Issue #701 - Sunday, September 28, 2025 Hey grower! In today's issue... - Learn from suckers...us! - Who wants to learn a hard lesson the difficult way? No one, that's who. So, read on and let your future grows benefit from knowledge acquired from our vast library of mistakes.
- Learn a
lesson, then immediately master it - One of the lessons in today's article (possibly the most important) can be checked off your list for years at a time. Learn how below!
- Harvest Book Update - Your questions are becoming reality. 1,197 growers told us their biggest harvest challenges, and our upcoming harvest book answers them all!
- Grow Journal Week 7: Buds, assemble! This tent is finally in flowering mode, and 5
plants worth of mighty buds are about to rear their beautiful heads. What will happen next?
- Grower Spotlight: How'd They Do? A grower sent in pictures and wants to know what other growers think of their plant. I already gave my opinion, but you'll have to scroll down to see what you think...
Nebula Haze & Sirius Fourside
Co-Founders, GrowWeedEasy.com
"If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities." ~ Maya Angelou Learning Hard Lessons the Easy Way! by Sirius Fourside What’s the secret to growing the best bud? Is there really even a secret? As growers, our nature compels us to search for that “secret thing” that will take our grows to the next level. The problem is that sometimes we’re looking in the wrong
place, and I’ve personally spent a lot of time and money doing exactly that! For example, when I first started growing I paid about $300 for an all-in-one (light included) ‘herb-growing’ system after reading on a forum that it was great for growing cannabis. To make a long story short, it was not great for growing cannabis and I used my new $300 system to hold my tears. Meanwhile, I could’ve spent that same amount of money and got enough materials for a full grow. Honestly, I could have bought $300 worth of buckets and dirt and it still would have been a smarter purchase. If you hate learning lessons the hard way, read below for some tips that could save you hours of time, hundreds of dollars, and a lot of heartache! Quick tips to keep
your money safe from harm: - Take what any seller says with a grain of salt – Sellers want to sell you something! Try to find grow journals, videos and/or pictures of people using the gadget, supplement, light, nutrient, product, etc. on actual cannabis plants so you can know what to expect.
- K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Silly) – There’s something to be said for keeping things simple; especially for your
very first grow. When it comes down to it, you just need a growing medium, a cannabis-friendly grow light, base nutrients, pH adjuster, water (yup, even tap water) and a place to grow. Sometimes
adding more to the mix (like how I did) just makes things more complicated and you might not be able to tell what exactly is causing your problem.
- If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If someone tells you that you’re going to get triple the potency and double the yields from using their product, they’re probably exaggerating. If something worked that well, it would quickly become standard procedure for growers everywhere; humans
aren’t too good at keeping secrets that big.
Light Is Like Food Light is by far the biggest contributor to the potency and yields of your harvests after genetics. That’s not to say light is the only thing cannabis needs; they also need water, an array of minerals, air, proper
pH, and the list goes on. However, of all the things you need to provide to your cannabis plants, light is one of the only things that will increase the potency and yields of your buds in direct proportion to how much light they get (up to a point of course). Light is “food” for your plants and directly powers the growth of buds! Measuring light in
PPFD PPFD (short for Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density) is the modern way of measuring light as it pertains to growing plants. Specifically, it measures the amount of photosynthetic (usable by plants) photons (light particles) that make it to your plant each second (flux density). Light that’s usable by your plant is also called PAR (photosynthetic active radiation), so PPFD is a measurement of PAR. There’s more science to it, but
that’s the helpful parts. You can measure PPFD with specialized tools called a “PAR meter”. It would make a bit more sense if they were called PPFD meters, but that’s just one stoner’s opinion. We have the Apogee MQ-500 which cost us
upwards of $500(!), but these days, there are many generic brand meters available with prices averaging between $80 (like this one) and $150 (like this one). …or, you can keep 100% of your money in your pocket by using an app on your phone to measure PPFD. We tried one that seemed decent (called “PPFD Meter”), and the readings were pretty far off from our PAR meter and lux meter*. But it was free! *Yes, you can measure an LED light with a lux meter. The spectrum of light plants want (PAR) is similar to the light spectrum that’s
measured by a lux meter (visible light). So while it’s not exact, a lux meter can give you a ballpark estimate of your PPFD. Here’s a quick guide to PPFD goals: - 150-300 PPFD – clones and seedlings
