The most anticipated stage of a cannabis plant’s life is when buds start to appear.
And every grower wants the largest, juiciest buds.
In this article, I’ll give you 7 tips that will show you how to make buds bigger during flowering.
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Why is Bud Size Important?
Buds are the part of the cannabis plant that contains the highest levels of THC, the psychoactive compound that gives you that lovely ‘high’ feeling.
Buds also contain other important cannabinoids used for medicinal purposes such as CBD, THCV, and CBG.
So we want them as big as possible.
How To Make Buds Bigger During Flowering
Before we begin, it’s important that you understand the basics of growing weed.
Many things can have an impact on your yield before the flowering stage.
However, picking a High yield strain, using a decent LED grow light together with the correctly sized grow tent will have the biggest positive effect on your yield. Using high yielding indoor strains will have the biggest effect compared to any differences in lighting or fertilizer, so ensure you’re using the best strain for your needs.
If you’re confident you have the right set up, here are 7 tips on how to make buds bigger during flowering…
1. Increase Your Light Intensity
I’m sure you’re aware that in general, more light generally means a larger yield.
The most effective step you can take to increase the size of your yield is to push the limit of light intensity that your plants are receiving.
Cannabis is a hardy plant, and can actually absorb a surprising amount of light without damage.
You should therefore be as aggressive as possible when choosing the distance between your canopy and light.
For LED grow lights, you should hang your light between 12″ and 18″ above the canopy when flowering.
The perfect distance will vary from light to light, so It’s important you consult the manufacturer’s instructions and test the light at different heights.
Start at 12 inches, then keep an eye on your plants over the next 12 hours and look for signs of light burn, which is a sign that your lights are too close.
If they are, inch them back until the light burn stops.
For optimal yields, you need to hang your light at the distance just before light burn occurs.
2. Dark means dark!
Cannabis starts budding when plants get at least 12 hours of interrupted darkness each night.
After plants start budding, they must continue to get long dark nights until harvest or they may revert back to their vegetative state.
Once the plant is changed to the flowering lighting schedule (12 hours on, 12 hours off ) there is generally another 6-10 weeks before the plant’s buds are ready for harvest.
It is absolutely essential to ensure that plants are not exposed to any light during their dark period, as they may revert back to vegetative growth, severely limiting the size of the buds
3. Ensure Air Circulation / Co2
Once your grow lights are optimized for intensity, you need to make sure your plants are able to breathe properly.
Your cannabis plants require CO2 as part of the photosynthesis process when they convert usable light into energy.
Without CO2, your plants would shrivel up and die.
Plants can absorb A LOT of light before they require CO2 supplementation.
Therefore, for most growers, a simple rotating fan will be enough to circulate the air and provide plants with enough CO2 to process the light.
4. Pruning
Pruning is a technique that most growers utilize to increase their yield.
The small shoots between the main stem and the branches are removed so that energy is diverted to flower production.
You should only do any pruning during the vegetation stage of growth, as the plant will need sufficient time to recover from the shock and resume growth.
Make sure your plants are growing again and evaporating enough water.
Avoid adding any additional fertilizer until they are showing signs of recovery.
The following video shows you how to prune effectively:
5. Get Rid Of Any Male Plants
Cannabis plants have two pairs of sex chromosomes, one of which carries the genes that determine sex (male or female).
If you are growing non-feminized seeds, each sex has a 50% chance of occurring.
If your plants are not grown from clones, you must sex your plants.
Sexing your plants and removing the males will ensure that cross-pollination does not occur.
By getting rid of the male plants from your garden, this allows the female plants to grow large and seedless buds, referred to as sensimilla.
A cannabis plant won’t start to show its gender until it enters the pre-flower stage.
This can occur as early as 3 to 6 weeks into the plant’s life cycle.
Once your plants are approximately 3 to 6 weeks old they will start to display signs of pre-flowers, which will indicate the sex of the plant before it enters its flowering stage.
It is important to remove male plants as soon as possible.
Plants that don’t reveal their sex at the pre-flowering stage will reveal their gender in the first 1-3 weeks after the lights have been switched to a 12-12 flowering cycle.
6. Adjust Your Fertilizer To Match Your Plants Requirements
By adjusting your nutrient giving to your plants exact requirements, your plants will grow the largest buds possible.
It is important not to overfeed them as an oversaturation of nutrients can harm or even kill the plant.
During the vegetative stage of growth, a multi-purpose fertilizer may be used. Cannabis plants respond well to a mixture of fertilizer that is high in Nitrogen, Kalium (Potassium), and Phosphor.
You can check this via the NPK rating that is generally written on the fertilizer packaging.
However, in the flowering stage, your plant needs fertilizer with a higher level of Kalium (Potassium) and Phosphor, and low levels of Nitrogen.
The reason is that Phosphor will stimulate your plant to sprout more buds while the Kalium (Potassium) increases density and weight.
Ideally, you want to use a fertilizer that has been developed specifically for the flowering stage.
Check Your PH Level
If you are fertilizing your plants, you must regularly monitor the pH level of your growing medium.
Without the correct acidity level, nutrients won’t dissolve properly and the cannabis plant root systems are unable to absorb them.
The optimal pH range for cannabis plants grown in soil is 6.0 – 7.0 and 5.5 – 6.5 for hydroponic setups and plants are grown in coco peat.
