Fertilizing Cannabis Plants – How and When
A marijuana plant requires a lot of fertilizer and gets it from the growing medium. Left alone, with a good growing medium, a plenitude of light and water, and a temperate terrain, a weed plant will thrive, but fertilizer will help cannabis thrive and grow healthy and strong. A bountiful crop of healthy flowers is the desire of most all cannabis farmers. Light, oxygen, and water are three of the crucial rudiments to achieving this dream, but fertilizer is just as important to boost flower site growth.
In this blog about choosing the right amount of cannabis nutrients, you’ll learn why supplemental nutrients are important for cannabis plants, and how and when to use which nutrients to increase flower product and yields.
What are Nutrients/Fertilizers?
Simply put, nutrients are factory-made plant food made from natural or chemical substances that growers apply to soil and the leaves of cannabis plants to optimize growth. The nutrients that a plant derives from your fertilizer can be helpful when growing different plants, including cannabis.
What are cannabis nutrients?
Growing quality cannabis requires a more refined set of nutrients and grow supplements than most other plants.
Cannabis growers who choose to grow in nature generally add powdered nutrients to the soil when growing cannabis outside. This gives the plants all or most of the nutrients they need for their entire growing cycle. And if you want to add further nutrients to the plants later by adding them to the face of the soil – also known as “ top dressing ”.
Indoor cultivators generally prefer liquid nutrients and mix them with water before adding it to the growing medium. Using liquid nutrients tends to be further time-consuming as you generally need to measure and mix them in water 1- 2 times a week.
We don’t recommend using fertilizers designed for indoor growing for out-of-door growing, as these are generally synthetic mineral solutions and can damage naturally occurring soil bacteria.
Why are nutrients so important for cannabis growth?
Essential growing nutrients are the plant’s building blocks. This will help cannabis farmers to grow a larger crop of cannabis with more abundant bud site growth and eventually flowers.
The right cannabis nutrient setup can help you achieve what all us growers want, large potent cannabis plants. Without a good system, the flowers of cannabis plants may not reach their full growth potential.
What nutrients does a marijuana plant require?
A weed plant needs a combination of essential nutrients, trace nutrients and micronutrients. The proper set of cannabis nutrients gives a balance of the essential nutrient triad.
The three important primary nutrients cannabis needs to grow are NPK – short for Nitrogen( N), Phosphorus( P) and Potassium( K). NPK is the common structure block of every cannabis nutrient setup as well as every thriving marijuana plant. Weed plants also need carbon dioxide( CO ₂) and oxygen( O ₂), which they get from the air around them, and hydrogen( H), which comes from water.
Your marijuana plants need the following primary nutrients, inclusively known as macronutrients
Nitrogen( N)
Phosphorus( P)
Potassium( K)
These micronutrients are also a demand for good growing results but in much lower quantities
Calcium
Magnesium
Iron
Copper
In addition, marijuana flowers need these non-mineral rudiments from air and water
Carbon
Hydrogen
Oxygen
Marijuana plants absorb different quantities of these nutrients at different growth stages, more nitrogen during vegetative growth and further phosphorus and potassium during the flowering phase for flower development– also known as “ flowering ” nutrients.
Nitrogen( N)
Nitrogen is the nutrient responsible for the development of the weed plant during the vegetative phase of the growth cycle. It’s an essential element of chlorophyll and without it, a growing plant can not convert sun into the energy it needs to grow.
Nitrogen is also part of amino acids, which serve as structure blocks for proteins in a growing plant. Without the necessary proteins, your weed plant will be weak and frail.
Nitrogen is also necessary to make nucleic acid, an essential part of DNA or RNA, and without it, cells can not grow and reproduce.
Phosphorus( P)
Phosphorus is important for producing big, healthy flower sites. The crucial part of this element is to give nutrients to the cannabis plant. These nutrients are used to make a growing plant’s structure as it grows from its roots to its flowers.
Without enough phosphorus, weed plants will show signs of uninhabited roots and may not indeed flower. Beforehand signs of phosphorus insufficiency show up as a purple tinge in the leaf veins.
Potassium( K)
Potassium has a number of roles that largely help regulate the systems that keep a cannabis plant healthy and growing.
It plays a major part in osmoregulation, the unresistant regulation of water and swab attention in the plant. Potassium accomplishes this by controlling the opening and ending of stomata — the pores in leaves — which allow a leaf to exchange CO2, H2O, and oxygen.
Potassium also triggers the product of ATP( adenosine triphosphate), which stores the energy generated during photosynthesis through the conformation of glucose. This glucose is energy for the growing plant. Without enough potassium, you see weak plants starving for energy that appear burnt because they can not successfully regulate the exchange of CO2, H2O, and oxygen.
Calcium( Ca)
Calcium is responsible for holding the structure of a growing plant’s cell walls together. Without calcium, new growth won’t develop normally and the cannabis plant won’t grow as it should.
