A lot of my red-card friends in CA grow MASSIVE 10 foot beasts because of the 6 plant limit. One of my friends told me that the bigger they get the more maintenance they need. You need to check in on them like 3-5 times a day especially when after it rains. The key to getting large plants is to provide them with as much surface area as possible to absorb nutrients and conduct water. If you watch jorge cervantes' ultimate grow video, he says that they need 5 hours of strong midday sun to grow that big which some of my friends have found to be spot on. The fact is that outdoor growing is very different from indoor growing in terms of the photoperiod. While indoor growers will insist that a 18/6 hour photoperiod is absolutely essential for plants to remain in veg and to grow as fast as possible, this does not strictly apply outdoors for the following reasons: 1. The sun's intensity is much stronger than that of any lamp no matter what anyone says. That being said, it doesn't increase appreciably when plants grow which is why indoor plants burn towards the lamp (if they grow too tall). 2. Because the sun if more intense and the fact that this intensity doesn't climb dramatically as the plant grows, and in addition to this the sun moves in the sky whereas indoor lights don't! Your plant will merely adapt by growing outward as well to utilize as much of the light as possible. As such, the increase in photosynthetic matter will increase the rate of growth (this perpetuates to cause exponential growth). 3. The change of seasons throughout the year isn't quite as abrupt as it would be in an indoor grow room. In my opinion, shocking the plant by changing the wavelength of light and photoperiod in such a short interval of time can stress it and may cause hermaphrodism (which has happened in my experience). This is why I use both wavelengths and change the photoperiod over a period of 3 weeks when I grow indoors. That being said we can move on to getting the most out of your plants outdoors and what you have to do to minimize damage to these plants due to any causes of damage such as spider mites, other pests, mold and powder mildew. 1. Plant organic: This will ensure the best taste to your plant (ask any grower) even flushing indoor plants doesn't make them taste quite as great. The first thing you'd need to do is get yourself a good large bag of composting soil. This is best because the nutrient balance is perfect and won't cause nute burn when in excess (there is no excess with this stuff) like synthetic fertilizers will. When you have plants growing 7-12 feet tall nute burn can be hard to spot from the ground level which makes this an even more important reason than the taste of the final product to grow organic. 2. Aerate: This really depends on the plant you have, the climate you're in and the rate of drainage of the soil in your garden. If you're not going to plant straight into the ground but into cloth bags, make sure that the water retentive/drainage capacities suit your plants. As a rough rule of thumb, I find indicas to be more loose on the water consumption. Good drainage isn't a bad idea here. When it comes to sativas, however, I notice that they tend to transpire a lot more and thus use more waters than the average indica. For this reason you should allow for more water retention. How to go about doing this: To improve drainage: Add sand at a minimum of 1 to 5 parts of everything else you have in the mix. To improve water retention: Compost and clay rich soil are already good at this just don't add as much sand. I mix compost with soil in a 1:3 ratio and that works for all of my sativas. You should ALWAYS have some pearlite in the mix. For your plants to grow to their maximum capacity and get the greatest yield, it is absolutely essential that the roots get oxygen and pearlite is just the right size to allow this! I mix 1 part pearlite with 4 parts everything else. 3. Root growth: As I mentioned the importance of pearlite in getting oxygen to the roots, this not only serves to get oxygen to your roots in order to dramatically increase your pot potency and yield, it also plays a crucial role in loosening to soil to allow the roots to grow more quickly. Your plants will only grow as fast as they can get their nutes and they can get their nutes only as fast as the amount of root surface area will allow. Therefore, it is crucial to have soil that is loose enough to allow plants to develop a strong root structure but you wouldn't want it to be too loose so as to have your plant uprooted on a windy day. Pearlite and compost are your friends here. Soil almost always has an amount of clay that tends to make it compact and clump together. Pearlite and compost, however, do not do this and it is, therefore, imperative to have these homogeneous in your soil mix. The compactness of the soil in certain regions will act as mass to hold the roots down while the compost and pearlite will create little channels for them to maneuver through the mix. 4. Root temperature: A problem encountered by a lot of outdoor growers is heat stress to the roots and is encountered because they have not made accommodations for the outdoor environment and what it entails. To keep your soil heat down I find it useful to actually place a barrier of hard unmixed ground soil without rocks and stones around the edge of the plant but NOT AT THE BASE. As this soil is difficult for the roots to grow through, you will essentially have a buffer between your roots and the edge of your container which will also insulate the rest of the mix from sunlight falling directly on the container. This serves essentially the same purpose as a clay pot. However, a clay pot is more likely to wick moisture away from the mix leading to dehydration if you were to miss a single watering. Don't worry about the top soil, that's covered by the plant. 5. Base integrity: assuming you have a nice root system (or have allowed for one) in place, you can move on to weighing down your plants as the base weight to foliage volume ratio is much to low for it to be stable above ground. This applies more so for indicas than sativas. This is why it would be a good reason to invest in larger, heavier clay pots, but as I have mentioned, these also tend to wick moisture away from the mix dehydrating your plants. A good alternative is to place bricks at the base your bag (assuming you're using a cloth bag). If you do this, place them with a 1-1.5 inch space in between one another to allow for better drainage. I always advise people to avoid clay pots altogether for the aforementioned reasons and, in my experience, this has turned out to be a good alternative. 