum and start a thread soon to document my outdoor growing season after I get soil tests taken care of for my property. The water tests came back great (yay!), but I did those prior to purchasing the property, obviously. We have lots of solar panels going in and, depending on the soil analysis and the feasibility of amending it this season, will be running fully organic (USDA). Otherwise, I usually mix my own fertilizer blends and that may be necessary this season. We'll see!

Thanks in advance for reading my long first post and for any advice at all. Also, please let me know if I'm making any newbie faux-pas! Other than not knowing how to pluralize faux-pas...

I'm at 43°N in the Midwest, you have very similar conditions as I do. I start my plants indoors mid April and take them outdoors late May/June 1st. You don't want to set mature plants/clones out to early or they could bud too soon, then reveg which screws everything up.

 

[MJPassion]

Oregon Forum
https://www.icmag.com/ic/forumdisplay.php?f=65660

Good luck with your grow. I hope you can produce some super high quality buds for your market.

I haven't had a garden as nice since I left Beaverton.
You've got some wonderful natural volcanic soil.

 

[HeatherChurch]

When to put your plants out depends on how the season is going, but somewhere around 4/20 or May Day seems to be pretty typical. If you want your plants to finish by September 30 or so the only way I know to do it is to have locally acclimatized genetics which start flowering in late July/early August and harvest on time. I've never done light deprivation, so I can't help you with that, but there are a number of varieties which are popular with local outdoor growers because they behave properly in our climate and don't need light dep (which seems like a lot of extra work).
I had some fantastic plants last season which I didn't like all that much because they didn't finish on time outdoor, so I had to take them inside for their last 3-4 weeks and they came out great (I won't grow them outdoor again, but its really primo smoke), so that might be another way to approach the outdoor grow (assuming you have a big enough indoor flowering area and some means to move your nearly mature plants when the weather turns to crap in October).
faux-pas is both the singular and plural form

Thanks for the reply. I will be growing in 500yd mounds so there is no chance of moving them. I would consider anything less than 5lbs per plant a disappointment. We are building automatic blackout screens into our year-round greenhouses so it's no trouble.

 

[HeatherChurch]

PDX Dopesmoker, would you name a few if the varieties you're familiar with?

 

[livinit]

Your going to most likely need supplemental lighting inside your green house to expect 5lbs per plant. Will also need to extend your season quite a bit aswell.

You shouldn't set your expectations to high on the first grow. I do understand you have taken a horticulture course but with cannabis the genetics are a huge part of growing aswell. Really put some thought into it before jumping in with both feet.

I personally would just throw a fair amount of plants in a greenhouse and figure out and time the plants natural flowering cycle to match that of outdoors. No sense In messing around with light deprivation when mother nature can do that for you.

 

[HeatherChurch]

Your going to most likely need supplemental lighting inside your green house to expect 5lbs per plant. Will also need to extend your season quite a bit aswell.

You shouldn't set your expectations to high on the first grow. I do understand you have taken a horticulture course but with cannabis the genetics are a huge part of growing aswell. Really put some thought into it before jumping in with both feet.

I personally would just throw a fair amount of plants in a greenhouse and figure out and time the plants natural flowering cycle to match that of outdoors. No sense In messing around with light deprivation when mother nature can do that for you.

Thanks for the input. As I stated though, I've been cultivating cannabis on a fairly large scale for about 17 years so I'm no stranger to successful grows. Year-round greenhouses are the wave of the future and I see them as the only way to be able to compete in a saturated and competitive market. Ours are being constructed @ 80x30 and we will have already gotten our lighting plots back from Gavita.

However, once supplemental lighting is added, the space is no longer considered "outdoor" under Oregon law, even if it is in a greenhouse. The outdoor plants will have the greenhouses built around them in July. And it's a worthy investment for me to build them since I will use them every season.

 

[HeatherChurch]

I should also mention we are using Conley greenhouses. And, a couple posts ago I wrote 500yd mounds!! That is supposed to be 5yd mounds!

 

[plantingplants]

Thanks for the reply. I will be growing in 500yd mounds so there is no chance of moving them. I would consider anything less than 5lbs per plant a disappointment. We are building automatic blackout screens into our year-round greenhouses so it's no trouble.

"I will be growing in 500yd hills"
Fixed that for you lol. Unless you meant 500 yd rows?

Anyway, considering the money you are dropping on this project, it sounds like you would benefit greatly by finding an experienced solid local grower who is doing what you are doing and hire them to consult for you.

Good luck!

 

[petert]

Couple of questions

Couple of questions

I should also mention we are using Conley greenhouses. And, a couple posts ago I wrote 500yd mounds!! That is supposed to be 5yd mounds!

I've been growing for 10+ years east of you in the gorge.
If you plan on trying to trigger flowering early.. you'd need to start pulling your blackout screen mid July. It'll be hot! Do you have a way to keep temps down inside the greenhouse during the evening when you pull it? Might not be an issue if you go dark 8 PM -8 AM.
I've grown multiple strains to full maturity by sept 30.
Oregon Diesel has finished for me for the past three years by Sept 15.

 

[petert]

Also

Also

Multiple growers in the Willamette Valley have started getting hit with Russet Mites!
Be proactive! I battled them last year, I always make sure I have Andersoni predators cycling through!

 

[HeatherChurch]

"I will be growing in 500yd hills"
Fixed that for you lol. Unless you meant 500 yd rows?

Anyway, considering the money you are dropping on this project, it sounds like you would benefit greatly by finding an experienced solid local grower who is doing what you are doing and hire them to consult for you.

Good luck!

Ha! I noticed that too and made a post about it. That would grow some serious plants!
I am surprised that with the amount of growers I know around here that it is so hard to find anybody locally who cultivates on a fairly large scale outdoors. Most of the serious outdoor friends I have are located in southern Oregon where the early onset of wet weather isn't an issue.

 

[HeatherChurch]

I've been growing for 10+ years east of you in the gorge.
If you plan on trying to trigger flowering early.. you'd need to start pulling your blackout screen mid July. It'll be hot! Do you have a way to keep temps down inside the greenhouse during the evening when you pull it? Might not be an issue if you go dark 8 PM -8 AM.
I've grown multiple strains to full maturity by sept 30.
Oregon Diesel has finished for me for the past three years by Sept 15.

Great info. Thanks. We will be able to cool them with fans. The good thing about this area is temperatures generally cool down nicely at night, even in mid summer.

 

[HeatherChurch]

Multiple growers in the Willamette Valley have started getting hit with Russet Mites!
Be proactive! I battled them last year, I always make sure I have Andersoni predators cycling through!

They do seem to be showing up a lot more. We generally release swirskii in the one garden we had them in a couple of years ago as a preventative. I use a fogger with stylet oil up through the first four weeks of bloom and I find that keeps everything from mites to mildew at bay but I've still got my fingers crossed. Where we are located is surrounded by a lot of farms and they probably spray enough stuff every spring that nothing can survive nearby anyways!

 

[NewAgeGenetics]

I've been growing for 10+ years east of you in the gorge.
If you plan on trying to trigger flowering early.. you'd need to start pulling your blackout screen mid July. It'll be hot! Do you have a way to keep temps down inside the greenhouse during the evening when you pull it? Might not be an issue if you go dark 8 PM -8 AM.
I've grown multiple strains to full maturity by sept 30.
Oregon Diesel has finished for me for the past three years by Sept 15.

would love to hear more about the Oregon Diesel!