Ask any experienced grower if they have ever taken notes or kept a cannabis grow journal. The answer will overwhelmingly be yes. By tracking important variables in the garden, growers can look back a few days, weeks, or even years to find similarities when runs turn out perfectly or result in disaster. Chefs use specific and custom-tailored recipes, so should you. This article will teach you which important factors to track and the best way to use the data you collect.
Growers who focus their talents on one or two specific strains and make notes over time can bring out their plant’s fullest potential and expressions. When growing multiple strains, knowing environmental factors, soil mix, feed schedules, lighting intensity, and other variables benefits both the home and professional grower.
TL/DR
- Journaling in a ‘cannabis diary’ can make you a better grower
- High-tech spreadsheets or low-tech notebooks work equally well
- Grow Diaries help dial in feeding regiments
- Analyze data from previous grows to find limiting factors affecting total yield
- Detailed notes about the effects can help find your ideal strain
- TL/DR
- What is a Cannabis Grow Journal?
- What Tools Do You Need to Keep a Cannabis Journal?
- Keeping Track of Your Cannabis Plants Lifecycle
- Things to Note Before Popping Your Seeds
- Tracking Different Germination Methods and Times
- Tracking Plant Size and Growth Rate
- Tracking The Vegetative Phase
- Tracking The Flowering Phase
- Plant Stress or Deficiencies
- Vegetative and Flower Stages
- Drying/Curing
- Drying stage
- Daily observations
- General observations
- Curing stage
- Keeping a Log of What You Feed Your Cannabis Plants
- Watering: PH, EC, and frequency
- Nutrient Regimes and Schedules
- Light Intensity and Schedules
- Recording Changes in Your Cannabis Grow Environment
- Temperature and Humidity of Your Grow Space
- Airflow and Ventilation
- End Product Consumption Journal
- Evaluation effects
- Conclusion
What is a Cannabis Grow Journal?
A cannabis grow journal is a collection of data points that can be analyzed and used to positively affect the quality and yield of the finished flowers. When used properly, growers can reflect on short-term observations, e.g., did adding that nutrient solve the deficiency in the leaves? Growers can also make long-term observations, e.g., does this strain always show this deficiency at this stage of the grow?
Most growers already keep a grow journal in their heads, but as much as we think we will remember all of the details, we don’t. While researchers and large marijuana companies can use fancy technology to measure variables hidden from the naked eye, home growers use their observations, data collection, and experience to find the best standard operating procedures (SOPs) for growing cannabis.
A good cannabis grow journal allows home growers to look at past growing methods and use that data to plan future grows. Growers can look at past variables to avoid and which parameters to aim for to achieve amazing harvests. A large part of cannabis cultivation is trial and error; if you aren’t taking notes, are you giving it your best effort?
Good news: I’ve been using a pen and notebook for over a decade. There is no perfect tool. Keeping a cannabis grow journal can be as high or low-tech as you’d like to make it. The important thing is that you have a standardized format that collects the same data during each grow and keeps that data in a format that is easy to reference and compare one grow to the next.
Over the past few years, home growers have been able to afford environmental monitoring tools that are similar to the pros. Tools like Pulse Pro, Niwa, Controller 69 from AC Infinity, and D.I.Y. Raspberry Pi models allow growers to track important environmental variables and send that info directly to their phones. The data from your garden is stored digitally and can be accessed for reference at any time.
This article will cover the beneficial aspects that growers should be tracking and logging. For example, temperature and humidity are key environmental factors to record. New growers won’t need to spend hundreds of Euros to track those parameters; a simple 15-euro hygrometer/thermometer will suffice. But you can definitely spend your money on fancy stuff, too. A pH meter and an EC/PPM meter are also beneficial tools to have in your toolbox.
Keeping Track of Your Cannabis Plants Lifecycle
All of the fire genetics from ILGM come with an estimated flowering time. For non-autoflowering varieties, the duration of vegetative time will dictate the size of the finished plant. The decision is made by the grower and affected by the photoperiod. Keeping track of the lifecycle helps growers plan for the size of finished plants and what and when to feed them.
For outdoor growers, keeping track of the date you started or moved your plants outdoors is very important information to have and compare year over year. Likewise, keeping track of harvest dates is beneficial because some regions have shorter windows of good weather to grow compared to others. Knowing this information can assist outdoor growers in finding a strain suited to their climate.
