Issue #651 - Sunday, October 13, 2024 Greetings Fellow Grower, - Quality vs quantity...who wins? Growers used to be a race for who could produce the highest quantity, but as growing has become more mainstream, has quantity finally taken the main stage?
- Hop on the quality train. It's
nice in here. If you're a grower who is focusing on growing higher-quality bud instead of growing a ton of mid-to-low-quality bud. You're in the right place. Allow me to show you what you need to succeed.
- Monsters are real, and they live in your backyard! I know that sounds alarmist, and it is, but we have to be wary of these gigantic, hulking cannabis plants that are just showing up in people's backyards. Who knows what they'll do if they get
organized?
Nebula Haze & Sirius Fourside
Co-Founders, GrowWeedEasy.com
"It is quality rather than quantity that matters." ~Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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Why Cannabis Yields Aren’t Important (Anymore) by Nebula Haze
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Click here to view the full article on GrowWeedEasy.com The dry weight of your cannabis buds (“yields”) used to be one of the most important
numbers growers paid attention to. But yields are most important for people trying to sell. For most home growers, what you want is enough weed and excellent bud quality, not necessarily the max amount of buds you can grow. Why? Because most home growers would rather have 8 ounces of incredible weed than 16 ounces of subpar weed. Home growers usually don’t need to sacrifice quality to get the yields they want
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You’ll notice that the newer trendier cannabis strains in the United States for home growers typically have middling to low yields, especially compared to European strains from the early 2010s, which were heavily yield-focused. In these newer strains, buds stay small and hard like nuggets, as opposed to creating huge enormous “colas” of buds. Older and European strains tend to produce bigger, looser buds with medium-to-high bud potency Newer and American strains tend to produce smaller, tighter bud nuggets with very high (20% or more) levels of THC Plants of these newer strains may produce just 2-3 ounces per plant, whereas “high yield” strains may produce 5 ounces or more per plant in the same conditions. This Ultimate cannabis plant produced double the yield as all the other strains in the tent, but buds ended up being the least favorite. So after all the other buds had been smoked, we still had tons of Ultimate buds left. The secret to not caring about yields is to get the basics right: start with a good setup, keep a suitable environment, and train plants to grow multiple buds per plant. This ensures that even if you grow with the lowest-yielding strains, you will still produce more than enough weed for most people. For many cannabis growers, a few ounces of weed per month is more than enough, especially when combined with the fact that many growers also use their “trim” to make edibles. I don’t know about you, but I tend to go through my weed slower when I also have tons of tinctures, canna caps, oils, hash, kief, weed gummies, and other goodies around the house. Low-yielding strains still produce plenty of weed if you use a good grow setup and provide the right environment in the flowering stage. I’d rather get 3 ounces of these buds per plant than 6 ounces per plant of mediocre weed.
The plants in this picture were all “low-yielding” strains from various boutique breeders including from Square One Genetics and Ethos Genetics. You can see plants produced tight nuggets instead of huge “colas”. Despite that, together these plants still produced over 9 oz of premium bud under a 300W HLG 300 R-Spec light because they had a great grow setup and I used simple plant training techniques to force plants to grow multiple buds.
Although I would have increased the yields by growing with “high-yielding” strains, these “low-yielding” strains produced some of my favorite buds I’ve ever grown. The higher bud quality is more than worth smaller yields, in my opinion. Especially since 9 oz is plenty for me. “Pacific Punch” buds I grew (strain by Square One Genetics) On average, a cannabis grow takes 4 months. That means if you want 1 ounce a month, you’re producing more than enough weed as long as you produce 4+ ounces per harvest. With a typical 300W grow light, it’s difficult to produce less than that much weed with even low-yielding strains. Why grow
high-quality strains even if they produce smallish yields? - Effects – You get the bud effects you actually want, plus you’ll never find yourself smoking subpar weed
- Weed goes further – When weed is high-quality, you don’t need to smoke as much for the same effect
- Less
chance of mold – Buds that produce really huge yields with big fat colas tend to have overall a looser bud structure and are much more likely to suffer from bud rot. Strains with small tight “nugs” are much less likely to get bud rot.
- No “bottom shelf” weed – You never find yourself with weed that no one wants to smoke (and a year later realize it’s still sitting there in the back of the
cupboard)
I’ve found that, on average, the higher yielding the strain, the lower the bud quality. That is not set in stone, it is simply that when breeding a strain, you can only pay attention to so many things. If you focus purely on breeding strains for bud quality, often the yields tend to get lower over time because the highest-quality bud typically comes from smallish nuggets. When a breeder focuses purely on
increasing yields, often the bud quality, smell, or potency suffers. High-yielding strains are more likely to suffer from loose bud structure and have a tendency to get bud rot.
This strain produced enormous yields, but I lost several of the biggest buds to bud rot after the humidity unexpectedly rose to 80% RH in San Diego where I live. Even my industrial dehumidifier wasn’t able to bring the humidity in the grow room down to a safe 50%. However, with strains that produce small hard nuggets, you’re unlikely to get bud rot even when the humidity rises. There’s no good place for mold to grow in a tight bud like this. So what strains should you grow with? I recommend strains by any of these breeders if you’re looking for high bud quality above all else: - Ethos Genetics – I’ve had excellent results
with Ethos strains, especially anything from their Mandarin or Zweet Inzanity lines.
