Editor’s Note: This post was originally written in April, 2014 and has been updated for accuracy, comprehensiveness and timeliness.
Imagine growing monster marijuana plants so sturdy, productive and vigorous that you harvest branch-bending, gooey buds loaded with delectable scent, taste, cannabinoids and terpenoids.
What do you need so you can grow such monster marijuana plants? Cannabis strains that produce huge buds, plus the best grow techniques, gear and nutrients, that’s what.
Well, you’ll be delighted to know that we’re now giving you the tools you’ll need to grow said monster marijuana.
But first, let’s take a look at the cultivation techniques that push plants to become monstrous in size, then an extensive, tried-and-grow-room-tested list of easy-to-find monster strains you can get marijuana seeds for right now!
Best Strategies For Cultivating Monster Marijuana Plants
To grow huge, big-yielding cannabis indoors, you’ll need a clean, professional grow room with climate control, grow lights designed for cannabis, reverse osmosis water, and high-quality nutrients.
Growing outdoors, your plants will need grow-site security, well-drained soil amended with compost and appropriate soil aeration media (such as perlite), protection from animals and insects, at least 7–8 hours per day of direct, penetrating sunlight, and a reliable water supply.
Monster marijuana plants appreciate an oversized root mass. When cannabis is grown outside in large containers or in fertile, well-turned, biologically active, open earth, their root balls expand to support sturdy marijuana trees, with two-dozen or more colas that each yield an impressive bud the size of a Little League baseball bat.
Indoors, huge root zones aren’t always achievable. If you have enough floor space, you can use 10–20-gallon pots. If you’re using deep water culture or aeroponics, the root mass of an indoor plant won’t be anywhere near as large as you’d see for an outdoor plant, but your plants will be supercharged by your pure hydroponic system’s maximally efficient delivery of water, oxygen and nutrients.
Your cannabis crop will love it when you stimulate plant roots by adding beneficial microbes into their root zone. These microbes bond with roots, enhance root health, and protect roots from drought or disease.
The only strains of root-zone microbes created specifically for cannabis roots are contained in Advanced Nutrients Voodoo Juice, Piranha and Tarantula hydroponics root-booster supplements, which become even more helpful when you couple them with the carbohydrates found in Microbial Munch or Bud Candy.
Indeed, monster marijuana plants with fat buds will be encouraged to bloom by using, marijuana-specific, bloom-boosting supplements such as pH Perfect hydroponics base nutrients, Bud Ignitor, Bud Factor X, Big Bud, Nirvana, Rhino Skin and Overdrive, rather than generic nutrients provided by the likes of General Hydroponics, Botanicare and Scotts Miracle-Gro.
Another way to ensure your premium cannabis genetics grow out to be huge and bountiful is to top your crop a week or two before you put them into grow phase. Topping requires cutting off the crowning sets of the smallest leaves on each plant. This encourages plants to branch horizontally rather than grow into a Christmas-tree shape, like most cannabis strains naturally do.
Now, let’s take a look at cannabis strains guaranteed to grow out to be mega-yielding monster plants.
Monster Marijuana Strains Revealed!
Cheese Quake
Originally bred by legendary West Coast seed breeder Subcool at TGA Genetics, you see truly colossal yields from this aromatic, potent strain. Subcool describes Cheese Quake as 40 percent sativa and 60 percent indica, with two distinct phenotypes, one of which derives from the Urkle/Querkle strains. This phenotype is more of a grape strain, with a body-dominant high.
The other phenotype has more sativa influences, and slightly lower yields but with a more upbeat high.
Outdoors, Cheese Quake grows to be a cannabis tree that can yield a kilo or more of dried bud per plant. However, watch out for gray mold, especially if you’re growing in humid locations.
Indoors, topped early, Cheese Quake turns into a moderately sized plant with huge buds. We’ve seen indoor yields as high as 5–8 ounces per plant.
