Cultivating Cannabis: 5 Tips on How to Grow Your Cannabis

The legalization of cannabis in some states is leading many to grow their own. Growing cannabis is an inexpensive and fun way to get high-quality buds. Cannabis is a hardy plant capable of growing in different climatic conditions, outdoors, indoors, or greenhouse all year round.

5 Tips on How to Grow Your Cannabis

If you reside in a state where having cannabis is not a crime, then you may have a new crop to grow in your garden. Growing cannabis can sometimes be challenging even for experienced growers. This is because some simple mistakes can affect the yield of your crop.

Here are some tips to help you avoid making mistakes that could lead to a poor plant.

1. Pick reliable seeds and use quality water

The price of cannabis seeds differs. When purchasing yours, you might choose the cheapest to save some money. In doing so, you may compromise the quality of the plant and end up spending more than you have to.

For this reason, you must pick cannabis seeds with the best genetics. Ensure that you research so that you can get a trusted bank to get the seeds from. You may as well start with cloning but ensure that you get the clones from trusted and reputable sources.

The water you use can also affect your cannabis plant. For example, domestic water contains fluoride and chlorine. These contents will reduce your plant yield even if they do not kill the plant. Therefore, think about using filtration or a reverse osmosis system. Also, ensure you regularly change the filters.

2. Provide enough lighting

The cannabis plant naturally responds to light. The light should just be enough if you want to maximize the production of flowers containing chemical ingredients such as THC and CBD. Proper lighting does not only affect the quality of your cannabis plant, it also impacts the size and speed of growth.

Light will help the plant grow faster as energy is stored in its stems and leaves. Additionally, the lighting must be controlled at a stage. It will remain in a vegetative state if it has more than 12 hours of daylight, resulting in a big plant. However, you may need to reduce the light when you need your plant to flower.

This tip is particularly important if your growing cannabis indoors because the plant grown outdoors gets natural light. When growing indoors, you will need to invest in more reflectors, hoods, and premium lights. High-intensity lights like T5 fluorescent or high-pressure sodium lights are good. You can save energy costs by using LEDs as well. You will be able to modify the light’s wavelength if you choose a full-spectrum LED light.

3. Provide a sufficient amount of nutrient

Your plant can grow leafy, strong, and tall with extra fertilizer. However, this is not useful during the flowering stage. For your cannabis plant to grow potent buds, you must control the amount of fertilizer you use as soon as the plant begins to flower. Generally, there is the right amount of nutrients your plant needs at every stage of its growth.

Your cannabis plant needs three major nutrients – nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus. Your cannabis plant will need an abundant amount of nitrogen in its vegetative stage. However, this has to be reduced in the flowering stage. Doing so will ensure that the production of buds is not affected.

Potassium is a nutrient that is sufficiently needed in the flowering stage of the plant. This is to promote the growth and health of the plant. the growth rate of the plant will decline if potassium is lacking, causing problems for the leaves.

Phosphorus deficiency will cause smaller leaves to dry fast. To avoid this, your plant should be rich in phosphorus in the flowering stage. There are other nutrients that are important to cannabis plant growth including magnesium, calcium, sulfur, manganese, and carbohydrates or sugar.

4. Know when to harvest

Given all the effort put into producing quality and healthy buds, cannabis plant growers are often excited when it comes to harvesting time. However, you must not cut them too soon. Cutting your plant too soon will reduce the THC content. Therefore, you must harvest the plant at the right time based on some important indications.

Pay attention to the colors of the trichomes. The trichome holds the natural compounds of the plant like terpenes and THC. A good time that you should harvest your plant is if half of the trichome becomes amber and the other half appears milky white.

The color of the pistils is another way to tell if your plant is ready to be harvested. They turn brown when they mature. You can use a magnifying lens to check the color in this case. Another common sign is when you have a curl and dry plant. This is expected as the plants will absorb less water when it is close to harvest time.

5.Dry and cure the cannabis plant properly

You are not done after harvest. You still need to dry and cure your cannabis plant because these steps are important to producing tasty and quality buds. To begin with, you must know that drying reduces the moisture content of the bud to 15%. This helps it to maintain its taste and natural compounds like THC. Ensure that you dry your cannabis properly for the best results.

You can proceed to cure after drying. Curing will help you preserve the compounds or cannabinoids and terpenes. It is recommended that you keep your cannabis for around two months before use for maximum results. Commercial growers may choose to hasten production by using chemicals. However, this can compromise the whole user experience.

Conclusion

There are many requirements for growing cannabis plants on your own. However, your yield will not be affected when you follow the right steps. The tips discussed here will help you produce quality buds that you will be proud of.