When do YOU harvest?

It all depends on the strain. As soon as i see a few amber i stop watering and stop feeding then later that week i harvest. Ill chop the top colas first leaving the bottom nugs to fatten up a bit then harvest the rest. But some people get good results with all amber trichs ive let my Blueberry go untill it was all amber and that shit just blew me away. Some strains you should wait for a little more amber. Amber only means they are BEGINNING to degrade into other compounds and you only loose potency when they actually start loosing there heads and look like there melting. If they have heads and are a little amber then thats fine.

HeartlandHank said:

I've got some that have pistils that will recede... but some of them do not.... especially NL... I've taken them at 10 wks, plenty ripe in my opinion, and the pistils are still there. I've always thought of those sharp red pistils as a trait of dried NL buds (assuming you get them fairly fresh/not roughed up).

The green crack plant on the other hand... those pistils recede and seemingly disappear right around harvest time.

When I had 4 Joey Weed Apollo 11 plants that I was pulling clones from.... There were 2 of them that I liked to harvest while 50% of the pistils were still white. Going further did not seem to increase potency but did decrease yield on a few different occasions.
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I have never heard of a plants yield reducing by allowing it to flower to long that sounds like crazy talk. I've heard of stronger flavor in plants that flower longer but not shrinking buds...lol

k0ijn said:

I'm not sure why or how checking trichs damages them. What are you doing to your trichs?
I use a loupe and/or a camera to take high res pics, I don't damage any trichomes and I can check as many times as I want to.
As long as you don't touch the leaves/calyxes with your hands or any other object there's no chance of damaging any of them.

And on the subject of "huge pita getting a good focus" I'm not sure why that is the case for you.
A good loupe or a 5+MP camera will allow you to get a good focus every time, it doesn't even take too long.
It's certainly not a pain in the ass, I just set my camera to macro and shoot away and then check the pics on my laptop.
Very quick and very easy, without damaging anything.

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Yeah I need to get one of those digital scopes but I use a regular hand held scope and between me and the buds both moving I cant get a steady focus until I touch the bud to still us both. I always thought I had a steady hand...great shot with the bow & rifle but I guess not so much with the scope, lol. I found better luck just taking a pic with my camera and zooming in with a cpu program. But I have to do that with the lights off lately. When I try with the lights on I get a white screen no matter what the camera is set on. That damn thing was like $300. Im thinking it got dropped..? Its weird because that's the only thing wrong with it.

mr. green thumb 01 said:

Yeah I need to get one of those digital scopes but I use a regular hand held scope and between me and the buds both moving I cant get a steady focus until I touch the bud to still us both. I always thought I had a steady hand...great shot with the bow & rifle but I guess not so much with the scope, lol. I found better luck just taking a pic with my camera and zooming in with a cpu program. But I have to do that with the lights off lately. When I try with the lights on I get a white screen no matter what the camera is set on. That damn thing was like $300. Im thinking it got dropped..? Its weird because that's the only thing wrong with it.

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Most mobile phones today are 8MP+, I don't know if they all have a macro function but if they do you should be able to use a smartphone to take the pictures.
I use a digital camera which cost about $200 a few years ago (it's only 5mp) but it's still working today and has a good enough quality to make it viable to check trichomes with.
So I can only imagine that a new camera or a new smartphone would be even better (if they have macro functions of course).

Yeah that's what I do as well, snap and zoom, if the resolution is high enough you can see the individual trichomes easily.
I don't understand the second part you mention, white screen?
There must be something wrong with the camera then? I take all my pictures in full lights and I haven't had any problems yet.
Maybe the particular camera is just toast.

^^^^^^ I use the macro on my phone,5mp camera. It does the trick

i thought amber gave you more CBD, white more THC, and clear more non-psychoactive turpenoids (and/or other THC precursors?). is that not correct? THC giving you a faster, but shorter, "up" high and CBD giving you more of a longer, stoney "couchlock" that takes a little longer to kick in when taken TOGETHER with THC? i think the CBD prevents the body from clearing THC or something like that.

there's actually a whole CBD movement out there. pure CBD won't get you high, but new medical research has shown that most of the medicinal effects (pain, anxiety, psychosis, Parkinson's, etc) come from CBD, not THC.

to me, really early harvesting always seemed to give me a really heady, "up" high that wears off in 20minutes. THAT seems "less potent" to me...

a little off topic, but my silver haze is going on 12 weeks and still pumping out tons of fresh, plump, white pistils. pistils on older lower popcorn growth starting to turn orange and trichs on that lower growth showing 20-30% amber. new upper growth, however, is still most clear with some cloudy.

i believe i'm close, but does anybody have experience with silver haze? how long did it take to ripen?

also have great white shark. new pistil growth has almost completely stopped, most of the pistils are orange/dry, but trichs are still only around 20%. planning to just let it go until the new pistil growth completely stops, then see if it will plump up any more, then chop. that's been going for 12 weeks too. isn't great white shark (indica dominant) more of an 8 to 10-week strain?

All strains are diff. & all tastes are diff. I recommend testing at diff. stages of the buds final weeks to determine which you prefer. All the tric. hype is nonsense. Find what your personal tastes are & you will have the most satisfying high.

haole420 said:

i thought amber gave you more CBD, white more THC, and clear more non-psychoactive turpenoids (and/or other THC precursors?). is that not correct? THC giving you a faster, but shorter, "up" high and CBD giving you more of a longer, stoney "couchlock" that takes a little longer to kick in when taken TOGETHER with THC? i think the CBD prevents the body from clearing THC or something like that.