Things to Note Before Popping Your Seeds
I like to keep track of a few things before I pop my seeds. All of my grow journals start with this information:
| Done? | What to write down: |
| Breeder: Write the name of the strain breeder, so you can record this for later usage. | |
| Strain name: Record the strain name of the plant you are using. | |
| Lineage (if possible): If possible, write down the lineage of the strain, detailing its genetic history and parent strains. | |
| Regular or feminized: Write down the details if the plant is a regular plant (both male or female plants) or the more preferred feminized variant. | |
| Photoperiod or autoflower: Don’t forget to write down if the plant is an photoperiod plant, or an autoflower plant, which start it’s flowering process automatically. | |
| Medium of choice: Write down what medium you are using for your grow. For example soil, coco, rockwool, DWC, etc. |
Tracking Different Germination Methods and Times
There are many ways for growers to germinate seeds. You can learn more on how to germinate cannabis seeds in our guides. It is important to log which method you used and how long each seed took to germinate using that method. I also like to track the taproot length before putting the germinated marijuana seed into the soil. You’re seeking to define how soon is too soon and how long is too long to achieve optimal growth once it hits the soil.
| Done? | What to write down: |
| Wet Paper Towel Method: If using the paper towel method, I like to track the room temperature and humidity and how often I need to re-moisten the paper towels. | |
| Glass of Water Method: If using a glass of water, I track how many seeds sink and how many float. Of those two groups, how many cracked open and grew a tap root? What was the water temperature and pH? | |
| Soil Method: If sowing directly into the soil, I keep track of the size of the pot it was placed in and how much water I initially added. It is also worth logging how often and what volume of water was given during the sensitive seedling phase. |
Accurate record-keeping over time will help growers find the germination method that gives them the highest percentage of success. Recording data from the seedling phase will help new growers determine the appropriate watering volumes for young, fragile root systems in the grow medium of their choice.
Tracking Plant Size and Growth Rate
An ideal canopy is level, but not all plants grow at the same rate or finish at the same height. Having this information about the strains in your garden can help when selecting new strains to run alongside your favorites.
Tracking The Vegetative Phase
During the vegetative cycle, I like to track these factors on a bi-weekly basis:
| Done? | What to write down: |
| Height: Check the height from the base of the soil to the top of the plant. | |
| Internodal spacing: Record the distance betweeen the internodes on the plant. | |
| Blades amount: Write down how much blades there are on each new leaf. | |
| Light intensity: Note down how much light the plant receives. |
I also track these morphological traits:
| Done? | What to write down: |
| Leaf width: Are the blades of the leaves thin, average, or wide? | |
| Defoliation required? How often does it require defoliation, if needed any? | |
| Branch heights: Do the side branches catch up to the height of the main stem? | |
| Training used? Did I apply any plant training techniques, if so, which (topping, LST, lollipop, SCROG, etc.) |
Tracking The Flowering Phase
During the flower cycle, these are my top ten important factors to track:
| Done? | What to write down: |
| Stretching: How much does the plant stretch? | |
| Pistil & stigma’s: How many days until pistil/stigma formation was evident? | |
| Trichome formation: When does trichome formation begin? | |
| Odor: At what point do I detect an odor when opening the tent door? | |
| Shape buds: What shape are the buds and main colas (conical, golf ball, spear, chunky, foxtails)? | |
| Buds size: Are the buds dense or airy? | |
| Pistil & stigma’s color change: At what point do I see the first pistils/stigmas turning brown? | |
| Bract swelling: When do I see the extra swelling of the bracts that usually occurs a few weeks before harvest? | |
| Trichome cloundiness: When do I start to see mainly cloudy trichome heads? | |
| Trichome Amberness: When do I see the number of amber trichome heads increasing rapidly towards the 10% goal? |
Plant Stress or Deficiencies
Cannabis plants often don’t show deficiencies in the leaves until two to three weeks after the problem starts. Depending on the method you use to correct the deficiency (organic vs synthetic), it may take longer to see the results. Keeping good notes allows growers to anticipate deficiencies and track recovery speed for specific solutions.
Many things can stress a cannabis plant; pH problems, under/overwatering, nutrient excess, deficiency, or lockout are a few common stresses. Other variables include temperature, humidity, light leaks, ventilation, insects, molds, rough handling, etc. The list can go on, and all of these factors, together or individually, will often change the outcome of your final yield.
To make matters sound even more complicated, each strain has different needs. Most cultivars will give growers the best expression using slightly customized conditions specific to their needs. By journaling these variables, you can dial in what works for your strain of choice throughout a few grows. Keeping track of the water runoff values can be beneficial for coco growers to journal.
Vegetative and Flower Stages
These are easy and important factors to track. When I see the cannabis seed pop above the soil or when I put my rooted clone into the soil, that is what I consider day one of the vegetative phase. The amount of time growers spend in the vegetative stage will dictate the plant’s overall size and final yields. Don’t veg for too long; your plant might outgrow the available space in the grow tent by the time it finishes the stretch phase in flower. Keeping a tally of your veg time and morphological traits can help avoid this.
With regular or feminized photoperiod marijuana seeds, growers switch the lighting schedule to 12 hours on / 12 hours off to induce flowering. The day I make the light schedule switch is what I consider to be day one of flowering. Tracking the flowering time is beneficial for growers because it allows them to plan their crop rotation and harvest schedules.
