Cannabis yield growing indoors

Increase cannabis yield growing indoors is a key point for all kind of growers (no matter the size of their gardens). The goal of every cannabis grower when growing indoors is to get the highest cannabis yield possible, to feed themselves with their self-grown marijuana, so not needing to go and buy on the black market to cover their consumption.

Marijuana indoor growing is an optimal option for self-consumption. The bud production could be enough, and even higher than what's needed for the consumption of one person, or even two, without problems. Growing indoors within lights is a great option for those who don't have a terrace, nor balcony, but they do have a spot in a room of about 1sqm, to grow their plants.

Picture from Rare Dankness

Performance of an indoor set up

The most asked question by newbie growers is what's the cannabis yield of an indoor set up. The answer, with some shades, is clear: The maximum cannabis yield an expert will get, with appropiate tools, and a genetic able to reach those results, is a gram per watt used. Now we will detail those shades:

Expert: We understand as an expert, an experienced grower, who has been growing for more than 4-6 cycles, who controls every single spect of his garden, and keeps it under control. Only most experienced growers can get best cannabis yields every cycle they manage, not once because they were lucky.

Suitable materials: Growing marijuana indoors can be done with few elements. Even though there are many products that can ease the job, and increase cannabis yield per crop. In this listing we will not only group the nutrients and boosters needed, we also would add higher quality reflectors, extractors, RO filters to improve the quality of the water... And the list of tools and accessories goes on, as every single one of those tools help to slithly increase the amount of dried flowers per crop.

Good genetics: Nowadays there are thousand of different strains available. As in many other cases, characteristics from each strain take a huge part of final possibilities of cannabis yield per crop. It's obvious that if we pretend to get maximum yields (1g per watt), we should use a strain able to reach those results. It is not worth it to put our effords, budget and techniques in a strain that in best growing conditions is just able to bring 1/2 gram per watt used. We are not saying that medium or low yielding strains are not good (I specially love some strains that bring low yields), we just advise you that sometimes it is impossible to get a gram per watt, so looking for high yields we should discard those ones.

Improve cannabis yield step by step

As we've previously said, to grow marijuana indoors, the only must is to own a lighting kit. From this simple element in advance we will keep adding accessories that will help take control of temperature, humidity, ph,... Now we will enumerate what in our opinion should be the logic order of improvings to increase cannabis yield of indoor grown cannabis:

1.- Substrate: The quality of the soil (substrate chosen by most growers, at least for their first steps growing indoors) is a key element for the proper developement of plants. It is a waste of money, effords, and time spent a high budget in high quality seeds, if the substrate is bullshit. The substrate is an alive medium in wich plants should develope. Those low-quality substrates (and cheaper price) are frequently a bad choice, because that low quality is something we will have to battle against along all cycle of plants (from germination until harvest). We highly advice against using any kind of soil not explicitly made for cannabis growing. Maybe some of them are valid, but some of them not, and the results we'll get from those will be probably lower than using soils made for marijuana (what will reward you by far that 1-2€ difference of cost between one brand and another).

2.- Lighting: If we begin our growing cycle with a high pressure sodium lighting kit (400w or 600w) within basic reflector, the first we should change to improve yields is the reflector. A stucco reflector usually brings a reflectivity of about 5-10%. This actually means that if 50% of the light generated by the lamp focus directly to what's under, and the other 50% points up (to the reflector), from that 50% only a 5-10% will go back to plants. Making quick numbers it would be like saying that from those 400w-600w of light used, we are only taking advantage of 55-60%. If instead of using a basic reflector we use one of the most professional ones, with a 97% reflectivity, we could take profit of a much more efficient light use, reaching about a 96% projected to plants.

3.- Fans and climate control: As we will grow plants, and these need fresh air to evolve, it is very important to use a good extractor and intractor to asure their needings, and also to be able to manage ideal temperatures in our grow-room. Some good extractors can be the best option to get it, decreasing the noise produced when working (compared with in-line fans). Marijuana brings its best yields when temperatures are arround 24ºC, so having a heater in winter (to guarantee temps over 20ºC anytime) or an air conditioner in summer (to avoid temps higher than 29-30ºC) could be a great ally.

4.- Water quality: This point could surprise some growers (that could have thought that next point would be something like strain, boosters or fertilizers). The explanation of the significance of a high quality water is easy: A grower can use the best, and high-yielding genetics, and also the best nutrients and stimulators, that if he is using a low-quality water to mix them, he'll never get the desired results. Our experience demonstrate us that those growers who own a RO filter frequently get higher quality, and quantity, crops, even in those cases where they use the most simple tools and basic nutrients, while growers who use expensive fertilizers, boosters and strains, have nutrient-lock problems, defficiencies or other kind of problems that decrease yields and quality.

