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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In week 5 of flowering, you can observe the buds all over your plant becoming thicker. You may also spot new buds growing in new places such as along the main cola. With buds abounding, your cannabis plants will get fatter every day. This is a surefire sign you are in full flowering mode.
When the flushing process has reached the fan leaves, they will begin to yellow and turn lighter as they send the stored nutrients to the flowers. The flowers will fatten up during these last few weeks while flushing; this can be up to 25 percent of the final weight.
Around week 8 of the flowering stage, buds will start fattening quickly. You'll see that trichomes and pistils are maturing and changing colors. Usually, when trichomes turn from transparent to a milky/whiteish color (and maybe 5-10% of them turn amber), your plant is ready for harvesting.
In most circumstances, overripe buds are still usable. But less potency and poor smoke quality, but they'll still get you high. The only way to tell if your bud is ready to smoke is by looking at the color of the leaves: if they're brownish, your bud is overripe.
Week 3 – Buds begin to develop
Plants are still stretching at this point and are still quite flexible, so if you haven't done much sculpting yet, this is still a good opportunity to work on that flat canopy, which can increase your yields by as much as 40%.
We recommend you renew your nutrient solution every 7 days. At 3 weeks before harvest we recommend you switch to using Advanced Nutrients Overdrive as your booster to finish off your grow as it is specifically designed to swell the increased number of created flowers.
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.
Photoperiod cannabis is sensitive to changes in the hours of daylight it receives. In fact, photoperiod cannabis strains cannot transition from vegetative growth to flowering without long nights. 12 or more hours of darkness is the biological trigger for photoperiod cannabis to bloom.
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.
Depending on the specific mass and profile of the flowers, the drying process generally takes three to four weeks. For both marijuana and hemp producers of smokable flower, the curing process is an important postharvest step that provides additional value in the quality of the resulting product.
Environmental Factors are Important for the Cannabis Plant
Another reason that a cannabis plant may have small buds is due to environmental factors. If the plant is not getting enough light, it will stretch out in search of more. This can lead to a large plant, but small buds that are spread out along the stem.
During the seventh and eighth week of marijuana flowering, the buds finish forming, increase their weight and density, most of the pistils wither, and many of the trichomes change color, going from transparent to white or from white to reddish or amber All these changes are symptoms that announce that the harvest of ...
Week 5. In week 5 of flowering, you can observe the buds all over your plant becoming thicker. You may also spot new buds growing in new places such as along the main cola. With buds abounding, your cannabis plants will get fatter every day.
Fluffy buds don't only look less appetising, but you'll need to use more of your harvest every time you roll a blunt or hit a bowl. Dense buds will offer some resistance and spring back to their original shape. Airy buds will almost collapse in on themselves, and feel much more feeble to the touch.
Flowering – 5-20-5 or 5-25-10 – During flowering, you want to prioritize phosphorous to promote bud growth and make sure to limit nitrogen so your plant doesn't get too tall or “leggy.” You want it to concentrate on developing huge buds, not lots of stems or leaves, and phosphorus will make your buds grow.