Marijuana

Growing Marijuana Indoors

http://www.marijuanadrugfacts.com/marijuana/growing-marijuana-indoors

It’s a matter of fact that standard outdoor marijuana setups yield much more than the typical indoor setup. But this article will share some tips and tricks that help make up for that difference in yield. There also some things that every new grower should consider, and we will discuss those as well. We’ve also included the best soil for growing marijuana indoors and the best indoor lighting options for your setup. 

So, if you want to know more about how to start growing marijuana indoors, then continue reading! Who knows, there might be some tips on growing marijuana indoors that you haven’t already heard.

Why Grow Marijuana
Growing your own marijuana has a lot of benefits

As you begin your garden, you become more aware of the costs of cultivating marijuana. You will notice things such as lighting, water, and other factors that contribute to the cost of growing marijuana from seeds indoors.

If that sounds like growing weed is stressful, it’s not. It’s fun growing your own! The sense of accomplishment you earn when you get a good harvest is similar to growing your own produce. For me, there’s no line between growing your own food and growing your own kush. You should place the same amount of thought and effort into one as you put in the other.

How do you make it fun? You study and practice the best techniques you can find, just like what you’re doing now. And as that becomes a habit, it becomes a hobby instead of a task. 

The sweat you poured into growing your own cannabis gives way to the joy you’ll feel when all that effort bears fruit (big juicy nugs). That experience alone will give you the second greatest high of your life! And that’s the fun of it.

The downside to growing your own cannabis is the potential for failure. Your harvest may end up being a complete failure. For many, that is the largest danger you face when growing your own marijuana. From a cost-effectiveness and overall quality of life point of view, it’s a lot smarter to cultivate your own.

The Benefits of Indoor Cannabis Cultivation

The Benefits of Indoor Cannabis Cultivation
Indoor cannabis plants

Growing marijuana from seeds indoors has benefits that outweigh growing outdoors. There are many reasons to grow your weed indoors, but here are some of the best benefits as well as some great tips on growing marijuana indoors.

Hygiene

One key advantage of indoor cultivation over outdoor cultivation is that you have complete control over the growing environment. Although this doesn’t necessarily remove the problems of pests and fungi, it does drastically reduce them.

Good hygiene also helps reduce the amount of other microscopic organisms like parasites and germs that will ruin the quality of your harvest. It’s a lot easier to get rid of these issues indoors instead of facing all of nature.  

Then there’s the benefit of a clean yield. Because there are fewer pest and fungal problems, this also means you use a lot fewer pesticides and other chemical sprays that will taint your harvest.

The Benefits of Indoor Cannabis Cultivation - Hygiene
It’s easier to practice good hygiene in your marijuana grow room

A clean harvest can increase the quality of your marijuana while reducing the chance of attracting microscopic organisms that cause plant illnesses. Knowing that marijuana is also used therapeutically by those with weak or sensitive immune systems or breathing problems, it is essential to avoid dangerous spores and pesticides. Indoor marijuana gardens make it easy to control these variables. 

Climate Control

By growing your cannabis in climate-controlled environments such as a greenhouse or grow cabinet, you can provide the perfect setting for your plants. That doesn’t mean marijuana plants are fickle. They can grow anywhere, and some resilient cannabis strains can grow in less-than-optimal environments.

However, you want to provide the best environment for your plants to get the highest quality yield. To do that, you need to control the elements that can affect your marijuana.

Elements such as temperature, CO2 levels, and humidity are just a few factors that can affect the quality of your harvest. Having too much or too little of any one of these can lead to a poor yield.

If your grow room’s humidity is too high, mold may grow on your plants. And inversely, if you increase the levels of CO2 in your greenhouse, you can improve yield. An indoor setup also keeps you from worrying about periods of droughts and violent storms that can ruin all of your hard work.

Multiple Harvests

Normally, cannabis is an annual plant with a few flowering periods in a year. And if you don’t have the right conditions for them to flower, it can result in a poor harvest. This is a problem for many outdoor growers who are at the mercy of the season and must follow a grow calendar. They do not have an entire year to produce the perfect environment and receive the maximum possible yield.

