Cactus Feminised

Read Cactus backwards from the harvest: up to 200 g/m2 under lights, up to 300 g/plant outdoors, with resin filling out towards 23% THC. This 20/80 cultivar spreads its weight gain across the whole of bloom instead of front-loading it the way a quick indica does. Cutting early out of nerves about the weather is the most expensive mistake made with plants of this shape. In Britain that means holding through late September and into October depending on your latitude, because the pinene-led profile only fills out in the closing fortnight.

Three stretches of the 55-65 days of bloom decide whether you reach the top of this strain's range (up to 200 g/m2 indoors, up to 300 g/plant outdoors). The rest is maintenance.

The first ten days of flower. What the plant does during the stretch sets canopy height, and canopy height sets how evenly the light lands. It can add half again its height. Supercrop anything that breaks the line of the canopy inside the first week or you will spend the rest of bloom lighting one branch properly and five badly.

Weeks three to five. Pinene production climbs through here, and it responds to a day-night temperature gap of 6-8°C. British autumn nights hand that to outdoor growers for free from September; indoors you have to build it, at roughly 25-26°C lights-on and 18-20°C lights-off. Bloom feed goes potassium-heavy around EC 1.6-1.8.

The last ten to fourteen days. Stop feeding and run pH-corrected water. Check trichomes daily under a 60x loupe — cut at 5-10% amber to keep the clear, lifted character intact. Outdoors that lands between late September and mid-October across most of Britain, and the weather forecast should get a vote.

Flowering: 55-65 days. Indoor yield: up to 200 g/m2. Outdoor yield: up to 300 g/plant. Rated intermediate difficulty.

Cactus arrives in stages. The first draw at 23% THC brings clean resin, like woodland after rain. The creative, happy, relaxed character follows within minutes, arriving as sharpened attention. Colour reads brighter, music reads busier, and conversation wanders further than it would otherwise. It holds for two to three hours on a plateau rather than a spike. The limonene underneath adds a lift that stops it turning heavy.

Primary: Pinene · Secondary: Limonene · Tertiary: Caryophyllene. These three build an aroma that keeps moving through the cure. Fresh off the dry it leads with pinene; after three or four weeks sealed in glass at 16-18°C the caryophyllene underneath comes up and the whole thing gains a layer. Vaporising between 180°C and 195°C catches the widest span of them, since the lighter caryophyllene molecules are the first thing heat destroys.

Who does well with Cactus? Indoor growers who want the timeline under their own control. Outdoor growers who want to choose when flowering starts. Anyone with the room and the patience to veg it properly before flipping. Difficulty is rated intermediate, which means a moderate learning curve that rewards attention without demanding a laboratory.