Ganja Goodness - Should You Monster Crop Your Next Grow?

Ganja Goodness - Should You Monster Crop Your Next Grow?

If there’s something that is 100% true about cannabis – Growing it can be incredibly addictive. If you’ve never had the pleasure of going through a complete crop-cycle – from seed to smoke – you don’t know what you’re missing out on.

Sure, the process might be tedious and long, you may run into hundreds of little snags along the way and will have to invest some serious time and money to make it to the end. However, the moment you roll a joint with your very own homegrown weed – you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

Ask any home-grower, “What’s the best weed you’ve ever smoked?” and the vast majority will respond, “The one I grew myself!” But I digress…

Today, we’re going to be talking about a concept called “Monster Cropping” which, if done right, can increase your yield for every crop cycle significantly.

But before we get into Monster Cropping – let’s talk about re-vegging.

What is re-vegging?

The cannabis plant’s natural life cycle lasts for one year. During this life cycle, it will remain within the “vegetative state” for roughly 6-9 months. When the plant senses a change in light cycles (Autumn/Winter periods), it will begin to “flower”.

This is the final stage of the plant’s life cycle of which (in nature), it would produce seeds, die and start the process over again.

Fortunately, modern cannabis growers aren’t subjected to the whims of nature. Since cannabis has a short-day photoperiod, it’s quite easy to trick your plants to go from one state to another.

All you would need to do is switch your light cycles from [18h (light):6h (dark)] to [12h (light):12h (dark)], which would be enough to prompt your plants within a couple of days. You would either see the formation of “pistils” (in the case they are female) or “stamens” (in the case they are male).

Okay – we’ve covered the basics, now let’s get into it a bit deeper.

Once the plant reaches the “Flowering Stage”, you can revert it back to the
“Vegetative Stage” by switching the light cycles back to the 18:6 Ratio.

But why would you ever want to “re-veg your plant?”

Reasons to Re-Veg a plant

Depending on how you’re growing weed, there could be many reasons why you would want to re-veg a crop. For some, it could be to preserve a particular phenotype. In the case that you forgot to make a clone prior to flipping your plants, re-vegging would be the only way to save that particular pheno.

Essentially, you’d revert it back to the vegetative state and then make a clone or a “Mother Plant”.

Speaking of “Mothers”, some people re-veg to eliminate the need for Mother Plants. What is a Mother Plant you may ask? It’s a particular phenotype that lives in permanent “Veg-State”. She is used to birth new clones and helps maintain a particular crop. This is great if you have a single strain you’d like to harvest continually, however – maintenance for “mother” is a bitch. She takes up water, light, space, which all could be used for other strains.

Therefore, re-vegging and double cropping allows you to get the most out of the particular phenotype, and allows you to re-clone it prior to getting rid of “mother”.

Which brings us to the concept of “Double Cropping and Monster Cropping”. Understanding the light cycles of your plants, it is possible to “double crop” where you would harvest the buds from your weed when it’s ready to harvest (or slightly before) and then revert the plants back to its vegetative state.

Since it has a complex root system, it should be able to repair itself within a matter of weeks and can be ready for another flowering-session. How many times can this process be repeated? – No one knows!

Finally, “The Monster Crop” technique involves cloning your plants “in the flowering stage” and then reverting the clones back to “vegetative state”.

We’ll talk about the “how” next.

How to Monster Crop?

Before attempting this – I recommend you first try to be successful with ‘regular cloning’. It’s not really that hard:

Cut the “branch/cutting” at a 45º Angle an inch away from the stem.
Dip it in “Root Hormone”
Place it inside a “sprouting pod”
Keep Humid
Pray to the Ganja Gods for roots to form
Plant it in a bigger pot and grow it like normal

The Monster Crop technique follows the same protocol; however, instead of cloning in the vegetative state, you’ll do it about 2-4 weeks into your flowering stage. Just be sure to cut away any “flower” from the clone and you’ll focus exclusively on “Low Branches”.

For this to work, it’s good to have a “dual chamber” grow room where you can do experiments like this. What will happen to these clones?

If done right, they will be Bushier and more Robust than the Originals. Many growers report the weed to be “different” than the OG yield too. Perhaps it’s merely a subjective grower’s bias – but the fact of the matter is that you do get benefit from doing this.

What does all of this mean Reginald?!?

It means that, while you might add a few weeks to your timeline for cropping out, you could;

1 – Increase your total yield

2 – Double Crop

3 – Do something you’ve never done before and grow as an individual.

And that is how and why you want to Monster Crop! Enjoy!