Jeff73: I'm using bold text so everyone sees this:

Speaking as a long-time hobbyist grower, a tiny grow of 2-4 plants in a closet costs 6-7 bucks per ounce total cost excluding the initial cabinet construction. A medium sized grow drops the overall price to 5 bucks and actually lowers initial cost, or at least that's what my brother claims who grows (and unlike me sells) high-quality weed in a converted bedroom.



And how much of that do you figure in for your time?

Dave's not here man.

c152atn67: And how much of that do you figure in for your time?

why would you factor in time if it's a hobby and not a primary income source?

My time as a bookkeeper is worth $20 an hour, minimum. My time as a PC repair tech is worth $50 an hour, minimum. My time spent growing weed isn't worth shiat because there's no income, it's a hobby.

a hobby is something you do to pass the time between work and sleep.

c152atn67: Jeff73: I'm using bold text so everyone sees this:

Speaking as a long-time hobbyist grower, a tiny grow of 2-4 plants in a closet costs 6-7 bucks per ounce total cost excluding the initial cabinet construction. A medium sized grow drops the overall price to 5 bucks and actually lowers initial cost, or at least that's what my brother claims who grows (and unlike me sells) high-quality weed in a converted bedroom.



And how much of that do you figure in for your time?

The 5 and 6-7 dollar figures do not include labor. I don't commonly think about that because it's my hobby. After figuring, it looks like it'd still be worth it even for a fussy hobbyist like me who dotes on a tiny crop more than necessary:

Breakdown:
I spend roughly an hour spread over several days to get the seeds to sprout and get rooted, then 1-5 minutes daily during veg, that or less during flowering, then 4-8 hours to harvest depending on what I've grown, what I'm doing with it and what I'm going to grow next. So over three months, 13-15 hours of my time. I don't sell even at today's prices (I give the best Christmas presents), but were I to do so at $50/oz the $43-$44 profit over material costs would be my 'wage' for work performed, which given even a small crop and max effort would be $516/15, or $34.4 per hour.

Doubling the size of my crop wouldn't increase time spent much except during harvest, which would probably nearly double. I'd have to ask my brother how the efficiencies of scale affect his room-sized grow's labor cost/profit.

Uchiha_Cycliste: It could even be an endeavor you pride yourself in, strive to perfect and spend much time on.

yes, but unless you're making money at it your time spent on a hobby is worthless.

one of my hobbies is video games, but I don't charge people $70 an hour to watch or participate.

FTFA : and she is typical of the new breed of marijuana producer in Northern California.


The new breed of marijuana producers?

You mean, the marijuana production that's been going on since the late 70s?


She's only 40 years off.

spleef420: Uchiha_Cycliste: It could even be an endeavor you pride yourself in, strive to perfect and spend much time on.

yes, but unless you're making money at it your time spent on a hobby is worthless.

one of my hobbies is video games, but I don't charge people $70 an hour to watch or participate.


I think he was expanding on your point, not disagreeing with you.

Hell.... you don't even have to grow pot.

Grow industrial grade Hemp. They're not the same thing and being lumped the same is retarded. With the whole 'green' revolution you could make some good bank.

Uchiha_Cycliste: I'll reckon you can guess my hobby.

wearing funny shorts. ;)

Geologist: hubiestubert: and not having to spend forty minutes with your connection talking about what Cartoon Network character would totally smoke out...

Hey I always enjoyed that part of a deal.

me too

Since this is California, they're going to screw this up royally.

benlonghair: HulkHands: Have fun paying more for pot!

/and harsher penalties for not buying it from approved sources...

Personally I'd rather pay more and not have to worry about getting arrested.

Pot is basically decriminalized where I live, I've had so many opportunities to get reamed and the cops were always really nice and only once took my stuff, but only because I was 17 at that time.

However, once there is money to be made by it for the state, they are going to get a lot more serious with enforcement. Hell a medical card will only run you 200 bucks one time. How long will it take before the tax adds up to over 200 bucks? An ounce? 2?

/Still thinks it's a good idea.
//I get to help our retarded state by making myself retarded.

Uchiha_Cycliste: I'll reckon you can guess my hobby.

Reading manga?

Uchiha_Cycliste: I wonder who would win in a SuperSayan vs Uchiha battle.

touche.

WittyTagHere: Since this is California, they're going to screw this up royally.

if there's one thing California knows how to do, it's grow weed.

