What signs do you use for two week harvest window?
- Thread starter Badfinger
- Start date
That's a question I am trying to answer. I am wondering if there is a timeframe for ambering up once they start to turn. It is not happening in days from my 1st grow experience. It can be uneven, ambering up at the top, middle, or bottom of the canopy. I have ambers appearing but here and there vs in a uniform manner. I am twisting or bending the large buds over to expose calyxes and those guys haven't budged from clear and cloudy. But I guess all of this is what I am about to learn on my own if I can temper my patience to catch the perfection I am seeking or learning to seek. LOL
I am hitting 75 days on Thursday. Something I am watching to see if it is true is watering. Watering increases in the final weeks, but I read it would noticeably slow down in the days or weeks prior to harvest. This appears to be starting with mine. Still watching.
The other thing is buds can get denser. I am experiencing spongy buds firming up.
I keep looking for a trigger to move the calyxes to amber now. Lots of Rabbit Hole to discover.
I am hitting 75 days on Thursday. Something I am watching to see if it is true is watering. Watering increases in the final weeks, but I read it would noticeably slow down in the days or weeks prior to harvest. This appears to be starting with mine. Still watching.
The other thing is buds can get denser. I am experiencing spongy buds firming up.
I keep looking for a trigger to move the calyxes to amber now. Lots of Rabbit Hole to discover.
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I have had some autoflowering plants that start getting a few amber trichomes (outdoor grows) and never seem to get much farther no matter how long I let them grow and they basically just stay outside until they die. I've read a number of posting here that have said some strains just don't turn amber. I may cut one bud off, look if there are any amber trichomes on the bud and cut that branch off to dry while leaving the rest of the plant to mature for a week or three before I cut another bud and check the trichomes.
What effect are you looking for? My preferred smoke is to give me a solid couch lock with psychoactive effects I experienced in the late 70's to mid-80's. I find that high elusive.
In most strains I have grown in the last three years, I pick a bud and under a microscope I try to get almost 100% have reached cloudy and a good number on that bud are amber. But when you are looking through a microscope your field of view on that bud is a very small part of the plant overall. Looking through a jewellers loupe I myself can't focus on anything so they are useless to me with my eyesight.
I have found when I continue to cure a quantity of buds in a jar for up to a year or more I can obtain the near couch lock effects I am searching for. Apparently, this comes about through the natural breakdown of the THC as the plant ages. I could probably get those effects from growing a strain with a higher percentage of CBD. I don't know myself. I have some CBD dominant seeds but have never bought or grown any myself and the commercial dispensaries around me don't sell weed yet with higher CBD levels.
In my case, I look to see if approximately 5-10% of trichomes on a bud are turned at all, then I will start a staggered harvest off the plant. Trim, dry and in a jar to start curing. A week or two later, I cut the rest of the plant after checking a bud.
On a big photo plant, there is no way I will harvest the entire plant at once. I may take 1/4 off the plant each week, staggering the harvest over a three week time period because I find it impossible to trim up to a pound at once. I have arthritis really bad in my hands and back. Over that time the percentage of trichomes will go up making it more likely I will eventually get the effect I am searching for.
I'm not going to say my method is the right way. It is just something I have started to do.
One way I almost always get the high I search for is by making a coconut oil extract and making edibles. By eating an edible I almost always get the effects I used to get when smoking 1970's Mexican bag weed. I haven't even been able to get that high from smoking dispensary weed in Michigan. I have got it from smoking Purple Trainwreck from an Arizona dispensary though.
What effect are you looking for? My preferred smoke is to give me a solid couch lock with psychoactive effects I experienced in the late 70's to mid-80's. I find that high elusive.
In most strains I have grown in the last three years, I pick a bud and under a microscope I try to get almost 100% have reached cloudy and a good number on that bud are amber. But when you are looking through a microscope your field of view on that bud is a very small part of the plant overall. Looking through a jewellers loupe I myself can't focus on anything so they are useless to me with my eyesight.
I have found when I continue to cure a quantity of buds in a jar for up to a year or more I can obtain the near couch lock effects I am searching for. Apparently, this comes about through the natural breakdown of the THC as the plant ages. I could probably get those effects from growing a strain with a higher percentage of CBD. I don't know myself. I have some CBD dominant seeds but have never bought or grown any myself and the commercial dispensaries around me don't sell weed yet with higher CBD levels.
In my case, I look to see if approximately 5-10% of trichomes on a bud are turned at all, then I will start a staggered harvest off the plant. Trim, dry and in a jar to start curing. A week or two later, I cut the rest of the plant after checking a bud.
On a big photo plant, there is no way I will harvest the entire plant at once. I may take 1/4 off the plant each week, staggering the harvest over a three week time period because I find it impossible to trim up to a pound at once. I have arthritis really bad in my hands and back. Over that time the percentage of trichomes will go up making it more likely I will eventually get the effect I am searching for.
I'm not going to say my method is the right way. It is just something I have started to do.
One way I almost always get the high I search for is by making a coconut oil extract and making edibles. By eating an edible I almost always get the effects I used to get when smoking 1970's Mexican bag weed. I haven't even been able to get that high from smoking dispensary weed in Michigan. I have got it from smoking Purple Trainwreck from an Arizona dispensary though.
Its funny, they say todays weed is so much more potent then in my youth (70's), yet I never smoked anything today that gave me the ass kickin I got from some old Red mex or acapulco gold, which was dam near 30% seeds. And if you had told me back in the day when I was throwing frisbee's full of seeds away, that I would pay 10-20 dollars for one seed when I got older, I would have thought you were on acid.
