Miracle-Gro Makes A Play For The Medical Marijuana Market

Miracle-Gro seems to have finally gotten hip to the fact that lots of people use its chemical fertilizer to grow marijuana — and that with a little marketing, that number could get a lot, well, higher.

In an unusual move for the head of such a large company, Scotts Miracle-Gro Company CEO Jim Hagedorn said he is “exploring” targeting medical marijuana cultivators to boost sales at his lawn and garden supply firm, reports Dana Mattioli at The Wall Street Journal.

“I want to target the pot market,” Hagedorn said in an interview. “There’s no good reason we haven’t.”

Sales at Scott’s aren’t exactly suffering. In fact, they rose five percent last year, to $2.9 billion. But the company, based in Marysville, Ohio, relies on sales at three mega-retailers — Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Wal-Mart — for almost two-thirds of its revenue. But with those big-box retailers not building new stores as quickly as they used to, it appears the CEO wants to “diversify.”

Photo: cnet.tv

Scotts Miracle-Gro CEO Jim Hagedorn: “I want to target the pot market. There’s no good reason we haven’t.”

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Hagedorn is pushing is regional sales presidents to look for smaller pockets of growth — such as, you guessed it, the marijuana market — that together could produce a noticeable boost in sales.

Sixteen states have legalized medical marijuana, and the market will reach $1.7 billion in sales this year, according to a report by See Change Strategy LLC, an information data services company.

While that report focuses on revenue from growers and dispensaries, the market for companies selling ancillary supplies such as hydroponic equipment and nutrients is also thriving, according to Kris Lotlikar, president of See Change.

“We see very good growth for these types of companies as the medical marijuana business grows,” Lotlikar said.

Photo: Lowe’s

From preventing weeds to growing them?

​ While Hagedorn’s upfront desire to enter the medical marijuana market may still be a little unusual for a major CEO, he has never been a typical sort of chief executive. A former F-16 fighter pilot, Hagedorn flies his personal Cessna to and from meetings in Port Washington, New York, where he grew up, and the company’s headquarters in Ohio, “much to the chagrin of his board,” the Journal reports.

He also has a propensity for swear words and military references, and reportedly showed up at the office at least one day this month in jeans and sneakers.

Hagedorn took over Miracle-Gro from his father, who co-founded the company. According to the Journal, he would likely buy niche companies that already exist, rather than trying to create Miracle-Gro’s own line of branded marijuana nutrient products.

The transition into a marijuana-friendly company could have some interesting and awkward moments, given the fact that many of Miracle-Gro’s products, such as “Shake ‘n Feed” are designed to prevent “weeds,” rather than nurture them.

Raids on marijuana growing operations have already turned up Miracle-Gro products. Hagedorn said he takes that as a good sign of brand awareness, but he fears some growers could be reluctant to use such a “mainstream” product — and something tells me he’s about to find out how strong the “organic” movement continues to be in cannabis cultivation.

Yes, lots of medical marijuana patients much prefer organically grown weed — and who can blame them? When I use my medicine, I want to taste plants, not chemicals.

Build A Stealth Grow Box For Less Than $150

This post was written by the HMJ Grow Expert ThisBuds4You, Click here to read more by this author

Howdy fellow HMJane-ers! Welcome to your FIRST stealth grow installment with ME, ThisBuds4You!!! I will show you how I made a STEALTH chest of drawers (dresser) for less than $150 and YOU CAN TOO. In 3 months you will be puffin’ on your own homegrown for less than the cost of a half ounce of herb. A little know how, a couple tools and a few items from your neighborhood hardware supplier and you’ll be growing in no time! This box should produce 5-6 ounces of A-Quality bud every grow cycle (60 days). This box also uses only 300 watts of power, about the same amount as a standard desktop computer.

Details about this dresser

It took 2 -8 hour days to complete this grow box. This dresser is comprised of 2 growing chambers, 1 for flowering your buds and the other for keeping your mother plant and young clones. The mother plant and clones are kept under 24-18 hours of light and your flowering plants are under 12 hours of light. I used 250 actual watts of power in the flowering chamber. This should give us around 5-6 ounces of bud every grow cycle (60 days) depending on the strain, nutrients, grow medium, etc. I will get into nutrients, caring for your plants, etc in future articles. Alright, enough talk, lets get growing!!!

