Hydrolife Magazine December 2017/January 2018 [USA EDITION]

JORGE CERVANTES
HORTICULTURE & ADVOCACY
Jorge Cervantes is one of the most recognizable names
in cannabis cultivation. His famous book Marijuana
Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower’s Bible can
be found on the bookshelves of marijuana horticulturists
the world over. Cervantes’s real name is George Van Patten.
He created his infamous alias—which includes a notorious
disguise with a black beret and dreadlocks—during the
1980s. As Cervantes rose to the forefront of marijuana
cultivation advocacy efforts during the prohibition-heavy era
of the War on Drugs, his disguise and alias were necessary
measures of survival. Over the last 35 years, Cervantes
informed entire generations about cannabis horticulture
and techniques through his books, compiling the first known
work dedicated to indoor gardening.
Cervantes’s fabled relationship to the cannabis plant
began during the 1970s. During this time, he experimented
with illegal, guerilla grow operations in the mountains
outside of Santa Barbara, CA, as well as indoor grows in
Portland, Oregon. After experimenting heavily with various
indoor gardening equipment set-ups and techniques, Cervantes
realized that there was a total lack of information
available on the market concerning his trade. As a result,
while operating in secrecy as well as under an assumed
identity for the first time, Cervantes wrote and self-published
the first book on indoor marijuana growing, Indoor
Marijuana Horticulture. To put this notion in perspective,
cannabis gardeners in 2017 can effortlessly access volumes
of information on cultivation from endless resources online
and in print, and get detailed nutrient formulations and
feeding schedules from hydroponic shops. Things were
quite different 30 years ago.
Cervantes also set the foundations for the modern hydroponic
store and culture, starting his own shop called Jorge
Cervantes’s Indoor Garden Store and contributing to the
technological advancements of indoor cultivation equipment.
To elaborate, Cervantes designed and sold his own
HID lighting systems, eventually inventing reflective hoods.
Reflective hoods are now used in almost every growroom
in the entire world, as they supply cannabis plants with 40
per cent more light than previous technologies. Point being,
the modern grow book, cannabis magazine, and hydroponic
store would not be what they are today without the brazen,
secretive efforts of Cervantes during the 1980s and 1990s.
During the first couple decades of Cervantes’s career,
marijuana cultivation was highly illegal and brought with it
severe legal punishment. This notion was reflected in the US
government’s stance on hydroponic stores and grow books
during the 1980s and ’90s. To elaborate, Cervantes reported in
a 2012 blog post that hydro shops, as well as himself, in the
1980s could have received “RICO racketeering” charges for
openly selling cannabis cultivation books in conjunction with
grow equipment and nutrients. To add to the overall intensity
of these scenarios, Cervantes also stated, “I remember many
times when the owners of hydroponics shops would not stand
in the same room as me” due to the notoriety he had received
as an underground, outlaw marijuana growing advocate.
Today, Cervantes is still recognized as an authority
on everything cannabis cultivation. Over the years, he
has regularly contributed cultivation knowledge to such
magazines as High Times, THC, and Cannabis Culture.
He received the Lester Grinspoon Lifetime Achievement
Award from High Times in 2012 due to his passion and
advocacy for marijuana cultivation. Finally, he published
his latest and most comprehensive book in 2015, titled
The Marijuana Encyclopedia.
Photo by Jorge Cervante/Wikimedia Commons
“
CERVANTES ALSO SET
THE FOUNDATIONS FOR THE
MODERN HYDROPONIC STORE
AND CULTURE, STARTING
HIS OWN SHOP CALLED “JORGE
CERVANTES’S INDOOR GARDEN
STORE” AND CONTRIBUTING TO THE
TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS OF
”
INDOOR CULTIVATION EQUIPMENT.
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