Expect lots of cheesy odor and 8–9 weeks in bloom phase from this monster marijuana strain.
Where to buy Cheese Quake: Subcool’s Dank or True North Seed Bank.
Jack Herer
Bred by Sensi Seeds, Jack Herer combines some of the best old-school genetics from the ’60s and ’70s, and is one of the heaviest-yielding Haze strains ever.
Jack Herer devours pH Perfect Connoisseur Grow and Bloom hydroponics base nutrients, plus Bud Candy, Big Bud, Nirvana, Rhino Skin and Overdrive when fed in a well-lit indoor garden with added CO2, or if growing outdoors in warm climates with strong sun. In these grow situations, Jack Herer will gift you with heavy yields and a heavenly high.
Because of this strain’s significant percentage of sativa genetics, Jack Herer needs a couple of toppings in grow phase and careful profile control to ensure monster marijuana.
We’ve grown Jack Herer and gotten four phenotypes, selecting the one that was the least sativa-esque — a short, dense, peppery, hardy plant that produced huge buds like an indica, but stones like a Haze sativa. Grown in an indoor space that has 10-foot ceilings, we averaged five ounces of dried bud per plant.
Authentic Jack Herer cannabis has a powerful pine and turpentine Haze scent while its growing, which carries through to bud taste and aroma if you properly dry and cure these buds.
Where to buy Jack Herer: Sensi Seeds
Jesus OG Kush
Another one from Subcool and TGA Genetics, Jesus OG is one of the few Kush strains we’ve grown that produces massive yields.
Kush usually has tight, deep-green, dense buds that tend toward popcorn nugs. Kush is also known to be efficient in its ratio of bud to stem, but not for immense yields. Subcool took a Hell’s OG Kush and inserted Jack’s Cleaner and Space Queen genetics to create a sour Kush known for huge yields.
As you watch your plants develop, look for the Kush-dominant phenotype of this strain; the other phenotype runs more toward Jacks Cleaner and has a lemon scent. Expect 56–63 days in bloom phase.
Jesus OG grows naturally tall, so top and train it to keep it shorter, rounder and higher yielding.
The high and taste aren’t typical of Kush. Rather, you get the glowing, sedating, pain-killing, numbing, buzzing high usually associated with Kush, but also with the mental stimulation that provokes creativity and feelings of euphoria.
This is a rare cash-cropper Kush, a worthy inclusion in any list of monster marijuana strains.
Where to buy Jesus OG Kush: Subcool’s Dank
Chronic
Originating from the Netherlands, this legendary Dutch strain has been around for at least 20 years and is known for massive yields, both indoors and out. And its genetic lineage is superb, boasting Northern Lights, Skunk and AK-47.
Chronic represents a rare case in which the breeder doesn’t recommend topping. You’ll naturally get a huge main cola plant with few side branches, so topping isn’t necessary or productive in this case, which makes Chronic useful for grow situations in which you have minimal horizontal space, or when you don’t want the extra work of providing stakes, nets or trellises to support your heftly plant.
This mostly indica strain does have some sativa in it, which is why bloom phase can range from 8–9 weeks.
Where to buy Chronic: Serious Seeds
Cinderella 99
A heavy yielder with a very short bloom phase — some growers have harvested huge buds after 50 days in bloom phase. But please note: This strain doesn’t do well outdoors.
Cinderella 99 (Or Cindy 99 as it’s sometimes called) contains a percentage of Jack Herer genetics, but doesn’t stone you like Jack does. It has its own unique creeper high that can edge you toward paranoia if you inhale too much too soon. Yep, that’s how strong it is.
Be ready to support the branches of this monster marijuana strain during bloom phase, or the weight of its fat buds will break under all that heft!
Where to buy Cinderella 99: Brothers Grimm Seeds
Big Bud
The name says it all. This gargantuan strain combines Afghanica and Skunk genetics and has a short bloom phase of 51–57 days. It doesn’t do well outdoors, but is a favorite of cash croppers seeking monster cannabis that will produce massive yields.
