Plants go through a number of phases in their life cycle that make up cannabis growth. Different amounts of light, water, and nutrients are needed at different stages of the cannabis growing process. A cannabis plant might take four to eight months to develop, depending on the growth environment. In just a few weeks, your plants can blossom when grown inside, where you have complete control over the growing environment!
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Your understanding of the cannabis growth phases and your plants’ lifetime will determine the quality of your crop. Grow room air filtration stops mold and bacteria, stops stagnant air, and produces clean, filtered air continuously, protecting plants at every stage of growth.
The act of drawing in and trapping airborne pollutants and other grow room dangers using a sophisticated filtration equipment and filter material is known as “grow room air filtration.” Using air filtration in cannabis cultivation guarantees that plants receive the purest air possible from the time seeds germinate to the last phases of harvesting, drying, and curing.
Let’s go over some crucial information regarding cannabis seeds before delving straight into the various phases of cannabis growing. Can you identify the sex of a cannabis seed? is a frequently asked question that you may have encountered. “There are firms that create feminized seeds, which are developed to guarantee a 99.9% probability of becoming female, even though there is presently no means to detect the sex of a seed by inspection.
Until they come into contact with light and water, cannabis seeds are dormant. They are comparatively robust and do well in chilly, dark environments like freezers. It’s vital to remember that cannabis seedlings may suffer harm or even perish in extremely cold or frigid conditions. Most cannabis plants are dioecious, which means that each individual has distinct reproductive organs for the male and female. On the other hand, cannabis plants are known as hermies when they exhibit intersex traits.
The only cannabis plants that can yield buds for ingestion, vaping, dabbing, and smoking are females. To keep your cannabis high-quality and seed-free, you need to get rid of male plants and hermies before the flowers open. Male or dual-sex plants pollinate their female counterparts by growing alongside them. This causes the females to shift their energy from feeding the buds to making seeds, which reduces and occasionally completely destroys the bud crop.
Let’s discuss the phases of cannabis growth now that you have a better grasp of cannabis seeds and how to maintain and care for them.
1. Commensurate Seeds
Make sure the seeds are sufficiently ripe for them to germinate. Your seeds won’t likely germinate if they are immature.
When your seeds are mature, they will be firm and dry to the touch, lustrous, and light to dark brown in color.
Your seeds will appear white or green and feel mushy if they are immature.
Store your seed somewhere damp and dark so it can germinate. Some growers could store it in a cup of water or place it inside a cabinet after wrapping it in a moist paper towel.
Hormones are stimulated and the development process is accelerated when seeds are exposed to light and moisture.
When the new stem develops upward, it will push the seed out of the earth with a single root known as the radicle that shoots downward.
In contrast to regular marijuana leaves, as the plant emerges from the seed’s protective covering, two spherical cotyledon leaves will appear on the stem.
These cotyledon leaves absorb solar energy to power the plant’s growth and stability. The plant is not in its seedling stage once the roots begin to grow and the first genuine leaves appear.
2. The stage of seedlings
Because the seedling growth stage is so delicate, plants need 18 to 24 hours of sunshine, damp soil, and moderate humidity in order to grow quickly.
The seedling has a very little root system, therefore it’s crucial to avoid overwatering it.
A plant will grow cannabis leaves that resemble classic cannabis leaves once it is a seedling.
A single marijuana leaf can have three to thirteen fingers on it. A sprout’s leaves have just one wired finger when they first emerge. Marijuana leaves will generate new fingers as they expand. Typically, mature marijuana plants have five to seven fingers per leaf, but they can have up to thirteen.
With their infamously sharp edges, the initial fingered leaves can reach a height of 4 inches above cotyledon leaves. On opposing sides of the stem, this pair of leaves grows together.
Cannabis plants are handled as seedlings up until the point at when they grow leaves with all five fingers.
Short, densely vegetated seedlings with vivid green leaves are indicative of good health.
Growing conditions during this phase need to be maintained clear of excess moisture and clean in order to prevent mold growth or plant disease.
3. Growth of Vegetation
A seedling initiates vegetative development when it has seven sets of pointed leaves.
A cannabis plant grows exponentially as it is moved to a bigger pot. In order to get ready to blossom, it creates more leaves, nodes, and branches, thickens its stem, and grows higher. It also strengthens its root system.
Growers will start topping and training plants at this point.
It is evident from the distance between nodes what type of cannabis you are cultivating. Any point on the main stalk where two branches converge is called a node. In young plants, nodes form in pairs. A plant’s nodes begin to alternate when it reaches maturity. Although the branches are no longer parallel to one another, they still develop in pairs, but there is now greater space between them.
Moreover, branches that have grown from the main stalk have secondary nodes.
Indica plants are thicker and shorter than Sativa plants, which are lean and have fewer leaves.
