How to Create a Sustainable and Eco-Friendly Grow Room for Weed Plants Grown from Seed
Cultivating weed in a grow room is great, given that you can grow it at any time of the year, and you will have complete control over your plant and what you put into it.
But there's a catch. No matter the size of your grow room, indoor cannabis cultivation consumes a significant amount of energy and water. It also generates waste that, if not managed properly, can be harmful to the environment. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to make your growing space more eco-friendly and sustainable.
This post will guide you on how to create an eco-friendly and sustainable grow room for weed plants grown from seed.
What is Sustainable Weed Growing?
Cannabis cultivation consumes a significant amount of energy. For example, in the U.S., indoor weed cultivation consumes roughly 1% of the nation's electricity. This electricity is enough to power 2 million average-sized U.S homes. Considering this, there's clearly a need for better energy efficiency in the cultivation process.
You may think that sustainable weed growing only matters for large-scale commercial growers. However, even in small grow rooms, the cost of running high-powered exhausts, fans, and lights can quickly pile up. Moreover, even cannabis seeds grown in small grow rooms need nutrients, and the products containing them can generate runoff that is toxic to the environment.
This is where sustainable and eco-friendly growing comes in. Sustainable weed growing is all about minimizing your grow's impact on the environment. This could include anything from using all-natural fertilizers and introducing alternative power sources for your light.
Considerations for Making Your Grow Room Environment Friendly
To produce top-shelf buds, weed plants need steady hydration, natural light (or artificial light), and consistent nutrition. Here are ways to make your grow room environment-friendly while still being able to produce high-quality weed.
Plan Your Space
The first step to creating a sustainable grow room is carefully planning your space. Most often, growers overestimate the floor space they need, which leads to unnecessary energy bills and inefficient use of other resources. It's essential to consider the amount of space your plants need based on how much weed you plan on growing. Additionally, you should account for the amount of room you and your crew will need to attend to the plants.
Power Your Grow Room Sustainably
As mentioned earlier, weed cultivation consumes a considerable amount of electricity. Therefore, to ensure sustainability, indoor growers should invest in equipment that consumes less energy. For instance, you could invest in a lower-wattage bulb that consumes less power and emits less carbon. You could also invest in equipment that monitors your grow room climate and adjusts it accordingly.
Alternatively, you could use sustainable power sources such as:
- Solar panels: Solar panels are an excellent alternative to electricity. The benefits of using solar panels to power your grow room include the extra energy produced cycles back to your grid, it is cheaper in the long run, and you may get government incentives such as tax credits. But keep in mind that without sunshine, solar panels might be inefficient.
- Wind power: Wind power is another excellent alternative that might be even cheaper than solar panels. However, they require a lot of space and are difficult to hide, especially if you are trying to keep your operation a secret.
Choose the Right Lighting for Your Grow Room
There are several options when it comes to lighting. As such, determining which type of lighting to use can be somewhat challenging.
The common types are high-pressure sodium lights (HPS) and LED lights. While LED lights can cost more upfront than other types of lighting, they last longer (50,000 hours), require less energy, and run cooler. As such, they can help you achieve your environmental sustainability goals and cut back your costs in the long run. Other types, such as CMS (ceramic metal halide), can reduce electricity consumption but have a high heat output.
Determining which type of lighting works best for your grow room will ultimately improve your efficiency. Also, substituting artificial light with natural light whenever possible to get even greener.
Use Organic Soil and Nutrients
While weed isn't still certifiable as organic due to federal laws, there are ways you can ensure you grow your plant with care and without harmful chemicals. This entails replacing inorganic nutrients with those labeled as organic. Of course, if you want to practice even greener weed cultivation in your grow room, you can exclusively use vegan board-certified products. These nutrients don't contain ingredients such as liquid fish, bone meal, and other meat-industry by-products.
Additionally, you can use organic soils. These soils are not only sustainable, but plants grown in them tend to have more robust flavor and taste profiles than buds grown in inorganic soils using inorganic nutrients.
Use Sustainable Watering Options
There are numerous watering options you can use in your grow room. However, hydroponic growing is deemed the most efficient and sustainable weed cultivation method for indoor operations. This is because hydroponically grown plants grow faster and minimize water consumption by upto 90% compared to traditional growing techniques. It also reduces the need for herbicides and pesticides.
Other alternative watering methods you should consider using in your grow room include drip irrigation, hand watering, and flood tables. Flood tables and drip irrigation are more efficient options since both processes are automated, resulting in less water wastage and a more consistent yield.
To further improve your sustainability efforts, you should recycle runoff water and vapor. Both should be sterilized before reuse, typically with technologies such as UV water filtration and copper water treatment that kill pathogens.
Choose an Efficient HVAC System
Cooling, dehumidification, and ventilation are energy-intensive components of a grow room. If your grow room is relatively small, you should use ductless mini split air conditioners given their small size, versatility for cooling or heating, and energy efficiency. On the other hand, if you have a large grow room, you should use chilled water systems for cooling and dehumidification instead of traditional HVAC systems. A chilled water system can help you save up to 40% of your power.
Get the Best Seeds for Your Grow Room
Now that you know how to create a sustainable and eco-friendly grow room, you need the right seeds to get your project underway. Kind Seed Co offers the best weed seeds, including regular sativa, regular indica, feminized indica, feminized sativa, and more. Check out our Seeds catalog.
