While most growers only worry about the harvest volume, paying close attention to the aroma is essential. After all, you must love the aroma every time you open your weed jar if you’re to enjoy the smokes. Stronger smelling buds receive their glory from their perceived potency. When it smells stronger, it’s richer in terpenes— the scent isn’t just more pronounced; it’s distinct—giving the user a unique experience, thus the perceived potency.
When your weed smells stronger, it closely identifies with its strain. You could be somewhere sharing weed with random strangers, and then you get that unmistakable aroma, you know, this is it!
Plainly put, a stronger smell tells you that a lot of stuff went right throughout the growing process. For your plant to produce terpenes generously, it means you kept the right conditions in your grow room. The light was sufficient, your nutrients proportionate and timely, and humidity and temperature were accurately set. Under such conditions, the plant thrives on all fronts— cannabinoids will just be as much.
Of course, there are artificial sprays that enhance your bud’s fragrance, but when you nurture the plant naturally, the whole plant thrives. Seek methods that improve the overall quality of the plant. You know, the terpenes, flavonoids, and the cannabinoids. But if you can’t, and want to try your hands on smell-enhancing sprays, make sure it doesn’t sacrifice the cannabinoids.
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How Do I Make My Buds Smell Stronger?
You enhance the smell of your buds by increasing the terpenes. You improve terpene production by training the plant, using nutrients appropriately, using the right lights, and keeping the proper schedule. First, keep the grow room at optimum condition; it’ll take little adjustments to make the buds smell stronger.
Here’s how to make your buds smell stronger.
1. Choose Strains That Produce A Lot of Terpenes
Every time you talk about the aroma of weed, you should think of one thing—terpenes. The more your plant produces, the stronger your buds will smell. Begin with a strain known for higher terpene production. That way, even if you don’t attempt any terpene-enhancing techniques, you get buds that smell strong.
This is by far the easiest method. If you’re a beginner, and won’t like to train your weed and adjust the grow room for increased terpene production, just choose the right strain and observe the general requirements of a grow room. Your buds will smell strong.
On the other hand, if you’re an experienced grower and would like to stress your plant to enhance its smell, strains that produce a lot of terpenes respond better than others without the genes for the stronger smell.
Some of the strains known for stronger smells are;
- Sour Diesel
- Super Skunk
- Death Star
- Aurora Indica
- Lemon Skunk
- White Russian
- Blue Cheese
- Space Queen
- Pineapple Chunk
- Wonder Woman
- AK-47
Look, if you want to get the strongest smell from your weed, begin with the right strain. By far, it is the only guarantee that you’ll get the most of your plant’s terpenes without much trying.
2. Exposing the Plant To UV-B
Terpenes, alongside flavonoids and cannabinoids, are contained in the trichomes. And trichomes are your plant’s defenses— when under threat, your plant produces a lot of trichomes to scare the assailant. The plant keeps the predators by bad smell and taste.
When the plat is exposed to the UV-B light spectrum, it produces more trichomes to protect its buds from the damaging rays. The bigger trichomes bear more terpenes, enhancing the smell of your buds in a more natural way.
To use this trick, you will use the Metal Halide grow lights to expose your plant to the UV-B light spectrum. Do this when you’re coming close to the harvest— 2 weeks to harvesting is a good time.
3. Invest in Proper Lighting
The journey to stronger-smelling buds begins from the strain selection. It passed through the stages; seedling, vegetative, to flowering the maturity, upon which it’s harvested. From seedling to flowering, you must use the appropriate lights.
However, as the stages progress, the plants need a more intense source of light. The 400-watt lights might work in the seedling and early vegetative stages, but you will need 1000-watt HID, or well-powered LED grow lights at flowering. It takes more energy to produce flowers, terpenes, and cannabinoids than it takes to glow leaves, stems, and roots. Therefore, a high-intensity light is a necessity when you want to keep the plant’s metabolism up and trichome production to the maximum. When it comes to proper terpene production, the intensity matters just as the hours of exposure to the light.
4. Use Living Soil
Living soil is also known as super soil in cannabis growing circles. It’s called living soil because it contains microorganisms that help break down the plant’s nutrients for efficient absorption by the roots. Living soil is a great medium when you want your plant’s natural aspects to be more pronounced in your final buds— including the taste and smell.
Using living soil keeps you ahead in your growing game, especially if you have no experience at all. The soil comes enriched with adequate nutrients for your plants; you can just water and maintain optimum grow room conditions. The soil will handle the nutrient needs of your plant.
Growing in living soil is, however slow, and might cost you yields. But if you care about your buds’ terpenes and flavonoids, this method wins the battle.
5. Dry and Cure Your Buds Properly
It would be pretty bad to collect all the good stuff through the growing process only to lose them during drying and curing. The process should be done without haste while keeping temperature and humidity in check.
Though the buds might appear dry after hang-drying, they contain moisture, making the curing process necessary. You cure the plant by keeping them in air-sealed jars, burping for few days to release the moisture from the jars.
Curing helps you keep mold out of your buds and nurtures your buds’ taste and smell. Curing takes weeks, and those who don’t have the patience rush the buds through the process, leading to loss of the terpenes and flavonoids. This guide will teach you how to dry and cure your buds properly.
6. Regulate Temperature and Humidity
When your plant begins blooming, it will need a lot of light to enhance its metabolic activity and enhance the production of the flowers. However, high intensity lights also increase temperatures. The heat from the lights can make you lose the terpenes through evaporation.
The contents of the trichomes will also be degraded if the canopy is kept closer to the light source. If your plant grew tall, adjust the light to avoid light stress.
Keep the temperature at 26°celcious, and use fans to counter the heat from the lights. Terpenes love a cool environment.
Temperature isn’t the only factor. Watch the humidity too— keeping the relative humidity at 50%. Some growers believe you can stress your plant with lower humidity, up to 30%, to spur terpene production.
7. Use Supplements to Enhance the Smell and Taste
If you have tried the above and you still don’t get the taste you desire, you can try using some of the supplements on the market. You can use the supplements made to enhance the taste and smell of buds. However, I won’t recommend any brand as I’m more on gaining the plant’s distinct natural aroma.
One way of enhancing the taste and smell is to avoid any chemical additions. Instead, you can buy organic supplements or make your own by adding compost, bat guano, fishmeal, and worm castings to your soil.
Frequently Asked Questions About Weed Smell
How Can I Sweeten My Buds?
It is one thing to want the plant to have a more pungent smell and another to want sweet smelling buds. For stronger smell, you only help the plant to bring out the power of terpenes. It’s natural, you don’t attempt to change the bud’s smell. To sweeten your buds, you can use synthetic sprays before you smoke them. These additives mask the pungent aroma that some people don’t like. There are also sprays you can use on the flowers immediately they bloom.
What Smells Stronger, Indica Or Sativa?
According to an experiment done by High Times, indica strains are smellier than sativa strains. The experiment involved examining terpene profiles of 28 indica-dominant strains and 20 sativa-dominant strains. Indica strains were found to be 16% richer in smelly terpenes than sativa strains.
How Do I Stop My Buds From Smelling?
Naturally, weed smells. The scent may be more concentrated in other strains, but all strains have a smell. You can’t remove the smell from the buds, but you can regulate it by keeping your buds in an air-sealed jar. The only time that weed smell becomes problematic is when you want stealth. Use air-sealed jars for storage and invest in a potent weed air freshener to freshen up after smoking.
In conclusion, if you want to grow stronger smelling cannabis, begin by choosing the right strain. If you miss that step, other terpene-enhancing methods will not bear much fruit.