Can It Grow In The Cold?

had a discussion with a grower friend of mine and we ended up seeing eachother points of view respectfully BUT he told me that my first SSH crop was “ok” and not what it could have been. Now his opinion I always take with a grain of salt and a lil pepper even but this time it rubbed me the wrong way because what he mentioned is not what I experienced for myself and nor did others

Heres the backdrop for this thread topic. Because I grow in my garage and the garage is not “finished” (meaning no framed walls/insulation/extensive electricity/ general space lighting) I am slave to the elements. When I set things up the first time I have a nice lil budget that I had to work with and things were good enough for me to build the cabs that I have. More info is the cabs are pretty much bare frames, wood studs and particle board, the other cab is a C22 from back in the day that I never gave up on and converted. To go into further detail would make you cringe so ill leave it at that.

Now my first grow I did for me and ME ONLY! You can read my past diaries and see that to be true. When I had smoke, ppl smoked with me and got high, I mean nice and high. At the time it wasn’t like I was the only one with the best weed around, other ppl had what they had and we smoked what we all had but with my SSH I remember clearly that it was “6 hits and quit” .

• ”6 hits and quit”- is a lil grower rule/standard I set for myself to aspire to with my grows meaning whatever I grow should be able to get you high in 6 hits since that’s how many it took me to get high the first time I smoked it. I enjoy the pleasure of smoking. Smoking something that gets me high just by smelling the bag is not my thing. Get me high too sooon and I personally get pissed; theres no “lead up” nothing is left to the imagination. For me getting high too fast is like being with a hooker who wants you to be done with you business and be on your way, where as a 6 hits and quit is more like you and your girl are chillin, one thing leads to another and the next thing you know you’ve had the best hour of sex you’ve had in a while!

Getting back to it, now being that im a slave to the elements I was told that that was the reason he thought that my cannabis was subpar. We discussed sales and I explained to him that the ppl I worked with were more the “dub sack” types meaning they don’t care about what your scale says, as long as the bag is fat then its worthy of their money so needless to say not really my crowd but they are my close friends.

Now coming near the end of the SSH run, I needed to pay for a training program and reluctantly gave my friend one of my last zips to push for me, reason being is I don’t do anything as fas as sales in my area. I try my best not to smoke outside too often/ work on the plants at nights while everyone’s asleep (I hope). But low and behold he calls me back within the very same week to say “come pick up your money; gave him another zip same thing happened, so I have money to pay for the class. I say all of this to bring understanding to why im very skeptical about his opinion. So the question is” if were subpar and could have been better, why was it so easy for you to get rid of?

I personally smoked that SSH everyday for about a good 3-4 months and it did what it needed to do. On the street walking on a nice sunny morning after working the night shift? It was perrrrfect! I would walk, find a nice quiet NY side street to walk down, take a pull, cough, take another cough lil less and THEN
1 puff/ look around/chill, keep it movin’
2 puff/ look around/chill, keep it movin’
3 puff/ look around/chill, keep it movin’
4 puff/ look around/chill’ keep it movin’
5 puff/ look around/chill, keep it movin’
6 puff/ look around/chill and DONE! im walking my path nice until I get home in the next 2hours, I did that off/on for about 3 months straight. 1gram in one dutch would last me 2 days if not more!! When I tell you I LOVE SSH, I mean just that

now im sure that some of you out there may have that other grower friend that is a pot snob and wants every strain to be able to have him seeing lil green men riding pink elephants on parade while and if it doesn’t do that then its subpar where as you are the type that knows your strain and you know how you want it to be in order for it to be just right

My question is even with everything else being in place, can a grow fail (potency wise) due to temps being near freezing?

Right now ive got some NL going in hydro along with some SS (sweet skunk) now the SS is a new strain to me, first time growing it/don’t know too much about it outside of what the company describes, the NL on the other hand is getting bushier by the day. Im using lucas formula in veg right now under a 400mh to have them a lil bigger before I switch 12/12

Current weatherbug forcast for my area is as follows: (high/low) WED 43/30; THUR 45/38; FRI 53/35; SAT 45/27; SUN 39/23; MON 38/23; TUE 43 and not only tha but they have been vegged and cloned in the same type of weather and this is what they look like now . . .

