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A field guide to growing, from zero

The Cannabis White Papers

Evidence-linked cultivation field guides, rewritten so a first-timer can actually follow it: every term defined, every claim cited, the working shown in diagrams. We self-review hard and flag what is solid science, what is grower practice, and what should be taken with a grain of salt when the literature is thin. If something looks wrong, report it on GitHub. Filter the 55 papers below, or press Ctrl K to search.

Propagation

7

Seeds & germinationFrom a dry seed to a thriving seedling: what a seed is, how to choose one, how to wake it up, and how to keep it alive through its most fragile three weeks.14 min read CloningTake cannabis cuttings that root reliably.12 min read Tissue cultureTissue culture regrows an entire plant from a microscopic piece of its growing tip, eliminating diseases that ordinary cleaning cannot reach.22 min read TC playbookHow to grow a cannabis plant from a small piece of tissue in a sterile jar, at home and in a licensed facility.TC SOPWork through these jobs in order and you will be able to set up a clean tissue culture line, multiply a cultivar disease-free, and hand a tested plantlet to your…TransplantingEvery transplant is a controlled injury: done on time, into a prepared home, the plant never notices; done late or rough, it stalls for a week.17 min read Mother plantsThis paper covers the environment, feeding schedule, pruning architecture, viroid defence, testing rotation and succession planning needed to run a cannabis mothe…20 min read

Vegetative growth

3

Light acclimationThis paper teaches how plants adapt to rising light intensity, how to build a week-by-week PPFD schedule, how CO2 sets the ceiling you can safely reach, and how t…11 min read Defoliation & trainingTopping, low-stress training, trellising, lollipopping and defoliation each reshape the plant in a specific way.12 min read Vegetative managementThis paper shows you how to calculate the right veg length for your room — from plant count, pot size and canopy area — and explains why almost every week-3 flowe…14 min read

Flowering

6

Flower week by weekThis paper maps the eight to ten weeks from light flip to harvest.12 min read Coco & crop steeringCoco coir dries and wets predictably, which makes it the easiest substrate to steer.16 min read Rockwool & crop steeringRockwool holds no nutrients of its own and has almost no buffer — what you feed is what the plant gets, within the same hour.18 min read The one steering lawCoco, rockwool, soil and plain water share one way of steering a plant with water, running on four different sponges.22 min read Slab irrigationA measured slab-irrigation field guide: room layout, common dripper runtimes, rooting-in, P0-P3 control, crop-stage steering, EC management and finish.30 min read Ripening & the chopBy the end of this paper you will know how cannabis buds ripen in the final two weeks, how to read trichomes accurately with a loupe, which harvest window matches…17 min read

Harvest, dry, trim & cure

4

Harvest, dry, trim, cureThis paper covers every post-harvest step from cut plant to sealed, finished flower: when to harvest, how to dry without losing terpenes or inviting mould, how to…14 min read GMP hash labThis paper covers GMP requirements for a hash facility: how to zone rooms by cleanliness grade, how product and people move through those zones, and what it takes…18 min read Hash rosin, pressedWarm the resin, push it through a fine mesh bag, and collect what runs out — that is rosin, made with no solvents.22 min read Lab testing & COAsA certificate of analysis is a measurement of one small sample, not a property of your crop.24 min read

Environment & climate

8

Grow-room systemsA grow room is one connected system, not a list of gadgets.18 min read Lighting fundamentalsA from-zero guide to how grow light works: what the key numbers mean, what to aim for at each stage, and how to spot problems before they cost you a crop.14 min read Airflow designEvery leaf sits inside a film of still air that slows gas exchange.26 min read Under-canopy lightingUnder-canopy (SCL) and inter-canopy (ICL) lighting deliver photons to the lower canopy where overhead fixtures cannot reach.16 min read CO2 enrichmentCarbon dioxide is the raw material a plant turns into sugar.30 min read Scaling to high lightLight sets the demand; CO₂, water, airflow, feed, and heat-removal have to supply it.16 min read Temp, humidity & VPDVPD is the climate number that captures how hard the air pulls water from leaves.19 min read HVAC & dehumidifiersEvery watt put into a grow room comes back out as heat, and nearly every litre irrigated comes back out as vapour.22 min read

