The flowering stage is a significant milestone, especially for people who are new to cultivating cannabis plants.

It means that although you still have a long journey ahead, the finish line is now visible. Soon, you’ll be able to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

The flowering stage also signifies that you still have more work to do. You’ve hurdled a few challenges during the other stages of growth.

Now that your plants are entering the flowering period, you need to hold your focus to ensure that you get solid returns for your investment and avoid mishaps that can lower your yield.

The light, water, and nutrition requirements of cannabis plants change as they enter the different growth stages, including the flowering stage.

That is why it is essential to know when your plants have entered the marijuana flowering stage so that you can know what adjustments you need to make.

But if it’s your first time growing cannabis plants, how exactly do you know when they have entered the marijuana flowering stage?

Cannabis Plant Growth Stages

To better answer that question, it’s a good idea to learn the different growth stages a cannabis plant goes through.

Broadly speaking, cannabis plants take anywhere between 10 and 32 weeks to grow from seed to harvest.

Certainly, there are a few variables involved, including cannabis strains, whether you are growing indoors or outdoors or if you are cultivating an autoflowering strain.

Germination

The first growth stage of a marijuana plant, if you are starting with cannabis seeds, is the germination phase.

Ideally, your cannabis seeds should feel dry and hard and have a brown color. Otherwise, if the seeds feel soft and have a green color, there is a high likelihood that they won’t sprout.

After germination, your seeds are ready to be transferred to your preferred growing medium.

The seeds should have a taproot and two cotyledon leaves at this stage. These structures are important for the development of your cannabis plants.

Make sure that you don’t move around your cannabis seeds too much. Ideally, you should place the seeds in an area where there is stable temperature and humidity.

Go easy on watering your marijuana seeds. Err on the side of caution and avoid overwatering them.

The germination stage lasts between three and ten days. During this stage, your cannabis seeds should have around 18 hours of light if you are growing them indoors or six hours of direct sunlight if you are keeping them outdoors.

Seedling stage

Cannabis plants stay in the seedling stage for two to three weeks.

At this stage, you will begin to notice that the leaves of your seedlings take on the familiar cannabis leaves’ appearance. The new leaves that emerge have three to seven blades.

The seedling stage is crucial because your young marijuana plants are at their most vulnerable. Seedlings can succumb to diseases or mold.

This is why it is essential to ensure that your growing room or garden is clean and has the optimal amount of light and moisture.

In fact, it is better to keep your seedlings indoors under artificial lighting to facilitate faster growth.

Vegetative stage

The vegetative stage is where you will see rapid growth and development in your cannabis plants. This stage is also the best time to train your plants.

During this stage, your plants need more water compared to the two previous growth stages.

Along with an increase in their water requirements, your cannabis plants will also need more nutrients, especially nitrogen.

Flowering stage

The flowering stage is the final growth stage of cannabis plants.

For most growers, this is the growth stage that they anticipate the most because this is the period where their crops begin developing resinous buds.

Cannabis plants begin flowering in eight to nine weeks. However, there are some strains that take a longer time to begin developing flowers.

The flowering stage can be subdivided into three sub-flowering stages.

1. Flower initiation stage

The first three weeks of the flowering stage are called the flower initiation stage.

At this stage, your cannabis plants begin developing their pistils.

2. Mid-flowering stage

Cannabis plants enter the mid-flowering stage after four to five weeks.

During this time, your plants will stop growing and use their resources toward bud development.

3. Late flowering stage

Also known as the ripening stage, the late flowering stage is the time when you will see a massive increase in trichome density.

If you touch your cannabis plants, the first thing that you’ll notice is that they are sticky.

At this stage, growers must keep a close watch on the color of the pistils to determine whether their flowers are ready for harvest.

First Signs of Flowering – What to Look For

If you are still unfamiliar with the cannabis flowering stage, it’s helpful to have some knowledge about your marijuana plants’ anatomy.

This will make it easier for you to spot the signs that your cannabis plants have entered the flowering stage.

Anatomy of cannabis plants

One of the first parts that you need to inspect to determine if your plants have entered the flowering stage is their stems.

