Home Grower Question: How much does an indoor cannabis plant yield?

Answer: The answer is not easy, but it’s honest. Plant yields vary due to many factors including the size of plant, which is to say, how big you let your plant grow. The quality of the plant’s genetics and propensity for the genetic’s yield — be it a low, medium or heavy producing strain, also greatly influence yield.

Because indoor cannabis plant yields vary, there is no cut and dry answer to the question, “how much does an indoor cannabis plant yield?”

You see, it depends on whether you are growing small plants, medium sized plants, large plants, or extremely large plants. The size of your pot must be taken into consideration, and there can be a big difference in the size of your harvest (yield), depending on if you are growing in a grow tent or in a grow room with high ceilings.

Where and how you grow is a crucial factor to get to the bottom of your question, “how much does an indoor cannabis plant yield?” The strain you grow is also an influential factor. Additionally, you must consider how long you are growing your plant in the vegetative phase. People who grow cannabis plants with over 10 ounces are usually keeping their plants in the vegetative phase for more than 10 weeks. Do you have the time?

What about those one-size-fits-all answers online?

They often reference a yield algorithm based on things like how big your grow room is, what lights you are using, how many watts, and more. Not helpful. An answer like, “A grow room with 1200 watts can lead to a yield of 42 oz.” or “you can grow 1 lb. per plant,” not only sets false expectations, it confuses new cannabis gardeners who are trying to grow in grow tents with LEDs.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t figure an answer to this common question about plant yield indoors. There are a lot of moving parts in your gardening process that influence yield per plant. To get close to a perfect estimate, you’ll need to know if you are growing in a small tent, large tent, or in a grow room. If you are growing in a small grow tent, you may be growing small to medium size plants. You may have 6 short plants or 3 short to medium sized plants, 2 big plants, or you may have 1 “large as you can get it” plant.

Genetics, plant care, lighting, pot size, and your grow space all influence how much an indoor marijuana plant will yield.

Plant genetics greatly influences how much a plant can yield. You can grow a “heavy yielding” or “heavy producer” strain, average yielding strain, or low-yielding strain. For example, the size of cola buds on a Dream Queen strain are much bigger than the cola buds of a Girl Scout Cookies strain. If you are unsure of your seed or clone origin before growing, that is a big risk to take if growing for heavy yields is your goal.

Don’t forget “Plant Care.”

You can lessen your plants yield potential by not properly caring for your plant indoors. Plant care includes the quality organic nutrients and water it needs to survive and thrive. It may include plant training techniques like topping, pinching and supercopping, all to grow bigger plants. If you don’t practice proper plant care, you won’t get as much of a yield per plant.

Pot size matters!

Did you give your plant a 2, 3, 4 or 5 gallon pot, or a 10 gallon pot? The bigger the pot, the bigger the plant. Lighting is another key ingredient to increasing your plant yields. If you grow with a cheap LED Light, you’ll diminish the plant’s yield potential. You’ll want to grow with a high quality LED light to get the most amount of yield per plant indoors.

With all that said about indoor plant yields, home growers who grow marijuana plants indoors in grow tents may yield from 1 – 5 ounces per cannabis plant, with a sweet spot of 2 – 4 ounces per plant. Honestly it depends on the above mentioned gardening and genetic factors, but this gives you a realistic snapshot of your cannabis yield potential.

Lastly, if you have high ceilings in your grow room (or a emptied indoor pool), you are positioned to grow plants that may yield much more, like 6 – 16 ounces. There are 16 ounces in 1 pound. You could even pull 2 lbs. from a plant indoors if you really wanted, but it would take a significant amount of time in the vegetative phase and you’d need tall ceilings, and big pots. It is in the realm of possibilities! Our best recommendation to grow indoor plants indoors that weigh 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 pounds is to grow in 100 lb. pots, and give yourself at least 4 – 6 months in the vegetative phase of plant growth.

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