End game advice

[Captnmoorgan]

Mowie wowie
7 weeks flower
Starting 10 day flush
Should I be concerned with the leaf color or is this natural at end of life? Tricolms ~50/50 amber on sugar leaves but only a few amber noticed on tops of buds sites. ... but also seems majority clear at tops?? Comments appreciated!!

 

[CO Finest]

End flush makes plants look like fall season. Nothing to worry about with the yellowing at the end. The sugar leaves should stay green on most strains if done right. They are the most important at the end of flower, if the sugar leaves brown then they can make buds have a harsh ish taste which happens most of the time from sick plants or flush way to early. Your's look right on the money for only ten days left.

 

[Captnmoorgan]

Update
1 week later, straight water for about 5 days but she isn’t drinking a lot. I’m concerned with the amount of browning getting close to bud. Should I chop and trim a bit early?

 

[CO Finest]

Looking like harvest time to me now. Hitting eight weeks you got one week max but I would bet you got some amber trichomes by now. Do you have anyway to check?

 

[Captnmoorgan]

There is amber. This is my third grow and this step is the toughest to gauge for me! There are some clear and cloudy and amber- the ratio and flushing always gets me. Like I mentioned the soil is moist, she isn’t drinking much and I was hoping to get a good week+ flush. The 20th will be exactly 8weeks. I’m thinking I should chop em this weekend. Am I late by a week or? I’ve chopped early in the past as soon as I saw amber but was looking at sugar leaves and the smoke was weak/couch lock... so I figured better to be on the other side and be patient. These pics are taken of the tops of the buds.

 

[Captnmoorgan]

as a perfectionist this part of the grow has a lot of variables. Either I’m late or I’m early… can’t seem to get it right on. The next grow currently in veg is White Widow. I have 10 seeds (two plants at a time) so I think that’ll help with consistency growing the same strain to better gauge ripeness. These past few grows all have been different and I hate messing up this crucial step.

 

[Emilya Green]

Update
1 week later, straight water for about 5 days but she isn’t drinking a lot. I’m concerned with the amount of browning getting close to bud. Should I chop and trim a bit early?

You have starved her to death. If she has indeed stopped drinking, you may as well harvest... she has done all you gave her the tools to do, and she is finished. You could have not flushed and fed her all the way to the end, and she would not have quit early like this. Giving only water at the end is a technique from the 1960's and it has been totally debunked in our modern world... it is NOT the best way to finish out plants you have invested so much time and effort into. Think of organically grown plants who have their nutrition all the way to the day of chop... how come they don't need to be flushed, and yet that turns out to be the tastiest pot grown? Next time, try feeding right to the end, and see what a difference it makes. If you have the room, do a side by side, and prove to yourself that this myth of "flushing" at the end, is nonsense.

 

[Captnmoorgan]

I thought it was mainly to use up the nutrients in the soil and stems for a smoother smoke. I was feeding her up until five days ago, only two straight waters this week given.

 

[CO Finest]

 

[Emilya Green]

I thought it was mainly to use up the nutrients in the soil and stems for a smoother smoke. I was feeding her up until five days ago, only two straight waters this week given.

That is the myth.... you can't use up all the nutrients and have the plant still survive, and it does absolutely nothing for the quality of the smoke that results. There are no raw nutrients in your buds, only the sugars and resins produced by the plant. The leaves are the only place the nutrients are stored, and most of them are stored in the lower and middle leaves, not in the upper growth. You can not flush a plant of its nutrients... the only thing you can flush is soil. Even calling this last 2 week starvation a flush is a perversion, a bastardization of the original meaning of the word "flush." Flush actually means to run 3x the container size of fresh water through the soil, so as to cleanse it of built up salts and nutes.

This starvation technique was born in the belief that if you force the plants into starvation, they will throw their all into the completion of the buds.... and indeed that is what happened here, your plants finished early. Whether or not they could have gotten bigger, stronger and tastier with the proper finishing diet, is definitely open for debate.

 

[Captnmoorgan]

Thanks for comments! Very helpful. I don’t have a process per se so I’ll give that a try on my next grow. I have two White Widow ending veg and ready for the flower tent! Honestly not worrying about when to start with straight water is better overall for timing.

 

[CO Finest]

You will keep learning through every grow and harvest. In time you will laugh at the old days. I still learn and it has been going on four decades of growing along with veg and fruit gardens. If you would of said amber thrichomes back in the 80's we would of said WTF are you talking about lol. Just remember there is no way to flush a natural plant growing outside in the ground and it can be amazing smoke so it is not needed to inside in soil and if you feel you want to then try dropping to half feed but still not really needed to do, it is more on drying and the cure for true quality in the end. Once again learning with your hands in the dirt is key.