Ready to flip?

[MrPNW]

Wow, time flies when you’re growing weed. Ha ha, you thought I was going to say...when having fun...that applies too.

I was thinking since I flipped on 01 Jan and today is 10 Feb I was roughly 4-5 weeks, but counting on my calendar, it’ll be 6 weeks on Friday, a day away!

Being my first grow I’m feeling some anxiety on not screwing it up now. The flower schedule for this indica dominant strain say 60-67 days which puts me into the first week of March. I want to shoot for the 20-30% amber trichomes to achieve the body relaxed feel (GWE’s description on the trichomes page).

Here are the plants last Sunday. Any recommendation or things to watch out for? I was told flushing wasn’t really needed since I’m doing the Nature’s Living Soil thing. So I was planning to water with tea all the way to the end, which currently seems to be 3-4 days now.

I noticed a number of pistils have started to brown. As of Tuesday all large fans leaves are defoliated. This photo from late last week (Friday I think) only shows the front plant was defoliated.

The NLS Girl Flower Power tea has really upped the color of the leaves again. They look better. I watered with tea yesterday so I think I will take some Macro shots using my iPhone 12 Pro with 15x macro lense. The crystals are really spreading onto the leaves now. Even the fan leaves were stickier on the last two plants from the one defoliated last week. I’ve also got my 1000x macro usb telescope to try.
https://forum.growweedeasy.com/forum/growing-community/484902-macro-photography-who’s-doing-it

Any thoughts?

 

[dropinbiking]

Looking amazing. I'm about a week or so behind you and just starting to ditch some of my first gen large fan leaves, let those sites breathe!

 

[MrPNW]

Now I know why Nebula mentions liking to defoliate at the beginning of flowering. Those leaves can sure get squeezed between buds making it very difficult to get to. I’ve been using the bonsai pruning scissor to remove the leaf right where the leaves meet the stem. I can hold them like tweezers getting into very tight spots. It doesn’t take long for the stem to dry up and drop off. My oscillating fan seems to knock them off when it rustles the branches. I rotate the positions of my plants daily as to which sits closest the fan so they evenly dry out simultaneously. I also rotate them on the risers to expose all sides to different areas of the light.

 

[grouchyoldman]

Good work MrPNW! Healthy and hearty plants well on the way to harvest.

That said, I bet you end up waiting longer than you anticipate. The bud pic you showed is likely a very long few weeks away from serious Amber Trichomes.

I held out for "Late Harvest" colors on my last grow and the results were well worth it... but it's like torture to check day after day after day. My salvation was an enforced sampling routine: cut a "near harvest" candidate bud each week, dry and cure it properly. After the first sample is ready you can treat yourself to a new taste test each week as the Amber slowly appears in your flowering plants.

I started that in week 6 and had five samples to test and compare by the time I finally did the big snip late in week 11. The added advantage was that once the final harvest was dried and cured I could actually compare all the maturing buds for potency and effect. That part is hard to quantify and completely subjective but it helped me dial-in my overall preference. I prefer a mellow body high these days so Late Harvest was worth the wait.

Maybe that's all obvious but I thought it might be helpful.

Looking forward to your results.

-Grouchy
PS, a bunch of us built a thread on this subject, search for "The Trichomes Are Whispering..."

 

[MrPNW]

So you can cut a bud and its ready to sample within a week? I guess all the instances I’ve started to read about harvest and curing led me to think it took way longer after harvest before buds were useable. I’ve only just started reading about the subject. I try not to get to far ahead of myself to prevent info overload, LOL.

 

[grouchyoldman]

C'mon Man, in real life you can sample-taste a harvested calyx after a 5 day drying and a few days in burp. If you save enough to do a proper cure for your samples they just get better and better, but you can tell a lot after a week or so. Slow Dry & Cure your Harvest, not your samples.

Lemme know in week 11 how you feel, Late Harvest tests your resolve.

Keep up the good work, we'll be watchin.

 

[MrPNW]

That’s great news. Being my first grow and only smoking the stuff back in the 70s makes me ignorant to all this. I’ve always liked plants but have never analyzed one like I have with weed. I never knew all the things involved to make it great. I thought they put some seeds in a pot, poured water on it and picked it when ready, LOL.
I’ve made many mistakes along the way, and tackled one at a time using this site. It’s like the encyclopedia of weed growing.

