Worried About My Small Buds

So, I'm a 1st time casual grower. I currently have 4 lovely females on my balcony. The oldest was planted on labor day weekend. My question is, everything I've read about harvesting says to harvest when about half of the white hairs are turning red. I've been trying to hold out because my buds are small, but the hairs are now starting to turn brown, but my buds still aren't even close to the size that I see in pictures, like those here. What's up with this? I thought that it took about 20 weeks to get to full maturity. I live in the Bay area of Cali, I'm growing in Miracle grow soil, my plants are about 2 feet tall, and the pots are plenty big enough. I wish I could post a pic so you guys could tell me whether or not I've waited too long. Sorry though, no way to do it. Can anybody offer advice?

that is the exact problem im having, if you go to general marijuana growing section you can see my post.is your plant very unhealthy? drooping leaves everything real crispy?

No, my plant actually seems to be very healthy. Some of the bottom leaves have turned yellow, then brown and dropped off but from what I hear this is what to expect when budding, because all the plants' nutrients and energy go into developing the buds. It IS a possibility, though, that my lady was exposed to a male earlier in the season. I kept my first male around not knowing any better, and I would actually tap on it to watch the pollen fall off. I thought the pollen sacs were buds. *cringe* Could this be the prob?

Change ur light cycle?

In Cali they are nowhere near ready, mostmfolks are just starting to see white hairs appear. Ignore the red hairs, over the next few months you will likely see a lot more white ones grow and the buds get a lot bigger.

hi op looks like you read some misinformation...
you can determine the correct time to harvest by looking at the color of the trics


where there buds on the girl/girls when you spayed pollen all about?

you dont judge the harvest based on the pistils, you base it on the clarity of the trichomes, like SBW just showed.

ieatlittlekids said:

So, I'm a 1st time casual grower. I currently have 4 lovely females on my balcony. The oldest was planted on labor day weekend. My question is, everything I've read about harvesting says to harvest when about half of the white hairs are turning red. I've been trying to hold out because my buds are small, but the hairs are now starting to turn brown, but my buds still aren't even close to the size that I see in pictures, like those here. What's up with this? I thought that it took about 20 weeks to get to full maturity. I live in the Bay area of Cali, I'm growing in Miracle grow soil, my plants are about 2 feet tall, and the pots are plenty big enough. I wish I could post a pic so you guys could tell me whether or not I've waited too long. Sorry though, no way to do it. Can anybody offer advice?

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The hairs with turn brown and then new white hairs will pop out...and that will happen a few times before the buds are ready...if you start taking the buds off the first time the hairs start to turn red, you are losing well over half of your yield...
How are your leaves looking? Are they green? Are they there?

I guess the real question here is, how long have they been flowering?

You can't just count weeks. They'll just veg forever and ever if you never cut the light cycle. Let nature take it's course. The sun will take care of it.
Be patient. That is the key.

ieatlittlekids said:

No, my plant actually seems to be very healthy. Some of the bottom leaves have turned yellow, then brown and dropped off but from what I hear this is what to expect when budding, because all the plants' nutrients and energy go into developing the buds. It IS a possibility, though, that my lady was exposed to a male earlier in the season. I kept my first male around not knowing any better, and I would actually tap on it to watch the pollen fall off. I thought the pollen sacs were buds. *cringe* Could this be the prob?

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Yes that could be the problem if the female plant had hairs while this was happening...
A seeded plant will go long enough to make it's seeds...A female plant left with a male plant unchecked will end up being nothing but seeds...so, all you can do is beat the seeds out of the pot, gather the husks and smoke that...have overpollinated once myself...lol. Luckily I just flowered a small clone and then pollinated it...but still having something you waited so long for end up giving you only half of what you wanted from it...Because it was for seed...I wanted the seeds, but also assumed there would be some bud...like when only one branch gets pollinated...You get seeds but also some bud...but I had some autoflowers and since they spend their whole life in the veg tent I just left one female and one male side by side in a corner of the tent...pulled the male when the female started getting her buds in...and they whole thing was seeds...nothing but seeds...
2 oz of bud ended up being 2 bowl packs...what a let down...

LOL @ this thread being 6 years old.

smok3h said:

LOL @ this thread being 6 years old.

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Lmfao that's soo funny