The Benefits of Indoor Cannabis Cultivation - Multiple Harvests
Growing cannabis indoors can reward you with multiple harvests

But with climate control at your fingertips, you can have several harvests in a year. Hypothetically speaking, because it only takes two months for cannabis to mature and flower, you can have a maximum of 6 flowering periods in a year. Since you can control the environment, you only need lights. This is why most growers prioritize grow lights because when growing marijuana indoors lighting is crucial for the plant.

Light plays a big factor in both stages of growing marijuana. Too much sunlight can stress marijuana into becoming hermaphrodites. If you play your cards right and time the hours of light your plants get in each room, you can have back-to-back harvests.

Know how to perfectly time your harvest with my free mini harvesting guide.


To grow throughout the year, you will need two rooms, one for the vegetative phase (18 hours of light) and the other for the flowering phase (12 hours of light). 

Privacy

Privacy when growing marijuana indoors doesn’t just mean ensuring your neighbors do not see your plants. It also means they cannot smell them. 

Most growers often forget to consider this aspect of cannabis growing. When growing marijuana indoors, you will notice the pungent odor of the plant’s essential oils (terpenes) that it secretes while flowering.

Benefits of Indoor Cannabis Cultivation_Privacy
You’re less likely to worry about the odor of your cannabis plants when you’re growing them indoors

The strong odor is described either as floral, fruity, or gas-like. Some outdoor plants are noticeable up to a mile away. With that in mind, it’s easy to see why growing indoors will give you more privacy.

Your neighbors may not like it if you grow smelly cannabis outdoors. That’s why keeping your plants indoors is a great way to avoid multiple complaints from all around the block.

Higher Quality Yield

I said it before, and I will say it again; growing marijuana from seeds indoors produces higher quality cannabis. Here’s why. 

Hygiene and climate control are the two largest variables for the quality of your harvest. For example, with hygiene, having a sterile room reduces the chances of fungi infecting your plants. It also brings down the number of microscopic organisms and other pests that can taint your harvest.

It’s a big problem when growers see their plants littered with fungi and pests. That’s because by using chemical sprays, they still end up ruining their own harvest by tainting it with pesticides. This is why most growers opt for natural methods, but of course, the better alternative is to reduce the chances of it ever happening by growing their plants indoors. Doing so reduces their use of chemical sprays as pests are at a more manageable size.

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Optimized climate control also leads to higher-quality marijuana. Elements such as temperature, humidity, and C02 levels can affect the quality of your plants – and grow rooms allow you to control those elements. By setting the right level of humidity in your grow room, you avoid mold that will ruin the quality of your harvest. And by increasing the C02 levels, you can increase the quality and the quantity of your harvest.

Choosing Your Grow Medium

When it’s time to pick the best medium for growing cannabis, it’s important to understand your options. Different types of cannabis grow best in specific mediums. With that knowledge in mind, picking the type of plant is as important as choosing the medium to pair with it.

Soil

Soil is, by far, the most popular medium simply because it is abundant and easy to prepare. Soil is also rich in nutrients and doesn’t require a lot of supplemental nutrition to nurture your plants.

For the best results, many growers typically use an organic potting mix. They are a mixture of non-peat-based, sterilized, loose potting compost.

Soil Potting Mix
Soil is the most popular growing medium for marijuana

A great example of an organic potting mix is Fox Farm Ocean Forest. It’s rich and light but packed with nutrients that your cannabis needs, making it our choice for the best soil for growing marijuana indoors.

The best benefit of growing your cannabis in soil is that it develops a richer taste profile and improves its odor. It’s also the easiest growing medium to maintain as soil only requires a bit of water from time to time and a few additional nutrients. This makes it perfect for beginners.

The problem with soil is that it generally takes longer for the plant to grow. On top of that, there’s the issue of root-bound plants which never reach their full potential. 

You can also run into some nutrient issues that are difficult to fix quickly. If it is already too late for your plants (perhaps the issue didn’t present itself right away), it may take too long to repair conditions when grown in soil. If you have any concerns, use our symptom checker as soon as possible. 

Hydroponics

Hydroponics is a soil-less method of growing plants. It uses mineral nutrient-rich solutions in water to nourish crops, which is absorbed faster than in soil mediums. Because of that, plants cultivated using this method grow faster than in soil or other growing mediums.

