One of the most important things when growing quality cannabis is to think about what nutrients you will use on organic cannabis for fertilizer. Cannabis requires quite a bit more nutrients than more agricultural farmed crops. Organic marijuana fertilizer comes in all shapes, sizes and types to help make the plants as healthy as they can be. After lighting, soil it could be the next most important factor when cultivating high quality cannabis plants.
What is Organic Marijuana Fertilizer?
Cannabis plants need three very important nutrients during their life and also macronutrients. The three many nutrients you plant need are:
- Nitrogen (N)
- Phosphorus (P)
- Potassium (k)
These three nutrients serve very important purposes in the cannabis plants overall health and wellbeing. Macronutrients are also very important to the over all marijuana plants heath. The plant will use less of these nutrients however they are just as important for plant health and wellbeing. Some of these important macronutrients are:
- Calcium
- Magnesium
- Sulfur
- Boron
- Chorine
- Copper
- Manganese
- Molybdenum and Zinc
It is very important that the marijuana plant has access to all these nutrients for the full growing period. The plants will need different amounts of these nutrients but they still need all of them to thrive. Lack of any of these nutrients will result is deficiencies in your plants.
What do all these nutrients do in the cannabis plant and marijuana seeds?
When purchasing these nutrients, you will be able to tell how much of each nutrient is in whatever organic nutrient you are buying. If you’re making your own organic nutrients this will be much harder to know unless you have them tested by a professional. They will normally be listed on the outside of the bottle or container, in this format N-P-K which is the Nitrogen – Phosphorus – Potassium they will be in numbers and will tell you what percentage of each are in the nutrients. An example of this would be 4-4-4 and would be equal to 4% nitrogen content, 4% Phosphorus content and 4% Potassium content. Another example would be 0-16-4 which would be equal 0% nitrogen content, 16% Phosphorus content and 4% Potassium content. These are representative of the nutrient content that is available to the marijuana plants once you add it to the soil or soilless medium.
All about Organic Nitrogen
Nitrogen is one, of if not the most important nutrient for growing cannabis plants. It is especially important during the vegetive growing cycle of the plant’s life. It is what makes up the chlorophyll and makes you plants green and healthy all round. Without nitrogen the plant would not be able to turn the light from sunlight or artificial LED lighting into energy that the plant must have in order to grow big green leaves.
Nitrogen is also an important part of cell growth in your marijuana plants, without this nutrient your plants would never grow larger and would end up dying. It is also a great building block for proteins in your cannabis plants. Without plant proteins the plants would be spindly and weak.
All about Organic Phosphorus
Phosphorus is an important nutrient for both root development and for the flowering period. Another role that Phosphorus plays in plant development is to help cannabis uptake other nutrients. Cannabis is a plant that requires extra phosphorus during flowing. However, it tends to be over used as well, cannabis plants will pull phosphorus from its bottom leaves in flower and this is how it acquires most of it’s phosphorus need during this growth period. Most grower add far too much phosphorus during the flowering.
All about Organic Potassium
Potassium is also an essential element for growing marijuana plants. It is sometimes referred to as “potash”. One of the great thing’s potassium will do for plants is helping them use water more efficiently, when this happens, it will help draw up calcium into the plant. More on this when we visit calcium.
If there is not enough potassium in the soil as the plant needs it, the plant will have stunted growth and you will see other symptomatic problems with your plants. It is also very important in photosynthesis as it will regulate a plants response to light by opening and closing the plants stomata. The rate of respiration in the plant is largely a determining factor in the proper uptake and transport of potassium into the plant.
It is very important to have a good supply of potassium if you are using supplemental CO2 in the grow room.
All about Organic Magnesium
What’s the powerhouse of photosynthesis in your cannabis plants? Well, it is magnesium that without its chlorophyll can’t use sun or LED grow light energy for photosynthesis. It’s what gives the cannabis it’s green color. If the plant is deficient in magnesium, you will see chlorosis in the older and even the young leaves as well. Plants will also look red, purple and brown tints as the issue get worst over time. The leaves will also turn yellow while the leave veins will stay green.