- 300-600 PPFD – seedlings and young vegetative plants
- 500-800 PPFD – big vegetative plants and plants starting to flower
- 800-1000 PPFD – flowering
- 1000-1200
PPFD – maxing out the amount of light a plant can take before they get light stressed
Measuring light in Lux “The old-fashioned way” to measure light intensity is using a unit of measurement called “lux”
(which is equal to lumens per square meter); higher lux means higher light levels. Your cannabis plant can survive on as little as 15,000 lux, or as much as 85,000 lux for light-resistant strains (like many sativas) in the flowering stage. For most strains, 65,000 lux is a great amount of light. More is better up until that point! Being on the top end of that range means you don’t have to worry if your cannabis is getting enough light. A lux meter isn’t a perfect measure of how much light is getting to your plants, but it will help you estimate
how much light your plants are getting in specific spots compared to other spots. This will help you get more out of your grow lights, and it’ll also show you if your plants could do with more or less light. If you’re looking to get bigger, more potent buds and your plants aren’t getting anywhere close to 65,000 lux, you know where to start making changes! Just to be clear, a PAR meter gets a far more accurate measurement of the light your plant will actually
be able to use. You should only use a lux meter if you already have one. Learn how to use a lux meter to measure light levels Here’s a quick guide to lux: - less than 15,000 lux – sparse or “stretchy” growth – plant isn’t getting enough light
- 15,000 –
50,000 lux – good amount of light for healthy vegetative growth
- 45,000 – 70,000 lux – optimal amount of light for cannabis plants in the flowering (budding) stage
- 70,000 – 85,000 lux – a lot of light, some sativa strains thrive at this light level, but some plants lose their top leaves early under this light intensity, especially plants that are not resistant to heat/light (like many
indicas)
- more than 85,000 lux – at this light intensity, you’ve hit the plant’s “saturation point” which means your plant can’t use all the light without additional CO2 and may start experiencing light bleaching!
Lesson learned: When other factors are taken care of, light makes the most difference in bud quality and yields. First Lesson: Permanently Conquered! In case you've forgotten between the top of the article and now (and I wouldn't blame you at all), light is the most important factor in your grow outside of genetics. If you get a good, reliable light, then your plant's main concern is solved, possibly for years and years into the future depending
on the light you get. With that in mind, I submit the light we're growing with right now. This is the 350 Diablo LED by HLG (buy it direct from HLG if it sells out on Amazon, but note they don't have free shipping and returns) and it's possibly our favorite grow light since the now-defunct Electric Sky ES series. Intensely
strong, lightweight, and dimmable. This is our go-to light! One of these is enough to pack a 4x4 tent full of weed, but we just put up a second one in the same tent so it's going to get crazy. The second light went up this past Friday (9/26), so look out in next week's newsletter to see the difference! Quick Update About Our Upcoming Harvest Book! Ready to stop "leaving bud on the table" every harvest? Our book is coming to the rescue very soon. We were blown away by your responses to our harvest question survey a few weeks ago. After reading every single question you sent (all 1,197 of them!), it became
clear just how many of you could dramatically improve your bud density, potency, and smoking quality simply by mastering the harvest process.
Our upcoming Harvest Mastery book will show you exactly how to get professional results at home.
Stay tuned! Week 7: "Sweet Dreams" Photoperiod Grow Journal Check out the full grow journal! Our 43-day old rock stars... We have achieved total coverage. So I initiated 12/12!
|
📸 Weekly Plant Spotlight:
How'd They Do?
|
|
"Like to know what people's opinions are..." ~Babyface I can't
speak for anyone else, but Nebula and I both think this bud looks great! Can't wait to see how it turns out 🥇 Fellow growers, how do you think this plant looks so far? ~Sirius
|
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
- Seedsman – Ships from US & Europe
- MSNL – Netherlands bank with shipping centers in the US, Canada, and
UK.
|
🌳 Check Out Our Grow Community!
|
|
|
Check out our friendly growing community to ask questions, discuss your grow, share pictures, or otherwise talk about growing cannabis with other real growers! Ask Questions & Talk with Other Growers! Please note: We let each person in manually, so please be patient after you request to join. We'll let you in as soon as possible!
|
Who Runs GrowWeedEasy.com?
|
|
|
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! Current Favorite Strain:
Mandarin Cookies (learn more in my article about relaxing limonene) 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). Copyright (c) 2025 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: September 28, 2025
To unsubscribe, click here: https://www.aweber.com/z/r/?ThisIsATestEmail
|
|
|
