Why “Monstercrop” or Re-vegging Your Weed Plants?

When it comes to monstercropping cannabis plants, the main idea is to put a flowering plant back into the vegetative stage, either by growing a plant out again after harvest, or taking a clone from a flowering marijuana plant.

As a side effect of the re-vegging process, cannabis plants respond with odd growth patterns, which a grower can sometimes take advantage of to grow a more desirable plant.

Monstercropping initiates a bushy growth response that you can use to your advantage, while potentially allowing you to get a second harvest from the same plant!

The benefits can include increasing yields from a plant, reducing the time needed in the vegetative stage for your next harvest, and potentially protecting important genes of a plant that produced particularly well.

It can get kind of confusing because people often use the terms “re-vegging” and “monstercropping” interchangeably, but they’re a bit different. Re-vegging is the act of a flowering plant going back into the vegetative stage (usually on accident) while the term monstercropping refers specifically to the technique of re-vegging a flowering plant on purpose.

Every individual plant responds differently to being re-vegged, even of the same strain, so it can be a little hard to predict exactly what to expect.

It Can Be a Little Hard to Know Exactly What to Expect Since Each Plant is Different, But Re-Vegging Plants Usually Start Growing Round Leaves.

The longer the plant spends in the flowering stage, the more dramatic the effects from monstercropping, and the longer it takes the plant to completely re-vegetate and start growing normally again.

As the plant transitions back to the vegetative stage, it will start growing standard leaves, and after about 2-4 weeks, most plants will be growing in a traditional way. The effects of monstercropping only last a few weeks for most plants!

Monstercropping can be a great choice for outdoors in temperate climates because it allows an additional outdoor harvest by planting in the winter, harvesting in the spring, then revegging and doing a second harvest off the same plant in the fall. Learn more about monstercropping for multiple outdoor yields below!

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Monstercropping Your Weed Plant Can Also Be Used to Preserve Good Genes

If you are very pleased with the results of a specific cannabis plant, you may want to take clones even though the plant is no longer in the vegetative stage!

Monstercropping gives the grower a way to preserve genetics that turn out better than expected! Don’t lose important plant cultivars!

Sometimes re-vegging happens by accident, for example if there’s a light leak (though an industrious grower could try to use the opportunity to try their hand at monstercropping)! That being said, monstercropping is far more effective when you plan for it.

Strain and Plant Choice for Monstercropping



I highly recommend only attempting to monstercrop a plant that has grown fast and vigorously in the both the vegetative stage and the early part of the flowering stage. If at all possible, you want a plant that is able to quickly grow lots of new stems and bud sites, so you can get back to flowering and harvest again as soon as possible.

Plants that stay short and grow slowly can take a very long time to re-veg and “get going” again. In that case, you would be better off starting fresh with a seed, which grows vigorously from the beginning as long as it’s fresh and germinated properly, even strains that tend to stay short.

Very Short or Slow-Growing Marijuana Plants May React Poorly to Monstercropping. Try to Choose Only the Best Plants! If you’ve got a limited space or height, you may not want to monstercrop a particularly tall marijuana strain, as the second version of the plant may end up being bigger than the first!

Lastly, never try to monstercrop an auto-flowering strain, as they are basically unaffected by light schedules. This means they typically can’t be forced to re-veg.

How to Use Monstercropping or Re-vegging to Increase Yields of your Indoors Weed Plants

If you plan on monstercropping an indoor plant, or if it happens by accident, how do you take advantage of the strange re-veg growth? If you are going to re-harvest a plant, what’s the best way to do that?

Tips for Successful Monstercropping or Re-vegging Indoors

Choose a medium size strain – Short strains tend to grow on the slower side and may not grow fast enough to really take advantage of monstercropping. On the other hand, tall strains tend to grow fast and stretchy, which can make it far too easy to overgrow your space during the second round). Learn more about cannabis strain research.

Only monstercrop the best cannabis plants. For the best results, make sure to only monstercrop plants that grew quickly and healthfully throughout their life up until week 6 of the flowering stage. Starting with a few extra plants the first time will give you the ability to choose the best instead of settling for whatever you get.

Make sure to train plants to stay flat and wide for the best results. Regular training rules apply, you just have a bushier and faster growing plant!

Leave a solid and wide base even while harvesting, as you will be growing your plant off of the “skeleton” you leave behind.

How to Re-Harvest the Same Weed Plant Twice…

Train your plant with multiple colas and a wide base during the initial grow. This will ensure you have good plant structure the second time around.

When you harvest the plant, you should remove all the buds but you must make sure to leave several stems and healthy, green leaves remaining. Consider that all new growth will originate from this, so consider that when making cuts to your plant during harvest. You want to leave enough behind to make a great base. If you leave any buds behind while the plant is re-vegging, they’ll eventually start to wither and die.

Put the plant back into a vegetative time schedule (more than 18 hours of light/day) and start giving it vegetative nutrients.

The plant will start growing crazily, with round leaves and often with many stems, creating tons of bud sites in a very short amount of time. The odd growth lasts 3-4 weeks on average, though it will take shorter if plant wasn’t flowering long, or possibly longer if the clone was taken just before harvest time.

Don’t skip on plant training! In the vegetative stage, it’s very important to make sure the plant stays short and flat, so you can take advantage of all those bud sites!

When the plant is about half the final desired height, switch to a 12/12 light schedule and continue keeping plant flat during the first 6 or so weeks of the flowering stage, until the plant stops growing new stems and leaves altogether.

Harvest as normal and enjoy your second set of buds!

What about a third harvest? it’s generally not recommended to harvest a third time, as yields often suffer, and plant just doesn’t re-veg as easily or grow as vibrantly the third time around. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done!

Note: Results can vary depending on the strain. Some strains will produce the same or more for their second harvest, while some strains don’t respond as well and may end up with lower yields.

Final thoughts

Monstercropping, can be a really fun experiment, but remember that it can be a little unpredictable so it’s always recommended to grow backup plants at the same time, at least until you get more experience!

[Updated, originally published 28.12. 2017]

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