How to Increase Your Cannabis Yield

How to Increase Your Cannabis Yield

If you’re growing cannabis to sell, you want to maximize your yield as much as possible. After all, if you’re going to pour so many resources and capital into your venture, you should try to get as much bang for your buck. Fortunately, growing cannabis is a pretty straightforward endeavor, and there are quite a few ways to make your plants as bountiful as possible. We’ve compiled a list of the best methods for increasing your cannabis yield. 

Start With High-Quality Seeds

One of the biggest challenges of growing and cultivating cannabis is that it’s a dioecious plant, meaning it has males and females. So, it’s actually pretty hard to get consistent results from each generation of seeds. Top growers take the time and energy to crossbreed and back cross their seeds, so they’re always identical. 

So, when choosing seeds for your crops, you need to work with high-quality seed banks that can verify the efficacy of your seeds. Otherwise, you might wind up with a bunch of duds that will cost more time and energy than they’ll yield in profits. Also, you can buy feminized or auto-flowering seeds to make your operation run more smoothly.  

Increase Your Root Zone

As with all plants, cannabis needs space for its roots to grow. While you could potentially plant your seeds in any container (i.e., a soda can or water bottle), it’s best to use a relatively large one. The bigger the container, the more roots it can hold, and the larger your plant. If you know anything about cannabis, you know the plant size allows for more buds, meaning you can extract more profits without adding more plants to your grow room. 

There are a few ways to increase your root zone, including: 

  • Space Your Plants Further Apart – Most growers will set their plants about 10 or 15 feet apart, so they’re not competing for light and nutrients. If you notice some plants getting stunted, you may want to increase the distance to about 20 feet. However, you need to compromise between having enough room while also allowing for more plants to strengthen your bottom line. 
  • Plant Outdoors If Possible – Rather than using a pot or planter box, you can use the Earth itself. Planting outdoors means your cannabis has lots of room to stretch, especially downward. 
  • Use Row Boxes, Not Individual Planters – Overall, the fewer borders you create around your plant’s roots, the better. For example, you can have one box for an entire row instead of building individual plant boxes. This way, each plant can extend its roots as much as it likes, leading to a bigger canopy and more buds. 

Increase Your Light Intensity

Sunlight is crucial for cannabis growth because the plant originated in hot, sunny climates. On average, you must supply your plants with around 12 hours of intense sunlight daily. If you’re growing inside, you must invest in high-quality LED lights to replicate the sun. However, you will have more control over your operation, so there’s a bit of a trade-off. 

Increasing your light intensity mostly means that there’s as much light as possible hitting every leaf. Feel free to get creative with your setup, with unique solutions like: 

  • Side Lighting – Who says light can only come from above? By setting up lights on the sides of your plants, you can maximize the surface area and generate more growth. 
  • Brighter Lights – When in doubt, you can add more lumens to the mix and increase your light intensity. However, be sure you won’t be generating extra heat because that can throw off your environmental numbers. 
  • Closer Lighting – An easy way to increase your lighting intensity is to physically move the lights closer to the plant. This way, more photons are synthesized, leading to better bud production.  

Bonus: Use Moon Phases if Growing Outdoors

While sunlight is crucial for cannabis production, moonlight can also affect your plants. As a rule, you want to plant new seeds on a descending moon (one that is losing its shape). Since moonlight is just reflected sunlight, it can impact your growth rate significantly. You may also want to harvest your plants on a full moon because they’ll have the least amount of water. 

Utilize Topping and Screening

Basically, the best way to increase your cannabis yield is to ensure that all of your plant is getting enough sunlight and nutrients. Otherwise, some flowers may not have buds or be too small to matter. So, topping and screening can help you maximize the surface area for a larger yield. 

  • Topping is when you trim the top of a stem and two more stems grow back. Doing this regularly can help you get more flowers and leaves from the same plants. 
  • Screening is when you use a mesh screen to help separate the leaves. By spreading them out inside the mesh, you can ensure proper light distribution across the entire plant. 

Don’t Forget to Prune and Trim

Cannabis leaves can wither and die off during the plant’s life cycle. If you don’t trim these dead pieces, they can adversely affect the rest of the plant. Also, pruning these leaves helps you increase your sunlight surface area, leading to a larger yield. 

Use (But Don’t Abuse) Nutrients

Soil nutrients are crucial for growing lots of cannabis plants. However, it’s relatively easy to overdo it. Cannabis plants are rather sensitive; if they get too many nutrients, they’ll start to wither and die. The first sign of nutrient abuse is a yellow tip on the leaves. If you start noticing that trait, you need to cut back immediately. 

Maintain Mold and Pest Control Methods

Cannabis isn’t just attractive to humans. Many molds and insects love to eat these plants and destroy their roots. Mold can grow pretty fast on cannabis, so it’s imperative to keep the plants relatively dry at all times. You can utilize natural pest control methods to prevent your plants from absorbing chemicals or other dangerous ingredients. 

Get Your Cannabis Seeds From Us!

Maximizing your yield is highly satisfying, especially when you have to use some trial and error to see what works. Utilizing these methods can ensure a healthy crop, but the seeds you buy are also critical.