Early harvest window, or not quite?

T

tekkennoob

Member
This is my first grow, curious about other’s opinions on the ‘readiness’ of some of my plants.
This is my first time posting on any forum in years, so I apologize if I get some of the etiquette wrong, and I apologize for a lengthy post, as I certainly have a bad habit of over explaining things. As a bit of a disclaimer, this first grow is Very Much So just a test for me. I began with no intentions of harvesting a perfect crop, I simply want to ease my way in and take this learning process very slowly. As such, I’m not really interested in tips on what I may have done wrong throughout the whole growing process, I am well aware that I missed out on Many factors of a good grow, and I’ll get to those eventually.
INFO——
I have 5 indica dominant autoflowers, gifted bagseeds of an unknown strain. They are currently on day 68. Low on space atm, so they’re in roughly half gallon (maybe a bit smaller) pots, and I attempted LST during vegetative. No nutrients at all were used during vegetative, but I used some banana tea during flowering. They all seem to be at slightly varying levels of maturity based on size and pistils, however the trichomes appear pretty consistent throughout. Save for one plant, which I recognized as hermie about a week ago - removed the balls and quarantined, based on size and pistils it looks similar to the others, but the trichomes are much clearer. Haven’t included any pics of that guy, I figure I’ll just harvest him last.
Here’s the fastest grower, from one week ago to today. Still has more plumping up to do? Or is it done getting bigger?F7FDB13D-06C8-4E27-8E5A-CB471934FC4E.jpegF2B710D1-EE24-4D5E-A764-8A854F151ADA.jpeg
Here are closeups of the trichomes from today. Pics taken from multiple plants, at different parts of the plants.

770ABFC0-DEA0-440D-9A10-EB03BBAA3B73.jpeg8D028108-C0EB-46B8-90E3-54921F128D7A.jpeg137EA4CC-9C97-481B-B8E1-FFAE75E1A43B.jpeg7F582494-6D8B-45F0-8D7D-FD4033725B16.jpeg3976A9FC-0338-400C-A207-EECE809DEC39.jpeg
I can tell that there’s fewer clear trichomes than a week ago, but I’m not quite sure what percentage of cloudy these would be considered. I’ve noticed some amber trichomes, but very very few, maybe about 2-5 per bud. (Not just on the sugar leaves, actually on the bud). I’ve read that more amber trichomes, more couchlock - I like the calm of indica, but I don’t want something that will put me to sleep. Should I still wait for more to turn amber? Are the trichomes even as cloudy as I think they are? I’m also a bit put off by how many pistils are still white, I’ve read lots of conflicting opinions on how indicative these are, though I figured I’d wait a few more days at least.
All in all I’m mostly wondering, what percentage of clear-cloudy trichomes do these look like? Are these early in the harvest window, or still approaching?
 
Lordhooha

Lordhooha

Well-Known Member
tekkennoob said:
This is my first grow, curious about other’s opinions on the ‘readiness’ of some of my plants.
This is my first time posting on any forum in years, so I apologize if I get some of the etiquette wrong, and I apologize for a lengthy post, as I certainly have a bad habit of over explaining things. As a bit of a disclaimer, this first grow is Very Much So just a test for me. I began with no intentions of harvesting a perfect crop, I simply want to ease my way in and take this learning process very slowly. As such, I’m not really interested in tips on what I may have done wrong throughout the whole growing process, I am well aware that I missed out on Many factors of a good grow, and I’ll get to those eventually.
INFO——
I have 5 indica dominant autoflowers, gifted bagseeds of an unknown strain. They are currently on day 68. Low on space atm, so they’re in roughly half gallon (maybe a bit smaller) pots, and I attempted LST during vegetative. No nutrients at all were used during vegetative, but I used some banana tea during flowering. They all seem to be at slightly varying levels of maturity based on size and pistils, however the trichomes appear pretty consistent throughout. Save for one plant, which I recognized as hermie about a week ago - removed the balls and quarantined, based on size and pistils it looks similar to the others, but the trichomes are much clearer. Haven’t included any pics of that guy, I figure I’ll just harvest him last.
Here’s the fastest grower, from one week ago to today. Still has more plumping up to do? Or is it done getting bigger?View attachment 4838649View attachment 4838648
Here are closeups of the trichomes from today. Pics taken from multiple plants, at different parts of the plants.