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That's incorrect.
Amber trichomes contain CBN, the degradative product of THC.

No. THC is not the substance which determines whether you get an energetic high or a couch-lock high.
The phenotype determines that, but I won't go into that now.

THC is the main psychoactive cannabinoid in Cannabis.
CBN (the degradative product of THC) represents a 90% loss of potency.

No. CBD is a cannabinoid on it's own. CBN and CBD are very different and the levels you get in the plant are very different.

CBN amounts are determined by how many amber trichomes you have on the plant percentage wise, compared to other trichomes (like clear and cloudy).
Some growers get up to 40%-60% CBN in their harvest and thus lower the potency by around 30%-50% depending on how much CBN is actually there relative to how many other cannabinoids are present.

Another way to prove your theory wrong would be; CBD is normally present at below 1% of total cannabinoids in most strains.
The highest lvl of CBD measured in a strain was 15%. Your numbers don't make sense.
And the reason they don't make sense is because you have thoroughly misunderstood or been told wrong about cannabinoids, their differences and their effects.
I won't go on about the rest you wrote because the entire premise is wrong.



Edit:
I didn't mean to make it sound like I won't help you if you have any questions regarding your grow.

TriPurple said:

All strains are diff. & all tastes are diff. I recommend testing at diff. stages of the buds final weeks to determine which you prefer. All the tric. hype is nonsense, only 0.01% THC and CBD degrade or upgrade. Find what your personal tastes are & you will have the most satisfying high.

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You recommend testing, yet don't explain what kind of test, which would only have taken you a couple more words.

I'm not sure what you mean by "tric. hype".
I haven't heard that expression before.
Nobody is hyping trichomes.


0.01% THC degrade or upgrade?
What are you talking about?

If you let your plants bloom for a long time, with loads of amber trichomes (like many people do), up to 40%-60% of THC degrades.
The 0.01% number you just plucked out of the air is a figment of your imagination.

And what the hell do you mean by upgrade?
What does that even mean lol? You don't know that saying 0.01% of THC degrades is an incredibly ignorant thing to say, yet you talk about THC or CBD "upgrading"?
What are you talking about man?


Edit:
Right, lol.
I see that you edited your post to remove the ridiculous statement about "only 0.01% THC or CBD degrade or upgrade".
I quoted you before you edited it though so I'll just leave that in the quote for everyone to see.

K0ijn lol'ed!!

I will mark my calender.

lol jk chill chill dont delete lol

Yeah im thinking that camera is toast.

wow wtf? half of the votes on 50% amber or more REALLY? jesus read more! +rep to k0jin yet another time for knowing his shit

mr. green thumb 01 said:

K0ijn lol'ed!!

I will mark my calender.

lol jk chill chill dont delete lol

Yeah im thinking that camera is toast.

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It's not the first time I've lol'ed on this forum.
But I fucking had to lol because of the ridiculousness of the statement.
I mean 0.01% where the hell did he get that number from? It's blatantly made up.

So you can't use a smartphone or get a new cam?
I think you should if you can afford it.

I harvest at 95/5 milky/amber.

er0senin said:

wow wtf? half of the votes on 50% amber or more REALLY? jesus read more! +rep to k0jin yet another time for knowing his shit

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People can do what they want but it's sort of depressing to see how many ignorant people are out there.
It doesn't really impact our grows or our mindset but it's somewhat funny and ridiculous at the same time.

Maybe someday they'll taste properly grown weed harvested @ peak potency, and it'll knock them on their arse.
Maybe that's what's needed before they'll see the light.
But I doubt most of them know the differences between Sativa & Indica so I guess we can't expect them to know about cannabinoids.

I'm actually going to push one of my next plants into the late amber zone. I'm looking to increase pain relief and if I could honestly smoke a bud that didn't get me high at all yet took away my pain, I'd choose it all day every day.

I am an old school grower and have never used a scope to make my call , this is a trend of bullshit like flushing and I dont waste my time with that shit as well .......
Each plant has its own unique look indicating it being ready and then perhaps a scope if Iwanted couch lock amber aged trichomes !

i like to harvest when:
sativa dominant 80% milky / 20% amber
indica dominant 95% milky / 5% amber
hybrids 90% milky / 10% amber

I agree, I harvest my Widow at about 20% amber. 50% seems a bit much. But I have not grown every strain to know for sure, still seems very late to harvest.

supchaka said:

I'm actually going to push one of my next plants into the late amber zone. I'm looking to increase pain relief and if I could honestly smoke a bud that didn't get me high at all yet took away my pain, I'd choose it all day every day.

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That doesn't make much sense.
CBN is not the best cannabinoid for pain relief.

THC, CBG, CBD and CBC all reduce pain relief more so than CBN does.
CBD reduces spasm, no pain in particular, but it still is a better pain reliever than CBN.

THC is the main pain reducing cannabinoid, the other cannabinoids often act on THC to increase pain reduction (CBC, CBD, CBG).

So by reducing the THC (since you are letting the plant go amber) and by gaining CBN you are actually reducing the pain relief and instead increasing disorientation, ill feeling and grogginess (qualities of CBN).

You forgot the option two weeks early because I had to move/had no bud/needed cash fast/etc.

70 % cloudy, 30% amber