- Happy Valley Genetics – Top-tier, stabilized strains based on genetics borrowed (with permission) from Ethos Genetics
- Seedsman (House Strains) – Maybe surprisingly to some, this well-known seedbank breeds some strains in-house that are absolutely bonkers, like Purple Ghost Candy
- Square One Genetics – Just to warn you, their seeds are unbelievably expensive ($165 for 10 seeds?!?!). I never would have paid so much for seeds but I received free seeds from a friend and I was blown away by the bud quality plants produced, though underwhelmed by the yields.
Bring Epic Quality to Your GrowsWhich would you rather have: 10oz of mid-quality weed, or 4oz of epic-quality weed? If you relate to the article above, or you're just further into your growing hobby/career, you're in the group that would take the 4oz of epic weed. I won't fault you if you would take the 10oz instead, but I think it's time for you to switch sides. Start with a great setup, like one listed on the page
below, and I guarantee you'll be on Team-Quality in no time at all! Check out these High-Quality cannabis grow setups This is a 4x4 tent setup with a high-powered LED (made by HLG in this case). This is a good choice when we want a bunch of a high-quality strain, or a bunch of smaller-but-high-quality plants. We Heard You're Looking for Quality... The best way to judge the quality of bud is by smoking it. The way it affects you is the most important thing, so if the weed makes you feel good, that's a good sign of its quality. But if you can't smoke it, your eyes are the next best gauge. With that being said,
feast your eyes on this glittery nug-machine. This is some Purple Punch lineage, and it smokes as good as it looks! Get ready for potent, rock-hard buds. These buds hit the gym every day.
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📸 Weekly Plant Spotlight: More Backyard Monsters!
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"Nebula and Sirius,
Thought I would add to your fall harvest backyard harvest pictures after my first grow after last off-season’s GWE class.
This is a photo-period Acapulco Gold after all of the LST lines
have been removed just before chopping. Amazing how it reverted back to Christmas tree almost instantly from its fairly horizontal tie down look.[...]
The amazing thing about this plant is that it flowered at all given the amount of light pollution in my very urban city of Chicago backyard. Because of which I have always grown autos. I ended up with these photo seeds by accident and didn’t even know until they didn’t flower on schedule.
After wrangling to get it thru three doorways, it’s hanging with trim jail probably commencing tomorrow.
Lemme know what you think."
~Mr. P "I can't get enough of these backyard monsters you all are growing. I'm especially proud because this grower is a former student of our class!
🏆" ~Sirius
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Recommended Cannabis Seed Sources
These sources have gotten great reviews from our readers:
- Seed Supreme – Florida, United States
- ILGM (I Love Growing Marijuana) – California, United States
- North Atlantic Seed Co. – Maine, United States
- DNA Genetics – Netherlands (with US centers)
- Seedsman – Ships from US & Europe
- MSNL – Netherlands bank with shipping centers in the US, Canada, and UK.
GrowWeedEasy.com has hundreds and hundreds of pages! Check out more resources related to today's main theme of growing weed with a smooth experience. - Simplest Cannabis Plant Training Guide - One way to make it so that you no longer need to focus on yields is to learn how to train your plants. Once you know how to successfully train a cannabis plant, you'll probably be faced with more yields than you have space for in your home.
- HLG 300 Quantum Board LED Cannabis Grow Setup & Tutorial - Another way to make attaining yields a thing of the past? A fantastic setup! With a quality, high-powered LED, a good tent, and the right environment, you'll likely be overrun leaves in the vegetative stage and buds in the flowering stage.
- How to Make Cannabis Gummies (Weed Gummy Bears) - What's the use of having a ton of weed if you can't do anything fun with it? Weed Gummy Bears are the solution to that problem. They taste great, they're easy to make, and, most importantly, they're fun to eat and enjoy. Warning: Sharing Weed Gummies with people may result in a sudden increase in popularity.
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Who Runs This Newsletter?
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Nebula Haze: When I first started growing, I struggled. Now, it is my mission to make it easy for new growers to get started while helping advanced growers get bigger, better yields with less time and money. We update/add articles every week. Anyone and everyone can grow if they want to! Learn which seed sources are recommended by Nebula Haze Sirius Fourside: Sirius Fourside is a hobbyist grower who has gained the bulk of his experience growing in water as a medium (deep water culture, bubbleponics). "Growing
cannabis can be a relaxing hobby in and of itself, but it also saves you money and keeps you from having to deal with shady characters. Cannabis is much easier to grow than people give it credit for, and growing in water doesn't increase the difficulty much, if any. But whether you want to grow in water, coco, or a different medium, we'll show you how easy it can be!" Copyright (c) 2024 GrowWeedEasy.com NOTE: If links aren't working or if pictures are not showing up properly, please view the full newsletter here: http://archive.aweber.com/gwe-updates Disclaimer: Grow Weed Easy only recommends products that we've either personally checked out ourselves, or that come from people we know and trust. For doing so, we may receive a commission. Nothing in this e-mail should be considered personalized Financial, Legal, or Medical Advice. The contributors to this magazine grow legally under their local laws but are not lawyers or medical professionals. Any decision to grow
marijuana should only be made after consulting with an experienced lawyer or other legal adviser. Any medical decisions should only be made after speaking with a doctor. Be safe! How Did I Sign Up For This Newsletter? Our records indicate that requested to be added to the GrowWeedEasy.com weekly newsletter at . Date: October 14, 2024
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