Hydroponics
A hydroponics cannabis growing setup

Marijuana requires a lot of nutrients to grow, and it benefits from a hydroponics setup. Marijuana doesn’t just grow faster hydroponically; it also delivers the highest yield. Hydroponic setups are also less likely to experience pests.

There are numerous methods for growing hydroponically. The best style for growing cannabis is the top-fed Deep Water Culture system or DWC. Why? The DWC method is one of the few hydroponics setups that can support larger and nutrient-hungry plants like cannabis.

To ensure a large harvest in a short time in a DWC setup, it’s important always to include a root supplement for your cannabis. This encourages massive root production, so your marijuana absorbs nutrients faster.

Hydroponics setups are the ideal method for a grower that’s looking for a large harvest in a short time. However, this is definitely not for beginners. First of all, you need to know how to build your own hydroponics setup properly.

Beyond that, you need to constantly monitor your roots for mold, fungus, and worst of all root rot. While it’s true that hydro removes the concerns of pests, it definitely does not reduce the amount of work. However, having to check and clean the roots of your cannabis constantly is a much easier task than clearing pests.

Other Grow Mediums

There’re a couple of other grow mediums that are useful for growing cannabis. Coco fiber, peat moss, Rockwool, perlite, and vermiculite are just a few examples of soilless mediums that are great for cannabis. You can also combine these different growing mediums. Currently, the best combination for cannabis growing is coco fiber (or coir) and perlite.

Coco coir is the middle ground between soil and hydro. Plants using this method take longer to grow than hydroponics but grow a lot faster than in soil. Coco coir alone doesn’t have any nutritional value (unlike soil), but it can hold nutrients much longer than hydroponics which saves you from having to stream heavy amounts of water.

Other Grow Mediums - Coco Coir
Coco coir

Soilless grow mediums also have benefits that are similar to hydroponics, especially when it comes to pests. You also do not have to worry about the roots growing mold or rotting, which is the main issue with most hydro setups.

And on the note of roots, perlite helps improve soil aeration by modifying the substructure. It keeps it loose to allow for better draining and stronger root formations. The only issue with soilless growing mediums like coco coir and perlite is poor preparation. If you don’t properly break down and mix coco, you can end up with a high pH level that can harm your cannabis.

The Tools and Equipment You Need

With the different growing mediums covered, we now move onto the tools and equipment you need to grow marijuana indoors. There are only just a few things that go into building a proper grow room for your marijuana. However, you must know each and every element so that you can get the most out of your harvest.

 It’s also important to keep local regulations in mind, whether you are growing in the United States or Australia. Many states permit a limited number of plants, so keep that in mind as you plan your indoor setup!

Here’s what you will need:

Grow Room

A marijuana grow room

A grow room or an indoor space is any room that you dedicate to growing your cannabis. It could be a small tent, cabinet, or spare room inside your home.

Preferably, set aside two grow rooms to experience the full benefits of an indoor setup. As mentioned before, having a dedicated grow room for the vegetative phase and the flowering phase will allow you to have multiple harvests in a year. 

If managing two grow rooms sounds a little too pricey, especially if you’re just starting out, it is. It’s perfectly fine to start with a single, small grow room that can hold around two to three plants. A smaller setup is a lot less expensive, making it less painful if you happen to make a mistake and fail to produce a decent harvest.

When creating a space for your cannabis, it’s important to take into account the area the plants will cover as they grow. Equally as important are the spots for the lights, ventilation, and other equipment that you decide to include. You don’t want to end up with a cramped setup that’s too small for your plants!

Lights

To reiterate, light plays a crucial role in the stages of cannabis growth. This is why one of the advantages of indoor setups is having full control over the light exposure your plants receive. It’s also why when growing marijuana indoors lighting is an important factor to consider.

Having two grow rooms maximizes that benefit. With two rooms, you can set one room to provide 18 hours of light for the vegetation phase of one batch while the other provides 12 hours of light for the flowering phase of another batch. Here are some of the lights that you can choose from: 

HID Grow Bulbs

HID Grow Bulbs
HID Grow Bulbs

High-Intensity Discharge lights are commonly light huge areas. Even those designed for growing plants are best used in sizable grow rooms. Growers value these types of lights for their output, efficiency, and value.HID has two main types: metal halide (MH), which is best used during the vegetation phase, and high-pressure sodium (HPS), which is best for the flowering phase.

