• Life cycle of marijuana cultivation

[pipeman]

The general stages of growth in the life cycle of an MJ plant are germinating seeds, seedlings, vegetative growth, and finally flowering.

 

You can also clone MJ plants rather than grow from seed all the time which saves time and space. Cloning is not complicated, and involves little more than cutting off a branch and placing it in a moist medium for it to grow roots and bingo, you’ve cloned an MJ plant.

 

Generally speaking there are two types of MJ plant, sativas and indicas. Sativas are mostly associated with outdoor growing because they take much longer to finish and are tall, stretchy plants that are difficult to grow indoors. Indicas or Indica/Sativa hybrids are mostly used for indoor growing because they are more compact plants which yield well and have a quicker finishing time. Sativas have a more cerebral, energetic high while indicas have a more bodystone, couchlock high. A lot of strains are sativa/indica hybrids to get the best of both worlds. For more detailed information and explanation on strains, checkout this post from White Cluster.

 

Indoors to grow to harvest from seed with an indica dominant strain will take about 4 months, when growing with clones from a mother plant it may take about 2-3 months. Outside it depends on the growing season and when you plant. In Australia the outdoor growing season is from about September to May depending.

 

Seed germination

Seeds ideally are germinated in a warm, dark place. Say 25-30 degrees and kept damp, like in between moist paper towels, rockwool, or just plain old soil.

 

Put them somewhere where they’ll keep warm, like on top of a TV, Fridge or in your hot water unit cupboard. Once they crack or show a root tip (usually within a few days but can take up to 2 weeks) then they are ready to be planted in a growing medium.

 

Seeds should be planted in a moist medium about a centimetre below the surface pointy end up.

 

Related Topics:

Easy Germinating Method

Germination & Rockwool

 

Seedlings

Seedlings are early plant growth just after germination. Make sure you keep your light a fair distance away from seedlings and only feed them very weak nutes. If in soil you may not need nutes at all for the first couple of weeks. Once your plant has 2-3 sets of leaves you can start to gradually lower your grow light and gradually increase nute strength.

 

Vegging

During vegging your plant is growing but not producing any bud. The longer you veg for before flowering the bigger your yield will be. You need to use nutes high in nitrogen during veg stage. If outdoors you will be vegging in summer when the days are long, indoors you need to have your lights on for a minimum of 18hours per day.

 

You can keep a plant in veg indoors for as long as you want.

 

Indicas can double in height from start of flower to finish, while sativas can triple in height, so if growing indoor make sure you turn your plants to flower early enough to leave them enough room to finish.

 

Flowering

Flowering is when your plant grows bud. Outdoor your plants will flower as the days get shorter, indoor they will flower when you turn your lights to 12 on, 12 off.

 

Plants are ready for flowering from seed when they are sexually mature. This can be indicated by preflowers at the nodes or when it starts growing alternating nodes. Its not a good idea to try to flower plants before they are at least a foot tall. Clones are a different matter, because they are taken from a sexually mature plant and can be flowered as soon as they root if desired.

 

It is important in flower that your light cycle is regular and total darkness is not interrupted in the 12 hour dark period. Interrupting the dark period or having light leaks can result in flowering slowing down or your plants going hermie, which you don’t want.

 

There are nutes specifically designed for flowering plants. They can be either hydro flowering nutes, or bloom booster or fruiting type nutes for soil.

 

Indica dominant strains usually take about 8 weeks from start of flower to finish. Pure sativas can take up to 16 weeks.

Edited September 28, 2004 by Pure