• Cannabis conferences have lots of good information, but they have two major issues: They cost a lot and they're boring! Imagine if you could get all the info of a 3-day information conference condensed into one way-more-entertaining newsletter...and for free! That's what you're getting today, and friends, believe me when I say we had to pay the price to bring you this piping hot batch of cannabis information.
   
• How long does it take to grow weed? 3-5 months on average, but it depends a bit on your strain, setup, and goals. Today I share a tutorial to break it down, plus an infographic I made!
   
• This week, we're all taking a step into a green wonderland. Some of our fantastic readers sent in pictures of their outdoors plants that all seem to be about the same age and although that sounds like it has the potential to be boring, it's freaking awesome instead! Check out the Trophy Pics in the appropriate section below and I bet you'll also be impressed by the fine works of our readers.

As I mentioned last week, Sirius and I recently attended the Cannabis Conference in Las Vegas. This enormous annual marijuana event featured hundreds of plant-touching cannabis businesses and involved 3 days of classes about numerous subjects related to running a cannabis business or grow operation.

With so many talented growers under one roof sharing their knowledge and experience, I knew I had to attend. I was certain I’d learn new cannabis-growing discoveries by industry growers and be able to share the latest knowledge with home growers who unfortunately rarely get access to that kind of information.

I sat through 3 days of classes and talked to scores of growers so you don’t have to. 

I’m so glad we went because I learned a lot. I confirmed theories and dispelled myths. Anyone who reads our weekly newsletter knows that we run a lot of side-by-side home growing experiments and I’m excited to learn that commercial growers are getting many of the same results as us.

So without further ado, I’d like to share some of the most significant information I learned that is relevant to home growers. This knowledge will help you take your cannabis garden to the next level because the fact is, home growers can produce better cannabis buds than a dispensary if they have the right information and use the right equipment.

1.) THC or CBD Percentage – How do you increase it?

This is something we’ve been testing lately at GrowWeedEasy.com, and findings from commercial growers seem to nearly all agree with our results.

How are growers increasing the percentage of THC and other cannabinoids in their buds?

This seems to be the overwhelming consensus when it comes to increasing THC and other cannabinoids:

• #1 Factor is genetics – a plant can only produce as much THC or CBD as its genetic potential. In order to produce high-THC or high-CBD. This is pretty standard knowledge, but the growers I spoke to re-iterated this over and over.
• Light intensity is key – Higher light intensity is associated with higher THC in buds (unfortunately I wasn’t able to confirm whether this is true for CBD). This confirms recent findings we’ve had in our side-by-side experiments.
• THC levels are greater on the buds higher up on the plant – I have found this to be true, but I thought it was because buds near the top get more light. I spoke with one grower who had been conducting tests. He explained they used supplemental side lighting to determine if they could get lower buds to produce as much THC as upper buds, but the location of the buds still had an effect. Even if the lower buds got the same amount of light, the upper buds were still more potent in lab tests. I got this information from just one grower, so I’d take this with a grain of salt for now. But this is definitely an area I plan to investigate further with lab testing.
• Light type makes a difference – HPS vs LEC vs LEDs can all affect cannabinoid percentages even if everything else is the same. However, more study is needed, as different strains seem to respond best to different light types. HPS is consistent for producing high cannabinoids, LEC is relatively consistent for producing higher terpenes, and LEDs vary greatly depending on the particular model, form factor, and spectrum.
• Light spectrum makes a difference – I already suspected this from previous tests. For example, whenever I grow with HLG R-spec lights, I seem to get higher levels of THC than growing those strains under some other types of lights. At the conference, I had multiple growers confirm light spectrum makes a difference to cannabinoid production. The problem…. it depends on the strain. For example, some strains tend to produce higher levels of THC but lower yields if they receive a lot of far-red in the light spectrum. But other strains get lower yields without the increase in THC. Part of why this can be such a confusing topic to test is that every strain is different. We will definitely be investigating this in more detail.
• Strategic defoliation in the flowering stage seems to increase THC percentage – We recently found this ourselves in a defoliation side-by-side experiment, but I had this idea confirmed by more than one grower. Every major commercial grow operation I spoke to uses defoliation in the flowering stage as part of their plant care.
• Stress the last 1-2 weeks before harvest seems to increase THC – Many growers I spoke with have a strategy of trying to keep plants perfectly green and healthy until about 2 weeks before harvest. Then growers do things like lower the humidity below 40% RH, increase air circulation to the point that branches may start waving around a little (not too much as too much wind can damage trichomes), and other stressors to improve bud quality, increase the amount of purple, and potentially increase THC. We recently ran an experiment on a 3-day dark period before harvest, which found that the THC seemed to increase after plants were left in the dark for 3 days, though it was a last-minute experiment without a clone as a control plant. We will be doing another experiment on the 3-day dark period with clones, and after the conference, probably be testing other types of pre-harvest stress as well. However, too much stress will hurt yields and may discolor or damage buds (no one wants brown burnt buds), so it’s important to be strategic and avoid going overboard.

I thought this was interesting and possibly worth looking into:

• Buds that get too big may “dilute” the cannabinoid percentage – A plant biologist conducted experiments with light intensity. He kept increasing light levels while keeping cannabis plants healthy. He found higher light levels increased THC and yields… to a point. After a certain amount of light, the percentage of THC actually started going down in buds even though the yields continued to increase. He suspected that this is due to dilution. It makes me wonder… could it actually be that too much light is the culprit? Or is he right that buds reach a point where they’re making more mass but not more THC? And if it’s that the buds are getting too big, what is the “ideal” size of buds, and does that vary from strain to strain? So many questions…

Does it decrease THC percentage if buds get too big? It's possible…

2.) Yields – How do you increase it?
 

Every cannabis grower wants the best yields. What have growers discovered about improving yields?

Keep reading to learn how to increase yields, plus what growers are saying about nutrients and supplements, surprising developments about bugs and viruses and several other interesting tidbits of growing information!

This is one of the most common questions we receive from curious soon-to-be indoor cannabis growers: How long does it really take to grow weed? What’s the growing timeline?

It’s actually a really good question! Every new marijuana grower should know how much work they’re signing up for! The short answer is…

The Average Indoor Cannabis Grow Takes 3-5 Months

Check out this article to learn more!

• Seed Supreme – California, United States
• ILGM (I Love Growing Marijuana) – California, United States
• Herbies Seeds – Europe (seemingly out of the UK and Spain) 

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Nebula’s Cannabis Grow Journals & Experiments (Side-by-Side Tests) - Nebula is a testing machine. She couldn't stop doing side-by-side experiments even if she wanted to! This page details all of her documented grows up to date, and the list will keep growing as Nebula keeps thinking of new crazy things to try. And since every test gives her ideas for ten more tests, I think this page has a lot more content coming.

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