6. Pest control: Pests are hard to deal with indoors, and one can only imagine how much of a pain theyd be outdoors where you're in their territory. Not to worry! You can keep most pests away with a neem solution. This helps keep most of the, away. If you're not too keen on this, another good alternative (assuming you're plants are more susceptible to spider mites than anything else) is introducing a predator. Go to your local nursery and buy a bunch of ladybugs. They work perfectly. They are, however, a secondary measure and will only work if there is something for them to eat. They won't hang around if there isn't anything for them to eat. The neem solution, on the other hand will work for most insect pests and is completely organic (it's a derivative of an indian plant used in india to keep mosquitoes and other pests away from crop and people alike. Birds can be a huge problem as well. As my friends have told me, some of the local species (in CA) have taken to eating hemp seeds in some of the hermaphroditic of polinated plants and some even have a tendency to bite of tops 'cause they're spiteful motherfuckers. I find that CDs (anything reflective) places strategically throughout the outer surface of the plants keeps them away. Another option is to setup a birdfeeder in a location close to your plants but not revealing their location. You don't want to tempt these assholes. 7. Mold and powder mildew: This is one of those things that takes precedence above any other cause for concern. If you have pests, introduce a predator. If your plant base is light, weigh or tie it down. But with mold and mildew, there is no going back and they can literally ruin your crop. When it comes to this, you really have to pick a plant that suits the climactic conditions in your region/area. If it's too humid, 75% plus, indicas are probably not a good option but there are ways to make it work! Mold formation on outdoor plants happens almost exclusively because of poor air circulation which sounds whack since good air circulation is the defining characteristic of outdoor grown plants. IT'S THE INNER NODES CLOSE TO THE MAIN STEM THAT YOU HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT. A lot beginning outdoor growers forget that certain strains (mainly indicas) are adapted to form a dense layer of foliage to protect the main stem from too much direct sunlight and this works out in the desert. But, if your plants are growing in a humid place, this dense cover could turn the inside into an organic oven and breeding ground for high temp bacteria and mold because of inward transpiration. Avoiding this is pretty simple. All you have to do is tie some of the other branches down with rope. Don't tie them down too low, or this cause already woody branches to break. This is one of those things you have to start when the plant is just fresh off the clone dome or the seeding station. This is a form of low stress training that will get these branches extra sunlight and will increase the potency of the bud. Even if mold weren't an issue, I would still strongly suggest this as the benefits speak for themselves. Early in the vegetative state when there are at least 3 main nodes. Pull them down just enough to expose the main branch. There are many tutorials on this that get into much greater detail than I can within the constraints of a purely descriptive procedure without visual aides. Another good measure is to trim the inner nodes. If you're looking at the main stem, look at a branch and look at all the other "branches" branching off of it. Cut these. This is a form of HIGH stress training that will relinquish the need for the plant to supply nutrients to these sub nodes and will give you somewhat of a nutrient express way to the branch's main top. This also increases yield. Preemptive measures: After it rains, give your plants a good shake at the center of the stem and do the same for the individual branches. This prevents a moisture build up that almost always leads to mold and powder mildew formation. supercropping lower branches early in the vegetative state allows alleviates the need for them to be tied down. Growth of the branch is stunted indefinitely after super-cropping but these bottom 4 branches should still yield decent bud because of the HST you just performed. Another option is the remove them altogether. Don't waste them, you could make some nice clones from main branches. The nutrition requirements of these plants is more than covered by the compost in the soil but the water requirements are terribly more insidious. The water requirements of the plant increase with plant growth (exponentially). My 6 footers can drink up to 16L a day. You can make a basic ring-pipe water distribution network connected to your water supply or reservoir. This will still require you to manually water the plants and is always the case the first time around unless you're using a growth method for a specific genetic of a specific strain in a specific climate that has been tried and tested time and time again (a little too stringent in my opinion). In any other case you just have to eye it. See how your plants do with a certain amount of water and proceed form there. Lookout for the tell tale signs of wilting (dehydration) and curling and/or turning yellow (overwatering). There are a bunch of other symptoms that I'm too lazy to list right now so I'm going to leave it to you guys to look those up. Those first two are the ones with which you should be most concerned when it comes to watering. Back to sunlight: 4-5.5 hours of strong and direct mid day sun is ideal! This really boosts plant growth during the vegetative state. These plants will flower on their own but need extra care during the flowering period as the foliage around the plant and especially around the bud gets significantly more dense meaning that there is a greater chance of mold forming, so keep an eye out during this stage.
Direct sun indeed does make a huge difference in plant size along with the size of the root system to support what's up top. pull multi pound plants every year ain't no crazy hard task out here in Cali. Weather is perfect.