There are two stages of life in the marijuana plant, Vegetative state Of Marijuana and the flowering stage Of Marijuana.
In the wild the life cycle of cannabis is as follows:
Spring: Seeds sprout
The plant then grows for the entire summer. As the days begin to get shorter, the cannabis plant begins to make flowers and pollen.
Pollination: The female plant will then make seeds to prepare for the end of her life cycle. The cannabis plant will then die for the winter.
Repeat: The following Spring the plant will again sprout and begin life anew for the next generation.
Why This Is Vital
The plant will go from sprouting seed to death in one year. That is the life cycle of the cannabis plant. They have a specific order in which the stages of life occur. This is vital to understand if you’re a grower.
Important:
In the plant cycles through the young vegetative state to that of the budding and flowering state of marijuana and then to harvest. The plant will continue in the vegetative state with only stems and leaves as long as the plant thinks it’s spring or summer. Out of doors, this occurs naturally, however, when the plant is indoors it can be artificially induced by using grow lights on timers. The timers ‘tell’ the plant that it’s ‘summer’ and time to flower.
Life Stages Of Cannabis
Vegetative: Stems and Leaves of the plant will grow.
Flowering: The plant will begin to bud out and flower.
While it seems very simple, it actually is, as long as the grower remembers that there are only two main stages in life. The vegetative stage of life and the flowering stage of marijuana that is followed by harvest.
Gender Of Plants
Each cannabis plant will have a gender. Either male or female. Approximately fifty percent of the plants will be female and fifty percent will be male. Only the female plants will produce the bud. However, don’t get rid of the male plants, they are required to pollinate the female plants. Without pollination, the plant won’t be able to produce buds.
The female plant will reveal that it’s a female at the end of the vegetative state and the start of the bud and flower stage.
Male plants will have pollen sacs however they won’t have any buds. Few male plants will have any amount of THC or cannabinoids so they likely won’t get anyone high.
Most growers toss out the male plants at this stage as they have done their job of pollinating the female plants.
In the starting of the season there isn’t any way to tell the male plant from the female plants. The plants will look identical until they reach the bud stage. Even science isn’t able to find a way to tell them apart until they begin to bud.
Most growers want to know the gender of the plants quickly so that they can promptly remove male plants before they contaminate the female plants.
