20,000 Watt Medical Grow Op Construction

drgreentm said:

great post CG, that sure is a atomic prune! i really want to try this on a couple of my bubba's do you think it is to late to do a few? they are about 4.5 weeks in flower now. is there any certain time you do the pruning? also do you do it in passes or just all at once? my bubbas look almost identical, mine are a bit shorter and fatter do to the super cropping im sure but those look great! i take every bit of foliage from the centers but the outside leaves get pretty large and do shade neighboring plants, this seems like a good solution. if i could fit 4 in a 3x3 area with a 600 over each 4 (or 3x3 area) without having to sacrifice veg time that would be great and thank you for any insight on your technique.

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mellokitty said:

those of us who've been enjoying a "cost + small percentage" -type discount on our gear for years, tend to sort of scoff at the notions of both a) having our gear pass through potential hundreds of anonymous hands before arriving, without precaution, at our grow and/or safe address; and b) using our purchasing power to benefit folks we've never met over the people we've built personal and working relationships with over the years.
don't hold it against us, we are only human after all.

although -- i would be curious to know what the going online rate on shipping and handling for a plug-and-play 5t a/c unit would be. just for shits and giggles.

.... not to mention, cg, how's that lawyer of yours working out for you? can you send me a link to his ebay ad? .... [/tongueincheek]

also, could you please get out of my head, you magnificent bastard? tha~nx.

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Wolverine97 said:

I'll just chime in here to say that I don't think Chitown (theexpress) meant to offend you CG, it's just his way. He is good people, I followed one of his threads for quite a while before someone came in and got it deleted. I mean, I can see how you took it that way for sure given this threads' history and the way you've very carefully laid everything out for everyone to see. Anyway... how goes it everyone? What's up Chitown?

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collective gardener said:

I prune about 2.5 weeks into bloom. (see above). It's strain dependant. Basically, I go at em when the stretch is over. This way I know I'm looking at the basic framework of how the plant will look for the rest of its short life. I do the pruning all at once. I may pinch a leaf or 2 in veg and early bloom...just huge interior leaves shading bud sites. But the atomic prune happens in one shot.

You'll probably do well to prune exterior leaves IF it allows you to get more plants in the same area. That's the only reason I prune the exterior leaves. If I've taken too few clones and have a very uncrowded tray, I'll leave the exterior leaves on. But, this rarely happens. I take so many clones so often that I always have 50 ready to go. I used to do this great timing thing...and I will again. But for now we grow using the brute force method: Take 60 cuts once per week...throw away any that you don't need.

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drgreentm said:

well i decided to just go ahead and give this method a run so i went in after posting and just did it, not sure if i did it right just tried to get as many of the large fan leaves from all the main heads and imo they really dont look bad at all. i doubt the outcome will have a negative impact on anything because they where so crowded anyway.
anyway thanks again for the info.

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collective gardener said:

I'm sure they'll be fine. Hope you enjoy the outcome. The later in bloom the less potential negative effect pruning has...also the less time light can cook on the lower buds...which is the downside of pruning too late. But, nothing bad will happen. Typicall, pruning at 4 weeks helps ripen the lower buds, but they'll still be small. Pruning at 2 weeks actually helps the lower budes develope into larger nugs.

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Wolverine97 said:

Ok, now since you're on that topic:
This brings up an issue that I've questioned my attorney about, and he says I can't pay taxes like that. The reason being; it's federally illegal. He tells me that I can't pay federal taxes on an illegal activity... how do you claim the income? Is it just "consulting"? Just curious.

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collective gardener said:

Wolverine,

Sorry I took so long to address this...I was sidetracked.

Wow. It scares me when 2 attorneys give 2 totally different opinions. My attorney advised us to 1099 all working members to avoid any potential tax evasion issues. Bottomline is we are keeping paperwork as normal business would. Some of that paperwork documents hourly pay for the working members of the collective. To stay compliant with State law, we have to spend every dime we bring in on growing costs...be they electricity, nutes, rent, loan payments, and/or...the big one...labor. Documenting income and not paying taxes on it is big time no no. On an IRS 1099 form there's no place you need to specify what the payment is for beyond "non-employee compensation". It's the same when a general contractor hires a sub-contractor. At the end of the year the general sends the sub (and the IRS) a 1099 stating how much money the general paid the sub. The general can then write off this income as a business expense, and the sub pays the taxes on that income.

The IRS does not know or care what the money was for...as long as they get their pound of flesh. Taking money from the collective and not paying taxes on it is a clear case of tax evasion. Just ask Al Capone. I trust my attorney without hesitation. He's a cannabis business attorney, representing dozens of dispensaries and god knows how many growing "Collective Associations" like us. His partner is a cannabis criminal defense lawyer. This is all these guys do. Every month we meet and build our defense. Yes...build our defense. The idea is that our paperwork is so good, in the event of the unthinkable (here come's LEO!), the DA will reject the case as unwinnable. But if that paperwork showed that X amount of growing members were paid Y amount of money, and there were no 1099's sent and no State or Federal taxes paid, there would be a clear cut case of tax evasion. Now, what would have been dealt with on the state level could be referred to the Feds. The tax evasion charges would be a dead lock win for the Feds. And, if they wanted to get nasty, they could pick up the cultivation charges. We have no medical marijuana defense in a federal case. The words "medical marijuana" cannot even be said in federal court.

