Developing a commercial cannabis growing business in the United States requires a capital investment, agriculture skills and knowledge, and a cannabis cultivator’s license. However, there is more to building a successful cannabis cultivation operation than that.

In this ever-changing industry, you also need passion, patience, flexibility, resilience, and the five critical elements of successful commercial cannabis growing, which the Leafy Green Agency team refers to as the 5 Rights of Commercial Cannabis Cultivation.

These five elements are just part of what we teach aspiring cannabis growers in our Medical Marijuana Cannabis Cultivators seminar, and I want to introduce them to you here. It doesn’t matter how much money you have – if you don’t have a solid foundation in these five critical elements of successful commercial cannabis growing, then your business will likely fail.

1. The Right Environmental Conditions

As with all agricultural crops, the cannabis plant thrives in the optimal environment. This includes both the air and temperature the plant grows in.

As you might expect, the air in your grow facility should be fresh. This can be easy to get if you’re growing cannabis outdoors, but if you operate an indoor facility, you need to replicate outdoor growing conditions as much as possible by providing free-flowing, fresh air.

Plan to invest in a heating, cooling, and ventilation systems as well as a humidifier and/or dehumidifier and an air purification system. The size of the fans and systems you choose depends primarily on the size of your facility and the type of lighting you use, which can significantly affect the temperature in your facility and thus, your air circulation and ventilation requirements.

I cannot stress enough how important monitoring air quality, temperature, and humidity levels are to the success of your cannabis cultivation business. This is an area where you might consider investing more for a system with automated adjustment features built in, so fans, dehumidifiers, and so on turn on automatically as conditions in your grow room change.

2. The Right Lighting

Like all plants, your cannabis plants need light to grow. That means you’ll need special lighting with the right spectrum and intensity if you operate an indoor commercial cultivation facility. This is critical for your plants to grow quickly and healthily.

The three types of light you can use for indoor cannabis crops are:

• Flourescent Grow Lights: Compact fluorescent lights (CFL) are useful as starter lights or for small grows, but not for large grow areas. They’re affordable and provide low light output compared to other types of grow lighting.
• HID Grow Lights (MH and HPS): HID means high-intensity discharge. Many growers say HID lights give the best and biggest yields. MH (metal halide) lights have cooler and bluish lights, which are better suited to using during the plant’s vegetative stage. HPS (high pressure sodium) lights are warmer and reddish, which makes them better for the flowering stage. Advanced growers use a combination of these two lighting types.
• LED Grow Lights: LED (light emitting diode) lights are the most energy efficient type of grow light, and they provide adequate light intensity and penetration. However, they’re also the most expensive light choice.

Your goal is to find the best light sources to maximize your crop yields and profits, so choose accordingly.

3. The Right Grow Medium

Soil is just one of the mediums you can use to grow your cannabis plants. Soil is the least expensive, most abundant, and most natural option, which makes it the most popular growing medium. Be sure to choose a potting compost (other than peat-based) that has been sterilized and packed loosely.

Clay pellets are the second most popular growing medium for cannabis plants. They come pH neutral and sterilized and can be re-used indefinitely as long as you re-sterilize them between uses.

Coco air is quickly gaining popularity as a cannabis growing medium. It’s resilient like soil and re-usable like clay pellets. In addition, coco air is environmentally-friendly.

Perlite is another growing medium you might consider. It comes pH balanced and is great at water retention, but it also has a dust-like characteristic which can pose problems with hydroponic system filters and even your lungs.

Rockwool can also be used as a growing medium for cannabis plants, but it’s not a natural material and contains metals. That means you have to bring it to pH balanced before you use it.

Vermiculite provides great aeration and water retention for cannabis plants, but it doesn’t provide the best support for roots. Therefore, it’s best used in combination with another growing medium.

Choose the growing medium that provides the best results, and you’ll have the best chance for success.

4. The Right Water

Water is crucial to a cannabis plant’s growth. In fact, the cannabis plant is 90% water, so it makes sense that water is one of the five critical elements of successful commercial cannabis growing.

Poor water quality can negatively affect the growth of your cannabis plants and your bud yield. Therefore, you should check your water’s pH level to ensure it’s around 6.5 at all times. Tap water that isn’t highly polluted is usually sufficient for indoor cannabis crops, but many growers prefer to use filtered or distilled water.

5. The Right Nutrients

Cannabis plants absorb nutrients through osmosis wherein the nutrients move from one fluid to another. For this reason, water quality is extremely important, but air temperature and humidity levels can also affect osmosis and the cannabis plant’s ability to absorb the nutrients it needs to grow and thrive.

Through assimilation, materials in the cannabis plant are converted to energy and nutrients, which are needed to maintain existing plant cells and create new ones. Temperature has a significant effect on this process, so it’s imperative that the temperature in your grow room remains between 20 degrees Celsius and 25 degrees Celsius during the day and approximately 15 degrees Celsius at night.

To ensure your cannabis plants get the right amount of nutrients, you’ll use a feed chart to track the effects that different nutrients have on your plants when you introduce them. Using this data, you’ll know when you should introduce other nutrients and fertilizers as needed during the growing and flowering periods.

Starting Your Commercial Cannabis Grow Room

When you make the decision to start a commercial cannabis growing business, you need to set up a grow room. Make sure you address the five critical elements discussed in this article, so you’re set up the right way from the start. This includes air purification, ventilation and ducting, climate control, lighting, water, nutrients, and growing supplies.

If you’re ready to take the next step and learn more about commercial cannabis cultivation, sign up for our Medical Marijuana Cannabis Cultivators seminar. Check out our seminar registration page to see when the class will be held in your area. Don’t see your area on the registration page? Subscribe to our newsletter to learn when new seminar dates are announced.