Growing large in '84

[lester gas]

Some technical details from a ranch I worked in 1984 in northern california. Nothing new or fancy, just the way these particular professionals grew very large plants on a large scale. May our tribe increase!
Irrigation: The heart of the orchard was a drip system that started with twin 1500 gallon tanks and ended with 425 one gal per hour emiters. This worked out to a slow seven gallon watering every other day per plant. Every other watering, they fertilized with chemical nutes; they used more phos as the season wore on.
Soil: They tilled in manure, leaves and crushed oyster shells. ( have heard they accumulate lead. can someone confirm?) The Ranchers liked to till with a small 2 horse front tine tiller because they could easily haul it around the mountains and they could go deep by tilting it forward. Each plant had it's own 3 foot wide hole with dark brown fluff for soil-- and of course it's own drip emiter.
Manure: They composted their own. Got it free from another ranch far far far away. Using the forest to shelter them , they made 6 by6 foot windrows as long as they needed and let the manure sit for at least a year. The owners liked the 2-3 year product ( completly leached and stabilized) the best.
Nursery: Cold frames were built by nailing raw lumber to stakes driven in the ground. Since insect protection was the main deal, they stapled fine-mesh window screen to the frames. On cold nights, they covered the babies with plastic.
Results: Over 400 pounds from 425 plants. Over 400 of the plants were eight feet or taller. Dozens were nine or ten feet. One bunk mexican was sixteen feet and yielded 3 1/2 pounds after holding up a snow load for a few days!
Strains: Half were something like big bud. Forty percent were like skunk, red hair. Ten percent were a delightful bigbud/ thai hybrid. The odor from the big bud was huge!!!
Mistakes: Guns. In the hands of macho idiots. Ultimate nightmare for leo, and an embarassment for us all. Cabin fever. Many people fall apart after a few days without electronic entertainment. So we had to run a generator so folks could hear music/watch tv cause these people were gettin twitchy. Problem was, we couldnt hear the plane overhead oneday cause we were cranking roxy music in the clipping pit. When we did hear it, panic set in.
Final mistake: Hiring hot teenage babe run-aways so the owners could get laid while living the life of excitement. One of course got nicked by leo and told all as fast as she could cuz she just knew they'd go easier on her if she'd just let them use her. Shut the whole ranch down!

 

[TalkWeed]

you got any pics ?

 

[pistillwhipped]

Good info. Especially the last part

 

[Guest]

Hey! I knew a major dealer who loved taking in hot teenage runaway chicks! Can't tell you how much this horny 16 yr. old wanted to bone them too. Until one of them busted him and his operation for coke, pot and statutory rape of a 14 yr old.

:Yikes!:

"But officer, she told me she was 17"

 

[Guest]

Sounds like a good grow. Were there plants growing or any bud with you guys when they shut the farm down? You get in any trouble with the law?

 

[generic_hippie]

Lester Gas, great yarn, thank you.

I have a friend who is into this variety of cropping these days, (a close personal friend, ).
He uses solar panel's for his water pumping requirements, and doesn't live onsite. If you are gonna grow weed in the wild you need a good water supply, one thats not going to dry-up and make the wildlife move onto farming land looking for water.

Thirsty wildlife lost my friend a crop of around 250 plants after he fenced off the water hole, (silly bugger) the thirsty animals dobbed him in much the same way as the teenage chicky cost you yours.


Takes a bit of effort, but if you ever happen to be running a generator at a grow site again and want to silence it almost totally this is what you do;

Dig a hole, a big hole and bury a 44 gallon drum in it, fill the 44 with water. Then run an exhaust tube down into the water letting the bubbles out on the bottom of the drum, you'd be amazed at how silent this actually is, and if your somewhere near a river you aren't going to be able to distinguish it rom the river noise.

We call ours the gen-bong.

Hope somebody some where will be able to use this silencing the generator tip, brought to the good people at ICMAG.COM with love by generic_hippie.

 

[zeppelindood]

odam Lester... I think I know you. Seriously though, I went to high school with a fella that lived/worked a N.Cal ranch from 81ish-86ish... he had some tales for me and we live at least a few together.

 

[lester gas]

Clarifications: Sorry no pics-- definatly would not have been allowed by the owners. There were no cameras there.
What a great idea for generator silence!! From a distance, that bubbling would blend into the background noise of the woods. These ranchers also depended on generators to power the well pumps used to fill the drip system tanks. For stealth, they buried them in primitive holes with plywood on top. This silenced them alot but you could still hear one from say, a hundred feet-- very muffled.
The "runaway" busted the ranch toward the end of the next season(1985). They had pulled and processed most of the crop by then, but there were a few early november purple ones still in the ground, I'm told. Real glad I never got a knock on the door, but then, who'd wanna mess with a nice comic-book character like me?
Other mistakes they made: Using land they owned. Worse yet, using a nominee and putting title into her hands. Therefore, one fine fall day, we had this invasion of folks who just gosh golly wanted to see their friends (nominee's) plantation. So she could play a dangerous and vain game, she brought in strangers to show it all off! Into a camp with (at the time) a crew of about 20 very paranoid clippers, guards, growers,and co-owners--- who made a nasty scene indeed. Gets wierd when people start getting off on playing criminal.
Other features they employed: Every year they bought a different, used company car truck or van. Therefore the copters would look down on one vehicle only and not 20. No other vehicles were permited. Looked innocent and kept the dust and traffic down. There were pre-planned escape routes and rendezvous points where, if it hit da fan, we would wait for one of the growers or owners- who rented secret(to the rest of the crew) homes within 10 miles of the ranch. The idea was to pick up and sequester as many of the ranch hands as possible, so leo wouldnt. The escape routes were cross-country, and keyed on the lay of the land so they were easy to follow. Like this: run that way down hill till you come to the stream. go downstream till you meet the first bridge. one of us will walk home, get our personal truck and pick you up as soon as possible. lurk at the bridge. All very carefully planned by hiking over the actual route.
Zepplin: was your friend the gambler, the large quiet native american dude, or the guy that was into harleys, kung fu and jazz saxiphone?