Legalization in Canada has taken the country by storm – and brought a whole new era of home growing with it! Thanks to the new rules allowing households to grow up to four marijuana plants (in most provinces), there is an opportunity for medical and recreational marijuana users to now supply their own cannabis! However, it is not as easy as planting a seed and watering it.
Growing cannabis may seem like a daunting task as, despite being rather hardy, these potent plants require more than basic gardening skills. While it may require some trial and error, the benefits of growing your own cannabis is well worth the effort! These 5 tips for growing cannabis at home will help you on your way to becoming a successful grower.
Turn Out the Lights
Something that most beginners might not know when it comes to growing cannabis at home is that, while lighting is vital to growing, if these plants are given more than 12 hours of daylight, they will remain in a vegetative state. Extra light can help the plant to grow quickly but when it comes to the next stage, you want to change your lighting schedule in order to induce flowering.
Ideally, plants in the vegetative state should have 18-24 hours of light a day while plants in the flowering stage should be given 12 hours of light with the other 12 hours in the dark.
Do Not Over Fertilize
While providing proper nutrients and additional fertilizer during the vegetative state helps make plants grow tall, strong and bushy. However, the use of fertilizer is less important during the flowering stage and, in fact, can be linked to lower concentrates of cannabinoids. By reducing fertilization during the flowering stage, the plant is forced to use up the available nutrients which often results in denser and more potent buds!
Be Picky About Dirt
Not all dirt is created equal, and the quality and type of grow medium that you choose in your garden can have a profound effect on the growth of your cannabis plant and the quality of the harvest. There are many factors to grow medium that should be considered.
One of these factors is the existing nutrients in the soil as some soil is higher in Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, etc than others and should be taken into consideration when feeding your cannabis plants. Another important factor is drainability of the soil as good drainage is vital for the flowering stage.
A great option for soil is sterilized, loose, non-peat based potting compost. In addition, soil mixes with conditioners such as perlite are another great option. Perlite are little white rocks in the soil, but help to provide additional drainage as well as maintaining higher oxygen levels within the soil to help the plants grow.
A Little Stress is Good
Cannabis plants require a very large amount of water to sustain them through the vegetative and flowering stages. In fact, depending on the size of your cannabis plant, it can require up to 6 gallons of water – per day!
Interestingly enough, some experienced growers have found that by reducing available water slightly during the flowering stage can actually have a positive effect and increase cannabinoid yields and concentrations. The reason being that, when done correctly, simulating a drought causes the plants to react to supply shortages by increasing root growth rates, which causes an increase in the level of available oxygen – thereby causing a slight growth boost.
It is important to note that allowing your plants to dry out completely can be detrimental to success, but a little drought can go a long way. Trying this on a small scale with a single plant first can be a good way to get comfortable with the technique – without ruining your entire crop.
Propagate Your Plants
There are many ways to grow new marijuana plants such as through seeds, clones or even cuttings. If you choose to propagate your plants for the next generation, cuttings with three leaves (versus two leaves) tend to produce greater quality roots and, therefore, better bud.
Are You Harvest Ready?
CenturionPro Solutions offers a wide range of marijuana bud trimming machines to suit the needs of all growers – including home grow operations!
The smallest system is the Tabletop, which can process 6lbs of dry material (30lbs of wet material) per hour! This means that you won’t have to find a group of friends to help you trim your plants when it comes time to harvest – just pop them in the machine and let the system do the work for you! In addition, the machine comes with a kief collection system to ensure you get the most out of every harvest.
