The Best Smart Grow Apps

**Disclaimer: This article contains affiliate links for some products. Cannabis Tech makes a small commission from the sale of these items. We appreciate your support of our publication!Going digital with a cannabis-focused mobile application takes the guesswork out of the growing data.

Even for amateur farmers, inexperienced in what it takes to produce a bountiful harvest, innovative weed-growing apps give them access to a treasure trove of information as well as a growing community of like-minded people.

Users can easily reference data from previous grows, explore photographic evidence from other strains, and even schedule nutrients or watering at the touch of a finger.

It's no shock that technological innovations are changing the way we grow marijuana, but often these innovations are only available to commercial operations. With unlimited budgets and technical know-how, commercial growers are always pushing the envelope with their crops, while this type of technology wasn't as readily available to those growing at home.

Mobile apps are changing the distribution of technology between commercial pros and at-home hobbyists. As novice growers connect and share information through mobile technologies, they, too, are reaping some of the high-tech advances once only shared between large cannabis operations.

Grow Apps for Commercial Cultivation

In commercial operations, keeping your employees efficient is a high priority. Rather than recording data on paper, these commercial SasS solutions offer mobile apps to keep data at the fingertips of your workers.

Canix

The legal cannabis industry is a very complex environment. State regulations require seed-to-sale tracking, so cultivators, processors, and distributors need to have an application that can simplify the process and handle all that data. A product of Y Combinator and winner of the 2020 TechCrunch Disrupt, Canix is a youthful company offering a full-service SAAS solution for cannabis operations.

The mobile app works on both Apple and Android smartphones or tablets to provide a mobile data entry solution that allows employees can enter data at the point of action. The Canix platform includes cultivation and manufacturing workflows, CRM & sales, scanning & RFID, labeling, reporting, and more. Cultivators can use Canix to track inventory, monitor compliance, and run reports.

Trym

Also relatively new to the industry, TRYM offers a mobile SAAS platform to boost efficiency, stay in compliance, and monitor climate and root zone conditions. Additionally, the software offers team management, METRC reporting, plant tracking and task management.

With touchless harvesting, employees can scan plant tags from their smartphone or tablet, record UIDS, and quickly report harvest records to Metrc. In fact, according to data from their site, “The FloraCal team was able to harvest, individually weigh, and report 680 plants in less than four hours.”

Matt Mayberry, company CEO and Co-Founder said in a statement, “At Trym, we’re all about helping cultivators save time and streamline their operations. That’s why we created Touchless Harvesting.”

Hybrid Apps for Everyone

Whether you’re growing for yourself or you have a commercial operation, these apps offer solutions for everyone.

GrowBuddy

GrowBuddy is an application simple enough for hobbyists to use but packed full of valuable features that even commercial operations would reap benefits from. The app strives to be a comprehensive database capable of logging all relevant grow data to help you learn from your mistakes and compare against other strains and other crops.

The GrowBuddy app is essentially a complete grow journal, helping you schedule and itemize tasks like watering and nutrient additions. It works to manage the details of the growing environment, keep accurate notes with photographic evidence on the daily developments in your crop, and even log information about mother plants and their clones, as well as the curing process.

They are striving to become the all-in-one hub for your operation, where you can access community knowledge, get expert advice, and purchase any supplies, all without leaving the app.

In 2020, GrowBuddy’s mobile app was temporarily unavailable while the developers worked on updates. As of 2021, however, it appears GrowBuddy is preparing to launch a major update with GrowBuddy 2.0. The new platform promises several new and exciting upgrades, including a new user interface and the new “Grow Tower” sensor technology.

BudLabs

For hydroponic growers, BudLabs has an app that was designed specifically for you in mind. Their nutrient calculator, in particular, can be a great time saver. You simply choose the phase of your crop’s growth (grow or bloom), select the nutrient base, select your level of experience, and insert the precise reservoir size — then BudLabs will provide a tailored feeding schedule distributed within the correct weeks.

Since BudLabs is developed by Advanced Nutrients, you will be encouraged to buy their products as you use the app. BudLabs is also the most expensive app on this list of weed-growing apps, as it requires a monthly fee of $4.49 or an annual fee of $42.99 for the Pro version.

Grow Apps for Small Home Grows

To date there are 19 states which have laws allowing the home cultivation of personal amounts of cannabis. Interestingly enough, the only state with legal adult-use cannabis that doesn’t permit home cultivation is Illinois.

• Alaska
• Arizona
• California
• Colorado
• Hawaii
• Illinois
• Maine
• Massachusetts
• Michigan
• Missouri
• Montana
• Nevada
• New Mexico
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Rhode Island
• Vermont
• Washington
• Washington, D.C.

If you live in one of these states, these apps may help you get your personal crop growing.

Grow with Jane

Jane is another mobile weed-growing app on the market today. It’s focused on providing newbie growers with guidance, grow logs and scheduling tools for their small operations. The app seems best suited to smaller, novice cannabis farmers, but the application is continuing to improve with new features and security updates regularly.

Following in the footsteps of other apps, Jane knows its users value privacy. One of its features allows users the ability to work entirely offline or under an anonymous account. For those that wish to share, they also provide space for users to share their data, photos, and other information with the larger Jane community. 

Grower Helper

Grower Helper is a tool that can be used to help cannabis growers keep track of their grow ops. You can register your plants, fertilizers, and sprays, add photos to keep track of progress, set task reminders, track environmental conditions, and even log information about your end products such as extracts. This app will help small-scale growers stay highly organized and never miss any necessary tasks. It’s available for both Android and iOS devices.

simLeaf

If you live in a state where you can’t grow your own cannabis, this app may provide an alternative. Falling into the edu-tainment category, this 3D cannabis grow simulator app was developed by experienced cannabis growers using scientific data. simLeaf allows users to practice growing weed virtually from their phone or tablet. The platform is actually quite sophisticated, as you must manage light, temperature, humidity, water levels, nutrients, and pH levels throughout the growing stages. simLeaf also provides useful tips and educational information to help you along the way.

This is an excellent app for people looking to experiment with new techniques to see how they may affect real-life plants. Note that this weed-growing app isn’t free — it does cost $3 to download.

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Apps Mentioned in Previous Versions

Botana

One of the most popular applications to date is Botana. It remains to this day as one of the most comprehensive mobile apps on the market. Letting users compile details notes and data from all relevant environmental, strain, and more, they have set the bar high.

To learn more about Botana, check out this exclusive interview, Cannabis Tech had with Botana’s CEO.