5.- Genetics: If we are interest in cannabis yields, to cover our needings, the best way to solution it is choosing those strains able to produce higher amounts of flowers. Every strain should be judged by its maximum yielding possibilities, flowering time and also for its taste, flavour and effect. There are many well-known examples of strains with a quick flowering time, heavy yields (the most common example is Critical Mass, there are a countless number). A good tip is to study what information does the seedbank gives about maximum yields of their strains. If the seedbank tells that some of their strains produce, for example, 350g where other produce 550g it is obvious wich ones will produce higher yields in grower's hands (no matter the experience). A good tip is to use only one strain, as well as re-grow it once and again, so after some cycles we will know what does it like, what not, so we'll get better results.

6.- Fertilizers and boosters: Can I grow cannabis and not feed plant plants with a fertilizer? Yes you can. Is it possible to get high cannabis yield without using nutrients nor stimulators? Roundly not. Even using the most pre-fertilized soil you'll find at the store, the source of nutrients is limited, so we'll need to add nutrients and boosters to maximize the yields. If we talk about basics, every grower should use a grow fertilizer and a bloom fertilizer, that should be complimented with a root stimulator (during vegetative stage) and flowering booster (during bloom stage). Said this, there are other kind of products that can help improve some parameters of the growing cycle, like the use of beneficial bacteria fungi, enzyms, silicates... If choosing organics or mineral (chemical origin), it's frequently said that biological products produce a higher quality crop and lower quantity, what is not accurate at all. It is correct that the taste using organic products will be better compared with chemical fed plants, the yield do not only depend from the origin of the nutrient, so you can get high cannabis yield with organic products too. In our opinion what should be appropiate to say is that getting high yields with chemical nutrients can be easier than within organic, because these ones need more precision of when and how much dose use.

7.- Space optimization: Growing indoors can be done using many techniques that vary once to another. All those techniques have something in common: optimize the growing space. No matter the technique we are following, what's actually important is to cover all our growing space with green. If there are empty spots, that means that space is not being used in a proper way, so the overall performance could be higher. The two most used techniques are SOG (Sea Of Green) and ScrOG (Screen Of Green). While the first one is based in placing in a higher amount of plants, giving them a minimum vegetative stage to cover the growing area, the second is based in using lower number of plants, investing in a longer vegetative stage to get all the growing-space covered. (*Note: longer vegetative stage doesn't mean we'll get taller plants, using this technique we pretend to grow bushier plants to cover al lighted surface). In SOG gardens it is recommended to use 16 plants per 1sqm in 7liter pots, while in a SCROG garden 4-6 plants will be used (pruning them, or training them within a mesh to multiply the number of tops) in 10-15 liter containers.

SCROG garden

8.- PH and EC control: Control the PH and the EC of the nutrient solution used to feed our plants is a must to guarantee a fast and healthy developement. Even it's true small deviations of these numbers won't kill our plants, there are notorious differences of uptake speed when you give your plants the proper values. At the same time a huge difference between what should be given an the real reading, could cause extreme harm to plants. If we adjust these values to a proper pH and EC, we will ensure plants will uptake quickly the nutrients (pH), as well as guarantee the nutritional needing in every stage (EC). We strongly recommend using digital meters, due to its higher precision and exact readings, compared with cheaper drop reagents ph meters.

9.- Pests: Prevention and control of pests in a growing space is a must to get higher cannabis yield results. Growing indoors, pests could represent the difference between a great crop or a total disaster, so it is highly recommended don't wait until pests come to act. There are three main groups of possible pests we should prevent: Fungi, Insects and mites.

To combat those attacks we could use biological products, or chemical origin products. We must advice that while chemical products usually remove the pests quickly, biological ones take longer to completely remove it. Even though at SantYerbasi we strongly recommend using these kind of products, because they don't vary the quality of the final product, and can be used along all the cycle of plants until 1 week to harvest (chemical ones should only be applied during growing stage). If we apply products during growing phase we'll rarely suffer from pests during flowering phase, so it's the best way to safe problems ensuring a heavy and healthy crop. *There is also a third option to combat against pests: "biological control" (introducing a natural predator that feeds itself with the insects/mites of our garden).

10.- Constancy: This is a point that every grower should work hard in. You can have all the tools to grow marijuana with guarantees, if you don't dedicate time to your plants... Plants won't give you the desired yields. When a newbie start he's first growing op usually keeps hours watching he's plants, analyzing every single developement they do, growing parameters, etc. This first stage usually turns to a second time where we think we are expericiend, so everything is under control, and then shit happens. It is very important to visit our plants daily (no matter if is just for 5 minutes) and dedicate that time to check if everything is ok. In these visits we should pay atention to whatever that could derive in possible future problems or issues. Is much easier to solve a problem when is almost begining, than when is clearly visible. The attitude to face a growing cycle should be a consciousness we have plants to take care of (so a responsibility). If we can keep plant's needings under control, our crops will probably be much better than if we apply the quote "I'll do it tomorrow".

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