Specifically, you’ll need to check the main stem, which grows directly from the roots. The other stems or branches grow directly from the main stem.

Now, these branches contain the nodes which are necessary for flower growth. Nodes are also critical for the development of leaves.

Next, you’ll need to know what cannabis flowers are. Essentially, cannabis flowers are seed pods that have yet to be fertilized.

Nodes eventually develop into buds. Buds, on the other hand, can consist either of pistils or stigmas, depending on the sex of your cannabis plants.

Pistils and stigmas look like hairs. They are hair-like, for a reason, especially in female plants: they catch the pollen released by male plants.

Pistils contain bracts that look like tiny fingers. The pistils, along with the structure known as the calyxes, form the cannabis buds. The main purpose of the bract and calyx is to encapsulate fertilized eggs.

Inspecting your plant: signs to watch out for

Now that you have a basic idea of the anatomy of a cannabis plant, here are the signs to watch out for when you want to know if your crops are in the flowering stage.

Take note that most of these signs can be tricky to discover, especially if you don’t know exactly what you should be looking for in each cannabis plant.

Also, most of these signs usually appear after you switch to a 12/12 light cycle.

1. Stretching stems

One of the telltale signs that your crops have entered the cannabis flowering stage is that their stems have grown longer.

Seasoned growers call this phenomenon the post-vegetative or pre-flowering stretch.

Typically, this growth spurt lasts anywhere between two to three weeks.

During the pre-flowering stage, you will notice remarkable growth in your cannabis plants. It’s not unusual for marijuana plants to double or even triple their height during the early parts of the flowering stage.

After your plants are done stretching, they’ll focus their resources on producing buds.

2. Hair-like growth in the nodes

Eight to 12 days after switching to a 12/12 light cycle, you will notice hair-like growths on the nodes. These hair-like structures are the foundation of the calyxes.

Growers who plant regular seeds use this time to determine the sex of their marijuana plants.

Remember, if you are growing cannabis plants for their flowers, you’ll need to keep female plants and discard the males. Otherwise, you risk accidental pollination of your females.

You can distinguish female cannabis plants from male plants by looking at the pollen sacs which develop from the calyx. The pollen sacs have an uncanny resemblance to animal testicles, hence the nickname given by growers to them – nut sacks.

The hair-like structures typically appear in the second week. By the third week, you will immediately notice the pistils, even when you’re standing from a distance.

Around the fourth week, the sexual organs of the female plants begin to swell, forming the buds.

3. Bract enlargement

One final sign that your female cannabis plant has entered the weed flowering stage is that its bracts are enlarged.

Around week four, you will notice that the stretching of the stems has slowed down or stopped entirely.

You will also see that the bud sites begin to fill in, and the buds look more noticeable.

Around week five, the space between nodes should be filled, and the colas begin to form.

The stems, on the other hand, are noticeably stiffer compared to when your plants were in the vegetative growth stage.

What to Expect During the Pre-flowering Stage

The light cycle is critical for inducing your marijuana plants to enter the flowering stage.

This is particularly true if you are growing photoperiod cannabis seeds. With these cannabis seeds, you will need to transition them to a 12/12 light cycle.

With autoflower cannabis seeds, the plants will enter the flowering stage on their own without relying on the light cycle.

Instead, they will mature into flowering plants depending on a few factors, like reaching a specific height or age or, in some cases, having a certain number of nodes.

These are but a few reasons why autoflowering plants are less complicated, making them perfect for beginners.

With photoperiod plants, you will have a slight degree of control in terms of when you want to initiate the flowering stage.

But what should you expect when your plants leave the vegetative stage, and the flowering stage begins?

Week 1 of the Pre-flowering Stage

On average, the pre-flowering phase takes two weeks for photoperiod weed plants and one week for autoflowering cannabis seeds.

Cannabis genetics also influences the flowering cycle of the weed plant. For example, Sativa-dominant strains stay in the pre-flowering stage compared to Indica-dominant strains.

During this stage, you will notice white hairs on the nodes. This is one of the signs of the flowering stage. Or, to be more precise, this means that your weed plant is making the transition from vegetative growth to the flowering phase.

If you bought and planted regular cannabis seeds, this is the perfect time to sex your plants because, at this point, your plants will begin to exhibit their sexual characteristics.