 

[MrPNW]

The pistils are turning brown and the crystals are spreading. Sweet
How are people making the slideshows where you click one photo and you can go to the next through to the last in a second window?

 

[YYCannabis]

Click the camera icon > then Upload button

And your plant looks like she has some good sugary happiness growing. 👍

 

[MrPNW]

YYCannabis Thanks, this was a test.

 

[MrPNW]

Wow, for the first time I stepped into my tent and could actually smell bud fragrance and it was so sweet smelling. I topped dressed with Girl Flower Power, a little potting soil on top that and watered yesterday, instead of my usual GFP compost tea at every watering. I don’t know if it was coincidence or the GFP that did it but I was starting to think my buds were just going to have a mild cut grass smell. So happy.

 

[MrPNW]

Monday 22 Feb 2021

 

[MrPNW]

[No message]

 

[MrPNW]

What do you guys think?
This is day 54 of a strain they say is 60-67 days. All are the same strain. I noticed one of the plants has some amber trichomes already, but the others look clear to me???
Aren’t trichomes supposed to go from glass to milky to amber?
These seems to be going from glass to amber. I do want the late harvest amber to get the relaxed body, anti-anxiety effect.

Has anyone tried harvesting a branch at a time, days or weeks apart, to see what effect they have at different times in the harvest window?

 

[SoOrbudgal]

It's the best feeling when the grow goes so well. You have such a knack with the camera. A great day when the flowers start their fragrances. Boy fella those colas are so great looking. I'm enjoying your Micro shots, even with cat hair LOL. Man don't even look in my tent, it's my hair you'd see.

 

[SoOrbudgal]

Many times done sequential harvest. May do so with 1 of my autos larfy on the lower, rock hard above. Maybe i've gone longer than 8days but i don't think so for getting the lower half closer to milky/amber. It's worth it to me on photos to do so. Meh....auto as long as the tent still on flower mode not needing it right away i'd do it.

 

[MrPNW]

The grower told me they automatically harvest this strain at 60 days. I might try a branch from each at 60, again in the middle of 7 days and hopefully the rest will be mostly all amber by 67 to wrap it up.

 

[MrPNW]

grouchyoldman
Dang! On Friday I was doing some defoliating and accidentally cut off a small popcorn size bud from behind a fan leaf stem. So I sat it on my nightstand to let dry and see what this early pick would do. It was still a little moist this early evening when I made a first attempt at running it through a very tiny grinder and into my Firefly 2+ which uses a small convection oven to heat the weed. I felt a little something for a couple hours but nothing substantial.
I just now before bed, gave it a second attempt, having left it in the vape, and man what a difference! I’m so stoned. My guess is the oven dried it out more and the second attempt did a real vaporizing of the cannabinoids.

So the info says 60-67 day flower yet 60 days isn’t until 01 March! So what is going on? Did Subcool (the breeder) mean to have this strain more on the relaxed body, anti-anxiety, couchlock end of the harvest therefore giving those days? Mine are already showing a number of amber trichomes.

 

[grouchyoldman]

That is a beautiful grow MrPNW and you can count on a great harvest regardless of when you pull the trigger.

Waiting is hard, but as SoOrbudgal said, a sequential harvest can ease the pain. Nip a small sample bud every couple days, large enough to have a taste and leave another bit to dry & cure properly. It is really educational to taste the progression down the road when you have your final product to compare with the test buds. I did that last harvest and I will do so even more methodically in the future. It is great fun to have a lineup of buds ranging from Crystal to Golden Trichs in addition to the Big Jars.

So, if those beauties were mine (and I wanted the "Amber Effect") I'd give them another week or two to further ripen. Based on your excellent pics the most amber is mostly appearing on your sugar leaves first which is the normal progression. My last late harvest stayed cloudy until everything went yellow then amber almost overnight.

So, as long as the plants stay healthy let er ride!

 

[dropinbiking]

So much winning in this thread, I wish my crop was coming out half as nice. Congrats on all the hard work man, and really good job on the pictures too.