How to add humidity to plants? - Cannabis Growing Guide 2019
What is humidity?
Humidity is the amount of water vapour that air holds. Humidity is measured as relative humidity (RH) and is a percentage of the maximum amount of water vapour that the air will hold at that temperature. So, if your humidity is at 55%, then the air is holding 55% of the water vapour it is capable of holding at that temperature.
What is important to understand is that the warmer the air, the more water vapor it can hold. So, temperature plays a key role in your humidity.
Most first time growers have problems with low humidity. Here is a quick guide on how to increase humidity in a grow tent.
Importance Of High Humidity In A Grow Tent
For new growers, high humidity could sound frightening. Take it from experienced indoor growers, we've witnessed how high levels of humidity in a grow tent is beneficial, especially during the growing phase.
Basically, exposing your growing plants to relatively high humidity helps your plants absorb the water they need to survive. Plants take up water through the roots, but they could also get more through their leaves and stem.
As mentioned earlier, plants suck up water through water vapor in the air through the tiny opening on the leaf surface called stomata.
Plants will not have the chance to get sufficient water for their complete development and growth if there's little to no humidity.
Consequences of Low Humidity
Depriving new plants of high levels of humidity negatively affects their growth. Low moisture forces the plant to exert more effort, and thus possibly shorten its life or delay, or even stunt its growth and development.
What Is The Right Humidity Level?
Similar to temperature, plants require different levels of humidity in various stages of their life.
Clones or seedlings must have 70% to 75% humidity because it's the time where they grow their root systems. Your baby plants need plenty of moisture in the air, which can be achieved using propagation trays or humidity domes. Keeping high levels of humidity increases the success rate for your clones to root.
Vegging plants require 50% to 70% humidity since they've already developed their roots. However, they still need the help of leaves to absorb moisture. Low humidity levels can result in slower growth.
Flowering plants yearn for 40% to 50% humidity to thrive in a comfortable environment to thrive. In this stage, you can prevent mildews or molds from forming by maintaining a relatively lower humidity.
Harvesting in grow tent usually requires 45% to 50% humidity to ensure your harvest will not become harsh and brittle.
How to Raise Humidity in Grow Tent?
As we have discussed earlier, high humidity in grow tents is very important for the health of your plants. You should, therefore, keep humidity in mind together with other indoor growth factors such as temperature, light, PH, and ventilation.
Below are measures you should take to increase humidity in a grow tent in case it gets too low:
Lower extraction fan setting
Knowing how to vent a grow tent is very important as it can help you control or manage humidity for your plants. Fans are very important in the grow tents since they allow the air to circulate well and get distributed to the plants.
Proper ventilation ensures that there is a perfect exchange of air in and out of the grow tent, ensuring that your plants get fresh air. This helps prevent harmful microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi from staying or increasing inside the grow tent.
During your grow tent setup, you should ensure that your fans are set at a moderate speed to conserve moisture at different stages of plant growth. If your fans are rotating at high speed, they will cause the air to dry faster than normal.
In addition, high-speed fans never allow the water vapor to settle on the surface of the leaves for absorption. This keeps the moisture away from the plants leading to desiccation or dehydration.
Apart from reducing the speed of the fans, reducing the number of fans can as well help increase humidity in grow tents. You should set your fans to make sure the humidity in plants is at least 60 percent.
Control Grow Room Temperature
For indoor growers, lighting is all-important. While it is tempting to blast your room full of powerful lights, you need to be wary because too much lighting causes the temperature in your grow room to soar.
A common mistake is to purchase an air conditioning system that’s far too large or small for the grow room. As a result, frequent fluctuations play havoc with the temperature. When it comes to AC and temperature change, short cycling and the deadband are the two key factors.
In case you’re not aware, the deadband is a 3-5˚ Fahrenheit range around the temperature that you have set the room’s thermostat to. When the temperature reaches the upper end of the deadband, your AC unit will turn on to keep the room at the right temperature. When the temperature reaches the lower end of the deadband, the AC switches off to stop the room getting too cool.
