In this article, we're covering your cannabis in late flower, which is typically weeks six to eight of your bloom cycle (with the final week being your flush week). This is the period when you're going to ramp up terpene and cannabinoid production and add some serious potency, flavor, and weight to your flowers.
At week 4 of the flowering stage, your cannabis plants will likely have stopped growing altogether and are now spending all their energy on growing buds. There will still be white hairs sticking out from the buds, but the buds themselves will become bigger and fatter with each day.
Week 2 – First signs of flowering
4 in autoflowers), little white whiskers known as pistils begin to emerge from the spot where fan leaves protrude from the plant's main stem. These sites are known as bud sites and will be the spot to watch for emerging buds.
Week one is the transition stage between pre-flowering and full flowering when your plant switches from growing tall to producing buds. During this transition, some strains will double in height from what they were a week earlier. Because of this rapid growth, week one is commonly known as “the stretch”.
More growth and stretching of the plants in Week 3
You will notice continued growth and stretching. You can see in the video how bushy everything has become. This rapid, almost non-stop growth is all a sign of the post-vegetative stretch that these plants go through after switching to the 12/12 light cycle.
If you grow strains with an average flowering time, the majority of bud development will occur by the 6th week of bloom. In the last two weeks, the buds will mostly be ripening and not really growing much more in size. At this point, the previously white pistils on the buds will now slowly turn amber-brown.
Well that concludes are look at Week 5. The plants have gotten deeper into flower, the buds are getting bigger, and the vegetative growth has slowed.
Days to 50% flowering was determined by recording the number of days following transplanting (DAT) until 50% of plants in a plot had at least one open flower.
Most growers will agree that week 3 of flowering is the right time to start lollipopping. After a couple of weeks in the bloom phase, most cannabis strains will begin to display multiple bud sites along shoots. Marijuana will stretch during this phase, some strains more than others.
Week 4: Growth Stops and Plants Focus on Their Buds
Even though there are still white hairs sticking out from the buds, the buds themselves become larger with each day and as the buds grow more and more, the plants will produce more trichomes. This causes the odor to become much more pungent.
In weeks 6-8, the buds of your plants will begin to harden; the delicate trichome heads of your flowers will cloud and turn amber, and the once milky pistils of your buds will shrink, turn brown and become fragile. Also, as your plants continue to ripen, new aromas, flavors, and pigmentation will develop.
Weeks 4-6 – Buds swell
Next, in the cannabis flowering stages, you can expect the swelling of the budlets. They will fatten with each passing day. The buds will still have a bunch of white pistils shooting out in all directions. Now that your plant is focusing more on fattening the buds, you can stop training.
When Do Trichomes Start Appearing? Trichomes become more prominent during the third or fourth week of the flowering stage of your plants.
So there are three different times we recommend defoliating during Flower: Right before you switch to 12/12. Once between the beginning of Flower and the 3-week mark. 3 weeks after beginning flower is the last time you'll want to defoliate.
The duration of the flowering stage varies among different strains. The flowering stage in Cannabis plants usually goes from 8 to 11 weeks, depending on the strain. It's usually divided into weeks or three stages. The flowering period for Indica strains is typically around 8 weeks, but it may take up to 10 weeks.
You can remove fan leaves during flowering in much the same way you do during veg. Prune away large leaves that are overshadowing bud sites, as well as dead or dying fan leaves. One thing to keep in mind is that you should prune in intervals, giving at least a couple weeks between each session.
If you harvest too early, the buds may not have finished growing (and developing their potency). Ultimately, the goal is to harvest when your plants' trichome and resin production is at its peak. Generally speaking, cannabis plants will require 8 - 12 weeks to fully mature and be ready for harvest.
Finally, you'll want to get to actually lollipopping each individual branch on your plant. Some growers recommend leaving no more than three nodes from the tip of each branch. That, however, depends a lot on the strain, the size, and the health of the individual plant.
Many growers have increased yields by lollipopping. We know enough about plant science to support the logic behind this type of pruning. What's even cooler is that you can combine lollipopping with topping or fimming.
Generally, you want to water every 2 or 3 days during Flowering and you want to water enough that 10-20% of water comes out from the pot as runoff. You can check your soil moisture by sticking a finger in the pot: if the soil is dry a couple inches down, then it is time to water again.
The seemingly simple act of a corpse flower blooming can take up to 20 years.
A plant that requires a long period of darkness is termed a “short-day” (long-night) plant. Short-day plants form flowers only when day length is less than about 12 hours. Many spring- and fall-flowering plants are short-day plants, including chrysanthemums, poinsettias and Christmas cactus.
In general, weed starts to smell about three to four weeks before flowering begins. However, it is possible that your plants may not start to actually produce the distinctive "weed smell" until they start blooming and developing buds.
The biggest changes that you will witness in the sixth week of flowering is the amount of weight that has been added to the buds. Your buds in Week 6 will be noticeably bigger than they were in Week 5. At this point, these plants are deep into flower, and are really maturing day by day.
Week 7: The calyxes in the seven-week varieties swell to near bursting as THC is produced in the glands. At the end of the week they will be ready. The trichomes stand more erect and the caps swell with newly produced resin. At the end of the week the flowers reach the peak zone.