Fluorescent Grow Lights

Fluorescent Grow Light
Fluorescent Grow Lights

Fluorescent lights are perfect for small setups. The best options are T5 bulbs due to  their high output. These lights are also cheaper than other types and require a lot less maintenance than HID options. They also do not generate as much heat. However, fluorescent lights both take up space and consume more electricity than HID.

fluorescent lights both take up space and consume more electricity than HID.

LED Grow Lights

LED Grow Light
LED lights

Light Emitting Diodes have both fluorescent and HID lighting benefits, with the only drawback being their price. And it’s not a negligible drawback either; a custom LED grow light may be ten times more expensive than an HID. Recently, more affordable options entered the market, making LEDs popular for many home growers. 

Pots and Containers

When choosing your container for growing marijuana from seeds indoors, you can never go wrong with a versatile plastic container. However, the type you use will entirely depend on your growing medium (such as hydroponics), the system you want to implement, and the size of your plants.

And on the note of the size, plant your cannabis seeds in a one-gallon pot. Transplant it to a five-gallon once it’s in its vegetation phase.

Want more growing tips? My free Marijuana Grow Bible has everything you need to know to get started growing.


Choosing the best container comes down to the healthy root development of your cannabis, and for that, you should consider the following:

Drainage

Root rot is a persisting issue when it comes to growing cannabis (especially with a hydroponics system). To avoid that, choose a pot that’s well-draining. Be sure to strike a balance between water retention and drainage. Too little water retention can deprive your plants of their needed nutrients.

Oxygen

Oxygen and draining are in line with each other as both increases with the number of perforations in the container. If you’re using a soil mix or coco mix, soil aeration helps your roots get the required oxygen to function properly.

Space

Improper pot size can lead to rootbound cannabis. Not having enough space for your roots to branch out will choke your plant and make it difficult to absorb nutrients.

Pots and Containers - Space
Give enough space for your plant roots to grow

Durability

A good container should have a mix of rigidity and flexibility. Too rigid makes perforating holes difficult, too flexible and will cause your plant to tear through the container.

Water System

The ideal water system for most plants, including cannabis, is a drip irrigation system since it provides the water directly to your plant’s roots. In this setup, drip emitters next to your plants connect to the rest of the system via a feeder hose.

Although water systems aren’t entirely necessary, they provide lots of benefits – even if you only use the simplest systems such as bottle drip irrigation.

One of those benefits is water consumption. You would think that you would end up with more water consumption by installing a water system, but that couldn’t stray further from the truth. Drip irrigation can save you a lot of water compared to hand-watering and other irrigation styles. Your cannabis also benefits from this, as having a controlled flow keeps you from overwatering your marijuana plants.  

Water system
Watering system

There’s also the benefit of decreased fertilizer loss as water and nutrients are delivered directly in the plant’s root zones. And this also reduces the likelihood of unwanted pests, as harmful microorganisms thrive in moist areas around your plant.

The bottle drip irrigation is just one of the simplest and cheapest ways of providing a semi-automatic water system for your plants. Other methods are entirely automatic and provide timed water flow, but they’re a lot pricier as they require more working parts.

Nutrients

When it comes to nutrients, cannabis requires three main macronutrients. These are nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K). They serve as the building blocks in the growth and development of your plant. You commonly see these abbreviations on the front of fertilizer products in the form of an NPK ratio. This ratio tells you the amount of each particular nutrient present in the fertilizer.

What’s the key takeaway? Marijuana has different NPK ratios for different stages of growth; applying different types of fertilizer in each stage can contribute to the development of the plant.

There are also other nutrients involved in developing marijuana. Nutrients such as calcium, magnesium, and sulfur all contribute to the healthy growth of your marijuana. This means you shouldn’t just settle for the standard NPK fertilizer. You also must choose your nutrients based on your growing medium. Some nutrients will not work well in hydroponic mediums, while others do not do well in soil. Choose your nutrients based on your setup’s growing medium of choice.

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Marijuana Seeds

If you plan to grow marijuana, you’ll also need seeds. Luckily, you came to the right place. My seed bank is one of the best top-rated seed banks of 2021.