Autoflowering cannabis strains will initiate flowering on their own regardless of the photoperiod. I tend to mark day one of flowering for autoflowers as the day I begin to see stigma formation. Regardless of seed type, I also track the container sizes and when transplanting occurred throughout the lifecycle.
Drying/Curing
Few things are more distressing than a great grow and a bad cure. Months of hard work can be for nothing if the cure isn’t on point. This makes good record-keeping even more important at this final stage of growing cannabis. In labs and large commercial grows, cultivators often use tools that can determine the water percentage of each bud, helping them determine when it will be ready to jar or bag.
As homegrowers, we rarely have access to tools like this. Our experience is more sensory, although there are some general guidelines to follow when curing cannabis properly. When journaling the details of my cure, I like to include the following:
Drying stage
Daily observations
| Done? | What to write down: |
| Temperature: Record the temperature of the room. | |
| Room humidity: Check the humidity in the room. | |
| Plant humidity: Write down the humidity you recorded when checking in the middle of the drying plants. | |
| Touch check: Touch – soggy, soft, dry leaves, crusty outer layer on buds. Are they water heavy or lighter from reduced moisture? |
General observations
| Done? | What to write down: |
| Hang time: How long did the plant hang to dry? | |
| Hang method: Was the plant hung whole, or were branches removed and hung separately? | |
| Spacing: Were the plants crowded together while drying, or did they have good spacing? (This will influence drying times.) | |
| Airflow: Was there a fan, and what speed was it set to? Did it circulate around the plants, or was it directly hitting them? |
Curing stage
| Done? | What to write down: |
| Bud feel: Feel of the buds before jarring (texture, density, weight) | |
| Bud size: Size of the buds – are they all large colas or broken into smaller “nugs”? | |
| Bud wetness: After two hours of being sealed, how much wetter did the buds feel compared to when they were jarred? | |
| Burping information: How often are the jars burped, and for what duration? | |
| Odor: Does the smell change, do they get stronger, do they fade away? | |
| Moisture: How long until the buds are at optimal moisture? When could you safely seal the jars for storage? |
Keeping a Log of What You Feed Your Cannabis Plants
Growing cannabis can be a lot like baking. In both scenarios, people can follow a generic recipe to achieve success. Many of the popular nutrient products come with a chart of dosage recommendations and when to add which product. However, the plant’s life stage, the size of the root zone, and varying environmental factors can influence the frequency and volume of the inputs required for optimal health.
Keeping a cannabis grow diary is more than creating feeding schedules. It allows growers who are experiencing an issue with their plants to look back a few days or weeks to see if nutrients were added and at what level. Below are a few key things I like to track in my own grow journals
Watering: PH, EC, and frequency
- The pH of the water or final feed solution is important because the desired nutrients are only plant-available within a certain pH range. Using the wrong pH too often will affect the root zone pH and manifest as a nutrient deficiency. If you weren’t tracking pH, your efforts to correct the problem would be misguided.
- Electrical Conductivity (EC) is an important number to track because it represents the nutrient load of the feed solution. It doesn’t differentiate the various nutrient levels, but by recording the EC, you can adjust later if the plant begins to show excess or deficiencies of nutrients in the leaves. These EC numbers (nutrient load) will be increased as the plant matures. Parts per million (PPM) is a similar measurement, but tracking EC is preferred.
- New growers must track the frequency and volume of watering. Overwatering is the main killer of seedlings because we tend to give them too much love and attention. By recording this data, growers can create a blueprint for all future growth. Small root zones will need less volume and less frequency, but as the plant grows, these demands increase. Environmental factors will also influence this data, but we’ll cover those variables in a moment.
Nutrient Regimes and Schedules
Synthetic growers have the luxury of specific feed schedules and fast results based on the given inputs. Organic growers need proper planning to provide adequate nutrition at the right time. Many organic inputs take time to become plant-available. By keeping a grow journal, an organic grower can see they are always hitting a specific deficiency in week 2 of flower and adjust by adding that nutrient a few weeks earlier on the next run.
Whether synthetic or organic, keeping track of the amount and frequency of nutrients applied will assist growers in reaching maximum yields. I also like to track the day I added my first nutrients and the day I added my last nutrients.
Light Intensity and Schedules
Fully flowering plants will require far more light intensity than a week-old seedling. There are two main options for providing the proper amount of light for each growth stage: raise/lower the light or use the dimmer. If the lighting is too far away or weak, new growth will be stretchy as it reaches towards the light. If the light is too close, it can result in heat stress or bleached tops. Tracking this data allows you to find the appropriate levels.
There are various light schedule options for the vegetative stage. Our articles recommend the best light schedule for autoflowers and the photoperiod cannabis light cycle. Use them to determine which vegetative light cycle works best for your plants by keeping an accurate grow journal and comparing results.
