If you want a book on how to grow weed, the short answer is: buy the one that matches the grow you are about to do, not the thickest one. A first tent or a few outdoor plants needs a book you will actually read cover to cover before the seeds crack. A commercial room needs a reference you will open a hundred times and never finish. Most people buy the second kind, read forty pages, and go back to forum threads.
I wrote two books and they do two different jobs. Cannabis: A Beginner's Guide to Growing Marijuana is the short course: 144 pages that walk a first-time grower from seed to cure without assuming any prior gardening. It is the book version of the grow guide on this site, written a few years earlier and shorter on photographs. The Official High Times Field Guide to Marijuana Strains is a reference, not a manual: profiles of the strains that defined the cup era with their lineage, breeder, flowering time and character. It is the source for most of what is in the strains section and the Top 10 Strains of the Year retrospective.
Below both books is the comparison I would give a friend who asked. The other authors on that list are people I have interviewed, judged alongside or read for years, and each of their books is the right choice for someone. The table says who.
Cannabis: A Beginner's Guide to Growing Marijuana
Best for: First grow, small indoor or outdoor setups.
A 144 page starter course for a first small grow: choosing seeds, soil versus hydro, lights, feeding, training, harvest and cure, with photographs of each stage. Written for someone who has never grown anything.
The Official High Times Field Guide to Marijuana Strains
Best for: Strain history, lineage and breeder notes.
Profiles of well over a hundred strains with lineage, breeder, flowering time, character and photography. The strain reference of its era and the source of the notes behind the strains section of this site.
What growers say about the book
New to cannabis growing? Looking for a guide that's easy to understand and follow? Well look no further than Danny Danko's CANNABIS.
DJ Shortbreeder of Blueberry, author of Cultivating Exceptional Cannabis
An invaluable resource.
Dru Westauthor of Secrets of the West Coast Masters
Best Books on Growing Weed, Compared
| Title | Author | Year | Best for | Pages |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cannabis: A Beginner's Guide to Growing Marijuana | Danny Danko | 2018 | First grow, small indoor or outdoor setups | 144 |
| The Official High Times Field Guide to Marijuana Strains | Danny Danko | 2011 | Strain history, lineage and breeder notes | 180 |
| The Cannabis Encyclopedia | Jorge Cervantes | 2015 | The reference shelf: every system at every scale, encyclopedic | 596 |
| Marijuana Grower's Handbook | Ed Rosenthal | 2010 | Textbook style course, the Oaksterdam curriculum | 510 |
| The Cannabis Grow Bible | Greg Green | 2017 | Exhaustive third edition for growers scaling past a tent | About 700 |
| Teaming with Microbes | Jeff Lowenfels | 2010 | Soil biology for living-soil growers, not a grow manual | 220 |
Sources
- Hampton Roads Publishing: Cannabis, A Beginner's Guide to Growing Marijuana (publisher of the 2018 book)
