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here: Issue #314 - Sunday, April 22, 2018
Dear Fellow Grower,
In today's issue... - Learn what to expect during the cannabis flowering stage, including what buds look like at each stage of development, and what problems to be worried about!
- Ahhhh...nothing beats the feeling of having the right specialized tool for a specialized job, right? Below, you can check out our list of specialized tools for a specialized hobby we all enjoy: cannabis growing!
- A forest, some fine flowers...and a frog. This weeks group of trophy pics are a fun array you don't see
everyday!
Nebula Haze & Sirius Fourside (founders of GrowWeedEasy.com) "Remember that
children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get."
~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
The Dance of the Flowering Stage by Nebula Haze |
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Introduction to the Cannabis Flowering Stage
During the phase of life known as the vegetative stage (the first stage of life for marijuana), a cannabis plant grows about how you'd
expect... like a weed! In the vegetative stage a cannabis plant only grows new stems and leaves, and can grow several inches a day with the added ability to recover from just about anything!
Even if you run into major problems in the vegetative stage, you can bring your plant back from the brink of death simply by addressing the problem and giving your plant some TLC.
In the vegetative
stage, your cannabis plant only grows stems and leaves and is resistant to problems. It grows like a weed!
However, things aren't so rosy in cannabis flowering stage. In the flowering stage your cannabis plant grows very differently and is much more sensitive to problems. The tricky thing about the
flowering stage is that you don't have much room for error and big mistakes can lower your yields.
In order to maximize your yields, it's important to know what to focus on during each part of the flowering stage. It's also really helpful to know what to expect so you know when something is going wrong!
The Dance of the Flowering
Cycle
This flowering stage "walk through" will explain exactly what to expect week-by-week while your plant is making buds, and it'll tell you what you need to do to ensure you get to harvest with the best bud quality and yields possible!
Week 1-3: Transition
to Flowering
When growing cannabis indoors, the flowering stage begins when you change your grow lights to a 12/12 light cycle (12 hours light, 12 hours darkness each day). Getting those 12 hours of
uninterrupted darkness each day gives your plant the signal that it's time to start flowering. In a way the plant "thinks" winter is coming because the days are getting short.
Note: It's common to think that a cannabis plant getting 12 or less hours of light is what initiates flowering, but it's actually uninterrupted darkness that does the trick! If the plant gets any light during the dark
period, even for just a minute, it won't make buds! In fact, a flowering plant may even revert back or express hermaphroditism if it gets any light at
night!
Outdoors, it's also the days getting shorter that cause a cannabis plant to start making buds in late summer, but outdoor buds develop on different schedules depending on the local climate. This tutorial is meant to explain how a cannabis plant usually develops when grown indoors, since that is done under controlled conditions, and plants tend to grow the same way.
For the purposes of this tutorial, the flowering stage starts the day you switch to 12/12 Autoflowering strains of cannabis don't need special light periods to start flowering,
however the cannabis flowering timeline in this tutorial is a good general guideline for indoor auto-flowering strains, too. Their "vegetative stage" lasts about 3-4 weeks, so as long as you start counting at week 3-4 from seed (when they start getting their first pistils) this flowering timeline will generally apply to autos too, though sometimes they finish up faster.
During the first few weeks after being switched to a 12/12 schedule,
your plant will be growing like crazy and rapidly gaining height. In fact, a cannabis plant can (and frequently will) almost double in height after the switch to 12/12. This period of super-fast and often stretchy growth is sometimes referred to as the "flowering stretch."
Example of
flowering stretch - what to expect
Pre-Stretch - just before 12/12
Post-Stretch - 4 weeks after 12/12 Although your female plants will start sprouting lots of white pistils, they usually won't start growing "real" buds with substance quite yet. If you're new to growing cannabis, it's very important to note that only female cannabis plants make buds.
If your plant is male, it will start growing distinct pollen sacs and should be removed from the grow room immediately to prevent it from pollinating your female plants and causing 'seedy' buds. Learn where to get feminized (all-female) seeds online so you don't have to worry about male plants.
Remove any plants growing pollen sacs instead of pistils, because they are male and won't make buds. Plus, they can pollinate your female plants and cause them to grow seeds!
Female plants should be growing pistils wherever a fan leaf meets a main stem. They look like white wispy hairs emerging from the joints During the first few weeks of the flowering stage, you will see bunches of single leaves forming at the tops of your main colas (like in this pic). Soon white pistils will start coming out of the middle of the
bunches, and they will become your main buds! During week 1-3 of the flowering stage, your plant will mostly be producing new stems and leaves as it grows taller. Right now, your plant is still very resilient and can handle problems just like in the vegetative stage. However, it's
still very important to avoid problems and take great care of your plant!
As part of the stretch, your plant will be growing out its bud sites. Stunting growth at this point could cause the plant to make smaller and fewer bud sites than it would if it were healthy and growing fast.
If you have more room in your grow space under the light to spread your plants out, or if you are running out
of headroom, it is important to gently bend stretching stems down and away from the center of the plant to help maintain a flat canopy (a technique known as low-stress training).
