The roots of cannabis plants play a vital role in providing the plant with water, nutrients and oxygen. They also keep the plant anchored to the ground.
The structure of the root system determines the ability of a plant to adapt to soil and external conditions. It also affects the overall size of a plant and its ability to produce flowers.
1. Water
Water is one of the most important things to understand for anyone interested in growing cannabis. It’s essential to ensuring healthy roots and a happy plant.
Water provides the nutrients your plants need for strong growth, but it also plays an important role in protecting them from disease and pests. This is especially true for plants that require a lot of moisture, like marijuana.
While you should never overwater, it’s still important to know how much water your grow needs. The type of soil you use largely determines how much water it can hold, and drainage is important in growing containers to make sure moisture escapes the top.
You’ll need to monitor the pH of your water, too. If the pH level is too high, your cannabis plants will have trouble taking in nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous.
This is a condition known as nutrient lockout, and it can be fatal to your crop. It’s not a good idea to use too many nutrients for a plant in this situation, so you should flush it with a pH neutral water before adding any fertilizer.
Your soil can also affect the way your cannabis plants take in water and nutrients. If your soil is too sandy, it won’t retain as much water. This can lead to nutrient deficiencies, root rot and fungus, and pests.
To avoid these problems, you should always keep your plants in a pot with a larger root surface area. This will allow your cannabis to better absorb water and nutrients, while reducing the risk of root rot. You can also monitor the water level in your pots by checking drainage holes.
2. Nutrients
Cannabis roots are vital to the growth of a healthy plant. They absorb water, nutrients and oxygen, and distribute them to the rest of the plant. They also anchor the plant to the growing medium you’re using.
To ensure healthy root growth and optimal plant health, you should always be aware of the importance of nutrient levels in your growing medium. You should make sure your soil and potting media have been tested and that the pH is right for cannabis.
You can use a nutrient chart to determine the amount of nutrients you need to add at each stage of your cannabis grow. You can also follow the nutrient feeding schedules that most nutrient manufacturers have created for their specific nutrient blends to ensure your cannabis plants are receiving everything they need at each critical growth stage.
Nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) are all essential nutrients for cannabis growth. They provide energy to the plant, helping it synthesize amino acids, chlorophyll, proteins and enzymes.
They can also activate dozens of enzymes that help plants transport sugar, perform N and C metabolism, and support photosynthesis. K is especially important for flower development and production, assisting in the formation of trichomes and bud growth.
While macronutrients are the largest category of nutrients needed by plants, there are also micronutrients that are necessary for the plant to be healthy and produce a high-quality crop. These are usually considered to be less well known, but they are just as vital to a healthy, productive cannabis plant as the macronutrients.
The best way to ensure your cannabis plants get the nutrients they need is to consistently introduce a properly balanced N-P-K fertilizer mix into your soil or medium throughout the life cycle of your crop. This will ensure robust growth and maximum yields.
3. Light
Understanding the importance of root health in cannabis growth is critical to successful cultivation. Without healthy roots, your plants will struggle to absorb the water and nutrients they need. Ultimately, root health will determine your plant’s vigour, yield, and overall quality.
In the seedling stage, you should keep your light intensity low and allow your cannabis plant time to acclimate to the different light intensities it will encounter as it transitions into vegetative and flowering growth. Too much light at this stage can damage chlorophyll pigments, leading to photo-oxidation and reduced yield.
Once your cannabis plants have established themselves and are growing in a well-drained soil, you can begin to increase your light intensity. This is essential for the development of your plants’ leaves and stems that will help them acclimate to the intense light used during the vegetative growth phase.
The duration of lighting plays an important role in a cannabis plant’s growth cycle, as it affects the rate of photosynthesis, which is how plants absorb nutrients to grow and produce flowers. It is also the source of energy for a cannabis plant to use during the vegetative phase and flowering stage.
Many indoor cultivators rely on artificial illumination to supply their cannabis plants with sufficient light for optimal growth and harvests. This type of cultivation uses man-made full-spectrum lights, which contain specific wavelengths that support a cannabis plant’s growth cycle. The types of lights used in indoor cultivation include compact fluorescent (CFL) and high-intensity discharge (HID) bulbs, as well as light-emitting diode (LED) lights. LED lights are the preferred choice of cannabis growers as they use less energy and emit far lower amounts of heat than traditional grow lights.
4. Temperature
Temperature plays a big role in all aspects of cannabis growth and development from seed germination to harvest and beyond. As a result, it’s essential for commercial growers to know how to properly manage temperature and humidity in their facilities.
For the most part, cannabis plants like temperatures between 20-30degC (70-85degF) during the day and 17-20degC (62-68degF) at night. Maintaining these temperatures allows the plant to grow at a healthy rate while also ensuring it doesn’t struggle to photosynthesize.
The light-independent reactions of photosynthesis are catalyzed by specific enzymes that work best at certain temperatures. In cannabis, if temperatures drop below an ideal range, the plant’s rate of photosynthesis will slow down and may even kill it altogether.
This can be particularly problematic in flowering stages when the plant’s buds are absorbing the most nutrients and water from the soil. If the buds are exposed to too-hot temperatures during this time, they can burn away some of the terpenes and cannabinoids they contain, which can affect taste and smell.
Another factor to keep in mind is that a plant’s root system is crucial to its ability to grow and produce flowers. If the roots aren’t healthy, the plant will be unable to absorb all of the water and nutrients it needs from the soil.
5. Air
While light, water, and nutrients are vital to plant growth, air is also an important part of the overall process. Cannabis plants need a steady flow of fresh air to replenish carbon dioxide levels, maintain humidity, and keep temperatures stable. Without adequate ventilation, your grow can suffer in many ways, including reduced yields and bud rot, a common problem among cannabis growers.
Respiration is an essential process that plants use to convert food into energy and oxygen for their metabolic functions. It occurs throughout the day, but is more intense at night because photosynthesis stops as darkness approaches.
The roots of cannabis are the heart of the plant, and they’re surrounded by a full ecosystem of microorganisms (fungi, bacteria, algae) that form a symbiotic relationship with them. These microbes help roots absorb nutrients in a much more efficient way, resulting in healthier, faster growth.
This symbiotic relationship is essential to root health and is why it’s so important to expose your cannabis plant to soil-based mediums that have a rich mix of beneficial microorganisms like Trichoderma, Endomycorrhiza, and Rhizobacteria. These microorganisms form a strong, mutually beneficial relationship with your cannabis roots, improving their ability to absorb nutrients and protect them from pathogens like fusarium and pythium.
As a result, your cannabis plants will have the best chance of thriving in their grow environment. This means better nutrient uptake, healthier flowers (buds), and a higher yield at harvest.
While it can be difficult to achieve, maintaining adequate ventilation and air exchange in your grow space is a key part of growing healthy cannabis. It can save you time and money down the line by preventing a lot of common problems and allowing your crop to thrive!
