Short Answer: The smell starts at 3-6 weeks old (depending on strain) even in the vegetative stage.
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.
At week 4 of the flowering stage, your cannabis plants will likely have stopped growing altogether and are now spending all their energy on growing buds. There will still be white hairs sticking out from the buds, but the buds themselves will become bigger and fatter with each day.
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.
Week one is the transition stage between pre-flowering and full flowering when your plant switches from growing tall to producing buds. During this transition, some strains will double in height from what they were a week earlier. Because of this rapid growth, week one is commonly known as “the stretch”.
Flowering Week 2-3
Your plant will begin to form its reproductive organs that will differ depending on its sex. Female plants will create pistils — white hairs that will group near the large fan leaves as well as at the ends of each stem. These will grow larger over time, developing into fat buds.
More growth and stretching of the plants in Week 3
You will notice continued growth and stretching. You can see in the video how bushy everything has become. This rapid, almost non-stop growth is all a sign of the post-vegetative stretch that these plants go through after switching to the 12/12 light cycle.
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.
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.
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.
Days to 50% flowering was determined by recording the number of days following transplanting (DAT) until 50% of plants in a plot had at least one open flower.
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.
Week 5 – Trichomes begin to ripen
At the halfway point of the flowering stage, your plants should be displaying easily recognizable buds with a good number of white pistils, though a few may have started to turn a brownish orange. Trichome covered buds will also begin to form along the main cola.
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.
Use bloom boosters – When you give your plant a proven, cannabis-specific bloom booster, you're giving it the extra elements that help it grow bigger, denser, heavier and more potent buds. The less the plant has to make these elements itself, the more energy it can direct towards flowering.
Week 4 represents the peak of bushy overgrowth
As you can see in the video, plants in Week 4 are in need of heavy defoliation. At Smokey Okies Cannabis, we perform a heavy defoliation at the end of Week 2, and the end of Week 4. You could switch that up to Week 3 and 5, or Weeks 1, 2, and 4, etc.
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.
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.
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.
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.
After about three days, new shoots will sprout and you'll find bushy leaves after 3-7 days. The next defoliation can be carried on around week 3 of flowering (make sure that the plants have been recovered).
So there are three different times we recommend defoliating during Flower: Right before you switch to 12/12. Once between the beginning of Flower and the 3-week mark. 3 weeks after beginning flower is the last time you'll want to defoliate.
Question 3: Can you tell how many days will a bud take to bloom into a flower? Answer: A bud takes about five days to bloom into a flower. Let us try and find out. Question 4: Choose a bud that is growing on a plant and look at it every day.