Imagine you’ve got your marijuana plantation in full bloom. The beautiful rainbow-coloured flowers and the peculiar odour of good quality marijuana. Doesn’t it feel good? Now imagine all of your hard work getting wasted just because weeds started growing in your crop. The weeds suck all the nutrients from the soil that are required for your crop to grow. It doesn’t sound like fun.

Hence, it is important to know how to identify and remove weeds and prevent them from growing in the future. You have to protect your crop. 

What are weeds, and how they can harm cannabis: 

Weeds are unwanted species from the plant kingdom that hamper the growth of the crop you want to grow. It can cause several problems such as:

• The cannabis has to compete with the weeds to gain nutrients.
• Cannabis may be more susceptible to diseases and insects, which will damage the crop. 
• The cannabis seeds may not sprout if weeds are found in the earlier stages. 

Types of weeds:

Various weeds can be found. It is important to be able to recognize them. Some weeds grow all year round and cause problems to the cultivator:

• Horse nettle
• Quack grass
• Thistle
• Pokeweed

Weed management strategies (Prevention):

You’ve planted your cannabis. It is growing well. However, you see the growth of unwanted weeds in the crop. This is when you’ll have to get rid of the weeds to make sure that the remaining growth of the crop is not shunted. Here are the steps to be undertaken for the weeding process:

1. Identify the weeds.
2. Pluck them out manually. Take extra care to make sure that you pluck them from the root. Otherwise, they will grow again. Also, make sure that you don’t leave any weed debris lying around. It may lead to germination, and the weeds will grow again.
3. In case the weed issue gets completely out of hand, you can use targeted weed killers. However, this option should be a last resort as the chemicals may hamper the taste of the cannabis. Make sure to use one which will cause the least damage. 

Weed management strategies (Prevention):

If you start on the right foot, it will be very easy to make sure that your garden remains weed-free for a long time. But, as they say, prevention is better than cure. 

1. Plow your field and make sure it is completely bare before you start the process of planting the seeds or saplings. 
2. Around the area where each marijuana plant is planted, make sure to cover it with dark, opaque plastic. This will help suppress the growth of the weeds as the sunlight won’t reach that part. 
3. Crop rotation is immensely important. If you grow cannabis all year round, it will lead to the repeated growth of weeds. Instead, weed growth will reduce considerably if you grow cannabis and another crop alternately through the year. 

In essence, weed prevention is your best bet to keep your cannabis and cannabis seeds safe. However, if the weeds have grown, you must remove them as soon as possible. In conclusion, always remember, destroy the weeds to preserve the ‘weed’!