How Much Do Cannabis Plants Smell?

Cannabis has a distinctive odor, and when it is smoked, the smell can travel a surprisingly long distance – sometimes more than 100 meters, depending on the wind. Good weed is loud, and that is sometimes a problem. Depending on the wind and an individual’s sense of smell and familiarity with cannabis, smoke can be smelled up to a block away from whoever was toking up.

Unfortunately for growers, that dank smell isn’t just a problem when cannabis is smoked. The plants themselves can be extremely pungent as well, especially when the plant starts flowering. Some sources claim that the smell can travel upwards of 1,500 meters if it is coming from a large outdoor field. Grown indoors, it can make a grow room smell like a hotbox, and that smell can easily spread throughout an entire house. How do growers combat this issue?

Reducing Your Cannabis Odor

Large-scale cannabis growing businesses use multiple layers of carbon filters, fans, and scrubbers. Then, many of them keep their exhaust fans mounted up high and attach a nozzle at the top, which increases the speed at which gases leave the grow room. This sends the cannabis-scented air up to 10 or 20 feet above the building’s roof, where it will be swept away by the wind without anyone on the ground ever smelling it.

Of course, a large-scale operation like the one just mentioned has a grow room containing hundreds of plants, which create a much more potent smell. If you’re growing a few plants at home, your solution can be much simpler. Here’s what you’ll need to do:

Keep an eye on the temperature and humidity levels in your grow room. You should be doing this anyway, but here’s another reason – high temperature and humidity will make the smell worse.

space bucket carbon filter

A 4″ carbon filter common for small indoor grow spaces

Keep the air moving. Smells are just particles of matter that we inhale. Those pieces of matter stimulate the olfactory cells in our noses, and our brain identifies them as a smell. So, preventing large amounts of particulate from building up in the air will reduce the odor.

Use a carbon filter. This is the most important step. Carbon filters are metal tubes filled with active carbon. It has a porous surface that allows air to pass through, but will trap particles. For best results, make sure your grow room is sealed effectively, and integrate the carbon filter with the fan at your room’s exhaust point. The fan should pull air from the grow room through the filter, scrubbing almost all of the smell out of the air along the way.

Depending on the size of your grow room you will need a carbon filter and fan that can cycle all the air once every minute.

The 4″ fan in our store is sufficient for tents that are as large as 4″ x 4″ x 7″

4″ Carbon Filter & Fan Kit

Cannabis’ strong odor is a challenge, but it can easily be overcome with just a little bit of extra attention and equipment.

If you want to learn even more about growing good cannabis, we offer a free 40+ page guide full of images.
Now available on Amazon.
Sign up for our newsletter and download the digital copy today!

Beginners guide to cannabis cultivation

This guide will answer many questions about growing cannabis, like the following...

Selecting Seeds
Identify and Correct Problems
Maximize Yield
Much More...

Get a Chance to INSTANTLY WIN a Reefertilizer Nutrient Kit When You Sign Up.

 

 

Get a Physical Copy Of Our Grow Guide On Amazon

Leave a Reply