If your AC system is too large, it will run in ‘short cycles’, which means it consumes a ton of energy and creates an unreliable growing environment where humidity and temperatures rise and fall rapidly several times a day. If your AC unit is too small, the grow room temperature will increase to an uncomfortable level for your plants. Above all else, marijuana plants thrive in a consistent climate, so short cycles can be disastrous for their growth.
Short cycles cause unwelcome spikes in temperature. As humidity levels are inverse to temperature, a boost in temperature leads to lower RH, and a fall in temperature leads to a reduction in RH. The resultant unstable growing environment becomes an ideal breeding ground for mold and mildew.
Therefore, the challenge for growers is to find a properly sized AC unit for their grow room. In an ideal world, your grow room’s temperature will look like a lengthy and shallow wave on a graph. Once you find the right size AC unit, it will pull enough water from the air to ensure there is minimal strain on your dehumidifiers.
Hanging wet towels in your grow tent
One easy way to increase the humidity in your grow tent is to hang wet towels indoor grow tent. This provides a large surface area of moisture to be absorbed into the air.
Wet sponges on a plate
Place wet sponges on a small plate in your grow tent. Again, this increases the surface area of moisture and is absorbed into the air.
Put large plants in your grow tent
This one may seem counter intuitive but if you put large (non-marijuana plants in the tent it will increase the humidity). Large plants transpire more and produce more relative humidity.
Buy a cheap humidifier
Buy a cheap humidifier for plants. You can control the humidity pretty easy with these. This is probably the best option.
Conclusion
In conclusion, high levels of humidity in your indoor grow tent is essential for the growth and health of your plants. Bear in mind that controlling humidity means considering other indoor gardening aspects such as temperature, ventilation, and light.
You can buy a humidifier for plants or air-conditioner, yet you may also use the tools commonly found in your home.
Generally, higher temperatures will make a humid environment while cooler temperatures will cause less moisture in the air. So, you might have to experiment on the different ways of increasing humidity in a grow tent for marijuana. But surely, you'll discover what works best for you.
Humidity is the amount of water vapour that air holds. Humidity is measured as relative humidity (RH) and is a percentage of the maximum amount of water vapour that the air will hold at that temperature. So, if your humidity is at 55%, then the air is holding 55% of the water vapour it is capable of holding at that temperature.
What is important to understand is that the warmer the air, the more water vapor it can hold. So, temperature plays a key role in your humidity.
Most first time growers have problems with low humidity. Here is a quick guide on how to increase humidity in a grow tent.
Importance Of High Humidity In A Grow Tent
For new growers, high humidity could sound frightening. Take it from experienced indoor growers, we've witnessed how high levels of humidity in a grow tent is beneficial, especially during the growing phase.
Basically, exposing your growing plants to relatively high humidity helps your plants absorb the water they need to survive. Plants take up water through the roots, but they could also get more through their leaves and stem.
As mentioned earlier, plants suck up water through water vapor in the air through the tiny opening on the leaf surface called stomata.
Plants will not have the chance to get sufficient water for their complete development and growth if there's little to no humidity.
Consequences of Low Humidity
Depriving new plants of high levels of humidity negatively affects their growth. Low moisture forces the plant to exert more effort, and thus possibly shorten its life or delay, or even stunt its growth and development.
What Is The Right Humidity Level?
Similar to temperature, plants require different levels of humidity in various stages of their life.
Clones or seedlings must have 70% to 75% humidity because it's the time where they grow their root systems. Your baby plants need plenty of moisture in the air, which can be achieved using propagation trays or humidity domes. Keeping high levels of humidity increases the success rate for your clones to root.
Vegging plants require 50% to 70% humidity since they've already developed their roots. However, they still need the help of leaves to absorb moisture. Low humidity levels can result in slower growth.
Flowering plants yearn for 40% to 50% humidity to thrive in a comfortable environment to thrive. In this stage, you can prevent mildews or molds from forming by maintaining a relatively lower humidity.
