Having the right tools for the job can improve the output of any hobby, especially growing cannabis. With the right basic equipment, any cannabis cultivator can secure a solid crop out of their growing season. However, there are a few key upgrades every home grower should have in their inventory.
Whether you’re looking to improve your overall yields, proactively reduce the need to troubleshoot, or get better quality out of your buds, these five tools have the potential to greatly improve the ease and abundance of your home grow.
Thermometer/Humidity Gauge
If you want one tool that has the potential to save your garden, this is your answer. Every grower needs a thermometer and humidity gauge in their garden to monitor levels. Cultivating cannabis successfully requires you to have a basic understanding of the temperature range your growing space reaches during both during light and dark hours. This same rule applies for humidity levels. Simple readers can be found on Amazon for less than $10 and will suffice for any basic garden.
If you’re looking for a premium upgrade to your basic thermometer, check out this Element HT Wireless Humidity and Temperature Data Logger. It has full monitoring capability (temperature, humidity, and C02) that can not only transmit readings in real time to any internet-connected device, but can be programmed with temperature and humidity thresholds to alert you when atmospheric conditions change. Element HT products can also be chained together into larger systems to monitor multiple areas of the same garden or multiple rooms in a grow. It’s a powerful tool that any serious grower should consider adding to their system.
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pH Meter
A pH meter may be the most underrated tool that every grower absolutely must own to ensure the success of their garden. Growers often mistakenly think that a pH meter is only important for those who choose to cultivate with hydroponics. In reality, anyone who cultivates, whether by soil or hydroponics, should have at least some type of pH reader on hand.
At the most basic level, litmus strips are available for a very low cost. For just a few dollars more, you can get yourself a digital reader at retailers like Amazon. Both options will be able to effectively test acidity levels throughout your grow. Testing pH is important for both feeding as well as gauging grow medium acidity. Knowing your pH can literally save your garden.
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Showing you dispensaries nearFor growers who wish to get more control out of their readers, there are pre-advanced options available such as this meter from Blue Lab. Aside from the ability to read pH levels, the Blue Lab Guardian Monitor also measures temperature and total conductivity, giving the accuracy needed when dialing in feeding regiments. With the ability to provide constant live readouts, this device eliminates the need to use strips or other readers, effectively ensuring peace of mind to the grower that all levels are consistently maintained.
Other Testers and Meters
Eye Protection
Spending any amount of time in an indoor grow can be tough on the eyes. Whether you grow under LED or HPS lights, the spectrum can be damaging if you’re not properly protected.
Luckily, there are now affordable options for indoor growers with these Nectar KUSH HPS and LED sunglasses. Both pairs are sufficiently wrapped and polarized for outdoor use as well. Nectar, the company behind these glasses, also donates a portion of the proceeds from every pair sold to help restore North American honey beehives.
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Plant Sex ID Kit
One of the most frustrating elements of growing cannabis on any scale is having to deal with male plants. Cannabis cultivators, especially those with plant count limits, lament over having to cull unnecessary males from their garden each time they start new non-feminized seed. Breeders must also be diligent in culling their males as early as possible to prevent cross-contamination.
Fortunately, GreenSeed Labs has developed an early detection plant sex ID kit that can help mitigate this problem. These kits are capable of determining plant sex just two weeks after seed germination. Each kit provides the necessary tools to imprint 10 samples to be sent to a lab for identification. This is a great tool for more advanced growers to get an early jump on their male plants.
Cannabis Nutrient Products
Magnifying Glass
When it comes to harvest time, growers must look to their plant’s trichomes in order to gauge the perfect time to cut down their crop. The answer to whether or not a plant is fully matured rests within the trichomes. Unfortunately, in most cases the naked eye is incapable of discerning between a fully matured and underdeveloped trichome gland head. In order to properly tell if a plant is mature enough, having a magnifier is key.
Cannabis Harvest Products
T-H-SEE has developed this magnifier specifically for cannabis cultivators. With a 40x magnification and three LED lights, it’s the optimal tool for trichome viewing. This viewer not only can detect gland maturity, it can also be used to identify contaminants, bud rot, pests, and impurities at a microscopic level. Having one of these on hand gives you the power to proactively prevent problems in your garden before they grow out of proportion.
