Growing cannabis in a greenhouse has become enhancing most popular amongst commercial and hobbyists cultivators alike. Growing cannabis weed in a greenhouse has combined the best of both indoor & outdoor growing. It facilitates you in exploiting the powers of natural sunlight without doing sacrifice your control over your growing environment.
If you are lucky enough for having the space for setting up a greenhouse, you must continue to read for an in-depth guide on how to build the perfect greenhouse to grow cannabis.
Why Build A Greenhouse For Growing Cannabis?
The main advantages that are associated with growing weed in a greenhouse are inclusive of:
- Less energy consumption: Growing cannabis in a greenhouse facilitates the utilization of sunlight. It means you will not have any requirement of facing the electricity costs of running a grow light for 18 hours in a day.
- Environmental Control: Instead of growing outdoors, where your plants are entirely exposed to the elements, growing in a greenhouse serves you in adding control over the environment of your plant. It facilitates you in the optimization of air, circulation, humidity, temperature, and more.
- Better aroma, potency, and flavor: The strength of your cannabis weed and how good it is tasting or smelling will be different greatly which is dependent on the genetics you are growing. It is also dependent on your skills as a grower. However, the greenhouse-grown buds have earned themselves a remarkable reputation for the aroma, flavor, and potency of it. The reason behind this is the control that is served by this environment to growers over the quality of their crop.
- Greater pest control: When you are growing cannabis outdoors, it is impossible for you to do eliminate the risk of running into pest problems. However, if you are growing in a greenhouse, you would be eligible in importantly minimizing the risk of pests, as you would do in an indoor grow room.
How To Do The Creation Of The Best Greenhouse For Growing Marijuana
It is not at all an easy task to build a greenhouse. It involves addressing a huge amount of variables that will be exceptional to your situation. For instance, the amount of space you are having to work with, your budget, your skills, the materials that you are having for access, etc.
We will take you through the main aspects of building a perfect cannabis greenhouse as best as we can.
1. Picking the Correct Type of Greenhouse
Greenhouses basically come in a large number of sizes, shapes, & designs. You can select one over another that will come down to your budget. The number of plants that you are planning for growth, and the space you are having to work with.
Given below are some of the different types of greenhouses that are available on the market.
- Small pop-up greenhouses: These are the most budget-friendly greenhouses that are available in the market. These are usually designed for hobby gardeners for working with limited space. They basically used to feature a basic frame, a plastic cover, a zip-up door for easy access, and a few shelves for holding your plants and gardening tools.
- Walk-in greenhouses: While walk-in-greenhouses are generally made up of basic plastic covers & metal frames, they facilitate a lot more room, bigger shelves, and the capability for stepping inside & immerse yourself in your gardening. These types of greenhouses come in a huge variety of different styles and sizes, and these are usually designed for hobby gardeners with a little more space. For instance, outdoor patio, private terrace, basement, or garden.
- Polytunnel greenhouses: Polytunnel greenhouses are tunnel-shaped greenhouses. These are one of the most popular greenhouse structures that are used in commercial production. Because of their size, polytunnel greenhouses are generally designed for outdoor use. Thus, these also tend for featuring a better build quality.
- Professional outdoor greenhouses: Again, these greenhouses can come in countless sizes and shapes. These greenhouses are basically made with rust-resistant aluminum frames, heavy-dust, and extra-durable polycarbonate panels. These serve with maximum light transmission and protection from the elements.
2. Setting up of Ventilation & Watering
One of the issues that most people see when they are growing cannabis weed in a greenhouse is the high humidity. While humid conditions are extremely great for seedlings, they rapidly become problematic for mature plants. It does the creation of a breeding ground for fungi, bacteria, and pests.
You are required to ensure to make use of a hygrometer and a thermometer for keeping a track of the temperature and relative humidity, that is inside your greenhouse. It is just like you would do in an indoor growing room. More
significantly, you are required to ensure to invest in intake, outtake, and oscillating fans for serving your plants with plenty of fresh air and for keeping the temperature and humidity down.
The type of fans that you will select will come down to the size of your greenhouse. You are only required to ensure that both your intake and outtake fans are having a CFM rating that is equal to or greater than the volume of your greenhouse.
When you are setting up your oscillating fans, you are required to ensure to place both of them under and above your canopy for preventing old air from getting trapped inside your greenhouse and for driving up the humidity or temperature. You are required to aim at the creation of a gentle yet consistent breeze that is flowing through the complete space.
For further prevention of the humidity issues from harming the quality of your harvest, you are required to ensure to make adjustments in your watering schedule. If you are accustomed to growing cannabis outdoors, you are required to be careful not to follow your old watering habits, as you will most likely overwater your cannabis plants in a greenhouse.
Outdoor cannabis plants are directly exposed to wind, plenty of fresh air, and direct sunlight. All these conditions cause the water from their soil to evaporate rapidly. Your plants will not endure the same conditions in a greenhouse. It means they will likely have a requirement to be watered less frequently.
Automated Watering systems
It is a great way to make some investment in an automated system for taking some of the guesswork out of watering your plants in a greenhouse. You can go with a drip irrigation system, as these constantly serve your plants with the perfect amount of water. If you make use of drip irrigation, it assists in the prevention of overwatering, which in turn minimizes the risk of running into problems with fungi or bacteria simultaneously. It does the promotion of the growth of healthy roots, and much more.
3. Addition of Grow Lights to a Greenhouse
Obviously, the idea of growing in a greenhouse is for making use of sunlight instead of artificial lighting. And, while that might work fine for growers who are living in areas that are with consistently sunny conditions. Those people who are living in areas with more temperamental conditions might be benefited from the installation of a set of grow lights that you can switch on as it is required.
Obviously, there are many different grow lights that are available on the market, and you would have the desire for doing some shopping around for finding the type of light that is best suitable for your setup. A great starting point, however, would be to make use of LED grow panels for getting the best results.
You are required to keep in your mind to serve your plants with around 400W of light per square meter. We suggest you make use of LED lights. The reason is that they are far cheaper to run than HID lights and these also do the production of less heat.
4. Greenhouse Coverings or Force Flowering in a Greenhouse
When the days start to become shorter and autumn or winter approaches, Cannabis plants flower naturally after the summer crest. When you are going to grow in a greenhouse, you are having two options for dealing with the flowering phase.
Firstly, you can go to let your plants grow as they would grow naturally, and after that, you are required to wait to flower on the basis of the subtle light cycle changes that usually occur after the summer solstice. Obviously, this method is extremely easy and is having the requirement of a little more than patience.
Alternatively, you can do the selection of install blinds or covers in your greenhouse for blocking out light and forcing your plants to flower. Obviously, it is a much more hands-on approach. But, it is having the benefit of serving you with more control over your plants and how they used to grow.
Some ways for forcing your marijuana plants for flowering in a greenhouse are inclusive of:
- Making use of a tarp: You could get a custom black tarp that is made for being fitted over the outside of your greenhouse, and manually making use of that for reducing the amount of light that your plants used to receive every day. It is likely the easiest and cheapest solution if you are working with a small greenhouse.
- Make use of blinds: You could install blinds along the inside walls of your greenhouse, and you could make use of a tarp for covering the roof.
- Installation of shutters: It is by far the easiest solution, but also the most expensive. Installation of an automatic shutter in your greenhouse will facilitate you in blocking out the sun from your greenhouse at the push of a button.
5. Maintenance of Greenhouse
Installation of a greenhouse might come at a reasonable initial investment. However, once it is installed and properly set up, a greenhouse can house multiple harvests in a year and if you will do the maintenance of it properly it can last for an extremely long time.