Why buy seeds from me? I include a germination guarantee, and my team is known for its great customer service. My store has some of the fastest shipping times to the US, and we also ship to Australia. 

If your seeds do not germinate, we will replace or refund you. Our highly responsive customer service team settles any issues fast and efficiently. Plus, if you’re new to growing marijuana, we’ll do our best to make the process easy and fun. From our detailed strain descriptions to useful seed finders, we do everything we can to help you grow your best weed.  

Shop my store for high-quality indoor seeds that you can grow confidently on your own.

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Creating the Ideal Indoor Environment for Your Weed Plants

There’ are a few things to consider when creating your ideal marijuana grow room. Here are the basics and some tips on growing marijuana indoors that you may also find helpful.

Prep the area

First, you should clean the designated space for your grow room. Whether you use a cabinet, a spare room, or a tent, start by removing everything in the area. Then, close it off. Sealing off your area gives you the most control over the environment in your area. It can also provide a sterile space – free from microorganisms and pests – for growing your marijuana.

Next, pick spots for both lighting and ventilation. Lighting, as we know, plays an important role in growing cannabis, and so does ventilation. These working parts serve a bigger purpose of creating the perfect environment for your cannabis to thrive.

Prep the grow room area
Prep the area for your cannabis indoor grow

Striking a balance between insulation and air circulation is vital not just for your plants but for yourself as well. You don’t want the area to be too hot to work in.

Create the right temperature and humidity

Setting up your grow room and outfitting it with the right equipment is the easy part of any indoor garden setup. The difficult part is the technical side of ensuring the perfect environment for your cannabis plants. To make it even more challenging, the requirements change as the plant grows. 

Here are the ideal temperatures and humidity levels for each stage of the growing process.

Seedlings and clones

Ideal temperature: 68-77°F; 20-25°C
Humidity level: High (65-70%)

In this stage, the plant has yet to develop their own root system and are entirely dependent on transpiration for their water intake. This means you’ll need high amounts of humidity until the seedlings have fully formed roots. You can achieve this by adjusting your grow room to support higher levels of humidity.

However, a better alternative is investing in a humidity dome for your seedlings. When you do this, you can set up your seedlings anywhere and use your grow room for the vegetation phase of your cannabis instead.

Vegetation stage

Ideal temperature: 68-77°F; 20-25°C (daytime) 62°F; 17°C (nighttime)
Humidity level: High (70%) to Moderate (50-60%)

During the first week of the cannabis vegetation phase, young plants still prefer high humidity levels and similar temperatures. However, as they draw closer to maturity, they’ll require less and less humidity until they’re able to handle drier air. They’ll also need lower temperatures during night periods to avoid stressing the plant.

Flowering stage

Ideal temperature: 82°F; 28°C
Humidity level: Low (40-50%)

Once your cannabis has reached the flowering phase, it can flourish at room temperature with low humidity. This is not only easy for yourself as you no longer have to do extensive maintenance on your plants, but it’s also easy for your cannabis. The lower temperature is the ideal environment to encourage the production of potent, trichome-rich buds.

Take note; you shouldn’t go higher than the recommended temperature (28°C) as it can cause the terpenes to evaporate from the leaves and slow bud growth. Terpenes are the aromatic compound that gives marijuana leaves their flavor profile and rich scent.

Ensure proper ventilation

Proper ventilation is just as important as light. It helps contribute to the growth and development of the plant. Cannabis requires fresh air for photosynthesis. Without proper air circulation, it will have a difficult time growing

Proper ventilation
Ensure proper ventilation in your grow room

Besides stunted growth, poor air circulation can turn your grow room into a breeding ground for pathogens and pests. And without proper ventilation, you will have a hard time controlling the humidity levels of your grow room.

The humidity levels in your grow room can rise as your plant completes transpiration combined with the warmth from any grow lights. In general, high humidity levels are a good thing for cannabis plants, especially during the earlier stages of growth. However, to keep your humidity levels at a certain percentage, install an extractor fan at the top of your grow room/tent. The fan will pull old air out of your grow space since hot air naturally rises.

Keep in mind that your extractor fan’s power is measured in CFM. It should be equal to the volume of your grow room for the most efficiency.