NL


SS (a week after being topped)


NL mom
this one i had in my bubble cloner until it got too big so i transplanted it to soil so that it could come into its rightful motherly place . . .


so i wanna start some shit talkin to be honest! 2gl buckets/lucas formula given the temps this guy thinks that the plants are gonna turn out to be shit. what say you?

keep em comin i wanna hear what ppl think about growing in the cold and how it relates or can affect (IF AT ALL) a plants possible potency!!!

any other "SNOW GROWERS" out there???

I'm no expert on what extremely cold temps can do, but I'm a victim of the summers heat. But I'm guessing weather that's too extreme on the hot or cold side will affect plant growth and overall production, including potency (it's easy for this to happen to me in summer). Maybe I'm wrong but wouldn't growing in a garage be almost similar to a green house? Maybe if the pots are touching the concrete in the garage it might be too cold for the roots, but I can't see how growing in your garage in the winter would affect potency. I think when people speak of plants that doesn't do good in the winter they speak of the plants that's in the bare weather, roots in the dirt of the earth and out in the open dealing with raw temps and can be snowed on at any time. Again I'm no expert, this is just my opinion but I can't see how they'd be affected in the wrong way by the winter in the garage. Also if I read all this correctly the SSH your friend had was from your first run? Usually the runs after your first tends to bring out even more from the plant than was shown the first time so I think your next results may be even better.

The fact you have people paying for it speaks for itself. Fuck pot snobs.

FRIENDinDEED said:

My question is even with everything else being in place, can a grow fail (potency wise) due to temps being near freezing?

any other "SNOW GROWERS" out there???

Click to expand...

Had to condense your query so I could most easily answer, and mine is absolute and unequivocal--YESSSS!! In fact, it doesn't even need to be near freezing, it just needs to be well under 70F all the time for you to get larfy buds that simply don't reach their potential in any way, shape or form. I've done too much of this type of growing (basement). My answer was to create what I call The Electric Blanket Sandwich (my homage to the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test). You get yourself an electric blanky from Wally World, and 'sleeve' it into a contractor's garbage bag or similar, put it under the pots (I usually sandwich that between the sheet styrofoam insulation stuff), set it and forget it. It warms the root zone without using a shit-ton of electricity, and because heat travels up, the plants are gently warmed, without drying out, from below.

It helps seriously. Also, not venting helps seriously. If nothing else, I can practically promise you it's impacting your yields. Get and keep the roots warmed up sufficiently and I think you'll see a difference overall. Don't forget also the importance of VPD in a plant's performance.

Nice post^

It is very hard to find info about having cold issues, most have it the other way.

I have a 3x3 tent in my furnace room. It can hit 58 when the lights are off and is below 70 sometimes with the light on.

It definitely hurt my harvest last time. My killer queen last year yielded pretty well but the buds didn't look like stuff grown for the exact same clones in a different room.

The buds kinda got a bit spindly, almost like when it is too hot.

The electric blanket sounds good. I don't have one. I'm going to try putting a propagation mat under my plants with a tray of water on top of it. The extra humidity won't hurt either.

If that little 17 watt mat isn't enough, I'll go buy an electric blanket.

Thanks for the tip.

If I recall correctly, there was a study done several years ago (don't remember anything other than the gross details) that showed that cold-climate pot tended to be much stronger than the same variety grown in temperate conditions. It certainly impacts the yield, however. It stuck in my mind because of a plant that I grew while I was still in high school, living at about 6000' in a very cool climate. I finally cut the miserable little thing after it snowed, got one pinner out of it, and it kicked my ass.

I could see that because my killer queen was weird looking, but kick ass.
I'd rather just have it at 75 degrees.

I'm setting this up as soon as the lights come on today.

You can veg in colder weather without any probs, long as it doesn't freeze-- But for flowering...it will definitely effect your yield--

i usually grow in hot conditions, winter or summer my box is usually always hot. last run it was summer and i grew out this g13.


i took clones rooted a mom and kept it going till the original seed plant was done. i took more clones then i put the mom in flower. its wintertime and we're on like week 9 since the mom started flowering again. temps have been below 80 in the day and as low as 60 at night.


the largest bud in this picture is smaller than the smallest bud in the previous picture.

not much changed but the biggest thing was the temps.

not 100% certain that it was the cold temps, but i can't really see what else it could be. bigger pot, better nute schedule, from clone. must be the cold or the gnats.

