How to avoid overwhelming cannabis yields at home

With cannabis legislation evolving across Germany and numerous US states, thousands of new growers are taking the plunge and planting their first cannabis seeds. However, the excitement of home cultivation often comes with legal grey areas.

In Germany, for instance, individuals are permitted to grow up to three plants, yet the law limits possession to just 50g (1.8oz) of dried cannabis at home. Unsurprisingly, many growers find themselves unintentionally breaching this limit—most harvests from even a modest grow are likely to exceed the legal allowance.

In an effort to stay compliant, some cultivators go as far as discarding surplus buds. In the guide below, we explore practical strategies to manage your yields effectively, ensuring your cannabis harvests stay within legal limits—without sacrificing the quality of your grow.

Why smaller yields can be smarter

More advanced growers pride themselves on their ability to push their cannabis plants to the max. The best growers can even exceed 1Kg dry yields from an autoflower.

But growing several smaller plants may offer the grower a wider choice of buds to choose from. For the beginner grower it may be beneficial to have a wider selection of buds in the jars. This can help you refine and understand which strains really suit you the best.

If you want to stay within your legal weed allowance it can make sense to deliberately plan to grow smaller rather than bigger.

Best tips to manage the yield from your cannabis plants

The good news is that there are a variety of techniques that can be used to reduce harvest quantity without necessarily losing quality. This means you can still produce high-THC weed which will be rich in terpenes and produce blissfully enjoyable effects.

Grow suitable cannabis seed genetics

Growing outdoors? Photoperiod feminised seed varieties will grow over a 5–6-month period and can easily produce dry harvests exceeding 1kg/2lbs per plant. If you want to avoid excessively heavy outdoor harvests it makes more sense to use lower-yielding autoflower seeds. These grow with a faster life cycle (typically around 3 months outdoors) with smaller harvests.

Those growing indoors may also prefer to lean more towards autoflower seeds than feminised marijuana seeds for the same reasons. Autoflowers grow fast & easily. They are adaptable too; you can restrict auto yields with smaller container sizes and less light.
The following autoflower seed varieties grow well even in smallish containers (around or below 5 litres/1 gal) producing high-grade weed but with restricted harvest amounts:

• Auto Orange Bud. Pungent citrus aroma, old-school orange taste. 75 day auto with 20% THC
• Auto Skywalker Haze. Unmatched potency & supreme sativa genetics melt anxiety away.
• Auto Trichome & Cream. Delicious creamy taste, suits smaller grow containers well
• Auto MAC #1. Floral, sweet & spicy terps alongside instant stress-busting relief
• Auto Bruce Lemon Diesel. Must-grow auto genetics with unique taste from the Super Sativa Seed Club.

Limit the number of plants

Within a few grows, most growers quickly get to understand the yields from a typical plant in their own grow room. Experienced hydroponic pros can routinely exceed 250g/8.8oz per plant. Beginner growers using soil may average nearer to 30g/1oz per plant. Whichever system you use to grow, it’s important to have a realistic estimation of yield-per-plant in your conditions. With that info, you will know how many plants will be required to reach your legal limit.

Use less powerful lights

Many German growers aiming to stay strictly within their 50g allowance find they can grow with relatively low power LED grow lights. Just 100W of LED may be more than sufficient for 1-2 small autoflower plants and a 50g dry harvest.

Try growing cannabis on your windowsill

Quality levels may not quite rival those from an indoor LED grow, but many have got great results growing weed on a windowsill using autoflowering marijuana seeds. These cope well with the broken light patterns from indoors & outdoors.

Use smaller plant containers

A well-known technique for increasing final plant size is to increase root space using larger containers. But if you want to restrict plant size and yield to stay within legal limits, then try using smaller containers until you find the size that delivers harvests in the right range for you.

Avoid heavy training techniques

If adhering to legal limits there is less point in working hard to implement the normal yield boosting techniques such as:

• SCROG
• LST (Low Stress Training)
• Supercropping (crushing of stem/branch between thumb and finger)
• HST (High Stress Training)

Instead, it may be easier to allow your plants to grow naturally with minimum effort from you. One technique that could allow predictable, smaller yields per plant is to use the SOG (Sea Of Green) technique with feminised weed seeds.

Use of small containers, 5 litres or less, encourages your plants to grow compactly with relatively little side branching. Much of the yield is along the main bloom and many SOG growers find it easy to predict plant yields with reasonably accurate results.

Shorten the vegetative period of photoperiod plants

Shorter periods of vegetative cannabis growth result in smaller plants with lower yield compared to those given longer periods of veg growth. In Germany, for example, many grow feminised seeds with just a couple of weeks of veg growth.

Some try growing under 12/12 light immediately. Dependent on the strain this can result in harvests anywhere from 7-10 weeks later with yields varying around 5-20g / 0.2 - 0.7oz per plant.

A perpetual grow allows a steady flow of weed

If you’re legally allowed to grow but want to avoid an excessively large harvest one option is to always have a plant or two in the grow room. These can be harvested once your jars are nearly empty.

You will need to synchronise harvests to match your monthly weed consumption. If you grow autoflower seeds you will usually see a 75-day grow cycle. If growing feminised cannabis seeds you could consider flipping them into bloom almost immediately (a SOG, or Sea Of Green style grow). A SOG grow with feminised seeds will be almost as fast as an autoflower seed grow. It can be tricky coordinating your harvests to precisely coincide with point that your jars are nearly empty.

Remember you don’t have to harvest your plants at the seedbank recommended point. If necessary, you can leave your plant to go beyond the normal harvest point if you don’t need to harvest immediately. A stash of weed with plenty of dark trichomes can be a nice change for some cannabis lovers.

Final thoughts and bonus tips

If you will run out of weed faster than anticipated and need a really fast harvest then your best option is to grow some Auto Blackberry Kush or Auto Blueberry seeds. Both strains can be ready in as little as 9 weeks, occasionally even faster. Growing high-THC weed doesn’t get much quicker than that. If you’re allowed to grow but are mindful of not exceeding the personal allowance limits, perhaps the best advice is to always keep a plant or two in the grow room and have frequent small harvests.