Enzymes and beneficial microbes are the often-overlooked but nevertheless useful elements of any successful cannabis feed program. Enzymes added to your crop’s root zone are catalysts that increase the rapidity of organic decomposition, turning root-zone materials into nutrients. Beneficial microbes are root allies that increase root function and protect roots.
In a hydroponic cannabis root zone utilizing soilless mix, rockwool, coco coir, deep water culture, aeroponics and sterile inert strata, enzymes and beneficial microbes aren’t present at all, unless they’re specifically added. Here’s how and why growers should add them.
Adding Enzymes To Cannabis Root Zones
There are two ways to add enzymes to hydroponic cannabis root zones, and both methods should be used together.
The first method is to add the enzymes themselves. There are only a few enzyme products available to hydroponic growers, and only one product has active enzymes calibrated for marijuana root zones. (More on that later.)
The companion method for administering enzymes into root zones is by adding beneficial microbes to the feed program. Beneficial microbes create enzymes within the root zone. Root-zone enzymes only catalyze organic materials; they don’t catalyze synthetic hydroponic nutrients.
In a purely hydroponic root zone in which synthetic nutrients alone are used, the only organic materials present are tiny fragments of roots that have been shed as roots grow and eventually decline.
There are many advantages to using pure hydroponic systems, but from a biological perspective, they’re like barren deserts — until you add enzymes and beneficial microbes to create a living root zone that enhances root function, plant health and grow-room productivity.
A Synthetic-Organic Feed Program Aids Enzymes And Microbes
Although there are advantages to adding beneficial microbes and enzymes to a pure hydroponic root zone with a synthetic feed program, those advantages are further amplified when a synthetic-organic feed program is harnessed, or conversely when an organic feed program is used in a soil grow op.
Simply put, synthetic-organic feed programs combine synthetic with organic nutrients. In synth-organic root zones, enzymes have plenty of raw material to break down, including carbohydrates utilized by crops and beneficial microbes alike.
There’s an elegant symbiosis when enzymes and beneficial microbes are added to cannabis root zones. Beneficial microbes create added enzymes that break down organic materials, which create carbohydrates that feed beneficial microbes.
As an added bonus, beneficial microbes form physical bonds with cannabis roots. These bonds increase root mass, protect roots from droughts, stress and disease, and increase root function so that nutrients, water and oxygen are absorbed faster by plants.
Further, the addition of enzymes and beneficial microbes creates root zones resistant to harmful microbes that can rot roots.
The results of a root zone that has had enzymes and beneficial microbes added to it are faster growth rates, earlier flowering and bud maturation, high-potency buds, and plants that are more resilient and disease resistant.
So, to summarize the many yield-boosting benefits of adding enzymes and beneficial microbes to your cannabis root zone:
- Enzymes break down root debris and organic materials to provide nutrition for beneficial microbes that help roots.
- Beneficial microbes expand root mass and function while protecting roots and creating enzymes.
- A biologically active root zone provides more nutrition faster to cannabis.
- Enzymes and beneficial microbes work together to create crop benefits such as faster growth, earlier maturation, and larger, higher-quality harvests.
- Beneficial microbes and enzymes guard roots against harmful microbes and a contaminated root zone.
- Using a synthetic-organic feed program in pure hydroponic systems combines the benefits of hydroponic growing with the benefits of natural organic soil gardening.
Healthy, robust roots are the foundation of a successful cannabis grow.
Using Enzymes And Beneficial Microbes To Boost The Growth Of Your Cannabis Crop
Now that we’ve highlighted the benefits of adding enzymes and beneficial microbes, let’s discuss the best products that contain them. There are many types of enzymes and beneficial microbes, but most of them aren’t useful or could even be harmful in cannabis root zones.
The evolution of symbiotic relationships between cannabis roots, enzymes and microbes has resulted in a narrow range of enzymes and microbes that deliver biological effectiveness. It isn’t worthwhile to add just any type of enzymes and microbes to your root zone. The goal is to add the ones that work best with your cannabis grow.
After surveying the range of available products containing beneficial microbes and enzymes, only Advanced Nutrients is designed and formulated specifically for cannabis roots.
There are only a handful of beneficial microbe species and enzymes optimal for cannabis root zones. These are proteases, glucanases, cellulases, hydrolases and chitinases, which are all found in Advanced Nutrients Sensizym.
Beneficial microbes most advantageous for cannabis roots must be carefully cultivated and selected using strict scientific protocols and equipment.
Advanced Nutrients is the only brand that provides beneficial microbes targeted to enhance cannabis roots, while also recognizing that enzymes and beneficial microbes must be properly manufactured and bottled so they possess and retain biological usefulness during storage and when they’re used.
I’ve created an effective process for feeding my cannabis crop, which maximizes the usefulness of enzymes and beneficial microbes. Read on for more.
Synthetic-Organic Cannabis Feed Program
- For the foundation of a synthetic-organic feed program, alternate between using a synthetic base nutrient product, such as Connoisseur, and an organic base nutrients product, such as Iguana Juice, on a rotating basis during your cannabis grow season.
- Use Ancient Earth, an organic nutrient supplement that contains potassium.
- In bloom phase, use Nirvana bud booster.
- Alternate between Big Bud Organic OIM and synthetic Big Bud during bloom phase.
- During the final three weeks of bloom phase, discontinue use of synthetic base nutrients and use only Iguana Juice Bloom Organic.
- Use organic Bud Candy Organic OIM as directed during bloom phase.
- From the beginning of grow phase until the third week of bloom phase, I use Voodoo Juice, Tarantula and Piranha beneficial microbe products.
- Finally, use Sensizym enzymes from start to finish of bloom phase, and double the recommended dose if growing in soil and/or using an all-organic feed program.
Whether you’re growing marijuana outdoors or indoors, in soil or in a pure hydroponic system, the addition of Sensizym, Voodoo Juice, Tarantula and Piranha to a synthetic-organic feed program will make you happy during your grow season, when you notice the vigor of your crop and root zone, and again at harvest time, when you’ll reap the rewards of all your hard work.
