Top 5 Ways to increase Marijuana Yields

Top 5 Ways to Increase Marijuana Yields Indoors

To increase marijuana yields, you’re not alone. Indoor growers everywhere want bigger buds, more harvests, and higher potency from the same space. Here at Royalkingseeds.com, we go over all the ins and outs of growing your own cannabis, including how to make your buds smell and taste better and how to make them more potent. Increase your indoor cannabis yields, though—that’s the topic of this article.

Here are five simple things you can do to maximize your indoor marijuana harvest yields, regardless of the strains you’re cultivating. (Here is a comprehensive guide on growing cannabis outdoors.)

Indoor cannabis growers, take note: These five strategies will increase marijuana yields. Nevertheless, your end output and outcomes are highly dependent on the genetics (strain) you begin with. If you’re a grower looking to get your feet wet with high-yielding genetics, I’ve included a list of some popular and powerful strains in the bonus section below the main article. I’ve also included grower notes to help you give each strain the attention it needs.

Making sure you’re well-versed in growing fundamentals and can handle common cannabis issues is the first step in increasing your yields. But after you’ve mastered the art of cannabis plant cultivation, there are five strategies you should know to maximize your harvest from indoor grow.

Increase Marijuana Yields by Boosting Light Intensity

increase marijuana yields, many growers seek my advice on how to enhance the size, quantity, and density of their buds. In reality, raising light intensity is the gold standard for most growers when it comes to flowering stage bud size.

Increased light intensity typically results in larger harvests when cultivating cannabis indoors. Find out how to optimize your indoor grow lights for maximum light intensity. The light intensity is the most important factor influencing yields if your cannabis plant is healthy and unproblematic.

Light is like fuel for plants. All the energy your plants need to grow and make buds is converted into chemical energy by photosynthesis. increase marijuana yields with Fuller Buds.

Making sure your plants are getting enough light is one of the most crucial things to do right away after geminating your seeds (or rooted your clones). When cannabis plants are in their first, vegetative stage—the stage immediately following seed germination—and they aren’t getting enough light, they’ll “stretch” upwards toward the light by leaving more stem between their nodes and leaves.

To keep young cannabis plants from stretching or becoming too tall and topple over, you need to give them enough light intensity. For lack of light, this cannabis seedling is reaching for the sky. In its confusion, the plant is attempting to “reach” upwards in the direction of the sun. Because it requires more intense light, this cannabis seedling is growing tall. As far as the seedling is concerned, it is “reaching” towards the sun.

This is not a good thing because, without more intense light, these seedlings will grow into tall, leggy plants that fall over all the time. In most indoor settings, tall, towering plants will have lower yields because it is difficult to provide adequate light coverage during the flowering stage.

This is due to the fact that during the flowering stage, when bud production begins, the production of buds is driven by the high light intensity received at the bud sites. Can you tell me when the vegetative phase ends? One simple and effective way to boost your yields when growing indoors on a smaller scale is to find ways to let more light reach the bud sites when they’re flowering.

Indoor cannabis cultivation requires powerful grow lights to produce heavy buds. To prepare this dense marijuana bud for usage, it must first be ground.

Once your cannabis plant starts to produce buds, increasing the intensity of the lights directed towards the bud sites will typically lead to higher yields. When it comes to growing cannabis indoors, nothing beats the intensity of light produced by a real bulb or diode. The light intensity that a cannabis plant perceives decreases as it moves farther away from the grow light.

This makes it difficult to illuminate every single bud on a cannabis plant, especially if the colas aren’t uniform in height or length. Growing cannabis plants with many colas that are uniform in height and spaced closely together is the most efficient and productive way to do it. Reduce the height of your marijuana plants through training.

In the vegetative stage of cannabis plant growth, you have full control over the patterns of growth (discussed in the plant training section below). If you invest the time to train your young plants to make the most of your indoor grow lights, you can significantly increase your yields from those lights. With this method of training plants, the buds are uniformly spaced from the grow light…

This method produces greater harvests than just letting plants grow in their natural habitat. Due to the plant’s inherent “Christmas tree shape,” which positions just one bud per plant near the grow light, only one bud per plant develops into a large one. Do not use your grow room in this manner!

Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do to fix severely uneven cola height after buds have formed and flowering has begun without damaging your plant. Although supercropping is an effective method for controlling unruly cannabis plants, it is important to note that it is a “high stress” technique and should only be employed in extreme cases during the flowering stage.

If your plant is producing buds, all you have to do is keep the light levels as high as possible without burning or damaging the “colas” (a term for long, thick buds) until harvest. While you may see an increase in harvest yields, the quality of your buds will suffer due to the loss of beneficial compounds like terpenoids (taste and smell) and cannabinoids (potency) caused by overheating during flowering.

