Trichome colour when to harvest

G’day, what colour should trichomes be when harvesting if you want a 50/50 mix of milky and amber trichomes as the plants keep living for a bit after harvest if you harvest at 50/50 will I end up with more amber trichomes than I want? Or would it be best to harvest when it’s around 75% milky and 25% amber to end up with a 50/50 mix? Also is it true that different colours give different effects, like if trichomes are clear it won’t have much effect and if milky it’s a head high and if amber a narcotic like effect such as body stone couchlock? If so that is the reason I am after a 50/50 mix even know I am permanently couchlocked anyway lol.

Cheers, Brendan.

I’d say closer to the 50% if you want 50% after a short cure, you really don’t need much longer than about a week or two cure. Part of the idea of a slightly long cure is, just as roses cut and wrapped with a moist paper towel or put in a vase of water, the plant isn’t dead just yet, there are plenty of metabolic functions going on in the vibrant looking parts of the plant. By keeping the humidity up during the early part of the cure, those pats of the plant continue to use up chlorophyll and other nutrients stored in the tissues of the plant, making it smoother as well as some more milkiness and some more amberness being made during this time.

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Thanks MacGyver, I want to try long cure maybe 6 weeks as I like a smooth smoke but I have been hesitant about doing it that long as I have lost my whole harvest to mould when I went camping for 2 weeks 5 or 6 years ago I was hanging out to start smoking some I got home and nearly died as all 5 plants of Durban poison was covered in mould so ever since then I have been curring plants in a week

Cheers, Brendan.

I like a full week slow drying of a plant, cut just above the soil or media and/or large branches hung upside down with all the large fan leaves pinched off at this time to remove the majority of large stomata of these leaves, this slows down the plant’s ability to transpire (kinda think breath/sweat) out water vapor. It also removes the large amounts of chlorophyll and nutrients stored in the leaves, forcing the buds to use what is in their own tissues, and this is the goal, reduced chlorophyll or stored macro/micro nutrients in the tissues of the plant’s buds. In about a week they should be dry enough the smaller branches and or single leaves on the nuggets are dry and crunch or snap easily when bent, At this point trim and jar up the nuggets, then burp for a week at a rate that will have them ready to go at the end of this second week. This seems like a good short schedule that gets really good results. Not too long to be unreasonable nor too short to be effective.

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Thanks, MacGyver that is great information! I will do that with my next harvest of amnesia im also going to use one whole plant to make hash im not sure yet if im gonna use IPA or bubble bags I don’t like the idea of butane.

Cheers, Brendan.

If it’s really dry where you hang to cure them, you can cover the whole hanging plant or branch with a clean garbage bag and tie it tight or very loose near the trunk, depending how slow or fast you want it to dry and depending on the humidity. You can re-use these bags harvest after harvest for a while and or use them to store dried trim or fan leaves and use this for your bubble bags when you’ve collected enough. I like to think any trichomes that might have fallen off somehow during the hanging cure in the bag will end up sticking to the trim and end up in the bubble hash when I later poor the trim stored in these bags into the bubble screen bags with the ice water, lol.

More great info thanks! I will also give that a go, the build up for the wet season will be here soon so for about the next 6 to 7 months humidity will be in the high 90% region, so I might have to wait until next dry season to give that method a go as I would be too paranoid about mould, but yeah that sounds like a very good idea!

Cheers, Brendan.

It takes me about 10-12 days to dry harvest to the point of snapping twigs. “perfect” I then place it in glass jars, opening them every day or 2 for a few minutes to allow the humidity level in the jar to fall.

You asked about the different levels of trichome production.

  1. Clear trichomes: A vessel in which THC will fill and mature, eventually.

  2. cloudy trichomes: Evidence of active THC. Harvesting with a higher % of cloudy trichomes will give you a fresher, up high.

  3. Amber trichomes: Deteriorating THC: Harvesting with a higher % of amber trichomes will produce a “couch lock” effect. Sleepy time.

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Thanks latewood that’s awesome info! So what I will do is harvest half when trichomes are all cloudy and other half when amber, so that way I will have daytime smoke to help with ptsd and pain in my shoulder and nighttime smoke to help me sleep hopefully all night instead of waking every 2-3 hrs that will be great! And even better still hopefully I won’t have to take the stupid meds my doc prescribes as I hate how they make me feel, thanks again for the info :smiley:

Cheers, Brendan.

We hope so too :smiley:

Cheers mate, Thankyou!!!

Ha ha, yeah I live in the dry desert, so mine would dry very fast. If the indoor humidity isn’t to high you could likely do a 10-12 day hang in a dark area and then jar them up, what ever works best in your situation, no need to do a full 6 weeks anyway. A couple weeks to a month is usually fine. Anything more than a month is really not necessary and starts to lean toward the unreasonable as far as length is considered.

Hey, here’s a great article I just came across:

http://www.hightimes.com/read/key-points-harvest-time

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That is a awesome artical! Thankyou for sharing it!I very much appreciate it explains harvesting and curring in great detail Thankyou im gonna read it a few times so I remember everything that artical really helps alot!

Cheers, Brendan.

Hiya MacG,

I’ve got a dilemma on this trichome color thing.

In my last grow I wiated (AND WAITED) and watched for amber trichomes. What happened is that all 3 plants in the grow self-germinated. I wound up with quite a lot of Primo smoke, yeah, but I also wound up with a crap load of Jamiacan Pearl, White Widow and Big Bud/White Widow cross fem (Supposed) seeds.

When I did finally harvest (due to seed maturity) the trichomes were still about 10% clear and 90% cloudy, but with zero amber except for the “hairs” in the buds.

I am getting very near to harvest again now and would very much like to dispel my confusion as I have some extremely nice looking and loaded plants in this grow.

Best regards,
Mark

Ok, to make sure I’m not reading this wrong, are you saying you can harvest with clear trichomes ans they turn cloudy during drying or are you waiting until they are cloudy with some amber before you harvest?