How to Grow Medical Marijuana at Home in Oklahoma

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With the recent passing of HB 2612, medical marijuana patients in Oklahoma can now grow marijuana in their own homes. If you would like to know how to grow marijuana in Oklahoma, look no further! Since cultivating marijuana in your home can get tricky (i.e., completing the necessary paperwork, managing the legal plant limits, ensuring that you're compliant with security regulations, etc.), it's best to learn what you need to do before getting started.

If you're not a registered medical marijuana patient, that's a great place to start. NuggMD's secure and convenient telemedicine platform can get you set up with an Oklahoma weed doctor and help you get your card in no time. The appointment takes less than an hour, and the best part is as long as you have a webcam, you don't even have to leave your couch.

Oklahoma's Medical Marijuana Growing Rules

In order to grow medical marijuana at home, you'll first need to get your Oklahoma patient medical marijuana license. To do this, you need to get a doctor's recommendation by a Oklahoma state-licensed medical marijuana doctor and submit the recommendation along with a completed medical marijuana patient application to the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority. If accepted, you should receive your identification card in the mail 7-10 business days later.

With a patient card, you are eligible to possess up to 3 ounces on your person, and 8 ounces (half a pound) in your home. You no longer need to stress about the gram-bag that you misplaced; those days are behind us.

As a marijuana patient, you're also eligible to grow 12 cannabis plants. If you plan to cultivate marijuana at home, you must own the property where you plan to grow or acquire written consent from the landlord of the property. The documentation can be a letter or email, or an addendum to your lease stating you have permission to grow marijuana on the premises.

In Oklahoma, most municipalities have zoning laws that you must abide by if you live within a particular jurisdiction. You will want to check with your city government to see what, if any, restrictions you have regarding your property. If your local municipality requires that marijuana cultivation only takes place on industrial or commercial properties, and your property is considered residential, you will not be able to grow marijuana at home.

How Many Medical Marijuana Plants Can Patients Grow in Oklahoma?

According to HB 2612, any medical marijuana patient in the state of Oklahoma can grow 6 mature plants and 6 immature plants at any given time. Mature and immature, also known as flowering and vegetative, are terms that describe the stage of a marijuana plant's life. Additionally, many cannabis growers also keep a batch of clones or seedlings to maintain a continuous succession of crops.

Clones or seedlings are infant marijuana plants which precede the vegetative stage of the growth cycle. You can have six seedling plants in addition to your six mature plants. This allows patients to maintain a fairly steady supply of fresh flower.

Oklahoma's Security Requirements for Personal Medical Marijuana Grows

According to HB 2612, Oklahoman's that grow marijuana at home should ensure that the marijuana plants are not visible to a person standing on a street adjacent to their house. While the law does not prohibit medical marijuana patients from growing outdoors on their property, the same rule applies, and the plants should not be visible to any passerby.

If you're concerned about your 2nd amendment right as a marijuana patient, worry not. Those who choose to bear arms as a method of protection and security may still do so under HB 2612. Section 8.E. states that,

No state or local agency, municipal or county governing authority shall restrict, revoke, suspend or otherwise infringe upon the right of a person to own, purchase or possess a firearm, ammunition, or firearm accessories or any related firearms license or certification based solely on their status as a medical marijuana patient or caregiver licensee.

How to Find Marijuana Seeds Legally in Oklahoma

The cannabis plant can reproduce sexually or asexually—either from seeds or clones. Cloning is an asexual way of making genetic duplicates of a plant. If you cut off part of a plant and re-plant that portion in soil, it will soon grow a root mass and become a genetic duplicate of the original plant. So, in essence, you've produced an infant version of the original plant, but it wasn't through the traditional cross-pollination process.

There are pros and cons to starting your crop from seeds or clones. Once you weigh out your options, you should also consider the accessibility factor—what can you readily acquire. Not all dispensaries sell seeds and clones, but some will sell one or the other.

If you decide you want to start your first crop from seeds, where should you get them? To be compliant with HB 2612, you should find and buy seeds from your local dispensary. Currently, the laws prohibit marijuana or marijuana by-products from crossing state lines, and the majority of online seed companies are in Canada or California.

At this time, buying cannabis seeds online is not permitted since they will likely be mailed from another state or country.

Tips for Cultivating Marijuana at Home in Oklahoma

There are hundreds of books that have been written on the many factors that go into cultivating high-quality marijuana. While this is not an exhaustive list of all the dos and don'ts of growing cannabis, here are a few tips that can help you get you off to the right start.

Clean work station

First, you must treat your cultivation facility like a laboratory. It should be immaculate to avoid contaminating your plants with certain types of bacteria. You'll also want to ensure that your workspace is clean to mitigate the risk of bug infestation. There is any given number of things that can ruin your crop, and it is better to err on the side of caution when setting up your cultivation facility.

Maintain a rotation of crops in different stages of growth

As mentioned previously, under HB 2612, you are permitted to grow 6 mature plants and 6 immature plants. To keep a continuous supply of medical cannabis readily available, you need to keep your crop in a continuously rotating cycle of vegetative plants and flowering plants.

Traditional growing practices suggest that you dispose of a plant after it harvests. To turn over a new crop every few weeks, once you harvest the plants in the flowering stage, you'll want to make sure you have a batch of vegetative plants ready to take their place.

The same is true for the plants in the vegetative stage—once you move those plants to the flowering stage, you'll want to get a batch of clones to take their place. Most marijuana plants have between an 8-13 week flowering cycle. So once you have established a continuous rotation of crops in different stages of the growing cycle, you should be able to harvest every 8-13 weeks.

Cultivation Climate

While this plant is quite adaptable, it does not fare well under extreme weather conditions. So if you plan to do an outdoor grow, you should be familiar with the climate if you wish for your crop to thrive and produce high-quality buds. However, even if you plan for indoor cultivation, it comes with the challenge of always running air conditioning and lights. These electric bills can get very pricey!

In Oklahoma, the best time of year for growing marijuana is spring—you'll want to plant your crops in March or April. That doesn't mean that cannabis can't be grown at other times of the year however; it just means that you should take more precautionary steps to maintain the proper temperature range. Sustained temperatures above 86 Fahrenheit or under 55 Fahrenheit will stress your plants out, affect the yield and quality of the end product, or potentially lead to the death of the plant.

Experimentation is Key to Marijuana Cultivation in Oklahoma

Similar to gardening, everybody has their own belief about what works and what doesn't. Cannabis is no different! If you talk to 10 growers, you'll get 10 different answers. As you begin to refine your methodology, you'll realize that cultivation is an iterative process. It takes methodical experimentation with the numerous variables to produce the kind of cannabis that you enjoy consuming.

We also shouldn't disregard the therapeutic and relaxing effects of growing cannabis. It's a very grounding activity to roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty, and nurture a living, breathing plant. You get to watch this tiny little seed blossom into something you're proud to show your friends—and maybe even family? And on top of all of that, there are few things in life more rewarding than smoking something that you grew yourself.

Conclusion

NuggMD is ready to help you get started! Through our secure telemedicine platform, we provide Oklahoma medical marijuana evaluations to patients seeking to get their Oklahoma MMJ cards.

The best part about our online portal is that you aren't required to go sit in a stuffy waiting room. In fact, you can have your evaluation done all from the comfort and safety of your own home.

OurOklahoma weed doctors can help you access the cannabis you deserve, all for a low $99, and in the event that you're not approved for medical marijuana, you won't be charged! You can't go wrong here! Get started today and book your appointment!