Water, substrate & feed

6

Substrates comparedA from-zero guide to what cannabis roots grow in: how each medium holds water and air, how it handles nutrients, how forgiving it is, and how to pick one.11 min read Deep water cultureAfter reading this paper you will understand why solution temperature is the master control for every other parameter in water culture, how to set aeration rate s…38 min read Water qualityThis paper explains what is dissolved in tap, well, and rainwater before you add any nutrients — EC, alkalinity, carbonates, chlorine, chloramine, and hardness.14 min read pH managementRoot-zone pH controls which nutrients your plant can absorb.14 min read Mixing nutrientsDissolve a full 11.34 kg (25 lb) bag of Athena Pro Line into a 50 L tank to make a stock concentrate you dose into feed water.11 min read Deficiency diagnosisThis paper teaches you to read cannabis leaf symptoms by position, colour and shape.14 min read

Plant health

5

Auckland medicinal IPMA working system for keeping pests and diseases out of an indoor medicinal-cannabis facility: clean starting material, confident identification, control choices t…55 min read Mould riskMould is the disease most likely to wipe out a harvest in the final weeks, and the one that can quietly make your flower unsafe to consume.15 min read IPM: pest managementA plain-language standard operating procedure for keeping pests and disease out of an indoor cannabis grow.14 min read Pest ID & controlA beginner's field guide to the eight pests that hit cannabis hardest: how to spot each one, understand its life cycle, monitor for it, and knock it down with bio…18 min read PPE & biosecurityCoveralls, hairnets, gloves, and shoe covers do two jobs at once: they protect the worker from hazards, and they keep the worker's particles, microbes, and pests…17 min read

Precision & automation

8

Root-zone state · TEROS-12A TEROS-12 probe buried in your growing media reports three numbers: how much water is stored, how salty that water is, and the temperature.18 min read Smart watering · VRWEThis paper explains how VRWE combines multiple signals to estimate root-zone water more reliably than a single probe.9 min read Signal & noiseThis paper teaches you to separate the real story in your sensor data from random jitter, so you know when to act and, just as important, when to walk away.14 min read The closed loopRun a grow room as one self-correcting system.17 min read Plant-state dashboardA grow-room screen should show what the plant is doing, not a wall of raw sensor numbers.13 min read F2 crop steeringBy the end of this paper you can set up, calibrate, and run an autonomous irrigation controller for a veg grow room.18 min read Irrigation manualInstall, run, and maintain a sensor-driven crop-steering irrigation system on Home Assistant, explained from zero.14 min read DIY plant-biosignal sensorPlants produce tiny electrical signals — microvolts to a few millivolts — that shift when light turns on, water runs low, or the plant is stressed.14 min read

Facility & quality

5

3D facility modelLay out rooms, equipment and airflow in a 3D model on your screen, and catch the expensive mistakes before anyone pours concrete.14 min read Daily checksThis paper shows you how to design a daily facility check where sensors confirm everything measurable automatically and the human round stays short.16 min read Compliance & trackingA licensed grow is a paperwork machine with a garden attached.24 min read Energy & utilitiesMap where your electricity goes across lighting, HVAC, and dehumidification, then work through the cited retrofit order — efficacy, the double dividend, demand ch…18 min read Yield & unit economicsThe three yield denominators (g/m² of canopy, g/W of light, g/kWh all-in) what each is actually for, what each hides, and a worked cost stack that turns a fiction…22 min read

Know the plant

3

Plant biology 101What kind of plant cannabis actually is, every part named, and the mechanisms underneath.26 min read Cannabis chemistryTwo compound families—cannabinoids and terpenes—are made in the same microscopic gland, as acids, on one shared pathway.24 min read Genetics & pheno huntWhere keeper cultivars actually come from: what genotype, phenotype and chemotype mean, why every seed is a gamble by design, how to run a pheno hunt that finds a…24 min read