Staggered harvesting

[d42zero]

Hi,

I've been doing some baked thinking lately (dangerous!) and I was wondering why I've never seen information on staggered harvesting.... every time I read about harvesting weed, it talks about chopping the whole plant or harvesting the whole lot in one go.. that seems like just the way it's done. If a tomato plant had ten tomatos but only five were ready, you wouldn't harvest all ten at the same time... you'd harvest the ones that are ready, leaving the others on the plant to be harvested when they were ready. With weed we seem to play this balancing game where we harvest when we think all buds are within an acceptable range, rather than waiting for each individual bud to be ready.

Has anyone experimented with staggering harvests? I wonder whether you could have two or three harvesting sessions where you remove only what's ready and leave everything else to ripen a bit more... if the lower larfy stuff fattens up a bit from the extra light then surely that's going to bump yield up?

What do y'all think? I'm about two weeks away from a harvest so I have a chance to try this, reckon I should give it a go?

EDIT: I think I'm going to photograph trichomes on the larger buds and smaller larfy stuff before harvest, if the larfy stuff looks visibly less ripe close up I think I'm going to go with the idea and see what happens. Still keen to hear what you guys think tho

 

[Weaselcracker]

It’s common enough. Though I find that the bud on a lot of my plants ends up mature at more or less the same time. They’re not really like tomatoes. Often the lower bud is slightly behind, but only slightly. I’ve done plenty of scrogs where the little buds way down on the stem, were completely ripe and sticky at harvest, way down in the shade under the screens.


Sometimes I chop the top and leave the rest to mature. Usually for me this reflects some issue though, like it never grew that well, was underlit, I screwed something else up, or (usually) the first harvest attempt was just too early and I changed my mind halfway through.


Usually by harvest I feel like dealing with the whole thing so I can get it over with and clear space for something new. Having a decimated plant around makes me itchy to finish with it.

But yes by all means you can do that. Either to let the lower bud catch up, if it’s behind, or to let it go longer and riper, for variety.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Most people wouldn't harvest an entire plant when only half of the buds have the maximum of milky trichome heads (or whatever metric they use, if it's something other than peak potency), unless they need the space for another plant, are suddenly worried about rippers, are one step ahead of LEO, or something of that nature.

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You can, of course, find examples of partially harvesting cannabis plants in thousands of the grow journals chronicled here.

 

[d42zero]

I was searching for 'staggered harvest' which produces nothing. I didn't think of the term "partial harvest."

Thanks for posting a few links.

 

[TorturedSoul]

It’s common enough. Though I find that the bud on a lot of my plants ends up mature at more or less the same time. They’re not really like tomatoes. Often the lower bud is slightly behind, but only slightly. I’ve done plenty of scrogs where the little buds way down on the stem, were completely ripe and sticky at harvest, way down in the shade under the screens.

I was about to posit that cannabis gardeners either remove the larf before it has a chance to "steal" resources from the upper regions, or train and light it so that it gets decent (and, therefore, could be expected to mature at about the same rate).

But it's late (birds are already awake), and I'm tired. And... er... cranky. Y'all have a nice night day.

 

[d42zero]

It’s common enough. Though I find that the bud on a lot of my plants ends up mature at more or less the same time. They’re not really like tomatoes. Often the lower bud is slightly behind, but only slightly. I’ve done plenty of scrogs where the little buds way down on the stem, were completely ripe and sticky at harvest, way down in the shade under the screens.


Sometimes I chop the top and leave the rest to mature. Usually for me this reflects some issue though, like it never grew that well, was underlit, I screwed something else up, or (usually) the first harvest attempt was just too early and I changed my mind halfway through.


Usually by harvest I feel like dealing with the whole thing so I can get it over with and clear space for something new. Having a decimated plant around makes me itchy to finish with it.

But yes by all means you can do that. Either to let the lower bud catch up, if it’s behind, or to let it go longer and riper, for variety.

Thanks for the helpful answer, appreciate it