Learn everything you can, start with good genetics and create the perfect growing environment to produce the best buds!
Start with Top-Shelf Genetics
It’s really tough to get truly top-shelf buds if you start with mid-grade seeds, clones, or the dreaded bag seed; you’re giving yourself a much higher chance of disappointment because no growing method can overcome genetics!
Clones are still a great way to start a grow with good genetics, but you have to make sure you always get clones from a trustworthy source!
If you want to take your quality to the next level, don’t start with just any clones or seeds. Search for the right, true quality genetics, and don’t be afraid to research to make sure you’re getting exactly what you want! Good seeds cost more than bagseed, but the money you pay for quality is worth it, especially when you consider what you’re getting in return!
Give Your Cannabis Lots of Light!
If you want great bud, you have to provide plenty of light!
When you start a grow with good genetics – from good seeds or clones – your plant has the potential for a high level of quality (yields, potency, resilience). However, it’s nearly impossible to get your buds to reach that potential if you use lights that are underpowered.
For example, there’s no amount of plant training or growing skill that can make up for the amount of light produced by an incandescent bulb; the bulb simply doesn’t have what it takes to do the job.
Similarly, growers can have the same problem when they try to grow a larger plant with a few small CFLs or T5s. Although CFLs and T5s make great growing lights and produce a high-quality product, it’s important to pick the right tool for the job. These two types of lights are better at stealth, discretion, and smaller grows than producing lots of super potent bud.
Strong, bright light is what powers the growth of buds in the flowering stage – light is like “food” for your plants!
When it comes to indoor cannabis gardening, more light is better…to an extent. If you give your flowering cannabis plants all the light they can handle without giving them too much, it increases your potency, density, and yields.
Strong, bright light is a crucial part of reaching a strain’s full potential!
Strong light is incredibly important for the highest bud density, potency, and yields!
Nutrients & Supplements to Increase Bud Quality
First, before adding any special supplements, you need to make sure you’re giving your plant the correct base nutrients in the flowering stage.
Base Nutrients in the Flowering Stage
Low Nitrogen (N) – Give your plant relatively low levels of Nitrogen, especially in the second half of the flowering stage when the plant has stopped growing vegetatively and buds are fattening up. The plant needs a lot of Nitrogen for vegetative growth but doesn’t need nearly as much for making buds. In fact, too much nitrogen in the ripening stage can discourage bud production and hurt your yields.
Plenty of Phosphorus (P) – Phosphorus is incredibly important to flower production and giving plants plenty of Phosphorus in the flowering stage will help increase the total number of flowers
Potassium (K) – Potassium is often overlooked compared to Phosphorus (which is often considered a bud booster) but Potassium may actually be even more important! Providing a good source of Potassium increases the size and density of each individual flower.
In general, when it comes to feeding nutrients in the second half of the flowering stage, less is more! Keeping nutrient levels low can also improve the taste of your final buds because high nutrient levels are associated with a chemical taste in the buds.
Giving cannabis the right ratios of nutrients during the flowering stage will greatly increase the quality of your bud!
Supplements in the Flowering Stage
Supplements in the flowering stage come in many different flavors, and they have different goals or purposes
Sugar or carbohydrates – improve taste/smell and increase bulk. Some of these, like the Botanicare Sweet Carbo Line, not only include sugar, but also certain terpenes and esters that are stored unchanged in plant buds, giving your buds unique subtle flavors like grape, citrus, berry, and “raw” (which is just a generally sweet smell).
“Bloom Enhancers” – These offer a variety of non-nutrient ingredients that may help the plant grow better or more efficiently in some way by improving processes or providing the plant with amino acids and humic acids, so the plant doesn’t have to make everything itself.
