Thoughts on Indoor vs Outdoor Quality

carlsbarn

Well-Known Member
Quality indoor definitely takes it on the sheer 'fuck you up' scale...even to the point of feeling a bit uncomfortably stoned if I smoke too much. Whereas solid outdoor wins in the quality of the buzz, the actual feeling. Also outdoor rarely seems to have a real 'ceiling', just a long Stoney baloney plateau that you can augment by smoking more.
 

Chief_Broom

Well-Known Member
Indoor versus outdoor will always be debated. The biggest difference I see between the two options is cost. Outdoor is always going to be cheaper to run. Outdoor your light costs are zero. Zero electricity, zero up front costs and zero maintenance costs. No matter how you set up an indoor grow lighting costs are a fixed part of your budget.

Obviously there is a return from these costs indoor growers accept as necessary. Indoor grows are inherently more secure. Somebody has to break into your house to rip you off compared to hopping a fence. Bad weather, wind and storms, which outdoor growers must continually contend with and protect against isn’t a concern for indoor.

As to the question of quality outdoor grown by someone who knows what they are doing can easily pass as indoor, especially if it’s tightly manicured. Indoor growers who know what they are doing and have top notch equipment and controlled environment can and do grow bud you really can’t grow outdoors. I’m talking about the dense hard buds you get from dialed in nutrients, lighting/supplemental co2, temperature and humidity, etc. Couple the right strain with such controlled conditions and you can mass produce quality buds with the “bag appeal” consumers expect from “top shelf” bud.
 

JimmiP

Well-Known Member
Ive smoked and grown outdoor that could hang with the best indoor.. Don't look as pretty but as far as getting the job done..no problem .
Oh,,, come on,, it can look just as pretty. 20201201_133225~2.jpg
Well in a greenhouse or hoop house anyway. And the trichomes get larger and more abundant under the sun. You just have to stay on top of keeping pests down. You also need to maintain really good ventilation and air circulation. 20201030_105714.jpg20201201_133101~2.jpg
 
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a mongo frog

Well-Known Member
As to the question of quality outdoor grown by someone who knows what they are doing can easily pass as indoor, especially if it’s tightly manicured. Indoor growers who know what they are doing and have top notch equipment and controlled environment can and do grow bud you really can’t grow outdoors. I’m talking about the dense hard buds you get from dialed in nutrients, lighting/supplemental co2, temperature and humidity, etc. Couple the right strain with such controlled conditions and you can mass produce quality buds with the “bag appeal” consumers expect from “top shelf” bud.
But what about the amount you get per plant vs indoor? Like legally you can grow 6 plants in most states. And i think the average yield in some states is 7-9 pounds per plant. Thats a lot of medicine.
 

ComfortCreator

Well-Known Member
Xtsho brought up Humboldt earlier for a reason.

The combination of expertise, climate, genetics and soil conditions created unique grows at a time before mass legal cultivation was allowed. It is a dangerous place for outsiders, and the level of expertise in those hills is unrivaled.

Now those genetics can be copied indoors but copying the soil and environment indoors is not possible, at least currently.

At 20%+ THC, there is a plateau after which yes the buzz is stronger but not stonier. The terpenes that mess up your head...the rush, the raciness, the head effects, the paranoia as some feel, all comes from the unique combination of climate and soil. That is what separates the best, and what us old timers are talking about. There is no test that shows you on paper how good outdoor Humboldt is and was.
 

JimmiP

Well-Known Member
On the topic of washing outdoor bud...it does rain so it makes sense to me.

My Q would be...is it better to wash it while still alive on the plant, let it dry then cut it, or cut it first then wash it? Seems like if it was alive there would be no possible negatives?
Wash it as you harvest. Cut a branch the same size as your wash tubs. Then submerge it in the first tub, second, third and if you want, a fourth. Then hang it up and repeat. I only use three and it works out great. Then when you are all done dump the wash tubs through a set of bubble bags. The 220 and 190 will show you why you should wash them. And what little in the way of trichomes that are dislodged will be waiting below. Give it a good rinsing and nothing is really lost.
This is what came off of two 5+ pound plants20201202_153120.jpg
Only three and a half grams combined. I only used the 220, 190 and 45 micron bags for this.
 
