How long deos it take from the time your plants begin to bud (from when the pistils become noticeable) to the time its ready to be harvested (when 60% plus of the pistils go red). Like how long deos it take on average in real time, two weeks? three weeks? Something like that?
"How long deos it take from the time your plants begin to bud (from when the pistils become noticeable)" 5--6 weeks. Bonus tip: When the hairs first begin to change color from white/clear to red/brown start watering with water only (no nutes). It takes about 2 weeks from when the color change begins to occur until they are 60% changed.
To cause the plant to use up all the nutrients it has stored, instead of uptaking more nutrients/fertilizers, which can give the buds an unpleasent taste and make it burn poorly. It's a common technique called flushing. 2 weeks of plain water is what most growers practice before harvesting, which is about the time from when the pistils first start to color change to when the buds are at peak of perfection, although this can vary widely. A 2 week flush is more critical if the grower is using chem. nutrients. Using organics at low dosages can be done up until a few days before harvest without any unpleasent after-effects Tip: Add unsweetened pineapple juice at the ratio of 2 oz. per gal/water during flushing. This aids (slightly) in resin production, and makes for a slghtly sweeter smoke.
To further clarify my reponse to your original question: Flowering take 8--9 weeks but you won't notice any buds forming for 2 or 3 weeks after the onset of flowering.
Your correct rangerdanger sorry for the confusion. Have you tried flushing with pineapple juice? Is it not acidic? I like the sound of it would you recommend it as I'm almost at the flushing stage.
The person who gave me the pineapple tip is the most knowledgable grower I have ever known. I have never done a side-by-side comparison (just found out about it last year), I'm taking his word for it.