You should also install a carbon filter in your exhaust system. To do this, attach it to your exhaust hose (which is attached to the exhaust fan). The filter will then strain out any odors from the air, such as terpenes, and prevent the odor of your grow room from leaking out. This step helps ensure your neighbors aren’t bothered by your indoor garden. 

Ensure proper ventilation - use a carbon filter
Carbon filter is great to get rid of weed smell

To complete your ventilation system, add an oscillating fan and intake vents. Oscillating fans help encourage airflow around your space to avoid stagnant air, and intake vents help provide fresh air.

Lighting

To select the best grow lights, you must first choose the right type of light fixtures and the right size. And although it’s more expensive than an HID, we recommend LEDs as the best light fixtures for beginners.

LEDs not only fix the issue of generating too much heat, unlike fluorescent and HID lights, but they also have the best maximum output and last longer than both options. They also do not have the problem of a ‘warm-up period’ that HID lights often experience. These types of lights must remain on for a while to reach their maximum output.

And due to the minimal heat that LED lights generate, there is better water retention in your plants. This creates a much more efficient watering schedule.

Lighting - LED grow lights
LED growing lights

In addition to all of that, you can customize the size and output of your LED grow lights. This is vital when it comes to choosing the best light fixture for growing marijuana. And in some cases, you can even select the type of color the lights would take on. Color options are essential because various light spectrums affect the stages of cannabis growth in different ways.

However, as much as we like LED grow lights, that doesn’t necessarily mean that LED grow lights are the best option for you. Choosing the best grow light comes down to the space your grow room has and the number of plants in it. If you’re running a much smaller setup, then fluorescent lights are a much more efficient alternative. If you have a larger grow room, then you may want to choose an HID grow light.

Advanced Growing Techniques to Increase Your Indoor Cannabis Yield

As mentioned at the start of the article, outdoor plants yield more than your standard indoor plants. This is mainly because the plant is allowed to grow wide and tall, with no ceiling to limit its growth. There’s also the added factor of the sun acting as nature’s perfect grow light to help build up the plant’s size.

But there are advanced indoor growing techniques that help indoor plants yield as much as outdoor plants – all while retaining a high-quality harvest that indoor cannabis is known for.

Screen of Green (SCROG) Method

Screen of Green (SCROG) Method
Screen of Green (SCROG) Method

Also known as scrogging, this technique is best for those growing a small number of marijuana plants that would like high yields. 

Scrogging is an effective technique for providing large harvests. It works by training your cannabis to grow outwards rather than upwards. You’ll need a fairly wide area to get the most out of scrogging, but the results are worth it! Not only do you get a harvest that’s equal to outdoor plants, but you also get a much higher yield with more potent buds and bushier plants.

The scrogging process is also quite simple. You simply lay a net (the ‘screen‘) on top of your plants, and as they grow onto that screen, you will tie them to it. The perfect size for the screen depends on the area you want your grow area to cover, but typically a 50x50cm screen with 5x5cm squares as best as you can pair it with an HID grow light or even a fluorescent light.

Scrogging is also typically paired with topping – a method that involves cutting the tops of your marijuana plant to encourage them to grow outwards rather than upwards.

Scrogging is also typically paired with topping
Topping a marijuana plant

You can watch a video of the process here

So, how do you properly apply SCROG?

  1. Place the screen 50 to 60cm above the containers.
  2. Once in the vegetation phase or once the plant has reached the screen, cut the top cola of your cannabis. This helps the growth hormones redistribute throughout the branches.
  3. Prune any bottom branches to encourage growth on the top.
  4. Force into flowering two days after pruning the bottom branches.
  5. Attach all branches horizontally to the screen to promote outward growth.

Mainlining Weed

Mainlining uses the same principles as scrogging to encourage the development of large, uniform colas by training them to grow in a specific way. It is essentially a hybrid of LST, topping, and scrogging.

Manifolding is the process of mainlining. Manifolding splits the cannabis stem, creating a Y-shaped hub (a manifold). By cutting the top cola of the cannabis, you divert the nutrients and resources to the two nodes of the plant.

How does mainlining increase yield? It’s simple; by creating more than just one central cola, you end up with multiple central colas. That means you have a large cluster to harvest instead of one. 