Big Bud grows short and dense on its own, but topping once around the third week of grow phase will give you even more bud-producing structure.
Also, this strain enjoys heavy feeding from start to finish; the powerful bloom booster supplement Big Bud was named for this high-yielding crop.
You’ll have to provide netting and/or staking to keep the bud-laden stems of Big Bud from snapping, but the extra work that goes into producing this plant will reward you a sweet, smooth smoke or vapor — and the high is not as crushingly couchlock as you might expect.
Indoors in a professionally run garden, you can easily see five ounces or more per plant.
Where to buy Big Bud: Sensi Seeds
White Widow
It used to be that almost every cannabis cultivator was growing or had grown this famous strain. In the past decade, fewer people have been cultivating White Widow, but it’s a mistake to forget this heavy-yielding strain that produces a colossal crop.
The Widow is known for producing many resin glands, so it’s often grown for hashish and production of cannabis concentrates.
If you want to have fun breeding your own weed, we recommend crossing White Widow with Gorilla Glue #4. And if your cross proves successful, you get even frostier buds and larger yields!
Where to buy White Widow: Green House Seed Company
Brian Berry Cough
Want buds the size and shape of bowling pins? If so, Subcool’s reliable monster marijuana strain — a cross between Strawberry Cough and Cherry Space Queen — is the strain for you.
Brian Berry Cough grows large and round if you trim early. And not only will you get massive buds, you’ll also get leaves covered in THC and other resins, so you can make oodles of hashish, extracts and concentrates.
You’ll need 8–10 weeks in bloom phase, and Subcool advises there are two phenotypes of this potent, big-yielding hybrid. One has a fruity flavor and smell, while the other tends to have a sour taste and smell. They both yield huge.
We suggest buying as many seeds of this strain as you can while seed resellers have them in stock, because Subcool lost the strain’s male and female genetic precursors in the California fires of 2017. Once the current inventory of Brian Berry Cough is gone, you might never see it sold commercially again.
Where to buy Brian Berry Cough: Check Subcool’s new website for updates, or head to Seedsman.
Blueberry
A classic, colorful, mostly indica strain that goes deep blue or purple in late bloom and is known for very large yields and a narcotic high.
Blueberry needs 60–65 days in bloom phase, is easy to grow, and can handle a heavy feed program. It’s also useful as breeding stock to combine with other strains.
Where to buy Blueberry: Dutch Passion Seed Company or DJ Short.
Cuvée
Another goodie from Subcool, this is an astoundingly heavy-yielding, early maturing, ultra-potent cannabis strain from North America’s most reliable and competent strain breeder.
Lay on Nirvana, Bud Factor X, Organic Big Bud and Bud Candy, starting in bloom phase weeks two or three, and continuing until it’s time to flush.
Indoors and properly topped and supported, you can get five ounces or more per plant of perfumed, delicious-tasting bud.
Outdoors, Cuvée grows to massive proportions when you top, train and support your crop so that it becomes a fat, round tree of buds. We know growers who got a kilo or two of stinky, gooey, potent dried buds for each Cuvée plant grown outdoors.
Where to buy Cuvée: Subcool’s Dank
Cotton Candy Cane
Fancy growing a sweet-smelling strain that’s resistant to gray mold? Then this interesting behemoth from Emerald Triangle Seeds might be just what you need in your grow op, with its genetics from Headband, Blueberry and Sweet Tooth.
Cotton Candy Cane works well indoors and out, and is especially attractive because it’s naturally resistant to powdery mildew.
As a 50-50 indica/sativa split, you need 59–65 days in bloom phase to get twice as much yield as you would from other cannabis strains.
Where to buy Cotton Candy Cane: Emerald Triangle Seeds
Now that you have all the information you need to source and grow monster marijuana strains that produce the most impressive yields possible, what’s stopping you?
