During Weeks 3 through 6, your buds will grow the most. You will see buds really develop in size between Week 4 and Week 5. By Week 6, your buds will look totally different in size from just two weeks prior.
By weeks 5 and 6, your plants will be well into flowering. Their buds should be big, thick, and loaded with white pistils. They will also be developing a thick coat of trichomes, which should be giving off a nice, pungent aroma.
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.
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.
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.
By week six, your crop's flowers will have reached their full size. While your plants may look and smell amazing, the show is far from over. Over the next two weeks, the resin glands and flowering hairs of your plants will slowly begin to deteriorate, adding new colors, flavors, aromas, and psychoactive effects.
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.
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.
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.
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. You will notice that the colas are filling our.
The bigger the leaf area, the bigger your buds will be. Nitrogen is the nutrient needed most for this green growth. When plants reach their mature size and begin flowering, they need more phosphorus, the nutrient most essential for budding.
Because bud formation starts after 7 hours of dark period, it is also wise to always maintain a minimum day length of 17 to 18 hours during the vegetative period. A dark period of 12 hours is used as a standard in cannabis to ensure a smooth flowering process.
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 ...
It is in Week 5 that the buds really begin to fill out. Even more growth will occur in Week 6 and beyond. If you recall the vegetative look and feel of the first three weeks, Week 4 represented a distinct shift away from veg and into flower.
Week 6-8: Buds Ripen, Pistils Darken
It's normal for some of the bottom leaves to begin to turn yellow as the plant continues to put its energy in the leaves and buds getting the most direct light, though the plant should still be mostly green from top to bottom even in week 6-8.
Brown: A dark brown colour on the top section of a pistil hair indicates that fertilisation has taken place. After a particular pistillate flower becomes fertilised by male pollen, the stigma has fulfilled its role and begins to die back, turning brown and shrivelled.
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.
Some people also believe large buds are more flavorful and potent. But the reality is, you can get the same good quality flower when you buy small buds - so you'll save money just because they're less popular. And because the potency is the same, there is no reason to pay the higher price!
Any kind of stress, be it from poor watering, a lack or excess of nutrients, the environment, pests, plagues, or improper care, can affect a plant's ability to grow big, dense flowers.
Higher THC
Trichomes are present on all marijuana plants, but sticky plants have the most and therefore generate the most THC on their tips. Since THC is one of many factors that affect an individual's “highness” from weed, sticky weed will often be more potent than dry weed of the same strain.
You can tell if your flower is ready for curing by giving it a gentle squish between your fingers. It should be spongy and still a bit sticky. If it feels wet or moist, it needs more time to dry. If you are dry trimming, the flower is dried if you can snap the branches rather than them bending.
Depending on the strain, it takes 3 to 10 days for your plants to be optimally dried. We know it is hard! You can tell they are ready when the outside of the buds feels dry to the touch. If you used the hanging method, it is ready when stems snap clean off versus bending or tearing.
If it's not in their genes, it could also be due to a lack of phosphorus which tends to come out during the flowering phase, maintaining a healthy green during the growth period and at around the fourth flowering week the leaves will begin turning purple, lilac or slightly red.
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.
Bud structure
High quality, developed flower from a healthy plant has a sturdy, fully three-dimensional structure. The buds should be solid, with no gaps that you can look through. It's properly cured: not too soft, but not so dry that it grinds down to dust. Flower with poor structure will appear flimsy and flat.