Malawi how long for trichs to turn amber?

[spinosa]

Hello guys,

* to shorten this post for anyone who wants to skip read, my question is how long does it take for sativa trichs to turn from clear to cloudy to amber? For anyone who wants more detail and an explanation of why I am asking the question, feel free to read on below *

I wonder if someone can help me out - I'm on my first grow, and getting toward the end, but I could really do with some sativa specific advice.

I'm growing a couple of Malawi plants, and so far things have gone pretty well. I think the plants might be very slightly hybridized, because the flowering time is listed as 10-12 weeks, which seems a little on the short side for sativas. The flowers are also nice and dense, which is great, but not necessarily in line with with I have seen of other Malawi ladies online.

We are now nearly at week 10 of 12/12, and I have mostly brown pistils which are receding. There is little sign of new pistils being formed. The plants are fairly heavily laden with trichomes, although I wouldn't describe them as "frosty", but they look pretty good. They smell lovely, and the flowers are getting quite sticky too. Most of the trichs are still clear, although some do appear to be turning cloudy.

Now, to complicate matters slightly, I've decided to use Ripen, which is basically a finisher. The reason for this is that the location of my tent is quite cold, and if I allowed the plants to potentially go 12 or perhaps even 16 weeks, my electric bill for keeping them warm would be huge. I am also a little concerned about bud rot, so decided on this occasion to try to finish early.

So, I have about 4 days left of using Ripen and then about 7 days of flushing still to go. My question is, how quickly do the trichs turn from clear to cloudy to amber on Malawi plants? I have read somewhere that many sativas turn directly from clear to amber - is this true?

My main concern for asking (apart from my electric bill) is that now I have eased off on the feeding, the plants are looking really quite N deficient. Most of the fan leaves are yellow, and a few of the larger leaves on the flowers are turning as well. The sugar leaves are nicely green, but I did give the girls a 1/4 strength feed of N a couple of days ago as I was starting to worry that they wouldn't be able to photosynthesise enough to ripen if I didn't. So I don't want to go into a 7 day flush only to find that the trichs are still clear and I'm an unknown amount of time away from harvest.

Do any sativa experts have an opinion on this? Apologies for the long post - just trying to give you all the relevant info.

Thanks in advance,
spin.

 

[exile19]

Those are long flowering strains I heard one took 16 weeks, but get a handheld microscope and look at them

 

[spinosa]

Thanks for the reply exile - yes I know they can go a hell of a long time, but the Ripen that I am using is meant to effectively send “death signals” to the plant so that it finishes early. I have no idea how it is meant to work, and to be honest I would never have used it if my buds hadn’t been quite prolific and dense, and if the elements had not been turning against me.

But tonight I saw my first amber trichs, so it’s safe to say that the Ripen is working, and I’m hopefully not too far off getting ready to harvest. I still have to flush so I can keep an eye on how quickly the remaining trichs are turning and then harvest probably at about 20% amber.

I am smiling from ear to ear - so proud!!

 

[Graytail]

I've been growing sativas and sativa doms for over a year now, and although I don't go by trich color, I can offer some insight.

The long-blooming fluffy ones may never turn amber, or at least the amber color that comes from degradation isn't really a good indicator for harvest, for those phenos. They can simply continue to bloom in waves until they eventually run out of soil or the genetics give up. The more compact ones like your Malawi will have a blooming habit more typical of hybrids - they'll reach the end and stall while the trichs degrade.

So, if your trichs are progressing from clear to milky to amber, then I would treat them like any hybrid. If it doesn't seem to correlate with calyx production, then go by the calyxes - once the calyxes have swelled and pistil production stalls, watch for 4-5 days and if you don't see signs of a new surge of pistils, take 'er down.

 

[spinosa]

Great advice, thanks Graytail! Yes, from the look of mine I would say they are developing like a normal hybrid would, so I will keep an eye on the trichs with these. But that is also very helpful information on calyx & pistil development with regard to sativas. They are always going to be my preference, so I will remember that for next time.

 

[spinosa]

I have a little update and a question for Graytail or anyone else with sativa dom experience who might be able to help me.

I gave the girls their final flush a couple of days ago after seeing just a few amber trichs appear on both plants (way less than 10%, just the odd one here and there). When I returned them to the tent, I noticed that the amber trichs were actually only on two flowers, and these flowers were quite noticable even without a loupe, because the pistils have pretty much disappeared and the flowers had taken on a brown color - actually to the extent that I thought it might have been bud rot, but thankfully not.

