Increasing the amount of CO₂ in your grow room can help you grow bigger, denser buds. By doing so, you'll help plants photosynthesise faster and encourage them to take up more nutrients and water.
Flowering – 5-20-5 or 5-25-10 – During flowering, you want to prioritize phosphorous to promote bud growth and make sure to limit nitrogen so your plant doesn't get too tall or “leggy.” You want it to concentrate on developing huge buds, not lots of stems or leaves, and phosphorus will make your buds grow.
Make sure to use a high-quality nutrient solution and follow the recommended feeding schedule for your plants. Also, maintaining the right temperature, humidity, and light levels in your grow space can significantly improve the size of your 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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Depending on the strain of weed you choose, it will take between 8-12 weeks for your plants to be ready for harvesting. Most strains of weed are ready for harvesting after 10 weeks.
In order to get more potency in the flowering stage, you want to inspire your plant to produce more resin-producing trichomes. You do this by cranking up blue, white, and UVB lights to 100% and backing red down to around 50%.
One possible reason your buds may have stopped maturing is the plant is “re-vegging.” “Re-vegging” means the plant is returning to the vegetative stage in which the plant only grows stems and leaves. Re-vegging happens most often when plants are somehow getting light during their 12-hour dark period.
General Hydroponic KoolBloom
Available as Liquid KoolBloom or Dry KoolBloom, this additive is widely regarded as the best bud hardener out there.
Are Small Buds more Potent? Small buds are generally the same potency as large nugs of the same strain. Small nugs come from the same plants as large nugs, they're simply pieces of flower that tended to get less light and thus didn't grow as large.
Topping to increase the number of colas
Prune to clear off dead leaves to help your plants focus their energy on the live parts of the plant. Prune large leaves which get in the way of light reaching the colas. Topping is a form of pruning and involves pruning off the branch tip of the main cola.
Weak Light Source: On a similar note to distant lights, a weak light source can cause unnecessary stretching and growth in your plants. A light bulb that does not emit the necessary watts and lumens for your specific growth stage can force plants to grow tall and skinny in order to absorb the weak light.
Fluffy buds don't only look less appetising, but you'll need to use more of your harvest every time you roll a blunt or hit a bowl. Dense buds will offer some resistance and spring back to their original shape. Airy buds will almost collapse in on themselves, and feel much more feeble to the touch.
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.
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.
Usually, growers trim the fan leaves weeks before harvest, which is a period that leads to senescence, a phase in the plant cycle when the larger leaves start fading away. It is safe to start removing these dying leaves and continue until harvest.
Molasses adds sugars to the plant and will help it to bud. Like us, plants need salts, nutrients, and sugars daily. Feeding your plants molasses, what could be considered the equivalent to our eating junk food sugars, will pack on the weight to your marijuana buds.
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. However, opinions on harvest time vary.
In general, the drying stage takes about 7–12 days, depending on the above factors. During this time, your buds will lose a lot of water, meaning they'll shrink in size and lose a lot of weight, too.
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.