Recording Changes in Your Cannabis Grow Environment
Environmental conditions can be one of the main limiting factors affecting final yields. Tracking these parameters daily may seem tedious at first, but they are amongst the most important variables to track. Not only can they affect a plant’s growth, but they also play a role in terpene preservation and overall flower quality.
Temperature and Humidity of Your Grow Space
The two main environmental factors to record are temperature and humidity. If a grow tent is too cold, cannabis plants won’t grow as fast and will develop specific deficiencies. If the humidity in a grow tent is too high, there is a greater likelihood of powdery mildew (PM) or botrytis (bud rot). Temperature and humidity work in tandem to create an important variable known as vapor-pressure deficit (VPD).
VPD plays a role in transpiration, a vital process promoting optimal growth. Cannabis cultivators can calculate their VPD by knowing the temperature and humidity in the grow tent and then referencing our cannabis VPD chart. My hygrometer/thermometer provides a range for the day, and I prefer to log the range instead of a static number if possible. Many of the new digital tools track these parameters by the minute.
Airflow and Ventilation
Without air movement in a grow tent, the odds of a successful harvest plummet. That is why we wrote an entire series of articles dedicated to air ventilation. Controlled wind can help build stronger plants and branches, but too much can be damaging.
Until growers figure out where that line is for the different life stages, it may be beneficial to journal the fan speed of the circulation fans inside the grow tent. In this section of my grow journal, I also like to record when I replace my carbon filter. It won’t be every run, but staying on top of your filtration can help maintain the privacy and security of the garden.
End Product Consumption Journal
Sampling my work is always one of my favorite parts of the grow journey. With the variety of strain options and terpene profiles available, I can use data collected from this process to guide my decisions on which strains to try or grow next. Each consumer has a goal in mind, whether that’s smell, flavor, effects, or all of the above. Below are the criteria I use to journal my flowers.
- Appearance – Color is the first thing that strikes the eye. Are the flowers purple, or are they green? What color are the stigmas? Do they stick out, or are they retracted into the bracts? How dense is the trichome coverage? Does it look like the buds got snowed on? What shape are the buds? Are they dense or loose?
- Aroma – A general way to group cannabis scents is to categorize them as fruity, floral, earthy, or gassy. I also like to record whether the flower has a single-note or complex profile with many contributors. Does the smell in the jar match the smell of the freshly ground bud?
- Flavor – I like to record whether the flavor matches the aroma. Is the flavor stronger on the inhale or the exhale? Does the flavor change between the inhale and exhale? How long does the taste linger? Does it coat my mouth? Is the flavor from the first hit of a joint the same as a hit from the end of the joint?
- Ash color – Was the ash color white, black, or something in between? Many believe that extra nutrients in the leaf tissue can affect the ash color, turning it a darker black. A high moisture content is thought to produce a greyer ash. In both circ*mstances, changes can be made on the next run if you take good notes.
Evaluation effects
Effects from both different strains and different methods of ingestion are worth journaling. In addition to narrowing down your favorite strains, recording this information can act as a dosage guide for the various forms of ingestable cannabinoids. Below are my top 10 criteria for evaluating effects.
| Done? | What to check: |
| Time of consumption: At what moment did I consume the marijuana? | |
| Consumtion frequency: Is this my first consumption of the day? | |
| Method of consumption: Edible, topical, suppository, tincture, flower, hash, concentrates, vape, etc. | |
| Dosage: In milligrams for edibles and THC percentage (and the number of puffs) for flower/hash/concentrates. | |
| Onset: Were the effects immediate, or did they take some time to kick in? | |
| Physical change: Am I relaxed, tingling, tense, tired, energized, etc? | |
| Mental change: Am I happier, creative, at ease, social, agitated, confused, etc? | |
| Effect peak: At what point did I feel the effects level off? | |
| Effect duration: How long until the effects wore off or until more was consumed? | |
| After-Effects: Do I feel groggy or sluggish hours later or the morning after? |
Conclusion
Keeping a detailed grow journal can help you become a better grower and guide you in selecting strains that have your desired effects. By using this outline as a basis for your cannabis grow journal, you can save yourself from headaches and heartaches in the grow room. If the flower from your most recent grow is impressing you, compare the variables in that grow to other grows that didn’t turn out as favorable. What changed?
Old school growers used to frequently talk about how their indoor “winter crop” always finished with the highest amount of aromas compared to any other time of the year. As they began to journal and experiment with more environmental controls, it was discovered that cooler temperatures helped preserve the terpenes; hence, their winter crops were always the best smelling. With good marijuana journaling practices, you, too, can unlock some of the plant’s mysteries.
Have you ever used a cannabis grow journal? What sort of information do you find the most helpful to record? Please let us know in the comments and help us to make everyones growing experience a great one. Happy harvests!