7. Harvest At The Right Time
Picking the right time to harvest is vital to the yield you will get.
Leaving your buds to ripen fully could add up to 25% more to your yield.
By inspecting your plant’s trichomes closely, you will be able to determine exactly when you plants should be harvested for maximum yield and potency.
Final Thoughts
During this article, we have concentrated on how to maximize bud size during the pre-flowering, or flowering stage of the plants life cycle.
While the techniques listed above have been proven to work, the ultimate goal of any cannabis grower should be to grow the healthiest plants possible and this covers everything from seed selection to correct care during the important vegetative growth period.
By ensuring your plants are healthy at all times, you are guaranteed a bountiful harvest.
Originally posted 2018-10-26 13:04:54.
James Alexander
Its potash not kalium
Um, Anthony, N-P-K: Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Kalium. The K doesn’t atand for Potash, sorry man.
Potash & potassium are the same thing…K on the periodic table of elements. Potash (/ˈpɒtæʃ/) includes various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water-soluble form. The name derives from pot ash, which refers to plant ashes soaked in water in a pot, the primary means of manufacturing the product before the industrial era. The word potassium is derived from potash.
That’ll be $139.97 payable by ca$h, cheque or PayPal.
It never fails. The Captain Obvious style sarcasm. Always gives me an Ahhhhh, makes sense moment. Thanks for the information.
You guys are all wrong K stands for potassium look on the table of element and it is key for growing
LMAO! Potassium IS Kalium. Jesus Christ!
P is Phosforus K is Potassium and N is Nitrogen. Use your brain. We live in the age of information . Learn to google stuff out. 😛 LOL
Oh ya??? I guess I better google google…thanks bud. lol
Lol
Excellent information thanks
If a plant is already male can it be reverted to female?
No, but a female plant can grow pollen sacks…two of my whiny bitchy clones went hermaphrodite on me this year. Unless you use hermie seeds, you won’t have that issue with plants grown from seeds. Even those feminized seeds can grow plants that are confused with their sexuality. In my opinion, seeds from good bud, which are rare, few and far between, are the best for a healthy plant…although, you have that gamble of getting a male plant…sometimes you get lucky…a couple years ago, I planted 25 seeds or so, about 18 came up and they were ALL female!!! Lucked out that year, but too many to take care of properly. Don’t bite off more than you can chew too. Five nice plants are better than twelve not bad ones. Just sayin’.
But I’m not sure that all this Information applies to me since I am Growing Autoflowers ? I always heard Autoflowers Lighting Doesn’t Quite Matter as much since they’re programmed to go through their Stages Regardless of how much Light they Receive. Therefore does it matter if my Autoflowers “Dark Period” gets interrupted here and there with a little light ? Cause in my particular case I turn on my Grow Lights Overnight for my Plants and during the day I shut them off but the Plants don’t stay in a totally Dark Area during the day time. They just stay in a room with windows all day. I really hope this is not going to cause them Not to Bud ? They are just entering the Flowering Stage now Growing out the White Hairs aka Pistils. Please tell me they will still Form Buds soon ?
Do you see white hairs buddy? If you do, all you have to do now, is wait. Don’t forget to adjust your nutrients accordingly…an NPK ratio of 1-6-3…Eg. 3-18-9 or something like that. Extra phosphorus (P) & potassium (K) and considerably less nitrogen (N) during flowering. Good luck with your grow and don’t harvest too early…big mistake a lot of rookies make. Patience is a virtue for damn sure.
If your growing autos light should be always on for best growth some people argue they need a dark period for best growth but science says otherwise
K pottasium, international name Kalium.
2 plants budding just tossed in but have a week left til they are pulled and trimmed out for dry an all ,I need to know is they’re brought in every night brought every morning or when temps are above 42 and in sun !
Is 43° with the outside sun to much for those 2 in last stage , about week time to pull?
Please and thanks !
Be safe !
Peace I’m out!
Patti420 !
I’m wondering if I shake a male plant I have dead in a plastic bag all over my budding plants two or three days before chop suey, will the plant go into THC producing mode due to being fertilized? How long does it take to form a seed is what I need to know as well. You see, I’m trying to get the most potent bud from the strains I have…which are I don’t know, I’m not sure, who knows…and the other one is a sativa dominant guess what strain. Any advice concerning this method will be appreciated greatly.
I heard Oxygen and Potassium had sex.
They said it was O K.
Hey, new on here, 2nd grow about to go to flower. Is there anyway I can send you a video or pic of my plants? I need some guidance, too many opinions on line, i would rather just one. I have Whatsapp, if that is an option to contact you securely. Much appreciated! Solargirl In DK
RE: Autoflower. give them 24 hours of light from the moment they pop out of the ground. the meter is running and you need to give them the longest days possible. transplant only once by the third week or sooner and into a 3 to 5 gallon pot. they will flower on their own by the 4th week and for that reason never use time release fertilizer or soil containing such. these plants only live 90 to 100 days so why use light timers? think about it. you will need to monitor water and nutrient supply as constant growth requires more food and water. give the most light they can handle. outside during the day in full sun and inside at night under bright LED works real good. Rain days keep plants id doors especially when flowering.
thx for the schooling.I’m about too do 4 x auto CEMDOG/OG 1st time autoflowering. this will help a lot