The life cycle of cannabis "And most any flowering or fruiting plant"

Annual plant, single season completes a life cycle/generation.
The mother bore seed, which is harvested or drops "in the wild" to the ground, and life begins.

SEED STAGE:
At this stage the gender of the plant is already encoded into the seed, Stressed parents that have hermaphrodite
and created both flowers "male sacs and female calyx" polinated itself, can create or guarantee female seed.
More on that in another topic "Feminized cannabis seed".
Warm soil, damp, water seeps in the thin shell, life begins inside.
Seed inside will swell, cracking the outer shell, a tap root will emerge and seek down using gravity as a tool.
Once it feels safe enough it wills tart to grow up "by increasing seed leaf / cotyldon size rather then root size"
It will cast off its outershell, crow upwards and open to the light The next stage in life begins.

SEEDLING STAGE
This will occur till the first set of trueleaf, this does not include the first set of rigid leafs with less then 5 fan blades. The growth will appear slower then other plants at this stage, but the roots in cannabis at this stage
like to get a strong foothold, and will grow rapidly, once this is complete you will notice an almost double in
speed of growth in the leaf sets. this stage lasts from 3 days to 10 days. with an average of 6.


VEGITATIVE STAGE
The cannabis plant is photoperiod sensitive "with the exception of the ruderalis line of genes that are
age sensitive, and do not have a vegitative stage longer then about 48 hours. and go from seed to bud in about
65-70 days. Any cannabis plant recieve 13+ hours of light per day, regardless of how directly will remain
in vegitative stage. Some strains or weaker types may show preflowers, or stress if kept in this stage too long.
4 to 8 weeks is ideal based on what strain or gene your growing.
Indica plants should have about 16-18 hours of light
Sativas, near the equator prefer an equatorial light regimen of 13-14 hours of light tops.
Plants like Ruderalis strains "Autoflowering" or "Tomatoes" for example will automatically start
flowering / fruiting stage


FLOWERING/FRUITING STAGE
In cannabis and some other plants, this stage is regulated by a photosensitive hormone
When the hours per day are 12 hours "11 for for sativa, this is important" this phase begins.
Lots of people have trouble flowering sativas for this reason, they are not flowering sensitive at 12 hours
and will begin slowly and produce badly at 12/12 of light, and should be 11/13
Indica or any mix "90%" of the two in the genepool will like 12/12
For plants that are age sensitive, cut back a few hours but 12/12 isnt really required, but wont harm plants.
Check your plant on google for assistance, if you cant find anything just look at its region of origin.



Questions? Post below and ill get back promptly.