All of your buds should be exposed to intense light for the best results. As opposed to when they are veiled by leaves, buds appear to swell considerably more when exposed to direct light. The top buds, or those receiving the most light, are almost always the best on any cannabis plant, regardless of its size or shape. In the “ideal light zone” the buds grow large, thick, and powerful. On the other hand, we have laboratory evidence that buds with THC levels below that threshold tend to remain small.

What is the purpose of exposing cannabis buds? I’ll give you a popular theory. In nature, wind is responsible for pollinating cannabis buds, and sunlight is essential for the development of the plant’s seeds. When growing cannabis in nature, buds that aren’t near any sources of light or air aren’t likely to receive pollination, so the plant doesn’t stress out its lower and middle buds as much. To reach their full THC potential, buds must be exposed to air and strong light.

The purpose of the hairs on buds in nature is to collect pollen from the air.

What is the threshold for excessive lighting?

Unless they’re working with extremely powerful lights in a cramped area or are positioning the lights too near to the plants’ crowns, most indoor growers probably aren’t exposing their marijuana plants to too much light. When properly cared for, cannabis plants can utilise an astonishing amount of light. Actually, no crop, not even sun-loving corn, tomatoes, or melons, can withstand more light than a healthy cannabis plant!

When growing cannabis outdoors, the plant needs as much sunshine as possible, preferably throughout the day. After spending all day in the desert sun, this plant yielded buds weighing eleven pounds.

Nevertheless, if you observe that the upper leaves of the plant situated directly beneath the grow light appear pale, yellow, discolored, burned, or otherwise lacking in greenery (i.e., exhibiting symptoms of light stress), it is a signal to relocate the grow light further away. Light stress can sometimes be as simple as having too much light. On the other hand, it might mean the plant isn’t getting enough nutrients or that something is wrong with its environment (like too much heat, for example). In any case, if you notice that your plant is suffering from light stress, simply pull the grow light further away from it until it begins to flourish again.

Lower the power setting or relocate the grow light if you notice stress symptoms (yellowing, burnt, spots, etc.) on the leaves that are closest to it. Light burn, which manifests as yellowing of the upper leaves of the plant due to the proximity of the grow light, is affecting these cannabis plants.

For weed plants, what level of illumination is considered excessive?

Since fluorescent grow lights are not very powerful, you can get quite close to your cannabis plants under them—as long as the temperature stays cool or the buds grow towards them. As a general rule, for 100W and below, 18-24 inches is the minimum recommended distance for LED grow lights, and for 200-400W and above, 24–36 inches is the recommended distance. The best growth can be achieved in this way. To get the most out of your LED lights, be sure to follow the manufacturer’s guidelines for the optimal distance between the bulbs and your plants. It is easy to light-burn plants using modern LED grow lights because of how powerful they are.

Depending on the size of your bulb, the recommended distance for MH/HPS grow lights is typically 1-2 feet. What Distance Should I Allow My Plants to Grow Under MH/HPS Grow Lights? To keep plants from overheating and to ensure they get enough fresh CO2, an exhaust or cooling system should be installed with any heat-generating grow lights.

Get the lowdown on how to upgrade your indoor grow lights and peruse some sample grower shopping lists.Aim for maximum light-Your plants will reach a point where they can use no more light if you keep bringing the lights in your grow room closer together or turning up the intensity. If the plant continues to be healthy, this is a good place to remain.
When you set the light intensity to its maximum, it’s like giving your plants an overabundance of food; they’ll hurt themselves trying to eat it all.

Be wary of light stress; plants exposed to excessive light can suffer from light burn, regardless of the temperature, if the light intensity becomes too high. When exposed to light, some varieties burn more quickly than others.
There is still one more trick you can use to increase your yields even after you’ve used as much light as your plants can take in. During the flowering stage, you can enhance your bud yields by allowing your plants to absorb more light by raising the CO2 levels in your grow room.

If light is like food for plants, then carbon dioxide (CO2) can help them “stretch their bellies” and consume more food than they would without it. This is something you should know if you want to grow cannabis.

Adding more carbon dioxide to the air makes your plant more photosensitive, meaning it can use more light under intense conditions. If your grow lights are under 300W, it’s highly unlikely that they will be bright enough to reach a CO2 limitation point for your plants. A lot of time and money is wasted when more CO2 is added when it isn’t the limiting factor of growth. Plants can get all the carbon dioxide (CO2) they need just by being in an environment with enough fresh air. If your plants are already getting enough light, you can give them even more light by artificially increasing the CO2 levels in the grow room. This will allow them to grow even more efficiently.