Exactly. To get the effects of the old Mexican and Columbian weed with seeds today I have to get it from edibles. I made some canna-honey in my Infuzium 420 machine one day after following a post from someone here that did it. I ended up with sticky honey all over my hand from squeezing the last of the honey out of the filter bag.Its funny, they say todays weed is so much more potent then in my youth (70's), yet I never smoked anything today that gave me the ass kickin I got from some old Red mex or acapulco gold, which was dam near 30% seeds. And if you had told me back in the day when I was throwing frisbee's full of seeds away, that I would pay 10-20 dollars for one seed when I got older, I would have thought you were on acid.
There I was, like an overgrown Winnie the Pooh, jarring the honey up after rinsing my hands and equipment off. Licked my hands clean.
Next thing I knew.
Things got fuzzy and things got blurry
And then everything was gone
Didn't know what happened
But I knew it beat the hell out of sniffing burlap
I crawled into bed and 18 hours later I stumbled out to my kitchen and drank so much water I sloshed when I walked.
The best weed I ever smoked was some Hawaiian, the first seedless weed I ever got from a fellow Marine who had just transferred in from Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay. I got a 1/4 oz from him just before I went on leave around 1979 or so. Took it to a Doobie Brothers concert at Castle Farms in Charlevoix Michigan and sat there rolling joints and filling pipes with all these people crowding around me sharing my stash of Hawaiian and an ounce of Michoacán I had picked up at 29 Palms Californian from some shady guys out in the desert in 1977 and had locked up in a trunk I left in Michigan.
Those were Sativas as far as I know. Last really kick ass weed I ever experienced.
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Here are some plants I have growing. The big one to the back was not even planted by me this year. I had some photo plants growing last year and they were never going to finish before snow fell so I uprooted them. They weren't even in flower except a few budlets on the trunk that got pollinated when I did an auto seed run. I picked a couple seeds off and tossed them on the ground. This female plant sprouted in March of this year and survived snow and freezing temperatures for a month and then took off in May. Went into flower in Mid-June. Reached over six feet tall and I had to start bending the limbs down to keep them below the 6 foot plus fence to comply with state law of being out of view.
The plants in front are from a very small auto strain that gets no taller than 18 inches that I crossed with a very tall Northern Lights auto. I just tossed a hand full of seeds on the ground to see what would happen with no care at all.
I'll have no idea when any of these plants are ready to harvest and will just have to keep checking the trichomes as they were not sourced from a breeder but just from some crosses from a multitude of plants I grew and pollinated with a Northern Lights male.
The plants in front are from a very small auto strain that gets no taller than 18 inches that I crossed with a very tall Northern Lights auto. I just tossed a hand full of seeds on the ground to see what would happen with no care at all.
I'll have no idea when any of these plants are ready to harvest and will just have to keep checking the trichomes as they were not sourced from a breeder but just from some crosses from a multitude of plants I grew and pollinated with a Northern Lights male.
Sweet thick plant in the the pics!
Oh i forgot about the Hawaiian, no seeds and green weed that smells sweet with a touch of pine, WTF is this I thought. Dam it was smooth.
1/4 lbs for $90, those were the days for regular weed.
And scales, the death of the 4 finger oz.
That is about what I paid for a 1/4 ounce of Hawaiian back in the late 70's, $75 a 1/4 oz. i called it Blue Hawaiian as it was the first time I had ever seen a blue colored strain. It was also the first sensi weed I ever experienced.
Mexican weed ran $25.00 an oz in Michigan around 1975-1977. I remember paying $30-$40 an oz for Columbian in the early 80's in North Carolina.
The recreational dispensaries in Northern Michigan last month were selling 1/8 oz specials for $35.00. I picked up a couple of strains of 1/8 oz specials just to try. Tiny little buds and was no better than what I grow myself. I expected weed much better than I grow since I moved to growing outside under the sun instead of under LED lights in a tent. I was disappointed.
The commercial weed is harvested, sent to testing and put up for sale within weeks. No real cure in the packages I bought. Maybe two weeks or so. I go for a longer cure and jar with what I grow at home. I ended up with more than I could ever use my first year, grew less the second year and after communicating with a much bigger grower here I then started vacuum packing and freezing my cured weed in a deep freeze. I just give it away to people I find out partake as state law allows you to gift 2 1/2 ounces to anyone at least 21.
This year I have already harvested the plants I grew in pots outside. Basically some Fastbuds strains I wanted to experiment with producing some seeds with colloidal silver and STS. A few others I pollinated to get non-feminized seeds on a few branches without any chemicals so I could also do a test smoke of a bit.
That large plant in the back survived frost, snow and weeks of freezing temperatures at night. It is a hybrid of a photo fertilized by an auto. It packed on buds so early in June that I pollinated a single branch on the backside with a female auto I flipped with STS and liberal dosing of colloidal silver. I'm trying to get some feminized seeds with genetics from the plant that can survive and mature successfully up here just a short drive South of Ontario, Canada. Most photos I have grown never mature until mid October right when the first heavy snow falls. They usually don't even show sex until the first week of August.
This plant already had buds packing on in full flower. If I get some female seeds from it then next year I am going to cross it with some plants from some tester seeds I got from Bad Dawg Genetics as tester seeds. Gooey 13. I grew one out two years ago. It was in full flower in August. A huge bush that yielded 1 1/4 lbs with huge colas the size of my leg ankle to calf. I harvested a pound out of it in a staggered harvest until it rained non-stop for six days and then got hit by an ice storm.
I'm shooting for a big, early finishing bush of weed that can survive lows into the 40's that gives a good strong high. The Gooey 13 gave a high yield and did finish early, I'm trying for a plant that remains big, can survive my short cold growing season that I can play around with to then experiment with the numerous Fastbuds strains I have seeds from.
Basically, I've decided I am too cheap to buy anymore seeds at $10.00 or more a seed. So I decided to play around with what I have stashed away and make a lifetime supply of seeds and grow for fun.
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