Proper way to finish?

I’m nearing the end of my first indoor grow, two Expert Seeds Blue Cheese Auto’s. As you can see by the picture, they look nothing alike. The one on the left is a short 17" with fat dense buds while the other is 24" with much thinner buds. Both received the exact same everything from germination to right now. They are 60 days from sprout.

I have only grown once before, this year I did a bag seed outside. She ended up being 4’ tall and yielded 5 oz dried and trimmed. I used no training or tricks, just let her do her thing. Same with the auto’s. Having no experience I decided to just let them go and learn from that.

As the harvest is right around the corner, I was wondering if there is anything beneficial I should consider doing? I saw somewhere here on ILGM about going dark for 48 hrs prior to chopping them. Can anyone expand on that for me?

Thank you to all who post on here as I have gained a lot of knowledge and insight.

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Once you reach the color you was looking for with the trichromes, I just use filtered tap water only for the last two weeks. It helps get rid of the nutrients still left.

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Most of the “tricks” used in the final 2 weeks are to try and increase trichome production. There’s stem splitting, ice baths, dropping temp, dropping humidity, and the 48 hours of darkness. Do any of them work? Maybe…

Flushing 2 weeks before harvest is aimed at reducing nutrients in the soil and forcing the plant to eat themselves to finish. This will give a cleaner/less harsh smoke.

The plant on the left looks a lot closer to being done than the one on the right.

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Nice plants I agree with @Drinkslinger the one on the left looks real close one on the right still got a few weeks…

Those are beautiful plants. I’m kinda new at this, and only do the flush (lowering ppms) to make my smoke smoother.

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This is also to reduce residual salts in the finished flower. To my knowledge; it doesn’t help with trichome production. I do R/O only the last 10 days or so and 36 hours of darkness and harvest from the dark tent. The idea is to allow the plant to sequester nutrient salts in the root mass. This is a normal event that occurs nightly (another reason to not run them 24/0 lights) that we are simply capitalizing on.

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I’ve read about stem splitting and I’m interested in trying it. Should I split the stem and immediately go with the darkness?

Stem splitting is typically done 7-10 days before harvest.

I love the little trichome gnome!

I’ve started doing this. Once I pull the plant I take paracord and pull out the white colored very thin rope and I will hang branches this way. I try to get off all the branches off the main stem in hopes it will dry faster.

This is what the start of hanging branches look like.

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Well, the ladies are done. They get their final drink of RO water in a minute, then it will be 48 hrs of darkness and then it’s choppin’ time. Still surprised at how different they are from each other.

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Went with 36 hrs of darkness and no water, all I can say is WOW! The visible difference in frost was amazing as was the density of the buds. I wish the pics would’ve turned out better. I pay close attention to my plants, checking them out in great detail. I am truly blown away by the changes that occurred. :open_mouth::grin:

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Your plants look absolutely great! Very nice job.

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