What Is Hydroponic Cannabis?
The common nickname for cannabis—“weed” —comes from its ability to grow almost anywhere, under varying conditions and different climates. “Hydroponic cannabis” simply refers to plants grown using a nutrient-water solution and an inert growing medium rather than nutrient-rich soil. This method could be something as basic as hand-watering pots of inert medium with a nutrient solution. As discussed in the first part of this series, sophisticated systems with multiple pumps, timers, and reservoirs can take some of the daily labor out of growing, but they require more maintenance and setup time as well as a greater initial investment.
Cannabis growers have been using different hydroponic methods for many years as a way to maximize yields and speed up growth, the two main advantages of soilless growing. Working with soils indoors can be inefficient and difficult for a number of reasons:
- You may not be able to recycle soil
- Susceptibility to pest problems
- Difficult to determine proper amount of nutrients
- Need to carefully monitor soil pH
- Soil quality significantly influences the final product
With some hydroponic methods, you get to use small amounts of grow media that can often be reused while also precisely controlling what nutrients the plants are receiving and pH levels. With such levels of control, growers find that their buds are bigger, healthier and more potent.
Whether you have grown cannabis before or have no experience growing cannabis whatsoever, hydroponics can be a great way to produce cannabis in any size space. At first it can be confusing and slightly overwhelming, but by learning the basics you will come to understand it’s not as difficult as you imagined.
THE HISTORY OF HYDROPONICS
Hydroponic cultivation might initially seem like the result of modern advances in technology. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. The origins of growing plants in water goes back thousands of years into human history. The famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon, created in 600 BCE, are theorised to have utilised hydroponic principles. The region located next to the Euphrates was naturally dry and arid. It’s believed the crops of the garden were nurtured using a trickle-system starting at the river.
Moving closer in time to the 10th and 11th centuries, the Aztec civilisation was also known to utilise hydroponics to provide sustenance to their society. After being forced from their land via conflict, these people settled at Lake Tenochtitlan. They proceeded to build floating rafts topped with soil, allowing crops to grow through the tap layer and spread their roots into the waters below.
More recent, but still distant, examples of hydroponic growing involve the English scientist John Woodward in 1699. His work involved cultivating spearmint plants in water. He found that the plant species grew faster within a water source mixed with soil.
The history of hydroponics has shown how effective this method can be in many different settings and scenarios, with cannabis cultivation being no exception. Let’s explore the advantages of this interesting method, and how to apply it to growing great weed.
THE ADVANTAGES OF HYDROPONIC GROWING
If you talk to a grower who has experience with hydroponic growing, one of the first things they’ll probably tell you is that their hydroponic plants grow much, much faster than those in soil. This is a prime advantage of this method of cultivation—hydroponic plants usually grow 30–50% faster and often provide larger yields. A large reason for this is that nutrients within a hydroponic system are much more readily available to plants. The nutrients are suspended in water and enter directly into the root system as there is no soil to navigate through. In contrast, plants growing in soil must search through the medium in order to uptake nutrients from below. Easy access to nutrients allows plants to preserve energy, which is then diverted to growth efforts instead.
Set Up Your Hydroponic Cannabis Growing System
And while there are several types of hydroponic setups that don’t use any type of growing medium at all, many of them still use some sort of substrate to support root growth.
Various materials all provide slightly different benefits and drawbacks, so some thought should be put into choosing the right medium for your cannabis plants. In this article, we are going to be utilizing the drip line hydroponics technique.
While this system is built from the ground up, it should be noted that there are plenty of plug and play systems available for those looking for something that is easy to set up. Plug and play systems come with everything you need in a streamlined package to allow growers to get started on the right foot.
First we will start with the supplies needed. Keep in mind this is just an example, and depending on your space and desired results, many things can be tweaked in a hydroponic system to make it most beneficial to you. This list specifically outlines equipment needed to install your hydroponic system and does not include lights, fans, filters, and other basic needs for any grow room.
Hydroponic Cannabis Supplies:
- 3 or 5 gallon bucket (one for each plant)
- Grow table
- Clay pellets (enough to fill each bucket)
- Rockwool cubes (one 1.5-inch starter plug per plant)
- Reservoir tank (depending on the size of garden)
- Water pump (the bigger the better)
- Air pump
- Air stone
- Plastic tubing
- Drip line
- Drip line emitters (one or two per plant)
Browse Hydroponic Growing Supplies
Once you have gathered your materials you can begin to construct your hydroponic setup.
- First, set up your reservoir. Your reservoir is where your nutrient solution is held. A reservoir can come in all shapes and sizes depending on your grow space and size, and it holds the water pump and the air stone. It will have a line in from the air pump to the air stone and a drainage line in from the grow table. The reservoir will have a line out from the water pump to the drip line and the power cord for the water pump.
- Next you will create your grow table. The purpose of the table is to contain and return the excess water from the plants to the reservoir. To do this successfully, the table needs to have a low point where all the excess water will travel to. This low point is where you install the drain that will take the water back to the reservoir via plastic tubing.
- You can then add your 5 gallon buckets filled with clay pellets on the table. Before using clay pellets, you should soak the pellets overnight to allow them to become fully saturated with water for your plants to drink. Also, the buckets need to have holes drilled in the bottom to allow them to drain excess water onto the grow table. It is important that the holes are about half the diameter of the clay pellets to prevent the pellets from passing through or clogging the holes.
- Take the plastic tubing coming off of the water pump and run the line to the grow table. From here you can use drip line equipment to puncture holes in the plastic tubing and extend drip line to each bucket. Finally, attach drip line emitters to the end of the drip lines.
- From here you can run your system without plants to see if everything is functioning properly. The system should not have standing water anywhere. The air pump should always be running to keep the water in the reservoir oxygenated and moving, while the 5 gallon buckets and grow table drains any excess water back into the reservoir.
- At this point you are setup and ready to create your nutrient water solution in your reservoir. Below we will introduce information about nutrients and how to use them to grow your cannabis plants.
- Once your solution is ready, can introduce your plants. Take the starts or clones that have begun growing in rockwool and place them into the clay pellets. Insert the drip line so that moisture is reaching the rockwool and roots of your starts.
17 years of dwc experience, i switch to rdwc. 4weeks in flower and they were eating 17 gallons each plant, every 3 or 4 days! Spare res at all times will take a load of ya!