When marijuana growing expert Michael Straumietis visits marijuana gardens to help growers maximize plant health and harvest yield, the first thing he does is a safety check.
He’s looking for defective equipment, hazardous chemicals, and conditions that create risk of electrocution or fire.
Straumietis wants to make sure the electrical supply is adequate for indoor lights, air conditioning and other hydroponics cannabis growing equipment.
After he’s done the safety inspection, Straumietis turns his attention to grow room efficiency, productivity, and profits.
He wants to decrease electricity consumption and increase grams per watt, for maximum cost-effectiveness and profits.
Straumietis pays careful attention to whether a marijuana grow room has adequate air exchange.
For growers who want the ultimate in cannabis grow room control, he recommends a sealed grow room (Controlled Environment Agriculture) approach that doesn’t directly exchange grow room air with outside air.
He tells growers to use oscillating fans so a gentle breeze can be felt in all areas of the plant canopy at all times.
Adequate air movement helps marijuana plants “breathe” CO2 properly and also decreases problems with airborne molds, fungi, or other predators.
Straumietis explains that molds, mildews, diseases, fungi and pests vector into your marijuana grow op through air exchange, as well as through garden visitors and on tools and equipment.
He advises marijuana growers to have at least twice a year when you remove all cannabis plants and equipment from your hydroponics marijuana grow space.
During that time, you disinfect the walls, ceilings, ducts, and floors, and also disinfect anything that touches marijuana plants (pots, etc.) or touches the water your cannabis plants are fed with.
Straumietis, founder and owner of hydroponics nutrients manufacturer Advanced Nutrients, examines garden humidity, temperature, light intensity, light on-off cycles, C02 levels, distance from lights to top of plant canopy and other factors to ensure that the marijuana plants are in the perfect situation.
He especially urges cannabis growers to use only the highest quality water.
Many municipal water supplies contain chlorine, chloramine, toxins, heavy metals, salts, microbes and other impurities that harm or even kill plants, Straumietis says.
He recommends reverse osmosis filtration unless you are able to harvest clean rainwater.
Straumietis greatly increases marijuana growers’ harvest weight and cannabinoid percentages by manufacturing Advanced Nutrients feed programs including automatic ph-balancing hydroponics base nutrients along with bloom boosters, root zone microbes, immune system boosters, carbohydrates, vitamins, fermented organics, and predator-defeat formulas.
Another important fact: for successful marijuana growers, it’s about quality, not just quantity.
When Straumietis noticed that a grower’s buds tasted harsh and bitter, he advised the grower to do a flush, and then add Bud Candy and Nirvana to the grower’s bloom phase feed program.
He further enhanced the grower’s cannabis crop value and quality by explaining how to properly dry and cure harvests.
Many marijuana growers do everything right during their grow and bloom phases, Straumietis says.
“But then they ruin the value and smokeability of their marijuana harvest by rushing the drying and curing process, or by drying buds in areas with high humidity, temperatures below 64 F or above 80 F, or where pollutants, molds, and fungi can settle on the buds as they cure,” he notes.
Here’s what Straumietis says are the biggest problems and mistakes marijuana growers should recognize and overcome:
- Improper pH and PPM (remediated by using pH Perfect hydroponics base nutrients).
- Grow room temperature or nutrients solution temperature too hot or too cold.
- Lights too close to cannabis plant canopy; uneven plant canopy.
- Hydroponics marijuana plants crowded together and/or inadequate lighting so light penetration and intensity aren’t adequate for max growth.
- Crowded cannabis plants that don’t get enough ventilation.
- Cold floors that harm roots.
- Failure to monitor hydroponics marijuana plants and grow systems at least once a day.
- Growers not familiar with how nutrient problems and pests and diseases affect plants and/or not doing enough to stop problems as soon as they can be detected.
- Not using HID High Pressure Sodium Lighting (HPS) during bloom phase (trying to get by with LEDs or T5s, etc.).
- Poor air movement, room ventilation and air filtration.
- Poor security systems; security risks caused by letting other people know you grow cannabis.
- Letting dogs in grow rooms/smoking cigarettes in grow rooms (vectors for disease).
- Not putting reflecting material on walls and ceiling.
- Not covering marijuana grow room floor with waterproof material.
- Use of inferior fertilizers, especially those that create unstable pH.
- Using HID bulbs that are worn out and underproducing.
- Overwatering/Underwatering/Overfertilizing/Underfertilizing.
- Poor marijuana garden hygiene and maintenance, especially as regards cleaning hydroponics reservoir and keeping drip emitters and other equipment unclogged.
- Use of poorly-made organic nutrients that create disease and smell.
- Augmented C02 removed from room during ventilation.
Straumietis says his 30+ years of hydroponics marijuana growing experience reveal that marijuana growers get much higher yields and potency if they follow the advice provided in this article!