Unless you are cultivating cannabis plants for breeding, you should cull your male plants. Otherwise, your flowering plants might be pollinated.

During the first few weeks of the flowering stage, you will also notice that your weed plants take on a bright light green color, especially in their bud sites.

This indicates that your marijuana plants are ready to grow more white hairs.

Week 2 of the Pre-flowering Stage

During this flowering phase, your plants’ nutritional needs will change.

In particular, your flowering plants will need less nitrogen and more phosphorus, potassium, and other nutrients.

During this stage, you will begin to notice your cannabis plants grow taller due to the flowering stretch. Weed plants need to grow as tall as they possibly can to ensure their survival.

The actual growth of your plants will depend heavily on their genetics. Some grow at a remarkable pace, while other strains don’t grow a lot.

The Actual Flowering Stage

Your cannabis plant will spend roughly two weeks in the pre-flowering stage. After that, it is ready to enter the actual flowering phase, where it will develop buds.

This is true whether you are growing indoors or growing outdoors.

After seeing the first signs of flowering, you will notice a few more other signs, indicating that your crops are well into the flowering cycle.

During this stage, you will see that the buds are starting to swell while your plants ramp up their trichome production.

It is also during this time that your flowering plants will emit that familiar skunky odor.

If you are growing indoors, this is the time when your air filters will need to work doubly hard to release the aroma of your flowering plants away from your grow room.

At this point, you will also need to ramp up your efforts in taking care of your female plants to ensure that you won’t encounter problems while your flowering plants go into their final growth stage.

It can take anywhere between five to 10 weeks for the completion of the flowering stage. Again, the actual time frame will depend on the cannabis strain you are cultivating.

Female vs. Male Plants – How to Tell the Difference

If you purchased regular cannabis seeds or if you are keen on becoming a breeder, one essential skill that you need to acquire and master is telling the difference between female and male weed plants.

The cannabis plant is dioecious, which simply means that it has two genders, male and female. However, there are instances where a plant can take a third gender called hermaphrodite. Hermaphroditic cannabis has the sex organs of both the male and female.

When can you gender weed plants?

You can determine a weed plant’s gender about a month after germination or while it is still in the vegetative stage.

Pre-flower characteristics usually appear a month after germination. However, it can still be tricky to tell the difference between males and females.

At around six weeks after germination, you can see the subtle differences between the females and males. It can be tricky at first, but with practice, you can get better at it.

How to tell if a plant is male

Usually, the sexual characteristics of the males appear one to two weeks earlier than the females.

Male weed plants develop their pollen sacs between nodes and stalks. To the untrained eye, the pollen sacs initially look like buds that the females produce.

However, pollen sacs don’t have protruding stigmas, unlike those that are found in buds. Aside from that, male pre-flowers have a spade-like shape.

Male plants also tend to grow taller than females. Additionally, males have thicker stems and fewer leaves.

How to tell if a cannabis plant is female

It is possible to distinguish a male from a female even during the pre-flowering stage.

One sure sign that you have a female is the appearance of the white hairs known as stigmas. Stigmas protrude from the tear-dropped shaped buds and are located at the intersection of the branches and main stem.

Stigmas appear about four to six weeks after germination. After some time, their color will grow darker.

How to tell if your plant is a hermaphrodite

Also known as hermies, hermaphrodites are marijuana plants that have both male and female sex organs.

Although there are strains that are naturally hermaphroditic, like the Thai Sativa, most hermies develop due to stress.

Stress can come in a variety of forms, including diseases, poor nutrition, and light cycle problems.

Unless you buy feminized seeds, you need to check your females to determine whether they are true females or hermies. Otherwise, the risk of self-pollination runs high.

Hermies contain buds and pollen sacs. Additionally, they have anthers that have a curved shape. These structures are found in the buds and have a yellow-to-green color.

Determining the gender of cannabis seeds

Is it possible to determine the gender of cannabis seeds before they germinate?

Unless you buy feminized cannabis seeds, there is no real way to tell if your plants will turn out to be male or female.