So with little experience and not much else to go on, I did a smoke test on one of those ripe flowers yesterday, after quick drying it using the toaster / foil method. Holy shit! I had an extremely pleasant afternoon, then topped up a little early yesterday evening. I don’t remember much about the next 4 hours, other than having one hell of a whitey at one point, but even that aside, it was one hell of an experience. I think the whitey might have been partly due to the chlorophyll in the flowers so curing should help take care of that. I will also be a little more careful on dosage next time - I thought malawi was meant to be quite weak, lol.

But now I have this question. The flowers with the amber trichs are clearly quite potent but the majority of the rest of them do not look ready to me. So in general, does ripeness happen reasonably evenly across a plant, or is it possible to get a flower ripe well ahead of the others? I'm not worried if there is say 15-20% variance across a plant, but if it were possible to have some like rocket fuel and some like catnip, then obviously I'd have to try to get the best balanced time to harvest. My plan was to go another 2 days, but I think without feed the plants will last another 7-10 if need be.

Harvesting in stages is not really an option so I want to pick the best all round moment to do the business.

Thanks for any suggestions or pointers - I really appreciate the advice from you guys, not least as I have now experienced the fruits of my own labor, which would have been much harder without the help of people here.

spin

 

[spinosa]

Just to keep this thread updated for anyone who finds it in a search in future, I harvested at the weekend, which would be just shy of 11 weeks. I'm not at all convinced that it was the right time, but based on the results of the smoke test I think I am likely to have at least some nice buds out of it. I'll update again once dried and cured for a couple of weeks, but for now, it feels fantastic to have moved on to a new phase after so much time and effort over the past few months.

Here's hoping

 

[Graytail]

In my experience, buds will ripen reasonably uniformly across the plant.

The hormones that control the process are mobile and are constantly being manufactured and sent into circulation. Most of these hormones are produced in the newest leaves and calyxes, while the older fans, etc, are primarily producing fuel for the plant. The color change in the trichs is merely a degradation because of their exposure to strong light radiation and heat. THC degrades to CBN, making the high more sedative. The older a trich is, the more likely it is to degrade, and the ones in the brightest light and heat will degrade faster. So, we're trying to find the sweet spot where the trich production falls while the older trichs are degrading. But some sativas cycle the new production, so it's worth it to watch and wait awhile. I'll give a plant all the slack it needs as long as it's still making fat calyxes covered in trichs. They typically grow new ones faster than the old ones go bad. And those new ones are nice and juicy!

I know what you mean about reaching the end - it's really satisfying. And I've never been able to buy anything close to as good as I can grow.

 

[spinosa]

Ah great, thanks Graytail. I think one of the plants was definitely ready, the other possibly not so much. But that's fine for me, I only ever really intended to get one to maturity, and the difference between the two will be good learning experience for me, even if half of it ends up going in the trash.

Once again, serious thanks for the advice, it's really appreciated having input from someone with such relevant and extensive experience!

 

[HeartWW]

You know, Not everyone likes to or waits for the trich's to turn amber. I really enjoy clear to cloudy and the Acid Trip high associated with the early harvest. Amber trich's set me back on my azz too much where clear or cloudy trich's take me for woods walks, gaming and laughing uncontrollably at times. I say try a grow and let the trich's get ripe and try another and harvest at cloudy. Everyone likes something different and you will find what you like. I enjoy Sativa regular and Auto's and some like only Indacas. It's all good, Enjoy !!!

 

[Conradino23]

Ok, I am chiming in too late, but I have an actual experience with Malawi Gold!

Bam!

Outdoor though, but what I can say for sure is that MG will only start resing production in the 2-3 weeks of peak flowering. My trichs started turning milky/cloudy/amber by the end of September in the same time, and I harvested my plant going mostly with a smell, which was incredible! It's a potent shit! 2 big tokes and I've been flying for 5 hours, but it's not a trip u want to take every day. It's a very potent, psychedelic, but extremely confusing landrace sativa, which has proven levels of THC between 24-27% with a lot of THCV, which makes your high speedy like fuck! Still, everyone should try this bud to see what a fluffy sativa can do

 

[spinosa]

Aw, beautiful pic, and thanks for the info! I think I probably harvested slightly early, but the few smokes I have had so far are very satisfactory - very heady, energetic, and just lovely. For a first effort, I am very pleased - just need to get it nicely cured now!