Cannabis Flowering Stages Guide

Cannabis Flowering Week by Week

This period or stage is when your plant is almost ready to be smoked, used for medicinal purposes, or other things you desire. This is a critical stage because all the hard work you have done since the seedling stage may become worthless if this stage is not properly handled.

The flowering plant stage is achieved when your marijuana plant undergoes hours of darkness after they have stopped growing. The outcome produces buds, which can also be called flowers.

In an outdoor plantation, it occurs when summer is about to end, but in a grow room, you can induce the flowering stage once you set your grow light timer to twelve hours darkness. Before you do this, please make sure your marijuana plants have spent at least three weeks or eighteen days in the vegetative stage.

For your marijuana buds to achieve maturity, experienced growers believe it must at least spend around seven to nine weeks in the flowering stage. Note: some marijuana strains spend more than nine weeks in their vegetative stage.

The particular strain you have in your grow room will determine the outcome of the marijuana flowering stage. Growth in the flowering stage varies depending on strains, but there are some necessary steps, this post will show you what to expect every week during the flowering stage.

The First Week

This period is also known as the transition era or the stretch period. Please note that not all strains stop growing during the flowering stage, make room for more growth, and create space for adequate ventilation because some strains still need to expand and stretch at this stage.

Some strains go through a drastic increase in size during this period, with almost two times their previous height. The initial step is to prepare to carry a bunch of buds. Marijuana spends the early flowering period developing its height and size, sprout new leaves and ensuring stronger stems.

Some growers reduce the rate of nutrients they give to their marijuana, especially at the flowering stage, but it is inadvisable to reduce the rate of nutrients you give your plant during this stage.

You should maintain the flow of nutrients you give to your plants to ensure they won’t suffer from nutrients deficiency, so it doesn’t affect the buds. If you are using the indoor method, then you might not have a grow room that can contain their height at this stage, try to get a guide like the low-stress trainer (LST).

LST is a technique that teaches how to bend marijuana stem gently, so it doesn’t grow too tall, making it containable in the grow room. Do not bend the stem before the flowering stage; allow the plant to reach this stage of growth before you use the techniques. If this is done perfectly, your marijuana plant will form a canopy in the grow room.

The Second Week

You may detect white pistils around your female marijuana. Good-looking white pistils usually develop when you see a stem near marijuana leaves. Most times, these pistils are the hair-like part that produces buds.

Male marijuana plants don’t grow pistils because they don’t produce buds; you can only see little pollen sacs around where you would have found buds in female marijuana. This stage will reveal the gender of your plant to you if you are a beginner and unfamiliar with how to differentiate between male and female marijuana.

Females eventually produce buds, while males have pollen sacs. Most growers don’t prefer the males to fertilize the female because the seed will be provided after the pollination. Be ready to increase the nutrients you give your plant in the second week. If you do this, you are assured of having high-yield buds.

The Third Week

Remember that till this stage, your marijuana plant is still growing, and it will surprise you that it is 40% bigger in size than what it was three weeks earlier in this period, though the growth is not as drastic as it was in the first week. It is still growing and stretching slowly.

Remember that in the previous week, it produced pistils. In the third week, you can witness the pistils turning into buds, but it is gradually gaining maturity at this stage. Potent marijuana with trichomes and resin depots is yet to be produced at this stage, which means that the aromatic smell is still lacking.

We can’t overemphasize the addition of nutrients at this stage.

Your plant consumes so many nutrients producing buds, and you are required to double the number of nutrients that you are giving to your marijuana plants during the vegetative stage. Don’t just give nutrients and ruin your plant at this stage. Read instructions and the right dosage on the nutrient before applying it to your plant.

Note that there is a term called “nutrient burn” which means you are overfeeding your plant, if you discover your plant leaves are turning yellow or some parts are losing their leaves then you need to feed them in moderation (reduce feeding by 50%). There are other signs you should look at during this stage and resolve it fast, to avoid losing your investments.

The Fourth Week

Marijuana plants finally stop growing at the fourth week of the flowering stage though some strains continuously grow. With more pistils turning to buds at this stage and already produced buds becoming bigger and sturdier. After the entire process, the trichome is produced, and you will begin to smell your marijuana plant.

All the nutrients in the plants are now used to grow buds because they have stopped growing in other parts of the tree. If you still have more space on the roof of your tent, you can now consider straightening the stem of the plant you bent previously, but there is no adverse effect if you leave it as is till you harvest.

The Fifth Week

The buds are visible at this stage. They are growing to think while some buds are just sprouting around the cola area of the plant. One sign you will notice at the stage is that the entire plant is a growing thinker, which some growers call the Sunfire sign.

If you are in an environment that doesn’t legalize people to grow marijuana, ensure to have a proper ventilation and extractor fan at this stage because the trichomes will be matured, and the aromatic smell will be pronounced.

You are about to approach harvest day, and you will discover some parts are changing colors. The signs that will indicate harvest time and the white pistils that did not change into buds will turn amber or darkish brown, while some pistils will turn opaque.

Concerning the trichomes, which give the sweet aroma, it starts producing a whitish substance at this stage and eventually becomes dark.

The Sixth-Seventh-Eight Weeks

Let’s combine the sixth, seventh, and eighth week. This period can also be called the late flowering era or ‘just before harvest.’ Though most marijuana strains are fully developed and ready to be harvested before the eighth week of the flowering stage.

Flushing Marijuana Plant

It is recommended to flush your marijuana plant fourteen days before harvest. Flushing means you should end the application of nutrients and start giving only PH-balanced water.

PH balance water helps you to get rid of nutrients and salt in your soil that allow a potent bud. Suppose you didn’t flush your marijuana plant before harvest. In that case, the aroma will be unpleasant, and you might indirectly inhale harmful chemicals.

How to Know the Harvest Day

It is easy to know if it’s harvest day. You can use a handheld microscope and a simple tool called jeweler’s loupe to know your marijuana plant harvest day. What a handheld microscope does is for you to continually observe your marijuana trichome under it while the jeweler’s loupe is specially made for harvest and specifically tell you the harvest day.

There are also ways to know the harvest day if you don’t have any tools to use, check the trichomes that give marijuana its aroma if it has started producing whitish milk. If the trichome is still transparent and has not started producing milk, then it is not yet time for harvest.

Whenever you notice an opaque or amber color in your trichome, please remember that it is the best time to harvest because the THC of your marijuana is also moderate at this point.

In conclusion, this harvesting technique also works for an outdoor plant. The flowering stage is one of the most delicate phases in cultivating marijuana because you can quickly lose all your investments and time if you have done this the wrong way.

Flushing is essential before any harvest, marijuana plants that are not flushed lose their aromatic smell and potency. You can force your plant to achieve the flowering stage, but it is wrong to force the harvest time, be patient, and you will get the best result.