Just keep in mind that your cannabis plants will need an abundance of light to reach this saturation point. Your plants should be able to utilize all the light they’re getting in a healthy environment unless you’re using extremely intense lights like a 1000W HPS grow light or extremely close-packed LEDs.

The Primary Importance of CO2: It Maximizes the Light Amount That a Cannabis Plant Can Use.

Incorporating carbon dioxide into a cannabis grow room does not have a direct impact on yields. Adding carbon dioxide to your plants will only enhance their ability to produce energy when exposed to extremely bright light. Adding more carbon dioxide won’t boost yields if plants haven’t reached photosynthesis maximum.

An additional crucial aspect to consider when utilizing CO2 is that, typically, for effective CO2 supplementation, one must enclose the grow area and inject a sufficient amount of CO2 to significantly affect the CO2 PPM levels in the air. Take precautions, as these levels of CO2 are harmful to humans.

The next step is to figure out how to adjust your plant’s positioning in such a way that the same grow lights illuminate more of your bud sites.

Use LST to Increase Marijuana Yields Uniformly

Numerous colas were spaced uniformly and trained to reach a similar height. A setup light like this can help your grow lights perform at their best. You can increase your yields practically for free by manipulating your plants; no other changes to your setup are required. It will work for you even if you don’t have a new grow light or fancy nutrients.

Discover all the tricks for shaping and controlling the size of your cannabis plants.As a shorthand for “Low Stress Training,” the practice of controlling plant growth without chopping it is commonly known as “LST” among cannabis growers.Light-Structure-Tightening (LST) is a method of growing plants that involves bending over to encourage wide, rather than tall, growth.

A plant that has been long-stemmed-stilted (LST) to grow extremely narrow and tall is shown here.Here we see a plant that has been light-stabilized to stay short, making the most of the grow lights. Looking at the plant from the side, you can see how short it is, but looking at it from above, you can see how many leaves it has. As they absorb light from your grow light, those leaves act as miniature solar panels.

Because more of the plant is lying flat against the grow light, more of it is exposed to the stronger light, and the plant as a whole is able to make better use of the grow lights you already have. It is far more difficult to achieve this type of “table” shape once the plant has developed into a triangle shape with a tall main cola, so any attempts at LST should usually start when the plant is very young.

When cultivators employ a net or screen to direct plant growth in a flat pattern, they are engaging in a variant of LST. “Screen Of Green” is an abbreviation for this method. To accomplish something like this, you need ScrOg.

Take a look at this marijuana ScrOG: the plant is flooded with light from all directions!

Keep in mind that the lights are shining directly on the plant the entire time. Bigger buds and greater harvests are the results of the plant’s ability to convert that intense, direct light into energy. To utilize ScrOG, you must first acquire a screen and devote some time to training your plant to grow along it while it is in the vegetative and early flowering stages.

“Supercropping” is the name of another well-known and simple technique for training plants to produce more.

The practice of super cropping cannabis:

In its most basic form, supercropping is bending your plant in such a way that its individual stems lie flat and create a “knuckle” at the point of bend.

You can use supercropping on its own or in conjunction with other plant training techniques. Supercropping allows you to make any plant bend if you see any colas growing taller than the rest but can’t get them to move away from the plant’s center using bending alone. Cutting your plant or removing its stems and leaves is an integral part of many plant training techniques.

There are primarily two approaches that include physically chopping the plant. You need to do one to “top” the plant and one to “FIM” it. Both methods involve trimming the tip of the main cola of a young cannabis plant. This encourages the plant to produce multiple colas, each with its own set of buds, rather than relying on a single dominant cola like a Christmas tree.

Here you can see how young cannabis plants respond to topping or FIMing, and how their growth patterns change as a result. Contrast a plant that has been FIMed or topped with its natural “Christmas tree” growth pattern. Gain a better understanding of how to TOP and FIM young cannabis plants.

The main-lining or manifolding method of plant training is widely used by many growers because it simplifies the process and makes use of topping.

To wrap up this section, I’ll go over the next technique. However, I strongly advise against using this technique until you’ve achieved a few successful grows. It is my strong recommendation that you become proficient in all of the aforementioned plant training methods before attempting this one.

Going overboard with defoliation can cause your plants to slow down or even stunt. The leaves of a cannabis plant are its “food” source. While I agree that defoliation is an essential tool for plant trainers, I also think most growers would be better off taking it easy the first couple of times and focusing on mastering other training methods before going all out with defoliation.

