Pineapple Express Auto Harvest / Dry / Cure - What I did differently this time

[jcool09]

Thanks for taking a look at my thread. I'm going to try to explain my interpretation of all of the harvest / dry / cure threads that I have read as they pertain to the way I grow- small scale for personal medical use. I have had about a half dozen grows under my belt during the the past few years and at this point I have the growing formula down to where I can consistently produce quality buds. But as we all found out immediately after we took that first hit of oven-dried bud that there is more work to be done on the back end to produce the smokability and taste that we're looking for. I am going to explain first how I know when to harvest and then detail the steps I take after that point to dry then cure the harvest to make it smoke and taste great. Once properly cured buds can be stored for an extended period of time- I actually just enjoyed some White Dwarf Auto I harvested a little over 2 years ago.

 

[jcool09]

As I explained I grow in a very small scale- quality rather than quantity. I have come to love the auto-flower varieties for a couple of reasons. The first is that they do not require a change in the lighting schedule, hence the term auto-flower. This means that they can be flowering in the same cabinet as a plant that is in vegetative growth stage. The second reason is that they tend to have a shorter lifecycle than plants you have to veg then flower. The PE Auto I will refer to during this thread took only 69 days from soaking the seed to manicuring the buds.

Here is the girl on day 53 right after I noticed clusters of yellow growth at the top of the most mature buds. I have not grown this strain before and I immediately began to worry that these may be male flowers...

Bud tips: are they male or female?

 

[jcool09]

...but they weren't. They were dense clusters of female flowers that looked like this 10 days later.

PE Auto day 63

You can see that a most of the hairs are red but I still kept the plant going for another 4 days. One tip from the threads you'll read on curing is to avoid the newb mistake of looking at the amount of withered pistils and assuming that the plant is finished. You should read the numerous posts out there about using the color and clarity of the trichomes as your guide. I spent about $10 for a small flashlight and a 30x magnifying glass. You will get some amazing bud porn closeups when you can zoom in that close- Cannabis is an amazingly beautiful plant.

 

[jcool09]

So here she is on her last day in all of her glory under the LED. You can see the Gigabud in the rear is still in vegetative growth. I have a 2x2 Secret Jardin tent which lets me mount my lights from back to front, an option I did not have in my old grow cabinet. As a result I can run the 250W Metal Halide and the 180W LED at the same time effectively creating a grow and a flower side. The Secret Jardin DHII was $130, a worthwhile investment considering the lighting flexibility. It also is mostly airtight when zipped up so you can exhaust out from the top and open one of the side vents for intake and not worry about odor even in a confined space.

By the way this was not a dwarf strain yet with topping once at the 4th node and suprecropping a couple of times after the flowering stretch she was only 8" tall when I harvested her. Look at the Gigabud in the shot with the lighter and you can see the hydroton in the waterfarm pot. The plants were roughly the same height althought the buds on the PE were fanning out from the center rather than growing straight up. On a side note I did not feel like continuing the grow for another 60+ days to finish the Gigabud so I cut her down last Friday too. I'll have a good supply of meds now so I'm going to chill for a bit. I'd love to live in CO or WA where I wouldn't have to worry about growing but live in a red state that would likely be one of the last to legalize. But my taxes are low...

PE Auto day 67 - Harvest day

 

[HomeMedGrower]

So here she is on her last day in all of her glory under the LED. You can see the Gigabud in the rear is still in vegetative growth. I have a 2x2 Secret Jardin tent which lets me mount my lights from back to front, an option I did not have in my old grow cabinet. As a result I can run the 250W Metal Halide and the 180W LED at the same time effectively creating a grow and a flower side. The Secret Jardin DHII was $130, a worthwhile investment considering the lighting flexibility. It also is mostly airtight when zipped up so you can exhaust out from the top and open one of the side vents for intake and not worry about odor even in a confined space.

By the way this was not a dwarf strain yet with topping once at the 4th node and suprecropping a couple of times after the flowering stretch she was only 8" tall when I harvested her. Look at the Gigabud in the shot with the lighter and you can see the hydroton in the waterfarm pot. The plants were roughly the same height althought the buds on the PE were fanning out from the center rather than growing straight up. On a side note I did not feel like continuing the grow for another 60+ days to finish the Gigabud so I cut her down last Friday too. I'll have a good supply of meds now so I'm going to chill for a bit. I'd love to live in CO or WA where I wouldn't have to worry about growing but live in a red state that would likely be one of the last to legalize. But my taxes are low...

PE Auto day 67 - Harvest day

Not trying to take away from your great thread.

Just trying to make sure there is correct information. It is not legal to grow in the state of Washington. After 502 passed an adult over 21 may purchase up to 1 ounce from a state run facility.

 

[jcool09]

Not trying to take away from your great thread.

Just trying to make sure there is correct information. It is not legal to grow in the state of Washington. After 502 passed an adult over 21 may purchase up to 1 ounce from a state run facility.

Thanks, HomeMedGrower, I stand corrected. That makes perfect sense since the government would not be able to collect tax revenue if the consumers were growing their own.