The flowering stage is the period when a cannabis plant produces its inflorescences. In photoperiod plants it begins when the night becomes long enough; in autoflowers it begins at a set age. It ends at harvest, or, for seed crops, at seed maturity.
In practice
Indoors, a typical photoperiod flower runs 7-10 weeks for most hybrids and 11-16 weeks or more for some long-flowering equatorial types. It falls into rough phases:
- Transition and stretch (weeks 1-3): rapid elongation, often 50-200% height gain, first clusters of stigmas.
- Bulking (weeks 3-6 or so): bud mass and trichome density build fast.
- Ripening (final 2-3 weeks): bracts swell, trichome heads turn cloudy then partly amber, fan leaves may yellow.
Climate shifts with it: RH typically drops from about 50-60% early to 40-50% late to protect dense colas from botrytis.
House position: the last weeks are when the plant packs on most of its final weight and resin. Keep feeding (taper nitrogen rather than starving the plant) and keep the lights on. See the flush debate.
Don't confuse with
- Pre-flowering: early single flowers at nodes during veg.
- Flip: the act of changing the light schedule.
- Senescence: the ageing at the end of flower, not the whole stage.
The daily length of light versus dark; photoperiod cannabis flowers when nights grow long enough, rather than at a fixed age.A day-neutral cannabis plant that starts flowering by age, usually a few weeks after germination, regardless of light schedule; the trait is mainly recessive.A hybrid is the offspring of two genetically different parents; almost all modern cannabis is hybrid, built from crosses between landrace-derived and other lines.A hair-like outgrowth of the plant's skin; in cannabis the glandular types make and store the resin holding cannabinoids and terpenes.Trichome heads are the bulbous resin-filled tops of capitate glandular trichomes, where cannabis makes and stores nearly all its cannabinoids and terpenes; they are the raw material of hash.Relative humidity is the water vapour in air as a percentage of what it could hold at that temperature, so the same RH dries plants differently at different temperatures.Gradually cutting nitrogen in late flower, toward zero near the finish, while still feeding phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur and micronutrients; GenetixBay's alternative to flushing.The programmed ageing and breakdown of leaves and other tissues, in which the plant recycles nutrients (especially nitrogen) from old leaves to developing flowers and seeds.The first individual flowers that form at stem nodes during late vegetative growth, letting a grower tell male from female before full flowering.The span of days, often one to two weeks, in which a cannabis plant is ripe enough to cut, judged mainly by trichome head colour and bud development.
