WWeed Grow-Off Week 13

The signs of fall are all around us.

On July 1, recreational weed became legal in Oregon. One of the things that means is that everyone can now legally grow up to four marijuana plants. Here at Willamette Week, we were so excited that we decided to have an old-fashioned office grow-off. All of our plants started the same size and they are all the P-91 strain, but each department elected to grow its plants in different ways.

See previous installments of our weed growing journey here.

The signs of fall are all around us, so you can count on a few things: We will all contemplate the exact meaning of the word irony as we drive to Beaverton to make a clandestine pumpkin-spice latte buy. We will all pull out our thrift-store sweater and even consider grabbing a coat on the way out the door (it's so cold in the mornings!) before eventually fucking up our deodorant when it gets hot on our way back from lunch. We will all contemplate strangling our co-worker with that stupid-ass Dickensian street urchin scarf he pulls out this time of year (we're all on the same page about that scarf, right?) These things are unavoidable.

The weed plants, however, have other things on their minds. Namely: damaging frosty mornings and the fast approaching harvest.

Liz

20150929_153503 The first nug of the season

It's now Week 12 and Matt from Events says they will likely harvest in the next week. This sample was taken early so Events could "test the potency," (read: hot box the Events office). The grow-off, however, is not a race, and while Liz will certainly rank highly in the competition, it will be interesting to see if Addi's crop surpasses Liz's through her longer period of growth.

Addi

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That light, dandruffy dusting on the central leaves is the first development of trichomes for Addi. Fun fact: when viewed with a jeweler's lens, these little dots look like tiny phalluses and are home to the highest concentration of THC and CBD in the plant. Once these are visible to the naked eye (as they are here) harvest will be on its way.

Candis

As is the case with Addi, we are now starting to see tiny trichomes on the central leaves of the flower. It reads more as texture, or lack of clarity in the photograph. And while my photography often yields that response, in this case, it's actually a sign that Candis is maturing nicely. Unlike all the indoor-grown plants, however, Candis will be sensitive to the coming colder weather. We made need to move her inside before any frosty mornings can do damage to our final crop.

Bootsy

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Bootsy is a little bit behind in the grow-off. Harvest is likely still several weeks out considering her most mature flowers are just a little pubic tuft of tendrils like this. I suspect some members of the office will be getting itchy to partake of their bounty before Bootsy even starts developing trichomes.

Oscar

Despite the fact that it looks like somebody just crushed it in their hand, this strange tangle of tendrils and leaves is actually a relatively mature flower. Oscar has a few near this stage and will likely cross the harvest finish line around the same time as Addi and Candis, albeit with a fraction of those plants' yields.

Reggie

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I'm actually not sure if this is just a tomato plant and we've been mistaken from the beginning.

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