View attachment 4838669View attachment 4838672View attachment 4838673View attachment 4838675View attachment 4838676
I can tell that there’s fewer clear trichomes than a week ago, but I’m not quite sure what percentage of cloudy these would be considered. I’ve noticed some amber trichomes, but very very few, maybe about 2-5 per bud. (Not just on the sugar leaves, actually on the bud). I’ve read that more amber trichomes, more couchlock - I like the calm of indica, but I don’t want something that will put me to sleep. Should I still wait for more to turn amber? Are the trichomes even as cloudy as I think they are? I’m also a bit put off by how many pistils are still white, I’ve read lots of conflicting opinions on how indicative these are, though I figured I’d wait a few more days at least.
All in all I’m mostly wondering, what percentage of clear-cloudy trichomes do these look like? Are these early in the harvest window, or still approaching?
Click to expand...
You've got 3 weeks or more to go
 
Thundercat

Thundercat

Well-Known Member
Before even thinking about harvesting take a look at this and see if your plant is actually showing you all these signs.

The signs of ripeness are pretty standard.

First a few of the pistils begin turning color and start receding. Your plant is just starting to ripen. Depending on the strain you could still have two months to go. We're just starting this journey.

Two to four weeks later you'll notice that most of the pistils(>80%) have now changed color and curled back into the bud. It's frosty, way bigger than it was a few weeks ago, and smells dank! It's time, right? Not a chance killer. Patience is a virtue

Over the next 2-3 weeks it doesn't look much different, maybe a little more swelling in the calyxes, and the rest of the pistils change over, but the stems ars starting to bend under the weight of the buds. These ladies are putting on weight and now the buds are doing their final ripening.

Now you begin looking at trichomes, on the calyx not leaves, and harvest according to your preference. When looking at trichomes it’s essential to look at them from the side. The bulbous heads can magnify the opaque stalk under it. Looking from the side allows you to more accurately see the condition of the resin in the trichome head.

There is still no rush to harvest, the window just opened, and you have several weeks before you MIGHT start having to think about it possibly beginning to get too ripe. It takes WEEKS for plants to mature not days.

It is very easy to harvest a plant to early. It is very hard to harvest a plant to late. I’ve never seen someone accidentally wait too long.
 
T

tekkennoob

Member
Lordhooha said:
You've got 3 weeks or more to go
Click to expand...
Thundercat said:
Before even thinking about harvesting take a look at this and see if your plant is actually showing you all these signs.

The signs of ripeness are pretty standard.

First a few of the pistils begin turning color and start receding. Your plant is just starting to ripen. Depending on the strain you could still have two months to go. We're just starting this journey.

Two to four weeks later you'll notice that most of the pistils(>80%) have now changed color and curled back into the bud. It's frosty, way bigger than it was a few weeks ago, and smells dank! It's time, right? Not a chance killer. Patience is a virtue

Over the next 2-3 weeks it doesn't look much different, maybe a little more swelling in the calyxes, and the rest of the pistils change over, but the stems ars starting to bend under the weight of the buds. These ladies are putting on weight and now the buds are doing their final ripening.

Now you begin looking at trichomes, on the calyx not leaves, and harvest according to your preference. When looking at trichomes it’s essential to look at them from the side. The bulbous heads can magnify the opaque stalk under it. Looking from the side allows you to more accurately see the condition of the resin in the trichome head.

There is still no rush to harvest, the window just opened, and you have several weeks before you MIGHT start having to think about it possibly beginning to get too ripe. It takes WEEKS for plants to mature not days.

It is very easy to harvest a plant to early. It is very hard to harvest a plant to late. I’ve never seen someone accidentally wait too long.
Click to expand...
Thank you both, and thank you Thundercat for the extra info! (also, how do I 'like' someone's response??)
I'd assumed that since the internet says autoflowering indicas take 8-10 weeks to harvest, and mine are almost at week 10 that they'd almost be ready now, but I realize that 8-10 weeks is about what the seed packets would say, and that's under prime conditions. Mine were grown under much less then prime conditions, so it makes a lot more sense now that they'd take weeks longer than I expected. So the initial plumping of the buds that I noticed was just the beginning of flowering, and the final 1-2 weeks of plumping that I hear about are still to be expected? The internet also tells me that the harvest window is just about a week long, and I should aim for around 70% orange pistils, so I was worried about harvesting too late, but from what you're saying it sounds like that window could actually be a lot longer? Also with the pistils, it's entirely possible that more would pop up in the near future, so what might look like 60% orange pistils now could actually get set back a lot, right?
Also, I didn't include pictures because I'm sure everyone's seen immature buds, but a few branches on my plants are significantly less mature than the main ones which I posted, some with no orange pistils at all. I figured I would do a staggered harvest to allow them to catch up, in that case do you (or anyone) have suggestions on when to harvest the main colas, i.e. before all the fan leaves yellow so that the remainders can still get that energy, or do you think they would all catch up by then?
Again, thank you both very much : )
 
Thundercat

Thundercat

Well-Known Member
The harvest window on cannabis plants is defiantly more then a week.

Harvest the main colas when they are actually ripe like my previous post describes and the lower buds really should be close. but you can stagger the harvest and leave the bottoms a few extra weeks to ripen more if they don’t look how you want yet.
 
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