Harvest time?

[d42zero]

Hi there,

Last night I managed to rig up my phone with a loupe and got this photo of a plant currently on day 40 of flower:

Roughly 10-20% of trichomes have an amber colour. Leaves are all still in good condition with only two leaves yellowing and falling off another plant, and I think those were damaged by the tent door opening and closing.

How do you think we're looking for harvest timing? I need to plan a couple of days off work for it, and I also planned to drop the room temp a few degrees for a week or so at the end as I'd read that's a good idea. I had not planned on cutting nutrients to 'flush the plant' but I do have their fortnightly coco flush planned for tomorrow night.

The two other plants were grown slightly differently and don't have any amber trichomes yet, although they are roughly a week behind this one in life cycle so shouldn't be far away from this. I only have one tent so doing two harvests would be a little bit tricky, as I would have to hang the buds from the first harvest in the tent with the light still running for the other plants... so I'm thinking I should wait until they're ready and harvest all at the same time, it would mean this one will be a little further along than the other two but it would give me an interesting comparison between two slightly different smokes.

What do you guys think? Can anyone throw a rough estimate out there as to when I should be thinking about harvest?

 

[Old Salt]

Is the amber on the buds or sugar leaves? It tends to first appear on the sugar leaves.

 

[d42zero]

Is the amber on the buds or sugar leaves? It tends to first appear on the sugar leaves.

That photo is of the top of a bud, I haven't had a close look at the sugar leaves, lights come on in two hours so I'll have a closer look then

 

[Lowrider72]

Keep em coming, no plants are ready in 40 days, thats 5 weeks and 5 days.
You have Budclipperitis, common illness caused by waiting for buds to finish.

 

[d42zero]

You have Budclipperitis, common illness caused by waiting for buds to finish.

haha I don't mind waiting, but I don't get much time off work and need to start trying to get a rough estimate now of how long they might have to go so I can start getting all my ducks in a row

no plants are ready in 40 days, thats 5 weeks and 5 days.

I forgot to add the two weeks I called "transition" so while it's 40 days of "flowering" it's actually 54 days since flip... the GH feed chart I'm using has 12 weeks in total from seed to harvest, my girls vegged for ages but I started counting from the flip and that puts me currently at the end of week 9 of 12 on the chart.

So going off the chart there's roughly two weeks to go.. that's the best information I've got at the moment. Could it be fairly accurate?

 

[Old Salt]

What strain is it? If it's not bagseed and you know the strain, you can look up what the breeder says. That time may start at the flip, or first flowers, but you'll have a better idea.

 

[d42zero]

What strain is it? If it's not bagseed and you know the strain, you can look up what the breeder says. That time may start at the flip, or first flowers, but you'll have a better idea.

YES that's the kind of thinking I was looking for! I didn't even think of that Found it, it says 7-8 weeks flowering (meaning there's roughly 2wks left which matches the chart.... plus there's a pic which I assume they'd take when it's fully mature (so it's looking its best) which is super helpful!

Thanks

 

[SmokeLake]

Definitely a personal preference I harvested some early and it was lack lustre fun to smoke but not good stone. Another I let go to far it was mature actually started to hermi and it puts me to sleep without fail even if i wake and bake its sleepy stuff. My point is watch those trichs closely in diff areas of the plant and note when you harvest so when you grow again you can adj as you prefer to your own taste. Beautiful looking bud btw!!

 

[flashmp3]

Post a picture further. I guess we will all be able to say you need to wait more just by the look. Except if the plant is sick there is no way you already have 20% amber if she s not start ripening yet.

 

[Lowrider72]

Sorry, my reply was accurate.
You know the answer, you know they are not there yet....hence...budclipperitis...
Ive had it, everyone gets it...its a grower thang....