If you're going to be a pot grower in a state with medical marijuana laws, you have a choice to make. Either be above board 100%, or go underground 100%. Setting up a Collective Association, and attempting to comply with state laws, only to evade taxes is like trying to have it both ways. I had been underground for 20+ years before setting up this grow. I'd like to think that everything we do is above board. You can bet your ass that the vast majority of dispensaries are paying their taxes. You really should get a second legal opinion. I'd be happy to refer you to our attorney via a PM. The first consultation is $500 for 2 hrs...after that he's $300/hr. In 2 hrs he can answer all of your questions and give you some valuable direction on how to protect yourself and your grow op. If you don't intend to be 100% compliant, I would recommend just going underground.

Now the one vague tax issue is sales tax. There is a real legal conflict here. Since we're a collection of patients pooling our resources to grow, we legally should not have to pay sales tax. It would be like if I like the way you baked cookies. I go out and buy all of the ingredients for you, and pay you $20/hr for 2 hrs to bake some cookies for me. Should you charge me sales tax? Logically (and technically legally) NO. But, the state would like to see it a little differently. Our attorney has advised us to get a resale license and put 9.25% of our total sales into an interest bearing account. We then claim zero taxable sales each year. If, and only if, the state comes to us and demands their sales tax, we pay it with a letter of protest from our attorney. If they don't come to us, we continue to deposit the money year after year. When we finally close the collective, the funds are divided up amoung the collective members proportional to their purchases throughout the life of the collective. Big pain in the ass, but we do it to stay as compliant as we possibly can.

There's another more subtle reason to pay taxes. If, god forbid, we ever find ourselves in a jury trial, those jury members probably pay taxes on their income. They are not going to look favorably on you if you don't pay taxes. Furthermore, paying taxes shows the jury that you truly were trying to do everything by the book. They probably wouldn't like the fact that the goverment will take your tax payment, and then try to put you in prison for the work you did to generate the taxable income. The DA knows this too. And the real goal to all this paperwork is to show the DA that you're going to make this case an uphill battle for him at every fucking turn. The DA cannot prosecute every case. With the economy tanking, they are having to drop even more. By showing the DA that you've totally covered your ass, you increase your chances that your case will be thrown out.

All that shit being said, Wolverine, I am not a lawyer. Please do not make ANY choices about how you protect yourself based on anything I've said (except to speak to another lawyer). It would devastate me to hear that you, or anyone here, got into a legal problem for growing. The risk factor is going down. But, there are still some landmines out there. Please be very careful, brother. We want you around for a long long time.

On another note, were you growing Casey Jones a while back?

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Wolverine97 said:

Excellent reply, as per usual. I love the dedication to detail CG. Last question first; yessir I've been running Casey Jones for a couple of years now and I still love it just as much as I did after the first harvest. It's my heaviest yielder by far, averaging between 6-8 oz/plant with 5 weeks veg under T5's. It takes a decent amount of training to get it to yield that well, but it's time well spent. I highly recommend it, since I started running CJ it has become probably the most popular strain in my area (makes me wish I wasn't so generous with the clones at first). If you have any questions about it, I have intimate knowledge of her likes/dislikes. Always happy to help. Also, I made some S1 seeds this last time around but we'll just have to see how they grow, I'm afraid it will lock in that damned hermie gene (it's there from the Thai and SD).

As to the legal/tax issues; My attorney isn't a MMJ specialist, he's just my regular attorney I keep on retainer. It shouldn't be a major issue for me at the moment, at least as things stand right now. I'm currently just a caregiver, but I've been talking with a few friends and one of the local clubs about trying to set up a collective. The tax issue was brought up by my attorney when I ran everything by him. I'm in Michigan, and our laws are very different from CA. Our legislature is currently trying to take away most of the rights that were granted to us three years ago, so a lot of us are trying to get our heads' around how we can make this thing work. I appreciate the thoughtful response, and if we decide to take things further I may take you up on the attorney referral. I don't want to further derail the thread, so I'll leave it at that.

Keep up the good work.

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collective gardener said:

I ask about the Casey Jones because in 2 weeks I'm expanding the bloom room from 200 sq ft of canopy to 280 sq ft of canopy. I'm considering growing around 32 sq ft of a lower quality, higher yielding strain. I know Casey won't be as good as our Bubba, I'm just wondering how much of a quality drop there will be. Where does the CJ stand against your other strains quality wise? What would it yield under 2 - 1000 watt lights in a 4x8 tray? I'm really playing with fire considering trying a new strain that I know will not be as good as the OG's and Bubbas. Could you please give me some idea of how you rate thequality against the other strains that you grow. They're just SOOOOOOO picky in the dispensaries out here. Thanks.