After this warning…

What follows is an explanation of how increasing yields while decreasing fertilizer use.

Nutrient Balance: The Hidden Key to Increase Marijuana Yields

In order for your plants to thrive, what nutrient levels are recommended?

Here you will find comprehensive information regarding cannabis nutrients.
(and obtain personalized cannabis dietary regimens). However, there is more to it than simply ensuring you are getting the right nutrients and sticking to a nutrient schedule. The problem is that many farmers, for some reason, give their plants way too much fertilizer. Inexperienced growers often make this mistake by combining various nutrients and supplements without first determining which ones the plant actually needs.

As a grower, you should be aware of the symptoms that your plants may be displaying due to an excess of nutrients. The most typical symptom of over-fertilization is “nutrient burn.”

The first noticeable symptom of nutrient burn in cannabis plants is typically a yellowing of the leaf tips.
Dig deeper into the topic of nutrient burn. Nutrients are like “food” for your plants, according to many growers. If you frame it in that way, it sounds like more “food” would lead to larger buds, but is that actually the case?

Light is the true “food” for plants, as we discovered earlier in this section when discussing light intensity. The process of photosynthesis converts light into chemical energy that plants use for both vegetative and reproductive growth. What are the nutrient’s functions then? They supply your plant with the nutrients it needs to grow and undergo photosynthesis, acting like little helpers.

Nutrients remind me of vitamins for people. While it’s true that people require specific vitamins to stay alive, please keep in mind that multivitamins are not candy. Actually, it has been found that individuals can actually become quite ill if given more vitamins than their bodies can absorb.

While nutrients are essential for proper growth, it’s crucial to know that too much of a good thing can be harmful. While most farmers aim to increase nutrient levels to their maximum, I’ve found that keeping nutrient levels just right yields better results.

When cannabis leaves are healthy, they look uniformly green. Nothing should concern you if your leaves appear like this, free of any signs of spots, discoloration, curling, or other issues!

Keeping nutrient levels lower than what is recommended by most nutrient systems seems to yield the best results for cannabis plants. During the grow, I make sure to give just enough nutrients to prevent deficiencies but not burn. Raising nutrient levels is not something I do very often unless I see that a certain plant is using a lot of nutrients and could use more. A wide range of nutrient concentrations is often necessary for various plant species.

You are in the “sweet spot” for maximum growth and yields when your cannabis does not exhibit symptoms of nutrient burn or deficiencies.

A great way to improve soil for gardening is to make your own super soil through composting. You can grow all the nutrients your cannabis plants need with composted super soil, which is organically made. That way, you can put more energy into caring for your plants and less into worrying about nutrient deficiencies.

Hydroponic and soil growers alike who use bottled nutrients should begin by applying half, or even less, of the amounts recommended on most nutrient schedules. This is something I go into further detail in my main article regarding the nutrients in cannabis. When I see that a plant is using a lot of nutrients, like when its lower leaves are turning yellow and dying (which is common in the vegetative or early flowering stages, though it’s normal to start losing leaves a month before harvest), I usually up the nutrient levels.

It appears that bud production in the weeks leading up to harvest is most impacted by slightly reduced nutrient levels. The lower leaves of a cannabis plant will naturally begin to turn yellow as harvest time draws near.

Some of your leaves, notably the lower ones, may turn yellow as harvest approaches; this is perfectly normal. Adding more nutrients to prevent this yellowing might make some leaves stay green for longer, but it could also lower your bud yields in the long run.

Unfortunately, many growers react to the plant’s natural leaf drop by dramatically increasing nutrient levels towards the end of the flowering stage, which is counterproductive. Regrettably, plants often struggle to develop buds correctly when given excessive amounts of nutrients, particularly nitrogen, towards the end of the flowering stage.

The buds appear to swell up more than they would on a plant kept dark green until harvest if the nutrient levels are maintained at the recommended dosage and the vegetative growth is allowed to begin to die down during those last few weeks. One way to make sure the buds don’t have any “nutrient taste” that wasn’t used up before harvest is to reduce nutrient levels as harvest approaches.

As the flowering stage comes to a close, soil growers can boost bud weight by adding sugar (blackstrap molasses is ideal).
By adding additional sugar to your cannabis roots as the flowering process nears its end, you can enhance the flavor and increase the size of your buds.

Because it collaborates with the good bacteria in your soil, this is particularly useful for organic gardeners. Many over-the-counter supplements promise to enhance flavor and satiety by adding simple sugar, but in reality, this is rarely the case.

For a more affordable and effective alternative to those pricey supplements, when watering your soil-grown plants in the second half of their flowering stage, add a teaspoon of regular blackstrap molasses to each gallon of water.

