Aside from taste and effect, what are the down sides of harvesting too early?
I harvested one of two plants about a week ago (pineapple express feminized from seed) after 8 weeks in flower. Trichomes were cloudy with a little bit of amber estimated at about 20%. After drying the buds they have a bit of a chlorophyll aroma, so my assumption now is that I likely harvested a bit early. I generally don’t care for the couch-lock effect and prefer a more energetic effect (in particular with this strain), and mostly use a dry-herb vape for flower and make tinctures with trim. Still, I have one more plant (same strain started from seed at the same time) that I want to make sure I hit the “sweet spot” on the harvest.
Questions: any growers experienced with Pineapple Express with advice on flower time? And any other down sides to harvesting too early? Or, down sides to harvesting this strain late (in the event I overcompensate with the second plant)?
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Without pics of trichomes from harvest it’s hard to say if it was early. From your description it didn’t sound like it was early. Probably just needs time to cure is my guess.
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My guess as well. The dry tends to WRECK terps pretty good fresh after cut. The cure is when those smells come back and mature into what u can taste when u smoke.
Negatives to chopping early could be:
Racey/paranoia inducing buds -not mature thc tends to effect me like this
Hurting yields - chopping too soon can do horrors to your POTENTIAL yield. Alot of strains bulk up heavily in the end
But if the smells were there before chop, n u harvested early. I wouldnt count the premmie chop towards losing smells. Normally its the opposite. Leaving them too long, they can lose smells. It could be alot of things.
A bad dry (too fast or too hot)
Bad genetics (hope not)
On the stem too long (chopping too late)
Or a myriad of missteps during the actual grow.
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Thanks for this. Yes, smells were there for sure pre-chop. Good to hear that the cure should balance it out.
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No problem. Hows ur drying process btw? Talk me thru it. Lets see whats going on
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Drying process: I cut the branches individually to hang rather than the full plant. I made a drying box out of a cardboard box with a small desk fan mounted in the side (pushing air out) with smaller vent holes on the opposite side. I keep it in my basement where temps are pretty steady around 65 degrees. Humidity varies a little down there, but no extremes one way or the other. I use the technique where I check one of the smaller branches to see if it snaps. This dry took 9 days to reach that point.
For curing I’m using mason jars, opening daily for about 30-60 minutes, and I have a small boveda humidity pack (62%) in there as well.