If you are growing cannabis seeds for their buds, it’s best to stick with feminized seeds. That way, you can use your resources more efficiently and minimize, if not totally eliminate, the possibility of pollinating your females.

Lab testing for cannabis plant gender

If you’re uncertain of your ability to distinguish between female and male plants, there is one option you can consider: chemical testing.

Chemical testing offers a few advantages, especially for those who are new to cultivating marijuana.

For one, you can determine the gender of a cannabis plant even before it reaches the vegetative stage. Leaf testing can be done as early as a week after the germination of your cannabis seeds.

Second, you can plant more efficiently, knowing that your plants are females.

However, leaf testing translates to added expenses.

To test a plant’s gender, you’ll need to submit a tissue sample from your plants. The rest of the work is done for you by the laboratory.

Inducing Your Cannabis Plant to Enter the Flowering Stage

Cannabis is categorized as a short-day plant. That simply means that it enters the flowering stage once the season transitions from summer to fall. This coincides with the shorter daylight available during this time.

In the northern hemisphere, most plants enter the flowering stage a month before the autumnal equinox. In the case of marijuana plants, their flowers are ready to harvest around the final week of October. However, there are some flowering cannabis strains that may take a bit longer than that.

Indica-dominant strains typically follow this pattern as they trace their lineage from cannabis strains that were developed in areas with hot summers and dark and cold winters.

Sativa-dominant and ruderalis strains, on the other hand, have a slightly different flowering cycle. Both strains flower automatically. With the ruderalis, the underlying cause is its genetics, while with the Sativa, the reasons are still unclear.

Inducing the flowering cycle for indoor plants

When it comes to the flowering stage outdoors, plants can be induced to produce buds with minimal intervention. This is especially true for Indica-strains.

But what if you are growing indoors? How can you coax your crops to go from the vegetative growth stage to the flowering stage?

If you are an indoor grower, the standard practice you can follow is to shift your plants from an 18 to 24 daylight scheme during the vegetative stage toward a 12/12 light schedule.

Some growers prefer to mimic the natural transition from summer to autumn by slowly decreasing daylight over the course of a two to three-week period.

There are also some growers that choose to give their vegging plants one to two days of total darkness before shifting to a 12/12 light cycle. These growers believe that total darkness can hasten the transition from the vegetative stage to the flowering phase.

Additionally, these growers believe that total darkness can facilitate the increase of the flowering hormone known as florigen in flowering plants.

Light cycle for Sativas and ruderalis

If you are cultivating a ruderalis strain indoors, you can provide your plants with 18 to 24 hours of daylight while still in the vegetative growth stage.

Sativa-dominant strains, on the other hand, thrive under an 18/6 and 12/12 light cycle. Other growers prefer a 14/10 light cycle, citing that those additional hours of darkness helps in increasing overall yield while reducing flowering time.

If you do choose this route, it is a good idea to start the flowering stage with a 12/12 light cycle and then transition to a 14/10 light cycle after a month.

Ensuring the Health of Your Flowering Plants

The start of the flowering phase is a critical time for your crops. And as such, there are a few variables that you have to get right to ensure that your plants remain healthy until harvest time.

Listed here are a few essentials that will help you achieve that goal.

1. Light

Light is essential for all the stages of the growth of your marijuana plants. However, never has lighting been more important than in the flowering stage.

Certainly, you need to maintain the appropriate light cycle scheme depending on the strain of marijuana that you’re cultivating.

But aside from that, it is essential that your plants get the appropriate hours of darkness.

Light contamination can adversely affect your harvest. For one, it can cause your buds to taste harsh.

Light contamination can also cause marijuana plants to revert to the vegetative stage or cause hermaphroditism.

As much as possible, maintain total darkness in your grow room. If you are an indoor grower, refuse the urge to take a look at your plants during their designated dark hours.

It is also a good idea to check for light leaks before the first few weeks of the flowering phase.

2. Temperature and humidity

As much as possible, keep the temperature in your grow room within an 18° to 26°C range.

If the temperature range goes below this recommendation, your plants can slow down their growth. Worse, when your plants are exposed to freezing temperatures for an extended period, they can get damaged.