 

[d42zero]

Pencilling in harvest for two weekends

Sorry, my reply was accurate.
You know the answer, you know they are not there yet....hence...budclipperitis...
Ive had it, everyone gets it...its a grower thang....

haha well I'll concede I'm getting excited seeing the amber trichomes The answer I was hoping to get was "they've got about two weeks to go," which is what I was taking from the feed chart and is now backed up by the breeder's website (thanks for the idea Old Salt!)... I planned to drop lights-off temps by a couple of degrees for the last two weeks, and I need a couple of weeks to get things properly ready for harvest.. I don't want to rush it, so it's good to know I still have time to get ready.

The plan at the moment is to flush the coco tonight and reduce temps from tomorrow, then next weekend go shopping for all the extra stuff I need (i.e. wash buckets and drop sheets), then pencil harvest in for the following weekend (70 days from flip). If they're not ready by then I can put it off, but at least I'll have all my ducks in a row!

Thanks for following along with my grow, your advice has been great

 

[d42zero]

Post a picture further. I guess we will all be able to say you need to wait more just by the look. Except if the plant is sick there is no way you already have 20% amber if she s not start ripening yet.

I've been looking at the photo over and over (it's purdy!) and 10% is probably a better guess. I'll try to start photographing the trichomes on the same bud every couple of days so I can watch its progress, I'll post up some more when I see a change.

Definitely a personal preference I harvested some early and it was lack lustre fun to smoke but not good stone. Another I let go to far it was mature actually started to hermi and it puts me to sleep without fail even if i wake and bake its sleepy stuff. My point is watch those trichs closely in diff areas of the plant and note when you harvest so when you grow again you can adj as you prefer to your own taste. Beautiful looking bud btw!!

Thanks! I'm taking meticulous notes in my journal, I think I'll photograph the trichomes on the day of harvest as well so I have something to reference. The plant in the pic above started veg a week earlier than the others and although they were all flipped at the same time, she seems to be slightly more mature.. the others don't have as many red hairs, and almost no amber trichomes. Hopefully that means if I wait until the two younger plants are ready, this one will be a week riper and if there's a difference in the smoke I should get to see it

 

[Chris Scorpio]

Plants are done when they are done...not when a breeder say they are

Patience and you will be rewarded

 

[d42zero]

Plants are done when they are done...not when a breeder say they are

Patience and you will be rewarded

Yeah I get that... I don't want to harvest now, I'm just trying to get a rough idea of where I'm at so I have plenty of time to put time aside for the harvest. I work 70-80hrs a week so time is scarce, if I don't plan a couple of weeks in advance then things don't get done.

So far the best info I have is 'about two weeks' so I'm working off that.

 

[d42zero]

OK so it's been over a month since I posted this and the girls have moved along a fair bit, but lately they've stopped growing and they've started to drop the occasional fan leaf. Maybe ten leaves in total from three plants.

Here's a shot of a bud on each plant, with a photo of the trichomes as well:

Plant 1

Plant 2

Plant 3

So we have three distinct types of plant:

1. Short, fat, SUPER sugary. Trichomes are probably 50/50 milky and clear with a few ambers. Almost all pistils are red.
2. Taller, stretchier, less sugary. Trichomes appear mostly clear, with some milky and amber. Most pistils are red.
3. Tallest, most stretched, almost not sugary at all to the point there aren't really 'sugar leaves' as such. Trichomes are mostly clear, and there seem to be lots of white pistils.

All plants have basically stopped growing... nothing has really changed in the past two weeks, maybe even the past month. Compared to the image I posted at the top of this thread, there is almost no change in trichomes except they're a tiny bit more milky. Almost no new ambers are appearing and the white pistils don't really seem to be changing.

I took a small bud from down low on plant #2 a few days ago and let it dry naturally in the room (about 50% RH), once it felt a little crunchy to the touch I ground it up and gave it a try.... smoked it all last night and it was great! It took roughly double what it usually takes to get me high, but it probably wasn't fully dried (it was still quite green) so there may have been some water weight in there.

At this point what should I be doing? I don't want to stuff things up by harvesting early, but I also don't want to keep them sitting there chewing electricity and drinking nutes if they're not going anywhere.

