INTRODUCTION
Whether you are a home grower with a couple of marijuana plants or a commercial grower with hundreds of plants, this book will help you diagnose problems and find solutions. Disorders (such as unhealthy growing conditions), pests, and diseases are all included here. You can treat all these problems by improving growing conditions, using biological controls, or applying safe, organic remedies.
We are botanists, plant pathologists, and writers. We’ve owned nurseries and traveled the world on botanical adventures. In this book, we have compiled the most recent research to help you grow healthy cannabis. The United States government considers cannabis an illegal crop, resulting in no U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) guidelines, no Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards, and virtually no university research on acceptable treatments for pests and diseases or on the efficacy of those treatments. Research on organic cultivation of cannabis is relatively limited. To find the best organic methods, we have worked with licensed legal growers who use organic practices and we have relied on research from European sources, the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI), and other scientific literature.
Every state in the United States that has legalized marijuana has its own statutes and guidelines. Be sure to find out what is permitted in your location, because we are not legal experts. Finally, we are not medical practitioners and have conducted no research on the medicinal attributes of marijuana. Please consult with your doctor or health care practitioner for advice on its medicinal uses.
WHY USE ORGANIC GROWING TECHNIQUES? Whatever your intended use of cannabis—whether as a medicine, relaxant, mood enhancer, ritualistic practice aid, or vehicle to alter perception—you must inhale, ingest, or otherwise absorb its active ingredients. Any nonorganic, synthetic pesticide used on plants winds up inside you. Synthetic chemicals such as pesticides damage human health and the living community of which we are a part. Choose organic techniques to protect yourself and the environment.
No matter where cannabis is grown, virtually no health and safety standards exist for growing it. Because it is considered illegal in many places, research is lacking and testing is not standardized. Recent media coverage has revealed that pesticide residue on marijuana is an escalating problem. Labs that have performed tests have frequently found contaminants such as pesticides and heavy metals. These pesticides include fungicide and insecticide residues at levels sixteen-hundred times higher than the legal limit for food plants. This is alarming. It just makes sense to do everything possible to eliminate this threat to the health of cannabis growers, users, and the biosphere.
Copyright © 2017 by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