High temperatures are just as bad for flowering cannabis. If it gets too hot in your grow room, you will need to face a host of problems, including slower growth, dried leaves, and high evaporation rates.

For the relative humidity in your grow room, it is best to keep it between 40% to 50%. Anything higher than that can make your flowering plants vulnerable to mold and fungi.

3. Flowering Stage Nutrition

Marijuana plants need nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium to thrive.

But once they enter the first few weeks of the flowering stage, you have to modify the ratio of these three nutrients. Before your plants start following, you need to increase their intake of phosphorus and potassium and decrease their intake of nitrogen.

Aside from these three nutrients, your plants will also need others, including sulfur, magnesium, calcium, zinc, boron, cobalt, copper, manganese, iron, molybdenum, and silicon.

However, be judicious in your use of nutrients. As the old adage goes, too much of a good thing can be bad. You might think that once your plants enter the flowering phase, they’ll need more nutrients.

But giving too many nutrients when your plants don’t need them can cause a nutrient burn. Nutrient burn happens when marijuana plants get too many nutrients.

Nutrient burns can lead to a nasty taste in the buds as well as cause irreparable damage.

Dried leaf tips indicate that nutrient burn is setting in. If you notice this, stop giving your plants nutrients. Afterward, check which nutrients your crops lack. From there, slowly introduce the nutrients they need.

4. Water

Like nutrients, water is another essential for cannabis growth and health. But it is also fairly easy to overwater your plants.

As much as possible, avoid overwatering your plants. A good rule to follow is to water your crops only when the top portion of their substrate is dry, about an inch or so.

Also, stick with substrates and containers that facilitate drainage.

5. pH level

Marijuana plants thrive at a pH level between six and 7. This pH level facilitates the optimum absorption of nutrients.

Anything lower or higher can lead to nutrient deficiencies.

6. Ventilation

Ventilation is also crucial for plants in the flowering stages, especially if you are an indoor grower.

Lack of proper airflow and ventilation can adversely affect humidity levels in your grow room. Worse, you might inadvertently invite bud rot, fungi, and mold.

As much as possible, invest in a quality ventilation system that will funnel stale air out and let fresh air in.

For smaller grow rooms, an exhaust fan can do a perfect job of facilitating air circulation. But if you have a larger grow room, you may want to invest in a dehumidifier.

Training During the Flowering Stage

Training your plants when you see the signs of the flowering stage is a good way to maximize your grow space and ensure maximum yield.

But what exactly does it mean to train your marijuana plants?

Training is done by cannabis cultivators for a variety of reasons. First, it helps plants develop stronger stems, especially if they are planted outdoors.

Training also helps increase yield by making marijuana plants stronger. Strong plants focus their energies on producing buds instead of reinforcing their stems.

There are different types of training methods, including vertical plant staking and horizontal plant training methods. But for flowering cannabis, the best method to use is Low Stress Training or LST.

What is LST?

LST is a cannabis training method that involves applying a low level of stress. This type of training helps your crops to become bushier and encourages them to grow wider.

When your marijuana plants are bushy, they tend to develop more bud sites. Additionally, the use of low stress techniques encourages the growth of high-potency buds.

LST entails pulling the branches away from the main stems. What it does is allow light to get to the lowest branches.

If you are an indoor grower, LST can also help you get the most out of your grow space by keeping your plants short.

With the use of the appropriate grow light, it is not unusual to double or triple the amount of bud sites in your marijuana plants.

LST concepts

To better understand why LST is an effective way to increase yields, it is critical to have some idea of how vegging plants grow.

Typically, marijuana plants grow from one main stem that produces smaller branches.

Now with LST, you bend the main branch at a certain distance away from the center. This allows more branches to grow and expose the leaves to more light.

In turn, this allows the plant to reach its full growth potential.

Many growers who practice LST talk about the sweet spot. What does that mean?

When it comes to LST, the sweet spot means achieving the right spacing to maximize the use of grow lights.

Usually, the farther the leaves are from a grow light, the less light they get. But aside from that, those leaves need to use more energy for photosynthesis.

When you reach the sweet spot through LST, the leaves get more light, and your crops can spend their energy on bud production.

Topping and LST

Topping is often used in conjunction with LST.