What do you guys think?

 

[Southpw]

Glad to hear you kept them growing from your original post.
I would keep them going another week if you still have some clear trichomes. You can always harvest some of the crop and leave the one(s) that need a big more time.
As for the GH chart.... It's just a chart. It in no way tells you when your plant is finished flowering. It gives a 12 week chart as a guide. I use same chart and just adjust my nutes accordingly as to where I think I am in the grow process.

 

[d42zero]

Glad to hear you kept them growing from your original post.
I would keep them going another week if you still have some clear trichomes. You can always harvest some of the crop and leave the one(s) that need a big more time.

I can't really - I only have one tent, and once I harvest the tent will be used to dry.. so I can't really keep some going while harvesting the others. That's OK though, I'm happy to harvest all at the same time and see what the difference is.. this is my first go around and I'm learning everything I can, so seeing differences is good.

Do you find it weird that the plants haven't really changed in the past three weeks or so? I don't mean they haven't grown, I mean they haven't really changed at all... trichomes, size, fatness, everything.... I haven't really seen any change in the plants for at least a few weeks now. The plant with the white pistils has looked exactly like that since I posted this thread a month ago. It's like they just suddenly stopped doing anything... seems kinda weird.

As for the GH chart.... It's just a chart. It in no way tells you when your plant is finished flowering. It gives a 12 week chart as a guide. I use same chart and just adjust my nutes accordingly as to where I think I am in the grow process.

Yep that's what I was doing, I might not have made that clear enough since almost every reply to this thread has been about the damn chart I just used it as a guide (using the flip as a point of reference), and when I was talking about it earlier in the thread I was more talking about how I thought I had moved forward in the chart earlier than I should have, not that I wanted to harvest because the chart was telling me to.. I really should have worded that better

There's no problem leaving them another week or another month... I've got all the time in the world But since they've stopped growing, are dropping some leaves, and the smoke from plant #2 seems pretty good, I'm starting to think it might be time to go..

 

[d42zero]

Hmmm actually I've had a thought... if I were to build something that blocked almost all of the light but still allowed air to circulate, could I put that inside the tent and dry harvested buds in it, while still running the light to keep growing the plant that's lagging behind?

Or is it OK to dry buds in a tent with the light running? I was under the impression they should be dried in the dark, is that right?

 

[flashmp3]

The first plant is the one looking closer to the end. That how a ripened bud should look. You need to give the rest time. I have two green crack taking forever to finish but I also know during one month they developed way more than they were before. Patience is key. Regarding your harvest unfortunately you won't be able to harvest everything at the same time. The first plant is in her harvest window. You can give her another week but this other week won't be enough for the other plants. One of them as lots of while pistils and look easily like she has one month to go. What you can do when you harvest the first one is to wet trim everything and use brown papers bags for drying. That s the easiest method I found which works wonders. Lots of info about it on this forum. Thanks to that you won't to put the plants to dry in your grow space

 

[d42zero]

What you can do when you harvest the first one is to wet trim everything and use brown papers bags for drying. That s the easiest method I found which works wonders. Lots of info about it on this forum. Thanks to that you won't to put the plants to dry in your grow space

Does that take care of the smell? That's the issue - I only have one exhaust fan and carbon filter, and I can only use it on one space at a time... if I harvest the first plant I've got nowhere to dry the buds that they won't alert the neighbours I'm trying to borrow a second tent/exhaust setup for drying but if that doesn't work I'm stuck. To keep temp and humidity better under control my exhaust vents from the tent into the room (not out the window) so I can't just dry in the room and let the exhaust take care of it. I *could* change my exhaust to vent out the window, but then I can't keep temp and humidity under control as easily and the smell is going to get into everything in the room..

I haven't actually planned my dry/cure process yet so I'll spend some time today deciding how I want to do it and that'll help me figure out what I need... but the big problem I've got to take care of is the smell