When you record data about your marijuana grow room and your marijuana plants’ performance, you gain crucial wisdom that identifies problems, reveals what you’re doing right, and guides you to what you can do better.
My daily marijuana grow room diary takes me 5-15 minutes per day, but it’s worth the time. Here’s the data I record in my grow diaries:
- Grow Room Environment: Temperature, relative humidity, C02 levels (if adding C02) are obvious pieces of information. I include what lighting I’m using (type, wattage, hours of operation), what fans and other air management I’m using.
- Plant Genetics, Health and Vigor: What strains are you growing? Did they come from clone or seed? Record how your marijuana leaves look. Seeing any nutrients deficiencies, powdery mildew, molds, or pests. How many inches per day are your marijuana plants growing in veg phase?
- Bloom Phase Maturation: How soon after flipping to 12 hours are you seeing early flowers? How long does it take for early flowers to turn into peak flowers (peak flowers are dense, with resinous, white hairs)? When do you notice resin glands starting to drop off, and white hairs turning brown and deteriorating? When did you start flushing? How many total days in bloom phase at the day of harvest? If you pollinated, how long did it take for marijuana seed pods to appear, and when were your cannabis seeds ripe? When did your large fan leaves start going yellow?
- Bloom Phase Bud Scent and Other “Aesthetic” Characteristics: Track when you first started smelling noticeable bud aroma, and how the aroma changed and/or intensified as bloom phase progressed. What different aromas did you perceive, and how did they change over time. If you’re growing purple or red marijuana strains, when did leaves and/or hairs first start changing color?
- Marijuana Feed Program: A very important set of data you absolutely must have. Record pH of your water, and whether your water is reverse osmosis, wellwater, tapwater, etc. List all hydroponics and organic marijuana nutrients you use at each feeding- the brand, product name, and amount. List ppm of your total feed water at new mix, and then monitor pH and ppm as you go through a reservoir (if you’re using “pH Perfect” hydroponics marijuana nutrients, you don’t need to worry about pH). Monitor run-off pH. Monitor gallons used. Any time you change what or how much you feed plants, be sure to note that. Compare this set of data with your data on marijuana plant health, vigor, and bloom phase maturation to see if there are correlations between your feed program and your marijuana plants’ performance.
- Unusual Problems: If you had electrical issues, hydroponics equipment failure, security risks, rip-offs, pests, diseases, floods, fires, or other harsh interruptions of the smooth operation of your marijuana grow room, note that.
That’s the data to record during your marijuana growing season. It helps you understand how your crop inputs and conditions (HID lighting, C02, oxygen, relative humidity, water, nutrients, feed amounts) affect your marijuana plants, and also how the baseline genetics of your marijuana plants affect growth rate, bud maturation, and quality.
I also document my marijuana grows using photography and video. A picture is worth a thousand words.
I realize some marijuana growers are nervous about keeping grow records because they can be used by police to document the grower’s marijuana growing history. This is a legitimate concern for some marijuana growers. Only you can decide if you’re so at risk of getting busted that keeping marijuana grow diary puts you in danger. Take a look at methods to help you avoid getting busted, so you reduce that worry.
In future articles, I’ll give you templates for keeping post-harvest diaries. You find that the few minutes a day you spend recording data about your medical marijuana growing will pay off in increased yields, less problems, and more enjoyment of the art and science of marijuana growing.
