Starting fresh, off grid, want to design gardens, facilities, need advice.

[Green Beard]

Hello all,

I have 40 acres in a pretty little south-facing valley, with plenty of good water, eleven miles off the grid, out in the mountains of Western Montana at 6000 feet. The soil is beautiful, and the air is clean and the water is almost soft it's so nice.

I am trying to build a little farmstead out there so I can raise my young family. We have some critters to make fertilizer, and will have more (maybe yaks, so we can sell butter and cheese to shishi places like San Francisco). I could use some advice as to which animals make the best manure for marijuana, if anyone has an opinion.

I want to change my life so I don't have to go back to Silicon Valley. Montana's pot laws have just changed. I want to jump into growing, and build facilities for mothering and controlled breeding. In the near term, I want to be able to mother cuts of plants I put in the garden so I can begin hunting phenotypes and am able to catch rare performers and keep them. I want Phunni Pharm's phunni pharmaceuticals and strains to be unique and successful and useful.

I will build buildings gradually, as needed. The grow will be outdoors, for the most part, even after I build pit greenhouses heated by wood-fired rocket mass heaters. Mothering and breeding will happen in buildings similarly heated.

What I would like to know is, what kinds of facilities would be optimum, in size and number, and what types of equipment will i need to do this successfully? My goal is to craft and tend strains that will grow well in Northern latitudes and at high altitudes.

A side project will be to take random seeds from everywhere and cast them into a lightly prepared patch and let them grow guerilla style and make seeds. After a few years of letting God stir the pot, adding the best new genetics at random every year and returning gathered seed to the stirring patch, I should start seeing a tendency toward tough plants that will finish in time. I can start sampling out of that patch to see what interesting things have happened. At some further point, when I am ready to slow down some more, I want to leave behind a killer landrace strain -- everywhere.

Think big, but start cheap. ;-)

Thanks!

 

[Picarus]

Congrats! I love that country some of the best in the world imo. Good luck with your project sounds like you have a lot of research to do. Maybe more specific questions once you have a more thought out plan of attack and you will get the help you are seeking.

 

[Granger2]

Best shit? Cattle [and yak], bison, sheep, horse/burro [burros protect sheep], bird. All needs to be composted or at least weather aged. Good luck. -granger

 

[Green Beard]

I've heard pig shit carries the perfect nutrient balance for cannabis. Is there any corroboration for that, or is there a reason I shouldn't use it? I have a trio of piggies now, and they're even more affectionate than the billy goat. Funnest addition to the free-range menagerie at the Phunni Pharm.

 

[Green Beard]

I read a thread on a different site last night that completely changed my strategy for mothering and cloning, and it's much less energy and labor intensive, and requires much less space. I think I have the mothering facility problem licked in a way that is perfect for up here off the grid out in the boonies. I might go to propane heat for that, to keep a consistent floor on temperatures inside.

I figure I will need a fairly studly solar power rig to run LED lights and will need a way to circulate warmed outside air into the grow space, so I can start the grow out of the season's clone army in February. A simple grow room, sufficiently large to foster the season's staples and perhaps doubly large or larger to bust seeds for continued outdoor strain research.

A controlled breeding facility is essentially just another grow room, right? Perhaps my incubator can pull double duty. What kind of filter would I need to scrub pollen out of the outbound air, to try to keep my green daughters outside safe from the wicked debauchery happening inside?

Is there a "safe distance" outside that would minimize the chances of pollination of my cash crop outdoors, if I wanted to run a "wild" breeding program? I want to stir the pot faster and fold new genetics into the strain I want to cook up for broadcast seeding. Only the strong survive.