Question: How tall should I expect my marijuana plants to get? And how long does it take until harvest?
- How long will it take?
- How tall will it grow?
Answer:
These are very common questions for new growers, so let us give you the straight answers…
How long will my marijuana plant take to grow? How long from seed to harvest?
It will be 8 weeks – 6+ Months before your plants are ready to harvest.
But that’s a huge range, right?
The truth is, the time to harvest depends on your growing method, whether you grow inside or outside, your strain, and your desired yields…
- Growing Method – soil tends to be the slowest growing medium, and hydro tends to create the fastest growth.
- Inside or Outside – In general, outdoor plants need longer to harvest than indoor plants. Outdoors, you plant in the spring, and harvest in late fall, taking 5-6 months or more. Indoors you have more control over the plant and can choose how long you want your plants to grow before harvest, and can get to harvest in just a few months. Indoors you can also start growing at any time (you don’t have to wait until Spring to start growing).
- Strain – Some strains tend to have shorter lives, and others need longer before they’re ready to harvest. For example, you can choose to grow an auto-flowering strain to get to harvest in as short as 8 weeks. But many strains which originated near the equator can take months and months before their buds are ready to harvest, even when growing indoors. So strain is important when it comes to time-to-harvest.
- Desired Yields – If you want bigger yields, you need a bigger plant, and that takes more time to grow than a small one.
How tall will my marijuana plants get?
Plants can be grown shorter than your knees, or taller than your house.
Basically you (the grower) are in complete control of how tall your cannabis plants grow.
This is especially true for indoor growers, where you are in charge of nearly everything. When growing outdoors, you still have a bit of control over plant height, but you are also at the mercy of the sun and the elements.
Some strains tend to grow tall and thin, while others tend to grow short and squat, but you can force your plant to grow differently when growing cannabis indoors. In fact, you have many options to control the exact shape and size of your plant.
You can achieve almost any size or shape when growing indoors as long as you use plant trainning. But if a cannabis plant is left to grow outside with tons of sun and without any plant training, the sky is the limit for how big they can get!
Although it isn’t the be-all end-all when it comes to size, strain is still definitely something to keep in mind when it comes to height. Although you can control the exact height and shape of your plant no matter what the strain with plant training, different strains grow differently and you want a strain that makes it easier to get the results you want. When growing with bagseed (seeds that you find in your buds) you often don’t know what to expect until the plant actually starts growing.
To fight these natural tendencies and force these plants to be the same height, the grower would have needed to use different techniques and training strategies.