Any advices for future growers?

Hi everyone,

My name is Paulo and I want to become a professional grower in Portugal.

I was hoping I could get some advice on starting this project from other growers:

  1. What did you find most difficult when you started growing and if you found any unforeseen obstacles;

  2. Average yield (indoor and outdoor) and minimum area for the project to be profitable;

  3. Average selling prices and how to find the best buyer;

  4. Anything that you wish you knew before you started growing.

  5. Do you know any grower from Europe that I could contact?

Any advice or tip would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Paulo

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Hi Paulo -
Are your questions for someone who has never grown cannabis before? I can tell you some of the things that I think should be “ground level” knowledge for a new grower.

  1. Environment, environment, environment

Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of growing for a new grower, especially indoors, is the importance and relationship of atmospheric variables and the plants. Setting up an environment that lets you control temperatures and relative humidity is key to repeated, healthy grows with a wide array of strains.

  1. Starting too big

The first time someone grows a cannabis plant, it’s my opinion they just start with just one plant and grow it without training. It’s important to have a good understanding of how the plant naturally grows and why it grows that way. This will help the novice grower better understand how and why to train their plant(s) for their particular garden.

  1. Lights!

If growing inside, it’s imperative to understand the kind of lighting requirements cannabis plants have. Lights are an investment that the indoor grower simply can’t avoid if they want to maximize yields.

  1. Nutrients

Nutrients, especially to a novice grower who has no experience with other kinds of plants, can seem daunting. I prefer to keep it simple myself (fewer bottles or bags of nutrients), and would recommend anyone growing for profit to look into cost effective nutrient strategies (i.e. using dry nutes instead of liquid nutes, growing in living soil outside, etc.).

If growing for profit, the key will be keeping supply going to meet demand, so having an eye to perpetual grows with relatively stable flower periods would be necessary to model an annual balance sheet comparing your operational costs to yield values.

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Hi Bogleg,

You are right - I have never grown cannabis before. I have worked in a farm that grows herbs and medicinal plants (to make herbal teas and spices), and in the wine industry (vineyards particularly).

I am quite interested in growing cannabis as it was recently legalized in Portugal and I would like to do it not as a hobby, but professionally, so any advice would be great!

Thank you for your input!

Paulo

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The best way to gain experience is to jump in and start growing from home. You can carry a regular job and gain cannabis education at the same time

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And read forums like this. There’s so much education to be had right here, but I agree with @tdubwilly, start getting experience as soon as possible.

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plant seed and get experance. when I started growing outside I not know nuthin.another grower told me I need to top my plants. I am a country boy on cattle farm. so I know what topping a field is. so I cut the top out of the tallest plants. they all turn out to be males. good luck start small.

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Oh man, I’m sorry, that sucks!

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yes it sucked but a learning curve. the plant that come charging up and get tall quick in my experience. have a good chance of being male. that why I plant a lot of plant half will be male. then mother nature will take some.

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Congrats to Portugal and to psantos. I’m new at this myself but wanted to encourage you to do it, keep searching here. This place is magic.

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