Harvest ready? Mix of clear, cloudy, and amber

[Pearl]

Long Island has had four days of almost nonstop rain, 20mph+ wind, with temps dipping into the 40s at night. It's been fun.

I just checked the trichomes and noticed that one of the plants has a mix of clear, cloudy and amber. Is it normal to have a significant amount of clear while also having amber?

 

[Jimmie]

Still raining. East end here, lost half a plant last night, emergency pick on the agenda for today. As to the Trichomes, the experts will weigh in.my opinion is they look good!

 

[beluga]

The first pic looks a little underripe overall... if you can push it a little longer, even a week, it'll probably even out with more amber/cloudy.
But I'd only do that if you're damn sure there's no mold and it's not consistently getting in the low 40s.
That plant is definitely where I've chopped a lot of mine, and they've been plenty good.
Beautiful plant you got!

 

[TSD]

It's hard to get an outdoor harvest to maximum ripeness in the Northeast, good job. It's normal to have a mix of trichomes, make sure you're only looking at the ones on the actual bud, the trichs on the sugar leaves usually go amber first. Looks like your pistils are mostly brown, so that's a good sign you're "in the harvest window." Sometimes Ma Nature decides when we chop, that was my situation for half my harvest last year. This year I've been busting ass to prevent the mold/PM and combating the frost. I think this weekend will be chop chop for me after these couple nice days, we'll be dealing with the weather system you're dealing with now. Good luck and happy harvesting!

 

[TSD]

The first pic looks a little underripe overall... if you can push it a little longer, even a week, it'll probably even out with more amber/cloudy.
But I'd only do that if you're damn sure there's no mold and it's not consistently getting in the low 40s.
That plant is definitely where I've chopped a lot of mine, and they've been plenty good.
Beautiful plant you got!

Yeah if it's under 50 degrees, they don't grow, they just sit and survive and invite mold to grow, especially if it's wet.

 

[beluga]

Yeah if it's under 50 degrees, they don't grow, they just sit and survive and invite mold to grow, especially if it's wet.

Bingo. And once you start regularly getting into the low 40s, you start to see some cold damage which is just going to rot.

 

[Pearl]

What's crazy is I babied them as far as weather protection. Plastic cover on top for rain and shade cloth around the sides which helped alot with wind and rain. But the plant I posted above has been fickle this whole season regardless of this....granted, it did deal with spider mites so Im surprised it made it. I'm going to push another week. Thank you everyone!

Meanwhile, my other one is going through the transitions much more smoothly although not ready to be harvested.

One of mine still needs another two weeks (the biggest of course; the one on the left):

@beluga @TSD Thank you for the info about the temps. I didn't know that they stop doing their thing when it gets into the 40s, but it makes sense. If it's regularly only in the 40s at night, is it worth to push harvest? Tomorrow and Friday, it will hit the 70s during the day and then the 40s at night on Friday. Very erratic.

 

[Pearl]

Still raining. East end here, lost half a plant last night, emergency pick on the agenda for today. As to the Trichomes, the experts will weigh in.my opinion is they look good!

From the pics in your profile, you have quite alot to manage! Here I am dealing with 3

We made it to October which I'm taking as a win because last year, I started partial harvesting late September because of budrot. Going to be 70 tomorrow so hoping yours dries quickly

 

[beluga]

What's crazy is I babied them as far as weather protection. Plastic cover on top for rain and shade cloth around the sides which helped alot with wind and rain. But the plant I posted above has been fickle this whole season regardless of this....granted, it did deal with spider mites so Im surprised it made it. I'm going to push another week. Thank you everyone!

Meanwhile, my other one is going through the transitions much more smoothly although not ready to be harvested.
View attachment 1289200
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One of mine still needs another two weeks (the biggest of course; the one on the left):
View attachment 1289203

@beluga @TSD Thank you for the info about the temps. I didn't know that they stop doing their thing when it gets into the 40s, but it makes sense. If it's regularly only in the 40s at night, is it worth to push harvest? Tomorrow and Friday, it will hit the 70s during the day and then the 40s at night on Friday. Very erratic.

Very nice!
I'd say just keep a vigilant eye on things if there's more you can milk out of the season. Mold likes temperature swings. The plant with the fan leaves dying off can constitute as 'damaged', just because it's vulnerable tissue that mold would love to take hold of. You might consider harvesting that one just to not encourage spoiling the bunch.

 

[Pearl]

Very nice!
I'd say just keep a vigilant eye on things if there's more you can milk out of the season. Mold likes temperature swings. The plant with the fan leaves dying off can constitute as 'damaged', just because it's vulnerable tissue that mold would love to take hold of. You might consider harvesting that one just to not encourage spoiling the bunch.

