6. Flower Plant
A. Move your 3g veg plant into the flower tent
After your veg plants gets to the desired size, move it over into the flower tent with 12 hours of light. The change from 18 to 12 hours of light will start your feminized plant’s flowering process.
B. Light, water and feed your 3g flowering plant
Your flowering tent needs exactly 12 hours of light; it is important to prevent light leaking into your tent which can hinder your the flowering stage. We want to wait till the plant is mostly dried out but we don’t need to be as strict as with the plants in the veg state; we water every other day during the summer in hot Arizona as an example. Feed your plant big bloom and tiger bloom fertilizers every other watering.
C. Prune and rearrange flowering plant
You need to keep a close eye on your plant as it goes through the flowering phase, especially in the first 3 weeks.
- Most weed strains will continue to grow at least a little toward the light, and some strains (like Super Sour Diesel) can still grow a lot after flowering starts. Sometimes you will be able to stick the extra growth under your trellis to prevent branches from getting too close to your light, sometimes you will need to cut them a bit, and occasionally you may want to consider buying an extra trellis to organize the extra growth.
- Once you start flowering you will do an initial prune to get rid of large fan leaves and lessen crowding. We recommend picking off dead leaves as you see them, and pruning some leaves to allow as many buds as you can to get direct light; this is especially important in the second half of your the flowering phase to get the juiciest buds.
- YouTube: Prune And Rearrange
D. Deciding when to cut/harvest your plant
Deciding when to harvest your plant is very important; if you cut to soon then you risk cutting before maximizing the THC levels and yield, if you wait too long then the THC will start to degrade to CBN which is a sleepier high. So how do we you know when to cut?
- The web is filled with detailed data on growing weed strains. If you google “Your_Strain_Name indoor flowering time” (example), the you will get an idea of what the recommended range is. Sometimes you will get the time in weeks, so just multiply by 7 and you will get the days, we recommend to use days since this is less confusing.
- Some people observe the little hairs (stigmas) on the buds to confirm that it is time to cut. When around half of the hairs are browning and curling up, that can be one indication the plant is ready to cut. This varies by strain however and is not the recommended method, but it can be helpful as you gain experience.
- The most reliable confirmation is to examine the trichomes on your buds. When they are nice and cloudy, that means you can consider cutting. If they are too clear, most likely you should wait. If the trichomes are mostly amber, then you probably waited too long. The sweet spot to shoot for is around 10% of the trichomes starting to turn amber. We highly recommend a digital microscope that connects to your phone, so that you can take pictures also, like this one:
- Here are the trichomes on a super sour diesel after about 67 days (few more days left):
