New Grower Preharvest Tips

[kicks]

There are many debates about what you should do before harvesting your ladies, whether to flush or not, put in darkness, lower temp., nail the stem, etc..

To be short, i've had in total 4 successful grows and each time i gain more knowledge and experience, in the end this is a whole science which you might think is just *pourin' water and it'll green* which is total bullshit.

1st of all, The most accurate way to know when to harvest is to watch the Trichromes (Clear= Not ready, Cloudy= Highest THC, Amber= Highest CBD). Secondly your harvest window should start @ 70% of white hairs turned brown for higher THC values, and 90% for higher CBD! The 3rd method which is the easiest is by watching the leaves yellow and wither but i personally recommend taking in consideration all these factors when deciding when to harvest.
Flushing is A MUST! even if you let it eat up all the nutes in the soil, use ur ppm or TDS meter and u'll find that ur runoff is filled with particles, so do flush thoroughly with ICE COLD water to trick the plant that winter has came, this includes lowering the room temperature to being cold, not only mild, but colder than before.
Secondly, putting your plant in darkness for 72hrs before harvest makes it do all in its power to survive and produce max terps, or trichromes as a defense mechanism.
Some people might prefer nailing the stem which is basically making a hole in the stem and putting a toothpick or a nail in it, this shocks the plant to the max level but it's not quiet safe as the plant focuses on healing itself rather than producing more terps on the buds. I personally do no recommend than method.

Conclusion:
Flush REAL WELL with FRIGID PH'd Water atleast 3 days before leaving it for another 3days in darkness, meanwhile you'll be lowering the room temp. while maintaining the same airflow. Humidity values differ due to climate changes so im not gonna get into it in this thread. The whole idea is tricking the plant that winter is coming so it reaches its max capabilities. And no your soil doesn't need to be rock solid dry before harvest, ur just waiting longer

I look forward to ur questions, happy farming lads..

 

[420Jimmy]

:Gary:

 

[Wait what?]

I'm too drunk to read it all, will check it out tomorrow

 

[Muddy]

Welcome to AFN. Sorry, but I find it kind of odd that your first post would contain so many cannabis myths and run so counter to what we've learned here on AFN. Yes, lowering temps near the end can trick the plant into thinking winter is coming, but if you go that route, it should be done gradually, the way it would happen in nature. I've personally tried the 48 - 72 hours of darkness at the end and saw no difference. Others here have also had the same experience. For more information and a proven method of when to harvests autos, have a look here: https://www.autoflower.org/f44/when-harvest-autos-your-leaves-will-tell-you-4889.html

Also, this thread doesn't belong in our knowledge base. Moving it to General AF Discussion.

 

[kicks]

Sorry if i have posted in another discussion. Finding it kinda odd that my 1st post has myths? what myths? I may be new to AFN but im not new to botany, I explained everything i said, as for gradually lowering the temp. Ive learned that it doesn't matter, shock it or not, winter is coming and shes thriving to survive. Leaving the plant for 72hrs in darkness before harvest usually works fine but not for all plants, so if u wanna optimize u wont loose anything. Sorry for any inconvenience.

 

[namvet25]

A myth is a statement made by someone that has no real scientific research or proven studies that it can be totally accepted as a proven fact.What you said is fine and is based on your experience and what you believe is correct but cannot be truly accepted by the entire growing community.Autos are fairly new therefore there is not much documented info that we can say is the bible on growing autos so when we post statements on our forum we try and state that this is what I have done and it worked for me,than others can decide if they want to try it and make there own decision.

 

[Milky]

Personally I´d not turn the lights off at all as C3 plants produce the most under light. If anything you´re gonna cripple the production during the last 3 days.

Read this: (It´s for photos, but autos are photos crossed with ruderalis to catch on it´s autoflowering traits, super-autos are then made by crossing that with more photos to be bigger, better yielding and taste better, but they still autoflower).


"This is a direct quote from Ed Rosenthal whom most of you know is a marijuana growing guru:

Marijuana plants photosynthesize as long as they receive light as well as water, air, nutrients and suitable temperature. Photosynthesis is the process in which plants use the energy from light (primarily in the blue and red spectrum's) to combine carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and water (H2O) to make sugar while releasing oxygen to the air.

Plants use sugars continuously to fuel metabolic processes (living) as well as for tissue building. The plant combines nitrogen (N) with the sugar to make amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. They are the substance of plant tissue. When the light is off, the plant's metabolic processes, respiration and growth, continue.

The plant can photosynthesize continuously so it produces the most energy and growth when the light is on, continuously. Continuous light does not stress the plant, which reacts somewhat mechanistically to it.

Plants under an 18-6 light-dark regimen are producing sugar only three quarters of the time. They are thus growing at only 75% of their potential. Leaving the light on continuously will result in bigger plants, faster, which leads to higher yields."

-------------------------------------------------------------

"The following information is straight from Greg Green's "The Cannabis Grow Bible"

Cannabis is a light demanding plant. Professional growers keep the light on their plants using the 24/0 photoperiod for this reason. Plants that grow under 24/0 flourish and do not need a quantity of darkness in order to rest and perform photosynthesis properly. Plants that are grown in optimal conditions under 24/0 light regime grow vigorusly and the benefits of a 24/0 photoperiod can be seen actively in the results. More nodes are formed, more branches are created, leaf numbers increase, the plant is growing at its finest.

Some growers opt to use 18/6 as their photoperiod. This is 18 hours of light, six hours of darkness light regime. Under these conditions the plant will grow quite naturally but not as vigorously as the 24/0 photoperiod.

The 18/6 photoperiod expels 3/4 the amount of light that a 24/0 photoperiod does. Although this does not mean that a plant produces 1/4 less leaves,branches and nodes under the 18/6 photoperiod, it certainly does show the correlation between light and cannabis growth. As we have said already, cannabis is a light demanding plant. There are no problems associated with 24/0 and although some have attributed cannabis sexual dysfunction (the hermaphrodite conditon) to 18/6 photoperiod these problems are actually the result of heat stress.

A 24/0 photoperiod requires that your grow room temperature be kept well monitored. The 18/6 option is cheaper to run. You use a quarter less electricity and this will have an impact on your electricity bill. Also the 18/6 photoperiod will generally extend the bulb's lifespan. During the 6 hours of darkness the grow room is allowed to cool down for this period but a well maintained good grow room setup should not require a cooling down period.

24/0 and 18/6 both share the same problem though. Once you start the photoperiod you should keep that way especially when the plants near maturity (the preflowering stage). An irregular photoperiod can cause more males than females to develop. It can also cause sexual dysfunction to appear. Whether you choose 24/0 or 18/6 as your vegetative photoperiod try to keep that photoperiod unitl your plants are mature enough to express their sex."

 

[Milky]

http://bigbudsmag.com/grow/how/article/marijuana-harvest-myth-debunked-may-2012

 

[Milky]

Also when the trichomes turn amber the THC degrades into CBN, not CBD. However you are right about the THC:CBD ratio!

 

[Anthropolis]

Many lols in this thread. Ok, so the experts here that I've read, all agree that autoflowering cannabis perfomed better for them with 20/4 at least of darkness. You're saying eveyone else is wrong huh? I have all those ollllld grow bibles, and I certainly don't recall them saying to run the life cycle of cannabis under 24 hours of light. All respect to Ed and Green, but modern autoflowering cannabis is just not what they wrote those books about either.