DISCLAIMER: Everything taught and sold by BudTrainer® is to be used strictly for legal purposes. We condemn the production of illegal substances and it is your duty to ensure that you are complying with the law. The words "hemp", "cannabis", "weed", and "marijuana" are used interchangeably to refer to the same plant (legal hemp with less than 0.3% THC) for the purposes of this lesson.

Mastering the planting and germination phase of your plants is essential for a healthy and bountiful harvest. If done improperly, your seeds may never germinate, or worse - they will germinate but die later on, or give you a stunted plant. We know this all too well because we've lost our share of seeds over the years, and then took to plant science and commercial cannabis production standards to create a method to ensure your planting is as smooth as possible.

Fill With Soil Or Other Media

Fill your BudCups with soil, coco coir, or media of preference, up to the top rim. Make sure to break down any dense chunks of soil and never pack your soil down, as your roots need oxygen in order to thrive. Loose soil creates oxygen pockets for your roots to grow into, and if those pockets are closed, they have nowhere to grow.

Water Your BudCups™ Before Planting

The best time to water your media is before planting, so that you don't disturb your seed with the water once it's planted. Using 150ml (5oz) of dechlorinated tap water or distilled/RO water mixed with your vegetative stage nutrients, moisten the soil slowly (ideally, over 60 seconds), until a small amount of runoff starts coming out of the raised bottom. This means your BudCups are fully saturated and your seed will grow its roots over the next 2 weeks in search of all that water, thus growing in all directions. If you are not sure which fertilizer to use, we highly recommend Athena's Blended Line - it’s what we use at BudTrainer®, and they have a very easy-to-follow recipe.

Cover Your Seedlings

Young seedlings need high-humidities to thrive, until they are old enough to withstand dryer air. To accomplish this, you can build your own dome by using a simple transparent plastic cup with 2 holes cut at the bottom and 1 hole cut at the top, flipped upside down, on top of the media. The perforated dome will ensure the humidity stays at around 80% inside, while still allowing the light to come through. 

You can remove the transparent cup once the seedling reaches the top, or once the leaves start touching the sides. At this point they will be strong enough to continue growing in the dryer outside environment.

Now that you have planted your seeds and created the perfect environment for them to thrive in, it's time to wait for them to sprout, which typically happens between 2 and 5 days from planting. However, if your seed hasn't germinated after 5 days, add a little more water over top of it, and wait another 2 to 5 days. If it hasn't germinated by then, it's time to plant another one, as your seed is likely a dud.

The reason why we don’t plant our cannabis seeds directly into their final containers is because they end up developing weaker root structures than if we transplant them. Here is why.

When your seeds start in the BudCups, the tap root (the main root that comes out of the seedling) reaches their edge within a couple of days, which forces more roots to be produced from the center of the rootball. This allows for multiple root tips to form, so that when the young plant is transplanted into the next pot, those root tips are ready to shoot out and grow in every direction.

Conversely, if you were to plant your seed in the final container right away, the tap root would grow all the way to the bottom, and root tips would only form around the bottom because that is where the water stays after each watering session.