Story: Pot growers have become purveyors of taste and enablers of style

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It's 9 o'clock in the morning when "Ace" begins his regular "wake and bake" routine of brushing his teeth, brewing a pot of coffee and rolling a joint.

Today he has a job to do, and he won't have to leave his home to do it. In a spare bedroom in his northeast Dallas duplex, 35 fully mature marijuana plants are in bloom, their buds ready to be picked and hung out to dry. Harvesting them will take all day, and by the time all of the buds have been trimmed, cured, weighed and bagged a week from now, Ace will be ready to introduce his latest "boutique" strain of marijuana to his faithful clientele. Two weeks later, he'll sanitize his grow room, plant a new crop and begin the process again. On average, he manages four or five good crops a year, each earning him more than $10,000, not to mention all the weed he can smoke.

Sure beats waiting in traffic to go sit in a cubicle--if you don't mind committing a felony.

Ace has been at it for nearly 20 years, starting with a single plant he kept in a 5-gallon plastic pickle bucket in his backyard. He soon discovered an indoor method of cultivation known as hydroponics (see sidebar), which was initially perfected for marijuana by a handful of farmers in Northern California. Hydro farmers use high-intensity lights attached to timers to illuminate their crops. Instead of soil, their plants grow in rock or other media and are fed by nutrients dissolved in water. The result is a cleaner and healthier specimen.

When hydroponically grown marijuana first hit the streets, the word was that the technique produced a higher concentration of THC, the chemical in pot that gets you high. Growers later realized that it wasn't the process but the plant's genetics that made the difference. This led to a fixation on cross-pollinating specific strains of "designer" marijuana and ultimately resulted in the creation of a radical restructuring of prices.

Back in the day, weed was cheap. These days good marijuana costs more than Prada perfume.

Ace is a professional musician by trade, but he has growing marijuana indoors down to a science. Getting there wasn't easy.

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http://dallasobserver.com/Issues/2005-10-13/news/feature_print.html

Will you marry me?

:loveya: :loveya: :loveya:

IF we were to make the largest cash crop in America legal.

Stop Cannabis Prohibition

While I'm busy making sense - take he sale of pot away from the 'drug dealers' and marijuana will no longer be the 'bridge drug' as some think that it can be now.