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Indoors, you must change to a 12-12 light schedule, with 12 hours of light & 12 hours of uninterrupted darkness each day (usually accomplished by putting your lights on a timer) to get your cannabis to start flowering (making buds). When should I change
my light schedule to 12-12?
Outdoors, your weed will naturally start flowering when the days get short enough, usually a few months before winter.
The flowering stage is where your plant goes through “puberty” and basically reveals whether they are a boy or a girl.

Unfortunately, for regular seeds, half your plants will end up female and half will end up male. That’s why a lot of growers prefer starting with clones or buying feminized seeds – all the resulting plants will grow into females.

As cannabis growers, we’re only looking for females as female plants are the only ones that make buds. Male plants just make pollen sacs (balls) that cannot be used for smoking.

A week or two after you initiate the 12-12 light schedule (or naturally in the wild), your plants will reveal their gender…

Female plants start growing wispy white hairs at the tops of branch joints. These are the pistils of her flowers/calyxes. You’ll get bunches of these calyxes growing on top of each other to make buds, and each calyx will have a few white hairs coming
out of it. This is great news! It means this plant will eventually grow beautiful weed with buds/flowers/ganja that you can smoke.

Female cannabis pre-flowers - these wispy white hairs are pistils, the first sign that this marijuana plant is a girl

Male plants start growing balls/pollen sacs with no white hairs/pistils. Unfortunately, most male plants do not develop psychoactive properties like girls do in their flowers. Plus, male plants can pollinate your female plants and cause them to make less
bud and more seeds. Therefore, most serious cannabis growers choose to remove and dispose of male plants as soon as they show their sex.

Identify male cannabis plants by their balls (male pollen sacs) which grow at the "V" where the stems meet the "trunk"

Note: The sturdy green growths are not pistils, they are always there on both boy and girl plants. When looking for gender, you’re specifically looking for white wispy hairs (pistils).

Learn more: Is my plant a boy or a girl?

Ok, so you’ve gotten rid of your male plants. Your female plants will be growing more and more white hairs and before you know it, actual buds/flowers/trees are forming. Woohoo!

Now that you’re fully in the flowering stage, it’s best to keep temps slightly cooler, around 65-80°F (18-26°C) to produce buds with the best color, trichome production and smell. Learn more about what you need to do in the flowering stage to
produce top-shelf buds.

How to Increase THC Levels

How to Increase Overall Bud Quality and Appearance

It’s important to pay close attention to your cannabis plants during the flowering stage. This is because in this stage your plant is much more likely to suffer from nutrient problems as they’re focusing all their energy on growing buds.

What Determines Yields?

“Flushing” Your Plants Before Harvest





Step 9: Harvest Your Weed


When to Harvest Weed? Is She Ready for Harvest?

Wait until your buds stop growing new, white hairs. By this point, your buds should be fragrant (the whole grow room or area will likely smell strongly of cannabis), plump and ‘filled out’.
Wait until at least 40% of the white hairs have changed color (darkened) and are curling in. This marks the beginning of the harvest window. Buds harvested now will have more of a speedy effect and are not at full potency.
Harvest when 50-70% of the hairs have darkened for highest THC levels
Harvest when 80-90% of the hairs have darkened for more a couchlock, anti-anxiety effect (some of the THC has turned into the more relaxing CBN)
The hardest part of growing cannabis for many new growers is waiting for the right time to harvest.

Some of my last Aurora Indica harvestThere are additional cannabis harvest methods which are much more precise – such as using trichomes to know when to harvest your buds.

Learn exactly when to harvest your cannabis (with tons of pictures and explanations)

I sometimes get asked how to harvest weed… (i.e. cut it down from the plant)

Just get a sturdy pair of scissors and cut the plant down in the most convenient way possible. Seriously…that’s it!

Trimming comes next; it’s one of the most rewarding and physically taxing parts of the entire grow, but it’ll be worth it!



Step 10: Dry and Cure Your Newly Harvested Buds
After you have cut off and trimmed all of your glittery, beautiful fat buds, you will want to hang them upside down in a cool, dark place with plenty of ventilation so that they can dry out.

Learn how to dry and cure your buds like a professional, every time

Dry buds slowly for best results and check often for mold or overdrying. You’ve worked way too hard to lose your crop now!

After your cannabis buds have dried (thin stems snap, but the thicker stems are still a bit bendy), it’s time to start curing them so they’re smooth, taste good, smell good, and have the best effects.

To cure your buds, put them in tightly-closed quart-sized mason jars in a cool dark place. Fill each jar loosely about 3/4 of the way full.

For the first 2 weeks of curing, open the jars once a day for several seconds to get fresh air in your jars and release any moisture.

If your buds feel moist when you check on them, leave the tops of the jars off until the outsides of the buds feel dry to the touch. Too-moist bud is what causes mold!

Special products like “Boveda 62% Humidipaks” will make curing a lot easier, as they will naturally regulate the humidity in your jars.

After your cannabis has been curing for at least 2 weeks, and they haven’t felt wet every time you’ve checked the jars for at least a week, you can start opening the lid once a week instead of once a day.

Some people only cure their bud for 1-2 weeks total while other cure their bud for 30 days or more. Because you need to open the jar regularly, you can always sample some as it’s curing to get a feel for whether it’s done or not.

I personally think that cannabis tends to be more potent if you cure it for at least a month.

Curing for longer than 6 months doesn’t do anything, and cannabis can become less potent over time as THC turns to CBN. Keep your harvest in a cool, dry, airtight space for long-term storage.

Read the complete drying and curing tutorial – no more guesswork!



That’s it! 10 Simple Steps and You’ve Got Your Very First Cannabis Harvest!





Check It Out!

FOR SERIOUS GROWERS ONLY

The 5 watt LED chip-sets and lenses are cranking out some serious intensityAre you interested in… LED Grow Lights?

As I mentioned earlier, I don’t believe most models of LED grow lights are suitable for first-time growers.

Unless you know someone who has experience growing with a particular model of LED light, you’ll often spend a grow or two trying to get your light model “dialed in” so you know how far away to keep the lights from your plants for best results.

But when you do know someone who has experience growing cannabis with a particular brand of LED grow lights, you know that the lights will work for growing cannabis. And if you have access to their grow notes, you’ll also know exactly how to use the
LED to get the best results.

And you’ve probably heard the incredible benefits of LEDs… low electricity usage, low heat, no ballast… you just plug the LED panel directly in the wall. Fans are built right in, and many high-quality models don’t need any additional cooling.
http://delysidcannabissupplies.com/product-category/all-strains-and-breads/

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