To support the growth of the plant, it’s critical to provide more water throughout the vegetative stage. Watering your plant from a greater distance will allow the tips of the roots to absorb the water more readily as it gets bigger and its roots spread out.
To grow 2-3 feet tall at this stage, your plants require a lot of soil space, a flow of moist air, an increase in warm water, and nutrients rich in nitrogen and potassium.
Cannabis plants need well-drained soil for vegetative development, just like they do for seedlings. To prevent the plants from drowning, it’s critical to let them dry out in between waterings.
The pace at which leaves absorb light and convert it into photosynthesis determines how quickly plants develop.
Plants in indoor grow rooms should be cultivated on an 18-hour day/night light cycle. You can maintain your plants on a 24-hour light cycle, but you’ll save money get have better results if you give them breaks.
Fun fact: Plants can remain in the vegetative stage indefinitely since the timing of their transition to blooming is determined by light cycles. This is a method for growing plants from cuttings without going through the germination stage.
4. Prior to blossoming
A plant may go from 7 to 14 days before reaching the pre-flowering stage. When it does, the pre-flower present at the nodes will reveal the sex. The more into the vegetation the plant grows, the easier it is to determine its sex.
How to identify the gender of your plant
Female: On the buds (flowers sprout above these leaves, one cluster on each side), two pistils (the pistil contains the reproductive organs of a flower) will be growing.
Male: The node regions will display little green sacs that contain pollen.
Pollen from male or intersex plants can rupture sacs and fertilize surrounding female plants’ colas, destroying the trichomes (small glandular hairs) that have the potential to be hallucinogenic. For this reason, it’s imperative to eliminate male and intersex plants prior to blossoming.
Hermies have the ability to pollinate themselves and contaminate your crop since they possess both glands and leaves, which are a cannabis plant’s reproductive organs. This risk requires you to remove and kill any intersex plants.
A female cannabis plant’s cola is the flowering location where flowers cling closely to one another. The terminal bud is another name for this. Smaller colas emerge on the perimeter of healthy plants, while one primary cola forms from the heart of the plant. A plant may be trained to produce more enormous colas by trimming and training it.
Sinsemilla is produced by non-pollinated female plants; these plants yield more cannabinoids and lack seeds. Because sensimilla has a remarkably high concentration of psychoactive chemicals, it causes symptoms such as euphoria, talkativeness, enhanced sociability, hallucinations, and the munchies. Large amounts of THC-containing resin and phony seed bodies are produced by these plants.
The white hairs that emerge from the bracts at the plant’s nodes are what distinguish Sinsemilla.
The plant will reach the blooming phase and stop growing once it starts to receive less light each day (18 to 12 hours).
5. Blooming
In the absence of more than 12 hours of light every day, plants automatically transition into the blooming stage. Cannabis has to be entirely dark for 10 to 12 hours in order to fully transition into the blooming stage.
When the trichome heads change from translucent to milky to opaque to amber, and the pistils on the cola buds shift from white to reddish orange, you will know that your plant is ready to be harvested.
The amber hue suggests that the resin’s CBD to THC cannabinoid ratio is greater.
THC, terpenes, flavonoids, and other cannabinoids are produced by trichomes. More cannabis chemicals and sticky resin form in flower clusters as they grow.
Cannabis plants thrive in moderately damp, warm temperatures during the flowering stage. They also gain from periodic blooming nutrition treatments.
You let the plant to develop too long and most of the cannabinoids are gone if you see that the trichomes have fallen off. This means you won’t experience the benefits of THC or CBD and will have to start again with a fresh batch.
As soon as THC starts to diminish, trichomes change from hazy white to brown. A few brown trichomes are normal and indicate that the plant is ready to be harvested.
Harvesting is advised as soon as half of the trichomes are opaque. This process is thought to yield the greatest THC and lowest CBD concentrations.
6. Gathering
When it’s time to harvest, trim the cannabis plant into smaller branches to facilitate drying. After cutting the plant into little pieces, the fragments are to be strung up in a cold, dark place and hung upside down.
Usually, commercial cannabis is dried by adding a humidity of forty to fifty percent. For seven to fourteen days, the plants should be left hanging.
In order to stop germs and fungi from developing, drying is required. You may successfully extend the life of your cannabis by eliminating moisture. Cannabis that has been dried too soon will be bitter.
The optional curing procedure is maturing cannabis in airtight, sealed receptacles (usually mason jars) and storing them in a cupboard with a constant temperature of between 50 and 60 °F.
Jars should not be packed tightly to prevent a reduction in airflow. They need to be kept in storage for one to three weeks, with one quick opening each day to let out any trapped gasses and let in fresh air.
It is said that curing lessens the harshness and enhances taste and burn quality.