Keep in mind that molasses is not something you want to use in a hydroponic garden. Each time you water your plants (during the second half of the flowering stage), add a spoonful of blackstrap molasses to the water if you’re growing in soil. This will improve yields and bud flavor.

To continue with the topic of how indoor growers can improve yields by creating the ideal conditions for cannabis plants…

Perfect Temperature & Humidity = Maximum Yield

The vitality, final potency, and yields of your plants are all affected by the quality of their growing environment. No amount of care will help your plants thrive in conditions where the temperature (and, to a lesser degree, the humidity) is either too high or too low. This will prevent buds from fattening up and stunt their growth.

Burning away cannabinoids and terpenes, caused by excessive heat towards the end of the flowering stage, can also diminish the potency of the buds’ aroma. You can enhance the aroma and potency of your harvested buds by manipulating the humidity and temperature.

If a hot grow light or other concentrated source of heat is killing your plants, you’ll notice that the leaves near the light are the first to wilt and turn brown. Find out more about the effects of heat stress on cannabis plants. Here you will find a detailed guide on how to regulate the temperature of your grow room.

Now that you know how to give your cannabis plant the ideal conditions to grow indoors, there’s one more thing you need to do to get the maximum yields…

When to Harvest to Increase Marijuana Yields and Potency

You can get the most out of your harvest if you let the buds mature completely. In the two or three weeks leading up to harvest, I’ve witnessed buds grow an extra 25% in size, at least visually. My total yields would have been much lower if I had harvested these buds sooner.

One more perk of waiting for the perfect moment to harvest is that you get to decide when the buds will have the exact effects you desire. If you want a more energetic high during the day, harvest earlier; if you want a calmer, couchlock high, harvest later.

Additionally, always have your freshly harvested marijuana buds professionally cured. Get the most out of your cannabis harvest by timing it correctly. If you want more marijuana harvests, you have to wait until harvest time.

The Influence of Heredity on Marijuana Yields and Potency. Though the aforementioned strategies will work with any strain of marijuana, the amount of fruit you get depends heavily on your plant’s genes.

Nowadays, you can find strains that are both more productive and stronger than those that were available even a decade ago. Thanks to the incessant breeding of new strains and improvements on old favorites, the potency, yields, and ease of growth of cannabis have been steadily improving over the last several decades.

To find out how to buy cannabis seeds online, read this.

So, you might not achieve the same size buds as you see in cannabis magazines or online, even if you follow all the guidelines for increasing yields. Using average genetics makes the comparison unfair.

One of the greatest ways to boost your yields (and your buds’ quality, potency, and aroma!) is to invest in a high-yielding strain.

To Begin, Select a High-Yielding Strain. In terms of reliable, high-quality buds, here are three tried-and-true strains:

Remarkably Powerful: Big Bud Cannabis

A Very Powerful Strain of Cannabis: CBD Critical Mass

Calling all covert cultivators! If you’re after a fast-flowering, low-maintenance plant that produces a lot of fruit, this could be the one for you! This strain will provide the highest possible yields, and it stays short and bushy by nature, making it ideal for growers with limited space.

Helpful hints for growers: this variety appeared to fare better with lower nutrient levels than others. Our initial attempt at growing Aurora Indica (shown in the top right) at half nutrient strength produced slightly more than 7 ounces, but we had to reduce the nutrient levels to nearly 25% strength for optimal flowering results. Plants of the Aurora Indica variety are simple to cultivate and show excellent response to training and, in particular, supercropping. When ready for harvest, the plant will have a stoney “couchlock” effect.

Buds: Indica-dominant buds covered in trichomes, producing a heavy, nearly sedative high (“couchlock”). Underneath the earthy aroma, our buds had hints of fruity, nearly minty undertones.

Advice for growers: This tolerant variety is a breeze to tend to and does great with FIMing, topping, LST, and any number of other training techniques. Once you make the change to 12/12, it grows to a good size—not too tall, not too short—and nearly doubles in size. Great yields and big, spherical baseball buds are yours for the taking after this strain finishes flowering, which takes around 2.5 months. We had fantastic outcomes when we fed her full strength, as it thrives at relatively high nutrient levels.

Buds: Huge harvests. The buds were dense and hard, shimmering with an intense potency that was balanced by a pleasant, sociable high. A delightful aroma wafted through our noses.

Take a look:

You’ve informed me that you’re in search of an all-inclusive manual for cultivating marijuana, one that addresses every level of expertise.

You can get extremely lethal harvests using a variety of methods, not all of which are listed here. Find out EVERYTHING there is to know by reading on!

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