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Indoor vs. Outdoor Weed: Getting To The Bottom of It

Indoor vs. Outdoor Weed: Getting To The Bottom of It

Cultivation

Indoor vs. Outdoor Weed: Getting To The Bottom of It

Indoor vs. Outdoor Weed

Indoor weed vs. outdoor weed? That question is a classic debate in the world of cannabis. For many smokers, the assumption has pretty much always been that indoor-grown weed is better than outdoor-grown weed. Period.

But in reality things aren’t that simple. The main thing to understand when it comes to indoor and outdoor weed is that these different settings are good for different things.

Attempts to grow weed indoors became a big deal primarily because it’s always been so risky to grow cannabis outdoors.

Growers had to go underground. And once they were there, they discovered that growing marijuana indoors gave them the ability to control every single aspect of the growing process.

They could test out new growing methods, use different lights, try different types of fertilizers and plant food.

By controlling all the variables, indoor growers became pros at getting the best possible crops.

And to make things even better, indoor growers could create brand new strains. Indoor growing, with its perfectly controlled environment, basically gave ganja geneticists the perfect lab for perfecting new strains and hybrids.

To be sure, indoor growing has made priceless contributions to the wide world of weed.

But people also need to understand that there are certain attributes of a cannabis plant that can only come from being grown outside in Mother Nature.

Cannabis experts often borrow a term from the wine industry to explain those “certain attributes” that can only come from a plant being grown outdoors.

That term: “Terroir.” Terroir refers to all the environmental factors that affect the final outcome of a crop.

The minerals and nutrients in the soil, the presence of worms, bugs, and animals, the rainwater, humidity, and quality of air all produce different attributes in a cannabis plant’s buds.

Terroir is the reason that grapes grown in Italy produce a wine that tastes, smells, and feels different than grapes grown in California or Chile or anywhere else.

Here’s how one cannabis expert explained terroir’s effects on cannabis bud:

“There is nothing in the world like real high grade outdoor organic cannabis grown under the sun. . . If you think about tomatoes, which would you prefer to eat?”

“A homegrown tomato from my garden, grown organically under the sun? Or a hothouse tomato grown in a greenhouse?”

“Which has more flavor? Which tastes more authentically like a Real Tomato? I think we all know the answer to this one folks. You want my homegrown garden tomatoes.”

The fact is that outdoor growing produces a complexity and a richness that simply can’t be replicated in the lab-like conditions of an indoor grow.

Indoor growing is precise and clean. It yields a consistent and predictable product. Indoor grows produce those perfect, textbook-looking buds.

But outdoor-grown marijuana has a level of complexity, richness, individuality, and nuance that you just can’t get from an indoor grow.

Is one better than the other? It kind of depends on what you’re looking for. But one thing’s for sure. The more that cannabis becomes legal, the more we’ll all be able to start enjoying the one of a kind experience that comes from smoking high grade, outdoor-grown cannabis.

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