 

 

Here are a few tools you will need:

Tools Needed for the job

Drill & Drill bits (standard sizes)
Jigsaw
2″ hole saw drill bit
Phillips Screwdriver
Rubber mallet or hammer
Staple Gun & Staples
Tape Measure
Sharpie Marker
Carpenter’s Knife
White caulk, NOT CLEAR
Scissors
Sandpaper
Wood Glue (not necessary, but nice to have)

If you don’t have all the tools, BORROW THEM FROM YOUR FRIENDS & FAMILY! If they ask you why you need them, make up some bullshit! I didn’t want to spend $20 on a hole saw drill bit so I borrowed it, just ask!

Supplies you will need to complete your box:
Dresser – $30
6′x10′ of Panda film – $10
1 – 4′x2′ 0.25″ MDF or Hardboard (I prefer MDF) – $4.50
9 Ceramic light fixtures – $11.43
About 8 ft of lamp cord – FREE
3 standard plugs (for lamp cord) – FREE
Duct fan (I used a 6″ but a 4″ is also sufficient) – $16.00
3 – 120mm computer fans – $13.50
2 – 80mm (standard) computer fans – FREE
1 standard computer power supply & tester – Power supply FREE, Tester – $12.00
9 CFL bulbs (I used a mix of 42 and 23 watt bulbs) – $35.00
2 Hinges – $2.00
2 Magnetic Closures – $3.00
1 power strip – $2.47
1 piece of plexi glass 3mm thick – FREE

1 thermometer – $10.00

2 timers – $8.00

Misc items (not necessary but nice to have)

8 door/cabinet pulls (not necessary but a very nice touch) – $10

1 carbon scrubber (i got the smallest one CAN FILTER makes) – $39.00 if you are concerned about odor, this is a MUST

Money Saving Tips

1. Re-purpose the wood from inside the dresser! I got an old ass dresser that was probably hand-built by some old pioneer and I was able to reuse a lot of the wood. I only had to purchase 1 new piece of wood (the MDF) for the back door.

2. Get an old junked computer and use the fans and power supply from that, you can probably find one for free, I did.

3. Check the free section of craiglist for dressers, computers, etc. If you can’t find free ones, pretty sure you can find cheap ones. I got my dresser for $30.

4. Don’t pay for lamp cords! Find some old ass lamps in the garbage, free section of craigslist or whatever and use those. Just cut them off from the lamp and wa la!

Disassembling the dresser
Take great care in taking the dresser apart. We took time taking it apart and ended up being able to reuse most of the wood from the dresser. We took apart the drawers and used the bottoms to make the front face that the drawer fronts attached to. We also used the bottom of the drawers for the floors of our new grow box.

Now, I’m not going to get into too much detail from here on out; the pictures are pretty self-explanatory. If you’ve got any questions, feel free to fire away!

The Beginning
Here’s the dresser untouched

Dresser untouched

First, we took all the drawers out and began to take those apart with a rubber mallet

Drawer dis-assembly

Drawer dis-assembly

Here’s the dresser completely gutted (except for the top shelf, I left that in so we could mount the exhaust fans and run the power through there)

Dresser gutted

Then we attached one of the drawer bottoms to the front of the dresser, so we would have something to screw the drawer fronts to

Dresser with support board

Then we attached the drawer fronts with the new drawer handles/pulls

Dresser with drawers attached

Once that was completed we cut a 6″ hole on the inside top shelf we left in and we also added a partition wall in the middle with a hole cut out for a 120 mm fan. We also cut holes in the top of our flowering chamber for the 2-120mm fans we will mount there. Be sure to run caulk around the edges on the inside of the dresser so we don’t have an issue with light leaks. I also cut 4 pieces of wood the same depth as the dresser and screwed them into the bottom. These are going to support our new floors.