Doubt it is gnats unless you have millions. It must be the cold.
It warms my cockles to see this thread.

As far as I am concerned, cold merely slows growth rate a bit. Heat is a bigger issue. So long as it isn't below freezing, the plant with survive just fine, just metabolizes a bit slower. As far as potency is concerned, pot grown in cooler conditions is more potent, more colorful and tastier than hotter conditions. As long as it isn't so cold it freezes the plant cells and kills the plant, the only real issue is slower growth. Too much heat is a far worse stress issue.

idk, my flower room can get pretty cold at night in winter, if i forget to open the heating vent at lights off, happens sometimes, like 55-60 degrees, never seems to bother anything...but it's the roots that need to be kept warm, so....think welder dan nailed it heat stress is worse..
my veg room stays at 78 degrees i notice slower growth during veg in cooler temps than flowering..any hoot, if you and your custy like it who cares..people are always trying to bring down other people for no reason other than to feel better about themselves....fools..i bet it was kill bro..keep up the good work with what ya got..it's all good..

My blueberry an NL took about 78 days I think because of the cold. It should have been 65 at most.

I just bought two seedling heat mats and will be using one under some established plants in my tent. The other will go in the veg room.

I thinks its easier to work plants in cooler temps. I use the seedling mats to great effect.
I reduce airflow at lights out too. 65F is my lowest temp, 76F my hi. Ambient around 55F.

Takes longer to finish, but excellent results over the July/August heat, imho.

Also very important to use a dimmer on those heat mats, keeps root temps in check.

I believe some strains are more sensitive to cold then others

for the nay sayers . . .

for the nay sayers . . .

ok i had to do a lil digging but if these are the pics i get busted for then im wearing those metal bracelets with my head held high! this grow was completed in december but these pics were taken in november OF 07'!! so so nostalgic for me, you guys just dont understand! lol

SSH BABY!!!SUPER SILVER HAZE!!!im always gonna have these pics, my very very very first grow ya'll, in the same garage in the freezing cold. im talking taking cuts, vegging, flowering the whole nine yards.

the cab is/was my first, i was running a 400HPS at the time, organic soil and BE CLEAR teh bottom of that cab is 2-3" from teh ground! my main flower cab now is about 6" off the ground, so that shit wasnt just cold it was nice and frosty and since i was in the beginning stages of my grow i decided to put my clones/cuts ON THE FLOOR under 4x100watt floros (now that i think back i think my grow success was more so an act of god than me having some idea of what i was doing! lmao). well on with the pics . . .

EDIT: see those crystals?! 100% cloudy, all the way juuuust before they started to amber up, why because thats what "I" wanted!


and be clear!! that red fabric is a heating blanket . . . that never worked! it conked out on me after a couple days . . .




(look at the bottom branches! you cant even consider that popcorn bud! most growers would kill for their bottom buds to look like that!)



lol, and just like back then i have to do it now as well, sorry for the shitty pics but you get the idea.

and my boy said that those,THOSE plants were subpar and could have been better?!!? WHAT!?!?! HELL NAH! first of all they look like an amazing high of the back! so now you guys ahve a pic to match up to what i described in the first post about it being a 6 hit and quit strain/type of smoke. every aspect of that plant was smokable.

buds were so dense i was terrified of bud rot! but thank the good lord above it never happened. cured those bitches for a full month before i even touched em' , nowadays ANYONE would have told me that they would have been smoke worthy after a coupe weeks BUT thats the level of dedication i had back then and still do to this day! burped every day for an hour!

i would smoke the shit out of those plants.

and BTW if you guys who grow can please post some pics of your cold grows if you can/ dont mind.

i admit they did take a damned long time due to them being sativas and the cold slowing everything down but whoooooo weeeeee!!! i would do it all over again the same way in a heart beat!!

although its my frist time with both the NL and the SS im still not sure about those SS in regard to where/how they thrive, with my current grow im liking the way the NL are handling everything. if they can do well in the cold then they can do fine in the heat. so far NL is something i wanna keep in my rotation. the SS, we'll/i'll have to wait and see what its about.

I go back out to the grow on Monday...we have some that we went ahead and flowered...they are super small buds...almost look like they are regegging, from being so leafy-- I will get some pics then--