Marijuana is now 100% legal in 15 states and the District of Columbia. The vast majority of states also have some form of legality for medical marijuana.
The time of guerrilla grows fetching high prices per pound on the black market is drawing to a close. Despite this, the opportunity to make a profit from the burgeoning marijuana market has never been higher.
This guide will help you learn the basics of growing your marijuana plants. The best way to capitalize on the pot market is to educate yourself on how to grow some seriously dank bud.
Start With the Proper Environment
Finding the right environment to grow your marijuana plants involves combining a myriad of different factors. First of all, you want to make sure that the location you select is in a legal location.
Some states such as South Carolina and Kansas don’t tolerate any sort of marijuana grows, or marijuana in general. You could face hefty fines and harsh prison sentences for cultivating in non-legal states.
Many counties also have their own by-laws about the cultivation of marijuana. California is a prime example with a patchwork of different county ordinances and bi-laws adding texture to the legal marijuana landscape.
Legality aside, there are several other environmental factors to keep in mind when selecting the best grow site. Cannabis is a very adaptable plant, but it still needs the right combination of temperature and humidity to survive and thrive.
Every strain is different from Sativa plants preferring wetter warmer climates, and Indica being more adaptable to dryer cooler environmental conditions. The different life cycles of the plant require different conditions as well.
Overall, some general environmental considerations work well for a wide variety of cannabis plants. In the early stage of growing cannabis, you will want to keep your clones and seedlings in an environment with moderate humidity and warm temps.
The relative humidity range of 65-80% with temperatures between 70-77 degrees Fahrenheit will help your young plants grow strong. Keeping consistent RH and temperature with slight variations for night and day is essential at this stage.
Adapt as Your Marijuana Plants Grow
Once your marijuana plants have reached the vegetative stage you will need to tweak your environmental conditions. Moderate your humidity levels by bringing them down to 50-70% range.
The plants will be sucking up a lot more water from the soil at this point hence the drop in humidity levels. You can also widen your temperature range to 65-85 degrees Fahrenheit depending on the strain.
At this point, you may also want to seek out a bigger space for your plants. It may also be a good time to bring them out from a greenhouse into the outdoor environment if your target objective is an eventual outdoor harvest.
Once your marijuana plants have reached the flowering stage it is time to alter the environmental factors once more. Drop the humidity levels again, this time to the 40-50% range with occasional forays into the mid 50 percentile.
You will also want to moderate your temperatures once more, keeping them in the high 60’s and ’70s. As the flowering stage progresses you will want to bring the environmental conditions to pre-harvest levels.
The pre-harvest stage is the final iteration of your environmental conditions with the lowest temperatures and humidities. An RH of 30-40% with temperatures between 65 and 75 will allow your buds to thrive. Drop your temps a bit at night as well.
The ability to control your environmental conditions will be much easier in an indoor environment versus an outdoor environment. These temperature and humidity recommendations represent a baseline and are not set in stone.
Figure Out Your Power Situation
If you are growing indoors you will need some grow lights, a ventilation system, and a way to moderate temperature and humidity. This all requires massive amounts of power.
Keep this in mind when selecting a grow site. Massive spikes in power usage used to give guerrilla grow operations away in the past. Now they are massive expenses for the modern grower.
Outdoor environments afford you the luxury of free sunshine, assuming you selected a sunny place to grow your pot. Environmental conditions are harder to moderate here though, as you are a bit at the mercy of Mother Nature.
If your plants are grown indoors, you may want to select the proper light-deprivation schedule early on. This will allow you to produce a consistent harvest at a pre-selected time.
Maintain Your Plants the Right Way
Watering, feeding, pest control, and pruning become the grower’s daily grind. It all starts with the proper equipment. Having the means to water your plants is essential.
You should decide right away if you will have an automated watering system, be doing hand-watering, or utilize a sort of combination of the two. You should also find a secure water source which can be a tad difficult with drought restrictions out west.
Also, it is recommended that you invest in some sort of sprayer. This will help in the application of pest control products, as well as aid in the watering and feeding processes.
There are all different sizes of sprayers. They range from small backpack pump models to large industrial agricultural equipment. Apache sprayers are top of the line products that will work great for large operations.
Do some research to figure out what growth enrichment products work best for your plants. Deciding how, when, and what to feed your marijuana plants becomes your own personal science experiment.
Also, learn about some common marijuana pests and the right ways to alleviate them. Factor a pest control routine into your operating costs and daily schedule. Pruning is the last bit of essential plant maintenance.
Make sure to prune your plants at regular intervals using the right methodology to ensure that they grow even and with vigor. Prune leaves that are sick or don’t receive ample sunshine to allow proper airflow through your plants and reduce nutrient sinks.
High Time to Grow Weed
The proper growth triangle of light, water, and nutrients coupled with the right environmental conditions will make your marijuana plants grow into burgeoning behemoths. This will in turn make you rich, allowing you to live the high life.
For all your other marijuana news and information, make sure to check out the rest of our blog!
Trevor Anderson wrote this article on behalf of FreeUp. FreeUp is the fastest-growing freelance marketplace in the US. FreeUp only accepts the top 1% of freelance applicants. Click here to get access to the top freelancers in the world.
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