The Unconventional Guide to Growing the Best Marijuana Make your next cannabis crop the best you’ve ever grown with these off-the-beaten-track ideas. If you’re looking for a basic marijuana grow guide, this isn’t it. These are the secret strategies you need to know to maximize your yield and create buds so resinous that they’ll cling to your fingers like super glue. The Best Start Makes the Best Buds Growing strong, healthy cannabis starts with good germination. High quality seeds are expensive, so you want to make sure they all germinate quickly and successfully. Grow the Best Marijuana, Secret #1 Play music to your seeds and watch your germination rates soar. A University of Arizona study tested the effects of playing Native American flute music to vegetable seeds. Here’s what they found out: “Musical sound had a highly statistically significant effect on the number of seeds sprouted compared to the untreated control over all five experiments” . Anecdotal evidence suggests that music also helps cannabis plants throughout their life cycle. One explanation for this is that musical vibrations interact with photosynthesis system of plants by affecting the charge of molecules. If the timing and frequencies are right this can boost photosynthetic activity, providing more nutrients to the plants. So crank up the stereo and create a playlist for your grow room. Thus far there have been no studies investigating which types of music are best, so it you can do a little experimenting. Maybe Super Silver Haze likes Johnny Cash, or your Skunk #1 hankers for Snoop Dog. Strong Marijuana Stems Support Heavy Buds During the vegetative growth stage you want to encourage your plants to grow strong, sturdy stems that will support the heavy buds soon to come. You can encourage the best vegetative growth with a little training and a nice brew. Grow the Best Marijuana, Secret #2 Brew up a nice compost tea for strong stems and healthy plants. Spraying your cannabis plants with compost tea is like taking a probiotic or eating yogurt each day. Just like people, your plants play host to a large assortment of bacteria that help them access nutrients and fight disease. And just like people, sometimes the microflora on your plants gets out of balance. Compost tea is the answer. Making Compost Tea for Cannabis: Mix compost or crushed and chopped male marijuana plants (or any other plant waste) in a five gallon bucket with water. Let soak for 24-72 hours. During this time fermentation will occur, making a nice home for all the healthy bacteria. Spray on your plants For an even healthier mix, place an air pump in the bucket while it is fermenting. This adds extra oxygen which healthy bacteria need to thrive. Use regularly to reduce the risk of disease. Compost tea is especially good at suppressing powdery mildew, fusarium, pythium and phytophthora. Grow the Best Marijuana, Secret #3 Super Crop your plants for bushier growth, stronger stems and larger yields. Super Cropping is an underutilized technique that both strengthens plants and increases yields. The basic technique is this: During the vegetative stage, choose stems that are old but still flexible. Bend the stem gently in your fingers in the direction you want the plant to grow. Apply pressure until you feel a slight crack or break occur INSIDE the stem. The outside of the stem should not crack. If it does you’ve gone too far! You can repair the damage with a little duct tape, and be more careful on the next stem. Healthy Plant + Healthy Flowers = Best Harvest Flowering is an exciting time for the cannabis cultivator. The final product is nearly in sight! Aside for adjusting your lights and nutrients, there are a couple of things you can do to make the most of the flowering stage. The transition between vegging and flowering is a delicate and important time for cannabis plants. Giving your girls a little extra support during this time will pay off with heavier, more resinous buds at harvest time. Grow the Best Marijuana, Secret #4 Use a Calcium/Phosphate spray during the changeover to flowering. Calcium will strengthen the stems so that they don’t break under the weight of heavy buds, while phosphorus supports the roots, enabling them to absorb more water and nutrients. Here’s a simple homemade recipe from the Unconventional Farmer that you can spray right on your plants. You need to plan ahead and mix this recipe up at least 3 weeks before flowering starts. Gather enough egg shells to make 1 cup when crushed. Rinse egg shells thoroughly. Cook in a dry skillet until some shells are black (calcium) and some are white (phosphorus). Place in a jar with 5 cups of vinegar (or 1 part eggshell to 5 parts vinegar if you used a different amount of shell) Watch it bubble. When bubbling stops, seal the jar. Let sit for 20 days. Strain When you are ready to use the spray, mix one tablespoon with 1 gallon of water. You can also spray on leaves in the second to last week of flowering to make stronger, beefier buds. Grow the Best Marijuana, Secret #5 Let in a little moonlight during flowering. You’ve probably heard that during flowering you should keep your plants in total darkness for at least 12 hours a day. Scientists at the University of Tubingen, Germany thought the same thing. They designed a study to see how moonlight affected flowering plants. They suspected that nights with especially bright moonlight might confuse flowering plants, making them think that the days were longer. To their great surprise, they found that rather than inhibiting flowering, light intensities similar to moonlight actually seemed to promote it. In the wisdom that comes from eons of evolution, plants have developed a specific photoperiod response to moonlight that encourages flowering. So consider opening the windows in your flowering room on nights when the moon is bright. Or you might try placing a moonlight blue LED, like the ones used by reptile keepers, in there to give your buds an extra boost. Extra Tip – Buy high quality brand name cannabis seeds, fresh high strains will make all the difference to the end results. Try an Unconventional Grow for the Best Marijuana Ever Of course it is important to learn and practice good grow room protocols. Controlling temperature and humidity, keeping the room clean, using the best lights and high-quality nutrients and paying close attention to the needs of your individual plants will result in consistently good harvests. But you want more than a good harvest. You want the very best. The stickiest buds. The biggest buds. The heaviest buds. On your next grow mix up a batch of compost tea and cal/phos spray. Let a little moonlight shine on your flowering marijuana and crank up the music throughout the grow. You just might be amazed at the results.