PK Boosters & “Shooting Powders” – With this type of supplement, the main ingredients are just Phosphorus and Potassium because they are important for flowering. These also sometimes contain some amount of sulfur. In general, use these sparingly as they’re usually very potent! And don’t forget that every quality base Bloom nutrient should already contain plenty of P and K. These types of products often contain naturally occurring plant hormones to help stimulate flowering which is not listed on the label. The downside is these hormones can sometimes cause plants to herm or grow male flowers (which can result in seedy buds), though typically that only happens with strains that are already prone to herming.
Often, bloom supplements will include a mix of some or even all of these types of ingredients! It can definitely get a little confusing so I’ll try to break it down a little 🙂
Sugar or Carbohydrates
A cheap alternative to expensive sugar-based bloom boosting supplements is blackstrap molasses. Giving this to your plants for the last few weeks before harvest can help them get bigger and smell/taste better. It’s not specially made for plants; it’s the regular stuff you’ll find in your kitchen or at the grocery store. Blackstrap molasses adds sugars, amino acids, and trace minerals. Unfortunately for hydro growers, anything organic like molasses is not suitable for a hydroponic reservoir! But molasses works great for soil and coco growers 🙂
The natural esters in Sweet are easily absorbed by the plant, but are not broken down further once deposited within the plant tissue. This means that as new flowers develop they will contain small amounts of these natural esters which contribute to the overall flavor and aroma of the finished product.
Bloom Enhancers
The jury is still out and which is the most effective supplement, but many growers are happy with bloom-promoting supplements that include sources of…
amino acids
humic acids
vitamins
trace minerals
often contain unlisted ingredients (including plant hormones)
Floralicious Plus or Floralicious Bloom (by General Hydroponics)
Cha-Ching (by Fox Farm)
Note: When possible, try to get all your nutrients and supplements from the same company. This greatly reduces the chance of getting unexpected reactions between the different products. Some companies don’t “play well” together.
PK Boosters & “Shooting Powders”
The supplements listed above use ingredients that add only tiny amounts of base nutrients (NPK). This means that they have less of a chance of overwhelming your plant with too high levels of nutrients (which can be easy to do if you’re adding a lot of supplements!).
However, this last set of nutrients directly adds P and K. If you’re using a regular Bloom nutrient already, this can make it really easy to go overboard with P and K. Whenever using this type of nutrient, a tiny amount goes a really long way! Whenever possible, try to choose a supplement by the same company as your base nutrients – this will help prevent negative interactions between the nutrients and the supplements. In general…
Phosphorus (P) increases the number of flowers
Potassium (K) increases the weight/density of flowers
These sometimes also come with a small amount of Sulfur (S), and possibly other ingredients like amino acids, trace minerals, and/or sugar like the supplements above.
Suitable for Hydro, Soil, or Coco – Supplements to Increase Yields/Density with extra P & K
Liquid Koolbloom (by General Hydroponics)
Hydroplex (by Botanicare)
Beastie Bloomz (by Fox Farms)
Better Taste, Better Smell – Increase Terpene Content
The smell and scent of cannabis buds are produced by plant chemicals known as “terpenes” (also “terpenoids”, which are a class of terpenes).
Terpenes contribute to the flavors of many household spices (like cinnamon, rosemary, cloves, and ginger) and help create the scent of most flowers.
The unique combination of terpenes and terpenoids produced in cannabis flowers (buds) causes most of their taste and smell as well.
There are a variety of ways to increase the terpene content of your buds so you produce cannabis that tastes and smells great, and there are also a couple of common mistakes you should know about that can actually ruin the taste and smell of your buds.
Maintain Proper Temperature and Humidity
Temperature
Maintain daytime temperatures around 65-80°F (18-26°C) in the flowering stage unless you’re using CO2 which does best at around 80-90°F (26°-32°C). However, even if you’re using CO2, most growers recommend you back off and bring the temps down to 65-80°F for the last two weeks before harvest.
Night temperatures should be kept around 68-75°F (20°-24°C) for most strains. Too-cool temps increase the chances of bud rot, which thrives in the 60°F (15°C) range, and freezing temperatures can actually damage or even kill your plants.