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Wolverine97 said:

Well I recently had mine tested and it came back at 18.7% thc, .48 cbd. Honestly, I don't see why it would be risky at all. It yields heavy as hell, and at least around here people love it. Rave about it actually, always somebody asking for it. I've been running it for two years now and it's still my go to daytime smoke (the buzz lasts about 1-1/2 hrs). It has a very nice heady high that comes on immediately, and the taste is out of this world good. I don't think you can go wrong with a good pheno, but you really have to keep nutrient levels pretty high from weeks 3-8 of flowering or she'll fade way too soon.

My setup is a lot different than yours, I run individual flowering rooms. When I run just CJ, I average over 1.25 gpw with a five week veg (about 24-30" tall going into bud room). You'll need to support the branches, as they do stretch a ton and by late flowering they're falling all over each other. The stretch is something that really has to be accounted for with this girl in particular, as she just about triples in height from 12/12. I run them in five gallon Smart Pots with living organic soil, so with you running hydro I would think you could probably yield a little bit more than I do once you get the bugs worked out. Watch for nanners, she's known for throwing a few once it nears the end of flowering.

Overall I highly recommend this strain. Let me know if I can help.

edit: just read my reply, and I didn't really address the comparison to my other strains. My most potent overall is a local hybrid called DT (which I also love), it's great stuff but the one that everyone comes back for is the CJ. My local hydro shop guy runs nothing but OG, I gave him a sample bag of the DT to try out one day thinking he'd just love it and all that, next time I saw him he just said "eh, it's good but I still like my OG". I had him come out back with me and I lit a joint of the CJ which he only hit 2-3 times, the next time I saw him he said "got anymore of that Casey Jones? That shit fucked me up, man".

I guess what I'm trying to say is go for it, you won't be disappointed (as long as you grow it at least a few times to work out the kinks, it can be finicky).

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collective gardener said:

Wolverine,

Thank you so very much, my man. That is exactly the info I needed. The reason it's risky for me to try new strains is that everytime I do, my market will purchase a couple lbs just because I grew it, and then ask for more Bubba. I've created a monster. The folks I deal with know me as "the grower with that killer Pre-98 Bubba". The Lavander x Afgahni x Purple Kush I grew was accepted quite well at first. In fact, it commanded a better price than the Bubba. But, just about the time I commited half my bloom area to it, my orders for it dwindled and my Bubba orders went up.

The Casey Jones is a different animal, though. Based on your yields, I could substantially reduce the price and still come out better than the Bubba. This time, though, I'll go in slow. It will take me several months to get the right pheno. There is one clone source I know that has one. If I'm lucky, it's good. Otherwise, I'll order 50 seeds and start the selection process. Once I have my mother, I'll probably just start out with one tray of it for a while (3x3). This way I can keep feeding the Bubba monster.

The timing is good because I am remodeling/expanding the bloom room. I'm removing the existing trays in the bloom room and building one giant sloping table. That table will be 8x24 and lit by 12 - 1000 watt lights. Then I have room for 4 - 3x3 tables, each lit by a 600 watt light. My current lit area is 192 sq ft. The remodel will put me at 236. I was shooting for 280, but there just wouldn't be enough room to walk around and service the crop. The new layout enables me to increase my Bubba blooming area from 192 sq ft to 200 sq ft, and use the 4 - 3x3 trays under the 600's for testing and/or production of different strains.

So, one or 2 of those trays has Casey Jones written on it. It was your pictures and yield numbers that got me thinking of the Casey Jones. I know you told me this once, but how many plants do u grow per sq ft? 24" into bloom and a heavy stretch. Seems like it would finish quite tall. Can you send me some pics of it? I'm going to go pick up a dozen clones of it this weekend. I don't have high hopes, as most every clone I've ever bought for $10 - $20 has been dissapointing. I spent a few grand on 5 clones once, though, and felt like it was a great deal....and it was! LOL. Thanks for all your help. Come out to my neck of the woods sometime and tour the grow.

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TheLastWood said:

Gardener I know your not into seeds and there's probly no reason you can't find any casey jones, but if you can't connoseur genetics has casey jones s1s from the original Head Seads who created casey and has a badass trainwreck also. I don't know if head even sells anymore I've never seen them in stock. But you can get them at attitude and I wouldn't be surprised if a dispensary there sold connoseur genetics.

What are you gonna grow sativa in ur new space?

Are you ever gonna start breeding? You know the bubba well enough now. It would be a killer cut to work with. And then you could get your laughgani back and try n get rid of the insane dense foliage somehow. Cross it with a sativa. Would be good projects for you and then you could do a laughgani bx and ill test em for you lol.

I know you said you've always wanted to someday but didn't have room. All you really need to do is come up with a clever way to safely contain a male. I'm sure you could think of somethin.

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Jozikins said:

Was this the thread that everyone wanted to know the results of using a bare MH to finish flowering in the final week? Because if so I have some results, although they are complete crap scientifically. I had no control subject and have not grown this strain before.

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