Choosing the Best Nutrients for Your Cannabis Plants
If you’re a new grower or want to boost your yield for the coming season, then being aware of some of the most important nutrients for cannabis plants is essential. To ensure the best harvest, the team from Neptune Seed Bank recommends providing your plants with a variety of different nutrients to help them thrive.
Here we’ve collected some of the most important nutrients to provide your cannabis plants with throughout the growing season.
What Exactly Are Cannabis Nutrients?
Before getting too deep into the subject, it’s important to have a clear understanding of precisely what we mean when referring to cannabis “nutrients.” In the simplest terms, these nutrients are fertilizers that play a big role in the healthy development of cannabis plants. Nutrients deliver vital things like vitamins and other minerals that act as life-giving food for your plants, enabling them to grow up strong and healthy, and develop resistance to some external environmental factors like pests or drought.
The cannabis plant absorbs its nutrients through the roots in the soil, then transports them throughout the plant going from the bottom to the top. Just like the cells in your body, a cannabis plant will transport these vital nutrients where they’re needed most, in some cases assisting with old growth and repairing plant damage, as well as new growth.
There are also macro and micronutrients, both of which cannabis plants need to thrive. The macronutrients are what your plants need large amounts of, such as nitrogen and potassium. Micronutrients give your plants a boost but are needed in much smaller doses and include things like zinc, sulfur, and boron.
Providing cannabis plants with the proper nutrients is essential for several reasons. As mentioned above, it helps increase your yields, and it can also minimize stunted growth and other deficiencies. Additionally, the right nutrients will ensure that your cannabis, once harvested, has the best fragrance, potency, and flavor.
What Specific Nutrients Do Cannabis Plants Need?
As we mentioned above, there are a few nutrients cannabis plants need both at the macro and micro levels. Below we’ve included a list of the most important ones and a brief explanation as to why they’re needed.
- Potassium: This macronutrient converts CO2 into oxygen, in addition to enabling your cannabis plants to store glucose for energy as they grow.
- Nitrogen: Arguably one of the most important nutrients, nitrogen is the element that controls your cannabis plants’ chlorophyll production, enabling them to use the sunlight received for energy to grow.
- Magnesium: This nutrient is a helper nutrient that assists other elements like nitrogen in turning sunlight into glucose, which is then stored and used as energy. Magnesium also helps regulate the metabolism of cannabis plants ensure they’re growing correctly.
- Phosphorus: This is one of the most important nutrients for when your cannabis plant is flowering or producing its buds. Phosphorus ensures that your root system is strong enough to transport all of the rest of those important nutrients directly to plant buds.
- Calcium: This nutrient works in cannabis much in the same way as it does in the human body. In our bodies, calcium strengthens bones; in cannabis, cell walls. It helps cannabis plants fight bacteria, keep their shape, and maintain healthy leaf growth.
- Boron: Most soils and fertilizers contain at least a small amount of boron, which is used by cannabis plants to assist with cell division. Boron helps promote healthy growth and heal plants when necessary.
- Sulfur: This nutrient is essential in helping cannabis plants fight disease, produce chlorophyll, and create essential vitamins and amino acids. However, sulfur is only needed in very small amounts.
- Iron: Like magnesium, iron is another helper nutrient that assists sulfur and nitrogen in the photosynthesis process and the production of chlorophyll. It allows cannabis plants to convert sunlight into energy and send that vital energy throughout the plants.
- Zinc: For healthy stem growth and the formation of strong cell membranes, zinc is a vital nutrient. It also aids in the production of sugar and hormones in cannabis plants.
- Manganese: Another nutrient like sulfur that cannabis plants only need in small amounts, manganese directly benefits root growth and helps protect cannabis plants against microbes that live in the soil.
- Copper: This nutrient, rather than assisting with plant growth, actually helps your cannabis plants break down other nutrients and carbohydrates.
- Molybdenum: This nutrient is only needed in very small doses, but it helps your cannabis plants turn nitrates in the soil into essential amino acids and produce vital enzymes.
The Best Cannabis Nutrients for Your Soil
For those growing cannabis plants in soil, there are some great nutrients out there you can add to your soil to ensure a healthy yield. These include:
- Bat Guano
- Epsom Salts
- Blood Meal
- Sea Kelp
- Dolomite Lime
The Best Hydroponics Nutrients
If growing hydroponically, then there are some essential nutrients you’ll want to add to your soilless medium. These types of fertilizers almost always come in a liquid form, rather than the solid nutrients used for soil-based growing. This is because they break down and are absorbed much quicker this way.
Most of the nutrients mentioned above will benefit hydroponic growers. However, if you can’t find them in a liquid form, you’ll need to break them down into liquid yourself. The easiest way to do so is by mixing them with water to create a tea to deliver to your plants. Just be extremely precise about the measurements, otherwise you run the risk of ruining your entire crop.
Contact Neptune Seed Bank for auto-flowering seeds, substrate, and more!
If you’re in need of auto-flowering cannabis seeds, cannabis nutrients, clone shipping kits, and more, contact Neptune Seed Bank today by emailing [email protected] We work with some of today’s leading cannabis breeders, so contact us now and get your growing season started!
