Lighting Outdoors If you're growing outdoors, you've got the advantage of working with the best grow light on (or off) the planet. To help your outdoor cannabis plants produce dense buds, make sure you position them in the parts of your garden that receive the most sunlight, at the best times of day.
To some degree, more light translates to fatter buds and higher yields (you'll need to pay attention to the distance between your grow light and plants or your plant may suffer from light burn). Increasing light intensity is the most effective way to fatten up buds.
A bud hardener is an additive you can use at the end of the flower cycle to tighten up your flowers and pack on weight. They are typically used in the final 3 weeks or so of the grow cycle and contain a mix of macronutrients, micronutrients, minerals, essential oils, etc.
Potassium makes the plant hardier and stronger, better able to withstand hardship or disease. All of these are vital for growing large marijuana buds, but you have to use them wisely. Sulfur is another nutrient that, like potassium, helps the plant absorb other nutrients and water.
Hang drying in a grow tent or closet also serves as a low-cost method. Remove entire branches from your plants, trim the sugar leaves, and hang them upside down. In a bigger drying space, you can use a fan to keep air moving freely. Racks also work well when you need to dry large quantities of bud.
Lack of light is perhaps the most common reason that cannabis produces fluffy, light buds. You may have noticed the lower, puny 'popcorn' bud sites that form below the main canopy. Often these buds are discarded by growers allowing the plant to focus biochemical energy on the main blooms.
Molasses adds sugars to the plant and will help it to bud. Like us, plants need salts, nutrients, and sugars daily. Feeding your plants molasses, what could be considered the equivalent to our eating junk food sugars, will pack on the weight to your marijuana buds.
Buds get less dense when it's too hot. Look at the loose structure of this bud grown in extreme heat. Another thing about temperature: cannabis plants in the flowering stage like it to be a little warm in the day, but cool at night. Warm nights are also associated with airy buds.
Topping to increase the number of colas
Prune to clear off dead leaves to help your plants focus their energy on the live parts of the plant. Prune large leaves which get in the way of light reaching the colas. Topping is a form of pruning and involves pruning off the branch tip of the main cola.
Weeks 4-6: Buds Fatten Up
At this stage of cannabis flowering, your buds are getting bigger. They'll still have all the white pistils sticking out, but you'll be able to see the buds getting bigger every 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.
Lighting Outdoors
If you're growing outdoors, you've got the advantage of working with the best grow light on (or off) the planet. To help your outdoor cannabis plants produce dense buds, make sure you position them in the parts of your garden that receive the most sunlight, at the best times of day.
As previously stated, moderate levels of nitrogen and phosphorus work best to sustain trichome growth to the maximum level. Dumping nutrients on your plant during the second half of the flowering cycle can result in reduced cannabinoid and terpene content, thereby lowering your bud quality in both flavor and potency.
The last three weeks is when your buds can actually gain the most weight – that is if you feed them Overdrive®. After your peak bloom phase, your plants enter their late bloom phase (the precise timing and length of which depends on the strain of cannabis you're growing).
Cannabis plants need water and nutrients to grow and develop big, healthy flowers. Drought, overwatering, and over/underfeeding can all affect your plant's ability to develop big, dense, and heavy flowers.
Plants need plenty of air and movement around them. This allows the lower buds and branches to get the same light and temperature as the top branches and grow well. If many plants are crowded into the same grow space, or there is no movement of the air, it could result in airy buds.
If you over-dry your cannabis, it'll be more likely to go moldy, so it's important to monitor the drying process closely. If your buds are too dry, they'll be more likely to crumble when you try to break them up for smoking, so it's important to take them out of the drying chamber before they become too dry.
While not mandatory, it's definitely a good idea to wash cannabis flower buds that were grown outside. The process reduces outdoor air pollutants that may have accumulated on the buds such as dirt, dust, pollen, toxic wildfire ash, caterpillar poop, insects, bird debris, and other particulate matter.
Use wet and dry trimming for the best results!
Another option is to remove a lot of the fan leaves right before harvesting. This will take some of the work off your plate after your buds are dry, and result in a faster drying process.
Paclobutrazol impacts a plant cell's ability to elongate, which in cannabis means cells pack much tighter and denser on the flower.
Are Small Buds more Potent? Small buds are generally the same potency as large nugs of the same strain. Small nugs come from the same plants as large nugs, they're simply pieces of flower that tended to get less light and thus didn't grow as large.
Instead, utilize organic fertilizers like worm castings, blood meal, fish meal, or bat guano for nitrogen; bone meal or rock dust for phosphorus; wood ash or kelp meal for potassium; and dolomite lime for calcium or magnesium.