8 Pro Tips to Cultivate Cannabis at Home
5 min readThere are different ways to cultivate cannabis. The right technique may depend on your circumstance and what you need to invest your commitment, time, and money in. Cannabis plants are subjected to every type of threat, ranging from improper fertilizer application to lack of water. If you need high-grade and good cannabis, you will need to put more effort, regardless of the method you use. Besides that, you would need a medical marijuana card in order to cultivate cannabis legally, you can visit online medical card in this regard.
With many individuals discovering green thumbs, growing marijuana at home has never felt like a more realistic hobby, which needs attention and a lot of energy. In countries, like Canada legal adults may cultivate around five marijuana plants in their homes and legally buy auto-flowering and feminized seeds from provincial cannabis sellers. If it is your first time to grow marijuana at home, here are pro tips to help you succeed:
- Choose the Right Growing Medium
Marijuana plants work great when you grow them in something, which doesn’t retain a lot of moisture after watering. For instance, using sandy soil as a medium will offer you a better yield when compared to clay that retains water. Choosing the right growing medium can either break or make your marijuana plants by dictating how little or much a yield the crops will give.
Picking the right medium doesn’t necessarily have to be risky. Always go for soil, which is designed for cultivating marijuana and has nutrients to allow your plants to grow.
- Supply Nutrients
Providing the right nutrients is important for any growth. Cannabis plants need minerals found in nutrients so as to help when it comes to sugar production and photosynthesis. However, it is vital to remember that the nutrients people feed their marijuana plants are not the actual food they use to produce energy. Instead, they are just part of a process allowing your plants to produce their food in glucose form.
You might start by looking at the N-P-K ratio included in nutrient products. Basically, nutrients lines have two parts; a ‘Bloom’ and ‘Grow’ formula. Bloom formulas contain N-P-K ratios higher in potassium and phosphorus, while Grow formulas have more nitrogen. These ratios usually correspond to crops’ requirements during their flowering and vegetative stages of development.
- Establish a Grow Space
This might be your closet, grow tent, or backyard. It is completely upon you and the availability of a specific space.
The most important thing to remember is that regardless of how small or big the space, the goal will always remain the same – to fake a natural environment to grow your plants.
- Provide the Right Lighting
If you want to grow cannabis indoors, you will need a lot of care, and one of the aspects you shouldn’t overlook is lighting. Outdoor cannabis plants have the privilege of getting natural light from the sun. Though if you want to cultivate cannabis plants indoors, you may have to make up for the absence of natural lighting.
To have your lighting in place, be sure to invest in high-quality grow lights, hoods, ballast, and reflectors. Always remember to replace your bulbs after five or six months. In addition, settle for high-quality bulbs, and not second-grade ones.
- Prioritize a Clean Space
Ensure that you clean and sanitize your growing space. This is because contaminants and pests pose an inherent risk. A messy space can also invite harmful bacteria, mold, and pathogens.
Cannabis plants are also bioaccumulator crops – meaning they can suck up almost everything around them. A great plan to avoid this is to clean the space bi-weekly and stick to the routine. However, there will be no need to be pedantic. Considering a wet microfiber rag to wipe the space around your cannabis plants may suffice.
- Know the Trimming Tricks
As part of the defense mechanism, cannabis plants grow more potent and bigger when they feel threatened. They will also produce THC for protection purposes in the wild. The key goal of this is to cause stress by slightly damaging the inner tissues of the plants. Essentially, you will try to manipulate the plants’ branches without necessarily snapping them to make sure they have enough space to grow.
Lolipopping is a great trick that you can use to trim away every plant, which doesn’t see the light. This will also allow the nutrients and energy to go into the top cannabis buds. Topping can as well be a perfect trimming trick where you cut off the top main stem. By doing so, you will have more buds or colas that allows your plants to spread out.
- Learn How to Germinate Seeds
A great time to germinate marijuana seeds into the soil is at the start of spring. Experts at i49 suggest that the rule of thumb is to always germinate 2-times the number of cannabis seeds than plants you need to grow. Some might not germinate, and others can be male plants.
Snails are also more likely to eat baby cannabis plants and will not be very resistant to humidity and cold. Hence, it would be best to keep them inside for the first four weeks of their lives.
- Get the pH Right
You can trace a lot of problems that many beginners experience back to incorrect pH levels. What looks a lot like a nutrient deficiency can be pH issues, and they might even be worse if you add more nutes. Usually, there are enough nutrients in the soil, but the plants cannot be able to absorb them because the pH is too alkaline or acidic.
For you to have a perfect pH balance in the soil, you can use control kits. Follow the instructions in your kit to test the pH levels in the soil. You can also use your kit to adjust the balance when necessary.
Conclusion!
Cultivating marijuana at home needs patience and commitment. From determining the right lighting to choosing the best growing medium, there is a lot to juggle.
However, if you are more than willing to learn and put a lot of effort, you can easily increase your yield and get quality cannabis.
