My autos are taking forever to amber up, wait some more?!

Hi Guys,
I'm pretty proud of my first grow's results, which I have going in an organic supersoil with 280W COBs and Blumat auto drip irrigation. I have planted from seed two feminized autos, a Green Crack (Cush) and a GSC. The Cush is the ssativa-leaning pheno and I didn't train so grew like a mini bonsai, has some beautiful buds, and is going on 121 days (from Germ, about 66 days into flower). The GSC was SCROGd and super-cropped has long twisting buds full of calyxes and is at about 112 days (also 66 into flower). The pistils on each are well past orange, and some have curled in. I've been checking the trichomes with a 40X-1000X endoscope, and see that they are predominantly cloudy, and shown a decent amount of amber on the frost leaves, but I still don't many amber trichome heads on the interior of the buds themselves, I don't want to harvest too early and get panic weed, but I don't want to harvest too late and get couch locked. I built a drying cabinet, with an AC Infinity inline and humidifier, and then some CVault stainless to cure them in, so am taking the next step of the process seriously. Any advice to make sure I don't ruin my maiden voyage into growing quality nugs would be greatly appreciated!

Don't just look at the trichomes. Look for white pistils and completely developed bud clusters. When you dont see any new white pistils shooting she's ripe.

While trichomes may become amber on the outside you have no way of checking the color on the trichomes inside of the buds.

That's why we always ask for the whole plant picture, trichomes on the surface is only one indicator and may become amber months before the plant is ripe. Cheers!

The overall appearance will be your guide. May the force be with you.

Think of carry over cooking, the same happens after you chop the plant during drying. In that 10-14 days of dry time the plant is still processing what it can, it will ripen on the vine. Take them when the heads are 100% cloudy, at that time you should see a few ambers here and there.

Wastei said:

Don't just look at the trichomes. Look for white pistils and completely developed bud clusters. When you dont see any new white pistils shooting she's ripe.

While trichomes may become amber on the outside you have no way of checking the color on the trichomes inside of the buds.

That's why we always ask for the whole plant picture, trichomes on the surface is only one indicator and may become amber months before the plant is ripe. Cheers!

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Hi All:

Thanks for the replies, guidance and encouragement! I have been able to get pretty deep inside the interior of the bud clusters with the endoscope, and there's no amber heads on the trichomes in the interior; it's all very cloudy (which I understand means peak THC potency), though there are around 30% amber heads on the sugar leaves around the buds which I gather ripen earlier than the buds themselves. Therefore, I'd be keying in on the trichomes in the interior to determine when they're fully ripe for harvest, but they're taking forever, hence my question to the forum.

As for other characteristics of the plants, they're certainly indicating they're on the tail end, as I've removed plenty of yellow or dried off leaves, and the pistils have gone primarily to orange and have pretty much curled in. There is a bit of foxtailing that's been going on the Cush, so I'm not looking at that necessarily as evidence of when to harvest.

I had a somewhat negative experience with the GSC by harvesting a few little nugs to see how they were doing, the day my grow advisor told me he thought they looked fine to harvest already (two weeks ago), and I got the dreaded anxiety attack, panic rush from it, so determined it wasn't ready, turned the lights back on and have been growing them to full ripeness since.

On a separate issue, how do I "like" comments that you guys send me? I only see a reply button, but nothing to like them....which I do across the board

maranibbana said:

Think of carry over cooking, the same happens after you chop the plant during drying. In that 10-14 days of dry time the plant is still processing what it can, it will ripen on the vine. Take them when the heads are 100% cloudy, at that time you should see a few ambers here and there.

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Excellent point, I have read that the buds continue to cure once harvested into smoother and less racy product

Triches can amber a bit after harvest as they begin some decay.

Budzbuddha said:

Triches can amber a bit after harvest as they begin some decay.

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Thanks Budzbuddah, that's what I'm beginning to understand better. Looking at your description and wonder what FFOF stands for? How long have your GSC autos been going? Do they resemble mine?

BosBuds said:

Thanks Budzbuddah, that's what I'm beginning to understand better. Looking at your description and wonder what FFOF stands for? How long have your GSC autos been going? Do they resemble mine?

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Flying Finger Of Fate



just kidding - Fox Farm Ocean Forest ( medium ) - I don’t remember my “ breeder “ for GSG but they structured differently but yours looks great . Hard to determine the strains anymore - offerings are so diluted .

Budzbuddha said:

Flying Finger Of Fate



just kidding - Fox Farm Ocean Forest ( medium ) - I don’t remember my “ breeder “ for GSG but they structured differently but yours looks great . Hard to determine the strains anymore - offerings are so diluted .

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Ah...that FFOF lol. I actually use their potting soil and Cavern Culture, great stuff!. Thanks for the feedback. Given this is my first grow, I'm learning as I go along. The first mistake I think I made was to pop the seeds, then transplant the seedling a couple times before ultimately transplanting them into the raised bed, and wonder whether this isn't what's causing the longer than expected finishing period (breeder said 70 days, I'm at 120+)? In any case, since I used a supersoil that I cooked for a couple months before starting, I didn't want it to burn the babies so inserted a planting column of FF potting soil within the bed, and they responded well. I added some of the FF CC to my worm tea and they seem to have liked that too. Next grow I'm going to try germinating the seeds directly in the bed, and see how they do.

Some of the autos I've grown just never really amber. I chop them when they are cloudy and look done besides the lack of amber

In the end, I'm pretty happy with how the 1st grow went. Ended up getting 4.25 oz from the Green Crack (Cush) and another 10 oz from the GSC which grew into these wild snake looking buds! After the 33 day cure they're smooth as silk, tasty and really strong!