How To Grow Monster Cannabis Plants

Learn how to grow monster cannabis plants and huge harvests with this handy guide.

Read on to find out all you need to know about nutrients, soil type, and pruning!

Choice of Strain is Crucial

One of the most important things to consider is your choice of strain. Some won’t get that big.

For example, auto-flowering plants tend to be pretty small. Indica strains, too, although taller and bushier than most autos, top out at 1.5m in height. Past this point, they may continue to get bushier. But to achieve taller plants, start with a sativa or sativa-dominant hybrid.

“Indicas” are short, bushy landraces from the mountainous regions of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“Sativas” are the tall, graceful landraces from the tropics and equatorial zones. Sativas can easily reach 2.5m or higher. They develop multiple branches too. So you can quickly end up with gigantic trees by the time they’re mature!

Monster Cannabis Plants Need Lots of Space!

Of course, it’s challenging to grow a big plant in a small space.

So for most indoor growers, the key is to minimize the size of the plant.

It is possible to grow monster cannabis plants indoors. Some people fill a grow tent with a single massive plant, distributing the branches evenly with nets, canes, and hooks. But growing monster cannabis plants is the realm of the outdoor grower.

Outdoors, you are far less limited by concerns of space. With some strains, you plant a seed in the ground and let it do its thing. It’ll turn into a giant with very little work. All you need are the right genetics and fertile, well-watered soil.

Vegetative Growth is Key to Monster Plants!

Cannabis is a very versatile plant. If you’re short on time, you can flower it when it’s still pretty small. This will reduce your overall harvest time. But that won’t get you monster plants! To achieve this, you have to give your plants enough time to develop.

Many indoor growers “veg” their plants for just 3-4 weeks before switching them into flower.

Using a Sea of Green (SOG) technique, veg time can be as little as 1-2 weeks! This means that the time needed to produce a good harvest is relatively short. For this reason, it’s the preferred method for many growers.

But there’s another case for giving your monster cannabis plants a more extended veg period. Plant count. That is, the number of plants you can grow without risking legal penalties. If you live in an area where plant count is limited, there’s an easy workaround. Just keep them in vegetative growth for longer and grow them bigger!

There’s no actual upper limit on how long you can keep a plant in veg. At least, not indoors. Outdoors you’re limited by the seasonal variation in day length. When keeping mothers, growers can maintain plants in veg for up to ten years. But anything longer than six weeks is going to see some pretty big plants!

The Importance Of Pruning Your Monsters

Following the above steps will yield you some pretty awesome monster cannabis plants. But if you don’t take them in hand, you may still be disappointed with the yield. Lots of sativa-dominant strains have a multi-branching growth pattern. This can produce hundreds of spindly new shoots if left to do its own thing. Those spindly little shoots, all crowded together, will produce spindly little buds. However, indicas can be encouraged to become incredibly bushy through pruning and training. So even if they don’t get massively tall they can still become quite monstrous.

Either way, you’ll need to train your plants to produce sturdy branches to hold the weight of monster buds. To do that, you’ll need an effective topping and pruning strategy. Usually, indoor growers top their plants 2-3 times to produce 4-8 main branches. But if you’re keeping your plants in veg for weeks, you can do this more often. Other techniques to use later in the vegetative period are lollipopping and stress training.

Ever Heard of Monster Cropping? Well, That’s a Thing, Too…

Another interesting technique is “monster cropping”. And it’s definitely a good way to achieve monster plants and monster harvests. It’s simple in theory, but a lot harder to get right in practice.

Monster cropping involves taking cuttings or “clones” from plants already in the flowering period. Once they’re in the flowering period, plants stop producing the hormones needed for root, stem, and leaf development. This is so it can concentrate on flower production.

It’s much easier to take clones during the vegetative period. But with perseverance, you can also take clones during the flowering period. They may take longer to root. But they have a cool characteristic normal clones don’t have. When they revert to vegetative growth, they produce lots of branches very quickly. These can be pruned, thinned, and trained as required to produce lots of branching sites and potentially mega harvests!

So there you have it! Let us know what you think of our guide by posting in the comments below!