Crosshair 2009-10-20 11:38:56 AM Just don't make the mistake most states/governments have made and tax it so high that it is profitable to smuggle and undercut the gov. You need to have the taxes high enough to raise revenue, but low enough that it is not profitable to try and undercut the government.
===================================================

Yup, pretty much. Taxing it too high will cause the underground-i-ness to keep on agoin'. Which is not what we want, obviously.

Course, who's going to sell it? Are we relegating it to a company and then regulating it? Or is the government itself going to sell it?

I don't care who does, I'm just curious.

I knew that I should support unsustainable government spending!

Clearly, this would never work as everyone would just grow their own: everyone I know grows their own tobacco, barley and hops.

End of story.

I for one welcome overlords getting a kick right in the nachos.

WTF? You know if they legalize American companies will just start farms in China, import inferior stuff and cram the extra profits in their pants pocket. Then they will take a 20 year employee of thiers, drug test him, fire him and replace him with an illegal imigrant worker who can't speak english.

The current cost of marijuana has nothing to do with the cost of growing it, and everything to do with the risk of growing it. You're paying for the cost of all the growers and distributors who get arrested, essentially.

THIS!!!

benlonghair: HulkHands: Have fun paying more for pot!

/and harsher penalties for not buying it from approved sources...

Personally I'd rather pay more grow my own and not have to worry about getting arrested.

ftfy.
i really believe if every person over the age of 18 (or 21 in some states) were able to possess no more than 3 lbs of marijuana they grew from the no more than 15 mature plants and 45 seedlings they could possess at any time, marijuana would be a non issue in this country.people who WANT pot would HAVE pot,and the people who dont want people to have pot can shut the fark up and go back in there farking house and mind their bidness.cartels would lose CRIPPLING amounts of money,police and tax payers would SAVE astronomical amounts of money through jail de-population and taxes, and everyone would be happy.

/LEGALIZE IT.
//ITS TIME
///RISE UP
////MAKE IT HAPPEN
//AFTER THIS NEXT BOWL

Weaver95: The day cannabis is finally legalized, i'm gonna make me some pot brownies and go have a picnic outside DEA headquarters.

Yep, threaten to rub it in their face. That's a great way to endear people to your position and make them feel satisfied if they happen to acquiesce and legalize it.

another very favorable ruling in LA today too, Superior Court basically said the city can't go after these operations wholesale, which means the city council will have to bicker for another 3 years while it grows even more ubiquitous. (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pot-moratorium20-2009oct20,0,2288177.st ory if it hasn't been posted yet)

//great selections at the stores. although I try not to stay longer than 5 minutes.

Everything I read about California says people can only grow for their own medical use. How is everyone on the block (obviously) growing just to make money? Who are they selling to?

SlothB77: SkySnake: Make some money, lower the stupidly high incarceration rate...it's a win-win really.

except for the productive members of society who are now high all the time.

0/10

Too little, too late.

Duh. Weed legalization has never been about safety or health, it's been about $$.

Once they needed the tax revenue enough, they'd legalize it and tax the crap out of it.

three days in a row of pot news/threads on Fark makes a happy week for me.

this country will go out in a billow of smoke if Pot is the only thing we can export to the World.

the smart Nations will stay away from Pot. its just another drug with lots of down sides, like short term memory damage.

Yeah!

Tax the stoner losers!

Voluntary idiot tax just like the lottery!

Assuming that taxing pot will solve CA's current budget woes (and I don't think anyone is THAT optimistic/stupid), what happens when the state's spending inevitably exceeds revenue again?

Weaver95: benlonghair: HulkHands: Have fun paying more for pot!

/and harsher penalties for not buying it from approved sources...

Personally I'd rather pay more and not have to worry about getting arrested.

The day cannabis is finally legalized, i'm gonna make me some pot brownies and go have a picnic outside DEA headquarters.

Can I come with? I'll bring chocolate chip cookies.

Jeff73: 2chris2: It will cost your more money to grow it yourself in your basement with your heat lamps and shiat than it is actually worth. And even if you convince some people that your weed is the best ever, and somehow get them to pay you $50 an ounce, someone will buy an ounce from you, you'll make $10 profit, and then they won't be back for 3 months.

No money in it except for huge farms. This is why you don't grow your own tobacco, make your own paper, or keep a cow in your basement for the milk.



Hello, you are wrong. You are wrong because you have no idea how much it costs to grow pot.


