Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 21, 1995 TAG: 9504210122
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
What was different about this case was that the marijuana was being grown in buckets of water - a hydroponics operation at109 Irene Drive in western Bedford County just off Virginia 24. Heat lamps were being used to provide the growing light.
State police seized 144 marijuana plants, and estimated their value at as much as $70,000.
William M. Webber Jr., 42, was charged with growing the marijuana, a felony.
"What is unusual about this is the hydroponics operation. You don't see it often,'' said Walter Farmer, assistant special agent for the state police. It is a sophisticated system that involves plant biology and the use of a timer for heating and feeding the plants.
If you want to produce large, healthy marijuana plants quickly, police say, grow them in water with nutrients and plant food.
The grower can produce about six crops of marijuana a year in a water growing-operation indoors, compared to two or three a year outside in soil.
The producer can also take water samples and adjust the nutrients to make sure that the plants stay healthy.
Halogen lights, attached to a rotating pedestal, gave the plants the closest light possible to natural sunlight.
Police recently made a drug raid on Bent Mountain where marijuana was being grown inside with heat lamps, but the plants were being grown in soil.
In the Bedford County house, investigators found 96 nearly grown marijuana plants and 48 that were only two weeks old.
Farmer said the large plants would produce top quality marijuana with an estimated value of $3,000 per pound.
He said the seizure of the marijuana and arrest of Webber was the result of a tip from the U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Knoxville.
Lisa Applegate contributed information to this story.
by CNB