How To Choose the Best Nutrients for your Marijuana Plant

How To Choose the Best Nutrients for your Marijuana Plant: Nutrition is one of the most important processes when it comes to marijuana plants. It is critical for the growth of the plant and this is what ensures that your plant remains healthy and produces good output. This process of nutrition needs to be performed with absolute care and it must be made sure that you are not doing too much or too less of it. Nutrition is critical for the growth of the plant as well as the bud that it will produce.

How To Choose the Best Nutrients for your Marijuana Plant

Know Your Nutrients

The three primary nutrients that your marijuana plant requires are Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium, together known as NPK. At different stages of your plant’s growth, you need to provide nutrition of a different amount. In this chapter, we deal with everything that you must know about nutrients.

Nutrients begin to play an active role after the seed is germinated and transplanted.

These nutrients are naturally available when the marijuana plant grows outdoors in nature. However, when you are growing it in your backyard or in an indoor setting, you would need to provide nutrients to the soil which will ensure a healthy growth.

Most nutrient bottles come with a number in this format N-P-K. For example 3-2-4 – this is the ratio in which the nutrient contains the elements. In this case, the Potassium is the strongest element, followed by Nitrogen and Phosphorus. Different growth stages require different combinations which we will discuss up next:

Nutrients in Different Growth Stages of Marijuana Plant

When it comes to growth stages, we classify them broadly in three phases: Vegetative, Transition and Flowering.

During the vegetative stage of a marijuana plant, where the plant grows its stem and leaves, it is critical to provide it with nitrogen-focused nutrients. The first number needs to be high. Ideally, a nutrient with the ratio of 9-3-6 would be good but even one with an even ratio such as 5-5-5 would also work.

The second stage is the transition stage when the flowers have just begun to appear – during this phase of the growth of the marijuana plant, you would need to provide an even ratio such as that of 5-5-5.

The third and final stage is that of the flowering stage. This is where you need to look out for a low Nitrogen nutrient while the Phosphorus and Potassium levels need to be high. This is because Nitrogen is usually associated with the growth of stems and leaves which is important in the first phase. Phosphorus and Potassium help in the bud-building process. Nutrients such as 2-7-7 and 5-15-14 combinations would work really well here.

How Each NPK Component Helps

Nitrogen: The primary purpose of Nitrogen is that it helps improve the strength of the leaves and the stems. This is why Nitrogen is critical in the early stages of the plant’s growth. It ensures that the overall skeleton of the plant is healthy and the plant can grow well and steady.

Phosphorus: Phosphorus is responsible for increasing the number of flowers on a plant.

Potassium: Potassium helps increase the weight of the flowers.

Nutrients need to be provided in a perfect manner – and it must be made sure that you are not going overboard with them. It sounds like a good idea to grow plants which have a lot of flowers which are big and bulky. However, providing too much nutrition will burn out your plant and destroy the flowers.

How to Choose The Best Nutrients For Your Marijuana Plant

When it comes to buying nutrients, there are many factors that need to be considered. Let us take a look at them in detail which will help you make a better, well-informed choice.

• NPK Ratio: As mentioned above, it is critical to choose the right kind of nutrients during different phases of growth. Make sure you are buying the nutrient with the right ratio between Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium based on the stage of growth your plants are at.
  

• The Method of Growth: Nutrients also need to be chosen based on the method you are using to grow your crops. If your marijuana plants are growing on regular soil, you would need a different kind of nutrients and if you are growing hydroponically, you would require different nutrients.
  
• Nutrients vs Supplements: While buying your nutrients, ensure that you are getting nutrients and not supplements. The best way to identify supplements is that the ratio they come in at is usually in decimals, such as 0.2-0.2-0.1 as opposed to nutrients which come in whole numbers such as 5-7-7. Supplements can help in the growth of your marijuana plant but they are largely unneeded if you are providing the correct NPK ratio at the right time.

Another choice that you need to make is choosing chemical nutrients vs organic nutrients.

Chemical Nutrients vs Organic Nutrients

A final thing that needs to be kept in mind is choosing between chemical nutrients and organic nutrients for your marijuana plants.

Organic Nutrients: Organic nutrients provide a better taste and smell to your buds than compared to chemical nutrients. They are not chemically prepared and are the right choice if you are using a regular (non-hydroponic) method of growing your marijuana plants.

Chemical Nutrients: Chemical nutrients are chemically prepared compositions of the NPK nutrients, which are created for boosting certain aspects of the plants. These chemical nutrients help increase the potency of the plant, thereby ensuring that you get more flowers. Moreover, they are suitable for hydroponic techniques, as well as help fasten up the process of the growth of the plant.

Important Note Regarding Usage

Do not, under any circumstances, think that using more nutrients is going to help grow the marijuana plant faster. Let the plant grow at its own pace and speed – greed of getting more flowers or growing the plant faster might end up damaging your plants.

How to know the plant is being damaged?

Once you are beyond the germination and transplantation stages, you need to constantly monitor your plants. Here are some signs you should look out for:

Signs of undernourished plants: Plants which receive less nutrition than ideal quantities will begin showing signs of undernourishment. Watch out for discoloration of the leaves or leaves turning yellow. Begin providing more nourishment (depending on what stage you are at) in order to correct this before the plant gets damaged.

Signs of overnourished plants: While undernourishment can be harmful, overnourishment can be disastrous. An overnourished plant will begin to ‘burn out’. Signs of burning out begin appearing when you see spots on your leaves. It begins to get worse when leaves start curling in and getting dark at the tips. To correct this, stop nutrients for a while and then provide them with the required amount.

Check out more posts on,

• How To Grow Marijuana Plants Using Hydroponics Technique
• Harvesting Your Marijuana: What Is Harvesting and the Tools You Need!
• The Complete Guide on How To Harvest Your Marijuana Buds
• Preparing Your Weed for Smoking: How to Dry and Cure Your
• The Ultimate Guide to Growing Marijuana Indoors