there have been a great deal of new developments in the last week here in the bay are. A cannabis club was raided by the DEA on Thursday morning and by late after noon anybody who is a member of NORML or The Marijuana Policy Project had received an email regarding the raid.
Also this weekend my friend and I we went into the Oakland to get a feel for the mood in the city and to visit Blue Sky Coffee Shop and dispensary which is one of the four sanctioned clubs in the city. More than just a coffe shop it is also the flagship Club for the Oaksterdam community.
So to recap the raid by the DEA no one knows for sure just yet why it was raided but according to the DEA the club was not following or adhering well enough to state law but beyond that they would not comment. In reality I think the feeling is that the DEA just want to send a statement and intimidate the clubs while at the same time test the Obama administrations policy.
The belief seems to be that they (the DEA) wants to see how much power they still hold and how far they can push before the twig breaks and they overstep the boundaries. Frankly it is bullshit and I think they are on an ego trip. By choosing San Francisco over L.A. or anyt other city they are sending a message and know they will get news coverage and spread fear.
Anyways we cannot live in fear and I was glad to see that things were still quiet at the Coffee Shop Blue Sky. The coffee is incredibly good and the clone selection is very nice. For those of you who are interested I have included copies of the last two clone catalogs that they have published. Note that only the varieties in Winter 2009 catalog are currently available. Seed is also available from DJ short at the dispensary. Also show up really early because clones get sold out quickly. There were people there from all over the Bay Area. Modesto was represented and as far north as Napa County and even one from a county too far away to mention online but lets just say that that person left with a smile on his face especialy after having spent the night in a hotel waiting for their elite Purple Kush clones.
Show up atleast a half hour before they open but don't be too surprised if you are not the first person inline. We showed up on a Friday an hour early and there were already 12 people in line ahead of us. Don't be discouraged if you show up late though unless you show up after noon when they are sure to have run out.
Enjoy the catalog and thank god you live int he BayArea. Coming up in May we will do a peice on the Nirvana Seed Company out of the Netherlands.
Shout out to Danny from up North and good luck.
Water Cooled Lights !!! Liquid Lumens
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2 x 600 watt lights on Liquid Lumens water cooled System
Note how close the hoods are to each other
Look how close the lights are to the tops of the plants on the left
1/4 horse power water chiller
The trade off here is that you loose some lumens in the water as it passes through. The other is that the water chiller puts out a lot of heat so you have to either put tht in another room or vent it out to the outside. You might say why bother then. Well the answer is a water chiller uses a lot less electricity than an air conditioner. Also the water chiller can be avoided all together if you have a large enough reservoir. In the later senario you would need a huge reservoir but the savings in air conditioning are incredible.
The room is very cramped so I can understand the water cooling and the air cooling which works two functions as she mentioned that "It removes hot air off the bulbs directly and removes stale oxygen rich air out of the room". One curious thing I also noted was there is no fan circulating in the small room which she said "I don't need one to blow the hot air off the tops of the plants because there is no scorching hot air but I am going to get one because it would help to circulate the air around the leaves to increase resperation." I noticed the temperature under the bulb was incredibly cool, I could even touch the glass, under any other circumstances you could never fit two 600 watt bulbs in there much less touch the glass of the hood for more than a few seconds.
One thing she did mention was that she probably could fit two 1,000 watt bulbs in her room but the cost would be too much and she would probably have to get CO2 to justify the added light. Last thing I noticed was she had a 30 gallon reservoir which held all the water for the system. I didn't take a picture of it because I forgot and besides it was only a plastic garbage can.
The system was impressive however according to her the yield as of yet is not very impressive. maybe only an ounce per plant. But she mentioned it probably had more to do with her fertilizer schedule and because it is a legal garden in California she has to grow only 6 plants that are taller as apposed to the sea of green method adopted by others to increase yields. She says she could probably squeeze out a pound using Hydro and more plants from the same space but she gets enough to treat her back problems from a spinal deformity aka Scoliosis.
I will return to this garden in the fall to check up on her progress and take more picture maybe even some video. Thanks to the grower. If anyone has any questions regarding this post some comments and I'll write back with more information regarding the system. Next time I will be visiting Oakland, California Oaksterdam here we come.
Welcome
First I would like to welcome you all to my blog. There are a few loose ends I have to tie up before it is fully functioning, but I feel I am off to a good start. The Point of this blog is to chronicle what will be the next year or so of me diving head first into the cannabis industry. There are a lot of things I hope to provide you with which will peek your interest and have scheduled for this year. I will be attending the Oaksterdam University in Oakland, California and will be bloging about it starting in June of 2009. I have scheduled the review of a small scale medical garden that uses water cooled HID lights "Liquid Lumens" for those of you who have been waiting for this. There will be interviews with cannabis personalities and legislators and reviews of equiptment, clubs and seeds and clones.
I warn you I have bad punctuation and close to terrible spelling, but the content will be first rate in terms of relevance.
So anyways, welcome and stay tuned, I intend on updating once a week on Mondays.
