Darkness before harvest?

[Maljross]

Hey everyone. I'm a little late to this conversation. But I'm pretty new and still trying to figure out when to harvest based on tric color.
Has anyone noticed how much, if any they will change in color during 2 days of darkness. If some were barely starting to get cloudy, for example, would I expect about the same after 2 days in the dark?
I'm having a hard time knowing when is the best time to harvest in general, trying to figure out the perfect time. I'm growing hybrids, so from what I've read I don't want too much amber unless I'm really going for a body high?
Thanks in advance. I'm brand new.

I'm still working our the kinks of auto growing but there is plenty of info on here on harvesting sir. I go by the method of when my girl starts to naturally die... I stop newts.... plain h2o... l like cut her down when the mediums dry... ish

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[Dichoti]

Someone's gonna have to remind me, But I'll test the darkness theory on the two I have in my "Will it Grow" journal when they're ready. I'll have to rig something up to keep one covered for 72 hours, But, I'll try it since they're the exact same strain, at the exact same age...in the exact same "pot" lol
Anyways, One of y'all remind me in about a month and I'll test this one.

 

[Smieszek420]

Dark before chop cant give better potency or more trichomes, but definetly add a little bit more terps, because cannabis produce terps mostly at night(dark cycle). And thats the reason for darkness before chop.

 

[Stone420]

I give my plants 36 to 72 hrs of darkness b4 I chop. I do this to let pots dry out as I feed right up to the day I turn out the lights. I also read some where like @Mcdee did about this increasing trichs I dont know about that either

I did this exact same scenario and noted my White Widow (P) seemed to beef up her trichomes during this final dark period. I fed her a nice meal, let her stay under the lights all that day, then lights out for 48 hours. She was semi-dry when I took her to the drying rack after doing a fan leaf trim but leaving the sugar leaves to protect the drying buds. I think this method gave me a head start on the drying time which went very nicely with the drying room at 50% RH.

BTW...I am not of the mindset that I need to starve shit out of a plant by flushing and all that jazz before harvest. If dried and cured properly, I never detect tastes and flavors making me wish I had flushed. Of course I watch my PPM's all along and always do 25% over watering to get large runoff to manage residual salts. I think this is key in my system since these are mini-flushes all along.

 

[McDee]

I did this exact same scenario and noted my White Widow (P) seemed to beef up her trichomes during this final dark period. I fed her a nice meal, let her stay under the lights all that day, then lights out for 48 hours. She was semi-dry when I took her to the drying rack after doing a fan leaf trim but leaving the sugar leaves to protect the drying buds. I think this method gave me a head start on the drying time which went very nicely with the drying room at 50% RH.

BTW...I am not of the mindset that I need to starve shit out of a plant by flushing and all that jazz before harvest. If dried and cured properly, I never detect tastes and flavors making me wish I had flushed. Of course I watch my PPM's all along and always do 25% over watering to get large runoff to manage residual salts. I think this is key in my system since these are mini-flushes all along.

White widow was the strain they test or had most success with cant remember, scientists or doctors were test for medical purposes. Not sure when the study was from, it was in Amsterdam tho. Never tested it but has my interest. Next time if you do journal it so we can have some proof.

 

[BISCUITS]

I have done this numerous times and now have a system I refer to as “brown bushin’“. For the last week I give it pure white light 6500k at 18/6 with no red or blue just white light and very little water with low humidity. Then she goes into darkness for a whole week with only enough water to keep her alive. Then about 4 days into the darkness week I cut out all water and let the plant dry out and die while still in the soil. Sometimes I will dry them all the way right in the pot they grew in. This is the only real method I have found to increase terps and stickyness. I have done lots of research and experimenting over 31 years of growing to arrive at this point. Try it out if you don’t believe me. It’s all about timing my friends and I do this with photo plants too. I have also started taking my autos at full milky with no amber if I can help it. I get a better head high without amber. Autos are a lil different then photos in this regard. I have had to harvest some auto plants early once and was glad I did. I think auto peak potency arrives earlier then their photo counterparts.

 

[Briteleaf]

Been growin' auto's outdoor. I harvest in the morning and hang to slowly dry in the dark. What I've seen is that both regular and auto's slowly turn amber, even after drying and storing, trichomes continue to slowly turn. 2 year old dried bud that was about 1% white when harvested turns to a vast majority of amber over time. That's when it's well sealed with humidity control in the dark. I leave the sugar leaves on through the entire process even through curing. I want them there to protect the blooms. Touching buds and grinding buds just throws away lots of those THC-bearing trichomes that I want to save for vaporizing. All that stickiness you feel when you touch buds is WASTING THC. I like to use chopsticks. I think the dark drying improves potency and hanging single branches that are ready and leaving others to become ready is a much better plan than hanging the whole plant. I've wondered if hanging in the dark is effective on ALL varieties. If I could test THC I could find out but all I have to go on is my experience and it may be so flawed.

 

[The Bedroom Gardener UK]

I usually turn the lights off a few days before, as I had heard the same increased trich output. The thing I was told to keep in mind, was that any new trichs would be clear anyway, and not of the potency of a mature one - as in clear then milky then amber as it matures. Never stopped me though.

 

[Pepperjack420]

Found this video. Guy does lab test on a strain at several different hours of darkness. Looks like it helped his numbers. 72 hrs was the best

 

[paulg]

I’m