Hey everyone - I need some advice hear. This is my second time growing outdoors here in the Southern Hemisphere (NZ) and I’m having exactly the same issue as I had last year - when do I reap??? I have 3 plants (seeds from unknown origin) and they are all in the final flowering stage - the big fan leaves all started yellowing and falling off about a month ago and I panicked a bit because flowering had only recently started. Anyway, I bought some good quality flowering and resin fertilisers and intensified the fertilising regime and that seemed to do the trick. But now I am not sure if they are ready to reap or not. The pistils are mostly brown now and starting to recede but there is no sign of any amber trichomes - they still all look clear to me. I only have an iPhone with x10 magnification- but still, if there were any amber trichomes I think you would see them. I have read that the trichomes on some strains never go amber. Please could someone have a look at the photos below and let me know if it looks ready to reap. I’d be most grateful.
Rufus T. Firefly
Well-Known Member
There are a ton of threads on the topic search "harvest" and you will find lots of pics and opinions about the state of ripeness of buds.
Super helpful IMO as some folks have posted pics early and continued to post pics so you can follow the progression and compare those to your flowers.
Good luck and don't stress growing is fun
Super helpful IMO as some folks have posted pics early and continued to post pics so you can follow the progression and compare those to your flowers.
Good luck and don't stress growing is fun
Rufus T. Firefly
Well-Known Member
Also in the first pic there seem to be three white spots in about the middle of the flower. Don't know what those are but they don't look like they belong there and if it was me I would check those out and maybe remove them.
Thank you
Thank you for your response, Rufus I have done a “Harvest” search and you’re right, I found some good info and photos. I have got myself all caught up with the colour of the trichomes turning amber but the more I read the more I realise it is more to do with all the pistils receding. My plants still have a few new white pistils appearing - what worries me a little though, is that while the top colas have good girth, new flowers seem to be growing from the top of them (see pics below) and I thought that may be a sign that I have left it too long. And those 3 little white dots on the 1st image were just little particles - they just brushed off. Good spotting though!! And thanks again for your response
Thank you for your response, Rufus I have done a “Harvest” search and you’re right, I found some good info and photos. I have got myself all caught up with the colour of the trichomes turning amber but the more I read the more I realise it is more to do with all the pistils receding. My plants still have a few new white pistils appearing - what worries me a little though, is that while the top colas have good girth, new flowers seem to be growing from the top of them (see pics below) and I thought that may be a sign that I have left it too long. And those 3 little white dots on the 1st image were just little particles - they just brushed off. Good spotting though!! And thanks again for your response
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Rufus T. Firefly
Well-Known Member
I agree that there has been too much emphasis put on trichome color and not enough on other elements of ripening like the swelling of calyxes. IMO that's when you will really see and feel the buds put on weight. I like to grab a stem underneath a cola and carefully give it a jiggle as the plant flowers, every few days or so, to gauge the weight of the flower. One needs to be carful but by giving a little back and forth you can really get a feel of the weight as it ripens. I will get a lot heavier as you get int the harvest window.
I wouldn't worry about the "new flowers". Sometimes pants don't grow as symmetrically as we would like and you can get some degree of fox tailing but it's really just cosmetic IMO.
The only other thing I would care to offer an opinion on are the browning leaves. That may be due to some kind of leaf septoria (fungus) and not nutritional. Obviously I can say for sure but on my outdoor grows tend to have the same sorts of issues.. Not much you can do about it in flower other than trying to keep the moisture off (rain, dew, etc) and keeping as much airflow on them as possible. It tends to show up mid to late summer as the summer hits that hot and humid stretch
If you want to take your growing up a notch I would suggest you do a soil test before each cycle and a tissue test right before flower. Total costs of those tests and somebody to interpret them runs me about $180 a cycle. Takes all the guesswork out of nutrition and while one certainly doesn't have to do It I wish I had started to do it earlier. It's made a big difference in the quality and quality of my grows. If you were in the states I could give you some recs but I have no idea who does it in NZ.
Good luck!
I wouldn't worry about the "new flowers". Sometimes pants don't grow as symmetrically as we would like and you can get some degree of fox tailing but it's really just cosmetic IMO.
The only other thing I would care to offer an opinion on are the browning leaves. That may be due to some kind of leaf septoria (fungus) and not nutritional. Obviously I can say for sure but on my outdoor grows tend to have the same sorts of issues.. Not much you can do about it in flower other than trying to keep the moisture off (rain, dew, etc) and keeping as much airflow on them as possible. It tends to show up mid to late summer as the summer hits that hot and humid stretch
If you want to take your growing up a notch I would suggest you do a soil test before each cycle and a tissue test right before flower. Total costs of those tests and somebody to interpret them runs me about $180 a cycle. Takes all the guesswork out of nutrition and while one certainly doesn't have to do It I wish I had started to do it earlier. It's made a big difference in the quality and quality of my grows. If you were in the states I could give you some recs but I have no idea who does it in NZ.
Good luck!
