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.
Whether they're grown indoors or outdoors, it's impossible to get the same amount of light on all sides of the plant. Because of this, there are always some buds that are smaller than others. These smaller buds usually grow near the base where there isn't enough light for them to grow large.
When plants are so leafy that air and light can't get through the plant, the buds don't get as dense as they could. These plants are too leafy for the flowering stage. Buds won't fatten far into the plant, and won't be as dense as they could be.
Week 4. 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.
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.
To some degree, more light translates to fatter buds and higher yields (you'll need to pay attention to the distance between your grow light and plants or your plant may suffer from light burn). Increasing light intensity is the most effective way to fatten up buds.
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.
Around week 8 of the flowering stage, buds will start fattening quickly. You'll see that trichomes and pistils are maturing and changing colors. Usually, when trichomes turn from transparent to a milky/whiteish color (and maybe 5-10% of them turn amber), your plant is ready for harvesting.
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).
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.
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.
Light burn may also cause loose and airy buds. That's because the excess light causes nutrient deficiencies as plants struggle to overcome their heat and thirst. Fortunately, you don't have to wait for these symptoms to emerge to know whether greenhouse lighting is too strong.
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.
There is more to trimming buds than for aesthetic purposes. Aside from making your favorite strains look neater when they hit the dispensaries, removing the protruding leaves also help create an optimized flavor. The leaves, called sugar leaves, on your buds have lesser trichome concentration.
At the absolute minimum, you should wait until 50% of the trichomes are cloudy and 50% of the hairs have changed color. Again — do not harvest if fewer than 50% of the trichomes have turned milky. And do not harvest if fewer than 50% of the pistils have turned brown/orange.
Late flowering / Ripening stage – week 6 to harvest
They are sticky to the touch and can be very smelly. You are very close to reaching your goal = harvesting! Most importantly, buds are now covered in trichomes, which are rich glandules for secreting THC and other cannabinoids.
When Do I Know My Buds Are Properly Dried And Ready To Cure? There's a simple test to know if your buds are dry: Simply take a small branch and try to bend it. If it snaps, your buds are dry and you're ready to move on to the curing process. If they bend, your buds need a little longer to dry.
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 ...
Just around 8-10 weeks is when you get to see the buds in their full glory. It's also when the smell of cannabis often starts to get overpowering! Your plants are probably STINKING up everything around them! At this point it's completely normal for your plant leaves to start yellowing, sometimes rapidly.
The biggest changes that you will witness in the sixth week of flowering is the amount of weight that has been added to the buds. 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 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.
Removing the moisture brings the buds to the highest of their THC yield. Try keeping your buds in a glass jar for a week and see if you notice the difference. Also, get one of these Boveda humidity-absorbing packs that can also help you keep a crisp bud!
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.