My closet SCRoG cabinet nets 12-14oz of bud and a good bit of extractable greenery every 3 months for ~$60 worth of electricity, $10 for dirt and drainable substrate and ~$15 worth of nutes. That's $85 on average over 3 months to produce 12-14 ounces, which means my costs are $6-$7 per ounce plus my time - which is minimal because I have been doing it for years.

If I were I to sell at $50 per ounce I'd clear $43-44 per ounce profit, which means $516 - $616 total for the output of a single 4'x2' Lowes cabinet. If I convert a bedroom I can grow 10 times as much easily with no drop in quality, an increase in energy efficiency and no more labor required than an average part-time job.

In your cabinet, what kind of light do you use?

2chris2:
Ok, let's look at the price of other plant based products.

Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, tobacco, sage, thyme, garlic, and so on. Look them up online, they all retail in the neighborhood of $1 to $3 per ounce.

Why would marijuana be vastly more expensive than any other plant based product?


Saffron (new window)?

Balder333:
In your cabinet, what kind of light do you use?

Four 85 watt(true wattage, not '85 watt equivalent') CFLs running 24/7 during veg. They hang bare on their cords from a matrix of J hooks screwed into the top of the cabinet's lower compartment so I can keep them very close to the foliage and in the best position to hit most of it. During flowering I use a 400 watt HPS in a cooltube run 12 on, 12 off and backed by the CFLs for the first couple weeks. I used to accompany the CFLs with a 400 MH during veg, but the difference in final yield was too small to be worth the electricity and the stretchy indoor sativas I favor stretched even more than usual during flowering when I used it.

Then again our uncle has been using nothing but metal halide start-to-finish for 35 years with decent results and basically calls my brother and I weed metrosexuals for his use of hydro and my newfangled bulbs. There's nothing like a back-in-my-day rant from a wrinkly old hippy about how they dug dirt from the back yard, stole fixtures from stadiums and made do dadgummit, and had to fertilize with bear shiat and...

ok - the real point of my question was "can you get good, dense flowers with only 400W bulb"

My mother was recently diagnosed with cancer and since then my mind has been racing on how I might be able to provide comfort if she needs to go through chemo or radiation.

I have never grown before and I've been doign "thought experiments" to get firmly in my mind what will be needed if she needs medicine.

One person told me to go with a 400W Sylvania "Color Master" ceramic metal halide for flowering because of it's superior spectral distribution over HPS.

If only she lived in a medical friendly state.

Hoefully she won't need chemo and all my research is just for the hell of it.

Opps, thats bulb is made by Philips, not Sylvania.

If they did this in British Columbia it would utterly and completely destroy the housing market there

/you'd think it was 2005-6 California there.

Balder333: ok - the real point of my question was "can you get good, dense flowers with only 400W bulb"


The short answer is 'yes, with practice.' A more useful answer is 'go here --> cannabis.com forums and scroll down to the Grow section.' It's a wealth of information that's full of helpful, experienced growers and a couple assholes. Up in the social subforums there are lots of medical growers, some of whom are in your exact situation so it might be a good community to say hello to.


Regarding your mother's health, be aware of the time needed to start reliably producing: veg is 3 weeks to a month plus 2-3 months for flowering depending on strain, and you'll probably fark everything up the first time because almost everyone does. You might even fark everything up the first two times and now it's 6 months later with little to show for it - and that doesn't include the time needed to buy and assemble the equipment.

I'm not trying to discourage you, just giving a warning that if your mom's chemo/radiation is scheduled to start in 5-6 months you'll have to get moving pretty soon if you want to be reasonably certain of being a reliable source of medication for her when it begins.


1. Use cheap seeds the first time, and make it a hardy strain like skunk #1.
2. Don't sweat minutiae like the absolute best bulb until you've mastered the basics of gardening.
3. Neem oil kills bugs dead and is eco-friendly.
4. If leaves are browning and you can't figure out why, try flushing the soil. Newbies tend to over-fertilize.
5. If your mom is a non-smoker, consider picking up a volcano vaporizer. It's expensive, but it's excellent.
6. Don't tell anyone local that you're growing it, not even your best friend or girlfriend. The only people offline who know that I grow are people to whom I am related. Everyone else just thinks I have a killer connection.

Linux_Yes: this country will go out in a billow of smoke if Pot is the only thing we can export to the World.

the smart Nations will stay away from Pot. its just another drug with lots of down sides, like short term memory damage.

you are consistently the dumbest poster on fark..

what were we talking about again?

It would be very difficult to advertise for marijuana.

I love the stuff, but how do you promote it without pissing a ton of people off?