Imagine the Usain Bolt of cannabis plants.

While all the others are just beginning to flower, yours are already showing fat, juicy buds.
Sounds a bit like a fantasy, or does it?

In truth, there are a few things you can do for indoor growing, and outdoor growing too, that can dramatically speed things up when it comes to producing your own cannabis.

Autoflowering strains tend to flower appreciably quicker than photoperiod strains when grown under similar conditions.

You can take a photoperiod strain straight to flowering by using a 12-hour period of darkness straight from the point of germination, though yields will be smaller as a consequence.
Why not grow your plants from clones?

Not only does this mean that you can reproduce one of your highest-yielding plants, but it takes far less time to grow a plant from a cutting than it does growing plants from seeds.

A word of warning, though, don’t clone autoflowering strains as they retain the age of the host plant and will flower before the plant has had a chance to grow to any reasonable size.

Consider 24 hours of light – this can greatly reduce veg time, but watch out for deficiencies. If your plants look unhealthy, go back to 12 hours darkness for a few days to allow them to recover.

You can then jump-start the flowering process.

Put your plants in total darkness for 48 hours before beginning a 12-hour, 12-hour light and dark cycle. You can then use an 11-hour, 13-hour light and dark cycle to trick the plant into thinking that winter is arriving.

How about hydroponics?

This is often forgotten about as an option, especially if speed of production is important to you.
The advantage of hydroponics is that nutrients are delivered direct to the roots. The result is that your veg time can be reduced by a couple of weeks or so.

As for tips to help you speed up the growth of your outdoor plants – there are two main ones we would recommend.

First, cove your plants with a tarp or light-blocking cover at night for a 12-hour period. This is similar to how you operate an indoor grow tent.

This will force the plants to bloom earlier and will usually result in fatter buds.
Second, pollinate late and harvest early.

Here we recommend you pollinate your plants yourself, by hand, roughly a week before harvesting. This will stop the plants’ energy being focused on flower production.

Finally, whether growing cannabis indoors or out, choose your variety carefully as some strains have an appreciably faster time-span between sowing seeds and harvesting cannabis, already giving you a head start!