The Final 2 Weeks Of Flowering. 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 the last two weeks, the buds will mainly mature and grow no more in size. The white trichomes (small resin-secreting stalks/hairs) on the buds will now slowly turn brown.
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.
In week 2 of flowering, you may spot the first white pistils growing on your female cannabis plants. These fine and wispy white hairs will develop at those locations where the big fan leaves meet the main stem. It is these fine hairs that will later become buds.
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.
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).
Late flowering / Ripening stage – week 6 to harvest
They are sticky to the touch and can be very smelly. You are very close to reaching your goal = harvesting! Most importantly, buds are now covered in trichomes, which are rich glandules for secreting THC and other cannabinoids.
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.
Between day 1 and 21 of flower: during the first 3 weeks of flower your marijuana plant is going through an aggressive growth period (called the stretch phase), and any defoliation or pruning during this phase stunts its growth severely.
Short Answer: The smell starts at 3-6 weeks old (depending on strain) even in the vegetative stage.
Seed dispersal
The final stage in a flowering plant life cycle is seed dispersal. Seed dispersal can happen in so many different ways, and it all depends on how seeds and fruits have been adapted.
Lack of Pollination:
Most flower drops happen due to a lack of pollination. You can notice this, especially in blooms. If some buds around your garden are blooming and others fall off, it's because they didn't get pollinated.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Week 5 – Trichomes begin to ripen
At the halfway point of the flowering stage, your plants should be displaying easily recognizable buds with a good number of white pistils, though a few may have started to turn a brownish orange. Trichome covered buds will also begin to form along the main cola.
You'll want to lollipop your plants just before they begin flowering. We also recommend pruning—removing unnecessary branches—as well, although you should proceed slowly, and with a plan. Start with sharp, clean shears to prune your plants.
Pistils appear early on in the flowering stage. The first pistillate flowers to appear are often called “preflowers” because they don't resemble the large buds that develop later down the line. However, the first of these structures to appear are in fact full pistillate flowers.
Week One. 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”.
The flowering stage is when your plants will produce buds and what we commonly refer to as “weed”. During the flowering stage, your plants should be ready to harvest after 8-12 weeks, depending on the strain.
At the absolute minimum, you should wait until 50% of the trichomes are cloudy and 50% of the hairs have changed color. Again — do not harvest if fewer than 50% of the trichomes have turned milky. And do not harvest if fewer than 50% of the pistils have turned brown/orange.
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.
THC also slightly degrades with drying, and buds that are dried too quickly will experience a more significant decomposition of THC than those that are allowed to dry more slowly. An ideal time to dry cannabis is around 5-7 days.