All about Organic Calcium
Calcium is a very important nutrient element for marijuana plants. It strengthens cell walls and leaf membranes in the plant making it much harder for pathogens to get into and damage your plants. The only way that calcium is brough into the plant is though respiration, as the plant transpires and brings water into the roots to the plant this is when calcium is also moved into the plant.
Signs of calcium deficiency can include issues with growing tips of the plants poor flowering, and growing tip burns. If you have high sodium in your outdoors soils calcium is an excellent additive as it will displace the sodium in the soil and will also help improve the over all quality of the outdoor soils in general.
Adding calcium with lime and gypsum to your soil is also an excellent idea if your soil is on the salty side of things. It is best to add calcium to your indoor plant soil in small amounts as a time, as the plant can only use so much at one time. It is also great for helping seeds germinate and form healthy roots and plant leaves.
How to use organic cannabis nutrients
Cannabis can use all nutrients in all stages of growth, at some points in the plants life cycle they will need more some nutrients then others. Organic nutrients come in all sorts of things, from making your own, to bottled to ground and dry amendments.
One of the biggest advantages of using organic marijuana fertilizers is that unlike salt fertilizers they will never burn your plants. The best way to use them is to add them in small amounts, when adding organic fertilizers, you are not so much as feeding your plant directly but, you are feeding the soil, that will in turn feed your marijuana plants.
If it is in liquid form, you can add it to your watering as recommended on the bottle. If the fertilizer is in a powdered or granular form it can be mixed right into your soil and will feed your plants during their life time. You can also spread it around the tops of your plants or plant pots and it will water in slowly though out the cannabis growing season.
Best Stages for Fertilizing while growing marijuana
Growing Auto Flowering plants with Organic Fertilizer
Auto flowering cannabis plants are a bit different in nutrient needs as compared to photoperiod (uses light changes to flower). They start flowering with not light triggers so they will need the right nutrients to get started off right. If the Fertilizer requirements are not met when planting you risk the cannabis plant not growing to its full potential by the time it starts to automatically flower. For this reason, you want to have a good balanced organic marijuana nutrient mix in your soil as soon as the auto flowering plant cannabis seed breaks though the surface.
Growing Photoperiod cannabis plants with Organic Fertilizer
Photoperiod plants have different needs then autoflowing cannabis plants. They have two stages of growth that will require two different types of organic fertilizers. The marijuana plant will start in a vegetive stage that will require more Nitrogen than Phosphorus or Potassium. An organic nutrient ratio for this stage of growth would look like this on the Fertilizer package “10-2-2” as the vegetative plant will still require some of the latter two nutrients for healthy growth. Once that light is switched to induce flowering in the cannabis plant only then will the plant need less Organic Nitrogen and more Potassium and Phosphorus to aid the plant when it will flower.
The goal when using Organic Fertilizer on Cannabis
When feeding marijuana plants, the ironically the goal isn’t to in fact to “feed the cannabis plant”. When you add organic amendments to you soil either outside or inside your goal is to “feed the soil”. When you feed the soil, you are feeding the billons of microbes in the soil that are eating the organic fertilizers that were added earlier to the soils. These billions of microbes eat the amendments and which is what actually breaks them down in a form that the plants can bring up in their root system providing nourishment for the cannabis plant.
Making your own Organic Fertilizers for Cannabis
One of the best organic fertilizers is sitting right on your front lawn after you mow it! I know strange but true! Once ways to make an excellent high nitrogen organic fertilizer is to use a bucket fill it full of you free cut lawn grass and fill it full of the grass. Then use chlorine free water and fill the bucket with the cut grass. The grass will ferment over a couple of weeks that you leave the water and the grass in the bucket. After the two weeks are up, strain off the water from the grass to another bucket. Now the bucket of water is full of an awesome organic fertilizer, made from the cut grass, pretty awesome right! You can use this organic grass fertilizer on your outdoor plants. Never use this fertilizer on indoor plants as you never know what was hiding in the grass, that is being brought indoors with the nutrient water.
The great thing about organic fertilizers is that they can be made from just about anything. Chicken poop, grass, weeds, egg shells, sea shells, seaweed, rock dust, even other cannabis plant trimmings. There are so many ways to make beneficial nutrients for your marijuana plants, and they are also keeping our planet safe and healthy.
