have you ever gone into detail on your dry and cure technique ?
First of all we need to read Muddy's thread
https://www.autoflower.org/index.php?threads/the-life-cycle-of-auto-flowering-cannabis.5113/.
Modern cannabis plants have gone through an amazing breeding/cross breeding process. Just reading the names of some of our favorite strains is an indicator of how far cannabis cultivation has gotten. Years ago and not that long ago. Autoflower cannabis was a joke. Poor quality of the end product. Few strains that were worth the time and very little if no info on how to grow them. That has changed dramatically in the last decade. Now autoflower cannabis is just as good quality and ease of growing as our photosensitive cousins. That's due to the hard work of breeders like Mephisto Genetics and many other autoflower breeders.
When our stoner ancestors harvested their crops. They didn't have the sophisticated jeweler's loops or plug in microscopes to check the color change of the trichomes. They went by the change in the leaf color. They knew that the yellowing of the leaves were in correlation of the maturity of the cannabis plant. More yellowing meant a better stoned/medical effect. I go by our Stoner Ancestors (and Muddy's) way of knowing when to chop. Although I do have a jeweler's loop and I double check the trichomes color with it. I found that the yellowing of the autoflower plant is about the best way to go. I like my cannabis ripe before chopping. That means most if not all the fan leaves yellow up and fall off and the sugar leaves just start to yellow up.
I'll then trim what fan leaves are left. Clean the bud sites a little. I like to have more sugar leaves on my bud when I eventually chop. Personal use only so "Bag Appeal" means nothing to me. I think the added sugar leaves on the buds adds to the effect of what I like in the end result. Why cut them off if they are frosty and loaded with trichomes.
I used to chop the bud sites off and then hang them in a dark cool room. Now I chop the whole plant(s) at the base and then hang them up as before. Keep a fan blowing in the room, but not directly on the bud sites. If it's very dry out I'll add a humidifier to keep the room @ 50% RH, but normally that's not needed. Let them dry for at least 5 days. Check the dryness of the stems by bending them. If they bend easily and no "snap" then give them a few more days. Usually a good week of hanging is enough. Then I'll trim the buds off the stems and put them in a Trader Joe's large paper bag. Get a humidity gauge at any cigar shop and drop it in the paper bag. The end result is 65% RH. When the bud get to 65% jar them to cure. Every day for the first week open the jar and let the buds breath. A good 15 minutes will do the trick. Then open the jar on occasion to let the buds get some fresh air.
I vape so I'll start to use the new buds after the first week of cure. The longer in the jar the better the buds will be.
That's it.. Chester has kept his buds in jars for months. I usually have just enough buds to last me till the next harvest.