Harvesting in grow tent usually requires 45% to 50% humidity to ensure your harvest will not become harsh and brittle.
How to Raise Humidity in Grow Tent?
As we have discussed earlier, high humidity in grow tents is very important for the health of your plants. You should, therefore, keep humidity in mind together with other indoor growth factors such as temperature, light, PH, and ventilation.
Below are measures you should take to increase humidity in a grow tent in case it gets too low:
Lower extraction fan setting
Knowing how to vent a grow tent is very important as it can help you control or manage humidity for your plants. Fans are very important in the grow tents since they allow the air to circulate well and get distributed to the plants.
Proper ventilation ensures that there is a perfect exchange of air in and out of the grow tent, ensuring that your plants get fresh air. This helps prevent harmful microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi from staying or increasing inside the grow tent.
During your grow tent setup, you should ensure that your fans are set at a moderate speed to conserve moisture at different stages of plant growth. If your fans are rotating at high speed, they will cause the air to dry faster than normal.
In addition, high-speed fans never allow the water vapor to settle on the surface of the leaves for absorption. This keeps the moisture away from the plants leading to desiccation or dehydration.
Apart from reducing the speed of the fans, reducing the number of fans can as well help increase humidity in grow tents. You should set your fans to make sure the humidity in plants is at least 60 percent.
Control Grow Room Temperature
For indoor growers, lighting is all-important. While it is tempting to blast your room full of powerful lights, you need to be wary because too much lighting causes the temperature in your grow room to soar.
A common mistake is to purchase an air conditioning system that’s far too large or small for the grow room. As a result, frequent fluctuations play havoc with the temperature. When it comes to AC and temperature change, short cycling and the deadband are the two key factors.
In case you’re not aware, the deadband is a 3-5˚ Fahrenheit range around the temperature that you have set the room’s thermostat to. When the temperature reaches the upper end of the deadband, your AC unit will turn on to keep the room at the right temperature. When the temperature reaches the lower end of the deadband, the AC switches off to stop the room getting too cool.
If your AC system is too large, it will run in ‘short cycles’, which means it consumes a ton of energy and creates an unreliable growing environment where humidity and temperatures rise and fall rapidly several times a day. If your AC unit is too small, the grow room temperature will increase to an uncomfortable level for your plants. Above all else, marijuana plants thrive in a consistent climate, so short cycles can be disastrous for their growth.
Short cycles cause unwelcome spikes in temperature. As humidity levels are inverse to temperature, a boost in temperature leads to lower RH, and a fall in temperature leads to a reduction in RH. The resultant unstable growing environment becomes an ideal breeding ground for mold and mildew.
Therefore, the challenge for growers is to find a properly sized AC unit for their grow room. In an ideal world, your grow room’s temperature will look like a lengthy and shallow wave on a graph. Once you find the right size AC unit, it will pull enough water from the air to ensure there is minimal strain on your dehumidifiers.
Hanging wet towels in your grow tent
One easy way to increase the humidity in your grow tent is to hang wet towels indoor grow tent. This provides a large surface area of moisture to be absorbed into the air.
Wet sponges on a plate
Place wet sponges on a small plate in your grow tent. Again, this increases the surface area of moisture and is absorbed into the air.
Put large plants in your grow tent
This one may seem counter intuitive but if you put large (non-marijuana plants in the tent it will increase the humidity). Large plants transpire more and produce more relative humidity.
Buy a cheap humidifier
Buy a cheap humidifier for plants. You can control the humidity pretty easy with these. This is probably the best option.
Conclusion
In conclusion, high levels of humidity in your indoor grow tent is essential for the growth and health of your plants. Bear in mind that controlling humidity means considering other indoor gardening aspects such as temperature, ventilation, and light.
You can buy a humidifier for plants or air-conditioner, yet you may also use the tools commonly found in your home.
Generally, higher temperatures will make a humid environment while cooler temperatures will cause less moisture in the air. So, you might have to experiment on the different ways of increasing humidity in a grow tent for marijuana. But surely, you'll discover what works best for you.
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