Here’s a quick and easy breakdown of the process of how to create a manifold and mainline marijuana:

Manifolding

Mainlining Weed
Creating a Y-shaped hub (a manifold) as part of mainlining cannabis

Wait until your seedlings/clones have developed 5-8 nodes. It’s vital that you start this early, but not too early otherwise, you may just end up damaging your plant to the point of no recovery. 

How to do manifolding:

  1. Once they’ve developed those nodes, cut the entire plant down to the 3rd node (the 3rd pair of leaves from the base).
  2. Remove any additional growths and vegetation below the 3rd node. This will encourage your plant to divert all its nutrients and resources to just the pair.
  3. With your two main pairs prepared, tie them down so that they aim to grow horizontally. You must do this gently so that the branch won’t snap.

Mainlining

  1. Wait until each branch of your manifold has four new pairs of leaves. Then repeat the first two steps on both branches.
  2. With this, you should have a total of 8 branches. Like with the last step in manifolding, tie them down gently and grow at the same height as the two main branches.
  3. Now it’s just a matter of maintaining your plants by providing them with the required water, nutrients, and light they need.

For more on mainlining, read this article

Monster Cropping

Monster cropping is a training technique that uses flowering clones from a mother plant and reverts that mother plant to its vegetation phase. The cuttings are then induced to root in a different container (which can then help perpetuate the cycle).

Monster cropping
Monster Cropping

Monster cropping works by stressing your plants. Under normal circumstances, growers would avoid causing their cannabis stress as it would complicate and hinder the plant’s development. However, there is such a thing as beneficial stress. Some amounts of stress can cause marijuana to develop more bud sites and increase THC levels.

Controlled stress on cannabis plants encourages their built-in natural defenses into action. Similar to how when exposed to too much sunlight, cannabis will hermie. The same logic applies to monster cropping. When you purposefully damage the plant, it causes them to grow into gigantic plants that produce larger buds.

Keep in mind; you must be careful when monster cropping. This technique is not for beginners, and it is not for autoflowers. As easy it sounds, knowing how and when to stress your plants is a lot trickier than most other training techniques. You can also introduce pathogens to your plant. That’s why, when monster cropping, you must use sterilized tools to avoid giving your plants an infection.

 Here are the steps for monster cropping:

  1. Choose your best flowering cannabis plants and take cuttings from the bottom branches. Preferably pick a healthy plant that’s already two weeks into flowering.
  2. Induce rooting in your cuttings by placing them in a rooting medium of either Rockwool or a container with water.
  3. Re-veg your clones by changing their light cycle from 12 hours of light to 18. Once the clones re-veg, they will grow with round leaves and plenty of branches, which signifies that your monster cropping was a success!

Learn more about monster cropping in this article.

More Tips on Growing Marijuana Indoors

Odor control

As we’ve already established, you’ll need proper ventilation systems to avoid receiving complaints from your neighbors. One of the best tools for filtering out the odor from the extracted air in your grow room is a carbon filter. The activated carbon in the filter strains the smell of terpenes from the air, purifying it as it leaves your grow room.

Check the rules in your area.

Before you start researching how to start growing marijuana indoors, It’s important to know the guidelines around growing cannabis where you live. There may be limits on how much you can grow, or you may require a special license. Even if you know home growing is permitted where you live, if you are renting, you may want to check with the homeowner beforehand.

Final Thoughts on Growing Marijuana Indoors

Indoor marijuana growing is an excellent option for many cannabis lovers. The method offers a controlled environment that allows for higher quality harvests even if space limits how much you can grow or how much your plants will yield. However, as we’ve established, by using certain techniques, you can make up for that.

No matter how you decide to grow your cannabis, it comes down to your own preferences. Do you want to deal with creating an indoor setup,  or do you have the means to grow discreetly outdoors?  When you’re ready to get started, revisit this article for all the advice that you need.

Growing marijuana like a pro is all about practice and learning. Let my blog help you get started.

Have you tried growing cannabis plants indoors? What’s your favorite growing technique? Please feel free to share your experience or leave questions in the comments!

Happy growing!

Robert

Read Growing Marijuana Indoors on I Love Growing Marijuana.