What is a perpetual harvest?
The idea behind a perpetual harvest is to ensure you always have a supply of marijuana and never run out of buds. It is also referred to as symbiotic rotation, usually employed by commercial growers but equally important if you want, or need, a continuous supply.
This may be the first aspect to consider when setting up your grow space and buying the equipment you need. If you believe you can grow sufficient plants to satisfy your requirements until the next crop is ready to harvest you won’t need to think about schedules. However, if you believe there will be a shortfall now is the time to consider alternatives.
If you are growing indoors you will likely need a grow tent, plus lights, pumps, filters, and ancillary items. So, is it better to purchase one tent as large as possible to fit the available space or two smaller tents with lights of a suitable size to fit?
With two or more tents you can organize a rotation of plants that will be at different growth stages, one flowering, one at vegetation, and even a third with seedlings. Or now you can purchase a tent that is divided into two areas so you can grow full-sized plants in one and raise seedlings and smaller plants in the other.
2 in 1 Grow Tent Kit 48″x36″x72″ Reflective Mylar Hydroponic Grow Tent
What’s the cost
This method itself doesn’t require any special equipment but if you decide you need two or more growing tents, you’ll have to double up on all equipment (like lights, exhaust fans, filters). However, smaller tents and lights will not double the cost as they will be cheaper than the larger sizes but that’s not all. Running two or more sets of lights and maintaining humidity levels will run up your electricity costs. LED lights do not use a great amount so you would be better advised to invest in these rather than conventional lighting.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Scheduled harvest
Depending on the strains, plant size and number of grow tents, you can schedule your harvest to match your bud requirements.
By knowing when you’re going to harvest you can set up and prepare your drying room and even schedule your harvest for when you have sufficient time so you’re able to trim every plant with no hurry.
High yields
Because you’re growing in more than one tent, you’ll have a lot of plants to harvest ready to harvest at the same time so your yields will be better than average.
Never run out of weed
With this system, you’ll never run out of weed and even if you do, you’ll probably have a harvest coming up soon so there will be no need to spend money buying weed to see you through.
Cons
High cost
With more grow tents and growing equipment, your cost will go up, although it’s worth it for commercial growers, you’ll have to evaluate it if you’re a home grower. It will depend entirely on your consumption.
Needs more space
The amount of space needed will depend on the number of plants you want to harvest at a time but either way, it will take more space than having just one tent, usually, growers use 2-3 growing tents so you’ll need a big enough room or grow space to accommodate them.
A lot of plants and weed
This is not actually a con really, but if you live in a place where cannabis is illegal it may well be. Depending on the country or in the U.S., the state, you can get in trouble with the law if you have what might be determined to be professional growing equipment and a large number of plants and cannabis. Remember if you live in a state that allows growing you may be subject to limits on the number of plants at various growth stages.
Strains
Another advantage of perpetual growing can be the ability to mix strains and types of marijuana. You might prefer to have one crop of Sativa and another of Indica or rotate between auto-flowering cannabis plants and photoperiodic plants.
Seeds or clones
You can start a perpetual harvest with seeds or clones, starting from clones will take less time and will save you around 2-3 weeks, but if you don’t have a way to get clones you’ll just have to germinate the desired number of seeds.
Cloning involves some experimentation and this is where having more than one grow tent can be advantageous. Rather than risking losing a whole crop, and being without buds, you can plant clones in one tent and seeds in the other. If the cloned plants grow successfully that’s great but if they fail to mature you will still have the plants grown from seeds to provide a supply of buds to keep you going.
Conclusion
Perpetual harvest is the best way to keep your jars always full if you smoke a lot, need a continuous supply for medical reasons, or if you’re a commercial grower. And despite the material and running costs being somewhat more expensive the benefit of having an unlimited supply and not needing to purchase buds elsewhere can make well worthwhile.
We hope this article helps you start your own never-ending harvest and if you are already running a perpetual harvest do tell us how it’s working for you. Please leave us a comment below and help other growers consider this method.
