COLORADO – A seed expert from Colorado believes that the proposed rules setting limitations for growing marijuana in Colorado are ridiculous. In Colorado, there are proposed rules which state that marijuana home growers are only allowed to cultivate up to four plants, and that each plant should not exceed one meter in height. These proposed rules are a part of the Cannabis Act which was set by the Liberals.
The Cannabis Act was implemented in April this year and it prohibits people from cultivating more than four cannabis plants for recreational use at home no matter what their size is. Those who will fail to comply with this law will face severe punishments. Those who will violate the Cannabis Act will have to spend at least 6 months to 14 years in jail. Violators will also have to pay a whopping $5000 fine. The severity and implementation of the punishment was decided by the prosecution.
However, marijuana home growers need to pluck out the male plants. Only the female plant grows buds. The female plant has the ability to become hermaphrodite and pollinate the nearby female cannabis or even themselves. The problem is that it is impossible to differentiate the male plant from a female plant for one month and a half after sprouting.
According to Ben Holmes, the founder of Centennial Seeds (a cannabis seed producer located in Lafayette, Colorado), the sex of the cannabis can only be determined after more than a month. To grow a marijuana plant and to know the sex of the plant, you need to invest time and money. You have to wait for 35 to 45 days in addition to the price of the seeds you’ve purchased. Seed can cost as much as $8 to $9.
For this reason, to ensure the gender of the plants, you may have to plant ten seedlings at the same time and pluck them out later. However, planting more than 10 plants is illegal even if these are just seedlings.
If you’re going to follow the Cannabis Act and plant four seedlings, there’s a chance that all of these seedlings will grow as males. The grower cannot choose which seedlings to buy because the gender will only show only after several days, making it impossible to determine before planting. This law encourages the growers to buy more seedlings, which is more costly in both time and money.
To solve this issue, some merchants have started selling feminized seeds. The feminized seeds are sure to become female after several days. However, according to Holmes, the process of feminization of seeds will produce a lower plant quality because it decreases the yield.
According to Holmes, there are two solutions to this problem. First is to have an establishment for a cannabis nursery in order to ensure that the plants or sprouts being sold to home growers are female. The second is to exempt the young plants from the law.
Meanwhile, creative marijuana home growers in Oregon have come up with a workaround for the law. In lieu of the size restriction for the plants, growers have started raising much larger marijuana plants.