However, if you’re growing a strain that turns color, keep in mind that some of these strains will only show their color when night temperatures are at least a few degrees cooler than during the day in the flowering stage.
Humidity
Humidity stumps a lot of new growers and causes several unexpected problems.
Maintaining higher humidity during the vegetative stage will reduce salt levels within the plant while encouraging healthy and lush growth.
During the vegetative stage, if the humidity drops below 40%, especially anywhere below 25%, it can cause problems that look like nutrient deficiencies or light/heat stress!
But in these cases, just adding a little moisture to the air does wonders, even if you don’t change anything else.
During the flowering stage, your cannabis plants actually prefer less humidity!
Decreasing moisture in the air (lowering the humidity) during the flowering stage helps prevent mold and actually may increase trichome production in your buds! For best results, keep humidity 40%-50% during the flowering stage.
Lower humidity levels in the flowering stage help promote trichome production, which increases the amount of “glitter” you see on buds.
The truth is, you can successfully grow your marijuana plants in high or low humidity, even if the growth isn’t perfect. This is the primary reason why many growers – especially new ones – forget about humidity altogether.
New growers also tend to hastily spend money on CO2, supplements, or expensive nutrients when controlling the humidity in their setup could make a much bigger difference in their final product.
So if you’ve realized that your humidity is far higher or lower than what’s recommended, you may be able to make a simple, relatively cheap change to dramatically improve the vibrancy of your plants.
For growers in really dry or humid areas, it can make a big difference to buy a humidifier/dehumidifier and make sure they’re always providing the optimum humidity levels.
And there’s one more insider trick you need to know about humidity: So you know you need to keep humidity in the 40-50%RH range for the flowering stage, but there is one extra trick… Use a dehumidifier to drop the humidity down as low as you possibly can for the last 2-3 weeks of flowering (I’ve gotten the humidity as low as 25%).
This extreme dryness will encourage the buds to seal and protect themselves with additional resin (in other words, a sparkling outer layer of THC-heavy trichomes).
As an added bonus, this trick also gets your buds prepped for a successful, mold-free drying process because your buds have already given up some of their moisture.
Make Sure Grow Room has Strong Air Flow & Good Ventilation
This is yet another factor having to do with air quality (we already listed temperature and humidity).
Over time, any grower (especially indoor growers) will see that great air quality is a big contributor to star-quality buds. Airflow and ventilation are essential if you want to create perfect air quality.
For 1-3 plants smaller to mid-sized plants, you’ll probably be fine with an oscillating fan or two. With a big growth and hot lights, you’ll need a better exhaust system to ensure proper airflow, but it can be easy to set up!
Master the Basics – Especially Drying & Curing
You probably know that in order to get the best results, your plants need to make it through the majority of their lifecycle without major problems.
But although your growing methods are incredibly important, one of the most important things to focus on is when you harvest, as well as the process of drying/curing your buds after harvest.
In fact, the things you do during and after harvest, including drying/curing, make up almost 50% of your final bud appearance!
Drying/curing the right way will make buds smell better, look better, be denser, and buds will actually feel more potent!
If you haven’t really been paying attention during the drying/curing part of your grow, you should focus here for the greatest gains in quality!
Drying buds slowly and then curing them in glass mason jars for 2-4+ weeks helps “tighten up” buds so they are denser. Curing also intensifies smell and increases potency!
What else to pay attention to during the growth?
A lot of mistakes that won’t kill your plant (like nutrient burn, nutrient deficiencies, and heat stress) can often still damage the overall appearance of your buds, especially big problems that happen after the beginning of the flowering stage while buds are in the process of forming.
More importantly, too many problems during the flowering stage can reduce the maximum potency your plant can achieve!
So in order to get the best yields along with beautiful buds that sparkle in the light, you need to gain a complete understanding of the basics of growing. It’s also important to provide your plants with a good growing environment.
But if you were to focus on just ONE thing to improve with your growth, the factor that makes the biggest difference to your quality (besides the strain) is the drying and curing process.