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.
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.
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).
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.
When do Trichomes appear? Trichomes become more prominent during the third or fourth week of the flowering stage of your plants. At this phase, you should have already started inducing the needed nutrients that your plants need to improve trichome production and effectiveness.
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.
As your plant begins to flower, clear trichomes will start to develop. The translucent appearance signals that the trichome glands are beginning to produce resin and THC is at its highest concentration.
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%.
During week 2, the first white pistils will grow on the female cannabis plants. These fine, wispy white hairs develop at the locations where the big fan leaves meet the main stem. These white hairs are what later become the buds of the plant, called colas.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Late flowering / Ripening stage – week 6 to harvest
In the last few weeks, buds gain the most weight. They are sticky to the touch and can be very smelly.
Cannabis in the vegetative stage (when it is growing at a rapid pace) needs at least 13 hours of light per day. In fact, indoor growers commonly use an 18/6 light to dark ratio to encourage faster growth.
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.
So how do you know when it's time to harvest? The telltale sign of harvest-ready weed is when the hairs of the plant, or pistils, have fully darkened and curled in. If your buds are looking thick and dense, but there are still some straight white pistils, it's not time yet.
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.
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.
Often growers will plan a cannabis defoliation around the third week of bloom. After this point (in the second half of bloom) many growers feel the the plant shouldn't have to endure too much stress and should be allowed to focus her growth and energy towards bud/resin production.
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.
Clear trichomes indicate underdeveloped buds, whereas amber trichomes indicate overdeveloped flowers rich in CBN. Milky-white trichomes are the sweet spot, signalling buds full of THC. So if more than 15% of trichomes are amber, then your buds are becoming overripe.
Most of the ripe trichomes turn completely yellow while some of them could still be milky with a slight golden hue. You need to wait until 70% of trichomes have turned amber to get higher concentration of CBD and THC. This is the moment when most of the growers harvest their plant.