Cannabis growth is made up of a series of stages that plants undergo during their lifecycle. Each stage during the cannabis cultivation process requires its own unique demands, including different levels of light, water, and nutrients.
It can take anywhere from 4 to 8 months to grow a cannabis plant, this varies based on where you’re growing. If you have an indoor grow room, your plant has the ability to flower after only a few weeks!
The quality of your plant depends on your knowledge of the cannabis growth stages and the lifecycle of your plants.
How to grow marijuana as quickly as possible:
In order to achieve the shorter 8.5 weeks, you need to choose a fast-finishing strain like Northern Lights and even still, at the low range, you’ll be growing tiny plants that produce just a few grams of smokable harvest.
The time from seed to smokable harvest averages 3–3.5 months for me with a strain like Northern Lights, where I grow the plants for 3–4 weeks in the vegetative stage, growing with cheap, regular CFL lights in coco coir, and with that setup, I can get a few easy ounces per plant.
One of the fastest-growing methods is growing marijuana with bubbleponics, which shaves a few weeks off the total time and will actually increase your yields, but it requires a bit more equipment to get started.
When should you grow marijuana?
If you’re growing outdoors in the Northern Hemisphere, growers usually get their seeds between February and April, and you should start your seeds by the end of April. Some growers will start their seedlings inside in a more controlled environment because seedlings are more delicate, and then put their seeds in the ground outside once they’re a little bigger. If you’re growing clones or autoflowers, you have a grace period of another month or so. Plants usually need to be outside, in the ground, by the end of June.
Harvest happens sometime between September and November. This depends on your local climate, as well as the weather that particular year — one year it could be the end of September, the next, end of October, and growers in the Pacific Northwest will have to pull down their crops earlier than those in Northern California.
If you’re growing weed indoors, you can grow whenever you like. Keep in mind that the outside environment will affect your grow space — you may need to add heaters in the winter or fans and ACs in the summer. Other than that, you can start seeds whenever you like and flip them into flowers whenever you like, depending on how big you want the plants.
Length Of Each Stage Of Cannabis Cultivation
Preparation
Prepared grow room for weed
Time Required: 0 to 4 weeks
If you’re starting from scratch, you’ll need to get all of the necessary supplies together. This can take a few weeks, depending on where you source your supplies.
Most reputable online seed banks are located in Europe, but some have US offices, which cuts down on shipping times. Our article on the best places to buy marijuana seeds has everything you need to find the best seed bank.
Even if you have the supplies, you may have to get everything set up, which can be done in a few hours but may take a few days.
Germination
germinated cannabis seedling
Time Required: 1 to 7 days
If you are starting with seeds, you will need to germinate them first, before they can begin growing. Whether you germinate them in something like a rapid rooter, on a paper towel, or directly in the soil, it generally takes a day or two for the taproot to emerge from the seed.
Once the root has grown to 0.1 to 0.2 inches (3 to 5 mm), it is time to plant it in a growing medium like soil, if you did not germinate it directly in the medium. It then takes a few more days for the plant to sprout and the first leaves to grow.
Rooting
rooting cannabis clone
Time Required: 5 to 10 days
If you are starting with clones, you don’t have to worry about germination, but you do need to get your clones to root before they can start growing. This process usually takes 5 to 10 days.
Vegging
vegging cannabis plant
Time Required: at least 3 weeks
Once your seeds have sprouted or your clones have rooted, it is time for vegging. This stage can take as long as you like when growing indoors (unless you are growing an autoflower strain) but should last at least 3 weeks for most plants.
Starting with clones obviously saves a bit of time over starting with seeds.
The reason this stage can last indefinitely when growing indoors is that you are the one who provides the signal for your plants that it is time to start flowering.
Outdoors, the shortening days tell the plants to begin flowering. Indoors, you shorten the amount of time you leave the lights on, going from 18 to 24 hours of daylight down to 12. Or, if you are using an unusual lighting schedule for vegging, like 6 hours on and 2 hours off, going from that to 12/12.
Why would you want this period to last any longer than it has to, though?
Because your plants keep growing. If you take them out of the vegetative stage immediately, they will be fairly small, which will limit the number and size of buds they can grow. That said, keeping them small might make sense, if you have a limited grow tent size.
If you let the plants veg for longer, they grow larger and are able to grow a lot more buds. Of course, the size your plants can achieve is also constrained by the size of the pots they are in and the amount and strength of the grow lights.
You also have to remember that your plants will approximately double in size from the beginning of the flowering stage to the end. This means you want to take them out of vegging when they are about half of the final desired size.
Note that low moisture content in the air can stunt growth and lead to longer vegging times, so you might need to raise humidity levels in your grow tent. Vegging time also increases every time you top your marijuana plants.
Flowering
flowering marijuana plant
Time Required: 5 to 16 weeks (or more for select strains)
The flowering (or bloom) stage begins when you switch your lights to 12 hours on and 12 hours off schedule and continues until harvest. As mentioned, your plants will double in size during this stage of growth.
The blooming stage can be broken up into several distinct sub-stages. You can read about that in our article on flowering time, which also covers how to know when it is time to harvest your buds.
The length of the bloom stage varies greatly. The primary factor that determines how long a plant takes to reach harvest time is the strain.
Sativa strains generally take longer, with an average flower time of 10 to 16 weeks. Indica strains generally complete this stage in 7 to 9 weeks.
Post Harvest
Cured and dried cannabis buds
Time Required: 3 to 7 weeks
After harvesting your weed, you can’t smoke it right away. Well, you can, but we would not advise it. You should dry it at the very least, but ideally, you want to cure it as well.
Curing weed eliminates the grassy smell and harsh flavor of dried buds. It also reduces the head rush aspect when smoking the buds, and makes them better at reducing anxiety, pain, or feelings of depression.
You should cure your buds for at least 2 weeks, but ideally a month or more. Drying generally takes a week to 10 days, though you could do it in 4 or 5 days.
Conclusion
The first thing that anyone interested in growing weed should do is take into account their living situation, climate, latitude, and costs, and decide whether farming indoors or outdoors would work better for them.
The next step is getting some Cannabis seeds, buying the necessary equipment, and setting up the growing area. This is followed by the plant’s germination, vegetative, and flowering stage.
Overall, if we exclude the preparation period, the average time you’ll need to grow your weed from seed to harvest (drying and curing process included) is 3 to 5 months. Again, this depends on the strain you had planted and whether you’re okay with waiting an additional month or two for better quality weed (e.g. if growing weed isn’t just a hobby for you).