A typical indoor week map
Week 1
Veg pace slows. The plant is changing gears
Week 2
First stigmas show
Weeks 3 to 7
Flower growth stacks in layers. New hairs keep appearing on unfertilized plants
Week 8
New flower production fades. Stigmas dry and trichomes stand out
Later weeks
On a longer sativa-leaning example, stigmas color, ovaries swell, odor peaks, and resin heads fill
What the bud is doing
Waves
Just when a cluster looks finished, a new flush of flowers can appear in a bare spot
Calyx swell
Ovaries puff about two weeks before maturity even with no seed. That is a ripeness clue, not a pollination event
Color
Stigma color is genetics plus temperature. Cool roots below about 55 F (12 C) can push more purple
Handle
Rough touch knocks gland heads off. Treat ripe flowers as fragile
Trichomes
Type
Flower resin sits in capitate glands with a four-cell stalk and a swelling cap, not the tiny sessile glands on early leaves
Fill
Caps start small and balloon as they store cannabinoids and terpenes. Ripe caps look ready to burst
Read
Under a loupe, heads go from clear to milky or amber. That color shift is when THC is starting to break down toward CBN and CBL
Pick
Harvest as that change begins. Waiting for a forest of fallen, dark heads is late
Sparkle
Peak odor often lands as glands start to glitter in bright light
Do not pick by habit
Early cut
Many gardens take buds before glands fill and miss odor, flavor, and strength
Pattern
Some plants ripen all at once. Others ripen from the top down or from the outer buds inward
Staged pick
After outer buds come off, inner sites see light and can finish in about two weeks
Commercial window
Many modern varieties finish in about 55 to 65 days, but the last quarter is when glands actually fill
Autoflowers
Some lines run seed to harvest in about 90 to 100 days on any light schedule and are poor clone candidates