With topping, your goal is to entice your plants to develop more branches and, by extension, more bud sites.

Although topping is often practiced along with LST, that is not necessarily the case in most situations.

Specifically, you should avoid topping your autoflowering strains. Autoflower cannabis plants have a shorter growth cycle. Topping them will not give them sufficient time to recover.

Best strains for LST

Generally, most cannabis strains can thrive when undergoing LST. However, many growers say that Indica-dominant strains thrive best when trained this way.

Flowering Stage Tips for Success

Once you see the first signs of flowering, it is easy to fall into a state of complacency. But your job’s not yet finished. You still have a long road ahead before you can truly enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Here are a few tips that will help you and your plants head through the finish line while minimizing potential hassles along the way.

1. Use your best plants.

It’s easy to understand why some growers, especially the new ones, want to bring all of their plants to the flowering phase.

However, that isn’t exactly a good idea. For one, you can end up wasting your resources. Second, some plants may not be entirely suitable for bearing buds.

One way to ensure that only the best plants move to the next growth cycle is to plant as many cannabis seeds as you possibly can.

Although that may mean investing more resources early on, the advantage of this is that you will have more plants to choose from.

2. Know your plants’ sex ASAP

The first few weeks of the flowering stage is the best time to check the gender of your plants. And unless you grow seeds of regular photoperiod strains, you shouldn’t put off this task.

Check your plants’ sex as soon as you possibly can. Otherwise, you risk pollinating your females. That’s not necessarily a bad thing if you are keen on breeding and developing new strains. But if you are cultivating your plants for their buds, pollination is simply bad news.

Once you have determined the gender of your plants, it’s a good idea to look at them again. There’s some risk that some of them can turn out to be hermies, especially when exposed to stressful conditions.

Remember, hermies can also pollinate themselves as well as your females.

3. Prep your plants

Make sure that your plants are healthy a few weeks before they leave the vegetative stage and enter the flowering stage.

The last few weeks of the vegetative stage are the best time to troubleshoot issues like nutrient deficiencies, pest infestations, and yellowing leaves.

If your plants have been dealing with fungi, the first two weeks of the flowering stage are the best time to apply fungicides like neem oil.

Neem oil can be used to help your plants deal with pests like budworms, powdery mildew, and mold.

Upon seeing the first signs of flowering, you should stop practices like transplanting and training. These are stressful to plants and can lead to the growth of hermaphrodites among your crops.

4. Make the transition easier for your plants.

Transitioning into the flowering stage means that your plants’ growth requirements change.

But instead of changing your crops’ nutrients and your grow space’s temperature and humidity levels in one go, it is a better idea to make these changes gradually.

The last thing that you’d want to happen is to stress your plants with these changes.

During the flowering stage, outdoor growers only need to make one vital change – nutrition. That’s the only thing that you can control.

During your plants’ last days at the vegetative growth stage, begin implementing a few changes to their nutritional regimen to allow them to make a seamless transition and prevent shock.

Indoor growers, on the other hand, can make minor adjustments to the lighting, temperature, and humidity levels in their grow spaces.

Most growers adjust the temperature in their grow spaces before modifying humidity levels. After these, you can then modify the light cycle of your plants.

5. Trim your plants

Before entering the flowering stage, it is a good idea to remove the lower leaves and branches. The main idea behind this is that these parts won’t get enough light and will only compete with other branches and leaves for precious resources.

The best time to do this is one or two weeks during the flowering stage.

6. Prevent root damage

Before your plants transition to the flowering stage, it is a good idea to brace them.

Using netting or stakes helps strengthen the plants and allows their roots to become more stable.

Remember, once your plants produce buds, they will need to support a heavier weight.

Facilitate airflow in your grow space

Aside from investing in ventilation, there are a few things that you can do to improve airflow in your grow space.

One such thing is ensuring that there is adequate space between all your plants.

With enough space, you can prevent light hotspots and ensure the optimal exchange between oxygen and carbon dioxide among your plants. Good airflow can also prevent problems like mildew.

To achieve these goals, you might want more circulating fans inside your grow space. It’s also a good practice to monitor the relative humidity in your grow space periodically.