Magnesium( Mg)
Magnesium acts as a crucial patch in chlorophyll and without it, leaves can not make glucose from photosynthesis. No magnesium and the plant factory can’t convert energy from the sun.
Once magnesium has helped to form glucose, it helps metabolize it so the plant can use it for growth. Without enough magnesium, you’ll find yellowing leaves.
How and when should you fertilize cannabis plants?
Cannabis plants absorb different quantities of nutrients depending on their growth stage. In general, marijuana nutrients should be applied at least formerly a week along with an acceptable amount of pH- balanced water.
As a general rule of growing weed, the ideal pH for cannabis grown in soil is between 6.0 and 6.8. Hydroponic farmers should keep the water pH in the range of 5.5 to 6.5. On average, cannabis plants absorb 4 litres of water per 400 grams of anticipated flowering every day.
| SEEDLINGS | Minimum or no nutrients. You can( should) stay away from nutrients until your seedlings have many leaves( 3- 4 sets of leaves) before applying the first nutrients. |
| VEGETATIVE STAGE | For week 1, use a 2:1:2 NPK rate – that’s two parts nitrogen to one part phosphorus to two parts potassium. Consider increasing the NPK rate to 10:5:7 by week 7, followed by a 1:1:1 rate in late veg. |
| FLOWERING STAGE | At this point, stop adding nitrogen to the feedings and concentrate on adding phosphorus and potassium nutrients. It’s useful to fertilize plants during the early flowering phase, the effectiveness of fertilizing diminishes in the late flowering phase. In addition to every other day fertilization, cannabis plants love regular watering with pH-balanced water. For the best results, search for a grow diary of someone who has already successfully grown the strain you are attempting. |
How to use and mix cannabis nutrients for fertilizing cannabis plants
The nutrient result bottle and the dry fertilizer bag state the portions of the three main nutrients the product contains in the form of NPK nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. For illustration, a product labelled “ 10-5-3 ” contains 10 available nitrogen, 5 phosphorus, and 3 potassium by weight.
As a general rule of thumb, a vegetative stage fertilizer should be high in nitrogen, low in phosphorus, and moderate in potassium 12-4-5 for illustration. As a cannabis plant transitions into flowering, reduce nitrogen and concentrate on phosphorus and potassium – look for a rate of around 3-8-7, for illustration.
Products are also generally divided into “ grow ” results with high nitrogen content for vegetative growth and “ flower ” results with high phosphorus content for flower development. You can follow these general terms if you don’t want to get confused with all the numbers.
In the last week before you chop your crop, your growing container should only be doused to flush out any nutrient make- up in the developed flowers – this is known as flushing.
Fertilizing Cannabis Plants using Liquid Nutrients
This type of nutrient is generally used for indoor grow rooms, but can also be used outside. Liquid nutrients are used for cannabis plants in soil, hydroponics and other growing media and can be delivered through drip lines, or hoses for easy and effective delivery.
Because liquid nutrients are readily available to the roots of a developing cannabis plant, they work super fast, but this also means they can damage your cannabis if you feed them too much.
If you do plan on using liquid nutrients, a separate water tank is essential to blend and cure them with water. You also need to know how important water is demanded for all of your plants. Depending on the quantity of water you need, add the right rate of liquid nutrients according to the directions on the bottle.
When using liquid nutrients for cannabis it’s important to have a watering schedule that you can write down and follow:
- What’s the water consumption
- How numerous and what nutrients are used
- How frequently is it doused
You shouldn’t use( fertilize) liquid nutrients every time you water your cannabis plants– use them every alternate or third watering, or every two waterings in a row, formerly. It depends on the constituents of your soil and the health of your plants. Too much fertilizer WILL damage your cannabis plants.
Giving your babies the right amount of fertilizer requires careful monitoring. Numerous cannabis growers start with a lower-than-recommended amount than on the bottle and work their way up until their weed responds optimally. Too many nutrients and yuor girls will have suppressed growth, while too numerous can lead to nutrient burn and nutrient lockout.
Check the pH
It’s important to get a pH checker to check the pH of the water when mixing it with nutrients. Cannabis grows to its full potential with a pH between 6 and 7 in soil and between5.5 and6.5 in hydroponic systems.
Also if your pH is off some nutrients won’t get absorbed, known as nute lockout in the community. So test your water regularly and make sure the nutrient blend you’re giving the girls falls within the asked range.
Fertilizing Cannabis Plants using Organic Cannabis Fertilizers
Organic fertilizers are nutrients deduced from organic sources such as compost or animal and bird excrement. It also includes sediments such as gypsum, which contain salutary minerals for the soil and plants. They’re common for out-of-door growing and are generally available in powdered or liquid form.
We recommend these organic supplements
Blood meal or Fish meal for nitrogen
Bone meal or bat stool for phosphorus
Wood ash or seaweed meal for potassium
Dolomitic lime for calcium and magnesium
Epsom salts for magnesium and sulphur
There are also commercially available soil mixes that formerly contain the right blend of these nutrients.