What do you do with the stalk and root ball of your marijuana plants after harvest?
I do a post-mortem—a focused post-harvest inspection of the root ball—to see how dense, branched, healthy, and vibrant the roots are.
I want to see cannabis roots that look like the photo accompanying this article: white, dense, thick.
Because I keep records on the root health, growth rate, health, and yield of every marijuana plant I grow, I’ve discovered a direct connection between marijuana roots and marijuana yields.
The interesting thing is, most of us only know half of the totality of what marijuana roots do.
We know roots help hold plants in an upright position. They’ve living anchors.
We also know they absorb water and nutrients, and transport those materials into our marijuana plants.
What I didn’t know is that the flow is up and down, from roots to leaves and back again.
The process starts when cannabis leaves absorb sunlight and carbon dioxide (C02).
Then they combine light energy, C02, nutrient elements, and water to create sugars and starches that fuel plant growth.
Some of these starches and sugars are sent back down the cannabis plant to be stored in the roots.
This is an extremely important fact for cannabis growers because the amount of starches and sugars stored in roots influences the quality, speed, and size of floral growth.
That’s because in bloom phase with only 12 hours of light per day, your cannabis plants are manufacturing less starches and sugars.
With the lights-on cycle reduced to 12 hours, less photosynthesis is occurring at a time when your marijuana plants need lots of energy to create THC, other cannabinoids, and the physical structure of your buds.
In many marijuana gardens, bloom phase photosynthesis can’t provide enough carbohydrate energy for maximum bud production.
To the degree your cannabis roots are healthy and of sufficient size, the roots provide stored energy and materials to make up some of the deficit of what the plant cannot provide via photosynthesis.
If a marijuana plant’s roots are small, undeveloped, or unhealthy, the roots are less able to store and provide starches and sugars for bud development.
In the next article about marijuana roots, we’ll explain some simple tactics you can use to increase their health, size, density, function, and storage capacity!