7. Make sure that you use the right light spectrum.

Aside from transitioning your plants to a different light cycle during the flowering stage, you should also make sure that you are using the optimal light spectrum.

During the flowering stage, your plants will need more red spectrum lights and less blue spectrum lights.

Of course, this is just a general guideline. Your plants’ specific strains may have different requirements in terms of the light spectrum. It is up to you to experiment with which spectrum works best for your plants.

The easiest way to do that is to find grow lights that can be easily adjusted depending on your plants’ requirements.

8. Optimize your grow space

Relative humidity, temperature, and CO2 levels are but a few of the variables that you need to get right once your plants are in the flowering stages.

Your flowering cannabis needs a relative humidity level below 45%. Go higher than that, and you risk dealing with bud rot. When bud rot sets in, you will certainly face an uphill battle.

During the daytime, it is best to keep the temperature at 75°F. You can lower the temperature to 65°F during nighttime.

As for CO2 levels, it is a good practice to keep it between 1,000 and 1,200 ppm. This range will facilitate optimal bud production.

However, these recommendations can change depending on the strain you are growing.

9. Nail down proper nutrition

Plant nutrition during the flowering stage can be tricky. You need to find the sweet spot between over and underfeeding, which can harm your crops.

The first thing that you need to understand is that your plants’ nutrient requirements change depending on their growth phase.

Specifically, you will need to change the ratio of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium depending on the growth phase.

During the veg phase, the ratio is usually 6-3-2, 4-2-1, or 2-1-1. Once in the flowering stage, you will need to taper down nitrogen while increasing the other nutrients.

10. Consider using molasses

Friendly bacteria live in the soil you use as a substrate for your crops. These microorganisms can help your plants grow bigger and denser buds by facilitating the optimal intake of nutrients from the soil.

Soil bacteria can also help make marijuana flowers stickier and taste sweeter. There are also some growers who report a massive increase in their yields.

But how do you ensure that the friendly bacteria help you?

The simplest thing that you can do is to use molasses. The microorganisms feed on molasses and, in turn, reward you with the aforementioned benefits.

To use molasses, you can apply a small amount, like a fertilizer, when you are watering your plants.

But a word of caution: do not use other carbohydrates or sugar sources. They may feed friendly bacteria, but they can also attract pests.

Also, molasses only works if you are using soil as a substrate. Do not use molasses if you have a hydroponic setup. Molasses can clog up your system and damage your filters.

11. Genetics matters

Even if you pour all your resources towards your crops to ensure their growth and flower production, you just can’t expect to get a high yield if their genetics are poor.

Even seasoned growers can do little to change what genetics dictates.

This is why it is important to start right and grow seeds that have excellent genetics.

12. Troubleshoot problems before they worsen

Make it a habit to regularly monitor and inspect your crops. This will give you enough time to rectify mistakes before they spiral out of your control.

Take yellowing leaves, for example. It is normal to see a few yellowing leaves here and there. But when you see many plants with yellow leaves, it might indicate that your crops are suffering from nutrition problems or light burns.

Foxtailing is another sign of light burn. This occurs when a new bud comes out from the side of another bud.

This problem means that there is something wrong with the heat or light in your grow room. Left unchecked, this can lead to discolored buds and lower THC levels.

13. Be flexible and adjust.

Early on, be clear about your goals. Perhaps you are planting cannabis for THC extraction. Or maybe you want to focus on bag appeal or potency.

Your goals will dictate the type and amount of work you have to put in.

And if you watch your crops closely, you need to be flexible to adjust your practices to ensure that you achieve your goals.

Enjoy the Process

Seeing the first signs of flowering is a source of pride for growers. That is true whether you planted your first batch of cannabis plants or if you are already a seasoned veteran with years of experience.

But the first signs of bud growth do not mean that your work is already done. There are plenty of things that you still need to do, and you cannot afford to be complacent. When your crops start flowering, you need to double up on your efforts to ensure that your plants go to the harvesting period healthy and with abundant buds.

Sure, that sounds like plenty of hard work. But with the finish line becoming more visible, you can use that as motivation.

Want more practical tips and advice about growing marijuana? Explore our blog page for more helpful resources.