Reverend Hemp's Oaksterdam Mother Rooms

Ready-to-flower plants sell for $80 each
Oakland, California is the most progressive US city in regards to medicinal cannabis. I spent days in March and April 2007 exploring its dispensaries and medicinal clubs, and was struck by the professionalism of the staff and the organized systems that make up the distribution chain. This photo-essay takes a look at the cannabis clones (fresh rooted cuttings) and mother plants that medical patients can purchase from the clubs. There are two rooms photographed; one is the mother room, which is 50-feet by 25-feet with a 12-foot ceiling, while the clone room is 12-feet by 8-feet with a 12-foot ceiling.

Medical marijuana patients are sick and infirm, usually with very little money, and often confined to a wheelchair or in some other awkward mobility situation. But if they are able to grow their own medicine, they can cheaply purchase ready-to-go plants. Typically, a clone comes in a 6-inch by 6-inch rock wool cube, stands 4 to 8 inches tall, has roots showing on the bottom, and retails for US$8.00. The mother plants have been in vegetative growth under 24 hours of light for 3 months and stand 2 to 3 feet tall. They retail for US$60 to $80 each. Patients who buy mother plants put them under a 12/12 (light/dark) lighting regime right away and can have smokeable product within 8 to 10 weeks, depending on the strain. A few patients use mother plants to take their own cuttings for

gardens.
Freshly rooted cuttings for $8 each
Master grower “Reverend Hemp” looks after cannabis plants in a huge sprawling central Oakland warehouse, which is wired up to produce thousands of plants every month. Reverend Hemp started growing in 1991 after he went to Amsterdam for the first time and purchased seeds. This is what is called a commercial medicinal room; it supplies dispensaries, which are all fully legal and regulated by the City of Oakland and Oakland Health Department. One dispensary collects and remits to the state of California $100,000 in sales taxes on about $1,300,000 in annual sales!

The 200 plants in the mother room are watered every 2 to 3 days, depending on humidity and plant maturity. The nutrients used are “Advanced Nutrients Sensi Grow” at 700 parts-per-million (PPM) with a 6.0pH level. The mothers are growing on coco fibre in seven-gallon pots and are watered by hand. There are ten 1000-watt High Pressure Sodium (HPS) lights in the mother room on a 24-hour lights-on regime. The ventilation system is made up with circulating fans, but no air filters in or out – there isn’t a smell problem with mother plants, as they have no buds.

There are about 40 plants of each strain. The varieties include Odyssey, a real workhorse produced from cuttings that’s fast, vigorous, and mildew resistant; Purple Kush, a very popular strain produced from cuttings, though it has a lower yield than Odyssey; Hindu Kush x Skunk #1, also from cuttings, is a space-efficient sativa/indica cross with a lot of resin, and spicy flavour; AK-47 is a stabilized strain grown from seed; and White Widow is another stabilized strain also grown from seed.
Rooted cutting in 4" x 4" rockwool cube
The AK-47 is a very vigorous plant that branches wildly; Odyssey is also very branchy and fast. Both produce the right kind of branching to take many, many cuttings, perhaps twice as many as can be taken from the Purple Kush, which does not produce nearly as much branching.

There are 3000 to 4000 rooted clones in the cutting (clone) room at any given time. Rev. Hemp creates about 500 clones a day, seven days a week. The cuttings root after about one week, then are shipped out to the many medicinal clubs in the Oakland area. The clone room has twenty-four twin 40-watt florescent light fittings: Each twin has one 50/50 “cool white” 3-foot light tube and one 3-foot “daylight” tube. The lights are on 24-hours, and a 1000-watt HPS light in the room is turned on for a few hours every day to add a little hardening to the older clones.

Watering occurs every day in the clone room. The clones are each hand dipped into a 12-gallon drum to ensure that every one is properly saturated. This is tedious work but guarantees none of the clones are neglected. The “Sensi Bloom” formula at 250 to 300 PPM is used for the clones with a pH of 5.8, and according to Rev. Hemp, the phosphorus in “Sensi Bloom” encourages fast root growth. The clones are growing in 4-inch by 4-inch by 3-inch rock-wool cubes. The cuttings are dipped in liquid rooting hormone, as Rev. Hemp is unhappy with the results of using rooting gel. The nursery is kept at 80 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit with 60-80% humidity. After one week the roots begin to show; the purple Kush takes a day or two longer.

There were no insects or molds when I photographed this clone factory, but when asked, Rev. Hemp commented, “I have had a few spider mites once, and got rid of them pretty easily. I had a few aphids, and the occasional powdery mildew, which I burn sulphur for. Being a supply house, I am pretty strict about the plants having no problems when they go out the door; all the plants we give to patients are free of diseases and mites when they leave the premises.”