During the stretch, gently bend new
stems down to try to maintain a flat, even canopyIf you keep up with it during the stretch, you can prevent any one stem from getting much taller than the others
When stems are new, they are flexible and easy to bend, but they quickly harden up and turn woody. By keeping a close eye on your plant and bending any too-tall branches down and away from the
center of the plant as soon as you can, you will maximize your yields since that flat shape will most efficiently use your grow lights. If all your main bud sites are spread out and about the same height, you can increase your yields by up to 40% or more!
Spreading out your bud sites and maintaining a flat canopy can increase cannabis yields by as much as 40%...or even more!
At this point, you only have a few weeks left until you lose the ability to do any further training, so don't miss this last opportunity to control the shape of your plant, especially if you're running out of room!
Week 3-4: Budlets Form
The mad stretching of the first few weeks will start to slow down in week 3-4, but your cannabis plant will still be growing upward. At this point you'll actually start to see real buds instead of just hairs (I like to call them "budlets" during this stage) and all the pistils will be white and sticking
almost straight out.
"Budlets" start forming where buds will be, with white pistils sticking straight out Your plant is going to start getting a little picky about the environment and nutrients in week 3-4 so it's important to keep a close eye on your garden. You need to make sure your plant stays healthy all the way to the end of the flowering stage, and you've still got more than a month to go so you don't want your plant to run into any major health problems now!
Be especially aware of leaf symptoms, for example: discolored/yellow leaves, or if your plant starts rapidly losing leaves. It's completely normal to lose a few leaves at this stage, especially leaves that aren't getting light (which often look like they may have a nutrient deficiency and then fall off, but it's just your plant cannibalizing the leaf since it isn't getting any more light). That being said, overall your entire plant should still be lush and green in
week 3-4 while your budlets are forming.
As your plant continues through the flowering stage, it's normal to see a few yellow or discolored leaves near the bottom of the plant, especially in the places where the leaves are no longer getting light. This isn't anything to worry about if it's just a few leaves as the plant is putting its energy to the top of the plant and the buds.
But it's not normal for your plant to be yellowing or losing leaves rapidly like this
Another thing to be aware of is nutrient burn. This is what happens when you give your plants too-high levels of nutrients - the tips of all the leaves actually get "burned." While a little bit of nutrient burn won't hurt your plant, it's important to try to avoid it if you can. Your plant can never recover the parts of the leaves
lost to nutrient burn, so if you accidentally give too much nutrients in the future, the burning will start "climbing" up the "fingers" of the leaves. Cannabis leaves tend to look much less appealing/pretty as more of each leaf gets burned. However, even cannabis plants with severe nutrient burn can produce good bud, so don't give up if you run into this problem!
Try your best to avoid nutrient burn (burnt leaf
tips caused by too-high levels of nutrients), as it can only get worse as the flowering stage continues.
When nutrient burn starts getting bad, it can actually start discoloring your sugar leaves (the small single-finger leaves emerging from your buds). If nutrient burn reaches the base of the sugar leaves, you won't be able to trim it off
at harvest so your buds will end up with yellow/brown spots where all the leaves were burned.
Nutrient deficiencies can also cause the same problem if left unchecked. This doesn't necessarily affect the potency but buds don't look as good as they could have.
So to grow
bud you're proud of, you'll want to be aware of avoiding nutrient burn from the beginning. Since your plant isn't really growing many more leaves, you need to really care for the ones it has left.
If they haven't already, your plants may start to smell!
Some strains like Blue Mystic and Northern Light are known for having relatively low smells, but many strains can start getting
pungent quickly! Whew! That was only half of the article! To finish reading, click here or on the link below to continue the article on GrowWeedEasy.com.
Week 4-6 - Buds Start Fattening Up
Week 6-8 - Buds Ripen, Pistils Darken - some strains spend longer in this stageWeek 8+ - Flowering Ends, Final Flush, Harvest
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One of the toughest parts of becoming good at growing cannabis - or pretty much any other skill for that matter - is learning how to improvise. At some point in every grower's career, they will run into a problem that needs a custom-tailored solution.
However, that being said, nothing beats having the right tool for the job. And we've assembled a page that can ultimately save you a ton of time and effort when it comes to growing your own cannabis!
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Who Runs This
Newsletter? |
Nebula Haze:
I'll be honest with you, when I first started growing, I struggled. Now, it is my mission to
make it easier for new growers to get started as well as help advanced growers get bigger, better yields with less time and money. We are updating and adding articles every single week and our goal is to eventually build a comprehensive growing resource so anyone and everyone can grow if they want to! If we all share the knowledge there's more buds in the world for everyone :) |
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Learn which seed sources are personally recommended by Nebula Haze |
Sirius Fourside:
Sirius Fourside is a hobbyist grower who has gained the bulk of his experience growing in water as a medium (deep water culture, bubbleponics).
"Growing cannabis can be a relaxing hobby in and of itself, but it also saves you money and keeps you from having to deal with shady characters. Cannabis is much easier to grow than people give it credit for, and growing in water
doesn't increase the difficulty much, if any. But whether you want to grow in water, coco, or a different medium, we'll show you how easy it can be!"
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