Cultivating cannabis can be a very rewarding and enjoyable experience at times. It can also be very frustrating, especially when growers are first starting out.
Many aspiring cultivators operate on the false assumption that cultivating quality cannabis is very easy to do. ‘It grows like a weed!’ they think.
The truth is that cultivating a cannabis plant in a way that ensures it reaches full potential takes a great deal of dedication, attention to detail, and knowledge.
Achieving success as a cannabis grower is far from guaranteed. Finding quality advice and products can be very tricky.
To get some input on the most common nutrient-related mistakes that you’ll want to avoid, Green Flower connected with one of the top nutrient suppliers in the business: Grotek.
1. Not knowing what is already in your water source
A cannabis garden is only as good as the water that it is using. This sounds like a simple, obvious fact but it’s something that many rookie cannabis cultivators don’t give enough consideration.
Water sources, especially municipal ones, can contain all types of stuff that is not good for your plants or it may simply have too much of the nutrients that you do want in your plants, Simon Hart from Grotek explains.
“Knowing your water is really important. Different elements can be present and could cause a problem. Knowing helps you plan around it,” Hart says.
2. Having the right pH level
One thing that is much easier to do than a full water analysis is to test the pH level. It’s extremely important.
“Off-balance pH can be a major issue especially in indoor or greenhouse growing situations,” Hart says.
“The first and most immediate problem is that with improper pH levels in your water you can lock out some nutrients while over-releasing others. This can cause massive imbalances and rapid-onset plant problems that are hard to correct.”
Water pH can also adversely affect your growing media, Hart adds. “This is especially an issue if your growing medium is peat-based. The wrong pH in your water can throw off the buffering capacity and can revert to the natural peat pH of around 4 – major problem.”
3. Overfeeding
Many growers make the mistake of feeding their plants too often. The urge to do so can be a hard thing for new growers to keep in check.
“The plants are growing well and so why not give them more food?” Hart points out. “Better thing again. Plants, like people, are capable of eating too much.”
If too much fertilizer gets into the plant, Hart explains, the first visual sign and the time to back off is the burning (yellowing or browning) of leaf tips.
“You can also put so much nutrient in the soil that it makes it so the plant can’t absorb water,” Hart notes, recommending that you flush overfed plants with straight water to help remedy the situation.
4. Failing to follow nutrient product directions
Properly feeding cannabis plants is a craft and takes a lot of patience. Knowing what to feed plants and when is not an easy thing to learn. Following directions is vital to success.
As Simon Hart points out, “Some elements and additives are effective at very specific ranges. Above this and you can actually hurt the plant rather than help. These types of problems can be hard to correct.”
This is all the more reason to follow directions for any product you add to your grow – or at least make sure you’ve done the proper homework.
“If you aren’t going to follow the label then make sure you know what you are using, why you are using it, and be ready for an adventure that could pay off or end up ruining your dream crop,” Hart warns.
You will want to follow directions all the way through the cultivation process. Strong starts make strong vegetative-stage plants, which in turn make large plants for blooming and then big harvests!
5. Looks can be deceiving
Trying to visibly diagnose a problem with a cannabis plant or garden is not an easy thing to do, despite what you may hear from other growers.
“In a well-run system this is true but if something is an underlying problem – like pH, overwatering, etc. what you see may not be the real problem,” Hart notes. “The real problem could be much more difficult to find and fix.”
One example of this, Hart continues, could be when your plants appear calcium-deficient. The first inclination may be to feed in more calcium, but what if there is plenty of calcium in the soil?
“Instead of needing more calcium, your issue could be that the ambient temperature is over 35 degrees Celsius so the plant can’t actually move the calcium even though it’s right beside the roots,” Hart explains.
The easy answer isn’t always the right answer, he says.
6. Growing in a container without run-off
Liquid needs to be able to run through your grow medium and any excess naturally removed via holes in the container. If the liquid sits, it can be very bad for the plant.
“A container without run-off can build up problems over the time the crop is growing. Even if you have run-off but it’s just into a drip tray, the media will reabsorb this runoff,” Hart explains.
“The resulting spike in nutrients can cause major problems and also make it impossible to flush plants properly.”
To avoid this issue, Hart offers straightforward advice: “Elevate plants in drip trays or use flood tables with a drain to let run-off actually run off.
Grotek takes a lot of the guesswork out of cannabis nutrients
Newbie cannabis cultivators and even experienced cannabis cultivators need advice about their garden on an ongoing basis.
Anyone who has frequented an indoor garden supply store knows that the number of options for nutrients is almost endless.
About the only thing that outnumbers the options for nutrients is ‘experts’ offering up advice on how to feed plants properly (and everything else that goes into cultivation). Navigating it can be daunting.
Grotek makes all of that searching and trial and error approach obsolete. The company’s nutrient line helps gardens thrive from start to finish.
Cannabis plants take more than just water and dirt. They need the right food, at the right time, and in the right amounts.
From soil preparation to the vegetative stage, to bloom, to harvest, Grotek has everything that your plants crave.
Reach your ultimate cannabis yield
Once you begin to familiarize yourself with cannabis growing, you’ll get a better idea of how to utilize Grotek’s products to further drive your plants toward their ultimate yield.
In addition to offering a superior line of nutrients, Grotek also offers a lot of support resources to cultivators who use their products.
The company offers two cultivation guides, which is not something that most other nutrient companies offer.
Grotek also has a feed chart calculator to help growers customize their plants’ feed schedule.
You might also enjoy the Grotek blog, which is home to a wealth of cultivation knowledge, with new articles coming out all the time.
With all of that help just one click away, and the fantastic products that Grotek offers, the Green Flower team is confident in telling our readers to check them out!