Boards mounted, holes cut

Partition wall with hole cut

Next, make your floors from the scrap drawer bottoms. I drilled holes in them with a 2″ hole saw bit for air flow. Air is your best friend in these small spaces! I lined the floor of the veg room with panda film, I’m making a separate tray to place the plants in the flowering area so I did not line that floor with panda film

Vegetative chamber floor

Flowering chamber floor

Next, line the entire interior of the dresser with panda film and install the floors

Dresser lined with Panda film

Now, time for the lights. I daisy-chained all the lights together and mounted them to some scrap 1/2″ board I had laying around. You can use pieces of the dresser drawers for this also.

Ceramic fixtures

Lamp cord plug

Break time with Sweetwater 420 and Mandala Hashberry

Break Time

Now for the fans, I used 3-120 mm fans. I’m using 2 in the ceiling to exhaust hot air out of the flowering chamber (the lights will be sealed off by a piece of plexi glass), and 1 fan will be blowing air from the flowering chamber into the veg chamber. I powered these fans with a PC power supply. I got a power supply tester so the power supply would power the fans.

120mm fans

Power supply with tester

Now, mount the fans and the lights. I mounted 2-80 mm computer fans in the corners of the flowering box, air flow is our best friend in these small spaces!

Lights and fans mounted

Exhaust fans for lights in flowering chamber

PC fans mounted, exhaust fans for flowering chamber lights

Hinges attached to door

Hinges attached

Magnetic closures attached

Vegetative chamber up and running!!!

Flowering chamber with plexi glass installed
Lights on!

Flowering chamber with plexi glass installed

Door installed on back of dresser, still need to get a piece of hardboard to attach across the top of the back…

Back of dresser

Grow box is done!

Front of dresser, DONE!

Any questions, feel free to fire away. Overgrow the world!!!

TB4U

http://hailmaryjane.com/build-a-stealth-grow-box-for-less-than-150/

Superfast Computers Triggering Botched Marijuana Grow Raids

Photo: Bitcoin Miner

Turns out, looking only at electric usage from a residence, the consumption for bitcoin mining won’t look much different from a marijuana grow-op. Cue clueless cops.

You don’t have to be growing marijuana to get raided for it. At least one Bitcoin miner has been raided by police because unusually high power usage led them to suspect he was growing marijuana, according to unconfirmed reports on Monday.

The tip comes from an IRC chat captured by blogger Mike Esspe, though there are no corroborating details, reports Jerry Brito of Techland.

Bitcoin is the anonymous virtual currency that uses distributed computing power to validate online coins. “It’s like gold mining, except that instead of digging, a miner uses cryptographic math,” reports Techland.

Screen capture: Mike Esspe

Does this mean, that with the growing number of bitcoin miners, courts will stop issuing warrants based on energy bills? Not bloody likely.

Like clandestine indoor marijuana growing operations, Bitcoin mining uses large amounts of electricity and runs up big power bills. It does this because it employs super-fast computers.

High power consumption has often alerted police to marijuana growing operations and has thus led to busts.

“The Canadian town of Mission, B.C. has a bylaw that allows the town’s Public Safety Inspection Team to search people’s homes for grow ops if they are using more than 93 kWh of electricity per day,” according to the blog Bitcoin Miner.

Though a typical mining rig will consume only a fraction of that amount, Bitcoin miners are adding capacity, and with multiple rigs, more and more miners are exceeding the level which triggers police interest, according to the blog.

Residents have been charged a $5,200 inspection fee – even if no marijuana or signs of a grow operation are found, reports Cam Tucker at the Delta Optimist.

Some Mission residents who feel their rights have been violated by the arbitrary searches, and have begun a class-action lawsuit against the District of Mission in B.C. Supreme Court.

There had already been speculation that mining Bitcoins will bring unwanted and misdirected attention from the police.

“I’m still waiting for the first bitcoin grow-op raid,” a Bitcoin mining pioneer had commented on an IRC channel back in January.

Increasingly ubiquitous supercomputing could lead to more and more false positives, not just for Bitcoin miners, but for hardcore gamers too, as well as anyone running video rendering farms or web servers from home, according to Techland.

“It will be interesting to see how courts will adapt to such uses when interpreting reasonable suspicion standards,” Brito writes.

Does this mean, that with the growing number of Bitcoin miners, courts will stop issuing warrants based on energy bills? Not bloody likely.

http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/05/superfast_computers_triggering_botched_marijuana_g.php#more