TIL...again :). Thank you!

 

[Nesta028]

TIL...again :). Thank you!

Im in the same boat @Pearl. Temps are in the 40s at night and 70s during the day, while my trichs are mostly clear and just starting to Amber now. I prefer more Amber so I’m going to let them keep going while keeping a close watch for Rot/damage. I would like to get one more week in.

 

[hawkman]

here are some interesting facts:
---when the trichomes start to turn amber that change at the rate of 5% per week
-- when using "pistals" as a factor the plants ready for harvest when the pistals have turned 60- 80% amber
-- also if growning indoors "reduce" light to 60% the last 2 weeks before harvest - this will really ripen your plants buds (think about it season change from summer to fall (uncreased ligjhtng and heat intensity)

 

[Pearl]

Im in the same boat @Pearl. Temps are in the 40s at night and 70s during the day, while my trichs are mostly clear and just starting to Amber now. I prefer more Amber so I’m going to let them keep going while keeping a close watch for Rot/damage. I would like to get one more week in.

Me too. I much prefer amber so am going to try to hold out until bud rot inevitably sets in... for Oct 14! That's my arbitrary goal lol

 

[hawkman]

Me too. I much prefer amber so am going to try to hold out until bud rot inevitably sets in... for Oct 14! That's my arbitrary goal lol

Good date - Oct 14 ( just as long to beat the "frost"

 

[Pearl]

here are some interesting facts:
---when the trichomes start to turn amber that change at the rate of 5% per week
-- when using "pistals" as a factor the plants ready for harvest when the pistals have turned 60- 80% amber
-- also if growning indoors "reduce" light to 60% the last 2 weeks before harvest - this will really ripen your plants buds (think about it season change from summer to fall (uncreased ligjhtng and heat intensity)

I guess my goal of an October 14 harvest is not that arbitrary! I definitely need 2 more weeks if going by the 5%/week amber change rate. Thank you for that information.

 

[TSD]

Don't underestimate how long you will need to trim either... I'm going to chop one or two of my smaller ones early just because I have SO MUCH TRIMMING, I can't possibly chop everything at the same time.

 

[Pearl]

Don't underestimate how long you will need to trim either... I'm going to chop one or two of my smaller ones early just because I have SO MUCH TRIMMING, I can't possibly chop everything at the same time.

Haha yeah I had a rude reminder of that late last month when I had to partially harvest. Embarrassing, but I had to put my carpal tunnel (courtesy of my damn office job) wrist brace on under my trimming gloves...

Anyway, a nice problem to have I guess. I definitely plan on recruiting assistance with trimming this year.

 

[beluga]

Haha yeah I had a rude reminder of that late last month when I had to partially harvest. Embarrassing, but I had to put my carpal tunnel (courtesy of my damn office job) wrist brace on under my trimming gloves...

Anyway, a nice problem to have I guess. I definitely plan on recruiting assistance with trimming this year.

Check out this post on dry "trimming" with a silicone brush. I have yet to try it this way, but I am definitely trying it when I harvest my next crop.

I have, however, been dry trimming for a while now... really helps to achieve a nice drying when the RH is low... like in winter indoors in northern climates. Also breaks up the chores... I'll chop them down and take off all the largest fan leaves. Dry them until they're ready, then take care of the sugar leaves that can largely be snapped off with just your fingers

Might help with the CTS.

 

[Pearl]

Check out this post on dry "trimming" with a silicone brush. I have yet to try it this way, but I am definitely trying it when I harvest my next crop.

I have, however, been dry trimming for a while now... really helps to achieve a nice drying when the RH is low... like in winter indoors in northern climates. Also breaks up the chores... I'll chop them down and take off all the largest fan leaves. Dry them until they're ready, then take care of the sugar leaves that can largely be snapped off with just your fingers

Might help with the CTS.

Ooo...yeah that looks too helpful to be a real thing With the branches that were harvested early, I wet-trimmed because the humidity was still pretty high (Over 60%). Now that we're headed into lower humidity levels, dry trimming with a silicone brush seems like a MUCH better approach than hand trimming. In that post, it doesn't seem like it would cause any more unintentional removal of the good stuff than when I'm haphazardly trimming b/c of pain/trimming fatigue. Thank you for sending that!

 

[nashobaTHC]

I’m in the same boat having much to harvest and dry. I’ve seen the silicone brush video and one thing becomes very clear…he’s only brushing off 2-3 leaves on a very tight big bud that was obviously grown indoors. My outdoor grown buds and those I’ve seen from many posters aren’t as tight and have many more sugar leaves so I’m wondering how brushing these types of buds will work. I guess for a few $ for a silicone brush it’s worth a try.