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Macncheesehaze

Well-Known Member
After the fires and the smoke that followed I have to say I like indoor or greenhouse produced buds best. The runoff from the washing was ugly and sad that it had to be done. What is even more disturbing is there is flower being sold that was grown outdoors that hasn't been washed.. Pity the fools that inhale those contaminates deep into their lungs. :wall:
I’m in NY and I know ALOT of people that are getting fucked up buds because people are just packing them up and shipping them out to other states like here. My advice to people in my area is to find a local grower and stick with them for a while.
 

Chief_Broom

Well-Known Member
But what about the amount you get per plant vs indoor? Like legally you can grow 6 plants in most states. And i think the average yield in some states is 7-9 pounds per plant. Thats a lot of medicine.
indoor can get those kind of big yields too, but you have to know what you are doing. Given adequate skill level and a big enough budget you can replicate perfect grow conditions for your crop from start to finish. You can’t do that outdoors. Even a greenhouse is subjected to those natural fluctuations.

Personally I’m an outdoor grower. It’s too easy not to an my only investment at this point is my time.

From what I can tell the big indoor grows (an the greenhouse grows that pose as indoor) are all about satisfying consumer demand for a very particular style of “bag appeal”. In my experience bag appeal doesn’t always indicate quality. Inversely I’ve seen some pretty airy looking sativas that were fantastic but would definitely fail at the bag appeal test.
 

waterproof808

Well-Known Member
indoor can get those kind of big yields too, but you have to know what you are doing. Given adequate skill level and a big enough budget you can replicate perfect grow conditions for your crop from start to finish. You can’t do that outdoors. Even a greenhouse is subjected to those natural fluctuations.
With a big enough budget, you can buy a state of the art climate controlled greenhouse with supplemental hid lighting for cloudy days and have complete control of your environment and produce crops that will rival anything coming from an indoor garden.
 

Chief_Broom

Well-Known Member
No it cant. No offense.
I’ve never been able to yield indoors what I can outdoors and I would say this is easily true for most people, but you see pics of indoor plants that have been manicured and trained (tortured really) to the point where they are multi pound producers.

If someone knows what they are doing and has their technique, equipment, environment, and strain dialed in they can provide a plant with perfect growing conditions from start to finish. You can not do that outdoors. The best you can hope for outdoors is a phenomenal growing season, but that’s just luck and you can just as easily have a lousy season.

The expert growers I know (some from here) all agree that where you see the biggest payoff with a controlled environment (indoor grow, greenhouse grow) is the last few weeks leading to harvest. That is when bud development is really taking place an if you can protect them then from insects and adverse conditions (humidity and moisture) that’s where you are able to capitalize on everything you’ve done right in raising your plants to that point.
 

PizzaBob

Active Member
I think it comes down to two factors. The gradual decrease in the light cycle versus instant 12/12 and the elements of outdoors.
I grew clones if same strain at same time indoors and outdoors this year.
The outdoor grows longer fuller more continuous buds albeit much leafier. The indoor are discontinuous except at fir the last 6-8”. The nugs on the ID are denser and more like golf balls beneath the top cola instead of a continuous cola. Next diff is that the elements, rain and wind, seem to diminish the trichs at the perimeter of the cola.
So when you look at the ID and OD buds on the plant in the ground the OD seems much bigger and fuller. But once trimmed and dried the ID is superior hands down. The calyx to leaf ratio, the density and trich development is better on ID.
 

Tuned

Active Member
I had to give up my outdoor grows since a commercial hemp farm started up near me. All my plants go to seed. The more popular/legal cannabis and hemp products become, more of these farms will show up. Im just a backyard grower and here in Canada i dont think there is anything that can be done to stop these farms.
 

JimmiP

Well-Known Member
I had to give up my outdoor grows since a commercial hemp farm started up near me. All my plants go to seed. The more popular/legal cannabis and hemp products become, more of these farms will show up. Im just a backyard grower and here in Canada i dont think there is anything that can be done to stop these farms.
This is one of the reasons we built the hoop house. The hemp pollen in Illinois was crazy before legalization. Now it's even worse. We used weed barrier fabric and screen sandwiched together as a filter where the roll up side openings are and at each end. It worked out pretty good considering we didn't get seeded this year and there's a hemp farm just down the road.
 
