10 Tips For New Marijuana Growers in Chicago, IL
As marijuana becomes legalized in more states, more people are trying their hands at growing marijuana for the first time. Though there are many guides out there for new growers, most of them are highly technical and tend to focus only on how to grow cannabis correctly. If you’re like most growers, though, it’s more important to figure out how to avoid common mistakes than anything else. Below are a few tips for new marijuana growers that will help you to have an easier time as you start growing your cannabis.
1) Do Your Homework
One of the first things to keep in mind when you begin growing your first marijuana crop is that cannabis cultivation is surprisingly complex. You can’t just plant a seed and expect an excellent outcome; instead, you’re going to need to know as much as you can about cultivating this crop.
A surprising number of factors are going to influence the yield of your crop, so make sure that you’re educated as to what those factors are and how you can control them moving forward.
2) Know Your Growing Environment
The environment in which you grow your plants is perhaps the biggest factor to keep in mind as you start working on your first crop. You must know the difference between growing cannabis outdoors, in a dedicated greenhouse, or even in an indoor growing space. The tips that you get for growing the plants in one type of space won’t necessarily translate to the other spaces, so you’ll need to decide where you’re growing your crop early on in the process.
It’s also a good idea to stop and think about what kind of factors you’re able to control when growing your crop. Outdoor growth can bring with it plenty of sunlight, for example, but it can be hard to control humidity and pets.
Indoor growth might be ideal for some, on the other hand, but only for those who have a good light set-up and who don’t mind putting in the labor to keep an ideal indoor environment working during the growing season.The more you know about the limitations of your set-up, the better a chance you’ll have of succeeding in getting a good yield.
3) Pay Careful Attention To Spacing
One big factor that not enough new growers understand is the importance of spacing. While you might have visions of packing in as many plants into your growing space as possible, the truth is that doing so would be a recipe for disaster. Not only is it important that you give your plants plenty of room to grow, but also that you keep enough room available for good airflow.
Spacing is also important for ensuring that a host of potential problems don’t spread from one plant to another. Whether you’re worried about rot taking hold or you’re simply concerned about the future growth of hermaphroditic plants, spacing can save you quite a few headaches as you get further into the growth cycle.
4) Buy From Reputable Sources
If you’re starting your growing process from scratch, you’ll need to make sure that you can trust the people or company from which you are buying your starter plants. Whether you are buying seeds or full-grown plants, you must understand exactly what you’re getting from the seller and what you should expect to grow.
The best seeds are always those that are harvested from plants that have produced usable products. Those plants might have THC concentrations or might simply come from plants that have been proven to be free of genetic defects, but they stand out as good progenitors for your future crop.
Talk to the people you’re buying from to make sure that you’re getting a good starter. If you can’t get a clear answer about where the seeds or plants have come from, it’s probably not a good idea to buy from that source. If you’re looking for reputable marijuana clones in Chicago, we can get you premium genetics for a great price.
5) Learn The Signs of Common Problems
There are a host of problems that can impact marijuana plants. From certain types of fungus that prefer the humid areas in which cannabis grows to specific types of rot that can quickly infect an entire crop, you must know the warning signs of all of these problems so that you can deal with them as quickly as possible.
Once you know the warning signs, you’ll also need to know what to do about those problems. Certain issues can be solved through judicious pruning or moving impacted plants, while other problems might require sacrificing an entire crop so that you’ll be able to start again fresh.
While it’s never easy to have to make sacrifices, understanding how these problems can impact your future will give you a better chance to make the hard choices that will protect any other crops that you choose to grow.
6) Harvest At The Right Time
One of the most common mistakes made by new growers is getting too impatient to harvest their plants. Though it certainly seems like you can harvest cannabis plants the moment they start budding, the truth is that you do need to wait to make sure that the plants are fully producing THC to get the kind of yield that you are trying to achieve. For most, this means learning not only when to harvest but also learning a little bit of patience at the same time.
As a rule, you’ll want to wait until the trichomes on the plant are starting to turn amber before you start harvesting. The perfect time to harvest is usually when there’s a fifty/fifty split of amber and milky white trichomes, but timing it to that exact moment can be tough. A little patience, though, can end up going a long way if you’re looking to grow the kind of crop that will bring with it great results.
7) Don't Pin All Your Hopes On Your First Harvest
Another of the more important tips for new marijuana growers is that mistakes can and will happen when you’re growing your first crop. Even if you follow all of the directions discussed here and you do your best, there’s still a good chance that you won’t get much of a return on your initial investment. As difficult as it is to admit, growing marijuana is a process that requires experience to do correctly.
This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try the first time around, of course. Instead, you need to pay careful attention to everything that you’re doing with your first crop so that you can spot where your mistakes occurred later.
Something as simple as not paying enough attention to the humidity in your growing room can have a huge impact, so make sure that you’re aware of the mistakes you made so that you can do a better job the next time around.
8) Don't Be Afraid To Seek Advice
Good growers know that they have to look to others for advice. Since growing marijuana is a process that requires experience to perfect, it makes sense that you would need to reach out to others for help. If there are other growers you trust in your area, make sure to talk to them to get advice.
They may have a better idea of the challenges that come with growing cannabis in your area and their advice could help you to avoid unnecessarily failed harvests.
It’s also a good idea to go online to look at cannabis growers’ groups for advice. There are many growers out there who are more than happy to share what they’ve learned with new growers, and many of them will be able to help you solve problems you encounter during your early growing days.
9) ...But Be Careful Who You Listen To
With that said, you do need to vet all of the advice that you get either in person or online. There are plenty of urban legends and myths about growing marijuana and some of them can be quite harmful to the quality of the plants that you end up harvesting.
If you get advice from a grower, stop to think about whether it makes sense based on what you know about growing cannabis and whether it lines up with the advice that you have heard from others. Sometimes taking a moment to think can help you to avoid some truly disastrous advice.
10) Don't Overextend Yourself
Finally, make sure that you don’t overextend yourself too much as you get into the process of growing marijuana. While there are some great benefits to be gained here, you definitely shouldn’t put yourself into debt or exhaust yourself with your first crop.
Take some time to figure out whether or not you’re cut out for the amount of effort that it takes to grow these plants and whether or not you want to spend the time that’s necessary to get a good yield. If you start slowly, you can better judge exactly how far you’re willing to go.