By Nickolaus J. Sanchez
Maintaining your temperature and humidity is a very important factor when creating a total environment. It will either positively or negatively affect your plants’ growth by boosting or stunting their photosynthesis rate. Even if it’s your first time growing, it only takes a few simple steps to keep your gardens’ climate up to par.
Cannabis grows best with a consistent temperature range of 75-85 degrees Fahrenheit. This will encourage your plants to grow to their full potential with big sticky buds. Your girls will still grow in temperatures of 60’s and 90’s but will most likely result in poor or moderate medicine. With the summer rolling around and temps averaging in the 90’s in New Mexico, keeping your room cooled is a must.
The first step in maintaining temperature in your garden is to purchase a thermohygrometer. This device will not only read the temperature but also the humidity in your room. Most thermo-hygrometer can be purchased for around $20. If you have a larger space, it is recommended that you purchase two or more. When setting the meter up in your garden, be sure the probe is near the plants canopy to give you an accurate reading of what the plants are feeling.
If you are using low output lights like a fluorescent T5 or an LED you should have no problem with them producing too much heat in your garden. However, if you are using a high intensity discharge (HID) light, additional steps will be required. As mentioned in articles 102 and 105 air-cooled HID’s will work best during the summer. This will allow for the heat produced by the light to be pulled outside. If you are using an open hood HID, extra ventilation and air flow near the lights may be needed. Also, some growers will run the plants’ day cycle during the night to help the temperatures stay a little lower when the lights are on; this is especially true with HIDs.
If you have tried ventilating your lights’ heat and running them at night but your gardens’ temperature is still too high, you will want to purchase an A/C unit. These can be purchased anywhere from $200- $700. Although it may seem a little pricey, you will see better results in production. When purchasing an A/C unit, keep in mind that window mounted A/C is a thief’s best friend, so a split unit A/C would be the best choice. Be aware that when bringing A/C into the garden it will raise the humidity level so maintaining the humidity will be your next step.
With cannabis the optimal humidity changes throughout the plant’s life. During the 
vegetative or growth stage optimal humidity levels are 40%-60%. When flowers start to produce or during the flowering stage those humidity levels should drop to 30%-50%.
Letting humidity rise higher than 50% will increase the chance of fungus and mold and letting the humidity get too low in the room, will slow down its growth. However, for a beginner, keeping your humidity level between 30%-40% throughout the whole growth will be acceptable.
In New Mexico, humidity levels are usually around 30%-50% depending on the time of day, which is perfect for cannabis growth. However, if you are using an A/C unit and/or its monsoon season, humidity can easily jump higher than 50%. In order to lower the risk of disease, a dehumidifier is imperative. Dehumidifiers will filter the moisture from the air to help maintain optimal levels. You can purchase a dehumidifier for approximately $200-$500. Again this may seem a little pricy but it will save your garden from nasty mold infections that could take out your whole crop overnight so the investment in the right equipment is imperative. While this may seem like simple factor of your total environment, it’s incredibly important to the success of your harvest.
“Lastly…Always Remember to Grow with the Flow”.