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TaoRich

Well-Known Member
I had to give up my outdoor grows since a commercial hemp farm started up near me. All my plants go to seed.
Yep. It's impossible to do an urban backyard grow in South Africa without getting some seeded bud.

Luckily, it's all cannabis from fellow enthusiasts, and not commercial hemp. Admittedly, we'd all prefer for them to wise up and bin bag cover-and-seal their males and dispose of responsibility, but it's not a train smash.

And it is interesting to play lucky dice roll with the resulting seeds. You never know what surprise random hybrids you're gonna get for next year's grow.

Given a wind borne pollen travel potential of 5km minimum, chances are that each of our females have multiple daddy impregnators.

Historically, local South African weed that we buy was all outdoor, and mostly semi-skilled farmers. We're used to seed in our weed. We're used to processing it.
 

ComfortCreator

Well-Known Member
The hemp farm thing is just total bulsxxx!

We all know that many people suffer from diseases and other problems, and some are helped by cannabis.

But the "everybody wants to grow hemp" sxxx going on is a sick, pathetic attempt at grabbing profits from the latest craze...cbd.

Ive heard many growers talking about it...they want to grow cbd, they want to make seeds and sell the seeds for a profit even though they wouldnt know a good pheno if it smoked itself for them.

Totally fxxxxxx sad that the reason we will never have great outdoor grows again is because greedy fxxxxxx want to pretend they are curing people with cbd.
 

TaoRich

Well-Known Member
The hemp farm thing is just total bulsxxx!
No disrespect dude, and I certainly do feel for people who have their prime lovingly tended cannabis grows messed with by cross-pollination ...

But hemp ain't just for CBD.

Are you aware that the drive to have 'Marijuana' illegalised was supported by Du Pont lobbying in the US.

His company invented nylon, and they wanted to snuff out the Hemp fibre market by demonising all Cannabis commercial cultivation.

( in fact, the term Marijuana was chosen to scaremonger in the eyes of the public by creating a mental association with "The Mexicans" - and it is still is the legal term in the US penal code )

Hemp fibre has a huge future role to play in a greener and more sustainable future by getting us away from plastics and man-made non-biodegradable synthetics.

Chances are that the 'first settlers' in the US arrived in ships that had sails made from hemp, rope made from hemp, hemp seed oil lamps and a host of other natural products.

All of those industries and farmers were shut down under the "illegal drug" legislation, and replaced by industrialized factories that ingrained our world dependence on oil based products, and created a demand for urban slaves working for The Man.
 

TaoRich

Well-Known Member
( in fact, the term Marijuana was chosen to scaremonger in the eyes of the public by creating a mental association with "The Mexicans" - and it is still is the legal term in the US penal code )
Oh ... and in South Africa ... we had a similar situation.

'Dagga' was chosen as the term used in (White majority) newspapers for precisely the same reason.

It was the 'local native' term and created a similar fear amongst the White ruling class.

It's pronounced in a very guttral way ... the double 'gg' sounds like you are clearing a frog in your throat.

The same with 'marijuana' ... it is pronounced with a 'foreign' accent.

An excellent - if insidious - choice if you want to put the fear of God into conservative voters.
 

Jimbo the Gael

Well-Known Member
This is one of the reasons we built the hoop house. The hemp pollen in Illinois was crazy before legalization. Now it's even worse. We used weed barrier fabric and screen sandwiched together as a filter where the roll up side openings are and at each end. It worked out pretty good considering we didn't get seeded this year and there's a hemp farm just down the road.
Never heard of that fabric. Is it a specific product?
I'm not sure if my plants got pollinated (lightly) by a fairly distant neighbour, a hemp farm, or one of the many massive illegal grows that got busted this year.
I'm testing one of the seeds right now, so I'm kinda hoping it's from a male in one of the illegal grows, or from the legal outdoor rec grow op, rather than hemp. Unseeded weed would be better though. I liked to make my own crosses when I grew indoors, so having control over the pollination of my plants outdoors would be best.
 
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