How To Increase Cannabis Yield Indoors

Once you’ve finished your first few grows, you may feel the urge to improve your results. If you want to harvest more weed but you have limited space, this blog has some fast and effective tips to drastically increase cannabis yields and growing efficiency.

Increase Cannabis Yield In Small Spaces

As you gain experience in growing marijuana, you will find that every next run improves slightly from the last. This is perfectly normal: even though the basics of the grow hobby are pretty simple, you have infinite options for finetuning your methods, environmental factors, and other parameters for even bigger harvests.

We like to help you keep your grow process simple. That’s why we’re handing you three tried and tested horticultural hacks to show you how to increase cannabis yield even if you are spatially challenged.

Hack 1: High Yield Plant Training Techniques

There are many ways to direct how your plants grow and flower. Most of these plant training techniques are designed to increase bud volume one way or another. While some of these high yield grow hacks are not suitable for small grow tents or other indoor spaces, some are just perfect for small-space growing.

If you want to learn how to increase cannabis yield indoors, be sure to give these three marijuana training hacks a try, starting with the easiest one in case you’re relatively new to this stuff.

All three hacks are applied during the vegetative stage of the run, before buds start to form in the flowering phase. Keep in mind that if you’re working with fast cannabis seeds, including autoflower strains, you need to time your hacks just right, since you’ll have a narrow window of opportunity to intervene.

Low Stress Training – Easy Mode

Low stress training (LST) simply means gently bending the stems of your plant back down to the soil and then tying them down. As the stems naturally attempt to grow back up towards the light, you spread the plant’s structure laterally.

This leaves more room for individual bud formation and optimises light distribution. As a result, you will get bigger, higher quality flowers at the end of the run.

For detailed instructions on the low stress training technique, check out this dedicated LST blog.

Screen of Green – Medium Level

Screen of green (SCROG) is a more advanced technique that also works by distributing stems and foliage evenly across the available space. The difference with LST is that in this case, you use a ‘trellis’ framework, usually consisting of a ‘screen’ wire grid instead of bending the stems.

Well-spread leaves allow optimal airflow and light distribution to make the most of your available space, lighting, and ventilation, which is ideal in small tents.

This blog contains detailed instructions on applying the SCROG method in your own grow room, tent, or semi-outdoor greenhouse.

Topping/ Fimming – Pro Level

Learning how to increase cannabis yield is a gradual process. Once you’ve mastered the basics, you can start experimenting with more advanced high-stress grow techniques.

Topping and fimming are two similar ways to improve bud numbers per individual plant rather than increasing bud size. Both come with a bit of risk, however, so proceed with caution if you want to give them a go. It’s best to pick strains with high stress tolerance for these next-level bud-boosting hacks.

In topping, you wait until your vegging plant is mature enough to handle a bit of stress. When the time is right, you cut off the growth tip nodes at the top end of the stems.

Homicidal as this may sound, topping actually induces a stress response forcing your plant to grow two new nodes where the original tip used to be. That means topping could get you twice the number of buds on the same plant – if it survives the assault, that is.

Check out a detailed guide on topping to increase cannabis yield here.

Fimming is even more brutal than topping. Here, you slice the growth tip terminal nodes in half rather than removing them entirely.

This causes even more stress to the plant, which could trigger it to grow back two, three, or even four new apex nodes instead. It’s not hard to see how this can result in even better harvest results, although the risk of watching your darling succumb to the stress involved is considerably higher, too.

We have a special guide on fimming cannabis plants waiting if you’re ready to give it a shot.

Hack 2: Plant Planning = Bud Boosting

Another way to achieve high yield growing in limited space is to perfect your plant planning. If you make a habit of planning ahead, you can eliminate inefficient use of time and space from your projects. Here are some quick tips to get you on the right track to big bud results all year long!

If you can get a second grow tent operational somehow, even just a small one, you can try the perpetual harvest approach. While your first batch is switching from growth to flowering in one tent, you let your second run veg out in the next one.

If you make sure you have a propagator where your third batch of seeds germinates into the seedling stage to follow suit, all you need is a place to dry the bud from your first batch while you keep the cycle going. That means you’ll always have a fresh harvest ready while your next one is already underway!

Remember that perpetual harvesting works best if you use the same seeds for each consecutive batch. Using strains with different flowering and veg rates will get your schedule out of sync, which ruins the efficiency of this approach.

Going for rapid growth strains seems an obvious choice to speed things up even further. Still, faster growing doesn’t necessarily mean bigger bud yields, as you will read below.

On top of the perpetual harvest philosophy, planning ahead for year-round growing efficiency offers some distinct advantages too.

Hack 3: Working With High Yield Seeds

Always remember that no trick or hack will do much good as long as you are working with sub-par genetics. Learning how to increase cannabis yield begins and ends with finding the right genetic material. Only purchase your cannabis seeds from trusted, experienced, high quality suppliers, or your bud volume will never reach its full potential.

Once you’ve found a reliable source of premium seeds, make sure you pick the strains that suit your personal preferences. You don’t want to end up with a truckload of weed with a taste or a high you don’t like.

Once you’ve made a selection, read the product specifications provided by the vendor. You have a few important characteristics to keep in mind if you want high yields in small spaces.

Fast Genetics

Fast-growing strains seem an attractive option as your first thought might be they get you fast harvests too. And yes, growing seeds with short flowering time can enable high yield growing if you play your cards right.  Do keep in mind, however, that fast growth doesn’t necessarily mean fast flowering – or big buds for that matter.

Generally speaking, indica strains grow and flower faster than sativas. Today’s sativa hybrids can be speedy ladies too, however, so try to look past this somewhat obsolete distinction.

On the other hand, sativa flowers tend to have a more open bud structure, so the same number and size of compact indica flowers could increase cannabis yield compared to a huge sativa with more buds.

Indica plants have a tendency to keep a smaller stature than sativas, making them more suited for small-space indoor grows. All things considered, then, indica-leaning hybrids are probably your best bet.

Most seed distributors and breeders will state estimated harvest volumes for the seeds they sell. These usually give you a good idea of what to expect in terms of bud turnover, although they are ultimately just estimates of course. Much depends on your grow environment, gardening experience, and the amount of love and devotion you invest in your plants.

Using Autoflower Seeds To Increase Cannabis Yield

Autoflower cannabis seeds, especially indica autos, are another interesting option for getting high yields pronto. These special seeds contain ruderalis genetics that allow the plants to grow and flower rapidly, while also making them independent of (day) light cycles.

Modern autoflowers like our Dynamighty or Milkshake Kush are also pretty tough when it comes to handling stress, but we would recommend non-autoflowers if you plan to use stressful techniques to increase cannabis yield. In addition, the speed you gain with autos is usually offset by their slightly lower harvest volumes and cannabinoid content, making them a bit of a double-edged sword depending on your personal preferences.

Figuring Out How To Increase Cannabis Yield Your Way

As you can see, there are many ways to increase cannabis yield if you know your way around basic growing techniques. There are always new hacks and tricks to try once you’ve mastered the above. Raking in a big harvest is the main grow objective of many hobbyists, so new methods keep popping up all the time.

We haven’t even discussed how to increase cannabis yield by upgrading your equipment, for example. Investing in better lighting, ventilation, nutrition, or expanding your grow space can make a big difference, too.

Still, these easy hacks to increase cannabis yield should see you on your way to next-level indoor cannabis growing. At any rate, there’s always room for personal growth when it comes to ganja gardening, with something new to learn for even the most seasoned veterans.

Always remember that learning how to increase cannabis yield begins with finding the finest genetics you can get your hands on – and you’ve definitely come to the right place for that!