Growing Tips

Growing Tips

Post-Harvest Care: Trimming and Drying

Growing a successful cannabis crop does not end when the buds are ready for harvest. Two post-harvest processes heavily influence cannabinoid and terpene concentrations: trimming and drying. Their timing and technique can lead to significant differences in the final product’s secondary metabolites—and hence its color, flavor, fragrance and potency. Harvest timing Before post-harvest care begins, the first step in securing a high-quality cannabis product is harvesting at the right time. Unripe buds lack the potency and cannabinoid and terpene content of mature …
Advanced Tips

Monitoring Runoff in Recirculating Hydroponic Systems

When cultivating cannabis hydroponically, growers can choose between drain-to-waste and recirculating systems. In drain-to-waste systems, the nutrient solution is discarded after use; in recirculating systems, the nutrient solution is reused. When using a recirculating system, it is important to collect and test the runoff—the excess nutrient solution that passes through the root zone—because it gives an idea of whether it is suitable for reuse or adjustments need to be made. Neglecting to monitor runoff can lead to salt buildup, resulting in …
Advanced Tips

Guiding your Garden Through Crop Steering

Crop steering is a cannabis cultivation technique where careful control over environmental factors guides plant growth, optimizes yields and enhances quality. By adjusting elements like light intensity, irrigation, temperature, humidity and root zone conditions, growers can steer plants toward vegetative growth—channeling energy and resources on foliage, stems and roots—or generative growth, also known as flowering or reproductive growth. This blog post explains how crop steering works and how different environmental controls can steer crops toward one type of growth over the …
Advanced Tips

Understanding Calcium-Magnesium Supplementation in Coco Medium

Any comprehensive nutrient line already contains calcium and magnesium, but growers who use coco coir may need to apply more of these two secondary macronutrients. Coco coir binds with them and locks them up, making them less available for uptake. To avoid deficiencies, growers need to understand how coco coir interacts with calcium and magnesium. Importance of calcium and magnesium for plants Calcium and magnesium are essential nutrients that plants require in significant amounts. Calcium Plants typically absorb more calcium than phosphorus, with concentrations …
Growing Tips

Selecting the Right Water Source

The best water for hydroponics has no contaminants, an EC close to 0 millisiemens and a pH of 7[1]—a level of purity that makes it easy to provide everything plants need without risk of toxicity. Unfortunately, most water sources are not this pure. Some contain high concentrations of sodium or iron, which can be harmful to plants and are hard to manage in hydroponics. Water containing chloride can be especially challenging; issues can arise at just a few parts per million. …
Growing Science

Managing Cannabis Pests and Pathogens

Even though cannabis grown indoors is protected from Mother Nature, it remains vulnerable to pests and pathogens. Growing dense stands of plants in a humid, enclosed environment can lead to infestations and infections. But growers can reduce the risk of outbreaks by implementing Integrated Pest Management (IPM)—an effective, environmentally sensitive way to manage pests and pathogens that seeks to prevent infestations and infections from occurring in the first place and uses multiple control methods to address issues if they arise.[1] Determine tolerable levels IPM is …
Advanced Tips

Cannabis Pests and Pathogens

Pests and pathogens threaten cannabis crops. Pests—larger organisms[1] like insects and mites—physically damage plants, whereas pathogens are microorganisms that infect and cause diseases within plants. A useful rule of thumb might be that while pests can typically be removed physically, pathogens cannot. Both pests and pathogens pose distinct threats to plant health, reducing cannabis yield and quality. This blog post explores some of the most common pests and pathogens that cannabis growers may encounter, the specific plant sites they target, and …
Growing Tips

Types of Growing Media

Choosing the right growing medium for indoor cannabis cultivation is no simple matter. Growers need a substrate that has high porosity and proper consistency, retains a moderate amount of water between irrigations, drains and dries rapidly, is free from pests and pathogens, and strikes a good balance between physical and chemical properties. Growing media may consist of organic components derived from natural matter—such as peat, coir, wood, bark, compost or biochar—or inorganic materials like perlite, expanded clay, pumice, rockwool or vermiculate. And …
Growing Tips

Why the Growing Medium Matters

In soilless cultivation like hydroponics or container gardening, growers typically use a growing medium, also called the substrate, made from coconut fiber, rockwool, perlite or another porous material in which their plants can take root.[1] Providing an “artificial” environment for the roots offers several benefits over soil: The growing medium is often infertile, so growers have complete control over nutrient levels. The risk of soilborne pests and pathogens is lower. And it can improve water and resource efficiency. However, not all growing …
Growing Tips

How to Identify Nutrient Toxicities

Providing plants with the right concentrations—not too little, not too much—of all essential nutrients is vital. Underfeeding can lead to suboptimal fertilization and nutrient deficiencies, while overfeeding can cause nutrient toxicities. In this blog post, we’ll discuss why nutrient toxicities occur, their specific symptoms and how growers can avoid them. Causes of nutrient toxicities Overfertilization is one of the main reasons nutrient toxicities occur. There is a misconception that more is better when it comes to fertilizing plants, but nothing could be further …
Growing Tips

How to Identify Nutrient Deficiencies

Nutrient deficiencies prevent plants from reaching their maximum genetic potential in terms of both quantity (yields) and quality (color, flavor, fragrance and potency). As we discussed in our blog post on suboptimal fertilization, a deficiency in just one essential plant nutrient can seriously impair plant growth and health. Therefore, it is crucial to be able to spot the first signs of a deficiency. In this blog post, we’ll discuss the symptoms that indicate a nutrient deficiency and how to determine which nutrient …
Growing Tips

HPS Versus LED Lighting

When cultivating cannabis indoors, growers have no shortage of artificial lighting sources to choose from. However, the most popular options are high-pressure sodium (HPS) and light-emitting diode (LED) lights. In this blog post, we discuss why these two are preferred over other artificial lights, the differences between them, and what to consider when choosing HPS or LED lighting. Why use HPS or LED lighting over other options The challenge with using any artificial light to replace natural sunlight is the energy cost, its …
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